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Archive for the ‘GM Advice’

Sode #41) Getting the Group Together and Heading Off Problems Before They Start (Don’t Kick People Out Pt 4)

May 19, 2009 By: Josh Category: GM Advice, Sodes 1 Comment →

Warm-Up:

Each time we record, we watch a video or find a picture to get us in the mood for the episode. It doesn’t always have anything to do with the episode, but frames our minds, so we’re going to share so you can be appropriately framed as well.

Linkages!:

This is our Last episode…

of the second season

Getting the Group Together and Heading Off Problems Before They Start

Favorite Season 2 moment:

  • Josh: They call it a clam, for a reason
  • Zeke: Faux GenCon
  • Meg: Birthday episode and Zeke Orgasms

Big changes for season 3, Zeke will be nude.

Walter Cronkite is dead

Two primary situations:

  1. You have a group
  2. You have a bunch of people to draw a group from

1) You have a group

You need:

  • Ideas from everyone
  • Everyone needs to be invested and excited
  • Do not fixate on your own nuance, explicitly discuss it
  • Be open about what means what

Trust Me

2) You have a bunch of people to draw a group from

  • Be honest
  • Ask everyone explicitly don’t assume

low player count,

  • Group then game
  • pick a night(figure out game)

high player count

  • Game then group
  • pick a game (figure out night)

Bounce Your BoobiesBhu

Zeke likes Songs and fried eggs hanging on a nail

Holly Dollyemisairy666

Holly Dolly is a Donkey From the country who dreamed of being a big star

SheepsMeg’s Aunt

The only form of pure art remaining, Zeke makes up some names “Rivers Cuomo” “Barak Obama”

The GM tips

  • You are not the boss of them
  • Do not “dispense wisdom”
  • Be honest open and bring everything to the game
  • No one is just an asshole, they have a reason for what they are doing
  • Don’t say “what do you like?” say “what do you want to do?”
  • As soon as they start fighting with you, even slightly, figure out why. T
  • Try to make sure people know their chances before they roll the dice
  • You want to catch problems before people even know they are problems.
  • You must reduce the complexity of the game to the aggregate of the players.
  • Do not be afraid to change games, mod games or create house rules.
  • Check to be sure you have the game right before you go changing things.
  • Eat the frog

People don’t like low magic

  • people enjoy the presence of something cool
  • or the absence of an irritant

Poisonous Ideas

There is a persistent idea that adventures should hold to a “realistic” or “balanced” framework.
Adventures ideally should give everyone in the group what they are looking for.
Anything more is a waste of effort and anything less could be done better.

You know the adage “if you don’t know, make it up” gets tossed around?
Don’t listen to them.  Here’s why.
The people who say that, say it, because that’s what they do and it works.
Because a)they know the game or b)they don’t care about the rules anyway.
The first guys are just not expending effort and doing it right anyway
The second guys suck.

Cliffhanger

Trivia:

Last week’s answer is revealed!

Reminders-

Discuss this episode on our Message Boards in THIS thread!

Warning: This episode is tagged Explicit. It is intended for adult audiences.

Sode #38) Problem Solving 2: Communication Do’s (Don’t Kick People Out Pt 3)

April 22, 2009 By: Meg Category: GM Advice, Sodes 5 Comments →

Warm-Up:

Each time we record, we watch a video or find a picture to get us in the mood for the episode. It doesn’t always have anything to do with the episode, but frames our minds, so we’re going to share so you can be appropriately framed as well.

Linkages!:

Problem Solving #2) The list of Do’s

  • Communication Musts
  • Mediating a problem at the table
  • Solving a problem you’re involved in

Ideas from the episode:

Trivia:

Last week’s answer is revealed! Which one of us had rats as pets?

This week’s question: Which one of us was once accused of buying a suit for a gorilla?

Reminders-

Discuss this episode on our Message Boards in THIS thread!

Warning: This episode is tagged Explicit. It is intended for adult audiences.

Sode #37) Problem Solving 1: Bad Communication (Don’t Kick People Out Pt 2)

March 30, 2009 By: Meg Category: GM Advice, Sodes 2 Comments →

Warm-Up:

Each time we record, we watch a video or find a picture to get us in the mood for the episode. It doesn’t always have anything to do with the episode, but frames our minds, so we’re going to share so you can be appropriately framed as well.

  • Aww!  This dog wants to catch the squirrel of his dreams so badly!
  • Do you remember the Watchmen Saturday Morning Cartoon?
  • We retold our Writer’s Retreat in Las Vegas stories.  Funnier than any link we could follow.

News!:

Meg played:

We ask for feedback

Problem Solving #1) The list of Don’ts

1 – Criticize someone while talking to them

“if you weren’t so lazy or stupid we wouldn’t have these problems.”

criticizing, blame, judgments, put downs, diagnoses

2 – Deny responsibility

Putting responsibility on some thing else (a person thing or institution)

“Daddy and I are splitting up because you cry”

take responsibility for your own actions

3 – Use words that imply evaluation not observation

“I feel raped”

I statements are shit

attacked, blamed, criticized, insulted, isolated

4 – Fail at active listening

No autobiographical statements – don’t “one up” them

“You think you have it bad…”

No inquisitive questions – don’t interrogate them

”really? How far up the ass?”

5 – Try to solve their problems

“What you need to do is grow a beard”

this is “problem solving” not “actually solving problems”

(more…)

Sode#36 – Kicking People Out (GM 05)

March 18, 2009 By: Meg Category: GM Advice, Sodes 5 Comments →

Note: We are back on track bitches

News:

The BG’s are attending two conventions and one concert coming up soon!

  • March 19: Uncle Monsterface concert at TT and the Bears in Boston. Good times for nerdcore!
  • March 21: JiffyCon Boston. Our favorite real-play con is coming to our area! If you are anywhere in the area, we STRONGLY recommend attending! It’s a good time!
  • April 3-5: I-Con, Long Island New York- we are featured guests and are going to record some of the guests in attendance! We have panels on Saturday and promise special prizes to anyone who comes and finds us!

Icebreaker:

There Are only 3 arguments More contested than kicking people out of your game

1) Who would win in a fight, a caveman or an astronaut?

2) Which is cooler, Ninjas or Pirates?

3) Who would win in down and dirty street hoops, Gandalf or Yoda?

Kicking People Out Part 1: Don’t Do it

Part 1: Defining terms and laying out the groundwork

  • Don’t Kick people out of your games

Part 2: describing the phenomenon

  • How often does this happen?
  • Are they your friends?  (The counter argument is “it is ok to treat people like shit” OR “kicking people out is not shitty”)
  • What about using creative ways to kick people out?  Changing the game night, not calling them?  = passive aggressive = grow up

Part 3: When giving advice

  • It drowns out useful conjecture. A person looking for advice is looking for actual help. They know they could kick the guy out. They do not need dozens of yes man sycophants, going on about kicking the guy out. They need, and want, actual help.
  • Justification seeking behavior. Some people have made up their minds to be mean to their friend. And rather than down half a bottle of Jack to get their courage up, they are looking for reassurance that what they are doing is right. And it’s not. If you are going to be mean also be an adult about it.
  • You will not actually see it. Statistically the likelihood of someone needing to be kicked out is extremely low. The problem here is margin of error and false positives. If you advise 1% of cases to kick out a players you are drastically over prescribing. 1% means that you will be misdiagnosing over 100 good games for the 1 real case.
  • You Wont Need to. Because you will use problem solving
  • Do Not Consider Failure. This is a big point we call “Assume success” If you assume you will succeed
    • You can work backwards to a solution
    • You will not be preparing for failure

Part 4: The Ethics of Kicking people out

  • Kicking people out is bad. It is immoral of you to force out and shun your friends.
  • Kicking people out is insanely passive aggressive – it is a lack of maturity on your part.
  • don’t fix douchery with douchery
  • You also miss out on picking on the sucker – schadenfreud

Part 5: what to do and who does it

There are three ways to look at responsibility

  1. Everyone is Responsible
  2. The GM is Responsible
  3. The Venue Owner is Responsible

Trivia:

Last week’s answer is revealed!

This week’s question: Which one of the BG’s is a Geek because of Star Trek?

Reminders-

Discuss this episode on our Message Boards in THIS thread!

Warning: This episode is tagged Explicit. It is intended for adult audiences.

Sode #19: I Will Turn This Game Around! (GM 04)

July 27, 2008 By: Meg Category: GM Advice, Sodes No Comments →

Warm-Up:

Each time we record, we watch a video or find a picture to get us in the mood for the episode. It doesn’t always have anything to do with the episode, but frames our minds, so we’re going to share so you can be appropriately framed as well.

Icebreaker:

  • TV character that would suck to play with

Douchebag of the Week:

  • The Secret Keeper

Main Topic:

4 Steps in the 12 step Healing Process

Strategies for healing a diseased group, or to build cohesion in an already healthy group

1. Choosing the Right Game

  • D&D 4th Edition
  • Spirit of the Century
  • Dogs in the Vineyard
  • Bad Choice: Burning Wheel

Side conversation:

The 4 roles in D&D 4e compared with the 4 Ninja Turtles:

  • Leader: Leonardo
  • Controller: Donatello
  • Striker:Raphael
  • Defender: Michelangelo

2.  Making a Cohesive Character

3. Running the Game so everyone plays nicely

  • DM= Part Facilitator, part Antagonist
  • DMPC’s- usually bad, but if you’re gonna, do it right
  • Take time to practice the mechanics so everyone can fight together before it comes up for real

4. Playing the Game so everyone gets along

  • Buddy System
  • Appropriate Behavior
  • Why are we together?
  • Think Win-Win

News:

1. Reminder: The Brilliant Gameologists are leading 3 seminars at GenCon!  If you’re going, you won’t want to miss it.

Gamers in the Press: Blogs, Podcasts, and Print at GenCon

http://www.pulpgamer.com/gencon/

2. We are slowly but surely joining the full ranks of Web 2.0.  Check out Meg’s Twitter.

Discuss this episode on our Message Boards in THIS thread!

Warning: This episode is tagged Explicit and is Not Work Safe. It is intended for adult audiences.

Sode #14: Gaming is Like… (GM 003)

June 01, 2008 By: Meg Category: GM Advice, Sodes 2 Comments →

Analogies are a way to illustrate a point, so listen as we compare GM’ing/ gaming to:

  • Cooking
  • Fantasy Baseball
  • Directing and Producing a Play
  • Surgery
  • Running a Business which has a Board of Directors
  • Dealing with old people
  • Teaching 7th graders
  • Alaskan crab fishing
  • Supervising a manufacturing line
  • Golfing
  • Manually masturbating caged animals for artificial insemination
  • Posting on message board about what gaming is like

Gaming is NOT like storytelling.

Sorry.

Discuss this episode on our Message Boards in THIS thread!

Sode #12: Love and Sex (GM 002)

May 11, 2008 By: Meg Category: GM Advice, Sodes No Comments →

Oh Yeah. Love, Romance and Boning.

Comprehensive Show Notes
Discuss this topic on our Boards

(more…)

Sode #6: Game Vs. the Plot (GM 001)

January 06, 2008 By: Meg Category: GM Advice, Sodes 2 Comments →

Sort of like Joe Vs. the Volcano, but less lava.

How to Motivate your Players

Discuss this episode on our Message Boards in THIS thread!


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