A bit of preface. The games I run, the games I play in and the groups I enjoy all are very open with discussing meta. From story beats to encounter critiques and where we the players want to see the game go.

what do you do when the players go off-script?

We are honest and appreciate the time the GMs put into running the games. Several times either I or another GM have stated “that direction is not prepared” and the group have a chat from there. Perhaps calling it early or we zoom in on character daily life (or their projects). The amount of times a “forgotten” villain have reappeared for revenge in these situation is kinda high.

on railroading

Why play a game about characters, their decisions and their reaction to adversary when their decisions won’t matter? When the roads they travel all lead to Rome? This is very much also something that is part of the game’s setup. How directed the game will be. A wide open sandbox will strain much more against being directed than a more tightly focused narrative. Heck, I don’t actually mind being directed in a game with a focused narrative or having the GM drawing the game back to it’s story.

It’s a complex topic where advice will differ depending on the specifics of each game.

Another Himedere checking in. I love setting up situations where the players and/or the characters squirm in anguish about what to do.

My favorite so far was an estranged princess living as a man and hostel owner. He had turned his back on the throne and wanted little to do with it. As a bonus he was the only child of the king’s only remaining child. Fast forward a bit and he needed a (legal) favor from the king. Went to court and met with his grandfather. The king would do it, no strings attached if a) he returned to court and resumed his duties as prince and b) sired an heir.

There were a good thirty minutes of the players anguishing if he should accept while going deep into character motivations and the setting. During that game I don’t think I did as much concrete worldbuildning as during those thirty minutes. I loved it, the players loved it. Great time.

In a game a while ago there was a FtM prince turned hosteller. Left court and royal duties due to disillusioned and wanting to do actual good. But then they were a PC and quickly needed some help from granddaddy the king. I wondered what the king wanted in exchange. And it was clear - the royal line continued. In other words get an heir.

I checked with the player that this was an OK path comfort and safety wise. Afterall one way to solve it was for the prince to get pregnant, force upon themselves a gender they did not want etc. We talked about it and had regular checkins.

The moment that made this an awesome world building moment was when I realized magic impregnation wasn’t an impossibility. Nor pregnancies without the biological bits. Because Magic!

Unfortunately we never to to that part before scheduling did its thing.

Cat is grumpy because someone stole its humans

The more abstract the map is the more of a support for TotM it becomes. I selfom do a map, rather a flowchart. Quicker, easier and knocks out the last desire to measure things.

This brings us back to zones, a good middle ground. Draw rough map, or great map, and on it mark intresting combat zones. Some are separated with emptiness, others by obstacles.

For example a tavern brawl. Zones could be the Bar, Kitchen, Common Room, Balconies, Private Rooms, Out Front and Out Back.

Fighting on the Balconies could be tight, only one in width and with the risk of being thrown off it into the Commonroom. In the Kitchen there would be fire hazards, improvized weapons, knifes and the Stew. Not to forget other ways to spice things up in there. Around the Bar there would be some cover fighting someone on the other side, bottles to be broken and combatants to glide alond the bar for maximum mental damage.

And so on. Make each zone memorable and with special features. Did I mention drawing it out really helps?

No grid only effect templates. Freeform battlemapping y’all!

And rulers.

Hello Future Me is awesome

It would silence as many screams as hands you are loosing pulling items from it. Which is zero.

The mythology of my world is an interpretation of Glorantha. Pretty much near eastern bronze age. So there are Gods abound, with their respective cults. Most/all cults have rites and mysteries for those deeply devoted. None have came up in play so they are secrets even for me.

A set of secrets/mysteries that I’ve started working on are the Nysalorian secrets. According to Gloranthan lore when Nysalor was born/created Time stopped to allow the birth. So yeah Nysalor is a big deal. The Nysalorian secrets I’m divining are about the nature of Godhood. I don’t know how deep I want to go with them, I could make them the very blueprints of Creation. Perhaps I should tie them to my meta-loredump mystic society/cult Followers of the Blind Idiot God.

Something that is also helpful in this situation is to ask what their Intent is with their action. The why they want to do it. Often striking up that conversation looses some blocks.

I take two to three real world languages that help reinforce the impression of that culture and mush them together. From that I take either similar sounding names or similar meaning names and see what feels right.

I had a game centered on a culture with a (generic) slavic feel that during the last century or so been heavily influenced by the “fancy” “high class” totally not french. So I took slavic names and then either frenchified them or just added french parts (or whole names). Especially true for aristocrats and cosmopolitan folks. The poorer and the more rural the less the french influence was felt which created a nice social dynamic.

In that same game there came a need to name characters from the neighbouring fading empire. And what empire is more empire than the english so that became the base. But we wanted a more tonal shift from just english. As we looked at the culture of that empire we wanted it to be a bit in opposition so one of their defining traits became meritocratic. And somehow we felt adding an east asian melody to the english names would fit. So triple- and quadruple- names it became such as Jane-Ellen-Nicole. And no surnames, only titles.

D&D is hard. Sure the core of it is straight forward but then things start to add up. It is a game that wants you to care about minutia. How far travelled, distance between two points, the height of dungeons ceilings, how long passed since that spell was cast, how much you ate yesterday. And it wants you to arbitrate spell interactions, players weird schemes and prepare a lot of stuff. Also it wants you to actually run the narrative. Some love this difficulty, find the intricacies challenging and desire to master it all.

The good news is that the behemoth of D&D isn’t alone out there. Really lots of good stuff can be found. First problem is knowing what one want to find. Second is finding others that have similar taste to you. But it is doable and a good thing to do is ask for help. Because if it is something we like here it is to talk about ttrpgs. Getting us to shut up… better ask santa for a dragon.

If the DM asks you you really want to do something look at their expression and do it anyway.

If you want to do something really stupid, crazy or narrativly disruptive look towards your fellow players to get their consent. Then do it.

The time to argue technicalities is outside of sessions to not waste precious gametime. Do it during sessions only if you are into that weird shit.

The best way to get to use new character options is through DM bribes. In this case a sourcebook is recommended.

If you help clean up afterwards you may get inspiration.

But then do really need the d8? If we toss that in the bin we can go to the universal d60. This one dice will allow us to get
d2 (even/odd)
d3 (d60/20)
d4 (d60/15)
d5 (d60/12)
d6 (d60/10)
d10 (d60/6)
and d12, d15, d20, d30

Base 60 is cool yo!

D8? D20/5 x d20/10

Am I missing something here? Can this even generate 5 or 7?

D20/5 gives [1…4] and D20/10 [1…2], of course assuming whole numbers. Where to get the factors for 5? 5 can be factored only as 5x1 or 1x5 and the 5 cannot be found either in d20/5 or d20/10. Same is true for 7.

And I don’t see it happening either if we allow rational numbers. To get 5 we would get the following expressions
5= d₁20/5 x d₂20/10 = d₁20 x d₂20/50
or 250= d₁20 x d₂20
And two d20 multiplied together cannot give us 250.

Math baby?

This is why I recruit to five and play with three. Sometimes the stars align and three persons are away, but it is seldom. So the show does go on.

My world(s) tend to be very dark age, very migration period. This is regardless of technology. Community matters, your word and deed matters and people tend to be accommodating of strangers. If you are a decent and capable person you can find acceptance in whatever community you desire. A wandering stranger can find their way to the upper echelons of communities. Outsourcing is then now that I think of it kinda common, but with the goal of bringing whose doing the outsourced task into the community.

Got some tips for you

0 - Don’t expect to get an awesome group on the first try, may take a while as you gather up people you want to play with.

1 - Look for communities, especially if they run shorter or west marches style games. Not necessarily join with the intent to run games, but play. Get to know folks and then extend invites to them for game.

2 - Run a few shorter games of limited length. 3-5 session long I find to be awesome to get something done. Some may be awful but you only have to stand them for a few games.

3 - Questionnaire where you discreetly bring up your red flags and feel the waters around them. For example I always mention that safety tools will be used and if they want a specific tool used I’ll happily do that for them. If I get replies they don’t need safety tools or disparage them in some way that would for me be a red flag.

4 - Don’t be afraid to disband groups or kick out folks. It is not a failure.

Apocalypse World has this awesome GM move that covers this situation

Announce Future Badness

Combine it with

Think Offscreen Too

Then you know how to handle the sacking of a stronghold. By the gods how I love GMing after AW’s principles.