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Let me just start by saying, I am no expert. I barely qualify as experienced. To be fair, I struggle with this every time I plan an encounter to set before my players. As I have said before, each system has suggestions and guidelines to aid you in doing this, but when I have used it, I still find my players walking all over the monsters, or it results in a TPK. So how do we figure this out?
First thing we must realize: it’s not designed for a single combat. Most of the equations are set to have multiple encounters between recovery times. We can interrupt a rest and our players will not be at a detrimental disadvantage. They will be able to handle multiple fights at their “level” of challenge, and still come out unscathed. Next thing is party size: it’s designed for an average party of four. If we have a larger party, we will have to adjust it a bit. Same thing applies if the party is smaller (though I personally feel like this is a larger adjustment). Again, we need to keep in mind that this is designed for several encounters before the party resets their resources. Last, we might as well just throw the whole system out the window. Why? Because we all know there is only going to be one battle, and we want it to be challenging for our players. (Confession here, I don’t care if my players are challenged by anything other than the major plot points.) To do this though, we must make major adjustments to the enemy. Let me give you some things that I’ve done. To make these encounters balance, I have added hit points, given legendary actions/reactions, and increased the number of minions. My most challenging fights are with intelligent creatures. They know to spread out and expend the weaker ones to save themselves. I also try to utilize mechanics such as lair actions and pre-cast wards for protection. If the equations laid out by the system works for you to balance the encounters, then use them if you’d like. However, do not let it hold you back from building your own battles. I encourage you to do what works best for your party and the style of game you have chosen to play.
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We had our first guest on stream! Unfortunately, he did not get to join the campaign as I was also missing a player. We decided to do a one-shot instead, but no one seemed upset about that! My players got to pull out some of their old characters, and our guest got to try out a level 20 character!
This also created some unique challenges for me. Not only were they level 20, but the characters had completed world altering adventures in their own worlds. Bringing them all together was…interesting. I pulled out the old trope of falling through a rift for the one character that was not originally from the world. Then there were the resources that were available to some of the characters. One in particular had created a world business and taken over an underground business. I did not want that character to rely on their resources to run over the plot of the game, so I had to pull my GM card (the one where I can say “because I said so”). I decided that the group was isolated magically from the rest of the world, but thankfully this did not come into play. Finally there was the battle. What one-shot is complete without a battle? Those of you who GM know that level 20 characters are hard to balance mechanically. I had to dig around and pull together some monsters that could hit hard while not dying on the first round. There also should be many for the characters to focus on (of course that leaves me remembering to have them all take a turn too). There may have been some moments where we lulled in action. There was an easy encounter along the way. I may have secretly tried to kill a character. However, when it is all said and done, the most important thing is that we all had fun. Mission accomplished! This has been a new adventure for me. I don’t particularly like to be on camera. I was part of several plays in school, but never on stage. I always found myself backstage doing props, costuming, or even the curtain. If I wasn’t backstage, I was in the pit (remember, bard here).
Being on camera has its own issues. I have become quite aware of what may be showing in my background. I try hard not to have anything that could be personal sitting behind me or on my walls. I know a couple of us use backgrounds, but I just don’t like how it works with my camera. So, each week I clean off anything I don’t want seen before starting. Another thing I’ve come to realize is the shakiness of my desk. One week it was particularly bad as I did a lot of leaning on it. My camera is attached to one of my monitors, and these sit on an adjustable desk (so I can stand if I want to). Unfortunately, when it is raised even one notch, it becomes quite wobbly. Though I can trust I will not knock it off my desk, nor will my monitors fall, it is just not as stable. The biggest issue that can arise is bandwidth though. Having multiple people in the house using the internet while streaming can cause cameras to blur or even cut out for a while. Sometimes we can freeze up or our audio becomes choppy. Thankfully, we have not had that problem too much, but the possibility is always there. Not being too tech savvy, I rely on others to get us set up and going. Thankfully we have a diverse group. Each of us have unique skills and abilities that we can utilize when we need anything. Having a network of people to aid in this is essential to keeping it going, week after week. GM burnout is real! The moment you start to drag your feet in preparation, or feel like you're going to an unwanted appointment when it’s game night, you need to check in with yourself. Ask yourself, “Why?”
Are you running out of ideas? Are you receiving less engagement? Do you have something more exciting bubbling to the surface? Does your game nights seem redundant? Sometimes it just takes a break to refresh the creativity and excitement of the current game. Other times, it may take jumping into something else for an extended time. Keep an open communication with your game group through. If you need time, let them know, one of your players may surprise you by running a few one shots, or a shorter campaign even. This gives you the opportunity to step out of the driver’s seat for a while and just enjoy the ride. If you find yourself stagnant, put the current campaign aside and try something new. Continue to be open and honest with your players and let them know that you need something different for a bit. You can always come back to the campaign after a brief time, or even after another entire campaign. If you get only one thing from this, talk to your players. What you are thinking may not even be the case for them. They may be having a wonderful time and don’t feel like anything is redundant. Just as you would encourage each of them to keep playing, they will do the same for you to run (sometimes for their own selfish reasons, but take it where you can get it). Do not fidget with your dice. However, it’s okay to pre-roll at times. Of course you want to clear this with the GM first. Discuss with them when it is okay and when they may want you to wait. Personally, combat is optimal for pre-rolling your hit/damage dice.
I know many of you think this is a form of cheating. I’m not denying that cheaters can use this as a way to fudge their dice results, but this is a great way to speed up combat. You must know your players before implementing this, and make sure that pre-rolling turn actions do not distract from other players. Being an online gaming group, this is simple. I trust my players already and do not ask them to roll digitally or have a “die cam”, so this is easy to implement at my table. Along with this, it can also spread to skill checks. After I describe an area or set a scene, I am perfectly okay if players roll their dice and let me know what their skill check results are. For example, I set a scene of an unusually quiet field with overgrown crops, the scarecrow hanging by one arm, and an unnatural mist rolling in from the western forest. My players are allowed to just roll a skill check and let me know what their character is doing and the result of the roll. I will then give them what they discover, based on the result. I think this cuts down on the mechanical talks at the table. This is one way to stay in character without breaking into rules talks or metagaming. If the check that they rolled doesn’t apply, as a GM, you can change that and ask for a different roll. The more you play with your group and they become comfortable with you as their GM, they will roll what you would have asked for eventually. I am a very relaxed GM and I like my players to take initiative. Part of this probably comes about because of delving into other systems. I have discovered that the more player agency for a game, usually the more fun is being had. Very few people like to play an RPG and be told what you see, how you feel, the action you can take, and what is the result. This kind of experience can be found while reading a good book. RPG players want the ability to make decisions and respond to the effects. They want to develop their character from a nobody to a somebody, and make friends along the way. I have already disclosed I am not a D&D only gamer. I like to run 5e because I’m familiar with it and enjoy high fantasy/high magic adventures. Creating on-the-fly encounters and adjustments to the bad guys is easy in this system for me. However, I have begun to branch out and try running other games.
Throughout the past year, I have been involved in several 2d20 games. This system, to me, is even more simple. Everything is determined by these dice for actions and the characters are one page, often including equipment. If an action causes damage, or has an ongoing effect, you use a number of d6s to determine that outcome. So, I have begun to feel comfortable enough with this to try my hand at GMing. I play with a group on Sundays, and one week, our regular GM couldn’t make it. I asked if the group would be willing to let me run a 2d20 one shot. Of course, since it was my first time in the seat for this system, and everyone else’s first time playing, we only got about three quarters of it completed. It went over great and all the players seemed to really enjoy it. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get back to it yet, as we are in another campaign currently. Reflecting back on it, there are definitely things I will need to look into more. Spells, for instance. Some of the games that use 2d20 do not even allow for spell casting, but the one I was using did. I need to reread those chapters about magic to get a better understanding of their mechanics. The other area is monsters. Since I was using a prewritten scenario, it came with the monsters already, but I will need to understand how to create them if I were to run a campaign (or one shot) with 2d20 again. Those of you who follow my postings, and are GMs yourself, be encouraged to try new games and systems that you are not familiar with. Let your players know you would like to give it a go with them if they are willing. Usually, your players will be happy to try something new, just remember to be patient with each other as you work through mechanics. I’m going to let you in on a bit of background. The picture for this page is actually my sister’s Bible. Everytime I see this I cannot help but smile, no matter what kind of mood I’m in. The story behind this picture was just comical, something I imagine from old cartoons.
You see, my sister was in town for a visit, and in my family, we rarely go anywhere without our Bibles. We had gone out on the town one day and she accidentally left her Bible in the backseat of the car. Of course, we didn’t think anything about it for several hours since we were back home and having coffee (well, I was probably having tea since I do not like coffee). My son borrowed the car to visit friends or go to some event (I don’t remember), but when he returned, he was carrying her Bible ever so gently. The look on his face told me he was mortified about what had happened, and he was truly concerned he had completely destroyed it. He had driven around with all the windows down, and the wind had wreaked havoc on its pages. Of course my sister was shocked, but we all started laughing. After making sure all the pages were still present as some had already pulled free of the binding, we set it on the table and took this picture. Next was the painstaking process of flattening out all the pages again so we could close the book. It took several minutes to do so as the pages are thin. So, everytime I see this picture, I smile. I picked this picture because my thoughts are sometimes like those pages, all jumbled and messy, but still in some semblance of order. I have to look through each one and flatten it out to see if the idea is worth pursuing, or should I just go to the next page. Just a word of advice though, don’t leave a book in the backseat of the car with all the windows down. All gaming groups go through this. Players are going to have to miss a session here or there, it is inevitable. No one wants to pause the game, yet it is unfair to the one who couldn’t make game night if it continues. So, what do we do?
One way I have handled this was to write that character “out” of the campaign for a night, giving the others basically a one-shot scenario for the session. This works great if you can pull off actually completing a one-shot in one night (which I often cannot do). It can also be a moment that you can work with the missing player as to why their character was not there, giving you a chance to add something special or a new hook into the campaign. The other way I like to handle this is to just pull everyone away from the campaign and do something different. Try a new system, try out new monsters or homebrew rules for the current system, or do something completely off the wall. This keeps the missing player from missing anything in the campaign, and gives others a break. Trying something new, or different, also gives an opportunity for one of the other players to take the GM seat. Often players want to learn how to run a game, or have an idea they’d like to try. This can give you, the regular GM, a break as well. Encourage other players to run a game. It is a perfect time to let them try it out without the long term commitment. No matter what, you will want to keep the missing player involved in some manner if you want to continue the campaign. If you choose to do something completely different, or just take the night off, this can make them feel important and needed to continue the campaign. No matter how you handle players missing a game night, do not make them feel like they are being ostracized. There are many things that you can draw inspiration from. Movies, books, even music can get the creative juices flowing. Sometimes, even reality can bring questions such as “How would I have handled that?” or “What would have happened if…?” These are great jumping points to work out an idea for a story or character. For this corner, we are talking characters.
My most recent adventure in this was while I was building a character for a current campaign that I’m playing in (yes, I play). The system is Pathfinder, so I used the SRD for much of what I was doing. Digging through some of the classes, I landed on Psychic. It looked different enough to me that I was excited to give it a try. Then I asked, “What’s my story?” This was the first time I built a character mechanically before laying out at least a general idea of who this person was. After watching the series “The Witcher,” I got to thinking about how the world is built, its magic and political structures. I decided that my character’s powers were going to be an uncommon set of skills. The abilities would be present at a young age, then trained to mastery in order to become an invaluable asset to a ruler. Now I had her backstory laid out as already stated: showed promise young, trained, then sent to a kingdom as an advisor, but then had to come up with a reason for adventuring with this group of nobodies. Since the group was being commissioned by an allied ruler, and being sent off into unknown/untamed lands, it was seen as beneficial for an advisor, especially one of psychic ability, to accompany the group. They believed this would aid in their chances of success. There I had it. My character, complete with backstory, was ready to go! Inspired by the world of “The Witcher.” When you find a cool idea and want to imitate it, that is awesome! Come up with a story for your character and build from it. Trust me, GMs love it and will add elements of it into the overall plot of the game they are creating as well. This is part of how the story becomes collaborative, it is now a world created together. I am looking at returning to school. It would be for music (remember, bard here), but I know it will take time and dedication. As I am writing this, I am looking forward to conducting a piece or two with a volunteer band in 2024. Studying a score, to me, is like building a story. As a closet writer, some of these stories come easily, others take a bit more work.
Learning the music and its chord progressions builds the plot and theme of the piece. Conducting a group to play it is much like pulling readers into the book, making the characters come to life. I have to be aware of my body posture and facial expressions as I lead the group into the feelings I want portrayed, all while showing dynamics and articulation. It can be quite a balancing act as I show the musical side without letting the musicians get lost. I say this because I want you to know I am not just a gamer. RPG is not my life, and it should not be yours either. Take time to enjoy other hobbies, whether it be crafting, music, writing, travel, or even volunteer work. Allowing yourself to fall into things where you find enjoyment aids in your own self awareness. I have become a more well rounded individual through my involvement in volunteer bands, family, church, sewing, and even at my computer as I write. Not only that, it gives you experiences to draw from when building campaign scenarios or NPCs that the players will encounter. Give yourself time to interact with the real world around you, encounter new faces, visit new places, read a book, listen to a podcast…you might just find your next great campaign. |
AuthorJodie 
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March 2026
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