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View Full Version : DM Help Ways/Places/Resources to learn to be a better DM?



TheCorsairMalac
2014-04-04, 12:58 AM
Recently I purchased the core rulebooks for DnD 3.5, started playing with a group and decided to found my own. I've got a group of friends and we're meeting regularly to play. They're having a good time, and I'm having a good time. So far no drama... but I want to excel! To make not just an enjoyable adventure, but a super-friggin-awesome adventure.

Normally I'd ask for advice, but individual circumstances are too varied and numerous. What are some places, websites, or methods that will help me learn to be a better DM?

And I love lists so I'll make a list out of them.


The Dungeon Master's Guide. Knowing your way around the core rulebooks is the place to start.
So You Wanna Be A DM? (GITP Thread)http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?76474-So-You-Wanna-Be-A-DM-A-Potentially-Helpful-Guide-%28Reposted-and-Updated%29
Slyflourish.com (Some free tips, also sells books.)
Q&A session about players' experience. At the end of a session ASK your players what they liked and disliked. Much wisdom to be found.
Youtube channels of tetsubo57, clackclickbang, DungeonMasterJohnny
Dungeonmastering.com
gnomestew.com
thealexandrian.com



Specific advice is bound to be given, so here's a list of those suggestions as well.


Don't require skill checks for everyday actions. Like ladders. >:(
Give challenges that use the PCs chosen skills. The rogue put ranks in "Decipher Script" because he wants to use it. Let him.
Accomodate player desires. If they want more magic challenges/stealth missions/feats of strength, then build on it.
Don't make NPCs that outshine the players consistently.
Never say no to roleplaying. If the party really, REALLY wants to do something, let them, and let the consequence follow.
Don't be afraid to say no. In rules disputes, the DM is the final word. You can tell them that: "No, a fishing net isn't the same as a combat net."
Allow unexpected solutions to puzzles. Sure, they could figure out the math riddle, OR they could just buff the barbarian for +10 on his strength bonus and tear the porticullis apart.
Give chances for each player to shine.
Avoid favoritism.
Don't overprepare. If you have so much material that you have to cut parts out to end your sessions on time, then you have too much. (Guilty!)
Don't underprepare. Making up an adventure on the fly isn't as effective, is mentally exhausting, and slows the game down.
It is okay to let the players know when they have gone somewhere you don't have prepared material for and ask them to return.
It is also okay to use a random generator to make up something when the players wander.
Some parties need a strong guiding hand to keep them from getting lost in trivial things. Others detest constant quest offers and attempts to guide. Try to learn where your group fits in this aspect.
When a rule is contested, but the reference can't be found quickly, let the players know that: "This is how it will work this time, but I'll look up the details after we finish, and it may change."
It is okay to ban something from your game. You don't have to let the druid train and use twelve attack dogs. Just let him know what issues it would cause, such as slowdown or jealousy from other players.
When you're new, keep adventures short. 2-3 sessions.
Make some fun for yourself too. Take pleasure in your death traps and barbarian chieftains. Balance them to have an honest chance, then play to win.
The rule of three descriptions. Anything you describe, describe with three bits of information. It's not just a castle. It's a castle with (1)blood red banners edged with blue, (2)towers so tall they seem unfeasible, and (3)a drawbridge that has been shattered by powerful magic. He's not just a guard, he's a guard with (1)a massively broken nose, (2)a gross wound visible through his rent armor, and (3)a frighteningly determined gaze.
The rule of three hints. If there is some bit of information which is important for the PCs to know, give it to them three times.

BWR
2014-04-04, 02:23 AM
If you go to the Notable Threads Sticky at the top of this forum you'll find some useful links, especially this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?76474-So-You-Wanna-Be-A-DM-A-Potentially-Helpful-Guide-%28Reposted-and-Updated%29)one.

If you don't mind paying for another book, I highly recommend Pathfinder's "Game Mastery Guide" which has tons of theoretical and practical information about all aspects of DMing. For the most part it's system neutral, but it does assume a D&D-ish apporoach to the game, and it has some useful charts and tables for a DM. Lastly, Make sure you read the DMG. While it mostly is concerned with purely mechanical stuff, it does have some bits on actually running a game, a fact which is easy to overlook.

Good luck and have fun.

lytokk
2014-04-04, 06:39 AM
I don't know about any guide, but this is the advice I've picked up and some of my own, which should be pretty system neutral.

1) know what your players want and try to accomodate
2) be open to feedback
3) Don't introduce NPCs that outshine the PCs consistently.
4) Let the players make their own choices, and don't assume they're going to choose A or B, more often or not they'll go with choice green, which isn't even a letter. The worst thing you can do is take away the one piece of control they have in the world, which is their PC.
5) Try not to say no, but also don't be afraid to do it.
6) Have more than 1 solution to any puzzle, since the players may hear it differently than you mean to say it.
7) try to craft sessions so that all the PCs can shine evenly, not just a single player all the time
8) related to 7, don't play favorites.
9) don't overprepare.
10) don't underprepare either. Finding the correct balance is different for every group.
11) if the group goes in a completely different direction than you expected, its alright to let them know that you don't have any clue whats out there, and they can go there if they want, but you'd prefer if they didn't.
12) Some parties need rails for their adventures, some don't. Knowing which is which comes down to experience. If your party is constantly fighting any sort of rails you put down, best to remove them.
13) Don't waste a lot of time looking for a specific rule. If there's a discrepancy, take note of it, make a gut call, and look up the rule later. There's no real harm in telling the players "This is how its going to work this time. I'll look into it later and the ruling might change"
14) Don't be afraid to ban something from your game.

Thats about all I can think of now, I'll add more if I think of anything.

Yora
2014-04-04, 06:47 AM
When you start a new group, especially as a new GM, begin with a couple of relatively short standalone adventures. Stories about 5 year long mega-campaigns that go to level 20 and beyond often sound cool, but are difficult to do well and happen very rarely. Even the best prepared mega-campaign won't be much worth if the campaign actually last for only 5 sessions and it's more satisfying for both players and especially GMs to have a real conclusion to a story every 4 or 5 sessions rather than a complex start that never leads to anything.

GoblinGilmartin
2014-04-04, 07:01 AM
Ohh. This is a fun topic.

Lemme see...

Lytokk somewhat touches on this, but it's a big one. D&D is a game. Not a movie, and not a book. Everyone should be able to contribute, and if your story gets in the way of the fun, you're...well, not doing it wrong per se, but something isn't right.

If you like long-winded, entertaining stories about personal experiences, Noah Antwiler (The Spoony One) has a series called Counter Monkey where he tells some interesting tales.

Youtube has a small RPG community, people like youtube users tetsubo57, clackclickbang, DungeonMasterJohnny are great places to start.

There are a ton of blogs out there that do a great job of helping DMs get on their feet, many of which are probably run by members of this very forum. askthedm.com is run by a friend of mine, I've got my own blog with a few posts about it although it isn't what I focus on (RPG movies).

EDIT: Also, websites like Gnome Stew and Dungeonmastering.com are full of articles by long-time players and DMs with different little tricks you can add to your games. I'll think of more...

lytokk
2014-04-04, 07:45 AM
Oh, Gilgamesh reminded me

15) The game should be fun for everyone, including yourself. Its very important that you find a way to have fun in the game too. This doesn't mean to roll up a PC and play alongside of the rest of the players, specifically if it'll put you in violation of #3, 7 and 8. But find a way to make sure you enjoy what you're doing as a DM.

Yora
2014-04-04, 11:19 AM
Remember the Rule of Three: Whenever the players encounter something in the game, describe it using at least three pieces of information.
If it's a city, a room, an item, or an NPC, never simply say "you reach the city", "you enter a large room with two doors on the other side", or "the servant leads you to the captain of the guard". Tell the players something about the things they characters encounter. It doesn't have to be fancy and a city can simply be "surrounded by a wooden pallisade; next to a river; and have a castle on a hill in the center". Or an important guardsman "wears a mail hauberk; carries a shield with a blue eagle emplem, and has a moustache".
If you have to, make something up on the spot, even if it's a detail that is completely irrelevant and has no meaning at all. When creating dungeons and making NPCs, always try to also add three (or more) notes about the appearance. The players can't see anything you are not telling them, and they won't really visualize things unless you give them a few details that they have to make into a mental picture.

TheCorsairMalac
2014-04-04, 06:44 PM
I don't know about any guide, but this is the advice I've picked up and some of my own, which should be pretty system neutral.

1) know what your players want and try to accomodate
2) be open to feedback
3) Don't introduce NPCs that outshine the PCs consistently.
4) Let the players make their own choices, and don't assume they're going to choose A or B, more often or not they'll go with choice green, which isn't even a letter. The worst thing you can do is take away the one piece of control they have in the world, which is their PC.
5) Try not to say no, but also don't be afraid to do it.
6) Have more than 1 solution to any puzzle, since the players may hear it differently than you mean to say it.
7) try to craft sessions so that all the PCs can shine evenly, not just a single player all the time
8) related to 7, don't play favorites.
9) don't overprepare.
10) don't underprepare either. Finding the correct balance is different for every group.
11) if the group goes in a completely different direction than you expected, its alright to let them know that you don't have any clue whats out there, and they can go there if they want, but you'd prefer if they didn't.
12) Some parties need rails for their adventures, some don't. Knowing which is which comes down to experience. If your party is constantly fighting any sort of rails you put down, best to remove them.
13) Don't waste a lot of time looking for a specific rule. If there's a discrepancy, take note of it, make a gut call, and look up the rule later. There's no real harm in telling the players "This is how its going to work this time. I'll look into it later and the ruling might change"
14) Don't be afraid to ban something from your game.

Thats about all I can think of now, I'll add more if I think of anything.



Ah! Thank you for that list Lytokk! :) I'll add them.

Yora
2014-04-07, 01:55 PM
I just got pointed to this in another thread and this is brilliant:

The Angry DM
http://angrydm.com/2012/12/five-simple-rules-for-dating-my-teenaged-skill-system/
http://angrydm.com/2013/04/adjudicate-actions-like-a-boss/
http://angrydm.com/2013/05/four-things-youve-never-heard-of-that-make-encounters-not-suck/
http://angrydm.com/2013/07/how-to-build-awesome-encounters/

I've been running games for 14 years and I can immediately see why I never felt I was doing it as well as I want to.

Lorsa
2014-04-07, 02:27 PM
I think the best way to become a better DM is simple to practice a lot and evaluate what is done wrong. Reading does help to an extent but for the first hurdle I'd recommend practice, then reading to fine-tune and then practice again to become an expert. Practice makes perfect.

Yora
2014-04-07, 02:33 PM
It certainly helps when you read something and then tell yourself "yes, this is pretty much what I did and it did turn out for me like that guy said it would". However figuring what things didn't quite work out as they could have is hard, especially if you haven't already played a lot under a great GM to have something to compare to.

Stubbazubba
2014-04-07, 08:06 PM
I just got pointed to this in another thread and this is brilliant:

The Angry DM
http://angrydm.com/2012/12/five-simple-rules-for-dating-my-teenaged-skill-system/
http://angrydm.com/2013/04/adjudicate-actions-like-a-boss/
http://angrydm.com/2013/05/four-things-youve-never-heard-of-that-make-encounters-not-suck/
http://angrydm.com/2013/07/how-to-build-awesome-encounters/

I've been running games for 14 years and I can immediately see why I never felt I was doing it as well as I want to.

QFT, Angry DM needs to be on the list.

Also, this one: http://angrydm.com/2013/08/help-my-players-are-talking-to-things/

These two are good reading, but a bit more high-level than day-to-day GMing. They still include applications for GMing, though:
http://angrydm.com/2014/01/gaming-for-fun-part-1-eight-kinds-of-fun/
http://angrydm.com/2014/02/gaming-for-fun-part-2-getting-engaged/

DonEsteban
2014-04-08, 04:00 AM
Shouldn't miss this
http://thealexandrian.net
http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/creations.html
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/8122/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-collectors-edition#comments

Yora
2014-04-08, 05:59 AM
I think these are particularly useful:

Rules vs. Rulings (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/3924/roleplaying-games/rules-vs-rulings)
Don't prep Plots (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots)

TheCorsairMalac
2014-04-13, 08:03 PM
Shouldn't miss this
http://thealexandrian.net
http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/creations.html
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/8122/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-collectors-edition#comments


I think these are particularly useful:

Rules vs. Rulings (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/3924/roleplaying-games/rules-vs-rulings)
Don't prep Plots (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots)

Awesome! I love that Alexandrian site. Thank you for sharing! I'll have to read a bunch of it. :)