d20 ComStar Games Instant GM II - On Your Mark, Get Set, GM.pdf - ComStar Games - R5700

Instant GM II:

On Your Mark, Get Set, GM!

Ramsey “Tome Wyrm” Lundock

Contents

Foreword ..................................... 3

Instant GM II:

On Your Mark, Get Set, GM!

Ramsey “Tome Wyrm” Lundock

Playtesters: Margaret S. Lundock

Introduction ................................ 3

Adventure Hooks ........................ 4

Advanced Adventure Hooks .................. 8

Stock Characters, Continued............... 12

Three more Rakugo Props ................... 18

Book: ....................................................... 18

Card........................................................... 19

Glasses...................................................... 20

Tips Tricks & Rants ............................... 20

Improvise Ahead of Time ........................ 20

Dramatic Pace ......................................... 21

Roles of NPC ............................................. 21

SKU: CSRTW006

The Importance of Research ................... 23

Don’t Face the Players on their Home Turf

to ComStar Media, LLC. Only the portions of this

work that contains Open Game Content may be

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Game Content, please refer to the Legal Information

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Open Game Content, all other work is protected by

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LLC.

he ComStar Games logo was designed by Jack

Reynolds and is a trademark of ComStar Media,

LLC.

.................................................................. 25

The Perils of Over Research: A Personal

Warning .................................................... 25

A Final Word: This is Not the Zen of the

Game Master ....................................... 25

Appendix: Quick Reference Tables

..................................................... 27

Table 3 - Stock Character Quick

Reference .................................... 28

Table 4 - Stock Character From

Instant GM 1 ................................ 29

Instant GM II: On Your Mark, Get Set, GM!

Foreword

hey say sometimes you are the worst judge of

your own work. hat has certainly been the case

with Instant GM. I used to be involved in some

of the Coordinated Play Role Playing Campaigns,

where you can bring your own character and play at

various conventions throughout the year. I won’t tell

you which campaigns, but when I started, there were

only two. For a change of pace, I ran light-hearted

action adventure games with little to no fore planning.

As I moved away from Coordinated Campaigns, I

continued running my “Pot Luck” games to earn free

admission to the local conventions.

I knew that I didn’t run games the same way as

most GMs, but I just assumed that I had a quirky

style. I never would have written the Instant GM: A

Bag of Tricks if my friends at SunQuest Games hadn’t

pestered me over a couple of years.

Even then, when Comstar Media put out the call

for, “short game products,” and I sent in Instant GM,

I didn’t think that it was much more than a novelty to

supplement the main line. I certainly didn’t realize it

was going to be my irst best seller!

It is only now as I write this, that I realize what I

had over looked. I have a unique style of GMing, but

every GM I have ever gamed under had a unique style

of GMing. And I learned from everyone of them. Even

the ones who’s styles I disliked, I learned to consider

the players’ point of view when running a game.

So no matter what your style: if you are a hard

core Strategy Gamer, who has memorized the entire

Weapons Table; a World Builder who has a notebook

full of interesting locations you hope to share with

your players some day; a Competitive GM out to

prove that you can run a published adventure better

than anyone else; or a First Time GM who is more

worried about not embarrassing yourself, than about

discovering your style; I hope you can learn from the

Instant GM. hat’s only fair, I learned from you.

Introduction

his book contains four sections. he irst section

is Adventure Hooks. he Instant GM: A Bag of

Tricks , dealt with Plot Seeds. In this book we deal with

Adventure Hooks to help you bring the characters

into the plot. he second section is Stock Characters,

Continued. It picks up where the irst Instant GM let

of. Detailing new characters to use when improvising,

including some more exotic ones. he third section is

three more Rakugo Props for use in your game. Again

this section is too short, the only consolation I can

give is that every adventure is diferent, and Rakugo

Props are always improvised. Once you start to use

Rakugo Props, you’ll see new ways of using them in

every game. he forth section is a collection of Tips

& Tricks and Rants, which don’t it well into any of

the other sections. here is an appendix of quick

reference tables at the back of the book.

Ramsey “Tome Wyrm” Lundock

Adventure Hooks

he irst Instant GM book detailed how to use Plot

Seeds to help you improvise when the party wanders

away from the written scenario. But unless you can

motivate the players and their characters to become

involved in the adventure in the irst place, nothing

interesting is going to happen. An otherwise good

adventure can be ruined if you have to contrive an

unrealistic way to force the party into the scenario.

Adventure hooks are ways to “bait” the characters

so that you can drag them into the plot. Adventure

hooks are useful when planning ahead, but they are

also useful for the Instant GM. If the players don’t bite

on the irst adventure hook, dangle another in front of

them, until you ind one that they can’t resist.

he irst adventure is particularly diicult, because

you must not only justify the group getting involved

in the adventure, you have to give each member a

reason to work with the other characters. Both uses

of Adventure Hooks are discussed below. Some

Adventure Hooks work better for irst adventures

than others.

Anything for a Lady : One or more of the characters

has a weakness for attractive members of the opposite

sex. He is willing to promise almost anything to

impress them, no matter how impossible. And he has

a habit of dragging his adventuring companions along

when he tries to back up his big talk.

his is a realistic adventure hook in any setting,

men have always and will always push themselves

beyond their limits to show of in front of women.

(his doesn’t have to be men impressing women,

adolescent girls have shocking determination when

trying to attract a boy’s attention.) However, this

adventure hook can run into some diiculty in role

playing games. he basis of ‘Anything for a Lady’ is

that some ideas only make sense when your brain is

soaked in hormones. Since the players haven’t had

their brain chemistry manipulated, they are still fully

alert and will realize when their characters are being

asked to do something dangerous in exchange for an

implied promise, which probably isn’t true. Some

players will enjoy this plot hook speciically for the

irony.

his adventure hook can be freely overused,

because unlike “Help Wanted” and “You’re Sitting in

a Tavern When...”, this one is actually funny. In fact

the more times one of the characters drags the group

of on a hair-brained adventure on behalf of a pretty

woman who turns out to already have a boyfriend, the

funnier it is the next time he falls it. (“I’m telling you,

this time its true love.”)

Arrested/Kidnapped : he adventure starts ater

each of the characters has been arrested (hopefully on

a misunderstanding) or kidnapped. he irst thing the

player hear is that their characters are being dragged

along in chains, or they wake up in the examination

room of an alien space crat. his opening brings the

group together quickly and gives them a common goal.

his way of starting an adventure annoys the players

because you tell them about something bad happening

to their characters but don’t let them a chance to do

anything about it. It is best used sparingly.

A slight variant is to put the characters in situation

where their only options are to go quietly or get beaten

into going. his can be even more frustrating to the

players than starting ater the fact.

Blackmail : Rather than ofering the characters

a reward for undertaking an adventure, you can

threaten to punish them if they don’t succeed.

Blackmail can take many diferent forms: taking their

families hostage, threatening to send compromising

letters written by the character to the newspapers, or

‘accidentally’ deleting their bank accounts.

Truly heavy handed forms of Blackmail include

implanted bombs, electro-shock collars and

reoccurring nightmares. If the party turned a deaf ear

to the poor peasants begging them to retrieve water

from the Healing Well to save them from the plague,

infect the characters.

Curses which can not be lited without exotic

materials and extensive travel are another example.

How many adventures spawned from the Knights

of the Round table search for the Holy Grail to cure

Author?

Remember there is always the possibility that

the characters will fail. Don’t blackmail them with

something that will disrupt the rest of the campaign

if they screw up.

Players and Characters hate having their strings

jerked, so Blackmail should not be overused. But

occasionally it can make a nice change of pace.

Instant GM II: On Your Mark, Get Set, GM!

(Especially if they get a chance to give the blackmailer

payback. See the Revenge adventure hook.)

Blackmail Variant: he Prophecy : he Prophecy

is a variant of Blackmail that doesn’t make the

character’s feel as powerless. In this adventure hook a

gypsy, priest, oracle, etc. makes a dire prediction about

the characters, or the characters loved ones. But the

future is always uncertain. If the characters are willing

to undertake a mission that challenges destiny itself,

they might be able to avert the tragedy.

If the adventures fail to accomplish their goals, the

fallout of a Prophecy is easier for the players to accept

than the outcome of Blackmail. Sometimes you can’t

cheat fate.

Help Wanted : Starting the adventure with a job

ofer is a very successful way of drawing the characters

into a plot. It draws the party together without putting

them under any duress. Players will usually talk

themselves into taking the job, even it if is a stretch

to think that character would actually do that kind of

work.

Hiring the characters means that they are in the

adventure for the money. If this approach is overused

the mercenary mentality will creep into the entire

campaign. his is ine if it is part of your plan for the

campaign. If it is not part of the plan, it can turn an

honorable party into money grubbing scumbags.

Missed the Let turn at Albuquerque : Each

character fell down a pit trap, had a detour force them

of the high way, stepped on the wrong teleporter pad,

woke up in an unfamiliar place ater a night on the

town, or got on a mysterious carnival ride. One way

or the other, characters don’t have a clue where they

are or how to get back. his opening easily brings

vastly diference characters together. hey might not

even be from the same reality.

his is less linear than the Shipwreck (see below)

because it gives the characters a chance to explore,

rather than just go where the boat takes them. Giving

the players more freedom is always appreciated,

but you run into the problem of what to do if the

characters decide not to work together or follow the

plot you’ve laid out. In these situations, you have to

improvise, try either introducing a helpful non-player

character to spell out what they have to do in order

to go home or unleashing some kind of “Beast from

between worlds” to encourage them to move on.

Organizational Ties : he PCs are all members of

the same organization, be it a government intelligence

agency, a rebel alliance, or a high school class. hey

will be inclined to set of on the adventure because it is

in the best interest of the group to do so. If stubborn

characters/players refuse to put themselves on the

line for the common good, you can have an authority

igure in the organization order them to go with the

rest of the party.

A cross between Organizational Ties and Arrested

is to have the characters drated. his explains why

such a diverse lot joined the same organization: they

didn’t have a choice and the organization wasn’t being

very picky at the time. It doesn’t put the characters

under quite as much distress as the Arrested hook.

Organizational Ties Variant: Favor for a Friend :

he Organization doesn’t have to be a formal group.

he characters are asked to do the job by a non-player

character whom they know. He may ofer payment,

but it will be minimal. Basically they are taking the

job, either to repay the NPC, or put him in their debt.

his works best when you can contrive a way that all

of the characters know the same royal court oicial,

FBI agent or space-freighter captain.

Revenge : his time, its personal. Revenge is a

useful technique to if you know the characters well

enough to know the friends and enemies that they

have made over the years.

Given the amount of tragedy that most groups

witness over the course of a campaign, it shouldn’t be

hard to think of someone that they’d like to kill of.

Normally the group eliminates people who anger them,

but if a previous villain’s right hand man escaped, you

can use him as the leader of the next group you intend

the characters to ight.

Keep track of the incidental non-player characters

that the group liked dealing with. Hurting or killing

them gives the party personal reason to become

involved in the adventure. If the party hears on the

evening news that the truck driver who honestly

thinks he’s Elvis (living incognito to avoid his fans)

from a couple adventures ago has been beaten and

had his truck stolen, the characters won’t rest until the

carjackers and their entire smuggling ring are doing

the Jailhouse Rock.

d20 ComStar Games Instant GM II - On Your Mark, Get Set, GM.pdf

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