Easy solution to the guardproblem: "I am not legally obliged to tell you my name nor badge number. You sovereign adventurers always try to get guards into trouble and I am not going to aide you in that effort."
14:10 There was one great moment in the game my brother ran a while ago, where someone rolled a natural 1 on a knowledge check to identify this weird crab monster called a hammerclaw, and my brother's response was "this is a dangerous sea creature known as a hammerhead shark."
In my games, when players roll really low, I like to indicate that the player is actually very confident in their belief, whether or not it's actually correct. Rolled a nat 1 on an insight check? Flip a coin. On heads, you are 100% certain that this person is lying to you. On a tails, you are 100% certain that they're trustworthy. Of course the player knows what's happening, but it leads to interesting role play. When the PC says, "I would trust this person with my life!" after a failed insight check, the rest of the party gets to make fun choices.
"If something would be obvious to the character, make sure it's obvious to the player." *It is profoundly unsportsmanlike to trick your players by withholding character information just because the player didn't think to ask for it.* This needs to be a quote in every DMG. I've played with so many bad DMs who don't do this, and there are few things more frustrating to me as a player than a DM who is hunting for opportunities to make my character look like a *@#$-up because I failed to state something that should have been a given.
Killed my last campaign. But the group stayed together and I ended up DMing and I’m enjoying it so much thanks to these videos and advice from around the web
This is solid advice; it is one thing to require remembrance, it is entirely different to require "knowledge" that ought be forthcoming. asking a guards name "should it be used against them" (and as a GM, you know if it will, as you create and run the campaign) is trope. As such, it should be assumed names are asked for with few exceptions. Too many "Karens" (pardon the meme prejudice) out there that should a situation go "less than favorable" should a name be asked for. A known/important ("puffed up") character will always ask (according to standard practice in both knowable memes and in life as a service member/employee). A PC ought have the wherewithal to ask in just about every situation, obvious plot points excluded. Don't have a "generic guard" turn PCs away without good reason, nor without names.
Every campaign needs a Campaign Primer! It should have lots of stuff about the world that every CHARACTER knows, without having to make a roll, a check, or waterboard a random NPC to learn. I will point you to this excellent article. www.creightonbroadhurst.com/gm-advice-how-to-design-a-campaign-primer/
There are times where this is true, and times when it is not. As a DM you should try to be discerning as to when you are giving your characters too much or nor enough information. If you, the DM, tell the PCs, as an NPC, about the description or location of an object and whatnot, and the Players don't remember, sometimes you, as the DM, need to give a breadcrumb of info to jog their memory. If it is a recurring issue, as the DM OoG, you need to tell the Players that you spend (a lot of) time on this stuff, and that they can show their appreciation better by taking notes. If continues to happen, then feel free to let the PCs walk into the trap that the NPCs warned them about as nauseum.
Before I was born my parents had chosen Kevin for my first name. All the older mothers said that Kevin was a little boy's name and that my parents shouldn't saddle me with a little boy's name. Well Kevion Costner, Kevin Spacey, and Kevin Bacon are all in my generation so I'm pretty sure it's not a little boy's name any more. Now boys are being named Kevin because there are plenty of famous Kevin's gadding about. It is not unreasonable for many children to be named after a well known individual. Imagine if, at the end of your character's career he or she found youths sharing a first name for the same reason...
@@kevinsullivan3448 sorry, but it‘s still a boy‘s name. Just look at Costner and Spacey, do they seem like adults? Not really. They might look old, but adult? Nah.
"If something is completely obvious to the character, make is completely obvious to the player." I completely agree with this statement and am shocked how many GMs just aren't. This isn't a board game, people, you're trying to challenge your players...not beat them.
Player: What's the name of this guard? DM: (Thinking $#**, stall stall stall) Is your character asking the guard his name? Player: sure DM: (Continue Stall John? no Graham? maybe change some letters) You see a look of joy spread across the guards face while his companions look down and groan silently. DM: (Take sip of water, ok switch the "A"s) "I am Grehim son of ($#**) Grehim the Dragonslayer.". The other guard says : Seriously Grehim everyone knows who your daddy is." The guards start arguing with each other. (whew) Player what's the other guards's name?
Here's a fun story from one of my recent campaigns: One of my players pulled a scam to gets lots of cash in a town. On his way out of said town he was stopped by a guard for a routine cargo check. Mind you, the player experienced this TSA-ish pat down when he entered the city. He knew this was coming. He just had no plan for it. He thought fast and started lying about this plan he had for an investment strategy to explain the cash. The guard inquired more(Partly because everyone wanted to see if he was gonna get away with the scam, and partly because his rapport with this guard was amusing). Very quickly this player had created a fake investment plan he had for the city. The guard asked if he could join in on the plan. My player agreed. He asked the guard what his name was. Suddenly this nameless NPC was a person. In a snap judgement I said his name was Eric. He became a part of the story for these players. It really helped make the world more fun to interact with, and it showed them the possibilities of what they could do. It was great fun. Another fun little part of this story is that one of my other players missed this session. So this other player gets patted down by the guard, and noticed the guard had tons of cash on him(from the "investment" plan) as he walked away. This other player became incredibly paranoid that the guard was robbing him. Every time he went in and out of the city he checked his person to make sure all his money was still there. No matter how many times I told him he still had all his cash he remained ever suspicious. It was a great laugh for the party.
DnD Basement His character was on the other side of the map while this was happening. The party had split up far before this point. And for the record I told him about the scam the other player did OOC, but he didn't want to hear the details. Which lead to this humorous misunderstanding. Don't get your jimmies rustled.
Definitely had something similar happen. Players in my campaign schmoozed a rather lazy guard that was meant to be a throwaway NPC, and ended up becoming friends with him. I gave him a name, and he ended up helping the party sneak through areas they normally weren't supposed to go. From then on, every single time they came across a guard post, they would ask if Jim Davis was stationed there, and were terribly disappointed if he wasn't, but elated if he was. This background NPC became a huge source of help and entertainment for the party.
I was a player in a Call of Cthulhu game set in the 1920s, we were doing some low-grade investigation of a disappearance. So we were standing in the street, and the GM has us all make Spot Hidden checks. Only I succeeded, and the GM turns to me and says "you see a glint in an upper window of one of the buildings". My instant thought was "telescope". I announced that I turn away from the window and tell my friends not to be alarmed, but we were being watched. ... Then the sniper fired. A player character almost died. I felt like such a tit. Afterwards, every player told me they all knew exactly what was going on, and I was the only one who misinterpreted the information.
saltypork101 this is my favorite role play party goes to Forest party fights bear bear kills one buddy tries to chop bear i shoot at bear hit buddy right in the face on accident bear hits me i live kill bear limp out of Forrest find a book random generated on dice gm says careful reading im like fuck that read book summon azathoth he said never in his time has he ever heard of that summon...i died....so did the galaxy wom wom wom
@@dirkbaldorad3634 : That's an exxageration. I DM a Call of Cthulhu campaign - admittedly more pulpy than pure horrific - but characters don't die or get mad that easily. For me it's this: Why outright kill (remember getting insane renders the PC unplayable and therefore is equal to die) your PCs - when you just could scar them for life? So there are sessions, where no one dies or goes insane - and it is still dark, gloomy and atmospheric. I think we have one outright dead so far (player decided to stay back, because he wanted to know, what's behind the omnious golden, slowly opening portal in the old grave they uncovered...) and two who were virtually rendered unplayable by madness. (One of them might however come back some day, if the Vatican decides to let him go....) Oh - and we have an old persian grave filled with horrors from other times - so I assume, the group might shrink next session. Let's see how smart they turn out to be :D
About withholding information, that one time in a D&D game, I was acting as a scout in front of the big group accomanpying NPCs on a big road in a forest. I was alone at the front because we needed good eyes to be on the lookout for ambushes. When I saw someone hiding in the forest, I managed to not let that enemy know he was spotted. And I decided I should raise my hand to signal to the group, even if that meant being spotted myself. What the DM then did was tell me "Oh, the group can't see you, you're too far in front. But the mage hiding behind a tree did see you and you're now getting swarmed by enemies" I was so pissed. I told my DM "Hey wait a minute! My character would have never raised his hand as a signal if he knew he'd be scouting so far in the front. I only said he raised his hand because I took for granted he was in sight of his group. Don't force me to live with an action I would have never done if you'd had been clear." And she categorically refused to fix the situation. My character almost died because the DM didn't care about the accuracy of wether it was normal for my character to do what I said he did. She and she alone knew I was out of sight of the group while all the players believed I was close enough to be seen. She didn't care and it made the fight way harder and soooo frustrating. To all the DMs out there, if your player says "I would have never done that if I had had the same knowledge as my character", that means you consciously misled your player and you're being a really bad DM.
N The One woah, woah woah. I wholeheartedly agree that ”if i knew what my character knew i would not have had my character do that” is a great, perhaps the greatest, reason to retcon but you can not put the entire o us of communication on the GM. Communication is by definition a two way street.
@@martinlarsson8947 It may be a two way street, but the DM is the one that knows the details, that a character would be able to see. If she failed to convey the fact that a players character is too far to be seen by his teammates initially, she could still handle the situation a lot better. She could've simply let him retcon it, or give him this information, after he stated what his character was doing. Would it really be so hard to say: "Your character is too far from his team, they will not see the signal. Do you want him to do sth else instead?". I don't think so. I seems like the DM just wanted to get a "Gotch ya!" moment, even if it ment misleading her player and that IS bad DMing.
Maybe with an intelligence roll beforehand to see if the character got carried away and was inattentive to his back, and a less punishing, less immediate consequence? That situation might still get fun if it feels justified and playable
“Just remember that every time you fail, you’re that much closer to succeeding.” I recently had the experience of shooting down my players’ desire to explore outside of the area I had essentially cordoned off in my mind for our current adventure. I said ‘no’ to their creative thinking and world building. I realize now that I should have rewarded their engagement with the world, and used their exploration as a springboard for interesting adventure. I’ve since felt a lot of guilt over this perceived failure, but this reminder is really helpful. I simply need to use this as a lesson so I can continue to grow as a DM. Thanks Matt.
When they ask me about something, I just grin slyly and say with clearly feigned innocence: "I dunno" ;) Their response is usually "yes you do" I usually actually don't know.
That or "Well you don't know because you haven't asked" is usually what I go for. That way I have time to look at my notes with random names and pick one easily.
"What's the guard's name?" "You don't know that yet, until you either hear it from someone or ask the guard himself, and right now is not the time to ask. After all, him and his colleagues are trying to arrest you." That gives several signals - one, the information does in fact exist. Two, they're not getting it at this moment. Three, there's other things I want you to worry about."
I like to treat the question as if it had been asked by the characters themselves. In this situation, I'd enact the guard being all "Nah brah, you're not getting my name today."
Matt, if you're seeing this, I just want you to know how fantastic and helpful your videos are for me. I've been DMing for about 3 years, I absolutely love it, and can't tell you how wonderful your videos are for me. I feel I've learned so much from you and you have made me a much, much better DM. There are an enormous amount of pitfalls to DMing and thanks to you, I've avoided so many and course corrected many times. Thank you for what you do and keep up the great work. I so appreciate you!!!
I've been a rollplayer (and gamer) for literally decades but because of inspiration from several shows (like Critical Role, Highrollers, Exalttwich, etc) I am currently working on starting a campaign as a Dungeon Master for the very first time. Your videos are not only inspirational but also educational and I am studying and re-watching them over and over in order to give myself a head start when I get my game going. From the bottom of my heart, thank you very much for all the work you do to make these videos and the sharing of your experience! You are basically growing the net "fun" of D&D games all over the world. That is something that you deserve to take some pride in sir!
Moment in my first session of Starfinder: "Wait, what's the captain's name?" me(gm): "...Captain... Expendable..." "So anyway, Captain Expendable and his first mate, Lieutenant Redshirt, open the blood spattered door..." There were 3 Void Zombies behind the door...
This is probably the single most important episode of this series. I am right now watching it for the third time just to make sure it sticks. Well done, Matt.
Player: "How crispy is the monster?" GM: "it's not even in the oven yet" or "it's almost ready to be served" is the way my group deals with telling how the fight is going 👌
I had one of my old players tell me a story of something he loved from a game that I ran years ago. The players were trying to figure out what a piece of dark slate was attached to a wall in a magic-users study. There was white powder scattered about on the floor nearby. I recall that particular object fascinating the players and they spent time trying to detect magic and sus out what the purpose of the object was. After quite a while they figured out for themselves that it was simply a chalkboard. It wasn't something that I had intended as being unique but it was something they had fun figuring out. Almost like a riddle. It wasn't integral to the story but it brought flavor to the world by describing that particular object that they would otherwise be familiar with in its most primitive terms. It made that magic-user's study that much more mysterious.
There is an article online called "Every campaign should have a primer." Basically it says that there is information every CHARACTER should know about the game world and it's only the jerk GM who acts like this is secret information and punishes players for not knowing what they don't know. In preparation for my current game I created a list of common knowledge tidbits that everyone in the character's society would know. Things like who makes the best beer, which merchants will cheat you, how the gods interact with The People, where gold and silver are mined, where the best armor is crafted, etc. I also prepared handouts for important social and cultural subjects so that the players, and more importantly the characters, would know just how important some of the recent events in the game were. I expect that a lot of GMs might think of the information as unimportant fluff, but I think that adding information like this helps the players feel that their characters are more connected to the world and that this aids in the suspension of disbelief that is a big part of role playing.
That's a really cool idea. Our group often ends up argueing about wether something is common knowledge. Things like we are going to fight a dragon, and one of our players calls "Be carefull about it's breath!", and someone else goes "Woah dude, no OoC informations here" and already, we start argueing about wether it's common knowledge that a dragon has a breath weapon. I mean dragons are legendary creatures that every kid has heared bedtime storis about, and none of them ever mentioned dragons spitting fire? Or when we were about to fight Wyverns and i told everyone to bring a bow for when they fly, and the GM told me that i don't know if they can fly, and i pointed at the wanted poster we got that showed a creature which had half it's body consist of wings and said "This thing is half wings. My character follows a simple logic. If it has wings, chances are it can fly"
I have written a primer for players of recent events. While it isn't complete, it let into a great many questions and conversations that impacted the background and lore.
@@martinlarsson8947 Usually, my players are all from the same area, or better yet town, so the primer will be slanted towards that community/region. When they travel far enough away from home things change, like beer, cheese, style of dress, forms of greeting, etc. What the Town of Trandil thinks of as the best beer (the stuff brewed in the local tavern) might be considered pig swill by a town only 10 miles away (also brewed in the local tavern...)
Coming up with names on the spot is my biggest weakness. Hell, coming up with names _at all_ is my weakness. I ended up giving up once and turned a guard into a hostile jerk by answering "My name? It's "Sir" to you!". It's a good trick but it can't work all the time... so on other occasions I've resorted to: Player: What's the guard's name? Me: He tells you his name. It's really the best I can do if I'm hurried. I keep wanting to make a list of names for people... I should use the player handbook's suggestions more often.
If you use a DM screen, pin/tape/insert a chart of random names for you to pick when you need one. There's tons of places online you can generate names in bulk and it makes it that much easier. I know for me I don't have TOO much trouble thinking of names on the spot but after a while I'll start repeating the same dozen or so names.
I was running a one shot and the PCs asked what the dragon's name was and at some point the term "Dragon Boy" was thrown around to describe him (the dragon was acting extremely immaturely) and so I ran with it and said that the dragon was named "Dragon Boy"
My DM currently tells me the name if it was going to matter, or he says something like John-3 if it doesn't matter. But I like to roleplay the conversation, so I need A name.
tbh I usually tell my players when an enemy has low HP. I feel like that's something the players would be able to tell. I mean, if you're in a literal fight to the death, you'd be able to tell if your opponent "has low HP" just by looking at them. Bleeding profusely, struggling to stand, limping, etc are all indicators of that
Then say they're bleeding profusely, struggling to stand, and limping ;D Keeps the immersion up, and sounds more exciting. We're not just playing a videogame, I don't want ye to just tell me if his healthbar is red yet - I wanna hear ye describe how badass my character is ahaha.
@@alexandramaclachlan7597 But maybe they aren't. There could be endless clues. It's impossible not to notice that someone is one punch away from dying.
Funny enough that depends on a few factors. What are they fighting fellow humanoids? Animals? Sure. Dragons? Uh how familiar are you with dragon anatomy? Are you sure the blood loss they think is profuse actually is? Chimera? Manticore? Hell lets go more alien. Beholder. Undead? There are plenty of creatures where like...yeah unless you have pretty specialized knowledge you aint gonna be able to tell much in a lot of those circumstances
About not making the connection, this one time, the DM did exactly what you said, she explained what the enemy was doing, but not what his goal was or what the overall conclusion of his actions would be. We were attacking a kobold den. After some fighting, one of them walked out of the den but stayed under the little entrance part. Then he lifted and showed us a long branch at the end of which was a piece of dirty white cloth. He was communicating the the den had given up on fighting. A white flag. But I was the player who just didn't make the connection. I convinced myself he was trying to set up a fancy spell. I thought he was attacking. I'm not gonna go into what I did in response, but basically, yeah, some players just don't get what the NPCs are doing, even when the DM is giving tons of details and the scene is pretty clear.
I think it's important to know when and when not to go describtive and when to just tell your players what it is. Anything that is super obvious to anyone watching can just be called out. You don't have to say "It's a wooden construct, made of four legs at each side, with a flat surface at the top." Everybody knows what a table is, tell them there's a table in the room. Just like he said, everybody gets what a tavern is. Tell them it's the tavern. In this same node, everybody knows what a flag is. Tell them the kobold is waving a makeshift white flag. Don't tell them what it means, but tell them it's a white flag because everyone knows what a flag looks like. Of course it's hard to separate which to do when, but personally i say, if a character could look at it and immediately know what it is, then tell them what it is. Though it might be fun to be describtive about EVERYTHING for a character with very low intelligence. But that would be exception cases.
This video is twenty-two minutes of gold. I actually took almost no notes, but that's only because if I tried to write down everything of use, it would practically be a transcript; instead, I'm going to have to just re-watch this on a regular basis until I've internalized it all. Thank you for yet another invaluable resource!
Oh man I just dm'd my first game after putting it off for 1.5 years because i thought I wouldn't beable to do it. With the help of your channel and adventure guide it seemed like a big success. I fudged some rolls...forgot to play all the music I had...forgot to have the sentry goblins try to run to warn the others. Didn't know a bunch of rules so just said sure why not. They tried to make the riddle way more complicated then it was and tried so much with the magic sword that I didn't even think about(like trying to put it in the statues hand). But at the end without prompt they said they had so much fun and wished it wasn't just a one shot. Big success, thank you!
"I do not tell my players how to feel" This is good tip. One of my worst experiences as a player was when the DM ruled that the high charisma rogue with expertise in persuasion could roll persuasion on the other players to convince them to do stuff. It removed player agency which is vital component. Luckily I managed to argue for why the rest of the table found this to be a bad idea and the DM conceded. Nonetheless, I do think there are notable exceptions to when you can tell a person how to feel. The obvious example are insight check. The player gets the impression that the DM is portraying an NPC who is lying so he wants to roll insight. He rolls a 1 so I don't think it's unfair to say "you find nothing unusual about these words". I am however tempted to instead treat those rolls as "You are unable to pinpoint exactly what make you suspicious in the first place". Another example is one I've seen Mercer use and got to experience for myself as a player last session. The wider context is based on speculation because it's probably related to what might have happened pre-stream, but at one point a character in Critical Role has to essentially overcome a presumably established phobia to save a friend. The player is ready to make the character jump into danger but before doing so, Mercer stops him and asks for a charisma saving throw. My character had a vaguely similar moment where my drow, whose personal mission is to return to the homeworld in the underdark he has never known but greatly idealizes, was suddenly and to his INCREDIBLE surprise face to face with a Drow matron who confused him for a man servant and compelled him to obey. The DM promptly made me roll a charisma save. That's because I've specifically noted on my character sheet that my Drow has a complicated relationship with women. It is his Flaw. On one hand he idealizes them because his harsh upbringing on the surface world compels him to long for a better life among his people and all the values they stand for. On the other hand he has severe mother issues because it was his exiled mother who was presumably the reason for why he couldn't grow up among his people. It's a Flaw that is central to the character and the DM was ready to let the dice force me to act in character and I'm not exactly opposed to that because the Flaw part of the character sheet are often both hard to actually roleplay while also having some great consequences for the story.
DnD Basement "you basically only want actors. and honestly that is bad DMing." The very best DMs are the ones that adjust expectations with the group at session zero. DM'ing and playing are things you do for fun. Better make sure that everyone is compatible with the type of game you're running and vice versa or the game is gonna suck. In the game I'm in now on Roll20, the DM specifically stated that he wanted players who were comfortable or at least willing to roleplay because he intended to make campaign that incorporates a lot of player backstory. Everyone is thus seeking the same experience. The game is doing fine for this very reason. Yes, it's your job to know what a player want. But you should figure that one out before you even start. Then you might decide that you're not comfortable running the type of game a player want and that's entirely fair. You can't force people to have fun.
DnD Basement Listen, I'm not saying that D&D is only for actors. I'm saying that actors are indeed a player type and that some DMs might prefer to run for those players (I know I do). In fact they won't have fun _unless_ they're running a game with RP'ers. There are things in this world that are worse than not playing D&D for 2 years and that is playing a bad game of D&D for 2 years. A bad game is here defined as one where each member of the group are seeking experiences that are incompatible with one another. As Matt has previously said in this series, you can't change players. That's why session 0 is important. You can't expect the players to change mid game so you have to figure out beforehand whether or not the players are compatible and then you have to figure out whether you as a DM are compatible with the players. Some times the answer is no and that's okay. Be careful with perceiving me as some kind of RP elitist because I feel like you're so. There are many ways to play D&D and they are all equally valid as long as everyone are having fun. I'm simply emphasizing the importance of everyone having compatible ideas for what sort of experiences they want from the game because not every experience is compatible. A DM shouldn't force himself into thinking "if only I was better or had more time, I could please all of my players", Sometimes you have to give yourself permission to say, okay, maybe this wasn't meant to be. Sometime you can figure out whether it is meant to be at a session 0. That is their purpose and why I encourage them.
DnD Basement _"i don't believe in session zero"_ Then you run your games at a great risk and owe your success to a great deal of luck which is all well and fine for as long as it works out for you. I wouldn't be able to run a game without first having some talk where we discuss our expectations for the campaign. It doesn't have to be auditions. Just a talk to figure out if everyone's expectations are compatible and what level of compromise people are willing to make. They don't have to be the same, but they HAVE to be compatible. _"pleasing everybody is possible"_ But it isn't. At least I'll trust Matt here when he says that it isn't. You really ought to watch his Running the game #12
DnD Basement The problem with the stream had nothing to do with the game itself and thus isn't really relevant to our discussion. Session zero is just an easily recognizable term I use to refer to the talk you have with the players before you start playing. It doesn't have to be a full session. it can be the 15 minutes before you start session 1. You do nonetheless need it (except for in lucky cases). Go watch a few episodes of Ask A DM on Dawnforged Cast. People are repeatedly bringing up problems that have arisen in their games that could have been solved if they had had some form of session 0. Consider the possibility that we might very well agree. Whether you call it session 0 or not, you DO need to talk to players to adjust everyone's expectations for the game. The reason you need to do that is because it is indeed NOT possible to make every random group function.
DnD Basement _"Talking and communication in general is a must"_ And that applies to before even the first session as well. Like you said, a DM needs to prepare. He needs to prepare himself for his players want and what type of DM he is (see RtG #14 _"asking them what they want do not take a whole session (5 hours in my case)"_ There's no rule saying that a session zero must take 5 hours. If anything, I speak against it taking 5 hours. At this point, it seems like the only issue you have with a session zero is if it takes too long and that's a _big_ "if". So can we lay it to rest and agree that session zero is in fact a good and necessarily thing as long as you don't overdo it? _"you coping out when you say this guy doesn't fit. because if you think that way, then nobody ever fit with anybody"_ How? How does that even make one iota of sense? It's not a dichotomy, Not every group is meant to work. I need but one example to prove it and I have both my own accounts and the accounts of others. I myself have been in a group where I didn't fit in so I suggested that I left. I was looking to roleplay, not just with NPCs, but also the rest of the party. None of them wanted that. I was not having fun so I left. It's no ones fault, it's just preference. Saying you can make every D&D group work is the same as saying you can make every movie enjoyable for _everyone_. You can't. doesn't matter how great a comedy or a drama you make. some people will never like a drama and others will never like a comedy. _"fact, its not !"_ Get down from your high horse because you clearly don't understand what facts are. How badly you want to play D&D is a subjective thing. For me it's better not to play than playing a bad group with no common goal. There's no objective truth to the subjective. You can't just say "FACT! your fun is wrong". That's frankly one of the most pretentious things I've ever heard and it doesn't flatter you.
DM: "Your party walks into a room. In the center of the room is a pecuilar wodden construct. A coushined round flat board supported by four slender pillars. Possibly a stool." PC: "AWWW DUDE LET US FIGURE IT OUT OURSELFES!!!!"
This. This is why I don't necessarily believe the "description" hype. If it's a table, tell me it's a table, etc. If it looks like a guard room, maybe that is a little more complicated. But for the same reason Mr Colville says the character would know that the rope is attached to the bell that would summon the dungeon dwellers - it's obvious - the DM should cut the clever descriptions of the buildings in town and tell me where the inn is. Unless it's not obvious. So much wasted time with this. :P I love your show, Mr Colville.
@@reteller What if you're playing 1E Gamma World? The entire premise was that every character was a complete imbecile and wouldn't know a chair from a stool.
Great video again, Matt. I know this will be nothing new to you, Matt, but just to expand on your advice: Another way I've found that's a cool method for inserting information, thoughts or inspiration into a character's head is to have them roll a situation-appropriate check, then give them a "flashback" to something someone in their backstory once told them or taught them. A parent, sibling, combat teacher, military officer, guildmaster, ect--someone in the character's past that was a wise/crafty mentor or leader. That way it's not the DM telling them "This is a dangerous cave. Don't go in there and get yourself surrounded" or whatever, which makes it seem certain that it is predetermined that they will fail. Instead, it's someone/something in their past raising their "spidey sense." That gives the player agency. They know the risk, but they can choose what to do with that knowledge. Of course to do that, you have to have that backstory info. During character creation, I always try to nudge players to backstory someone in their past that was particularly influential on teaching the character the ways of the world or the skills of their class. Because those characters are useful for a myriad of narrative reasons.
I don’t ever tell players the AC of a creature. If they’ve sussed it out by, say, missing a 13 and hitting on a 14, I’ll confirm, but I never say it ahead of time. I had a level 4 fighter who was fighting an abominable yeti (CR9) mostly by himself (there were more normal yeti taking the party’s attention) and he rolled a 14 which he was pretty sure _wouldn’t_ hit (he wasn’t sure what the AC was, he just figured it was between 15 and 18). He quickly said, “don’t tell me the result yet! I’m burning my _last_ superiority die!” He didn’t _know_ that the simple act of burning a die would make him succeed- that he was 1 shy of the AC- and so that gave me an absolutely amazing feeling. I _knew_ the result but I got to see my friends discover it themselves. It was like introducing someone to a favorite song or TV show.
I started dungeon mastering about a month ago and you and Matt Mercer have been my biggest guides I really appreciate the videos you make and thank you
One of my favorite characters to roleplay regarding information is my (flavored) Tabaxi ranger, Lynx. She's always an outlander in any situation, and not only does she not know much about the cultural understanding of where she is, she also tends to zone off, as Tabaxi are wont to, into thinking about whatever their newest interest is or what they may find on their next adventure, which is great fun! I get an excuse not to pay very much attention to exposition so I know about as much as she does, and make decisions just as informed. I love toying with information and information relaying and digestion. Beautiful stuff.
My campaign is riddled with “Yeah, that’s what everyone in the world thinks” types of things. Some of my biggest plot points (and twists) are built on the fact that the primary civilization and culture unanimously believe a handful of facts because its such commonplace, regardless of how true it is
Wonderful channel here, Matt. I just discovered it and it's occupied 2 nights of what should have been prep time! Anyway, I had the best experience in many years at my last session with something that involved information. The four players found themselves in the sylvan cottage of what appeared to be a friendly fey witch. There were subtle strange things about the interior and about the witch herself. Through the passing of notes, I managed to give each of the four players a different perspective by revealing certain information to them. One PC went out to the garden to pick vegetables with her and heard about how she was looking for love. The skeptical dwarven smith who originally wanted no part of the cottage or its inhabitant noticed an oddly-forged sword on the wall. The badly injured ranger realized the woman had a healing touch. And the fighter glanced into her kitchen where he saw that she was boiling the head of an alseid in a cauldron. She returned from the garden before anyone could share information privately. That's when I sat back and watched for about a half hour as the players danced through efforts to discuss what to do in front of the potentially dangerous witch, each with different information and newly obtained information that changed their respective feelings since the last time they could speak candidly about the situation. The players were as flummoxed as their PC's. Why did the dwarf suddenly soften his feelings about the cottage? Why was the fighter who wanted to follow the woman now seemingly about to have a seizure near the kitchen door? Luckily, despite having three of the four players in their first campaign ever (with one in his second session ever), none of them did the reading the index card out loud thing. I was proud of how I set it up, but even more proud of how they played it - all thanks to four little index cards.
In lieu of me commenting this in all of Matt Colville videos, I'll leave this here, on the video I am currently re-visiting. I really appreciate the education Matt is providing in these videos. And I thoroughly respect the perspective that comes from playing and designing games for as long. Because as a newbie DM, I would maybe have had the same knowledge and wisdom acquired over decades. Maybe. But to have it all available from the get go, makes the games I run exponentially more enjoyable for me AND my players, And the worlds I create for the players have a lot more depth and verisimilitude. There are a lot of D&D youtubers, and a decent amount are really good, but the quality of these videos is head and shoulders over all of them. Thank You, Matt Colville.
This is amazing information! I've been rewatching everything just taking notes and trying to memorize as much as possible. Thank you! Now I'm going to watch this a few more time haha
This so far was one of the most important videos for me. I struggle with refraining from giving the players to much information because as a person I like to alleviate confusion and teach people things they don't know. But as a DM you gotta keep some of this stuff to yourself.
I always have my players make up names and the like for npcs. Madame Abbot, head of a brothel, a surprisingly ugly woman for her position that wears a large ruby on her neck that's is prettier than she is. This character was made by my players. They enjoy making the world feel alive.
Halfro Bottoms, Named and described by the PC's. Result = A Halfling with an afro bigger than his body, wears shiny Disco Pants and has the Fruitiest Leprechaun accent you could possibly conceive.
I like that one! Definitely borrowing that idea for when I have to relay private information to a player and I can't justify exiling the others to the next room over.
- especially if it is complex information that the player has to understand and figure out. For example the social dynamics of devils in the nine hells based on descriptions of a few incidents.
damn that example with the guard really got me to think about a critical flaw (or unique trait lol) of my DMing : I don't really hide the strings. If we're doing this theatrics together, I don't feel like lying to my players about how I truly work (in literally the same example, my players asked me the name of some NPC and I answered with "oh him ? That's NPC-342" and we all ahd a laugh). And now that I think about it, that's probably what led my games to being extremely fun moments we spent together, but never real stories with a serious narrative component (players got to do "the cool thing" but managing tension was always very hard. I'm running a DnD campaign next (that's how I found you channel) (I was doing Cthulhu before just because the game system was lighter) and I'm going to try and apply that philosophy, see if I can get something a little bit deeper to set in. (note that I don't regret doing it, those sessions were a lot of fun and as a beginner DM being honest about my shortcomings during the game was a great way to not stress too much about it)
I've started watching this series about 3 weeks ago when I started running Out of the Abyss for a few friends of mine because I had this hobby for 4 years now, I've played thousands of hours online, but not even my closest friends had any idea what I was talking about when I went off on something that happened in one of my campaigns (either running or playing), so I had enough, I have played so many other games, but I barely played DnD before. I played one short Pathfinder campaign that I barely understood, and then a month prior I joined in on a 5e game an online friend of mine was in, I never had so much fun as I that game. So I decided time to run DnD, except I had no idea what DnD really was. This series has helped such an insane amount to both understand what DnD is, and be able to run it better that after thinking I'll never comment watching the first video I just had to sit down and say, Thank You. My players are having an incredible time in the world of Darc, and I'm having so much fun GMing, I didn't know it was even possible.
Controlling the flow of information is THE most important job of the DM, right next to adjudicating the rules of the system. This video does a great job of giving some tips on how to keep the game flowing, while maintaining suspense and drama at the same time. Great job Matt!
Just bought your books Mathew. Starting a game with my family this sunday and im addicted to your channel now. If your books are any thing like your stories on your channel it is money well spent.
This video changed my whole perspective on the game before I ever even ran it. As a fledgling DM I've made it my mission to always have a name for every NPC, and always imply there are canonical answers to every question my players ask. For the NPCs there really ARE, I sit down for hours making names and motivations. For the answers, I'm often figuring things out along with the players. But thanks, Matt, because I think this video is part of the reason my players think hard about their decisions even though the world, their characters, and their DM are all new.
I've struggled with the 'is this too much or too little information' questions for ages, I love your videos Matthew as they're broad enough to apply to my own setting yet your examples always help understand what is should or could look like. Thank you !
Typically when my players make rolls to try to find thing, and they roll bad or crit fail i send them on a scenery journey. Giving they precise details of the world around them while leaving out anything related to plot. This allows me to bring the world alive visually without allowing for progression. So far my players love it, they tell me it helps bring the world alive.
I'm a new DM, just ran my 3rd session yesterday. I've been searching the inter webs for help for about a month. I was kind of disappointed with my last session and really need some insight. This has been, by far, the most informative piece of content I've come across!! You do an absolutely incredible job relaying your information! I now feel invigorated, and hopeful. I believe my next session will go much more smoothly now that I've seen this video!! Thank you!!
This stuff is great for me both as a fledgling gm and a lecturer at uni. I think you described pedagogical scaffolding among other things... great stuff.
I enjoyed hearing your philosophy of dispensing information to the players. Lots to think about here. I also like your out-of-the-room technique for replacing note-passing. Good stuff. "Show me, don't tell me..."
Joy! A new Running the Game. Really missed this series while it was put on hold for streaming VODs and the like. I'm taking notes and building the courage to start my first campaign as a DM. These videos definitely help in that respect. I always feel like I can do it by the end of each lesson. Thank you, Matt Colville!
Wonderful episode on information! Also, I agreed with all your points and have used those techniques as well. For example, part of my intro-talk for new players is that when I'm playing an NPC, I am really playing that NPC from their own point of view, not the GM's. Sometimes it's fun for everyone if I mess about with description from a marginal investigation roll on something not too complicated, by starting mysterious and then pointing out something obvious about it in a "Oh... it's that..." flat voice.
Hey Matt, Been playing D&D for just 3 years when a friend of mines group opened up to some new players. I've just decided to start running my own game as well and found your videos right off the bat. Just wanted to say that these videos are great and are a huge help. As a new player/DM and only experiencing one DM so far, all your videos are giving me lots of inspiration for how to run my game. Thanks!
Hey Matt! Just finished watching all of this series and I'm finding it so helpful! Also bought both books and loved them to bits! Cant wait for the next one!
I'm a wannabe new DM and this video, just like all those in this playlist, are incredibly insightful and helpful! Story vs Adventure and this video especially! Thanks for taking the time to put all these together.
I DM'd my first game a few weeks ago (without ever having been a player). It was completely homebrewed, completely improvised, and very fun. Because it was a solo session, I thought my player should have a companion, so I created an NPC follower for him. It wasn't until about halfway through the session that the player realized the NPC was deaf. I dropped hints and had him do perception checks, but all failed until I had to reveal the fact that the NPC carried an ear trumpet. I was so proud of the slow buildup of information, and my player was more engaged than he would've been if I had just spoon-fed him. This is a subtle skill, but ANYONE can do it, and it will make a huge difference in the way you and your players remember your games.
Most important DM video I ever watched. Thank you for that. I think you would be proud of my job as a 30 years DM... and still, I learned so much. Awesome.
Bro this is great, I actually needed to hear this so bad. I have a terrible way of telling instead of showing, and of going meta way too much, instead of just immersing my players. Thank you Matt Colville!
I think I just came back to this video 2 years after my first viewing and first being a dm and I can definitely tell that I use this on instinct. Thanks Matt
This is one of the most helpful videos you've done so far. I've been playing D&D for many years and a DM off and on for 4 years now, so a lot of the stuff you talked about is your early videos was stuff I've already learned through trial and experience, but lately I've been trying to open my world and my sessions up to be more sandbox-y and guide my players by the hand less and less. It's more nerve-wracking not knowing what's going to happen, and it takes a lot more improvisation. I've taken a good bit of your advice and created a table for random encounters the players might have in their current location that I roll on whenever they go a new place that I hadn't planned on them going. Giving my players information without just telling them directly what to do is a real challenge as I try to railroad less and less. I do often read directly from the monster manual to the players, and the amount I read to them (just the creature's name, one sentence, a paragraph, two, what attack or resistences it has, etc.) depends on how well they roll on their nature or arcana check to identify the creature, and I will prompt players when it might be a good time to use their insight or a particular knowledge skill, but I would love to do that more organically and have it be less of, "The information you need is behind the door. Can you get it open?" The door being a successful investigation, perception, nature, insight, history, etc. check.
Having donjon open with a few random generators is handy for situations just like this. Especially when running a sandbox and the players decide to go to an area not fully fleshed out yet.
I delve 8 tabs deep into the Donjon: adventurer names, non-adventurer names, shop/inn/tavern names, minor treasure, major treasure, minor magic items, major magic items, rumors.
Backed you on KS... Now I'm working my way through what I have found to be one of the best DMing series on RUclips... I will almost certainly be buying your books soon. Thanks for everything!
This was very helpful and timely in my current stage of planning - thank you, Matt! I also appreciate the reminder that this is an art form and will take practice. I've been struggling not to put undue pressure on myself as a new DM to be perfect from the get-go, so the combination of help and reassurance is much appreciated :)
Catching up on all these videos (been watching Critical Role since it started, but missed the references Mercer and the cast made regarding you). By far, this video has been the most helpful. They're all great so far, but this video addresses some of my biggest downfalls as a DM. Thank you! A million times over. Can't wait to continue to grow and do better for my players.
Matt, thank you as always for doing these videos. My favorite advice is as a DM, rule how you feel is right. It is your game, they are your players. The internet doesn't know who they are and how they like to play. No one is the same, therefore no game should be the same, and the game is created not for us as DM's, but for our players who let us experience the world we created in a way we never imagined.
I love these examples! As someone who has DMed more than I've been a player, it's useful to hear what other people do. I know it takes experience to develop my own style (of the "art, not science"), but without much outside reference, it's easy to develop habits that aren't useful to the betterment of my game. Unrelated: Matt, I love your film reviews. Basically, I think we'll watch you talk about whatever you are interested and excited about, because you convey that interest and excitement so well (you DM, you). You are, indeed, a river to the Colvillains.
I honestly enjoy playing a character who doesn’t know much about anything outside of home, or just much in general. I find it really fun. I played a Kobold once and he is my favorite character I’ve made. He never went more than 50ft away from the cave for his entire life until the party came to deal with the kobolds who lived in the cave. And my character was poorly treated by his fellow kobolds because he was different, so he decided to side with the party to get revenge. And once the party left the cave, they had to teach my kobold everything. He didn’t know the value of money, he just liked it because it’s shiny. He didn’t know many manners. And he didn’t understand why the party had to hide him, he didn’t understand the fact that people saw him as an enemy. And I had an absolute blast playing him. And because he was so naive he ended walking toward a dragon that the party was avoiding, and because of that he got the option to leave the party and fly away in a dragon.
I love giving my players information on areas rather than telling them. Sometimes I do get lazy and tell them exactly how a room is used. It's fun to see what players do with the information you give them.
The ending of your intro story reminded me of Puffin Forest recounting how the DM said his character was just there at the quest location with everyone else and his response was "Woah! You can do that!?"
My Players understand WOW, Final Fantasy and Mobile MOBA as "True RPGs" so to me it's funny when they bitch and cry because I don't reveal certain types of information that they shouldn't have anyways like "How much HP does Orc number 2 has left?", "So what's the name of that creature we just fought? we never saw that one before", "Would you roll all the attack's damages together? So I know on which one should I use my Uncanny Dodge", "Where in the dungeon is our objective? the quest giver never said it" and my favorites "If I use this or that spell/class feature that way or in this fashion/situation would it work? I can only use 1 per long rest" & "Can I do this or that"... Never ever have I seen a group of players hate so much Matthew Mercer's catchphrase "You can certainly try" like this group...
So I watched this a few years ago and I'm watching it again now because I'm trying to get back into dming again after so long without a group. Amd listening to this advice I'm remembering times I followed it before when I was regularly dming. Good advice here.
As a ten year DM this one has had some of the most useful information aside from the motivations and role playing video so far. ❤️ I do a lot of this already but affirmations and tweaks I’ll definitely use.
Matt, I am running my first game on Saturday. I am actually using your tomb from episode 1. I wanted to say thank you. I have binge watched your episodes over the last week and a half. Because of your series, I feel confident that I will be able to run the game. I do not know all the rules. I don't have a dungeon master guide or monster book, but I play on roll 20 and I have a compendium available for monster stats. Long story short, thank you for the series. I feel capable that I can run a game and do it well.
Watching this felt like being at a high school football game. It took me 40 minutes to get through 22 minutes of content because I was starting and stopping and starting and stopping the video so I had time to make notes. My DM screen will be a sticky note covered compendium of awesome for next game. Squee! Thanks Matt!
This video has just changed how I'm going to open my next session. I had done a lot of planning and making but your comment about memory etc... has changed all that for the better :D Thanks
![BRASIL vs. URUGUAY [1-1] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 12](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-hWBAuxF1eY/mqdefault.jpg)
Easy solution to the guardproblem: "I am not legally obliged to tell you my name nor badge number. You sovereign adventurers always try to get guards into trouble and I am not going to aide you in that effort."
Fucking hilarious
I love this idea.
Jesus…. Lol…. Thank You
There is a lot of stuff going on here and I think it's awesome
Love it
You give your players information. Why? BECAUSE YOU ARE A RIVER TO YOUR PEOPLE!
(cheers)
That is a hell of a coment 💎
/cheer
O
@@Roma-kp4qg and and are both going back to the same course of a
14:10 There was one great moment in the game my brother ran a while ago, where someone rolled a natural 1 on a knowledge check to identify this weird crab monster called a hammerclaw, and my brother's response was "this is a dangerous sea creature known as a hammerhead shark."
In my games, when players roll really low, I like to indicate that the player is actually very confident in their belief, whether or not it's actually correct. Rolled a nat 1 on an insight check? Flip a coin. On heads, you are 100% certain that this person is lying to you. On a tails, you are 100% certain that they're trustworthy. Of course the player knows what's happening, but it leads to interesting role play. When the PC says, "I would trust this person with my life!" after a failed insight check, the rest of the party gets to make fun choices.
"If something would be obvious to the character, make sure it's obvious to the player."
*It is profoundly unsportsmanlike to trick your players by withholding character information just because the player didn't think to ask for it.*
This needs to be a quote in every DMG. I've played with so many bad DMs who don't do this, and there are few things more frustrating to me as a player than a DM who is hunting for opportunities to make my character look like a *@#$-up because I failed to state something that should have been a given.
I am pretty sure I did the same mistake myself - and I experienced it often enough. Yep. That's a real good advise.
Killed my last campaign. But the group stayed together and I ended up DMing and I’m enjoying it so much thanks to these videos and advice from around the web
This is solid advice; it is one thing to require remembrance, it is entirely different to require "knowledge" that ought be forthcoming. asking a guards name "should it be used against them" (and as a GM, you know if it will, as you create and run the campaign) is trope. As such, it should be assumed names are asked for with few exceptions. Too many "Karens" (pardon the meme prejudice) out there that should a situation go "less than favorable" should a name be asked for. A known/important ("puffed up") character will always ask (according to standard practice in both knowable memes and in life as a service member/employee). A PC ought have the wherewithal to ask in just about every situation, obvious plot points excluded.
Don't have a "generic guard" turn PCs away without good reason, nor without names.
Every campaign needs a Campaign Primer! It should have lots of stuff about the world that every CHARACTER knows, without having to make a roll, a check, or waterboard a random NPC to learn. I will point you to this excellent article. www.creightonbroadhurst.com/gm-advice-how-to-design-a-campaign-primer/
There are times where this is true, and times when it is not. As a DM you should try to be discerning as to when you are giving your characters too much or nor enough information.
If you, the DM, tell the PCs, as an NPC, about the description or location of an object and whatnot, and the Players don't remember, sometimes you, as the DM, need to give a breadcrumb of info to jog their memory. If it is a recurring issue, as the DM OoG, you need to tell the Players that you spend (a lot of) time on this stuff, and that they can show their appreciation better by taking notes.
If continues to happen, then feel free to let the PCs walk into the trap that the NPCs warned them about as nauseum.
“The Dragon Knights are incorruptible.” Is the Orden equivalent of “Vulcans never lie”.
Minbari never lie.
Who told you that?
The Minbari.
@@thetimebinder "The truth they speak may not be the truth you think you hear."
Spock never lies ruclips.net/video/lmHun0HpsgA/видео.html from a certain point of view....
“Why is every minor npc named Geoffrey”
“Uh... it was... the name of a great king”
That's actually a fantastic response. I'm totally stealing that.
Before I was born my parents had chosen Kevin for my first name. All the older mothers said that Kevin was a little boy's name and that my parents shouldn't saddle me with a little boy's name. Well Kevion Costner, Kevin Spacey, and Kevin Bacon are all in my generation so I'm pretty sure it's not a little boy's name any more.
Now boys are being named Kevin because there are plenty of famous Kevin's gadding about. It is not unreasonable for many children to be named after a well known individual. Imagine if, at the end of your character's career he or she found youths sharing a first name for the same reason...
@@kevinsullivan3448 sorry, but it‘s still a boy‘s name. Just look at Costner and Spacey, do they seem like adults? Not really. They might look old, but adult? Nah.
Definitely using that, thank you.
@@KäptnKrückschwank I mean, Spacey may be an adult, but unfortunately he's not interested in them...
"If something is completely obvious to the character, make is completely obvious to the player." I completely agree with this statement and am shocked how many GMs just aren't.
This isn't a board game, people, you're trying to challenge your players...not beat them.
Player: What's the name of this guard?
DM: (Thinking $#**, stall stall stall) Is your character asking the guard his name?
Player: sure
DM: (Continue Stall John? no Graham? maybe change some letters) You see a look of joy spread across the guards face while his companions look down and groan silently.
DM: (Take sip of water, ok switch the "A"s) "I am Grehim son of ($#**) Grehim the Dragonslayer.". The other guard says : Seriously Grehim everyone knows who your daddy is." The guards start arguing with each other. (whew)
Player what's the other guards's name?
Grehimmis, son of long john
I am Long Wang, son of Hung Lo!
I absolutely can relate to this, specially the "(Thinking $#^^, stall stall stall)" part
I find it useful to show up with a list of randomly generated names for npcs.
This is my favorite comment :)
Here's a fun story from one of my recent campaigns:
One of my players pulled a scam to gets lots of cash in a town. On his way out of said town he was stopped by a guard for a routine cargo check. Mind you, the player experienced this TSA-ish pat down when he entered the city. He knew this was coming. He just had no plan for it.
He thought fast and started lying about this plan he had for an investment strategy to explain the cash. The guard inquired more(Partly because everyone wanted to see if he was gonna get away with the scam, and partly because his rapport with this guard was amusing). Very quickly this player had created a fake investment plan he had for the city. The guard asked if he could join in on the plan. My player agreed. He asked the guard what his name was.
Suddenly this nameless NPC was a person. In a snap judgement I said his name was Eric. He became a part of the story for these players. It really helped make the world more fun to interact with, and it showed them the possibilities of what they could do. It was great fun.
Another fun little part of this story is that one of my other players missed this session. So this other player gets patted down by the guard, and noticed the guard had tons of cash on him(from the "investment" plan) as he walked away. This other player became incredibly paranoid that the guard was robbing him. Every time he went in and out of the city he checked his person to make sure all his money was still there. No matter how many times I told him he still had all his cash he remained ever suspicious. It was a great laugh for the party.
DnD Basement
His character was on the other side of the map while this was happening. The party had split up far before this point.
And for the record I told him about the scam the other player did OOC, but he didn't want to hear the details. Which lead to this humorous misunderstanding.
Don't get your jimmies rustled.
That sounded like a wonderful bit of roll playing for everyone involved! Thanks for sharing. 8-)
Trickier Hades Sounds like a ton of fun!
that's hilarious, i love it.
Definitely had something similar happen. Players in my campaign schmoozed a rather lazy guard that was meant to be a throwaway NPC, and ended up becoming friends with him. I gave him a name, and he ended up helping the party sneak through areas they normally weren't supposed to go. From then on, every single time they came across a guard post, they would ask if Jim Davis was stationed there, and were terribly disappointed if he wasn't, but elated if he was. This background NPC became a huge source of help and entertainment for the party.
I was a player in a Call of Cthulhu game set in the 1920s, we were doing some low-grade investigation of a disappearance. So we were standing in the street, and the GM has us all make Spot Hidden checks. Only I succeeded, and the GM turns to me and says "you see a glint in an upper window of one of the buildings". My instant thought was "telescope". I announced that I turn away from the window and tell my friends not to be alarmed, but we were being watched.
...
Then the sniper fired.
A player character almost died.
I felt like such a tit.
Afterwards, every player told me they all knew exactly what was going on, and I was the only one who misinterpreted the information.
saltypork101
As far as I know Call of Cthulu is the game there every PC by the end of the session / campaign is either mad or dead. Or worse.
😁
saltypork101 this is my favorite role play party goes to Forest party fights bear bear kills one buddy tries to chop bear i shoot at bear hit buddy right in the face on accident bear hits me i live kill bear limp out of Forrest find a book random generated on dice gm says careful reading im like fuck that read book summon azathoth he said never in his time has he ever heard of that summon...i died....so did the galaxy wom wom wom
@@dirkbaldorad3634 : That's an exxageration.
I DM a Call of Cthulhu campaign - admittedly more pulpy than pure horrific - but characters don't die or get mad that easily.
For me it's this: Why outright kill (remember getting insane renders the PC unplayable and therefore is equal to die) your PCs - when you just could scar them for life?
So there are sessions, where no one dies or goes insane - and it is still dark, gloomy and atmospheric.
I think we have one outright dead so far (player decided to stay back, because he wanted to know, what's behind the omnious golden, slowly opening portal in the old grave they uncovered...) and two who were virtually rendered unplayable by madness. (One of them might however come back some day, if the Vatican decides to let him go....)
Oh - and we have an old persian grave filled with horrors from other times - so I assume, the group might shrink next session. Let's see how smart they turn out to be :D
This was so funny
@@Roma-kp4qg I'm glad you liked it. I will die mad.
About withholding information, that one time in a D&D game, I was acting as a scout in front of the big group accomanpying NPCs on a big road in a forest. I was alone at the front because we needed good eyes to be on the lookout for ambushes.
When I saw someone hiding in the forest, I managed to not let that enemy know he was spotted. And I decided I should raise my hand to signal to the group, even if that meant being spotted myself.
What the DM then did was tell me "Oh, the group can't see you, you're too far in front. But the mage hiding behind a tree did see you and you're now getting swarmed by enemies"
I was so pissed. I told my DM "Hey wait a minute! My character would have never raised his hand as a signal if he knew he'd be scouting so far in the front. I only said he raised his hand because I took for granted he was in sight of his group. Don't force me to live with an action I would have never done if you'd had been clear." And she categorically refused to fix the situation. My character almost died because the DM didn't care about the accuracy of wether it was normal for my character to do what I said he did. She and she alone knew I was out of sight of the group while all the players believed I was close enough to be seen. She didn't care and it made the fight way harder and soooo frustrating.
To all the DMs out there, if your player says "I would have never done that if I had had the same knowledge as my character", that means you consciously misled your player and you're being a really bad DM.
N The One woah, woah woah. I wholeheartedly agree that ”if i knew what my character knew i would not have had my character do that” is a great, perhaps the greatest, reason to retcon but you can not put the entire o us of communication on the GM. Communication is by definition a two way street.
@@martinlarsson8947 It may be a two way street, but the DM is the one that knows the details, that a character would be able to see. If she failed to convey the fact that a players character is too far to be seen by his teammates initially, she could still handle the situation a lot better. She could've simply let him retcon it, or give him this information, after he stated what his character was doing. Would it really be so hard to say: "Your character is too far from his team, they will not see the signal. Do you want him to do sth else instead?". I don't think so. I seems like the DM just wanted to get a "Gotch ya!" moment, even if it ment misleading her player and that IS bad DMing.
@@lichoneversleeps4206 Oh wow, upon rereading I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Maybe with an intelligence roll beforehand to see if the character got carried away and was inattentive to his back, and a less punishing, less immediate consequence? That situation might still get fun if it feels justified and playable
Yeah, that was a bad call. PC-GM communication needs to include intent, desired result, and possible failure state in addition to the action itself.
“Just remember that every time you fail, you’re that much closer to succeeding.”
I recently had the experience of shooting down my players’ desire to explore outside of the area I had essentially cordoned off in my mind for our current adventure. I said ‘no’ to their creative thinking and world building. I realize now that I should have rewarded their engagement with the world, and used their exploration as a springboard for interesting adventure.
I’ve since felt a lot of guilt over this perceived failure, but this reminder is really helpful. I simply need to use this as a lesson so I can continue to grow as a DM. Thanks Matt.
20:27 "Just remember that every time you fail, you've gotten that much closer to succeeding."
Golden advice.
When they ask me about something, I just grin slyly and say with clearly feigned innocence: "I dunno" ;)
Their response is usually "yes you do"
I usually actually don't know.
ninjarosias Brilliant! Thank you.
That’s so me. I just do it all off the cuff. No plan ever survives first contact with the PC’s… so I generally just wing it all. 🤣🔥
"What's the guard's name?"
"She doesn't say."
Bam.
That or "Well you don't know because you haven't asked" is usually what I go for. That way I have time to look at my notes with random names and pick one easily.
Had this situation happen the other day.
"What's the guard's name?"
"You haven't asked."
"Excuse me, what's your name?"
"Oi, fuck off."
"Oh."
+The Pink Panzer
"Well hello, Fuck off."
"You get slapped by the guard."
"Ow"
"Followed by a dope slap by your NPC follower."
Rosa Lovecraft Or the guard stares stonily head, ignoring the PC's question. She's goood.
Panzer lmao I died reading this
"What's the guard's name?"
"You don't know that yet, until you either hear it from someone or ask the guard himself, and right now is not the time to ask. After all, him and his colleagues are trying to arrest you."
That gives several signals - one, the information does in fact exist. Two, they're not getting it at this moment. Three, there's other things I want you to worry about."
I like to treat the question as if it had been asked by the characters themselves. In this situation, I'd enact the guard being all "Nah brah, you're not getting my name today."
John van Capel я
@@Stupidiusity Yes! :-)
or "Ay! you can ask that when I have locked you up!"
But what if the character grew up in the community and there character should know the guard's name from prior interactions.
@AsiaNPC You don't want the players to know that :-P
Matt, if you're seeing this, I just want you to know how fantastic and helpful your videos are for me. I've been DMing for about 3 years, I absolutely love it, and can't tell you how wonderful your videos are for me. I feel I've learned so much from you and you have made me a much, much better DM. There are an enormous amount of pitfalls to DMing and thanks to you, I've avoided so many and course corrected many times. Thank you for what you do and keep up the great work. I so appreciate you!!!
I've been a rollplayer (and gamer) for literally decades but because of inspiration from several shows (like Critical Role, Highrollers, Exalttwich, etc) I am currently working on starting a campaign as a Dungeon Master for the very first time. Your videos are not only inspirational but also educational and I am studying and re-watching them over and over in order to give myself a head start when I get my game going.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you very much for all the work you do to make these videos and the sharing of your experience! You are basically growing the net "fun" of D&D games all over the world. That is something that you deserve to take some pride in sir!
Moment in my first session of Starfinder:
"Wait, what's the captain's name?"
me(gm): "...Captain... Expendable..."
"So anyway, Captain Expendable and his first mate, Lieutenant Redshirt, open the blood spattered door..."
There were 3 Void Zombies behind the door...
This is probably the single most important episode of this series. I am right now watching it for the third time just to make sure it sticks. Well done, Matt.
Matt: the monster is "lightly damaged," or "heavily wounded"
Me: the monster is "still chillin" or "fuuucked up"
I might use that lol if that's alright 🙂
I always say hes "big chillin", or sometimes i metagame with a horrible joke: "On a scale of 1-38, he's feeling about a 1"
@@joystick2212 I tend to say stuff like "the guard is still alive, but without a lot of enthusiasm" when they're nearly dead
@@himonearth4328 I love that. That's getting used next game
Player: "How crispy is the monster?"
GM: "it's not even in the oven yet" or "it's almost ready to be served" is the way my group deals with telling how the fight is going 👌
I had one of my old players tell me a story of something he loved from a game that I ran years ago. The players were trying to figure out what a piece of dark slate was attached to a wall in a magic-users study. There was white powder scattered about on the floor nearby. I recall that particular object fascinating the players and they spent time trying to detect magic and sus out what the purpose of the object was. After quite a while they figured out for themselves that it was simply a chalkboard. It wasn't something that I had intended as being unique but it was something they had fun figuring out. Almost like a riddle. It wasn't integral to the story but it brought flavor to the world by describing that particular object that they would otherwise be familiar with in its most primitive terms. It made that magic-user's study that much more mysterious.
I have to appreciate the amount of Latin Matt incorporates into his vocabulary
There is an article online called "Every campaign should have a primer." Basically it says that there is information every CHARACTER should know about the game world and it's only the jerk GM who acts like this is secret information and punishes players for not knowing what they don't know.
In preparation for my current game I created a list of common knowledge tidbits that everyone in the character's society would know. Things like who makes the best beer, which merchants will cheat you, how the gods interact with The People, where gold and silver are mined, where the best armor is crafted, etc. I also prepared handouts for important social and cultural subjects so that the players, and more importantly the characters, would know just how important some of the recent events in the game were.
I expect that a lot of GMs might think of the information as unimportant fluff, but I think that adding information like this helps the players feel that their characters are more connected to the world and that this aids in the suspension of disbelief that is a big part of role playing.
That's a really cool idea. Our group often ends up argueing about wether something is common knowledge. Things like we are going to fight a dragon, and one of our players calls "Be carefull about it's breath!", and someone else goes "Woah dude, no OoC informations here" and already, we start argueing about wether it's common knowledge that a dragon has a breath weapon. I mean dragons are legendary creatures that every kid has heared bedtime storis about, and none of them ever mentioned dragons spitting fire?
Or when we were about to fight Wyverns and i told everyone to bring a bow for when they fly, and the GM told me that i don't know if they can fly, and i pointed at the wanted poster we got that showed a creature which had half it's body consist of wings and said "This thing is half wings. My character follows a simple logic. If it has wings, chances are it can fly"
Kevin Sullivan There are plenty of nitwits who don’t even know what kind of beer is best.
Each campaign should also have this product for sale for players!
I have written a primer for players of recent events. While it isn't complete, it let into a great many questions and conversations that impacted the background and lore.
@@martinlarsson8947 Usually, my players are all from the same area, or better yet town, so the primer will be slanted towards that community/region. When they travel far enough away from home things change, like beer, cheese, style of dress, forms of greeting, etc. What the Town of Trandil thinks of as the best beer (the stuff brewed in the local tavern) might be considered pig swill by a town only 10 miles away (also brewed in the local tavern...)
Coming up with names on the spot is my biggest weakness. Hell, coming up with names _at all_ is my weakness. I ended up giving up once and turned a guard into a hostile jerk by answering "My name? It's "Sir" to you!". It's a good trick but it can't work all the time... so on other occasions I've resorted to:
Player: What's the guard's name?
Me: He tells you his name.
It's really the best I can do if I'm hurried. I keep wanting to make a list of names for people... I should use the player handbook's suggestions more often.
If you use a DM screen, pin/tape/insert a chart of random names for you to pick when you need one. There's tons of places online you can generate names in bulk and it makes it that much easier. I know for me I don't have TOO much trouble thinking of names on the spot but after a while I'll start repeating the same dozen or so names.
I was running a one shot and the PCs asked what the dragon's name was and at some point the term "Dragon Boy" was thrown around to describe him (the dragon was acting extremely immaturely) and so I ran with it and said that the dragon was named "Dragon Boy"
My DM currently tells me the name if it was going to matter, or he says something like John-3 if it doesn't matter. But I like to roleplay the conversation, so I need A name.
tbh I usually tell my players when an enemy has low HP. I feel like that's something the players would be able to tell. I mean, if you're in a literal fight to the death, you'd be able to tell if your opponent "has low HP" just by looking at them. Bleeding profusely, struggling to stand, limping, etc are all indicators of that
Then say they're bleeding profusely, struggling to stand, and limping ;D Keeps the immersion up, and sounds more exciting. We're not just playing a videogame, I don't want ye to just tell me if his healthbar is red yet - I wanna hear ye describe how badass my character is ahaha.
@@alexandramaclachlan7597 But maybe they aren't. There could be endless clues. It's impossible not to notice that someone is one punch away from dying.
Funny enough that depends on a few factors.
What are they fighting fellow humanoids? Animals? Sure.
Dragons? Uh how familiar are you with dragon anatomy? Are you sure the blood loss they think is profuse actually is? Chimera? Manticore? Hell lets go more alien. Beholder.
Undead?
There are plenty of creatures where like...yeah unless you have pretty specialized knowledge you aint gonna be able to tell much in a lot of those circumstances
About not making the connection, this one time, the DM did exactly what you said, she explained what the enemy was doing, but not what his goal was or what the overall conclusion of his actions would be.
We were attacking a kobold den. After some fighting, one of them walked out of the den but stayed under the little entrance part. Then he lifted and showed us a long branch at the end of which was a piece of dirty white cloth.
He was communicating the the den had given up on fighting. A white flag.
But I was the player who just didn't make the connection. I convinced myself he was trying to set up a fancy spell. I thought he was attacking.
I'm not gonna go into what I did in response, but basically, yeah, some players just don't get what the NPCs are doing, even when the DM is giving tons of details and the scene is pretty clear.
Hey, in the heat of the fight, a well seasoned veteran may still mistake that for the item component of a spell. Make that part of the character.
I think it's important to know when and when not to go describtive and when to just tell your players what it is. Anything that is super obvious to anyone watching can just be called out. You don't have to say "It's a wooden construct, made of four legs at each side, with a flat surface at the top." Everybody knows what a table is, tell them there's a table in the room. Just like he said, everybody gets what a tavern is. Tell them it's the tavern. In this same node, everybody knows what a flag is. Tell them the kobold is waving a makeshift white flag. Don't tell them what it means, but tell them it's a white flag because everyone knows what a flag looks like.
Of course it's hard to separate which to do when, but personally i say, if a character could look at it and immediately know what it is, then tell them what it is.
Though it might be fun to be describtive about EVERYTHING for a character with very low intelligence. But that would be exception cases.
This video is twenty-two minutes of gold. I actually took almost no notes, but that's only because if I tried to write down everything of use, it would practically be a transcript; instead, I'm going to have to just re-watch this on a regular basis until I've internalized it all. Thank you for yet another invaluable resource!
Oh man I just dm'd my first game after putting it off for 1.5 years because i thought I wouldn't beable to do it. With the help of your channel and adventure guide it seemed like a big success. I fudged some rolls...forgot to play all the music I had...forgot to have the sentry goblins try to run to warn the others. Didn't know a bunch of rules so just said sure why not. They tried to make the riddle way more complicated then it was and tried so much with the magic sword that I didn't even think about(like trying to put it in the statues hand). But at the end without prompt they said they had so much fun and wished it wasn't just a one shot.
Big success, thank you!
"I do not tell my players how to feel"
This is good tip. One of my worst experiences as a player was when the DM ruled that the high charisma rogue with expertise in persuasion could roll persuasion on the other players to convince them to do stuff. It removed player agency which is vital component. Luckily I managed to argue for why the rest of the table found this to be a bad idea and the DM conceded.
Nonetheless, I do think there are notable exceptions to when you can tell a person how to feel. The obvious example are insight check. The player gets the impression that the DM is portraying an NPC who is lying so he wants to roll insight. He rolls a 1 so I don't think it's unfair to say "you find nothing unusual about these words". I am however tempted to instead treat those rolls as "You are unable to pinpoint exactly what make you suspicious in the first place".
Another example is one I've seen Mercer use and got to experience for myself as a player last session. The wider context is based on speculation because it's probably related to what might have happened pre-stream, but at one point a character in Critical Role has to essentially overcome a presumably established phobia to save a friend. The player is ready to make the character jump into danger but before doing so, Mercer stops him and asks for a charisma saving throw.
My character had a vaguely similar moment where my drow, whose personal mission is to return to the homeworld in the underdark he has never known but greatly idealizes, was suddenly and to his INCREDIBLE surprise face to face with a Drow matron who confused him for a man servant and compelled him to obey. The DM promptly made me roll a charisma save. That's because I've specifically noted on my character sheet that my Drow has a complicated relationship with women. It is his Flaw. On one hand he idealizes them because his harsh upbringing on the surface world compels him to long for a better life among his people and all the values they stand for. On the other hand he has severe mother issues because it was his exiled mother who was presumably the reason for why he couldn't grow up among his people. It's a Flaw that is central to the character and the DM was ready to let the dice force me to act in character and I'm not exactly opposed to that because the Flaw part of the character sheet are often both hard to actually roleplay while also having some great consequences for the story.
DnD Basement
"you basically only want actors. and honestly that is bad DMing."
The very best DMs are the ones that adjust expectations with the group at session zero. DM'ing and playing are things you do for fun. Better make sure that everyone is compatible with the type of game you're running and vice versa or the game is gonna suck.
In the game I'm in now on Roll20, the DM specifically stated that he wanted players who were comfortable or at least willing to roleplay because he intended to make campaign that incorporates a lot of player backstory. Everyone is thus seeking the same experience. The game is doing fine for this very reason.
Yes, it's your job to know what a player want. But you should figure that one out before you even start. Then you might decide that you're not comfortable running the type of game a player want and that's entirely fair. You can't force people to have fun.
DnD Basement Listen, I'm not saying that D&D is only for actors. I'm saying that actors are indeed a player type and that some DMs might prefer to run for those players (I know I do). In fact they won't have fun _unless_ they're running a game with RP'ers. There are things in this world that are worse than not playing D&D for 2 years and that is playing a bad game of D&D for 2 years. A bad game is here defined as one where each member of the group are seeking experiences that are incompatible with one another. As Matt has previously said in this series, you can't change players. That's why session 0 is important. You can't expect the players to change mid game so you have to figure out beforehand whether or not the players are compatible and then you have to figure out whether you as a DM are compatible with the players. Some times the answer is no and that's okay.
Be careful with perceiving me as some kind of RP elitist because I feel like you're so. There are many ways to play D&D and they are all equally valid as long as everyone are having fun. I'm simply emphasizing the importance of everyone having compatible ideas for what sort of experiences they want from the game because not every experience is compatible. A DM shouldn't force himself into thinking "if only I was better or had more time, I could please all of my players", Sometimes you have to give yourself permission to say, okay, maybe this wasn't meant to be. Sometime you can figure out whether it is meant to be at a session 0. That is their purpose and why I encourage them.
DnD Basement
_"i don't believe in session zero"_
Then you run your games at a great risk and owe your success to a great deal of luck which is all well and fine for as long as it works out for you.
I wouldn't be able to run a game without first having some talk where we discuss our expectations for the campaign. It doesn't have to be auditions. Just a talk to figure out if everyone's expectations are compatible and what level of compromise people are willing to make. They don't have to be the same, but they HAVE to be compatible.
_"pleasing everybody is possible"_
But it isn't. At least I'll trust Matt here when he says that it isn't.
You really ought to watch his Running the game #12
DnD Basement
The problem with the stream had nothing to do with the game itself and thus isn't really relevant to our discussion.
Session zero is just an easily recognizable term I use to refer to the talk you have with the players before you start playing. It doesn't have to be a full session. it can be the 15 minutes before you start session 1. You do nonetheless need it (except for in lucky cases). Go watch a few episodes of Ask A DM on Dawnforged Cast. People are repeatedly bringing up problems that have arisen in their games that could have been solved if they had had some form of session 0.
Consider the possibility that we might very well agree. Whether you call it session 0 or not, you DO need to talk to players to adjust everyone's expectations for the game. The reason you need to do that is because it is indeed NOT possible to make every random group function.
DnD Basement
_"Talking and communication in general is a must"_
And that applies to before even the first session as well. Like you said, a DM needs to prepare. He needs to prepare himself for his players want and what type of DM he is (see RtG #14
_"asking them what they want do not take a whole session (5 hours in my case)"_
There's no rule saying that a session zero must take 5 hours. If anything, I speak against it taking 5 hours. At this point, it seems like the only issue you have with a session zero is if it takes too long and that's a _big_ "if".
So can we lay it to rest and agree that session zero is in fact a good and necessarily thing as long as you don't overdo it?
_"you coping out when you say this guy doesn't fit. because if you think that way, then nobody ever fit with anybody"_
How? How does that even make one iota of sense? It's not a dichotomy, Not every group is meant to work. I need but one example to prove it and I have both my own accounts and the accounts of others. I myself have been in a group where I didn't fit in so I suggested that I left. I was looking to roleplay, not just with NPCs, but also the rest of the party. None of them wanted that. I was not having fun so I left. It's no ones fault, it's just preference.
Saying you can make every D&D group work is the same as saying you can make every movie enjoyable for _everyone_. You can't. doesn't matter how great a comedy or a drama you make. some people will never like a drama and others will never like a comedy.
_"fact, its not !"_
Get down from your high horse because you clearly don't understand what facts are. How badly you want to play D&D is a subjective thing. For me it's better not to play than playing a bad group with no common goal. There's no objective truth to the subjective.
You can't just say "FACT! your fun is wrong". That's frankly one of the most pretentious things I've ever heard and it doesn't flatter you.
Matt does the same drawn out vowel thing as James Earl Jones. It's like a not at all intimidating Darth Vader.
Well, that is what happens without the dark helmet.
Watch him on half speed, it's drunk vader...
...the guard's name is ALWAYS Sven...pshh...everybody knows that ...
Kind of like a Nurse Joy or Officer Jenny situation
In my game its always Rodrik
I use the name Jerry. Also the guards are all mentally incompetent. Think banana guards from Adventure Time
"Try Lee. There are a million Lees."
DM: "Your party walks into a room. In the center of the room is a pecuilar wodden construct. A coushined round flat board supported by four slender pillars. Possibly a stool."
PC: "AWWW DUDE LET US FIGURE IT OUT OURSELFES!!!!"
This. This is why I don't necessarily believe the "description" hype. If it's a table, tell me it's a table, etc. If it looks like a guard room, maybe that is a little more complicated. But for the same reason Mr Colville says the character would know that the rope is attached to the bell that would summon the dungeon dwellers - it's obvious - the DM should cut the clever descriptions of the buildings in town and tell me where the inn is. Unless it's not obvious.
So much wasted time with this. :P
I love your show, Mr Colville.
@@reteller What if you're playing 1E Gamma World? The entire premise was that every character was a complete imbecile and wouldn't know a chair from a stool.
Does the stool... seem suspicious??
Great video again, Matt.
I know this will be nothing new to you, Matt, but just to expand on your advice:
Another way I've found that's a cool method for inserting information, thoughts or inspiration into a character's head is to have them roll a situation-appropriate check, then give them a "flashback" to something someone in their backstory once told them or taught them. A parent, sibling, combat teacher, military officer, guildmaster, ect--someone in the character's past that was a wise/crafty mentor or leader.
That way it's not the DM telling them "This is a dangerous cave. Don't go in there and get yourself surrounded" or whatever, which makes it seem certain that it is predetermined that they will fail.
Instead, it's someone/something in their past raising their "spidey sense." That gives the player agency. They know the risk, but they can choose what to do with that knowledge.
Of course to do that, you have to have that backstory info. During character creation, I always try to nudge players to backstory someone in their past that was particularly influential on teaching the character the ways of the world or the skills of their class. Because those characters are useful for a myriad of narrative reasons.
TMI Matt......said no one, ever. Always a good watch. Thank you for the effort you and others put in.
I don’t ever tell players the AC of a creature.
If they’ve sussed it out by, say, missing a 13 and hitting on a 14, I’ll confirm, but I never say it ahead of time.
I had a level 4 fighter who was fighting an abominable yeti (CR9) mostly by himself (there were more normal yeti taking the party’s attention) and he rolled a 14 which he was pretty sure _wouldn’t_ hit (he wasn’t sure what the AC was, he just figured it was between 15 and 18).
He quickly said, “don’t tell me the result yet! I’m burning my _last_ superiority die!”
He didn’t _know_ that the simple act of burning a die would make him succeed- that he was 1 shy of the AC- and so that gave me an absolutely amazing feeling.
I _knew_ the result but I got to see my friends discover it themselves.
It was like introducing someone to a favorite song or TV show.
I started dungeon mastering about a month ago and you and Matt Mercer have been my biggest guides I really appreciate the videos you make and thank you
One of my favorite characters to roleplay regarding information is my (flavored) Tabaxi ranger, Lynx. She's always an outlander in any situation, and not only does she not know much about the cultural understanding of where she is, she also tends to zone off, as Tabaxi are wont to, into thinking about whatever their newest interest is or what they may find on their next adventure, which is great fun! I get an excuse not to pay very much attention to exposition so I know about as much as she does, and make decisions just as informed. I love toying with information and information relaying and digestion. Beautiful stuff.
my ranger rolled a Nat 20 when identifying a monster. I just covered the monster's stat block with post it notes and let him read the monster manual.
My campaign is riddled with “Yeah, that’s what everyone in the world thinks” types of things. Some of my biggest plot points (and twists) are built on the fact that the primary civilization and culture unanimously believe a handful of facts because its such commonplace, regardless of how true it is
"Whats the guard's name?"
"I don't know, why don't you ask him/her?"
That oughta give you a hot second or two to make something up.
Names. A list of names. Always have a list of names prepared. It is worth it's weight in platinum!
@@robertnett9793 this. i keep a page in my notebook with prepared names for every race lol fucking invaluable!
Coty Griffin please share this. I need it
@@robertnett9793
0
9j0
Very important for new DMs. Thank you.
Wonderful channel here, Matt. I just discovered it and it's occupied 2 nights of what should have been prep time! Anyway, I had the best experience in many years at my last session with something that involved information. The four players found themselves in the sylvan cottage of what appeared to be a friendly fey witch. There were subtle strange things about the interior and about the witch herself. Through the passing of notes, I managed to give each of the four players a different perspective by revealing certain information to them. One PC went out to the garden to pick vegetables with her and heard about how she was looking for love. The skeptical dwarven smith who originally wanted no part of the cottage or its inhabitant noticed an oddly-forged sword on the wall. The badly injured ranger realized the woman had a healing touch. And the fighter glanced into her kitchen where he saw that she was boiling the head of an alseid in a cauldron. She returned from the garden before anyone could share information privately. That's when I sat back and watched for about a half hour as the players danced through efforts to discuss what to do in front of the potentially dangerous witch, each with different information and newly obtained information that changed their respective feelings since the last time they could speak candidly about the situation. The players were as flummoxed as their PC's. Why did the dwarf suddenly soften his feelings about the cottage? Why was the fighter who wanted to follow the woman now seemingly about to have a seizure near the kitchen door? Luckily, despite having three of the four players in their first campaign ever (with one in his second session ever), none of them did the reading the index card out loud thing. I was proud of how I set it up, but even more proud of how they played it - all thanks to four little index cards.
In lieu of me commenting this in all of Matt Colville videos, I'll leave this here, on the video I am currently re-visiting.
I really appreciate the education Matt is providing in these videos.
And I thoroughly respect the perspective that comes from playing and designing games for as long.
Because as a newbie DM, I would maybe have had the same knowledge and wisdom acquired over decades. Maybe.
But to have it all available from the get go, makes the games I run exponentially more enjoyable for me AND my players,
And the worlds I create for the players have a lot more depth and verisimilitude.
There are a lot of D&D youtubers, and a decent amount are really good, but the quality of these videos is head and shoulders over all of them.
Thank You, Matt Colville.
This is amazing information! I've been rewatching everything just taking notes and trying to memorize as much as possible.
Thank you! Now I'm going to watch this a few more time haha
You should do a video on audio in games(playing music or background sounds to simulate the world)
I agree:)
This so far was one of the most important videos for me. I struggle with refraining from giving the players to much information because as a person I like to alleviate confusion and teach people things they don't know. But as a DM you gotta keep some of this stuff to yourself.
I always have my players make up names and the like for npcs. Madame Abbot, head of a brothel, a surprisingly ugly woman for her position that wears a large ruby on her neck that's is prettier than she is. This character was made by my players. They enjoy making the world feel alive.
Halfro Bottoms, Named and described by the PC's.
Result = A Halfling with an afro bigger than his body, wears shiny Disco Pants and has the Fruitiest Leprechaun accent you could possibly conceive.
Ah, and he stores all of his items in the Afro, including weapons.
MrMac1219 hahaha, I see him now!
"Short Klingons"
Thank you, I'll be saving this one for later.
"Every time you fail you've gotten that much closer to succeeding", tell that to Wil Wheaton.
tell that to the Wright brothers, to the guys at Nasa, tell that to ...
@@worldweaver2691 -- They're the ones doing the telling.
I've watched this video twice already. I think a third time will be in order soon. Lots of information with giving and keeping information here.
Could you perhaps give a player a note, but tell them that before they say another word to their friends, they have to pass the note back?
I like that one! Definitely borrowing that idea for when I have to relay private information to a player and I can't justify exiling the others to the next room over.
- especially if it is complex information that the player has to understand and figure out. For example the social dynamics of devils in the nine hells based on descriptions of a few incidents.
Or the note has the information that you don't want them to get wrong, but you still pull them aside and give them more in-depth knowledge.
damn
that example with the guard really got me to think about a critical flaw (or unique trait lol) of my DMing : I don't really hide the strings. If we're doing this theatrics together, I don't feel like lying to my players about how I truly work (in literally the same example, my players asked me the name of some NPC and I answered with "oh him ? That's NPC-342" and we all ahd a laugh). And now that I think about it, that's probably what led my games to being extremely fun moments we spent together, but never real stories with a serious narrative component (players got to do "the cool thing" but managing tension was always very hard.
I'm running a DnD campaign next (that's how I found you channel) (I was doing Cthulhu before just because the game system was lighter) and I'm going to try and apply that philosophy, see if I can get something a little bit deeper to set in.
(note that I don't regret doing it, those sessions were a lot of fun and as a beginner DM being honest about my shortcomings during the game was a great way to not stress too much about it)
Explicitly saying the NPC is going to follow the PC's lead is a great way to not end up with it turning into a DMPC.
I've started watching this series about 3 weeks ago when I started running Out of the Abyss for a few friends of mine because I had this hobby for 4 years now, I've played thousands of hours online, but not even my closest friends had any idea what I was talking about when I went off on something that happened in one of my campaigns (either running or playing), so I had enough, I have played so many other games, but I barely played DnD before. I played one short Pathfinder campaign that I barely understood, and then a month prior I joined in on a 5e game an online friend of mine was in, I never had so much fun as I that game. So I decided time to run DnD, except I had no idea what DnD really was. This series has helped such an insane amount to both understand what DnD is, and be able to run it better that after thinking I'll never comment watching the first video I just had to sit down and say, Thank You. My players are having an incredible time in the world of Darc, and I'm having so much fun GMing, I didn't know it was even possible.
Controlling the flow of information is THE most important job of the DM, right next to adjudicating the rules of the system. This video does a great job of giving some tips on how to keep the game flowing, while maintaining suspense and drama at the same time. Great job Matt!
Such a good rule distilled at 10:21 - if something would be obvious to the character, it should be obvious to the player.
So obvious!
Just bought your books Mathew. Starting a game with my family this sunday and im addicted to your channel now. If your books are any thing like your stories on your channel it is money well spent.
This video changed my whole perspective on the game before I ever even ran it. As a fledgling DM I've made it my mission to always have a name for every NPC, and always imply there are canonical answers to every question my players ask. For the NPCs there really ARE, I sit down for hours making names and motivations. For the answers, I'm often figuring things out along with the players. But thanks, Matt, because I think this video is part of the reason my players think hard about their decisions even though the world, their characters, and their DM are all new.
I've struggled with the 'is this too much or too little information' questions for ages, I love your videos Matthew as they're broad enough to apply to my own setting yet your examples always help understand what is should or could look like. Thank you
!
Typically when my players make rolls to try to find thing, and they roll bad or crit fail i send them on a scenery journey. Giving they precise details of the world around them while leaving out anything related to plot. This allows me to bring the world alive visually without allowing for progression. So far my players love it, they tell me it helps bring the world alive.
I agree that this in one of the most important videos you've put out so far. Thank you for helping new DMs with important stuff like this!
this is the best series I've ever found. Thank you so much!!! I was so worried when I had to DM for my friends but I feel a lot more confident now
I'm a new DM, just ran my 3rd session yesterday. I've been searching the inter webs for help for about a month. I was kind of disappointed with my last session and really need some insight. This has been, by far, the most informative piece of content I've come across!! You do an absolutely incredible job relaying your information! I now feel invigorated, and hopeful. I believe my next session will go much more smoothly now that I've seen this video!! Thank you!!
This stuff is great for me both as a fledgling gm and a lecturer at uni. I think you described pedagogical scaffolding among other things... great stuff.
I enjoyed hearing your philosophy of dispensing information to the players. Lots to think about here. I also like your out-of-the-room technique for replacing note-passing. Good stuff. "Show me, don't tell me..."
Joy! A new Running the Game. Really missed this series while it was put on hold for streaming VODs and the like. I'm taking notes and building the courage to start my first campaign as a DM. These videos definitely help in that respect. I always feel like I can do it by the end of each lesson. Thank you, Matt Colville!
Wonderful episode on information! Also, I agreed with all your points and have used those techniques as well. For example, part of my intro-talk for new players is that when I'm playing an NPC, I am really playing that NPC from their own point of view, not the GM's. Sometimes it's fun for everyone if I mess about with description from a marginal investigation roll on something not too complicated, by starting mysterious and then pointing out something obvious about it in a "Oh... it's that..." flat voice.
The line - my dwarves are basically small Klingons, cracks me up every time.
Hey Matt,
Been playing D&D for just 3 years when a friend of mines group opened up to some new players. I've just decided to start running my own game as well and found your videos right off the bat. Just wanted to say that these videos are great and are a huge help. As a new player/DM and only experiencing one DM so far, all your videos are giving me lots of inspiration for how to run my game.
Thanks!
Hey Matt! Just finished watching all of this series and I'm finding it so helpful! Also bought both books and loved them to bits! Cant wait for the next one!
I'm a wannabe new DM and this video, just like all those in this playlist, are incredibly insightful and helpful!
Story vs Adventure and this video especially! Thanks for taking the time to put all these together.
This is by far one of my favorite videos in the series, I always find a new nugget or application of its principles each watch
I DM'd my first game a few weeks ago (without ever having been a player). It was completely homebrewed, completely improvised, and very fun. Because it was a solo session, I thought my player should have a companion, so I created an NPC follower for him. It wasn't until about halfway through the session that the player realized the NPC was deaf. I dropped hints and had him do perception checks, but all failed until I had to reveal the fact that the NPC carried an ear trumpet. I was so proud of the slow buildup of information, and my player was more engaged than he would've been if I had just spoon-fed him. This is a subtle skill, but ANYONE can do it, and it will make a huge difference in the way you and your players remember your games.
Most important DM video I ever watched. Thank you for that. I think you would be proud of my job as a 30 years DM... and still, I learned so much. Awesome.
Bro this is great, I actually needed to hear this so bad. I have a terrible way of telling instead of showing, and of going meta way too much, instead of just immersing my players. Thank you Matt Colville!
I think I just came back to this video 2 years after my first viewing and first being a dm and I can definitely tell that I use this on instinct. Thanks Matt
This is one of the most helpful videos you've done so far. I've been playing D&D for many years and a DM off and on for 4 years now, so a lot of the stuff you talked about is your early videos was stuff I've already learned through trial and experience, but lately I've been trying to open my world and my sessions up to be more sandbox-y and guide my players by the hand less and less. It's more nerve-wracking not knowing what's going to happen, and it takes a lot more improvisation. I've taken a good bit of your advice and created a table for random encounters the players might have in their current location that I roll on whenever they go a new place that I hadn't planned on them going.
Giving my players information without just telling them directly what to do is a real challenge as I try to railroad less and less. I do often read directly from the monster manual to the players, and the amount I read to them (just the creature's name, one sentence, a paragraph, two, what attack or resistences it has, etc.) depends on how well they roll on their nature or arcana check to identify the creature, and I will prompt players when it might be a good time to use their insight or a particular knowledge skill, but I would love to do that more organically and have it be less of, "The information you need is behind the door. Can you get it open?" The door being a successful investigation, perception, nature, insight, history, etc. check.
This video is the single most helpful video about running a ttrpg I have seen as of this date. I rewatch it often!
Having donjon open with a few random generators is handy for situations just like this. Especially when running a sandbox and the players decide to go to an area not fully fleshed out yet.
I delve 8 tabs deep into the Donjon: adventurer names, non-adventurer names, shop/inn/tavern names, minor treasure, major treasure, minor magic items, major magic items, rumors.
Backed you on KS... Now I'm working my way through what I have found to be one of the best DMing series on RUclips... I will almost certainly be buying your books soon. Thanks for everything!
This was very helpful and timely in my current stage of planning - thank you, Matt! I also appreciate the reminder that this is an art form and will take practice. I've been struggling not to put undue pressure on myself as a new DM to be perfect from the get-go, so the combination of help and reassurance is much appreciated :)
Being a new DM, these videos are a treasure trove of knowledge.
Catching up on all these videos (been watching Critical Role since it started, but missed the references Mercer and the cast made regarding you).
By far, this video has been the most helpful. They're all great so far, but this video addresses some of my biggest downfalls as a DM. Thank you! A million times over. Can't wait to continue to grow and do better for my players.
Omg the You May Peek at the Monster Manual thing is so OG! Really sends me back...it really mattered cause only the DM had one! Timeless
Matt, thank you as always for doing these videos. My favorite advice is as a DM, rule how you feel is right. It is your game, they are your players. The internet doesn't know who they are and how they like to play. No one is the same, therefore no game should be the same, and the game is created not for us as DM's, but for our players who let us experience the world we created in a way we never imagined.
Wow yet ANOTHER great and informative video. This aligns exactly with how I want to DM, but puts ideas into words and examples
I love these examples! As someone who has DMed more than I've been a player, it's useful to hear what other people do. I know it takes experience to develop my own style (of the "art, not science"), but without much outside reference, it's easy to develop habits that aren't useful to the betterment of my game.
Unrelated: Matt, I love your film reviews. Basically, I think we'll watch you talk about whatever you are interested and excited about, because you convey that interest and excitement so well (you DM, you). You are, indeed, a river to the Colvillains.
So glad that I discovered your channel, Matthew. This is really great content and you seem like a great person to boot! Keep up the great videos.
I honestly enjoy playing a character who doesn’t know much about anything outside of home, or just much in general. I find it really fun. I played a Kobold once and he is my favorite character I’ve made. He never went more than 50ft away from the cave for his entire life until the party came to deal with the kobolds who lived in the cave. And my character was poorly treated by his fellow kobolds because he was different, so he decided to side with the party to get revenge. And once the party left the cave, they had to teach my kobold everything. He didn’t know the value of money, he just liked it because it’s shiny. He didn’t know many manners. And he didn’t understand why the party had to hide him, he didn’t understand the fact that people saw him as an enemy. And I had an absolute blast playing him. And because he was so naive he ended walking toward a dragon that the party was avoiding, and because of that he got the option to leave the party and fly away in a dragon.
I love giving my players information on areas rather than telling them. Sometimes I do get lazy and tell them exactly how a room is used. It's fun to see what players do with the information you give them.
The ending of your intro story reminded me of Puffin Forest recounting how the DM said his character was just there at the quest location with everyone else and his response was "Woah! You can do that!?"
My Players understand WOW, Final Fantasy and Mobile MOBA as "True RPGs" so to me it's funny when they bitch and cry because I don't reveal certain types of information that they shouldn't have anyways like "How much HP does Orc number 2 has left?", "So what's the name of that creature we just fought? we never saw that one before", "Would you roll all the attack's damages together? So I know on which one should I use my Uncanny Dodge", "Where in the dungeon is our objective? the quest giver never said it" and my favorites "If I use this or that spell/class feature that way or in this fashion/situation would it work? I can only use 1 per long rest" & "Can I do this or that"... Never ever have I seen a group of players hate so much Matthew Mercer's catchphrase "You can certainly try" like this group...
So I watched this a few years ago and I'm watching it again now because I'm trying to get back into dming again after so long without a group. Amd listening to this advice I'm remembering times I followed it before when I was regularly dming. Good advice here.
As a ten year DM this one has had some of the most useful information aside from the motivations and role playing video so far. ❤️ I do a lot of this already but affirmations and tweaks I’ll definitely use.
❤ Great content on how to reveal things. I love the whole "describe the room, don't tell them what it is" advice.
The Blood Guard! One of my favorite groups from fantasy. Their devotion is indelibly written in my memory.
Matt,
I am running my first game on Saturday. I am actually using your tomb from episode 1. I wanted to say thank you. I have binge watched your episodes over the last week and a half. Because of your series, I feel confident that I will be able to run the game. I do not know all the rules. I don't have a dungeon master guide or monster book, but I play on roll 20 and I have a compendium available for monster stats.
Long story short, thank you for the series. I feel capable that I can run a game and do it well.
Watching this felt like being at a high school football game. It took me 40 minutes to get through 22 minutes of content because I was starting and stopping and starting and stopping the video so I had time to make notes. My DM screen will be a sticky note covered compendium of awesome for next game. Squee! Thanks Matt!
This video has just changed how I'm going to open my next session. I had done a lot of planning and making but your comment about memory etc... has changed all that for the better :D
Thanks