Tips for GMing- How not to miss little details?

[Dark Kerman]

Hey, i've just become new to the whole DM'ing malarky, having run one session (for a April Fools special) and another recent 1-1 session. In both cases, i've missed out small details that have ended up causing a few, er, strange looks.

For example

3.5
In the April Fools game I had prepped for there to be a cattle merchant as part of the fluff for the city. As luck would have it, my PC's decided to buy the entire stock of cows that he had (somewhere round the 50 mark as I recall). I had before planned that one of the "Cows" was actually 2 cannibalistic halflings hiding in a hollowed out cow skin to rob and possibly consume the merchant. As it happens the party druid rolled high to check the animals health, to which I forgot about this detail, and said all the cows were healthy! :smalleek: Suffice to say, when they popped out it was rather embarressing having to admit I forgot about the seam line of the cow skin...


or

3rd
During a show down between the PC's wizard and the Lich, I misread the correct amount of damage. I also screwed up on reading up on rules on how oozes attack in order to paralyse.

Does anyone have any suggestions? This may be an offshoot of my dyslexia/dyspraxia, but as i'm planning to DM a whole campaign at my uni this term, I was hoping that perhaps someone could suggest some excellent stratagies to overcome this issue?

Thank you for your time. :smallsmile:

[Riverdance]

Do you keep a campaign journal? If not, I highly recommend it. It has upped the quality of my game massively. I like to go through before each session and write a basic outline of possible occurrences and things to remember.

If you are playing Pathfinder something which might not help much with remembering details but will help with GMing is the Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide. It is the most useful resource for a starting GM (such as myself) that I have ever happened upon.

[Dark Kerman]

I think a journal will definitely be a good start, just keep tabs on anything. I now need to think of a way to read stat blocks correctly. :smalltongue:

[Kol Korran]

hmmmm... a few things come to mind, i'll start with the more general advice:
1) you'll make mistakes. some things you don't anticipate especially throw you a round curve (like the incident with the halflings. loved that one by the way!) accept it. if you can- try and prepare for the more likely eventualities but know the players will do the unexpected, and things won't be perfect then.

2) you will get better as you DM- you keep forgetting the grapple rules? after a few times you'll have them memorized. you mix the saves of monsters? after 2-3 times your attention will be heightened when checking them. give it time.

3) i also suggest the journal idea. how far you go with it depends on you: session summaries (to various depths), listing of NPCs, of your ideas and plots and so on. it can be an immensely useful tool. just try and keep it organized.

i personally use one of the free Wiki sites on the web (mine is PB works (http://pbworks.com/). i have one to write all my DM stuff, and one for the party, which they write in too (well, some of them).

4) before a session i tend to go through it in my head and "troubleshoot" any problematic areas: rule sets we haven't used yet, monsters with special powers. conditions and the like. i try and put myself in the players' places and ask what they might ask ("WHY is the duke in alliance with them?" "ooh! treasure! anyway to steal it?") and so on, and devise answers. it's not perfect, but it helps.

5) one of my papers for the session is usually a sort of a summary of the session, with important details listed (such as NPCs social skills, major contributions of environment and other mechanical stuff). this helps A LOT! i try to summarize the relevant rules (briefly!) on another page

that is all i can think of for now... hope it helps! :smallsmile:

[onemorelurker]

I think a journal will definitely be a good start, just keep tabs on anything. I now need to think of a way to read stat blocks correctly. :smalltongue:

Try taking some time while you're prepping to write down all the monsters' important characteristics (AC, saves, attacks, etc.) in a form that you can understand at a glance. This can be pretty time-consuming if you've got a lot of monsters you need to deal with, but it should speed things up during the session if you don't have to fumble with stat blocks.

[SpaceBadger]

i personally use one of the free Wiki sites on the web (mine is PB works (http://pbworks.com/). i have one to write all my DM stuff, and one for the party, which they write in too (well, some of them).


Intriguing. Would it be possible to have a look at yours to see how this works in practice?

[SpaceBadger]

I think there are two important points to keep in mind:

1) You and your friends are doing this to have fun. Don't stress over it too much. So you forgot a detail - have a laugh and move on.

2) Organization is the key to remembering details, by which I mean that with good organization you don't have to trust your memory of details as it will all be there for you to see - you just have to remember to look at your notes.

The form of the notes is not so important, just whatever works for you and lets you not worry about the details and get on with the fun and improvisational stuff in response to whatever the players do. Index cards in a cardfile box worked well for me back in the day, and I'm currently mulling over different database systems for keeping it on my laptop - I really like the idea of a custom wiki for this and am looking forward to hearing more on that from Kol Korran, but I have no experience with that myself. Seeing some of the stuff that my son does with his iPad, I'm thinking that could be very handy, but again I don't have one yet myself.

[Dark Kerman]

Thanks for the advice chaps! :smallsmile:

@ Kol Korran: I like the troubleshooting idea, that way I can pick out the more troublesome bones from my delicious trout of gaming ahead of time. Also I partially do the summary (usually a plot outline) with some descriptions, I think I need to perfect the method though. Thanks for the link btw. :smallbiggrin:

@ onemorelurker: Good idea! Definitely do that for when i end up needing to open out about three different monster stats!

@SpaceBadger In regards to number 2, do you think I should take some levels of Geometer? :smallamused: :smalltongue: But on that matter, i'm now thinking of purchasing a pack of post-it notes from a stationary store.

Thanks again! I really appreciate all the advice! :smallbiggrin:

[SpaceBadger]

@SpaceBadger In regards to number 2, do you think I should take some levels of Geometer? :smallamused: :smalltongue: But on that matter, i'm now thinking of purchasing a pack of post-it notes from a stationary store.

Sorry, not getting the Geometer reference. A mathematician who specializes in geometry? :smallconfused:

The pack of post-its would not do it for me, but whatever works for you.

[Slipperychicken]

Sorry, not getting the Geometer reference. A mathematician who specializes in geometry?

Geometer is a Wizard prestige class whose second level ability is Book of Geometry, which makes each spell take only 1 page of a spellbook, because the Geometer knows the "perfect" shape for each spell, as opposed to pages and pages of text. This significantly cuts spell scribing costs, saving lots of money (and space if you're using a Blessed Book). Presumably, it also makes things more organized and easy to use.

[SpaceBadger]

Geometer is a Wizard prestige class whose second level ability is Book of Geometry, which makes each spell take only 1 page of a spellbook, because the Geometer knows the "perfect" shape for each spell, as opposed to pages and pages of text. This significantly cuts spell scribing costs, saving lots of money (and space if you're using a Blessed Book). Presumably, it also makes things more organized and easy to use.

OIC. Thanks.

[Dr.Epic]

Yeah, keep a notebook. Though I'm not sure how you could forget a detail like one cow isn't a cow.:smallconfused:

[Dark Kerman]

@SpaceBadger: Sorry, obscure class reference there. Just popped in my head. :smallredface:

@Dr Epic: Agreed, before i'm starting i'm getting a notebook purely for that purpose.
Tbh, I wouldn't be surprised, i've forgotten to wear trousers and trapped myself in a coffee table before. Anything is possible. :smallfrown:

[Eleanor_Rigby]

Yeah, keep a notebook. Though I'm not sure how you could forget a detail like one cow isn't a cow.:smallconfused:

I could imagine myself doing that quite easily, actually. But I have straw, yarn, coloured sand and feathers where my brain ought to be so...

I think I'd have been a bit baffled if I were one of the players in that game as well, to be honest though. :smalltongue:


@Dr Epic: Agreed, before i'm starting i'm getting a notebook purely for that purpose.
Tbh, I wouldn't be surprised, i've forgotten to wear trousers and trapped myself in a coffee table before. Anything is possible. :smallfrown:

I sympathise. I have something that was labelled as dyslexia when I was under the age of ten, but now that I'm older nobody seems to be able to find a term for what my deal is. Partly I think it's that some of the coping techniques I was taught when I was young are really good so my problems mostly manifest only when I'm very stressed (which makes testing me in a nice controlled environment very tricky because I try far to hard to 'win' the tests)

Anyhoo. That's not very DMing related, is it? Neither is this really, but I think it might help:
I basically came to add that whilst all the advice I've seen for you so far is very good, I didn't notice anyone mentioning tips on parsing printed tables. It's embarassingly straight forward, but what I find helps most with those is an opaque ruler or two (coloured card will work as well) - all that does is blot out the extraneous information and help you focus on the particular row or column you want to look at. I feel dumb when I need to resort to that but I shouldn't because it's just the way my brain's wired up. A lot of people struggle with parsing tables whether they have a diagnosed (or diagnosable) condition or not.

With computerised tables you can often highlight the row or column that interests you, which helps to keep you from getting confused.

Sorry if somebody alread mentioned that and I missed it. I was skimming since the thread was still short when I started this post. :smalltongue:

ETA: Just to be clear: none of the above was meant as a substitute for advice from people who Actually Know What They're Talking About (i.e professionals) as far as the dyslexia/dyspraxia goes - it's just a trick that's helped me in the past. It might not work for you or you may not 'need' it anyway. :smallsmile:

[Tytalus]

Do you keep a campaign journal? If not, I highly recommend it. ...



i personally use one of the free Wiki sites on the web (mine is PB works (http://pbworks.com/). i have one to write all my DM stuff, and one for the party, which they write in too (well, some of them).


To throw my two coppers in: I recommend making notes during the session (sheet of paper), then taking the time to go over them shortly afterwards and transfer everything important into a wiki. I use TiddlyWiki (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiddlyWiki), as it doesn't require network access and I can store the whole thing conveniently on a USB stick.

Separating note taking and adding information to your note collection (wiki for me) has the advantage that you can take notes quickly when needed (i.e., during the session), but can still structure the information properly (for better access later). Even more importantly, being forced to go over your notes thoroughly, helps not only remembering the information better, but also sparks the first ideas on how to use it in the future. I found it to be a win-win(-win) solution in my games, if you can spare the little extra time.

For my players, I also offer a PB works wiki (like Kol Karran does), which has proven invaluable. Occasionally, players volunteer to write session summaries, while others keep track of items and/or NPCs of interest there. Reading player summaries can be useful, as they tend to have a slightly different view on what happened.

[Kol Korran]

Intriguing. Would it be possible to have a look at yours to see how this works in practice?

i think viewing the wikis on this site requires permission... by email unfortunately. i think it was done so to keep things fairly private. if anyone is interested, send me a private message.

HOWEVER, i just remembered another site, but mostly for a campaign site for groups, less for note taking and planning (though i guess that is possible)
it's called obsidian portal (http://www.obsidianportal.com/). i haven't yet used it myself, but read through all kind of campaign sites there, and it seems really really neat. it's also free!

that is all i had to add...

[Ancient Mage]

One thing you could do is talk with other DM's or create another thread on the forum, and ask what they do when they mess up. Some DM's just start the encounter over if the mistake is big enough ("That never happened"), or find a way to fudge it. ("You drop to negative te...I mean negative nine hit points.")
The cow problem could be solved in a few ways. Did they really check every single cow? Perhaps one of the halflings had a minor illusory item that can create silent, fooling the druid. Or maybe the druid just missed it. There are dozens of ways to cover up your mistakes. All DM's make them, the trick is to make it part of the game, or cover it up quietly.

-Ancient Mage

[chadmeister]

Geometer is a Wizard prestige class whose second level ability is Book of Geometry,.

There actually is a Geometry class? Whenever I see the class Geomancer, I think of Geometry first, which I've always found funny.