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Post by DM_Starhelm on Aug 28, 2015 10:16:36 GMT
Flesh out NPCs. Giving your main NPCs that the party is going to spend more than a little time with personality, quirks, voices, motivations, goals, etc really makes the world feel more alive. Building good NPCs will go further in worldbuilding and making your world feel more immersive than any amount irrelevant lore and locations that won't be a part of the next session you're going to play. you can spend too much time on fluff and written out plots that the characters may or may not care about or even interact with, but if you know they're going to meet a certain NPC and interact with them than there's no such thing as too much detail you can put into that NPC.
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Post by robosnake on Aug 29, 2015 13:41:03 GMT
One of the most fun games I've run in recent years was a Star Wars "Requel" using Fate Core. It was a reworking of the prequels, with a storyline that makes sense and was interesting to us, with the PCs playing some of the main characters. So we had the canon "feel" of Star Wars, but at the same time, the players were able to change whatever they could through the system itself (Fate Core lets players add descriptive tags called "Aspects" to scenes, NPCs, even planets). All this as a long way of saying it can be really fun to take a 'canon' universe and change it through play, even if everyone already knows a lot about it.
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Post by lasersniper on Aug 29, 2015 17:34:57 GMT
One of the most fun games I've run in recent years was a Star Wars "Requel" using Fate Core. It was a reworking of the prequels, with a storyline that makes sense and was interesting to us, with the PCs playing some of the main characters. How did that go? I mean I assume you all had watched the prequels and you can only change the story so much. How did the players do at keeping their knowledge out of their characters. I guess a better question is how much did you actually change it from the movies. Is Palpatine still the Sith Lord mastermind, are the Clone Wars still a thing, and what about tax laws.......xD couldn't resist. Seriously, how much did you change? |
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Post by robosnake on Aug 29, 2015 20:11:50 GMT
Here's the Obsidian Portal page for how far we got before the game got put on hiatus: episode-0-the-requel.obsidianportal.com/Palpatine remained the Sith Lord. One of the players played Anakin Skywalker while the other three chose original characters who took on prominent positions. As the GM I drew heavily from existing canon, but then sort of laid things in front of the players and let them make of it what they would, so we ended up with a mix of original NPCs and canon NPCs who were drifted. This all plays to Fate Core's strengths, which are supporting improvisation, player input in the setting and situation and lots of collaboration. And we had a larger storyline sketched out. Since it was Fate Core, the campaign started with us sitting down and deciding on the main issues (immediate and pending conflicts), faces (main NPCs, connected to the main issues) and places. The Clone Wars were still to be a thing, but probably not a clone army, but rather the ability to create clones who were force-sensitive. Annakin was a Jedi double agent, and there was a weaponized space-plague that was the center of the opening conflicts. We had an agreement to avoid tax laws  |
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Post by arnil on Sept 1, 2015 5:24:47 GMT
Before every session i write out a bullet point outline of the points i want to hit this session. In this i write notes about tieing in storylines and longer term archs. I then decide on any major npcs and i get those concepts and names written down so I'm not reaching for the major player's names. If any treasure or xp could possibly be awarded i write out all that so i can give that right to my players immediately. If any magic items that will be given out i will write the full entry of the magic item on the back of a 5 by 4 flashcard and draw a depiction of the item in the other side with a brief discription cause I'm bad at drawing. I also have a list of about 15 male and 15 female culturally appropriate names i can use for randomly encountered npcs. Shopkeepers and such. I have a world map i look at and place every town and city they are headed to or have encountered already. I also draw their route. On a side note i have a special set of dm only dice. They are from the call of cthulhu set and i keep them in a special fur dicebag. Just something i do. dungeonsandtulu.wordpress.com/ |
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Post by DM_RULE on Dec 8, 2015 19:03:52 GMT
As a dm you are doing better than you think. You will never have a perfect session, but if your players are having fun then it is a success.
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