Game Moderator Ideas and Wisdom

[josh_manga]

Hello,

In case you are wondering, i thought about opening this in gamers galore, but i thought it would be more immediately visible here, and more readily accessible as well to those for whom it is intended and would benefit the most.

What this is, basically, is a thread for game moderators to post their experiences, how to deal with difficult situations as a moderator, such as difficult players, difficult stories, plots gone arwy, plots that have dried up, etc...

Questions, answers, suggestions, funny stories, idea generation and over all discussion that will be helpful to the role playing community here on CAA.

I hope this to be beneficial to existing GM's, GM wannabe's, and players who are maybe thinking about it some time way off in the future.

This can be anything from social elements, playing elements, handling existing rules, writing your own rules, anything related to role playing here on the forums or in your own, at-home, sit down face to face role playing games.

I'll start off with a funny story. True experience!
I was running a game at my old church with a couple friends of mine, one of them younger and he was in that annoying "your mom" phase. In between combat, before their characters set off on their true journey, i let them take a break to fill up on supplies and equipment. Well, one of the players left to get a drink and go to the bathroom, and the younger one was left there to pick his equipment alone. I asked him what he wanted for a new weapon and he said he was going to use the other guy's mom as a weapon. face palm!!!

Sooooo.... when the other guy came back and they set off through the woods, they got attacked by giant mosquitoes. Sure enough, the younger player brought out our friend's mom as his secret weapon. Not to be outdone by the sheer stupidity of the situation, i simply asked the other player what his mom would do if she saw a huge mosquito. He said she'd say "kill it!". So, in the game, his mom appeared, looked at the mosquito, and told the two Elf characters to kill it, then poofed away again.

Needless to say, this pretty much put an end to the immature "your mom" jokes, which left the rest of the game to run smoothly, much to the relief of my friend.

So there you have it, my encounter with a difficult player and how i handled it while keeping the mood good natured and humorous (i hope).

I look forward to seeing what some other of you may have to share.

God bless,
josh.

P.S.
Players can also post here as well, maybe give suggestions for moderators, or offer input on how other players can handle these same situations from the player side of the game.

[josh_manga]

Something interesting i did once for a one off game, and i've never heard of this being done before, was to write out secret quests for each of the players, put them face down, shuffle them, and let the players draw them out. Then as the game would progress, the players would have to decide on their own whether they would ignore the quest, or secretly try to accomplish their hidden objective.

Now for the interesting part: half the quests conflicted with the other half. If one person was supposed to ensure that the Mayor of the town survived till the end of the scenario, another player was supposed to assassinate the Mayor. And if one player was supposed to ensure that no zombies escaped the town, another was supposed to make sure at least one of them did escape.

The rewards for these hidden quests was a substantial amount of Experience, which could help put low level characters such as theirs significantly ahead of the others.

I don't think this would work for a long term campaign, but for a weekend game that lasted only 8 hours or so, it was fun.

As i said, it was a one-off game with characters we never used again, so, pitting half the team against the other half with an army of monsters and militia on each side made for a great conspiracy setting that went along with the scenario's plot.

[josh_manga]

Not all of these will be new, cool, or awe inspiring, but i hope they will be inspiring in the least.

[SIZE="3"]Undead Plague A[/SIZE]
The local authorities/religious order/military establishment of which you are a part has given you orders to quell the plague, destroy the abominations, and see to it that none escape the town infected.

[SIZE="3"]Undead Plague B[/SIZE]
The local cult/terrorists/military establishment of which you are a part has given you orders to retrieve a specimen of the plague for testing/use/proliferation.

[SIZE="3"]Kidnapped Lover[/SIZE]
The party hears tell of, or witnesses first hand, a young lady being carried off into the night by a monstrous creature. Someone in the town may have a clue as to where the creature lives. The creature is incredibly strong, but has one or two key weaknesses that will impair its ability in combat, such as being blinded by light, terrified of loud noises, is vulnerable to cold temperatures, or all of the above.

[SIZE="3"]Home Sweet Home[/SIZE]
You return to your home town to find most of the population has disappeared without a trace/killed themselves in some kind of suicide pact/or were killed by some outside force. You must now investigate the reason for their vanishing, do what you can to bring them back, or bring their murderers to swift justice.

[SIZE="3"]Questionable Advisers[/SIZE]
Your patron's advisers check up on you from time to time, but they have a dubious appearance. Some may look rough around the edges, while others look like death warmed over, and others still may look like something from out of this world. You have to decide if you can trust them, why your patron trusts them, and if you can trust your patron.

[SIZE="3"]Cursed Keep[/SIZE]
You come upon a town with a military outpost/garrison/castle stationed nearby. The military establishment appears to be lifeless, and the town is doing none too well. Shortly upon your arrival, soldiers wander into town, fully armed, and begin attacking the villagers, carrying some back to the encampment. You have to help defend the town and rescue the captives, or figure out why the soldiers are attacking and help them instead.

That's all i got for now.

[raider~joseph]

Kinda like achivements?Cool

My story.

During a game of dnd I played with my old DM who was a man of humor and evil.(You will see...keep reading)Decided to have a lich turn our paladin into a chicken.He was the only healer as we had no cleric which was stupid at the time but still we went on looking for a cure.We got ambushed by another set of orcs one of them shot a flaming arrow at me I dodged and apparently hit a tree.Even the DM didn't realize at the time if you launch a campaign where in a forest a tree gets hit with a flaming arrow it starts a fire.(LET ME FINISH.)The orcs in the confusion stole our chicken from us and fled back to their camp to which we had to go save him and guess what they did.Roasted him.So we saved him only to realized he had been turned to OFC Orcish fried chicken.Then for laughs we made him an item that restores HP and used him.Eventually we found a scroll of resurrection and healed him because we kept the bones.It was a game we never forgot.And a word of advice sometimes jokes seem funny but its not.Seriously not one laugh.Although we remember it not one laugh.Dms PLEASE be careful.

[josh_manga]

Kinda like achivements?Cool

I assume you are referring to the secret quests? I guess you could call them achievements.

All of the plot hooks except the Home Sweet Home one i have actually ran or played in a session at one point or other. The Questionable Advisers one came about from a game a friend of mine ran, and we were using miniatures, and for some reason he chose a vampire demon and a wraith mini as a couple of the generals for the king's army. So me and the other two players kept being suspicious and tried to catch them at some plot every time they showed up, but it never worked. In the end, it turned out they were good guys after all.

Guess you really can't judge a book by it's cover. It made for some great suspense though, however i don't think the GM planned it that way.

And on that note, i suppose it's worth mentioning the uses of miniatures. I periodically go through this phase where i spend a lot of time reading other people's blogs about D&D, its rules, edition wars, etc... I dunno why, it's just entertaining, and sometimes i learn stuff. One of the things i read, an accusation leveled against 3rd and 4th edition D&D is that they were both too miniatures oriented. The inevitable counter being to drudge up D&D's roots in Chainmail, which was designed to be miniatures oriented for massive combat.

I myself started with wargaming and slowly went into pen and paper rpg's, then combined the two on my own. The rules i've written for playing my own game had this in mind, and i've had to edit them to make the rules applicable to a play by post setting, where there is no tabletop, no map, no miniatures, and not even a webcam.

With that in mind, i'd like to say that, while miniatures can be a great tool for strategizing, or even as visual aides to the story telling, one shouldn't become reliant on them for everything. But this is really personal preference, and sometimes miniatures are preferred. One of my friends who plays from time to time spends his days studying calculus and computer programming, and has told us that he prefers using miniatures and scenery because his mind is tired at the end of the day and doesn't have the energy to imagine everything.

The downside of using miniatures is the amount of time it can take to set up an elaborate setting. And i mean buildings, hills, trees, rivers... details beyond a simple grid dungeon in other words.

A friend of mine made his own GM screen for use at the table, and he had pictures printed off of forests and lush environments on one side, and dungeons and craggy volcanoes on the other side, and would flip the screen over depending on which side best represented the environment the party was in at the time. A GM screen doesn't take up much space, and is a simple way to set the mood. Additionally you can reserve one side to write down important information that only you, as the GM, needs to know.

I've yet to actually use music when playing, but i do use it when writing my campaigns. Gothic Symphonic Metal is an obvious choice for battles and such, and yet it never seems to reach epic proportions (IMO). For an adventurous and epic feel, try looking for your favorite video game soundtrack, there are lots of them on youtube these days. A personal favorite of mine for dark campaigns is Court of the Crimson King, by King Crimson. I really like The Gates of Delirium by Yes for invasion themes, and Nox Arcana has some nice "phantom of the opera" style tunes and gothic harpsichord. I don't know how well these bands stand in the CAA community, Nox Arcana is 99% instrumental, but Court of the Crimson King is pretty heavy, so listen at your own discretion. Also, some videos on youtube have some artwork that is inappropriate for young viewers and such, so you might try finding a music sample somewhere without the video.

I'm aware that Wizards of the Coast also has their own mood music CDs for sale, but i don't know what they cost or what they sound like, i've just seen them on the shelves.

Also, if you own the pre-expansion version of Warcraft II, you may be able to put the game disc in a CD player, skip the first two tracks, and the CD will play music from the game. I also had a demo disc for Quest for Glory V which had music tracks on it, but i gave that away to a friend

If you want some more happy tunes and some sounds that would be good for market places and rustic villages, try Andy McKee. He is an acoustic guitarist that does some amazing stuff, and some of his songs are blatantly fantasy themed in their titles.

When i say CotCK is heavy, i mean thematically, videos on youtube commonly have grotesque images.

[josh_manga]

word of advice for the day:

Never trust your email to notify you of updates, always check forums yourself.

[josh_manga]

This is something i'd run across before, but have not had the opportunity to use.

It can apply to forum games as well as in person.

Basically it's a poll you ask your players before you begin your campaign, i imagine it's somewhere between inviting players to come play and character creation. It can also be used here in the forums to give prospective players a quick glance description of your game's rating.

Basically, the first applies to how the game is to be played, role playing (acting, mostly what occurs on the forums), roll playing (simulated action with dice), mixture of the two.

The second applies to the realism of the world. Is it low fantasy, where the rules are much the same as the real world, or is it high fantasy, where animals can talk?

The third applies to the degree to which magic is used in the game. Is it low magic, where only a few people in the entire world are even capable of it, or is it high magic, where even a simple farmer may know a spell or two to help his crops? There is of course a fourth option, no magic, which is encouraged on these threads.

The fourth applies to magic (or superhuman) power levels. Is it high power, like where Vegeta, Freeza, and others can destroy an entire planet in a single attack, or is it low power, like the Shadow who can merely make himself appear in a different place, or maybe invisible due to hypnotism?

The fifth applies to the comedic/dramatic range of the game. Are we playing My Little Pony, or Ridley Scott's Alien? (or both?)

And finally, what would be the movie rating equivalent for the violence, language, sensuality, immitatable behavior, etc...

1) Role Playing — Mix — Roll Playing
2) High — Mid — Low Fantasy
3) High — Mid — Low Magic
4) High — Mid — Low Power
5) Dark — Average — Light : Tone and Mood
6) G — PG — R : Rated descriptions and content

You can read the whole article at: http://dndnerd.com/a-pre-campaign-survey-to-try