Improve your GMing: Minor Quests by Players

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Details: Kameron presented the great idea that the players create their own Minor Quests in his article Silly DM, minor quests are for players.
Why is that a good idea? For one thing the players do your job since you as a GM do not have to come up with quests and for another thing they tell you what they are interested in.

Usage in the session: The obvious usage is that players express their wish to either continue or start a story line which cannot be followed at the current point of a story which which ever reason.
But the players could also come up with minor quests for their characters as part of the background creation. That would give the characters something to do right at the beginning of the game and it would give the player an opportunity to flesh out his or her character since that first quest probably addresses personal issues.
When we started playing D&D 4E I told my players that I would create a personal minor quest for every character based on the background story they gave me. I wanted to motivate them to get invested into the game by introducing and following personal agendas of their characters. If I had known this concept at that time it would have saved me time since instead of me creating the quests I would have asked the players to come up with one. My plan was to give them a new personal quest every time they have finished one but due to lack of time I never created new quests after the first ones.
In an ideal situation each minor quests creates plenty of reasons for new quests on their own and you as a GM have only to get along with the interests of the players.

Impact on our session: Unfortunately since reading the article it did not made sense to introduce this idea to my players because I master the Wizards of the Coast adventure Pyramid of Shadows which is mostly dungeon delves with very little room for side quests.

Advice: Do not be afraid of getting strange or seemingly unusable minor quests. If you, as a GM, do not like a quest or if it does not fit into the story, you do not have to go down-that-line. But sometimes if you just go with it, such ideas turn out to be quit entertaining for everybody.
Our D&D 4E campaign started with each character being on their way to a certain city and they met on the way. I asked everybody why their character was going there. One of my players decided that the purpose of her character's voyage was to visit her aunt to get rosehip jam. At first I was a bit annoyed because I was hoping for something more heroic or dramatic but this story line lead to more role playing and laughter than we had in the rest of the adventure. As it turned out the rosehip jam would have made for a good minor quest worth a reward.

Random Findings: Do not be afraid to kill - resurrections as story opportunities

Scott Wallace shares the same reluctance for fudging rolls to prevent character deaths and gives another reason why not to do it. He writes about resurrections as story hooks in his article Ashes to Ashes, Death to Life.

Thoughts on: Fudging Rolls to improve your GMing?!

Essence: In my experience if rolls are fudged by GMs it happens in the favor of the players. But how about cheating to their disadvantage? Could that add to your game?

Details: Why do GMs roll attacks or damage behind a screen? I can think of only one reason: to fudge rolls.
Interestingly enough this is almost always done in the players favor. Mostly to prevent a character from dying.
As a player I hate that! If I get the impression that the GM is cheating to prevent that my character is killed I lose the interest in the encounter. And believe me, players tend to notice such things (a question about the current amount of HPs is like an announcement that the GM will be cheating anytime soon). Combat should be lethal and if my character cannot die why bother with combat at all? And since I do not like that rolls are fudged to my advantage as a player, I do not do it as a GM either.
If a combat turns out to be too hard, I either withhold enemies the characters might not have yet seen for that encounter, go along with every idea the players have to turn the combat to their advantage and if I cannot the players to rethink their tactics (e.g. by withdrawing) I cut the HP amount of the monsters as a last resort. Maybe it is not better than fudging dice but I hope it is more discreet.
In John Wick's 'Play Dirty' he speaks about cheating against the players favor in order to punish them. I do not like the notion but it got me started thinking if there are situations where it would add to the game if you cheated to players disadvantage.
What if you came up with a idea to make a combat more dramatic, create a awesome/funny scene or give a monster a unique taste but that would require a successful attack. How about a bull rush that would push a character at the edge of a cliff and while the melee continues there every blow has the risk of falling. Or what about monsters with very iconic attacks like a Medusa or a Rust Monster. Only if one of their distinct attacks hit do these monster stick out of the normal crowd of thugs. But does that justifies cheating?

As a note: Even if I have not gotten a lot else from 'Play Dirty' it at least made me think how I GM and I am more willing to give 'dirty' methods a try to improve the game.

Improve your GMing: Battle of Wills

Rating: 3 of 5 stars the first time used; 4 thereafter

Details: The Battle of Wills is Justin Evans generic adaptation of the Duel of Wits mechanic in Luke Crane's Burning Wheel. It is a system to resolve social conflicts. The rules and free printable cards can be found on SinisterGame.
The quality/layout of the cards and of all other SinisterGame products (all free) is excellent.

Usage in the session: The characters needed to require an object from a white dragon. They could have waged combat but they tried to bargain for it (as hoped). Instead of running a skill challenged I decided to give the Battle of Wills a try.
We varied the rules given on SinisterGame a bit. I, as the GM, always chose my card first. Then did the party agree upon their strategy and upon a speaker who would make the skill check. They could choose either to just play a card or to do some roleplaying. If the went with the roleplaying I decided how good the arguments were and rewarded a bonus to the speakers skill check.
The other characters had the opportunity to do other things while the speaker brought forth his point. Maybe trying to determine how much the object was worth to the dragon or something similar. But they passed.

Impact on our session: The system appealed to both, to the players who like roleplaying and to the strategists who discussed which skill to choose and who kept track of the cards already played in order to keep the chances of an automatic defeat low.
The drawback of using the system and the only reason why I did not give a rating of 4 stars is that the game flow had to be interrupted in order to explain the rules. The atmosphere did suffer a bit because of that.
But my players did enjoy the Battle of Wills and liked it better than a skill challenged. Reason enough for me to use the Battle of Wills again.

Advice: I went along with only three skills to choose from ('Intimidate', 'Bluff', and 'Diplomacy'), which all were based on charisma. Which was later criticized by a player since as a result only two characters became speakers for the group. It would have been better if I had chosen from a broader variety of skills, for example Insight (which is based on Wisdom) for 'Slippery Slop'.
Another things I still ponder on is whether I should give a automatic point if due to the combination of cards a player has an automatic defend. I do like the idea to grant a success if the card combination came up because of pure luck and not due to conscious decisions.
But if in such a situation a check is done, the chance of failure should be smaller than that of the opposed check that otherwise would have taken place. Maybe the opponents skill modifier associated with the card he did select would make a good DC.

Lesson Learned: XP as individual rewards? Really?

Essence: If a player/character does something awesome she/he should be rewarded, no question about it. But should that be in the form of XP?
In my opinion, no. If some players receive XP rewards more often than others it may lead to gaps between the character power level which will eventually frustrate the players with lower XP. I think rewards that do not have a permanent effect are better.

Details: When I GMed 2nd Edition D&D I used to ask around the table which players earned special XP rewards at the end of each session. And it was never a problem since the XP to advance a level varied per class and the impact of difference in XP never was so apparent.
Therefore I used to do the same when we began playing 4th Edition. I tried to keep the XP at a minimum but then I faced the problem with players who could not attend.
I went along with the recommendation that players would gain the XP for the sessions they missed but only after they had attend a number of sessions equals to the numbers they had missed. That and the fact that players cannot get XP rewards when absent would have eventually lead to the situation that some players would have advanced a level while others still had to wait for several sessions. Which could be quit frustrating.
Thus did I raise all players to the same XP level and everyone gets the same XP for each session since then. It does not matter if they are missing or attempting. It is bad enough that someone did not make it, but he should not be punished.
Since I like giving rewards as motivation even during the game, I was looking for something that has only a short-term impact on the game in order to prevent gaps between character power levels.
The best thing I have found were rerolls. Even if the effect is limited the usage of a reroll can still be very satisfying for a player. Think of a daily power attack roll which did miss, which can also be very frustrating. Especially if it keeps on happening. And the other players wont feel left behind but will be rooting for the player that uses a reroll.
Currently I cannot see a reason why I should start giving out XP as individual rewards, again. I think even for Con games are rerolls better since the player can cash-in his reward while playing and he can keep up doing more awesome stuff.

Advice: If you introduce short term boosts to characters as a alternative to XP rewards you should consider restricting the usage of the boosts. If a player collects rewards and uses them all during one encounter that challenge might be fun for that player but all others probably wont enjoy it.
Therefore did I restrict the usage of rerolls to one per encounter and a player looses all but one after a extended rest.

Improve your GMing: Background creation with around the table questions

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Details: Instead of everybody doing background stories on their own, let others influence some part of it and create a connection between characters as a side effect. One way to achieve this is to frame some questions everybody has to answer about the character of his left or right neighbor and share that information with that player.

Some examples:
Your character knows a secret of the neighbors character. What is it?
Or the variation: The neighbors character knows a secret of your character. What is it?
What does your character not like about the neighbors character?
How did your character met the neighbor's character?

And since there has to be an explanation how that character knows these things a connection between characters is created.

The technique is not restricted to character creation. It could also be applied after some time thereafter. For example by saying that the group has spend some time together and the members have learned more about each others during encounters.

Usage in the session: When we played a one-shot we used this to create the some background for the characters.

Impact on our session: It was fun to see how different the players did answered the questions and most answers were original and made a good base to start the game with. Also did the players get into the mood for more than only some combat encounters and we had some descent roleplaying.

Advice: Whenever I am in a game with new characters I would like to have at least one around the table question. Why?
For a one-shot this helps to create a bit of background story since most players probably would bother to make up a background for such a game.
And for a ongoing game it helps to create connections between characters. And the players do learn about each others background stories. Especially questions about secrets could be the cause for some interesting developments in game. I had enough campaigns in the past where background stories did contain some hidden facts about a character but they never came up in the game. But since one in the group knows about it, if using this technique, it is more likely to come up and have some impact on the game.
This should not replace the creation of background stories by each player but it is a nice way to contribute to the stories.
The questions/answers should be framed in such a way that the answers do not have to much impact on one characters background story. If a player has a clear vision of his character and such an answer would force the player to go into a direction she or he does not want to the player should be allowed to either ignore it or to ask for another answer.
And I would also advice against to many questions. One or two (one for each neighbor) is enough.

Lesson Learned: Hard (combat) encounters are the best

Essence: Easy combat encounters (less then the level of the party) are almost always a waste of time. Players tend to notice real quick whether enemies are a real threat or not and they do not feel powerful or challenged if the defeat a group of enemies without any resistance.
Encounters of the same level or one level higher are good to prevent that a group gets frustrated after a very hard combat or if they have lost fight.
But the hard combats (two or three levels higher than the party level) are the fights the players keep talking about even after the encounter and that stick in the memory.

Details: Currently I am running the Pyramid of Shadows adventure with a group of 5 players. The adventure is for level 7-9 but since the group was already at level 8 when they entered the pyramid most combats are one level less or the same level as the level of party.
The first couple of encounters I ran as described in the book . But they were only fun if one of the players was missing (which often was the cleric). The combats became a kind of routine and after we were finished playing the talk about the game was short if any took place at all.
Only when I started adapting the encounters and made them hard it felt as if the group became alive again. The players stayed more focused during the game and they time we talked after the game became longer. And believe me nothing gets you the attention of the player more then reducing the hp of his character to zero or bellow.
From all the encounters we had in the last 1 1/2 years I only can remember the really hard once.


Advice: Keep track of the healing surges the characters still have. If one ore more characters only have few surges left be weary with hard encounters. You want the encounters to challenging but not deadly.
Adapting encounters in D&D 4E is really easy. If I do not find the time to adapt the combats before the session I add another monster or so on the fly. But that often does not make the combat challenging enough. Currently my preferred way is to take the monsters as described in the adventures and increase the level with the help of the Monster Builder which takes me about 5min per encounter.

Improve your GMing: The Mountain Witch Trick

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Details: I have heard about this the first time in a podcast (if I remember which I will add the name and URL) and a quick google will tell you that it is a technique described in the game 'The Mountain Witch'.
Instead of the GM telling the players a background story or describing a scene a player does it. This is done by the GM by telling either what a specific character perceives or how he reacts to a certain scene and asks the player why.

Usage in the session: The party was confronted by a group of mercenaries lead by a dragonborn. I told a player, who also plays a dragonborn, that he knows the leader and remembers him as shady, untrustworthy individual. And then I asked why his character did know him and where from.

Impact on our session:The result was way better than expected. The player did not only instantly tell a good story but also did the other players learn more about the background of that players character as well. He did such a good job that the others did not even noticed that he made it up on the fly.
The now established personal relationship motivated the player to some roleplaying which lead to more fun for everybody. In the combat that eventually followed the player insisted that he would battle the leader alone and an exchange of insults did take place which added flavour to the session we seldom had.
Thanks to the usage of Mountain Witch I had the best session as a GM for months and I think my players had a good time as well.

Advice: Even if the Mountain Witch is a great way create to instantly involve characters or to add elements to a scene you as a GM would not have thought of I would not use it too often. Why? Taken to the extreme it might get silly. Think of a dungeon delve where every group of enemies the party meets has at least one member which is personally connected to one of the characters. Which is more than implausible.
But if you use it maybe once per session and in a creative way this trick will definitely improve your game.

Initial blog

Who is this blog aimed at? Me. Why? Because I have been following RPG blogs, podcasts, tweets and so on for some time and have heard/read about good RPG ideas and tricks to improve GMing but I tend to forget them.
Therefore I plan to gather good tricks, try to use them during my weekly D&D 4E sessions and document if and what impact they had on the gaming experience.
My group is more into combat and cares less about character development or about telling a story of their own. That's why I am looking not only for ideas and tricks that will increase the fun we are having when gaming but especially for those which will add more roleplaying elements to our sessions.
And maybe I will improve my English writing skills as a side effect of this blog.