Then you can either boot that player from the campaign (and find someone else as replacement.) or run a South Park campaign (How are Kenny going to die in this episode?!).
I'm afraid then you must choose whether or not you want to game with that person. If you do then you need to accept that and make a diablo style game. Or, as Lars said - drop the player and find someone knew.
The single best advice I ever got for GMing was to require the players to declare actions rather than just name mechanics. To tell the GM what it was they were trying to do and how they were trying to do it. Roleplaying is taking on the role of a fictional character in a fictional world and having that character act the way _you_ think they would act if the character and the world were real. You don't want players just poking randomly at the world with their "best" stats; you want them approaching situations as if they were _actual situations._ It also helps you adjudicate and fosters an atmosphere of cooperation rather than competition between you and the players.
I actually used to do this with like the magic I was using; I still do. Like I was thinking about a character I was making and how she uses her channel negative to heal (This is in pathfinder). Like she gives a quick kiss to an ally's forehead, "then a deathly aura envelops a large area around the two. And you hear bones snapping and cracking. You see their body and organs warping and twisting. After all this, the ally feels rejuvenated like they've rested for a long while". This is to represent her using her ability Death's kiss and channel negative energy.
This was exactly what I needed to help a group of new players. I've been trying to figure out how to get them to be better investigators and using magic.
I tried RPing for the first time earlier this year, and I think that the GM took notes on "how to turn a new player into a murder hobo:" Step one: Make everything living only interact with the player in the form of 'trying to kill you violently' Step two: make sure there is no warning before an encounter. Even if the players are trying to scout ahead, make sure that a whole massive group of baddies set up in ambush right where everything was thoroughly searched moments ago. Step three: Make sure these encounters happen whenever the characters begin to interact with one another. Dialogue must be cut short, and the only character development that can occur is through the gaining of XP and loot. Step four: make the only NPC who can advance the plot a nondescript human who is completely alone. Everything else is of another race and hostile beyond the limits of self preservation. The only winning strategy was to shoot everything that moved and wasn't a PC. Not fun. What little conversation the PCs had was with a min maxed fighter character getting offended at everything with my character trying not to get smashed into pieces. "You're a lot bigger than I am, maybe we can intimidate them?" "Are you calling me FAT!?" Ugh. Needless to say, I'm reading through other RPGS and I'm gunna try my own hand at DMing where my players don't feel as paranoid as I did after session one. Assuming I find a group and a game.
Oh gawd this gave me flashbacks. I had a DM like this. Even when there were NPC's who RP'd, they were assholes who you just didn't want to interact with
Player education aside - your idea about academia environment being background for an adventure given me a great inspiration. Really interesting the npc-player dynamic can be found there.
Awesome review of A Red and Pleasant Land by Raggi the creater of Lamentations of the Flame Princess. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YwoNqkflF7k.html
For a long-time gamer I think this video is really really valuable because many of us are used to having players that are equally seasoned and know Role Playing inside and out. For anyone running events or getting a new player(s) into the hobby, this is a good piece put GMs into the right mindset. Thanks for the video, Guy!
This is a great way to figure out who your players are. A good idea when starting a new game with players you have never played with. Especially if they are timid or don’t know what to expect in a RPG game. It is important to know your players before you give them a session that you spent time on. I do have to admit this idea does have its draw backs. It’s essentially giving the players a guideline of how the dm expects them to behave in his/her world and I do feel this could be better done with a much more dramatic flair. The first session is the HOOK. You fail to grip the players they typically won’t come back. Drama, death, blood, darkness and comedy are staples in my first game. I will absolutely cheat the roles and keep the players right on the verge of death. Nothing teaches better then threat of failure around every corner. After the first session, I go to less fudging of the roles and give them more reigns. Once they get a feel of the boundaries of the new world and how vulnerable their players can be, it starts to open up and role play really comes out.
Well, time to fire up the Police Academy theme! Lovely idea :) After watching your videos, I thought about having a group start in a dungeon cell. Captured by something ridiculous like Kobolds and being forced to do gladiator fights for entertainment. To teach the players basic D&D 5e combat mechanics and things you can do.. or can be done to you. And it might eventually turn into a daring prison break with the help of some Kobold collaborator or "noble" (NPC interaction), who strongly disagrees with the tribe slowly being taken over by some shaman not worshipping dragonkin, but undead! Not only to seed first clues to the big bad (e.g. some powerful necromancer), but also to make them consider that monsters in my world might have their own goals and interests.. and aren't just there to be slapped around. Also that collaborator ain't stupid and will take something a PC treasures (PC background!) as a deposit and hide it in the lair, to ensure they will eventually come back and rid him of his rival. (Also I simply want to have an excuse to eventually use "BSG - Storming New Caprica" as background music for some storm/escape scene focused more about movement and less about fighting things :D)
This is amazing. I accidentally created something similar. Had the benefit of having sessions 0's with each person. Those sessions were just how to play your class. Then they got sent on a training course from their guild to the "main island". This ended somewhat like what you mentioned. Then a final challenge was given and a report on that. I think it really helped the new players play well. You've given amazing ideas however that I'll incorporate.
The academy idea might be good for new players but as an experienced player I would hate it. Sometimes a good session zero with examples of play is the way to go. Pairing a rookie with an experienced roleplayer is also good.
That video helped me a lot. Well, at least gave some ideas on how to change things here. My players had contact with RPG before we started, but from my perspective, they need to change a lot of bad habits... To put it simple, they think they are playing a video game. They want to skip conversations (literally - they keep saying "c'mon / let's go / alright"), they don't work together, they want to be better than the others, and want to kill themselves... I already gave up on the table, but after seeing this video I think there's a chance to them... Thanks man, I love your content. Keep doing it! Hugs from Brazil!
thank you so much... this will help me with my new campaign with my new players. we have been going through the Lost Mines of phandelver and I have been encouraging them to explore their characters... i.e. what haven't they done yet... instead of just using a dagger every single fight... Yes that happened with my player that is a druid!!! lol no problem they are 6-14yrs old though. lol
Well this inspired me. I'm gonna have the PCs be 4-5 of 30ish adventuring hopefuls to be put though a deadly obstacle course and mock dungeon, kind of a D&D "mud run", with higher stakes and increasing difficulty.
Well, my idea of academy is to set up an encounter that plays on a specific weakness of the players. For example I had a player who was shooting lightnings first and asking questions later. I've put him onto the water plane, basicaly every time he wanted to cast a lightning, he fried mobs, sure, but he also took the damage himself, cause of water. After a few times of falling unconssious from his own spells he started to think first before casting something. Especialy if it's dangerous.
This seems like an awesome and super helpful idea. But what would you do if you had set up a world or were at a point in your story where something like an adventurers academy would be strange or almost impossible to present to the players? Do you think similar effects could be achieved with something like etiquette training, or proper schooling, or any other non-adventuring specific academic setting? How so?
I can use this. I was thinking of making a make shift monster hunter game using pathfinder. If my players seem to be confused or are just acting like weirdos I can put them in hunter school
Dang! Just as I am almost finished plotting out my new master plot (first serious try at GMing) you come up with this fantastic stuff! Three adventures about proxy wars and revenge... I think it'll have to wait. But thanks anyway, for our group has a lot of bad habits and weaknesses we'll have to work on. Gently. Without them noticing.
I have a funhouse style well haunted house I tend to run new players through. It has a lot of light traps and puzzles that get harder and have alternative answers to solve some. So the difficulty is adjustable. There is also a lot of tricks that the environment players on the players. They are rarely in much danger until the end of the house, unless they act very carelessly. The adventure does try to funnel the players into a moderate state of paranoia and really sets them up for the kind of game I like to run. It both lets the players know how I am going play and shows me how they are planning on playing. Afterwards I can adjust a campaign to some middle ground or we determine that the players are not interested in my kind of game and we part ways.
How do you differentiate characters without changing your tone? Here are some variables you can work with: loud, quiet, fast, slow, chenge up yar vuwils. You can also use semantics. For example, saying "different words" instead of "semantics".
I recently introduced my 10-year-old nieces to D&D using a 1-shot of a Wizard Academy where they had to find a missing item in order to graduate from the school. They had a bunch of fun and both asked to keep the character sheets I had generated for them in order to play again later (I let them choose race & school of wizardry but used an online generator for the rest so we could save time & get right to playing). Now that they've "graduated", the next game can be a real quest. Additionally, one of them is planning to start pestering my brother (her dad, who used to play Pathfinder in college) to start DMing family games. I'm going to see about getting her 8yo brother and my other nephew in on a quick game soon too. I think it would work well to have them do the Academy thing too, but likely from a different type of school (I feel like the boys would probably do better with martial classes, as they are just a tad young for tracking spell slots). This, by the way, is how you become the "fun aunt", because an adult spending an hour or two giving kids their undivided attention and playing with them makes any kid feel awesome. Be the fun aunt (or uncle); teach kids D&D.
Hmm, I wonder if I could shimmy around the mercantile in Barovia to fit this idea? My players are still getting used to the theme of play in Curse of Strahd, they are halfway through death house and have barely investigated below the surface spookiness :(
This is a much older video, but I would like to explain how I get some newer players into role play. When they make their character they have some significance to their backstory that I take and make an NPC that is similar but in a more mundane way or the opposite of that aspect of the characters history. Allowing them to easily use their characters interests to interact. Then id used these NPCs for a short time as I transition them to more complex interactions
I have a group of very experienced players -- but we are using a new game system. Long story short -- I set up one of the early encounters to essentially be a series of tasks that were required to prove their worthiness. I did this so that we could exercise various bits of this new system so that both the players and me as GM get the "feel" of the system before launching into the campaign proper. It was very much an academy of sorts.
Get the Midderlands and White Box Gothic. Let the learning begin. Maybe some White Box Zombies. But don't tell the players. fantasy-faction.com/2018/the-midderlands-osr-setting-mega-review
I think a fun deterrent to murderhoboism would be a prison sequence where they keep getting overpowered without their equipment and taken back to their cell till they learn to look for details and plan and whatnot
I just send high level bounty hunters after murder hobos. If the character then dies the player needs to create another. Eventually the player will learn there is a better way to play. Long prison sentences work well as well. Or executions.
What I've done in my own games to foster roleplaying is to set expectations before we even make characters. Stuff like, this is an adventure more role-play heavy and puzzle-based that is light on combat with such-and-such themes. I then worked with my players during their character creation individually to get them to come up with a core character concept (like dwarven barbarian) and then focus on the backstory and motivations of the characters during the part where the character is mechanically put together. It encouraged my normal optimizers to start making RP considerations for feat and skill point use, as well as develop a basic mannerism and mood for the characters. Then, as a DM, I continued to encourage this by voicing all my NPCs (badly to the point of hilarity) and often talking in-character to the players, as well as describing every hit and miss in combat, no "You hit" or "You miss" responses in combat. I encourage the players to do the same. I even RP stuff we used to not spend any time on, like shopping, or interactions with innkeepers and bartenders. It's a lot of extra work on the DM side of things, but I've got players who used to not do RP at all coming out of their shells and coming to me out of game to discuss character motivations and goals and we're starting to have real in-character conversations without much prompting.
Whaaat? He did not say that at all, Guy is literally talking about issues you have with players while the game is going on. Educating them not to continue murderhoboism for example.
Watch the video again. He quite clearly intends this to be like the tutorial level in a video game when the PCs power level is low enough to make this believable. _Obviously_ you can't interrupt an ongoing campaign by having a bunch of full-fledged, 11th-level murderhoboes go to a school. They'll just kill everyone, take their shit and move on.
Dude, there is plenty of ways, you can hide a legendary weapon to beat the villain, the thing is they need to blend because the academy is actually the villain school, you can put an overpowered obstacle (a monster with high level) and a teacher beats him effortless, he talks to the PC's that they remember him like his old party (all death) and so he invites them to the school (you need to hint that the villain was the person that demolished his old party), you can start some economic catastrophe and the only way the PC can get potions and weapons is "winning" them in the local investigation center (where they teach them about some topics and they get "free" stuff because they just love teaching), you can start a mercenary Troup looking for new members (the party) to loot a new dungeon that was not there yesterday, Everytime you mess with the strategy you get penalize with your reward (the leader it though but approachable), depends on your party (and what kind of players you have) the best way to do it. Do you even play this game? (This game is about creativity, spontaneous thinking and planning, try to work on your homebrew campaigns)
"Watch the video again. He quite clearly intends this to be like the tutorial level in a video game when the PCs power level is low enough to make this believable." Uh, i'm not sure we're watching the same video, because he is talking educating players you're having issues with such as murder hobos. That QUITE CLEARLY means it's for a current session that isn't going well. "Obviously you can't interrupt an ongoing campaign by having a bunch of full-fledged, 11th-level murderhoboes go to a school. They'll just kill everyone, take their shit and move on." That was my point, but thanks...
I Played D&D 3.5 at the final year of high school and parts of college. I recently acquired a 5th edition book wanting to dip my big toe into the proverbial waters and DM my own campaign someday and found this guide is quite helpful in potentially leading me into the right direction.
An idea I've always rolled around for conditioning players towards roleplay over murderhoboing is to start them off at the bottom of the food chain so to speak and make that fact abundantly clear. In game theory, a dominant strategy dictates that players by nature gravitate towards the simplest solution available. When a person is still of the mindset that this is a game more than roleplaying, they want to find the most efficient win-condition available and, let's face it, most people that run for newbies aren't exactly in the business of killing their players on session 1, so a simplistic scenario will reward them for a slick and cruel kill, which motivates them to think less in the future as well. This is where my proposition comes in. When players are put in a position, where killing is the hardest option available, it puts them into a more thoughtful space. Puts them in a position, where they might stop and listen before they decide to slit everyone's throats and maybe, just maybe, being in that position makes them more eligible to be cooperative. And even if they gravitate towards bloodshed in the end anyway, at least they have to put the extra effort to actually figure out how they're gonna go about it in order to get away with it, making for a muderhobo that's at least interesting as opposed to just a reckless idiot. The reason I put this much emphasis into quelling murderhobo tendencies alone is because I think that's sorta the root of things holding back advancement in roleplay. If we get players to think, they are advancing. Getting them to think of their actions, getting to think of variables, getting to think on the things they are listening to, because they were put in a position, where listening is all they have. In this space, it's much more likely for them to adapt and come to conclusions about roleplay naturally as opposed to when their sword is the solution to the problem from the word "go". So the next time you run a game of Strahd for someone, maybe the death-house doesn't set the tone you might be looking for. Maybe if the players started off as personal guests to Strahd's dinner-party, in a sequence that pays homage to Jonathan Harker's captivity at the start of Dracula, it might "put them in their place" to put it radically, forcing a more thoughtful approach.
problem is I can't drop that Into my runing camopains this feels far to out of place or would not sit in the chulten jungel or in hte udner during a demon plage
Heh, the "why did you decide to become an adventurer" question amuses me. In the campaign I'm currently playing in, all 5 characters haven't so much decided to become adventurers by trade so much as they've just wound up in a series of situations. We've made it to level 5 doing this, and are basically having to organize because our reputation is starting to catch up with us anyway. Heck, at one point we were passing through a country who had kinda a Sekovian Accords for adventurers, basically as a means of taxing and tracking adventuring parties (but also to keep tabs on them, presumably), and our group ran into trouble with an overzealous court official for a bit; our current quest actually had us crossing the border, so once that was explained to a more reasonable individual, we were just fine. One of our other arguments was that we weren't actually adventurers because they defined the term as people hunting monsters or treasure; we're all just travelers looking to see the world. Of course, 3 of the 5 characters there could have been BSing us - one of the other players is quite open about his backstory and he really is just wanting to see the world the way his grandfather did.
This video was pure gold. Many many groups have players with variable skill at role-playing and something like this may help share the spotlight between more veteran players and newer ones. Just make sure that there is real exp/loot to be won and it gives a medium for those experienced players to help the newer ones. If you don't see how this concept could be altered to make it more fun and less tutorial like, you shouldn't be dming anyway.
I wouldn't call roleplaying a "skill". Things like doing accents are skills, but they really aren't necessary to roleplaying. Good roleplaying is (IMHO) more of a habit than a skill. A habit of putting yourself in your character's shoes and doing what you think they'd do if they and the setting were real.
Have watched tons of your videos... have never played nor gmed. I did buy lone wolf though after watching your review and plan to gm it for the kids and wife:) And a gm buddy of mine is going to set up a trail of Cthulhu campaign. Should be fun:)
Is there any chance you could do a video on dark heresy 2nd ed, please. I'm having a hard time with how it all works out. Btw I love You're videos , you are easy the best one with the best information. I love you so much ...
First... you have to apply the rules as written most of the time when judging results or you are training a player that will not be able to play in anyone else's game. And if you don't understand a rule... read it twice, then discuss with the players before making a ruling. Don't just say: "well the rule as written really screws up may plans so ... no." A DM just did that to me... said I can't recognize my own (non-magical) staff when my druid is in wild shape... when there's only one staff in the room and no other sticks. If you are a bad DM... you are going to train bad players.
It's less fun having players that are just running around without a clue as to how to properly roleplay their characters. And railroading is more like taking away all choice the players have, he hasn't said that a single time in the video.
Who are *you* to tell other people that they're roleplaying *their* characters wrong? And he did say that in the video, he said "do you have a rating of 5 or higher from the academy? no? then you can't take this quest until you do."...railroading.
Yea, railroading. It's not a difficult concept. if you force a player to do things the way *you* want them to do it instead of letting them do things the way *they* want to do it, it's railroading.
Its railroading to have an starting set pice be an academy and have the NPC and PC act like they are members of the academy? Hm................. you do you mate
clericofchaos1 I think you’re missing the point. The takeaway is about getting the new *players* to think about how their characters can engage in the world in a training wheels mode without ‘punishing’ the players outright by having their characters killed with their foot in the door or arrested and in the morning executed in front of the town and thus driving away the players from the hobby they’re being introduced to. All other provisos assumedly addressed (GM explains consequence in the setting, how the world generally operates, biases in attitude, resources known to average inhabitants et cetera as deemed appropriate) beforehand ideally. Breeding adversarial Player-GM relationships before the players have even begun to grasp the breadth of their ability to engage is more likely to raise resentment at the table. Which will happen if rather than provide a circumstance that can demonstrate abilities with a low risk, the GM just takes away the character sheet saying the guards execute you on the spot for trespassing or whatever situation seems appropriate for that consequence. Given time to work the gist of things out (which honestly shouldn’t be too long with a consistent group) turning the dials back up to appropriate levels with a full realization of fairness and acceptance if their characters do die is more than appropriate. Underlining one thing though: the greatest tool for improving everyone’s enjoyment is open dialogue and making sure everyone understands the expectations both the players and the GM have.
