GM's Toolkit

A GM's Toolkit

Your Adventure is prepared, you got your players all together and its time to start the session. Now its time to put everything together and let the magic happen! Your most important tool in your toolkit is your imagination! If you use it right, you can keep your players entertained, shocked and give them the opportunity to create great moments in your game! Use the ideas of your players as well and have use them if you can. I wanted to tell you what other tools I use during play sessions, use what you like and test how it works for you!

Fun is key

A lot of things can come up during play, concerning certain rules, abilities or NPC's. If your players confront you with something like that, don't spend time on arguing just go with, and see how it works. You can always change your mind later, if this decision gets abused by a player. Refusing everything your players want to do, and just letting them stand in your scenes like puppets isn't much fun for anyone. Your player will most likely want do do something that you couldn't anticipate or just refuse to enter the dungeon you built and head on to the nearest brothel. Let your players try and give them the opportunity to fail. Failure can always be a great source of fun, or a good way to change up the scene, and give the players something thats more interesting to them. Let them describe what the want to do, and award them with bonuses if they can come up with a cool action. Reward works better to encourage players to funny or memorable actions than forcing them to to it your way. Your players will come up with more then enough inspiration if you give the players some time to discuss what they want to do. Use it and improvise something, or reuse something you planned already and adapt it. You don't play RPG's because you want to follow strict levels, but because you can do almost anything, even if it sounds nearly impossible. I cannot emphasize this enough, rules are always guidelines and not something that is set in stone. If something isn't fun for your group, exclude it or rule how you want to handle it. Don't spend time discussing rules during play-sessions and postpone it until the session has ended.

Useful tools during sessions

A great way to set the mood of your game is music. I have used movie soundtracks a lot, but if often lets the player imagine the moment from the movie, and hinders the illusion. Thanks to YouTube and other great online resources you can choose between a lot of different ambient sounds, one of which will most likely fit your scene. Tabletop Audio lets you choose between ambient music and sound pads, who let you set tons of different sounds, presets and fighting noises if you want to really go into it. A great free webpage, if you like it consider donating for the guy who made it! You can also look up video game soundtracks for professional sounds that your players will not recognize instantly. Volume is key, important is what happens on the table, between the players, use music as room-sound, and not the full power of your stereo. If you don't want to look up some music, describe the scene and let a player look for something that fits.

My two most important tools i use during play are my journal and my cypher deck. My journal is the place that keeps all my notes about the campaign in one small book. My Cypher decks holds cypher cards, xp-cards, artifact, enemy's, intrusion cards and some cards of status effects to handout during play or use at my pleasure. I mostly use the enemy, item and xp-cards, but i like the idea to use intrusion cards during combats, to let players describe what happens during their intrusion! XP cards are great to have, so you can hand something to the players, they can easily track how much xp they can spend, and don't need to constantly erase and rewrite on their character sheets. I also encourage my players to draw on the xp-cards to give everyone of them a unique touch. Using index cards for items is a good way to keep track of them, and what they can do! Lot's of game system offer cards for your games, and for some, you can make your own on DriveThrurpg.com.

I have built myself a white board with a white PVC-plate, some screws and removable markers. I use it to write down the names of important names, draw maps or keep track of the HP of enemies. Made everyone of my group feel like they were back in school again, but it is a good way to keep a certain bit of information in the players view. A even cheaper way is to laminate a white piece of paper, or reuse an old picture frame, with some paper behind it. Lay it in the middle of the gaming table and use it as you would use a white board. If your combat tend to use a lot of maps, and movement is important use it as reusable battle map. Print out a blank raster of your favorite choice and use it as background in your frame, and use tokens (bottle caps, poker chips, dice to keep track of HP or whatever else you have lying around). Not very important for most cypher combats, but if you want to let the players fight more tactical and keep track of ranges, or you use a system with emphasizes these aspects in combat, give it a try! You can also buy a white board,. But i think most of them are quit overpriced, and hanging a wood plate on my wall and buying markers didn't take a lot of my time. If you want more inspiration, google "DIY whiteboard"!

Story Cubes are a great way to give you or your players random symbols to come up with ideas. A friend of mine works as an engineer, and when we created his character, i tried to explain to him, that his character can be as much of him, or as less of him as he wants, but without having a any idea about what his personality could be like, i decided to hand him some story cubes, and let him interpret them to form his character. If they still can't figure anything out tell them about thing you think would fit with the symbols or some thoughts on your inspiration. A lock can be a secret that he has, something that got hidden away from him, or that he was locked away from society. A tower could be a wise old man in his past, a secure home he had to leave or a knowledge thats hidden there. When they get the idea, they will use it!

Rulebooks, Reference-books, Handouts and Maps are almost always on the table. The cypher system being simple and perfect as it is, you as a GM will hardly use it at all. Your players will use it a lot to look up there abilities, focus abilities or look up what they get when they advance a tier. I highly recommend you to encourage the players to write down what their skills do, so they don't have to look up what they can achieve. You can also use index card for skills, or just copy the description out of your pdf! This keeps the game going, and they don't need 3 different books to look up all of their skills. Books with references for your setting are a good way for you to show of things, or let the players explore the setting.

Maps, Handouts and Pictures are always handy to enhance your play. The player like to hold things in there hands, and a good map can bring up vivid imaginations in the players. Handouts are also nice at giving the players something to explore, or just let it feel more real. I also like to prepare small index cards for things like perception rolls, things that are secret from the rest of the group or for things i want the players to introduce to the group instead of me. I write down what happens, or what they witnessed and let the players tell the group (or let them say nothing at all).

You also want some dice, even if you will not really be using them during mastering the cypher system, but there is always someone, who forgot his dice, so have some handy if your players are not prepared, or let the players share their own dice. If you are a GM who wants to roll dice badly, keep a lot of roll-able tables for everything you might need, and use them as soon as your fingers itch.

If you use a lot of handouts and maps you may want to keep a folder, with all of the things you handed to the players,You can note the date when it appeared in your campaign to keep track of continuity. This folder is also a great place to keep character sheets for the players. That guy who forgot his dice? He's a good mate, he knows other players and the GM have dice. His evil twin is the one who forgets his character, loses it, or wrote it on a piece of scrap paper that will not survive the raining weather. Don't let him take home his character-sheet! He will only use it when you and the folder are in attendance, so don't even give them the opportunity to lose it and keep it with you.

When i started out with my campaign, i also started a campaign log. I choose google docs, so anybody could write and change things. It was filled with the most important NPC's, some setting related things, a log of their inventory and currency as well as notes of the different adventures. Everyone of the player who took his time, to write a short (or longer) summary of the last adventure would get a free XP, to encourage them to write in it. Before i started my bullet journal, i used it mostly to keep track of the past adventures. You can use your folder for your handouts and printed out or written logs, to let the players look through it before the session starts, if you prefer not to start with "what happened the last time?".

More tips and tricks

If you like to draw maps, and want some tips from professional mapmakers, head over to Fantastic maps, he has a lot of tips and tricks to give your maps a professional look.

Tired of players showing 9gag gifs or browsing facebook while playing? A no cellphone rule during play will help you if the want to touch their cellphones more than their dice!

I also keep some spare pens and scrap paper for the players, if they wanna pass secret notes or did not bring their own.

Use pauses and end when its right, not when you finished. Sometimes you can tell by the look in the players faces, that its time to wrap it up. If you see something like this, just ask the players how long the want to keep playing, and find an end if they have enough. Only engage players, can play their best so sometimes its better to keep it short and postpone your great reveal or scene that you planned.

Taking short notes of the players action, writing a campaign log or a short review at the beginning of every adventure help you keep track of what happens, and more important the players are also on the same page.

Give your players the opportunity to write stories, create maps or just let them talk about ideas. It's as much their game as yours, and if you do your job well, everyone works together to create a memorable game.

So have fun and dive into your session. Let me know if i missed something you think should be in every GM's toolkit!