GREAT PC: Get More from Your Role Playing Game

[@SirZelean]

Wow. This is the first video ever on tabletop rpg that I've watch that every single tip is useful for every single player in my group. This is not just useful, but also enlightening to how we've been missing a whole lot of chances for great experiences.

[@GreatGMLive]

That's awesome! Welcome to the table. Glad it could help :)

[@murraylindsay4163]

Oh! GM Tip I've had great success with: name your GM Characters. With all this excellent advice of engaging the GMCs, nothing impresses a player more than a name. So I'm not spraining a frontal lobe trying to conjure a name, I premade a list of names suitable for the region ahead of time. "I'm going to talk to blacksmith." (discreet glance at list) "His name is Reinhart Nine-Fingers." Players nearly fall out of their chairs. Does the GM have that much of the world pre-designed?? WOW! He's actually named the GMC...this guy is obviously worth listening to. And I make a few notes after the chat so I remember his reactions to the PCs and that he has a lame daughter and so on.

[@GreatGMLive]

+Murray Lindsay Exactly right. A lot of people ask me what my prep is for a game - the name list for NPC's - is the most important part. The rest is story points. But excellent point here sirrah! Maybe a session on how to avoid names like Brian/Steve/Kate is in order?

[@DeluxeFlame]

One of my best times getting more out of my game was talking to a snobby merchant whom wouldn't let us use his wagon to assist injured people from an attack. We ended up scraping together gold from the dead to pay him for his cart. Knocked off his sales and took the cart. Afterwards I talked to him and was offering to buy a dye kit at a cheaper price. He tried haggling me upwards and I decided to just steal it instead. The town joined my side when he complained and I got a dye kit that I couldn't normally afford for later use.

[@GreatGMLive]

+DeluxeFlame This is a great example! Look at how you created such a cool story! I bet your GM hadn't planned any of that, and just went with the flow - you guys helped the towns folk - so they helped you. You've got a good GM, and you sound like a great player! Thank you for sharing!

[@lodeclaw]

This is great. I've struggled to find people to play with, but the one role playing group I did have for a short time hated my long market adventures. They mostly just wanted to get on with their own character's selfish goals. For context, the character I had made was a Gnome Cleric who was a member of a sect of religious traders. His philosophy was that free trade was a holy endeavour and that once he owned something, he should trade it for something he has never owned. I almost never dealt in hard money. The GM loved it and we added the a new deity to his world, but sadly the other players weren't too keen on it. In our last couple sessions before the group fell apart I managed to concoct a plan to destroy a powerful enemy through savvy trading. I managed to collect materials to build explosives and the means to sneak below the enemy's tower. We sapped the supports and destroyed the tower with him inside it. There was no way we were strong enough to fight him straight on. Good times.

[@Blinddenial]

You know. I find it REALLY difficult watching your videos. I find my imagination wondering off every bloody time, because your videos are packed with so much good info that I keep having to re-watch it to catch up on the points I miss. At times it happens multiple times in a video like this one. Curse you for your good content -_- Also you make me proud to be a zaffer, thanks for this content. ;)

[@rinusluijk3514]

Haha, I have the same. As he brings up a point, I either think "ooh, I'm already doing that, but I missed that aspect of it" or "I should try that" and my mind drifts off to how my character would act in those situations and how I am gonna adjust my roleplaying. What's a zaffer, though?

[@Скорпикор]

Same!

[@Tetrix9898]

This is the first video I have seen of yours, and I think its great. I shared it with my group. I am looking forward to watching the rest of your videos. Thanks!

[@GreatGMLive]

Wow thank you for the compliment! As long as it helps improve your games fun then that's awesome! And if you haven't seen the other channel - there's a How to be a Great GM channel too :) Welcome to the table though, feel free to ask any questions you might have!

[@andysimmons2648]

Another excellent video with terrific advice. Thank yo, Guy.

[@GreatGMLive]

+Andy Simmons Happy to help shed a little light on the potential for better gaming!

[@Ranar999]

Great video!

[@GreatGMLive]

+Ranar999 Thank you :)

[@DrukenReaps]

If you are an elf you might have a 125 years of biography... I have some work ahead of me XD

[@williamturner6192]

1 if you want to avoid romance tell the GM you are an annoying flirt and follow through and if you want to give the GM a chance to put it in flirt but don't be bad at it... or try to be endearing when you fail a check. 2 don't make it wierd if you flirt with party members but you can play wingman. 3 make notes. Big deal here, yes... and back to the flirting lots, pick who to go back too as an example. 4 wing man again, needing or being one. 5 consistancy. 6 living character story 7 talk to GM about these stories.

[@demonderpz7937]

The problem with engaging fellow characters is that normally they don't have the information I"m asking about, such as parent names and location of birth, because it never seemed important to them during creation. Some don't even create a backstory, they just come up with something generic so they can get into the game and start fighting stuff and then expand through gameplay.

[@GreatGMLive]

Your questions then may be MORE valuable. If they don't have an answer after the session volunteer to sit with them and help them create a backstory?

[@demonderpz7937]

Bacon Battalion RPG that makes sense. Most newer players do not fully understand the importance of backstory in a character, and will get somewhat annoyed if you ask them about details they have not fully fleshed out, but I agree.

[@michaelwinter742]

How can I learn to play a character that doesn't have an alignment of chaotic neutral?

[@michaelwinter742]

To clarify, I don't want to know how to be another alignment. I want to avoid my current rut.

[@GreatGMLive]

It's about taking a principled stand. CN is the most common alignment for a party to adopt because it's the easiest. So when a choice comes up that is a deviation from whatever alignment you have chosen, you need to make a role-playing argument against following that choice. Try to convince your fellow characters of the error of that path, but always - always present them with an alternative. Sometimes that means negotiation rather than killing, or bribing rather than poisoning. Sometimes it requires you to have a different adventure that you could convince them to go on rather than the evil one they're about to do. You can get those buy running around an area talking to NPC's and finding out their woes. It also means when engaging with NPC's you do so from a certain point of view and don't stumble. Dunno if this helps but that's the best way to stick to alignment in my opinion without stopping the game.

[@Hades13]

About take notes. I am the one who writes nothing. Why? Because for my luck I remember, and I remember very well. Last session in our RPG, the master let us to go back to my home town, where everything has started. Last time we where there it was 3 years ago in real life. I remember everything, and I was like: "does this shop still open? Does this place still exist? Oh, I left this object in my house, do you remember guys? It could be useful now!" Everyone looked at me like I was an alien, lol

[@murraylindsay4163]

You used the phrase "dreaded market moment". Sigh. That is a more prevalent attitude than I realized. I was caught wholly off guard in games when spending hard-won loot was done entirely "off-camera" and as quickly as possible. In my younger gaming days, by some sort of fluke, my players and I loved "shopping". Well, not to the exclusion of slaying a monster, but if there was a relaxed moment in the derring-do and adventure, we could spend an entire session with the PCs wandering a city marketplace. As your example with the blacksmith, the number of adventure seeds that could be planted were extraordinary. The role-playing...oh, the role-playing. It's all fine and good to imagine your character's speeches and reactions when leading the team up the Elephant's Tower, but what does "Conan" do when confronted with a sharp-tongued old lady selling sausages and isn't intimidated one jot by your size? You know you've kept the players on the hard and sharp edge too long when they set up a marching order to proceed thru the market, insisting their weapons are Ready. "Take a breath..."

[@GreatGMLive]

+Murray Lindsay Hahahahaha. Yes indeed. Perhaps it is good to play from time to time to remember what it's like to walk through the bazaar!

[@LordMelusar]

One of my biggest fears would be dealing with a GM being a royal dick and dropping random combat encounters to interrupt the shopping for some reason or another... My last GM prevented us from even GETTING to the market by killing off the entire town with a Mist Demon while the party was asleep. Suffice to say, he butchered everything dealing with being a GM and blamed us for many of the things that were his own fault and thus has been completely ousted from the group due to this being the final straw in a large pile of BS that as formed over the last half decade.

[@BarokaiRein]

Here's the thing thou:it's downright unrealistic to remember the names of all minor npcs you've met since nobody remembers the name of everyone they meet