GM-Aids

I have added links to Radio Rivendell. You find them in the right bar, just below the recent forum-posts. Radio Rivendell is a webradio station dedicated to fantasy soundtracks. The music is absolutely great and a cool addition to any roleplaying session for background-music. But you can also listen to it while browsing the sts-forums .

To get started all you need is a music-player on your computer like the Windows Media Player, Winamp or iTunes. Then just click on the according button and start listening. I hope you enjoy this service.

With this article the series about how to write an adventure will end. I really hope you enjoyed it. So I will close this series with some final hints.

Flexibility

Important! Flexibility helps the GM and the players. I remember an adventure I once played. The GM had thought it out. It was his first attempt, so he may be excused. We reached a crossroad, paths leading to the north, south and west. We took the paths west, after a hundred metres it ended on the edge of a deep chasm. So we went back and took the north paths. After a few hundred metres the forest became impenetrable. All of a sudden the crossroad has turned into a straight path.

Flexibility is certainly the task of a GM, but you can help him. When the path forks, not only describe what is on the right way, but also add some information of what awaits on the other path. A few lines will help every GM.

Timetables and fixed dates can restrict the flexibility. The advantage however is that the players are under tension and cannot fool around as they would otherwise do. Although there is no definite solution for the conflict between pressure and freedom, I advise you to use instruments of pressure (e.g. timetable, hunts, et c.) as often as possible, to avoid that the
adventure looses its frame, but always keep enough room for the players to leave the path.

Which way again?

The Consequences

Give some details of what has happened after certain actions. It is not necessary to point out that the wives of the ten guardsmen will cry their eyes out after their husbands have been slain by a group of overly enthusiastic strangers with pointed objects. The GM should however be given some ideas of what happened after the adventure and certain key events. If, for example, the PCs have caused a major inflation, because they discovered the long lost dwarven gold mine, this should be exploited. At least it should be mentioned.

Do not create NPCs that stand around like solitary rocks. They do have a background, even if it is not detailed and they belong to a community. Even if it is just the community of bodyguards for evil overlords.

The more you think of consequences the more convincing will be your enviroment.

The End of all

The final scene is what the players will discuss after everything is said and done. They will not hesitate to laugh about it. Remember that. The final battle or final action should be grand. There is nothing worse than an end that is just plain boring. Spend much time on this moment. It should be full of drama, tension and expectation. The end should be believable. Avoid “dei ex machina” and divine interventions. They players should work their butts off to reach it. If your adventure results in a great battle, try to balance it. Here is the only point where the death of PCs is no shame. If your adventure is criminological put the players under tension. The big boss is about to escape and the PCs need to chase him through the whole city in order to grab him.

Playtesting
Playtest the adventure! Often!

I love them, but this is personal taste.

They can be helpful. The players have a much more direct idea of what is going on. In other words the world and its inhabitants leave traces in the real world. And last but not least most people - especially male human beings in and after their puberty - love to fiddle around with something. Although they are useful and often welcomed, do not overuse it, unless you
play “Bureaucrats And Staplers” 2nd edition.

Keep in mind that handouts and maps are often the only things the GM cannot manipulate. Well he can do it, but most are too lazy. Therefore the author has to play the role of the GM in creating handouts. They are the most direct way for the author to communicate with the players. There is generally no GM that can misunderstand or bend your ideas. This is not
really a problem with maps, but if letters or anything like this are used the GM has almost lost control. Therefore you have to be very careful about the choice of words and your style. Remember that you write from an omniscient point of view and little hints slip far too easy. The players have the tendency to tear every word apart that would make Lord Denning
appear an amateur. They also tend to over interpret some things. This is mainly their own problem, but do not try to provoke it.

Vagueness is a good term when it comes to handouts. Misunderstanding is not. Every handout should be understandable. Don’t laugh, I have seen handouts that definitely made no sense. The words should be clear and you should do your very best to built complete sentences (Note: a complete sentences generally needs a subject, a predicate and an object). Use a spell checker! Twice! Unless of course the NPC that has written the handout had some orthographical problems. For maps indicate where north is or make it clear
in any other way. It is not funny to run a few days in the wrong direction before telling the players that they hold the map upside down. In handouts with written words do not make everything crystal clear. Handouts are made to make the players think. But the possible number of interpretations should be limited. If your handout has more than three possible interpretations, you may have done something wrong.

Lets start with the villains. The villains are the spice in your soup. They transmit your ideas and the adventure. Craft them carefully, but do not hesitate to kill them if necessary. The worst villains are the Dr.Moriaty types. No matter how often and how hard you kill them, they reappear. These villains should be left for superhero comics and bad movies.

A good villain is one upon which death your players have a feeling as if they also lost something. He should be an integral part of the environment. A convincing background is good. It is vital to have an idea of the general motivations and psychological traits of the main villains, as wells as of the good guys. Do not try to put the main characters into a corselet. It is better to have an open character, where you just have an idea what he will do in certain circumstances, than a closed shop that moves on definite tracks.

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The plot is difficult to make. A good rule is to keep it simple. Not that the players should be able to foresee everything. There is a huge difference between simplicity and blatancy. Shakespeare’s plays are very simple: right versus wrong, good versus evil. Everyone can understand them. That is what makes them popular. You can hardly find a movie today that is not following a very simple plotline. The general theme needs to be simple. No one, not even you, is able to present an adventure with three dozens people intriguing against each other and having different aims.

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The general mood of an adventure is of great importance. Although some people think that it is predetermined by the game, which is why Warhammer Fantasy RP is always associated with dark fantasy and AD&D with dungeon bashing. This is false. The mood is determined by the GM and the adventure. Just because the rulebook reads of grim world, does not mean of how the adventures will look like.

Take the computer game Discworld as an example. The first part was very close to the novels, very funny and full of absurdities. Then take a look at Discworld:Noir. Totally different. If you like AD&D and want to play in a dark fantasy environment, just do it. It is not necessary to buy a new rulebook.

The general mood has a big impact on the game itself. When it takes place in a so called dark fantasy environment, the players are often much less likely to trust anyone. When you set it in a world full of powerful magic and chivalry, they are much more self-confident.

What you prefer is up to you, but it is necessary to think about the mood before the game starts. It is plainly stupid to create an adventure full of dragons, balrogs and sorcerers and then make them so powerful, that no PC can stand up against them.

Also remember that the PCs have to be aware of the general mood. Make it clear that they cannot have a “wish” every now and then or you end up with dead PC and angry players.

To be continued…

This article was written by Leif U. Schrader and originaly published by Strike to Stun in 2001

The first step is always the hardest. The first step involves to sit down and try. Sometimes you will have hundreds of possible ideas and none the following day. You cannot do anything against that. Even great authors had times where they could not come up with even an average idea. The best way to deal with a blockage is to do something else: Visit friends, go into a pub, watch TV, read a book, but do not try to force it. It would not work anyway. Discipline is of course another thing. When you really want to start writing an adventure, it is necessary to work on it. Work does not always involve pleasure. It also means sweat and tears. A good rule of thumb is to sit down once a week for a few hours to read what you have written, change it where necessary and develop the story a little bit further. Most adventures are not finished, because the authors just wanted to interrupt it for a while and never came back. To come up with a coherent storyline means that you need to have a more or less constant stream of thought in your head.

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Everyone of us has written an adventure. Unfortunately most are not beware of that and the reason for this cannot be found in alcoholic beverages. Most GMs have spend much of their spare in the creation of an adventure, carefully creating scene after scene, balancing the whole plot, inventing new creatures, places and spells. Others prefer to buy ready made adventure, where almost every aspect is covered and dealt with. Another way is to use small adventure hooks or scenarios that are filled with life. All of them have something in common: They are not perfect! No matter how much time you spend on an adventure, how much money you invested in a supplement or how good you know your players, there are situations where you have to come up with your own ideas, you have to improvise. Your players are human beings and their actions can hardly be predicted (otherwise everyone would make a
million on the stock exchange). This improvisation is the first step to create an adventure, although only small parts of an adventure are improvised, a huge world of new adventures are behind the veil and all that is necessary is to lift it.

Even players create adventures. Roleplaying is not a one-way-street. Instead players manipulate the world they play in - sometimes metaphorically, sometimes literally. I remember an adventure where my PC - unintentionally - killed the princes he wanted to rescue; just image all the possible adventures afterwards. These are also the first steps to create new adventures.

There are hundreds of good adventures on the market - and probably thousands of bad ones. This article is meant to show you some of the possible ways to create good adventures. It does not guarantee a good adventure and the one’s that are made need constant modification during game-play. Even if you fail spectacularly, you should not hesitate to try again.

To create an adventure all you need is a pen and a pencil. A rulebook may be nice, but it is not necessary. The rest is your imagination.

More to follow…

This article was written by Leif U. Schrader and originaly published by Strike to Stun in 2001

With this article the series “A stick and a carrot” is finished. I really hope you enjoyed reading this posts over the last months. Honestly I do not like the concept of experience points very much. When you kill ten people you may be more experienced, but you can hardly say that this can lead to better skills in reading and writing. I have always preferred to take down notes who did what. (more…)

This is a complex issue. It happens that a PC dies during gameplay. In the end most games are more or less combat oriented. Combat rules occupy major parts of the rulebook and there are few adventures totally free of combat. So you should be prepared to let them die. However do not kill them. There is no bodycount you have to achieve to be granted entrance to the Hall of Fame of GMs. (more…)

Respect is also important. Treat your world with respect. Do not hesitate to kill a NPC, but try to play them as human beings. I have seen more than once that a NPC that followed the party was used as cannon-fodder. No one does this. Except for absolute fanatics and dumbheads no one is willing to sacrifice his live for someone else. Play the NPCs this way. (more…)

The Anglo-Saxons didn’t know role-playing. They didn’t need to; they still did their swordplay and adventuring for real. But they had something similar: the Scop. This was the Old English ancestor of the Minstrel, an oral poet who would sing or tell heroic tales after dinner in the hall of the local lord. If you know Beowulf, you may remember the Scop in Hrothgar’s hall.

Why am I telling you this? Because we as GMs, the very modest modern versions of oral poets, can learn from the Scop. His most important lesson is this: Don’t memorize your poem. The early medieval oral poets (and their descendents in Kyrgyzstan, for instance) can reproduce an epic of several thousand lines, the singing of which will last a whole night. Yet they don’t learn it by heart. Instead, they are trained by their masters to memorize the story, its sequence and its characters. The actual lines of the poem are improvised, using formulaic metric sequences. Hence the oral poets recreate an epic instead of merely reproducing it.

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There is a reason why most of us prefer WFRP’s combat system to Rolemaster’s. It is simple, quick and deadly. In fact, WFRP is probably the best compromise possible between realism and playability. And yet, as straightforward as it seems, running combat poses certain difficulties for a GM. First of all, combat remains the most time-consuming and rule-heavy part of role-playing, even in WFRP. Lots of characteristics, dice rolls and calculations are involved (just think of the rules for Strike to Stun), as well as keeping track of almost every second of game time and the positions and movement of several PCs and NPCs. Thus running a short skirmish between the PCs and a handful of skaven can easily consume half an hour of your playing time. On the other hand, your players may become bored by the sullen routine of attack rolls, dodges and critical hits, because WFRP’s combat system does not seem to present many options. At worst, combat may become a mere game-within-the-game, consisting of dice rolls, maths and munchkin tactics, which has nothing to do with role-playing any more. As a GM, you want to avoid that. The aim of this article is to give you a few ideas of how to keep your players interested in combat.

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Coming to the most important aspect of your game mastering: The world itself. The world with all its inhabitants, being it monsters or civilised people, is your medium to the players. They will judge you very much according to the setting and the reactions of the players.
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If you use music as a way to create some atmosphere in your game you might possibly like this one. I recently found Radio Rivendell, a webradio station that broadcasts fantasy soundtracks right for your rpg-session. Perhaps you knew this station already but for those who don’t knew it should really give it a try - its really worth it and its absolutely free.