Thread by @mathayles, GM tip: you can’t prep what your players will do to the [...]

GM tip: you can’t prep what your players will do to the world, only what the world will do to them.

Every time I check back into TTRPG Reddit I’m reminded that the best way to write a GM guide is probably to find the 10 most commonly posted GM questions and make those your chapters.

In no particular order, those questions are:

I’m a first time GM do you guys have any tips? (Chapter Title: Running Your First Session)

I’m having X issue with my players. What do I do? (Chapter Title: Managing Players & Table Culture)

We just finished a plot arc and I don’t know what to do next. I’m not sure what my players want. How do I get my players to care about X? (Chapter Title: Running Downtime Sessions)

Why don’t my players care about my plot, agh. I’ve spent 100 hours building my world! Ahh! (Chapter Title: Running a Session Zero)

How do you guys practice accents?!? (Chapter Title: Portraying Characters at the Table)

My player has this backstory and I really want to do X with it. Is this a good idea or is it too far?!? What do you guys think? (Chapter Title: Reincorporation and Character Arcs)

How much do you guys prep? I feel like I never have enough info / I feel like I have too much info? I really don’t want to make a mistake. (Chapter Title: Prepping Your Next Session)

I want to run a gritty world. I want to open with X hard scene to show the players how unfair things are and that they’re at the bottom of the food chain. (Chapter Title: Safety Tools For Your Table)

What do you guys think about this custom stat block / homebrew class / magic item I made? (Chapter Title: Hacking the Game)

What do you guys use to keep all your notes organized?!? (Chapter Title: Managing Extended Play)

I really want to run a political game that centres on court intrigue and spy stuff. But I don’t know where to start. Help! (Chapter Title: Managing Factions and Your World)

How to deal with DM burnout?!? (Chapter Title: Session and Campaign Aftercare)

How do you come up with X for your setting?! / Hey you guys I’m really stuck and I need a reason for X NPC to do Y thing help! / Where do you guys get your ideas?!? / I have all these ideas but nothing I do feels good enough. (Chapter Title: Finding Creative Inspiration)

Need rules for warfare! Help! (This is actually the same question as how to manage politics and factions!)

My players went off in X random direction how do I get them back to my plot?! / My players did this totally unexpected thing what do I do?! / My players have become obsessed with this rando NPC huh?!? (Covered in chapters on table culture, session zero and prepping next session)

We just wrapped a major arc and I want to reward my players with in-game rewards. What do you guys think of X? (Covered in chapters on player types and hacking the game, respectively.)

I want to run a Far East campaign do you guys have any tips? (This is a safety tools question, and also a portraying NPCs question.)

I think that’s all I’ve got. If I missed an evergreen Reddit question, tag it below and let’s chat.

I’m bad at threading #1: https://twitter.com/mathayles/status/1328552071558164480