Collaborating With A Player | Running the Game 

For reasons passing understanding, folks enjoy categorizing my style as "old school." But to me, Player Collaboration is a hallmark of a modern, narrative-focused game. Working to create these dramatic moments outside the strict structure of the rules. Conspiring with a player to really immerse everyone in the world, where it's not "my character vs the DM" but rather "my character in a world with other characters each with their own knowledge and motivation."

Every good magician has a ringer in the audience.

"Doing it with all of the players would be weird". I did this with all of my players at once. I had an entire party who, after 3 months, could not work together. So I collaborated with each of them. When they came to the BBEG and expected to be the one to be revealed as the betrayer and beat the rest of the party.... the BBEG betrayed them all. They saw that they could not win apart from each other, and set out for revenge as a cohesive party in a player driven campaign.

The players could no longer rely on their character sheet: *they had to think* You monster!

How to REALLY increase metagame drama: drop this video in the group chat when you're the DM

I'm planing a thing with one of my players. This is an Aberration focused Campaign, then we decided that he would have Sanity stat. Slowly but surly, he'll become insane. So i talked to him, since he already DM some nice one-shots, i asked him to prepare a dungeon, a dungeon of his character memories, and in the end it need to have an Elder Brain, since his character is now Probed with this colony.. The plan is: Eventually his character will fall catatonic by insanity , to cure this the other players need to enter his mind and "kill the psychic parasite". When they enter i'll leave the DM screen, pull a character sheet and sit with then. And He will DM this "mind dungeon". Cross your fingers with me guys

My DM and I pulled this in our recently wrapped up Curse of Strahd campaign. My primary character died at the hands of Strahd, and the rest of my friends were working on finding a way to revive me. Trying to figure out a way to keep me playing while this was happening, but also not have a character that I’d be too attached too when my original was revived, I suggested I’d play as a Vistani spy. For those who don’t know, the Vistani serve Strahd and are the only people who can come and go from the valley. Since he’d been away, the players hadn’t met him. He was a paladin (oath of conquest) and a sadist, but took on a false identity as this heroic champion there to crush evil. The rest of the players, except for our Druid, just let metagaming explain why they let him tag along with them. I built him to be extremely adept at keeping the party safe, and so most of them were won over pretty quickly. After a huge battle where my traitor saved a bunch of innocent lives, including a recently discovered Ireena (the reincarnated form of the woman Strahd loved). The whole party had been beaten up badly (except for me) and with Ireena there, I was basically activated. Just as I was about to attack the party, I was approached by the Druid who wanted to talk privately. She pulled my character aside and apologized for not trusting him, and that he was a good man. I can’t make this stuff up. So I raised my axe and struck her down with a divine smite. I then trapped the rogue in a bead of force, knocked out Ireena, and fled from our warlock by stealing the party’s cart. The rogue eventually got free and basically pursued me across the entire valley in a bid to kill me for betraying them while the warlock rescued the Druid. The session ended with the rogue barely killing my traitor (and I mean barely, in the most epic of ways) and rescuing ireena before Strahd could get to her. So yeah, it all went great. Our allies’s plan to resurrect my old character went through at the start of the next session, and everybody ended up really enjoying the moment. Even the Druid, who honestly took the game really seriously. She admitted she probably would have been more upset, except she loved the hilarious irony of when she decided to have that conversation with me. It was a fun moment that went basically exactly according to plan, and now we all have a fun story to tell about DMs and player collaborating to tell fun stories together. Tl:dr - It can totally work. It just takes luck, communication, and preferably a bit of dramatic irony.

"sometimes pulling the curtain back removes some of the frustration but preserves the drama." Amazing advice, keep your players in the loop!

My favourite example of this comes from a game I ran years ago called "Just a blip," It was a game that initially intended to be an Aliens campaign, with plucky marines being picked off one by one. As I often do, I ran a "Teaser," session a couple months before the campaign proper to test the mechanics and systems before starting proper play. The setup was simple. Miners had been disappearing in a mining colony, and the players were marines, sent into tunnels choked with poison gas to find them. Only one of them wasn't a marine. They were a Weyland-Yutani android. Sent to catalogue and recover samples of these beautiful creatures. The whole way down, the player had been, slightly off, admiring the terrible destruction wrought, until finally, the players thought they had eradicated the problem, when my Collaborator spoke up "It's time to change our filters," To the filters he knew were fake. The session ended with the PCs choking out, and the Android stood amongst them, impassive, emotionless.

Remember remember the 5th of November, the player and DM's plot...

I've played a CP2020 game wherein I was an undercover cop working with criminal players and the DM would run little ways that I could play that double agent, and those actions affected the next session in small but cool ways. The campaign ended with a tense stand-off where my allegiances were revealed. I think it can work and I think it's just another thing to add to the toolbox. Needs a player that can roll with the punches though.

I once conspired with a player to let him start a secret army of resurrected enemies they killed and suffice to say, I'm glad that I have this wisdom in hindsight. Should have made sure the player knew it was for drama, not for power.

I ended up being the "traitor" character in a Dark Heresy (Warhammer 40k) campaign. I was playing a psyker who (due to incorporating a personal fumble of forgetting an NPC's name in a very important moment) would get everybody's name wrong. This was played off comically with the character's good buddy, Havelock, being called "Aflac" at every possible moment. Behind the scenes, my psyker was slowly working towards creating a new Chaos God, homebrewed by the DM. My character got a lot of cool abilities and everybody was none the wiser. The charade came to an end when another character started to attack me due to some *cough*metagamingbullcrap*cough*. After a stunned moment of "Is this really happening?" my character used his strongest spell to effectively burn one character instantly to ashes and obliterate the legs of another. I still remember the scene of my character standing next to a portal, turning to his friend and simply uttering "Goodbye Havelock" before disappearing for good. It was a super great scene and he ended up being the new Big Bad that the party had a face. Great video Matthew! Love all of these examples!

I had one of my players essentially play his own evil twin. I knew that if I described his character showing up but then I started talking, everyone was going to roll insight immediately. So, I explained between sessions what I was going to do since his character went off for the night and didn't return before everyone fell asleep. The other players/characters figured he'd show up in the morning so when he did show up, there was nothing out of the ordinary. They just thought recent events had gotten under his skin so his attitude was dismissed for the most part and most of what he said was taken to heart which caused plenty of the characters to rethink their whole adventuring life. It was amazing when they had their individual character moments and then had to find him again for their group meeting on if this whole adventure was over their heads. A whole conversation about where he was and what he was doing lead to zone of truth being cast and then everyone wondering if maybe his memory was wiped or someone charmed him. They eventually figured it out and it was such a great reveal. The whole campaign up until then (a full year) was everyone saying how lucky they were that this character was on their side and how he could wipe them out if he turned evil just to end up being faced with that exact situation. It was very enjoyable and I hope to do something similar in the future.

Do not recite the deep magic to me witch, I was there when it was written. Love the streams though, keep em coming.

I love how Ajax is just creeping in the background. Such a cool mini.

Just an video editing idea, but if you refrence player reactions from the livestream you might splice in some footage of the players reactions to what ever your talking about in the video. Right now I'm thinking that It would be nice to see the look on Tom's face as you explained the Dr. Manhattan moment. Food for thought.

I once implemented an interesting twist in a short-session of Paranoia that I did for some friends. I commonly give each character a secret in-game objective (e.g. steal items from at least X members of your team, "accidentally" cause the deaths of at least X of your team-members etc.) and a secret out-of-game-objective (get X players to roll our dice for you, steal the "lucky dice" from X players, lie about your dice results at least X times without getting caught). In this specific game one secret in-game objective was, that the team had a secret agent of the great computer (may is main-board never fry!) that if he found out that you are a mutant, he has the ability to not only kill you but also all of your clones, which is a big game-changer in Paranoia, and your goal was to find out who that agent was and try to get rid of him. Of course each player got the exact same mission and there was no agent. From a DMs perspective it was really entertaining to watch them getting more and more desperate. I think a few of them realized after a while that there was probably more than one player with that mission but I think only one of them (out of 7) came to the conclusion that there was no agent. I usually run Paranoia with even player counts because I like to give players missions that contradict each other, and since some of the guys had played Paranoia with me before probably thought that an uneven number must mean that there is a player with a very unique mission, which was most likely going to be the agent.

Story time: I was running Tomb of Annihilation for a large group of friends. Half way through the tomb, one of my friends couldn't make it for almost a month. I had his character disappeare after one long rest and when my friend came back, I didn't give him HIS character sheet but a note saying, "You are a gray sladd that has taken your characters place under the order of Withers to trick adventurers into traps. Kill them at any cost." He did well MWAHAHAHAHAHA

The robot thing 👏🏻blew👏🏻my👏🏻mind👏🏻. Absolutely genius, wish I could have seen it play out in person.

Player collaboration is one of the best parts of being a DM. Your world and game are a (imo) hollow, until your players start pouring themselves into it. And that is what creates a compelling story. Those characters and, the shenanigans they've engaged in are what the players will remember for years. Not the dramatic lore beats you come up with and than show them in the midst of THEIR story. I've collaborated with players (although not as intensely as you've done with Töm) about so many things over the years that it's hard to even remember it. From inserting completely new races into my setting, to having old demonologists (who are actually Sycorax from The Tempest) imprisoned in their head. Most recently in the game I've started about a year ago I told the players I want them to have a reason why they're together, as with out groups "session one" tends to be pretty awkward. One of the players decided that he'll be the owner of a rather shoddy circus, and the other players are just tag-along performers he's gathered. It was perfect, and everyone was at least ok with it (some, like me, loved it). This circus served me as a tool for so many hooks and events. From big evil individuals hearing about a group of "talented performers in a circus", to me being able to add interesting NPC's into their party as helpers and performers, to an ongoing joke from me where every NPC asks them if they've got lions (they don't) Even now, at level 9 they still think about themselves as the circus, and consider where their next performance will be and what it will entail a big important part of their story. And It all came from one player with a brilliant idea

the mr in-between character sheet swap actually sounds super cool and fun

Here after watching the Livestream behind the scenes. Loved seeing how these videos are produced! Giving the player a chance to have something secret from the other players seems like lots of fun and I look forward to giving my players that opportunity or conspiring with a DM myself! Great video; knowing the pros and cons of doing this and how this depends heavily on DM and Player RP skills.

LOVE the end card, very clean and professional. In my first game (which miraculously made it all the way from level 1 to level 20 over two years) my Paladin was somewhat displeased with his character. He was having fun, but by 10th level, he had a better idea of what he was interested in playing than he did in the very beginning. So, when the BBEG was unleashed from his iron prison, he stayed behind and bought the party time to escape. Then, as the party made it back to their stronghold, reeling from grief and watching helplessly as the sun itself went out, a portal to the Abyss opened in their fortress. They all got ready to fight and die to buy the villagers they were protecting time to escape-- but the demons that exited the portal ignored the party, and fled screaming into the wilderness. Out of the portal came the most legendary figure from the setting's history, a demigod hero who sealed away the BBEG in the first place. He had been built up literally over the entire campaign, hed appeared on a stained glass window in the very first session and had been mentioned at least once every other session since then. Hed vanished after that fight- and now he was back after 1000 years of vanquishing evil on their own turf, effectively he was a high-fantasy Doomguy. It was the Paladin's new character. When my players asked the figure who he was, and the Paladin (who had been totally silent since the loss of his other character) answered, it was one of the best and most memorable moments of the entire campaign.

My favorite player collaboration: My son wanted to DM, but was cautious to take on an entire campaign. So I said "How about one encounter." He said "Great." Without telling the other players, he designed an encounter at the city gates. I DM'd a couple encounters and then the party headed to the city gates. Without saying a word, my son and I switched chairs. I said "Null heads up the stairs to the top of the wall. What's all that racket about?" And my son DM'd his first encounter.

Had a player give up on their character so they could make a new one. Can’t wait to work with them to turn the old one into a new villain! Taking a page right out of the Matt handbook.

I did something like this about 15 years ago, except I was the player, the GM was new to the hobby, and I led the collaboration. I had been running a Star Wars Saga game for several months when one of the players asked if we could swap roles. He felt he was ready to run something, and wanted to take what I had already established. I had no problem with this, but I also got an idea and we spent a day working it out. This was an Old Republic campaign, set about 20 years before the KOTOR game. The group was present when the Sith Army had taken the offensive, invading a planet near the Core. In the process of their escape, my Jedi showed up and helped them out. They were more than happy to include me in the crew given the risks I took to assist them. There were several things they didn't know. My character wasn't a Jedi -- he was an Imperial officer who had been covertly trained in using the Force without the Jedi Council's knowledge. And while the other PCs were 3rd-4th level, my character was 10th. I had two character sheets: a visible one that showed my stats close to the group's range, and an actual sheet under that, with higher numbers that I only used when things were truly desperate. There was a catch, though -- there was an ACTUAL Jedi in the party. And in that ruleset, Jedi automatically sense when someone knowingly lies in their presence. So I had to avoid lying. I could lie by omission, or give evasive answers, but the GM had a card ready to pass to the Jedi player if I ever lied about my status or training or background. To make this more difficult, the Jedi was being played by my wife -- so I couldn't discuss any of this at home. She wasn't in on it, the secrecy demanded that I keep her out of the loop. The ruse, with me regularly sending reports to the Republic about the party's shenanigans, was some very tense roleplaying on my end. I had to be careful about any admission, and only use my best abilities in life-or-death situations or times where I was acting alone. But eventually it would have to end; the group had gotten the attention of the Sith Army and they were taking active steps to stop our interference. So I made a final plan, which would necessitate a reveal. The plan was for the group to go to Coruscant, where I was going to turn them in and the entire party would be immediately arrested in a big event. The media was going to be all over it, listing all the wrongdoings the group had engaged in. Then, quietly, I was going to release them from jail, lead them back to their ship -- which by then would have a new paint job and ID codes -- and get the team back into space but under the Sith radar. Unfortunately, the GM's job changed his schedule the evening before that session was to play out, so we never got to do it.

I love how high the production value is getting :) Keep up the good work MCDM, we love you guys.

I once collaborated with the GM in a Top Secret game. My character recruited all the other players, and they thought they were working for the good guys. Only after many game sessions did they find out they were in fact working for the very faction they thought they were fighting. It was a very big "what!!!" moment. A little out of game hate was sent my way, but it was very memorable. It made the team very tight, and I had to create a new character (who was not trusted for a long time).

Matt... We're wearing the same shirt. One of us has to go home and change.

So I'm playing in a campaign right now with 13 people. We're a group of delegates split into 2 or 3 man teams each representing a different race. Each race is collaborating with the DM to get their specific race ahead of the others while simultaneously trying to fight off a horde of monsters. It is awesome, and we never get tired or frustrated with a lack of trust. We knew what we were going into, and the twists and turns are incredible. I've never spent more time thinking about a game outside of game day trying to anticipate each team's next move.

Honestly I have a guy I co DM with. I am the DM but he helps with some of the story as well as his character arc. He also helps by making encounters which is amazingly helpful. I oversee everything and sign off. I am a new DM kinda and he is too so we are learning a lot together. I will say this. The drama in my campaign is pretty epic because he is on the inside in a way and helps the drama play out. He had a character (his) die in a dramatic way and because we had most of it planned the other players had no idea what or why it happened. I had a player call me to chew me out (not really upset but frustrated) because he loved the other PCs character. Little do the party know that the dead PC in question is not really dead. Now they party all want to stop the main quest (STK) to save a fallen friend. As I said I am new to this but I think this is a good start hahaa. Thanks for your video by the way.

Hang on a second, I've watched this already... I'm going to watch it again.

Great video. Love the Jean Grey reference. This definitely reminds me of the greatest game of Paranoia I've ever played: all of us were working against each other, we all were texting the GM (and being texted by the GM); we were all tasked with saving a robot as a team, but some of us were secretly trying to destroy the robot and some of us were secretly trying to destroy other players. And the absolute best part is we all had code phrases to determine who are real allies were, but the code phrases didn't match up! So, "smash the machine!" meant one thing to one player and a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THING to another player. Probably the greatest two hours of roleplaying I've ever done.

one of the most approachable ways to try this for the first time is to replace an npc in a module with a pc. so, for example, DDA3 - Eye of Traldar starts with an NPC being pursued by bad guys right into the PCs' camp. After fighting off the bad guys, the NPC explains what's going on and asks the PCs for help with his quest. This is very easy to convert to having that NPC be played by a player instead, either as their PC for the whole campaign, or just part of this adventure.

Hey Matt, Just wanted to stop by and say ; Thank you for all your work. Today I received my copy of Stronghold & Followers and I was super excited to finally hold it. Perfect timing as well, since my players are about to earn themselves an old castle.

I did this in a big LARP I ran more than a decade ago. A large group of players had accidentally unleashed an evil spirit in a session, so the next week I got a coworker to come in and secretly play that spirit, now in possession of a mortal body. Initially much weaker than any other PC. His main goal was to stay in play long enough to become actually powerful. Every week I gave him a secondary goal that was sure to draw suspicion if he pursued it. If he achieved that week's secondary goal, he gained a big chunk of XP. Weird goals like carrying around a little decorative wooden box with him everywhere he went for session after session, and refusing to explain it to the other players. It took the rest of the LARP months to figure out he was the evil they'd unleashed, and decide they needed to kill him. By that time he had so much power that it took nearly the entire LARP ganging up to destroy him. So much fun.

When you said that 'everyone knows to follow along within reason' and that players think about more than what their character would do, it reminded me of a time when I saw that absolutely not being the case. My friends refer to it as the time I ran three games at once: I ran a four player game, where two of the players had zero interest in any story that wasn't directly tied to them. One was a ranger than hated the city they had to live in; great, I thought, classic fish out of water story. But she refused to have anything to do with the party. She had no idea where the other players lived, and when they tracked her down for help she actively turned her nose up at them and walked the other way. This went on for over *two or three months* of sessions. The other player simply made Batman (the characters name was even Bruce Wayne until I talked him out of it before playing) and he also abandoned the two players to investigate his parents death every week. I would have to ad-lib his misadventures for up to an hour of our 2.5 hour sessions, at which point I would cut back to the other players who where trying to play the adventure I had written when I could. Eventually the ranger was attacked by an unknown enemy and assumed the others were at fault. So she tracked down the other players, literally blew their front door up, and screamed at them before running away and never being seen again. This was halfway through a session, and the player just couldn't play the rest of the night. The player wasn't mad or upset in real life, she just said 'its what my character would do." To this day, I don't understand it, or what I could have done to avoid it.

I was listening to the Mr In-Between story thinking what I'd do, swap character sheets in the big reveal moment, and I got a chill when you said that's what you did.

I did something like when playing Curse of Strahd. So, the party was escorting Ireene from Vallaki to Krezk, and Strahd and his minions show up on the way. We go to a smoke break where it's me and one other player. I made her roll a WIS save secretly which she failed, and I told her that she was charmed by Strahd. Then we continue playing, and she manages to persuade the entire party to let Ireene go in exchange for their lives. It is very unlike her character, but she roleplays her arguments so good that the party is convinved. Then once Strahd has her and they leave, I tell her that the spell is worn off. The reactions of the rest of the party were amazing, and it's one of the most memorable moments of the campaign.

'It's the most fun you can have with your brain'

I just dungeon mastered for the first time and it went really well, all 3 of my players had a great time. I didn't exactly copy the Delian tomb adventure but I stole a lot of design elements from it. I also recieved my physical copy of Strongholds & Followers last week (in Sweden) and I'm so happy about everything

An RTG video!!! Huzzah!!! This is just my two cents, but collaboration between DM and player is always tricky, but can be amazing fun. One time I as a player asked my DM if I could make a new character mid-game because I knew my rogue character had achieved his life goal and didn't want to be bound by the party (also we low-key needed a cleric) . My DM let me create a new character out of respect for the previous one, even introducing my new cleric as an NPC until an opportune moment to have my rogue run away arose. Having to dodge my other friends while he and I plotted was tough, especially when I asked if he'd let me roll to steal some extra pocket change. After over a month of planning and subterfuge, I took my chance and made my roll and walked away from the table. The end result? My rogue receiving poetic justice and my cleric aligning her goals with the party when I took her sheet. The rest of the party was blown away, even though they were initially sour about what happened. It's been over a year and whenever we talk about D&D with brand new players, that story is always brought up. Stuff like this is why we love this game.

The first DnD session I ever ran had a sorcerer with a purposefully ambiguous background and reason as to why they were cursed with their power. We worked together on what the curse meant and I slowly began giving power to the player with the caveat of the sorcerer sometimes losing control of herself to a being that possessed her. Close to the end of the campaign they discover that every thousand years death sheds it's form and takes on a new one so as not to become too consumed by the power that it holds. Awesome moment for all of the players, especially the sorcerer. You can just be a sorcerer in any session. Much rarer do you get to be death. Work with your players. There's some amazing moments to be had.

This is great advice. When I get to play, I always leave hooks in my background for the dm to pull on. It's more fun that way.

Oooo that outro background! That's new and exciting. A minor thing, but exciting, nonetheless.

I am of the opinion that the camera was too low for this video. We don't get 100% of your glorious hair. At least we get 100% of your glorious advice. Also, seeing this get made live on stream and then getting to talk about it afterwards was amazing and you should do it again if possible. OH YEAH, BY THE WAY: I went to Netflix and watched that Star Trek episode right after the stream was over and I loved it. I watched maybe five or six episodes randomly on TV but I might actually watch it all now because it's such great entertainment.

This seems like a really fun idea for the player and DM. It's a great small introduction to what goes on behind the DM screen as well. Thanks for the vid!

I had a lot of fun doing this with a player once. My players were systematically trying to take down a megacorporation that had a hand in a massive slave and drug trade ring, when a really good friend of mine came back after a few years abroad and wanted to join in. I explained the goings on in the world and campaign up until where we were at. He made his character, a rich trustfund kid type, and we dropped him in the next session where he fanboyed over the party (they had gained a lot of fame) and begged to join. There were lots of little weird isolated incidents that made the other players skeptical of him, but that was about it. One time they raided a primary base where slaves were held before transportation and everybody saw his character and laid their weapons down, for instance. Finally, they wound up face to face with the person they thought was the CEO of the megacorp, and the faux-CEO got up and told my friend's character that he had kept his seat warm for him. His character told the party he'd had a blast and thanked them for all the adventure, but he had to get back to work and hire better replacements for all the corporate heads they had killed, and police stormed in to arrest the party for all the murders they'd committed against those corporate heads.

Matt, your videos single-handedly have inspired me to write some of my best and most creative work as a GM, and I just have to thank you for always releasing prolific knowledge bombs just when I need them, every time. So again, thank you, and you're doing amazing work

This videos actually opened my eyes to this concept, because, being from the video game tradition, it felt like asking the game designer to make a level just for you. And after ruminating on that idea, I realized that it's totally okay to ask the DM to "make a level just for you", because the game is literally being made for you; the DM is only making stuff for the people at his table. I'm playing a very avant garde D&D game with a small group of friends where we're almost playing a few single-player games in the same world at the same time, and the DM introduced an angel to the game. A vague, holy being pretending to be the king of a nearby territory. Since my character had basically nothing going on, he was the only religious character of the group, and the setting was a new, incomplete world that we were expected to craft how we saw fit, I hit up the DM after the session and asked him if he had any plans for that angel. Surprisingly, he was up-front in telling me no, and so I spitballed the idea that, since Pelor only meaningfully existed in this world because of my character, that the angel was an aspect of Pelor, and that would lead to something plot significant later, whatever that means. Nothing's happened yet, but the DM thought it was a good idea. So we'll see.

Finally seen the entire playlist and caught up to the most recent upload. Thanks for all the advice

I cant believe I finally caught up! I remember that the first video I saw of you was the railroad vs sandbox and I was impressed by how well you explained your point. I started watching everything from the beginning and even dm'ed the knights tomb session with people from work. It was amazing and people enjoyed it and their characters that I am planning to link it to LMoP with the same group. Thanks for encouraging me to dm. I hope I dont disappoint!

I was missing your videos! gonna watch it now

Part of becoming a good GM is knowing how to maintain immersion. The Other part of becoming a good GM is knowing when to _break_ immersion, if that's what's necessary to keep the game enjoyable. Because this hobby is *A Game.* Everyone is supposed to have fun. If that means you need to pull back the curtain and expose the artifice, you not only can do that, you _should_ do that, in certain cases. To do otherwise is to do a disservice to your players.

My first time DMing, in the first scene, I had the assassin one of my players had written into their backstory turn up and ambush the party. The assassin had tracked the player to the city they were in, and the player ended up turning to his new party for help in dealing with the scene. That opening stanza threw my group into a fracas together, and it ended up being a great way for the players and also their characters to bond. After the fight, the assassin made good his escape having attacked from a nearby rooftop. Although the group gave chase, they failed too many of their skill checks to maintain pace with the assassin. He became a long-running arch-nemesis of course. I had talked about introducing the assassin into the game 'at some point' with the player a few weeks prior to the first game night. I explained then, that it is possible the assassin might become a group nemesis if the group did not complete some skill challenges and chase the assassin down. The assassin became a much-feared and hated nemesis of the group, and provided a great climactic scene in the final stages of the campaign. But after watching your video, I am devastated I did not think of having my player introduce a fake character. So much more drama would have ensued when the assassin eliminates his target. That player could have then produced their real character. Setting up the final scene for... "You killed my father, prepare to die."

Every time this videos show up I learn so much, thanks Matt, you are still one of the biggest influences in my DMing!

Bit of a long comment about a player collaboration that worked for me. So back in high school I ran a homebrew rpg like game on bus to and from club events designed to be run without dice. I would pick a number range and if they guessed in it they would successfully complete the action that they were attempting. This allowed me to hide resolution from the players and some really cool player collaboration. So in the story of the campaign the party started off knowing there was a traiter amongst them, but not who it was. I told the player who agreed to play the traiter that any time they wanted to perform a dastardly deed they would start describing whatever they were going to do with "I would like to...." And then I would invert their successes and failures on their check. So if they successful on the check, they would do somthing awful and the opposite of what they had stated. They used this ability several times during the story and when it was finally revealed what was going on at a climactic show down at the end it was awsome! The players felt truly betrayed by this ally because they were finally able to piece together all of the events that they inverted and realise that was on purpose! The final battle was super intense emotionally and just a blast to run (and I assume play a player in :D). So if you can think of a similar system to use with dice and have willing and interested players I would highly recommend it. It's a ton of fun both up to and during the final reveal!

I have collaborated with a player outside of game time to radically change his character from a Wizard to a Sorcerer via a 6 year sojourn into the Shadowfell. In between games I collaborated with the entire rest of the players to create a dream sequence for that one player with each of them playing a cypher of their characters with some prophetic words I'd fed them. It seemed to go well.

One of my favourite moments in my current campaign came from collaborating with a player. The party wizard was going to be absent one week, and jokingly said that someone else could control his sheet and have his brother or clone go with the party. So I immediately messaged the player and asked them if they would be cool with their character being replaced by a doppleganger. They were, and for months afterwards this doppelganger traveled with the party, unaware it wasn't a real boy. Only I and the player knew. When the wizard was killed during a botched mission, and their form changed that of the doppleganger, the player's minds were blown.

I 'collaborated' with the GM in a game, sort of. I joined the 2E AD&D campaign in the 4th or 5th session. The party was just about to go into the current BBEG's lair for the big confrontation. We had a couple of minor fights to get to the BBEG and when we walked into his throne room he stood up and demanded to know who we were and what we thought we were doing. So off the top of my head I say, "My Lord, I have brought you these presents." and motioned to the rest of the party. The GM and the other players all gasped at this reveal, but the GM was quick and the BBEG said, "These are fine gifts, take you place at my side." so my character, a 1/2 Orc 10/10 fighter/thief, walked to stand beside the throne. Then the fight started. The BBEG and the PCs charged each other, but my character then did the most epic thing, he back-stabbed the BBEG. The look on the other players faces was even better than the first betrayal and the GM just laughed. This cemented my position in the group as the tactician, since none of them had a tactical bone in their bodies. We played this campaign weekly for another 6 months or so before I moved out back to my home state. I miss that game. I still have the character sheet nearly 30 years later.

I've done a couple of player collaborations, and they're always fun. My favourite one to date: The player characters were a team of monster hunters who'd been sent to investigate unexplained "zombie activity" in an abandoned town. We had a new player with us, and her character was introduced as a civilian girl searching for her missing brother, and who joined up with the group for "safety" after they found her on the outskirts of town. Except her character was actually the villain of the piece: a necromancer who was using the town as a testing ground for raising and controlling the dead, and had lured the hunters there to use them as guinea pigs. She and I had worked out a simple game mechanic whereby her character could animate and control separate hordes of zombies in different parts of the town, and direct them to trap and attack the players. I run my game online (my players all live in different parts of the world) so all this was going on behind the scenes, and the others had no idea she was behind it all. The reaction when she was finally revealed as the villain was priceless. Also, any of the other PCs who died were immediately resurrected as "boss zombies" and compelled to attack their former comrades, which was also fun.

I had almost an entire group collaborate with me to help set up and run a scenario where one of the players was having a timey wimey reality shifting scenario and in each of the realities, the other characters were sometimes just a little different, but in others, very different. Because the other players knew which realities were which and when, the player who was experiencing the shifting was completely moved, confused and even got emotional (in a good way) at a particularly pinnacle moment of the session. Was an amazing session for everyone.

i recently started a new campaign as a player but couldn't decide between two characters , so i ended up playing both. the first one liked to rush into battle headfirst and (as planned) was killed by a boss in the second session putting the fear of mortality into the other players who were new to gaming. it worked a little too well. one player in particular was really upset IRL to loose a companion. they found and freed a prisoner which i'm playing now, in that same dungeon . but the sneakiness isn't over. this new dude has been disguised with Mask Of Many Faces since they met him (they don't know he's a monstrous race or even know he's a warlock). can't wait for the reveal.

The Mr. In-Between twist is so badass!

I just ran a session in which I collaborated with a completely new player beforehand. She’s never played before. I wanted her to enjoy it (maybe even get hooked!?). She said could come to the beginning of the session but couldn’t stay the whole time. So, because I needed the “bad guys” to kidnap one of the player characters as the inciting incident, I asked her if she’d be willing to have her character kidnapped. She agreed! Hooray! I’d kidnap her character, she could leave, and we’d be off! But as soon as she was kidnapped, she tried to break free and succeeded - then stayed for the entire session and continued to role play - making the session go quite differently than I expected - but so much better! I loved it! And obviously so did she, which was the greatest thing of all. 😁

Video Idea! Can you advise us on how much time the players and/or DM should be allowed, in order to plan and think when running into a hard decision or moment where they dont know what to do.

I am in the process of doing something like what Matt described in my current game. This is really helpful, so thanks!

My players defeated a Death knight and got a Sword as a reward. They divided the loot as usual and moved on. After that session I picthed the idea to the player who got it and I pitch him the idea that the sword would slowly turned him evil and blood thirsty. He had to change his roleplay little by little over the sessions. At the begining the party thought he was joking, then that he was roleplaying wrong....after a while...something was wrong....It took them several sessions to figure out, and in the end they loved it and everyone was super surpriced.

Player choice for this is so important. I tried it once and the player used it as an excuse to completely derail the adventure. I used it a second time with someone different and they created a completely different political situation in a region of my world. One bad. One good. Choose wisely.

Pretty interesting watching this after watching the “How we shoot a ‘Running the Game video’” stream.

I just subscribed to your channel yesterday. I really like your style of advice, giving actual examples from your own games. I also appreciate that you keep your channel family friendly.

~Curse of Strahd Spoilers~ I'm running Curse of Strahd and I got my DM friend to guest-star for a session. She was playing Vasili von Holtz, a minor nobleman from the main town of Vallaki. Vasili and the party went on some heroic adventures together, and the party started calling themselves the Vasili fanclub. Eventually, Vasili asked them if they could sneak some saints bones from the church in town, as a favor. They happily agreed. Vasili thanked them... for making the town defenseless, and turned into the Vampire Lord himself. That has definitely been one of the most memorable moments in my campaign.

A few years ago my nephew invited me to play in one session of his campaign with his friends while I was there for a visit. We collaborated for me to be a hidden villain and betray the party half way through the night. The players were absolutely amazed and to this day I'm known as Riley's uncle who tried to kill them. Such a memorable experience.

So, who did it turn out Was the person who killed the super hero leader?

This is what I needed a month ago :). Glad to see these going up.

Mr. In-between... what an amazing scenario! The HOOK! O.M.G. fantastic... going to be the start of my next campaign for sure!

I was there when this got made, still going to watch it :D

One of my biggest regrets in tabletop gaming was never getting to play as my character Demetrius Bloodfallen in my friend Jeff’s Vampire: the Masquerade game. He was something called a Baali, which is a vampire that’s bound to the service of a demon. They’re usually illegal to play as, but in my case Jeff made an exception. He did this because I was going to be the villain of his chronicle. How it would work is very similar to what you did with Nails: I would act as a regular character, doing my best to avoid detection because Baali are a kill-on-sight type of threat to Vampire society. Eventually, I would be overcome by the demonic force I’m bound to and would become the enemy, even though I’m a fairly moral character otherwise.

Love you matt. Thanks for another RTG!

First time DM, I gave my cleric a "cursed tattoo" stating a prophecy of the apocalypse, explained to her how the king was actually an evil necromancer aiming to attack the Valley with an undead army for his own means. Only she could read it until she and the party overcame a skill challenge to decipher it (which was basically a game of wheel of fortune!!). Up to that point, she KNEW the fate of the valley but was unable to share her knowledge, allowing her in on the secret and a big dramatic reveal when her party finally translated it together!

I am loving the new outro card! The quality continues to impress!! :)

I’m trying this in my next game. I’m conspiring with the DM to be on the side of the government.

thanks for your continued content and endorsement of what is to me the most special game ever shared among friends. I've been subscribed since (almost) the beginning of this series and have supported your efforts in the form of book purchases both novel and game related. it is with this in mind that I beg of you, please do more running the game videos. it is the only reason I'm here lol. I watch the chain when I have time, and the diaries have their own insights, but I've stayed with you for your DM tips. lately ive been forced to drudge through lesser channels to seek guidance due to the fact that this series has been so stunted; a single video every 2-3 weeks, and never as long or in depth as the old videos. if this is the new paradigm you intend to stick with, I will respect that, just let me down clearly and easily. Thanxth!

I have collaborated with my party, and I talked to all of them about joining the bad guy to recreate the universe but none of the players knew the others would do it and we still talk about it and it was an epic moment

This seems like a great way to include a player into an adventure they've already played or run

"I don't think they'll have that same problem again" ... Who is going to betray the Chain?

Great on with the outro!

Off video topic my copy of Strongholds and Followers arrived this week! Love it!! Great work Matt thank you 😁

One of my DM friends and I are currently collaborating on a pathfinder/starfinder campaign where during the big battle of the pathfinder portion they'll wake up in the med bay of a starfinder ship, mostly wiped of their memories and chasing down a threat that has followed them to this new universe before converging the 2 plot points end game style with portals letting in squadrons of ships in to help with the battle they left off on from my end >:) it's a huge collaborative effort as we'll be players in eachothers portions of the campaigns and i'm so excited for it

Your videos get better and better, Matt!

Very cool to look behind the curtain after having watched the stream of these sessions.

i've done something similar to this in a homebrew setting of mine. I had a tiefling paladin PC in the group who, uknown to anyone else, was an avatar of Asmodeus himself disgusing as a tiefling paladin. Longstory short Tiamat didnt exist in my world, two ancient dragons (a red and black) made a deal with asmodeus to merge together forming a proto-tiamat,they renegged on their end of the deal and asmodeus was hunting them down before they could form a full five headed tiamat to bind them to avernus. I was involving the PC's in the backstory of how TIamat gets bound to Avernus in the "canon" of D&D lore. During the final confrontation once the "proto-Tiamat" was down to a certain threshold of HP, i nodded to the paladin player that it was time and he then unleshed hell. The fight was going south right then, 5 of the 8 players were dead and it was looking like a TPK at that moment, the tide of battle switched and gave the ranger an opportunity to get one last shot in with a dragon slaying arrow to finish the fight off before a complete TPK. One of my favourite DM moments personally. Collaborating with players to cause moments like this are what makes RPGS so interesting for me.

I used to apply this at lower level. A decent majority of players had a "character hook/history", very much based upon the individual background (class/race/alignment/etc). First, it made the players feel special, there was something in them that put them apart. Example; The cleric player knew of a temple...the fighter heard of a mercenary for hire, the MU wanted a spellbook located in a ruins...the Dwarf noticed a substandard axe, the Elf had seen strange climate, the human saw the difference in his companions. ;-) But, if you delved deeper for a moment....what if an aside happened, that related to one of your players? "Have you heard from your father, he went to Hommlet to sell some cattle, haven't heard from him since then." We didn't have "Handouts" back then, although, if lucky we had a sheet of paper with a note handed to us..."As you approach the village, a feeling of remembrance comes over you". Roll dice! Yea, we had a tough DM. ;-) Times have changed. Cheers.

I remember an instance where this would've really helped out. I was playing an undercover cop in a Call of Cthulhu game focused around cartel members. And so was everyone else. We were all undercover cops. The only reason I didn't think to ask the DM if there was any other cops in the party was because one of the first events we dealt with ended with the party setting a kid on fire, and the only one who tried to stop it was me.

Great explanation and perfect timing. Planning on collaborating with s player very soon

New running the game! New running the game! New running the game! New running the game! Today is a good day.

It's NOT open heart surgery? Hum...what have I been playing these last few years?? :)

I loved nails!! And the fan art was even more amazing

I'm a relatively new DM planning out my first real campaign right now, and I'm actually doing this in this campaign (and the next, which I'm also planning; this is a very detailed world I've been contemplating for years)! I have one player who's more of a co-DM, a Gandalf type inserted to guide the story for me, and another player I won't detail on the off chance one of the others reads this, who will actually cameo as an enemy in the next campaign :D