Critical Role Archives · Page 15 of 47

THIS IS A AN AUTOMATIC CAPTION TEXT from YouTube, so it’s not “perfect”. My advice is to use it just to help people like me that are not english speaking, to understand the Video/Podcast MATT: Hello. My name is Matthew Mercer. I’m a voice actor and the dungeon master for Critical Role, here at Geek & Sundry, and welcome to today’s episode of GM Tips, where we discuss fixing GM mistakes. [music] MATT: Being the game master for an entire world, guiding heroic players through stories from inside your mind, can be an incredibly fun and rewarding experience. However, you are not infallible. Mistakes do happen. Perhaps a misinterpreted note led to a conflict in story resolution, or an NPC you designed to be integral ends up killed by the party, you let slip a tiny tidbit of secret info that undermines your big reveal, or you gift a player with an item that is far too powerful than you thought, throwing party in-game balance entirely out of whack. How do you correct these unintentional errors to maintain the game you want to run? Well, let’s discuss a number of solutions to these challenges. Let’s say you’re running an encounter that isn’t intended to be that difficult. Either you miscalculated the power of the enemies or the luck was so against the party that a whimpering, anticlimactic TPK is imminent. Here some examples of how to correct that situation. You could suddenly have an arrow or spell fly in from out of nowhere, rocking one of the more dangerous foes, and have an allied NPC enter the fray to save them from the claws of defeat. You could also consider that if it’s an intelligent foe, perhaps they see the PCs’ terrible situation and see them worth more alive and enslaved than dead. Have them fight not to the death, and instead knock them unconscious or force them to their knees and swear themselves to the foe. This could even lead to a cool escape or revenge-type mission in the near future. You could also have a terrible, screeching roar blast across the sky, and your enemies suddenly look more frightened than they’ve ever been before. They quickly assess their situation, decide to flee, leaving you to the fate of some possibly scarier creature. The wounded party now has to hide from this mystery creature to survive. Or you could just have them TPK and explain how the darkness– or the light, possibly, as well– fades as they awaken in a stone room, shackled and held down. Suddenly, it appears that a powerful mage has resurrected the party. Who knows what plans he has for them? All he knows is that they are a party of skilled heroes and they have utility for such a powerful mage. (chuckles) Now, mind you, if the encounter is intended to be dangerous, challenging, and possibly deadly, let the dice fall as it may. That’s part of the game. You don’t want to undermine the ever-present danger and tension of the game. However, you also don’t want to completely end the story that you and your players have put into for months and months due to just an unexpectedly shitty scenario. Another situation is you’ve given clues and information and hints as to where to discover and follow the main plot, but no one is figuring it out or picking up on your nudges. The game is quite literally going nowhere. Don’t be afraid to be a little more blunt with your additional information. While some hints may seem like obvious reveals to you, you also already have all the information in your head. A PC getting these hints in a vacuum might end up either completely confused or misinterpret the vague info and extrapolate an entirely new and entirely wrong plot. If it goes on too long, drop more direct hints via NPCs they encounter, or have more clues found as they go, or just reveal information as part of the terrain as they progress forward. You can tailor and reshuffle your intended plot points and plot NPCs to be a little more direct with their info, or even appear in unintended, more convenient areas if the PCs aren’t as focused or driven as you expected. Moving the plot along for everyone’s benefit is more important than adhering to a theoretical structure that you created in your own little headspace. Here’s another example of a situation: you’ve offered information about your plot throughout the game, and the players discover an accidental, fairly large contradiction in your storytelling that confuses them or undermines your entire plot’s direction. First off, let them discuss the confusion while you consider options and how to retroactively disprove one side of that info. Pick which side of the plot conflict is more interesting to pursue, and let them seek answers in-game as to which side is false. Perhaps an ally who provided some of the info can now be revealed to be a saboteur or a mole, or information was planted by an unseen antagonistic force trying to throw off the scent. No reveal is immediately necessary. You can stall for time between sessions to unravel your mistake and make it work for you as opposed to against you. Another possibility is you accidentally spill a lead, like an info leak or secret about your main plot and spoil a grand surprise you’d been looking forward to dropping down the road. First off, don’t admit the mistake. Own it. Let the party think you intentionally did so and follow their lead. If needed, take a break shortly thereafter, or, if possible, even between sessions, and brainstorm a way to alter your current story to enhance the reveal, or even change it to be a bait-and-switch so you can still surprise them later on. If it was indeed info revealed by an NPC, you can also have that NPC feed them a bunch of additional misinformation to confuse the players into perhaps not believing anything they’ve said. You can later play out that they were either not in their right mind, like being mentally controlled by some crazy witchcraft, or perhaps a doppelganger trying to misinform the party. Doppelgangers are always fun. Make your party real nervous. Trust no one. If the reveal was largely due to a very clever player connecting the dots, don’t punish them for being clever. Let them enjoy that victory. Just do your best to not show any confirmation of their deduction until it’s put into action, leaving them to possibly second-guess their own idea in the interim. Then, if they stick to it, reward them. I mean, few moments for a PC really beat figuring out the villain’s plot and watching it unfold accordingly. Unless there’s nothing they can do to stop the plot, and they’re fucked, in which case, (nervous laugh). Another mistake-based situation may involve you giving a magical item or items to the party that quickly appear to be way more powerful than you anticipated. It completely wrecks your intended game balance and can sometime cause the other PCs to resent that unfair advantage that player now has. Well, here are some suggested ways to handle fixing that scenario. You could perhaps introduce a very powerful entity who lost that magical item or object and has been actively seeking it. They stumble upon the PCs and offer, in exchange for the item, other grand rewards and the favor of a powerful being that they can keep in mind for future use. Or the item can slowly be revealed to be cursed: the longer they use it, the more dangerous or penalizing it becomes. Now they must quest to cleanse it, and while doing so lessens its abilities, in the end, it can now be used without issue, and they’ve earned that item’s true use. Another way would be: perhaps the enchantment was unstable due to strange, arcane experiments and the item shatters. It must now be reforged using safer components, which produces a comparable, if possibly lessened version that lasts indefinitely. Or, by the time they repair the item, the party has reached a power level where it seems to befit the current game balance. Not all these options are possible, and there are many other awesome possibilities you can use to fix these issues that you can find and research online, but I hope these tips have at least been somewhat helpful if one of these scenarios does find its way into your campaign. Thank you so much for watching. My name is Matthew Mercer. You can find more GM Tips here at GeekandSundry.com, and I’ll see you on the internet. [music]

is The Spider Queen locked in her layer of the Abyss? Or is she behind the Divine gate? Both! The Abyss is behind the divine gate. It just seperates the outer planes from the material.

— Matthew Mercer (@matthewmercer) October 20, 2018

Ah I see!! I’m running A Tal’dorei campaign using Out of the Abyss for some reference. I just wondered if travel to abyssal planes was possible. If for instance Lollth was to be confronted or contacted on her own plane. Yup! Players can travel to any plane, but deities cannot travel to the material plane unless they fine a way past the Divine Gate

— Matthew Mercer (@matthewmercer) October 20, 2018

Oh and sorry second question, do the demon princes such as Yeenoghu and the demogorgan apply to this rule too? They certainly can! They may not be major deities, but are powerful foes who may or may not be bound by the gate per your story’s needs.

— Matthew Mercer (@matthewmercer) October 20, 2018

D&D Sage Advice

Questions on Dungeons & Dragons answered by game designers

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Gods of Wildemount – Lore You Should Know

Are there any higher education options on Tal’dorei?

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My map art for the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount

Matt Mercer DM Tips: Fixing GM Mistakes!

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Is The Spider Queen locked in her layer of the Abyss?

Dragonborn: Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount the Ability Score replacements are cool but the abilities that replace the Damage Resistance trait seem very underwhelming

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