Game Master - Tumblr Posts

Down in the weeds with some character background information for an upcoming Star Wars roleplaying session. This is what I'm doing right now when I want to take a break from other creative tasks.

So I decided to remake some of my art for some of our characters for my main campaign. . And I decided to start with our DM and I figured that he would probably need something for when we start a podcast for our main campaign. So I'm really excited and hopefully we'll get that set up somewhere but here's an image that I made specifically for my DM and his cat named Moonpie, he absolutely loved it! :-)

Hello Tumblr dnd, my today's take: every DM is just an ADHD kid who got tired of waiting for the next session

Thank you for your attention, Tumblr dnd

life hack if you want you can read "gm" (good morning) as "game master" and that way when people greet you through text abbreviation in the morning you can read "gm!" and go. hehe...... they are excited to greet me, the game master........ they call out my title with joy in their fingertips....

Fellow DND / ttrpg enthusiasts

I'm currently running my first campaign in DND 5e and have now encountered the problem that the party doesn't seem to be bonding naturally.

Does anyone have recommendations or prompts what I could implement in the session to make their characters open up a bit, or warm up to one another?

For a session with way too many npcs, I made myself these space saving npc stat sheets.

So if you need a shortened character sheets for npcs here I have one.

dmed my first campaign got 50% of the rules wrong and forgot literally everything plus I couldn't finish planning my adventure because I was ill last week + couldn't use my laptop meaning I had to wing like 20% of it. luckily I think they enjoyed it at least 💀💀 it can only get better from here matt mercer beware

Hi I'm a world builder and wannabe DM. I am making an entire world by hand, taking my creations for your games is not only allowed but encouraged.

I'm starting with a series on the peoples of my world, the different species (aka fantasy "race") and their cultures. I take lots of inspiration from all over and my goal is to keep them extremely recognizable while making sure they are unique and interesting.

I also am trying to remove all problematic or hurtful aspects (e.g. all the antisemitism all over fantasy themes) if I miss anything feel free to tell me and I will try my best to respond with a tweak/removal or explanation why I don't think it needs one.

Tips for world builder GMs struggling to organically inject your lore into a games.

1. Give your players a non combatant npc that wants to join the party, this could be a local guide, a traveling storyteller, or even a historian looking for travel companions to keep them safe.

2. Resting is a perfect time to add RP and extra dialogue. I'd recommend rumors, warnings, and tips be told during short rests, I'd recommend keeping short rest dialogue to around the length of a loading screen tip. Long rests are where you can fit full length campfire stories and myths in.

3. Make your lore useful. This is by far the most important tip, if your stories and lore have useful information and leads your players will not only be willing to sit through 15-20 minute stories but they will seek them out. If you are telling a story about a monster infested area throw in that it's so dangerous a monster hunter tried to clear the area and died in the process. Then allow your players to find their body or camp and loot useful supplies that are specifically helpful against the local monsters since the hunter knew what they were doing.

as a gm, this is very true 😁 but sometimes i mix it up just for funzies!!

inspired by the scariest words my dm has ever said to me and the subsequent coolest (AND SCARIEST) scene of my life

I usually do 3 things or at least one of these

1. A Goal: something to bring them together, doesn’t need to be a quest you got together coincidentally. Could be you’re just all in the same place at the same time and something happens that get introductions rolling, in my first dnd game that I played the dm had us in a town that’s dealing with a plague, sectors of the city was in quarantine and we all got gathered even though all of us were strangers. The time in there gave us time to bond and when an explosion went off due to a plot point it gave us a reason to stay together. That being said nothing wrong with the classic they all meet at a tavern for a common goal or because they all want the same bounty

2. Player action: let them say what they look like, what they’re doing, just given a bunch of freedom for the front of session 1, gets them engaged in the game and then helps with getting them involved with the others in the group without you needing to do much.

3. Nothing heavy: it’s session 1 assuming it’s not a one shot or a very short campaign they don’t need to know the BBEG and stake of the world immediately, keep whatever adventures you have them on or that they make on their own at the start smaller. Even if they’re experienced players a smaller start can help the team get an idea of everyone’s strengths, weaknesses, personalities and so on.

All gms out there, what are your goals during the first session? How do you ideally start a campaign and bring all the pcs together? Ive got my methods and those ive seen in live plays but im curious about others O.o

Ran my first full Cyberpunk Red game today! I've only ever done a single one-shot combat game. This time I did a full session for a larger campaign. Used Red Chrome Cargo for the job and story, but took like 30 minutes having the characters set up themselves and playing out little scenarios. Spent a long time figuring out how to actually do a netrun with our runner, but ultimately my players got it done and had a good time! Absolutely looking forward to running the rest of the campaign and playing out some of stories I have planned!

Introductions

Hello Tumblr!

Call me NPC

Pronouns are he/they

Bisexual demiboy

25 years old

Autism spectrum babeeeeeee

HUGE RPG fan (TTRPGs, JRPGs and CRPGs)

Perpetual Game Master for Pathfinder and Starfinder (and loving it)

Bucking trends by making a Final Fantasy inspired indie RPG about depression

Pro shipper, self shipper, monster lover and kodocon (mostly project onto shotas)

Might have mild NSFW content, I will mark accordingly

I won’t DM you unless you’re 18+

Obviously I don’t condone anything bad or illegal irl

Some of my F/Os!

Cotera (Breath of the Wild)

Shantae (Shantae)

Vanilla the Vampire Girl (Monster Girl Quest)

Xemnas (Kingdom Hearts)

Rachnera (Monster Musume)

Amazoness (Monster Girl Encyclopedia)

Camilla (Fire Emblem Fates)

Emil (Nier)

(This is a placeholder until I can jazz it up a bit)

This very much feels like it’s part of a phenomenon I like to call “Coffee Shop AU-ification” of RPGs. Where some people only get into the game because it’s trendy and chic (which is also why D&D maintains such a tight hold despite all the controversy)

It’s sanding off any friction or complication from play, just to get to the banter and stuff. This advice feels like those people saying “Hey, we all know that we’re gonna win. Can’t we just skip this so that I can continue my RP?”

I’ll leave off saying that if you use TTRPGs to just have fun RPing with your friends, that’s fine! Just acknowledge that other people don’t have to like it

My least favourite GMing "hack" that gets passed around is "make puzzles/riddles with no fixed answer, and then whatever answer the players guess, make that the right answer."

If the game I'm running is going to have riddles, it's because I have players at the table who... like riddles? And for those players, the fun of a riddle is the moment where it clicks and you get the satisfaction of figuring it out. Which just isn't likely to happen if the riddle is just some vague, evocative nonsense that validates whatever guess they make.

So, presumably, this hack is for making riddles for a table full of only people who do not like riddles. Which invites the question, "why are you making riddles for a table full of only people who do not like riddles?" Do you just feel obligated to?

I guess if so, then here is my hack for you: I absolve you. You are no longer obligated to include riddles in your game of people who don't like them. Go forth, my child, and riddle no more.

I’ve been working on a Google Doc with every god in the Lost Omens setting, Paizo’s setting for Pathfinder.

I’ve discovered a bunch of really interesting gods that way, and really gave me an appreciation for religions and their role in world building!

I’ve even made a handful of my own pantheons based off of descriptions of religions in the source books!

(Also holy shit a ton of these gods have daggers as their favored weapon. Like, a massive amount of them)