#gm advice

[ladytabletop]

this is such a good guide for GMs of pbta/fitd.

Source: Arkadia by andy

[anim-ttrpgs]

A big part of Eureka is splitting the party. Normally games are loathe to do this because of the potential to bore players while they passively watch others play the game. I'm curious how you deal with this when you run Eureka. Sending players away seems like it could make it either better or worse. Like if it's at a home, people can go hang out by the snack table and drink and chat, but that doesn't work as well at, say, a game store. I'm curious how people felt about having to leave the game several times.

While the risk of boring the players or putting too much stress on the GM is a real concern, the addage of "don't split the party" actually originated in the TSR D&D era, where splitting the party made them weak and vulnerable to all sorts of situations that would be less of a problem for a full strength party, However, for a game like Eureka that produces more conventional narratives (everyone take note that I did not say that Eureka produces more narrative or is "more focused on narrative", just more conventional narratives) and has more of a focus on intrigue and horror, the party splitting up to cover more ground and collect more clues in the limited time they have to solve the mystery, but also making each one of them more vulnerable if something happens, is an actual trade-off that can improve the gameplay and story.

First of all, besides it just being really entertaining, I really recommend you listen to the Tiny Table Actual Play of Eureka. It has some really good examples of splitting the party and sending players away that are executed really well, and also some good discussion of it in the post-mortem episode and the interview.

I’m going to answer the ask directly from my own gameplay experience, but I really really urge anyone who has played Eureka to comment with their own experiences with splitting the party and sending players away.

Alright, so, obviously how long players are willing to wait their turn is group-dependent, but with our own group, we’ve actually kinda had the opposite problem from players getting bored. Instead, Narrator and the players whose characters are currently in the spotlight start to worry that they’re selfishly hogging too much session time, and try to rush the scene along (to its great detriment), when in reality the players who were sitting out were happy to keep waiting. Realizing this led to us altering the advice regarding splitting the party in the rulebook, and actually recommending the Narrator go a little longer before switching to the other characters.

I personally am happy to wait up to like 90 minutes if my character is out of the scene, because I have faith in my group and also in Eureka that the payoff for waiting will be that much greater, seeing the characters relay what they have learned while they were apart in dialogue rather than the player just saying “My investigator tells them everything that happened.” It really heightens the tension, lets the characters shine, and can even really help with solving the mystery, because having the events and evidence recounted out loud can help with making connections that might have gone over people’s heads the first time.

Of course like the rulebook says, it also comes to the judgement of the play group as a whole, and should definitely be discussed beforehand basically as part of session zero, and even mid-session if it needs to be. (Communicate your preferences to your play group!!!!!) There’s plenty of scenes and situations where having the other players leave the room instead of sitting and watching would add nothing at all to the experience.

Now I want to hear other people’s opinions. If you have played Eureka and had a party split where some players left the room or otherwise excused themselves, how did it go?

[lawfulgoodness]

[hearthquillpress]

5 ways to make your NPCs feel like they lived somewhere else first.

The trouble with most tavern NPCs is not that they lack a personality. It's that they've never been anywhere. They exist purely in the tavern, purely for the scene, purely because the party walked in. And a good NPC — the kind your players remember three sessions later — carries the smell of a whole life you never wrote.

Five small tricks that always work.

1. Give them a food they refuse. A miller who won't eat bread. A soldier who won't eat lamb. Anyone who won't eat fish. The refusal is the tell — it points at a story the NPC won't explain and doesn't have to. Your players will fill the rest.

2. Let them speak with someone else's mannerisms. The blacksmith who cocks his head to the left when he doesn't believe you — because his mother did, and she raised him after the war. A phrase they use that isn't from around here.

3. One physical mark from another climate. Sunburn scars on a librarian. Chilblain damage on a merchant's hands. A tattoo half-covered by their sleeve, in a script no one at the table can read.

4. A song they hum without noticing. Not the local song. Something from three valleys over. Something in a lullaby's cadence. The DM can just… hum a bar. Then move on. The players will notice.

5. A silence. Every good NPC has one topic they will not discuss. Not a dramatic secret — just a room they won't enter, a season they don't like, a name they let hang in the air. The refusal is more evocative than the reveal.

The compact of a small NPC is not that they solve the plot. It is that they seem, for a moment, like a person the world was already making before the party arrived.

— Hearth & Quill Press. We've been writing about characters at hearthquillpress.tumblr.com for a while now.

[transport-methodology-101]

The 1972 Oldsmobile 442 was a package of handling and appearance upgrades available to Cutlass buyers. Only 9,845 were produced, making them rare finds today.

Here's what to expect from a 1972 442:

Power: A 455 cubic inch motor (300 hp at 4,700 rpm) with dual exhaust that produces a powerful rumble.

Transmission: A smooth 3-speed automatic transmission.

Interior: Black front bucket seats, a center console with an automatic shifter, and an 8-track stereo.

Exterior: A split front grill and rear bumper.

Brakes: Power front disc and rear drum brakes.

Steering: Power steering.

Features: Power seats, power door locks, cruise control, and super stock wheels.

[kesbeacon]

Inn generator by Kes Beacon

Generate fantasy inns, taverns, pubs & so forth, for games and stories

Get your inns, taverns, pubs, and alehouses here!

You all meet up in an inn. But what's the inn like? What's it called? What can you do there? And how do I satisfy my players' unending appetite for entertainingly-named inns?

This generator has your answer. It will give you a name, a brief description including reputation and proprietor, and optional entertainments and encounters. Or you can generate a name and do the rest yourself!

Here's some names:

The Shirking Eagle

The Flea's Head

The Void on the Bridge

The Wrestler and Newt

The Mouse House

The Sheep's Serpent

The Honourable Eel

The Spectacles and Sword

The Bald Orb

The Smiths

The Toad on the Dragon

The Fighting Magpie's Arms

[agentnoun]

A suggestion for my fellow GMs: try shorter campaigns! I'm talking like 5 to anywhere from 10-12 sessions, maybe stretching to 15 or so if things are really flowing.

I know many of us are used to idealizing the decade-long epic campaign, but that's just not realistic for most of us, and often isn't actually the best fit for our tables. And sure, we all love a good one-shot every now and again, but there' a middle ground, too!

The benefits are numerous, including:

You actually get to finish campaigns pretty regularly!

You and your group get to try a wider variety of systems, settings, tones, and play styles!

Your players will likely have an easier time playing character types outside of their usual, or taking big risks--after all, if you're not expecting to play a character for 3 years, it's not nearly as deflating if you take a huge risk and they end up dying in session 7.

You're much less likely to burn out!

That goes for players, too--if you've ever been in a long campaign that you're just not really feeling anymore, well, imagine if you knew it was definitely going to be over in 3 more sessions. It's a lot easier to just go with the flow and have fun then, right?

Of course, there is one speed bump: what if you get to the end of the campaign but you're not ready to leave these characters, this world, or this system behind yet?

Well, it's certainly better for a game to end leaving you wanting more than for it to overstay its welcome and fizzle out, but if that's not enough: hey, what do you know, the show got renewed for season 2! Maybe you and your group play another short campaign as a palate cleanser and then come back for a sequel.

[whereserpentswalk]

A very small simple wargame

For no reason whatsoever I made this little game with spaceships. I guess this counts as a one-page rpg but it's in a post instead of a page, and also, it's closer to a wargame then an rpg. Though I think you'd get the most use out of this if you're a gm and want a small minigame as a segment in a more complex rpg, like this could easily be a puzzle in a single dungeon that appears a few times, or how combat works for a single niche vehicle that appears in a single questline. (If you ever want to do a quest in an underground robot fighting ring this may be how the robots fight.)

(Disclaimer, for clarity I refer to each piece as a spaceship, but they could be anything. Though their movement does make them feel much more like vehicles then flesh and blood beings. The minis I used to playtest this were demons and they still ended up feeling like things to be piloted more than thinking feeling beings.)

The actual rules:

The game is played with miniatures on a grid. It's been tested on a 4x4 with two players each with one ship, but it can be played on a grid of any size, with any number of players, and any number of ships per player. If you want to play this as a standalone game and not as a minigame in something else, more ships would probably be better as its over quickly with just two.

Turns resolve simultaneously, Ie; a player writes down their action and will then reveal what happens when the turn resolves. This means there's no turn order; every player is taking their turn at the same time. Each player can take one action per turn, using any ship they have. I suppose you could also give each ship an action rather than give every player an action.

It's important to note that whatever you use to represent the ships needs to have a clear from side, and what direction a ship is facing is as important information as what space its on.

There are four possible actions a ship can take on its turn. Move (Move one space forwards.) Turn left (Turn to the left) Turn right (Turn to the right) Shoot (Shoot the space in front of it). No other actions can be taken by a ship.

How shooting works: Shooting is far more complicated than any other action. When a ship shoots it damages the closest ship in front of it. The damage is determined by a D6, and ships also all have 6 hit points (and are destroyed when they fall below zero hit points), meaning any shot could be lethal. (If you are imagining these as spaceships feel free to imagine crewmembers suffering and dying in the vacuum of space, or don't.) A shot against a target that's right next to the ship making the attack with do +1 damage. A shot against a target three or four spaces away will do -1 damage, and five or more spaces away will do -2 damage. It is important to note that a target is counted as being on the space it moves to, not the space it moves from, when the ship you attack has moved on turn its being shot at.

Those are the base rules, but here's an optional system for making ships more powerful: Ships can take upgrades, ships can have any number of upgrades, though its recommended that ships fight ships with the same amount of upgrades (though I suppose it could be interesting to see multiple upgraded ships fight a smaller number of highly upgraded ships, and one could allow players to distribute a number of upgrades among multiple ships as they will).

Upgrade to armor: a ship takes one less damage when hit. For every time this upgrade is taken the ship takes one less damage per hit.

Upgrade to engines: a ship can move up to two spaces per turn instead of one. It can also fully turn around instead of turning left or right. For every time this upgrade is taken the ship can move one more space per move action.

Upgrade to guns: a ship's shots do a D8 damage instead of a D6. For every time this upgrade is taken a ship has one larger type of dice for its shots (Ie; a D10, then D12, then D14, etc.)

Upgrade to size: a ship has +2 to its starting hp. For every time this upgrade is taken it has another +2 to its starting hp.

Spare parts: once per game a ship can take the Heal action and regain 1D6 hit points. For every time this upgrade is taken, the ship can heal one more time per game.

There's a wizard on the ship: once per game a ship can take the Teleport action, where it moves to any space on the grid and changes to any direction. For every time this upgrade is taken, the ship can teleport one more time per game.

Hopefully you got some sort of joy out of this. Even if you never plan to use this maybe you will have enjoyed seeing the smallest possible wargame imaginable, or perhaps its inspired your own projects.