Questions tagged [gm-techniques]
For questions about the practical arts and methods applied to gamemastering (GMing).
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How do I tell my DM that dice don’t need to dictate the story?
So while I like my DM, it's kind of hard to say that our game has a consistent story and that she legit decides everything on dice rolls. Oh you want to persuade that character? Yeah, that depends on ...
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Creating a campaign that ends with a TPK by design
I'm creating a campaign that takes players from level 3 to level 15+. The premise is that the party is granted a special role by the reigning good King to protect and serve (essentially they are ...
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Translating in-game between player characters without breaking the game's rhythm
(I struggled to find a "decent" title that encapsulates the issue at hand, so if you have a title idea that fits the question better, I'll gladly take it over the current one)
I recently had ...
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How can I add a layer of meaning to an evil campaign?
It's all but ubiquitous that a throwing a chaotic evil character into a heroic party can lead to hurt feelings and other stigmata. Some DMs don't even allow a chaotic evil while others attempt to ...
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Usually, Character Creation isn't a roleplaying opportunity, but if you wanted it to be one, how would you do it? [closed]
I'm starting a brand new campaign (as GM) and I wanted to try to roleplay the actual character creation process. My plan is to have one on one sessions with each player where they would make narrative ...
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I have a suddenly small party and I was running a longer campaign, how do I handle this without giving up the campaign?
I am a DM with general experience, I am not a beginner, and I am certainly not an expert. My DnD group initially started as your typical four people, all casual friends, then one of the members had to ...
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As a GM, how can I balance weapon proficiencies that I grant to players for good roleplay?
I like a bit of roleplay in my games and I'm quite supportive of any players that play in dumb but in-character ways. I often give some advantages here and there but I am a bit worried about balance. ...
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Running a oneshot for a group with no TTRPG experience
I'm running a short Pathfinder session for a group that is interested in TTRPGs but has no prior experience in it. What may be some particular issues that I should keep in mind, specifically for a ...
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How to manage time pressure?
The game assumes multiple encounters per day. However, sandboxes or megadungeons give players a lot of control about how far and how long they want to push each day. Sure, factions can also act ...
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How do I prevent a teleporting artefact from splitting the party? [closed]
During my campaign the players will find a magical diary. The diary is an artefact that, when read, transports the reader into the time period described therein. They can interact with the people and ...
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How to handle teleporting players into another character's memories?
In my world, I have an NPC (Baron) who made a deal with a devil (Stan) which requires Baron to maintain a diary in exchange for immortality. The many volumes of the diary serve to give Baron his ...
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Trying not to make a twist too obvious [closed]
Me and my friend are making a campaign for the friend group and a twist which we are planning is that an important lore NPC will turn out to have been killed early in the story and impersonated by the ...
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How do node-based scenarios interact with the GM vs. Players turn system in Mouse Guard?
With node-based scenarios, you plan multiple nodes and place three or more clues from the current node to adjacent nodes. The Alexandrian has a good series on them, that starts here.
From what I ...
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How to run tactical combat on the Plane of Air?
My party recently got themselves accidentally transported to the Plane of Air by way of a cursed throne that once belonged to a cloud giant. While there, I intend to run at least one combat where ...
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What to do when a player roleplays an extremely persuasive argument, but flubs their Persuasion check?
I have been the DM of a wonderful group of Stack Exchange friends playing an urban fantasy campaign of D&D 5e for some time now, and a question came up in our group Discord that has got me ...
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