shamusyoung

DM of the Rings CXV: Misunderstandings Compound

"By their very nature, fantasy worlds are rich in fantastic visuals. This is hampered somewhat by the fact that there is no visual component to the classic tabletop game, which leads to odd conversations like the one above." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings CXIV: The Book of Exalted Screwups

DM of the Rings CXIII: It’s a Trap!

"Traps are a great way to distract players when they manage to wrest the conversation from your grasp, or when they ask you to pony up for your share of the pizza." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings CXII: Insubstantial

"The rulebooks explain that undead have very low charisma scores, but they offer nothing in the way of explanation as to why the other people at the table are so lacking in it." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings CXI: You Can’t Take it With You

"You can give your players incentive to do things, but if it’s not the incentive they’re looking for they will probably demonstrate it by their in game actions. Some examples of player incentives include:

• Loot

• Treasure

• Money

• Riches

• Gold

• Lucre

• Boodle

• Booty

• Dough

• Graft

• Goods

• Items

• Moolah

• ...
  2025-02-08 11:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post

DM of the Rings CX: Roleplaying, at Last

"Make your character’s personality vague enough and you can justfy any sort of annoying behavior as “roleplaying”. This is your secret weapon, for it is one which the DM can never take away. Use it as often as possible to wrest the plot from his misguided grasp. When the DM asks you to tone down the roleplaying, you’re doing it right. He may not have a SAN score, but see if you can take a few points off of him anyway." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings CIX: Give Peace a Chance

"Yeah, the movie tie-in was an easy target here. (You can count on me to go for easy targets.)" ~Shamus

DM of the Rings CVIII: His First Decree

DM of the Rings CVII: And the Clueless Again Shall Be King

"The players may misunderstand the Player’s Handbook, forget house rules, and have trouble recalling the particulars of their character class, but never doubt their knowledge of loot tables." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings CVI: Boo!

"Never try to scare a call of Cthulhu player. Those guys are insane." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings CI: There He Goes Again

"When it comes to giving things to the players versus making them “earn” them:

Give a player a fish, and he’ll probably try to sell it to an NPC fisherman.

Teach a player to fish, and next week he’ll show up with the book, “The Complete Adventuring Fisherman”. He’ll start hunting for some monstrous leviathan to catch and enslave, and he’ll be dual-wielding two fishing poles." ~Shamus 2024-12-30 11:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post

DM of the Rings CV: A Subtle Hint

"Communication between the Game Master and the players is crucial to keeping the game fun. Solicit feedback from your players from time to time and see how they feel about the experience. If they curse, spit, or stab you with a pencil, it means they probably aren’t happy with the direction the game is going. Sadly, there isn’t much you can do about this, unless you want to give them their way. And honestly, what’s the fun in being the GM if you’re just going to let players have their ...

DM of the Rings CIV: Girl Trouble

"A lot of tension in a story happens when the characters do something against the wishes of the audience. This isn’t really possible in the context of an RPG, because the characters ARE the audience.

It pretty much means you can’t create moments like the one where (in the books, mind you) Eowyn begs Aragorn to let her ride with him into battle, and he refuses because he has no right to accept. If you try, you’ll end up with nonsense like what you see above, because 90% of the play...

DM of the Rings CIII: A Brief History of You

"Only in the context of an RPG is it possible for someone to need the Cliff Notes version of their own biography." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings CII: A Minor Omission

"There are ways to correct mistakes made in the delivery of the plot. Some are better than others." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings C: Railroad Goes Ever on and on

"While planning your gameworld, it should be noted that no matter what you do, the players are going to route around those aspects of the world into which you have poured the most detail and filled with the most interesting characters. They will skip right past those locations and insist on exploring the blank areas of the map.

Then they will grumble about the threadbare nature of the campaign.

If you prevent them from doing this, they will accuse you of railroading them." ~Shamus...

DM of the Rings XCIX: Alliterative Antagonists

"Just to have a little fun with your players, try switching the names of two characters which start with the same letter and see if they notice.

And by “fun” I mean, “abruptly realize that all your hard work and etymology research is a comical waste of time”." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XCVIII: Ooooh! Shiny!

"Never share loot with NPCs. Their pack will always contain everything the DM wants them to have, so it’s a waste to give them anything more." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XCVII: Gets Me Right Here

"The only way to keep players from doing something stupid is to Just Keep Talking.

Sadly, there is no way to keep the DM from doing something stupid, although offing one of his favorite NPCs might shut him up for a couple of minutes." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XCVI: An Errant Arrow

"There is nothing more destructive to the story than a DM temper tantrum, which explains why players have such enthusiasm for causing them.

(Also, for the benefit of readers who check out the comic but don’t read the rest of the site: I want to point out that I was interviewed on Fear the Boot. Tune in to hear some behind-the-scenes info on the comic and a bit about myself and my exp...

DM of the Rings XCV: You Could Get a Splinter

"Whenever you introduce a new creature, you should be very specific in your descriptions so that players know if this is something for them to fight or have sex with." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XCIV: For The Shorties

"(As some people noted, it would not have made sense to re-introduce Merry & Pip as players. Each of them goes off on his own. It would have made a three-way party split, which is confusing enough. Worse, most of the humor comes from the players ignoring NPCs and talking to each other – something the Hobbits wouldn’t be able to do. I could have made them players, but I couldn’t make them funny.)

NPCs do enjoy such an odd status as second-class beings. Players will tal...

DM of the Rings XCIII: Impervious to Information

"So here we are, at the end of the second movie. This means I spent 46 strips in Fellowship, and 47 in Two Towers. I didn’t plan that, it just sort of worked out that way. Fellowship occupies 58 total pages, while Two Towers is 74 pages long.

So they are finally going to Isengard. There was a rumor that the Hobbits might have been taken there. I guess we’ll find out.

Sure, it can be bad ...

DM of the Rings XCII: Ding!

DM of the Rings XCI: The Predictable Surprise

"Yeah. You saw this coming." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XC: Don’t Dream it’s Over

DM of the Rings LXXXIX: Killing Time

DM of the Rings LXXXVIII: An Unexpected Maneuver

"Yeah, so this strip should really come before the earlier one where Gimli is already fighting on the causeway. I can’t help it if I don’t think these up in chonological order. Actually, I didn’t think about the Dwarf-tossing bit until people started talking about it in the comments and I realized it was an Anticipated Event." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings LXXXVII: Hack, and Also Slash

"Being a turn-based game, D&D allows the player to ponder their every move and the ramifications thereof for as long as they need to, provided they have the real-life charisima to convince everyone else to wait. Studying possible moves is one of the most fun parts of the game (when you’re doing it) but also one of the most annoying and tiresome (when other people are doing it) and so care must be taken by the DM to ensure that in-game combat does not produce actual, real-life combat. 2024-08-24 10:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post

DM of the Rings LXXXVI: Clickfest

"By now you’re probably realizing that this week is just going to be the same joke, told three different ways. Don’t think of it as getting less jokes, think of it as me getting to play more Jade Empire last weekend!

Honestly if I ever get my hands on Final Fantasy XII, this webcomic is doomed. You’ll get ten silent panels with no punchline, strip after strip of out-of-context Monty Python quotes, and jokes which are nothing more than Viggo Mortensen making funny faces." ...