Brand New to DnD and am DMing [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

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crazybob

2013-01-22, 01:01 PM

Yora

2013-01-22, 01:15 PM

I always write down the initiative counts for everyone at the start of the encounter and then just go down the list every round.

For adventures, espeically with chaning players, I recommend going with relatively short, self-contained adventures that are losely linked together instead of one big story-heavy campaign. For the beginning and to get used to the rules, going into dungeons to kill monsters or retrieve some items is completely enough. It doesn't need to be great mystery and conspiracy at the beginning.

hamlet

2013-01-22, 01:22 PM

Welcome to D&D.

First off, seven people is a large group. Especially when you have people cycling in and out. Though the nuances of it are enough to challenge even veteran DM's, I'm going to go ahead and recommend that you base the campaign in a major city or settlement. Someplace where there are lots of people and things going on in very close proximity. Go ahead and use wikipedia or google to look up places like Waterdeep, Greyhawk, and Raven's Bluff for some clues as to what a place like that is. In the end, your goal is to have all, or most, adventures start and then end in the city and over the course of single sessions. This makes one thing very easy: if Bob the Thief can be there on one week, but not the next, it's ok because soembody else might be there to take his place the next session and you can go off on a new adventure that might only be tangentially linked to the first.

The major metropolis also lets you set up a situation where there's lots of things going on and in a relatively compact geographic area. It also lets you have lots of different groups of people and power blocs all acting on their own, which just begs for adventure situations. The thieves' guild is plotting a major heist from the local mage's college and the PC's are recruited to stop it. Or perpetrate it. Or maybe the heist is a diversion for something else entirely. The players will have their own characters with their own interests within the city and each one might be interested or not in each adventure, and heck, might even be at odds with each other from time to time, which is entirely OK.

The problem with this is that you really need to create at least a strong framework for the city and it's atmosphere ahead of time so that you are free to create on the fly based on what the group makeup will be on any given day. And hell, it will even support your idea of a war since maybe a neighboring kingdom or barbaric tribe has come to invade because the city is built on sacred land or such.

Another suggestion I have is to not be attached too much to the idea of plot. Plot works great in novels, movies, and television shows, but not so great in adventures. You can never quite predict what the players are going to do and believe me, the WILL spoil your nicely laid plans by running off in unexpected directions all the time. it's better to have lose ideas of what's going on, but be prepared for a number of contingencies when they do go off the reservation, and be prepared to completely improvise when they go so far out of where you expected them to go. It's generally good to have at least a couple of ideas set up for each session in case the players don't pick up on cues and whatnot.

My most important suggestion is very basic: keep it simple. Start very small and simple (like, say, they get paid to recover the sword in your above post) and it stays that small for a while. Build complexity and "epicness" on top of the small bricks in the foundation. Don't go whole hog all at once or too early. Lay the foundation stones of bigger things slowly and carefully and then let the players discover them for themselves.

My last bit of advice: have you considered trying an "Old School System"? They're a bit easier to operate on the fly with than 3.x, which is a good system, but a little thick at times. OSRIC or the like are generally FREE for the core rules on PDF format, and they're fantastically easy to use once you get the swing of things. They're designed to have a pretty spare skeleton of rules, and then are open enough to "imagine the hell out of it."

crazybob

2013-01-22, 03:31 PM

Wow, thanks for all the tips guys all really good ideas. I think ill try to have the group make their way to the city. And yora, that's how I was doing it but it seemed to be a bottleneck at times. For the moment were using the rules somewhat lose so we don't get lost in everythi mg.

I think I'll spend a few weeks creating a large city after looking up some of those suggested and create a few adventures from there.

Thanks again everyone and of course the more info the better!
Crazy

Sebastrd

2013-01-22, 03:48 PM

It sounds like you're off to a good start.

For long journeys, the issue you can be how to create a sense of the time that has passed without simply glossing over it.

A good way to show the passage of time in game is to roll for random encounters. A good random encounter chart will include not only monsters, but also more mundane occurances like passing merchants and other travellers, wild animals, ruins, intresting flora, etc. Having the players roll every hour or two, especially at night, can create a lot of tension when an encounter finally pops up.

I also highly recommend you check out thealexandrian.net. There are some great articles on there about DMing, like the Three Clue Rule.

Adam...?

2013-01-22, 06:45 PM

To help with combat, many people have created automated initiative trackers. If you find one that you like, I've found that they can be incredibly useful. With the one I'm currently using, the names of all the PCs and their initiative modifiers are stored, so I can just add a few monsters, include THEIR initiative mods, and push a button to roll everything and start the combat. As an added bonus, there's room to jot down notes, and it can automatically track the duration of status effects.

Of course, regardless of how organized you are, combat in DnD 3.5 is inevitably slow and somewhat confusing, especially if not everyone is super familiar with the rules. Don't sweat it too much.

Traveling is one of those things that seems difficult to pull off well. For PCs exploring new areas, I generally use a random encounter table paired with some vague descriptions ("It's a cloudy day, and your walking North through these woods. Around midday, you cross a small stream. By the evening, you notice the ground getting a little marshier, and you have to maneuver around some larger puddles").

As for the random encounters, I've found it helps to try to spice them up a little, as a straight up "you encounter some giant spiders" can quickly turn into a boring grind if used too often. The guy above me mentioned non-combat encounters, which are usually an interesting time. With a little bit of quick thinking, random encounters could also include fun terrain, the chance to ambush/be ambushed, other combats already in progress, random hooks to sidequests, and so on.

salt3d

2013-01-22, 06:59 PM

Firstly, don't forget the law of encounter probability (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0145.html).

I was in the same position a couple of years ago. A few friends and I had a collective light bulb moment and decided to play D&D. We bought the red box (4E version) and since I was the most enthusiastic I volunteered to DM it. Luckily another guy who joined us had played previous editions and we were able to convince him to run our first proper adventure.

Once that was done I felt the urge and again nominated myself as DM for a new campaign, which I've been running for over a year now. I think having had some experience as a player did help, but I wouldn't describe it as essential.

One resource I found invaluable was WotC's 'What's a DM to do?' forum. I'm not a prolific poster but lurking there helped me tremendously in knowing what to focus on. The first nugget of advice that comes to mind is meaningful choice.

For example, my party was asked to save an NPC's brother who was missing and in all likelihood in mortal danger. They accepted the task, then promptly went to the inn for a snooze to freshen up for the quest. Lo and behold, the guy was dead when they got there. Now the NPC has a vendetta against the party, and other NPCs are unlikely to offer more than zero upfront payment for quests. It put a spanner in the works because the dead brother was supposed to provide useful information that would give the party an advantage in the next part of the adventure.

The other advice I really liked is to learn when to ignore the rules. If a player wants to attempt an action that normally would have little to no chance of success, if said action would increase the fun for everyone, let it succeed.

What I found is that my DMing style didn't lend itself to excessive planning. This may not be the case for you, but in the first adventure of the campaign (which I got from a book) the players consistently deviated from the expected course. Since they were simply reacting spontaneously to the world around them, I figured I could have a bit of fun doing the same. The world keeps rolling and bad stuff will happen if the party doesn't deal with it, but that doesn't imply a less enjoyable experience. I am confident this campaign has been much more memorable for me having made up a bunch of it on the fly.

Following on from that, I think it's important to keep in mind that it's a shared story-telling experience. If my PCs don't have a significant influence over the course the campaign takes, I may as well be writing a novel. To that end I have added a few things to the game.

Warning: the following ended up being fairly long, and since it's entirely specific to my campaign, I'm not sure how valuable it is as advice. But I've already typed it, so feel free to read it or don't.

I was looking for a way to speed up combat (as mentioned this is 4E, so combat is interminably slow at times) and came across a method I quite liked. As a reward for completing a turn within a set time, a player is awarded a red token worth +1 on a d20 roll. Three red tokens can be traded for a green token worth +2, and three green tokens can be traded for a roll on the Table o' Fun. This is a d100 roll that awards an in-game bonus card (usually combat related). This was not my idea; I think I found it on the WotC forums somewhere. I'm sure you can find it easily enough.

I decided to take it one step further and introduce another type of token (purple), for exceptional services to the campaign (I awarded one such token to a player who wrote the gospel according to his paladin). This allows a player to alter an element of the plot. I was somewhat surprised to find that a roll of 100 on the Table o' Fun awarded a card labelled 'You Win at D&D', which was essentially the same as a purple token. A couple of players have rolled 100 so far.

The first use of a purple token was to convince a 50 foot mutant goblin to switch sides and join the party. It's not difficult to imagine this changed the course of the campaign, and I was forced to abandon any vague expectations I had about what might happen. And it was awesome.

The second use was by the aforementioned paladin, who talked an undead beholder into becoming essentially a recruitment officer for the paladin (he serves the Raven Queen and promised release from undeath). Once the current adventure concludes and the party reaches epic tier, the beholder will be waiting with a veritable army nation of undead minions for the paladin. I have no idea how that will play out, but it'll be a lot of fun getting there.

Finally in regards to initiative (again, I play 4E so this may not apply) I make one initiative roll for each group of monsters. So your four skeletons and five PCs should add up to an initiative order with six entries. I assume it's likely you're already doing this, but it wasn't entirely clear from your description so I thought I'd throw it in.

Have fun!

Anxe

2013-01-22, 09:00 PM

I definitely second the city/settlement idea. I've had a lot of success with that. I also agree with the idea of having loosely connected adventures. That's what I started with and it worked quite well. My first attempts at overarching plots were miserable failures.

I'd also encourage you to learn from failures. The big campaign plots failed, so I stopped doing them for awhile. My players hate riddles, so I now try to label them as optional or leave them entirely out of adventures.

One more piece of advice. Add a interesting set piece to every encounter. It can be a tree, a ledge, a rolling boulder trap, or a location that doubles the threat range of weapons. Stuff like that makes encounters memorable.

Gavinfoxx

2013-01-22, 09:30 PM

You are new? Here is an essay I try to show to new players and DMs! This may be totally off topic to what you asked... but it should be useful. ;)

"D&D 3.5e is a very...interesting game system. At it's heart, it is a game which started with several assumptions: that fantastically wealthy, violent hobo land pirates go underground to the homes of things that look different than them, kick down the doors to these homes, kill the inhabitants, and take their stuff. Then they go back to town, sell most of the stuff, keep the useful bits, buy things that help them go to newer and different places where things that look MORE different then they, kill them, take their stuff, et cetera. It is a game where the stalwart fighter stands in the front and swings his sword, the rogue looks for and disables traps, or perhaps sneaks around to stab bad things with a dagger, the Wizard stands in the back and blasts things, and the Cleric keeps all of them healed while doing this. This is the heart of the game because that was how the game was played in the past, because it was a competitive, team event played at tournaments where people wargame for points, and there is a single team which is the winner. Every assumption that is 'weird' or arbitrary in the game stems from things inherited from this idea regarding how the old games used to work.

However, that's not often how the game is *played*, and for the most part, we aren't interested in playing that particular game with it. It has been quite some time since 3.5e books started coming out, and people have had lots of time to look at them and think about them and tinker with them and figure things out. They've come up with several interesting conclusions. Namely, that if you look at the toolset represented by all these books, you essentially have a fantastic array of lego pieces to make characters to tell any sort of story you want, because Wizards of the Coast tried to be inclusive of a huge variety of fantasy gaming styles in their writings. People have also figured out that there is a dramatic and huge variation in the power level of the 'lego pieces' -- that is the classes -- when you start doing things with them other than the old edition legacy assumptions. So given that, the question is this: what sort of story do you want to tell with your characters, and what power level and complexity level do you want in the rules? Do you want to be people altering the fabric of reality to fit their very whims, or the gritty soldier for whom death is a real possibility in any fight -- in other words, something lower power level like Lord of the Rings, or the wuxia swordsman who is somewhere in between? Any sort of Fantasy story is a possibility, but you have to know what you want, first!

Of course, just because anything is possible, doesn't mean that there isn't something close to a consensus amongst experts as to what the system is best at. What they say is something along these lines: the system is best for fantastic characters, fantasy superheroes of some sort, doing crazy, incredible things to the world around them, things which are overtly superhuman. While 3.5e is capable of much lower power and grittier things, it really starts to shine when you accept the power level of 'everyone has superpowers of some sort', provided you make choices of the correct legos appropriate to that power level, especially because of, if you are attempting to actually simulate reality with the game rather than simulate certain types of stories, things get 'wonky'. Of course, if you want to use rules based on D&D 3.5e to simulate actual reality, there are third party products such as Codex Martialis which do this admirably.

Also, there is a reason we aren't playing 4th edition. The reason is this: Wizards of the Coast realized that D&D 3.5e was laughably, ridiculously unbalanced. However, in their quest to make something manageable, they have reduced the game to only a miniatures tactical combat system where the scope of the sorts of things the characters can do which the actual rules can cover is very, very limited. This is intentional on their part, and is maybe what they had to do to balance the game. Unfortunately, it does greatly limit the sorts of stories that can be easily told with the rules in the system, even if you know your way around it backwards and forwards. This has been mitigated somewhat as 4e went on, but is still somewhat true. This is not the case with 3.5e -- if you know your way around it, you can make anything for any sort of Fantasy story.

Finally, I thought I should make a note about some of the continuations of 3.5e which you might have heard of, such as Pathfinder and it's lesser known cousin Trailblazer. Some folk may have claimed that these fix all of the balance problems in the game. This is not true; what they do is merely continue support for the game, though they do attempt to fix some balance problems that become issues for several groups, but they for the most part ignore the inherent power and versatility differences of the 'legos' themselves, though they have been gradually adding options that allow improvements in the capability of the lower performing classes, much like D&D 3.5e did in it's actual run. They do attempt to make changes so that everyone has some interesting and fun things to do, and for the most part, they succeed."

crazybob

2013-01-23, 01:11 PM

Wow! thanks for all of the great input, it's all quite helpful. I think I'll have the PC's bum around the castle town that they're in for a bit and help the townsfolk out there. In regards to initiative, I was rolling for each individual skeleton in the room, is it better to roll for the group of enemies? so the attack order would be something like:

PC1 > PC2 > PC3 > All skeleton enemies (4 in this case) > PC4 > PC5

I found the section about random wilderness encounters as was discussed earlier (initially by Sebastrd). When I originally found that chart I thought it was for helping come up with ideas to put the monsters in the trail or whatever. Not for having the players roll and they determine what happens. I like the idea of them controlling their fate in that manner (going to have to do some more research into this).

After reading thru the "law of encounter probability" comic I feel that altho it seems (in my head) to be sarcastically done it lends a good rule of thumb? ie. don't necessarily make there be a roll every hour (esp on a 3 day drip) or at least not make every roll have an encounter accociated with it. Also, don't make the dice roll mean the same thing every session?

On a side note: I'm very impressed with the responses and response time on this forum! On the other ones that I use I generally have to wait at least a day for people to respond, as opposed to minutes.

thanks again everyone for all the help! sorry for all the questions

Crazy 8)

Kornaki

2013-01-23, 01:56 PM

My group typically has every group of enemy roll a single die, but there can be drawbacks. If you have them fighting twelve lower level goblins, it might make sense to break them up into groups of four, because all twelve goblins going at the same time can have weird consequences - an obvious example, if they roll a 20 on their initiative, they all get to go before the party even if their initiative modifier is significantly lower, but even if they all go at the end of the round, if you're fighting in the hallway and you envisioned the fight as the goblins rushing down the hall and getting chopped down, only for more to fill the gap and keep up the fight, the first turn for the goblins is they all move up and the first two attack, and then the next turn begins which isn't very exciting

Storm Bringer

2013-01-23, 03:57 PM

one thing i'd recommend is keeping a running track not just of every characters Inititive, but their hit points as well.

long story short, new players are unlikey to remind you that thier character can be killed by a solid hit, so you need to know what you can and can't throw at them.

it's all part of the great, big, compilcated mess known on these boards as Rule 0. personally, "getting" Rule 0 is the hardest part of DM'ing, but you seem to have avoided a common pitfall of some newbie DM's ive seen (which is thinking of the players as "the enemy", or the players thinking of the DM as "the enemy".)

if you've not come across Rule 0, the RULE is simple:

the DM is always right.

its what it means that is complex.

basically, a DM has not only the right, but the requirement to bend the rules of the game whenever he needs to in order to make the game more fun.

for example, say your in combat, and you roll a goblins attack. you roll behind your DM screen*, for reasons that will become apprant. the result that comes up on the dice wpuld put the player down to -13hp, i.e. deader than dead. at low level, this is Bad News. the party would be a PC down, the the player would not be able to do much more than sit about and talk to other players.

what do you do? simple, report the damage as, say, enough to put the player to -6HP. Now, the player is still down and out, but thiers a chance to save him. the players have a round or two to act and save his life. A cleric can cast a heal, and even a 1 HP heal will stop him form dying. instead of disappointment, you get drama. you may have to stage-mange the monsters actions a little to make it happen, but thats part of being a DM>

Did you cheat? yes, you did. did it make the game better? yes, it did.

*while you can buy purpose made screens, which often have lots of handy reference tables and such on them, anything will do, such as behind your copy of the Dungon Masters guide, or below the table, or so on. basically, you need a little space you can put notes and roll dice without the players seeing what you are doing.

crazybob

2013-01-23, 04:48 PM

Storm Bringer

2013-01-24, 01:29 AM

Sound advice, I should get one of those presenation boards. That'd be good for general notes as well to pin to (maps, that random encounter chart, hard stats of players and monsters). And to the bending of the rules, I did that when we played. I had them fight a zombie bugbear (5 level 1 pcs vs a cr2) however some people were throwing poorly and were getting frustrated so I dropped the ac a bit so they could hit and we wouldn't ne thete another 20 min. The idea of rolling behind a curtain is fun too, it prob adds a bit of tension I bet.

thats very good to hear. I think you're gonna do just fine as a DM if you're figuring all this out alone.

hiding your rolls is a good idea, so that you can both blag the result of a roll, but also what you are rolling (seriously. have them make a random spot check halfway though an adventure, or roll two dice behind a screen and pretent to note down the result, then mention something totally normal ("its just started raining", or "you see a few normal sized spiders crawling though a small web in the corner of the room") and watch them squirm trying to work out what just happened:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:.)

with the players rolling poorly, that sort of thing happens all the time, so just get used to the making monsters having to make poor tactical choices every so often (for example, ignoring the soft party caster and going for the hard as nails fighter instead).

that said, two important warnings:

1. don't be obvious about your cheating. it kills suspension of disblief when you know you can't loose. Beating a major NPC in single combat by the skin of your teeth and 1 HP is awesome. Beating a major NPC in single combat with minimal effort becuase the DM was cheating is disappointing. it also leads to the players thinking they can get away with anything, becuase "the dm will fudge it".

2.If the players are doing somthing really stupid, then give them one warning, and if they still go though with it, then don't be afraid to let them suffer the consquences. the party fighter wants to duel with the crown prince? fine, point out to him that the prince is a trained warrior with several years of experence, armed with the best plate armour in the kingdom and carrying the magical royal sword, and if he still wants to do it, then go ahead, wipe the floor with him. and when the rest of the party drag his bleeding, unconsious body back to a temple, they can take heed that they can't do anything that they like, and that thier are bigger fish.

Gavinfoxx

2013-01-24, 02:32 AM

2.If the players are doing somthing really stupid, then give them one warning, and if they still go though with it, then don't be afraid to let them suffer the consquences. the party fighter wants to duel with the crown prince? fine, point out to him that the prince is a trained warrior with several years of experence, armed with the best plate armour in the kingdom and carrying the magical royal sword, and if he still wants to do it, then go ahead, wipe the floor with him. and when the rest of the party drag his bleeding, unconsious body back to a temple, they can take heed that they can't do anything that they like, and that thier are bigger fish.

Also, know that D&D is a swingy system, and sometimes the party fighter will, you know, WIN that fight, unless you know wayyyy better optimization and know wayyyyy more about optimization and equipping characters with powerful items and such than you might currently know. After all, playing D&D 3.5e effectively by the system is a learned skill...

Hopeless

2013-01-24, 08:43 AM

Hello all,
My friends have recently started to play DnD, of which none of us have ever played before (we decided to play 3.5). I have taken up the task of being the DM, which I have quickly discovered to be both fun and tiresome. Last weekend we had a first session of what I hope to be a long/good campaign.

In brief heres what happened (played about 2.5 hrs):
the group was summoned by a diplomat of the king to recover an ancient artifact (ancient family sword) in an abbey which has been abandoned for generations. the trek took them thru "barrier wood", then "the dead forest", and finally the abbey. After defeating the boss, they found a shield but no sword. (I stated that the hallway that lead to the locked door had recently been cleared, tho I'm not sure that anyone really picked up on it :/). the session ended with them exiting the abbey ready to face the walk home.

Basically I want them to help gather this ancient piece (which was stolen by some evil person) and eventually bring it to the king and take part in the war in some manner. (Clearly have not thought thru a whole lot at this junction)

Out of curiosity what character classes are your players running with?

My group consists of 7 players, however I doubt we will ever have a full set so I would like to try to keep the start and ends somewhat open for people cycling in and out of play. I guess I would like to know if I am over my head? and would someone be able to give a new player and DM words of Advice.

Might want to keep in mind where they are by the end of the session so if one player rejoins you can easily explain why they've returned and if another can't attend then just explain the returning player character came with a message for the other character and that PC has gone to respond so won't be present for that session unless you have no problem with them being run as npcs...

I found keeping track of the initial initiative rolls for battle to get confusing when I had 4 skeletons in a room and 5 people rolling. Also I'm not sure about how to play the travelling aspect, the journey was 3 days, and I basically just had them attacked by a wolf, and a couple of spiders each day, feel like I should incorporate more.

Make a quick note of who rolled what and have your Monsters initiative noted using the same die roll for all of them barring the different intiative modifier they have.
If you want you could carry over those initiative rolls or just have your monsters take 10 instead of rolling if that helps.

When I played and even run games with random encounters the players to roll a d6 and then if they did roll the number that gave them an encounter simply decided on what they could have stumbled across some dm's use a standard encounter chart so it doesn't always end in combat but its up to you how it develops and this can be used to throw in subplots like revealing who might have got that sword before they did.
Will they return to the king and find their rival has already returned it so they have his favour instead of them?
If they're interested make it a case of them looking to reestablish their reputation until you're ready for them to face the real big bad by having the rival fight him/it first and they get the chance to see what they're really up against?

1337 b4k4

2013-01-24, 09:05 AM

On random encounters, don't forget that an encounter can be more than just a fight, they can be scenery or inspiration for new plots and plot hooks. An encounter with 5 wolves isn't a "You're walking, you're walking, you're walking and now there's wolves in your path", its "As you're walking, from somewhere off the trail, you hear a wet ripping and snapping sound." If they go to investigate, they find a small pack of wolves apparently eating a dead deer or other animal. No (forced) combat, and instant flavor. Or alternatively, I had a random encounter (wandering monster check with wolves again) which was rolled right after the PCs had finished looting a room where all the treasure in the room was invisible until removed from the room. The encounter distance was rolled as some 400 feet or something like that, so rather than having wolves chasing them down through the halls, I decided that the treasure in the room may or may not have been cursed, and told the players "As you remove the last piece of treasure from the room, in the distance, echoing through the halls you hear a mournful howl that sends a chill to your bones." I haven't yet decided whether I want the treasure to be cursed or not, but I now have a new plot hook, and the players have a fear of the unknown.

crazybob

2013-01-24, 10:54 AM

hamlet

2013-01-24, 11:14 AM

Hi Hopeless, don't know how to quote things but my 7 players are (all presently level 1):

-Gnome Wizard
-Gnome Druid
-Gnome Cleric
-Elf Ranger
-Half Elf Fighter
-Half Elf Rogue
-Half Orc Barbarian

When you guys create a random encounter chart, do you come up with 100 options? combat and non-combat included. Or do you come up with 10 general ideas and then 10 more sub ideas? For instance, a roll of10 on the %die may be wolves, and then 0-9 on the d10 would indicate numbers or something of the sort? Or do you not have them roll a d% for the random encounters as the DM book indicates.

You don't need to come up with 100 ideas. Just come up with a quick list of interesting ideas, figure out what die to roll (if you have 8 options, roll a d8, if you have 5 options, maybe a d20 can work) and work with it. Then, as you go along, you can pull some of the old ones out and put in new ones. Or just make the chart longer.

Or, if you want to, out there there's a 1000 item long chart I think for random city encounters put out by somebody in the Old School Rennaisance if you really want it. Not a bad little thing, actually.

1337 b4k4

2013-01-24, 11:14 AM

I use random charts in a lot of the OSR materials. Usually those charts are 1-10 (or 12 or some other die size) and each entry indicates a monster and number encountered (usually X-Y, determined by a die roll). You can use http://www.wizardawn.com/rpg/tool_wander.php to generate some, try the Labyrinth Lord one to get a number encountered. Just beware that that tool uses LL monsters to generate, so you might not be able to take that table and translate directly to your game as the monster power levels are different.

OTOH, you can use http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/encounter/ to generate random d20 (3.x) encounters, but only one encounter at a time.

crazybob

2013-01-25, 08:19 AM

Storm Bringer

2013-01-25, 08:39 AM

Excellent, Thank you guys for all the help! Everyone was very informative, I'm glad I discovered this website, a lot of useful information to be had. Anyway, I think I'm going to crawl into my cave over the next few days and hash out some ideas. I'm sure I'll be back over the course for more specific questions.

Thanks again,
Crazy

feel free. we'll be here. the RGP community is like a virus: we are always looking to expand:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

Hi Hopeless, don't know how to quote things but my 7 players are (all presently level 1):

-Gnome Wizard
-Gnome Druid
-Gnome Cleric
-Elf Ranger
-Half Elf Fighter
-Half Elf Rogue
-Half Orc Barbarian

When you guys create a random encounter chart, do you come up with 100 options? combat and non-combat included. Or do you come up with 10 general ideas and then 10 more sub ideas? For instance, a roll of10 on the %die may be wolves, and then 0-9 on the d10 would indicate numbers or something of the sort? Or do you not have them roll a d% for the random encounters as the DM book indicates.

personally, i don't use random encounters. i pretty much just pick a encounter i like the look of, then "work" it into the plot (i.e. the barman at the pub warns them that wolves have been attacking travelers for food recently, or the they hear stories of a landshark seen on the south road, ect). that way, it feels less "random" and,, by extenstion, less artifical.

with that party mix, i can see some fun moments up ahead....

"that river is too deep for us to cross!"

"...it's 4 feet deep"

"Exactly!"

BlckDv

2013-01-25, 09:04 AM

Here's something others have alluded to that I have found helps out a lot with new campaigns or a party with players you don't know what to expect from:

*Always* have blanks in your plan. Even if you are planning to run one-offs, leaving blanks that *could* be links to something bigger will pay off huge down the road.

Your signs that someone else had already been in the vault they were exploring is a great example. You don't need to know who, or even why.... but if an opportunity pops up, you can fill it in. (Like the layers meet the Ne'er Do Well Excavators and ponder aloud 'I wonder if THEY got to the loot first...' *poof* now that is what happened, and you still have new blanks like why, or who they were working for, or what they did with the loot.)

Leaving little hints like letters to the corrupt baron from someone who sounds like more bad news, or markings of some unknown cult found in the goblin caves gives your world more a feeling of being complete, rewards observant players, and gives both springboard for more adventures, and also hooks that you can ret-con if you do find a bigger story emerging from your games. (Hmm... the players keep taking adventures to thwart the plans of Demons, maybe that goblin Cult was a front for Orcus or Baphomet, or the letters were from a Demon Summoning wizard, and now the PCs will learn that and discover they have been seeing signs of the Demons for longer than they knew....)

Added: Random Encounters.

When I'm running the sort of game where random Encounters are a good fit I usually assign odds of a random encounter based on area (Higher in deep woods, lower in open plains, etc.).

I then make short charts for different areas.. I might have a d20 chart for roads on which most encounters are other travelers (Merchants, patrols, gypsies, etc.) but some are brigands and just a couple are wandering nasties. I might do a 2d6 chart for the forest with a young Dragon at snake eyes, a lake with a Dryad at 12, Woodsmen and such near the top and bottom, natural animal threats near the middle, and more monstrous types in between.

Then half the time I ignore my charts. If I roll an encounter, I look at then right chart and roll some dice, but usually use it for inspiration and declare an encounter that sounds like fun. Party feeling they have not gotten to draw steel in too long? Great time for bandits! Party wanting to get on to the next part of the adventure quickly? Peaceful peasants happen by and just share some gossip about the area they are going to. I only use the random roll when it feels like the party is up for whatever comes their way, or we just need to kill a little time for pacing. I always roll so that it is never clear when they are getting something random vs. planned. (Some folks consider this DM Cheating, others expect it, you have to learn your party.)

Hopeless

2013-01-25, 09:45 AM

with that party mix, i can see some fun moments up ahead....

"that river is too deep for us to cross!"

"...it's 4 feet deep"

"Exactly!"

So have they come across any old abandoned cottages or huts in the forest yet?

I just have this vision of them taking the door with them so it can function as a raft to get across that river, used by the half orc as a makeshift tower shield for the entire party, propped up to function as a makeshift shelter... let alone the possibility if someone starts casting spells at them they have one player leave it on its side propped up against a wall and the gnomes hide behind it only popping up to cast spells, fire ranged weapons unless they feel able to cope in melee of course I notice that included your healers...:smallwink:

hamlet

2013-01-25, 10:07 AM

Another suggestion for plans and players and collisions thereof: you might consider a technique called "Schrodinger's Plot." Basically, the plot doesn't really exist until the players perceive it, and they affect it based on how they see it and what they see.

It basically boils down to you having a notion of what's going on, but being open to change if the players just aren't getting what you had in mind, or "get" something else entirely that's just kinda nifty sounding. Like, they determine that the local teamster's guild is collaborating with the thieves' guild to smuggle goods into and out of the city to circumvent import taxes and so profit big time. It has nothing to do with what your original idea was, but it sounds kinda nifty and so you just roll with it and let it be correct anyway. I've done it once or twice before and it turned what was supposed to be a 15 minute byplot into a 3 hour investigation and a very memorable campaign moment when the group couldn't decide whether or not to free someone who had been condemned to death for murder.

R.M.Lambert

2013-01-26, 04:04 PM

This thread was too long for me to read the whole thing at the moment but as you are brand new I wanted to give some quick advice before I had to go.

I strongly suggest you get your hands on a few free professionally published adventures. It should not be too hard to throw in one of these family heirloom artifact parts into a treasure hoard here or there.

You can get several _FREE_ PDF adventure at Paizo.com
Before they began their own RPG, Pathfinder, they wrote a few 3.5 products. Try downloading and reading the free PDF adventure Hallows Last Hope. You can find at least a few other freebies on that site. I know Wizards of the Cost use to have a few free adventures on their site back in the day, not sure if they still host them, but I think it is a very good chance they have at least a few free adventures for 3.0 and 3.5 somewhere on their site.

I am sure you can get some non professional free adventure if you spend some time searching the Internet, some will be good some not so much.