#gm tips

My own campaign unfortunately died soon into its lifespan, as many TTRPG games are wont to do, but there are plenty of things I enjoyed, and some I wished I had done differently.

For instance, Wanderhome is, at its core, a GMless game. In trying to introduce my friends to it (and stick to the standard & accepted idea of GM’d TTRPGs we’d been playing), I took on a Guide role, but I wish I’d entrusted more of the world to my friends. It’s collaborative! Its magic really shines when you come up with the threads of places together, and it invites a lot of investment in the story along with it. Get inspired by the plot hooks in the book, or fictional settings you already know and love. You can come into the session with some ideas already locked and loaded, but having some elements to build together really adds sparkle!

One thing that really worked for us was writing out the mechanics for earning & spending tokens, physically, on a piece of paper to be placed in the center of the table/where anyone could grab it. It was hard to keep track of all the instances for action, but having a reference Right There made it a lot easier! I’m sure there’s a digital equivalent of this too: Quick ref pinned in a discord channel? Tab open on a shared screen? Get creative! Accommodate as needed!

Similarly, I wish I had spent more time watching/listening to playthroughs of Wanderhome to better get the gist of the exchange of tokens, scenarios it applies to, when to bring them into play, etc. Sometimes it’s just easier to see it in action, especially when it’s a game mechanic my friends & I weren’t used to. Possum Creek Games feature similar mechanics in some of their other titles like Yazeba’s B&B—and ooomg, I can’t recommend the Wanderhome and Possum Creek Discord servers ENOUGH. The community is so friendly and creative and heartwarming! The custom content is to die for!!! There are so many charming (and free!!) playbooks and places and small & forgotten gods, I’d totally go check it out. Great for extra tips and recommendations by other players too!

Ultimately, I’m grateful to know a lot of amazing storytellers, and wanting to craft a fun experience for the people at my table was the best part. What kinds of stories do the people at your table like to tell? Are there any themes or characters they tend to gravitate to? Tropes that make them go feral? Season your story with the flavors you and your players love—and don’t be afraid to ask them directly what they’re into! Wanderhome is an experience best shared in tandem.

So now he's at -7 Humanity, the rest of the group has EMP'd his ass unconscious, put him in a medically induced coma, and removed all his cyberware in the attempt to stop the AI from taking over his brain. They are committed to tying him to the bed and therapy-ing his ass until he's human again.

Clearly, however, there needs to be some kind of long term effects of an AI trying to download itself into your brain as part of an escape plan to break out of the corporate blacksite where it was held prisoner. So he's gonna have his own Johnny Silverhand, except it's a horrible Digital Elder God instead of Keanu, and asking it for help will deal Humanity damage. Dropping to 0 HP or Humanity will let it start driving the body.

I'll have to pass him notes to have the AI talk to him, so to keep the rest of the group unsure about what is up, I will pass out notes to everyone that say things like:

You notice nothing out of the ordinary

Laugh and refuse to let anyone see the note and I'll give you 10 IP.

You are not the doppelganger.

This note is very long to make everyone paranoid. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum

(aka what I learned with my campaign which ran for about 4 years, totaling 131 sessions, so I must have been doing something right)

*these tips are NOT exclusive to DnD, more than one of these is bound to help in running a TTRPG, if you have a specific question, feel free to hit up my askbox

When a fight feels too easy, don't add more monsters — a small party just gets focus-fired, and someone's on the floor by round two.

Do this instead: keep the monster count low and give your one big threat a second, weaker turn each round, on a lower initiative count. Same monster, twice the pressure, none of the pile-on.

One monster, two turns. That's how you challenge a small table without killing it.

Make your NPCs multidimensional by giving them interests and skills outside of the context the PCs give them. The cute barista who flirts with one of the PCs as they get morning coffee? Beetle expert. And guess what the next plot coupon is and what they need to decipher it! Give the local blacksmith a keen interest in runic iconography! Not only does it allow you to do a cool sidequest regarding some runic blacksmithing magic but it also explains why he knows so much about ancient Dwarven script despite being human!

Give the gritty cyberpunk bar some flair by giving the bartender in your cyberpunk dystopia a minor PhD in robotics engineering because all of his auto-bartending gizmos are salvaged junk and the fact that they work at all is a testemant to the skill of the engineer who keeps them running and the grace of fucking god. But, hey, if the android PC should ever get shot the fuck up and they need some emergency, black-market repairs? Well... they know a guy.