Tips & tricks for the non-professional GM
Live-play shows are fun to watch, but they can set some unrealistic standards for Storytellers and players alike. The people who play in front of the camera for an audience are often professional voice actors, comedians, or people who have specific skill sets that make them fun to watch. But that’s not the majority of us. Most of us are just playing at home, fumbling accents and trying to remember our initiative bonuses or the next event in our story because we can’t find it in our damned notes… Where is it? Why didn’t I organize these better?
Ahem, anyway. The point is that some role-players need a little extra help, whether playing or Storytelling. (Or Storyelling, as the case may be sometimes.) The good news is that there are some basic tools to help.
- Bad at NPC descriptions? Show your players a picture. Pull it up onto the screen of your VTT, or pass around a phone with it on display. It takes just a moment, and then everyone knows what your NPC looks like.
- Bad at setting the mood? Throw on a piece of music. You don’t need to manage an entire playlist and keep it running the whole session, but within moments a single piece of music can set a light, triumphant, somber, or happy mood. It’s a trick that movies and shows use all the time, so why not steal it for ourselves?
- Bad at voices and accents? Describe them. Just tell your table that the NPC speaks with a Blegorth accent, or that their voice is gravely. If it’s your thing, you can even get just a little poetic about it. Maybe this Blegorthian’s voice sounds like stones grinding together in an avalanche, and you wouldn’t want to get caught under it if this guy gets angry.
Almost anyone can Storytell a game. If you have a weak area, there’s probably another way to do it. Don’t tie yourself in knots trying to be the same kind of Storyteller as the ones you see online. You have your own stories to tell, and your own way to tell them.
