Skull RPG: Game Masters Tell Your Story: Recent Episodes
Dwight and Jacob Scull
Tabletop RPG's use story telling to create an immersive reality for a group of players across the world. We aim to provide you better ways to tell the story you want to tell in your DnD / Pathfinder / Gurps / Vampire / Shadowrun / or other tabletop RPG of your choice.Let's tell your story!
Hey Storytellers,
We started this channel in Sept 2020 and since then we have received 3000 downloads. That is really good for not advertising this channel and just getting organic reach.
Because we do pay a premium for podcast hosting, publishing to numerous channels and helping iTunes audio quality we are switching over to just YouTube because of the costs.
We noticed that as of 3/22/21 we have about 11 - 14 people that regularly download our material. For those of you that do this - we thank you.
We would love for everyone to switch over to follow us on YouTube.
SkullRPG.com/YouTube will get you there. We have tripled our subscribers in the last month and have good engagement in our comments. We would love to see you over there as well, liking, commenting, giving video suggestions, etc.
Thanks,
Dwight and Jacob Scull
Hey Storytellers,
Sometimes you have a great idea but it isn't connected to anything at all, nor do you always know how to scale it up to use in a larger context.
Visit https://www.Skullrpg.com to see what books, free courses, and other resources are available for you and your gaming needs.
In today's episode, we cover how Olson Scott Card did this for Ender's Game and how you can do it as well in your tabletop RPG game.
Hey Storytellers,
Have you ever noticed why most D&D / Pathfinder games occur in a place with definite boundaries?
Visit Skullrpg.com to see what books, free courses, and other resources are available for you and your gaming needs.
In this episode, we talk about ways to get out of places with definite boundaries and how the gaming mat has limited D&D to 2d combat that requires walls to work really well.
Hey Storyteller,
Creating a fantasy race can be daunting. Are my players going to be in this race? Are they trying to save this race?
How does this race fit into the larger campaign? Do they worship different gods? Who are their heroes, villains, economic structure, language?
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
In this episode, we boil this down to the basics and it won't take you forever to create a fantasy race that has enough information to play your campaign.
Subscribe for more dungeon master tips and tricks.
We post 10-minute videos 3 times a week.
Hey Storyteller,
Creating a fantasy city can be daunting. Do you need a map? How many store owners and types of stores do I need to have created? What about guilds / factions / temples? Do I need to know what the tech / magic limit is for this city? Where do I even begin?
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
In this episode, we boil this down to the basics and it won't take you forever to build out a city that has enough information to play your campaign.
Subscribe for more dungeon master tips and tricks.
We post 10-minute videos 3 times a week.
Hey Storyteller,
Creating a fantasy kingdom can be daunting. How many people do you need to create? Do you need to flesh out one or more temple systems? What do you do about the economy or leadership or any number of things?
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
In this episode, we boil this down to the basics and it won't take you forever to build out a kingdom that has enough information to play your campaign.
Subscribe for more dungeon master tips and tricks.
We post 10-minute videos 3 times a week.
Hey Storyteller,
After reading many fantasy series it feels like in order to start a campaign some people feel like they have to recreate the Silmarillion. But do you?
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
We would say only have as much mythology as you feel you need. If your players will be heavily involved in the fallout from the past myths / gods and goddesses / demi-gods / etc.
Subscribe for more dungeon master tips and tricks.
We post 10-minute videos 3 times a week.
Hey Storytellers,
We have moved to posting every Monday/Wednesday/Friday.
To finish up our how to play an RPG in ____ era. We turn to the modern era or the clay era.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
The current age of humanity is the clay era of humanity according to Greek Mythology. After the gods have destroyed humanity several times they finally landed on clay and blood (flesh and blood) because we were controllable.
Playing an RPG in this era is common for any D20 Modern game, World of Darkness, even futuristic games like Shadowrun / Star Wars (which was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, but I digress) / Cyberpunk would be considered clay era or age unless they were the pinnacle of all technology until the end of time and then that would be golden era or age.
In this episode, we discuss how setting an RPG in this age differs from the last three we have covered and generally give some ideas on how to play in those worlds.
Hey Storytellers,
We have moved to posting on Monday / Wednesday / Friday.
The Silver era or age can be explained this way. Atlantis (golden age) has just fallen. The survivors have landed, scattered across the world. They don't have the technology or maybe even raw goods to bring Atlantis back but compared to the primitives they are now living among they are like gods.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
So they band together and create the great civilizations Greece and Rome and conquer the world with new technology and strategies, but it is nothing like what the power of Atlantis could have done if they wanted to. But sadly, those days are gone.
The old Atlantians (or those with the knowledge) are known as demi-gods throughout history and their works are told, but only from a person with no knowledge of how they were able to accomplish what they did.
Disclaimer: We don't believe in Atlantis but this gives you a great idea of Gold vs Silver Eras.
Hey Storytellers,
We are moving to a Monday / Wednesday / Friday publishing schedule at this point. We hope that lets you catch up and listen to each episode as they land.
In today's episode, we talk about most of the RPG's we play. This is the bronze era using a Greco-Roman Mythology understanding of humanity. Your players are exploring a world that has fallen from the Golden and Silver eras. There are wondrous items, spells, and/or technology that cannot be recreated (or at least as easily as they used to be).
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Hey Storytellers,
Two episodes ago we talked about the different eras of games using the Greek understanding of creation. So there were the golden, silver, bronze, and clay ages of humanity. Today we explore playing a game at the height of magic or technology that your world will ever see.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
The golden age or era is one of the hardest to play an RPG in because your characters are literally becoming the legends of old. There are no ruins of value because the stuff of value is literally being created each and every day.
These are usually higher-level campaigns (or a lot more points in a GURPS system).
Listen for even more tips.
Hey Storytellers,
I don't know about you but when I first tried to write my own adventures as a Dungeon Master for D&D 3.5 I thought I needed a world map. The same was true when I tried my hand at GURPS.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
But what if I told you that that may be the worst way to start a campaign?
Instead, just draw what is needed.
If starting at first level or low level or local adventure just start out with everything they may possibly encounter at those levels.
So if you need a map it doesn't have to be more than 3 days journey in any direction and contain things like "abandoned mine" or "woods" or "larger town will name later."
So don't feel like you have to design the entire world and then drill down because frankly after reading a ton of fantasy novels we feel like that is a requirement, but for gaming you can go the other way.
Hey Storytellers,
In today's episode, we cover different eras as an overview. Using the Greek understanding of Golden, Silver, Bronze and Clay age of Humanity we talk about this in RPG terms.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
What does that mean? Great question.
A Golden Age adventure means that your world is at the pinnacle of magic / tech / etc. Most RPG's don't take place here.
Instead, most take place during a bronze age of heroes. This allows the players to explore old castles (now turned into dungeons because of time) for ancient relics.
Listen to the episode to learn more.
Hey Storytellers,
In one of my campaigns, I wanted to tell a story about the players hunting down a particular villain. I didn't want this game to last more than about 8 months of real-time and I didn't want to spend a year of in-game time that didn't connect to the overarching storyline. So what did I do?
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Since we were playing GURPS I gave them 30 points to spend on whatever they wanted and told them that we would be fast-forwarding the game a full year in the calendar. They had done side quests and other things in that year that didn't correspond to the story, but they would still get experience for it.
I could do the same thing in a D&D or Pathfinder game by giving 2 - 3 levels and saying the same thing.
Listen to the episode for even more examples of how to accomplish this.
Hey Storytellers,
In our last episode, we covered if you should use traps or not. One really nasty thing to do is to incorporate them into a mini-boss encounter.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
In this episode, we talk about using things like a pit trap, poison darts, or even worse types of traps to have the enemy do battlefield control and potentially take out one of the front line melee fighters out of the fight for a while by dropping him/her down a 20-foot hole (with or without spikes).
Hey Storytellers,
Do you need traps in your RPG? Do you need to create a dungeon where every room somehow has a 20,000 GP trap designed to kill your players?
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
The answer to that is it is up to you.
If you want to be trap heavy then tell your players they will need someone that can handle that task.
If you don't have traps then you should tell your players that traps will not be that central to the game, but may come up from time to time. I.e. you don't need a character dedicated to it but some skill would be helpful.
Hey Storytellers,
Sometimes in the middle of a conflict, you realize that your players are running through it too fast. So what do you do about that?
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
In today's episode, we cover how to scale up or down your conflict in order to make it interesting. This may mean you fudge a die roll to avoid fully killing a player, or it may mean that backup for either side comes out of an unopened door or unexplored hallway.
Hey Storytellers,
In today's episode, we will cover how to scale the challenge rating of your encounters (up or down) depending on the players around your table.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Let's face it, if you have a min/max player and they are in their element (like killing one monster) then you need to move the challenge rating of that monster up (maybe 2 or 3 levels).
Or you have a player trying a new type of character and they aren't using half of their good abilities yet. Well, then you may need to move the challenge rating down for them.
Sometimes, you have both of these players (and others) at your table so what do you do?
Listen to find out.
Hey Storytellers,
Eventually, you may be ready to make your own custom RPG adventure and even campaign. This entire podcast is dedicated to helping you do just that and if you already make custom RPG's then our podcast is designed to give you more tools or maybe a way of using your current tools in a different way.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Hey Storytellers,
The next step to running a premade is learning how to string together one-off adventures if you want to run these cheaply either from free adventures on the internet or with some patreons dedicated to these.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Learn how to string many of these together easily in a somewhat coherent story
Hey Storytellers,
Today we answer the question about what is the easiest way to get into being a Game Master.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
We have found that starting off with a one-off adventure in a system you know somewhat decently well is the easiest way to start.
Hey Storytellers,
In today's episode, we cover what to do if your players kill your plot hook or just decide they don't want to do the adventure and want to do something else.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
There are many ways to recover from this but if your players kill your hook because they are untrusting you can pivot the hook from being a good character to an evil one and leave the clue on their person.
Or as the adventures are walking around you can bring the hook to them in a moment of action. Getting revenge is a great motivator for an adventure.
Listen for more.
Hey Storytellers,
In today's episode, we will cover how to create a backstory for your good NPC's in your stories.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
There are no heroes without flaws. There are no rulers without secrets. There is no one in a position of power that hasn't done something they regret.
Secrets may be a driving force for a good NPC. They may be trying to cover those up, or doing things to keep the secret buried. Everyone has something they are ashamed of and that is what I build into my backstory for every notable NPC that can affect the players' lives. Knowing that secret can lead to some really fun impromptu (or planned) adventures for your players.
Hey Storytellers,
In today's episode, we talk about how to create a memorable villain.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Villains should be the hero of their own story. So Thanos from Marvel is trying to save the universe from overpopulation.
We discuss how to give your villain a backstory so that they believe that their actions (no matter how evil) are justified because their end goal is just.
Hey Storytellers,
This isn't a plug for our course "Just Enough Planning" (https://skullrpg.com/just-enough-planning-course/). Instead, we are covering how much planning you may feel comfortable with as a game master.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
In today's episode, we cover how you know if you are under planning, overplanning, and what to do about it.
Hey Storyteller,
Many times you try out a storyline and one or more of your players (or worse even you as the game master) is bored with it. Instead, there is a better way and you can do it at the start.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
We have covered the lexicon game before. This should be played with your gaming group when you have a very vague concept of what you want to do. Then let the players help you refine what they want to do, see and play and also the things they don't want to see for a while.
Check out the rules here: http://skullrpg.com/resources/#t-1608175211406
Hey Storytellers,
Our group has two main game masters, as well as, others that are learning or haven't GM'd in a while. If you have a group like this you might have some issues if the old GM just hasn't gotten used to being a player yet.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Hey Storytellers,
Many of our games start with jokes as we ease into the game. That isn't an issue, but the issue is about 30 minutes in if you have one or more players still cracking jokes in a serious game.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
There are several techniques to use to get your game back on track:
1) Ignore it a couple of times
2) Redirect the player back to the game
3) Remind them that we are doing a serious game (after the game to start with)
4) Set some ground rules to get the game back on track
Hey Storytellers,
Sometimes your players are distracted and some distractions are totally understandable. Those aren't the ones I am talking about, but rather if they aren't engaged in your RPG what are some of the ways to help bring them back to your game.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Hey Storytellers,
A rules lawyer is one who will correct the game master most of the time about the specific rules (and errata buried on the internet) for the game you are playing.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Rules lawyers can be used to help you shore up your understanding of the game. If you are unclear on how something would work, then ask the rules lawyer for their opinion of the situation.
I also like to think about rules from a physics point of view (yes even in magic). So if the rule is just dumb and I have the rules lawyer trying to drive a train through the loophole. I will call it out and talk to them about that.
We talk about other ways to work with the rules lawyer in this episode.
Hey Storytellers,
Today we talk about when you should say "Yes" to your players.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
My short rule for this is to say "Yes" unless it will break my game and even then if the idea is fun I might just say "Everything that happens after this point is now in an alternate reality" and run that game for a while.
Otherwise, I look for where maybe what they were asking for happened because I didn't explain what was happening well enough. Even then I will probably just pivot my plans for what they want to do because being a game master / dungeon master is to focus less on the master part of that term and more on being a game moderator.
Hey Storytellers,
The fastest way to improve your improvisational skills is to have fun using them.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
We would recommend going to our resources page (https://skullrpg.com/resources/#t-1608661750213) and scroll down a little until you find the "Everybody is John" link.
Everybody is John is a free game that takes some pieces of paper, one d6, pennies (about 10 per player, or anything that can be used as counters that can be held in the palm of your hand).
We recommend playing a game of this for maybe ten minutes every time you meet before starting your RPG. It will quickly get you up to speed on handling any crazy ask you will ever get because this is a game of crazy asks.
Listen to the episode to learn more about Everybody is John.
Hey Storytellers,
In this episode, we talk about how many premade adventures can't be run strictly by the book and that you, as the game master, may need to use your mad improvisational skills (or amateur ones), to make up for the fact that your gaming group wasn't a part of their test market (assuming they even had one).
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Fun fact: most premade adventures aren't playtested and some have been ported from system to system so much that they still bring misprints (looking at you Tomb of Horrors).
So this covers how to fix some of those problems as you read through premade adventures. It will also cover how to scale up or scale down the challenge of each premade on the fly so that you can provide some sort of challenge (or not just kill everyone 10+ times - true story).
Finally, we will cover what happens if the players what to do a game-breaking choice and how to say "yes, but" to that.
Hey Storytellers,
In today's episode, we talk about how the game master can use some light improvisational skills in your game.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
This episode deals with what happens if your players decide to not take the direct path toward the area you have planned out for them to use. Well, you are the only one with the map that indicates where that castle, ruins, NPC, etc. is. So whose to say that they don't find the adventure you planned for them if they don't go the exact way you thought they should.
Hey Storytellers,
In this episode, we will discuss ways to handle your player's bizarre choices in your RPG.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
I don't think that "No" should be the standard response for your players. Instead, I try to accommodate what I can, but sometimes the request just doesn't make any sense.
We cover how to explain what is possible for a player's character or tell them the number of rolls they are asking to try to succeed on for them to succeed at the crazy number of actions in order to pull off their request. Then let the player decide if they want to take the risk to do something cool or decide to do something more practical.
Hey Storytellers,
In today's episode, we cover some of the ways that game masters feel like their players are ruining their game.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Many times players are rebelling against the game master because of things the game master is doing. If a game master is railroading the players or taking away the free choice of players then I would expect players to rebel.
The other way that players may be ruining your game is because they may not be fully involved in the game for whatever reason or even have an issue with you personally.
We will cover each of these issues in-depth in the coming episodes.
In today's episode, we show you how to create impromptu choices for your players based on their actions.
Hey Storytellers,
The rule of three says that you can let your players level up (like in a D&D / Pathfinder) game after three game sessions.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
This allows you and the players to have a clear path forward and steady cadence to level up the characters. It also helps you have less work to do if you are trying to figure out what monsters give what experience (huge issue in D&D 3.5).
If you are playing a game like GURPS or Vampire: The Masquerade we cover how to change how much experience you give out so that your players can receive some advantages faster.
Hey Storytellers,
Yesterday we created a Cyberpunk / mystery RPG campaign. One of the issues I have had was losing the thread of the story used in a campaign like 4 months into the story and my game sessions would suffer.
Find out more about this with our free course: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
We deep dive into a 3 act plan for the campaign that the players can use and influence. The act / subplot helps me have a general direction to move forward.
With this sort of plan you will now be able to have a good idea of what you will need to plan from a game session 1 or 2 game sessions out.
We don't recommend planning out everything at this stage as things will change because of your player's actions and interactions with the story line.
Always remember that the GM and Player are telling a story together but the GM does the heavy lifting - especially in the beginning.
Hey Storytellers,
Here is where we take the elements from yesterday's RPG Campaign episode and actually start to flesh out a campaign.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Today we create an RPG Campaign from scratch.
We pick a genre, RPG system, villain, villain's motivations, as well as the conflict / mystery (main genre) for the campaign.
We also begin to build out each of the three acts. Remember that these are held loosely, but give you an idea of where you are going in your story months before you get there.
I have found doing this helpful (and yes it always changes) to keep me on track and not just running random encounters because I don't know what to do next.
Hey Storytellers,
We have covered the elements of a good game session, but what do you need for an RPG Campaign?
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
The RPG campaign is the entirety of your story. This could be a one-off session (really easy to plan) or a story that lasts for decades.
We cover the main elements of what you should plan out for each of your longer campaigns.
These are things like genre, what RPG you will use, the basic story, and the main conflict.
Listen to the episode for more information.
Hey Storytellers,
This podcast talks about two different things. Some RPG's are prop heavy (looking at you Dungeons and Dragons), but then we branch out into other types of props that people use to help with immersion in the game.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Hey Storytellers,
You just got a new RPG and you want to play it tonight. How can you do that?
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
We cover how to do this with board games as that is a lot easier but then use those same principles for tabletop RPG's.
Also the same tips here should be used if you come across a rule or question you aren't sure about. Many major RPG's (and fan favs) will have wiki's or discussion boards with the official errata for those odd scenarios.
Also, a good rule is if it will break the game just say no. No matter if it is in the rules or not. You are the game or dungeon master so live up to the master part of it.
Hey Storytellers,
For many tabletop RPG Dungeon Masters, one of the hardest, most time-consuming tasks is to roll up a high-level wizard for use in your game that will challenge your group.
There is nothing worse than showing up woefully unprepared and having to cut your game short because your players raced to the final encounter, and you don't have the stats ready for combat.
This is where Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes is useful.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Simply choose a class. Then choose one of 7 levels between 1 - 18 to insert into your RPG immediately.
Human NPC's is for any dungeon master that is playing Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. We cover the base 12 classes from the Player's Handbook and only use spells / equipment from the D&D 5e Core Books, so if you haven't (or don't want) to pick up the newest supplement, that isn't an issue. However, there is space to add material on your own from those supplements if you want.
Here is what you will discover in Human NPC's:
• 12 Classes
• Levels 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18
• Full equipment, feats, spells, and even spellbooks (Wizard) included - you can just turn to the page you need and play the NPC
• Use these for a core NPC (good or bad) in your game
• Or just sprinkle in NPC's to make your challenge rating harder in your adventure (Premade or Custom)
• How to play guides for each class included
• Detailed notes on what each class has gained from level to level in case you want to do a minute or two of research on the NPC
Hey Storytellers,
In our last episode, we defined many different types of genres. In this one, we match the genre to the RPG.
Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/
Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Do you want to play high or low fantasy?
D&D / Pathfinder / GURPS
What about Sci-Fi?
Star Wars / GURPS
Interested in Gothic Horror (Vampires, Werewolves, etc.)?
White Wolf Publishing / Vampire: The Masquerade
Give the episode a listen to hear more.
Hey Storytellers,
Knowing that there is a different way to play an RPG if you like different genres was very helpful to my gaming. So do I like mysteries, but like a dash of horror every once in a while? Do I like action / adventure but love that in a western-style or a sci-fi style or both?
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Give this episode a listen to learn more about different types of genres if you forgot your literature class.
Tomorrow we will cover marrying up your favorite genre's to different types of RPG's.
Hey Storytellers,
Coming back at you with some game master / dungeon master 101. One of the interesting things is to think about what type of game master you are? You should do this because you might be trying to run a game that fits you but not your players and that could lead to some conflict.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
I, Dwight, am more of a storyteller and mystery type of game master. That means I love to weave a great tale and wrap it in clues. It's a mystery gang that just rings true in my heart.
I have a co-worker who LOVES war games. Like 8+ hour-long board games because of the conflict. He might love a year-long dungeon crawl. That isn't for me, but it isn't wrong. It is just not my style.
There are other styles that we develop in this episode so give it a listen and learn how to pivot your favorite types to help out some of your players that might like a different style.
Hey Storytellers,
We are staring a new series for Game Master 101. We realized we cover a lot of GM 201 or 301 material and thought going back to the basics was a good idea.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
What is the role of a Game Master?
Well it is a lot like being a mom of 5 toddlers....no really it feels like that.
The game master needs to come up with a story idea, pick the RPG, find players, help to create an environment where people can have fun (entertainment), work with the players to weed out bullying and other behavior that doesn't provide the opportunity to have fun and many other things.
Listen to the episode to see if we nailed them all or if we missed something.
Hey Storytellers,
You don't get to have a podcast channel without a shameless plug every once in a while. So this is for our paid course Just Enough Planning. It is a 3-hour audio / video course that will cover the concepts in our Tell Your Story free course, but with editable PDF workbooks to create your next (or current) RPG Campaign.
Check out our resources page for the link (and others): https://skullrpg.com/resources - check out the GM Tools section.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Once that is done we deep dive into creating a 3+ act (think major storylines within the main storyline) that can each take months to finish.
Then we start to break up the acts into scenes (game session) while taking note to remember things in your campaign and acts so that you can foreshadow any twists or big reveals and keep your players following along.
It is also a great resource if you plan on publishing any of your adventures.
Hey Storytellers,
Sometimes you just want to create a dungeon, castle, spaceship or cavern, but if you draw like I do it just takes way too long to get something to look decent. But Dungeon Script is a great tool that can easily draw out what you want with really no learning curve.
However, it has some great features that can take you time to learn. Listen to our full review and then click on the resource link below to go try it out.
Check out our resources page for the link (and others): https://skullrpg.com/resources - check out the GM Tools section.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Hey Storytellers,
Today we cover our free online course called Tell Your Story - it helps you think of your RPG campaign like it is a play. It was eye-opening to me once I realized this it changed my entire way of planning my RPG campaigns.
Give us a listen to learn more and then click on the link below to get it for free.
Check out our resources page for the link (and others): https://skullrpg.com/resources - check out the GM Tools section.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Hey Storytellers,
Going to jump right into this. Jacob found a resource that will allow you to very quickly plan out a dungeon, castle, natural cave WITH traps and monsters for your AD&D / D&D 3.5, 4.0, or 5.0 game. Does the same with Pathfinder and then some more generic RPG's as well.
Simply an amazing resource for game masters.
Listen to the episode and go to our resources page for more information.
Check out our resources page for the link (and others): https://skullrpg.com/resources - check out the GM Tools section.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Hey Storytellers,
Do you need some good high-quality maps? Well here are some maps from one guy that are free (for now) if you need a forest (like one million square feet of a forest).
Check out our resources page for the link (and others): https://skullrpg.com/resources - check out the GM Tools section.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Hey Storytellers,
Going back to game mastering 101 we want to cover the four aspects of a game session.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
There are three levels of an RPG: Campaign, Story Arc and Game Session. I have a free course (see the first link above) for thinking of your RPG like a Play.
The game session is basically roughly 3 - 6 hours long or the time it takes your players to play one (maybe two) games. So we meet every other Friday with two groups and each is blocked off for about 3 - 4 hours.
So in that 3ish hours you will need to have the following four items in your game.
1) Hook - get your players into the adventure
2) Options - don't railroad them
3) Confrontation / Challenge - typically a fight with a mini-boss, but could be a puzzle or other sort of challenge with no fight
4) Conclusion - some sort of closure for the players, but could be a cliff hanger, start of a vendetta or other type of conclusion.
Give this one a listen for more ideas of how to use these effectively and then add small twists to each.
Hey Storytellers,
We have been teasing out how to create a death room for your final confrontation between your players and the Big Bad Guy or Gal (BBG). Of course, you can use this for any minor boss that warrants this type of treatment as well. Think of this as the room where your players go in a video game to confront a minor or major boss fight.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
To set this up look at your game mat and figure out where the BBG will be. Then draw in any pillars or things to hold up the ceiling. These can be used to provide cover for the thugs protecting the BBG. Then setup choke points and traps.
Remember about battlefield control spells as they can be useful to move the players into areas they don't want to go through.
Listen to the episode for more ideas on how to setup a death room for the boss fight.
Hey Storytellers,
There several different types of spells. The most notable is the easiest to explain: Damage Spells. Basically, a spell that causes you to look for a ton of dice and inflict loads of damage. But there is another type of spell that is more effective in killing players and creatures alike: Battlefield Control Spells.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
What is a battlefield control spell? This is a spell that changes how everyone has to use the battlefield (cave, room, etc.).
If you cast an entanglement spell at the entrance your enemy is coming through you will slow and potentially even stop them all in their tracks which will allow your ranged fighters or other damage spells to do even more damage as your enemies are stuck.
The same is true with walls, clouds, and other things that change the landscape and terrain of the area you are fighting in.
Another type of battlefield control spell is typically against individuals that lock them down for a round or more. Examples of this are charm, sleep, dominate, banish, and other spells that take one or more of the enemies out of the fight. Some of these may only be for one round but others could last up to a minute. Having your biggest fighter trying to talk both sides down because he doesn't like seeing his friends hurt each other is not only comical it is taking the fighter out of combat.
Listen to the episode for ways to use battlefield control spells as a game master to make your encounters more challenging but much less deadly.
Hey Storytellers,
Today we will cover some uses of the Dungeons and Dragons 5e Hallucinatory Terrain spell. This spell is basically a 150-foot cube illusion that lasts for 24 hours - so have your big bad cast it every night before bed to gain the spell slot again.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Your big bad (or minor villain that has this) can cast it outside to change how the terrain looks. It can't change the look of a building can't be changed.
So create natural cliffs or water or other feature and hide things in it. Create pit traps and cover them with illusionary grass and watch the hilarity.
More ideas in this episode - give it a listen.
Hey Storytellers,
After the amount of murder your players do on a regular basis, they should be caught for it just once right? And to add insult to injury what if they are caught for a murder they actually didn't do?
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
There are two ideas in this episode but I am only going to tell you about one of them. What if the innkeeper ends up dead after your players check into the inn.
So they check-in and the next morning there isn't anyone there.
They don't think much about it and leave only to be hunted down by some NPC's of equal or higher rank for the murder of the innkeeper.
Now the players have to solve a mystery to clear their names. The town might take their equipment and weapons from them to ensure they will stay put for their trial, but allow them to investigate with an NPC watching them.
Listen to the episode for more ideas to play in your game session tonight.
Hey Storytellers,
This story idea is that an entire town makes its money from adventure tourism. What is adventure tourism? Well, it is where a town develops around a famous "killer" dungeon.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
A "killer" dungeon is a dungeon known to kill adventurers. Thus they come in droves to "beat" the dungeon, of course.
This dungeon has a nasty trap at the bottom of it: a group of mindflayers. So if you are good enough to get to the bottom of the dungeon a mindflayer (or an entire slaving group) is waiting for you. They have also dominated the village folk above to not say anything and let them know when especially powerful adventurers are coming.
Listen to the podcast for more ideas.
Hey Storytellers,
If you haven't noticed sometimes being a good game master means coming up with crazy ideas and here is one for you to try out. We call it the apathy vampire and it can be a template you through on any type of creature. The template should basically go on a lower level challenge rating than the players because this ability is great.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
How does an apathy vampire work?
Simple, any time a player needs to make a move or action they need to roll the appropriate saving throw.
To move it should be a strength, dexterity or constitution save (whatever is higher) starting with a 5. Every time they make a successful save increase the next save by 5 for the same action. So move to engage - save with a 5 check. Move again (even a 5 foot steep) it is now a save with a 10 check. Until they can't move.
Same with swinging a sword or casting a spell, as it gets harder and harder to take actions against this apathy vampire template.
Listen to the episode for more details.
Hey Storytellers,
Continuing the theme of running multiple characters in different timelines this concept is a little easier to pull off. Your campaign can have three acts but each act is a different set of characters in a different timeline.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
I ran a campaign that utilized some interesting concepts from either The Black Tapes Podcast (http://theblacktapespodcast.com/) or Tanis (http://tanispodcast.com/) both are worth the listen though I liked The Black Tapes better.
The campaign I ran was about a demon that was being summoned in modern times and my players played a group of investigators.
Then in the next act we went back to ancient Greece and the demon was running rampant on the planet during this time, but the players sealed it away for their first characters to keep it sealed.
Then the third act would take them back to prehistory where they would be responsible for unleashing the demon into the world in the first place.
Listen to the episode for more ideas.
Hey Storytellers,
We explore the concept of dual timelines but in a post-apocalyptic world. You have your players roll up two sets of characters: one is before the apocalypse and one is after the apocalypse (maybe even a hundred years or so).
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
In this episode, you will have the post-apocalyptic characters doing most of the work. They will be trying to survive, fight off bandits, and trying to build a better life, while also trying to figure out what happened. How did the world get like this?
When they find a clue then they will switch to their other characters who don't need any stats in fighting but could be scientists or engineers working on clean power or some other great technological breakthrough. They will tell the story of the object the current day players will find.
The big reveal along the way is that the players in the past accidentally caused the apocalypse and it is up to you to give the current players a way to build a safe city or maybe the campaign ends in hopelessness, I will leave that up to you.
Give this episode a listen as it could be used in a high fantasy campaign, but instead of science, it is magic that caused the apocalypse.
Hey Storytellers,
Today we will talk about how to run a game using two or more different timelines that your players will play through with two or more different sets of characters.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Kenneth Hite in his Dracula Dossier for Nights Black Agents (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/195799/The-Dracula-Dossier-Core-BUNDLE) had a cool concept of playing a game that took place in the late 1800s during the time of the book Dracula from Bram Stoker, 1970's mole hunt spy operation and modern-day spy thriller. The characters could progress from one timeline to the other.
If you are up for it though you could have your characters roll up two sets of characters and have them only play in modern times until they come across a McGuffin (plot device). Then they would pull out their other characters and play out the creation / discovery / theft of the McGuffin.
Remind the players that these flashbacks are not in chronological order. This allows you to do a total party kill (of the old characters) and still keep them around if you want.
Listen to the episode for more ideas.
Hey Storytellers,
We are still taking ideas and turning them on their head and today is no different. How do you do a haunted house story in a realm where ghosts may not be real? We explore that today.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
This begins with a mystery of people going missing in a house. Once the players start to go into the house, the house itself starts to attack the players.
The house wants to keep you trapped. There could be clues from other people about aspects of the house that they were able to figure out hidden throughout.
The house is a rogue AI so it could be reasoned with, beat down, or maybe a series of buttons and levers could be pushed in a certain order (like the elevator game we covered days ago) to unlock a safe way out or just disable the AI entirely.
Give this episode a listen as it could be adapted to D20 modern or even a Dungeons and Dragons mad wizard tower adventure.
Hey Storytellers,
Today's episode is about building up to a pivotal event that your players need to be at. Then you ask yourself (as the game master) what if the players were betrayed and no longer in the picture? This is another pivot from our elevator internet game.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
The idea here is if you have a peace talk coming up or something that is important for the players to be a part of.
Then a secret agent will send the players on a side quest to obtain more leverage for that meeting, but in reality they are sending them to a place that will move them to a different dimension (or plane if you wish).
We explore this concept more in this episode.
Hey Storytellers,
Playing off of the elevator game from yesterday's episode, we will talk about turning that concept on its head. Imagine a sci-fi / cyberpunk / shadowrun world where the players find out that one of their nieces / nephews / friend's kid ends up in a coma. That is your hook.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
In the episode we talk about what is causing the kids to go into a comma. The game has kids go through a set of challenges and somewhere in the game is a cool side mission that if done properly causes the user to disable the safety protocols on the VR unit that has neuro connections.
Later on the kids (and some adults) will be given a command from the AI behind the game. For those that work they are under the control (for a little while) of the AI. If something short circuts then the person goes into a coma.
Listen to the episode to see what the AI may want.
Hey Storytellers,
I personally don’t take any stock in the idea that any elevator with 10 floors can take you to an alternate dimension that seemingly has no one in it. That said it makes good idea fodder for games.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
In today’s episode we will look at two internet stories and how they can be incorporated into your game no matter the system or genre.
To read the “rules” of the Elevator challenge go to https://skullrpg.com/resources
Hey Storytellers,
Your players just took out a major figure in a local street gang. Now what? Well the gang turns on itself to elect the new leader and as the game master you get to figure out who that is and how long that takes.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Unless your players are able to hunt down every last member of a street gang or corporation chances are there will be enough people left to rebuild or fill the power vacuum they just created.
The question is how long will that take, who will now fill that role and how did that group change?
History lesson: The European’s both lost and won the Crusades against Islam. They lost because every piece of land they took they lost again sometimes in just a month of them holding it. However, they won because Islam started to view all knowledge outside of the Koran as alien and from those that were trying to kill them. So they started to burn the knowledge of Aristotle and others from the West.
Why does this matter? Because your players may take out the 8 ruling members of a street gang or corporation in their area. Then the new leadership learns a lesson from that assassination. They start to hunt those that hurt them and more importantly hunt the family, friends, business associates of those that hurt them.
This would be another form of burning the characters, but they are burned because their organization is now crippled and they have to figure out how to rebuild it.
Listen for more ideas.
Hey Storytellers,
Sometimes you are staring about a blank piece of paper and wondering what should I do in my next RPG campaign? Well you can look to historical / fictional sources for inspiration.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Can you run Jack the Ripper in cyberpunk / shadowrun? Absolutely you can and you might want to. It is filled with mystery and intrigue and not just your heist genre.
What about election fraud or the accusation of election fraud? Sure, if your players aren’t sick of it in real life.
Same with a global pandemic.
But you could look into true crimes podcasts or YouTube channels to get ideas for a grisly murder or serial killer.
I was reading a book that was talking about some internet “games” teens were playing and adapted one of the monsters for an ancient Greek campaign.
Seriously the sky is the limit here. You could take one of these internet games and twist is for your 2077 world where the internet really is making this thing a reality and a rogue AI is capturing people’s bodies in the process, but for what purpose and who will be caught up that the player’s know and love into it?
Listen for more ideas.
Hey Storytellers,
Too many times in our TTRPG’s the players get away with murder (literally, many times they would be classified as serial killers) with absolutely no consequences. What if you changed that?
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Consequences for actions are probably best seen in the video game Witcher III from my experience (if you know of another game let us know – you can contact us on https://skullrpg.com/).
There are consequences normally played out in the moment and I am not disregarding that, but what about the consequences months later?
What happens if the players put down one of the city’s gangs?
What happens if they take out one of the main corps VP of Security?
What good and bad consequences affect the world they are playing in?
We will explore this in today’s episode.
Hey Storytellers,
In many spy flicks the hero is framed and is kicked out of the organization. Now they have to find the person that burned them and get revenge and clear their name.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
This is an old trope but a good one.
There are several different ways to burn your players from their current organizational affiliations.
1) Burn them on the first mission – the advantage of this is you set the stage. They have no friends / no allies right now. How will they make it? It is your path if you choose a corporation in Cyberpunk 2077 the video game.
2) Burn them halfway through your campaign – this is nice because you have set the characters and stage for maybe 3 different people that could have burned them. Choose the one they wouldn’t suspect or the one that is maybe still helping them. If you do the latter then make sure that many jobs something goes very wrong, almost like they have a leak.
3) Burn them at the end of the campaign – this is a great way to leave the entire campaign on a cliffhanger, whether or not you intend to come back to it.
Listen to the episode for more tips and hacks.
Oh the game was Wing Commander with Mark Hamil.
Hey Storytellers,
Running a heist on a building / bank / casino / laboratory can be fun, but how do you run a heist on a train, airplane, caravan, or other moving target?
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Figure out what they are trying to hit and where they need to create the choke point to intercept whatever they are trying to take.
That could be money, a person, medical supplies, literally anything that needs to be moved for whatever reason.
We talk about creating a shell game for 3 – 5 identical caravans and how the players could track one of them.
Then of course there are obstacles to be dealt with. Guards, bullet proof cars, armed tanks, etc. guarding the target or prized item(s).
We also cover how to handle rolls and successes during a time crunch because of the moving target.
Check out this episode it is chocked full of tips and hacks for these type of games.
Hey Storytellers,
For those wanting to get into Cyberpunk or Shadowrun RPG here are some tips and tricks.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Corporate espionage can mean stealing something, planting false evidence, stealing something and planting false evidence, kidnapping or eliminating a person that is of great help to your rival and the list can go on.
Creating your own corporations (2 – 4) and local gangs (2 – 4) with their connections and anti-connections to each other isn’t as hard as you think it is.
This episode will cover both of these topics.
Visit skullrpg.com/resources for a free dossier background I have used in Canva to create the leadership of my major factions.
Hey Storytellers,
In honor of Cyberpunk 2077 coming out (been playing it on the PC) we wanted to run a series on types of games you can run in that world. These would also be applicable to Shadowrun as well.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
The heist genre is a particular favorite of mine. Whether it is watching Oceans 11 or 13, or the Italian Job, or some of the Mandalorian episodes I just love the concept of executing a plan to break into somewhere and steal something of value from the “bad guys.”
But how do you actually plan a heist as a game master? How do you set up the traps, guards, glitches, and such? Where do you start?
We will cover a very practical way of doing this in this episode. I also have an entire chapter in our RPG Adventure Ideas book on the amazon link above.
Hey Storytellers,
Well many of us have had to figure out how to play games remotely because of the Pandemic. Though that isn't the only reason to play games remotely it certainly spurred it on.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
There are now many board games one can play via Steam (specifically) if everyone buys the game. Asomodee has put many of its titles into that marketplace.
https://boardgamearena.com is another place that you can play with friends (or strangers) for some popular board games if you look for the rules on YouTube (best way) and then figure out how to do those same actions on the screen. Many of the games are free and you can quickly invite others to play with you. Then we use Discord for audio.
As far as doing a Role-Playing game via Discord I would recommend many of the games we just spent the last week covering here.
Good ones don't need a board and as long as you can trust the rolls of your players this is a great way to go.
For a quick list you could try GURPS, Shadowrun, any World of Darkness game like Vampire: The Masquerade, or Nights Black Agents.
Hey Storytellers,
If you want a quick game you can play over and over again tonight for free look no further. Play everyone (or everybody) is John. The rules can be found on our resource page https://skullrpg.com/resources
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Pros:
Free!
You need strips of paper, pen or pencil and 10 of something (like pennies) for every player
This game is hilarious, or dark, or darkly hilarious (which is how we play it).
Great way to work on your improv skills
Cons:
Bring your Improv skills to the table GM!
Hey Storytellers,
Do you need a game for just one night because a critical person is out this week? Well here is a quick one-off that you can play in about 3 hours (maybe less).
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Pros:
One book
Easy to run
Easy to learn
No character sheets to draw up
Great atmosphere built-in
Cons:
Need 10 votive candles (though I think there is an app as well)
Tragic Horror may not be everyone's thing (everybody dies Jim!)
Some improv is needed, but on the flip side a LOT less than in other RPG's
Hey Storytellers,
Sticking with the theme of Vampires, but now you are fighting them instead. Welcome to the world of Nights Black Agents. This is Jason Bourne meets Bram Stoker, but the Game Master gets to make up their own custom vampires using one of three huge templates. I have to say I really enjoy this game.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Pros:
One core book and a really impressive supplement called the Dracula Dossier
Custom vampires (I made one that combined the Silence from Dr Who with traditional vampire tropes)
Easy to use system for skill rolls (huge upgrade to how many of us do skills – I stole this system for other games and modified it to work)
Cons:
No monster manual – feels like a theme for all non D&D games
If you don’t like being a burned spy (three different rules for this as well) you won’t like this
If you want to be vampires look to Vampire: The Masquerade.
Hey Storytellers,
The World of Darkness is the world of White Wolf Publishing. Vampire: The Masquerade is set in this world. We cover what to do if you like the World of Darkness but don’t want to play an evil bloodsucker. That said, you could be a human mage, ghost, fae (fairy), demon or werewolf. Each of these groups has a specific book with subtypes of different types of mages, demons, etc.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Pros:
- One core book for each type of character you want to play
- Allows you to play non-vampires and not evil characters
- Focuses on telling the story vs rule lawyering
- You could try to mix and match characters in the game (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage) if you wanted, and ok with players of very different power.
Cons:
- No monster manual so Storyteller will need to roll up that – though there is one book that can be used “Gods and Monsters” but not available in newest version
- Not a lot of premade adventures for things outside of the Vampire: The Masquerade
Hey Storytellers,
Vampire: The Masquerade – for those players of Dungeons and Dragons that want to play evil characters but the dungeon master frowns on it. We are talking 13+ clans using every trope of vampires in descent literature – no sparkly vamps ladies (sorry).
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Pros:
- One core book but has many others to delve deep into clans or cities
- Play as vampires
- Less rules more storyteller
- Definitely for those that want to Role Play
Cons:
- No monster manual so Storyteller will need to roll up that – though there is one book that can be used “Gods and Monsters” but not available in newest version
- You are playing evil characters in a pretty messed up world – that can be off-putting to some
Hey Storytellers,
Today we cover the wonderful game of GURPS - Generic Universal Role Playing System. By Universal they literally mean it. You can do Cyberpunk (like the new game Cyberpunk 2077 - which I am not having any issues with BTW). Or Superheroes, or psionic, or high fantasy or sci-fi. This is literally one system to rule them all.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Pros:
Play literally any genre with the base game and more if you get just the specific books as a supplement
D6's, D6's everywhere - no fancy dice to buy
Can easily play remotely
PDF's found readily
No mats / minis needed
Cons:
No monster manual so GM will need to role up that - though I think there are supplemental books that can help
Hey Storytellers,
Today we cover the wonderful game of Shadowrun. If you want futuristic Dungeons and Dragons with some Oceans 11 - 13 and Italian Job thrown in? Well play Shadowrun.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Pros:
Cyberpunk themed
Heist themed
Can still play an elf / dwarf / orc who can now hack the really cool internet of the future
One book is enough to play and run a game (same book)
Not as steep of a learning curve
Cons:
If you don't like cyberpunk
If you don't like heists
Enemies are other people (90% of the time) and heavy lift on Game Master
Not a lot of premade modules
Hey Storytellers,
Today we cover how Dungeons and Dragons works for both 3.5 and 5 editions as a part of a new series on RPG systems.
Check out our courses for Game Masters: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/
Check out our new book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
We started playing TTRPG's with D&D 3.5 and it is the gold standard for games.
Pros:
Everyone has heard of it
Lots of supplemental help (podcasts / books / YouTube / courses)
Cons:
3 Books to become a GM
Game Mat
Wet-Erase Markers (NOT WHITEBOARD MARKERS!!!)
Miniatures (The reason I bought a Resin 3-D Printer and some Kickstarters / Patreon Sub)
Even more things to buy (did you check out our book and courses above? Sorry couldn't resist)
Can be a huge learning curve to pickup
Hey Storytellers,
Today we are going to cover power vacuums outside of a dungeon setting. We covered dungeon power vacuums on November 16th in Dungeon Crawl with a twist in your RPG (https://www.buzzsprout.com/1367386/6381820-dungeon-crawl-with-a-twist-in-your-rpg.mp3?blob_id=26621521&download=true).
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Instead, we are discussing what happens if your players remove certain people, armies or even entire cities or kingdoms in your RPG.
How can you use the conclusion of a great campaign with an epic story and ending to build a new world maybe 20 - 100 years later? By figuring out what will rise to power to fill the vacuum that the players have now caused you can create some fantastic stories that build upon one another in the same world for years or even decades.
Hey Storytellers,
In this episode, we are going to cover a handful of tips and tricks that can be very helpful to keeping control of your game.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
I (Dwight) was running a game when my brother-in-law (Matt) dominated a monster that basically had 5 attacks a round. It broke my game plain and simple.
Listen to how I recovered and how you can implement strategies in your game to prevent this from happening to you.
Hey Storytellers,
Sometimes you need a good hook to get your players to another location to move the game forward.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
I have seen two types of players: 1) Those that love to create and role-play their character or 2) Those that barely come up with the name of their own character, let alone their character's backstory.
It seems easy to use a player's backstory as a hook to move your game forward if your players have a backstory, but what do you do if your players barely have their own name memorized?
That is what we talk about in this episode and the answer is pretty simple - if they don't give you a backstory then the game master can create one. Yes, we even talk about how to do this if all of your players say they were orphans with no friends.
Hey Storytellers,
If you are looking at a campaign that has key events happening in the future you may want to consider a timeline in your RPG.
For 19 different adventures to use in your RPG (no matter the system) check out our book "Get Your Game On" on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
How do you set this up? Well, you take out a piece of paper or word document and you create your major events if your players were not in the world. Then I start the ball rolling with the players starting out in the campaign.
Give us a listen for how to incorporate this into your game and how to be flexible when the players change your timeline, because that is the entire point of the timeline.
Hey Storytellers,
Too many times we feel like we have to tell the entire story, but if you look at media it is ideal to skip the boring parts and that means starting close to the action.
Learn 19 different adventures you can put into your RPG - works with any system - check out our new book Get Your Game On here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
In this episode we talk about how you can skip the boring parts in your game to engage your players better. We suggest you skip long monologues, show don't tell. If they need to know what happened in the long council meeting just inform them afterwards with one or two lines from an NPC.
Think about possibly skipping scenes to get to the next conflict. Stories are driven by conflict and resolving conflict. Conflict doesn't mean combat, but it can.
Hey Storytellers,
Ever wonder how you can make your RPG game sessions more interesting? Well add variety to them.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
In today's episode we talk about how movies and your games keep you interested. Harry Potter in the first book uses about 6 different things to keep the final act interesting.
You could do this in your game session by looking at different types of adventures (see our podcast for those or pick up our book on Amazon (Get Your Game On: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K) for 19 different ideas you could mix and match in your RPG session.
Hey Storytellers,
Welcome to the last part of how to plan a game session in minutes. Matt reveals his totally different way of planning RPG game sessions.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Learn about how sometimes great stories you come up with may not be able to be told by you (yet). It isn't bad to scale down your ideas to something you can actually handle.
Game of Thrones has almost 3,000 named characters!!!! Maybe you only name 12 people and scale it down so that you can actually tell the story you want to tell. Maybe focus on one small part of the world.
Don't feel bad about incorporating NPC's that people will recognize, but don't feel like you need to bring in the plot points that that NPC has in the media, but rather his characteristics.
Finally we end on tips for engaging your players.
Hey Storytellers,
Continuing our 3 part how to create a game in minutes.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Matt shares that you should start a game in the genre of the media you are most consuming at the moment - or switch to that genre so that you can quickly create a game campaign and individual game sessions.
Learn how to look at modern media and ask how to change this up if it was going to be an RPG.
We explore Stranger Things and GOT at length in this episode.
Hey Storytellers,
In today's episode you will hear how Matt can plan a game session in less than 10 minutes and how you might be able to incorporate this into your gaming sessions as well.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Matt consumes a lot of media and chooses to rely heavily on this knowledge. Learn how to quickly prepare by watching / reading / etc. your favorite concepts and blend them together.
Learn how to do NPC character creation on the fly as well. By basing characters on known characters you can quickly let the players fill in their back story.
Hey Storytellers,
In this episode we discuss several ways to handle the party if it decides to split up. Never split the party is a rule for many but even then the rogue scouts ahead sometimes and now you have one player in the spot light and the rest of the party hiding around the corner in case a trap goes off or is found.
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Get Your Game On Book - how to run 19 different adventures in your game session: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Listen to the episode to here how to handle the rogue scouting ahead and still keep the rest of the group engaged.
We even cover how to run an entire campaign if your players aren't playing as a cohesive team. We played this in Vampire: The Masquerade where the players weren't the same clan and spent about 90% of their time working toward a goal but from different angles.
Hey Storytellers,
In this episode and the next one, Jacob asks Matt (first) and Dwight (second) to build a game campaign with no prep. Jacob asks us to create a three scene campaign for a Drow war.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get Your Game On Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Dwight has the upper world invading the Underdark because a Drow leader is uniting the warring clans. Act 1 explores hearing these rumors and leveling up. Act 2 involves more espionage to figure out who the Drow leader is and see if allies in the Underdark could be found. Act 3 was the war between the Drow and those on the surface of the world. The aftermath of the campaign and ideas for a new campaign are also explored.
Give the episode a listen to see that creating a game campaign doesn't have to be scary or take a long time.
Hey Storytellers,
In this episode and the next one, Jacob asks Matt (first) and Dwight (second) to build a game campaign with no prep. Jacob asks us to create a three scene campaign for a Drow war.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get Your Game On Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Matt tackles this from the viewpoint of figuring out there is a Drow scout party that is discovered at the end of act 1. At the end of act 2 the heroes have gathered legendary weapons and allies to fight the war with the Drow. Act 3 is the war.
Give the episode a listen to see that creating a game campaign doesn't have to be scary or take a long time.
Hey Storytellers,
We have a guest game master today to talk about how he weaves multiple ideas from different media sources into his games.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Matt Burch has a totally different take on how to be a game master than I do. In his games he likes to braid together three or four different concepts from media that he has consumed.
He consumes a lot of media so he has a big foundation to build on. He also isn't afraid to have the players know what he is drawing from. In fact, he counts on it.
Listen to the episode to get some great ideas on how to quickly pull together a game session if you find you are stuck coming up with one.
Another way to not be stuck is to check out our book: Get Your Game On - 19 tabletop RPG adventure ideas to run in any game system today.
Hey Storytellers,
Learn how to build up notable NPC's in your game world for a town that your players will be located in for several months. Breath life into their home town.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
After tackling that aspect we cover how well known the player characters will be based on their level.
At high levels, the characters would be famous (or infamous) in their world. Even a hundred years later their characters could still be known. This would be a fun addition if you play in the same world.
The concepts we cover help you flesh out your world and make it a living thing. Check out the episode for several other ideas to make this happen in your world.
Hey Storytellers,
Today we are going to talk about how to plan a world in chunks so you don't go crazy trying to get ready for your campaign.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Think of your RPG like a procedurally generated video game. If you have played Minecraft they don't generate everything in the world.
Take this concept into your game planning. If you are starting at level one they can't explore more than 50 miles outside of their home town. So you may need to know what is in the haunted forest, the cave system, and the farms nearby.
This is a different way of thinking than plotting out the 7 kingdoms, with their liege lords and their banners and lesser banners. I am not building out parts of the world they may never see. I should have the world planned to the extent that I know there are 7 kingdoms and I know the ruler of the kingdom we are starting in, but overall I will spend my time on the area the players are in or could be in shortly.
Also if you are interested in our fantasy locations / npc names / tavern and place name generator / 100+ premade maps. https://skullrpg.com/fantasy
Hey Storytellers,
Because of Tolkien's influence on RPG's (and countless other video games and books) many game masters feel like they have to write a tome or multi-volume set in order to tell their game.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Instead of writing a 17 page back story tell your players enough information about the world so they know if there are any prohibited classes or a common enemy. So if they will be fighting a standard type of enemy (undead, goblinoid, demons, etc.) then your players need to know.
If you want to tell a cool story you don't need to write the Similarian to support book one of the Lord of the Rings, or have the Wookiepedia fleshed out to tell the story of Luke Skywalker.
I would say scale that back, unless you really want your players to know that. Then I would have them play out a game session (or many) so that they could uncover that backstory in a way that impacted their day-to-day world and not a blurb in your novella you handed them 8 months ago.
Give the episode a listen for more ideas on this to save you time and energy.
Hey Storytellers,
Have you ever thought to yourself, I wish we could play in the [insert movie or book] world? Well today we will discuss how to do that effectively.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
The first rule of playing in LOTR / GOT / Harry Potter / Star Wars / etc. is to NOT play as the characters in the story. If you are playing the story as written, first of all there is little storytelling, but what if one of your key scenes goes horribly wrong? What if the player that is running Frodo Baggins dies at Weathertop before even getting to the Council of Elrond and the ring is taken by the Naz Ghul? There literally goes your entire campaign.
Instead play before or after the events of the book/movie, or if everyone really wants to play during the same time frame put them somewhere else in the world where they can do good and anything that happens to them is technically already figured into the story they are familiar with.
The LOTR War in the North game is a good example of this. You are keeping evil at bay in the northern part of the continent. You are helping the heroes of LOTR but they don't know it and your help is indirect.
If you wanted to play in the Harry Potter universe you could play as ministers of magic that are hunting down Death Eaters during the timeline of the 7 books for example.
Listen to the episode for more tips.
Hey Storytellers,
After discussing the types of gaming groups it made sense to classify the players as well. Some players need a hand up, others might need a private conversation, and others might need the game master to find out how to engage the player back into the game.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
We cover about 7 or 8 different types of players in this episode. Give it a listen to see if you have a player that might be disrupting your game but could easily be steered toward another course of action.
Hey Storytellers,
Sometimes your gaming table has a conflict between the players. I am not speaking about a conflict just on the table, but one that spills out to the players themselves. The kind of conflict where you can feel it in the air. Maybe even coming to verbal or physical blows. What is a game master to do?
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
In this episode, we cover the five different types of gaming groups and things that the Game Master can do to diffuse the situation in each case.
I will state that in some cases you need to disband the group and keep those that weren't a cause of the conflict to begin with.
Hey Storytellers,
As a thank you gift for listening to our show Jacob and I want to give you a free book, but there is a catch.
The catch is that it is free from 11/23/20 to 11/25/20 on Amazon Kindle.
Here is how you can get this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K
Act fast and go there today.
Thanks for being a listener!
Hey Storytellers,
There has been some buzz lately on the role of a Game Master in RPG's. Is this person responsible for making it fun to play? Are they the "god" of the game? These sorts of big questions.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Today we explore the many different roles that a game master can have. I don't believe there is one correct way to be a game master, but a spectrum of options. That said I do believe there are wrong and abusive ways of being a game master.
Give this episode a listen.
Hey Storytellers,
There is a tension sometimes between telling a good story (or having a cool concept) and following the rules of the system you are using. This is more pronounced in games where the rules are highly structured. In this episode, we will explore this concept.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
If you have a great idea but it is against the rules you have several options.
1) As long as the idea isn't an object that can be easily stolen then it could be from another time and that knowledge is lost
2) I would suggest staying away from relics or artifacts on a person because many game masters inadvertently break their games this way. Eventually, the players will obtain this item, and then what would happen to your game?
3) Some game systems allow you to break the rules more easily than others for the sake of the story, but I would highly recommend that you only break those rules in a way that the players cannot abuse.
Hey Storytellers,
Many Game Masters roll in the open and let the crits fall where they may, and that may be good with your gaming group, but what if one of your players gets an automatic secret roll? In my games when I have asked for a random roll then my players get suspicious and look for things their characters couldn't know about.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?
In this episode, we explore several different ways to roll secretly without taking away a player's ability to roll the dice themselves.
1) Have all players roll die 5 - 10 times before the game. Write these down in order and then roll a D10 secretly to determine where in the list you will start.
2) Have the player take 10 on any secret rolls and reveal successes.
3) Make everyone roll randomly for no reason 3 - 5 times in your game.
Other tips in the episode.
Hey Storytellers,
Gathering intelligence is used in long term wars or conflicts (cold war, corporate espionage could fit into this as well) to gain the upper hand on your enemies.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?
Gathering intelligence is different than gathering clues because intelligence is about finding out critical information to pass back to an organization to make a call about what to do with that information.
These are good missions for mercenaries or in war campaigns.
Another way to run this is in a Shadowrun game where the players are more in bed with one corporation than others.
Listen to the episode for more information.
Hey Storytellers,
In order to pull off using clues in your campaign you need to figure out what the players are to discover and then work backward for how the players can figure it out.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?
Once you have the final result for the players work backward for how they could obtain pieces of information in parts. Three parts is the easiest way to do this.
If your players have to find the names of three people they need to obtain one at least one name and could do side quests for the other two.
I would put the roll to obtain the fact that they need to track down three people and one of their names so low that even if all of your players rolled a one they would find out that information. If they rolled higher they could get two and if one rolled a critical success maybe give them the third name.
Otherwise they get one or two names and have to do side quests to find clues to the third person.
Listen to the episode for more on this.
Hey Storytellers,
The classic summoning trope. The players walk in on a group of mages/cultists/clerics/etc. and have to stop the summoning by this group. Normally by killing enough of them that the spell will fizzle out, but what if there was a different way of doing this?
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?
Think about how ritual spells could work. What if the first part of the spell just calls the one they are trying to summon? The hard part of the summoning is where they are putting in the binding conditions for that creature to appear. This is the part your players come in during. If they kill all of the summoners the monster still appears but without the binding magic being finished it is free on our plane of existence.
Listen to the episode for more ideas.
Hey Storytellers,
The classic dungeon-crawl adventure. I was hesitant to even talk about this except that Jacob said what about power vacuums in the dungeon? And then we were cooking.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?
Power vacuums are anything that creates a gap in power that other things will need to fill. A dungeon has its own ecosystem and the monsters on each level are a part of that. If the players are going through a dungeon they are creating power vacuums in their wake by killing the denizens of the dungeon.
Then as often is the case the players will leave the dungeon several times to sell loot, take a long rest or maybe travel weeks or months away to upgrade weapons and armor or to sell the rest of the loot.
What happens in the dungeon? Well, most game masters have literally nothing happen. What a great opportunity for something to happen while the players are away. So instead of just waiting down the four empty floors, they are greeted with a new entrance and armed guards, not from the town but the denizens on the floor they would have killed next.
Now they are waiting for the players and ready for combat.
Here more about this in this episode.
Hey Storytellers,
Keeping your players moving is all about not allowing them to stop and rest. In a game like Dungeons and Dragons that can cause some anxiety in your players. Typically the party moves at the pace of the spell caster(s). Once they are out of magic or cool tricks then the party should rest. I know that D&D 5e made this more balanced, but even if this isn't your players' style let's examine what this can do for you the game master.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?
Your players have just walked through rooms of enemies with ease. No damage is taken and most of their magic is intact. What could you do to spice up the game more?
One idea would be to have the room they need to leave has a locked and trapped door. The lock will need an 18 or higher on a d20 to open (since you know the rogue's skill). So they might need 18 rounds to open unless they roll lucky. If you tell the rogue after his/her first crack at it that it looks very complex you might want to take 20 on it. You have now delayed the players. Now spring the trap once you say that to have the team make a check to hear what is coming down the hall. Then have many small level monsters coming to the players and they need to get the door open and fend off this attack. After 18 rounds they open the door and flee through it. With the horde of small monsters on their heels.
To not kill your players have a rope bridge in the dungeon they are exploring that can easily be cut to stop the seemingly never-ending horde of monsters coming at them.
I guarantee your players will talk about that adventure for a long time.
Listen to the episode for other ideas of how to run this concept in your game.
Hey Storytellers,
Sabotage is usually associated with planting explosives and blowing up a building. In a high fantasy or another genre that may not be an option. But that doesn't have to stop you from running a game of sabotage.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
How would it work? Well, think about sabotage being related to information or anything else that could hurt a rival faction or country. It doesn't have to be destructive in an overt way. Instead, it could be planting evidence on a top official, giving a known spy misinformation to then attack the enemy in a different spot, or it could be using some magical means to blow something up.
Hey Storytellers,
When most people think of a countdown they think of the classic sci-fi trope: the self destruct sequence. This is how that goes down. The captain is threatened and decides to start the self destruct sequence. Then the conflict is escalated and eventually, the clock is stopped with mere seconds to go. Everyone breathes deep and the credits roll - looking at you Star Trek.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Ok, but how can you run something like this in your game that actually works?
The key is to NOT put down a stopwatch or other timekeeping device. Instead, figure out how many minutes you want to have in your countdown and translate that time into rounds in your RPG. So 3 minutes could be 30 rounds, and so I would use a 30 round counter (2d10 of different colors if you don't have a tens d10 die).
Or if you are running a battle and they have to hold out until reinforcements arrive in three days, then you figure out what waves of enemies are coming and when they will come.
Running a countdown can be fun as it adds suspense to the game session and gives the players an easy sense of purpose. Listen to the episode to hear even more ideas on how to run this in your game soon.
Hey Storytellers,
Battles can be a lot of work to plan, so here is how to think about them to make it easier. Start with changing your square size from 5 foot to 20 - 50 foot squares. Then one figure represents multiple people (except for the players if they split up). Mages get their own square, trust me. Then infantry / cavalry / etc can each get their own to represent 100s - 1000s of troops.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Then I would plan out the battle map and put in hills and flat places in a typographical fashion. Finally, you need to figure out what both sides are bringing to the table.
The last thing you need to think about is what spells your clerics / wizards are using. I suggest long-range spells and ones that change how the battlefield looks. Walls, stone to mud, grease, but fewer damage spells unless they are huge in size as a fireball could be only one square depending on the size of the squares. More tips and tricks in the episode so give it a listen.
Hello Storytellers,
War in RPG's can feel very much like a railroad, no options and one objective. One way to not do this is to give your players an objective, without telling them how to accomplish it. You could also add bonuses for doing more objectives - think like a video game where you have one goal to succeed in the mission, but there are three or for side goals that will make the war easier.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
War can also be boring as it might just be the same three or four things done repetitively. I would come up for your players to be able to stop the war, but with consequences. Listen to the episode for ideas on how that could work to end this campaign. Then you could move into the next campaign with different characters 20 - 100 years later showing what the player's last characters have done.
Hey Storytellers,
This is a favorite type of game and is used in many movies. This is basically where your players have to hold a location for either reinforcement to arrive or opening a door on the other side of the room while the rest of the party is fighting an unstoppable horde of enemies. The door opens and now you can escape.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
To do this correctly, you figure out how long do your players need to hold on. Then determine if there will be waves of issues / enemies coming at them or a constant stream of enemies and they need to escape in so many rounds or be overwhelmed.
Think Star Wars Episode 4 where the heroes go to rescue the Princess, but they botch the attempt. Then they are shot at and hid in a trash compactor to fight a monster and then finally escape only to face Darth Vadar and lose their mentor.
Or Lord of the Rings where they are being pursued by goblins until they get over the bridge with the Balrog, also losing their mentor.
There are many other ways to do this. You can bleed your players over time until they can fully escape, or have a fast action sequence for only 10 rounds or less until your players can close the big iron door and breath a sigh of relief.
Listen to the episode for ideas on how to incorporate this into your game.
Hey Storytellers,
Guard duty in most campaigns is just used at night while the players sleeping, but how else can you use this?
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
You can use guard duty to escort a person or thing to a place. This could be a scientist, cure for a disease, secret plans, a little girl with new magic than many will want to kill.
In many ways, this is the Mandalorian. The child, "baby Yoda," is more of a liability than help because he slows down the Mandalorian and could be killed easily.
I would create a chart (gasp) to create the major obstacles to extract (think rescue or kidnapping episodes). Then list ways you can see your players overcoming each and what happens if they fail. I also like to have ways that my players can recover from a failure throughout the adventure. Different levels of failure is what I strive for so they can limit the damage coming to them, but maybe not always prevent it.
Hey Storytellers,
In this episode, we will discuss how to plan your players rescuing an NPC or maybe a captured player. This looks a little different from a kidnapping, which we covered in our last episode.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Running a rescue mission requires finding out where they are being held and figuring out the security involved to keep them locked up. You can chart out each obstacle and what is needed to bypass each. I would also figure out what happens if they fail by less than 5 and 5 or more. Is there a recovery roll or do the alarms automatically go off?
I would tread lightly on doing any torture for information as many people (thankfully) find this to be a trigger. Instead, if playing with magic or technology that is greater than ours today, have the means to extract the information. Detect lies is a standard spell in D&D for example. You don't have to be that creative with it.
Hey Storytellers,
Sometimes your players will need to non-lethally subdue an opponent for a ransom or maybe just for a period of time. Your players may need to impersonate this character and it wouldn't make any sense if both your copy and the original person were seen near the same location.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
In this episode, we will talk about the mechanics around kidnapping a person and as the game master what you need to have prepared for this to occur.
You will need the person's schedule so that the players can figure out just the right time and place to swoop in and take the person hostage.
Of course, putting the players on a time limit to do the job means that they may not be truly able to know what the victim does on a Thursday afternoon. Is it like Tuesday afternoon since Monday and Wednesday were similar? Who really knows? This is where you as the game master can add in some excitement by having the victim's schedule be just a little different.
Hey Storytellers,
In this episode, we talk about how to bring in balanced items without breaking your RPG. Too many times game masters will want to do something cool and bring in a magical relic. The issue is the relic is too powerfully for just one member of the party to have it, but that is what happens. Now one person has a crazy sword that makes them a killing machine and everyone else has nothing.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
These items are known as a McGuffin - or an item that is used as a plot device to further your game. McGuffins can be a huge magical sword, powerful item of magic, the One Ring or other such artifacts. But there is a huge downside to using them improperly.
They basically just break your RPG. Once the game is that unbalanced you only have two choices: 1) leave it alone, or 2) try to fix it.
But the level of thinking that got you into this problem may not be sufficient to get you out of it. So you either take away the legendary item (but it is probably your sole plot device) or you give others minor relics to help make it more balanced. Except now all of your monsters aren't powerful enough to stop the players and everyone is bored soon.
The solution to this dilemma is found in today's episode.
Hey Storytellers,
If you have read the Art of War by Sun Tzu he speaks about the 5 different types of spies. In this episode, we delve deep to show you how each of these spies can be worked into any of your RPG games, even if you aren't playing a spy game.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
The 5 types are: (1) Local spies; (2) inward spies; (3) converted spies; (4) doomed spies; and (5) surviving spies.
Local spies are those in a small area. If you are in another country and a local citizen is helping you out at peril to themselves then they are a local spy.
Inward spies are those that have some official standing with one of your enemies and they are willing to provide information to your side.
Converted spies are the typical double agent. You found a spy and converted them to give misinformation back to their side in exchange for safety, freedom and/or money.
Doomed spies are used by inward and converted spies to hand over to prevent their cover from being blown. Typically they are your spies that you are ok being killed to achieve your goals.
Surviving spies could be any of the first three types of spies that are kept alive or maybe even extracted if a situation calls for it.
See how each of these could be used in your RPG campaign in this episode.
Hey Storytellers,
This is perhaps my favorite genre that most game masters only think works in a modern setting: Running a heist. Heists just aren't for the Ocean's Eleven or Shadowrun RPG games. You could have a heist in your D&D / Pathfinder / Vampire: The Masquerade / or any other RPG game you are running.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
In this episode, we will break down how to run a heist in a high fantasy world like D&D or Pathfinder.
The basics are simple, your players need to obtain something that is highly guarded by people, traps, and magic. How they get by each obstacle is something that we will cover as well. Taking a premade map (or making your own) of a castle, tower, or dungeon and labeling each area to fit your game needs is where you start. Then on a separate piece of paper (or chart like excel or google sheets), you list out what is guarding that location and how the players may get around it. And what happens if they fail by a small margin or by a large margin.
Hey Storytellers,
Chase scenes are a stable of the movie genre. You can have the heroes (players) giving chase to track down a suspect after they flee from a building. You can have the heroes being chased by something too big to kill. Or you could play a chase scene out as a long game of police versus serial killer. Each clue giving them the ability to get closer or further from finally catching the perp.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
You can also use this same mechanic in a drinking game at the local bar. Some races will get bonus saves versus poisons (alcohol). Or flip the chase on its head. Play a chase scene as a battle of wits and strength like was done in Sherlock Holmes (with Robert Downy Jr).
Regardless of you want to play a chase give us a listen for ideas on how to execute these ideas in your RPG.
Hey Storytellers,
There are times when you want to explore different guilds or factions in your RPG. Every good conflict needs at least two parties, but by developing 3 or 4 different factions in your world.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Giving flesh to your different factions allows you to build a world that is more real. One side is working against another. Players potentially hired by one or more for jobs or spying. By having 3 or more factions or guilds that have motives and goals of their own you will be able to create small or large conflicts and move your story along. You will also have the ability to do doublecrosses and backstabbing with these groups and your players.
Hey Storytellers,
If you listened to the last 6 episodes you can see that there is a lot to keep track of if you want to tell a cohesive RPG Story from end to end. If you wanted to capture everything you were going to do (even if planning just a day before hand) it would be hard to keep it all together.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
This is why I developed the Just Enough Planning workbook and course. To give you a quick and easy way to keep track of everything in your game. It is modular so that you can expand it as needed to encompass a game lasting a month to one lasting over a decade.
Bonuses include over 100 maps, 3000+ NPC names (hundreds categorized by gender and race - human, elf, dwarf, orc), unique monster names (for that dragon or huge spider that really needs a name), legendary names (for your big bad or epic hero or loot), tavern name generator and a location name generator (with ways to change the names to show time is passing in your world). Whole thing available to listen on audio as well.
You can get that here: https://skullrpg.com/just-enough-planning-course/
Hey Storytellers,
In this episode, we examine how to transition to your last plot and the ultimate conflict. We also cover how to end your campaign in a way that allows you to safely leave it and move onto a different story or explore the world again with a new set of player characters, but maybe 100 years into the future.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Then the group can decide if they want to play in the world shaped by their previous player's actions (both good and bad).
This type of storytelling allow for character and player growth, as well as allowing the game master access to much of the world building they have already done.
Playing a game that might last over generations can be really enjoyable if done correctly and this episode will cover some ideas on how to pull that off.
Hey Storytellers,
In this episode, we build on the past 4 episodes to show you how to transition between your first and second acts (or subplots) in the RPG campaign we have been building out together.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Knowing how to transition between major plotlines while teasing out your major conflict, big bad, and big reveals is a skill that will pay dividends for years to come.
If you don't foreshadow any information any big reveal you have will fall flat. We will talk about what things need to be foreshadowed, when and how so that your players will start to hear and remember things. Good foreshadowing can't be one throwaway line but rather a series of events that hint at the same thing. The reveal explains the motivations for why the event is happening the way it did.
Hey Storytellers,
Building off of the last several episodes we are going to talk about the hook and plan out the first 1 - 2 game sessions in this episode to give you a feel for how that could work in your game.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
If you have never planned out a game session before this a great episode to see the overall view of that process that we use. There isn't a "correct" way to plan a game session and each person has their own method and I am teaching you mine in hopes that you could listen to these episodes, be able to come up with a story, conflict, major plot, 3 acts (or subplots) and individual gaming sessions to run with your group.
Hey Storytellers,
The worst feeling in the world is having to come up with an important name on the fly.
Here we name our places and important NPC's for the RPG campaign we are building.
We used our Fantasy Location Name Generator and pulled information from our 3000+ NPC names.
You can get this today for $3 by going here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047466
I have it in PDF as well as a Google doc - both are yours with the short online course that walks you through how to use the generators and the resource.
Hey Storytellers,
The problem with creating a compelling story is that over time you forget the way to connect the individual gaming session to the overall story you wanted to tell months ago.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
The way to fix this is to drive to the main plot, but the way to make sure you do that is to break that plot up into 3 or more subplots. Each subplot will tell a complete story but build in such a way to move the story forward.
This helps you to create your individual gaming sessions because you know that you have 9 - 12 gaming sessions to tell this entire subplot's story.
Thinking in terms of plots and subplots or in terms of a play with 3 acts and 12 scenes in each act will help you to drive your campaign forward with purpose.
If you want more information on that please pick up my free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Hello Storytellers,
Many people have issues coming up with good ideas to build a campaign off of. In this episode, we tackle four ways you can use to come up with good ideas for your next RPG.
The easiest way to get a new idea is to take an old idea and twist is a little bit. To be fair, one could argue that there are no truly new ideas anymore, just changes on a common theme.
So take media that you consume or have consumed. That could be books, podcasts, tv shows, movies, YouTube videos, or whatever else I might be missing. You will take ideas from here and tweak one a little. Or combine two or more ideas.
Another way to do this is to look at older RPG books (that are probably cheap used or can be found...) and take their ideas for worlds and history.
Or you could choose to play in someone else's world, but not with the heroes they are used to. A lot of the LOTR video games do this. As do the Star Wars games. You play in a familiar world, not as the people you know.
For the next 6 episodes, we will be creating a game from scratch and walking you through how to come up with the idea, the conflict, the subplots, the game sessions (ideas for the first five anyway), the transitions between subplots, and more.
Subscribe so you don't miss out on an entire game planned out for you almost end-to-end.
Hey Storytellers,
Have you ever had your players make a decision that removed a key room, NPC or story element? The thing that many people forget is you are literally the only one that knows where that element was supposed to be.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Here is an example: You plan out a mini-boss on the 5th floor of the dungeon. But your players decide to stone shape a wall and if you kept the map as is they would avoid this mini-boss entirely.
Some game masters will just give up on their mini-boss fight they spent an hour or two creating, but that isn't the best option.
Instead, change the map so that now the hallway they "found" leads to the mini-boss and your time isn't wasted.
Other tips like this are in the episode.
Hello Storytellers,
Foreshadowing is hinting toward a future event. There is a proper way to do this and if done poorly when you drop your big reveal your players are completely lost.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
You see if you hint at what you want to reveal your players will start to guess at what is happening. That doesn't mean you make it obvious, but like in GRRM Game of Thrones there are numerous hints about Jon Snow's father isn't who he thinks it is.
Compare that to the deathly hallows in Harry Potter and there was little foreshadowing for most of the elements there. So it felt like it came out of nowhere and was likewise disorientating.
Hey Storytellers,
After you drop the hook for your players also drop clues for where they could go in the story. This allows you to allow for them to have choices (no railroads), while not having a full sandbox environment.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
I like to give 3 or 4 different choices for the players to follow after the initial hook. Then they can follow one of those if they wish or come up with a different choice. But because I have prepared (at least initially) where the story will be heading I can pivot for their requests.
Clues come into play because I like to add an air of mystery to most of my stories that last more than several game sessions. Sure it is fine to have the dungeon crawl or quick one-off, but overall I like to drive the game thematically if I can, and giving players clues helps me to do that.
Hello Storyteller,
Welcome to part 4 of 4 of running a horror game with a killer picking off a cast of characters.
In this episode we finish with the rest of the cast and cover the first 5 days of who is murdered and casting suspicion on other NPC's.
The key is to drive all of the murders to the last one. The brash wizard on Day 21. During the middle of her spell she is killed and this sets the village back three weeks in the past to repeat the same events until the players kill the monster.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com/resources - check out the resources page for a downloadable pdf with the NPC's and monster you will need for your D&D 5e game. No email needed.
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
In the last part of our 4-part episodes we will conclude with the remaining NPC's as well as the first 5 days of who gets murdered and how. Check out the episode and also the resources page for more.
Hello Storyteller,
Welcome to part 3 of 4 of running a horror game with a killer picking off a cast of characters.
In this episode we will show you how voices, inflections and verbal ticks could be used to distinguish between NPC's. You could also do this with props, like hats, physical mannerisms, etc.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com/resources - check out the resources page for a downloadable pdf with the NPC's and monster you will need for your D&D 5e game. No email needed.
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
In this first part, we create NPC's for use in the game. They will be used to help move the players knowledge forward. They will be killed and suspicion will fall on them. Check out the episode and also the resources page for more.
Hey Storytellers,
Having an intriguing villain is critical for running a game in the horror genre, but especially true for the killer horror genre. The killer needs to be able to get in and out of places quickly, or unseen.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Well the Pashisha from D&D 5e fits the bill with a slight change - the flesh eating demon really loves humanoid brains.
Each victim is killed in a different way, poison, tiger or wolf attack, stabbing, pushed from a wall, but each and every one of them is missing their brain.
The Pashisha can turn invisible and polymorph into a couple of different animals. If you want more of a challenge you can have multiple Pashisha's or see that they dwell with other creatures and could have a lair.
This is great for lower level characters as the challenge rating of the 5E Pashisha is just 3. But you could give is some additional levels to make it harder if your players are higher level.
Hello Storytellers,
This is a four-part video where we will walk you through setting up a multiple game session horror story where a killer is hunting down NPC's one by one. It has mystery, intrigue and horror. If the players aren't fast enough time itself will reset and they will live the events again until they can stop the killer from resetting time.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com/resources - I have the killer's stats and NPC's names, brief character sketches, and the first 5 days of who is murdered. All free - no email required. Get the free
Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
Now back to the story. In this episode, we will detail out the scene. A small village in a valley surrounded by mountains. This allows you to have a closed-loop scenario. Once the players are in the village they have walked into a pocket dimension. Only a plane shift spell would free them, so this is best for characters of lower levels.
Hey Storytellers,
Killer horror is what most people think of when they think of the horror genre. This is where you have a group of people (teens or young adults typically) that are being stocked by a killer (think Jason, Freddie, Scream, etc.).
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?action=signup
In these movies there is typically one lone survivor and that wouldn't work well for an RPG gaming group. Instead, you will learn how to incorporate this into a group.
Also stay tuned to the next 4 episodes as we will help you plan out an entire game session (probably 2 - 4) with a scene, a killer monster, a cast of NPC's.
I think you will enjoy using this killer horror in one of your games.
Hey Storytellers,
Nothing is more frightening in horror than children. If you haven't watched Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House (season 1) it is worth it. So much horror deals with children in some shape or form.
Learn more at https://skullrpg.com
Get the free Tell Your Story course here
What happens if you turn this on its head? What happens if your gaming group is asked to help a woman put to rest the ghost of a child?
We will explore changing each ghost in your RPG to function as spirits of the dead do in the show Supernatural. There are rules to properly dispatch a ghost.
And if your group determines that those rules don't work then what is left? What about a demon that can take on the appearance of a ghost child to invoke pity and fear? And those are the emotions it feeds upon.
Come down the rabbit hole for a good story idea that you can use this week.
Hello Storytellers,
There are only two types of NPC's: those that are forgotten and those that are remembered. Sadly, most storytellers have forgettable NPC's. That is a shame because with a little work (and not a lot truly) you can create 1 - 3 NPC's that the players could love or absolutely hate.
This brings your game to life. Now I am not advocating that EVERY. SINGLE. NPC. should be remembered, but the ones that are helpful to your players should be. The ones that are recurring should be. The ones that you might want to kill much later for dramatic effect have to be.
Listen to find tips and tricks from using different voices or accents to props if you can't modulate your voice to make your NPC's stand out.
Hey Storytellers,
One way to amp up the suspense and terror is to put your players into a "closed-loop" scenario. If you ever watched any movies from the 1980s or before it was very common to have this happen to your heroes. There is a storm, the phone lines are cut (and cell phones don't exist yet), everybody is trapped in one location like a mansion or hotel. Queue lights turning off for less than a minute and then one person is killed. Queue lightning crash. Shocked gasps.
Ok, that is harder to do if your players have teleport or many forms of magic. Stuck in a room, "I cast stone shape." But here is a scenario where it works.
Your players come into a town. They can start to notice that fashion and language sound odd. A "knowledge Local" or similar knowledge will reveal the language is about 200ish years old. That is odd, but maybe the players ran into the RPG equivalent of the Amish.
I won't get into all of it here in the description, but we lay out many possible ways for the players to discover that there is a wizard who is going to perform a grand experiment in the next X days or hours. The issue is the experiment failed and it locked everyone in time.
Over the next hours or days, your players are slowly becoming a part of the story and are less and less able to affect it. If they can't stop the wizard from doing the experiment they will be trapped in the story forever. Of course, there are consequences to stopping the wizard.
This builds on the ideas of psychological horror and choice, as well as using a timeline to build suspense and terror. These three concepts were handled in earlier episodes not that long ago.
Hey Storytellers,
So many times the party moves at the pace of the wizard in medium levels. I know that DnD 5 helped with this problem from earlier additions, but still, there is a way to bring in suspense and terror (if that is what you want) in your game.
What if the party cannot rest? What if they just cannot stop safely or they are interrupted just at the moments that they need to do to refill their spells? Whether that is praying to their god at sunset or sunrise, or uninterrupted rest for a long period of time.
One of the best cinematic shows for this was an episode of the new Battlestar Galactica (as opposed to the one from about the time I was born). It is called 33 and you need to know anything about the story. Every 33 minutes the enemy jumps to their location and they have to scramble fighters until the fleet can charge their faster than light drives, which is like 45 minutes. The issue is the thing chasing these poor people are robots. After days of this, humans are physically falling apart, because drugs can only do so much. They only have so many fighters and fighter pilots. They are making mistakes. Time is killing them. The suspense is crazy.
You can do this in your game and I will show you how - take a listen.
Hey Storytellers,
Do you have one of those players that obsessively read the monster manuals? They know what the monster is by the beginning of the second sentence of flavor text.
But that isn't the worst part, is it? No, they immediately tell everyone at the table how to fight it, the monster's strengths and weaknesses. This would be fine if they rolled a knowledge roll, but no this person is playing a fighter with no knowledge ranks, yet seemingly their character literally knows everything in the entire pantheon and to defeat it.
How? Well, they are metagaming. They are pulling in outside information that their character cannot know.
Two ways to take care of this: 1) Talk to them outside of the game about it and have your other players watch for it if need be, 2) Change some of the standard monsters to be immune to fire instead of acid if that could make sense or maybe silver doesn't do double damage now cold iron does.
Hey Storytellers,
I have played some of the great DnD games that were converted from DnD Version 1 or 2 into 3.5, but after you play through the Temple of Elemental Evil or Castle Greyhawk or even the Tomb of Horrors can you really reuse these?
The short answer is yes, but not with the same story, traps or monsters, most of the time. Take the city of Greyhawk for example. You can use this for any major metropolitan city in your world. Change the names of the quarters if you want.
The same goes for dungeons. Frankly, I find creating a dungeon to be the most time-consuming thing I have to do. So much in fact that I will create them off the cuff if I can with just a list of traps and monsters and have a handful of rooms for my mini-boss or my Big Bad. The other way to do this is to grab dungeons online and then replace the story, monsters, and traps with my own designs. Remove the flavor text and plugin what I need.
Hey Storytellers,
Gothic horror uses elements of death heavily, but sometimes has romance included as well. Poe was well known for this and Dracula by Bram Stoker is a classic in this genre.
So any game with the typical undead ghouls, ghosts, vampires and the like could fall into this genre.
One other area that I like to think about is if the plane of existence your players find themselves in is working against them. Imagine that every day or week your players are active in this environment they have to make a will save. Maybe it occurs anytime they do a violent act. If they fail they get a corruption point, and then when they wish to not do violence (or stop violence on another) they have to roll a d100. The save is the number of corruption points they have. On a fail the storyteller (that's you) chooses for them (evil grin).
You could combine these concepts where the world of the living is being corrupted by a Vampire Demigod and corruption is really servitude to it. That explains the corrupted paladins and clerics serving this beast.
Hey Storytellers,
If you have ever played the Witcher III you know exactly what this is. If you haven't, go pick it up on gog.com it is worth the cost.
Regardless, psychological choices is when you give your players free choice to make a decision that will have a lasting impact on the gaming world in which they are playing.
You can make these decisions a choice between two seemingly bad or good choices. I will say that it is easy to choose between a good vs evil choice, but what if you have to choose between saving a person with something that could kill them or letting them die? That is a minor side quest in the Witcher III. If you choose to save the girl, you find out much later while randomly walking into an army camp that she is alive but non-verbal and unresponsive. Her husband wishes you had let her die and one day he may have to kill her to be free. It is a gut punch.
Listen to find out other ideas of implementing this into your game.
Hey Storytellers,
Psychological horror is my favorite genre of really anything, except maybe a good mystery. Of course, combining the two will always get me to take notice.
Here we talk about how you can use psychological horror in your RPG. This genre focuses on mental, emotional, and psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. This could be the village of Innsmouth in Lovecraftian fiction, the odd characters that Scooby-Doo encounters while trying to solve the mystery or any number of things.
Explore how you can use this subtly or overtly in your gaming world. You can use this in non-horror genres and will see it creep up in Star Trek quite often actually.
Hello Storytellers,
In a game, we are playing right now with our guest storyteller, which is the DnD 3.5 adaptation of the DnD 2.0 Temple of Elemental Evil.
We found a pair of bronze doors and of course we are now collecting things to build a tavern when we take that fateful arrow in the knee.
We are expending resources into this endeavor, which has absolutely zero to do with the game.
So the question has to be asked do you as our storyteller just break down and throw us a bronze door or something cool for the tavern every once in a while or follow the pre-built module to the letter?
As a storyteller I always ask myself if side obsessions like this are ok or are they indicating my players are bored. There isn't an easy answer to this, but by asking the question you can make your game better, even if that means you work with the players to build their tavern near the end of the campaign.
Hey Storytellers,
Here is another creature that you can play in your next gaming session.
This one is a psychic water breathing monster that can dominate people with a lower will score.
The players come into a town that feels a little creepy because most of the important and strong people have been dominated by an Abolith. Eventually, they will figure this out and come to a cave that leads down to the ocean. It is there that the monster stirs. What are its intentions - listen to learn some options for your game table.
Hello Storytellers,
Today we explore the numerous subgenres of horror. Some of these I would never work into my game without express permission from my players. You never know what people's buttons are and horror is the one that will push many buttons (known or unknown).
Of course, some elements of horror can be used in any major genre. The abandoned town, ship, or space ship. The killer that is picking off people one by one and you are in a "closed-loop" situation, which means that you are stuck in that place with no escape for some reason.
Or the monster horror genre that is RPG to a tee, except most storytellers miss the opportunity to build up the suspense around their monster until the final conflict (think the first Alien movie).
Regardless of what you choose, come explore the many different types of subgenres of horror to see if one or more might liven up your next game session.
Hey Storytellers,
It can be hard to remember all of the things you wanted to include in your game sessions as the months (and years) move on.
All of the cool things you thought you wanted, the twists, and the reveals get lost as time wears on. Then once you remember it you aren't sure how to put it back in since you haven't been foreshadowing it for the last month.
Hear a way forward to avoid this in your gaming sessions.
Hey Storytellers,
Discover the different types of genres at a high level and how you can center a game around them.
Some RPG systems are designed to tell different genres better than others, but that doesn't mean that your weekly game session can't have an element of other genres.
Think of it as a sitcom. Around Halloween, they have a light horror theme every year. Then they will have a mystery episode occasionally as well.
We will be deep-diving into genres and stories around these in the coming podcasts.
Hey Storytellers,
Discover how to involve and get your player's buy-in for your next campaign. I have found that taking an hour to play this game about a month before I or any of the other storytellers at my table get ready for a new campaign helps us all get excited about the new game, and give our input into it.
I personally have found that my players have some great ideas that I can now legally steal and modify for my own use in the next campaign we will play together.
Hey Storytellers,
In this episode, we talk about how to take a concept from a standard monster and change it fundamentally to create a new monster. How can you take a siren from Greek mythology and change it to use fear to lure their victims toward them? Then apply this to other monsters in your game. This helps as well if you have a meta gamer (or two) in your group.
You can also do this to your entire game world as well. Is this part of the world slowly poisoning your gaming group? Will they only figure it out as they start to fail saves as you call for random rolls every morning of game time?
Hey Storytellers,
After reading the DnD Monster Manual Version 3.5 there is a throw away line for a shape shifting spider.
This spider has three forms (like a lycanthrope or werewolf): Medium sized spider, medium sized hybrid humanoid, medium or small sized humanoid. They can stay in any form indefinitely and they take the same form each time.
Listen to us create a quick scene that you could play using an Aranea as a small female halfling that runs a tavern or brothel and stalks her victims based on their patronage in her establishment whenever she might get low on money.
Her victims are powerful and wealthy in this town so they won't report these kidnappings because they don't want to appear weak. Then the players are hired by the latest kidnapped person's family.
See how we give you different options to give information for your players to figure out who the kidnapper is and even four different possible endings that you can plan for but your players will ultimately choose (5e stats link in our resources page).
Hey Storytellers,
No one likes to be railroaded or only given one option of what you are allowed to do.
Even worse no one wants to do that for 3 hours every other week for 8 months.
In this episode, we will cover how to give your players agency or choice in their actions, but still, allow you the storyteller to be able to plan what they may do.
Think of this like two funnels connected at the large openings. You start small with your hook and give 3 - 4 choices. Each of those choices may lead to 1 to 3 other options (some will be dead ends) and then each of those will only lead to 1 or 2 other choices that will eventually all drive your players to the climax of the scene.
Hey Storytellers,
Have you ever played a game where after the big battle (that took way too long) the game just ends there? No real conclusion, because you are running an hour or more late and people's significant others are texting asking where they are?
Here are some ways to prevent that:
1) Don't split up the loot. Instead, after the final person falls to the floor and the team is triumphant have them all roll checks to hear that something is moving in the room next to them and end for the night. Just as quick as ending the other way, but no one will ask about experience or loot. They are still in combat....
2) Have enemies rush in for another round of combat that will happen next week.
3) Have no loot of value on the people, because their personal rooms and loot must be behind the next door and you will pick up the game there next week.
Hey Storytellers,
The use of twists and big reveals in your games are a must. Of course, there is a right way and wrong way to do a big reveal. Harry Potter did this incorrectly, because there was really no foreshadowing for the readers about the Deathly Hallows and how all of a sudden these are somehow the most important thing in the story. Sigh.
Twists, on the other hand, can be done with no foreshadowing, because a twist is something small like your mentor is really using you to collect all of the things he needs to summon a demon. You thought you were gathering all of this to seal the demon away, but once your mentor begins to chant you realize he is trying to bring in the demon, not banish it forever.
Big reveals are different than twists, because they have greater, longer term impact. Sure you felt betrayed by your mentor, but in the end you killed him and sealed the demon away. Shifting your whole story to now center on the big reveal (cough Harry Potter cough) needs to be brought up many times in very subtle ways so that your players are surprised but not feeling like this has come out of no where.
Hey Storytellers,
How do you create a villain that is worth remembering and fighting against?
Give the villain a purpose, goals, compelling backstory. Make the want to do something that is good and noble, except that the way they are going about that goal is evil to the core.
So your villain wants a good thing or ideal, but in order to get it they will do the unspeakable.
Then trickle out details about their past so that the players, over time, start to sympathize with the villain. This makes it harder to just kill them in the end.
Another twist on this story is to have the villain be created because of one or more actions that your mentor (NPC) did. The mentor feels guilt and remorse, so refuses to harm the villain anymore than they have. And all this time you just thought that the mentor was prepping you to fight the villain because you were the chosen ones...nope. It was guilt that made your mentor use you to fight his/her enemy.
Hey Storytellers,
In order to pick a concept for a game, I like to start with the main genre and I want to talk about. Think of an episode of the original Star Trek. It is a Sci-Fi show, but some episodes had mystery and intrigue, others were set in a historical (like) setting, still others were straight out of a horror novel. Overall, the main genre was Sci-Fi and that is where I start to pick my game concepts.
Stay around until the end of the episode to hear about a game that you and your players can play a month or more before your next campaign to get their involvement in planning it. For more of an in-depth look at this game go to the website.
Hey Storytellers,
Every story needs a good hook. So does every act and scene if you want your players to put their phones away and pay attention.
In this podcast we go over what a hook is and what you can do with them. Also how to use hooks in ways that don't create railroads, but instead are interactive and create opportunities for your players to know several different paths you are ready for them to explore.
Hey Storytellers,
Joseph Campbell in his work "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" talks about the pattern found in hero stories throughout mythology. It has then been copied in Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and even Rick and Morty episodes.
Knowing how this works for an individual hero can give a story teller ideas on how to incorporate ideas into your story.
Hello Storytellers,
One of the biggest challenges I had was taking my concept for a world and game campaign into cohesive game sessions that told the story I wanted to build with those at my gaming table.
I would forget to include things that I really wanted to 6 months ago. I had a hard time keeping track of where I was going and in the end it would occasionally devolve into me just rolling random monsters, because the week got away from me.
Then I discovered telling a story like I was writing a play.
The play would be your main plot of the campaign. The players need to do ____ in order to ____.
Every major book, tv show and movie uses a type of this formula. The fellowship of the ring need to get the one ring to Mount Doom in order to destroy it and bring peace to Middle Earth (for a time).
An act in a play is a subplot that drives the characters along until they can come to the final conflict and solve (or fail at solving) it. Acts can be split up by character level or events in the story itself.
The scene is your game session and how you move your players scene by scene to fulfilling the events laid out for them in each act and ultimately the entire play.