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Swordgleam
2010-06-02, 07:47 PM
Everyone likes to commiserate, and with all the DMing advice around online, it's easy to feel like you suck if you're not the uber-DM. So in the spirit of feeling better about ourselves, let's all share the parts of DMing we suck at.

I'm bad at combat description. I can pull off a few awesome "His sword arcs through the air with a keening whine and slices into your shoulder" every fight, but then I get caught up in managing all the numbers and the dice and rapidly backslide into "he hits you for 12 damage." It usually ends up with only criticals getting more than a verb and an adverb worth of description.

I'm mediocre at monster tactics. I can remember to use their special powers and stuff, but I don't usually have them do anything unexpected or clever or that distinguishes them from other monsters with similar powers. Same as the above problem - I just get too caught up in keeping the combat running smoothly.

How about you?

Chainsaw Hobbit
2010-06-02, 07:52 PM
Tracking init. :smalleek:

AstralFire
2010-06-02, 07:53 PM
As a DM, I often try to give my party extremely intricate encounters using mechanics I myself have only used a few times before, and often fall to extreme ad hoc just to keep things moving.

Drakevarg
2010-06-02, 07:54 PM
Improv. I need, at minimum, a few hours to prepare for a session. Making stuff up literally on the fly results in bad things happening. *shudders at the memories*

Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-06-02, 07:57 PM
Heh, the combat description at my table is... lacking as well.

I also have difficulty getting the railroad/sandbox mix right, alternating between dropping a hook in the players' laps and expecting (not really demanding, but expecting) that they follow it, and giving them no or very few hooks, leaving them searching.

I also feel like the RP between encounters is just killing time until the next one, but I think it's more the party's fault than mine. (One player even told another to "come on already" during a roleplay-heavy discussion with a guardsman.)

Lycan 01
2010-06-02, 07:59 PM
Lets go by game...


DnD: Probably my best game. No major issues.

Star Wars: Balance and challenge. The players just walk though encounters... Jedi make my soul weep.

Dark Heresy: I'm better at winging it than running pre-written scenarios. :smallconfused:

Shadowrun: *points imaginary gun at side of head*

Paranoia: I don't get to do anything. They spend 2 hours killing each other in the briefing room.

Call of Cthulhu: Players who don't realize they're supposed to be scared. :smallannoyed:

Chainsaw Hobbit
2010-06-02, 07:59 PM
Improv. I need, at minimum, a few hours to prepare for a session. Making stuff up literally on the fly results in bad things happening. *shudders at the memories*

Oooooo, I forgot to add that, I remember the last time I made a medium-length adventure with 30-minute prep time. :smalleek:

Froogleyboy
2010-06-02, 08:02 PM
Well, keeping characters from murdering everyone is one of my big flaws. Also, I can't work with pre-written stuff

Swordgleam
2010-06-02, 08:03 PM
Tracking init. :smalleek:

Some people use index cards that they put in the right order at the start of the battle and then move around when people delay/whatever. Have you tried that?


As a DM, I often try to give my party extremely intricate encounters using mechanics I myself have only used a few times before, and often fall to extreme ad hoc just to keep things moving.

I know how that goes. Especially when starting a new system. I feel like ad hoc'ing stuff is a lot better than letting things grind to a halt while you look everything up.

Enix18
2010-06-02, 08:05 PM
Prepping for adventures. I pretty much have to improvise all my games. I find it exceedingly difficult to actually plan things out, which doesn't always work in my favor...

Also, running dungeons. In my entire DMing career I have run only one dungeon, and since then I have stuck solely to encounters as far away from dungeons as humanly possible.

Private-Prinny
2010-06-02, 08:06 PM
I suck at:

1. World building.
2. Descriptions.
3. Not killing my party.

Fortunately, I'm DMing with someone else who can cover my flaws.

doliest
2010-06-02, 08:07 PM
1.Reminding myself that the players intend to survive each session; usually I counter my lethal DMing with various ways to survive, incorperating it into the story.

2.I can't predict my players. My story has been killed so many times because I can't predict the players. 2 can fuse with 1 where I attempt to off the players for completely destroying my story. (Un?)Fortunately I have a player who loves Monks and turns them into invincible death machines. I once had the players grow 8 levels in an hour and a half.

Temotei
2010-06-02, 08:07 PM
As a DM, I often try to give my party extremely intricate encounters using mechanics I myself have only used a few times before, and often fall to extreme ad hoc just to keep things moving.

This. :smallsmile:

ZeroNumerous
2010-06-02, 08:08 PM
Does 'all of it' count?

Darakonis
2010-06-02, 08:09 PM
Sorry for the off-topic, but you're the creator of Chaotic Shiny? Love the site. Great resource for my world-building. Thanks for contributing to the community.

Peace,
-Darakonis

Dienekes
2010-06-02, 08:16 PM
Dropping subtle hints at complexity.

I love making highly intricate storylines with layers of different things happening. I think I'm fairly good at keeping all this strait and consistent. Of course the only way this works (for me at least) is if hints are given to the players to show that no, I'm not throwing a wrench into their plans just because I don't want them to get stuff, but that certain other characters have plans of their own. I can't get the right mix of hint yet, either I say something in passing that goes completely over their heads or it's a beacon that pretty much informs my players of what the next big surprise will be.

Also my encounters could use some fine tuning on the balancing side.

tiercel
2010-06-02, 08:17 PM
One of the things I've had the most trouble with involves the "referee" hat the DM wears -- in this case, not so much as "rules referee" (though sometimes I do have a tendency to let the game get bogged down because I *really do* want to know what the result "should be") but as a referee for the players themselves.

Sometimes players get their characters into intraparty disputes -- handled well, this can be amusing and/or dramatic. If this starts to drive the party into more of a PvP mentality where the game is a traditional cooperative campaign, or more generally it starts to result in bad blood/hurt feelings *between players,* it's a problem for the game.

I tend to be a "hands-off" kind of DM, in trying to give my players and their characters free reign within reason in how they approach the story seeds I present them with. Recognizing -- and heading off -- a personal dispute between players is not my strongest suit though, and if anyone at the table has/is supposed to have the authority to head off a dispute like this, it should be (or at least include) the DM.

It's not a part of DMing that you tend to think about unless or until things go wrong, for whatever reason -- but when it's needed, it's pretty important. The game doesn't work so well if you have players cheesed off at each other and not wanting to play together.


Dropping subtle hints at complexity.

I don't think this is easy for *anyone*. It's potentially awesome to try and run some kind of mystery/conspiracy/etc., because there are plenty of examples of such in literature (fantasy and otherwise) -- but in a book, the author can control exactly what the reader sees and how his characters will obtain and react to information.

In D&D, you never know if your players will blow up your entire plot by asking the right question you're not prepared for, using the right divination spell, getting a crazy hunch (they are 3-6 brains to your one, after all), or alternatively just shrugging blankly and wandering their characters off to kill more orcs.

Riddles in D&D are problematic for much the same reason -- though they can be a staple of the genre, riddles tend to be either silly easy or pointless torture for most players. Finding a riddle that is challenging and satisfying is a lot harder than trying to balance the EL of a fight.

Kylarra
2010-06-02, 08:19 PM
descriptions are my big failure.

Talon Sky
2010-06-02, 08:23 PM
I also feel like the RP between encounters is just killing time until the next one, but I think it's more the party's fault than mine. (One player even told another to "come on already" during a roleplay-heavy discussion with a guardsman.)

God, this. Just so this. My group is so bloody unbalanced between RPers and combat masters it's sickening. Two of the girls in my group adore RPing, their characters are specifically built to do it well (lots of ranks in appropriate skills, Cha+ items), but they severely lack in combat skills. Then, two of the guys in my group are combat-oriented, with little interest or attention for plot and role playing.

That's where my biggest flaw shows: I try to give everyone a chance to shine, but it's so split. During the RP sections, the girls have a blast but I can't keep the two guy's attention. During combat, everyone does well, but the combat masters far outstrip the RPers to the point they don't see the point in joining in.

My other major flaw is I'm generous with treasure....extremely generous.

Dust
2010-06-02, 08:26 PM
Villainous dialogue. I often find I have NPCs and BBEGs lacking a coherent response to whatever the party just blurted out, and they end up standing there slack-jawed most of the time.

Talon Sky
2010-06-02, 08:28 PM
Villainous dialogue. I often find I have NPCs and BBEGs lacking a coherent response to whatever the party just blurted out, and they end up standing there slack-jawed most of the time.

Throw an insane BBEG at them that no matter what the party says, will simply spout off nonesense like "Beware! The donkies fear the one-eyed cheese!" Very effective for a laugh, and the PCs WILL try and find some hidden meaning where there is none.

PersonMan
2010-06-02, 08:33 PM
I'm not good with treasure. I don't get too bad, but I tend to give out too little treasure. Other than that, it's sometimes hard for me to work out the parts of my plot between the beginning and the end.

Swordgleam
2010-06-02, 08:34 PM
Dropping subtle hints at complexity.


Seconding the "everyone sucks at this" motion. I've only gotten a really cool "big reveal" exactly right twice, and I just finished a campaign that was filled with that kind of stuff. And the second time had more to do with my players being exactly the right amount of paranoid than me planning well - to quote two of them, "Why didn't you tell me that?" "I assumed you already knew and were hiding it." "Why?!" "Because it's exactly the sort of thing you wouldn't tell us!"


Sorry for the off-topic, but you're the creator of Chaotic Shiny? Love the site. Great resource for my world-building. Thanks for contributing to the community.

Thanks! Part of the secret motivation for this thread was actually to get some inspiration on what sorts of generators DMs can use. For example, I made the Damager (don't think I can directly link to it in a post since it's on the site I make money off of, even though it's free) to help with combat description, since it's one of the things I'm bad at.


That's where my biggest flaw shows: I try to give everyone a chance to shine, but it's so split.

You could have a combat that also involves negotiation - convince half the guards to free the hostages / switch to the side of justice / whatever while slaughtering the half that will never help you. Or split up the party, have the girls RP somewhere while the guys smash faces, and switch back and forth every round. Those tricks only work every once in a while, though.

Starscream
2010-06-02, 08:41 PM
Not very good at giving a unique voice and personality to my NPCs. I do alright when I'm a player, because there's just one character for me to look after.

But with NPCs I tend to not speak as them and just sort of say what they're saying, so to speak. For example, I'll say "The barkeep nods and explains that the wizards' tower is on the other side of town" rather than speak as the barkeep and say something like "Aye, if it's the book-thumping know-it-alls you're wanting, you'll find them across the way in that shrine to overcompensation they erected."

I do better when it's stuff I've written ahead of time. But I'm hopeless when I need to make stuff up on the fly for people to say. Best trick I've learned is to imagine some well known actor playing the role, and imagine what they'd say.

That's how I ended up with a kingdom being run by King Brian the Blessed, by the way. The players recognized my amateurish impersonation, and decided to run with it.:smallamused:

Talon Sky
2010-06-02, 08:41 PM
You could have a combat that also involves negotiation - convince half the guards to free the hostages / switch to the side of justice / whatever while slaughtering the half that will never help you.

The combat masters would kill them anyways, not trusting them ;p I tried this once and it didn't help that the guy actually WAS a spy for the BBEG and they ended up having to kill him in the end. Lol


Or split up the party, have the girls RP somewhere while the guys smash faces, and switch back and forth every round. Those tricks only work every once in a while, though.

This could work. I see how it would bog the combat down, but I could try it once and see how well it works.

Swordgleam
2010-06-02, 08:53 PM
This could work. I see how it would bog the combat down, but I could try it once and see how well it works.

It stays at about the same pace, since the girls aren't taking up rounds of combat. And it heightens tension in the diplomacy-ing part, especially if it's something that should get finished before the combat is over. I've used it a couple of times to good effect. Just gave the missing characters an initiative same as usual and switched back to them on that.

Talon Sky
2010-06-02, 08:59 PM
It stays at about the same pace, since the girls aren't taking up rounds of combat. And it heightens tension in the diplomacy-ing part, especially if it's something that should get finished before the combat is over. I've used it a couple of times to good effect. Just gave the missing characters an initiative same as usual and switched back to them on that.

Oooo, like convincing the BBEG not to fry them why the Samurai and dwarf fend off his ever-infinite minion army....

You, my friend, have just given me my next session climax. :D

Swordgleam
2010-06-02, 09:09 PM
Oooo, like convincing the BBEG not to fry them why the Samurai and dwarf fend off his ever-infinite minion army....

You, my friend, have just given me my next session climax. :D

Good luck! :smallbiggrin: Just try to have the action taking place in different locations or else your combat monkies will probably end up charging the BBEG instead.

IonDragon
2010-06-02, 09:17 PM
NPCs. The party always wants to kill the one's I don't have statted up and completely ignores the ones I have a full sheet for. ALWAYS. That and just D&D in general. It takes a lot of thought and work for me to cram the rules into a believable world. It feels a lot like trying to put a giant octopus in a 3' box with nothing but a broom handle to help you.

I usually just hang the idea and take a generic fantasy world and let the only people who follow the rules be the PCs and those in their immediate vicinity. Everyone else moves at the rate of plot.

Dienekes
2010-06-02, 09:18 PM
Well it's gladdening to know that many have the same trouble as me (misery and company and all that). So I'll add in another.

Dialogue during combat. I can't seem to get the flow of it at all, it ends up being whatever villains are involved giving half-arsed cliches, and the players saying snippet one liners back at them without any thought put into it.

And that's on a good run, most of my combats (Bosses included unfortunately) fight in utmost silence. Rather anti-climatic.


Not very good at giving a unique voice and personality to my NPCs. I do alright when I'm a player, because there's just one character for me to look after.

But with NPCs I tend to not speak as them and just sort of say what they're saying, so to speak. For example, I'll say "The barkeep nods and explains that the wizards' tower is on the other side of town" rather than speak as the barkeep and say something like "Aye, if it's the book-thumping know-it-alls you're wanting, you'll find them across the way in that shrine to overcompensation they erected."

If I may be a bit presumptuous as to give advice on this. I found for me, that when fitting a voice and talk distinctly it's easier if before you open your mouth to sit as the character would sit (or stand if you're roleplaying standing for whatever reason). Would the barkeep be hunched over cleaning a filthy mug for example? Fit yourself into that position then talk.

If you try it, I hope it helps.

Swordgleam
2010-06-02, 09:20 PM
NPCs. The party always wants to kill the one's I don't have statted up and completely ignores the ones I have a full sheet for. ALWAYS.

I used to have that problem. Now I just jot down an arbitrary to-hit bonus and defenses that seem appropriate, decide on one or two reasonably cool attacks, and make up skill bonuses on the fly. That's really all the stats you need for most interactions.

Obviously it doesn't work for groups that view D&D as more a game and want to know the DM is following the same rules they are, but if the story is more important, it's a huge timesaver.

Saveducks
2010-06-02, 09:39 PM
Finishing the campaign often the campaign will be consitently fun and then just die off near the end. And I always forget to plan for example in this entire campaign (almost three months) I have stated out one enemy. Fortunatley I am good enough at improvising to cover it.

Kroy
2010-06-02, 09:54 PM
Saying "No" to players and explaining that while some stuff is "physically possible" that it doesn't work in game.

Gensh
2010-06-02, 10:02 PM
Planning encounters. I think I might have done it once this year...or anything beyond a basic plot for that matter - 95% of my GMing is pure improv.

Of course, part of this problem is because of the second one being that my players usually play roughly the same characters each time, and by this point, they know as soon as a campaign starts that player P is going to start a cult, player M will be his backstabbing right-hand man, and player T will be the only one with any morals whatsoever but will risk his life to remove the eyeballs from any defeated enemy. Heck, I started a new campaign last night and they managed to literally kill each other within 2 hours (though technically, the warforged druid killed himself).

Hendel
2010-06-02, 10:08 PM
When I am running multiple bad guys, I often find myself doing a facesplat and saying, "Darn it! They had True Seeing" or something like that after they got plastered from the invisible rogues. It is usually not that obvious, but just something I planned for ahead of time that slipped my mind during the fog of war.

big teej
2010-06-02, 10:28 PM
"Aye, if it's the book-thumping know-it-alls you're wanting, you'll find them across the way in that shrine to overcompensation they erected."


do you mind if I use that?

anyways, my contribution is something that became glaringly obvious in a solo campaign I started running a buddy of mine in the other day.
I am TERRIBLE at coming up with names on the fly. terrible terrible terrible, I think the session ended with 5 - 8 npcs being introduced, I think 2 had names

And my buddy came up with one.:smallfrown:

Talon Sky
2010-06-02, 10:43 PM
do you mind if I use that?

anyways, my contribution is something that became glaringly obvious in a solo campaign I started running a buddy of mine in the other day.
I am TERRIBLE at coming up with names on the fly. terrible terrible terrible, I think the session ended with 5 - 8 npcs being introduced, I think 2 had names

And my buddy came up with one.:smallfrown:

Google D&D Tool Archive. The first site has a Random Name Generator, I usually keep up when we play.

Eloi
2010-06-02, 10:49 PM
I think I'm an OK DM when it comes to story, characters, role-playing in general, but roll-playing and rule-playing I'm very bad at. I'm just bad at keeping track of so many numbers and rules, even with cheat-sheets. I'm trying to get better at it tho'.

Starscream
2010-06-02, 10:51 PM
do you mind if I use that?

Help yourself. All my characters tend to talk like that.

Which may be a big part of my problem. I never use three words when ten will do. Makes it harder to think this stuff up on the fly.

Dragonfire
2010-06-02, 10:55 PM
Stuff I suck at:
Dropping a hint- My players tend to think in strange ways and I have trouble letting them do there own thing without screaming at them.

Controlling the Group- Big one, my group won't shut-up it dosen't help were all really good freinds either. Most of the time I end up just siting there wait tell one of the players notices my death glare. That and the joking... same one every freaking time... damn road....

Getting diffrent character's right- Takes me sometime to change the mode of speak between characters.

I can do most everything else okay.

PersonMan
2010-06-02, 10:58 PM
Names. I'm fairly good with names, although they all end up very exotic-sounding. In a recent game I introduced Sherneshnershneshnerv(say it very fast, all together. That is how it's pronounced) and Zereshneryzshnervadersh(the same).

To illustrate in text, I'd write it: Sherneshnershneshnerv and Zereshneryzshnervadersh.

big teej
2010-06-02, 10:59 PM
Help yourself. All my characters tend to talk like that.

Which may be a big part of my problem. I never use three words when ten will do. Makes it harder to think this stuff up on the fly.

I tend to be good at making up descriptions, case in point, I managed to pull three fully (visually) fleshed out npcs that for my buddy's campaign.

dialouge? typically not so much, unless I already have a slight idea in mind.

anyways, I like that line alot, and I'm sure my group will get a huge laugh out of it.

Knaight
2010-06-02, 11:01 PM
First sessions. So many of my games just tank during session one, then get good. I've got much better at this, but its still hit and miss.:smallfrown:

One shots are even harder. Every time I try to do one, the session ends and we are nowhere, nowhere near done. Nowhere near half done even.

Rising Phoenix
2010-06-02, 11:04 PM
Names. I suck at coming up with creative or cool names on the spot. I am ok if I have time to think about it.

Doing a dialogue between two NPCs. I simply cannot switch personalities quickly.

Accents. I just can't do them. For example my Scottish accent sounds like a Transylvanian Dwarven Vampire...

NPC personalities. Most are generic especially when created on the fly. However, I am getting better at it. I find that writing a few key quotes works way better then describing their personality.

Swordgleam
2010-06-02, 11:05 PM
I am TERRIBLE at coming up with names on the fly. terrible terrible terrible, I think the session ended with 5 - 8 npcs being introduced, I think 2 had names

Most people have trouble with this. NPC names is one of the few things I don't improv. This is also why there are so many random name generators out there. I use my own all the time. I think all the characters in my latest campaign that were introduced later than the first session and didn't have names that were dictionary words had names from generators.

aje8
2010-06-02, 11:05 PM
Preperation: No matter what, we always end up playing before I'm ready to go. Additionally, I find the task of thinking up the specifics arduous. I have an overarrching plot, but actually starting NPCs is hard for me.

Roleplaying NPCs: I can up with interesting NPC personalties, but I can't actually play them well at the table. During the game all my NpCs sound the same. May try the imitate posture thing though.

Swordgleam
2010-06-02, 11:06 PM
Doing a dialogue between two NPCs. I simply cannot switch personalities quickly.

I hate talking to myself in front of my players. I usually say something like, "And then they both leave the room. None of you follow them; I don't feel like talking to myself." If a PC eavesdrops, I can just summarize the conversation.

PersonMan
2010-06-02, 11:15 PM
Most people have trouble with this. NPC names is one of the few things I don't improv. This is also why there are so many random name generators out there. I use my own all the time. I think all the characters in my latest campaign that were introduced later than the first session and didn't have names that were dictionary words had names from generators.

I have...sort of the same problem. I can come up with names, but for characters I need lots of time to find a name that "fits", and my improv names are...well, see the above post. More:
Xerias
Leranasa
Kishiren
Viteriolos
Kel Revangear

And I'll even forget within minutes. It's insane. I'll sometimes even ask "What's this guy's name again?" if I just completely blank. It doesn't help that "Xerianalvazdrezz" or "Lynishendrion" don't lend themselves to being remembered well.

Bad Situation
2010-06-02, 11:16 PM
I don't condone railroading but I'm horrid at making things up on the fly and whenever it comes to it the game tends to stall until I can get things in order. But to solve this problem I generally have a little list of outcomes that I can usually expect from the people I've played with so I can usually pull something out of my butt based on the notes I've prepared beforehand. But every so often they pull something I don't expect and when it really comes down to it I have to tell them to leave the room so I can pace and think of something. Needless to say this doesn't fly over with them very well.

big teej
2010-06-02, 11:17 PM
Most people have trouble with this. NPC names is one of the few things I don't improv. This is also why there are so many random name generators out there. I use my own all the time. I think all the characters in my latest campaign that were introduced later than the first session and didn't have names that were dictionary words had names from generators.

my group has had bad experience with name generators :smalltongue:

PersonMan
2010-06-02, 11:23 PM
I can run 100% improv games with...mixed results. I find that the sessions are better when I have several things: A general idea of the events of the upcoming session;stats for enemies to be fought and a good goal for the session.

I majorly messed up one session so badly that I needed to reverse its existence, and during the last meet I spontaneously(in a single encounter) created an entirely new optional sub-plot, which has given me the idea for other sub-plots. This is all while I have no idea how to end the campaign, or even keep it going for a while. Their current goal is to get to the capitol of the nation they're in, which is being invaded by a far superior force. I only have a vague idea of what will happen once they actually get there.

Kuma Da
2010-06-02, 11:26 PM
Consistency. I tend to go for a mix of pre-planned material and total winging it (I usually have creative players. I have to be adaptive,) but this backfires brutally on me when a) I'm having an off-day, or b) the players sit there, waiting for the railroad. It always feels forced when I give up and shove the plot at them.

Swordgleam
2010-06-02, 11:27 PM
my group has had bad experience with name generators :smalltongue:

Do tell. :smallcool:



And I'll even forget within minutes. It's insane. I'll sometimes even ask "What's this guy's name again?" if I just completely blank. It doesn't help that "Xerianalvazdrezz" or "Lynishendrion" don't lend themselves to being remembered well.

I DM with a notebook out and write down NPC names as soon as I mention them. Otherwise I'd forget, too.

AstralFire
2010-06-02, 11:29 PM
Naming is difficult? Huh, I've always really enjoyed naming.

Dairun Cates
2010-06-02, 11:32 PM
Yeah. I'm gonna concede the naming here. If forced to make up some names on the spot, I get some pretty bad ones. It gets even weirder in the Pirates vs. Ninjas campaign when I have to make things up like "Beefcake Jacobs", "One Thousand Tiny Cuts", and "Apathetic Albatross" off the top of my head and make it work.

Dienekes
2010-06-02, 11:47 PM
Naming is difficult? Huh, I've always really enjoyed naming.

Lucky you. I've always been bad at making up names, on the spot or after deliberation. It's not that I can't think of them, it's simply that after I open my trap whatever interesting or cool sounding name I had sounds like what you'd name whatever a choking cat just coughed up.

I now circumvent this by drawing on the fact I'm the heaviest reader of the group, so I blatantly steal names from works I know they've never read.

Swordgleam
2010-06-02, 11:55 PM
I now circumvent this by drawing on the fact I'm the heaviest reader of the group, so I blatantly steal names from works I know they've never read.

Half of my city names are misspelled greek words. Because who (besides me) reads ancient greek?

AstralFire
2010-06-02, 11:58 PM
I have a habit of making too many random extras NPCs interesting, so a name springs forth automatically for them. Which works out well, since I can never guess what a party will decide is the NPC that interests them most in the street.

drengnikrafe
2010-06-03, 12:16 AM
1. Voice continuity. I can keep the general trend of a character, but if there's more than 15 minutes between times I speak like an NPC, he sounds different.
2. Puzzle encounters. If I plan a solution, my PCs can't figure it out. If I plan no solution, but rather wing it, I just let them get away with a random idea.
3. Killing my PCs. It makes me sad to see all that work go.
4. Keeping BBEGs alive. I like my people to fight to the death, since that's what I always did as a PC. It's hard to think like somebody who would want to stay alive.
5. Action description. Sure, it starts out exciting, but eventually it turns into "you hit it for 6 damage, who's next?"
The interesting part is... I can plan, but it takes hours of work which I don't always like to do. I can also improv reasonably, but foreshadowing then becomes impossible, and descriptions become simple.

AslanCross
2010-06-03, 12:48 AM
I'm awful at creative combat narration. I tend to use the same words over and over again. "You hit it hard with your sword and it roars in pain (or synonyms thereof)" is very common at my table.

It's kind of embarrassing for an English teacher to be at a loss for words. :smallredface:

Dairun Cates
2010-06-03, 12:50 AM
I have a habit of making too many random extras NPCs interesting, so a name springs forth automatically for them. Which works out well, since I can never guess what a party will decide is the NPC that interests them most in the street.

Oh. Believe me. I make a LOT of NPCs for the PCs to interact with, and I usually give them personalities, goals, roles in the story, and everything.

Let's see... From JUST the beta campaign so far. MAJOR NPCs so far that have had at least an extended conversation with the party.

Old Man, Drunken Satori, Apathetic Albatross, A Thousand Tiny Cuts, Keiko Takumi "The Master of a Thousand Techniques" (she knows like 10), Tinkerin' Tim, The Bear, Raquel Roll of the Infinite Musical Mastery, Beefcake Jacobs, Black Cat, Ace of Spades, Queen of Hearts, Jack of Diamonds, Sweet Melody, Mockingbird Blues, William "Good Luck Detective" Brown, Kraken 13, Painful Interrogation, Dr. Heart, and Lightning Rudolph.

And these are just the guys the PCs have chosen to interact with in some meaningful way. There's a lot others that are important in their own way like Steel Soul Collins and the Essential Alchemist (pretty much the Big Bad Guy, but no one's seen him yet).

The thing is, the WORST of these is probably one of my better names. I've actually had a reoccuring villain team named Bob, Steve, and Dead Ralph before. Then there's Yuu Ataka, which is just a reoccuring joke in the campaigns because everyone yells "Yooooooooooooooou" when they see him.

Point is. I can do wacky names, but the actually good ones don't come so easily.

AstralFire
2010-06-03, 12:50 AM
I'm awful at creative combat narration. I tend to use the same words over and over again. "You hit it hard with your sword and it roars in pain (or synonyms thereof)" is very common at my table.

It's kind of embarrassing for an English teacher to be at a loss for words. :smallredface:

Hehehehe. One of the many reasons I prefer DMing over text. I'd be twice as bad as you, I'm sure.

Flail_master
2010-06-03, 05:04 AM
from what i've experienced so far, pacing, i tend to be decent at most other things i find though.

im bad at pacing not in the sense that i dont know when to put dramatic moments and the such, or i dont know how to do the whole, build up to climax to resolution thing, but in the sense that things move slooooooooooow with RP.

i was once doing a one on one session with a mate of mine, me testing DM'ng skills a bit, and him testing his weretiger (which we have now ruled AGAINST sooooooo horrendously OP) and i had set up a whole city which had recently been attacked by a wererat and had a whole history of heroes and many werewolves attacking them, and there were many clues everywhere about the wererats life, thing was, there was no inclination to find these, it was luck, but at the time i was like ... 'sooooo wanna look in that alley?' 'no. why?' ' i dunno i just think u should...' :smalltongue:

so yeah i need to work on that a bit more, other than that i THINK im alright at most other things


OH and planning, i managed to plan IN DETAIL maybe 3/5ths of the campaign overall, not enough i must say :smalltongue: i managed to improvise... sorta tho

Flail_master
2010-06-03, 05:05 AM
he said he enjoyed quite a few of my characters tho, so thats good :)

Amphetryon
2010-06-03, 05:25 AM
The background description that sets the tone for the locale is something I often realize - too late - that I skipped right over.

Satyr
2010-06-03, 05:35 AM
My main problem is, that I am too specialised towards grittier, harsh campaigns with mystery and horror elements. As such, I think I am quite good when I can run a game like that, but when it comes to something shallow or lighthearted, I am often second-guessing myself, which let the quality decline.

One aspect of this Mystery and Obscurity. If I have no ideas currently how I should develop the plot any further, I tend to introduce cryptic and confusing elements which are usually inexplicable and leave the players (and myself) confused. Then I have to come up with an explanation after the fact, which is usually dificult and sometimes just really contrived.

Besides, I am terrible at creating happy, friendly or just calm atmospheres for longer than one session or so. Partially, because they are dull to play in, partially because I only *need* them to create a counterpoint to the more juicy parts of the campaign.

But the biggest problem players usually have with my gaming style is the emphasis on effort. I can't stand half-assed or lazy players who put no effort in the game (you know those people who don't know the rules by heart, can't quote the background word by word and do not always come up with magnificient and uniue character concepts), and tend to react a bit harsh in this regard.

Despite all this, I am also often too merciful towards the players. Even when the campaign agreement clearly states towards a higher degree of lethality, and even when a player truly deserves to die painfully through a high level of obnoxious stupidity, I usually have to force myself to bring up fitting consequences. Which leads to a paradox of a merciless world full with mysteries which just pop up and create empty tension (with sometimes disappointing solutions) where player characters somehow don't die.

Nihb
2010-06-03, 06:18 AM
We've been playing D&D 3.5 since four years. I've been DMing for the last year in a great campaign, and one not so good before.

I must say, my group is usually well-pleased by my DMing. Most of them like role-playing and enjoy the opportunity they have to actually talk to NPC to help or replace their social skills. Having two powergamers at the table, however, one of my blatant weaknesses is combat. Over 12th level, I have a hard time designing encounters. I'm no optimizer myself, and tend to favor eventful battles and interactive battlegrounds, which is openly a problem for one of the player. The other has fun, and adapts to an extend to my DMing style.

So, I always reduce 1 or 2 to the CR of my creations.

Rannil
2010-06-03, 06:23 AM
I am terrible with judging in how much time my party want to spend on stuff.

At the on side I once put them on a prison island and they instantly went to the exit, while I planned so much places to visit and things to do.
And at the other side I gave them a random dungeon for some quick combat and they already spend an entire session over 3 rooms. (Okay the die rolls didn't help I give them that. Many critical fails, the rogue broke his crossbow twice, the bard died, the warlock almost died from a critical hit.)

But yeah they always rush when I want them to slow down, they always slow down when I want them to rush. But they are awful unpredictable anyways. They also ask the names of NPC I didn't care about (bartenders, shopkeepers, random guards) and most of the time I just those NPC's just Bob. They must know 20+ Bobs by now.

stenver
2010-06-03, 06:45 AM
My biggest flaw is that we dont have enough time to play.

Anterean
2010-06-03, 06:55 AM
Improv. I need, at minimum, a few hours to prepare for a session. Making stuff up literally on the fly results in bad things happening. *shudders at the memories*

+1.

Some my improvised stuff is still used as horror stories in my group.

Totally Guy
2010-06-03, 06:59 AM
[Edit: Great thread by the way!]

I suck at getting the game to go in the direction I like.

I don't like to interrupt the player's plans with "Hey guys, that baddie shows up and he wants to take everything you like about yourselves away!"

I need to flex those GM abilities a bit more.

Badgerish
2010-06-03, 07:16 AM
I'm utterly terrible at names.
I'm poor at dialog between multiple NPCs (I can write it and does seem accurate, but it seems so dry)
I'm sometimes bad at NPC chatter (I had an NPC with something really, really cool to say but I didn't want the NPC getting interrupted so I rushed his speech and thus it sucked :( )
I'm poor at totally wide-open free choice stuff
I take far, far, far too long to draw maps (by far the hardest part of planning encounters.
I'm poor at making NPCs with secrets (they are generally too good at keep the secrets)

Curmudgeon
2010-06-03, 07:30 AM
Two things:

Railroading. I just can't do it, even when the scenario's got nothing but random, meaningless encounters unless the PCs get from A to B somehow.
Making quick judgments to handle cases where a player thinks they've got some new slant on how to (ab)use the game system. I like to examine the relevant rules thoroughly to arrive at the best, fairest decision. But it's not fun for the players if I'm on the fence until I open up my cabinet full of D&D books. That's a big part of why I come here: to have other people pose such challenges and work through many of them in advance, rather than at the gaming table.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-03, 07:41 AM
Create NPC names. I can manage more or less every aspect of the DMing, but I suck at NPC names.

Weapon names, places names, and so on... they are very good. Barring few exception, I SUCK at NPC names.

J.Gellert
2010-06-03, 07:50 AM
Dungeons. I just can't seem to make them much more interesting than "You walk into the next room." If I somehow manage to make an exciting dungeon, it's an exception, and never from room 1.

I just can't seem to capture the players' interest from the moment they set foot in it. You have to say "Ok, so you enter a hall about 10m wide and 20m long..." and it just sounds boring.

Also, I often fail at providing easy-to-find hints for my players. They end up missing so much stuff. :smallannoyed: Both background information and easy/alternative ways to solve problems.

JediSoth
2010-06-03, 07:57 AM
I also suck at combat action descriptions. Part of it comes from when I was a player in college and I'd try to describe what my character was doing (just for flavor) and the DM would try to pile on penalties because it sounded like more than just swinging to hit (this was in the 2nd edition days). Part of it comes from the habit of a couple of my players to analyze everything I say to try to figure out what the monster's capabilities are (e.g. me: "The bugbear twirls around and bring his morning star down on your in a massive overhead swing. It crashes into your shield" them: OK, he must have whirlwind attack since he twirled around, but he can't use that with power attack!) :eyeroll:

I'm also not particularly good at getting across the hustle and bustle of a city.

And, for some reason, I tend not to be very good at improvising when the players go WAY off track in a D&D game. I can do it just fine in Star Wars (WEG D6) and Paranoia (maybe because they're rules-light), but I just have a really hard time. I think some of it comes from DMing while fatigued from not having enough sleep, though; most of the times I've been really caught off guard and screwed up my own game came when someone tried something completely out of left field when I was tired.

Totally Guy
2010-06-03, 08:09 AM
My NPC names quite often end up with an adjective in them.

Annoying Jiminy,
Arcane Manannan,
Luscious Polly,
Deranged uncle Brian.

Actually my players came up with most of those...

In our games the players gets to announce that they know someone that can help and can roll to see if it works. If it does they get to name the NPC. If not I give them a new antagonist that I get to name.

Combat descriptions are left for the player that did it to describe... But perhaps I ought to remind them of this as it's been overlooked recently. But it's not really a combat heavy game we're doing.

JeenLeen
2010-06-03, 08:10 AM
I'm probably worst at keeping a straight face. If I'm introducing a spy, or trying to have someone use misdirection on the PCs, it's hard not to use a certain smile. The same thing for describing a room or other area the players are investigating; in mentioning unimportant stuff, I usually emphasize the clue somehow in a way that makes it too easy for the PCs.

Also balancing power levels, but I think that is something more from inexperience than anything I have a particular hang-up on. (I've only DMed a few times.) At least I realized the folly before giving my players a selection of Sanity-cost-free spells in an on-going CoC campaign.

Tengu_temp
2010-06-03, 08:13 AM
Naming characters. I'm not terribly bad at it, it just takes a lot of time for me. Annoying when you have to introduce a one-shot extra and the players want to know his name.

Describing the environment and making it interactive. More often than not it's just background for player and NPC interaction. Its role in combat is minimal or nonexistant way too often.

Maps. I always wing those, so dungeon crawling tends not to be very interesting. One of the reasons I stay away from it.

It's been years since I DMed something that's not PbP, so I'm not sure how good am I at running a live game. Not much, most likely.

Knaight
2010-06-03, 08:35 AM
I'm also not particularly good at getting across the hustle and bustle of a city.

Overheard sentence fragments are your friend here. They can characterize a city or part of a city very well too. For instance, overheard fragments in two of my cities in a recent session (The last quote is translated from local slang.)
Lyune
"...line is to be drawn so as to determine distance ratios using an inverse circle"
"...scroll from the great scholar Biklin"
"...have to avoid expensive food to pay for ink"
Esheen
"...new gold foil for the carriage"
"...paupers gemstones, emeralds, sapphires. Hah, give me..."
"...sir, please forgive me sir, I didn't mean it"

Then there are the cities which nobody wants to be in. Ominous phrases are so much fun.

Nero24200
2010-06-03, 09:03 AM
A trap I've sometimes fallen into was throwing certain monsters at the PC's, which the PC's then streamroll through. So to compensate, the very next game will have harder foes.

This is the part I usally screw up with - the monsters I throw at them during the next session are sometimes too powerful, and it results in the PC's needing to stitch limbs back on. Although I've yet to have a full-on TPK yet, it still does alot of damage to the party, to the point that it ends the campaign anyway (its hard to justify the other PC's going on when their last foe chewed through fighter bob in a particularly traumatic way).

Choco
2010-06-03, 09:13 AM
I am bad at pretty much everything that has already been mentioned and then some. On the flipside, my greatest skill is covering up my flaws, so I figure I can do something useful and share my solutions to some of these problems, perhaps these might be helpful to someone here.

Problem: I suck at giving random names when the PC's ask Generic Guard #233 for his name.
Solution: I use a random name generator until I get at least 20 names that sound like they could be from the same region, with a few exotics thrown in, and have them open on a notepad file (I DM from my laptop in addition to using a DM screen and paper). Whenever the PC's ask for a name, I add a comment next to the name saying who now owns it.

Problem: I create encounters using mechanics I am not familiar with, mechanics that are very convoluted (like entire encounters based on the old grapple rules :smallannoyed:), or mechanics that I just made up because they didn't exist for what I needed. This of course leads to a lot of downtime with both me and the players issuing at least one "WTF?" every 5 seconds.
Solution: People say I am full of s**t, and that must be true cause I never run out of s**t to pull out of my ass when the game grinds to a halt. AKA I wing it to make it exciting, and the players ALWAYS seem to have more fun during those situations than during a "by the book" encounter. Trick is, there is still a lot of dice rolling and the players never realize that I am making all this up, rules included, as I go along. Or if they do they are having so much fun they don't care.

Problem: I am not particularly good at either preparing or improving an entire session.
Solution: I create a list of creatures that exist within the area the PC's are currently in to use as believable random encounters (Swordgleam: That would be a nice generator for your site IMO, a "random encounter by environment & CR" generator). I create a basic stat block for every NPC in the vicinity (commoners share one stat block, there are bout 3-4 for the different ranks of guards, etc.). I stat out the major NPC's in the area. I create some plot hooks ot take the players to my vague idea of where I want to go next. Once the sandbox is created, I set the PC's loose and everyone has a good time.

Problem: I suck at portraying different NPC's in quick succession, and I often have to tell the players who is speaking.
Solution: Popsicle stick masks. Cut out some paper, draw a face on it (it is extra awesome for my players cause I draw at a 3rd grade level at best), glue it to the stick, and there you go, you got an NPC mask! Have some blank ones lying around to make some up on the spot too, with player help/input. This makes those "talk to yourself" NPC conversations fun for both me and my players (though for very different reasons). Oddly enough the mask helps me get in character too.

Iferus
2010-06-03, 09:24 AM
Tracking init. :smalleek:

We have a very simple mechanism for that: we put clothespins with character names on the DM screen.



Personally, I give the players far too much sandbox time.

Knaight
2010-06-03, 09:39 AM
Problem: I suck at portraying different NPC's in quick succession, and I often have to tell the players who is speaking.
Solution: Popsicle stick masks. Cut out some paper, draw a face on it (it is extra awesome for my players cause I draw at a 3rd grade level at best), glue it to the stick, and there you go, you got an NPC mask! Have some blank ones lying around to make some up on the spot too, with player help/input. This makes those "talk to yourself" NPC conversations fun for both me and my players (though for very different reasons). Oddly enough the mask helps me get in character too.

This is brilliant. Brilliant. In fact, I'm tempted to go make some of these myself, and this isn't even an issue for me.

Ormur
2010-06-03, 09:48 AM
I feel that many of the things here apply to me but maybe what I think is lacking in my DM style differs from what my players think.

Names are tough. I'm not too embarrassed by most of the names I came up with beforehand although most of them are pseudo-Latin and half of them end with -us. I've been trying to find a fun theme with in-jokes but it hasn't worked out. What's worse is when I'm forced to come up with a name on the fly. I bluster like an idiot and the players immediately know that it's not a plot important NPC. Commoners are easier since I decided to give them descriptive and demeaning names. Multiple NPC's of higher status are tougher and end up with names that rhyme or their names sound like mundane things. Baron Bouilloncube is one example.

Descriptions are also lacking. I always want to be able to describe the houses, clothes and landscape the players encounter but it would take to much time to prepare and I can't think fast enough to describe things in more than general terms or comparing them to familiar things. I'm not sure all my players mind, too much detail can be boring but it gives flavour. Combat descriptions very often degenerate to "you scored a critical hit for 45 damage and he's down" while moving chess pieces on the battle map. But my players help out by coming up with better descriptions.

I don't ensure enough variety in magical items so the loot tends to be endless streams of +1 amulets of natural armour, cloaks of resistance, rings of protection, greatswords, full plates etc.

Mechanically I'm not very good at optimizing but I've been improving a lot and this forum has helped me. All for challenging my players of course. They're good enough to require me to be creative. I've gone from wondering why my 6th level fighter was dropped in two rounds to having the players run from dragon fire inspiring bards. But I don't have as good a grasp of the rules as my players so sometimes they find a critical flaw in my builds or that they rely on mistaken interpretations of the rules.

big teej
2010-06-03, 10:32 AM
Do tell. :smallcool:


I tend to be overly verbose and ramble, so for yalls convienence
one of the first things I come up with as a player is the character's NAME. because I get a lil bent outa shape when people come to the table and are asked (usually by me, but occaisionally the dm or another player beats me to it) "hey -player name" ... I mean, uh... -ooc- what's your guys name?" "oh he doesn't have a name yet, it'll come to me"

my response to the above

so you're telling me that you're character has lived through -age- years without a name? sweet
/vent

anyways
in one particular instance we decided to pull out the wotc name generator.
we filled out the fields for said character, (elf ...wizard if memory serves) what name do we get?
JAMLAMIN!!!!! JOOOOOOOOYSWORD!!!!!
this has been the source of much hip-thrusting and lewd jokes at our table since, and we no longer use wotc name generators, lately whenever people forget (depending on who's house we're at) we pull out a dark heresy sourcebook and use THAT name generator, much to my chagrin.



Half of my city names are misspelled greek words. Because who (besides me) reads ancient greek?


I had an bible teacher who read/spoke(?) and was mostly fluent in english, hebrew, greek, latin, something i'm forgetting, and was also working on french when i last saw him



But yeah they always rush when I want them to slow down, they always slow down when I want them to rush. But they are awful unpredictable anyways. They also ask the names of NPC I didn't care about (bartenders, shopkeepers, random guards) and most of the time I just those NPC's just Bob. They must know 20+ Bobs by now.

try throwing a few 'steve' and 'james' and 'billy' and 'timmy' in their, that way instead of knowing like 300 bobs, they know 100 bobs, 50 steves, 50 james, 50 billy, and so on


Dungeons. I just can't seem to make them much more interesting than "You walk into the next room." If I somehow manage to make an exciting dungeon, it's an exception, and never from room 1.

I just can't seem to capture the players' interest from the moment they set foot in it. You have to say "Ok, so you enter a hall about 10m wide and 20m long..." and it just sounds boring.


the devil is in the detail my friend, unless you're improving the whole thing, write up at least a base description for the room ahead of time, or, for practice, describe a room in your house, in EXCRUCIATING detail.

ask yourself
what's on the walls? slime? an old picture? bloodstains? weapon rack?
whats the cieling like? inside of a house? vaulted? unhewn rock? carved tunnel?
'stand outs' a huge crater in a corner of the room, a pool of viscous bubbling fluid?

people who have trouble describing combat

I used to have a hard describing combat, and then I started to pay more attention to the battles in the books I love to read.
so my suggestion fo those of you who feel you struggle with describing combat, pick up a nice 'violent' book (or at least a book with lots of it) and pay very close attention to what happens when large sharp metal objects do when they hit small puny fleshthings. my personal favorites to get into a 'combat descriptive' mood are things from warhammer, because roughly half of most of those books are combat.

Flail_master
2010-06-03, 11:28 AM
Also, I often fail at providing easy-to-find hints for my players. They end up missing so much stuff. :smallannoyed: Both background information and easy/alternative ways to solve problems.

see thats another one of my problems! its hard to get em to be obvious without saying HEY LOOK THERES THIS THING HERE!

and if they go past most of it u feel like there's so much effort wasted :smalltongue:

Rannil
2010-06-03, 12:23 PM
try throwing a few 'steve' and 'james' and 'billy' and 'timmy' in their, that way instead of knowing like 300 bobs, they know 100 bobs, 50 steves, 50 james, 50 billy, and so on
I do , but Bob is the easiest name for quick situations. On my of my xbox games I even named a cliff, from which I kept falling off, Bob. Later my mother walked by and said "Look out, Bob the cliff". She saved my life there.
Point being: Bob works for anything, and it's not like those NPC's will ever return again, unless... maybe all Bob's are the same person in different disguise.

Also nowadays I got a list of random names (Stolen from various generators online) with me, in case I need a more fantasy sounding name. It's easier then giving everything a name because when I do that my PC's just skip it all by.
Maybe that can help other DMs with naming troubles too. :smallwink:

Swordgleam
2010-06-03, 01:24 PM
Solution: I create a list of creatures that exist within the area the PC's are currently in to use as believable random encounters (Swordgleam: That would be a nice generator for your site IMO, a "random encounter by environment & CR" generator).

That's a good idea. I have a half-finished random dungeon generator that I've never gotten around to fleshing out. Maybe if I expanded that into other environments.. definitely something to think about.



Solution: Popsicle stick masks.

Reminds me of my high school DM, who would put a torn up Dr. Pepper box on his head whenever he was playing Flumph (who was, yes, a flumph).



ask yourself
what's on the walls? slime? an old picture? bloodstains? weapon rack?
whats the cieling like? inside of a house? vaulted? unhewn rock? carved tunnel?
'stand outs' a huge crater in a corner of the room, a pool of viscous bubbling fluid?

That gives me an idea. Muahahahaha. :smallamused:

Zuki
2010-06-03, 02:26 PM
Planning ahead of time.

ZeltArruin
2010-06-03, 02:34 PM
I find that I plan out a ridiculous over arching plot that the characters have no idea is actually going on, even if they kill/encounter NPCs that are contributing to this big goings on, they just slay them and move on, assuming they will eventually kill all the important people, or at least, that is how it seems to me. As of late, I have been getting into the habit of handing out tid bits of information after each important plot thingy.

As for descriptions, I will generally give them too much, and they will start to investigate the broken armoire in the corner, convinced I have hidden something in there. After twenty minutes of search checks and the occasional divination spell, I will crack and give them something fairly worthless, then they will move on and not check the important things I describe.

During combat, I have made a habit of describing my thing's attacks, leaving my players to give me undescriptive things, like 'I hit for 15 damage.' Perhaps I should encourage more of this.

Player conversation. I find it very difficult to get the player characters to speak to one another, or introduce themselves or anything. Even when I get into NPC and talk to them like a person, they tell me what their characters want to say to the NPC, and I have to work it all out on my own. This really slays my willingness to RP with them, and assume they want to kick down the door.

As for things I am good at, I am excellent at never giving the players a break. No time to sleep, no magic items, no gold, no nothing. I find this to be far more balanced than you might imagine, and then when they do get items, they happen to be the powerful weapon of some long lost hero.

Side quests, allowing the players to not feel like they are being railroaded. I always insert about twice as much side quest material as I do main story stuff, allowing them to see more of the world and understand that they are not just numbers.

When I plan out my games, I decide on some fixed points that need to be reached in order for the game to function the way I want it to. Lucky for me, I generally only have one PC that wants to avoid this at all costs. Apparently going to talk to the king that sent you a summons is too much railroading. Would you really just ignore the guy that controls the country you are living in? I wouldn't, but I digress.

Holy crap, that turned into a wall of text.

Drascin
2010-06-03, 03:07 PM
Naming things. Seriously, it takes me less work to create a whole city than naming it. In the past I have had to, after I describe an NPC in full, ask my players OOC to please give him a name, because I can improvise a full NPC with motivations and stats in thirty seconds flat, but I'd need at least ten minutes to give it a name. It's really, really embarrassing :smallsigh:.

Also, I'm a bit forgetful at times. As in, I sometimes, in the big description, neglect to mention a couple of the details scribbled in my notes, then am completely surprised when the players fail to take advantage of them because I'm totally convinced I mentioned them :smallredface:.

TheThan
2010-06-03, 03:28 PM
I have trouble improvising. While I’m not a railroader I still get thrown the occasional curveball. It usually stops me in the my tracks and forces me to stop the game in the middle of the a game until I can think up something.

Ernir
2010-06-03, 03:43 PM
I have some ideas as to what my DMing flaws are.

There are something like four or five of my players who read this forum. Why don't you tell, instead? :smalltongue:

I feel that many of the things here apply to me but maybe what I think is lacking in my DM style differs from what my players think. Yes.


Names are tough. I'm not too embarrassed by most of the names I came up with beforehand although most of them are pseudo-Latin and half of them end with -us. I've been trying to find a fun theme with in-jokes but it hasn't worked out. What's worse is when I'm forced to come up with a name on the fly. I bluster like an idiot and the players immediately know that it's not a plot important NPC. Commoners are easier since I decided to give them descriptive and demeaning names. Multiple NPC's of higher status are tougher and end up with names that rhyme or their names sound like mundane things. Baron Bouilloncube is one example.
The names are not a problem.


Descriptions are also lacking. I always want to be able to describe the houses, clothes and landscape the players encounter but it would take to much time to prepare and I can't think fast enough to describe things in more than general terms or comparing them to familiar things. I'm not sure all my players mind, too much detail can be boring but it gives flavour. Combat descriptions very often degenerate to "you scored a critical hit for 45 damage and he's down" while moving chess pieces on the battle map. But my players help out by coming up with better descriptions.
Your out of combat descriptions are fine. More than fine. Usually kind of "woah, he planned this building well"-inspiring, actually.

Your in-combat descriptions... yeah, the phrases "he stabs you with his rapier again" and "he glares at you menacingly, roll a will save" have gotten a little too much use. :smalltongue:
But meh. As long as you continue to let us fluff our attacks


I don't ensure enough variety in magical items so the loot tends to be endless streams of +1 amulets of natural armour, cloaks of resistance, rings of protection, greatswords, full plates etc.
Obviously not a problem for my VoP character.
I don't think the others mind, either. As long as you aren't making all that +1 swordstuff of crap hard to pawn off for gold, I think they are just glad over being able to customize their equipment.

Mechanically I'm not very good at optimizing but I've been improving a lot and this forum has helped me. All for challenging my players of course. They're good enough to require me to be creative. I've gone from wondering why my 6th level fighter was dropped in two rounds to having the players run from dragon fire inspiring bards. But I don't have as good a grasp of the rules as my players so sometimes they find a critical flaw in my builds or that they rely on mistaken interpretations of the rules.Those Assassins sure found themselves up **** creek once they discovered that the Obscuring Mist they cast negated their ability to Sneak Attack us, huh? :smallbiggrin:
And there's the issue of you never ever remembering who wins when a DC/AC is met precisely.
But this is not really a problem. You plan things through so well now that any instant-optimization ability you may or may not lack doesn't come up.


Anyway, what I think is your greatest DMing flaw? As much time as you spend designing the encounters and making sure the spots we go to are detailed, it has been a bit hard finding said spots. The kind of campaign you run (excruciatingly well designed setting, detail on every spot we are expected to visit) really lends itself to a greater amount of railroading/friendly DM nudges than you have been handing out.

Talon Sky
2010-06-03, 04:29 PM
On the topic of bad naming-

I played a short, one-on-one diplomacy session with my gf the other night just to get something out of the way. It was between her and the captain of the king's guard, fleshing out preparations for the defenses on an imminent attack on the city.

Here's the issue: I had named the king Godric many sessions ago, based on the name of a player in a previous campaign. I forgot this.

And when she asked the guard's name, it was Rodric. She instantly assumed, without asking me, that they were related and began treating him like absolute royalty. Now, the captain Rodric certainly didn't mind this, but I was floored because I had no idea why she was doing this.

Moral of the story: common NPC people can have similar or even identical names. But keep track of important people's names and keep them distinctive. Can I hear a Sauron-Saruman shoutout? ;p

big teej
2010-06-03, 05:22 PM
bob bob bob bob bob bob

I do , but Bob is the easiest name for quick situations. On my of my xbox games I even named a cliff, from which I kept falling off, Bob. Later my mother walked by and said "Look out, Bob the cliff". She saved my life there.
Point being: Bob works for anything, and it's not like those NPC's will ever return again, unless... maybe all Bob's are the same person in different disguise.

Also nowadays I got a list of random names (Stolen from various generators online) with me, in case I need a more fantasy sounding name. It's easier then giving everything a name because when I do that my PC's just skip it all by.
Maybe that can help other DMs with naming troubles too. :smallwink:

.... bob the cliff? I find this amusing. hello new lethal set piece item.
I also fully support the various bobs in the world all being the same person, you could make him .... you. you, as the dm, represented in the game world. I've known several dms that did something like this be it as a rat, a shopkeeper, whatever.

anyways, totally taking 'bob the cliff' and using it :smallbiggrin:]





That's a good idea. I have a half-finished random dungeon generator that I've never gotten around to fleshing out. Maybe if I expanded that into other environments.. definitely something to think about.



Reminds me of my high school DM, who would put a torn up Dr. Pepper box on his head whenever he was playing Flumph (who was, yes, a flumph).



That gives me an idea. Muahahahaha. :smallamused:

do tell, I always like to know when and how my ramblings shall be used to cause some poor sap misery =]


I have trouble improvising. While I’m not a railroader I still get thrown the occasional curveball. It usually stops me in the my tracks and forces me to stop the game in the middle of the a game until I can think up something.

I was reading a dm article once, basically the solution was random encounters.

and I use that too. I'm REALLY good at improving (... well, I like to think so, and my players have yet to say otherwise) but eventually, no mattter how good you are you WILL be thrown for a loop by your players so big you just CAN'T come up with how to proceed, enter the random encounter generator. because while they are fighting that inexplicably placed goblin hoarde, bullete, or bird of prey, YOU can come up with where to go next

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-03, 05:30 PM
I do , but Bob is the easiest name for quick situations.

*draws an artifact sword* "behold Bob, Destroyer of Worlds"

*the demon prince appears in a cloud of ashess and desperation, shouting with a nightmare voice belonging to the deepest pit*
"Puny mortals! Flee toward Bob, Demon Prince of Lack of Imagination!"

*The paladin cries seeing his beloved elven princess die, killed by the arch-villain*
"Bob! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Lord Vampyre
2010-06-03, 05:57 PM
One of my biggest flaws, on top of many of the ones that were already mentioned, is patience with new players. I have to keep reminding myself of how new to the RP/game they are. Since moving, I've found it easier to find people who are interested in gaming than finding experienced gamers. I just keep hoping that my mediocre talents as a DM don't ruin the game.

Kaun
2010-06-03, 06:44 PM
i have what i call ADD&D.

I have a tendancy of wanting to scrap my current game and play something else after about 5 sessions.

I am working on it but it's a constant up hill battle.

I all so have a bad habbit of cutting of my players when they are saying something.

Which im all so working on.

But they do tend to dribble some **** sometimes.

big teej
2010-06-03, 07:51 PM
i have what i call ADD&D.

I have a tendancy of wanting to scrap my current game and play something else after about 5 sessions.

.

my whole group does that. I've lost count of how many campaigns we've been through
I have one barbarian that I insisted on playing that was drug through..... at least 5 different campaigns/groups
I have a dwarf rogue (1 campaign)
I have a necromancer (1 campaign)
a cleric (one campaign)
a fighter (one campaign)
a ranger (one campaign, for now)
a knight (1ish campaign, depending on how the dm works it he might be being dragged into a new one)

yea.
my group isn't good at the whole 'continuity thing'

PersonMan
2010-06-03, 07:53 PM
@^Same, but with characters. We meet so infrequently that I come up with an awesome character concept between just about every meet. I rarely keep a character for more than a meet or two....

onthetown
2010-06-03, 07:57 PM
I'm bad at DMing at a real life table. I'm so nervous and anxious when I have to be in charge IRL that I just freeze up. My friends who I've DMed for take pity on me and we do an online chat sort of thing, where I'm phenomonally better. I just like to have time to think about things instead of being put on the spot.

big teej
2010-06-03, 08:09 PM
@^Same, but with characters. We meet so infrequently that I come up with an awesome character concept between just about every meet. I rarely keep a character for more than a meet or two....

i'm the same way about creating characters, but i have so much floating about i can use i simply wait for a character to fit the group/campaign or for inspiration to strike so wonderfully that the entire concept becomes fleshed out and MUST BE PLAYED!!!!!!

Mordar
2010-06-03, 08:16 PM
Paranoia: I don't get to do anything. They spend 2 hours killing each other in the briefing room.

That was very nearly tragic...drinking out of a biggish cup, reading as I did so nearly resulting in a Sprite-tastrophe.

Thanks :smallbiggrin:

- M

GenPol
2010-06-03, 08:17 PM
At above--yeah, I have the same problem. Every other day some new character pops into my head and I just have to play them....

Swordgleam
2010-06-03, 08:41 PM
do tell, I always like to know when and how my ramblings shall be used to cause some poor sap misery =]

I'm thinking a dungeon room generator, and go hang ecology. Put in lava, or pits full of [anything my potion gen can make] or racks with shiny/rusted/magic [anything my weapon gen can make] or rivers or skeletons or anything.

Have to give it a bit more thought and decide how I want to go about it.

big teej
2010-06-03, 08:47 PM
I'm thinking a dungeon room generator, and go hang ecology. Put in lava, or pits full of [anything my potion gen can make] or racks with shiny/rusted/magic [anything my weapon gen can make] or rivers or skeletons or anything.

Have to give it a bit more thought and decide how I want to go about it.

my burgeoning and overflowing imagination is at your disposal sir

Ormur
2010-06-03, 09:42 PM
Another thing, I'm far less eloquent than some of my NPC's. I'm no good at sprinkling my speech with colourful words and expression or actually sound impressive/knowledgeable/charismatic etc. It's hard enough to convey what I want to say in normal conversations let alone when I'm playing someone other than me.


I have some ideas as to what my DMing flaws are.

There are something like four or five of my players who read this forum. Why don't you tell, instead? :smalltongue:

I can hardly remember it's been so long since I played in your campaign. :smalltongue:

Otherwise not much, it's pretty epic. We're a bit lost about how to advance the plot now but I suppose we can always find some stuff to do. Anyway, it's got to be hard to lay rails for crazy teleporting wizards.


Those Assassins sure found themselves up **** creek once they discovered that the Obscuring Mist they cast negated their ability to Sneak Attack us, huh? :smallbiggrin:

I laughed out loud, I had forgotten that. Yeah, worst assassins ever.


Anyway, what I think is your greatest DMing flaw? As much time as you spend designing the encounters and making sure the spots we go to are detailed, it has been a bit hard finding said spots. The kind of campaign you run (excruciatingly well designed setting, detail on every spot we are expected to visit) really lends itself to a greater amount of railroading/friendly DM nudges than you have been handing out.

Ah, I've been trying so hard to avoid the railroading from the horror stories here. Maybe a few more tips and quest givers are in order but you've never really staved much of the rails I lay in my mind.

ZeltArruin
2010-06-04, 08:08 AM
I have a tendancy of wanting to scrap my current game and play something else after about 5 sessions.
So many times this. I get fed up with how the game is going and have a good idea for my next one, which will incorporate the unused ideas from my previous games. I think over the course of the last four years, I have probably had 20+ games end after one or two or no sessions.

My players generally don't like this, as they put 'so much' work into their characters, who tend to be flat, lifeless sheets of paper in my games...

big teej
2010-06-04, 11:36 AM
So many times this. I get fed up with how the game is going and have a good idea for my next one, which will incorporate the unused ideas from my previous games. I think over the course of the last four years, I have probably had 20+ games end after one or two or no sessions.

My players generally don't like this, as they put 'so much' work into their characters, who tend to be flat, lifeless sheets of paper in my games...

this is ONLY a solution if you are very big on backstory. such as using backstory to drive the campaign as a source of plot hooks or whatever

do what two of my groups dms do (me included) if they won't give you a backstory, be upfront, tell them if they just show up with crunch, YOU will come up with the fluff, and they may or MAY NOT like it. now granted, that doesn't mean completely abuse that (your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries) it means come up with an actual background, and say 'here, here is who your character is' including the first plothook 'your sister has been kidnapped by -plot device- ' when the player says 'i don't have a sister' simply respond snarkily ^_^

*disclaimer: the above approach may not work EXACTLY as is for everyone, my group is a bunch of teenage boys, snarky and sarcastic is what we do, and we're all friends outside the game. so we can get away with it.

Swordgleam
2010-06-04, 12:11 PM
So many times this. I get fed up with how the game is going and have a good idea for my next one, which will incorporate the unused ideas from my previous games. I think over the course of the last four years, I have probably had 20+ games end after one or two or no sessions.


Maybe the solution for all the people with this problem is to either deliberately run only mini-campaigns that everyone knows will only last a handful of sessions, or run some kind of world-hopping campaign.

World-hopping campaigns let you have a bunch of different storylines going in a ton of settings, with occasional one-off sidequests into settings you want to explore for only a session. That might let you get your itch out while letting the players keep the same characters.

Marillion
2010-06-04, 12:41 PM
As far as NPC names go, our DM either has us come up with them as we interact with them or they're simply "That Guy" if they're unimportant. If they become important, they remain "That Guy" until he comes up with a name.

"Your background is Nemesis: That Guy" (Who then became Francois de Gaulles after a few sessions of referring to him as "That Guy")

Once, when we asked the name of an unimportant NPC, he answered "Senor Ablah...And he will duel to the death anyone who says his name too quickly.":smallbiggrin:

This works for vehicles too. "So, you're on board the HMS That Ship..."

big teej
2010-06-04, 04:04 PM
Maybe the solution for all the people with this problem is to either deliberately run only mini-campaigns that everyone knows will only last a handful of sessions, or run some kind of world-hopping campaign.

World-hopping campaigns let you have a bunch of different storylines going in a ton of settings, with occasional one-off sidequests into settings you want to explore for only a session. That might let you get your itch out while letting the players keep the same characters.

my first barbarian did that.... kinda

we rotated dms about 5 times and campaigns 6 times, I was the only one happy enough with my ungodly well rollled character to insist on keeping it from campaign to campaign until we settled on one
COG IS CONSTANT, ALL ELSE SHALL FALL BEFORE HIMat level one










Once, when we asked the name of an unimportant NPC, he answered "Senor Ablah...And he will duel to the death anyone who says his name too quickly.":smallbiggrin:



i love it!

Shademan
2010-06-04, 04:36 PM
dealing with powergaming.
just cant do it.
thats why I plan on limiting my games to E6 from here on.

RelentlessImp
2010-06-04, 04:44 PM
Overarching campaign plots and continuing them from session to session. I'm GREAT for one-shots (as people who've played my IRC games can attest to, and the small group of friends who I do it rarely for), but when it comes to continuing the storyline I set up previously, I just can't do it.

big teej
2010-06-04, 06:59 PM
dealing with powergaming.
just cant do it.
thats why I plan on limiting my games to E6 from here on.

what's E6?:smallconfused:

Shademan
2010-06-04, 07:31 PM
what's E6?:smallconfused:

ah, a convert? turn to the LIGHT of E6, heathen: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=352719 :smalltongue:

big teej
2010-06-04, 08:50 PM
-after reading part of the link-

I....... just might have to give that a try.

however, i doubt my group shall convert as a whole, we have one member who hath partaken far to much of the baldur's gate games -_-

on a completely unrelated noteis there an board/forum approved method of handling smilies and emoticons not provided by the board? or is the 'chat' version acceptable? i know that chat speak is not, but it didn't say anything about smilies, being a rather smilie prone person, this is an important question for me i'm afraid :smalltongue:

AstralFire
2010-06-04, 08:52 PM
Smilies are perfectly okay ^_^ just don't abuse them x_x because seriously, no one likes Teen Titans ¬_¬.

I know you won't abuse them. Right? o_o

RelentlessImp
2010-06-04, 11:54 PM
Smilies are perfectly okay ^_^ just don't abuse them x_x because seriously, no one likes Teen Titans ¬_¬.

I know you won't abuse them. Right? o_o

x.x Needs moar -.- and ^_^ and n.n. ^o)... right? o.o; What's a discussion about smilies without some #_# love, or some z.z?

^_^;;

Jastermereel
2010-06-05, 01:23 AM
Staying focused.

The group I play with has been together for ages, so over time the number of injokes and pun-hooks has grown to the point where it can be difficult to stay on target. As a player, it was ok to distract a little until the DM wrangled the table back, but as the DM, I not only tend to let rambling de-railing tangents run wild, but often feed into them.

That, and knowing the proper challenge level for the players. Most of the time, I don't challenge them enough, so the exciting combat turns into a fairly routine slicing of the mooks. The most recent contrast nearly wiped the party out. With a run through RHoD coming up, I expect I'll have some interesting encounters that may be the end of them, but at least they'll have fun getting slaughtered.

Oh, and do all the DMs overusing Bob? It could be worse. On a session 1 whim, I refered to an offscreen NPC who ran to get help as "little susie". Six months later, they still ask about her, so now she'll need an epic destiny as some martial leader...perhaps as a Favored Soul or some such......named "Little Susie". Bobs are forgettable and a dime a dozen...but...I've been dealing with the single mention of LS for nearly a year now after a single mention of her existence.

Gamgee
2010-06-05, 02:26 AM
God the random NPC that upgrades to awesome status. In an ironic way the greatest villain combat wise the party ever faced was their own doing.

They were running from the law, and the idiot of the group decides to mug a stranger down an alley (Star Wars game. I tell him this stranger is wearing a robe and is hunched over slightly. He goes in for the attack. Oh and this player is a Mandalorian, and has so far bested everything thrown at him single handedly.

I was sick of things getting beaten, and he thought he was mugging an old lady for like 10 credits. So I thought it would be fun if the crouching figure was a gigantic 8 foot tall Feeorin Dark jedi. So the small crouched figure stands up towering over his character, and as typical of one who has not had the smack down he attacks by charging.

One force slam later and he hits a light post and breaks it in half and is down half health. Then I proceed to force choke him and he is there helplessly. Finally instead of killing him the Dark jedi just mugs him and leaves. The party find him unconscious and drag his ass back to the ship.

He is sad because he was collecting Jedi lightsabers and the Feeorin took them. They were all stunned idiot of the group got his ass trounced in two moves and didn't so much as get a shot off. They were convinced for some reason this random NPC was some sort of epic person that should be found.

*several months later*
They fight again and this time the Feeorin beats the entire party. This was unintentional as they were playing piss poor and had bad luck. So now he is mythical. And I add in some plot hook about Sith and one guy makes his destiny to redeem him and ****. Eventually he did get around to redeeming the Feeorin. Although this wasn't the idiot player. The idiot player went on to become the new Mandalore and conquer Coruscant and enacted a law banning Feeorins from Mandalorian space.
------

In a new campaign I have a giant martial artist/boxer Feeorin named "Iron Lord". Despite being a side encounter in an arena he has been automatically upgraded to mythical status. More so since he has destiny points (first NPC they have seen with them, and they are using a destiny less character system). He was defeated, but only through two lucky criticals. One of which he had a destiny point to negate. Although it was not to the death so they are expecting him to pop out of every shadow and trounce them in vengeance. Which he is going to. ;) They don't know that.

Kol Korran
2010-06-05, 07:47 AM
cool thread! so i'm not the only one who screws up.
what am i bad at? lets see:
- making good optimized builds for importent opponents, mainly BBEGs and such. but i'm learning quite a bit from the forum (and getting help).
- i don't improvise that well. i get stuck detailing fairly boring stuff. i try to compensate by getting as prepared as i can, and trying to think of alternative actions and routes and such. i like knowing my campaign and adventure well. but still, sometimes the players (damn them! :smallwink:) will do the most unexpected things. i both love these times, and dread them.
- at times i follow the "rule of cool", mostly for players, but at times for opponents as well. my players sometime get angry at that. (the bastards sometime think they are cheated when it's not in their favor! :smalltongue:), but i'm trying to do better.
- i've soemwhat stopped trying to learn new rules and material in depth. just recently (thanks to this forum) i got acquainted with ToB, and one of my players will be playing a swordsage from there soon. i've skimmed through the book, but don't have the time or energy to seriously go through it and analyze it. i hope this will wok out ok. :smallconfused:

TDB Lady
2010-06-05, 08:15 PM
I'm not a GM, but I'm married to one.

A couple of tips we've come up with over the years.

Our regular gaming sessions are done online with Fantasy Grounds (people in three states and timezones) so a computer is a big part of what we do.

Naming can be really difficult on the fly, so he keeps a data base of names, adding to it as he hears/reads interesting names. Then when we are playing and he needs a name, he goes to the database, grabs a name, notes when and where we met the NPC, and then has a record for later.

Mapping can be very slow. Obviously, he has to do the mapping for dungeons, etc. that I can't see before we get to play them. However, I have done several basic maps for him - such as road through the woods, farmer's fields, etc. where the party might be traveling or camping and have a random encounter.
I have also done some mapping of the larger towns for him. He has old graph paper maps from when we played tabletop (This is the same campaign we have played off an on for more that twenty years), and I translate them into online versions, adjusting for the size of the town and adding more detailed terrain.
If you've got someone in your group that likes to draw, take advantage for things that don't matter if they are seen in advance.

One of our player also put together a Wiki for us. All of our campaign logs (my job) are typed up and put online for the players to read. Any maps and documents we find are uploaded as well. We usually only play every 2 - 5 weeks (it's a bummer being a grown up), so we use the Wiki to do planning as well. It helps save some of our precious game time for the adventure.


TDB Lady

valadil
2010-06-05, 10:30 PM
My biggest problem right now is NPCs. Acting is not my strong suit. I'd like to get to the point where I can play an NPC and the players can tell who it is without introduction. I rarely ever reach that point even with signature NPCs.

As I mentioned in another thread, I'm trying out a new technique to help work on that. I'm going to try to focus on a different NPC each game. If one of them is going to be getting a significant amount of spotlight time, I'll approach the game with that NPC in mind and treat it as their personal session (aside from the PCs anyway). The idea is that if I spend 2 weeks between games getting into that NPC's head, I should be in a better place to play them when the time comes. If it works I'll let you know.

I'm also having problems with my games being too eventful. This is not something I ever expected to be a problem. But I've been moving things along too much and making sure that something interesting occurs each session. This has the downside of steamrolling past random shenanigans and roleplay. All too often I fast forward past little bits of interaction in favor of showing off a plot twist.

Finally, terrain. I wouldn't say that I suck at it, but it's something I'm still learning. I sucked at it when I started running 4th ed. We found very quickly that my PCs have enough push/pull/slide abilities that combat is interesting when there's cool terrain and boring when the terrain is flat. I've dealt with this by throwing as much terrain as possible at them (which increases prep time as I have trouble coming up with cool terrain features on the fly) and hoping it works out. So far this method has worked, but I haven't really figured out which terrain pieces are interesting yet and I'm running out of excuses to set a fight across multiple elevations. I can't have all the fights during travel take place on bridges.

-- addendum --

Scratch that last "finally." I also suck at GMing because I obsess over originality. I want my games to be unique. I'll happily rip off bits and pieces of things I saw elsewhere, but the finished product has to be something the players have never seen before. It really limits what I can run. It also sometimes means that I'll run plots and ideas that suck - they're only original because everyone else had the good sense to skip past them.

Choco
2010-06-06, 09:03 AM
...We usually only play every 2 - 5 weeks (it's a bummer being a grown up)...

You can still play weekly games when grown up, just gotta find a group of people that also want to do it! I know a guy that is in his 50's, has a family, and DM's 3 weekly games just fine. It all depends on how much priority D&D takes in relation to all the other non-mandatory things in your life that suck up free time (the DM I mentioned for instance, there is nothing he loves doing more than DM'ing so he MAKES time for it). Being grown up does not have to suck, take it from me, I am very much in touch with my proverbial "inner child" (or I am an immature moron, as most others have described me, but all of them are miserable old farts and just jealous :smallwink:)


Scratch that last "finally." I also suck at GMing because I obsess over originality. I want my games to be unique. I'll happily rip off bits and pieces of things I saw elsewhere, but the finished product has to be something the players have never seen before. It really limits what I can run. It also sometimes means that I'll run plots and ideas that suck - they're only original because everyone else had the good sense to skip past them.

Yeah I noticed that too. It is VERY hard to come up with a good, original idea (though when one does crop up, it is so obvious that everyone is surprised they never thought of it. Damn I love hindsight). I usually just go for trying to keep the PC's guessing. Some cliches play out like they are expected to, some are deliberately reversed (evil princess Dominates a dragon though the PC's are lead think it is a typical "rescue princess from dragon" cliche until they actually meet them, the guy that is too nice and helpful actually is just a nice and helpful guy and NOT a villain, etc.), most end up becoming random circuses due to the actions of the PC's. Really the best I aim for is a plot twist that when revealed simultaneously surprises the players and makes them realize they should have seen it coming as all the clues/foreshadowing come rushing back to their memory all at once.

Totally Guy
2010-06-06, 09:36 AM
I played an NPC yesterday called Luvatar. She was an elf that had gone over to the dark side and a mother to one of the player characters.

I wanted to play her as being a bit distant from everything else focussing solely on her other son who is twisted and loathsome...

To give her a unique voice I tried to say her words as if they were being sung.

But it came out as being a really creepy GlaDOS sounding voice. Which wasn't my intention. After the session I asked about that voice, whether it was horrible or not. But the players said that they liked how creepy it was. So I'll be keeping it.

TDB Lady
2010-06-06, 02:00 PM
You can still play weekly games when grown up, just gotta find a group of people that also want to do it! I know a guy that is in his 50's, has a family, and DM's 3 weekly games just fine. It all depends on how much priority D&D takes in relation to all the other non-mandatory things in your life that suck up free time (the DM I mentioned for instance, there is nothing he loves doing more than DM'ing so he MAKES time for it). Being grown up does not have to suck, take it from me, I am very much in touch with my proverbial "inner child" (or I am an immature moron, as most others have described me, but all of them are miserable old farts and just jealous :smallwink:)

I'm very much not a grown up either, but we all do have obligations that make it hard for this group to get together more often that that. :smallyuk: The three time zones thing is tough when I (eastern time) have to be at work before 6 am, and our friend on the west coast may not be done 'til after 6 pm his time (9pm my time). Plus the friend who works some weekends, and the DM and another player who are on-call some of the time.

We've tried to get local groups going here several times, but to no avail.

So I fill in my time in other ways.

TBD Lady

Choco
2010-06-06, 03:18 PM
I'm very much not a grown up either, but we all do have obligations that make it hard for this group to get together more often that that. :smallyuk: The three time zones thing is tough when I (eastern time) have to be at work before 6 am, and our friend on the west coast may not be done 'til after 6 pm his time (9pm my time). Plus the friend who works some weekends, and the DM and another player who are on-call some of the time.

We've tried to get local groups going here several times, but to no avail.

So I fill in my time in other ways.

TBD Lady

Yeah that does suck, the one huge disadvantage of group games: finding a group of people that you enjoy playing with that are also available at the same time..

caden_varn
2010-06-06, 03:56 PM
This thread makes me feel much better about my own DMing shortcomings :smallsmile:

Combat descriptions, as for so many others it seems, are a weakness. Another is a tendency towards railroading, but I have worked out a way that helps me - always think of two ways out of any situation. You have may have the 'planned' route, but think of a second, materially different, acceptable way out. This makes you much more receptive to your players using a different (and possibly either genius or totally demented) way out...

I think many DMs have a tendency to see problems in theri skills/style that the players don't. If your players come back next week, chances are that you are doing OK.

big teej
2010-06-07, 08:37 AM
Staying focused.

The most recent contrast nearly wiped the party out. With a run through RHoD coming up, I expect I'll have some interesting encounters that may be the end of them, but at least they'll have fun getting slaughtered.

.

being the ignorant player/dm that I am
what's RHoD?


=edit=


I think many DMs have a tendency to see problems in theri skills/style that the players don't. If your players come back next week, chances are that you are doing OK.

Amen!

Aeromyre
2010-06-07, 08:47 AM
1.Reminding myself that the players intend to survive each session; usually I counter my lethal DMing with various ways to survive, incorperating it into the story.

2.I can't predict my players. My story has been killed so many times because I can't predict the players. 2 can fuse with 1 where I attempt to off the players for completely destroying my story. (Un?)Fortunately I have a player who loves Monks and turns them into invincible death machines. I once had the players grow 8 levels in an hour and a half.

WOAH! How on earth?
Cap experience at 1 level per dungeon/adventure 3 per campaign.
I use the slow progression table for experience.
If a player gets too powerful, use a Fiat.
No one said the DM can't cheat, in fact in some d20s it's encouraged.
Give him a really terrible drawback, like he simply cannot contain himself when he sees the color red and goes into a barbaric rage, or multiple personalities, perhaps normally he's a lawful good monk but at nights with a full moon he turns into a powerful chaotic evil sorcerer who wants to kill the rest of the party.
That scenario makes it interesting because the party won't want to kill him but at the same time they want to survive.

Aeromyre
2010-06-07, 08:54 AM
Making voices for NPCs and not laughing

Also teaching my characters how to RP, some of them don't understand how to be chaotic good, i told them like robin hood. You do things against the government for the name of good. Helping break corruption, giving food and money to the poor, or something of the like.
They also don't understand the difference between the player and the character, I've explained that character knowledge is different because just because you have read every bard sorcerer cleric and druid spell as a ranger doesn't mean your character will know anything about those spells

I wish i could sit with each player and talk about who his character is.

Scorpions__
2010-06-07, 09:32 AM
We have a very simple mechanism for that: we put clothespins with character names on the DM screen.

+1 on this method, past 1:00 in the morning this becomes a major boon.







DM[F]R

Swordgleam
2010-06-07, 04:21 PM
Finally, terrain. I wouldn't say that I suck at it, but it's something I'm still learning. I sucked at it when I started running 4th ed. We found very quickly that my PCs have enough push/pull/slide abilities that combat is interesting when there's cool terrain and boring when the terrain is flat.

THIS! All my campaign's most memorable battles have featured unique terrain in some way. But I just suck at coming up with it, either beforehand or on the fly. So there's only rarely anything beyond "a tree here, here's some tree stumps, and there's a pit over there."

valadil
2010-06-07, 04:50 PM
THIS! All my campaign's most memorable battles have featured unique terrain in some way. But I just suck at coming up with it, either beforehand or on the fly. So there's only rarely anything beyond "a tree here, here's some tree stumps, and there's a pit over there."

What's helped so far is the use (http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/4487311081_6e16a33ff6_o.jpg) of (http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4041/4487311033_39ceacdfd7_o.jpg) Construx (http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4046/4487310949_8af5334167_o.jpg). I dug up my old collection from my parents' basement. It really helps me ensure that there are levels and layers to the terrain. Doesn't work so well for improvised fights, but I figure if I do one cool fight per session and improvise the rest, that's good enough. Besides, you can't have every fight in the game take place on a bridge, cliff, or spiral staircase.

As I said before, I still have trouble knowing which parts of the terrain will be cool. I pretty much play with the Construx until I have no more flat panel pieces left and assume that at least some of the terrain I've made will turn out interesting.

big teej
2010-06-10, 12:06 PM
I know what else i'm terrible at.

scaling

with the exception of 1 campaign (the one our group will hopefully focus on)

I've never done anything higher than level 1 (excepting my uber barbarian who is now level three, but he feels the same to play as he did at level one, so i don't count him)

so as a DM i reeeealy struggle with scaling up encounters to what the PC's can fight

dromer
2010-06-10, 03:51 PM
Coordinating the players.
Whenever I cobble a group together, I always have trouble getting it to become a regular weekly/whateverly thing.

tahu88810
2010-06-10, 04:11 PM
I'm a lazy arse, so planning ahead.
I normally "wing it". Sometimes that isn't so bad. Sometimes it's very annoying.

Swordgleam
2010-06-10, 08:58 PM
Coordinating the players.
Whenever I cobble a group together, I always have trouble getting it to become a regular weekly/whateverly thing.

I'm good at this, but it drives me crazy. I hate having to be the social planner, in addition to all the other work I do as DM.

ChrisFortyTwo
2010-06-11, 12:32 AM
Oh, man, my puzzles are terrible. I love puzzle games, and when I try to get my players interested, they start with a look of determination, then confusion, and end up at boredom. The worst part is that near the beginning, they are on the right track, but because they don't see immediate results, they ignore the thought trail. I tried a few pre-written puzzles, but the same thing happens.

Anyway, my biggest problem is that I get excited about the upcoming game that I'm prepping (I spend maybe 5-10 hours per session writing / prepping). I want to tell someone, but the only people who would be interested are my players, and I can't tell them.