Setting Up Your Gamemaster's Screen! (GM Tips w/ Matt Mercer) 

Sounds like your typical bard kit

"Oh, can't forget: Batman's's utility belt (very useful) and a TARDIS for extra storage. Plus, I've packed an extra pair of shoes and your angry eyes, just in case. Here's an extra thing of Play-Doh, and some Cheetos, AND A MONKEY! There's a grilled turkey sandwich, and a key. I'm not sure what it's for, but it looks important."

the hoy grail, I love that.

Don't forget to pack a towel. ALWAYS bring a towel when traveling.

fair

I feel like I am doing something forbidden, it's like I'm a kid staying awake at christmas night, peeking through the living room door trying to see santa.

@@JustNatax3 santa doesn't exists

@@CatwaiiYT Aw no way dude. He's just as real as god.

@@JustNatax3 oof

And don’t forget to be tall af if you’re sitting behind a screen

Eshajori Ah but maybe they encounter 'another' tree hut later on down the road, or even in another game! nothing is ever wasted, just reused somewere else.

Not to mention, if you look closely he has at least a paragraph on what would've happened to Vex if she had accepted Saundor's offer.

Yeah, and then there's planning things out because the party might actually be that stupid.

I wonder what the plan was for if Grog had used that blatantly evil skull's wish?

BigKlingy i subbed to you for Fire Emblem. Fancy seeing you here

I can do you one better, -a laptop with a dungeon map in excel, stat blocks and story outline -ipad with handwritten notes -A python script to roll dice since.

a phone with a powerpoint of the whole campaign... and yes I have the panic aswell!

You guys make notes? I improv the whole campaign because by Session Two the whole party is going in the wrong direction :P

@@jeremiahfitzherbert7971 That happens, but then you make notes for session 3 and hope they stick to your plan this time.

Bruh i just ran a campaign in a car with low preparation or books. Only my cellphone and it turned out dope lol

TCCflow Behind The Screens with Matt Mercer

As someone that mostly learns by example, this would be a god-send to me.

There'd be more than few people complaining about Matt fudging rolls, a common practice with DMs.

@@disappointmentdepartment2699 true...

yes! i havent started playing dnd yet and neither have the friends im gonna play with, so i wanted to be the dm and i have no clue wut im getting in to!

He's pretty awesome, also having all that vocal range for NPC's helps a lot

Yep. As a noob dm, it helps to have someone as good as Matt putting his skills (and world eventually i can't wait) out to the public. He's an ambassador of the game and an inspiration.

He is pretty awesome but i feel that Chris Perkins is the most baller GM of all time. Matt has a bunch going for him because he is a voice actor which is the one thing i would say he is better at than master Perkins

Totally agree. Whenever he pulls out the "trick" for Acquisitions Inc. I always start drooling.

Help me, here. I've never really watched Perkins DM. What 'trick' are you talking about?

So true. I was the DM for the first time yesterday, and I only had a notebook, printed notes and maps! I didn't even have a screen or dice (We had to use an app)

Ya it’s kinda scares me how much I have to prepare for the next campaign

@@klownbandit Hey, if you wouldn't mind could you tell me what apps you use to replace dice and the rest. It would be a great help. Thanks.

@@tahaabbas6616 It's called Mighty Dice i believe

@@klownbandit Thanks man.

Look up Black Magic Craft on youtube. I'm new also, and on a budget, and this guy is a total guru at making your own accessories that look AWESOME. Mind you, I don't consider myself to be very crafty, but i've made some badass stuff following his video's and It's actually fun. But making my campaigns super epic all around is what makes it fun for me in general, so maybe not everyone thinks its fun to make the stuff lol.

That... is actually an amazing idea holy shit.

you are a life saver my dude thank you!

you do know that lego bricks are worth theyr own weight in gold right?.... hella expensive these days

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-C7YFZuG5Sb8.html me when I read this comment and I realise I sold my LEGO

I know! I've had dreams of meeting him before and trying to just hang out with him w/o flipping out. :P

Have met, can confirm. Get yourself to a Con! He tries to talk to everybody for like 5 minutes and they have to hurry him along, lol He's so darn friendly!

I'm so jelly of you! lol I just want to be like "bro you want a cup of coffie, my treat." lol

I met him at GenCon in Indianapolis. He was super nice in person.

mick4state same!

As a DM for 12 years I don't get up for anything, my player's give me food and drink and I give them bonus XP because it's more fun watching them fight for who gets me a beer first because they really need that extra 100 XP or however much I give them depending on how drunk I am lol.

@@lucasmacdonald213that’s hilarious and definitely how i would go about it if i can find an in person group

TV tray sounds gross who eats that

@@SaSayed90 Well, considering I'm talking about a folding wooden mini table... probably only termites.

@@TheMemo659 Though, to be honest, a washed out old TV dinner tray (the kinds that are like a segmented plate) could honestly be a halfway decent and cheap way to organize stuff like pens, dice, etc. Then you could put that on your TV tray so it's ready and organized when you need it 😉

Me and my group set up a fumble account each time one of the players fumbled they would have to pay a small predefined amount. To make this a bit more fair when I as the DM roled a natural 20 I would also have to pay the same amount. Then I used some of that money to buy stuff for the group such as miniatures. Sure I payed the most money but they helped out :)

Jimmie I did a similar thing for fumbles, but since I was GM for a group of soldiers, I also kept a swear jar. Again, I payed the most into it.

My miniature collection cost $2,000 and it's still not done, only one player pitched in and he gave $20. Even with all that money lost I think they are really worth it if you have players that are more into visuals. Using the minis gets less involved players interested sometimes, and it beats me pre-drawing all the baddies before the session. Jimmie that's a cool idea, I'll have to ask my players if they are down for that.

You can buy the Pathfinder Pawns Bestiary Boxes PDF editions on paizo.com for $24.99, then print the quantity and variety you need and glue them on cardboard, like Amazon boxes. Works very well and is a great cheap enhancement to your campaign! You just need to buy or build some bases tho, you can get 17 bases on amazon.ca for ~$12 CAD.

Simo oo

cake face I really hope your first session went well! I will be starting my first session in a couple of weeks.

Andrew Owenby it was a great first time, my group has met 3 times total now, it's amazingly fun! The hardest part for me is running the battles, as I have more fun creating traps, mysterious maps and clues, and NPCs, but so far it's been going really well. Best of luck to you! I'm sure you will be great! :D

That's great to hear! You must have had a good impression for there to already be 3 sessions run. The battles do seem to take some time getting used to, it's crazy how Mercer is so flawless with his, makes it look so easy. And thank you very much, my first group will only be my brother and my best friend. My brother is very combat oriented while my friend enjoys a more strategic game. We shall see!

2 years late but how'd it go

I also wanna know!

Andrew Lewis if you look really closely at the names he's scratched off there, you can see Balgus, the badass dwarf from the first episode. Never would've thought he was made up on the fly. Matt's crazy.

Andrew Lewis yah that is a good one! going to type one up for each of the planets in my game

Yeah, Ballsack!

Doubly impressive when you learn that Matt had a really bad stammer when he was growing up.

Envious. Not jealous ;)

shush homer

He's right. As a DM/GM, I would spend forever crafting campaigns, detailing encounters and locations. Getting a small handful of key NPCs prepared for interaction. Only to wind up having to improvise when the players decided to go in the most inefficient, random routes possible to reach their destination and skip at least half of what I'd prepared. Players are THE most chaotic force in the Planar Realms.

Indeed. In the group I run the party was leading a godzilla sized monster to the edge of the world and came across a group of "bards." And rather than warn them about this monstrosity or enlist their aid, one character decided to try and steal their hover-motorcycle and the result was two PC deaths.

***** Yup. My "Essential NPC" shirt has never had more meaning than it did with some of my old gaming groups.

"I jump from the upside down lifeboat onto the sahuagin's head while holding him with a grappling hook and stab him with my gladius" "Ok, roll acrobatics, then attack" rolls high for acrobatics, then nat20 everyone loses it my phone on shuffle with the soundtrack cues in *on his fucking own* Attack on Titans soundtrack I scratch the sahuagin off the battlefield.

The meaning of life is our relationship with God. These four steps are the key to getting a Divine Revaluation directly from him. They are something you'd eventually do if you took God seriously enough to read the Bible, while implementing its teachings. They are, forgive your parents, break down before Jesus, ask for forgiveness, and read three books of the Bible. Step four requires the first book of each testament, and one you chose yourself. The order is actually important. The steps build on each other. Each one primes your soul for the next. To be forgiven we must forgive. Mathew 6: 14-15. That's why forgiving others has to come before asking for forgiveness. Jesus will not forgive you until you've at least done the bare minimum, our parents. They're supposed to be easiest to forgive, because they've fed, housed, loved us to some degree. Our problems with them are supposed to represent our problems with God. This is why the bare minimum to receive the revelation is our parents. You'll still have to forgive everyone though, but that comes much easier after meeting God. I'm extremely serious and very literal. I'm not talking about signs, nor feelings, nor prayer. It's an actual literal pulled out of your body direct one on one conversation, nothing you can miss. nor misinterpretae. The vast majority of christans never bother to do what God wants seriously, so most never get this revelation. To most outside church their Bible is a paper weight, or at best a virtue signal. Their religion is in what other people think about them, not their relationship with God. Please do those steps I mentioned, there really is a Divine Revaluation waiting for all of us. There's extraordinarlly important information we all desperately need in this revelation, but those who get it are forbidden to share it. The Truth that Jesus Christ is Lord is written on every human heart. We all have that knowledge inside us, but we bury it under mountains of pain and anger. Those steps clear away that garbage inside you, letting God heal you, so that his words boom clearly inside your soul. The entire point of our existence here is to Trust God enough that we pay him this mustard seed of Faith, so his Grace can remove the stain sin has left on our souls. Everyone that does not get this Grace is not forgiven of any of their sins, even if they turned around and we're the best person from 25 to death. Without Grace those first sins are still counted against you, tying you to the devil's punishment. It's not about being a good person, It's about being forgiven for when you weren't. The Bible is Truth. Please do those steps and see for yourself. Please take your salvation seriously:

I swear I'm here to learn... I just got caught up in his general perfection.

Interesting I think we should test

Im here to genuinely learn.... And marry him! i mean come on, look at him he is nerdy, great people skills, pretty, and is Levi god damn Ackerman that is a win right there.

You cannot blame either group.

I’m straight but I’d not hesitate to devils three way with Matt and Marissa

Joseph Collins pretty sure you have to be born on the elemental plane of hair

But.. but that isn't fair!

drink the blood of babies ... duhh

Joseph Collins Players tears and blood

Shampoo spliced with Beholder Blood

@@missmuffet4436 it's since been deleted. Then again 4 year old comment that makes sense

@@qm230 I'd suggest the noble demon and rpg audio, bit unwieldy to combine the two but they're both great youtube channels , my current campaign is desert themed so i listen to ND's spirit temple remix and desert ambiance.

Skyrim has an amazing soundtrack. Just saying.

What Android app do folk use to play music for games?

@@briane.johnson4235 Spotify

Now that youhave said that I cannot unsee it. It really looks like he's just the Torso sticking out of the floor. ^^

I took lots of screenshots this episode...

From what I've seen: - Encounter with Wodena. - Saundor's stat block. - Info on Greyskull Keep and the Stormwind Family.

So those are pretty dated.

2:02 Wodena and her hut :)

There was actually some interesting information on Tiberius- his dad was apparently touched by Tiamat somehow or other, and that's why Tiberius is a chromatic Dragonborn in a family of metallic Dragoborns. His dad was embarrassed by the whole thing and never told Tiberius about it.

ghostman263 😂😂😂👍

ghostman263 I like how The Draconian Knights were in there.....:)

It mentions what would have happened if they visited the hag in the Shademirk, Woldena (Sp.?) She has the face of a beautiful woman, but her limbs all end looking like a traditional hag, impossibly long fingers, swollen black veins that rise from her flesh, etc. She was probably a night hag. She would have given them knowledge about sondur, but in exchange for information from the players. Quotes like: "You brutish blood of giant tongue, tell me the kill you regret most" "You half breed with a brother bear, tell me a secret that no living soul knows of you" every answer the player gives her would grow a prune like fruit on the platter on her table, and she would eat of them. If they gave her knowledge about every player, the hag would reveal that sondur is vulnerable to psychic damage.

You can also see some stuff about Vex becoming a Fey, gaining +2 Constitution, getting Fenthras and some other possible physical changes for accepting Sondurs creepy love.

Check out the Criticalrole Reddit. Someone posted all of the info. Very Interesting stuff about Vex.

that's a detailed comment you got there. Have a like.

Robert, try this (just off the top of my head with soda/pop): green = Canada Dry ginger ale red = Coke (DUH!) black = Coke Zero blue = Pepsi orange = Orange Crush or Fanta lt. green = Mountain Dew maroon - Dr. Pepper purple - Grape Crush (Again, just off the top of my head. And I tend to use the individual bottles from six-packs.)

you are a godsend

@@cthefish Well, I hope you don't lose your high opinion of me, but about six months ago, I broke down and bought the clear acrylic rings with the conditions printed on them, from Amazon. It came in it's own box, everything was so fresh and clean, I fell in love with my purchase. I still use the old rings for Heroclix, because of the size difference, but man, these new ones are cool!

Matthew Mercer confirmed for live-action Richard Rahl

Tharanak I use it as background while I work, because it's the story, not the faces, so maybe try that?

I hated my job till I realised I could treat critical role as a podcast. Now I'm just listening to critical role the whole day (it's gonna suck when I'm all caught up tho)

Before you get discouraged, Matt is at the professional, broadcastable level of being a DM. My first game was hand drawn maps, chess pieces, and a phone for dice rolling.

Woah there

Now hold on...

binary1123 your my huckleberry

It’s high tide

Tessfishy kinda already said this for the summer skin but I can't resist...ITS HIIIIIIGH NOOON

Peter Calcutt Great question. First question: What are the players hoping to accomplish? What is the goal behind the action? Are they trying to defeat the armor? Are they trying to make the armor less attractive? Make it easily identified? Or are they just spending a turn doing comedic nonsense? Once you have the desired effect, you can tailor the resolution to that. One situation might be an improvised weapon attack. Another might be an Aid action to another's Charisma check, or a Perception check. Or you might just have then roll dice to inspire a silly result.

The armour was standing on a narrow bridge over a fast flowing river that the party needed to cross. as they approached the armour declared, "None shall pass!" the desired end result was defeating the armour. Why did they use fish instead of their own (More effective) weapons. The two players who opted to use fish were honest about having recognized i was borrowing from a well know scene in a Monty Python film and so opted to respond with an attack inspired by a sketch from Monty Python. oh and as the party moved off post fight one of the party did say, "And now for something completely diffrent."

Peter Calcutt 'None shall pass' pretty much explained it. Improvised weapons rules with silly descriptions seems to be the way to adjudicate this in my opinion.

I think in this rare scenario it was your fault for unleashing classic humor and not expecting a silly result. I mean the armor should at least lose a few joints and decide on a draw.

interesting

This is important - but more of a general table rule for everyone. The whole group should be keeping stuff like that in check.

No No Try It at my table I got a +2 Stick of STFU :P

I had a player who often made racist choices. He claimed his character wasn't racist, so I had him roll for it and he failed. I told him he could behave in any way he wished, however he is now racist. Metagame, he made fun of my race and rage quit.

I feel you cap talon. If that happens I always humble them and make sure they don't feel like the alpha. Everyone brings something to the table no matter the class or build.

I had a DM like this once, drove me insane. My friend was playing a Lizardfolk (pathfinder) and other races hold a common misconception about them, in that they think Lizardfolk are savages that will just eat basically any meat. However, the DM seemed to ignore the "misconception" part and kept trying to push my friend into eating raw rats, orc meat, and basically anything else we killed. It really grated on me.

Yea, it was also used in a promotion during the goblin one-shot he did

There's also Tabletop Audio. It's free but not remotely as extensive or customizable Syrinscape. It offers a little over 100 music tracks, each for a different environment, and is a great option if you're on a budget.

Also, on some of the subreddits this series of Spotify playlists was posted by u/bezoing today and you can follow some links in the comments to even more playlists. www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/5963qe/inprogress_curated_spotify_playlists_i_use_in_my/

If you're a video game player, you can also capture audio directly from in-game using any number of tools. Find an out-of-the-way spot in, say, Witcher 3 or Skyrim (or any other game) and record about five minutes of the ambient sound. after a couple of years of this, I have a couple hundred sound clips from every genre. I used Foobar 2000 to organize all of my sounds, and just set them to loop. Very versatile, very quick, and free. Plus it works with any genre, and you can also add in sounds you've downloaded from places like Tabletop Audio.

Ikr!? Mine is a piece of cardboard covered with printer paper 😂

Seems like that'd be simpler to do with something like and iPad or Surface, so it has touch capability as well.

True, but last I checked, there are no 32 inch iPads. :)

Fair enough for iPads, but there are Microsoft Surfaces the size of a coffee table. ;3 More expensive obviously than an old LCD-tv but it'd be pretty sweet to be able to draw or move miniatures around on it. Actually thinking about it, I can't wait for the day that VR becomes affordable enough that everyone around the table could have a headset. That way you could literally have a 3d rendered landscape on your table AR-style. Sort of like what they faked with the Minecraft thing for the Hololens.

If you want that then maybe it's just cooler to wait for AR?? Have you seen the demo's of the hololens? seems like exactly what you're looking for.

Sylcatam - Next time, might I suggest you actually read a comment thread before you reply to it? :')

Yeah... As a fellow DM, I can relate to that. I have amassed quite a bit of stuff my players probably won't ever get to see. That's the beauty and the flaw of tabletop RPGs. The player's imagination is the limit, and sometimes it goes in other directions.

what does it say on the sheet? I can't really read it :(

I responded to another guy, and I know this is 2 months old, but don't think you need to be anywhere near that level to run a campaign. The series is called GM Tips, not GM Rules. As long as you and your players have fun, it doesn't matter how you run your campaign.

They have mentioned it in some planning sessions, other places seemed more vital to reach at the time. I would say Kraghammer is fairly safe since it would be very hard to assault without a burrowing speed(iirc only the blue dragon has that).

White dragons can burrow as well. :)

...

+ClockworkThistle Spoilers?

Actually, they kind of did. Someone went back to collect the party's bounty, remember? Scanlan tried to sneak himself some extra gold and it didn't go so well. They weren't well-liked, so it was a short trip.