friends I was running a battle royale
game at mill town and it was super fun
there were two teams of five going after
the same prize Matt Marisha were there
Jason Charles Miller and Dodger were
there I had everyone dressed up in suits
and cocktail dresses server d’oeuvres
and all in the comic shop as I was
coming up with the story in arena I
realized that although I’m used to
tables of 10 players I needed an
assistant game master oh yeah I’m
catching Phoenix this is GM tip and
today’s theme is GM co-op back to battle
royale aka PvP are teaching I realized I
need an assistant this way we could both
introduce the two teams to the situation
at the same time and then leave them to
the arena where I would take over the
main jamming Patrick my assistant would
help keep track of the initiative and
status effects I often have a hard time
with encounters that have too many
participants having an assistant helped
the smoothness of my storytelling so I
don’t have to pause to find the thing
later in the game someone came in and I
had them perform the monsters it was
this amazing battle that made me feel
like I was conducting an orchestra it
was amazing having an assistant GM is
fantastic but what about having two
games today I’d like to introduce Bruce
Lee Keith Manik the two game masters of
storm a game we played in for almost
three years yes it was a long time it
was a long time and you guys tricked me
because it started off as so into the
Dragons but it evolved actually it was
really cool that it evolved to do there
were the two of you game masters and how
many players were yet I think our most
was above twenty above twenty they were
like twenty four were a couple sessions
we were above twenty and then by the end
we had ten to twelve pretty regularly
and that’s why you’re here today so we
could talk about two game masters at the
table so how to work together and how to
work together so earlier I talked about
assistant chance you guys actually coach
and you talked about that a little in
the beginning when we first came up with
it we thought it would be cool if we
created a world
I came up with one of the continents
called em blurt anis and then Keith came
up so I came up with the second
continent Adriel to the east and then
there was a third larger continent that
the idea behind it was we would get the
players to help define that setting the
way we did our koji i mean was that when
things happen that were M blue tennis I
would do those things and I did I made a
lot of the final calls on character
choices and the location and the history
of it whereas Keith did Israel yeah so
when they came depending on where the
the campaign was going on when the party
came to Israel I then kind of stepped up
from being second chair when from when
we were in Templar Tanith to first chair
I designed a lot of the major NPCs there
and then when it came to the last
section dolor in the third continent we
split it up based on which which regions
we were more passionate about which
characters we created that sort of thing
I think one of the things that is the
biggest advantages of being game having
more than one game master is that you’re
going to people in multiple locations so
it could be as complex as to one person
when one group wants to go to one
comment and the other group wants to go
to another continent – as simple as
three members of the party sneaked ahead
to look assess the enemy and see what’s
happening while the rest of the party
preps and organizes and sets up some
sort of ambush their attack and by doing
it that way you can do everything at the
same time which makes everything run
smoother and is more fun for the players
you had these things happening at the
same time you guys are separated how do
you share that information because as
the games going on you know the party
splits we party comes back together how
do you
you guys didn’t make it look complicated
it was seamless so that when everyone
got back together it was almost like you
guys are sharing brains so how did you
do that so seamlessly well obviously
preparation it’s one of the big things
that keeps getting repeated on this show
but another thing that’s important is
knowing who is the lead and who makes
decisions on different tanks so for
example when I would take a group away
and do things Keith knew that when we
came back and they said like they ran
into a monster they ran to this empty
sear the Aranda this organization and
Keith said thought to himself I have no
idea what happened I don’t know what the
monster was I don’t know what the
organization is I don’t know what it is
but he would say okay and then he would
put that into his own game and by doing
that by just saying yes which is a
common improvisational technique we
could make a seamless idea that we were
working together and it planned a lot of
things in advance and we knew it was
going to happen and we knew it was going
to happen the other room the whole time
when in fact we just rolled with it and
one thing when the party splits and they
come back together the natural tendency
is you tell the other half of the party
what happened so during that period of
time if there’s something that the other
party did that I don’t know about
they’re telling me in addition to
telling each other and it gives Bruce
and I the opportunity to step to the
side and also tell each other stuff that
happened maybe the PCs aren’t aware of
so we have there are these natural
breaks in the game where you can take
advantage of time to keep each other up
to date so splitting the party that’s
one benefit to Co jamming what is
another bonus to doing that the ability
to bounce ideas off of each other can be
huge especially when as you said we
started off as Dungeons & Dragons and
then once we hit a certain number of
people the main reason that we
transitioned into this more homemade
system was we needed something that
could handle a larger group that could
play a bit faster and when you’re
designing your own system where you’re
making house rules or or changing the
system in any way it’s really helpful to
have somebody to bounce ideas off of and
collaborate with to get to come up with
the best possible solution I do want to
talk a little bit about the difference
between koji IMing with someone and
being an assistant yeah because they are
very different when we did the storm
Keith and I we made it together we split
the world and we split the duties and
when he left and he was he was the GM he
was making the story I’ve also had
experiences where I was in charge and I
had an assistant in fact
I ran a series of games in college that
I really enjoyed where I had three
assistants they were they were actually
uh larks
much like vampire the masquerade except
that what we did was horror movies and I
would come up with a story throughout
the night of something like you’re a in
a haunted ghost town and the ghosts
appear because it’s the curse night and
you have to survive and in advance I
would lay out an outline of like dasor
this is what’s going to happen and when
I ran that game I actually had times
where I was like at 9:00 p.m. this is
going to happen at 10:00 p.m. this is
going to happen and so forth and by
doing it my three assistants who they
might be in a completely different room
because when we do that when we ran
these LARP we would be in like six
different rooms in a building Wow yeah
and you wouldn’t know or see or hear
what other people are doing
so those assistants had to run the game
and had to know it was going to happen
and had to make their own story but
because we had these time chart they
could look at the clock and know oh it’s
10 o’clock that means that this terrible
scream comes from the church or
something so
even though I as the main GM was in one
room everywhere around this building a
storyteller was there to say you hear
scream coming from the church and it
made it feel like a full unit story
rather than people in chaos
let’s talk about your pregame house
rules I would say that the biggest thing
about when I game master it’s that my
games have consequences if you run at
the souls if there’s a unit of soldiers
and you’re one person you run at them
with a sword you’re going to die or you
might get seriously injured so I always
warn players in advance that their
actions could lead to harm and death and
losing limbs and all sorts of bad things
it’s true that’s the thing that happens
yes but and I also say the players are
the protagonists of the story at the end
of the day I am running the game to let
my players be heroes be protagonists so
if they make good choices and even
more if they surprise me things often go
well for them but and in keeping with
this actions have consequences there’s
danger around every corner you are not
the most powerful person in existence at
any time you are still a guy with a
sword or wizard with a handful of spells
but around the corner there could be
some arch maze who’s been studying magic
for 3,000 years and he’s going to ruin
your day
well one of the other house rules that I
think is important is how players
communicate with each other and
differentiating between down time versus
action scenes so not necessarily fights
but if something is happening and a
player has to make a decision in order
to let the player make the decision it’s
important to control the people around
them telling them what to do because
people don’t like to feel like they’re
losing their agency because the more
experienced players giving them advice
and realistically if you’re if you’re in
the middle of a tense situation if
you’re in the middle of a fight and
you’re not going to have one guy who’s
also fighting be yelling to ten people
about what they need to do yeah so
making that clear in advance that
speaking requires actions that if you
have a certain number of actions and
around and you want to talk to people
you might not be able to do as much
other stuff favorite jam moment so my
favorite GM moments are any time that
the players figure out that the villain
might actually be a good guy
it’s one of my favorite moments ever
because I like to write my games have a
lot of gray morality in them so the bad
guys do bad things but they often do
them for the right reasons and the good
guys seem good but they also have their
own bad things going on no one in my
games is ever like truly good or truly
evil and if they are they’re very rare
so I love when the PCs are in a
situation and they say wow that guy’s
might be right and an example of that is
I gave in my game storm there was
someone called there was a god called a
Raven king and his duty on the planet
was to take magic away from humanity
that humanity long ago had gotten magic
from the gods and he had been sent down
from the heavens to take it back because
we can’t be trusted with all this power
and the party with like oh screw him we
want we want magic Magic’s good magic
makes the world a better place and they
found this powerful artifact that would
channel their magic and make it more
powerful so they ran to these enemies
near a river and they cast a spell to
make the river overflow and destroy
their enemies and then they found out
that the spell had overflown the river
so much and flooded everything that a
village down the river had been
destroyed and people had died and
innocents had been killed because they
used this magic to destroy their enemies
and in that moment they thought you know
maybe we shouldn’t have this much power
remember that – um so some of my
favorite GM moments are when you set up
something and it pays off and the PCs
are surprised and like really thrown
back and happy with this plot point that
you’ve set up over the course of several
sessions so my example is also from
storm so we had in Israel in the country
that I built um there was this king and
his whole thing was that he claimed he
knew the time of his death and as a
result he was very cocky he would go
riding into battle knowing he’d be fine
because I don’t I don’t die for a while
and we have this necromancer who had
this rot this rod of incredible power if
he pointed it at anything he could kill
whole armies wipe out units and the the
party has met this necromancer and they
come to the king and they say you got to
worry about this guy like you can’t just
go riding off and charge it this guy
he’s really dangerous the king being
cocky was like oh I’m gonna charge
straight at it and we knew that what was
going we knew what was going to happen
and we wanted to show how dangerous this
necromancer was so three sessions before
the big fight with the with the big bad
guy we had them meet this guy called the
hand who was this powerful religious
fighter and he helped them out he saved
them in a couple fights and for two to
three sessions he helped them out and
showed how strong he was and how cool he
was and the PC started to really like
this guy they get into the final fight
they’re trying to distract the
necromancer because they know whoever he
focuses on is going to die and the hand
goes riding up to shoot at the
necromancer the necromancer turns
towards him points his wand and
instantly killed him god yeah and the
PCs are like oh my god this guy was so
powerful this necromancer is ridiculous
there’s no way the Kings going to be
fine so then the King goes charging up
still just as cocky as ever
the necromancer raises his his wand he
points it at the king and the
necromancers arm blows off and he just
starts screaming in pain the King rides
up to him and finishes him off and the
PCs had they were shocked they did not
see it coming and that was having this
payoff of setting up over several
sessions all these various NPCs their
interactions with each other and their
interactions with the party and then
having them be genuinely surprised quick
tip for the audience
gM tip if you please my damn tip is you
should be willing to trust people
whether they be your players or your
code GM’s or your assistant gems you
need to trust that people are going to
make the right decisions so my quick GM
tip this is going to be about combat
because that’s that’s the thing I feel
like I specialize in and that is you
need to be willing to break the rules to
bend the rules in the middle and be
flexible so I like to come up with
combats that are weird and maybe not
balanced
maybe you’re fighting something a bit
too powerful for the PCs or they’re in a
situation that it doesn’t look like they
can make it out be willing to fudge the
dice to in the middle change the rules
here’s a list of tips for today’s show
for all new Lister’s out there tip
number one split responsibilities tip
number two with the party tip number
three Jam collaboration tip number four
learn each other’s jam style and tip
number 5 gm mentorship that’s our show
for today don’t forget to ask your jam
tip questions in the comments and on
twitter at hashtag ask Zeki Bruce ji
thank you so much for coming on that was
awesome
like I got a good insight on storm
because like to play a game for three
years usually learn a little more about
it you can find them on Twitter and
through Sonic and at Keith Manik thanks
for watching GM tips here on geek and
sundry as always I’m setting Phoenix you
assigned me every Sunday with some of my
gaming pals on music on a calm or
twitch.tv slash Mays Arcana and dungeon
mastering this summer with reading on
series reach on twitch.tv slash D&D
fruit I keep GM aside of you Satine your
writing on your horse bow at your side
sword mounted on your saddle next to you
going to the woods as fast as you can
because you haven’t heard for your
friend James you’ve lost keep somewhere
out here
you were scouting for something
dangerous in the woods you don’t know
what it is and then you come up with
cross the woods open out a little bit
and then you hear nothing the animals
are gone the birds are gone below you
there’s a short clip about Jim’s feet
you see something terrible you see your
friend covered in blood and something
floating above him it’s metal it moves
and it turns it doesn’t have a face it
doesn’t have eyes but it has something a
glow a red glow it starts to scream but
for no mouse it just floats in the air
and comes towards you this mechanical
metal thing what do you do yeah I shoot
it with my book roll you need a 9 on a
12 that’s a minute the sixth you missed
you fire your bow it clicks off its
armor but it doesn’t seem to affect it
at all it comes at you it slides up in
the air and out of nowhere there’s an
energy blast and it shot out of this guy
I had your ass your shoulder huh you
turn to face it is someone wearing what
appears to be powered metallic armor
it’s glowing in their hand is a rifle
smoking at the end
you hear in the distance the same
screaming but from at least a dozen more
the person starts to pull you Wayne says
come with me I can save your tribe but
you have to follow me now yeah