Tabletop RPG Podcast and Roleplaying Resources

Author: Stan Shinn (Page 80 of 112)

Running a Stress-Free Convention RPG Game

gm_button-r04a4e55100084f3db1f439ed2d477b98_x7j1f_8byvr_512I’ve know a lot of people who, at various times, have felt like they’ve run a game and ‘failed’. Particularly at convention games, where you have the added elements of ambient noise and playing with strangers, it is really easy to run into frustrations and come away feeling discouraged or drained by the experience. Having run games I loved and enjoyed, and also having run games I didn’t enjoy quite so well, here are some tips I’ve compiled through my years of GM’ing.

Realize that many players who have fun won’t show it — Funny how body language works. I ran a game at North Texas RPG Con a couple of years ago. I had fun, but I didn’t know how some of the players felt about it. About half the people said kind things after the game, but during the game some folks were quiet and went away with me not knowing their thoughts about the game. What did that mean? Did they really have fun? It’s easy to beat yourself up over such questions. I ran into a couple of those players later. One of them said ‘that was the best game of the con!’ Another player said, ‘that was the best game I’ve ever played in!’ From their enthusiasm in this month’s later conversation I could see it was true. One of these two was a quiet person during the game. Don’t worry about quiet players or even those who scowl. Many of them are secretly having the time of their lives!

Come prepared but allow players to improvise — One of the biggest differences I’ve come to find in player engagement is how much they are allowed to go off the rails and improvise. Even with a somewhat railroaded plot, be aware that no story line survives contact with the players, nor should it. Generally, my mantra is to create situations, not solutions. I know the players will need to defeat the big bad evil person and save the kidnapped heir to the throne, but how exactly that happens could be in a number of ways. The more I prep a story, the more I invest in a script of how things should happen, and the more frustrated I will get when players deviate from ‘my story.’ The book  ‘The Lazy Dungeonmaster’ (http://slyflourish.com/lazydm/) is probably the best book I’ve ever seen on this — read it and follow its advice on doing low-prep games that encourage player agency.

Distill the adventure to a notecard — Whether a custom-designed adventure I’ve created or a text-heavy 24 page Pathfinder Society scenario, I always boil the game session down to a single 4×6 card. Beyond this I just have some notecards or printouts with NPC and creature stats, plus maybe some handouts and maps. But the ‘story’ is really just what’s on the lone 4×6 card. And I read it over a time or two before the game — generally I find I have that card memorized at that point, and the card is just there to make me feel better if I forget something.

Use rules you’ve mastered — This is probably the biggest issue I’ve seen in breaking GM confidence — choosing a crunchy system where the GM has not mastered the byzantine rules spread across hundreds of pages. If you can’t look in the mirror and say ‘yeah, I’ve know pretty much all the rules’ before you sign up to run a game, then I would stay away from GM’ing that system (at least at a con). Choose something rules light — maybe Risus or Lady Blackbird or Fiasco — and run that instead. Nothing can crash a game’s momentum like having a player ask about a rule then you or the players stopping the game to spend 10+ minutes looking up a rule. And if you DO have to run a game where you’re not comfortable with the rules, then start the game by saying ‘Hey, I’m new to the system. I have the basics down, but if we run into something I’m not sure about, them I’ll make a table-ruling to keep the game going, and we can look up the rule after the game. What I will promise you though is that the game will be fun!’ This approach of setting expectations generally works well, and sates many rules-lawyers.

Have pregens with name tents — I generally like to have 10-12 pregenerated character sheets on hand, each with a pre-printed name tent they can fold. If I get more players than I expected, I’m prepared. One benefit is with more pre-gens than players, players are more likely to have a character they like (and having a character they like increases player engagement). I try to learn each person’t name, but there is so much going on at the table, having a name text which reads ‘Kendric (Human Cleric)’ gives me an easy way to point to that player and say ‘Kendric! The orc lord is threatening to slay the prince — what do you do!’ If a player gets distracted, having that name tent is a great confidence builder to give the GM an opening to engage each and every player even outside their initiative order.

Learn to GM at home games, not con games — If you’re a new GM, a con game can be one of the most challenging places to learn the craft. Home games, where you hopefully have played the game a few times and know the players, feel much more forgiving than a table of total strangers. Once you’ve mastered the game (and this may be as simple as 2-3 home games to get your confidence as a GM), then you’ll have much more confidence to take the game to a con.

Play the adventure in a home group before you run it at a con — If possible, do a ‘beta test’ of the game with a home group before the con. If you run a specific game scenario you like multiple times; after a couple of times running the same game you’ll find you’re very relaxed and confident. No home players to test your game for you? Then try using Google+ Hangout with Roll20. If you use the techniques I’ve listed at http://swshinn.com/rpg-hobby-games/how-to-find-google-rpg-players/ then you generally will have little problem finding players for your one-shot game, which is really just a trial run of the con game.

Play new game systems before you run them — Similar to the above, you may find yourself wanting to run a brand new game at a convention (for example, I ran Star Wars: Edge of the Empire at a con shortly after it came out, before I had a chance to run or play in it in my home group). Even if your home group won’t play it, you can generally find an online group you can join in for a game or two to familiarize yourself with the rules before running it yourself. As a backup — try finding an actual-play podcast or Youtube video for the game to get some actual-play exposure before you run the game for others.

What tips do you have for preparing for con games?

Kindle Features You May Not Know About

amazon_kindle_books.topOne of the things I love about Amazon’s Kindle services is that I can read my books across multiple devices (I read on an iPad primarily, but also use my iPhone, an Android Google Nexus 7, and sometimes my older Kindle Keyboard). Regardless of my device, Amazon will keep my location, bookmarks and notes synchronized. But Amazon is constantly evolving their services. Here are some features you may not know about:

Adding Non-Amazon Books to your Kindle

Login to Amazon.com, and go to “Your Account > Manage Your Kindle > Personal Document Settings”
Here you can find settings to email your non-Amazon books such as PDFs and ePub files to your account, and you can manage which emails can send such files to your device. These personal documents are now stored in the Amazon cloud, and they will sync your location, notes and bookmarks across your Kindle devices just like Amazon purchased books. You can also send documents to your Kindle using Send to Kindle, which is available for free download at www.amazon.com/sendtokindle.

Borrow Kindle Books from Your Local Library

Borrow books from your local library onto your Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000718231

Export Notes from Your Books 

This article shows how to get the notes into Evernote, but you could easily use this technique to get them into Google Docs or any other format:

http://michaelhyatt.com/how-to-get-your-kindle-highlights-into-evernote.html

 

Tools for Creating RPG Maps

If you need maps for running online RPG games, here are my favorite resources. If you haven’t checked out Pyromancers.com, you really owe yourself to take it for a spin!

Create Zoomable or Mashup Maps:

Build your own maps:

Pre-Fab Maps:

pyromancer

 

A Stan Freebie: Star Wars EotE Combat Tracker

Star Wars Edge of the Empire Combat Tracker

Star Wars Edge of the Empire Combat Tracker

In Star Wars Edge of the Empire, initiative is handled in a pretty unique way. At the start of a fight, everyone rolls initiative. You determine initiative by ‘slots.’ Instead of locking a particular PC into a given slot, the slots are just for “PC” or “NPC.” When a PC slot comes up, the PCs can pick any PC to act (likewise for the GM and NPCs). Characters still only get one chance to act per round.

This is a really satisfying way to run combat and ends up with some interesting and cinematic team collaboration and unique tactics in play. Tracking initiative can be a bit confusing though, so I whipped up a Combat Tracker.

To create your own Combat Tracker, download my PDF below and print it (ideally double sided) and laminate it (Home Depot lets you upload a PDF and print it double sided and laminated; I forget the cost but I think it runs something like $3-$4).

To write on it, use a wet erase marker. I find the Vis-a-vis markers work better for this than Staedtler markers since Vis-a-vis is a bit more fine-tipped. Here’s how it works in play:

  • Step one: Everyone rolls initiative. Track the results in the top two tables. Notes below the table explain when to roll Cool vs. Vigilance, and how to break ties.
  • Step two: List the order of player and GM slots in the middle table.
  • Step three: Write down the players and NPCs in the bottom table.

I like to delegate the above three ‘initiative setup’ steps to a player while I think about combat tactics and look over the NPC stats. Then I take the combat tracker back from the player and use it to run the combat.

With each turn, I check off a) the middle table to show a GM or player slot has been used, and b) mark which character has just gone. So for one round, you’ll use the column in the middle table and bottom table (they line up nicely).

If a character takes wounds or strain, there is a section next to the player name to track this.

The picture I attached shows an example combat at the top of the third round.

One other thing I sometimes do with these sorts of initiative charts — if I’m usually theater of the mind combat, I’ll put initials of the PC next to the NPC if they are engaged in melee. This way I can track who is engaged with who, which is the main thing I usually care about in a combat situation. For this reason, I have a house rule that every PC has a different first letter in their name.

Enjoy! Let me know your feedback and if there are any improvements you would suggest. I hope to create other resources for SW:EotE in the future so I appreciate any ideas you have!

Download Stan’s Combat Tracker

 

 

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 Dicehaven

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑