The details GMs put into their games

[Tech]

I am curious as to the various details you GMs put into your game. Do you:

a) Give your episodes titles?

b) Do you give origins to all your villains

c) Are your important NPCs stated out?

d) Do you go above and beyond the duty with special props for any of your games?

e) anything else?

 

For myself:

a) Generally, yes, I give the episode a title, if only for my own purpose. Sometimes I tell

     the players beforehand, sometimes at the end, and sometimes not at all

b) Most (not all) of my villains have an origin of some sort spelled out, if only if a line or two.

c) A few times; only if there's a possibility of the NPC being involved where OCV, DCV, etc will

    need to be known.

d) Often. Battlemaps make for a refreshing change of pace and really shines on the range of an

    attack. As we have 4 GMs in the campaign, a couple of the others use props on the maps.

    During the Atlantis module, the GM played a special piece of music to help with the ambience.

    I've made over 100 commercials for various episodes and going strong.

e) Munchies are always welcome.

 

Your turns now.

[DShomshak]

a) Always (though the players don't hear it until later).

b) I try, though it can be sketchy if I'm in a rush to prep an adventure.

c) I always stat out NPC heroes. Non-powered supporting cast, not so much.

d) I like to have an illustration for villains and NPC heroes, but it's so much work (I am no artist) that I often can no longer manage this. Maps limited to sketches on notebook paper or, maybe, hex paper if I'm ambitious. Once in a while I've printed out pictures of real locations that become important for an adventure, such as the "Cathedral of Learning" in my adventure, "Wings Over Pittsburgh."

e) I try to give each PC their own little vignette at the start of adventures, to show what else goes on their lives. One of my friends started it in his Champions campaign, and I think it works well regardless of game genre.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Joe Walsh]

a) Give your episodes titles? Usually, but only for my own needs. I don't usually share that with the players.

b) Do you give origins to all your villains Sure, roughly proportionate to their expected importance to the game world/scenario. Again, usually not shared directly with the players. They can find out pieces of it, get glimpses, etc. during the course of play, though.

c) Are your important NPCs stated out? If I think it'll be useful. Otherwise I just jot down any important attributes.

d) Do you go above and beyond the duty with special props for any of your games? Not usually. I did a lot more back in the 80s than I've done since, outside of running convention games.

e) anything else? For the last decade or so, I've spent more time focusing on characters and their motivations, verisimilitude, coherency, and internal logic. I need to be able to convey a believable world and inhabit believable characters for my players. Sometimes statting fully does help with that, but sometimes it's irrelevant.

[BoloOfEarth]

3 hours ago, Tech said:

I am curious as to the various details you GMs put into your game. Do you:

a) Give your episodes titles?

b) Do you give origins to all your villains

c) Are your important NPCs stated out?

d) Do you go above and beyond the duty with special props for any of your games?

e) anything else?

 

a)  Yes, because I save the notes in a Word document (named something like Adv20220524 AdvTitle.docx).  I don't often tell the players the title of the adventure.

b)  Almost always.  At the campaign start, I give the players extra XP for:

• 5 for background / origin story
• 5 for character picture or semi-detailed description
• 5 for non-DNPC NPCs to help flesh out the world.

For the villains, I also give 15 additional XP (which keeps things balanced), based on the full writeup (Background / Origin, as well as Personality, Powers / Tactics, Quote, and Appearance) as well as character picture.  It's only fair.

 

c)  Almost never.  At some point, each gets a few paragraphs of text, as well as a picture.

d)  Not props, per se, but my battlemaps are famous (infamous?) among our group for the little details I draw on them.  When my game got delayed a week, one of my players commented, "Great, that means he's going to add potted plants to the map."  For one VIPER Base (where the Nest Leader was obsessed with robots), I drew in various TV and movie robots (overhead views) scattered about and the players tried to guess which was which.  

 

As to props, I've made cardboard cutouts of pallets (blank and full of boxes or barrels) as well as forklifts for the ever-popular villain warehouse lairs.  I think it makes the map seem more realistic.

 

Semi-prop like, I type up a news sheet for each game and email a PDF of it to the players prior to the game.  (For a past campaign, it was the Hero.Net Herald.  For the current game, it's the Meta Gazette.)  It is created and marketed to superheroes and is rumored to either be run by or employs a psychic who includes news items that would be of interest to the recipient.  (So a hero in LA might get different articles than a hero in San Francisco, including articles that aren't necessarily local to that hero but might involve him that adventure.)  In-game, a physical copy of the news simply appears near the hero when he's not looking, which some paranoid players found a bit disconcerting.

 

For a 1920s-based game (Fellowship of the White Star) I almost always have telegrams that I hand out to the players to bring them into the next adventure.  

 

e)  There are often details, either about individual villains or the adventure plot, that the players are almost surely never going to know.  However, I put them in there to either amuse myself or to provide context or background in case the players dig deep enough.  For example, I decided a character with Duplication named all of his 32 duplicates after the Lectroids from the Eighth Dimension from Buckaroo Banzai (John Wharfin, John Smallberries, etc.).  I got the list from a screenshot as one of the Cavaliers hacked into Yoyodyne's computer system.  I don't know how, but after meeting just two of the duplicates (each with relatively normal names like John Edwards and John Lee) one of the players managed to guess the Buckaroo Banzai connection.

[Sketchpad]

a) Give your episodes titles?

Yup. Often give campaigns "Title Names" with "Issue" names and numbers, and have done some crossovers in the past.

b) Do you give origins to all your villains

Yup. Most have a Handbook-style sheet available with stats and an illustration.

c) Are your important NPCs stated out?

Yup. As part of my city guides.

d) Do you go above and beyond the duty with special props for any of your games?

I've made reward cards in the past, as well as having some illustrations drawn up of important characters, a semi-weekly news update with fun info and adventure hooks, and have offered players a solo session as needed. 

e) anything else?

I try to make my settings "Living" for the players. My superhero setting has been relatively consistent over the last three decades, changing only to make it more modern (or post-modern) as needed. 

[HeroGM]

a) Give your episodes titles?

b) Do you give origins to all your villains

c) Are your important NPCs stated out?

d) Do you go above and beyond the duty with special props for any of your games?

e) anything else?

 

a) Only after the fact. Like Two and a Half Men I like to pull the title from a quote in the Episode.

b) I'll give them a few sentences as an idea, but I won't do a full write-up until it's all done.

c) No, not until their 3rd major appearance.

d) Only if I have the time.

e) Like Aaron Allston if it's a long term campaign and we take a break I'll write a short summary of

     what went on the 'season' before. I'll also pass out short forms for people to say what they've been

     doing during the downtime.

[Christopher R Taylor]

a) Give your episodes titles?

For my own records, yes

 

b) Do you give origins to all your villains?

Yes, I have a detailed background and personality in my head, sometimes written up for them

 

c) Are your important NPCs statted out? 

Very few, unless I expect them to go into combat.

 

d) Do you go above and beyond the duty with special props for any of your games?

Other than something to represent them on the map and art, no.

 

e) anything else?

All those campaign helper papers in the back of Champions III?  I use them all.  Years later looking them over is very useful and rewarding.  I fill out a calendar for when events happen and what I have planned for later.  I start each session with a news report, including stuff that happened in the previous game (from the perspective of the news), hints for future games, and just fun stuff.

[fdw3773]

a) Give your episodes titles?

Yes, but only for my personal frame of references. The players typically do not know the title.

 

b) Do you give origins to all your villains

Only if requested by the player during a pause in the scenario, such as after a skirmish and the players reconsolidate, meet NPCs, and so on. I try to work the villain background in if it is an original creation of mine or if tje villain is someone the players are not familiar with from the DC or Marvel Universe.

 

c) Are your important NPCs stated out?

No. The NPCs are typically my "voice" as the GM to provide background information and serve as a contact, but can be changed out readily.

 

d) Do you go above and beyond the duty with special props for any of your games?

I use HeroClix figures and customize them as needed as superhero and supervillain figures, comparable to how D&D players and DMs use miniatures and figures. I also use maps by laminating HeroClix maps and draw my own as needed.

 

e) Anything else?

I typically try to work in a villain, even in a brief cameo appearance, that I can impersonate with my voice. Of the villains I've used, Mumm-Ra, the Ever-Living from the cartoon series Thundercats, remains my best impersonation, especially when he monologues. The nostalgia from players who remember him is a fun mix of humor and cringing over having to fight him. 😉

[Hermit]

On 5/24/2022 at 11:48 AM, Tech said:

I am curious as to the various details you GMs put into your game. Do you:

a) Give your episodes titles?

b) Do you give origins to all your villains

c) Are your important NPCs stated out?

d) Do you go above and beyond the duty with special props for any of your games?

e) anything else?

 

 

 

A) In my informal group of friends, when we play, I wing it a lot but I try to, and yes I've even broken 'the 4th wall' by picking episode names that hint at what is to come but involves word play. 'Lei On, McDuff' might be the start of a story with them going to Hawaii frex. Look, if I'm going to be stuck as the GM all the time, they can darn well PRETEND my jokes are funny !

b) I try at least have a line about it. If I can I go full back story and look for a way to hook their origins in some 7 shades of Kevin Bacon way to one of the PCs

c) Non combat sorts are not fully stated out, but their big perks or highest skills are usually put down depending on their niche.

d) Nope. We're lazy and don't even use maps half the time.

e) I tend to run light hearted games with some serious moments intermixed. I am not above ripping off movie and TV show homages with an overt tip of the hat. We're old friends and consume much the same media. It can lead to some interesting twists when the players like them so much they insist the NPCs become regulars. Sherman Potter from Mash became a template for a tough but fair Primus Commander "Horse Hockey". They adored him.