hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2757.txt

Episode: 2757
Title: HPR2757: How to DM
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2757/hpr2757.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 16:25:42

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This is HPR Episode 2,757 entitled, how to DM, and is part of the series, tabletop gaming.
It is hosted by Klaatu and is about 45 minutes long, and carries a clean flag.
The summary is, Klaatu explains how to DM an RPG, and lost in wrongs demonstrates, step by step, how to build a dungeon.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by an honest host.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code, HPR15, that's HPR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at An HonestHose.com.
Hey everybody, this is Klaatu, you're listening to Hacker Public Radio.
I've gotten a lot of great feedback over the last couple of months on the Interface Zero playthrough that I did with Taj and Loboth,
and good feedback on the episode that I did with lost in wrongs about getting started with RPGs.
But people have also told me that one of the biggest blockers to actually getting started with an RPG,
like actually making one happen for themselves, is knowing what to do as the GM, as the game master.
Now I've read lots of rulebooks in my time, I really enjoy reading RPG rulebooks and even GM guides,
and it seems to me that most of them assume you've either played an RPG before, and so you've seen an example of a game master at play,
or you've seen one on YouTube or Twitch or some podcast.
It's usually a safe assumption to be fair, but it's easy to forget all of those great examples that you've seen when you're under pressure.
So in this episode, lost in wrongs and I are going to provide you with some clear and direct instructions on what exactly a GM does.
Here's a quick caveat about the term GM and DM. GM is game master, DM is dungeon master.
A DM is the original term from dungeons and dragons, because generally the campaigns, the adventures that you would play,
were set in a literal dungeon, and so the dungeon master would run the dungeon, and you would run the player, and that's that made sense.
As D&D evolved and other RPGs came into existence, the term DM became very specific to dungeons and dragons.
And so GM, game master, is the generified version of that, especially since a lot of RPGs aren't set in a dungeon,
and it doesn't really make sense to have a dungeon master in a game set in a post-apocalyptic megalopolis.
So I use them interchangeably, just based on what my tongue decides to do at any given moment.
So if I say DM or GM, it's the same thing, but without further ado, here is exactly what a GM or a DM does during a game.
This is everything you need to know. You can stop listening to this episode after I provide you this list if you listen very, very carefully.
So here's the short version. It's only two items, item zero. Tell the players where they are and what they see around them.
Item one, listen to the players when they tell you what they want to do.
Item two, tell the players the outcome of their actions based on your privileged knowledge of the game world or on the role of a dice.
That's it. You loop over that sequence, and suddenly your game mastering.
But that makes for a short episode, and anyway, there are details about the process that we can talk about to make you feel more comfortable with the prospect of deciphering a game world
with your friends. To that end, Lost in Bronx and I have started a website dedicated to gaming. You should check it out.
You should subscribe to the RSS feed. We discuss everything game related there, plus a little tech, and all manner of topics of interest to geeks and hackers.
And probably possibly you. So I've given you the loop. I've given you the thing to iterate through over and over as the game goes on.
But that only explains your function as the game master. It doesn't really explain how the game is created and built.
There are lots of different ways to do this, and one of the ways is to build it yourself.
This is actually an expectation built into games like Dungeons and Dragons and lots of other games, because they provide you the rules, the game engine,
and then expect that you, the game master, are going to actually build the story.
So how is that done? Well, Lost in Bronx, as it turns out, has done this sort of thing for years and years and years.
And so I'm going to turn to him for the original and arguably most correct answer on this process.
You'll know it's time to listen for Lost in Bronx when Tinkerbell turns the page.
Right off the bat, it's important to understand that every game master is different.
No two styles of running a game match completely, nor should they.
And while there is no one correct way to run a game, there are plenty of ways to do it poorly.
The GM wears many hats, but in my opinion, the most important duty is to make sure that everyone is having a good time.
Your players are giving you an evening out of their lives.
Next week, they'll probably give you another.
It's your job to make sure that time isn't wasted.
By definition, games, even role-playing games, are a form of entertainment,
like reading a book, watching a movie, or enjoying the circus.
When you go to that, the GM is the ring master, presenting the show,
while the players are both the audience and the main attraction.
The GM controls the world, the people, the monsters, the history, even the weather.
The GM controls everything, in fact, except for the player characters.
A game master presents the situation, but it's the players who decide what to do with that information.
Now, this is all pretty vague and describing RPGs as far less informative than playing them.
If you are in doubt about how this type of gaming works,
I encourage you to go and listen to Hacker Public Radio,
episodes HPR2424242429243724442455.
Platt 2's five parts cyberpunk adventure, Interface Zero,
also known as job insecurity.
These are excellent examples of actual gameplay.
Even if you're already familiar with how RPGs are presented and experienced,
you'll appreciate those shows.
Now then, almost all games are divided into genre types,
sword and sorcery, space opera, spies, superheroes, and pretty much everything else.
And I mean everything.
If there's a genre of fiction and storytelling that you enjoy,
chances are there's a game or game setting for it somewhere.
The most popular style of RPGs out there are fantasy.
Think Lord of the Rings, think Harry Potter,
think of anything in fact because all of it is possible.
A staple of high fantasy gaming is the dungeon.
That term has two meanings in this sort of game.
First, the usual definition of what essentially amounts to the basement of a castle,
complete with jails and irrigation rooms, storage rooms, and more.
The other meaning refers specifically to a type of adventuring environment.
Both of these are usually found underground,
but an adventuring dungeon may have nothing to do with any castle.
It might be a lost crypt, a cave system, an abandoned gold mine,
or the layer of some horrid beast that's been terrorizing the countryside.
In the dungeon, might be enemies, monsters, and treasure protected by deadly traps.
Magic abounds, there might be puzzles, dark secrets, or a kidnap prince to rescue.
As a new game master, you can start off in any manner you like,
but a great way to get used to how the game works and how the whole process of providing
an evening's entertainment to your friends or family works in this context
is to create a dungeon from scratch and run your players through it.
This episode assumes you own copies of any relevant rule books for the game.
It's kind of hard to play without them.
One simple game system I recommend, with which you can get started,
is Brent P. Newhall's Fabulous Dungeon Raiders.
That's available at DriveThruRPG.com for whatever you want to pay, including nothing.
With Brent's permission, we've also put together a very slightly revised edition,
which you can grab at MixedSignals.ML.
It cleans up a few of the tables and such, same rules, though.
We'll have a link for that in the show notes.
Whatever game system you use, Dungeons generally require setup time,
that is to say, you have to design it in advance.
Clat 2 and I are currently working on ways to ease that burden,
with the ultimate goal of eliminating the pre-work entirely.
For now, let's talk about the traditional way to approach all this.
We'll be following a step-by-step process, but understand,
it's only one of an infinite possible number of them.
Step 1. Create the countryside.
Some GM say creating the world is the first step.
Some say creating the godly pantheons for that world is the first.
Some say it's the history or the fantasy races.
They're not wrong, but trust me, when you're just starting out none of that stuff matters.
In this example, you'll be running the players through a dungeon.
That dungeon is out in the country, within the middle of a large forest.
It will make the beginning and end of the adventure easier if you have a small village nearby
where the player characters all live. We'll call it forestdale for the lack of anything better.
In forestdale, there's an inn or tavern.
This is where people get together, tell tall tales, and become inspired to go adventuring.
Let's give it a name as well, the prancing unicorn. That's home base.
Every player character knows this place, and everyone in it knows them.
One of the stories being swapped at the unicorn lately is about a tribe of dangerous creatures
living in an underground layer somewhere within the forest.
They are led by an evil wizard, or so the tales go.
They've been attacking farmers and merchants who travel through the roads and footpaths
to forestdale so they may sell their goods. One of the merchants says he saw them escape
down the western path near the old bridge. The player characters all know where that is.
Something must be done, but who would be brave or foolhardy enough to even try?
Assuming the player characters are those brave fools, they'll trek out to the old bridge and
find a meandering path leading off to the west. Following this for an hour or more, they'll find
a clearing surrounded by trees, vines, and shrubs. The mouth of the staircase leading to the dungeon
is hidden behind some bushes. Looking carefully, the player characters will see many footprints
coming and going. And that's the level of detail you need for your entire world right now,
not much. You'll flesh out the rest of it in later adventures. This stuff is new, remember.
No one wants huge amounts of detail just yet, least of all you. You'll have enough to juggle
before this dungeon crawl is over. Trust me. Step 2. Create the dungeon floor plan.
You don't want to do more work than you need to. Let's make this a single level dungeon.
Later on, you can add a secret panel somewhere that reveals a set of stairs down to a second level,
and from there a third, fourth, tenth or more. For now, it's one level hidden below the forest.
It's dark, it's dangerous, it's plenty. Putting a dungeon together can be difficult,
but it doesn't have to be. The traditional way to create one of these is to use graph or
hex paper and draw out the floor map. Each square of the graph paper is equal to 10 feet on a side,
or say three meters. You make note of all rooms, caves, doors, hallways, stairs up and down,
floor traps, hidden doors, and anything else you want in there. Be sure to put a set of stone
stairs that lead from the forest above down to this dank and gloomy dungeon.
There are no standard symbols for the different things on the map, despite what anyone might tell you.
This is a step by step, so for now, let's turn the paper landscape style, so the long way goes
side to side. Holding it that way, at the top of the page, somewhere at or near the middle,
outline one square of the graph paper with a pencil. Inside the square, draw three or four small
lines at an angle. This will represent a set of stairs. Next to the stairs, write the letter U.
This is the way to get to the forest above. Granted, it's how the player characters will come
down here to begin with, but once they are here, they have to go up to leave, hence the U.
If that's confusing, you can write to the forest above next to the square, maybe with a little
arrow pointing up. Either way, this is how your player characters will get in and out of your dungeon.
We're going to draw the floor plan from the top of the page down. The entire dungeon map will
be on one side of the paper. In the corner, draw another arrow pointing up and put a letter N
there. That's North. We'll be using compass directions from now on. Granted, when underground,
it's hard to get your bearings without a compass, but for this dungeon, we won't worry about that.
North, South, East, West, it makes life easy. Near the bottom of the page, South, draw a box right
in the middle that's 10 by 10 squares in size. This is where the dungeon tunnels all will be
leading and where we'll have the biggest fight of the adventure. We're setting that up now so we
always know where we need to go when laying out tunnels and other rooms. Now go back to the stairs
at the top of the page. Draw a long line from the lower edge of the stairs going west. Stop the line
a square or two from the edge of the paper. Now do the same thing going east. Next move down one
square and draw another line parallel to both of these going entirely from one side of the page
to the other east to west. You've just created a tunnel, a place for the players to explore,
so imagine it for a moment. They come down some broken forgotten stairs. Let's say they travel
at least 100 feet down, tripping over tree roots and walking through cobwebs until the stairs
deposit them in the middle of a dark tunnel. 10 feet wide, 10 feet tall. It stretches to either side
running east and west out of sight. You, as Game Master know that it goes hundreds of feet in both
directions, but you'll let them discover that for themselves. They listen and can hear nothing but
the scurrying of unseen vermin. At least they hope that's what it is. Not a bad start.
Along this hallway on your map, you'll draw little rectangles like black bars on random squares
upon the southern side of the tunnel. Not too many, just a few here and there with generous
space in between. These are heavy wooden doors. Some may be locked, some not, that's your choice.
If they are, put a little symbol near them. It could be as simple as the letter L for locked,
so let's go with that. Now you know where all the doors are in this particular tunnel,
and you know which of them will be a challenge for the player characters to open.
This is just the first tunnel of a larger complex. This complex can be as big or as small as you'd
like. Let's say it's moderately sized. Before we draw branching hallways, let's draw the rooms
behind those doors. This will tell us how much map space we'll have for further tunnels.
Some GMs like to draw all the tunnels first and then fit in the rooms. You can do it however
way you want later on. Right now, let's just use this method. Pick a door. Draw a box behind it
three or four squares in size. That's the room. Now do the same behind the other doors.
Make the rooms different shapes and sizes, but not too big. Let the large room at the bottom be the
star. When you're done, you'll have a long tunnel with several mysterious doors behind which are
some good sized rooms. On the part of the tunnel that ends on the west side, draw a connecting tunnel
south for eight squares and then turn the direction back to the east. Draw this tunnel going that
way for ten squares. Put a door or two along here and draw some rooms for them. Turn the tunnel
south again and go five or six squares and turn it west again for four squares. Draw a door
and a room. Maybe it's locked? Maybe not. Continue with this meandering jagged floor plan,
wandering east and then west, but always moving south. Add occasional doors and rooms as you go
until your tunnel finally ends on the western side of the large 10 by 10 square room at the
bottom of the page. Draw a door to get in there. Now go back up to the long tunnel at the top
and repeat this whole process on the eastern side, eventually bringing that part of the tunnel to
the eastern edge of the big room at the bottom. Put a door there. No matter which direction the
players choose when they come down the stairs, they'll still end up where you want them to be.
At this point, number your rooms on the map starting at the top and working your way down
until you've marked each one. Room numbers are essential because you'll be keeping track of each one.
The floor plan to your first dungeon is complete. Now you need to put interesting things in it.
Step 3. Populate your dungeon.
Okay, on a separate piece of paper, list the rooms of your dungeon. Start at number 1 and go down.
Beside the room number, write a brief description along with any monsters, treasure,
or other points of interest. Go one by one and take your time. You'll be consulting this list
throughout the game, so write down everything you need to know in order to minimize the amount of
time that you'll inevitably have your nose in the rulebook during the game. Monster statistics,
including their weapons and the damage that they do, should all be on this list.
When putting creatures and other items into your dungeon, the first thing to remember is not
to overload it. Not all rooms need monsters or treasure. It might be helpful to think in terms of
what you'd like to see in the dungeon as a whole. Remember the stories of evil creatures and
possibly a wizard which you heard at the Dancing Unicorn? We'll use that as our springboard.
This is a first dungeon, not just for you, but also for the player characters. Starting dungeons
mean low level monsters, so let's go with goblins, which are short, mean creatures with a
penchant for violence and mayhem. Goblins are generally quite impressed with magic,
so we'll assume a human wizard of dubious moral fiber has bullied a small tribe of them into
being his thugs. They've been waylaying passing merchants and farmers, stealing their wares and
carrying off food, along with the occasional peasant worker, as goblins love the taste of human
flesh. Stupid but dreadful creatures, they have displayed a level of tactical organization that's
not normal for them. This, of course, is because the wizard is in charge. Look up the statistics for
goblins in your rulebook and learn what they're like. For this adventure, we're not going to worry
about goblin captains or goblin chiefs, both of which are tougher than average. You'll often find
those listed in various monster guides, though not in dungeon raiders, so that's the one we'll
stick with. No, all the creatures for this adventure have the same statistics. Don't drive yourself
crazy writing these stats down over and over. Write them once at the bottom of the room list page,
and every time the player characters run into goblins, consult those stats right there instead of
juggling the rulebook. Let's say there are a total of 15 goblins in this dungeon. They won't
all be in one place. The player characters will encounter a few of them here and there in various
rooms, or maybe just wandering the tunnels. The rooms themselves will have the spoils of all their
raids on forest travelers, including barrels of wine, hams and sides of beef. Furs and a few
copper silver and gold coins can be found as well. All of this is treasure. If there's wine in one
of the rooms, maybe the goblins there are drunk, fighting at a penalty to hit and damage.
Once again, not all the rooms need to have monsters or valuable things in them. Maybe this was once
a temple, and there's just broken furniture and rotting religious robes in some of the rooms.
In one, there might also be a tapestry against the wall, depicting a miracle of whatever god this
place was once dedicated to. What you might not tell the player characters upfront is that this tapestry
could fetch a fair amount of gold coins in the market back in forest jail. Too big to carry while
exploring the dungeon, such a thing could always be rolled up and fetched on their way out.
Not all treasure is found in wooden chests. Then again, a lot of it is, so why not put one in the
big room to the south? Of course, they'll have to defeat the evil wizard and his goblin cohorts first
who are hanging out in there. As a rule of thumb, you might want to sprinkle half the goblins
throughout the dungeon, leaving the other half here for the final fight.
Stealth matters. Approaching the big room noisily and kicking open one of the doors is not stealthy.
The player characters might be able to catch the wizard and his minions off guard if they move
quietly. You may or may not want to suggest that. In order to be a credible threat to the player
characters, this wizard should be of a slightly higher level, say second or third. He'll have some
aggressive spells and he'll have his goblins handy. You'll roll up the wizard the same way the
players rolled up their characters, only you'll make him more experienced and with more spells at his
command. Maybe he even has a magic item of some sort. Should the players defeat this guy,
the magic item will be part of the treasure. Until then, it's something the wizard will use
against them if it all possible. Don't make it too tough. Maybe don't make it tough at all. A
plus one ring of protection maybe or perhaps a plus one dagger. That might not sound like much,
but it's more than the player characters have just yet. Not exciting enough maybe? Just add in a
couple of giant rats in one of the rooms. Maybe some large spiders in another. Don't forget to put
their statistics down in the descriptions for their rooms. Judging how tough or easy a dungeon needs
to be comes with experience. My suggestion is to err on the side of toughness and put more challenges
in there than maybe you feel comfortable with. If the player characters are looking depleted and
injured, you can easily just tell them the next room they come to is empty, instead of being filled
with snakes like you'd planned. Also, it doesn't hurt at all to remind the players now and then that it's
okay to retreat. They can always come back another day when they've rested and made plans to
defeat the wizard and his goblin horde based on the knowledge gained in the first adventure.
It sets up a grudge match, the heroes versus the villains. You, as the game master, can just
repopulate any killed goblins and move them around a bit in the dungeon so they're not in the same
rooms as before, though the big room to the south should still be reserved for the final fight.
This represents two knights worth of entertainment for the effort of only one.
And there you have it, a stock dungeon that dovetails into the local lore of the countryside
ready for your players to explore.
If you think of an RPG in those terms, it makes some sense. It's the RPG creator has built the
rules. They just never got around to building the board part of the game, the board game.
So it's up to you if you want to build the board yourself and that's the beauty of an RPG is that
it promotes a high degree of independence and self-reliance because they hand you the rules,
pat you on the head and you're off to design an infinite number of spaces in which those rules
can be used. That said, designing your own custom dungeon, maybe it seems intimidating to you,
maybe it seems like a lot of work to you, maybe you just have no interest in that and you want everything
created for you. Well, there is another way to go about this. It's a time-honored, very legitimate
way to play and it's quite often the way that I play. You go find an adventure that someone else
has already written and you run that. An adventure is the scenario you and your player's experience
when you sit down at the table to play. It's arguably the game, the rulebooks are the game engine
or the mechanics and the adventure that you play or the campaign is the actual game.
Wizards of the Coast who are the owners of the Dungeons and Dragons brand Paiso who own the
Pathfinder brand Catalyst, Cobald Press, Frog God and many many other publishers
write and publish adventures, sometimes called modules or scenarios or adventure paths
and they're written by professional game designers and sent out to game stores everywhere
for you to purchase and to use. These adventures provide the story framework for your game.
Now, they're still quite flexible because you never really can tell what the players are
going to do from one moment to the next, but they provide a framework, a setting for you,
where you can have your players go through a pre planned adventure and it's your job then as
the game master. Well, as I said already, to tell your players what they see, to listen to your
players when they tell you what they want to do and then to tell your players the results of
their actions based on your privileged knowledge of the game world and on dice rolls.
Now, not all game systems publish adventures or you may choose not to use one. If that's the case,
spend some time developing a story yourself. Writing a good game is part science, part craft,
part magic, but if you and your players are up to the challenge, then running blindly through
a story that's being created spontaneously on the spot can be a lot of fun. If that sounds
overwhelming though, just get a published adventure. So my emphasis here is that you have
the choice between doing whatever you want or submitting yourself to the storytelling of
someone else who likes writing stories and games and it's entirely up to you. So here's a quick tip.
Free, small or introductory adventures are often available from DriveThruRPG.com or dmsgild.com
or opengamingstore.com. And you can find lots of others all over the internet.
Many adventures have text blocks that provide you the game master with introductory text for
each part of the game. They explain clearly what the goal of the players is during that segment
and they give you guidance on what players will find in the area and how those discoveries lead
to the next plot point. So broadly speaking, there are two types of published adventures
at adventures. There are one-shots and there are modules or adventure paths. A one-shot adventure
is analogous to a quest in a video game. It's a single, clearly defined task with a very obvious
and immediate result. For example, goblins are terrorizing the hapless citizens of a local village.
So go to their cave, clear it out. If you do, you'll relieve the villagers of their horrors
and you get to keep any gold or weapons that you find. The advantage is that it's designed to be
a quick one-time game session. So it's perfect for playing with friends you only see once in a while
or with someone who's never played before and just isn't sure if it's something they want to
commit to. Don't be fooled by the page count of these small adventures. It may be only five to
10 pages long, sometimes less, but you'll be surprised at how long players can spend exploring
a boundless world existing only within their imagination. I have lots of thoughts on one-shot design
and I would love to do an episode on it at some point, but we'll see if there's interest level
for that. So adventure paths or modules as they used to be called or campaigns are bigger
stories with loftier goals. You can think of them as lots of little one-shots strung together so
that once players accomplish all the tasks and solve all the mysteries over the course of 200 pages,
they have a final showdown with some big boss and win themselves a place in the legends of
the game world. It's an epic poem instead of a short story. It feels grander, it feels more
important. The losses along the way are more profound and the victories are sweeter. These campaigns
take months to play and usually expect a gaming group to meet weekly or fortnightly or at least
monthly to work their way through the tale. So the one-shots are a little bit more like if you
wanted to get together with some friends and play clue or monopoly for a night and instead you
just play Dungeons & Dragons or whatever RPG you choose, whereas the campaigns are a bigger commitment.
I should mention one more kind of book you might stumble across and these are source books.
I mention this because I've had friends go to buy books more or less blindly and then they bring
them back home disappointed that instead of a book of lore about dark elves, they bought an adventure
set in the under-dark or the other way around. They wanted an adventure and ended up with a
rule book. This happens with the bigger systems that produce a lot of media like D&D, Shadow Run,
Pathfinder, Warhammer, so get clarity on what you're buying before you make a purchase. If you
come across a cool Shadow Run book called Run Faster, expecting a campaign to run with your
friends, you'll be surprised to find that you've purchased a source book full of meta types,
expanded rules and alternate character creation methods, sort of a Shadow Run core rule book part
two. Same goes for, say, Volos Guide with D&D or Ultimate Campaign and Pathfinder. It can be
overwhelming and they're not always labeled really clearly where if they are the label gets lost
in the word cloud of RPG jargon that you're not used to yet. So do a little research first.
That probably, this is a topic that deserves an entire episode to be honest. So I'm going to
arbitrarily say go listen to HPR2770 from my take on the different types of books that you might
find around the RPG industry. It'll be your guide on what to buy and what not to buy.
Now I've played through dungeons that a GM created over his lunch break and I've played through
adventures written by clever game designers and I can confidently say that they're both great
ways to RPG but as a GM if you feel overwhelmed by the idea of designing a dungeon maybe you just
feel the expectations are too great or maybe you just can't be bothered because you're a busy person
then a published adventure is a great way to get started. Aside from reading a chapter ahead
before each game night all the prep work is done for you and there's very little thinking required.
Hey everyone it's Lost in Bronx again. Oh wait no it's not it's Clat 2. Tinkerbell's magic failed
but that's okay that happens in an RPG sometimes you roll a one you roll poorly. So another part
of being a game master is deciding when a die roll is necessary. Die rolls represent the chance of
success or failure when a specific action is taken but the confusing thing is if you think hard
enough about anything in the world you can find a chance of success or failure. So as a game
master it's up to you to decide what's important enough for a dice roll. Strictly speaking that's
determined by the rules the rules told you what requires a role and you're expected to know the
rules well enough to make that call. In practice however you have a lot of stuff to track in your head
as the game master and remembering what requires a die roll or deciding to request a die roll even
though it may not be strictly required can feel overwhelming for a new game master. Good news
players intuitively know when to roll dice. A player knows their characters skills because they
built the character and wrote it down on their character sheet. So sometimes the actions they choose
to take are chosen because it falls within a category of a skill they happen to have. So for
what I'm saying is that if a player is playing a thief then they they will think oh I should look
for a hidden door and they know that looking for a hidden door has a chance of success or failure
because they don't know the answer to the question is there a hidden door there I don't know
I need to ask the game master if there is a door there and they just kind of know well I can't
just ask for information like that that's a die roll. Similarly if a fighter is looking for a hidden
door they're not going to attempt to look for a hidden door they're going to just pound on the wall
to see if it breaks in because that's that's what their skill is that they they have strength
they have the ability to to bull rush through things and so they know that if they pound on that wall
it may or may not break through and once again to find out the results of their actions they know
automatically that they have to look to the GM and by extension they know that they're not allowed
to just ask for magical results and so it requires a die roll. So if your player reaches for dice
let them roll because they're probably right it probably requires a die roll. I'm sure it's
possible to take that too far but people do like to roll dice in an RPG it's part of the fun
of the experience the uncertainty of subjecting yourself to the whims of fate so when in doubt
either make your players roll dice or roll dice yourself I use dice rolls to help me decide
everything from NPC reactions to weather conditions it's usually safe to default to rolling.
Worst case scenario is that die are only picked up for fights and for a literal interpretation
of skills and that works because those are the rules as written. Hey everyone it's clat 2 again
that's already been clat 2 I think well anyway players drive the story in video games or movie
terminology they control the camera when players are exploring or investigating let them ask questions
or take actions so things like I look in the closet or I look under the bed and answer them as
you see fit you open the closet and see an array of fine garments okay I'll move the clothes aside
and examine the walls in the floor I'm looking for a trap door or hidden compartments or anything
suspicious and so on players can choose to investigate and explore for as much as they want
that's the beauty of a pen and paper RPG the world is infinite that said you're the game master
and you owe it to your players to keep the game moving you don't want to let your player spend
three real hours searching a room that in the end has no bearing on the plot whatsoever now that
can be a delicate matter the nature of the game means that you know things that the other players
don't so a big part of the puzzle for players is what they don't know and if you simply tell them
quickly oh this room is empty there's nothing important here then that spoils a lot of the game
for them usually I let players explore a space on their own until I feel they've explored the
obvious parts then I remind them where the exits are or I remind them how many other rooms there
are left to explore or some subtle clue to say without saying in so many words that they've secured
the area and there's no game importance that they haven't discovered already if players are
especially suspicious of something though you certainly have the power to generate a subplot
and oftentimes you should do that it's fun for you and rewarding for the players for instance
if a player is convinced that there's a secret panel in a closet and spends a lot of time investigating
and they give you good reasons why there's a there ought to be according to their logic a secret
panel in in the closet then you might decide that there suddenly is a secret panel in the closet
and then roll on a random table to determine what could possibly be inside that compartment
where you could leave the compartment empty thereby creating a new story hook
to return to later what used to be in that compartment who took it and why what were the
implications keeping the game moving is an inexact and unscientific process but usually it comes
pretty naturally when you start to get bored of the players exploring you can bet that they're
probably getting bored too and that's when you know to urge them forward if all else fails you can
always have something lure them in from one space to another mysterious sound an oncoming threat
or a supernatural or divine instinct so let's review at this point the two steps of dungeon
mastering or game mastering so the zeroeth point was to tell the players what's around them so
once again you're gonna know that either because you designed the dungeon in the first place
or you've purchased a dungeon that someone else has designed and published it will tell you what
is around the players and what you can and cannot tell them exists obviously you wouldn't want
to blurt out oh and by the way there's a trap on the fifth square of this room that that would
defeat the purpose of the game you know the first task is to listen to the players to see what they
want to do that's easy you just do that naturally you respond to your players and then finally the
second task is to tell them the results of their actions now that can be determined either by the
structure of the of the space that they are playing in so for instance if someone accidentally
steps on that fifth square then they've just triggered a trap so if they tell you that they go
over to the podium over on the sixth square and to get there they have to pass through that fifth
square then you know they've just set off a trap and you can tell them oh you have set off a trap
here are the results of that or maybe maybe nothing is prescripted in the in the dungeon that they're
playing in in which case going to that podium may just reset you back to zero where you tell them
what they see or alternately maybe they've tried something that isn't prescripted but does require
a die roll in which case for instance maybe they're they're going to attempt to swing across a
cavern or a chasm rather using a rope you have to determine whether they whether they do that
successfully and the only way to know is to roll some dice as I say you keep looping over that
they start in one space and they by nature move to another you continue to tell them what they see
and how things turn out for them they continue to tell you what they do and suddenly your game
mastering this is how the game goes eventually the game ends either they reach the end of the
dungeon or they die or the night the hour just gets late and everyone has to go home at the end
of the game or the end of the session if it's a big big campaign that takes months you should
tally up all of the XP the experience points or whatever whatever measure of progress the game
system that you're playing uses level the characters up as required or tell them to level up when
they go home and set up plans for the next game that's the only right way to do it I think the
most important thing at least from my perspective is not to over overthink an RPG there are lots of
weird representations of what happens in an RPG in media on TV and in movies and in books even
and most of it is about as accurate as depictions of hacking in the same media not very if you want
to play an RPG gather at least two friends sit down and muddle through it don't be embarrassed
don't be nervous don't think that you have to put on a show for your friends it's a collaborative
effort have fun make up some stuff roll some die it's a game it is meant to be enjoyable so make
it enjoyable and you will come back time and time again because there is no other game as
liberating and as infinite as an RPG thanks for listening talk to you next time
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