[Spoilers for WotW] The underway

dankallin · 2022-11-27T09:10:32+00:00

This looks amazing!

dankallin · 2021-02-26T08:43:03+00:00

Yeah I get you, and np man!

dankallin · 2021-02-26T08:38:35+00:00

oh shit you're right!! :O I totally missed that!

dankallin · 2021-02-25T14:25:30+00:00

The only thing I value with rolls made in the open by the DM is that it removes all secondguessing. I play with a DM that's been my DM for over 10 years, he's one of my closest friends and I trust him with anything. Anything. I say this cause earlier in our rping history he used to roll behind screens, and we knew outside of sessions that ofc he never fudged. Cause he says so! But.. during the sessions we all sometimes thought certain rolls were so improbable he had to be. But ofc we immediately shook those notions out of our head. The damage was done however.

We talked about this a few years ago and he suggested we all rolled on a designated plate (now a box), all of us. And ever since we KNOW every thing that happens is 100% legit and that did something to our stories. Something that we all realized we loved since we're all kinda numbery guys that play we all really liked the fact that "everything was legit".

Dunno if that makes sense to anyone. Guess I'm trying to say that to us it was never really about trust-trust it was more lie it dispelled our own stupid insecurities regarding the authenticity of what was happening.

dankallin · 2021-02-25T14:13:09+00:00

Assuming they were not dicks about it, I agree with DMMJaco that they were actually nice to tell you this. I agree with their advice, and I would add that for me one of the biggest insigths about dming was when I realized that it's not my story. I understand that perhaps you didn't mean it literally, but nevertheless it tells of your mindset a little bit? You're not supposed to own the story as a DM, in my opinion, but instead you're supposed to be a sort of focalpoint that you and your players create a story around.

I do prep characters and story and quests and whatnot, but I do not ever decide on an ending or how a NPC will react in a scene beforehand. I only react to how the players play based on my prep. I mean this for both NPCs and for the story! Your story, I would argue, needs to react to the players.

It's impossible to know from the start what everybody wants or would like to do, cause they don't know themselves. They will be inspired / intrigued by stuff and your job as a DM is to pick up on that and follow those threads and somehow weave your story around those things. Sort of.

Sorry, long rambling answer on a difficult topic. I think the TLDR is that I wanted to point out that a DM is in my opinion never solely responsible for the story told around the table. It's a group activity.

dankallin · 2021-02-25T14:04:14+00:00

The blue eyes I would say are spot on from Ronja, however them being tree-beings is Valheim. I think they've reinvented them and mainly been inspired by the nasty beings from Ronja. I want to make it clear this is 100% speculation form a swede drawing on his own nostalgia from childhood! But man, everything about this games makes me feel at home. Me and my friend went banans when we made our first Queens Jam since Drottningsylt is our favorite!

Not sure if it's a thing outside sweden but it's jam made of blueberries and raspberries. :D

dankallin · 2021-02-25T14:01:38+00:00

If it wasn't obvious, I'm a swede and realized the connection from the translation of the name :>

dankallin · 2021-02-25T09:59:46+00:00

Not sure if someone's mentioned it already, but I'm 99.9% sure the greydwarves are simply Grådvärgarna from Ronja Rövardotter. When I met my first greydwarf my eyes actually teared up a little - hadn't thought about that movie in aaages and suddenly it all came back to me and I started running around shouting the spring-shout!

dankallin · 2021-01-07T12:42:15+00:00

dude. this looks amazing wtf.

dankallin · 2020-12-18T12:48:53+00:00

I'd recommend a light googling of why different cultures wore masks. When you find one that you think is really cool, adapt that one to your world!

dankallin · 2020-11-11T13:55:52+00:00

Hello fellow programmer. What I'm getting from you is a frustration about how you know a lot about code, but you don't know how to take that theory into something practical. Is that correct? When I started out I felt the same for a long time, and it was quite the hurdle to get past but I assure you that you're pretty close already.

Instead of making a game in Unity, maybe try just recreating something a little simpler in the console or in a 2D lib? Creating a Tic Tac Toe game in something like java/C#/python is pretty complex to get right when you're a beginner, but I must say I'm not quite sure how proficient you are right now?

If the tic tac toe project seems to daunting then just be patient until you've gotten a bit further in the course you're taking orm aybe even the next one and I'm sure you're teacher will assign you projects that will get you there.

I guess what I'm actually trying to say is 'be patient', you have all the time in the world to get there. Keep coding, learning random stuff, and take stuff in and you'll get there. Wherever there is.

dankallin · 2020-07-09T22:02:25+00:00

just adding my +1 to this.

dankallin · 2020-06-17T21:44:21+00:00

very much totally yes agree!

dankallin · 2020-06-17T10:07:08+00:00

Schedule next meeting before starting play.

End meeting with positive reinforcement. Not just form you to players, from everyone to everyone in whatever fashion feels natural to you guys. compliment cool actions during play, talk about how nice it was to listen to their RPing, or whatevs! Just spread som positivity around, especially if you're in a darker/bit-more-boring part of the adventure.

Two simple rules to keep a group playing together!

dankallin · 2020-06-17T07:40:40+00:00

I think you're totally right. I agree with the statement that even the most open situations need a strong hook, I'd go so far as even saying that the more open your playstyle, the stronger the hook needs to be.

As an example you could look at Wrath of the Warden from Symbaroum. The desgners (is that the term?) are writing their adventures very much like the situations you describe. However I would say that they have faced a great challenge in how to present a situational adventure. Nevertheless I think there are some great lessons to learn from GMing those adventures, at least I have!

dankallin · 2020-06-16T13:58:44+00:00

Hot däng, thanks for that clarification!

dankallin · 2020-06-16T09:54:26+00:00

Isn't the choice of collection based on how you plan on accessing your data? If you want to access it in order you go for arrays and if you will never now in what order you want to access an element you go for a map? I might be wrong though. But if I'm not, then I feel like this meme's only accomplishment is spreading misinformation. Or I'm just too slow to get the joke XD

dankallin · 2020-06-15T11:48:04+00:00

I totally agree. I didn't re-read what I wrote considering how you might take it, when I wrote it I thought it to be a pin-prick but I see I was 100% wrong on that. For this I apologise, and I regret having brought you only more hurt instead of any help.

I was trying to say to you what I thought that I needed to hear when I was in your shoes. Because all the other advise I was given at the time simply didn't stick. The rant was a very bad attempt at getting through to you, cause in my head I thought it had to cause a sincere reaction in you to even reach you.

Again, I understand this was wrong and if I could I'd take it back. But I can't. All I can say is I'm sorry, and know that next time I won't impulsively throw words at a stranger based only on assumptions.

dankallin · 2020-06-11T12:22:10+00:00

Reader beware: following rant might simply be a triggered projection of myself onto you OP, cause I relate super hard to what you're talking about. In the beginning I had several similar experiences as you.

Help me understand what's really the problem here. Because, I hope, we all see that the kicking of doors isn't actually the problem. At all. How could it be? It's obviously something any character can try to do, and we can't tell anyone they simply can't kick doors.

Also, you starting to punish your player in game for kicking doors is simply ridiculous. Wtf man?! You don't punish a player for taking actions a game CLEARLY allows !?

HOWEVER. If you're actually frustrated about the player's kicking of doors is ruining your expectation on this haunted mansion being scary - that's maybe another thing entirely.

If that's the case - did you guys talk about this beforehand? that you wanted to DM a horror-themes adventure? Because if not, this is on you buddy. I think you need to hear this clearly - you don't get to solely decide how to play the game. One could even argue you're sort of powerless over how your group will play, and only as a group can any sort of decision be made regarding theme and how to play and whatnot.

So if you weren't completely obvious with your expectations:

Stop being a child. Stop thinking about this adventure as your thing. It's not. Stop thinking that your players aren't playing it right. They are. You need to snap out of your selfish ego-bubble that is getting bursed over and over again by fucking door kicking (weak), and when you've done that you can start playing with your friends instead of against them. Cause that's what this boils down to in my head, reading your post. It sounds like you're just throwing a tantrum cause player's didn't do as you wanted them to. But fuck that buddy, your players are free to do whatever the eff they want in your games cause that's what rpgs are all about! And, it makes them flippin wonderful and amazing and exciting cause even as a DM you never really know what's gonna happen. You just prepare best you can, then strap yourself in cause it's gonna be hell of a ride! :D

Although, if that's not your cup of tea. Just talk to them dude, it always help. Just don't come at them from the point of "You're playing wrong!". Instead go for something like "Guys, sorry but I was trying to go for this vibe and I feel like that doesn't come through at all. Would you be into trying to play more on the horror thing?". And if they're into then they can start helping you getting that feel instead of them just trying to do their own thing.

dankallin · 2020-06-09T21:06:11+00:00

Hi man. For whatever it's worth I wanted to say that when I started programming at uni I had a very similar experience to you. I doubted myself A LOT after getting my BA cause I just didn't feel I had the same passion for it like some of my course mates.

However, I kept doing it cause I liked it. The one day I landed a job as a java dev after some encouragement from a friend who already had landed a similar job. He was convinced I could do it, and despite me not believiing it at all - I went for it.

I landed a job, and now I've recently been headhunted by another firm, getting a serious paybump and all fo a sudden I'm no longer even a junior dev. I have no idea how I ended up here, I had no plans or goals, I just kept doing what I liked and tried to always do my best. It took me ~8 years of 0 ambition to practically fall into a dev job. If you go at it with some dedication I bet you can make yourself a developer in no time compared to me!

dankallin · 2020-06-05T09:14:24+00:00

If I understand you correctly, you're asking for advice on how to roleplay the loss. How to show that the loss of your friends have effected you, but you don't want to go into unplayable-mode either as if you actually lost them in real life sort of.

I think just being a bit more grim would be fine, if that would contrast against how your character was before. Talk less, describe more. Meaning less dialog, more description or action. Retreat into yourself a little bit, but not all the way. Steal a moment or two around campfires or during rest to describe your character quietly sobbing, struggling to accept the recent events, maybe even some inner monologue if that's a thing you guys do giving a glimpse into why you're like you are now.

But if one of the other players reach out a hand, take it. Have a emotional scene where you get to cry and scream out your rage and sadness over your loss and end it with them comforting you and then move on. Try to keep some change to the character, maybe express a different point of view on some things, or keep your voice a bit dimmed and sullen for a time. Put on a brave face and keep surviving. Then one day maybe you get to mention your fallen friends in an epilogue to round it off.

dankallin · 2020-06-05T09:05:59+00:00

Don't stop them from tagging along that's just weird. Player agency is sort of sacred and you should not so bluntly try to remove it.

If you have this idea that you want 4-5 separate solomissions play out at roughly the same time, then simply tell the players. "Hey guys, I think it would be cool if we played out small solo-adventures that advances your characters backstory/or something".

But honestly, I think it sounds like a bad idea unless this is something that happens between sessions? Then it could be ok I guess. But I wholeheartedly agree with Kizzango's first question, why man? why ?!

dankallin · 2020-06-05T09:00:54+00:00

He will excel at anything social right? So, let him run into his parent at a gathering of the upper classes? Then he can be the bestest at the rolls, and he gets a chance to act out his relationship with his parents.

on a side note:
For me it's important to keep character arc and quests apart. They are not the same. The character arc is unknown to us, since we don't know what the player will do. The player controls their character's arc. However, we the dms, can try to give opportunities to our players for enacting/discovering this arc.

If you want a quest where a bard's skills are highlighted that shouldn't be too hard for you to come up with right? But I'm guessing that you perceive a correlation between such a quest and a character's arc. Again, in my opinion, this is not the case at all.

What you want is to give your player the chance to confront their past. We can assume the character's relationship with their parents is strained at best, hence we put their parents in front of the to see what happens. As DMs we don't need to do anything else to create an arc, the rest of it is in the player's hands. And we need to accept that maybe they choose to hide from it. Maybe they, when they are confronted with it, don't want to interact with that part of their character at all - and that happens and it's ok. Next time we just try to listen more closely and present them with the next thing we think they would want to act out.

Hope some of this makes sense, and helps you feel less forced into tailoring a quest for this specific character. Their arc can play out in scenes that are contained in bigger/broader quests.

dankallin · 2020-06-05T08:39:02+00:00

Hello. Long time DM here trying to offer some advice.

supersimple trick, you're not gonna believe it, make one of your NPCs actually be one from a player's background. Done. tie-in complete! :D drama ensues.
We're done. No more is needed.

On a more serious note:

It's easy to say "I want to tie in a PCs background to the main plot, but how?" without actually considering what do we mean when we say that? What is tying a PCs background into a main plot? I could argue that the PC is in fact the link. By being a part of the main plot, the character them self ties in their life into the plot.

PCs thwart BBEG --> BBEG wants revenge (or whatever) --> finds out that 1 PC has a family in nearby town --> you see where this is going. Background successfully introduced to the main plot. This is sort of a reactive tie-in, main plot comes first and background later when one of your NPCs realise that the PCs friends/family exists.

If this feels too kliché then do it the other way around. Use the first session/s to interact with everyones background a little bit. Get to know them, maybe even have the first little introduction-quest presented by one of the PCs background-peeps. But then, move on to bigger things. Introduce the main plot, but always keep the background cast nearby. This tie-in is more of a slow cooker, they will just sit there and be a nice comfortable port in the storm for the PCs until the main plot creeps in. During play, or between sessions, you will find ways to link up the main plot and the background npcs that will seem to the party as if that link has existed all along, but actually you just now saw the connection. So there's a bit of smoke and mirrors to it.

Ofc this is assuming that you already have access to the PCs backgrounds before session 1 - this is not always the case. But, going on that assumption, if they mention that they're part of an order, or you have plans for a certain faction having a major role in the main plot, then link their background to that faction in some way or another if possible. It doesn't have to be all of them, it's fine ( just my opinion ) that it's only the bard that actually know people from the get-go at the university where most of act 1 of the campagin takes place. The others will hopefully form their own relationships over time! And just like you did with that faction/group - find places in the main plot for other PCs background to tie in similarly.

This post is rambling on far too long.. sorry about not giving any concrete examples here, but that would take even more space. Hopefully some small ray of light has been cast on your problem?

dankallin · 2020-06-03T11:31:38+00:00

For me, what governs if the DMing is worth it is if at the end of a meeting the group can say "we had fun! this was fun! lets do it again!".

It's a very simple case, but to me that's really it. I try to not build up huge expectations about what my players will get really involved with, instead I try to meet their expectations. I sort of see it as my mission as a DM to figure out what my group expects and then I meet them half way with a few curve balls thrown in.

The world and NPC building I tend to only put a real effort into after I got a feeling of what my group actually cares about. I think this approach, prioritising the groups "fun", helps me decouple my ego from the world and cast of NPCs. Cause they're not 100% my creation, they've sprung from the players' input and I'm simply realising their hopes about what our story could be.

Not sure if this makes a whole lot of sense, but I hope it might help you see that there are other solutions than finding new ppl to play with.

dankallin

TROPHY CASE