Game Masters you have the ability to go over every encounter and make sure each Player Character has a chance to hold the spotlight and shine.
You
can do this simply by having a copy of the PCs character sheet to look over as
you design. Asking PCs to keep a Google document updated with their Character
sheet or perhaps saved in a shared Dropbox.
Regardless even an out of date character sheet is still better than
none.
This is because it allows you to ad pieces to your
adventures. If say the PC has ranks in craft (underwater basket weaving) or
knowing that a PC can take a 20 and unlocks a particularly hard door that no
one else could get through. You will know if the PCs can bypass a prismatic
wall or not, because they have the right set of spells or if you need to drop a
wand with gust of wind into the game, and give to the last person to have it
the PCs would expect. Or knowing that a PC has the Improved Sunder or Improved
Disarm feat means you should put in few encounters with natural weapons and include
more manufactured weapons, because again this puts the spotlight on the PC.
If you want to challenge them or humble them, make it so
things get harder if they don’t make a successful use of a skill the PC ignore.
I once had an amazing encounter with a bard who was running a printing press
and had high ranks in sense motive. My PCs had tons of secrets that they did
not want the john Q public knowing and the bard just came in and asked the PCs
questions never threatening them, or accusing them of anything. The PCs and no
ranks in Bluff and many of the PCs used Charisma as a dumb stat. It was basically
role-played that they were using blatant lies. We still laugh about it; they
could have killed the bard ten times over but failed to convince her of a
single thing.
You can have a bad adventure but if your players feel like
their characters were awesome they will still have fun, and that is the true
goal.
There is no wrong way to have fun, but there is a Rite Way ;)
Steve
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