It’s not an easy job being a Game Master. You are the voices of the gods, as well as every bandit, barmaid and sailor your players meet as they journey throughout the world. You have to keep track of what information the bad guys have, what the secret plots of the political machines are, the going cost of magic item, and to remember the descriptions of every village, town, forest glade and babbling brook your players are going to come across. And while you’re doing all of that you have to try to tell something resembling a cohesive story that everyone can actually follow.
For those who are going to take on that responsibility, I salute you.
Whether this is your first time sitting in the big chair, or you’ve been at the head of the table so long it’s hard to imagine sitting anywhere else, the following advice is for you. While it may not be revolutionary, a lot of the tips, tricks and general best practices that follow will make your games run more smoothly, generally without cutting in on your or your players’ fun. So take a moment, crack the covers and prepare to supercharge your next session!
Here are some sample tips:
80. Avoid meaningless deaths whenever possible in your games. While there are games like Paranoia or Mörk Börg which are explicitly written to have a high PC turnover rate, and this was extremely common in early editions of Dungeons and Dragons (which is why trap-fodder hirelings were common), you shouldn’t be trying to kill the player characters at every opportunity. When players have goals and arcs planned for their character, and they spend time getting them worked into the story, they get attached to them. Killing the character in a way that means the player has to make a new one means they’re going to get less and less invested until they’re playing a character they’re relatively uninterested in. So if deaths do occur, make them meaningful, or reversible whenever possible.
81. There is nothing wrong with using published adventures and pre-existing settings at your table, and doing so does not somehow make you less of a Game Master. Even if you just use this material as a jumping off point, it can save you a great deal of heavy lifting, as well as a huge amount of time, energy and confusion. After all, if you have a full pantheon of gods and their myths, along with fully-fleshed out countries, cultures and more, you can focus on the plot you’re running, and the personal arcs of the characters, rather than making sure the world has loaded properly around the party.
82. You should always feel free to write your own box text for the games you run. Writing things down helps solidify them in your mind, and if you’re not the best at improvisation it can be useful to have a guide to help define a location, character or scene so that you aren’t left scrambling when it comes time to set the stage for your players. Even if you tweak or change small details when it comes time to read what you wrote to reflect the events of the game, it’s always easier when you have some kind of script to work from.
Released: 8th January 2022 Pages: 19
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