@@SonOfSofaman I'm not used to play solo, to be honest. Mythic is usually considered the gold standard, and the book lays out what it means to use an oracle instead of a GM. Peter Rudin-Burgess does many small booklets that also gives good advice and some tailor-made oracles for the ruleset you want to use. If you want something more akin to a boardgame (with clearer procedure and less interpretation), there are plenty of good dungeon-crawlers. I play 2d6 Dungeon right now, and apart from the book organisation that could be better, it's pretty fun and simple. Four Against Darkness is a very popular one. If you want some RU-vid videos, look for Stoneaxe Tabletop Gaming and Geek Gamer for two different ways of doing things.
I remember a few years ago I saw an interview with one of the best league of legends players in the world. They asked him what his practice looked like. His response was basically exactly what you described here. Focus on improving one thing at a time until that thing becomes second nature then move on to a new skill. I suspect this is a useful technique for getting better at anything.
My dude decided that teaching us how to become better GMs was not enough, so he decided to teach us how to become better at becoming better GMs. Truly next level! Major props to your equally artful and scholarly approach to the art of GMing, I both greatly enjoy and appreciate your content, my favourite artisan of the craft alongside Seth and the Baron.
It's great you mention narrating the action scenes from movies. My brother and I would voice over cartoons and after school specials mostly for the laughs but in my later years I would do it to practice my improve and also for laughs from my kids.
Nice! My buddy and I used to "translate" Telemundo soap operas in real time, despite neither of us knowing the language, and trying to keep things logically consistent.
The "have NPC argue" got me thinking that sometimes players get a bit lost/disconnected when NPCs are talking between each other. Maybe you could talk about mechanics like the Geist in Infinity or the a vampire's Beast in Vampire. It allows you to split the characters but still have most of them present in some fashion in the scene, and it makes the players more involved in other player's personal story.
The guy who designed those Geist guidelines for Infinity was a sexy fellow. Also, I actually have a video on this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RT1eAE-9n58.html
I don't know what it is about your style, but everything you suggest seems so much more practical than a lot of the GM tips vids. Just bought your book. Can't wait to get it.
For years I've maintained a doc entitled "GM Art and Science". It's exectly the "master list" you mention, filled with an overwhelming amount of tips and advice. Not once did it occur to me to focus on only a few practice points at a time. Thank you for that useful, practical suggestion. You've covered many topics over the years, but this one is easily my favorite! 😁
A core, fundamental principle in the rpg I'm designing is to make the GM's job easier by relieving them of some of the busywork and giving them tools to do their job WITHIN the rpg itself. Such as a character sheet layout and design that can serve as a mnemonic aid for a lot of elements in the game, having things that usually take up a lot of time (like initiative rolls) become a predetermined thing that no longer needs to be tracked, etc. Working on that game and giving it enough satisfying rules to satisfy the old rpg grognard in me while maintaining that guiding principle of making it as easy to play as possible was difficult. But I'm nearing the home stretch!
@@TheAlexandrian As a one man team with a full time job, it's hard to find enough time to properly dedicate to it. I've had to sacrifice my vision in a few places to actually get thr product done within my time frame but I'm hoping it will be interesting enough to catch people's interest! But overall I think it's an aspect of ttrpg design that is often overlooked when designing more mechanically complex games. They ask too much of the GM and the play experience suffers for it.
This is something I have been thinking about for a while now. I spend so many hours collecting tips only to forget them later. A video on how to use the tips that are provided was an excellent idea. Thank you for the videos you make!
Thanks for all the content you create here and on your website. Ive loved all of the content by Matt Colville, Sly Flourish, Matt Mercer, and Brennan Lee Mulligan... But I love how this goes deeper. So thanks for all the hard work :)
I bet your sponsor had some really pointed requests of you for this video. Make sure you hit those service level agreements, or they might never sponsor your vids again! 😅 Thanks for more great advice, Justin.
At this point, it's more like a hydra: Website, RU-vid, Twitch, Discord, Bestselling Book... The Alexandrian is everywhere! (Please don't chop off my head.)
The only problem with this advice is that I haven't been very systematic about collecting various tips over the last ~5 years or so I've been watching GMing videos and reading newsletters. Guess I'll have to find some sort of book that's got all kinds of great tips in it and pull from there. 🤔
I think it would be interesting to see your process on converting an adventure for use at your table, Justin. I know you have done this with WOTC adventures, but I'd love to see you approach something agnostic, like Deep Carbon Observatory by Patrick Stewart - a great adventure, but a bit convoluted with many points of interest and timing, NPC adventuring parties and many other factors to juggle in a game.
It's all equally good! My royalty is essentially unchanged by anything except the remainder bin. The best place is probably your local bookstore: Help spread word about the book far and wide! The next best place is whatever works best for you!
I'd love to see a video about keeping it tough for the high-level PC party, especially in non-combat situations. Can't put them up with ancient dragons and gods all the time, but in most cases, PCs that got to lvl 16+ are famous and normal folks will gape in awe or retaliate in spite... So, how do I keep situations interesting without falling flat on NPC motivations and skills?
3:34. Great tip. As an addendum, many movies have a feature - English (Audio Description) - in which a narrator describes the action on the screen. This can serve as a good model.
I was so excited to get my copy! It arrived I read some of it then pages started falling out… I got a bad copy. And on top of it your book is so popular it’s sold out everywhere 😂 I’ll be awaiting my new copy in march. Your work is so dang good. Im so excited to improve as a game master.
Oh no! And I've been so happy with the quality of the copies I've seen! Hope we can get a copy in your hands before March! I was told on Friday that the reprint is out of the bindery, so it's just a matter of getting it shipped everywhere now.
