How to determine if your Plot is Bad - Game Master Tips 

Thank you Thank you Thank you

I really think he should have topic cards, or at least a little graphic on the bottom that tells what point he's on, it would make everything a lot easier to follow!

Thanks for the "short list"... AND I might posit, rather than accusing the descriptive nonsense on a "bad GM", suggesting it's the result of an "inexperienced" or "unpracticed" GM and encourage us all to show a dose of humble patience while we coach our GM's forward in their aspirations... I've noticed a fair proclivity in this (AND other) comments sections for complaints about GM's being a scarce commodity in gaming. There's a chance (not a definite charge here exactly) that Players' impatience to call out a GM being "bad" for one or another mistake or misstep in narrative, might lead aspiring and new GM's to the conclusion that they either "deliver incredible material" or "run like scared rabbits from the table"... and go back to being "just a Player"... Cultivating rather than running off is the difficult (but usually more correct) thing to do. ;o)

I love these kind of comments. It's like a useful contents page for the video. Maybe Guy should do this in the description of his videos!

+Kaz Avian > Years back he had such. But it seems he have dropped using the visual part of the media RU-vid is, to appear more like a radio commentator now.

The murderer(s), having just finished a job where they ended up tracking blood everywhere, weren't paranoid about someone wanting to look at feet?

@@albertnorman4136 She was in luck?

Nell. Your sister is a genius.

@@albertnorman4136 They probably wouldn't have left footprints if they knew the footprints were there. If they left them and knew about it they most likely either wanted to be caught or would be too stupid to think about it at all, lol

And then the footprints clapped.

That's what these videos are for, improving your writing. My first self-written adventure at the age of 16 was terrible, full of inconsistencies, deus ex tropes and without explanations how the PCs got there or who this random NPC is who just pops up out of nowhere. You learn over time. Being a critical book reader or TV watcher also helps. Avoiding Hollywood's worst tropes helped me get better at this.

Type it next time.

This is a actually a great tip that I will for sure try out. Thank you!

In writing there is something called the dramatic sentence, I believe. Where you always save the most climactic portion of a sentence for the end. It has more impact that way. Example of not using the dramatic sentence: "The space station exploded and the characters looked on in shock at the loss of what had been their home for so long." Using the dramatic sentence instead: "The characters looked on in shock as the space station, what had been their home for so long, exploded." This way it builds to the story beat and it can sink in instead of burying the lead with more trivial aspects of description and thought.

@@Melvin7727 There's a tendency lately, proliferated by Tracy Hickman's XDM, that you should NEVER read aloud the boxed text. "Make it your own," they say, but unless you're an established fantasy author, why WOULDN'T you use the boxed text?

I couldn't agree more. One of things that I like to do when giving my players an obstacle is recap a few things that happened in previous sessions, in case they forgot. Then say ok. You have choice A, choice B, and choice C based on what you learned from NPCs X Y & Z. Or you could go off on your own and do something else entirely. So if they want to be creative. They can be. If they can't think of something, then they still have multiple ways forward.

But also have into consideration multiple outcomes. In the next session my players are going to face a choice that will affect the whole comunity they're living in and the essence of their characters themselves. And it's completely clear that it's their choice on what's going to happen. And even if they choose one, they'll still have the chance to stir the result of their decision to a middle ground or something. Thinking of different outcomes to a situation helps making the players feel their actions have consequences that can shape the world.

Yes, it is such situations where it is fun to be the Keeper / GM: to see what fascinating ideas the players come up with! I think CoC to be wonderful creator of such, as the "kill and destroy everything" monotony D&D have simply do not work in CoC.

those are the best situations. unfortunately, very hard if not impossible to recreate

RuneQuest is also great for that. I find it the perfect balance between CoC and DnD

it'd be too easy then, you'd just have to fetch anybody

@@mistery8363 unless the town "sacrifices" all new born so you're in search of a baby that only one person knows was born..

maybe godss lime their souls seasoned, idk

@@mistery8363 I mean, if we're pretending these occult rituals are just another element of reality, there's no particular reason that their components should be especially onerous to obtain.

noice (ive litterally used my own blood in ritual so yeah)

I was just laughing on that moment. I would cry so hard if my PCs would've defamed the whole village just to prevent greater evil

SealOfTheTime But if they charm them to bed that's a win win....right? You know for the greater good and all that lol

*PC rolls a 20 on charisma charm check* Vestigial Virgin "well.... if it will save the world...."

Plot twist: The PCs are virgins as well.

DM: "OK look, I'll let you do this, BUT only as long as it's the villagers doing the horizontal mambo. You can't use your abilities & the circumstances to justify taking advantage of the situation like that." PC's think that they got one over on the villainous wizard while sneaking in a little T&A to their D&D. Villain: "Welp, looks like you virgin PC's will just have to do. You're all going to LOVE my beholder friend." I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going. ^_^

GM: "Nothing, youre dead."

Mood

So shall it be :) 2019 - the year of the good plot. But in all seriousness you are correct. And I shall attempt to do it!

0.0 Did not expect such a prompt answer! Let us make is a reality, uuum fantasy ... Fantastical reality, year of the good plot! Keep up the Great work!

Doesn't the whole concept of: Someone (ANYONE; good, bad, neutral) wants something badly, but is having difficulty getting it. Cover all of it and then some though? Wouldn't it just be a matter of switching the focus of who is doing what and changing their intentions from bad to good? Skeletor wants the death ray to destroy the world. Skeletor has the death ray and He-man wants to get the death ray so he can destroy it, so it can't be used for evil.

I'm actually also interested in how you define a good vs an evil driven plot. I'm assuming it's the difference between "The BBEG is attacking the towers that keep the barrier around our kingdom up, go stop him" vs "The towers that keep the barrier around our kingdom up are failing, go find out why and fix the problem" (where the problem ends up being something like the ley lines feeding the towers are drying up and you have to restore them, but the cause is natural and not some evil force restricting the them)?

The thing you can take into account is that evil vs. good plots is kind of ambiguous. Not even talking about perspective, look at goals. Evil Villain 67 wants to dominate the world and rule it. Benevolent King 248 wants to unite all nations under one banner. And be the guy who owns the banner. So as opposed to looking at evil vs. good, set your plots (within the scope of the idea) to be players vs. the individual with goals that need to be stopped. There's sort of like a 2x2 grid you can think of if you want to boil it down. Evil Villain Doing Bag Evil Villain Doing Good Good Villain doing Bad Good Villain doing Good. Everything but the last one is self explanatory. At surface level, you want someone who wants good aligned with players interest, doing bad deeds to get there. We want to build a wall for the city to keep monsters out so we enslaved the goblins to do it. Everything is completely relative and applicable to the reverse if you broaden your perspective just a wee bit.

And of course sometimes you want their plan to succeed and allow them to trap your villain. Otherwise you'll discourage your players from thinking outside the box. Something that I ways encourage.

cert2b Nothing like trapping a villain only to have the need to rely on them to defeat a seemingly more powerful one only to be betrayed by the original villain who escapes only to become even stronger now that he has what the "common enemy" had...

"Ah, but her doctor that is ze plan. Now that they know the plan, they will plan around our plan. So we will plan our their plan that they planning around our plan!" - quote from one of the greatest series ever made.

cert2b "Your brilliance knows... no bounds."

Jordan Hope "And besides, we have one thing zey sorely lack.... ZEPPELIN'S!"

Exactly! The PCs are (should be) the leading roles. The story is the story of the PCs. And it make it more fun to be GM when the PCs can figure out to do things on their own!

Thats exactly how alot of my Legend of the Five Rings sessions have evolved

I have a problem with this metod because the majority of my players are either newbies or shy, or even both, só they don't know what they want to do or just don't Interact much on the table. I don't do linear campaings but still... some times given a lot of options overload some of then, so as a DM you need to introduct plot línes.

@@iuric.528 Most satisfying is not always available. Even when they are shy though, hopefully they will over time become a little more open.

Yes, agreed! It is a real good breaker of the "Routine or mundane challenges" monotony (talked about last in the video) to have such an unusual outcome!

That's just reversed jesus

"I like it here. I want to stay."

You need to change the focus of your campaign. Don't go for deep story and character exploration and development, go for an easier and more light story about just having a good time. If throught the sessions they start developing something more then you can change gears into something more akin their taste. It's not just for players to evolve and react to what the dm's throw at them, but also the dm's reactiong accordingly to what the players are and do.

Karanthaneos That was my plan. Unfortunately work got in my way of running and the guy with no memory had a hissy fit and stopped coming so my party went from two to one. :/

Manumitier I talked to that guy with no memories and he didn't care for my suggestion on why he was might be a noble so far from home and what not. He wasn't happy with it. So I scrapped any hope of that and just focused on the main scenerio. Didn't work out anyways since I had too much work and not enough play time. :(

Bad luck buddy :c

Karanthaneos Yep. It sure was. I knew when I agreed to run something that I was going to end up not able to show. It was summer and I worked a landscaping job. When the guys got tired and went home early, I was still there with my boss trying to make the project times on time. :(

You could use the "What do you want IP / XP / WhateverProgressPointsTheSystemUses for?" question. Then they learn that if they forget things then they do not get points for them!

Lars Dahl My man what's that? I didn't quite get it. You mean they get XP for investigating and discovering locations or plots?

That's an interesting idea but I'm not sure I should punish them :D they're having fun at the moment

make the information important like a password or a magic word to activate or deactivate something etc

You are not punishing them for forgetting things, you are rewarding then for remembering things! (It is a matter of perspective!)

Jaxstrix Good luck! My first time gm-ing soon too.

Oh thank you, but I've been running my game since January. It's just nice to be able to gauge what I've done so far against the independent opinion in this video. Best of luck with your campaign, I'm sure it will be great.

Yeah, we know the ordinary murder hobos will have killed them all.

sure, that's what he meant... lol

Sleep with all the virgins

Organize Woodstock?

Lol

Yes, agreed. Could be nice to get some more focus at "Session Zero", "Prelude" and "Session One", as understanding how to use those when starting out a role playing campaign, will increase the chances of success a lot!

You misunderstood. He was talking about having your PCs not interact at all with the plot. In your example the PCs are interacting and engaged in finding, hiring, persuading or coercing. They are actively doing something to achieve something. This is good. An example of what he meant is having an NPC do what the PCs in your example are doing while your PCs watch on the sidelines, not interacting, just watching.

YeahIdothedescriptionchangessometime. Because I don't keep it clear in my head.

My favorite villain plan? "Strangle the PCs for breaking his previous plan." But, another thing to NEVER, EVER, EVER have the PCs do? Just ignore changes. Don't have the villain come up with 15 virgins ANYWAY as an aside. At the least, have them come across a razed village.

...Be careful posting at midnight, people.

That's literally what plot is, events and dilemmas for the players to interact with in order to drive the story. He actually explained that at the beginning of the episode.

Be careful with this, letting the world progress without player interaction due to lack of interest may often lead to the least interesting scenarios. It often leads to the problem of the world existing independently of the players and lessening their influence and affect on the world. I think "quantum-ogres" are fine in moderation so long as you don't previously contradict information given to the players. They're supposed to be helpful improv tools, but just like any tool in the GMs toolbox csn be used poorly or abused. Most of us do not have enough time to prepare for every eventuality without resorting to either railroading and/or massive improv, both which have severe downsides most of the time. (Railroading ruins the entire point of an rpg and removes all agency from the players, while improv can easily fill your world with inconsistency and plot holes while also being simply difficult to pull off without jarring the narrative. Both are useful tools, but you have to consider the costs of each one). "Quantum-ogres" provide a mix of the two that still allow some measure of choice without requiring you to invent everything from scratch. There's an easy way to do them horribly wrong though. For example, if the players are conciously choosing to avoid something you most likely shouldn't stick it back into their path immediately. It also doesn't really count as being a "quantum-ogre" if they know enough about it to choose to avoid it anyway (since the "state" has been observed at that point). It tends to be more useful to think of "quantum-ogres" in terms of arbitrary choices, that lack consideration and meaning when choosing to move a "quantum-ogre" into the player's path. For example, if the players choose to go to the North side of town instead of some other section, there's no reason to avoid using a "quantum" encounter here, if they just picked North because North is spelled with an N and they like the letter N. Conversely if they know that the South part of town is full of gangsters that start fights so they consequently deliberately choose to go North to avoid them, you should not move the encounter to the North side and use a "quantum-ogre". Another example: random name generators are a type of "quantum ogre". Say your players decide they want to talk to a baker, but the town they're currently in isn't fleshed out enough from your game prep for you to know anymore about the baker other than that there probably is one in a town of this size. So you roll some random things to quickly improv stuff. His name, how many kids, his goals and ideals, etc. This is another type of "quantum ogre", where you're quickly pulling predetermined information together in a random fashion to give yourself a rough outline before you improvise that gaps. Most players in my experience do not mind "quantum-ogres" being presented so long as they still have multiple choices and options and are not forced to confront the "ogre" if they choose to do something else.

@@futuza I think we're in agreement for the most part. My understanding of a quantum ogre is precisely that it is an encounter planned by the GM that can't be avoided (often because the GM loves the idea too much). Improvising a name or other things like that would not fall under that term for me. I still like a living world. I won't advance every little detail, but the world won't be static either, things change, even if the players aren't around. But they can change for the better, if the players make an impact, and they will see that.