Running Campaigns With Multiple Factions - an Overexplained, Step By Step Guide
We take a look at a workflow you can use to make running a campaign with multiple factions more manageable. We implement the concept of user stories, story mapping, and backward planning to create an evolving and flexible campaign.
It's a long one so grab a snack and something to drink. Feel free to use it to help you fall asleep :)
That's true! The point I was trying to make was simply that players could also look left and right at the other members of their party when making their characters so that the entire group becomes more effective, rather than just optimizing on isolation. I remember treantmonk mentioning a story of a group of optimized characters facing a mindflayer. None of them had int save proficiency so one mindblast just rekt them.
Do you make parties that can do everything?
Hey folks! What's better than having a party of optimized characters? Having a party of optimized characters that work well together! Let's look at the concept of T-shaped individuals and how they can help us create parties that are resilient, and can do anything.
How to not let PvP Wreck your D&D Game
Hey folks! Conflicts between player characters are very interesting when it comes to the narrative, but can be dangerous to the health of your gaming group. If you want PvP in your games, you best know how to do it safely. In this video we discuss some strategies to do just that. How do you navigate inter-party conflicts for drama that does not make your group implode?
You don't have to be a trained actor to roleplay well
Hey folks! Here's an approach to roleplaying / finding your character's motivation that you've probably not seen in a D&D or TTRPG setting before. A lot of us, I think, could fall into the skyrim stealth archer trap. We start our campaigns thinking we're gonna play a PC that's unique. But as the sessions go by, we find out that we've been "roleplaying" ourselves after all. With this approach, we learn about the CHAMPFROGS - ten moving motivators that make up most people. With them, we can hopefully stop roleplaying ourselves, and instead graduate to Capital R roleplaying (if that's what we want to do of course - you're not doing it wrong if you're having fun).
Values vs. Technique: What Makes a Great GM?
Hey folks! We often praise our DMing heroes for their many skills like improv, enhancing immersion, compelling roleplay of believable NPCs, and the like. There are resources aplenty for how to speak in accents, how to not use accents but still have distinct voices, how to plan campaigns, or speed up combat encounters. But are these skills really what make our favorite DMs great? I argue no. I believe great DMs begin with a foundation of values that guide how they use their skills, and I discuss my version of those values here.
Ouch! I feel for you. That must have been a very bad experience.
Are You In A Dysfunctional D&D Group?
Hey folks! This week we explore a potentially controversial topic: Is your D&D Group dysfunctional? If you have that nagging feeling that something is not working well in your gaming group, but you can't quite put your finger on what it is, then this video will hopefully expand your vocabulary and set you on the path to making things better.
I say it in the video, but I will also write it down here explicitly. A dysfunctional group does not mean it's a group made of bad people. It's just a group that does not function as well as it should.
Thank you so much for your comments, @Imperor and @[email protected]! Might I ask how you do your set up?
I used to (and still do) keep a relatively flat onenote notebook for my session notes and stuff. When it comes time to run a session, my overhead work is simply to copy-paste certain sections into cards I put into trello i.e. not much time at all.
The bigger effort I can acknowledge would be maybe if you were running an adventure module, and you were going analog i.e. with physical sticky notes. However, these books most of the time tell you to read through them before running them, right? In the process, I used to make my own notes to summarize things for me, or do the highlighting and all that. If instead of the usual flat pages, I simply wrote sticky notes during that prep period, the overhead should not be too much.
It would be so cool if you would also place your comments on the video. I check the youtube comments more often and also get notified when there are new ones, so I could be much more responsive there. It also really helps me out!
Thank you so much for your question! I've used this system myself for a while, most recently this past weekend, so it works well for me. Let's talk about two different levels: Session and Campaign.
For session prep, I make cards similar to the ones I showed on the video. Anything that makes logical sense to chunk, I create a card for it. They are likely encounters that will play out, locations that the PCs would be exploring, or info drops or reveals I want to provide. So if my WIP limit is 3, my players are exploring a cave (one card for the cave), they found an NPC they are interrogating (one card for info drop), I know I could possibly accommodate one scene split, say if a party member chooses to move to a different location (another card for that). But if more ideas come out all at once, it triggers me to finish a situation/card first, say the lore drop, so I can pull a new card.
For campaign planning, this is where the plot points would go. I have user stories for active quests. If my WIP limit is 3, then I don't start new story lines until I bring an existing one to a satisfying stopping point.
If possible, would you mind commenting on the video too? It really helps out a lot for fledgeling channels like mine.
A DM Screen System that ACTIVELY helps you run games
Hey folks, here's a different way of organizing your notes for your campaigns. It actively helps you run the game, rather than just being a big document for you to read. The system only has two rules to follow, but you would be surprised at how much it helps when it's time to actually play. The method itself is also quite powerful when you use it to organize your to do list, especially during the times in your life when things get a bit hectic and overwhelming. I hope it helps!
Thank you again for offering your perspective.
I merely want to share techniques that are likely to be helpful if you want to foster good relationships with your table while also being able to live your best tactician life. It just so happens that these things I'm sharing, I learned from work.
If you're in a well running D&D group and have no need for any of these, that's wonderful. I'm glad for you. But for the rest of the people who may be having some trouble, what's wrong with considering other ideas, even if they come from the professional world? I would reiterate, if you find yourself treating/having a worse relationship with the friends you play with worse than your colleagues at work, to me it makes sense to ask why and how to make it better.
But thanks for sharing your thoughts anyway.
I hope it helps! Thanks a lot for your kind words!
An Agile Practitioner's guide to generating buy-in at your table - Tactician Series Part 2
Here's part 2 of my tactician series, now about generating buy-in. I use these techniques for work. There were times when I caught myself treating my work colleagues better than my friends with whom I play d&d, especially when my tactician tendencies bubbled up. It seems the things I do on the job translate well to my gaming tables, and I hope they can serve you too.
An Agile Practitioner's guide to being an unproblematic tactician - Part 1
As a DM or a Player, I find tactician players are awesome. However, they seem to have a bad reputation as disruptive, bossy, no-fun party members. In this video I share why I think they are awesome, and instead of giving advice for how everyone else should deal with them, I try to give tips for how the tacticians themselves can get better at tacticianing.
This is part 1 of a loveletter to my older self, in whom I saw tactician tendencies and may have behaved suboptimally from time to time. But when I recognized a few of these things, I've not had bad table relationships since.
Do you have any thoughts on the topic of tactician type players? Do you think the approach I described would help the problematic tacticians you've encountered before?
An Agile Practitioner's guide to running Linear Campaigns without Railroading your players.
Here I share the concept of backward planning which, when combined with Story Mapping, allows you to drive towards your singular inspiration without resorting to railroading your players. I hope it helps anyone struggling.