So much of the internet's advice is just rearticulated ideas I've already internalized, but this is honestly one of the first actually new ideas for running the game I've heard in a long time. Thanks!
so far every video has provided actionable advice, that as you say, is not the same old same old. Keep up the good work! One thing I have been examining lately is procedures (dungeon crawls, wilderness crawls etc) from OSE and wondering why they are not in 5E. I'm importing some and generating some others. They look like some solid bones to wrap gameplay around and grow from, thoughts?
@@Silkspar Yes! They are the "G" on RPG that sometimes is missing in many modern rule sets. There's this amazing series of posts in The Alexandrian called Game Structures (what you called procedures) that I can't recommend enough.
It's actually wild to see how just in the opening, the "The answer? You don't." broke the assumptions I had been working with that led to me having this issue. As soon as the presence of the restriction is mentioned, the solution seems so obvious! It was still worth sticking around to the end, though.
Ngl, this is absolutely brilliant. So simple that it makes me wonder how this isn't the default method. I've started a game with two players and want to bring in sidekicks/henchmen to beef up the party. Definitely going to use this idea. Brilliant!
So basically "once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth" lol Really good idea, and feels very extendable to other (non-antagonistic) NPC situations
Hello there Justin. This video felt more natural, not as scripted than the others. I feel this helps me to maintain focus on your great advice. Keep it up, we need more of this type of content
So obvious when its reasoned out like that. Solves a slew of problems for my small party of mature (attitude not age) players, whilst adding to world depth. That's it, I'm in for the book... as soon as I find the right link.
I'm commenting for the algorithm. But please please please talk about framing and pacing. That article was seminal to how I run games. It, node based designed, and jaquaying the dungeon are some of the best advice I think exist in the whole GM advice medium.
I'm about to run a Duet Campaign where the (one and only) PC has a Familiar. After watching this video, I am giving good thought on how to make their Familiar into a Spectacular Sidekick. I was thinking to have the Player control the Familiar for most of the time, but that I (the DM) will do the RP when the Familiar communicates with its master. That way the Player isn't talking to himself. Thanks for always having solid and thought-provoking advice!
I like this idea a lot - I have a draconic sorcerer who got his magic by accidentally eating a dragons soul, who's now living in his head, and I forget way too often to have the dragon react to things. I'll ask if another player wants to take that role. The issue is that the dragon does have his own agenda, which I don't necessarily want to tell the other player in its entirety - but I think I can find a balance.
In addition to the topic of sidekicks, I would like to hear you speak about sidekicks who turn on the party. Not a strange event in games and certainly not a strange topic amongst gaming vlogers. I would like to hear about what it takes to keep the trust of the players but yet at the same time have them feel the raw emotions of the betrayal too.
A couple thoughts: First, I think that this system also offers an excellent solution to the "player can't make the game this week" problem: just have one of the other players run the absent player's character for that session. Second, I think there is a situation that is kind of the exception proving the rule: When you want to add a companion who has an agenda orthogonal to that of the party, or possesses key information that the party does not have and will not immediately get. Escort missions, working with an untrustworthy ally, basically any case where it's important to the character concept that this character not be under the control of any player. Also, I would love to see some videos on your worldbuilding techniques.
I had players in a Pendragon game play each other's wives. I pulled a bit of a dirty trick, because I led them to believe they were making wives for their own characters before pulling the swap.
I played with these npc companions technique in a campaign and it was quite nice. The dm let is make our character also, so it was like an alt, so players built their npc character with others players interraction in mind and dynamic with their mains. We also sometimes did low lvl questing with those for PCs; this provided a release from high lvl play and cathered to the drive of making new characters in a long running campaign (we were lvl 11-12 in an AD&d 2e campaign...)
I really . . really wish I had seen this before my last campaign. Toward the end of the campaign, my players picked up apprentices (sidekicks) and everyone ran their own. It got old really quickly, and players ended up RPing conversations between their character and their apprentice. It didn't work, and I swore I'd never allow apprentices again. Now, you have changed my mind. I wish I had thought of this.
You're right: It completely transforms the experience. There are some players who can handle running their own sidekicks and making them full-fledged and interesting characters, but those players are FAR rarer than those who can roleplay a secondary character that interacts with someone else at the table.
Oooh a KARTAS tulpa shirt in the wild! Good video; I always liked the conceit from Wraith that another player at the table played your shadow (your dark urges, basically). I've never had another player play familiars/companions/etc though; that's worth trying at some point.
This is a great idea. I love tips/tools that allow the DM to offload some of the work to the players. I think it really makes for a better experience when the DM has less to worry about. However, I find that most of my players dislike it when I offload work onto them. Maybe its because usually I offload book keeping items like tracking the damage monsters have taken. I'll have to try this the next time when want to hire someone.
Great idea. We are doing your remix of Dragon Heist at the moment so may add some hirelings to the Trollskull Manor Inn/adventuring business. I'll be sure to suggest this.
Suddenly, the familiar shows up to save the party, his existence remembered by his absent-minded wizard PC, who would have continued to forget about him had the wizard had any other viable options.
This is a really good idea. We are beginning to add hirelings and retainers to our games and having to play them as well is a lot of work. Making the other players take the load is a perfect solution!
I often have other players play NPCs in scenes where their PC isn't present, works very well in our games where the PCs are characters with separate, often antagonistic, agendas and aren't running around as a cohesive group. But somehow, I hadn't applied that to henchpersons, hirelings, familiars, animal companions, etc. Thanks!
I've been prepping a military style campaign and with each PC playing a senior officer with a junior officer sidekick but was trying to wrap my head around how we would handle it. This video has great timing!
During our Dragon Age RPG campaign which just ended, two players decided they were no longer interested in playing after they'd already rolled the characters etc. We kept them in with the assumption that my GM would run them, but because I was the closest irl to those people and already knew a lot about the characters I ended up mostly running them mechanically while the GM roleplayed them. It was very heavy for both us, even after one of the characters died, because as we levelled up the options for what to do in each turn exponentially increased. Also since the GM still handled the role playing bits we kept falling in the "forgot about the NPC" trap. I have to admit,though, that now in the new campaign only running one character feels super light and at times even a bit bland.
This is such a simple idea but it's honestly blowing my mind right now. This is basically the perfect solution to this issue for me. Thank you for another great video!
Honestly every single video on here is something new and interesting. I remember seeing some really cool stuff on your blog a while ago, so I'm glad you make content now.
Might I suggest that you do a video related to your blog: “bumbling in Freeport“. If done right I believe it would be very entertaining, informative, and popular.
I've spent the past month reading as many of your blog posts as possible (everything on your gamemastery 101 page and most of the articles linked within those articles). I stumbled on the blog as I'm preparing to run Waterdeep Dragon Heist, and couldn't stop reading. I'm so excited to the run the game and am super excited for new youtube content!
Fantastic idea! Thanks for these videos! Your blog has been a staple for me throughout the last 8 years of my GMing, so it makes me so happy that you are stepping into YT and making your awesome content even that much more accessible.
Hey Justin, that is GOLD advice. I was listening to this video, and its like I could intuit the non-binary solution of asking other PCs to play companions of other PCs. Then you added great arguments and advantages it could bring to the game. LOVE your advice! more please.
This is a pretty interesting idea. It's an interesting idea to cast one of the players as a sidekick. It's also intrigues me when you say casting a wizard's familiar as another player. As they're most often animals with minimal speaking and chances to make independent meaningful choices, how and why would you go about familiars in this way?
Nice advice! I don't remember reading this one in your blog (though it's possibly there). I'd like if you could take the time to talk about your perspective on prepping and running games for one player. I think they call it Duet these days.
I'll make a guess, halfway through the video - you're going to say that each player should play *somebody else's* companion. Edit: Yup. You set it up well, though - I wouldn't have thought of it ex nihilo, but it was a very natural solution once you set up the issue the way you did.
I had this problem in a fantasy/historical setting in which PCs were spiritually and mentally linked to ancestors from a distant, legendary past. I as GM tried playing the ancestral guides, but it fell flat, and interest in the approach waned. I wish I’d seen this back then.
An interesting subject to touch upon came to me reading your hex crawl spotting article: How do you abjudicate sighting when players have flying familiars. They seem to expect that they see everything like a radar, and 5e rules are ill equiped to suggest something better.
Have you seen people choosing to sit left of someone so they could play their favourite sidekick again? Or are your rules not the strict :P "I want to sit next to Karen her Imp is just the best sidekick character around"
Hmm. Sadly I feel that especially with Infinity RPG the geists are just too bland and useless to really support a fleshed out character. They are virtual companions and are not fully self-aware/ intelligent. Also just during character generation, they are an afterthought and generally forgotten. They have profiles for lot's of stuff they can't even do, like physical attributes... As a GM I am really unhappy how the Infinity RPG has solved them. I encountered the same concept in the muses of eclipse phase and there they appear much more integrated into the game and mechanics. I really like your advice how ever!
My favorite thing about your content, both here and on your blog, is the practicality of it. It's not just "hey, do this thing to make your campaign better". It's "here's how you do this thing". As for future video content, I'd love to see a video on game structures and especially methods of transitioning between them.
This advice is gonna be crucial for surviving the Cosmere RPG. Everyome with magical powers in the Stormlight series has a spirit sidekick familiar type dude following them around.
Me, who is going to GM a 1 PC campain: awesome, this is the kind of advice I need. Me, after watching the video: 😢 But I already watched your video on 1 on 1 games ;)
Great concept. Wish I'd known of this 20 years ago when I was playing CoC, losing Investigators all too frequently! We could have been playing with "Assistants" and "Students" of our main PC's, and promoting them to PC status would have made perfect, in-game sense! I can use this advice, in my current AD&D games. Thank you! Cheers!
They way my groups has done it, is the players control the character but our GM roleplays them still. However I do agree with you, this is certainly a learned skill, if you want to pull it off correctly. I have a character with five retainers and let me tell you its a pain to control them all, but we always get in trouble if I don't bring my attendants down in the dungeon with us lol! Their personality's usually have come about because of some very lucky dice rolls in and out of combat with them, so some are considered expert warriors or really wise scholars by the other players.
Been following The Alexandrian for years and love all the practical and well thought out advice you offer. Loving the YT channel. Will we be seeing any of your Ptolus campaign content on this channel?
