Need a curriculum for training new DMs (3.5)

[Jowgen]

I have been tasked with tutoring two of our players to make them into competent DMs for mid-high levels. Both have a good grasp of the basic rules, but they lack the kind of system mastery that comes with scouring books, online discussions and guides. Also, I seek to cover our setting and general DMing tips.

I have thrown together a basic lesson plan on what I should focus on, which reflects the level I believe the two are at. Now I am looking for input/feedback from the playground.

The current curriculum:

In-world information (aka. what there is and how to DM it)

Important Cities and their politics
Important Races/Planes and their factions

Game Mastery

Everyday rules that come up all the time: a refresher (e.g. stealth vs perception; taking 10)
The action economy in practice (inc. special combat actions and rocket tag)
Martial vs Mundane: the discussion
The basics of effective casters (e.g. blaster vs buffer)
The importance of WBL and "mandatory" equipment
Famous builds, concepts & cheese

DMing skills

Helping with character creation
NPC personality and build design by the numbers
Appropriate limits on campaign focus and scope
Handling NPC and organization interaction with players
Keeping the game running and the flow consistent
Smart and Dumb enemies in and out of combat (aka. Dragons are smart)
Handy and/or obscure things to improve quests/encounters
How to handle difficult or over/under-optimized players
How to "wing it" and seem/be prepared while doing it
Note-keeping tips (e.g. piecemeal encounters/NPCs)


EDIT: Updated with the suggestions that I've decided to incorporate.

[Red Fel]

You left out one of the most valuable DM skills: Winging it. And yes, this can be taught.

Inevitably, plans will go awry. A great DM knows how to turn a calamity into an opportunity. A great DM knows how to let the players attempt whatever they like - no matter how unlikely or irrational - while simultaneously not guaranteeing success. To the point, a great DM knows how to let the game fly by the seat of its metaphorical pants.

And it's not just tossing up your hands and giving up. It's rolling with it. It's figuring out how to slap together a quick NPC when the PCs decide they want to find the most well-informed itinerant cobbler in this particular forest. It's determining what exactly happens when you use an abundance of magical fire to detonate three divine artifacts at once. It's announcing how the guard reacts when the PCs inject him with an extract they managed to distill from the mushrooms growing in the corner of their dungeon cell. It's not just about not saying no, but about what to do once you've said yes.

Some of the most satisfying, entertaining, and awe-inspiring campaign stories result from a DM going, "You know what? Try it. Let's find out what happens."

[Jowgen]

You left out one of the most valuable DM skills: Winging it. And yes, this can be taught.

PRESENT... I mean... IMPROVISATION! shall be added to the curriculum, thank you Red Fel :smallsmile:

[yellowrocket]

Inevitably, plans will go awry. A great DM knows how to turn a calamity into an opportunity. A great DM knows how to let the players attempt whatever they like - no matter how unlikely or irrational - while simultaneously not guaranteeing success. To the point, a great DM knows how to let the game fly by the seat of its metaphorical pants.

And it's not just tossing up your hands and giving up. It's rolling with it. It's figuring out how to slap together a quick NPC when the PCs decide they want to find the most well-informed itinerant cobbler in this particular forest. It's determining what exactly happens when you use an abundance of magical fire to detonate three divine artifacts at once. It's announcing how the guard reacts when the PCs inject him with an extract they managed to distill from the mushrooms growing in the corner of their dungeon cell. It's not just about not saying no, but about what to do once you've said yes.

Red you've said it probably 100 times more eloquently than I could have.

Having been only a dm and having laid out 4 distinct plot hooks that were developed each to tell a tale and to fit together from day 1 of the campaign. They were 4 possible missions from the leader of the paladins to a paladin, and they managed to take the least developed in my mind and wander so far off the path they never got to it.
Improvisation is a skill that can be taught and should be emphasized when coaching up new dms. They need to be ready. Otherwise you covered more than the basics. So I think you're well on your way.

[Telok]

Focus and scope: monsters, campaigns, and plots.

This covers the willingness of the DM to put limits on things, adjucate those limits fairly, and abide by them.

It helps to limit your monsters to about ten general groups. One campaign I did limited it to a few types of demons, hill giants with class levels, gnolls with class levels, lizardmen with class levels, a few types of undead, a handful of custom dragons, and some humans with class levels. Anything with class levels generally only had about four variations and 3, 6, or 9 levels. This let me keep a small folder of compressed stat blocks that covered 90% of the monsters I used. During the campaign I only ever had to stat a few unique individuals. This was a pretty good time and effort savings.

I also limited the scope of the campaign, a defined level range and explicit buy-in from the players to stay in the mega-dungeon unless they found one of the legitimate plot related exits. Consider confining your game to a single continent, super-dungeon, or even a single city. This lets you save time, helps with the limited monster pallette, and allows you to spend more time developing your plots and the consequences of player actions.

In short you don't have to have a multi-plane adventure using fifty different monsters from ten different books. Players are often perfectly willing to stay within some boundaries if it helps you have fun too.

Doing these things may mean putting some limits on the game, like a ban on long range teleportation or saying that PC races and prestige classes are limited to a preapproved list. You need to apply this fairly, which means that you play by the rules too. Occasional exceptions are possible, especially if it's a one time thing or is really cool and beneficial to the game. And that applies to the players as well, if it's fun and doesn't damage the game then saying "yes" is a good thing.

[Jowgen]

Focus and scope: monsters, campaigns, and plots.

This covers the willingness of the DM to put limits on things, adjucate those limits fairly, and abide by them.


Also a very good point. I myself am generally able to run with whatever my players decide to do, so I hadn't considered teaching how to set ones boundaries for this sort of stuff. Thank you.

[Red Fel]

You might emphasize, particularly in your "Handy things" or "Note-keeping tips" sections, the use of piecemeal concepts.

A lot of DMs do this. They keep a list of random location names, a book of index cards with simple quick-reference NPCs, a few sheets of basic all-purpose encounters. You can swap names in and out, adjust or tailor some details, but having a few simple Lego-like note cards you can fit into any number of situations not only helps you wing it, it helps you be prepared.

Say you suddenly need a noble. You flip through your index cards until you find the half-dozen nobles you've pre-statted. You pick one out; he has a few levels in Aristocrat and one or two in a swordsman-style class. You give him a name and a personality - call him Sir Belvedere, he's pretentious and arrogant - and boom, quickie NPC.

Say the party is going to a forest. You grab your environment notes, flip through to your pre-made forests, and find one that's relatively tame except for the Witch's Hut in the east and the Nymph's Grove in the north. Making note of that, you start to describe the forest.

And so forth. Little pre-generated chunks can be swapped in and out of any given scenario, to ensure that you're prepared for any outcome.

Also, yes. PRESENTATION. It matters.

[Fouredged Sword]

Player focus 101. How to keep the players actually playing the game.

List of 10001 quirks, how to make NPC's memorable! Players never remember names, but that one guy with a peg leg and a trident who did something funny will live on in memory FOREVER!

Evil 101 - Good reasons for bad actions

Evil 201 - Making your players wonder if they are the bad guys

Guiding the Flow - The balance between no plot and railroads!

[John Longarrow]

One of the least documented but most useful concepts is NPC motives.

WHY is the ogre trying to turn your party into red paste? Is it because he's bored? Hungry? Just in a bad mood?
WHY did the lion decide the wizard looked like a tasty snack?
WHY are the goblins holding the bridge?

Often, if you know the WHY, most encounters run very easily. Decisions about if they run, when they run, where they run to, why they would fight to the death instead of run, how they will fight, who they will target, how they will attack, will they talk instead of fight, ect... all become very easy to work out.

A fight with bandits who want to drop a couple easy targets to loot while they scare off the big mean fighter types will be a lot different than a bear protecting its cubs. Likewise a dragon that's got a real case of the kills is going to be a different fight than a dragon that's looking to intimidate a party into handing over loot.

[Fouredged Sword]

How to lose 101 - Living voraciously though others for fun and enjoyment.

[Troacctid]

How to steal material from other sources. You need to teach them that stealing ideas is not only okay, it's encouraged, like, heavily encouraged, and just generally an important skill for a DM to have. This is especially important with NPCs because you have to roleplay a ton of different characters and it's WAY easier to roleplay a character you already understand. So the villain is Tywin Lannister, the head of the Wizards' Guild is Rupert Giles, the Captain of the Guard is Samuel Vimes, the eccentric artificer is the 11th Doctor, the traveling merchant is Ned Flanders, and the kidnapped princess is Barney Stinson. Homework assignment: write a quick summary of how you would incorporate a piece of pre-existing fiction of your choice into a typical D&D campaign.

Another important lesson: encounter design. Especially for boss fights. Never put a boss fight in a featureless room. If you want a fight to be memorable, the arena is just as important as the monster. Make sure your bosses have enough HP that the fight won't end too quickly, and try to include surprising elements that force players to reconsider their tactics mid-battle. Remember to account for action economy; if the boss only has one round to the PCs' five, she'll need something extra to even the odds, whether that's minions, environmental dangers, or just plain cheating to give her extra actions each turn (which is allowed because you're the DM and you design the monsters). Homework assignment: design three unique and memorable boss fights that all use different mechanics.

And thirdly, give them the first chapter of the DMG2 as assigned reading. It's got loads of really good tips for running a game.

[Melcar]

Remember to include some "how to play the monsters" A dragon can be a mouthful for a new DM, and yet it is a monster that every DM should be familiar with. There are other strange monsters.. and stuff like grapple, swallow whole, and the like are important combat skills for mane creatures. Therefore important to learn!

[Cosi]

Challenging D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8940.0) should be required reading for anyone who plans to DM, particularly at a high level.

Also, probably a section on what different people want to get out of the game.

[John Longarrow]

One final item I was thinking about; Treasure. How to create a treasure the players will want and how important it is to keep the players around WBL.

If the party doesn't have enough gear, they are not nearly as able to handle encounters. If they have too much treasure they tend to walk through things that should be a fight. Myself and others have found that if a characters gear is of a higher or lower level than theirs it can dramatically affect how capable they are. Myself and a couple other DMs I know use a trick for keeping wealth in mind when handling encounters. For exps/determining how effective they are, we add their ECL and the level their WBL would give and divide by two.

As an example, if a 5th level character has 1st level gear, we consider them a 3rd level character for what they can deal with. In the RL example that prompted this, a 12th level character had (through some very generous modules the DM ran) the gear of an 18th level character and was performing far above what a normal 12th level character should be able to do.

[rrwoods]

One thing I'd love to see, both as a player and as a DM, is a list of spells widely regarded as effective. Giles has such a list for clerics, and the "hits" get mentioned again and again in various charop threads (grease, glitterdust, black tentacles...) but there's always an "etc" or an "and the other usual suspects" or something. What are the usual suspects, both in and out of core? As a DM I want to be able to suggest those spells to new players and also prepare for their existence, and as a player I want to save time book-diving for all the good stuff.

[Amphetryon]

One thing I'd love to see, both as a player and as a DM, is a list of spells widely regarded as effective. Giles has such a list for clerics, and the "hits" get mentioned again and again in various charop threads (grease, glitterdust, black tentacles...) but there's always an "etc" or an "and the other usual suspects" or something. What are the usual suspects, both in and out of core? As a DM I want to be able to suggest those spells to new players and also prepare for their existence, and as a player I want to save time book-diving for all the good stuff.

"Etc." is going to vary greatly based on the scope, tenor, and locale of the campaign. Mind-affecting Spells are either wonderful SoL tools (for instance, in a mid-level courtly intrigue game), or entirely useless (for instance, in an Undead-heavy game or where Aberrations abound). BFC Spells can be a nuisance to the party itself if they're already regularly fighting in confined spaces where separating the monsters is already done by the dungeon's design. Illusions can be amazingly useful or incredibly, frustratingly useless (see Mind-affecting, above), both for reasons already mentioned and because so much of an Illusion's utility comes down to how the DM chooses to have enemies deal with Illusions that are not inherently dangerous.

. . .That is probably worth listing for the OP: Decide, and communicate to the Players, how useful non-damaging Illusions are likely to be, in general. I've had DMs rule that they completely stymied the enemy, and I've had other DMs rule that such Illusions were completely ignored by the enemy, and were thus all but wasted.

[John Longarrow]

. . .That is probably worth listing for the OP: Decide, and communicate to the Players, how useful non-damaging Illusions are likely to be, in general. I've had DMs rule that they completely stymied the enemy, and I've had other DMs rule that such Illusions were completely ignored by the enemy, and were thus all but wasted.

This also has a lot to do with what the casters is making an illusion of, how much prep time they have, and how believable the illusion is. Most people would be skeptical if a wall suddenly appeared in a grassy field between two groups. Depending on campaign world this same illusion could be met with the same skeptical response or a 'Oh CRAP... caster!' depending on how often casters are encountered/know of.

As DM, conveying this kind of information is vital. Depending on setting, the same illusion could have very different reactions from the same DM controlled monsters. In one case a wall appearing out of thin air can be met with disbelief. Another could think it nothing more than an illusion. A third could be terrified as they've heard just how potent and capricious such dangerous spell casters are. Making sure the players know what kind of game you run will have an immense impact on how used/useful these types of spells are.

[martixy]

Since you're going the formal route - might I suggest you record these lessons in some form.

Say in video... which then could be put up on youtube.

I suggest a format like Extra Credits(you could try also aiming for their production quality if you REALLY want to :smalltongue:).

[Amphetryon]

This also has a lot to do with what the casters is making an illusion of, how much prep time they have, and how believable the illusion is. Most people would be skeptical if a wall suddenly appeared in a grassy field between two groups. Depending on campaign world this same illusion could be met with the same skeptical response or a 'Oh CRAP... caster!' depending on how often casters are encountered/know of.

As DM, conveying this kind of information is vital. Depending on setting, the same illusion could have very different reactions from the same DM controlled monsters. In one case a wall appearing out of thin air can be met with disbelief. Another could think it nothing more than an illusion. A third could be terrified as they've heard just how potent and capricious such dangerous spell casters are. Making sure the players know what kind of game you run will have an immense impact on how used/useful these types of spells are.

I'll give an example that I saw at two different tables (yes, the same scenario came up in two different DM's homebrew world games; no, I wasn't either DM, nor was I either Illusionist):

Dealing with an angry, drunken Half-Ogre at an inn, Player casts an illusion that creates something like a ball of phlegm between the Half-Ogre's palm and the top of the bar. DM at the first table has the Half-Ogre perplexed, looking at his hand and interacting with the illusion while the Player slipped quietly away. DM at the second table (who was not present at the first) looked at the Player and said "It's either going to do nothing, or it's going to reinforce the grip the Half-Ogre has on his Maul, making it harder to Disarm. I'll let you pick."

[Nibbens]

Any way I can get my grubby little hands on this Lesson Plan? I'd love to scour it myself. lol.

As far as the topic of the post is concerned - Red Fel covers the most important part, certainly. However, I'd throw in basic story and literary structure - and if you really want bonus points, how to subvert the tropes therein without making things seem like cop-outs.

Seriously, the story your PCs play around in, is important - just as long as it never becomes more important than the PCs actions. lol.

[Endarire]

I wrote a guide for this (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8941.0).