Today's Draw Steel session went great! Train Gang adopted a mysterious robot girl, found that demon fog can mutate corpses, learned about the God of Winter's role as defender against eldritch horrors, received the "wrong" versions of their intended leveled treasures, and finally reached level 2.

Took some time today to test out my planned layout for Treat Yourself. Everything here isn't final but I am pleased on how clean and cohesive it looks so far.

Huge shoutout to @nalshiradraws.bsky.social for the absolutely wonderful artwork of the various respite activities in Treat Yourself. It got me excited to finish writing that Draw Steel downtime supplement so I can lay them out onto the page.

Played Trials of Innocence with my partner watching. The 1st case (after the prelude) was brutal on my emotions. If the game's next cases are anything like the previous ones, I need to pace myself or I'll be stuck feeling things until next month.

I play it open because I love the my players' reactions when I just go: "Okay, top of the round, and I gain 6 malice!" Although, how I use it is more of a performative gesture, really. The differences aren't big so I'd say experimenting a bit early on would help you find the style you'd prefer.

Pros of being a GM that makes 3rd party products: you have a (generally) stable tester base, you can test your stuff in an organic environment, easy to do hotfixes. Cons: my players have started a bit where they talk about my stuff like its a paid ad and I'm sponsoring our home game.

YOU ARE ALLOWED TO MAKE YOUR OWN VERSION YOU ARE ALLOWED TO MODIFY ANTHING YOU OWN TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS YOU ARE ALLOWED TO CREATE YOUR OWN WORLDS YOU ARE ALLOWED TO DO IT YOUR OWN WAY

The more I write GM advice, the more I feel there's an element of accessibility design. I can't say: improv this! I need to give scaffolding. The ones who can improv well don't need help. It's those who are tired or need a quick prompt. So I have to step back to ask who can't follow and why.

Feels great to finally schedule sessions for my 5 tables for the month. It's been a while since I last properly ran games so I'm eager to get back into the groove.

There is advice in my negotiation supplement, Speak Carefully, that outcomes are much easier to envision when the negotiator has their own goal. I've ran the outcomes as both a binary whether they convinced or not, and the degree the negotiator feels confident in the heroes based on the arguments.

Let me know if you have any questions! My DMs are always open if you need it. I really love negotiations and it's a personal goal of mine to help elevate them for other directors too!

7. Establish Parting Impressions. Once the talks reached their end, close off the negotiation with a short roleplay scene. This is also your opportunity to roleplay the aftermath and as your final way to characterizing the negotiator and make them more alive to the players.

5. Roleplay a back and forth. To keep negotiations engaging, avoid conceding too quickly or too many times in a row. One trick is to roleplay the argument past the roll. Let the negotiator weakly defend their position, or ask a clarifying position, then yield after some additional discussion.

4. Pre-Negotiation Scene. While tempting to start negotiations immediately, I found it works smoother when you start with a brief roleplay scene. Here you can let them talk for a bit and let the heroes do some last minute investigations, like probing their native language.

3. Complicate Zone of Rapport. You can pair a motivation with a related pitfall to flip what seemed like a safe topic into a disaster; hedge motivations with caveats (ex. artificer wants Power, but only within the tri-state area); associate pitfalls with phrases and topics to broaden pitfalls.

2. Nuance negotiator goals. While the heroes are likely trying obtain something valuable, the negotiator can have different priorities. They may want to ensure certain relationships are kept or care a lot about how its down. Reflect this in their motivations and pitfalls.

Heyo! There's a lot I can suggest, but I'll try to condense it to a 7 points. 1. Establish negotiation goals early. Have the heroes hash out what they want or need before the negotiations begin. In the same vein, have the negotiator also have a goal that they want. That way, talks are purposeful.