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View Full Version : New to DMing, could use advice (3.5)



Aruius
2010-10-26, 09:53 PM
I have recently taken on the role of DM in my D&D group. Unfortunately, I have no experience whatsoever and minimal experience as a player with a limited grasp on the rules.

Our last DM was awful, only taking on the role in order to inspire one of us to DM. I ended up taking the bait, and now I'm under the gun to write an "epic" campaign for everybody. Our old DM ran us through pre-made quests with hardly anything but hack'n'slash gameplay with no opportunities for roleplay or storyline. After asking my players, they told me what they want:

-A story driven campaign
-less stabbing, more roleplay
-an epic "order of the stick" like storyline
-A reason to meet more than once every 4 months
-A use for their character backstories


As for characters, they're all brand new and starting at level 5. we have 2 fighters, one a dwarf and the other human, a gnome illusionist, an elven evoker, a halfling rogue, and possibly 1 or 2 others if they decide to join us.

If you have any advice or ideas for a fledgling DM, in any area at all, from campaign creation to dealing with angry players, I would greatly appreciate your input, because I have no idea what I'm doing, and all the players are getting impatient with me. Please help, and thanks for reading!

AslanCross
2010-10-26, 09:56 PM
It's good that you've established the group's expectations. That's one of the keys to good DMing. It's also good to set your expectations of them, though. Establish a trade of expectations.

Is this in any premade setting, or is it in your own homebrew setting?

Aruius
2010-10-26, 10:06 PM
I don't have any special settings or know anything about them, so its a homebrew setting, which I still need to outline. As for setting my own expectations of them, I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.

Tyndmyr
2010-10-26, 10:12 PM
I have recently taken on the role of DM in my D&D group. Unfortunately, I have no experience whatsoever and minimal experience as a player with a limited grasp on the rules.

Our last DM was awful, only taking on the role in order to inspire one of us to DM.

Take heart, the bar for you to be considered better than him is now low. This is great news for you.


I ended up taking the bait, and now I'm under the gun to write an "epic" campaign for everybody.

Don't worry about actually using epic levels for epic quests. However, feel free to start at mid levels if you want a more grandiose story, with a faster start.


Our old DM ran us through pre-made quests with hardly anything but hack'n'slash gameplay with no opportunities for roleplay or storyline. After asking my players, they told me what they want:

Great. Mix in some of the old, done well. You all know it, and are familiar with it. Mix in about 50% new stuff. Storyline stuffs, some roleplaying. You'll find the right balance for your group with practice, but for starters, avoid extremes.


-A story driven campaign
-less stabbing, more roleplay
-an epic "order of the stick" like storyline
-A reason to meet more than once every 4 months
-A use for their character backstories

Awesome. You need a story, and a setting. Once you have a story, break it down into sub arcs. Characterize the people.


As for characters, they're all brand new and starting at level 5. we have 2 fighters, one a dwarf and the other human, a gnome illusionist, an elven evoker, a halfling rogue, and possibly 1 or 2 others if they decide to join us.

Good mix of chars. Level 5 is a nice starting area for you. Choice of setting is big before you go on, though.

Lets run over some popular ones.

Greyhawk. Lots of material, pretty default. Can do anything in it....but beat to death. Most players already know it pretty well.

PF default setting. Decent amounts of material. Pretty standard. Greyhawk players will not be surprised much. However, the vanilla nature of it can also be a downside.

Kingdoms of Kalimar. Low magic, really fine grained detail. Good for the roleplaying you want, not so great for the epicness.

Eberron. Very high magic, more advanced than most settings. Lots of material out there. However, hard to fake it without having at least the campaign setting book. Probably the best setting for epic campaigns.

Faerun. Ridiculous amounts of material. However, lots of high level stuff can overshadow your party. There is really one epic campaign in faerun. The gods are jerks, and the entire order of existance must be overthrown. This can be an awesome campaign, but it's the only really good option here.

Spelljammer. D&D in spaaace. Epic is baked into this setting. However, it's quite possible for such a campaign to veer off into silliness if you're not cautious. Material also generally needs to be adapted from 2e.


If you have any advice or ideas for a fledgling DM, in any area at all, from campaign creation to dealing with angry players, I would greatly appreciate your input, because I have no idea what I'm doing, and all the players are getting impatient with me. Please help, and thanks for reading!

Make sure to give the players plenty of choice. If they are lost, and don't know what to do, they have too much, and need hints. Start gentle, but don't be afraid to hint a lot at times. If they are looking for ways to derail the adventure, they generally feel like they have too little choice. Look at giving them more.

Feel free to adapt modules as needed to cut down on adventure creation time. It helps a lot.

Lev
2010-10-26, 10:15 PM
Learning how to DM well is a pretty steep learning curve.

First of all, this podcast is insanely useful, think of it as an audiobook guide to being a better DM http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/category/podcasts


1A story driven campaign
2less stabbing, more roleplay
3an epic "order of the stick" like storyline
4A reason to meet more than once every 4 months
5A use for their character backstories
1
Story and dungeons are like oil and water, stay away from dungeons and use them as a tool, not a basis.
Take advice from sherlock holmes or batman in terms of how to balance action with story.

2
Don't have your players roll initiative.

3
Order of the stick started with a room full of goblins and a rough overview of what everyone was doing there.

5
Mold the plot around them, like a skintight dress.

Don't forget to muddle around behind the black curtain-- as long as your players believe what you are doing is fair and trust in your DMing skills you can get away with genocide.

Tyndmyr
2010-10-26, 10:31 PM
Don't forget to muddle around behind the black curtain-- as long as your players believe what you are doing is fair and trust in your DMing skills you can get away with genocide.

The rest is good, but avoid fudging as much as possible. Feel free to run encounters by the playground for balance if you like.

The fair and trust thing...get the players involved. Ask them for ideas on what they'd like to see. Use their backstories. This will result in the following.

1. Make them feel included, and like you think their opinions are important.

2. Give you someone to blame if it fails horribly.

Jolly
2010-10-26, 10:39 PM
Two really high quality resources.

Ars Ludi (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/), search the archives, lotta great stuff.

The Alexandrian (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/creations.html) and especially this essay. http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/prep-scenario.html

Based on my experiences, I'd also say to look through the more confusing rules and try to get them down, as otherwise you'll either slow the game way down by scouring through books or make up a ruling that won't be consistent down the road. Grapple, I'm looking at you here.

Also, just asking the players to 1. have some grace for you as you learn the system & 2. give you feedback on what they liked and didn't like (in a kind and constructive way) can be a big thing.

How do you know these people? RL friends, all met at a gaming shop, goto school together but aren't that close etc.

Hawriel
2010-10-26, 10:42 PM
I suggest using published adventures. Goodmen games made some great old school adventures for 3rd ed.

Pathfinder has several 6 part campaines out right now. They all start at 1st and run to 16th level. They are written for role playing and have some good fights in them. They are not written on a rail road. The writers give plenty of information to deviate, shorten or prolong the adventures as you see fit. Even though they take place in their game world it does not have to be. No trouble putting them in your world.

I recomend published adventures because they give you a premade structure to work with. The plot and story are already there. You can read them and change what you want. The monsters are made and ready to go. With more experience running them you can start creating your own stories. The adventures can also be used as a spring board for your own campainge.

Glimbur
2010-10-26, 10:43 PM
What do you like doing? Skills can be developed, but interests are more fixed.

For example, I tend to have success putting together a few people/groups of interest in a given city or geographic region. Figure out their general assets, interests, and methods. Start with one of them having a plan. This plan should involve the PC's. Then, when they inevitably screw things up, the major players react. This requires thinking on your feet. You will want stats for generic thugs.

If you don't like so much improvisation, then pre-plan a few contingencies for each player. This has a higher start-up cost, but until a contingency is needed it can probably lie in wait. And if they run to another city... anything the PC's haven't seen yet isn't fixed yet. The mayor of the next town can have the same plan for putting down wandering undead as the last mayor did, as long as the plan wasn't used.

Jolly
2010-10-26, 10:49 PM
Also, know what spells your casters have, and what they do. Don't let them automatically learn every spell in Core, and certainly not any spell from all the splatbooks.

Just because an item/feat/class/prestige class/race/anything is in a published book, doesn't mean you have to allow it. I never allowed anything from outside Core I hadn't looked over, and pre-emptively banned some things in Core (Polymorph line of spells, Candle of Invocation etc).

Don't be pressured into making rushed decision. When you adjudicate on the fly, either write down your ruling or have someone write it down for you. You can retcon it if needed, but it's good to keep that sort of thing consistent when possible.

Don't allow homebrew! Way too much crappy/overpowered stuff is floating around out there, and if your players aren't very experienced there is little chance they will come up with balanced homebrew on their own.

Also, steal stuff! :D A ton of great setting ideas in fantasy novels, or even right here. Next game I run will be set in the world from SilverClawShift's Faceless Threats campaign journal, cause I <3 the setting so much. I've loosely based world's on The Black Company setting before as well, at least insofar as place names and politics go.

JonestheSpy
2010-10-26, 10:55 PM
Okay, here's my tip: Find a book you really like, preferably a character-driven adventure such as Perdido Street Station or Swords of Lankhmar, one your players don't know anything about. Then steal from it like crazy. Spend some time perusing the monster manuals and such to find equivalents to the creatures in the novel. Try to figure out ways to keep the players generally in line with the plot, but don't be surprised when they do things wildly different than the novel's characters. Find ways to steer them back on course without making them feel railroaded.

Do it right, they'll think you're the awesomest DM ever.

Lev
2010-10-26, 10:56 PM
The rest is good, but avoid fudging as much as possible. Feel free to run encounters by the playground for balance if you like.

The fair and trust thing...get the players involved. Ask them for ideas on what they'd like to see. Use their backstories. This will result in the following.

1. Make them feel included, and like you think their opinions are important.

2. Give you someone to blame if it fails horribly.
As long as they trust you, making the game more interesting and fun is all that matters =P

Noodles2375
2010-10-26, 11:02 PM
Check out SilverClawShift's campaign archives:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116836

The feel of all of these stories is really grand, sweeping, epic etc!

Don't feel intimidated by creating a world if you don't want to use a published setting. A sort of fun way to do this is to start small, maybe even with a free adventure for low-level characters:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b&page=1
and then build your world outward from there. Top-down design can be intimidating, so it is often fun to start from something local that you know about.

Hyooz
2010-10-27, 12:33 AM
Okay, here's my tip: Find a book you really like, preferably a character-driven adventure such as Perdido Street Station or Swords of Lankhmar, one your players don't know anything about. Then steal from it like crazy. Spend some time perusing the monster manuals and such to find equivalents to the creatures in the novel. Try to figure out ways to keep the players generally in line with the plot, but don't be surprised when they do things wildly different than the novel's characters. Find ways to steer them back on course without making them feel railroaded.

Do it right, they'll think you're the awesomest DM ever.

For the love of developing good habits and real DMing skills - do not, I repeat, do NOT do this. It's a giant crutch, and will actively encourage bad habits - railroading, spotlighting certain characters, etc.

My recommendation? Read through a few pre-created modules, get a good sense for how the stories generally flow. You'll probably notice that the stories aren't super-strict. (Ok, some will be, but that's not the kind of thing you want to look for.) Unless you really want to run the modules, mostly pay attention to the general setup of their narrative, not the details necessarily.

The best trick to a good story for DnD is to have general points laid out, but let the players figure out how to get between them. If your plot says "they find the magic ring" but they don't search that corpse, or don't go in that room, then maybe someone who wants to hire them already found the ring, and will give it to them as part of the job - or maybe the ring is actually on a different corpse they did search or in a different dungeon they decided to explore.

That's one of the keys. Be only as specific with plot points as you have to be. "Archmage Traven tells them about the Floobywhat and sends them on the quest" can even be too much. "Someone tells them" is better, gives you more flex if they don't get that far, or don't want to be guided that much. Little things like that can let your players help you tell the story. It can take a lot of burden off your back, and let the players feel like they're really telling their own story.

dsmiles
2010-10-27, 07:54 AM
Mold the plot around them, like a skintight dress.

This is epic advice. Basically, throw a few plot hooks out, and see which bait they take. Let the players tell their story. You should primarily be concerned with telling what their senses tell them, and how their actions affect the world around them. Let them follow their own plot, as long as they do it cohesively and coherently, and above all, don't overprepare. Even the best DM-planned-scenario will fall to pieces as soon as the characters sit down at the table in the tavern.
Also, have them write their backstories to coincide with at least one other character's. That way, the worst that can happen when they get together is the "friend of a friend" situation.
[/$0.02]

Lev
2010-10-27, 09:00 AM
Warning: A skin tight dress may only be as good looking as the body.

KillItWithFire
2010-10-27, 02:29 PM
As said DM that turned into the gnome illusionist that Aruius is talking about, do something better than I did. (I thought the speaker in dreams one we did was pretty good(oh right that's cuz my dad was the DM))

That being said, Hyooz has good advice, listen to him, and just for clarification, Aruius, you're not gonna put speciffic plot details in here right? In that case it's ok for me to look at the thread from time-to-time?

Aruius
2010-10-27, 08:31 PM
Thanks everybody, you've all given me tons of great advice and resources, I'm more confident that I can effectively run a game now :smallsmile:

AslanCross
2010-10-27, 11:10 PM
I don't have any special settings or know anything about them, so its a homebrew setting, which I still need to outline. As for setting my own expectations of them, I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.

Alright, should be easy then. What I mean is that you should let the players know that you prefer a non-evil party, or that you expect a certain level of roleplaying, or whatever (those are my personal examples, as I don't enjoy evil parties). The game has to be enjoyable for both you and the players, so you're well within your right to make demands from the players as they are within their right to make demands from you.

Pretty much everything that's been said above is solid advice. I would suggest taking a look at some premade adventures; you can get many of those online. Use them for ideas, but you don't need to copy them.

Tvtyrant
2010-10-27, 11:17 PM
Remember that money is a form of role playing. Sometimes you can actually have someone say: "I heard there is a huge sack of loot in blank" and your people will often go after said loot. It worked for Indiana Jones after all.

Give a reason for the world to exist: God, or a cage (like OOTS), or a war ground between rival Outsiders, or a million other things. People want things to have meaning, and if you know why the world exists you also know what its like.