Newbie DM Frequently Asked Questions

[Prymetime]

Hello, everyone! Last week, I asked the beginner DM's of the DnD and DungeonsAndDragons subreddits to give me any and every question that they had. This week, my co-host and I do our best to discuss any topics that were brought up. This ranges from choosing an edition to dealing with problem players to balancing encounters and loot. So if you're a beginning DM, or a long-time DM that has an interest in hearing what we have to say, by all means, check us out! I hope you are able to take something away from our ramblings and bring it to your table!

LINK: http://prymecast.com/podcast/side-quests-episode-six-newbie-dm-faq/

The questions we address in this episode are as follows:

What edition of D&D should I play?
Should I run a homebrew or premade campaign?
Where do I find players?
Should I awared ad-hoc XP for non-combat encounters?
What is meta gaming? How do you deal with it?
Regarding players, how young is too young?
How do I handle loot distribution/balancing?
How do I balance encounters on the fly?
How do I handle players making unexpected decisions/going against the grain?
What is the best way to handle problem players (cheaters/rules lawyers?)
How do I handle players with different playstyles?

If you're a veteran DM, I would be interested to hear how you would answer these questions, and encourage you to listen to ours! If you're a new DM, feel free to leave any questions you have that aren't on this list, in the (very likely) eventuality that we do a "Newbie DM FAQ, Part 2!"

[erikun]

Just some comments as I'm listening to this.

If you're interested in older D&D editions, I'd actually recommend looking at some retroclone systems - especially if you are familiar with the D&D3e system. The main reason for that is that a large number of retroclones are free online, and so cost nothing but time to look at and play. This thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=294845) and this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15395091) give a good listing of different systems.

AD&D wasn't really deadlier so much as it didn't put so much assumption upon the PC surviving every encounter intact. While that may not have been one of the stated purposes of D&D3e (and D&D4e), nearly everything about those systems - from the in-depth character creation to the was CR works and recommended encounter levels - supports the idea that PCs will, in general, be surviving until the end of the campaign.

The biggest benefit of D&D3e and Pathfinder, besides having such a large player base, have the benefit of open-source free materials. http://www.d20srd.org/ contains a list of the open-source 3.5e material, while http://www.d20pfsrd.com/ contains a list of Pathfinder material.

Skill challanges are not really a bad idea. Many systems do skill challanges well, and make them interesting. D&D4e just messed the concept up very badly, turning it into an unusable mess for several reasons.

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One thing I should mention with pre-generated campaigns in that they do require DMs to read through and become familiar with them. Some campaigns are very good and useable out of the box, while some campaigns assume that only combat will take place, and others have numbers and stats wildly incorrect or missing. It can be hard to find good pre-generated campaigns, along with making sense of them in case players go "off the rails" in them.

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Regarding awarding experience, I like to give out experience for scenarios rather than individual situations. That is, one large XP block for overcoming the entire situation rather than individual XP rewards for killing each enemy or disarming each trap. This tends to encourage players to focus on the goals that the characters would reasonably have, along with preventing silly situations such as intentionally provoking alarms to alert more enemies for XP, or going out of the way to disarm/trigger traps for the XP they represent.

Players will still do this if they think they can get something else out of it - extra gold or weapons, for example - but players shouldn't be punished for determining a creative way to bypass groups of enemies just becasue they know the DM would shortchange them by not giving them the XP for it.

(It also means you can throw more stuff at poor or stupid play without increasing the XP rewards. If the players decide to fight the entire orc army by themselves, that's fine, but they won't be getting enough XP to put them at 10th level because of it.)

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I think it might be a good idea to identify what a problem player is. A player who constantly has questions about one thing or another, or who is constantly trying to explore alternative options, is not necessarily a problem player - even if they might cause aggrevation for the DM. By contrast, a player who is insisting on ignoring what the party wants and taking up all the table time talking to NPCs is probably behaving like a problem player, even if their actions are not ones that cause problems by themselves.

[nedz]

What edition of D&D should I play?
The version you and your players are most familiar with. If you are a new DM then you want to minimise the amount of stuff you have to learn because you will have a lot to pick up anyway. You are also meant to be the impartial rules judge — just one of your many jobs — so it helps if you have some modicum of system mastery.

Should I run a homebrew or premade campaign?
Whichever you prefer. I've only ever run my own settings because being a DM is about making worlds — another of your many jobs. Running a pre-made setting may be easier, but you still have to read it all.

Where do I find players?
I can't help you with this one other than you have to get your players to buy into the game. If they are not interested then the game will die, and quickly.

Should I award ad-hoc XP for non-combat encounters?
It's up to you. Defeating an encounter by means other than combat should count for the same XP as the hack and slash approach, well more sometimes.

What is meta gaming? How do you deal with it?
Meta gaming is where people act on OOC (Out Of Character) information. That is: their characters do things based upon what the player knows rather than what the character knows. You can make it easy for everyone if you don't provide IC information OOC. Occasionally I have to point out that something is OOC, good players will respect this.

Regarding players, how young is too young?
I don't know.

How do I handle loot distribution/balancing?
Loot distribution amongst the PCs is not one of your jobs, that is a matter for the players. More generally: it's up to you. I used to run games where I gave out a lot of treasure, but then I would trash it very frequently. Some characters require equipment to function, others don't.

How do I balance encounters on the fly?
This is quite tricky. It's easy to have reinforcements turn up for either side, but this gets old quite fast. Experienced players will have a means of disengaging — at least if they are any good.

How do I handle players making unexpected decisions/going against the grain?
Roll with it, unless it compromises the verisimilitude of the game.

What is the best way to handle problem players (cheaters/rules lawyers?)
Peer pressure — get the whole group to sort this out.

How do I handle players with different playstyles?
This is a very difficult area I have seen many DMs fail on, with the result that players walk. It can be unavoidable but try to pitch encounters which don't annoy someone too much. Use a wide variety of encounters and keep things moving along. Knowing your players is the key here.

[One Step Two]

What edition of D&D should I play?

If you're a player turned GM, use the version of D&D you're most familiar with. You don't need intimate and complete knowledge, but enough to be able to keep things running smoothly. If cost is a factor, 3.5 and pathfinder's free online resources can be a great aid, along with web-based search engines means you can reference rules and materials with speed and ease.

Should I run a homebrew or premade campaign?

This sort of goes hand-in-hand with asking, what made you want to become a GM? Was it a setting that caught your eye, or an idea that came to you that would be perfect to run with Dnd? If neither of these apply and you've made an altruistic decision to take the Gm reigns from a friend who's burning out, talk to your players, see what they want, it is a group based game, and players will appreciate the input. A Premade campaign takes a lot of strain off you, as you only need to read up on the adventure(s) and get a feel for the game, and so you don't break the flow by stopping to check the book every couple of minutes. For the Homebrew campaign, you have the ability to improvise details, and make something of your own. However, the Key word is Improvise. Your players may throw curve-balls at you, and if you feel confident rolling with the punches, then go for it.

Where do I find players?

Players can be hard to come by, but many websites, like this one, offer forums where you can try and gather other interested individuals. But more often, the best bet is to find a local gaming store, with luck, one that sells the DnD books, they may offer a bulletin board for interested gamers looking for groups.

Should I awared ad-hoc XP for non-combat encounters?

Yes, within reason. Giving players XP rewards for good role-playing, and clever ideas encourages acts of Heroism, or supreme cunning, depending on what characters are in play. Some players, however, might take it over-board. As long as their actions help the flow of play through the game, I encourage it, to encourage them. For example: A Paladin trying to talk down a hostage taker to save a life is one thing. A Fighter explaining in minute detail how they brush their teeth before going to dinner is fishing for rewards.
Another good way is at the end of the session, ask the players what they have done that best represents their character, or what they felt was a good example of role-play, if you agree, give them a reward.

What is meta gaming? How do you deal with it?

Meta gaming is simply the act of using out-of-character knowledge to affect play. A simple, and sometimes over-looked example, is if you've provided a Map for the players, drawing it out on grid-paper as they explore, but no-one in the party is recording a map in character. The players will use the map that they are looking at from an out-of-game perspective to try and determine where hidden doors are by searching for gaps.
Dealing with it can be tricky, giving them responsibility for justifying their knowledge is one way. With the aforementioned example, if there was a dwarf with knowledge (architecture) and a high Intelligence in the party, they can claim he has a good idea of the layout to draw a map for them.
This is a convenient example, but more grievous acts of Meta-gaming, such as a player who has memorized the Monster Manual, is harder to stop.
The best approach to deal with it, along any game problem really, is to talk to them, and asking to keep it to themselves for the sake of the game, or take the necessary skills to justify the in character knowledge.

Regarding players, how young is too young?

There's no limit to age young or old as to who can or can't play the game. But there are two important factors. One is the tone of the game. If you're going to create a gritty hack-n-slash with deadly politics kind of game that would make George R.R. Martin grin with approval, then inviting a 10 year old might not be appropriate. By the same token playing a game of tickle-tag using feather-swords against the cuddle-dragons with older gamers might be odd. Though they might enjoy it all the same.
The second, and most relevant, is the players engagement. Most DnD games can take 3+ hours per session, and the person playing needs to be able to commit to that time, and keep relevant interest.
Don't get me wrong, literacy and rules knowledge is good, but someone who wants to be at the table playing DnD, and is committed to play is worth three players who will get distracted by their smart phone.

How do I handle loot distribution/balancing?

Loot distribution beyond the players finding it is out of your hands. As it's an in-game mechanic. They either trust someone in party to identify, and appraise worth then fairly share, or they split what they find there and then. It can cause friction if they let a less-than-honest character holding the purse-strings, but as the GM you should, once again, chat to the player if you feel it might be entirely unfair.
For the sake of balance, let use the the 3.5 Wealth-By-level chart as an example. At every level, the party should have an equivalent rating of goods and magic items equal to the wealth the chart provides. This can sometimes be a little high or a little low, but that happens, depending on what they are spending money on. The balance depends on what they are fighting as well, but that's a more complex issue.
To keep the party balanced, ask for regular inventories of the players, and see what they are carrying, see what might not be used, and ask if they might want to sell or trade it perhaps to give them an edge. But if you feel, for example, that a party member isn't performing as well as he could due to lack of gear and/or funds, putting a magic item that would be of singular use to them in the party's next loot pile isn't terribly bad.

How do I balance encounters on the fly?

Generally speaking, Balancing an encounter should always be done before the game begins, because you need to keep a good awareness of the party's strengths and weaknesses. However, if they throw a curve ball at you, and do something unexpected making the encounter trivial, then good for them, they earned their reward early, of course, if they made it totally worthless as an actually challenge, lower the xp reward. However, if there's a critical point you may have missed, or they players forget of some of their abilities or items, gentle reminders to party members work well. Beyond that, if the fight is harder due to the players making it so, then those are the consequences.

How do I handle players making unexpected decisions/going against the grain?

The unexpected is, sometimes, what role-playing is all about. What really matters is if the unexpected or going against the grain is affecting everyone's game. If all the players are pulling a fast one on you, either abandoning the adventure, or trying to circumnavigate an encounter or puzzle, you need to be able to improvise. To use the old maxim, expect the unexpected.
If a player is going against the grain, and causing friction both for the party in and out of game, talk to them, and ask them if there's any way to bring him onto the same page as everyone else.

What is the best way to handle problem players (cheaters/rules lawyers?)

I'll address rules lawyers first. Embrace them. It may sound odd, but if they're the kind of person to rattle off rules faster than you can google an answer, they can be of great help. That said, if they are disrupting play, talk to them, tell them you appreciate the input, but that they only if you ask, because if you want to do something different in-game than the exact rules minute allow and they are aware of it, they'll usually relent. Of course, if they want to continue to rail, demanding that they are right, a gentle reminder of story-trumps-rules should be all you need.
As for cheaters, it's a more complex issue. Most people enjoy DnD for the challenge, and enjoy the outcome, good or ill, as it makes for a good story. Other people, however, can either become truly attached to their characters, or feel that they need to "win" DnD. There's many reasons why they might be cheating, but exposing it to everyone can embarrass them. Talking to them one-on-one non-threateningly, asking them if there's a reason why. Remind them that the dice are meant to make things risky, that failure is part of the game sometimes, and ask they play as fairly as anyone else. Most people are willing to get on board when you address the issue.
However, in both issues, if they are making a total nuisance, of themselves, and despite talking to the, sometimes you just need to bite the bullet, and ask them to leave. Because it's a group game, and everyone having fun is more important than one person upsetting it all.

How do I handle players with different playstyles?

This is one issue you can nip in the bud early. You can do this by either asking everyone what their preferred play-styles are, or explaining the premise of your game beforehand, and making sure everyone is on the same page. This minimizes the issue of anyone being mistaken, or wanting to play something vastly different.
This isn't ironclad of course. There's either misunderstandings, or someone is just determined to be different. A little improvisation can help make their difference something that adds flavor to a game. A Smooth-talking rogue with little combat skill in a dungeon crawl is out-of place. But you can always throw in a couple of monsters that surrender, and if the rogue can talk them into revealing a secret or two, like a hidden door, or cache of gold, or even what awaits them next, will make him feel valuable to both party and player. It can also be something used against the party, where a monster might lie, and they party is duped, adding more tension to a game.
That's only one small example. But as I said before, expect the unexpected, and when in doubt, roll with it, and see if you can make a better story because of the differences.