Skull RPG: Game Masters Tell Your Story

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.