Aha!

Ages ago, I did a post entitled "Three GMing Tricks" in which I repeated three things I'd found on various blogs that I'd found very helpful. Unfortunately, at the time I couldn't remember where two of these three had come from.

Well, I've found the blog in question, which is by Charles Ryan and is found here.

Specifically, here's the post about "Five Things You Know About..."

And here's the one about Bullet Points.

I'm now going to nick two more of his ideas.

The First Session Rule

This one is something that I pretty much did with the Eberron Code campaign anyway, except that I offered the opportunity between Volumes One and Two, and again between Volumes Two and Three. The idea is simple - you run the first session of the campaign as a 'taster', and after it you see how things played out. If a player finds that his character has some poorly chosen feats, or two players find their characters are too close for comfort (or anything else, really), the players get to make changes to their characters. Up to and including a total replacement.

You then play on as if things had always been that way - sure, Takashima has been replaced by Ivanova, and Delenn has an entirely different look (that may include a sex change - that's never quite been tied down), but you just ignore that going foward. It's been retconned out of existence. (But the XP, and memories of key exploits, remain. They're just considered part of that fuzzy "stuff that happened".)

And, of course, the GM likewise gets to make changes as well, though these should be communicated to the players where they should rightly be known.

GUMSHOE's Clue System

This one didn't originate here, nor is it even the first place I've heard about it, but that post provides a good summary of the system. And it's a good system, and a good complement for the "Three Clue Rule".

The idea is very simple: in a location where there are clues to be found, if a character who is at all trained in a relevant skill does anything even remotely like "looking for clues", they should be given the clues - with no roll. If need be, a roll can be added to find further clues, or more detailed clues, but not for the basic ones. Those should just be given.

(So, if a character with even one rank in Gather Information goes to the pub and starts asking around, they should just be given the relevant local rumour. Don't expect them to interrogate Old Pete specifically, and don't expect the to roll on the Random Clue table.)

This is mostly just about speeding up the game, and cutting out the frustration that is often inherent in investigations - the required data is all available, but the players have to spend an age hunting it down, quite possibly by asking to speak to an NPC the GM has forgotten to mention!

(Actually, I'm inclined to do one better than even this. If the PCs are venturing into the "Temple of Elemental Evil" for the first time, in addition to giving them the "Five Things..." list for the location, the DM should ideally give out one or more clue cards to each PC who has invested in ranks in a Knowledge skill. If the PC has Knowledge (religion), tell them about the factions of the Elemental Evil cult. If the PC has Knowledge (history), tell them about the depravations of the cult in the past. And so on and so forth. Again, they can (and should) get more information later by making rolls, but giving them stuff up-front has several benefits: it directly rewards players who invested in non-combat skills, it suggests possible approaches to the adventure beyond just "kill everything", and it can help build flavour. There's not really a down side, other than a requirement to put together those clue cards.)

Oh, yes: the other two nominees on that last blog post are good ones as well!