Hi everyone! I bet you thought that I, the DM, forgot about this podcast. Well you’re not wrong!
As per usual, the music you hear is called The Lounge, from Bensound.com.
You can also find the episode here! (It’s a Google drive link)
Hi everyone! I bet you thought that I, the DM, forgot about this podcast. Well you’re not wrong!
As per usual, the music you hear is called The Lounge, from Bensound.com.
You can also find the episode here! (It’s a Google drive link)
Hi! It’s me! The DM! Wow, it has been five months since the last episode aired. Sorry about that! I promise the next one won’t take as long. Unless it does, in which case… sorry in advance!
As per usual, the music you hear is called The Lounge, from Bensound.com.
You can also find the episode here! (It’s a Google drive link)
Hey Everyone! Its me, the DM. Thanks for checking out episode 3! In this episode our heroes chat with some unusual characters and travel to the Wilds. Expect episode 4 on April 11th 2018, only two weeks away! đ
Also, the intro music you hear is still called The Lounge, by Bensound.com.
You can also find the podcast here! (Its a google drive link)
Hi Everyone!
It’s me, the DM. The second episode is finished and ready for your ears! A day early! This time the gang goes shopping for items they don’t need and Rahm gets drunk. Episode 3 is expected to be ready by March 28th 2018. I hope you enjoy it!
Also, the intro music you hear is still called The Lounge, by Bensound.com.
You can also find the file here! (Its a google drive link)
Hey everyone! Welcome to The Third Part, a real-play Pathfinder podcast. This is the first episode and the recap episode all stitched into one!
Also, the intro music you hear is called The Lounge, by Bensound.com.
You can also find the podcast here! (its a google drive link)
When I was a boy, my piano teacher once told me that playing a solo is âwriting a song onstageâ. Being a Dungeon Master isnât much different than any other type of performance art in this regard. To really differentiate yourself at the table, you need to be able to improvise, and have those amazing moments that will keep people talking about your game week to week. You can spend months preparing a setting and an adventure, and your players will always be able to find things that you havenât thought about.
So when presented with an adventuring party that does what you didnât expect, you have two options. The first one is to stop whatever theyâre doing, and force them to get back on your very specific path. Thereâs a temptation to say âDonât ever railroad your playersâ, but a little bit isnât terrible. Forcing the players out of a line of action is really only a good idea when theyâre about to start an encounter you didnât expect, and you donât want to scramble and quickly roll up a bunch of guards because the players decided to take over a town. I try to avoid having to do this, because it can break the flow of the game, which can lead to distractions, and further derailment.
The second option, and the one that should be preferred, is to roll (no pun intended) with whatever the players want to do. Not only does this not stop the flow of the game, but it also leads to situations that are much more fun than whatever you planned before. If the players want to stop their quest, charter a ship, enslave the crew and become pirates, let them try. If the half-orc wants to try and seduce his way out of an encounter, allow the attempt. Donât be rigid, donât say âno thatâs stupidâ, and donât let them ever think that you wish they stuck with the plot you spent months writing.
If you play D&D (or GM most tabletop games) and have trouble improvising, you have a set of polyhedral tools to help you. Rely on your dice. You donât have to dictate the playersâ successes and failures, allow the dice to help you. Additionally, get a good feel for the skills, and which one should be used for which situation. I usually DM with a character sheet in front of me, so that I always have a list of what the players can use. Coming up with a good DC is also important, as it is another form of improvisation.
While improvisation is incredibly important, relying on it all the time is a hallmark of an unprepared DM. You need to be at least a little prepared. Personally, I wonât play unless I have a pretty good idea for how the session should go, and I make sure to roll up all my enemies before the session starts. Your players will know when you are improvising all the time, and it can bring some people out of the experience.
Another aspect to preparing is that it without any pre-written history, it is much harder to improvise dialog. As the creator of a campaign setting, you need to prepare some history about the realm, and the characters that show up in it. Give the major NPCs (i.e. the ones that players interact with) at least one motivating factor. Personally, Iâm a fan of history, so I typically write a fairly general history going back a couple hundred years. The point is, all you need to do is write  a short backstory for the âMajorâ NPCs, and theyâll write their own dialog.
While preparation is important, I want to stress that you donât need to have every possible piece of dialog written in advance (unless you want to of course). Your preparation before the first session should include the setting, some history, the characters motivations, and the mechanistic aspects of the game. The mechanistic aspects are all the things that you need to roll for and should be highly fleshed out before the start of each session. When it comes to a session, I usually write a list of all the stuff I would like to happen for the session. This is as far as I will go when it comes to a âscriptâ for an adventure.
So remember, improvisation is good. If you are playing from a script the whole game, youâre not going to be as engaged, and as a result, neither will your players. Again, this doesnât mean that you should try and start your sessions completely unprepared. D&D is like having people over for a meal. You arenât going to start cooking when everyone arrives, you prepare with enough food (game content) so that everyone will have enough. The important thing is to strike a proper balance. If you meticulously plan every possible aspect of your campaign, try loosening it up a bit. If your campaign is an unprepared every session, try writing down three to five bullet points that you want to hit next time, and start from there.