r/AskGameMasters

Hi!

I've been a DM for a few years now, but it hasn't been much other than DMing for school clubs so typically my campaigns are just one shots.

My friends know I do DND, really it's kind of how I got connected to them in the first place through one of my original party members introducing me to the "leader" of his large friend group.

Over the year of me knowing these guys many of them have expressed intrest in doing a campaign with me, of which I've always excitedly said yes and let them pick from my very big list of ideas I've had. I'm a creative writer as well so the full story is always floating in my head so it never takes me long to make it a campaign. However I always run into an issue with my players: They dont try. For example, 4-5 of my friends have asked to do a campaign. I told them yes, hosted a session 0 to tell them the plot and asked them to make character sheets in one on one meetings with me (they're not very good at making sheets as they're inexperienced). However, whenever we make the sheet I tell them I'd like for them to create a story for their character so I can make them feel involved in the world. It has been a month, one person never gave me a time for his character sheet but is almost always on roblox or overwatch, another said she'd make hers but I don't know if it ever got done. The rest have their sheets but only one ever sent me their character lore.

I want to play this game, but I don't want to micromanage these grown ass people. I can't help but not gaf anymore because they can't do one thing I've asked: write a story. I didn't give them a word count or anything, it could be a single paragraph but somehow they can't even manage that. To more seasoned DMs and GMs, wtf should I do??? should I drop it? should I pester them even though that makes them annoyed/mad at me?? I feel bad for myself and the one guy who did what I asked him to do. They have great concepts we've discussed but they just can't put it into words so I remember it for later. I want to start this campaign, but I feel defeated.

Any advice?

edit: should have added this before but most of them (but one he doesn't care about most things with much enthusiasm I don't know why) have the beginning of a story, they have talked to each other about having connected backstorys. One of them is a film major, and he's working with two others to make multiple comic books and a planet system with entire world building. they are capable and they're not combat oriented players. if they were I'd move on but they aren't with all but that one they're very creative people!

Edit 2: Thank you everyone for your advice! once I finish moving into my apartment I'll try to start it back up at least for maybe a session or to make sure everyone's sheets are completed.

to the grognards being assholes stfu this game is a game and a story for fun, don't tell me how to run my games. it's my games and my table hush it.(I learned that word today. it's my new favorite word)

I've been DMing for my table for about 6 years. We were in-person for about 2 years, then remote for 4 after folks moved away and life happened. We play every weekend, typically Saturdays, for 3 - 4 hours. Discord for voice/video, Foundry for the VTT.

One of the players, a longtime childhood friend, has really withdrawn the last year or so. Camera off, has no clue what's going on during the session, couldn't say what happened a session ago, etc. Clearly just on his phone doomscrolling throughout the whole session. Things came to a head last week when he made some poor combat choices and two players died. In the post mortem, it was clear he had no idea what was going on - he didn't realize other players were down, he didn't realize the enemies were strong, he didn't realize he was the only healer still alive, etc. We had raise dead spells, so the players came back without too much issue, but everyone was annoyed that his lack of engagement was affecting them directly.

I've spoken to him about his lack of engagement. He throws everything including the kitchen sink at me. Dude says he's busy and overwhelmed with life. His job doesn't fulfill him, he suspects he has untreated ADHD, he's going back to college to try and get a degree to pivot his career, his wifi is bad, when people talk at the same time he can't keep track of what's going on, when he gets home from work he wants to get stoned and unwind, having a TTRPG session scheduled means he can't do other things (doomscrolling) and that stresses him out, etc. It is very clear that he is depressed.

At the end of this conversation, he apologized for his lack of engagement and acknowledged that it was unfair to the other players and to me. He asked to decrease his attendance to biweekly or once a month. I have no interest in him remaining at my table and no enjoyment from playing with him as-is, but I don't want to give him the boot or even encourage him to scale back when he's clearly in such a bad spot.

My wife, also a player in the campaign, believes strongly that he should increase his engagement. She wants him to attend the sessions weekly with his camera on and to be engaged, as a tether to socialization and his friends.

The Actual Question: How should I handle a player at my table who is depressed and bringing everyone else, myself included, down?

Hi I started playing DnD around one or two months ago. Till now i was playing as a PC, but now a few friends of mine and myself want to start a campaign.

I almost immediately said i want to be the GM. So i started researching a bit and noticed a oneshot is a great way to get a feeling of how the group will work together.

I watched a few YT videos on how to make a oneshot, but as soon as i try to make a "small adventure" it exceeds to the level of homebrewing an entire "bigger" world.

I would appreciate any help, tips or even stories from your first campaign!

Hi everyone, I’m writing because I’d really like some feedback on a situation that has been causing me quite a bit of anxiety.

We’re a group that, after years of playing together (several relatively short campaigns in various TTRPGs), went from having five players (two couples + a friend) to six players (three couples). Ever since this addition, we haven’t been able to meet regularly anymore, mainly because of excuses made by the friend and his girlfriend, the new player. Sometimes the excuses we’re given are honestly ridiculous (“I can’t leave the dog alone, he’s not used to it”), even though they both work full-time outside the house and, until the day before yesterday, the dog was left alone all day. There have also been genuine emergencies and unavoidable circumstances, but especially because of this friend, over the past twelve months we’ve only actually played for a total of six months — and we’ve also gone two or three months in a row without playing.

With that in mind, and considering that the DM has been complaining privately to the rest of us for months without ever addressing the issue directly, yesterday, after yet another “I don’t know,” “maybe,” “I’ll let you know” (which usually turns into a cancellation on Friday evening), I was the one who asked whether we could perhaps pick a fixed day to play, so that we could eliminate all the uncertainty. I also pointed out that taking breaks lasting several months makes me lose enthusiasm, and, more importantly, I forget what happened in previous sessions.

At that point, the DM responded by taking the blame upon himself and saying that having a fixed day would actually mean we’d play less, that it was pointless, and that we should just leave things as they were.
I contacted him privately and asked why he was now saying things that were completely different from what he had been telling us privately for months, whenever the other player wasn’t around. He replied that he had only been venting, that there was no point in confronting the player directly, and that “diplomacy” was necessary in life, because without it you wouldn’t get anywhere.
Eventually, he snapped and said, “Then you fight with him!”

I tried talking to the player, but him ignored me and only responded to the DM.

Over the course of these months, I had also suggested to the DM that we could run a parallel campaign and play with just four people (three players and the DM), even without the two players who keep cancelling on us, but he didn’t want to do that. He also refused to continue the campaign without the player and his girlfriend who keep cancelling, saying that it was impossible to play with so few people and that pre-written campaigns couldn’t be adapted. He shut everyone down by saying that he was a very experienced DM and that he “knew” what he was talking about.
His counterproposal was to expand the group by adding two more players and simply play regardless of how many people showed up. The problem is that the person he suggested to essentially replace the two unreliable players is a girl I’ve repeatedly said I cannot stand (she flirted with my boyfriend).

So, AITA, or should the DM have said something to the player?

Hey guys! New DM here with a kind of odd question. I'm building my first campaign (so far I've only ever run a single one-shot), so I've been looking into some settings. In particular, Mystara from D&D Basic has caught my eye. The original version, from 1987.

The thing is, I'm probably not gonna use actual D&D for this game. While the system isn't set in stone yet, I'm gravitating towards a couple ones that my players enjoy more. That's when I thought "why not use just the setting, and slap it on top of another system?"

I don't see anything wrong with the idea, but figured I should still ask someone with more experience, just in case. So is this a good idea? Could it cause problems for my players or I? Have any of you done something similar? Any and all answers are appreciated, thank you in advance.

I'm trying to find apps or websites I can use to create building interiors for a session of Rivers Of London RPG I'm setting up. Any advice from anyone would be much appreciated.

Just for informations sake, the session is set during the modern day and the main location I'm working on is a stereotypical nightclub.

Thanks in advance.

My friend group usually have campaigns for the one who like RPG to play, we had this when i was in high school and we still do it until today.

Currently, i'm finishing a Pokerole short campaign, my plan now is to GM a Warrior cats campaign, i had already done these systems before, but it weren't my best GM times(the first Pokerole campaign i had to cancel due to one of the players being a creep).

The old Warriors one was badly written but one of the players, let call him Joe here, was enamoured by it, i dont know if it was because of the universe or if it was because i let his character be morally ambiguous due to his cat having a crush on the villian.

He even expressed on how much he wanted another Warriors Rpg to participate in, if it was a continuation of that campaign or not.

The problem is that Joe is not in our friend group anymore, due to many problems since last year, he joined the army(in my country you are obligated to a inspection, and if you qualifie, you are forced to join if you are 18), Joe and other friend did join, and Joe had suffered a bunch there that i will not go in details here.

He and other friend left army, but Joe changed drastically, he was ruder and tried to provoke the others in the group, we were already not a huge fan of him due to him being previously a friend with a dude that tried to hit someone in the group, but we enjoyed spending time with him, i had my fair share of fun moments with him, and even i had become more annoyed with him recently.

That and other discussions that occured between him and the others.

One weekend, without me and other 3 friends consent, the others removed him from the group, when one of the friends started explaining why they did remove him, he said we were his only friends that he had, and the friend replied that he need to made other friends them.

Every now and them he joined some calls, talked a bit but mostly he just disapears.

The thing is, i had already planned to do a rpg of Warriors including him as one of the players, but the rest of the players are part of the same friend group that arent fond of him, some said if i wanted, i could remove him and bring another one of the group to the campaign.

I feel torn, should i remove him? Even if he wanted this for 2 years.

Idk if it makes sense or not, it is 2 am where i live and i want to sleep but this is bugging me for so long.

Dears, I have to prepare some adventures for my nephews.

Can you recommend me a place / books were I could find adventures, ideas, I could salvage?

I’ve been playing RPGs since 1991, and after moving to Salzburg I wanted to find a new offline group.
My first attempts through Discord weren’t very successful. Then, in June, I joined a few local one-shots, met some other GMs, and we started using an open WhatsApp group to organize games.

One month later, things have escalated a little. 😅
We now have around 30 local GMs, 100+ players, and roughly 10 open one-shots per month.
Which is fantastic — but also slightly terrifying. 🫣

My concern is that this initial wave of enthusiasm will eventually cool down, and without some structure the whole thing might slowly fall apart.

So I’m curious:
How do you organize a larger offline RPG community in the long run?

I’m especially interested in things like:
* keeping GMs motivated without burning them out
* matching players with games
* avoiding chaos in group chats
* helping new GMs start running games
* turning one-shot players into stable groups
* tools/platforms that actually work for local communities

I’m not really looking for a way to grow faster — apparently we already solved that problem by accident. 😅

I’m looking for a long-term strategy that keeps the community healthy.

If you’ve built or helped run something similar, I’d love to hear what worked — and what you wish you’d done differently from the beginning.
thanks ❤️‍🔥

I’m looking for ideas for a short team-building activity or icebreaker for a staff party.

We’ll have 100+ participants, so it needs to:

Be short and easy to explain

Get everyone involved

Require little or no equipment

Work with very limited space — we only have one long corridor

Be fun and suitable for a mixed group of staff

Any creative ideas or activities you’ve tried before would be very welcome!

I'm not sure if this is an okay place to ask this, but here's my question.

I'm going to be leading a mental health support group as part of my Peer Support internship. One of the ideas that I had was to do a very chill ttrpg group where players use roleplay to face fears, confront hard feelings and build community.

Question #1: Is there an existing ttrpg or module that would fit well with that premise?

Question #2: I'm going to list some of the realities of my set up below. Given these conditions, am I setting myself up for failure? (Even if you think I'm nuts, I'd still be interested in your game recommendations.

Setting:

• The group will meet once weekly for 2-3 months. Sessions are generally one hour.
• The group will take place in a community center. There is no sign up and players will come and go as they wish.
• Iwould expect a wide range of players but likely many absolute beginners.

Solutions:

• My first thought is to pre-make character sheets. Simple templates with class and stats already chosen.The player would choose their race (no race bonuses, just for flavor), gender, name, etc. and be ready to start playing immediately.
• If players come back for more than one session, they can start to personalize their character with bonus stats. I'm thinking this instead of a traditional xp/levels. You get rewarded for consistency but not punished for joining late.
• Sessions would be one-shots with a loot table at the end of the session. A sense of accomplishment and mostly cosmetic shinys for a job well done.

GM stats:

• Level 40+ neurodivergent human.
• Social Justice Bard
• Working on my Peer Support Specialist Certification (Using lived experience to provide support for others who are struggling)
• First time DM. Player experience with Dnd, Pathfinder, Shadowrun. Also familiar with Powered by the Apocalypse and Fantasy AGE.

Thank you for reading this absolute novel and for any help you can provide. If this would be more suitable for a different sub, please let me know.

-edit to fix formatting

Hi!

Got the books the other day. My wife is going to gm a game for me and some of our friends. I'm wondering what part of the material can I read up on beforehand to prepare? I want to get to know the world and game mechanics, but not get spoiled on anything major. I'd do this partly because I want to devour this game, but also because I find it helpful when not just the GM knows stuff about both the world and the rules.

Any tips?

Cheers!