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Blanks
2007-10-19, 05:13 AM
While surfing the web i stumbled upon a "20 rules for detective novels" which basicly just laid down the rules for writing detective novels. For example, all clues must be available to the reader, meaning that if they are clever enough they can guess who the perpetrator is. Having the detective reveal the final (and conclusive) clue when the perpetrator is apprehended is cheating your readers.

So I decided to make one for myself, regarding being a DM.

I would like some comments on what you disagree with, and what you think is correct. Please bear in mind that these rules are mental guidelines, not laws, and I did not phrase them carefully. It is the intention which is important.


Player death:
Any death among the players must be the result of player decisions, never chance.
Difficulty:
The DM should never deceive the players about the difficulty of encounters or other hazards. The rules and DMs decisions of chance of failure are the characters physical world, to deceive them about the probabilities is to lie to them about the surrounding world. This takes away their free choice.
Adventure solution
Although powerful NPCs can be used, the adventure should hinge upon the PCs. They are the heroes and should be the primary force in solving the adventure.
Every PC is needed
Obstacles should be tailored to the PCs once in a while, so the players feel that their specific skills make a difference. Every player should be or feel, needed. Every character must be necessary and all characters must have one trait where they are “the best in the group”.
Metagaming considerations
All character actions must be motivated by character personality, never metagaming considerations.
Evil groups
Evil groups should from the very beginning have one unifying goal or value, to prevent player vs player conflict from getting out of hand.
Foreign language
If any foreign language is used, the DM should be willing to translate to the players native tongue, as the players mastery of foreign language should not interfere with the characters ability to function.
Railroading
Railroading is strictly forbidden. The characters must always have a real choice in their fate, never a “do or die” question. In the same fashion, magical control of the players should be kept to a minimum.
One set of rules
All rules apply equally to all players as well as the DM.
Player motivation
Motivate the players by reward, not punishment. The players should be “drawn” into the adventure not pushed.


For example nr. 1:
Its entirely fair if players die due to poor rolls in combat. The point is, they must have entered the combat knowing the risks (if they do not attempt to flee thats considered entering combat). If you make a save or die trap in a place the charachters reasonable thought safe, then they did not accept the risk, and a death is unfair since they could not have prevented it.

Please try to keep on track - this could easily branch out but then start a new thread (and link to it :) )

Zincorium
2007-10-19, 05:33 AM
There are a few of these which can, and should be, broken in specific situations, when the game will become less fun for everyone involved.

For example, 5 should be modified when there is no way of two characters playing well together (in the best of worlds, you'd foresee this, but nobody is perfect) and should use the metagame idea of 'well, this is the party we have, we should work it out somehow' and find a less-than-lethal solution. They should still keep it in-character, and justify it, but slitting each other's throats in their sleep is not a good situation.

8 is more a matter of definition, some people I've talked to consider a situation where, no matter what path the characters take, they will eventually end up in the same place, a railroading. As an example, if you have a wilderness adventure, and you're going to place it on the map based on which direction the characters go, then they'd think of it as railroading. But often this is a much better solution than 'you keep walking, finding nothing' simply because you made a previous decision on something.

However, if you're talking about nullifying player's choices or forcing choices upon them in a way that denies them the impression of free will, then yes, you shouldn't do it.

All in all, good listing, but they are for the most part common sense.

Saph
2007-10-19, 05:38 AM
Not bad, but a bit too specific, and as Zinc says, several can be broken on occasion.

To be honest, I'd say there's really only one important rule for DMing well, and that is: adapt from experience. If your players enjoy something, keep doing it. If they don't enjoy something, drop it for the next session or adjust it until they do. Over time you'll learn what works and what doesn't, and that's what makes you a good DM.

This requires that you a) can tell the difference between what works and what doesn't and b) can do something about it and c) have been doing it long enough to make a difference. But then, if it was easy, good DMs would grow on trees. :)

- Saph

Rad
2007-10-19, 05:45 AM
I don't understand the foreign language part... as long as there is communication going on I see no problem if the player's native language is used or not. When I played in the US I could hardly ask for the DM to translate everything in Italian and even if he could telling everything once in a language that all players can understand would have been a much better option. (we had some fun on pronunciation of "gnoll" though).
Also, I don't see how that is fundamental. You have to communicate to play but that's not because i's good DMing: it's because otherwise you simply can't.

boomwolf
2007-10-19, 05:46 AM
11. read the DMG twice before you start DMing, and before every adventure you DM if you had a month off DMing.

Kurald Galain
2007-10-19, 06:00 AM
11. read the DMG twice before you start DMing, and before every adventure you DM if you had a month off DMing.

Why on earth would you need to do that? Strict adherence to every single rule is only one style of DM'ing. As Saph said, adaptation is more important.

Kurald Galain
2007-10-19, 06:10 AM
Player death:
I'm surprised this comes at Number One, actually.

Difficulty:
The DM is, in my opinion, not obliged to inform players of difficulty in advance. For instance, I'm not going to tell my players "the next fight is going to be hard".

Every PC is needed
Agreed, but not every player needs to be "the best" at something in order to enjoy the game. Depends on your playstyle.

Metagaming considerations
That's not a rule for DM'ing, but mostly for players.

Evil groups
This assumes that player-to-player conflict is limited to "evil" groups, which isn't really true. Also, it implies that alignment should be used, which not everybody agrees on to begin with.

Foreign language
I'm not sure what this is doing here?

One set of rules
Well, no. Some rules don't apply to the DM. Fairness between players, however, is important.

Player motivation
Depends entirely on the situation.


My own rules for DM'ing, in no particular order, the Law of Drama, Law of Karma, and Law of Logic. Well, I didn't make this up, but it's nice anyway.
* Drama: best summarized as "never let a die roll get in the way of a good story". Because making a good story is part of what makes roleplaying fun, it may sometimes be necessary to tweak rules, dice rolls, or NPC reactions, in order to make the story better.
* Karma: the main characters are the player characters. This means that, among others, they should have an influence on the story (i.e. no railroading), they should be given a fair chance at accomplishing their goals, and they should not be killed off at whim or on a poor die roll.
* Logic: the game world should work in a logical and internally consistent fashion. A large part of this is described by the game rules, but if the result of some rule really doesn't make sense (e.g. the D&D healing-yourself-by-drowning trick), change it. Also, NPC reactions should, you know, make sense; a world in which NPCs react in bizarre or insane fashion is probably not such a good idea.

Zincorium
2007-10-19, 06:20 AM
Why on earth would you need to do that? Strict adherence to every single rule is only one style of DM'ing. As Saph said, adaptation is more important.

You should read the rules thoroughly because you need to know when you're leaving something as it is, and when you're changing it, to have a clear grasp of how the game will run.

If you are going to change something, think about it. Why is it making the game more fun? Are there other things which go along with it, that you should change as well?

Some players, sometimes your best players, are going to be used to a by-the-book game. You don't need to do whatever they say, but you're doing them a disservice to not give them an intelligent response to 'why aren't we doing it this way?'. At the very least, you can confidently tell them the game will be better.

If you can't think of an intelligent reason, then it may not be as good as you thought, it's easy to get carried away. Remember that you are DMing for your friends.



On a non-rules note, the DMG has a lot of good advice for specifically running D&D, and since you are apparently running D&D, it'll probably apply.

squishycube
2007-10-19, 06:47 AM
Rule ∞: Never adhere to strict rules. The story always comes first.

SpikeFightwicky
2007-10-19, 06:54 AM
Player death:
Any death among the players must be the result of player decisions, never chance.

- Could you be more specific? Technically, players dying in combat is always a matter of chance, yet not every player wants to go through every fight without fear of dying.



Difficulty:
The DM should never deceive the players about the difficulty of encounters or other hazards. The rules and DMs decisions of chance of failure are the characters physical world, to deceive them about the probabilities is to lie to them about the surrounding world. This takes away their free choice.

- As Kurald said, why should the DM tell the players the difficulty of all situations? Sounds a little odd...

For example: There's a CR 10 trap down this hallway. I know you're only a level 7 group, but I want you to know what you're getting into. <-- This doesn't sound.... right?



Adventure solution
Although powerful NPCs can be used, the adventure should hinge upon the PCs. They are the heroes and should be the primary force in solving the adventure.

- No arguments here. No one likes a smarmy NPC tagalong that always figures out the adventure before they do.



Every PC is needed
Obstacles should be tailored to the PCs once in a while, so the players feel that their specific skills make a difference. Every player should be or feel, needed. Every character must be necessary and all characters must have one trait where they are “the best in the group”.

- So long as it doesn't 'spotlight' characters. A support character won't be as 'shiny' in encounters, but that doesn't necessarily mean their characters are useless, or that the player feels that they aren't contributing, in combat or out.



Metagaming considerations
All character actions must be motivated by character personality, never metagaming considerations.

- Kurald phrased this better than I could.



Evil groups
Evil groups should from the very beginning have one unifying goal or value, to prevent player vs player conflict from getting out of hand.

- Some players play evil campaigns for the option of PvP. Also, it's possible one PC will just hate another PC's character (and the only circumstance they can do something lasting is in an Evil group). Preventing them from doing something about it is kind of forcing them to play out of character.



Foreign language
If any foreign language is used, the DM should be willing to translate to the players native tongue, as the players mastery of foreign language should not interfere with the characters ability to function.

- Seems more 'group etiquette' than anything. In my experience, whenever we play with some people who have English as a second language, the players end up switching languages on the fly. Never been an issue.



Railroading
Railroading is strictly forbidden. The characters must always have a real choice in their fate, never a “do or die” question. In the same fashion, magical control of the players should be kept to a minimum.

- Unless they're in an evil group, where you state that there will be no PvP.



One set of rules
All rules apply equally to all players as well as the DM.

- Kind of mute, since the DM is the arbiter, and can rule 0 on the the fly if need be. This should be more like: All rules apply equally to all players, as ruled by the DM. Unless you mean etiquette rules (being DM doesn't mean you can be an ass).



Player motivation
Motivate the players by reward, not punishment. The players should be “drawn” into the adventure not pushed.

- Sort of a given. If you only threaten your PCs with death if they don't complete the quest and never reward them, you won't have PCs for very long.

I think Saph summed it up best: adapt to what your players enjoy the most in a game. Heck, some players even like being prodded in the right direction occasionally.

Kurald Galain
2007-10-19, 07:36 AM
You should read the rules thoroughly because you need to know when you're leaving something as it is, and when you're changing it, to have a clear grasp of how the game will run.

There's a difference between deliberately changing things, and ruling some things on the fly because you don't know a rule that fits the present situation (this second one is somewhat reduced by reading a lot of rule books, but since no set of rules can cover every contingency, there will always be some situation in which you have to rule something on the fly).

boomwolf
2007-10-19, 07:49 AM
Why on earth would you need to do that? Strict adherence to every single rule is only one style of DM'ing. As Saph said, adaptation is more important.

Not for the RULES of things.
For what is good and what is bad.
The tips, the ideas.
How the world works.
That kind of things.

StickMan
2007-10-19, 08:03 AM
Not for the RULES of things.
For what is good and what is bad.
The tips, the ideas.
How the world works.
That kind of things.

If you made the world you don't generally need to know how it works. I DM and I very rarely look at DMG, its not all that useful. There are a few tables I will refer to from time to time but you don't need to know by heart how large a small town is or what happens on any given plane. For the most part the DMG is a good only if you are a new DM or need to look up the XP chart if you use it.

Well and magic items of course.

Dausuul
2007-10-19, 08:07 AM
- As Kurald said, why should the DM tell the players the difficulty of all situations? Sounds a little odd...

For example: There's a CR 10 trap down this hallway. I know you're only a level 7 group, but I want you to know what you're getting into. <-- This doesn't sound.... right?

The OP didn't say you have to tell the players the difficulty, he said you shouldn't deceive them about the difficulty. There's a big difference there. What this means is that it's fine to not let the players know what's waiting for them down the tunnel; there's no deception there, just lack of information, and the PCs should be smart enough to know there might be something big and bad in there. It's not fine if the PCs creep silently into the monster's lair, spot an ogre munching a leg of mutton, attack the ogre, and have it turn out to be an ancient red dragon in disguise with no reasonable way for the PCs to know that was the case.

Tengu
2007-10-19, 08:08 AM
Most of your points are very good, Blanks. I've seen people not consider #2 or #3 in their campaign, claiming that their worlds are "realistic" and "not revolving around the players", which is bogus - the world does not revolve around them, but the game should. I agree wholeheartedly with #1 - if a character dies, it should be because the player did something stupid, or in a fashion that makes the player not mind the character's death (killing your nemesis in an epic battle, but dying from the lethal wound afterwards? Yes please), not due to a bad roll or the DM being an arse.

I do not really understand what do you mean by #7 and, depending on how do you define railroading, I might disagree with #8.

And I second Dausuul - some of you misunderstood what #2 is about.

SpikeFightwicky
2007-10-19, 08:36 AM
The OP didn't say you have to tell the players the difficulty, he said you shouldn't deceive them about the difficulty. There's a big difference there. What this means is that it's fine to not let the players know what's waiting for them down the tunnel; there's no deception there, just lack of information, and the PCs should be smart enough to know there might be something big and bad in there. It's not fine if the PCs creep silently into the monster's lair, spot an ogre munching a leg of mutton, attack the ogre, and have it turn out to be an ancient red dragon in disguise with no reasonable way for the PCs to know that was the case.

Just to make sure I understand, rule #2 is sort of like (to use an extreme example): The PCs find out that north of town there's a goblin camp, and they're sent to exterminate it. When they get there, they find out it's a dragon camp and get wiped (again, through no fault of their own, just that they weren't strong enough to handle the dragons).

Darrin
2007-10-19, 08:42 AM
All my DM rules can be essentially boiled down to just two:

1) Make sure everyone is having fun.

2) The DM's job is to lose gracefully.

If those two rules are working, then I can pretty much stumble through everything else.

Rad
2007-10-19, 08:47 AM
Player death:
I'm surprised this comes at Number One, actually.

Difficulty:
The DM is, in my opinion, not obliged to inform players of difficulty in advance. For instance, I'm not going to tell my players "the next fight is going to be hard".

Every PC is needed
Agreed, but not every player needs to be "the best" at something in order to enjoy the game. Depends on your playstyle.

Metagaming considerations
That's not a rule for DM'ing, but mostly for players.

Evil groups
This assumes that player-to-player conflict is limited to "evil" groups, which isn't really true. Also, it implies that alignment should be used, which not everybody agrees on to begin with.

Foreign language
I'm not sure what this is doing here?

One set of rules
Well, no. Some rules don't apply to the DM. Fairness between players, however, is important.

Player motivation
Depends entirely on the situation.


My own rules for DM'ing, in no particular order, the Law of Drama, Law of Karma, and Law of Logic. Well, I didn't make this up, but it's nice anyway.
* Drama: best summarized as "never let a die roll get in the way of a good story". Because making a good story is part of what makes roleplaying fun, it may sometimes be necessary to tweak rules, dice rolls, or NPC reactions, in order to make the story better.
* Karma: the main characters are the player characters. This means that, among others, they should have an influence on the story (i.e. no railroading), they should be given a fair chance at accomplishing their goals, and they should not be killed off at whim or on a poor die roll.
* Logic: the game world should work in a logical and internally consistent fashion. A large part of this is described by the game rules, but if the result of some rule really doesn't make sense (e.g. the D&D healing-yourself-by-drowning trick), change it. Also, NPC reactions should, you know, make sense; a world in which NPCs react in bizarre or insane fashion is probably not such a good idea.

Really well said...

caden_varn
2007-10-19, 08:56 AM
The most important rule for me is:

Remember the DM exists to entertain the players, not defeat them.

Sure, you need to have fun as well, but it cannot be at the expense of your players

I find a good rule of thumb for myself is to always think of at least 2 ways out of any given situation/encounter. This helps prevent railroading as well as TPWs

PnP Fan
2007-10-19, 09:09 AM
Blanks: Sounds like you probably run a fun, and very fair minded game. Kudos to you, that's a good thing. But I'm kinda in agreement with most of the folks here, these rules don't really cover the wide variety of DMing styles that reflect what actually happens in successful games.

1. I agree that you shouldn't "decide" when a PC is going to die, and then make it happen. That's reasonable, but to a certain extent, all in game death has chance as a participant. After all, there's a d20 involved in every action (saves, attacks, find/disarms, etc. ..). And even bad decisions that OUGHT to end in PC death, can sometimes be circumvented by luck (and vice versa).

2. Okay, if you're talking about directly deceiving PCs about their perception of the world, generally I agree, but PC's can't tell a commoner Kobold from a 10th level sorcerous Kobold, or a trapped door from a safe door. So, I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

3. Hit the nail on the head with this one. I had a GM who used to design encounters poorly (he's gotten better), and every time he'd save the party with NPC's coming to the rescue. Very annoying.

4. Meh. It's important for everyone to have something to do from time to time, but not every session. In games involving more RP, and less dice sometimes, it's more important to cater to the personal goals. Not every rogue cares if they get to disarm a trap.

5. In a perfect world. .. but generally I agree.

6. Others have addressed this better than I can (I've never done the "evil party" thing).

7. This sounds like some kind of internet thing, and not very applicable to table top games. Not that I wouldn't welcome a non-english speaker at my table, but I'm not going to learn swahili to make them comfortable. Of course, if I really wanted to game in another country, I'd take the time to learn the language as best I could. But honestly, if I'm in another country, there are other things I'm going to do, rather than game. Like sight seeing.

8. um, yeah, if there were no railroading involved in gaming, some of my players would sit around and shop for equipment all day and never take the time to adventure. Sometimes the plot has to be introduced to the players, not everyone is blessed with players that create their own plots.

9. Debateable. While the GM should never abuse the fact that he has total control of the game-verse, sometimes creative villainy is not going to play strictly by the rules. Sometimes you have to improvise a magical catastrophe that, strictly by RAW, doesn't exist. What spell created the Mournland? or that desert in Forgotten Realms?

10. Generally speaking, I'll agree with you on this, though I suspect that there are circumstances where negative reinforcement is usefull, I'm not much on punishing my friends.

Good conversation!
:-)

Jayabalard
2007-10-19, 09:11 AM
You should read the rules thoroughly because you need to know when you're leaving something as it is, and when you're changing it, to have a clear grasp of how the game will run.Like it was said above, this is only one style of gaming. Some people, Players and GMs both, could really care less whether the GM is making a ruling that changes a rule or if they are ruling in a case where the rules are ambiguous. Rules take a back seat to pretty much everything else. To them, there aren't any rules, just guidelines.

SpikeFightwicky
2007-10-19, 09:27 AM
The most important rule for me is:

Remember the DM exists to entertain the players, not defeat them.

Sure, you need to have fun as well, but it cannot be at the expense of your players

I find a good rule of thumb for myself is to always think of at least 2 ways out of any given situation/encounter. This helps prevent railroading as well as TPWs

Definately agree. I was a player in someone's game, and there was always only one convoluted way out of most encounters and alot of PC deaths. On the flip side, I myself don't like it when there are absolutely no PC deaths. I had a DM that fudged almost every role, and adjusted the monsters' AC and attack bonus on the fly. I'm not saying PCs should die regularly, but having the fear of death is important.

Blanks
2007-10-19, 09:31 AM
Thought i would just try to explain my points a little.


There are a few of these which can, and should be, broken in specific situations, when the game will become less fun for everyone involved.

For example, 5 should be modified when there is no way of two characters playing well together (in the best of worlds, you'd foresee this, but nobody is perfect) and should use the metagame idea of 'well, this is the party we have, we should work it out somehow' and find a less-than-lethal solution. They should still keep it in-character, and justify it, but slitting each other's throats in their sleep is not a good situation.

I think we agree on the principle.
The players should discuss how they intend to solve this OFFGAME, but ingame, there needs to be a logical reason why a follower of a fire deity is in a party with a priest of a god of cold for instance.


8 is more a matter of definition, some people I've talked to consider a situation where, no matter what path the characters take, they will eventually end up in the same place, a railroading. As an example, if you have a wilderness adventure, and you're going to place it on the map based on which direction the characters go, then they'd think of it as railroading. But often this is a much better solution than 'you keep walking, finding nothing' simply because you made a previous decision on something.

However, if you're talking about nullifying player's choices or forcing choices upon them in a way that denies them the impression of free will, then yes, you shouldn't do it.

I never saw that as railroading. The main point for me is wether or not the characters are able to "escape the plot" if they really tried. For instance they could just refuse to enter the wilderness. If the town guard then forced them out of the city, then its railroading.


All in all, good listing, but they are for the most part common sense. *sigh* At least it should be. There was a specific background for me writing this list ... *shudders*


several can be broken on occasion.
Yes, as i wrote they are guidelines, not laws. The point is, if you as a DM violates one of these "rules" you should think carefully about why you do it. It would probably also be wise only to break one at a time.


I don't understand the foreign language part... as long as there is communication going on I see no problem if the player's native language is used or not.
Im danish and so is my entire group. I once gave the players a riddle which they proved unable to solve. I had presented it in english and there was one word which they didn't know. The solution hinged on that very word, so i translated that to them, along with its connotations. The riddle was in the characters native tongue, but was presented to the players in a non-native tongue. That shouldn't affect the characters survival chances (offgame stuff shouldn't affect ingame stuff :) )


Player death:
I'm surprised this comes at Number One, actually.
They are only numbered to ease the discussion. In my own list they aren't numbered.


Difficulty:
The DM is, in my opinion, not obliged to inform players of difficulty in advance. For instance, I'm not going to tell my players "the next fight is going to be hard".

This was never my intention. But if you tell the players "there is a narrow bridge" and someone wants to balance across it, they should be told wether they have a 99% chance (because its really not that narrow) or a 1% chance (its almost paperthin). The point being that the character can SEE how narrow it really is and estimate how likely they are to cross, whereas the players rely on the DM to tell them this.
If you tell them that "it doesn't look that hard to cross", but you know the chance of them crossing is only 10%, your not giving them an accurate description of the campaign world.
If the ledge is quite broad, but has a grease trap in the middle which the players don't know about, its a different story.


Evil groups
This assumes that player-to-player conflict is limited to "evil" groups, which isn't really true. Also, it implies that alignment should be used, which not everybody agrees on to begin with.
Valid points, but this just broadens the scope of the rule. Every group should have something that binds them together. It was aimed at "groups which might murder each other in their sleep", alignment or no alignment :)


One set of rules
Well, no. Some rules don't apply to the DM.
Here i disagree. All rules apply to the DM. Sure, he gets to mess with the dice rolls, but spot checks are the same for NPCs and PCs. If the PCs can't "take ten" on an action, neither can the NPCs. It then follows that there are no NPC feats or classes. Maybe its hard to join the prestige class "Dragon king of cheese" because you have to be a great wyrm gold dragon, but ultimately, if the players found a way to fulfill the requirements, then they can take it.


Player motivation
Depends entirely on the situation.
Care to elaborate?
IMHO forcing character motivation is fine, players must be drawn through an exciting adventure or possibility.


On a non-rules note, the DMG has a lot of good advice for specifically running D&D, and since you are apparently running D&D, it'll probably apply.
This is not my first game if that was your impression :smallbiggrin:
I have read the DMG and although some of the advice is solid, other is complete nonsense. I read a book called (DMG II i think?) which had almost no numbers but a lot of good advice. That was much more valuable.
But i do agree, it does contain a lot of good advice, specificly the "behind the scenes" bars.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Blanks
Player death:
Any death among the players must be the result of player decisions, never chance.

- Could you be more specific? Technically, players dying in combat is always a matter of chance, yet not every player wants to go through every fight without fear of dying.
Its like the lawyers say, if you entered combat you accepted the risk ;)
I also elaborated with an example at the bottom of my original post. But i agree this is a matter of DM discretion. When did you accept the risk? when you entered the cave? or when you found out it contained a dragon. If i was playing a first level character and had murdered 3 goblins and found a chest, opening it only to be blown to bits by a dragon coming out of the chest would make me ... :smallfurious:


Some players play evil campaigns for the option of PvP.
True and they should certainly be allowed to. This "rule" is aimed at players playing "evil vs the world, good towards each other" which is in my experience very common.


Heck, some players even like being prodded in the right direction occasionally.
Its only a railroad if you WANT to get off and can't. Otherwise its a comfy chair or something :) I have had players asking for more railroading :D



pheew that was a lot of comments, having my results questioned always helps. Thanks for the comments, hope there are more :)


EDIT:
Thanks to my infant daughter this post took almost 2 hours to compose. Seems people posted in the meantime:smallbiggrin:

Here a a couple of more comments:



the world does not revolve around them, but the game should.
Thats a good quote, ill keep it. Perhaps that should be in the original list concerning powerfull NPCs :)


I agree wholeheartedly with #1 - if a character dies, it should be because the player did something stupid
That was exactly my point, maybe i expressed it to convoluted, i have a tendency to do that.


it's fine to not let the players know what's waiting for them down the tunnel; there's no deception there, just lack of information, and the PCs should be smart enough to know there might be something big and bad in there. It's not fine if the PCs creep silently into the monster's lair, spot an ogre munching a leg of mutton, attack the ogre, and have it turn out to be an ancient red dragon in disguise with no reasonable way for the PCs to know that was the case.

Just to make sure I understand, rule #2 is sort of like (to use an extreme example): The PCs find out that north of town there's a goblin camp, and they're sent to exterminate it. When they get there, they find out it's a dragon camp and get wiped (again, through no fault of their own, just that they weren't strong enough to handle the dragons).
Both are exactly what i was thinking about.


All my DM rules can be essentially boiled down to just two:

1) Make sure everyone is having fun.

2) The DM's job is to lose gracefully.

My point in writing these rules were that they were all more or less necessary in order to achieve your number 1.
I included the number 2) just because i like the wording :)


these rules don't really cover the wide variety of DMing styles that reflect what actually happens in successful games.
I think they do, but please show me how im wrong, thats why i posted the rules :smalltongue:
I see now that my point about evil parties really isnt strictly a necessary condition, but I don't think that there have ever been a game where the DM kept talking about "the cool NPC does this! the cool NPC does that!" and the players enjoyed it :smallfrown:


4. Meh. It's important for everyone to have something to do from time to time, but not every session. In games involving more RP, and less dice sometimes, it's more important to cater to the personal goals. Not every rogue cares if they get to disarm a trap.
Maybe it should be rewritten to read:
"every player should have his time to shine". The rogue doesn't have to disarm a single trap in an entire campaign, but he must be instrumental at some point in the campaign. Otherwise he isn't a hero, but a sidekick.


5. In a perfect world. ..
Aaah yes. These rules are actually meant for a perfect world. If one player verbally abuse the others and act like an arse, decieve him, steal his spotlight, kill him off and torture his mount :smallcool:


This sounds like some kind of internet thing, and not very applicable to table top games.
I have only played table top, but see the comment above regarding this.


Sometimes you have to improvise a magical catastrophe that, strictly by RAW, doesn't exist. What spell created the Mournland?
The "Blanks spell of create mournland" which is only castable by 1000 wizards working together ;) Im not saying that PCs should be able to make artifacts left and right, but if they are able to meet some farout requirements, they should (theoretically) be able to craft an artifact.

Lord Tataraus
2007-10-19, 09:51 AM
11. read the DMG twice before you start DMing, and before every adventure you DM if you had a month off DMing.

I've never read the DMG. Never, even though I have been DMing for two years and continue doing so. I have only encountered one problem which was determining XP after a fight, but now I ignore XP so it doesn't really matter.

On the point about railroading, I think what you mean is avoid obvious railroads. A good DM railroads in a very subtle way, using NPCs dropping info, tantalizing tales, rich guys looking for adventurers to do something, etc.

valadil
2007-10-19, 10:07 AM
Why expand it to 10 rules? All you really need is 1. No matter what happens, your players are the first priority.

Whether your want more plot than combat is up to you. Same goes for storylines trumping die rolls. Either way is perfectly valid. But you gotta keep the players happy. No story should result in an unhappy player experience (the caveat to this being that you can and should have low points in the course of the story, but it should end on a high note rather than leave the players disappointed.)

Oh, and I really love the comment about it being the GM's job to lose gracefully. He should put up a good fight, but needs to know that the PCs should come out on top. GM's also need to keep in mind that they are not adversaries. Too many games end up being GM versus players. I explicitly run my games as GM and players working together as some sort of collaborative storytelling improv game. There may be PCs versus NPCs at times, but that's very different from GM versus players.

WorthingSon
2007-10-19, 10:17 AM
I would strongly suggest any new DM's pick up a copy of the rules compendium. I picked up a copy last night, and it makes the whole game flow a lot better when you have to look up obscure rules. Or when there is a debate over the way a rule reads and you want to see for yourself before making your DM ruling.

Kurald Galain
2007-10-19, 10:37 AM
I would strongly suggest any new DM's pick up a copy of the rules compendium.

On the contrary, I would strongly suggest that any new DM stays far away from that book. If you're new to things, you shouldn't grab extra rulebooks, because that just overcomplicates things and pushes you into the direction of the "rules are everything" kind of DM, which your players may not appreciate.

You have to learn the self-confidence, as a DM, that when there is a debate over the way a rule reads, it is your call. You shouldn't delay your game by looking things up in Yet Another Book, and you should not get into the frame of thought that you might be Wrong somehow if you don't keep up-to-date with FAQs and rules changes.

Dausuul
2007-10-19, 10:54 AM
Here i disagree. All rules apply to the DM. Sure, he gets to mess with the dice rolls, but spot checks are the same for NPCs and PCs. If the PCs can't "take ten" on an action, neither can the NPCs. It then follows that there are no NPC feats or classes. Maybe its hard to join the prestige class "Dragon king of cheese" because you have to be a great wyrm gold dragon, but ultimately, if the players found a way to fulfill the requirements, then they can take it.

I don't agree with this, mainly because I feel it promotes an overly legalistic mindset. For instance, say I use death knights in my campaign. Death knights started out as living human warriors; by your argument, then, there must be a way for a PC to become a death knight. However, I may have a bunch of excellent reasons for thinking that PC death knights would be extremely disruptive in the campaign, even though NPC death knights work well as adversaries.

So I would need to come up with a set of effectively insurmountable obstacles to make it practically impossible to become a death knight, even though it is technically possible. Unfortunately, players being players, they're likely to take that as a challenge and start trying to find ways around the obstacles; whereas if I'd just said, "Look, PCs can't be or become death knights in this game, for the following reasons," they'd have simply accepted it and moved on.

Now, I do agree that the DM should generally abide by the same core rules of play (as opposed to character creation options) as the PCs. Changing the rules at whim results in an arbitrary world where the PCs cannot reasonably judge the consequences of their actions. That said, most good DMs I've known have occasionally thrown a monster or NPC into the mix who got a special exemption from one of the normal rules. This keeps the PCs on their toes, and reminds them that the game world is more than a mere collection of mechanics to be manipulated.

Indon
2007-10-19, 10:57 AM
Railroading
Railroading is strictly forbidden. The characters must always have a real choice in their fate, never a “do or die” question. In the same fashion, magical control of the players should be kept to a minimum.
One set of rules
All rules apply equally to all players as well as the DM.


I'mma just have to give these two a flat-out 'No', with examples.

Railroading: I'm running an Exalted campaign with my group. This is their first real Exalted campaign, and they're still learning about the world. After a good bit of play (The characters are getting to be 3-4 essence, even the non-Solars), I slow down and eventually stop giving them vital/critical plot hooks, allowing them to Sandbox all over creation. In the end, they decide... to ask the DMPC Sidereal, whom they know is manipulating them to his own ends, what they should do.

My players simply didn't _know_ enough about the campaign yet to play in a free-form environment, making my not giving them a clear path to take a mistake and their awkward, barely-in-character attempt to fix that the demonstration of that mistake.

One Set of Rules: I have a DM screen for a reason, and it ain't so I can eat snacks without having to share them. Fudging rolls (and making rolls for no reason other than to scare your players) is a time-honored tabletop tradition!

Blanks
2007-10-19, 11:37 AM
My players simply didn't _know_ enough about the campaign yet to play in a free-form environment, making my not giving them a clear path to take a mistake and their awkward, barely-in-character attempt to fix that the demonstration of that mistake.

Thats not railroading the way i see it. (perhaps there should be a "what is railroading" thread).
Railroading is not
"You find the mayors dagger at the scene - i wonder who the murderer could be?". Thats just giving the players too easy puzzles.

Railroading is:
PC: I don't care about daggers, i leave the town.
DM: The guards stop you.
PC: why?? i had no trouble getting in!
DM: erm... noone can leave as long as the murder is unsolved!
PC: fine, ill go sulk in my room.
DM: Suddenly your door is broken open, and Elminster says if you don't solve the murder he will assume you commited it and kill you.
PC: alright ill board the choo-choo train...


One Set of Rules: I have a DM screen for a reason, and it ain't so I can eat snacks without having to share them.
Actually i find that to be a usefull side effect of the screen ;)


Fudging rolls (and making rolls for no reason other than to scare your players) is a time-honored tabletop tradition!
Surely it is, and i use it a lot. Fudging rolls isn't the same as not running spot checks the same way. Partly because you probably fudge DCs the same way, partly because my idea revolves more around not creating special feats etc. for the NPCs. In 2nd edition there were several NPC only kits. They should have been written as evil only.

Thrawn183
2007-10-19, 11:38 AM
(1) A good example of difficulty: We enterred a town (at level 3) and ran into a group of people. They had 2 dressed as casters, 5-6 grunts and a guy in full plate. This told us we needed to run away. If we had decided to fight it would have been our own fault when we died. On the other hand if we'd run into an encounter of the same difficulty.... say a single higher level monk: we'd have had no idea that the fight was essentially unwinable and would have been slaughtered.

Its cool to have high CR stuff floating around to maintain versimilitude in a campaign. There simply needs to be a way of keeping it from eating your <level 5 PC's because they can't even make the knowledge checks to know that it's dangerous.

BRC
2007-10-19, 11:38 AM
Rule 1: You are always right.
Rule 2: The players are not your enemies, they are your entertainment.
Rule 3: never get a Min-Maxer wet, and never feed them after midnight.

valadil
2007-10-19, 11:41 AM
My players simply didn't _know_ enough about the campaign yet to play in a free-form environment, making my not giving them a clear path to take a mistake and their awkward, barely-in-character attempt to fix that the demonstration of that mistake.


There's railroading and then there's railroading. If your players lack the initiative (be it due to inexperience, lack of skill, in character reasons, whatever) to make a decision and go with it, you may have to prod them along yourself. Bad railroading would be keeping them from going to City A because City B has all the plot in it. But if they're just sitting around in City C waiting for plot hooks, suggesting a trip to City B is hardly a bad idea.

Kurald Galain
2007-10-19, 11:53 AM
(1) A good example of difficulty: We enterred a town (at level 3) and ran into a group of people. They had 2 dressed as casters, 5-6 grunts and a guy in full plate. This told us we needed to run away.

Yes, because a bunch of commoners could never dress up as casters and 5-6 grunts, and demand your money or your life. (http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2007-10-03)

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-10-19, 12:27 PM
Player death:
Any stupidity among the players should result in player punishment/death. The reverse also applies.
Difficulty:
Without metagaming, there is no way to know the difficulty of most encounters beforehand. The players should consider their choices carefully and scout out, be prepared for and magically scry encounters in advance. They should not expect every encounter to be of an appropriate difficulty if they (stupidly) blunder into it or actively try to create combat situations with NPCs.
Adventure solution
Although powerful NPCs can be used, the adventure should hinge upon the PCs. They are the heroes and should suffer the consequences of their actions. If, for example, the PCs blunder into a potentially fatal encounter by their own choices, the DM should run the encounter normally and not use a Deus Ex Machina NPC to save the PCs-their punishment, captivity or death is entirely deserved.
Every PC is needed
Obstacles should be tailored to the PCs once in a while, so the players feel that their specific skills make a difference. Every good player should be or feel, needed. Every good character must be necessary and all good characters must have one trait where they are “the best in the group”. However, the DM is not responsible for the players' career choice beyond giving them an OOC warning when they're about to make a stupid choice. If a player has made a useless character despite that warning (e.g. beguiler in an undead campaign, barbarian in a diplomacy campaign or bard in just about any situation) the DM should not feel obliged to create situations to accomodate said player's mistaken choices.
Metagaming considerations
All metagaming considerations should be reflected in character personality and in-game abilities. The wizard with a +awesome bonus to spellcraft should know exactly how spells work. The ranger with a +insane bonus against outsiders that studied his entire life how to oppose them should know the strengths and weaknesses of a demon opponent by heart.
Evil groups
Evil groups should from the very beginning have one unifying goal or value, to prevent player vs player conflict from getting out of hand. Alternatively, you may play a situation where PvP combat is prohibited by a higher power or mutually exclusive with a party need. Geas spells, being thralls of the same evil overlord and having to cooperate for their survival are all legitimate ways of handling evil groups.
Foreign language
If any foreign language is used, the DM should be willing to translate to the players native tongue, as the players mastery of foreign language should not interfere with the characters ability to function. This rule should be applied with character knowledge taken into account-the illiterate barbarian for example is not supposed to know any languages. :smallcool:
Railroading
Railroading is strictly forbidden unless it is supported by flavor. The characters must always have a real choice in their fate, never a “do or die” question. In the same fashion, magical control of the players should be kept to a minimum. This rule does not apply if the players are led to situations such as captivity, imprisonment, banishment or geasa by their own actions. In that case, the railroading is part of the punishment for their wrong choices/stupidity. A smart DM always cloaks railroading under bluff, diplomacy, sleight of hand amd intimidate attempts.
One set of rules
All rules apply equally to all players as well as the DM unless there is an official rule that says otherwise. E.g. an NPC sorceror with rapid metamagic does not have to wait a full round action to apply metamagic like the PC sorceror without said feat has. If the player did not know of that option beforehand then he obviously has not paid attention to the latest splatbook. It always pays to have knowledge of the latest splatbook if you're a DM, especially if your players do not.
Player motivation
Motivate the players by reward, not punishment. The players should be “drawn” into the adventure not pushed. Even better motivation is punishing the PCs BEFORE the adventure e.g. placing the PCs under a powerful curse or against a very powerful opponent for no apparent reason before the adventure actually starts and then build the adventure around the PCs' attempts to recover. That way, the players can't complain you're punishing them for playing the adventure.

Dausuul
2007-10-19, 12:45 PM
Even better motivation is punishing the PCs BEFORE the adventure e.g. placing the PCs under a powerful curse or against a very powerful opponent for no apparent reason before the adventure actually starts and then build the adventure around the PCs' attempts to recover. That way, the players can't complain you're punishing them for playing the adventure.

No, you're punishing them for playing the entire game. The only way they could have avoided it would have been to refuse to let you DM. Which they may very well do if you pull this sort of thing often.

This sort of thing hardly ever comes off well, in my experience. The plotline revolving around "you were happy and content, but suddenly you're randomly miserable, and you must go on a quest to return to a happy state" can sometimes work in a novel, but it's extremely frustrating in an RPG, because it feels like you're running a Red Queen's Race; you have to run as fast as you can just to get back to where you were at the start. Most players get bored and annoyed when that happens.

Indon
2007-10-19, 01:06 PM
"You find the mayors dagger at the scene - i wonder who the murderer could be?". Thats just giving the players too easy puzzles.

Railroading is:
PC: I don't care about daggers, i leave the town.
DM: The guards stop you.
PC: why?? i had no trouble getting in!
DM: erm... noone can leave as long as the murder is unsolved!
PC: fine, ill go sulk in my room.
DM: Suddenly your door is broken open, and Elminster says if you don't solve the murder he will assume you commited it and kill you.
PC: alright ill board the choo-choo train...


That's bad railroading.

Good railroading is:

DM: While you examining the murder weapon over the victim's body, the Mayor and his entourage walks into the room. The mayor exclaims, "Murder!" pointing an accusing finger at you. The guards in the entourage draw their blades and approach.
PC: Oh, man, I'm not evil, so I don't want to just kill them over an honest mistake. I guess I could just skip town...
DM: And become a wanted criminal?
PC: Good point. I should probably find the killer, either that or kill everyone present to make sure there are no witnesses.
DM: Your character is Lawful Good!
PC: Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting. Guess I'mma have to find the real killer, then.

And that's what I do with my group, generally. It's very much railroading, it's just not so crude (Generally, I try to make it more subtle than even in my example).



Surely it is, and i use it a lot. Fudging rolls isn't the same as not running spot checks the same way. Partly because you probably fudge DCs the same way, partly because my idea revolves more around not creating special feats etc. for the NPCs. In 2nd edition there were several NPC only kits. They should have been written as evil only.

That's exactly what it is. Fudging rolls means my NPC's do what I want them to, not what the dice tell them to like they were PC's. I don't need special feats/etc for my NPC's. If I want my NPC to have an ability, *BAM* they have it, I don't need to, and I don't, write it down and label it as "NPC-only".

I think what you're really trying to get at is the principle of hiding behind-the-scenes information from the players. If the players _know_ you're fudging rolls in your NPC's favor, they may complain. And if they _know_ you just gave the Big Bad 3 standard actions a turn because you didn't realize how quick they could kick his ass before, they may again complain. But if it looks like that's how you planned it all along? They aren't likely to care.

So really, I'd reterm your rule to, "Don't let the players know when you are playing by different rules."

WorthingSon
2007-10-19, 01:39 PM
On the contrary, I would strongly suggest that any new DM stays far away from that book. If you're new to things, you shouldn't grab extra rulebooks, because that just overcomplicates things and pushes you into the direction of the "rules are everything" kind of DM, which your players may not appreciate.

You have to learn the self-confidence, as a DM, that when there is a debate over the way a rule reads, it is your call. You shouldn't delay your game by looking things up in Yet Another Book, and you should not get into the frame of thought that you might be Wrong somehow if you don't keep up-to-date with FAQs and rules changes.

First of all the Rules compendium does NOT complicate things any, in my opinion. Yes, it does have some variant rules in there, but they are marked as such. It has all the official rules for all major topics in one easy place. So when your PC wants to Trip or Grapple something, you just open up to the index, skip to the grapple section and TADA there are the rules. Also it actually reduces the amount of extra books required because it also has all the rules for concepts that were added later like psionics, which are not in the DMG, and can make it really annoying for a DM that wants to know what the designers had in mind before he decides how to handle it in his campaign.

As far as the "rules are everything" mindset in DM'ing I think it is good for a new DM to start closer to that side till they get more comfortable with the rules and are ready to change things. Yes a truly Rules lawyer DM can squelch a campaign, but an inexperienced off the wall DM that changes things to whatever they want makes it REALLY hard on the players.

Zincorium
2007-10-19, 04:20 PM
There's a difference between deliberately changing things, and ruling some things on the fly because you don't know a rule that fits the present situation (this second one is somewhat reduced by reading a lot of rule books, but since no set of rules can cover every contingency, there will always be some situation in which you have to rule something on the fly).

I said nothing about ruling on the fly. But ruling on the fly can in some cases be reduced, because by knowing the rules in the first place, you can see the gaps.

If your entire game is just ruling on the fly, that can get very frustrating for some people. Be aware of that. The problem is not that they're addicted to the rules, it's that it's nice to know how to play the darn game.



Like it was said above, this is only one style of gaming. Some people, Players and GMs both, could really care less whether the GM is making a ruling that changes a rule or if they are ruling in a case where the rules are ambiguous. Rules take a back seat to pretty much everything else. To them, there aren't any rules, just guidelines.

Ignorance is a style now? I was positing knowledge as a requirement for the DM. Just like you should know your setting, you should know the rules that you are and aren't following.

Changing the rules is fine, I don't know how you could have gotten otherwise from my post. What I was saying is that you should be aware of how the system changes, how all those tables and stuff are affected, if you mess with things, so you know to change anything else that would be better off changed.

To extend your metaphor, if you don't know the guidelines, that's bad.

Kurald Galain
2007-10-19, 07:20 PM
First of all the Rules compendium does NOT complicate things any, in my opinion.
Extra rules, by definition, complicate things. So does taking the "amount of extra books". A "core only" game is simpler to DM than a "all the rulebooks the group has" game. Of course, there's nothing wrong with a more complex game, but we were talking beginning DMs here.



As far as the "rules are everything" mindset in DM'ing I think it is good for a new DM to start closer to that side till they get more comfortable with the rules and are ready to change things.
As I said before, that is one style of playing, and there are several others. For instance, a "story is everything" mindset is probably more fun (not to mention more accessible) for beginning players.

The mistake you're making is assuming that, because you're very familiar with it, 3E D&D is easy to learn for novice players. Which it's really not - it is one of the most complex RPGs that sees widespread serious play.


If your entire game is just ruling on the fly, that can get very frustrating for some people.
Not if you're consistent about it, and at any rate it mainly gets frustrating for players who insist on proper rules rather than insist on a good story. Ideally, players don't have to know how to play the darn game. Players that want to argue about the rules tend to break the atmosphere.



Ignorance is a style now? I was positing knowledge as a requirement for the DM.
No, playing "rules-light" is a style. Admittedly one that doesn't mesh all that well with 3E D&D, but a style nonetheless. What you call "ignorance" is in fact flexibility. I maintain that a DM that rules on the fly is better than one that breaks action scenes in order to page through rule books.

Except in a poor DM, of course, in which case it gets annoying - but a poor DM gets annoying anyway, even if he does follow the rules to the letter.


What I was saying is that you should be aware of how the system changes, how all those tables and stuff are affected, if you mess with things, so you know to change anything else that would be better off changed.
I believe that most people who modify rules, or instate house rules, really don't know how everything interacts and relates - and neither does most of Wizards, or indeed anyone not on the various CharOp boards. People obviously need a good reason for a house rule, but "reducing complexity" and "improving verisimilitude" are decent reasons. Aside from that, the best way of finding out the effect of a house rule is really by trying it, as it may depend heavily on the dynamics in the group. The majority of house rules don't really change anything.

For instance, if I (as I generally do) houserule that elves have no "magic secret door sense", that doesn't have much of an effect, since I don't do dungeon campaigns. If I houserule that elves need as much sleep as most other races, that doesn't have all that much effect either, and I don't need to read up on a dozen rulebooks to realize that.

Blanks
2007-10-20, 05:14 AM
I will repost the entire list in a revised form later, to include the changes people have suggested. Although i think it was a good idea that belial wrote his own list, it does not match mine.


Player death:
Any stupidity among the players should result in player punishment/death. The reverse also applies.
I think it should be:
Player death:
Player death should only result as a consequence of stupidity, never chance. Note: Taking stupid risks is stupid.


Difficulty:
Without metagaming, there is no way to know the difficulty of most encounters beforehand. The players should consider their choices carefully and scout out, be prepared for and magically scry encounters in advance. They should not expect every encounter to be of an appropriate difficulty if they (stupidly) blunder into it or actively try to create combat situations with NPCs.
My point was actually more about decieving the players. If you see a young girl on the road, 99% of the time it should be a young girl. Often it seems that when you meet a young girl, 99% of the time its a demon prince of doom and darkness :(


Adventure solution
Although powerful NPCs can be used, the adventure should hinge upon the PCs. They are the heroes and should suffer the consequences of their actions. If, for example, the PCs blunder into a potentially fatal encounter by their own choices, the DM should run the encounter normally and not use a Deus Ex Machina NPC to save the PCs-their punishment, captivity or death is entirely deserved.
Hehe your list is starting to sound really mean ;)
My point was about not letting the NPCs steal the spotlight from the PCs (and then elminster does this! and then he does this!).

Railroading
Railroading is strictly forbidden unless it is supported by flavor. The characters must always have a real choice in their fate, never a “do or die” question. In the same fashion, magical control of the players should be kept to a minimum. This rule does not apply if the players are led to situations such as captivity, imprisonment, banishment or geasa by their own actions. In that case, the railroading is part of the punishment for their wrong choices/stupidity.

A smart DM always cloaks railroading under bluff, diplomacy, sleight of hand amd intimidate attempts.
A smart DM doesn't use railroading AT ALL IMHO. He knows his players enough to motivate them without forcing them, and he leaves sufficient clues that they are able to know where to go (if they want to!).
However this discussion recently got its own thread so lets take it there:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60406


One set of rules
All rules apply equally to all players as well as the DM unless there is an official rule that says otherwise. E.g. an NPC sorceror with rapid metamagic does not have to wait a full round action to apply metamagic like the PC sorceror without said feat has.
As long as the PC could take the feat as well, im in full agreement.


Even better motivation is punishing the PCs BEFORE the adventure e.g. placing the PCs under a powerful curse or against a very powerful opponent for no apparent reason before the adventure actually starts and then build the adventure around the PCs' attempts to recover.
That is the WORST form of railroading, and i truly hate it (the railroading, not the poster :) ).
My former DM did this and was the direct reason i wrote this list. I want to be able to decide my own fate, thats what roleplaying is all about. If i want to be bullied, i will just spend time with my wife :smalltongue:

Jarlax
2007-10-20, 07:14 AM
[LIST=1]
Difficulty:
Without metagaming, there is no way to know the difficulty of most encounters beforehand. The players should consider their choices carefully and scout out, be prepared for and magically scry encounters in advance. They should not expect every encounter to be of an appropriate difficulty if they (stupidly) blunder into it or actively try to create combat situations with NPCs.

i recommend running the first floor of expedition to undermountain to drive this point home to every Player in your group. (1st level dungon, CR1-5 monsters)



Evil groups
Geas spells, being thralls of the same evil overlord and having to cooperate for their survival are all legitimate ways of handling evil groups.


see rule 8, if your players cannot complete a evil campaign without turning on one another then they simply are not mature enough to be playing it. go back to non-evil.




One set of rules
All rules apply equally to all players as well as the DM unless there is an official rule that says otherwise. E.g. an NPC sorceror with rapid metamagic does not have to wait a full round action to apply metamagic like the PC sorceror without said feat has. If the player did not know of that option beforehand then he obviously has not paid attention to the latest splatbook. It always pays to have knowledge of the latest splatbook if you're a DM, especially if your players do not.


this is the one rule i disagree with. a DM should never feel bound to the rules as they appear in print. this is the same argument as fudging dice, but what happens behind the DM screen stays behind the DM screen.

as long as they are not breaking the rules for the sake of screwing over the party, DMs should not feel like they need to discard a good idea or original encounter because it does not follow the rules. in fact this article here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20060407a) is a great example of what i am talking about.