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View Full Version : Tips for a Beginner DM (4th Ed)



RdMarquis
2010-08-04, 01:24 AM
A few weeks ago, I started running a campaign for 4th edition. I'm new to DMing, and have for the most part, been relying on the guide to run my games. Do any of you have any general advice for a new DM?

I feel that my weaknesses are in telling the story and giving them some control over what happens next. If you want specifics, the game is set in Eberron, after the spell that caused the Mourning has been amplified to affect the entire world. Their quest revolves around preparing a ritual that will basically hit the reset button on the world.

Gralamin
2010-08-04, 01:35 AM
This is a pretty nice guide. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474)

As for other tips... None currently, but its a bit late.

HunterOfJello
2010-08-04, 01:42 AM
Tip #1: When making threads, be specific so that you can attract the right attention.

Putting in the edition or game that the thread is about helps quite a bit. In this case putting "[4e]" in the title would attract players who are familiar with the 4th Edition of D&D.

Since you are seeking general advice about Dungeon Mastering, putting "Beginner DM" in your title would attract roleplayers who have experience DMing or have links to DMing resources and articles.

BobVosh
2010-08-04, 02:01 AM
Also make your specifcs a bit more specific. What did your players try to do that you stopped them from doing? How did you stop em? Etc. Otherwise we cant really give decent advice.

RdMarquis
2010-08-04, 03:19 AM
I should have thought my first post through, sorry. The problem isn't really with my players. I feel I'm not so much immersing them in a story so much as presenting them with tasks and reasons to complete them. For example, our latest session started off with all of the characters coincidentally meeting in the middle of various errands, then being roped into following some people wandering around. Not that everyone's not having fun, though. To be honest, I'm not trying to fix a mistake, so much as improve.

The campaign I have planned will take them from levels 4-11, and a chunk of it involves wandering a wasteland in search of the components to the ritual described in my first post. I'm afraid it will become a very long fetch quest without a decent plot. I have some ideas about competing factions trying to reshape the world for themselves (the Shin Megami Tensei series is a pretty big inspiration for me), but my problem is fitting it in between encounters and skill challenges.

I have also ended up railroading once or twice. One of the players has designated himself comic relief and I've had to seal off entrances to keep him from making a run for it.

Lastly, I can't play NPC's too well. I have a good idea of these characters in my head, but when I come up to bat, I stutter and lose my train of thought.

arrowhen
2010-08-04, 04:10 AM
I feel that my weaknesses are in telling the story and giving them some control over what happens next

That's because your job as DM isn't to tell the players a story. It's hard enough to tell a good story to a passive, captive audience. When the audience is supposed to take an active role in deciding what the main characters of the story do, it's almost impossible.

So don't do it.

Instead, approach the game like a player. The players are in charge of deciding what their characters do. You have a "character" too -- it's the world and everyone who lives in it who's not a PC. Let your players play their characters and you play your character and the "story" will arise naturally from the interactions between them.

Xefas
2010-08-04, 04:41 AM
If you want the players to become invested in the story, to create their own objectives, and have their own reasons to solve them - don't do any of that as a DM. Roleplaying games are collaborative by nature. The DM is not somehow greater or more powerful than the players. The DM should not have more responsibility or interest in the fun of all involved than anyone else. You should all be mature people who are gathered together with mutual intentions and expectations.

A good place to start is have each player flesh out their character a bit. Not backstory. Pages of backstory is boring. Taking a leaf from Burning Wheel, have them write up some Beliefs, Goals, and Instincts. 1-3 of each should be sufficient.

The difference:

Ingvar
Dwarf Fighter 2/Ranger 3
Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Ingvar
Dwarf Fighter 2/Ranger 3
Belief: "Humans are not to be trusted.", "The only good alcohol is Dwarven", "Family is the most important thing in the world"
Goal: "My brother was murdered by the Duke of Edmonton; avenge him.", "The magical hammer Stormherald was stolen from my people. I must return it to its ancestral home.", "Find a nice wife and settle down."
Instinct: "Always draw my weapon when threatened", "Never let a human stand behind me.", "Put my armor on as soon as I wake up in the morning."

Now when that dwarf goes into a scene, he knows exactly why he's in that scene. If nothing in the scene pertains to anything he believes in or any of his goals, then why is he even there? He should be pursuing what he wants.

I would recommend the party discussing their beliefs/goals/instincts, however, so they don't get *too* confrontational. I mean, having an Elf that believes "Dwarves are all violent brutes" and a Dwarf that believes "Messing with Elves is the most fun thing ever" can create quite a bit of hilarity, but a goal of "Go destroy Acererak to avenge my people" and another person's goal of "Go help Acererak take over the world" might cause more strife than you want.

arrowhen
2010-08-04, 04:51 AM
Lastly, I can't play NPC's too well. I have a good idea of these characters in my head, but when I come up to bat, I stutter and lose my train of thought.

It happens. I've been playing RPGs since 1983 and I still have that problem sometimes, both as a DM and as a player.

All I can say is that it does get easier with practice. If you don't have great acting skills (which I certainly don't), there's nothing wrong with that. Especially if you tell your players that sometimes you're going to need a moment to gather your thoughts and get into character. Remind them that they only have to play one character for the whole session while you might have to play a dozen or more.

It can be hard for players -- especially ones who haven't GM-ed before -- to understand just how much mental gear shifting it takes to run a game. One minute, you're trying to describe the world, trying to give the players all the information they need to make informed decisions for their characters while also trying to keep it interesting and entertaining. The next minute, you're in hardcore rules-mode, trying to remember exactly how this skill or that spell actually works. A few minutes later you're trying to make split-second tactical decisions for a dozen different creatures and a minute after that you're trying to get into the head of a complete stranger that you invented weeks ago and bring their thoughts and feelings and actions to life. It's a lot of work, and it's a lot of different kinds of work for your poor brain to do.

Just remember that as the GM, you set the pace of the game. If you need to stop, close your eyes and take a deep breath, and have a sip of your favorite beverage before you continue, that's your prerogative. Your players won't mind (or at least they shouldn't) because they understand (or at least they will, once you tell them) that that's part of your process of bringing your best game to the table.

For the specific problem of losing your train of thought when it comes to your NPCs, that's a problem I used to have a lot. I finally realized that -- in my case anyway; everyone's different -- it came down to over-planning. I was spending too much time away from the table daydreaming about possible scenarios that my NPCs might get involved in and all the cool things they'd say and do if they did. When those exact situations didn't arise at the table, I'd start frantically trying to come up with ways of quickly editing those cool NPC speeches into something that was relevant to the situation at hand, because I hated the thought of all that planning going to waste.

Nowadays, I don't do that anymore -- or at least I try not to. I've learned over my years of DMing that the more things I plan ahead of time, the more things I have to scrap when my plans don't turn out exactly as expected. So now what I do is instead of trying to predict what my NPCs will do, I focus on what my NPCs want.

As long as I keep an NPCs goals in mind and have a grasp on their personality, I don't have to worry about planning what they'll do and say in any given situation. The answer to that is always "whatever it takes, within the boundaries of my personality/alignment/beliefs/etc., to get what I want."

Lord Vampyre
2010-08-04, 01:45 PM
I should have thought my first post through, sorry. The problem isn't really with my players. I feel I'm not so much immersing them in a story so much as presenting them with tasks and reasons to complete them. For example, our latest session started off with all of the characters coincidentally meeting in the middle of various errands, then being roped into following some people wandering around. Not that everyone's not having fun, though. To be honest, I'm not trying to fix a mistake, so much as improve.

Honestly, this is pretty typical for most games. Unless the players build their backgrounds in conjunction with one another, it is often left up to the DM to find a reason to bring the party together. This can often be difficult, especially if one player insists on playing a necromancer and another player insists on playing an undead hating paladin. When you start a new campaign, it is sometimes a good idea to work with the players to build backgrounds that are interconnected that will work with your world. Otherwise, having everyone meet in a tavern works just as well. Don't worry about it too much, most books that I've read are pretty dry for the first couple of chapters anyway. The same thing happens sometimes in a game.


The campaign I have planned will take them from levels 4-11, and a chunk of it involves wandering a wasteland in search of the components to the ritual described in my first post. I'm afraid it will become a very long fetch quest without a decent plot. I have some ideas about competing factions trying to reshape the world for themselves (the Shin Megami Tensei series is a pretty big inspiration for me), but my problem is fitting it in between encounters and skill challenges.

If the campaign starts getting a little dry, you may want to mix in a few side quests along the way. Keep the over arching plot, but give them something else to focus on every now and then. Your game doesn't have to play out like a novel that has one story thread controlling the whole thing. I often treat my games like a television show. Yes, there is an over all plot, but not every game is spent advancing that plot directly. Sometimes a secondary villian will use an opportunity to advance their schemes. Most importantly, have fun.


I have also ended up railroading once or twice. One of the players has designated himself comic relief and I've had to seal off entrances to keep him from making a run for it.

Try to avoid this, when you can. Let the player's have free reign with their characters, just make sure they understand that there might be consequences if they do something truly stupid with them. If he just starts running down a random hall without checking for traps, let him spring a couple of traps. Eventually, his character will probably learn to be more cautious.


Lastly, I can't play NPC's too well. I have a good idea of these characters in my head, but when I come up to bat, I stutter and lose my train of thought.

Join the club. It always seems like my NPCs are much more spectacular when I imagine them, than I'm able to portray them to my players. It takes a certain amount of skill to be a DM. Unfortunately, like most skills, you can only get better at it by practicing. By applying the advice you receive, you'll find out what works for you and what doesn't. Every DM has a slightly different style, and what works for one DM doesn't always work for others. As I said before the most important thing is to have fun, and the rest will come with practice.

Eorran
2010-08-04, 02:19 PM
Lastly, I can't play NPC's too well. I have a good idea of these characters in my head, but when I come up to bat, I stutter and lose my train of thought.

A quick fix for NPC characteristics: shamelessly steal characters from other places. Example: Your PCs are meeting a noble-born lady. You can decide "well, this woman is somewhat haughty and temperamental, but is loyal to her friends", or you can say "Miss Piggy". Don't tell your players who your reference is; often the interaction is short enough they won't know. But it frees up your mental bookkeeping a lot, and is much easier to get inside the NPC's head that way.

Sindri
2010-08-05, 03:41 AM
If you know your players pretty well you can keep them on task without railroading through subtle manipulation and being prepared (or good at improvising) for a variety of situation. For example, if one of the PCs has a background involving slavers, then dropping a few hints about that will tend to make the party head in the direction you want them to.
If subtlety fails, remember that your average PC is self-centered, vengeful, and prone to violent vendettas. Having assassins or hit men sent after the PCs is almost guaranteed to make them hunt your BBEG to the ends of the earth. Just don't make the hit men too powerful, or the PCs might run.

Next, instead of having a specific plot in mind for an adventure (which tends to lead to players going anywhere but where you expect them to, followed by railroading, followed by a decrease in fun as the players feel they've lost their freedom), just figure out the villains' motives and personalities, and have them either work behind the scenes on their evil plots (with copious hints and "random" encounters resulting from the PCs intersecting those schemes) or reacting to what they know about the players. The story, as someone above me said, is a natural result of the heroes interacting with the villains; it's more fun for everybody if nobody know exactly how things will play out along the way. Remember that as GM, your job is less to tell a story and more to build a world and then play everyone in it other than PCs.

Kurald Galain
2010-08-05, 04:19 AM
The common tip: Convince your players that finishing their turn reasonably quickly is more important (as in, more fun for the rest of the table) than doing the absolute maximum amount of damage they can.

Or, as I like to put it, doing 20 damage now is preferable to thinking for a minute and then doing 23 damage.