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View Full Version : DM Help Need help. Lots.



Sansamadonochan
2014-04-05, 12:00 AM
Alright, so I'm currently recruiting for a game in a home brew campaign. I've never GM'd before, and I figured "How hard could it be?". I havent done any reading yet, as tackling books with no prior information is kinda daunting. Any pearls of wisdom anyone feels like tossing my way?

Khedrac
2014-04-05, 01:52 AM
A good first question is "What System do you plan to run?" - It makes a huge difference to the advice.

NikitaDarkstar
2014-04-05, 02:38 AM
No matter the system you need to be familiar with at least the core material first. Prefferably before you start to recruit. What's considered core varies from system to system though.

GoblinGilmartin
2014-04-05, 03:30 AM
Here's the short of it:
If your players know you're new, they'll have much more patience than you would expect. DMing is really just a game of "If I do this, they'll do that!", where the goal is immersion. Make asking questions a necessity. Pre-plan a few pieces of flavor text so that you can quickly, accurately, and descriptively describe important things.

Protip: Steal stuff from your player characters, that'll hook 'em right in trying to get it back.

Rhynn
2014-04-05, 01:39 PM
I havent done any reading yet, as tackling books with no prior information is kinda daunting.

Don't worry too much; 10-year-old kids can do it without making too much of a hash out of it, so you'll be fine.

Get only the core books, read through them, and then run whatever introductory adventure is provided (or whatever intro adventure you can find online). If you make your own (nothing wrong with that), make sure it's simple and relatively short (but with room to expand on if necessary).

Hopeless
2014-04-08, 06:49 AM
Be careful about what system you're running and make sure they know they can't use anything not already stipulated.

Ran an Alternity game once and turned out the only characters done properly was the one I did because the other players either decided to cherry pick what rules they could use without saying a word or my biggest mistake was not spending the first week solely on character generation so I'd know what they were playing and insured the game could be started next week.

Then there was the 4e game where one player used a supplement I didn't have, at least they actually asked which was a first!

Don't forget to have fun!

Rhynn
2014-04-08, 08:20 AM
Be careful about what system you're running and make sure they know they can't use anything not already stipulated.

First time with any new system, the characters should all be created together. That's really important and enormously useful.

Even when everyone's familiar with a system, characters should be created together: you need the GM involved to keep the rules straight, and you need the players working together to create a party that actually hangs together, rather than a bunch of individuas who are as likely as not to hate each other.

(Part of the GM's job is to tell the players that they have to make characters who will work well together, unless it's specifically supposed to be a game where the PCs don't travel together and may even fight each other, which is a game you should not run until you and your players have some years of experience.)

In general, reserve a session just for creating characters! It's a good chance to explain the rules, explain the setting, and lay out the background for the first actual session.

Airk
2014-04-08, 09:37 AM
First time with any new system, the characters should all be created together. That's really important and enormously useful.

Even when everyone's familiar with a system, characters should be created together: you need the GM involved to keep the rules straight, and you need the players working together to create a party that actually hangs together, rather than a bunch of individuas who are as likely as not to hate each other.

(Part of the GM's job is to tell the players that they have to make characters who will work well together, unless it's specifically supposed to be a game where the PCs don't travel together and may even fight each other, which is a game you should not run until you and your players have some years of experience.)

In general, reserve a session just for creating characters! It's a good chance to explain the rules, explain the setting, and lay out the background for the first actual session.

This, a lot. Collaborative chargen is essentially a requirement for a new GM and honestly, pretty darn close even for an experienced GM. The benefits are just too huge to allow people to create characters in a vacuum.

Get everyone together, get some food/coffee/whatever is appropriate lay down the guidelines for character generation, and have people start bouncing ideas off each other. This gives you, the GM, a chance for creative input ("I'm really liking the idea you threw out for a mercenary freebooter with a heart of gold! Maybe one of the other PCs could be your old first mate?") and opportunity to guide the process ("Your character concept sounds a bit too self centered and like it doesn't play well with others. How are we going to ensure this guy stays with the party?) as well as letting you make sure no one is digging into the Tome of Massive Munchkins when you've specifically said "Core rules only." Oh, and it lets you make sure that two people don't show up both wanting to be "the sneaky guy" - at least, unless they think that sounds like fun.

There are lots of guidelines for this sort of thing online - I found http://versamus.blogspot.com/2013/06/collaborative-character-creation.html with ten seconds of google, and I daresay you can dig up some more that might detail the actual process more if you need 'help' but really, just get everyone in the same room and talking.

Though it might not hurt to take this chance to throw out and discuss the results of the Same Page Tool. (http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/the-same-page-tool/)

Frozen_Feet
2014-04-08, 10:43 AM
Play a game with a relatively short and simple character creation, like early D&D or a retroclone.

Avoid hugely complex systems like d20, GURPS or like.

Storm_Of_Snow
2014-04-08, 11:32 AM
Plan a lot, but be prepared to make stuff up at the drop of a D6 - the players will go off in directions you don't expect at some point. And if they really go off the map, then you can hold your hands up and say "Guys, you've taken me off into an area I've not planned for. I'm happy to go on with it if you are, but you'll need to give me some time to come up with something, so shall we call this session to a halt?"

For character generation, I agree on finding out what everyone's ideas are - if you want to play a stealth, diplomacy and intrigue game, that's ok. If you want to play that and your players want to play a "hit everything that moves until it stops moving" game, then no one's going to have any fun.

And if they're missing a skill set (say no one plays a thief type who can potentially get into places they shouldn't and find out things that progress the adventure), then they'll either struggle or have to hire NPCs (although you or the players may find that an interesting part of the game in itself).

FabulousFizban
2014-04-09, 04:54 PM
if you are using d&d, and even if you're not really, I would suggest taking a look at the Winniger essays from dragon magazine. They cover every step of DMing a game, from world building to managing your players, and are available free online.

Mr Beer
2014-04-09, 05:45 PM
Playtest some stuff. I don't know how combat heavy the game is going to be but gen up some PCs and run an encounter or two. That way you can find out what you don't know and deal with it. So much the better if you can buttonhole one of the players ahead of the actual game and do a few hours of playtesting.

Devils_Advocate
2014-04-21, 09:25 PM
So You Wanna Be A DM?: A Potentially Helpful Guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?76474-So-You-Wanna-Be-A-DM-A-Potentially-Helpful-Guide-%28Reposted-and-Updated%29)

This post is not an endorsement of the above guide, as I haven't actually read it and I have no GM experience besides. Still, I thought that a compilation of advice on the subject might be useful.

Mnemophage
2014-04-22, 04:45 AM
Preparation is good - but so is having some stuff ready to fly with when your players take off in a completely random tangent. And they will. It's what players do. Keep stuff like pre-generated name sheets around, so you don't have to go fumbling at a name generator every time a player asks a random guard what his name is. Keep things like a stack of random encounters or challenges around, ones you can slot into any situation, in case your characters barge off in a direction you have nothing in - a thing you don't want to do is have them meticulously search a building and find NOTHING there. You're not going to be able to prepare for all situations, and a lot of DMing is being able to think on the fly, but having this stuff ready to use is absolutely invaluable.

One of the things I can't stress enough is this: don't make plot pointers dependent on a roll. If you need your players to find the incriminating letter, if you need them to find the kidnapper's tracks, if you need them to find the partial list of anti-royalist conspirators, if you need them to find any vital clue without which the plot would go nowhere, make sure that a bad series of botches won't make it inaccessible.

When building your environments, try to vary them a little bit - even an empty field has a few lone trees, crevasses hidden by choking weeds, old house foundations and dry wells, debris and broken equipment here and there. Unless it's an arena situation or you're making a specific point of it, no battle area should be just an empty room. There are a couple of reasons for this. First being immersion, but second being tactics and a wider variety of actions. It happens, now and again and especially at low levels, where some players just won't have anything to do in a fight. They'll have forgotten to bring the correct damage type, run out of all their spells for that day, be a stiff breeze away from keeling over, or any number of things. You want to give them options, things they can use in the field to cause an effect, even if that's just chucking a handful of sand at something's face.

Finally, I'll give you my last resort. This is my go-to idea when I have nothing at all prepared, when I'm going off two hours of sleep with a pounding hangover, when the normal DM moved away yesterday and dumped it all on my lap. This is, in effect, an adventure-in-a-can, a simple premise you can uncork with no buildup or preparation, that immediately traps a group of random strangers in a dangerous situation that will require ingenuity, diplomacy, sneakery, bravery and just a little luck to get out of.
Siege.
The players are in a city, and now it's under siege. Bad guys are completely surrounding the place, and it's cut off from all outside help. Maybe some of them have snuck in, or broken down a side port and gotten in an advance group. Maybe the sole water source is a river that flows in from outside; maybe the city just endured a long winter and doesn't have the supplies it needs; maybe the king called his soldiers to fight in a foreign war and the walls are manned by a skeleton crew. You can decide these fundamental points and draw maps as your players are rolling their characters. Better yet, breaking the siege often takes just long enough for you to figure out where your story is going, and can easily lead to a whole series of adventures off in strange and distant lands.

You're preparing and looking for advice. You'll do fine. Eat your nerves. We got faith.

Storm_Of_Snow
2014-04-22, 05:31 AM
Preparation is good - but so is having some stuff ready to fly with when your players take off in a completely random tangent. And they will. It's what players do. Keep stuff like pre-generated name sheets around, so you don't have to go fumbling at a name generator every time a player asks a random guard what his name is. Keep things like a stack of random encounters or challenges around, ones you can slot into any situation, in case your characters barge off in a direction you have nothing in - a thing you don't want to do is have them meticulously search a building and find NOTHING there.

For names, I heartily recommend Kate Monk's Onomastikon: http://tekeli.li/onomastikon/ - sadly, it's pretty much abandonware now, and there's a few issues with links, but as far as I know, most stuff is still there.

As for the encounters, the original GW-version Judge Dredd RPG was given a random table for crime blitzes (in the Dredd universe, the Judges are allowed to enter any citizens home and conduct a search for anything illegal, without having to obtain a warrant or even requiring suspicion of an illegal act - there's at least a couple of stories around them), so that the players could perform them without the DM having to come up with something themselves, or the "you find nothing" (in the Dredd universe, nearly everyone's guilty of something, even if it's only something borrowed from the library being a couple of days overdue), so theoretically, the DM could start a session by saying the players are on a crime swoop (a mass crime blitz on a city block), and either let them run with anything major that randomly comes up, or give themselves the time to come up with something in game.

Equally, that's what books like the 1st edition AD&D Rogues Gallery were for, supplying the DM with information to use as and when they needed it.

You probably don't have to go that far - houses in a village will be broadly identical, one town guard patrol is largely like another town guard patrol, if the thief wants to break in somewhere, then by and large the quality of the security will be proportional to the value of the property within, and so on. But a few pregenerated locations and encounters on standby aren't a bad thing, and could well lead you off into new adventure ideas as you create them.

A random list of descriptors for items probably isn't a bad idea either - so, say, rather than telling them they've found a potion, you tell them they've discovered a small undecorated terracotta amphora, sealed with a cork that's held in place with thin, dirty leather straps.



You're not going to be able to prepare for all situations, and a lot of DMing is being able to think on the fly, but having this stuff ready to use is absolutely invaluable.

One of the things I can't stress enough is this: don't make plot pointers dependent on a roll. If you need your players to find the incriminating letter, if you need them to find the kidnapper's tracks, if you need them to find the partial list of anti-royalist conspirators, if you need them to find any vital clue without which the plot would go nowhere, make sure that a bad series of botches won't make it inaccessible.

Agreed - maybe make them have to work a bit harder to get the clues that they missed first time and give them slightly less XP for it. Just don't get them thinking that no matter what you do, they'll get all the answers anyway.



When building your environments, try to vary them a little bit - even an empty field has a few lone trees, crevasses hidden by choking weeds, old house foundations and dry wells, debris and broken equipment here and there. Unless it's an arena situation or you're making a specific point of it, no battle area should be just an empty room. There are a couple of reasons for this. First being immersion, but second being tactics and a wider variety of actions. It happens, now and again and especially at low levels, where some players just won't have anything to do in a fight. They'll have forgotten to bring the correct damage type, run out of all their spells for that day, be a stiff breeze away from keeling over, or any number of things. You want to give them options, things they can use in the field to cause an effect, even if that's just chucking a handful of sand at something's face.
Agreed again, especially with the descriptors lists.

And remember that anything your players can do, your intelligent monsters should be able to do as well.

But to be honest, once you've run a few sessions, you'll probably get to the point where you can start creating items and encounters on the fly without needing any lists.

BeholdenCaulf
2014-04-24, 12:24 PM
I can't stress enough how important it is to only use the core books.

When it comes down to it, here are the important bits:

Read up on character creation - make sure not to miss racial bonuses, bonus feats etc.

Combat - you can afford to get a bit wrong sometimes as long as it's not a major brainfart that kills everyone (but I've never heard of anyone misinterpret the rules to that extent), make sure you are fully aware of 5 foot steps, attacks of oppurtunity and movement speed.

Skills - Listen, Search and Spot will be used the most so make sure you are familiar with these and bonuses/penalties to them. Make sure you know whether you and the players are rolling against a DC or opposing check (move silently/listen, hide/spot)

CR - this is important, if you take anything from this let this be it;
wondering what enemy is suitable for your players? Check the Challenge Rating on their monster manual entries or use the chart at the back, a monster's Challenge Rating is equal to 4 PCs levels. For example, a CR 5 enemy is suitable for 4 5th level characters. Don't have 4 players? Make an NPC because the rules are often geared toward 4 person parties. As a side note remember, when controlling monsters remember to only use the full attack if you do not make a move action (other than a 5 foot step) and remember to look at the monster's special abilities or risk it being too easy.

Leveling up - after each encounter go to Dungeon Master's Guide page 38 table 2-6 and find the monster's CR then find the characters level on the left. Divide the cross-referenced number by the amount of party members involved in the battle and award it to that player. Often early on this number will be the same for every character but characters die, lose a level and their experience points recieved vary to others. When a character hits the total required for a level up as illustrated on PH page 22 table 3-2 then go ahead and level them up. Remember 2x CR 5 enemies are just that and should be totalled up seperately, they are NOT a CR 10.

Loot - look at the treasure header on a defeated enemy for none, standard, double or even triple treasure and refer to DMG page 51 table 3-3. Remember to multiply according to what it said, that this is the amount to be divided, not each and that it doesn't all have to be coins, this is simply the value of the treasure, throw in some gems and magical items. Refer to page 54 for the average wealth per level.

This is all what I consider important information and I hope I helped :)

EDIT: apologies I just assumed you were using 3.5, I don't know why, if you are then great, if not, a lot of this advice can be transferred but obviously the page numbers won't be correct :)

bulbaquil
2014-04-24, 07:27 PM
1. Don't panic.

2. The advice about having a "session 0" where all you do is character creation is right on, especially because you're running a homebrew. If in your world, say, dwarves are known for carpentry, shipbuilding, and life at sea and seldom if ever work with stone and metal, elves hate magic, and halflings simply don't exist... you'll want to let them know up front before they show up with a halfling, an elven wizard, and a dwarven blacksmith. (Yes, you could put some of that information into the recruiting material as well, but probably not all of it would fit.)

3. Let your players know up front (preferably in the recruiting material) that you're a new GM. This helps the players (especially those with optimization tendencies) know what to expect.

4. If your party has a rules lawyer, this is a good thing for you as it helps you learn the rules - especially if there are newbie players in your game as well.

Storm_Of_Snow
2014-04-25, 11:52 AM
Loot - look at the treasure header on a defeated enemy for none, standard, double or even triple treasure and refer to DMG page 51 table 3-3. Remember to multiply according to what it said, that this is the amount to be divided, not each and that it doesn't all have to be coins, this is simply the value of the treasure, throw in some gems and magical items.
Magic I'd keep a limit on, especially items that are effectively infinite use.

Single/low multiple-use items like potions and scrolls aren't too bad, and low powered wands etc with small numbers of charges might be ok.

Other possible treasures are rare items (books, paper and parchment, whether written on or not, art objects like tapestries, paintings or statues), herbs and spices (remember, today Saffron is on the order of several thousand US dollars per pound), cloth (especially materials like silk), furs, skins and leathers, processed metal ingots and timber (especially rare kinds), medicinal items (e.g, Cinchona bark as a raw material for quinine), tools and instruments for certain professions (such as jewellers tools and alchemists equipment, but even high-quality carpenters or blacksmiths tools would have a selling price, and a shopkeeper would probably be able to turn things like nails around quite easily), good quality/high end clothing, items of ceremonial or ritual significance (votive candles, prayer beads and the like that can be sold to worshippers) and so on - a few such items found occasionally not only gives a nice change of pace, it gives your players the chance for a little bit of character development - say they decide that they'll take the silk as part of their share of the treasure, because they want to use it for some clothing.

And depending on your tech level, you could have mechanical devices like clocks.

Also, depending on how ghoulish your players are, people have historically robbed the dead, taking body parts like teeth and hair for dentures and wigs.