DM questions/help guide/Way of the Wicked Inspired

[AkbarTheGreat]

GitP I come to you with a request. I'm currently in the beginning of DM'ing a campaign of Way of the Wicked (Pathfinder). I've DM'd many campaigns before, but never one quite like this, in the sense that there are multiple times where time is a crucial factor. I've done several campaigns where it's light on the RP/Story and heavy on the fighting, but now I find myself doing my best to learn the rest on the fly.

I'm hoping you guys might be able to tell me what you do for some of the more RP things, such as time (how your determine how long an hour is, or minutes, etc.) How you determine what is fair/unfair when passing a skill check, and how heavily you punish players for screwing up or even just flat missing plot relevant things, but especially, how do you guys handle metagaming? Two of my players are very knowledgeable on the game, but they do the best job of staying in character in the group, and I have one player who's constantly metagaming, but even IC he's a bit.. off. I can explain more if needed, but he's too dumb with the rules to be a That Guy.

I'm trying my best to be a good DM. We use roll20 and play over skype once a week, even so far that I and another player have put some money into roll 20 to get better tools/dynamic lighting, and I'm hoping that asking this many people might help me get better as a DM as well.

Honestly, any tips you experienced DMs have at a full, proper campaign, with plans, dungeons, traps, etc. simply throw them out or explain, any of it helps. Or especially for anyone who has DM'd or played Way of the Wicked as well, or even just stories of them. Even players who think their DMs did something good/bad that they think should be mentioned. Maybe this topic can even help other DM's to ask questions or get ideas from.

Thanks again to anyone who contributes, every bit helps


For anyone interested in the Campaign itself
I will also be making a topic as a campaign journal for this game, it's only been one Act of the module so far, and its already been astoundingly hilarious and crazy, so I believe many of you will enjoy just that part as well. I will be posting that thread in an hour or so.

[Angelmaker]

1) do not let your palyer take a roll for something you do not want them to fail. If it is a plot relevant item they need to find, let them find it and don't assume a spot check of ten would be easy enough. Being stuck in a story without a clue what to do is bad.
2) have multiple ways of solving a problem, so the warrior can contribute as much as the wizard that has the right spell for the situation. Or split a puzzle into mutiple solutions needed ( spell, strength check, etc)
3) don't be too strict on the way through the adventure. Take note of what the central parts of your story are but don't care too much about the way they are reached.
4) a tomb is a tomb. No need for it to be at exactly THIS place you can refluff it later, so don't throw away material you deem unnecessary because your players decided to not go to mount doom and instead investigate something else.

Well, and so on... There are plenty of other help threads which have similiar questions so you could look those up. Happy gm'ing. :smallsmile: