Haha! Guessed it! Not that I’ve ever been caught off guard by high rolls I didn’t expect as a GM… =p Although in my defense it was my first time Gm-ing as well.
Happens to all of us. 😀 Although it more often comes into play when the party just… turns a rough encounter into salsa. But they DID hit it with a grenade and a charging golem.
What haunts me is when I forgot an ability, and a player just says “Oh. Well. Then I’ll just spend 1 point and teleport back to the ship.”
Oh yeah, been there done that – panicked as a rookie GM that is. Came up with a nice solution though: no more GM screen and no more secret rolls. Alea iacta est, and all that. Be like the bamboo, Brett (or like blubber, whatever analogy floats your boat).
See, and this is why you give your NPCs background details. At least a short history of where they’ve been and where they’d like to be. That way, when your players make their lives hell, and call their bluff, they have a high enough morale to maintain a poker face.
Until you actually experience the power of players to irrationally run off your carefully prepared rails into crazy-town, you can never really prepare for it.
yup. My thing is that after a couple of sessions, They fond they preferred my DMing when I was a bit drunk as to sober. They had fun with both, but said Drunken D&D was a wilder ride.
You’re doing well, and I feel it. The first time I tried GM-ing it was for Deadlands, and they were up against a bandit group where the bandit leader was undead. I had plans for if they captured/arrested the leader and group, if the leader managed to escape, if there was a shootout and he ‘died’… what I didn’t plan for was for one character to make a called shot to the head with their throwing axe… and then overkill the damage so badly there was no recovering.
I scrambled for another arc, and did okay… and then they two shot the next Big Bad I had lined up.
We all had fun, but it was much more spaghetti western at that point over lovecraftian…
See, this is why I try to get new GMs to be comfortable asking for a brief pause when the party does some shit.
GM: “Alright guys, I’m going to need a minute to review my notes.”
Party: “Why?”
GM: “Because you just took a left turn at Albuquerque, so unless you want that to lead to Sarlacc pit I need to check the GPS.”
That is a delightfully phrased example. Thank you for that.
I’ve packed up entire sessions several hours early because the players pulled some creative hokkum that was so far outside my expectations that I just had nothing. In one game 3/5 characters snuck onto an alien shuttlecraft that then left for it’s mothership. The characters are fine, but they are having a completely separate adventure from the other two. That session turned into, working out three new character concepts to continue the main narrative arc. 🙂
It doesn’t happen to me often, since I’m about 90% improv in my sessions. I work from a deep understanding of the world and what forces are at play, and roll with whatever comes. Usually.
My first ever D&D scenario: the characters are assisting an army to break into a city protected by a giant gate. To do that, I planned for them to go into an abandoned desert outpost that had a teleportation circle to the forgotten catacombs of the city, fight their way aboveground, then sneak at the gate and open it. To arrive at the desert outpost without dying and with haste, I gave them a wand of flying. To sneak at the gate, I gave them a wand of invisibility.
Then one of the players asked: why not simply use both spells to fly over the gate invisible, then open it, saving us all this catacomb business?
I threw away 4 pages worth of notes and said “Fair enough”. It taught me to go with the flow and trained my improvisation skills, but in retrospect, I also didn’t make notes and improvised my way through 5 years of GMing, which might be the extreme opposite. Over the years, I learned how to do effective notes without trying to plan what my players will do.
Getting caught with your pants down can happen to seasoned veterans. In OotA I had a young woman at my table for the first time, she’d played for maybe three months, and another player decided to blow up a gas spore right next to her in the first thirty minutes. I was at a loss on how to handle “Sorry, you’ve been killed in the first half hour of the game” for a minute, I’ll tell you. I even pulled another long time DM friend aside and was like, “What do I do here? She’ll never come back!” Since it was OotA, I worked with her and decided she was infected by Zuggtmoy instead, and she ran with it and made it awesome. But man, I had a moment there, let me tell you, despite more than 35 years behind the screen.
The few campaigns i’ve played in over the years (Hard to find a good group when your socially incompatible with a lot of people) have always had a moment like this… usually because I did… something.
For example my Chaotic neutral wild mage triplete construct was prone to randomly attacking npc’s because it/they thought beings made funny sounds when they burned or froze or danced the lightning jig.
Or my lawful good paladin once attacked a party member who had cheated like hell in a card game at the tavern while waiting for our contact to show up. (that was fun it completely derailed the entire campaign and made all of us enemies of the local lord.
Of course there’s always the old standby the “Deck of Many Things”
Had it twice in one campaign.
Had it once again in another campaign along with a ring of elimination, and once had a homebrew version of it that was all random spells with random targets (throw a card watch a 20×20 foot cube of spinning blades appear over the cards location as the target was the card itself)
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Haha! Guessed it! Not that I’ve ever been caught off guard by high rolls I didn’t expect as a GM… =p Although in my defense it was my first time Gm-ing as well.
Happens to all of us. 😀 Although it more often comes into play when the party just… turns a rough encounter into salsa. But they DID hit it with a grenade and a charging golem.
What haunts me is when I forgot an ability, and a player just says “Oh. Well. Then I’ll just spend 1 point and teleport back to the ship.”
*cues up Yakkity Sax*
Oh yeah, been there done that – panicked as a rookie GM that is. Came up with a nice solution though: no more GM screen and no more secret rolls. Alea iacta est, and all that. Be like the bamboo, Brett (or like blubber, whatever analogy floats your boat).
See, and this is why you give your NPCs background details. At least a short history of where they’ve been and where they’d like to be. That way, when your players make their lives hell, and call their bluff, they have a high enough morale to maintain a poker face.
To be fair most pcs are horrible murder hobos… this is a good survival plan if you meet any pcs. Just dont be around anymore.
Run bitch! RUUUUUUUUUN!
I actually feel for Brett.
Until you actually experience the power of players to irrationally run off your carefully prepared rails into crazy-town, you can never really prepare for it.
I am really trying to get across the nerves and left turns that sessions can take for new DMs. We have all been there.
yup. My thing is that after a couple of sessions, They fond they preferred my DMing when I was a bit drunk as to sober. They had fun with both, but said Drunken D&D was a wilder ride.
You’re doing well, and I feel it. The first time I tried GM-ing it was for Deadlands, and they were up against a bandit group where the bandit leader was undead. I had plans for if they captured/arrested the leader and group, if the leader managed to escape, if there was a shootout and he ‘died’… what I didn’t plan for was for one character to make a called shot to the head with their throwing axe… and then overkill the damage so badly there was no recovering.
I scrambled for another arc, and did okay… and then they two shot the next Big Bad I had lined up.
We all had fun, but it was much more spaghetti western at that point over lovecraftian…
“Brave Sir Robin ran away….”
Bravely ran away away.
See, this is why I try to get new GMs to be comfortable asking for a brief pause when the party does some shit.
GM: “Alright guys, I’m going to need a minute to review my notes.”
Party: “Why?”
GM: “Because you just took a left turn at Albuquerque, so unless you want that to lead to Sarlacc pit I need to check the GPS.”
That is a delightfully phrased example. Thank you for that.
I’ve packed up entire sessions several hours early because the players pulled some creative hokkum that was so far outside my expectations that I just had nothing. In one game 3/5 characters snuck onto an alien shuttlecraft that then left for it’s mothership. The characters are fine, but they are having a completely separate adventure from the other two. That session turned into, working out three new character concepts to continue the main narrative arc. 🙂
It doesn’t happen to me often, since I’m about 90% improv in my sessions. I work from a deep understanding of the world and what forces are at play, and roll with whatever comes. Usually.
“[…] unless you want that to lead to [the] Sarlacc pit, I need to check the GPS.”
… BWA HA HA HA HA … I am SO very glad I wasn’t still eating breakfast, or I’d’ve had cereal comout out of my nose from that line. 😀 😀 😀
Brett, man…Brett…
Same.
My first ever D&D scenario: the characters are assisting an army to break into a city protected by a giant gate. To do that, I planned for them to go into an abandoned desert outpost that had a teleportation circle to the forgotten catacombs of the city, fight their way aboveground, then sneak at the gate and open it. To arrive at the desert outpost without dying and with haste, I gave them a wand of flying. To sneak at the gate, I gave them a wand of invisibility.
Then one of the players asked: why not simply use both spells to fly over the gate invisible, then open it, saving us all this catacomb business?
I threw away 4 pages worth of notes and said “Fair enough”. It taught me to go with the flow and trained my improvisation skills, but in retrospect, I also didn’t make notes and improvised my way through 5 years of GMing, which might be the extreme opposite. Over the years, I learned how to do effective notes without trying to plan what my players will do.
Getting caught with your pants down can happen to seasoned veterans. In OotA I had a young woman at my table for the first time, she’d played for maybe three months, and another player decided to blow up a gas spore right next to her in the first thirty minutes. I was at a loss on how to handle “Sorry, you’ve been killed in the first half hour of the game” for a minute, I’ll tell you. I even pulled another long time DM friend aside and was like, “What do I do here? She’ll never come back!” Since it was OotA, I worked with her and decided she was infected by Zuggtmoy instead, and she ran with it and made it awesome. But man, I had a moment there, let me tell you, despite more than 35 years behind the screen.
I love it, Brian! Keep the wtory rolling how you planned it, the surprises are wonderful. 🙂
Gah….STORY, not wtory…whatever that is. 😛
that middle panel tho…
What’s going on?
⚪ It’s annoying or not interesting
âš« I’m in this photo and I don’t like it
⚪ I think it shouldn’t be on Facebook
⚪ It’s spam
See Tiberius
See Tiberius run
Run Tiberius run!
I laughed so hard. 🙂
I’ve been the player in this situation once, the unprepared DM twice, and the prepared DM once. All good stories.
The few campaigns i’ve played in over the years (Hard to find a good group when your socially incompatible with a lot of people) have always had a moment like this… usually because I did… something.
For example my Chaotic neutral wild mage triplete construct was prone to randomly attacking npc’s because it/they thought beings made funny sounds when they burned or froze or danced the lightning jig.
Or my lawful good paladin once attacked a party member who had cheated like hell in a card game at the tavern while waiting for our contact to show up. (that was fun it completely derailed the entire campaign and made all of us enemies of the local lord.
Of course there’s always the old standby the “Deck of Many Things”
Had it twice in one campaign.
Had it once again in another campaign along with a ring of elimination, and once had a homebrew version of it that was all random spells with random targets (throw a card watch a 20×20 foot cube of spinning blades appear over the cards location as the target was the card itself)
TBF, just because the NPC runs doesn’t mean the GM is panicking, lol. Even if this may be the case here.
Tiberius Bloodcloak could easily just be one of those ruggedly handsome airheads whose charisma meant never having to deal with being questioned.
And if you think your cover’s blown by your employer’s enemies… running would be a pretty good idea.
This is true. Is your name a reference to the Dresden Files?