Tag / advice

by guyeatsfood

Guest Post: Wearing the Mask(s), by Neil Gow

A first for the blog today – a guest post, by esteemed friend of the Burn, Neil Gow! He’s written below about setting up a one-shot of Masks, the ultimate game of teenage superheroes Powered by the Apocalypse. Neil’s a fantastic PBTA GM – I did a multi-table Masks game last year with him – and as a player in the game he’s writing about, can confirm how well it all slotted together. Check out more PBTA posts on here too!

A Short Game of Masks: Getting It Right

I love a good game of Masks – it’s easily the most satisfying superhero game I have played, understanding that the really important parts of any superteam are not the ‘What’ of an encounter, but the ‘Why’ – emotions, relationships and complications are far more important than how many feet someone is knocked back. Sadly, the traditional short one-shot of Masks tends to deliver half of that experience. You get the build up of some awesome interplay, but rarely any pay off. So, when I had the chance to run a double-slotter (a ‘long shot’ if you will…) of the game at the Revelation convention in Sheffield, I was determined to make it count! So, how did I prepare?

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Keeping to Time – GMing to a Schedule

We’ve got nearly 25 episodes of Unconventional GMs recorded now, all Actual Plays of less than 2 hours – and a frequent question I’ve got is how to keep it below that. While we did it as a creative constraint and because we got frustrated with Actual Plays that took half an hour to get going, it’s an interesting one to consider, and I think both me and Gaz have run enough times to have some hints and tips to help this.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Step-By-Step Prep: Ghost Mountain (Index Card RPG), Part One

I thought I’d try something new for this week’s post – a worked example of how my prep looks for a one-shot, from conception to delivery. After Deadlands and Weird Frontiers on the Unconventional GMs Channel, we talked (me, Gaz, and the players for those games) about doing some more wild/weird west games. It seemed as good an idea as any – and of course what could be more authentic than a bunch of British people playing at America’s great mythic tradition – and so I started looking at other RPGs.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

On Discourse – or, how to talk about TTRPGs online

It’s been a busy week this past one on social media. Of course, by the time you’re reading this it’ll all have died down, but in particular the stuff about reviewing games with/without having played them stuck with me – not least because I decided to only review things I’d played last year. It’s increasingly difficult to talk about TTRPGs on social media without some annoying things happening – and so here’s my ideas to talk about games better online

Two grognards discuss THAC0 – image from Pixabay

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Starting From Scratch – Prepping a New System

Over the past couple of months, I’ve run a few games on the Unconventional GMs channel that I’ve not GMed – or played – before. I’m normally a bit cagy about doing this, as I like to get to know a game before putting my GMing out publicly, but building up content for the channel has meant reaching further quicker than I’d normally. 

But games of Candela Obscura and Cortex Prime seem to meet our intent of bringing examples of one-shot play that people want, so I’m in the middle of prepping Weird Frontiers, a spooky weird west DCC game. Come to think of it, the first time I ran Vaesen it was recorded, too. So I thought I’d share my process of prep for a game where the system is new to me.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

The “How To” book the Hobby’s Been Waiting For – Review: So You Want to be a Game Master?

For a hobby with a lot of techniques and ideas to master, we’re terribly short of advice books. Aside from a wealth of excellent blogs, there’s really only the occasional book that looks at how to start GMing. The chapters in RPG books can be variable at best, and there’s a lot to the craft of GMing.

One of the best blogs out there for GM advice is The Alexandrian, and Justin Alexander has focussed a lot of his thoughts from there, and expanded on them, to release “So You Want to be a Game Master?” – a book focused on taking you right from the beginning of prep to running successful games.

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by guyeatsfood

Guiding the Ironlands – how to run Ironsworn as a One-Shot

Ironsworn, Shawn Tomkin’s RPG of dark fantasy with solo, guided, and GMless modes, is one of the most exciting releases to the hobby in recent years. With its sci fi sequel, Starforged, now established it’s beginning to get some decent play on the convention circuit – and it plays really well with a GM (in ‘guided’ mode) as well. So here are some tips if you want to get it to the table.

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by guyeatsfood

Bad Player Habits – And How To Avoid Them (Part Two)

A while back on twitter I posted about one of my gaming bugbears (not the furry kind) – players avoiding risk when the rest of the group is embracing it. This led to part one of this post, where I looked at Risk Avoidance, probably the biggest – and most frustrating – Bad Player Habit (BPH). Now it’s time to look at the other two big BPHs – Revisiting and Un-Roleplaying. 

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Remember, this isn’t me dicking on noobs – in my experience these are always done by players who should know better – experienced roleplayers who probably do this every single game. And, again, whenever I’ve seen this it’s been one player not realising the effect they’re having on the rest of the group – maybe spotting these is something players should think about too.

Revisiting

GM: Right, so you’ve discovered the Ruby is in the Caves across the Desert of Ja’darr – and secured a guide who thinks he can trick a roc to get there. So as you creep across the mountain to the rocs nest….

Player: Wait, before we set off I want to talk to the merchant again. What does he know about rocs?

GM:….

Player: And does he have any more clues about the Caves?

GM:….

Player: Also, I want to buy a new sword.

This is the enemy of pace, and it can be frustrating for everyone at the table. It’s not hard to see how it develops – some types of games reward methodical analysis, and risk missing important pieces of information if every room is searched and every possible witness interrogated. These types of games are rubbish, by the way – avoid them.

How To Avoid It

One way you can mitigate this is by being clear when all the information is extracted – “so, the merchant has told you everything,” and even add in whatever in-game reason to prevent further investigation “well, the sun is nearly down, I’d better pack up for the day – I cannot talk any more!” Do this in-character first, and then move to direct, in-game if the hint isn’t taken. It’s also fine to say no if the player wants to go back in time – if everyone else at the table, including you, wants to move to the next scene, you can certainly go to the next scene. 

The passage of time also helps – I think having a pace in investigative games of each location, clue, or witness taking at least half a day is a good pace to start with. Prep your clues sufficiently far apart to support this, and any investigation game needs a looming countdown or other pace-setter to help investigation be done at speed.

Un-Roleplaying

GM: The merchant eyes you across the table… “Aye, I could tell you how to cross the desert, but I promised to never speak of it to outsiders again…”

Player: We knew he’d say this. Can we bribe him?

GM: …

Player: Why doesn’t he want to speak to us? I’ll Intimidate him (rolls dice)

GM: “Outsiders must never discover the secrets of Ja’darr…”

Player: Is 16 enough? Will he tell us now?

Look, I get it. There are some players who do not want to talk in character. I have a particular balance of tastes about the amount of in-character talk at a table, and I’m left cold by the lengthy in-character discussions that some streamed games have (it’s an audience/player distinction, though – I get why they do it). But you can get players who will actively resist any kind of character interaction, including just saying what their player 

But if you get just one player who actively resists talking in character, it can mean nobody at the table does. And while we all might have different tastes, I’d like more than zero of it in a session. If they really don’t want to, narrating what they say is fine (“I ask him what his problem with outsiders is” is a way round that doesn’t interrupt the rhythm of the game).

How To Avoid It

So how can we encourage a bit of in-character talk? Well the first thing is by baking in some character relations in our pregens or session zero process. If they’ve got some stuff to talk to each other about, they might actually do it. The other is by having some NPCs to start the conversations, who can ask in character for players to respond to. Having some sort of feckless ally travelling with them into the dungeon is a great way to make sure there’s some in-character chat even in the most barren of RP landscapes, and they can provide a helpful Greek chorus-echo of what’s going on.

The amount of in-character chat is a good thing to handle at the start of a one-shot or in a session zero, too – getting this element of play culture aligned is really crucial.

So, there’s the top three BPHs covered. Do you have others? Or are some of these acceptable at your table (let me know, I can pass some players your way at the next convention we’re both at!) Let me know in the comments below.

by guyeatsfood

Target Rich Environments – Making Set Pieces Pop

Often, TTRPG one-shots or sessions coalesce around big set-piece scenes, where players need to achieve multiple goals and spend significant amounts of time – a party where they need to find the murderer, a train they need to rob, a castle they need to conquer or defend, an abandoned village they need to exorcise of ghosts. 

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

These are often difficult to prep – you can over-think or over-simplify them, and either can be frustrating to run. Likewise, you can often end up railroading players if you try and prep thoroughly for one of these scenes, as you sketch out the various sub-scenes that could feature. I’ve got a technique that can help with that – design such scenes as a Target Rich Environment.

Be Clear About Goals

What are the PCs trying to do in this zone? They might need to accumulate clues (in which case write out a list of clues independent of sources as well as tying up likely ways they can get them), or they might just need to find somebody or something hidden. Think about where it is and why it is hard to find.

Big Open Spaces, Multiple NPCs

Give yourself an overview of the space the scene will take place in – even if it’s just with a map, it’ll give you an idea of how it can fit for the players. There should be multiple ‘zones’ within the scene, so that PCs can split up effectively (so at your party, you might have the bar, the dance floor, mingling with the guests, and backrooms with the staff) – and have a good number of NPCs lightly sketched who they can interact with. 

Lots of Targets

Give the players lots of options of stuff to do, and lots of plot-related hooks that can be pursued multiple ways. To paraphrase from The Alexandrian’s Three-Clue-Rule, work out at least three ways each vital piece of information or goal could be achieved, and sketch out what that might look like in-game: is it a social challenge, a skill check, or some sort of longer skill challenge?

Narrow Down The Start

As the PCs arrive in the environment, you want to spur them into action straight away – so give them at least two options that you explicitly present to them (do you mingle with the socialites at the bar and try and work out what the gossip is, or go straight to the dancefloor to try and ingratiate yourself with the princess and her party, or something else?) Giving concrete options helps prevent decision paralysis and keeps the pace up – and gives you the best of both worlds for sandbox/linear play.

Descriptions and Moments

Now that you’ve got a rough structure for the scene, add some pithy descriptive touches for each of the areas. I like to do this as bullet points, as they’re easy to scan and incorporate into descriptions without too much hassle. Moments – things that can be witnesses that serve as background flavour – also help to make the scene sing. Credit to Trophy as the first game I saw them in, although other Gauntlet publications like The Between also make use of them.

In summary, give your set pieces a little more thought  – and prep – than usual, and you can make truly memorable scenes for your one-shot or ongoing TTRPG game. Have you had any memorable target-rich environments in your games? Are there any good examples in published adventures? Let me know in the comments.