Good reflection... I often find it hard to watch these livestreams of actual RPG gameplay. But not because of time or interest, but mainly because it devolves into a "look at me" game of egos... SPECIFICALLY on social media video. I think you (not you directly) as GM, if you are going to partake in streaming the game, make some rules to keep the play interesting and not a exposition fest or endless monologues. Keep it short and interesting. Same with the GM'ing it can also monologue for too long as well. It's super cool that you are trying/play-testing your game mechanics. It's great to see an interesting take on roleplaying systems.
Takes a big man to admit his mistakes. Takes a giant of a man to make a video articulating those mistakes and publicly listing how you intend to fix them.
Player feedback is always a good thing, but whenever I ask, my players for feedback they're allways too nice. One thing I've found really usefull when playing online is to call a break and mute my mic and listen in for the break. It's amazing to hear what my players dislike, I know its not super trusting, but I WANT to hear rhe things they dislike but dont wanna say.
I ask mine to tell me one thing that went well and one thing they think could be better, then go around the table and have everyone respond in turn. That gives them a framework that both limits and encourages the kind of feedback that will help me get better. And if someone says, "It was really good," I can press them a little: "What specifically did you think was good? Was there anything that could have been better?"
I'm one of those people who hates to complain. My GM has run some great, epic campaigns in the past, so I have a lot of respect for him; but our last campaign was a muddled mess. At the end of the campaign, I realized that result is partly my fault for not saying anything, at the time. It's not fair to expect him to know how I feel, especially when we're playing remote with only voice communication. My fear of insulting him meant nobody was happy. If he thinks we're all enjoying the game, he has no reason to adjust things. I'm lucky that we're friends and that he genuinely wants to run the best game possible. When I considered that, I realized that I needed to give him an honest critique and that I need to tell him how our new campaign is going, on a regular basis. The new campaign still isn't perfect, but so far, I am a lot more invested in and a lot more satisfied by this campaign than I was the last.
For real, I’m a fledgling GM and these videos are often more helpful than “you must do this.” Putting a fence around the wrong things is way more open for growth than putting a fence around the only “right” things to do.
Yeah and some groups like to play the exact way you may be directed not to run the game, the GM included. That's what I like about Guy is he makes it clear that if that's the group for you, then perfect.
Guy, I know there has been videos on Session Zero in the past... but Can we get a video on what a session Zero is ~ How to go about it. What both Players and DM need to do in order for a session Zero to work. All this in your new format with slides?
It's great that you dissect the sessions you feel are lesser and learn from your mistakes, but every session cant be a spot-on smash. One of my biggest issues is table control. I love letting my players push and move things forward or just around, but a lot of the time they get muddled and talk over one-another, when I should be stepping in and forming things. One of the biggest issues I have with my players is when I'm answering a question or telling one player something, two others will start a discussion over-top of it. It's not often but when it happens it's very frustrating.
Thank you so much Guy for all the work you put into this channel. I'm currently running an epic campaign with my daughter and her friends. Most of them are very new to role playing (we're using Pathfinder 1 for our system). I am trying to make each adventure, dungeon, and quest interesting and educational for them on how to become great players. And I always strive to be a Great GM. Your videos are like my GM school and I'm so grateful for your expertise and frankness. I really do feel I've become a much better GM and world builder because of your tireless work. Your lessons have helped me make this campaign so much fun for the teens who are all under the quarantine here in America. Thank you again!
Your humility compared to a couple years ago is astounding! Initiative at end. Not sure how it can compare to livestream tools, but I have an easy way I track. A small dry erase board. I draw the table and have each character name written on it where they sit. I write the initiative and then i just move a magnet to keep turns, track stuff etc. Will your pc tools perhaps be able to do similar?
I am very new to being a GM personally. My first game, went in many ways really good. But one of my players didn't fit in, due to all of them being my friends I feared talking to that player telling the payer, this is not going well and asking the player to leave my table, instead the players made me nervous at every game and at the end I stopped the game. It took me a year to work up the nerve to even try again. I watched a ton of RUclips videos learning hey it's okay to say this isn't working also to your friends and asking them to leave the table. It should always be okay because we are all there to have fun, and when someone is ruining it for everyone else GM included, it is always alright to stop it and say thus far no further. Being so afraid from that time, the next game where I was the GM I had over-prepared because I forgot to trust my own skills. So I learned that I have to trust myself and not over-prepare. Third time and a third game I made the mistake of saying hem no you can't do that that is not how it works to a completely new player! I realized I had made a huge mistake because it was something I honestly could have narrated my way out of instead in-game. When I realized my mistake I wrote to my player and apologized.
My biggest problem is gm rust, I haven't had a group for years, I've kept my other skills up, design and the like, but I have a group new to RPGs and sometimes I lose the table answering system questions and the like.
It's probably better to get acquainted with an easier system (BECMI/OSR over Advanced, and believe me, 5e is Advanced), and then "graduate" after some comfortable acclimation.
As a very new gm I can say that this is so much helpful. The first thing is I almost had done every mistake as you did in my last session and as a gm who tries to get better at every sessşon it felt really upsetting but your great advises and solutions to our very similar problems gave me a very good insight. Now I am ready to clean the shit i put on the table. Lets go
One thing I realiced over time is that mostly players won't recognice the big mistakes you see yourself doing. I often had the feeling that they must have realiced my bad DMing, but when we talked about the game they had no issues with what I thought were terrible mistakes, but rather asked to improve stuff that I thought was perfectly fine.
Can we have more videos like these? Maybe looking back at a series of old videos you might feel are outdated? Not saying any are, but this was the most helpful video of yours I have ever seen. Learning from your experience like this is so eye opening!
Thanks for showing us that even very experienced GMs can make mistakes and that it is ok to not be perfect. I think too many people hold back from trying things like GMing because they are afraid of making mistakes. Hopefully people will watch this and be a little less afraid of stumbling now and again.
I always assess my DMing and try to improve. I have had people say I shouldn't as it was good enough but to be honest this is a big part of the hobby I enjoy. I like improving as a DM and feel amazing when I have one of those hit it out of the park games. I wouldn't have those if I wasn't always trying to improve.
Look I am only 40 seconds in and I just want to say.... this is a great video. Not because of the content, nor the production value, hell you could have recorded this in a tin can wind tunnel on the worst mic possible and it would still be great because admitting to making mistakes is unquestionably top quality. Reviewing your mistakes is even better. Reviewing those mistakes in public and taking public scrutiny, that is god tier quality that cannot be degraded.
A bit rambly, but overall okay. What I'd like to see, when you're covering several different topics in one video, is at what time you talk about what. Here, I did it for you this time: Pre-game: New System: 2:35 - 4:46 No Session Zero (+ rambling on pros/cons about streams vs homegames): 4:46 - 7:15 New Players: 7:15 - 8:03 During the game: No accent prep: 8:03 - 10:19 Lack of clarity of plot: 10:19 - 12:34 Table Control was weak: 12:34 - 13:39 Summarize/rambling: 13:40 - 14:05 After the game: No notes aside from 1: 14:05 - 15:20 Went into another sessions: 15:20 - 16:45 (ish) Didn't give notes to Players: 16:45 - 18:12 More insight: Mostly avoided rules, but from...: 18:55 - 20:05 Make better use of Map assets: 20:05 - 20:49 (ish) Now everyone can just click to the next part you're talking about when they feel they've got the gist of what you're saying :)
I've caught myself in a similar situation. I was distracted with some mechanical part of the game while one of my players was giving me Roleplay Gold. I apologized after the game and I ended up working in a payoff of sorts for them during our next session.
I can hear you talk all day, you have such a great voice to be a narrator :D And it's amazing that you admit to your own mistakes and talk about them how to fix it, I'm taking my hat of for you sir oh yes indeed.
After a session, i like asking my players how it was and where they think is going. They practicaly give u a story and ways to make your game better. The way to become a great gm is to always ask for player opinion (preferably right after the session)
2:25 This is why many of my friends don't watch the news. It's not being pessimistic if I am being informed to be involved, just as criticism is valuable when it is constructive (and asked for).
Realy like your posts. Cant Watch the streams because as a Brazilian, sometimes cant understand some parts and need to go Back some minutes, so Watch later (and because my wife hates RPG and need to be dar from her to do so 😂)
Confession: I never take notes while GMing. Ever, just doesn't happen. Invariably one of my players does, and I can patch up anything that needs clarifying. I'm just so bad at noting what actually happens, I can make a list in advance and tick boxes, but not write down fresh notes on the fly. Last time I tried the session moved too slow for my liking.
Figure out what events are usual to take notes of, and some sort of personal shorthand that doesn't confuse you after writing it. It's for your eyes only anyway, so don't bother writing a clean, quill-dipped, serif-laden, iambic pentameter treatise about it. Just go full good doctor's prescription on it and pray it's legible later.
These are interesting times. My group moved over to online gaming last weekend, and I have to admit the first hour was a mess, but I thing I caught my stride after that. It'll be interesting whether it takes the same time to get used to it this week, or whether we're all used to it now (that said there's another 2 players this week, so the learning process starts afresh once again.
A bad accent character could be a fun thing for a charlatan character, who tries different accents to throw off the authorities, but doesn't realize they're giving themselves away if given enough time.
As difficult as I'm sure it is for you to do so, Guy, I think you can safely forgive yourself for some of the etiquette slip-ups that you made in that first session. The reason I say that is because this isn't just a regular livestream playthrough that you're doing, it's an active play test of a brand new system you've designed. The rules aren't just new to your players, as you said at the start they're new to you as well because this is an entirely new system that you've built from the ground up. On that same vein, that makes this video all the more important. I haven't reached the play testing phase yet but the experiences I've had so far with designing my own system has thoroughly reinforced the value I place on the reflection of mistakes made. Because of that, hearing you reflect on your mistakes in the first play test of your self designed system is going to prove extremely useful in helping me prep for my own when it comes some months down the line. Now I just have to do my best to find enough time to go back and watch through these streams. I have a feeling that I'm going to find a lot more value in it than just the fun of watching it now.
One mistake that I'm trying to get better at is narrating how a player feels or acts. I've found that during boring parts of the game, it's easier for me to try to manipulate the PCs than it is to manipulate the environment and try to make a scenario that they can react to. I've been brainstorming ways around this, but I still catch myself wanting to explain why a PC is doing what they are doing.
I recently made a mistake in my own campaign. They were talking to a dragon, and they thought that one of the NPCS that they were going to have a dual with was actually the “dragon in disguise” the dragon was talking about so they were super freaked out and paranoid! I made the mistake of asking one of them to roll a history check to realize no that’s not the person. I think it would’ve been a lot more fun if they had that hanging up over them for a while till the reveal that no, the NPC was NOT who the dragon was talking about…
Well, I have been GM for a few sessions with my own group. I had a character where my accent was drifting badly, the party called him on it, I just rolled with it and turned him into a surprise Australian who snuck into the city looking for work. And that's how we now have Dave, the prison sandwich guy. I am not great at English accents at all.
It doesn't have to be just an accent. Mannerism can also inform character without taxing your voice (facial ticks, gesturing, catchphrases, moods). I can't mimic Harrison Ford's voice, but I know that he usually sounds tired... 😁
I had a character who was covered up and looked like a generic humanoid in his getup. He’s a gungan. I made him speak with a basic accent and he will default to that unless highly emotional or amongst his fellow gungans.
My accents will change mid sentence. This is something I try hard not to but my table takes in good nature. It tends to go from one accent into a deeper accent of the same type to a different accent. My table is usually laughing pretty hard watching me try to keep an accent only for my russian accent to go to chinese then japanese and then to scottish. I look like a fool and people love it. (2 years of Gming and my accent went from 5 seconds to 30 seconds long. Improvement!)
How do you organize your notes? Are they according to people/places/things, events, ideas during the game, mishaps and wins, accents and NPCs on the fly, etc? I think structuring notes in some fashion is good for the consistency of the game world (and memory, in my case... "I wrote it down sho I wouldn't have to remember it, joonyah!"). There oughta be a (free) pdf for this...
G'day Guy great video I'm a new gm * two sessions into it to be exact* and planned out using your videos the 1st Session of the campaign and everyone seems to have a great time followed the plot I gave them etc then come the second session just got and just as the game started I got the feedback that " If I want them too follow my story if played out for them I need to be pushing more to make that happen" we all immediately go into the game and for the first 30mins or so umming and arrring words worried that I didn't portray the fact that they in fact did everything I had planned for them for that night and couldn't wrap my head around how too make that more obvious for them. Lucky for alcohol after that 30mins I snapped out of it but I'm wondering if you had any advice for something like that and how I can go about dealing with that aspect of the story telling etc. Cheers!
Honestly, Im not sure what I do wrong. Sadly, Ive always been the GM, sometimes I wanted to be, sometimes I was pushed into it. But I havent had many chances at all to be a player and experience other GMs. So I find myself in my own echo chamber. Am I doing well? I dont know. My players seem to have fun but what if they just dont know better either? I tend to play with a lot of new players too. How can I figure out what Im doing wrong? I know Im not perfect. Ive been doing this a very long time, but sadly its always the same thing, me as the GM, so I have experience, but I dont have anything to compare to. What should I do?
It's nice to see a DM that doesn't have a God complex and who doesn't think their decisions and performance are always infallible. You'd be surprised how many narcissists or control freaks turn up as DMs.
I'm always messing up the recap at the beginning of the game. Not sure what I'm doing wrong here, but it's always missing parts and a bit boring, even when I think "ok, today I got everything "
My players killed the man who should have become King because I never talked to them about what they thought of him. They decided he was evil when he was only a haughty nobleman.
Mind you, I would hope most players would have the courtesy to wait for you to finish looking up whatever ruling you were doing before presenting you with a role-playing opportunity while you're distracted.
Hello can you give me some tips on confidences in DMing I am a beginnner dm and I get nervous during my first session what are some tips you can tell me for confidence during the session.
Is there somewhere that I can get some advice from some more experienced players/GM's? I have a problem with my campaign and I cant find any videos or forums that address this specific problem. Can someone give me a nudge in the right direction?
Can't ever be affraid to do accents "wrong" because its very much a matter of polishing your voice till you find the one you like. For stream games, yeah better in session zero but for home games don't hesitate
You should have practiced french before this video. I’m joking really I think ur problem is you take yourself so seriously it makes a super serious game that has no place for fun. Just have fun dude.....relax. I think this episode could just be be one point......relax
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Check out the live shows here: ruclips.net/p/PLsHhMRkG9uA45XFzDTbch86hc6UiHxh-k
Good reflection... I often find it hard to watch these livestreams of actual RPG gameplay. But not because of time or interest, but mainly because it devolves into a "look at me" game of egos... SPECIFICALLY on social media video. I think you (not you directly) as GM, if you are going to partake in streaming the game, make some rules to keep the play interesting and not a exposition fest or endless monologues. Keep it short and interesting. Same with the GM'ing it can also monologue for too long as well. It's super cool that you are trying/play-testing your game mechanics. It's great to see an interesting take on roleplaying systems.
Takes a big man to admit his mistakes. Takes a giant of a man to make a video articulating those mistakes and publicly listing how you intend to fix them.
Always good to admit your mistakes. Its how you grow as a person.
Player feedback is always a good thing, but whenever I ask, my players for feedback they're allways too nice. One thing I've found really usefull when playing online is to call a break and mute my mic and listen in for the break. It's amazing to hear what my players dislike, I know its not super trusting, but I WANT to hear rhe things they dislike but dont wanna say.
Same i tell my players to be honestly brutal but i end up with it was great etc...
I ask mine to tell me one thing that went well and one thing they think could be better, then go around the table and have everyone respond in turn. That gives them a framework that both limits and encourages the kind of feedback that will help me get better. And if someone says, "It was really good," I can press them a little: "What specifically did you think was good? Was there anything that could have been better?"
@@ronstanley8576 This is the way. Ask for specific feedback, it is always more helpful than "tell me what you thought?"
Yeah same,it makes me really uneasy when I clearly see the bad stuff I did and they don't say anything even when asked
I'm one of those people who hates to complain. My GM has run some great, epic campaigns in the past, so I have a lot of respect for him; but our last campaign was a muddled mess. At the end of the campaign, I realized that result is partly my fault for not saying anything, at the time. It's not fair to expect him to know how I feel, especially when we're playing remote with only voice communication. My fear of insulting him meant nobody was happy. If he thinks we're all enjoying the game, he has no reason to adjust things. I'm lucky that we're friends and that he genuinely wants to run the best game possible. When I considered that, I realized that I needed to give him an honest critique and that I need to tell him how our new campaign is going, on a regular basis. The new campaign still isn't perfect, but so far, I am a lot more invested in and a lot more satisfied by this campaign than I was the last.
Seeing the human side of every dm/gm is great for the newer gms.
For real, I’m a fledgling GM and these videos are often more helpful than “you must do this.”
Putting a fence around the wrong things is way more open for growth than putting a fence around the only “right” things to do.
Yeah and some groups like to play the exact way you may be directed not to run the game, the GM included. That's what I like about Guy is he makes it clear that if that's the group for you, then perfect.
Thanks for all the uploads. It's good to see how you reflect! That's why I watch this channel: to get better.
Guy, I know there has been videos on Session Zero in the past... but Can we get a video on what a session Zero is ~ How to go about it. What both Players and DM need to do in order for a session Zero to work. All this in your new format with slides?
Yes! This!
It's great that you dissect the sessions you feel are lesser and learn from your mistakes, but every session cant be a spot-on smash. One of my biggest issues is table control. I love letting my players push and move things forward or just around, but a lot of the time they get muddled and talk over one-another, when I should be stepping in and forming things. One of the biggest issues I have with my players is when I'm answering a question or telling one player something, two others will start a discussion over-top of it. It's not often but when it happens it's very frustrating.
Thank you so much Guy for all the work you put into this channel. I'm currently running an epic campaign with my daughter and her friends. Most of them are very new to role playing (we're using Pathfinder 1 for our system). I am trying to make each adventure, dungeon, and quest interesting and educational for them on how to become great players. And I always strive to be a Great GM. Your videos are like my GM school and I'm so grateful for your expertise and frankness. I really do feel I've become a much better GM and world builder because of your tireless work. Your lessons have helped me make this campaign so much fun for the teens who are all under the quarantine here in America. Thank you again!
Your humility compared to a couple years ago is astounding!
Initiative at end. Not sure how it can compare to livestream tools, but I have an easy way I track. A small dry erase board. I draw the table and have each character name written on it where they sit. I write the initiative and then i just move a magnet to keep turns, track stuff etc. Will your pc tools perhaps be able to do similar?
I am very new to being a GM personally. My first game, went in many ways really good. But one of my players didn't fit in, due to all of them being my friends I feared talking to that player telling the payer, this is not going well and asking the player to leave my table, instead the players made me nervous at every game and at the end I stopped the game. It took me a year to work up the nerve to even try again. I watched a ton of RUclips videos learning hey it's okay to say this isn't working also to your friends and asking them to leave the table. It should always be okay because we are all there to have fun, and when someone is ruining it for everyone else GM included, it is always alright to stop it and say thus far no further. Being so afraid from that time, the next game where I was the GM I had over-prepared because I forgot to trust my own skills. So I learned that I have to trust myself and not over-prepare. Third time and a third game I made the mistake of saying hem no you can't do that that is not how it works to a completely new player! I realized I had made a huge mistake because it was something I honestly could have narrated my way out of instead in-game. When I realized my mistake I wrote to my player and apologized.
Thank you for sharing with us! And on behalf of your players - thank you for wanting to improve and have a better game experience!
Very good! It is always good to look back on your stream! I really enjoy your streams!
My biggest problem is gm rust, I haven't had a group for years, I've kept my other skills up, design and the like, but I have a group new to RPGs and sometimes I lose the table answering system questions and the like.
It's probably better to get acquainted with an easier system (BECMI/OSR over Advanced, and believe me, 5e is Advanced), and then "graduate" after some comfortable acclimation.
Guy has a site, I think it's rpgtablefinder.com that helped me find an online group and eventually a more local group to game.
As a very new gm I can say that this is so much helpful. The first thing is I almost had done every mistake as you did in my last session and as a gm who tries to get better at every sessşon it felt really upsetting but your great advises and solutions to our very similar problems gave me a very good insight. Now I am ready to clean the shit i put on the table. Lets go
One thing I realiced over time is that mostly players won't recognice the big mistakes you see yourself doing. I often had the feeling that they must have realiced my bad DMing, but when we talked about the game they had no issues with what I thought were terrible mistakes, but rather asked to improve stuff that I thought was perfectly fine.
Can we have more videos like these? Maybe looking back at a series of old videos you might feel are outdated? Not saying any are, but this was the most helpful video of yours I have ever seen. Learning from your experience like this is so eye opening!
There's a French Gnoll NPC in my game named Ezno
he's my favorite :)
Thanks for showing us that even very experienced GMs can make mistakes and that it is ok to not be perfect. I think too many people hold back from trying things like GMing because they are afraid of making mistakes. Hopefully people will watch this and be a little less afraid of stumbling now and again.
I always assess my DMing and try to improve. I have had people say I shouldn't as it was good enough but to be honest this is a big part of the hobby I enjoy. I like improving as a DM and feel amazing when I have one of those hit it out of the park games. I wouldn't have those if I wasn't always trying to improve.
Thanks, Guy. Accepting your difficulties makes your advice all the better.
One of the best ways to learn is from mistakes, be it your own or someone else's. Very helpful stuff Guy.
Look I am only 40 seconds in and I just want to say.... this is a great video. Not because of the content, nor the production value, hell you could have recorded this in a tin can wind tunnel on the worst mic possible and it would still be great because admitting to making mistakes is unquestionably top quality. Reviewing your mistakes is even better. Reviewing those mistakes in public and taking public scrutiny, that is god tier quality that cannot be degraded.
A bit rambly, but overall okay.
What I'd like to see, when you're covering several different topics in one video, is at what time you talk about what. Here, I did it for you this time:
Pre-game:
New System: 2:35 - 4:46
No Session Zero (+ rambling on pros/cons about streams vs homegames): 4:46 - 7:15
New Players: 7:15 - 8:03
During the game:
No accent prep: 8:03 - 10:19
Lack of clarity of plot: 10:19 - 12:34
Table Control was weak: 12:34 - 13:39
Summarize/rambling: 13:40 - 14:05
After the game:
No notes aside from 1: 14:05 - 15:20
Went into another sessions: 15:20 - 16:45 (ish)
Didn't give notes to Players: 16:45 - 18:12
More insight:
Mostly avoided rules, but from...: 18:55 - 20:05
Make better use of Map assets: 20:05 - 20:49 (ish)
Now everyone can just click to the next part you're talking about when they feel they've got the gist of what you're saying :)
I've caught myself in a similar situation. I was distracted with some mechanical part of the game while one of my players was giving me Roleplay Gold. I apologized after the game and I ended up working in a payoff of sorts for them during our next session.
I can hear you talk all day, you have such a great voice to be a narrator :D And it's amazing that you admit to your own mistakes and talk about them how to fix it, I'm taking my hat of for you sir oh yes indeed.
After a session, i like asking my players how it was and where they think is going. They practicaly give u a story and ways to make your game better.
The way to become a great gm is to always ask for player opinion (preferably right after the session)
2:25 This is why many of my friends don't watch the news. It's not being pessimistic if I am being informed to be involved, just as criticism is valuable when it is constructive (and asked for).
Just setting up and building my first campaign for my favourite tabletop rpg Space Kings! A little nervous but also very excited!
DMing a great session: Neat. Telling your players afterwards how great they where: Sweet.
Realy like your posts.
Cant Watch the streams because as a Brazilian, sometimes cant understand some parts and need to go Back some minutes, so Watch later (and because my wife hates RPG and need to be dar from her to do so 😂)
Confession: I never take notes while GMing. Ever, just doesn't happen. Invariably one of my players does, and I can patch up anything that needs clarifying. I'm just so bad at noting what actually happens, I can make a list in advance and tick boxes, but not write down fresh notes on the fly. Last time I tried the session moved too slow for my liking.
Figure out what events are usual to take notes of, and some sort of personal shorthand that doesn't confuse you after writing it. It's for your eyes only anyway, so don't bother writing a clean, quill-dipped, serif-laden, iambic pentameter treatise about it. Just go full good doctor's prescription on it and pray it's legible later.
Great video. Not only do you learn from your mistakes, but we learn from your mistakes. I know this will help me in my next session. Thank you.
And we learn that he is human after all...
... GET HIM!!! 😁
These are interesting times. My group moved over to online gaming last weekend, and I have to admit the first hour was a mess, but I thing I caught my stride after that.
It'll be interesting whether it takes the same time to get used to it this week, or whether we're all used to it now (that said there's another 2 players this week, so the learning process starts afresh once again.
A bad accent character could be a fun thing for a charlatan character, who tries different accents to throw off the authorities, but doesn't realize they're giving themselves away if given enough time.
As difficult as I'm sure it is for you to do so, Guy, I think you can safely forgive yourself for some of the etiquette slip-ups that you made in that first session. The reason I say that is because this isn't just a regular livestream playthrough that you're doing, it's an active play test of a brand new system you've designed. The rules aren't just new to your players, as you said at the start they're new to you as well because this is an entirely new system that you've built from the ground up.
On that same vein, that makes this video all the more important. I haven't reached the play testing phase yet but the experiences I've had so far with designing my own system has thoroughly reinforced the value I place on the reflection of mistakes made. Because of that, hearing you reflect on your mistakes in the first play test of your self designed system is going to prove extremely useful in helping me prep for my own when it comes some months down the line. Now I just have to do my best to find enough time to go back and watch through these streams. I have a feeling that I'm going to find a lot more value in it than just the fun of watching it now.
One mistake that I'm trying to get better at is narrating how a player feels or acts. I've found that during boring parts of the game, it's easier for me to try to manipulate the PCs than it is to manipulate the environment and try to make a scenario that they can react to. I've been brainstorming ways around this, but I still catch myself wanting to explain why a PC is doing what they are doing.
I recently made a mistake in my own campaign. They were talking to a dragon, and they thought that one of the NPCS that they were going to have a dual with was actually the “dragon in disguise” the dragon was talking about so they were super freaked out and paranoid!
I made the mistake of asking one of them to roll a history check to realize no that’s not the person. I think it would’ve been a lot more fun if they had that hanging up over them for a while till the reveal that no, the NPC was NOT who the dragon was talking about…
Love the self reflect part 😍😍 I butchered C.O.S and I'm getting better than I was lol
Well, I have been GM for a few sessions with my own group. I had a character where my accent was drifting badly, the party called him on it, I just rolled with it and turned him into a surprise Australian who snuck into the city looking for work. And that's how we now have Dave, the prison sandwich guy. I am not great at English accents at all.
It doesn't have to be just an accent. Mannerism can also inform character without taxing your voice (facial ticks, gesturing, catchphrases, moods). I can't mimic Harrison Ford's voice, but I know that he usually sounds tired... 😁
I had a character who was covered up and looked like a generic humanoid in his getup. He’s a gungan. I made him speak with a basic accent and he will default to that unless highly emotional or amongst his fellow gungans.
My accents will change mid sentence. This is something I try hard not to but my table takes in good nature. It tends to go from one accent into a deeper accent of the same type to a different accent. My table is usually laughing pretty hard watching me try to keep an accent only for my russian accent to go to chinese then japanese and then to scottish. I look like a fool and people love it. (2 years of Gming and my accent went from 5 seconds to 30 seconds long. Improvement!)
i've gotten a lot of prep tips from this video, thanks
How do you organize your notes? Are they according to people/places/things, events, ideas during the game, mishaps and wins, accents and NPCs on the fly, etc? I think structuring notes in some fashion is good for the consistency of the game world (and memory, in my case... "I wrote it down sho I wouldn't have to remember it, joonyah!"). There oughta be a (free) pdf for this...
Bravo! Very brave and useful what you are doing here! 👏👏👏👏
G'day Guy great video I'm a new gm * two sessions into it to be exact* and planned out using your videos the 1st Session of the campaign and everyone seems to have a great time followed the plot I gave them etc then come the second session just got and just as the game started I got the feedback that " If I want them too follow my story if played out for them I need to be pushing more to make that happen" we all immediately go into the game and for the first 30mins or so umming and arrring words worried that I didn't portray the fact that they in fact did everything I had planned for them for that night and couldn't wrap my head around how too make that more obvious for them. Lucky for alcohol after that 30mins I snapped out of it but I'm wondering if you had any advice for something like that and how I can go about dealing with that aspect of the story telling etc.
Cheers!
Honestly, Im not sure what I do wrong. Sadly, Ive always been the GM, sometimes I wanted to be, sometimes I was pushed into it. But I havent had many chances at all to be a player and experience other GMs. So I find myself in my own echo chamber. Am I doing well? I dont know. My players seem to have fun but what if they just dont know better either? I tend to play with a lot of new players too. How can I figure out what Im doing wrong? I know Im not perfect. Ive been doing this a very long time, but sadly its always the same thing, me as the GM, so I have experience, but I dont have anything to compare to. What should I do?
I love your accents. Sure not always perfect but always enjoyable
Idea for a new "b-character" (i'm not sure what to call the specialists lol). A sean connery-esc gunslinger whenever there's advice on combat.
'I recognize my failing and will be sure to correct it.'
It's nice to see a DM that doesn't have a God complex and who doesn't think their decisions and performance are always infallible. You'd be surprised how many narcissists or control freaks turn up as DMs.
I'm always messing up the recap at the beginning of the game. Not sure what I'm doing wrong here, but it's always missing parts and a bit boring, even when I think "ok, today I got everything "
I have a tendancy to have a great story but can't wait to give the goodies to my players :P so i don't even wait for them to figure how it works...
My players killed the man who should have become King because I never talked to them about what they thought of him. They decided he was evil when he was only a haughty nobleman.
Mind you, I would hope most players would have the courtesy to wait for you to finish looking up whatever ruling you were doing before presenting you with a role-playing opportunity while you're distracted.
This vídeo was excelent
Its very important to finish
Hello can you give me some tips on confidences in DMing I am a beginnner dm and I get nervous during my first session what are some tips you can tell me for confidence during the session.
Practise. Play with good, old friends. Prep well.
Even then, I think you went a bit Dutch at the end XD
Is there somewhere that I can get some advice from some more experienced players/GM's? I have a problem with my campaign and I cant find any videos or forums that address this specific problem. Can someone give me a nudge in the right direction?
Join my Live show on Sunday at 7pm GMT on this channel. You can ask directly :)
Can't ever be affraid to do accents "wrong" because its very much a matter of polishing your voice till you find the one you like. For stream games, yeah better in session zero but for home games don't hesitate
So you didn't listen to your own advice?
And look at the problems it caused! Presumption because of experience is dangerous. Don't make my mistake.
You should have practiced french before this video. I’m joking really I think ur problem is you take yourself so seriously it makes a super serious game that has no place for fun. Just have fun dude.....relax. I think this episode could just be be one point......relax