Posts tagged lazygm
Lazy building Icon City
Aug 10th
There’s a fine art to being a LazyGM. It takes hard work & dedication – and throws them out the window. The true LazyGM instead uses that most limitless and potent of resources: the players. Our ICONS beer ‘n’ pretzels game has reached a point where it needs a place to call home. It needs a city through which our heroes can fly, web-sling and drive their rocket cars. And the players are going to build it.
But first, we need a ten second pitch. Shamelessly stealing from ideas and plot points I’ve used before, we get this:
Earth’s greatest (indeed, only true) superhero was dead. UltraMegaMan’s body was blasted into a myriad atoms, consumed by the explosion which also destroyed his arch-foe Captain Nemesis. The world was safe at last, yet it mourned.
On the site of his demise they built a statue in his honour, a modern Colossus thousands of feet tall. It stood as a beacon of hope in a world with no more super-powered heroes. To many it was a symbol, the Icon for the modern age. People came to gaze at it, and people stayed. The camp around the statue’s base became a town, and in time that town became a city.
Welcome to Icon City, where hope is born and dreams might truly fly.
Icon City is situated someplace central in the US. As the Greatest New City in America ™, none of the buildings are more than 40 years old, and the hippie culture that gave it life has ever quite left. The overall attitude is closer to San Francisco that New York in that a total stranger is more likely to give you a flower than a punch in the face. Of course, there are exceptions….
Icon City is unusual because of the high number of superheroes (and villains) it has produced. Some theorize this is due to the death of UltraMegaMan – perhaps his atoms have affected the land in some way. (I’ll let you into a secret. They’re partly right.)
That’s it. My work as GM is done.
Now, it’s over to my players. I’m going to give each hero a district they can flesh out however they want, in as much detail as they care to give. I know Brickbat will take Dirtside, Icon City’s slum district, while his partner Gunfire has claimed the as-yet-unnamed Entertainment (bars, clubs, movies and musicals) zone. Vince Cable’s player has the Science Block. The other heroes will pick up districts as the game develops. My own new character, Toxic, will likely pick one of the industrial zones. In the best tradition of story-writing, nothing exists until it exists.
By handing development of the city to the players, I’m letting them inject something of their hero’s personality into the game. Just like Gotham is Batman and Metropolis is Superman drawn in stone, the districts of Icon City are a reflection of our superheroes. The area they choose may be where they were born, grew up, currently live or work. Above all, these are the places they care about.
Which means when I, as GM, send a Giant Rampaging Alien Robot through the Dirtside, Brickbat is going to be really pissed. Likewise, when I announce that Mister Media, uber-showman (and egomaniac mega-villain) is hosting a show in the Entertainment zone, you can guarantee that Gunfire will be on the scene.
See, that’s how this works. I give them control, and in turn that gives me control. Only one area is off-limits to the players’ imagination: The Icon itself. I’m saving that for something special down the line.
I’ll let you know how we get on.
End on a high!
Jan 5th
It’s a common trope of film and TV to set the final climactic battle hundreds (or thousands) of feet above the ground. This is the set-piece scene where Our Heroes can finally confront the Big Evil Villain, and setting it in a location where a fall means Certain Splatty Death sends a clear message to the viewer that This Is It. Everything from Star Wars to North by Northwest follow this iconic trope to the letter, yet when it comes to our gaming, well…. we don’t.
Which is a shame, as one of the coolest ways to improve any conflict is to set it in a location where there’s a hint of environmental danger. And let’s face it – a fall from thousands of feet is pretty damned scary. Especially when it comes to D&D though, the highest your (non-flying) heroes are likely get is if they jump onto a table. In this respect, all too often D&D is distinctly two-dimensional. Falling damage is for pit traps.
“Ah,” but you say, “we’re playing in a dungeon. There aren’t many high places there!” And you’re right – unless you put ‘em there. Have a cave open to a 10,000 foot drop into lava and your work is done. The battle against Corpsewight the Necromancer becomes a tactical shoving contest (something 4e D&D is very good at) with our heroes and the villains alike all trying to out-manoeuvre the other. Then there’s Menzebor… Meringue Zebra…. Menza…. that drow city where there’s a multitude of towers, pinnacles and high-rise drow buildings, all begging to be the site of your final battle against the Spider Priestess. Set a battle inside an impossibly tall hollow stalagmite and… well, you get the idea.
One of the joys of this trope is that at some point, The Villain Will Fall. This gives you, as GM, the perfect chance to yell your bestest “NOOOOOOOOooooooooooo…………!” and there’s no body for the heroes to plunder. That’s a twofold win: 1) your heroes don’t get their grubby mits on the villain’s kewl magic items, and 2) it leave things open for The Villain to return at some point in the future – possibly in a mangled or magically altered form.
So next time you’re planning your game, don’t just think sideways – think up!
Confessions of a Lazy GM 3
May 1st
Lazy Tip #5: Play fast and dirty
Being a Lazy GM is a lot like being a Stage Magician. It pays to have a gorgeous assistant in a skimpy dress. No, that’s not it……
GM’ing isn’t about weaving fantastic plots, creating wonderful NPCs or being a tactical genius on the battlefield. OK it’s partly about all that, but it’s mainly about controlling the pace of the game. You are the director and cameraman all rolled into one, describing the action and keeping the players (your actors and audience) enthralled right up to the closing credits.
A Lazy GM knows this and uses the pace of the game to her advantage. Run a tense and exciting combat with hordes of critters appearing out of cracks in the walls, and the players won’t even notice you’re using nothing more than stock Goblin Minion stats.
Just like a Stage Magician, smoke and mirrors are your friend. Except in your case, the mirror is your GM screen.
Keep your methods secret behind a GM screen and don’t let them see what dice you’re rolling. If you described the Goblins as wielding pointy bone daggers then roll d6s for damage, what they don’t see won’t cause arguments at the table.
Hiding your damage rolls also means you can control the drama. A character at 0hp is more exciting than one at -1hp, so fudge the damage so that’s where the player lands. Don’t do it every time or they’ll see through your sleight of hand – but watch the players’ faces when their characters hit the big 0. It’s worth it.
Lazy Tip #6: Be green. Recycle!
My players don’t know it, but they’ve fought the same villain a tonne of times. They fought him in a New York subway where he was covered in old train parts. They fought him in a Chinese restaurant where he wore a smart suit. They fought him in a jungle in the North Pole where he was a giant ape.
Diff’rent folks, same stats.
We all do this – after all, our Monster Manuals are 100% full of recyclable goodness. You don’t “use up” the statblocks once the players have encountered that particular beastie. Be an interesting campaign if they did – Extinction:The RPG.
But anyway.
In our superhero campaign I’ve a small collection of generic villain statblocks culled from various supplements (including the Archetypes from the Core Rules) and my own fevered brain. Being the Lazy GM wot I am, I can pull one of those out at a moment’s notice, give him a unique look and silly name and be ready to run a one-shot adventure, right there. Give me 10 generic villains (brick, brain, mech, mage, blaster, psi, blade, stretch, flying, teleporter) and 10 plotlines (theft, kidnap, escape, revenge, murder, accident, rage, love, cure, pain) and I’ll give you not a hundred adventures, but thousands.
Till next time!
Confessions of a Lazy GM
Apr 4th
Part the second, continuing from part the first.
Lazy Tip #3: Know when to stop
We’ve all done it. You’re three hours into the game, everything is flowing like sweet, sweet honey and you’ve just got two more encounters to go. The players are starting to feel a little tired but you press on. And it’s downhill from there. The player who’s been rolling high all session suddenly starts rolling 2s and 3s and before you know it his character is on the critical list. A minor rules query becomes an all out war at one end of the table, the GM forgets a major subplot and the entire session ends as a deeply unsatisfying mess.
Here’s what a Lazy GM would do:
You’re three hours into the game, everything is flowing like sweet, sweet honey and…. STOP!
End the game right there, right on that high. If you can end it right in the middle of combat or on a cliff-hanger, all the better.
“…..and your sword swings, aimed directly at Comte d’Narsty’s neck! Ok, we’ll stop it there and pick it up next session.”
See?
I know it’s the hardest thing in the world to do. Every fibre of your being is screaming out to ride that high and keep slogging on, but when you begin to hear that little voice asking whether you ought to stop, that’s the point to draw things to a close.
You’ve got the players eating out of the palm of your hands. They WANT to continue. But here’s the thing: they will want to continue for the rest of the week. Instead of ending on a low and missing a couple of players next session because they’re still bitter about that fluffed rules call, you’re going to have players excited and itching to play. If you normally run a monthly game they’re going to want to continue next week. Or tomorrow even. They’ll be at the table like the excited little puppies they are. Without the weeing on the carpet though. Maybe.
You’re a cliff-hanging TV-trope-using player-teasing God of GMing, but really, you’re being superbly Lazy. Those next two encounters you would have played through and botched are ready and waiting for next session where they can be tackled through fresh eyes. You’ve taken one session and made it two, AND got the players excited about the game. Sure, it might mean that the game ends 30 minutes early rather than 2 hours late, but that frees up time at the end of the session to talk about the game, level up or get the players to prepare backup characters. Or even better, use it to get the players to do your thinking for you……..
Lazy Tip #4: Let the players do the thinking
Players talk. It’s the second best thing they do. First is eating more than their fair share of the pizza. Not that I’m bitter about that, of course. But it’s my pizza, right?
I’ve said this several times before: the single best source for inspiration comes from what your players say around the table. Pick up on what they say, and weave it into the plot. They’ll feel clever because they’ve second-guessed the GM, and you’ve turned Zero Prep Gaming into a fine art. If one gamer mutters “oh man, I hope the evil leader isn’t a Necromancer” then a Lazy GM will immediately make the villain a Summoner of Undead Things. The player will be happy because He Was Right, and you…. well, you’re just being Lazy.
This doesn’t mean you should give in to all of the players wants, hopes and dreams of course – at least, not right away. Perhaps the evil leader isn’t a Necromancer after all – but HIS boss is! This give the player deferred gratification at a later date, and you time to plot a little more. Alternatively, take that player’s words and twist (or even reverse) them. Perhaps the “villain” isn’t a Necromancer at all, but a Vitomancer who genuinely CAN restore the dead back to life, and those Zombies the players just slaughtered….. not zombies, but real, honest brought-back-to-life townsfolk who were merely recovering from rigor mortis. Oops.
Lazy AND Evil. I love it.
More, next time!
Confessions of a Lazy GM
Mar 31st
I have a confession to make. I’m a Lazy GM. But y’know what? That’s ok. It’s ok because I’ve worked hard at my laziness, refining and mastering numerous techniques to finally reach this level of languid perfection. And I’m going to share some of them with you. Which I guess makes you even lazier than me, because you’re getting them without all that hard work.
Lazy bum.
Lazy Tip #1: Don’t prepare, but be prepared
I hate prep-time, and prep-time hates me. It’s a mutual thing. I’d much rather watch TV, surf the interweb, render half-nekkid women or read a good book than actually sit down and work out a plotline for the next scenario. The whole “design and populate a map then fully stat out the opponents and balance the encounters” things just leaves me cold. I know that’s atypical and we GMs should really spend every waking hour obsessing over creating The Perfect Dungeon, but to be honest there just aren’t enough hours in the day.
But really, when I’m watching TV, surfing, reading or rendering images, I’m letting my subconscious pick up the slack; all of those ideas are hitting my neurons for gaming re-use at a later date. This is something that we all do – plagiarism is human nature, after all – but the “trick” here is to embrace the fact. Admit you do it, and use it. Keep half an eye out for potential plotlines in a movie or TV serial (especially ones totally unconnected to the realms of traditional D&D) and you’ll never run out of off-the-cuff scenario ideas. Ever.
One of the best sources of ideas is The News, but that’s a whole ‘nuther blogpost for another time.
Instead, here’s a quick example. Last week’s episode of Desperate Housewives features an incident where Susan Mayer decides to steal some pearls which she feels should have been better invested in her son’s education. The pearls turn out to be fake. It’s not a huge leap to go from there to Lady Meyer, noblewoman of House Despero dressing herself in black to try to steal a blood ruby from her ex-husband’s mistress as she feels the money should be spent ensuring the stability of their noble House. Enter the PCs, stage left. The blood ruby turns out to be fake. Plotline done. Roll credits.
Yes, I watch Desperate Housewives. I admit it. I have no shame.
Lazy Tip #2: Know thy monsters
There’s nothing more intimidating for this Lazy GM than an NPC or monster which needs stating up.
So I don’t.
If there’s little chance of the NPC being involved in combat then all he, she or it needs is a name, personality and physical description. That’s game-neutral information that’ll fit on a single line of my trusty spiralbound notebook. NPCs never, ever need to make a Skill Roll. Just use what’s Dramatically Appropriate and keep the action flowing. If you think it’ll be cool for the Rescued Slave to fail that jump over the Pit Trap meaning the players will be forced to stop and haul him out while The Bad Things Get Closer then that’s what happens. You’re GM. Dice are for other people.
Players being the kind of bloodthirsty souls they are, there’s always a chance of any NPC being at the pointy end of a character’s sword, so that’s where Part Two of this trick comes in handy.
Monster stats. They’re pure Lazy GM gold, especially when it comes to 4e D&D. Here’s a quick statblock for an Orc, courtesy of the ENWorld Monster thread. I’ve have liked to use the official one straight from the Monster Manual but {insert pointless and off-topic tirade against the fuckwittery that is Wizards’ abandonment of the OGL}. Anyhow. Orc.
Quick quiz. How many orcs to you see? If you answered “one” go to the back of the class. That single statblock serves as an entire horde of Orcs – black ones, grey ones, green ones, orcs with a limp and delusions of grandeur and orcs who write poetry and want to settle down with a nice human girl one day. It’s a million and one orcs all wrapped up in numbers.
And not just Orcs. That one statblock is good for anything which uses Orc-like tactics meaning he serves just fine for That Ugly Human In The Corner, an Ogre Runt or anything else that’s dumb, strong and uses weapons instead of… uhhhh…. not-weapons. Talking of which, I’ll often switch the weapons and often leave the damage dice the same. Instead of a Falchion, this particular Orc might be wielding a rusty longsword, a mace or a piece of 2×4. The damage is the same in the hands of the Orc, but the variety makes it look like I planned the whole thing. Heh.
Awesome as that one statblock is, that’s not all. Oh no.
In 4e D&D, it’s trivial to increase or decrease the Level of any monster, and the math holds up (well enough for this Lazy GM, anyhow) over 5 levels either way. The means this Level 3 Orc Savage could serve duty as anything from Level 1 to Level 8 and the hackery can be done right at the table, mid-game. Give me a Level 5 Monster and it’s good for anything from Level 1 right up to Level 10; the given monster stats are just a mid-point or a ten level spread.
I’ll say that again: One statblock. Ten level spread. Easy to do the math while playing. Boo-yah, 4e D&D.
Give me five varied statblocks, and I can populate a dungeon or a city. In my head. At the table. Clever? Nah, not really. Just Lazy. But in a good way.
If you want extra Lazy Credits, put together a double-sided crib sheet containing the statblocks of the most common monsters the characters are likely to encounter (Humans, Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, etc) and you’ll barely need to open the Monster Manual at all.
That’ll do for now. Coming up: More Lazy GM Tricks.
And don’t forget to get your Classy Characters on the way out!
