"Advice for GMs on Elliquiy" Companion Thread

[AndyZ]

This is a companion thread for my blog, allowing people to write and give feedback.  Want me to cover specific topics?  Want to give your own thoughts where you think I'm not quite hitting the mark?  Feel free to post here.

[Kaelith]

Good Morning AndyZ,

I have a question it's not aimed at specifically Elliquiy, but GM as a whole. 



1)How do you come up with your world(backstory of the world characters with in the world etc...)

2)How do you keep track of said information do you hand write it down or do you type it out first in your phone or computer?

3) How do you speak and write from a GMs perspective?

Thank you for any help as I am very new to this and would love to get better

[AndyZ]

These are some great questions.  I'll do a writeup of them on my blog but I'll give some quick answers now.

1)How do you come up with your world(backstory of the world characters with in the world etc...)

I like to think backwards: figure out what I want and what will be useful.

For example, the novel I've been working on for a few years now (and mostly stopped due to cancer treatments) came to mind because I saw an overpowered character beating a character with no superpowers, as a remake of a talented character with no powers learning to overcome a general with no powers but lots of talent, and it inspired me to write a story where the protagonist was the only adult in the world who didn't have some sort of magical power.

In a lot of forum games, people don't like to start out knowing each other, so it helps to give them a reason to all meet up with some particular way.  In D&D, adventurers are an uncommon lot, and people can just meet up in a tavern.  If I'm setting up a game nowadays, I make sure that the default mode is that people won't automatically know about each other so they can learn about each other, and I ask myself why that'd be the case as part of the setting.

It's cheating, much like working a maze backwards, but since you're not being graded and the whole point is to have fun, who cares?

2)How do you keep track of said information do you hand write it down or do you type it out first in your phone or computer?

Two ways for me: Google Docs and a personal server on Discord.

With the latter, I made my own server, I never invited anyone else onto it, I make all the channels and the categories I need and want, and I just keep adding to it.

I have a smartphone where I can add notes and I type really fast on it, and when I'm running a game with a Discord server, it's very common for me to just put a private channel for myself with all my notes.  If I make up a name for a minor NPC, that's absolutely getting listed so I don't have to look for it later.

3) How do you speak and write from a GMs perspective?

Exposition and characters.

If you watch movies and TV shows, you'll notice that a lot of characters say things that people should already know.  Like, the main battle is upon the group, and the general is telling his officers one last time how everything goes.  This is less for the characters and much more for the audience.  Watching hours and hours of them doing prep time would be boring.

In the written format, you can skip that entirely and just type out stuff the characters should know.

Do this bit by bit.  Old stories used to flood people with information and it was more than anyone could really take in.  If you do it a little at a time and give examples, people will learn more and more as they go.

Ensure that the players have some way to ask questions about the world, and don't feel that you need to have good answers yourself.  If you get stuck, ask them what they think it should be like.


I'll go into more detail in my blog later but I wanted to give you that for now.

[BlazeBringer]

Great topic! As a GM on Elliquiy, one tip I'd share is to always keep your players' preferences and comfort zones in mind. Engaging with them about their character's goals and weaving those into the storyline can make sessions more immersive and enjoyable for everyone. Plus, it's always fun to throw in a few unexpected twists to keep the excitement high!

[RattledSnake]

This is a broad question so I apologize if it's not answerable, but is there anything specific to watch out for when running an RP using a ttrpg engine as compared to freeform, diceless RPs?  

[inkybus]

This is a broad question so I apologize if it's not answerable, but is there anything specific to watch out for when running an RP using a ttrpg engine as compared to freeform, diceless RPs? 

Combat. TTRPGs that evolved from Wargames thrive on combat being fluid, responsive and snappy. I am assuming that you want to play by post, through the forum or over discord. Text is slower than a conversation between players 99.99% of the time.

In order for a game to succeed, usually, you want players that do not take too long making decisions and describing what their characters do- this goes for both voice-based TTRPGs and text ones.

[RattledSnake]

This was a great read, thank you so much! 

[AndyZ]

This was a great read, thank you so much!

Very welcome ^_^ Let me know if you’d like any other topics covered.