Alternate death rule idea for D&D

January 3, 2021Zoltar 1 Comment

Alternate rule idea for D&D. When you fail all your death saves your character decides to give up adventuring and find a more simple life.

— Todd Kenreck (@ToddKenreck) September 4, 2018

Matt Mercer DM Tips: How to Prevent RPG Game Master Burnout!

August 28, 2020Zoltar Leave a comment

My last one before passing the torch to new blood, but an important one! MATT: Hello, my name is Matthew Mercer. I am a
voice actor and the dungeon master for Critical

Role here at Geek & Sundry. And today’s episode of
GM tips touches on the spooky topic of

game master burnout.

[intro music]

Game mastering burnout is a fear and real issue
for many folks who run ongoing games. As

incredibly fun and rewarding as it is, you need
quite the time commitment to continuously write,

organize, and run an RPG campaign on a regular
schedule. I know many who have lost interest or

just simply lost inspiration. And I’ve been there
myself a number of times and there’s nothing wrong

with that. It’s part of being a person. Life
circumstances change, other things have to take

priority, or you’ve just grown tired of the
responsibility. So let us discuss some ways to

help alleviate any oncoming burnout or how to
comfortably deal with it if it should hit.

First off, don’t force yourself to do it if your
heart isn’t in it. Writer’s block kicking in?

Found a tangle in your narrative thread? Step away
from your notes for a while and take a walk or go

play some board games with friends. Watch a movie
at your local theater. Enjoy some fun space to not

concentrate on your GM-ing duties and return when
the inspiration strikes. If you’re supposed to be

running your game really soon and you have no idea
how you’re going to finish prep in time, consider

letting your players know and postpone your game
session until you are ready. No one wants you to

kill yourself over it, trust me.

On that note, if it’s getting bad, let your
players know. Be honest about your worry and

exhaustion and discuss among yourselves how to
best lend to your comfort. Consider if the regular

schedule is just too difficult to balance among
your other life commitments and perhaps roll back

to a more sparse gaming routine. Playing weekly?
Try playing bi-monthly for a while, or once a

month. This will give you more time and less
stress to be prepared for the next session.

Players, please be respectful and understanding of
your GM’s fatigue. They are busting their ass

every week to bring you joy. So just be as
supportive as you can.

You can consider taking a break from the campaign
for a little while, allowing yourself to recharge.

Talk with the group about this and if all is cool,
find a way in your current story arc to bring it

to a temporary halt. Either the adventurers
complete their current task and you can close the

chapter cleanly. Or perhaps they fall into an
elaborate trap that locks them away for a time.

Consider a story beat you can end on that allows
you and the party to step away for a few weeks,

months, or longer and not feel like you’ve left
mid breath. This way players won’t return to your

table down the road super confused trying to
remember “Wait, but what was going on? Shit.

Right. Wait. No, I thought there was a guy with
that cursed thing. Didn’t someone kill my dog? No,

no, that was John Wick. Sorry.”

Players, any of you itching to try your hand at
GMing a game for a while? How about gifting your

hard working GM with some time off and offering to
run a short term campaign for the party and letting

them play in it. Not only is that a wonderful way
to help them relax a while and offer them the

opportunity to play in a game. But you yourself
may discover how much you enjoy running

your own game.

Well, thank you so much for watching this episode
of GM tips. I hope it was helpful for you. This is

actually kinda cool. Before we filmed this the
crew let me know that they actually went into the

prop closet and found actual magical items which
is fucking crazy. This is apparently a War Mage

wand. It’s +3 against spell attack rolls. I think
it’s great. We have what looks to be a Vorpal

sword. Which is a little shorter than I expected
but apparently pretty functional. You should look

it up. It’s pretty powerful. Legendary weapon. And
oh [beep], this one can be fun. I think this is a

Girdle of Giant Strength. Which I’m wondering what
giant it is.

[small bang and music]

SATINE: I should probably read some labels before
I start putting things on. Girdle of Gender

Changing. Well then. Hello. I am Satine Phoenix
and I’ll be taking over for the next run of GM

Tips. Stick around and prepare for my perspective
on game mastering ideas. See you on the internet.

[music]

https://t.co/Bu5oxID0ei

— Matthew Mercer (@matthewmercer) March 16, 2017

Matt Mercer DM Tips: Roleplaying Against Type in D&D!

August 24, 2020Zoltar Leave a comment

Just some fun player tips to stir up thought on different, creative character types! https://t.co/ftbNzizn6s

— Matthew Mercer (@matthewmercer) March 9, 2017

Matt Mercer DM Tips: How to Run an EVIL RPG Campaign!

August 16, 2020Zoltar Leave a comment

New GM Tips, and a curious topic at that. 😉 https://t.co/pmP1OlqYJr

— Matthew Mercer (@matthewmercer) December 8, 2016

Matt Mercer DM Tips: Setting Up Your Gamemaster’s Screen!

April 30, 2020Zoltar Leave a comment

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: Hi. My name is Matthew Mercer. I’m a voice actor and the Dungeon Master for Critical Role here on Geek & Sundry, and today’s episode of GM Tips involves seeing what’s behind the GM screen and some tips and tricks on how to prepare yourself and your station for being a game master. [intro music plays] MATT: As a game master, your realm is a blend of preparation and unexpected chaos and adapting somewhere between the two of those and, as such, your area directly behind your GM screen is your saving grace. It’s a wonderful plane of notes, information, and various tools to help you in crafting your story, which will inevitably be flying directly out of your ass. Let’s take a look at some of my prepared GM area, then I’ll give some recommendations and the kind of things you might want to consider having available behind yours. Come on, let’s have a look. Welcome to my domain. Here is my basic set up, beginning with this. This is the official dungeon master screen for Fifth Edition D&D. Like a lot of systems, especially the more popular ones, make this available with pre-set rules and tables and breakdowns to remind you as a GM and have quick access to these various aspects as they come into your game. Now, even with these official rules that are given to you, maybe not all of them are useful to your specific campaign or there might be aspects of the rule system that come up more often than others that you want to make sure are front and center, so you can actually print these out and tape them individually to the screen over things that are maybe aren’t as useful. Like here I have lists about improvising damage, trap save DCs, and attack bonuses against PCs. I have damage severity by level, potion of healing breakdowns so I know what different levels of healing potions heal what amount. Reminders of things I forget often, like concentration checks, highlighted in bright yellow to remind me to actually remember that (bleep). Actually, right over here on the far side you can see I have a collection of my players’ passive perception. Very useful. That’s the GM screen right there. You also need some dice. That might come in handy. Some systems don’t need it, but for the most part you need some dice. That’s helpful. Of course, your preparation notes. Over here I have my campaign notes, which contains a basic player sheet, a cheat sheet of all the rules and things that I can come to for quick reference so I don’t have to have the books nearby, which by the way, it helps to have the books nearby, just in case. I have the breakdown in my binder, my little setup here of the current session as well as maybe a few previous sessions in case I have to reference them in the past. I have sheets for custom NPCs and various monsters they may encounter or have encountered. I have breakdowns of various locations in my world with notes on NPCs and factions and different things that I can refer to if it comes up during the campaign. That way I’m not going through my old computer or having to leave the table to go find it. Just keeping basic notes at your disposal in your binder is extremely helpful. I have lists of names for NPCs in case you have to create something on the spot you can go ahead and refer to this page. Say one of the names on the list and then just cross it off and make a note of where they actually encountered that NPC for later. This binder becomes a very helpful tool to make sure that you’re on top of your game during your actual session. Next to that you want a notepad. Empty sheets for scratch notes. You’re going to be taking notes the whole time, whether it be just marking which players had cool moments that you want to award bonus experience or items to down the road, or those NPCs you just made up. You can go ahead and write down that basic information that way you can go back to it later without forgetting that even happened in the campaign. Scratch pad, really useful. Also, over to the side here I have miniatures for monsters they may encounter. That way they’re readily at my disposal if I go ahead and throw down a battle map. I have a nice little timer here. You can do a digital timer as well. I prefer things a little more presenter-y like this, but this helps you throw down a little bit of tension in a time-based encounter and the players will freak out as soon as this or a digital timer hits the table and lets them know you only have five minutes to complete this challenge. It’s a pretty fun little tool. Over here I have wet-erase markers. These are very useful for one, writing notes on your GM screen or any plastic sheets you have on your screen. These are also great for battle maps, if all of a sudden something you prepared goes haywire or the player pushes in a direction you weren’t expecting, you can go ahead and sketch down some elements of that map with some of these wet erase markers. Very helpful. I have various markers for statuses and conditions in the game, where a creature or monster gets poisoned or stunned, I can go ahead and throw that on to there as well. They have official ones you can purchase for certain gaming sets. These are actually just soda tabs that I found multi-colored. That way it’s cheaper. Also, if you have a party member who happens to transform a lot, like a druid or someone with polymorph, it helps to have a collection of various miniatures that show what creature they may be able to transform into, once again preventing you from having to run off to wherever your collection is in the other room. You can have these at the ready to pull out at a moment’s notice. Very helpful. I have my iPad or whatever you want to use for music. Soundtrack is a very good way to keep everyone in your immersive atmosphere. Build up some of your favorite movie fantasy soundtracks or even just video game soundtracks that you have at your disposal. If you’re doing this on Twitch or anywhere public or live, make sure that you have permission to use it first, but at your home game you can play whatever the heck you want. Having that right behind the screen and readily available to press or change is a huge boon to building the atmosphere of the game. I also have some templates to help me guide the size and area of certain spells and effects in the game. I made these, but you can find templates like this online that you can just download and print out and laminate, and it costs you practically nothing and you have equally awesome and functional templates at your disposal. There are many, many other cool options you can prepare and have at the ready and many online GMing forums like EN World and official RPG websites that provide an endless source of these types of recommendations. You can pick and choose and customize your own GM setup however befits your own form of storytelling. I just hope this little glance helped give you any ideas on how to better prepare your own GM set up. Thank you so much for watching. My name is Matthew Mercer. You can go ahead and check out other episodes of GM Tips here at geekandsundry.com. I’ll see you next time. [music]

Matt Mercer DM Tips: Frequently Asked Questions about RPGs!

April 27, 2020Zoltar Leave a comment

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 Hi, my name is Matthew Mercer. I’m a voice actor and the Dungeon Master for Geek & Sundry’s Critical Role, and welcome to this fun video series about tips and tricks for game masters and dungeon masters alike. Today, I’m doing an FAQ, because I get a lot of questions often over and over again, and while I’d like to answer as often as possible, it might be easier to put this up as a video and answer some of them for the foreseeable future. [theme music] Number one, is your Critical Role story a homebrew? Yes! I created it from the ground up, for better for worse, and I’m still developing it as we continue playing the game. I did borrow the Dawn War pantheon for it as it was a memorable and relatable pantheon, but there are some carried-over gods from Pathfinder because it’s where we began the campaign in Pathfinder, then converted over to 5th Edition partway through. It’s all homebrew and if time allows me in the future, maybe I’ll put something out for you guys if you want to play around in Exandria, so fingers crossed. Number two, I see you looking in your app a lot for reference during the game. What app do you use? I use Fight Club 5 on iOS. It’s a free software. It requires a little bit of jiggering to get it to work. You have to download some files from certain websites and then upload it through Dropbox onto the actual app, so it’s a little involved with the get-go and you have to do some research on Google to find out how to actually do it, but it’s an extremely helpful resource for quick reference to spells. You can bookmark spells, creatures, abilities, see classes and racial feats. It’s great. So that’s been very helpful to me. How do you make your maps? I start with one-inch-grid easel paper. You can get these giant pads of one-inch-grid easel paper on amazon.com. Those are great, because you can just go ahead and tear them off. They’re semi-transparent, and then I go ahead and get some Crayola markers and some colored pencils and I build from there. I usually sketch out on a small scale first just to get the feel for how the battlefield will look and flow, and then I draw the larger version and fill it out and use that for the actual game. But there’s a lot of great software online that you can create maps with. You can do things like Photoshop, Campaign Cartographer, and if you play online for Roll20, there are a lot of great software in those communities that you can ask about that that help you build your own maps to look really awesome and professional too, so look into that. Where do you find, or how do you make your playlists for your game? I make them on iTunes and I pull from many tracks. Mine currently are made up from tracks from Platemail Games, which has a lot of cool atmospheric and thematic tracks for locations and terrain. I use Midnight Syndicate, has a lot of great tracks. Incompetech from Kevin MacLeod has a lot of great tracks, and all those are royalty-free, meaning these are kind of the only ones we were able to use when we started the stream. Since then, I’ve gotten permission to use the soundtrack from the PC game Pillars of Eternity. I’ve gotten permission to use the Elder Scrolls series soundtrack from Bethesda and those have all been really cool. You guys won’t have to worry about that if you’re doing home games. You can use any music you want. You don’t have those limitations. But I highly recommend any of those. You can pull soundtracks from Conan the Barbarian. You can pull in Final Fantasy tracks if you want to. Anything you want to, but what I do is I break them down into playlists and each playlist is a certain mood or location, so I have a playlist for small battles, one for big battles, one for boss battles. I have a playlist for creepy. I have a playlist for really creepy areas. I have a playlist for a mysterious scenario, I have playlists when it’s peaceful. I have playlists for when you are in a town, playlists when you are in a tavern. That way, it’s just really easy for me to just click any one of these playlists for a specific moment. It takes a little bit of setup and it’s a lot of time put into it to make sure you have that layout, but once you have it, as a Dungeon Master or as a Game Master, it’s really easy to go ahead and switch pretty quickly based on how the scenario’s mood and dynamic has changed. Can I use or incorporate your characters or parts of your world in my campaign? Sure! Yes, please go for it. I find it flattering. I think it’s awesome that you would want to have tie-ins or elements of your game crossed over to ours. Just be aware that players’ actions in our game can sometimes change the world, so if you want to be playing alongside our campaign, there’s always a chance that things can get weird down the road, so be prepared. If you want to keep it consistent at least, make things weird on your end as well. I don’t know– depends what the players do. But if time ever allows, I would love to make a sourcebook, so we’ll see if that’s ever a possibility if time lets me. How can I improve my skills as a GM or a Dungeon Master? First and foremost– it’s not necessary but it’s so helpful– improv classes. You don’t have to want to be a performer or an actor to take improv. It’s helpful in so many facets of your life. Just the idea of quick thinking, of being able to “Yes, and” and work with other people to make fast decisions and listen very well and to be able to adjust on the fly. It’s helpful in everything from business to social dynamics to so many things, but it tremendously helps for dungeon-mastering or game-mastering your role playing game. Also, you can look online for great blogs from other Dungeon Masters. If you can find it, I’d recommend looking up Chris Perkins’ DM experience blog for episodes– you can find them still, I think. There’s some good stuff on there. You can also look at a lot of the really great real-play shows that are online, like Rock’n’Roleplay, and probably some Acquisitions Inc. stuff that Chris Perkins himself did at PAX, or you could watch Critical Role! But you can find a lot of cool little tricks and interesting techniques that different Dungeon Masters use to make their games immersive, and everyone’s different, everyone has their own method, everyone has their really cool thing they do. So watching them all, you can pick and choose and build your own cool method. Final question for this FAQ: How does this random rule or feature work in D&D? Google. Google is your friend. I know a lot of the rules in the game, but there are also some that I’m even fuzzy on. If you have any questions or any concerns or anything you’re not sure about in the game and how the rules work, before you tweet it at me, look it up. Put it into Google. You’ll find a lot of great people that have probably asked the same question many times over and a lot of people that are probably much more alert in the rule system than I am who have answered it. So go ahead and just give a search out there, find the communities that work out there. Rpg.net is great about that and Reddit’s really great, and get those answers there. And if you’re still stumped, then go ahead and throw it at me. Otherwise, I end up not having time to answer all those tweets and I feel bad. So, go to Google. It’ll help you out. That’s all I’ve got for this FAQ. I might have another one down the road in the future, depending on how these questions continue and you guys have really cool things you want to ask, so once again, thank you for coming by. You can see more of these videos on geekandsundry.com and I’ll see you around soon.

Matt Mercer DM Tips: Rewarding Your Players!

April 27, 2020Zoltar Leave a comment

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 Geek & Sundry’s Critical Role, and welcome to my fun little video series on tips and tricks for game masters and dungeon masters alike. Today, we’re going to be discussing player rewards (sinister chuckle). That’s right, players. We’re talking about you, and what makes you happy. [trumpet fanfare] First and foremost, money’s always good! Giving away money in the game as general currency is a helpful way to reward players for finding cool little hidden alcoves, for defeating powerful enemies, for completing story arcs. Gold is that kind of open currency in role playing games, or credits and other forms of currency in sci-fi and modern games. It’s always a good go to, but you want to consider the current player level and what their financial situation is, and then provide rewards accordingly. If the players have come into a heck ton of money through just sheer luck or if they’ve earned it, then maybe start considering other alternative rewards that aren’t directly monetarily just building onto that giant treasure hoard that they’ve been building. Keep it interesting. Also keep in mind not all enemies drop gold. There’s nothing weirder than killing a bugbear and it coughs up 56 gold pieces. You wonder: first off, where it hid it, and two, how’d you find it? Consider that some of these creatures or things that wouldn’t carry money on them may have spirited away from the corpses of things they’ve killed and brought them to hidden alcoves or nests or burrows where they live. You’ll find it under all the sticks and refuse in that area. You might find some pretty cool items or sacks of money that was left behind by these unfortunate souls that crossed this creature’s path in the past. There’s also private collections that bad guys may have in their abode, or crooked merchants may keep a secret cache of hidden artifacts. There are cool ways to find loot after a battle aside from just finding it in their pockets immediately on them. That’s what we’re used to in video games, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Another cool way to reward your players and a consistent way to do it: equipment upgrades! Whether that be cool futuristic sniper rifles, or a magical flaming shortsword, most systems have a really good way to track player advancement and corresponding equipment power levels. Usually these are in the game master’s guides or those sections of the systems, but they’ll have some good suggestions as to when and how often you should dole out these type of equipment-based rewards. Make sure you don’t want to dole it out too often, because one, they lose their impact and their cool factor when the players do find them and all of a sudden it’s like, “Oh look, another magical shield.” They just throw it over their shoulder. They become less appreciative of these cool rewards, and it kind of unbalances the game. Which, if this does happen, especially if you’re new to the GMing system and after a while you realize, “Oh, the players are really well decked out in powerful stuff and they’re killing everything I throw at them that should be a fair challenge.” You’re in control of that spigot. Make it tight, slower trickle. Give out different things for a while and let it balance itself out. Totally doable. Also don’t be afraid to customize and create equipment and items if you can’t find something in the books, or the Dungeon Master Guide, or any of the treasure hoard supplements you out find out there that fit what you want to give the players. Feel free to create stuff. They can be tailored to players, or tailored to in-game events, and if you are worried about it not being balanced or being too powerful or too weak, there’s a whole wonderful thing called the internet. There are wonderful tabletop RPG communities that are more than willing to give you feedback on items before you dole it out to a player. You can go on forums, go on Reddit and be like, “Hey guys! Does this seem cool?” and they might be like (angry), “No! That’s too powerful!” or “No, that’s bullshit!” in which case, you just go ahead and tweak it. Criticism can be harsh on occasion but they’re all there to help, they’re all there to help each other make a better experience. Don’t be afraid to ask the internet for some balancing help. There are also alternative rewards you can give out, outside of both money and items. You can give bonus experience points if someone does something really cool in a game, or completes a really major story arc. Just give them a little bump of XP to get them to that next level a little faster. There’s also jewels and rare art pieces or contraband that can be found, that can be traded or sold in other aspects of the world if you have the right connections in that society. Which is cool if you have the opportunity and the time, you can create actual small props when you give these out. You can find plastic jewels pretty cheap online if you wanted to give someone a few actual gems at the table. If someone wanted to find a rare art piece, you can actually get like a really cheap picture frame and pass it over. It’s cool to create small props when you’re giving out some of these rewards that might correspond to it as well. It elevates the experience for the players at the table. Some rewards could be alliances. If you end up doing something really cool in a city or within a society, you might through that experience gain new allies. That can lead to access to new merchants, and the ability to purchase things you couldn’t previously have access to, having discounts on those commerce, finding rare equipment that now, as opposed to being found, can be purchased and now readily at your access. Other cool things, especially if they are dealing with RPGs that have gods or magic power that is beyond the mortal realm, you can be granted boons. These boons can be like, if you do something really good for a good deity and help defeat evil in a land and cleanse it of some curse, the deity that looks over that realm might come down and be like, “You. “You are my chosen champion. For this good gift, I grant you…” and they touch that player, and all of a sudden they are given a permanent plus one to their constitution. That’s a reward you can totally do and it kind of fits into the theme, and it’s a pretty awesome ability. It could be even temporary boons, like for the next month or so you have additional resistance against this type of damage. They can be permanent or temporary boons, but they also work as good story rewards. Also, transportation! If you do a cool story, you might get a new mount, or you might manage to commandeer or be granted a great spaceship that can travel twice as fast across the galaxy, or is able to warp to previously inaccessible portions of that galaxy. Even just faster transport to get you from point A to point B a lot quicker. Those make for great rewards and there’s overall the progression reward. Which is the access to previously inaccessible areas on your map. That involves getting access to or paperwork that allows you to bypass a barrier that previously you could not. There was a landscape that was previously at war with the kingdom that you’re part of, and once you manage to stop that war, you can now enter that kingdom without being attacked. You have access to all the secrets and all the knowledge and all the power that that kingdom has. That’s a really great long term reward to add to the story as well that could tie into all the rest of what I just discussed. Looking over these, think of what different, creative ways you can reward the players as your story goes on to keep it both interesting, varied, and for you at least, feel like you’re appropriately rewarding different cool actions and successes that the party manages to achieve as they progress. Thank you so much for watching! I hope this has been somewhat helpful and entertaining for you as a dungeon master, game master, or otherwise. You can check out more of these videos on geekandsundry.com and I will see you around, one way or another.

Matt Mercer DM Tips: RPG Etiquette!

April 24, 2020Zoltar Leave a comment

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 am a voice actor and the Dungeon Master for Geek &Sundry’s Critical Role, and welcome to my silly video series on tips and tricks for game masters and dungeon masters alike. Today we’re going to be discussing a very interesting topic: player and game master table setting and etiquette. [trumpet fanfare] I have questions often about this, inter-player and game master or dungeon master relationships, and dynamics there, and I think this would be a cool discussion to have. First and foremost, many RPG campaigns and systems are very different. Your experience at one table with one GM is going to be wholly different from another, even in the same system. I think before you start or join a game, everyone should be up front and discuss about the play style. Have the GM talk with the players. Is he expecting to create it more RP heavy, more role playing heavy? Do you want to make it more combat heavy, more of a balance between the two? Is it going to be created into more of a Diablo style dungeon delve, kill stuff, get loot, or is it going to be more about political intrigue, and dealing with the overarching political climate of a kingdom or a space adventure? Is it a very high power campaign? Is it a low power campaign? Is it a note taking mystery campaign? These are all the things you want discuss at the top of creating this game with your players, so that everyone is on the same page about expectations. There will be some players that will be into it for some elements, and others that will be disappointed if, five sessions in, they didn’t get at all what they wanted out of this experience. Being up front about it is a really good way for you all to make sure you understand each other and if you have any discussions about those tweaks in the future, at least you have a basis to build those discussions on. Players, be respectful and appreciative of your game master and dungeon master. They take a lot of their free time to create this world and this experience for you to enjoy, sometimes thanklessly. When you’re at the game, when you’re present at the table, best to your ability, listen and be attentive, and acquiesce to your game master’s judgement. I’m not saying don’t have fun, don’t forget your snacks and stuff, but for the most part when you’re in the moment, when you’re in the game, try and pay attention, try not to distract from the moment at hand and be attentive, because they put all this time and energy into it, it’s the least you can do. With that said, don’t be afraid to debate a rule with your game master, or clarify something they may have forgotten, but just remember ultimately the GM does have final say, and they may alter elements of the system or of the rules to fit their story, their world, and that’s how it is. Don’t get too argumentative on those aspects. If it really bothers you, you can take him aside after the game and talk about it, and try to come to some sort of an understanding. Communication is the key, in most things in life, this definitely being one of those. Share the spotlight with your party. There will be moments and stories where your character will become the focus, and you will be hoisted into the center of attention, and that’s fine and embrace that. If it consistently becomes that, and you begin pushing the rest of your party out of the way, and you take charge and you want to be the answer to every solution, it can get a little boring. If everyone else is like, “no, you’re cool. You’re the leader. You talk. You’re the face man of the group,” that’s different, but you want to make sure that you allow the other players to shine as well. This is a classic rule for stage as well. You don’t want to upstage anyone. You want to let everyone have their moment in the light, make sure that everyone has an opportunity to be part of this story you’re all creating together. If you ever feel like someone in your game is doing that, once again, after the game, take them aside and talk to them. In a very respectful, very warm way, let them know, “we’re starting to feel you’re starting to take the spotlight a little away. Just be aware, we want to play too, if that’s cool.” Sometimes people do it without even realizing it. Even just having that conversation fixes the problem. Not always, and sometimes when that happens, you know, either the GM has to step in and have a conversation, and if it gets really bad, sometimes players have to leave the game. It happens all the time. But all of you are putting your time and attention towards this, you want to make sure that everyone is at least working together to make it as fun as possible. If it seems that you’ve unintentionally commandeered the game, be open to feedback. Don’t take it personally, don’t have a bruise to your ego because somebody gave you a note after the game about being maybe a little too heavy on taking the game in your own hands. Just listen to it and say, “okay, I didn’t know, I’m sorry. I’ll be more respectful of that in the future.” GMs, DMs, also be respectful and appreciative. Your players are the life’s blood of your world. They are the ones that make this story that you wrote, and bring it to life, and play it through, and they hang onto your every word, and they’re essentially letting you scoop them up and take them into your imagination, and that’s a lot of trust there. Plus they’re scheduling their real life around you and trying to make sure that they can be part of this experience, so be respectful and appreciative of that aspect, that they’re putting their own side in this as well. Show equal attention between players, even if one player tends to be a heavier role player than the others, don’t feel like you the just only focus on them. Some people can start off a little shy, or especially if they’re new role players, they may not know how to really engage directly, and so it helps to coax them. Have an NPC directly refer to them and give them patience and let them find a voice for their roleplaying character. It may take some time, but make sure that you’re at least trying to split your attention between the players, best to your ability. Be open to being corrected and to gaining feedback. You’re the game master. You rule the world. You are the god of this whole experience, but you’re not infallible. We all make mistakes. I make mistakes constantly. And feedback only helps you to improve your narrative, to help how you run the game, and being corrected sometimes helps you better understand the rule system that you’re running. You have a lot in your brain, a lot that you’re constantly having to focus on, and remember, and keep notes on, and keep working together, and working towards long and short narratives. You have so much in your head, you’re bound to forget some stuff. Don’t be offended or frustrated if a player corrects you with a rule or something like that. Be thankful, because that just means that you probably have a better chance of remembering it in the future. Players, GMs, be respectful of each other. Work hard and discuss if there’s any weirdness going on at the table, and work it out to the best of your ability. Because we’re all there to have fun, we’re all there to have a great experience together, and I think following a lot of these little guidelines should help maintain that quite nicely. Thank you so much for watching. I hope this has been somewhat helpful for your GMing and playing experience. You can see more of these videos on geekandsundry.com and I’ll see you around.

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