GM Mode: Sharing My Lessons Learned and Tips -- What are yours?

After 200+ hours of both creating in GM mode and hosting in GM mode, I would like to share some tips and tricks in hopes we all learn together.



1. The pause button, use it often. As with table top D&D, warn the party members, running off and exploring without being slow and methodical can have dire consequences. Use the D20 roll often for checks is a good way to slow it down.



2. The Encounter Tab. Learn it, use it, love it. Set nearly all encounters via the Encounter Tab, using it to change neutral to enemy or hidden enemies (deactivated) to activated. It is also used as an easy fix for an armor bug, by raising and lowing the level of the creature to the desired level. Sometimes the armor amount can appear buggy, if you raise the level of the creature via the level tab one level higher than needed, then back down; this will reset all armor stats. (If the party is having an easy time during the fights, use Encounter panel to increase monster level or lower if the opposite is true.)



3. Inspect all creatures you place, they are what you make them to be. Regardless of the skills you give them, if you don’t give them enough memory or the correct weapon they will not memorize or be able to use the skill you gave it. I suggest you micromanage every creature you use, rename and save them once you have them the way you want. Make sure you change the creatures AI from “Basic” to the type of AI best suited for the creature. Don't forget to use the Status Effects Tab and set it at -1 can give a permenant boost or debuff on player or NPC.



4. Fog of War: Kind of. Example. I set a bunch of undead around a chest in a cemetery. Before I deactivated the undead, I put them into “sneak mode”. Once the party member tried to loot the chest, I paused the game. I then used the Encounter Tab and activated all the undead; AMBUSH!



5. Workarounds*

a. Leaving Clues: You can place books on enemies with text that you write in the book (cool for immersion and adding hints)

b. Hiding Chests or Items: Use a dead deactivated body to hold clues, chests, items or whatever you want. You can have the party roll a D20 and if you think they rolled high enough, activate the dead body and when they search it they find what you hidden.

c. Loot: If you don’t want to create tons of loot for them to find, just give every party member a “Lucky Charm of 5”. Then place tons of lootable items, “barrels, skeletons, box ect”…and let Lucky Charm randomly provide level appropriate magic items.

d. Who or what am I? DOS2 allows players to inspect your NPC. But as my party found out, I placed a Dragon (deactivated) next to my NPC. When it was time, I deactivated my NPC and activated the Dragon, which essentially became my NPC is Dragon form.

e. If you open a container by accident and turns it grey (has in already been looted) but want it reset to gold (not looted) simply “duplicate” the container (chest, barrel, whatever). The duplicate will have the same items as the original and be “gold” when you hover over it to loot. Now delete the original and keep the duplicate, problem solved.



6. Use the hell out of Vignette Panel. If you look at my campaign in the Workshop; (All that Cataclysmic♥♥♥♥♥♥), you will notice my campaign starts with four Vignette’s of mostly text and pictures to set up the world and campaign. In theory, if you use discord, you could also have the players listen to a pre-recorded tale you have ahead of time or a video you post there in order to set things up. I also suggest you take a look at a D20 bonus sheet I created which gives bonuses to dice rolls depending on how high your stat is.



7. I personally hate that I cannot observe the battle from within the battle (as players see it) unless I take total control of the creature or NPC. Unless you just want the AI to roll with it, I recommend you take control of creatures and give party a beatdown.



8. You cannot have an NPC that is ‘following’ the party follow a party member. The NPC will teleport with party to the next encounter, but will not move on its own. Except this and just drag the NPC along as best as possible.



9. Final Thought. By necessity, GM or DM campaigns are linear. The party just can’t go where they want, when they want like in DOS2. But you can create an interesting campaign with consequences. The world of D&D is harsh; there must be the real risk of defeat and the adrenalin rush of victory to create a true sense of accomplishment for players. If you found a work around or something you think could help me, please let me know!



