Skull RPG: Game Masters Tell Your Story – Details, episodes & analysis

Hey Storytellers,

We started this channel in Sept 2020 and since then we have received 3000 downloads. That is really good for not advertising this channel and just getting organic reach.

Because we do pay a premium for podcast hosting, publishing to numerous channels and helping iTunes audio quality we are switching over to just YouTube because of the costs.

We noticed that as of 3/22/21 we have about 11 - 14 people that regularly download our material. For those of you that do this - we thank you.

We would love for everyone to switch over to follow us on YouTube.

SkullRPG.com/YouTube will get you there. We have tripled our subscribers in the last month and have good engagement in our comments. We would love to see you over there as well, liking, commenting, giving video suggestions, etc.

Thanks,

Dwight and Jacob Scull

Hey Storytellers,

Sometimes you have a great idea but it isn't connected to anything at all, nor do you always know how to scale it up to use in a larger context.

Visit https://www.Skullrpg.com to see what books, free courses, and other resources are available for you and your gaming needs.

In today's episode, we cover how Olson Scott Card did this for Ender's Game and how you can do it as well in your tabletop RPG game. 

Hey Storytellers,

Two episodes ago we talked about the different eras of games using the Greek understanding of creation. So there were the golden, silver, bronze, and clay ages of humanity. Today we explore playing a game at the height of magic or technology that your world will ever see.

 Check out our newest book - Human NPC's: 84 Complete NPC's for 5th edition to use in your RPG in minutes:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCKRZTM/

Check out our first book - 19 RPG Adventures for Game Masters to Run in any TTRPG: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K

The golden age or era is one of the hardest to play an RPG in because your characters are literally becoming the legends of old. There are no ruins of value because the stuff of value is literally being created each and every day.

These are usually higher-level campaigns (or a lot more points in a GURPS system).

Listen for even more tips.

Hey Storytellers,

Sometimes your gaming table has a conflict between the players. I am not speaking about a conflict just on the table, but one that spills out to the players themselves. The kind of conflict where you can feel it in the air. Maybe even coming to verbal or physical blows. What is a game master to do?

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In this episode, we cover the five different types of gaming groups and things that the Game Master can do to diffuse the situation in each case.

I will state that in some cases you need to disband the group and keep those that weren't a cause of the conflict to begin with.

Hey Storytellers,

As a thank you gift for listening to our show Jacob and I want to give you a free book, but there is a catch.

The catch is that it is free from 11/23/20 to 11/25/20 on Amazon Kindle.

Here is how you can get this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NQ38H2K

Act fast and go there today.

Thanks for being a listener! 

Hey Storytellers,

There has been some buzz lately on the role of a Game Master in RPG's. Is this person responsible for making it fun to play? Are they the "god" of the game? These sorts of big questions.

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Today we explore the many different roles that a game master can have. I don't believe there is one correct way to be a game master, but a spectrum of options. That said I do believe there are wrong and abusive ways of being a game master.

Give this episode a listen.

Hey Storytellers,

There is a tension sometimes between telling a good story (or having a cool concept) and following the rules of the system you are using. This is more pronounced in games where the rules are highly structured. In this episode, we will explore this concept.

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If you have a great idea but it is against the rules you have several options.

1) As long as the idea isn't an object that can be easily stolen then it could be from another time and that knowledge is lost

2) I would suggest staying away from relics or artifacts on a person because many game masters inadvertently break their games this way. Eventually, the players will obtain this item, and then what would happen to your game?

3) Some game systems allow you to break the rules more easily than others for the sake of the story, but I would highly recommend that you only break those rules in a way that the players cannot abuse.

Hey Storytellers,

Many Game Masters roll in the open and let the crits fall where they may, and that may be good with your gaming group, but what if one of your players gets an automatic secret roll? In my games when I have asked for a random roll then my players get suspicious and look for things their characters couldn't know about.

Learn more at https://skullrpg.com

Get the free Tell Your Story course here: https://skullrpgbooks.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1047566/?

In this episode, we explore several different ways to roll secretly without taking away a player's ability to roll the dice themselves.

1) Have all players roll die 5 - 10 times before the game. Write these down in order and then roll a D10 secretly to determine where in the list you will start.

2) Have the player take 10 on any secret rolls and reveal successes.

3) Make everyone roll randomly for no reason 3 - 5 times in your game.

Other tips in the episode.

Hey Storytellers,

Gathering intelligence is used in long term wars or conflicts (cold war,  corporate espionage could fit into this as well) to gain the upper hand on your enemies.

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Gathering intelligence is different than gathering clues because intelligence is about finding out critical information to pass back to an organization to make a call about what to do with that information.

These are good missions for mercenaries or in war campaigns.

Another way to run this is in a Shadowrun game where the players are more in bed with one corporation than others.

Listen to the episode for more information.

Hey Storytellers,

In order to pull off using clues in your campaign you need to figure out what the players are to discover and then work backward for how the players can figure it out.

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Once you have the final result for the players work backward for how they could obtain pieces of information in parts. Three parts is the easiest way to do this. 

If your players have to find the names of three people they need to obtain one at least one name and could do side quests for the other two.

I would put the roll to obtain the fact that they need to track down three people and one of their names so low that even if all of your players rolled a one they would find out that information. If they rolled higher they could get two and if one rolled a critical success maybe give them the third name.

Otherwise they get one or two names and have to do side quests to find clues to the third person.

Listen to the episode for more on this.