How to go a out being DM

[Sgtpepper]

Alright me and my inexperienced self and my inexperienced friends/brothers have decided to play Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. I was elected to DM. I have no idea what I'm doing and need help. So how do you go about this Dungeon Mastering thing?

[Agincourt]

To give you more focused advice, it will help us to know what you have done so far. For example, you emphasized your inexperience and that may mean you've never played either, but I could be wrong about that.

Have you read the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide? Those will give you a basis to start and may help you ask a more specific question than "tell me how to be a DM." Without knowing what you already know, it's hard to be of more service.

[Sgtpepper]

Sorry, I have read the DM's guide and the players handbook other than that I know nothing.

[yougi]

Like Agincourt said, we need more information: previous experiences (we get that you never played, but have you read the books, saw people play, etc...) being most important, but also, to a certain extent, approximate age of the group.

However, like I tell other noob-DMs, you should start with a written adventure to let you all focus on other aspects of D&D. I'd recommend Wreck Ashore (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/DnD_Wreck_Ashore.zip), it's rather straightforward and doesn't require lots and lots of preparation.

If you have no clue what this means, that will give us the information that was asked for. :smallbiggrin:

[Fyermind]

The role of the DM is to narrate everything in the world except the PCs and to facilitate as enjoyable a game as possible.

This means there are basically three things you will be doing:
1) Describing the scenes they encounter
2) Role-playing every person they meet and working every battle they have
3) doing your best to keep everyone having fun

Other things you might do but are not required to do include designing new encounters, story arcs, and monsters.

There are certain things not needed to play dungeons and dragons that I have found are really helpful to new DMs. I'll talk more about all of these in a moment
1) An adventure Module
2) miniatures
3) a dry erase grid of some sort
4) a DM's screen with common rolls and rules on the back of it

So an adventure module:
These are prewritten adventure's, usually by wizards of the coast, that include basically all the preparation work a DM would normally have to do. This means it has a plot line, monsters, hooks to get the PCs involved, diverse challenges, and even treasure. Basically you just read through the thing and figure out what it all means and you are ready to go.
Since you are new to this, I'd suggest starting your players at level 1 so they don't have too many crazy abilities. Learn what your player characters are capable of as early as you can and keep up to date on it as they advance. This will help you make sure they are doing things they are good at and enjoy.
There are a few lists of level 1 modules for 3.5 D&D (assuming this is what you are playing. if you are playing pathfinder everything else I have said and everything else I will say still applies) My favorite is "A Dark and Stormy Night" which you can find for free here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20050329a). It's pretty simple and works reasonably well as a getting to know each other game.

Miniatures are far from necessary, but having some way to represent PCs and monsters you will remember is pretty important. Risk pieces work great as do monopoly, or chess pieces. You get the idea. What you want is to minimize the amount the players are relying on your memory because you have enough things to be thinking about all the time especially as a new DM, so you want as much as possible to be clearly visible like where the PCs and monsters are relative to each other.

A dry erase grid is a huge help for this. It lets you draw out floorplans of rooms as you describe them, place NPCs where players can see them, and generally makes it so there is one less piece of information you are storing in your head, and one more piece of information you are storing on the table where you can look at it whenever you need to. This will also make following the combat rules much easier.

Lastly the DM's screen. This isn't so much about having a barrier between you and your players as it is about having a place to store all the information you might need. Take a pair of basic folders and tape something like this (http://www.catalystservers.com/hoy/3.5/D&D%203.5%20-%20Dungeon%20Master's%20Screen.pdf) to them. I also like to have sticky notes or index cards with the players AC, initiative, and saves on them on my screen as well as having similar cards for monsters they will face. That makes it easy to reference what is going on and saves asking a lot of questions. If you get their spot, listen, and types of vision on there too, you will have a good idea about what they do and do not perceive.

I hope I haven't scared you off with all of this. DMing is the most fun and rewarding experience I have ever had in relation to dungeons and dragons and isn't nearly as hard as it can seem. Ultimately everyone wants the game to run smoothly and everyone wants to have fun, so any issues should work themselves out pretty easily if you don't take your role as DM and yourself as a DM too seriously. The easiest mistake to make it to assume that as DM you are god of the table and must be in charge all the time.


Edit: that's what I get for writing a 9 paragraph response. I miss most of the conversation. Wrecked Ashore is another great adventure, but I often find it is the smallest bit less straightforward to run and play. I would suggest it as a great followup to A Dark and Stormy Knight.

[yougi]

Sorry, I have read the DM's guide and the players handbook other than that I know nothing.

And have you understood what you read? I mean, are you ready to help your group create their characters (rules covered in chapters 1-6), and then show them how to do combat?

[Fyermind]

Some information about the experience of your players would also be useful. Depending on their experience and dedication, you may have to help them along a bit, which could mean you'd need to be more familiar with the system.

Edit: Also though it is much less important, what system are you playing in? D&D 3.5? Pathfinder?

[White_Drake]

Here's the DM's handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474) thread, it might help. Moreso than I could, at any rate.

[Edge of Dreams]

Take a look around the internet for some "actual play" podcasts or videos of real groups playing RPGs. That will give you a better idea of what the GM actually does.

Here's a great example (total of about 1 hour of video):

Dragon Age Part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-61i3R5y9Y)

Dragon Age Part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He4xdGizuww)

It's not D&D, but it should give you a good example of how a GM and players interact with each other. Ignore the rules differences, and focus on how the GM sets the scene, the Players react to the scene, and the GM adjudicates rolls and success/failure.

[jderk]

I interviewed the best DM I know about what he has learned over the 15 or so years he has played DND and DM'd. These are the rules he told me to follow.

Rules to succeed at the role of Dungeon Master:
1. Don’t make the AC too high – you want your players to be able to hit and not feel worthless
2. Don’t play dice with yourself – you can still use large amount of monsters per encounter but find shortcuts
3. Always have the world respond in a realistic way – Ex. Gamers 2 when the sorceress blasted the peasant and none of the NPCs responded
4. Don’t have a monster that is too powerful (way above CR) that must be slain, make it optional
5. Don’t DM hand wave an action a player makes, there must be an explanation why
6. Be conscious of the parties abilities, don’t throw them an encounter they can’t win
7. Roll with the punches, improvise, the players will have an answer to a problem you least expect, so expect the unexpected from your players
8. Very important for the DM to know the players motivations, or to give them one if they don’t
9. Loot – put vendor loot on monsters, and allow them to sell the stuff at market price, so they may stay at wealth by level standards and choose to buy what they wish
10. It is always helpful to have minions with the boss, so the boss is not targeted immediately to make the boss fight longer and more epic
11. Never make a fight where the enemy shows no response to damage
12. Never make a fight where the players have to die – no scripted deaths
13. Don’t worry so much about killing players in 3.5 at a certain level – if players are attached to that character they will force their comrades to resurrect their body
14. Lay down ground rules about the meta game so that your players know upfront
15. Don’t change rules in middle of the game
16. Don’t control a players character for any reason
17. No cut scenes – if you are going to put the players on the railroad, don’t let them see the rails
18. Clues – make as many clues as necessary for them to get it, and then double it

Additionally, it is good to know the power level of the characters you are serving. So http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1002.0

This link will take you to the Tier System for Classes.

This may be better info for a person who has played DND, but never DM'd a game. But any who. Good luck.

[Sgtpepper]

We're playing DnD 3.5e not pathfinder and the people I play with have minimal(one session) experience. I understood the DM's guide and the video helped a lot. But what could I substitute to use instead of a grid?

[Edge of Dreams]

We're playing DnD 3.5e not pathfinder and the people I play with have minimal(one session) experience. I understood the DM's guide and the video helped a lot. But what could I substitute to use instead of a grid?

If you don't have a grid, you can just do it all in your group's imagination. Many people don't bother with the full map, they just say, "Ok, the goblins are about 50 feet in front of you, so you can't reach them this turn without charging, but they're in range of your spells." Alternatively, you can print out graph paper if you have a printer, and tape pages together. Draw on them with colored pencils or markers to make your own maps!

Example graph/grid generators:

http://www.incompetech.com/graphpaper/

http://www.printablepaper.net/category/hexagon_graph

http://www.printfreegraphpaper.com/

http://www.printablepaper.net/preview/1x1

[Sgtpepper]

Thank you for the links to grid paper at first though I'll try without grid paper

[BWR]

Get hold of a copy of Game Mastery Guide for Pathfinder. It has the best, most concise and encompassing guide to GMing for beginners I have come across, and it's applicable to just about all systems. The things that are specifcally Pathfinder are few and ignorable, while there is so much useful stuff there.

[nedz]

There should be some grid paper in the back of the DMG; a pull out A1 sized sheet I think. When it comes to combat 3.5 is almost a board game; you will find it much easier to play with a grid. You can make one with a ruler and some paper easily enough. Counters of some kind are handy, but you just use coins at a pinch. Running combat is just one part of being a DM, but it is kind of important; there is no point making it harder than it needs to be.

[The Boz]

There's been some excellent suggestions thus far. If you've read through the DMG and PHB, you've done a great step already. Watching some actual play scenarios (preferrably in the system you're DMing) on youtube is a great idea now that you know what they're talking about.

[Sgtpepper]

Just posting to say that the link to wreck ashore and a dark and stormy knight is working but when i click to download it and then a screen pops up that says that i cannot download it.

[TuggyNE]

Just posting to say that the link to wreck ashore and a dark and stormy knight is working but when i click to download it and then a screen pops up that says that i cannot download it.

I think the links at the Internet Archive (http://web.archive.org/web/20090703141932/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b) should work.

[ArcturusV]

One thing I'll throw in that most books (And most tips) don't necessarily cover is the idea of Pacing.

A good adventure should have a nice tempo to the pacing to prevent people from bogging down or otherwise feeling like everything is the Same Old, Same Old.

Shamelesly cribbed from my own experiences and a few books I have read, you end up with 5 "Scene Types" that you end up using to make an adventure:

An Initial Hook
Action
Development
Climax
Resolution

Basic storytelling fodder there. You have one Hook, one Climax, one Resolution. Hook is first, should be obvious (Particularly if you're new to DMing) to the point of being a 40 foot tall neon sign saying "This Way To PLOT". I say this because one of the easy traps that new DMs tend to fall into is the need to be Clever. As your baseball coach would tell you, just focus on making good contact, don't try to knock it out of the park. It's okay if your first forays into DMing aren't epics that would fit in with Homer and the Bard.

After the hook? You just alter the pace of Action scenes and Development scenes. An action scene would be when you kick open a door, find some Gobbos and splatter them. The development scene is when you're looking around the room afterwards and find some clue about the villain du jour you're after, it gives you the Whys, Hows, and other important questions that help build the world and let players get the information they need to succeed.

It's simple, it's stupid. But things like the DMG often neglect to mention this simple thing. You alter the pacing so the adventure doesn't just feel like you're always just splattering Goblins for no good reason. Or that you're just "Sitting and chatting" with no action going on. It's a really easy pace to set once you're aware of it. You might even unconsciously fall into this pace. But being aware of it allows you to control it so much easier.

Plus if your players go rogue, and start going off the beaten path of your adventure, just knowing about that pacing allows you to gently nudge them back where you want almost seamlessly. When you're experienced as a DM they never even notice that they went off track. Just keep threading in Action scenes and Development scenes until they're where you want the to be.

When they finally get to that bad guy, or the ultimate encounter of the adventure, there's your Climax. You want to make sure it's a hard, memorable fight. In particular if you're going to do anything "Fancy" encounter wise? This is the place to do it. Environmental hazards, traps, villain cliches like "In 2 minutes that princess is going to drop from the ceiling and fall on those spikes after the flame burns through the rope. You have 2 minutes... and I'm in your way" or the like. Make it big, make things so that it's not just a straight forward fight to the death.

And the resolution? Well, after any adventure you should plan to have a scene that basically lets players know what happened after all their heroics. Show them that they made a difference in the world someway. If they were doing a job for them, hand out rewards at this point. When you get skilled as a DM, it's also really easy to thread future plot hooks into the resolution of your last plot.

... and when you start doing that? You got a full campaign going.

[Sgtpepper]

Thank you for the link to the archives

[hydraa]

If you have a bit of time and patience, you can make a large grid for fairly cheap.

Measure your table that you will be using.

Go to the building supply store and get a sheet for 4' by 8' white panel board (about $15 and they will probably cut it for you for free). Get the first cut the size of your table. you can then cut other pieces into small sizes and you can pre-draw some encounters (buildings)

Then the time part. Having a T-square or some other item to ensure straight lines is helpful. Draw 1 inch lines across and along the board with a permanent marker. This may take a couple of hours or more

You can use wet-erase or vis-a-vis markers on this (Dry erase markers will dissolve the permanent marker lines.

So for about $20 you can have a full table size grid (it doesn't roll up so storage is another thing to consider).

I have a 8'ft folding table that I use for gaming so I was able to get a map that fills the entire table for those large battles and allows the archers and long-range wizards a chance to have a little fun (letting them have encounter distances of 400' + to start with, but the rogue complains a little bit ;) )

[Asteron]

I found Gaming Paper (http://www.gamingpaper.com/) to be a pretty cheap way to pre-draw rooms.

[Maginomicon]

There's probably a number of videos on YouTube that might be enlightening. I recommend this one in particular (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNrU0_A-PFk).

[RogueDM]

We actually devised a rather interesting solution to the grid problem. I had a store bought folding grid, but our gaming table was glass and rolling dice across it made a horrible sound, not to mention the creases causing issues for miniatures. So my friend took some cheap wooden board from the store and tacked checkered (or simple plaid) cloth over it. Level as can be, stealthy rolling, and gets stored neatly behind the couch.

I've found DMing to be more enjoyable than playing in many instances, especially when you see the players getting into the moment and really RPing. It can also be more vexing than playing, especially when players are on their smart phone during combat... I've found using Mini Reese's Cups for monsters (or other appropriately sized candies) helps keep their attention.

[JusticeZero]

Other tips:the players WILL go off book. Don't try to force them back on track, it's no fun. You might spend all week coming up with a court intrigue adventure, then the players all show up with dirty poor characters and ask about the sewers. Next session, you will have the sewers detailed! Because that's obviously where their interests are. As they go on, throw hooks out and let them pick up on what interests them. Only detail the hooks enough to give you time to finish the session up with them chasing the leads down. You can build it up over the week before the next game.

You are not as clever as you think you are! Lots of people build these very exotic and alien settings that fall apart under close examination. Cut as much out of your setting as you can get away with. Have the fewest races and big movers that you can. Use very standard tropes. No flying rocks or magical trains or anything like that. Each one of those things adds complexity to the setting that ripples out in ways that you just can't think through. Make things simple so that you can do them well.

Watch the news. I mean really dig into it. When you see something interesting, really dig into the details of why that situation developed. You can get lots of campaigns from just learning a few tidbits about world politics and events. Just file the serial numbers off.

[nedz]

We actually devised a rather interesting solution to the grid problem. I had a store bought folding grid, but our gaming table was glass and rolling dice across it made a horrible sound, not to mention the creases causing issues for miniatures. So my friend took some cheap wooden board from the store and tacked checkered (or simple plaid) cloth over it. Level as can be, stealthy rolling, and gets stored neatly behind the couch.
One of my friends bought a table cloth which he had printed with the appropriate grid. I'm not sure he uses it.

I've found DMing to be more enjoyable than playing in many instances, especially when you see the players getting into the moment and really RPing. It can also be more vexing than playing, especially when players are on their smart phone during combat... I've found using Mini Reese's Cups for monsters (or other appropriately sized candies) helps keep their attention.
You eat what you kill :smallbiggrin:

[ArcturusV]

Which is such a simple, and awesome, idea that I can't believe I haven't done a Kill and Eat.

[jderk]

Watch the news. I mean really dig into it. When you see something interesting, really dig into the details of why that situation developed. You can get lots of campaigns from just learning a few tidbits about world politics and events. Just file the serial numbers off.

Very interesting tip. I'll have to try that.

[Regitnui]

One big thing I've noticed as a new DM: learn the combat rules. I had several fights in my first few sessions that simply dragged on because I didn't fully understand the Attack of Opportunity rules. And once I did start using them, I let the players make too many per round, killing off the opponents too quickly.