DM looking for some advice

[Aleolus]

I am fairly inexperienced as a DM, and I have some issues with DMing that I know will only be fixed through experience. The biggest one being that I will work on a game, put a bunch of thought and effort into a storyline, into npcs that. the party will meet, and so on, then the players will start doing things I didn't expect. This will throw me off, I won't be able to quickly adapt, and after that happening a few times I'll end up loosing interest in the game.

I'm attempting to fix this issue through gaining experience dming on a small scale by doing standalone adventures, and I turn to my fellow playgrounders with two requests.

First, can anyone suggest a few standalone adventures I can use when I can't come up with one of my own?

And second, does anyone have advice on things I can do to learn to adapt easier when I am dming, so I don't end up loosing focus and interest in my own games?

[Kyberwulf]

My advice. Don't worry to much about making adventures. Just spend your time making NPCs. Just randomly. To teach yourself how to make up characters on the spot. After that, just start watching a lot of movies and Tv. Read books and and comics. inundate yourself with a lot of culture. A lot of plot structures. After that.

Don't make a hardlined plot point A to B. Just through up a barebones structure on what you hope happens. Let what the players do inspire you to make up stuff as you go along.

If you feel the need to create stuff. Make kingdoms, factions of people that have a common goal. Don't use them in your plots for the most part. Always let what the players do affect them offscreen. Remember less is more. People don't want to come to a game that simulates a History class. People will take interest in certain things. Never straight out tell them what goes on. but Be vague.

[Scorponok]

To make sure the players don't feel like they are getting railroaded, come up with 2 to 4 half-plots. Generally, a group isn't going to finish an entire plot in one night unless you are playing 6+ hours.

Example, town is in a forest the PCs start out in. They have 3 choices. Go to the cave, go to the abandoned castle, or go to the witch's liar. Anything else, either nothing happens or they are warned they will die due to high level monsters lurking the area. They might **** around town for a bit in which case they interact with the NPCs until they are ready to head out and go to one of these other places. From there, you can build your story out.

[Darth Ultron]

First off drop the whole idea that the amazing players will do something unexpected by the poor, poor DM. It is rare. And it is silly.

Second, remember that the characters can only "try" to do things.

Third, remember that as DM, you do control things.

No one action should cause the world to stop spinning.

[Kesnit]

I am fairly inexperienced as a DM, and I have some issues with DMing that I know will only be fixed through experience. The biggest one being that I will work on a game, put a bunch of thought and effort into a storyline, into npcs that. the party will meet, and so on, then the players will start doing things I didn't expect. This will throw me off, I won't be able to quickly adapt, and after that happening a few times I'll end up loosing interest in the game.

I'm attempting to fix this issue through gaining experience dming on a small scale by doing standalone adventures, and I turn to my fellow playgrounders with two requests.

First, can anyone suggest a few standalone adventures I can use when I can't come up with one of my own?

And second, does anyone have advice on things I can do to learn to adapt easier when I am dming, so I don't end up loosing focus and interest in my own games?

Don't be afraid to say "OK, you can do that. Give me a minute to think how to respond."

I run a non-D&D game with players who WILL do the unexpected. I could have 20 different solutions in my head, and they will still do something I never imagined. I have enough experience to usually roll with it, but there are times when I have to pause the game for a few minutes to think. And that's OK! Take a few minutes, think things through, decide how all the NPCs/monsters/whatever will respond, then restart the game. (There's nothing that says you can't have the action turn back to what you intended to happen anyway, if that is what you decide and it makes sense.)

You're players don't feel railroaded, since they can pick their own path. You don't feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with them, which will (hopefully) go a long way to keep you from getting discouraged.

[daremetoidareyo]

The thing that got my DMing together was making the PCs all have the same job: magistrate. For some of the characters, this meant that they were just employed by a rich man's bet that anyone could do this job.

Once the PCs are united by a similar work goal, all I had to do was flesh out the city. Eberron is great for this, as was sigil. A city has a bunch of possible adventure stubs. Werewolf prostitutes, serial killing mayors, Dr Jekyll Mr hide alchemists. Demon summoning anarchist cults that simply want the poor to vote.

So the PCs have a home base. They have a monthly stipend. They are basically the sheriff's department, so they at least have to investigate the adventure du jour. And they will go off the rails. Guaranteed. But you have a cultist statted up, and the PC who lost the bar brawl wakes up 48 hours later. Or sooner if the fellow PCs investigate.

Each PC has a different reason to be magistrate, so they can get individual quests. With this set up, you can usually tie 1 shot modules relatively easily.

Even if your PCs screw around, you're running high fantasy comedy cop show on your worst nights. The drunken barbarian makes the more memorable story lines than the ocd paladin, but the paladin glues the hijinks together.

[RandomNPC]

Lets talk about the best DM tool out there, the clock. Some people think the world only reacts to adventurers, and others see that people do as much as they can behind the scenes as quickly as they can. You don't need to figure out exactly how long the Big Bad Evil Guy will take, you just figure if the PCs skip a plot hook once or twice, the action goes off as planned, without interruption. The party has a chance to run into minions of the big bad every step of the BBEGs plot, usually five or six steps. If the BBEG gets all the way through the plot steps the party begins to see the effects.

First of all, the party will get distracted, always have a one-off plan, and sometimes let that plan benefit the party, a cool magic item, maybe a custom tweak to a feat or ability, something cool. But not every time, sometimes a cave full of rust monster riding, demon worshiping, stone armor wearing, angry dwarves has nothing to do with the party.

Maybe the comet BBEG was summoning to crush the planet shows up and now there's a week to reverse the magic used instead of stopping the ritual in the first place.

Perhaps the royal family goes missing and the military and political leaders all support BBEG as the rightful leader.

What if the BBEG was just collecting all the silver he could to build some kind of anti-werecreature device and now that the werebears protecting the woods are dead, all kinds of evil plant creatures are marching towards town, and will be there in an hour or two.

Any way it goes, spring it on them, because they skipped every chance for advanced warning they could have gotten. Maybe they looted some old temple and have a randomly rolled bit of loot that works good when fighting the BBEG they may not have found on main plot, but by following quests they would have found something else, or stopped BBEG before they had as much power.

TL;DR

Make a few one shot side quests and let the BBEG advance the evil plot, making them more powerful in comparison to the party.

[Toilet Cobra]

Don't be afraid to say "OK, you can do that. Give me a minute to think how to respond."

Seconding this. Don't feel like you're on the spot to always have the perfect line ready. Use the fact that it's a simulation to your advantage and take your time.

Also, as others have mentioned, don't put tons of effort into a specific questline unless you really think your players will go for it. Instead, try laying out a lot of hooks before you commit to one.

Take a place the players are likely to spend some time (the most populous nearby city, where they can rest and sell their loot and talk to npc's, is most likely). Then just come up with a few things that are going on in the city, from big badass plots to little side quests, and let them stumble on them organically. Whichever one they show interest in, that's the one you spend your time on and be really prepared for next time.

And make sure you don't use the whole "You're the only ones who can help, if you refuse this quest then the world is dooooomed!" thing often, it wears really thin. Especially on players who want more freedom.

[Darth Ultron]

Don't be afraid to say "OK, you can do that. Give me a minute to think how to respond."


Though what you should do is more say ''sure, you can try that'' and then drop something on the characters to distract them while you think up of something.

So say you have the 20 things all planned out, and the amazing players think up of number 21 that you never saw coming. All you need to do is drop a distraction. It does not need to be pure combat, it can be anything you know your players will ''stop the game for''.

For example, if you have very greedy players, then having the characters stumble onto a chest of gold coins can have them going on for at least 15 minutes as they talk/argue about how to divide the coins and how gets what amount and such. Meanwhile you plan out number 21.

[Troacctid]

I find that players generally follow my lead when I DM. If you give them quest hooks, they will follow them. If you don't, they won't know what to do. I've only seen quest hooks rejected in cases where the players felt it would be out of character to accept that mission or to work in a group with the other PCs. There is a very simple way to solve that: set up the game so that it is literally the party's job to do quests together. Then any awkwardness is easily avoided.

Something I strongly recommend is to read the first chapter of the Dungeon Master's Guide II. It has loads of legitimately good advice about how to run a table and how to tailor your DMing style to the group.

[JNAProductions]

Seconding the "Sure, you can do that-just give me a minute to think of how to respond,". I do that in freeform RPGs all the time and it is hugely beneficial. Don't take too long, but make sure you have quality, rather than speed.

[Aleolus]

Thank you all for the advice so far. I do try to take a minute when it happens, and I can usually piece something together. The problems that I then run into are
1) needing to do it multiple times in quick sequence
2) Not being able to adapt because something needs to happen but isn't or won't. For example, I started a BESM game a while back and when I brought in one of my players, they were so well set up in the area I made for them that the character didn't want to leave to go with the party, and I couldn't think of a way to convince them

[Troacctid]

2) Not being able to adapt because something needs to happen but isn't or won't. For example, I started a BESM game a while back and when I brought in one of my players, they were so well set up in the area I made for them that the character didn't want to leave to go with the party, and I couldn't think of a way to convince them

Well, adventuring is a prerequisite for being a player character, so it's your players' responsibility to explain why they're adventuring. If they say they want to make a character whose only goal is to stay home and live a comfortable life, then they're really just asking for you to murder all their family and friends to break their tethers. That's just how these things work. It's like a law or something.

[JNAProductions]

Thank you all for the advice so far. I do try to take a minute when it happens, and I can usually piece something together. The problems that I then run into are
1) needing to do it multiple times in quick sequence
2) Not being able to adapt because something needs to happen but isn't or won't. For example, I started a BESM game a while back and when I brought in one of my players, they were so well set up in the area I made for them that the character didn't want to leave to go with the party, and I couldn't think of a way to convince them

For number 2, it really is the player's responsibility. They need to have a character who wants/needs to go on an adventure. In addition, don't be afraid to say something like "Okay, we're starting at level 3. As part of that, I'd like you to have been adventuring together for the past few months-please make that part of your backstory."

[Aleolus]

That particular case was partially my fault. I had her character set up in a location that was too comfortable for her. She had become guardian and caretaker to a shrine, and I had brought in an npc lover for her as well

[Malroth]

Contrary to what everyone says, Have some rails planned, a basic preplanned way to get from A to B to C to D. However don't expect to use it unless the players start looking for guidance, this preplanned path should be the most straignforward obvious way you can possibly think of for the adventure to work and use it if they start asking NPC's or divination spells for help or otherwise spend hours acting lost but If the players avoid the rails or jump over them or come up with their own quests, Let them.

[Yahzi]

And second, does anyone have advice on things I can do to learn to adapt easier when I am dming, so I don't end up loosing focus and interest in my own games?
Check out The Alexandrian, and read all his stuff on DMing and sandbox games.