I am going to DM for the first time.

[Trandir]

Well it happened. By some weird circumstance I got myself into DMing for 6 players.

Any advice?

[Tvtyrant]

Sit everyone down and ask them about their expectations and tell them your own. "Everyone has to be good, no PVP, make your character so they want to work with the group" kind of thing.

Have fun, don't take it too seriously.

[PhantomSoul]

Sit everyone down and ask them about their expectations and tell them your own. "Everyone has to be good, no PVP, make your character so they want to work with the group" kind of thing.

Have fun, don't take it too seriously.

Agreed with this! And maybe create characters together if that's an option if it's potentially for a longer campaign, that way they can chat during character creation and potentially tie their characters to each other in their backstories. It would also be good to help them build their character for the relevant setting and to give information about the anticipated story arc (module background or starting context), plus if there are newer players it could mean they're less likely to build a character they'll later find unsatisfying.

[Talsin]

Tell them 6 is too many, and they need to do a cage match until only 4 remain.

More seriously, congrats!
Find some time to go over some rules where contention exists and figure out what you prefer to do in those instances (e.g. Shield Mastery bash before attack? After first attack? After all attacks?). Write these down. You'll want to convey this to your players during session 0.
There's plenty of stuff here on the forums, and bloggers and all sorts of people talking about session 0. Use their advice - consult your players for what they may be looking for in a game so you can tailor it to both your and their liking.

[gijoemike]

CONGRATS,


First off, "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility". The purpose of GM is to make sure everyone has fun. Do not fall to the dark side and try to power trip.


Now some questions that will assist the community in helping you.

1. How much time do you have to prepare?
2. How long have you been gaming with these 6 players prior to this?
3. What is the power level/system mastery/munchkin-ness of your players?
4. Do you have any idea for your first few session(s)? Not talking campaign, I mean the initial few encounters and job.
5. Will your PCs start the game knowing each other or is it your job to plot hook them?


Advice
The DM side of the screen is overwhelming. It is OK for you to delegate certain jobs away. Initiative I am looking at you.

[Trandir]

CONGRATS,


First off, "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility". The purpose of GM is to make sure everyone has fun. Do not fall to the dark side and try to power trip.


Now some questions that will assist the community in helping you.

1. How much time do you have to prepare?
2. How long have you been gaming with these 6 players prior to this?
3. What is the power level/system mastery/munchkin-ness of your players?
4. Do you have any idea for your first few session(s)? Not talking campaign, I mean the initial few encounters and job.
5. Will your PCs start the game knowing each other or is it your job to plot hook them?


Advice
The DM side of the screen is overwhelming. It is OK for you to delegate certain jobs away. Initiative I am looking at you.

Well Xmas time is upon us so this thing will probably begin at the earliest in the early days of the new year.

Not a single time. I love D&D and one of my friends told me about this DMless party and arranged the things.

That is a very good question. They appear to be all new to TTRPGs so I proposed 5e for how easy it is to learn and play so my guess is tiefling monks with highest stats strength and charisma for fun points.

Yes I have (depending on what the party wants from this the tutorial quest will change): the starting city has always been plagued with goblins but lately things got weird. The number of attacks have reached the lowest in centuries but now they seem organized (put a hobgobling mini boss there), once or twice every month they attack stealing caddle or raiding the convoy that are leaving or arriving in the city. The city is facing a crisis as the number of guards and trained soldiers keep diminishing so in a last effort messangers have scattered around quest posters asking for help.

I don't know. It would make everything easier if they are an already established party but I want to respect their wishes if they want to have the "tavern moment".

[Lupine]

First off, Congratulations, you have somehow gotten six people to trust that you can supply them with fun for a hour on a (presumably) regular basis. (You passed your persuasion check)

Next what you need to do in preparation:
1) Become VERY familiar with the rules, particularly with respects to combat, and social interactions.
Most veteran players already have this down though.
2) Pick a setting, pick a story (or, alternatively, write your own)
it can be intimidating to write a story and a world. Do not be afraid to pick up a module, and a setting supplement.

Note, If you do this, you should spend the time to become very familiar with your module.
If you choose to write your own, NICE! The DMG has guidelines on what to do when building a world. My advice: think first about what the players will need/want (How does magic work, what are the base rules, what technology, what are the gods like, etc)
You can write all the other stuff later, or even on the fly, if you think you've got the wings for it. A side note about this, record EVERYTHING you tell your players about how your world works. if it didn't come from something you wrote, you should write it down. The biggest thing that will jar immersion for players is discontinuity.
3) Map some dungeons, plan sessions 1-3 loosely
You want the players to think that the world is already generated, and ready. If you've charted the dungeons within a couple days of the story, the players will notice.
As for expectations for players, its cliche, but expect the unexpected. The looser you've planned your three sessions, the more room you have to adapt. (side note about this, your Villain should adapt to the players. If the players hit a villain caravan, the next one has more guards, etc.
4) Have fun.
This is the most important. Let things happen. If your story falls apart, then roll with it. The players are trying to have fun, and so should you. If its stressful, you're doing too much: give some of the stuff to the players. (For example, in my setting, the players wrote the pantheons, and designed some of the cities)
Players LOVE this (especially if they can put it in their backstory.) It means when they get to city x, player 1 says, "HEY! I know this city!" not because their PC knows it, but because they, the player, know the nooks and crannies. It also has the effect of making them consider being the DM, if you find you would rather play than run:smallbiggrin:

[Undyne]

Well it happened. By some weird circumstance I got myself into DMing for 6 players.

Any advice?
1. Never build the game before knowing the characters/players. You want to have their backstories matter.
2. Have a session 0 where everyone makes their characters so everyone can connect to each other.
3. Set down some simple rules during that session.
4. Don't over prepare. Put everything into bulletpoints, not long written paragraphs.
5. Be ready for some things to not be found or used by players.
6. Be ready to fly by the seat of your pants when the players decide to do something absurd.

[Demonslayer666]

Well it happened. By some weird circumstance I got myself into DMing for 6 players.

Any advice?

Keep the game on track: steer conversations back to the game, settle disputes quickly by making a ruling and moving on with the game (familiar with the rules helps here), try to keep your noses out of the books, share the spotlight on each player's character.

Be flexible. Try not to say no to the players too much, come up with a DC.

Take notes on what happened, NPC names, time passing, etc., so you can give a recap at the start of next session.

Be familiar with the party and their abilities so you can design encounters.

I want to reiterate that preparation is key. Don't over prepare, but have something ready to interact with, like NPCs and monsters to fight.

Use detailed descriptions, don't just say "you see a ghoul".

When you get burnt out on DMing, take a break and let someone else run a game, or play some board games/movie nights/etc.

Be open to criticism, and ask for feedback from your players.

I highly recommend having a session 0 where you discuss your game before playing. House rules, optional rules, character options, expectations, make characters, etc.

[JNAProductions]

Good advice so far. I’m on phone, so can’t write that much, but congrats, and good luck!

[Man_Over_Game]

For your first DM experience, have your team already be a party. Keeping a party together is one of the hardest and obscure things a DM has to deal with, so save yourself the hassle and just say they're all friends.


Try to describe things as they're seen, not as they are.


If you want things to be tough, make them tough but have a backup plan. It's much easier to tune things to be harder if you have a contingency plan for when the players lose.


If your players ask if something is true ("Did I find a trap?"), tell them it is. They will naturally make your world more organic and vivid by having expectations, so match those expectations and make them real. Most of being a good DM is smoke-and-mirrors. They don't have to know exactly how much HP the boss has, or how tough the enemies are. They don't need to know that the secret door they were looking for didn't actually exist.


Don't ask for Ability Checks, unless it's something your Players say they're doing. For example, NEVER do something like "Roll a Perception Check for me. Ah, nevermind, you didn't see anything". Roll against the passive value of their stats, roll to cause something bad (a saving throw), or give them a reason to ask for the resulting check themselves ("You see smoke out in the distance"- "Well, then I'd like to make a Perception Check to see more").


When it doubt whether a skill can do something, make it so. Magic tragically outpaces skills, so buffing skills in any way will make them more relevant. With Medicine as an example, I've even allowed my players to do Frankenstein-esc stuff at later levels, because otherwise, what's the point?


For the sake of maths, more skill rolls is better than higher skill rolls. Don't ask for a DC 20, but instead ask for x2 DC 10's.


A formula I like to rely on is [Scenario Deadliness = Character Power + Player Knowledge]. In other words, there should be no scenarios where players are both outmatched AND clueless. A surprise should never be more than what the players can handle. Alternatively, the more advantageous clues you provide your players, the more deadly you're allowed to make things. Saying the assassin flies? That's advantageous. Saying the assassin is a Genasi? That is not.


Dnd 5e is frustratingly finnicky about the balance between Short Rests and Long Rests, and the number of fights in-between. Having fewer fights before a Long Rest makes your Wizards powerful but your Warlocks weaker. The sweet-spot is 2 Short Rests per Long Rest, with a fight in-between (That is, Fight-Short Rest - Fight - Short Rest - Fight - Long Rest). Or roughly 10 rounds of resource-intensive action, with 2 breaks in the middle. You don't have to get it perfect, but just be aware of what it means when you don't. If you want fewer fights in a day, just suggest people don't play Warlocks, or find a way to put a break in the middle of things.

[stoutstien]

Lots of good advice already. My contribution is remember that it's ok to mess up. You will miss calculate something and place your table In a true no win situation. Don't feel bad about just telling them you messed up and retry it. Some people get up in arms about breaking immersion but that comes with just time behind the screen.

[clash]

Do not run an official WoTC module.

I have never played Lost Mines of Phandelver so that might be an exception but none of the Official campaigns I have played have been DM friendly at all and I am an experienced DM. WoTC is fantastic at writing settings, but terrible at writing campaigns. They are way more work to run than creating your own campaign. There are lots of modules online both free and pay campaigns that are much easier to run for new dms. If you are looking for some recommendations I could refer you to some of the ones I have experience with.

I repeat do not run an official WoTC module as a new DM.

[stoutstien]

Do not run an official WoTC module.

I have never played Lost Mines of Phandelver so that might be an exception but none of the Official campaigns I have played have been DM friendly at all and I am an experienced DM. WoTC is fantastic at writing settings, but terrible at writing campaigns. They are way more work to run than creating your own campaign. There are lots of modules online both free and pay campaigns that are much easier to run for new dms. If you are looking for some recommendations I could refer you to some of the ones I have experience with.

I repeat do not run an official WoTC module as a new DM.

I would say they are not NEW DM friendly which is true for 5e as a rule. LMoP isn't bad for new DMs but it still suffers from bad formatting. It's nice because it showcases multiple encounter types earlier than the others.

[Trandir]

Do not run an official WoTC module.

I have never played Lost Mines of Phandelver so that might be an exception but none of the Official campaigns I have played have been DM friendly at all and I am an experienced DM. WoTC is fantastic at writing settings, but terrible at writing campaigns. They are way more work to run than creating your own campaign. There are lots of modules online both free and pay campaigns that are much easier to run for new dms. If you are looking for some recommendations I could refer you to some of the ones I have experience with.

I repeat do not run an official WoTC module as a new DM.

I would gladly accept any suggestion to steal fr... I mean take inspiration from.

[Man_Over_Game]

For balancing encounters, base things off of the average values for your team's damage per turn or maximum health, and make budgets out of that.


For example, say your team's total HP is about 100, and you expect the combat encounter to last about 4 rounds.

So total, your budget is [100 / 4], or about 25. You want to create an enemy team that would deal a total of 25 damage per turn with a 100% hit-chance. But say you also want them to be inaccurate with a 50% hit chance. That puts your estimated damage-per-turn at 50. You could put that as a pair of ogres (4d12 x2 = 52), or a small horde of Kobold 'Zerkers (2d6 x7 = 49).

However, you don't want to include any creature that can kill any of your players in a single creature's turn if that creature dealt average damage. Assuming your team of 3 has a Wizard with 25 HP, and one of the example Trolls deals an average of 26 damage on a hit, it'd probably be best to spread out the damage a little more evenly. So maybe 3 Trolls that deal 3d12 each, who'd deal 19.5 average damage on a hit (and likely wouldn't kill the Wizard in one hit). That puts your total Damage-Per-Turn at 58 with a 50% hit rate, or 29 with a 100% hit rate, which is roughly where you were aiming for.


Calculating enemy HP works the same way. Find out what the player team's average damage is for their level, multiply that by the number of rounds, and divide that total amongst your monsters.

Say your 3 characters are level 5, and they each deal about 20 damage per turn assuming a 100% hit rate. After 4 rounds, they'd deal 240 damage. But these enemies are slightly armored, so the players really have about a 75% hit rate. 240 * .75 = 180. So the players will realistically deal 180 damage after 4 turns.

Since you have 3 Trolls, 180/3 = 60. Each Troll has 60 HP.

Once you're done, you'd have:


Troll Encounter

x3 Trolls

60 HP each

Deals 3d12 damage on a hit.

50% chance to hit (Find out party's average AC, subtract 10, keep the difference as an attack bonus).

75% chance to be hit (Find out party's average hit bonus, subtract 5, keep the difference as AC).



For some close averages:

Average Player HP: 4 + (7*Level)

Average Player Damage-per-round: 5 + (3*level)

Average Hit/AC Bonus: 16 + (.33*level)

I'd recommend using these averages rather than real values from your party, otherwise you'll end up in situations where your party of Wizards are fighting enemies with downscaled sticks for weapons.

[GlenSmash!]

Decide if you are going to start with a one shot, or go straight into an ongoing campaign. I recommend one shots for most new DMs but I understand if you have people wanting to get a regular game going on. If you are jumping inot a campaign it helps to have a good session 0.

Start Small: there is no need to spend time agonizing over every possible campaign detail. the players will never encounter them all, and they will likely ignore everything you came up with anyway.

Trust yourself: since the players will surprise you are going to have to improvise. Trust yourself to tie your current session BS back into the campaign before the next session.

Don't sweat the small stuff: You're going to make mistakes. That's ok. Try to get better as you go.

Have Fun: The fun of everyone at the table, yourself included, is the measure of success in D&D.

[clash]

I would gladly accept any suggestion to steal fr... I mean take inspiration from.

I have used the following and found them to be easy to run and fun:
The Wedding and the War on dmsguild. Couldnt find the link at a glance
Into the feywild https://www.patreon.com/posts/into-feywild-100-6755905
Where Madness dwells https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/28495/Where-Madness-Dwells

[blackjack50]

Well it happened. By some weird circumstance I got myself into DMing for 6 players.

Any advice?

Read the DMG and the thing I am learning now is to calculate the encounters with XP values from page 82 DMG. I don’t know how I missed it before when I made games. My encounters were always really easy.

[Trandir]

Read the DMG and the thing I am learning now is to calculate the encounters with XP values from page 82 DMG. I don’t know how I missed it before when I made games. My encounters were always really easy.

Oh right I suppose this would be a good time to buy a DMG.

[clash]

Oh right I suppose this would be a good time to buy a DMG.

Honestly for the first bit you get get by on just the basic rules and the players handbook https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules. After you have dm'd for a bit and know if that is what you are likely to continue doing I would get the dmg

[stoutstien]

Oh right I suppose this would be a good time to buy a DMG.
I'd actually avoid the DMG at first. Stick with the PHB until you feel comfortable with your style of play before adding in more.

[zinycor]

My advice is to have fun, remember that the players are the protagonist, respect that.

[stoutstien]

My advice is to have fun, remember that the players are the protagonist, respect that.

The base assumption that the PCs are protagonists is starting the game off on the notion that they are nothing more than playing the roll of characters in a story vs roll playing a character in the making of a story.
Who knows, they may be the villians in the end.

[Man_Over_Game]

The base assumption that the PCs are protagonists is starting the game off on the notion that they are nothing more than playing the roll of characters in a story vs roll playing a character in the making of a story.
Who knows, they may be the villians in the end.

On a similar topic, it's important to know what it is your players are expecting. Some players want something simple, where the badguys are bad and the goodguys are good, and goodguys stomp badguys.

Other times, players want an engrossing and organic story, where the badguys are the heroes of their own story, and act like real people, and end up having the goodguys be in heavy moral dilemmas.

Both are good, but not in each other's games. Talk with your players and determine what kind of game they're looking for before you start.

[greenstone]

Welcome to this side of the GM screen! We have cookies.

GM Note: if there are no cookies on your side of the GM screen then give dire and dark warnings to the players that lack of cookies leads to disintegrations…

My advice:

Relax. You are going to make mistakes. If you do make a mistake, you can always fix it later. There's nothing wrong with saying to the players, "well, that sucked, I did that badly, how about a redo?"

Useful phrases include "ok, that was not a good ruling, we'll let the decision stand for tonight but from now on we'll do it differently."

Have fun. Just because you are the GM doesn't mean you are giving up your right to have fun as well as the players.

Don't overprepare. The players will miss a lot of what you have prepared.

Don't underprepare. You don't want to have long silnces while you look stuyff up or make stuff up.

But… for every one of us, overprepare and underprepare are different. What you consider "prepared" is almost certainly different from what I consider "prepared". Take a few sessions to work out where you are happy to be (I'm stubborn, so it took me about a year before I found my sweet spot :smallcool:).

Don't sweat the rules. If you are not sure then make something up and move on. Look up the actual rule later. Don't waste time at the table reading books or scrolling through devices.

Have fun.

[stoutstien]

On a similar topic, it's important to know what it is your players are expecting. Some players want something simple, where the badguys are bad and the goodguys are good, and goodguys stomp badguys.

Other times, players want an engrossing and organic story, where the badguys are the heroes of their own story, and act like real people, and end up having the goodguys be in heavy moral dilemmas.

Both are good, but not in each other's games. Talk with your players and determine what kind of game they're looking for before you start.

Darn you and your ablity to conceptualize concepts clearly.
*Shakes old man fist in the air*

[Lupine]

Read the DMG and the thing I am learning now is to calculate the encounters with XP values from page 82 DMG. I don’t know how I missed it before when I made games. My encounters were always really easy.

<Insert reference to Kobald fight club.>

Seriously though, its free, and mostly add-free (at least, if you use an add blocker :smallbiggrin:)

Pretty easy to know just how deadly your encounter, just by the stat block.

[TheWayofPie]

Well Xmas time is upon us so this thing will probably begin at the earliest in the early days of the new year.

Not a single time. I love D&D and one of my friends told me about this DMless party and arranged the things.

That is a very good question. They appear to be all new to TTRPGs so I proposed 5e for how easy it is to learn and play so my guess is tiefling monks with highest stats strength and charisma for fun points.

Yes I have (depending on what the party wants from this the tutorial quest will change): the starting city has always been plagued with goblins but lately things got weird. The number of attacks have reached the lowest in centuries but now they seem organized (put a hobgobling mini boss there), once or twice every month they attack stealing caddle or raiding the convoy that are leaving or arriving in the city. The city is facing a crisis as the number of guards and trained soldiers keep diminishing so in a last effort messangers have scattered around quest posters asking for help.

I don't know. It would make everything easier if they are an already established party but I want to respect their wishes if they want to have the "tavern moment".

Seems like a very good starting point for your campaign. Has the town section, the mystery of where they may be hiding and a nice dungeon you can run for when they get there.

I'd focus on making the important NPCs have goals they want to accomplish so when the players inevitably decide to do something you can expect you can have your character's adapt accordingly.

Also grab a list of random names, jobs and personalities in case the players decide to interact with a nameless minor NPC for longer than you expect.

[Safety Sword]

I just read through all of the comments and as expected I agree with most of the advice and don't agree with other bits. Here is my advice for new DMs:


In the end, the game is about fun. That's different for different groups, so ask you players what sort of game they want and what themes they enjoy. If you find out what they want to do, you can do that in an interesting way and everyone is likely to enjoy the game. Players usually think it's fun when you use their backstory in the plot. Do that.

Remember that you are also a player in the game. Your fun is important, maybe even the most important, because playing in a game where the DM isn't having fun is one of the worst things that you can ever do.

Whilst I agree that you can over-prepare for a session, you can never over-prepare for your game. Anything you prepare can be used later and re-skinned to fit whatever scenario you need it to at the time. Much better to have a folder or google doc with encounter ideas that you can drop in when you need to get some action going.

Make a list of names. Stick it to your DM screen. PCs will interact with some NPCs you don't think they will be interested in and you should be ready to name them with area/race/culture appropriate names to make it appear that your world is filled with real people. If you have to make up names on the fly, they will tend to be boring ones and ruin the feel of the game.

Keep notes about the kinds of things your players do in encounters. If they look for traps, that means they want them to interact with. If they slink slowly down corridors they expect sentries. Give the people what they want!

Keep a sheet with player names, character names, stats and notes. Mine is a google sheet and it's the one I use the most. If you don't have to ask what a character's passive perception is, you don't give away there are hiding bad guys.

I run a game that has 10 PCs. It's a lot to keep track of. Don't do this to yourself. Six is a big party, but not an unmanageable one. You may need to adjust monster stats slightly or add extra combatants to encounters to balance the action economy. Actions are by far the largest factor in who wins a fight in D&D 5E. If you want a single monster to survive long enough to be a fun encounter it needs extra actions or actions on other people's turns (legendary actions, lair actions, etc).
Published adventures are viable for starting out. Just expect that you'll probably not run them exactly as the book says. Sometimes published adventures are just good idea factories. One of my games is a highly modified Storm King's Thunder, but if you were playing in it you probably wouldn't recognise it except for the fact that one of the main plots tends to have a lot of giants as the bad guys. I'm also running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist for another group of people brand new to D&D and I find it easy to stick to so far. Plus it has options for alternative villains that you can rip off for later campaigns.



I hope this was helpful.

[Spriteless]

Well, lots of good advice here already, but might as well put in my two cents.

1. Keep a list of NPC names and motivations.
2. Keep a list of random names, for when you need to make an NPC out of someone you just meant as background.
3. If you want a plot, keep some bullet points of plot
4. Be prepared to shuffle around which NPC gives which plot.
5. If the players start describing the world themselves, then good they're invested. Let them lighten your load, and then throw plot at them regardless.

[Asensur]

I have very few sessions, but these are mine by my recent experience.

Make sure the group gets along between them.

Detect if you have more than one player who wants to lead the others.

The fault is yours as arbiter/moderator, no matter what. But try to keep your authority even if they argue you (they will).

Many already told you, but define a session zero and explaining the players the kind of adventure, the hook of the adventure, and your session rules (I could only get half the players at the meeting, and it was really hard inserting and adapting the other half)

[Trandir]

So we will have a session 0 sometime soon.
But I am really bad at this, now we got a 7th player and I opened the floodgate to non PHB material, so to balance this out I am adamant about this being a no feat game.

So far the ideas for the party PCs are:
half-orc paladin still to decide the oath but seems a good alligned adventurer type.
Half-elf edge"god" spellcaster (to decide which class at session 0) seems true neutral borderline neutral evil with his only reason to live being vengeance.
Aarakocra fighter, I will not allow the flight until 5th level and the player seems intrested into making a Str build, this one is a bird person who wants to cross the continent to visit the highest mountain.
Dragonborn fighter who is a misanthropic adventurer.

Any advice for possible tutorial quests?

[Mr. Crowbar]

Lots of good advice already, the only thing I have to add is that with that large a party, pay attention to players who may be getting talked over and give them a chance to say their piece. It happened to me a lot in a large game and another fella who kept asking "Crowbar, what did you want to say?" was a godsend.

I know splitting the party is usually a no-no but I've had my players tell me they liked it so long as the focus keeps rotating steadily enough. Might be easier to handle swapping between groups of 3 and 4 than herding a group of 7.

I've seen the XP difficulty tracker mentioned, but remember that the number of enemies changes the effective difficulty! Four CR1 creatures are more difficult than a single CR4 creature.

Good luck with your game, I hope you all have fun! :D

[zinycor]

The base assumption that the PCs are protagonists is starting the game off on the notion that they are nothing more than playing the roll of characters in a story vs roll playing a character in the making of a story.
Who knows, they may be the villians in the end.

What? Even if the PCs are evil, they are still the protagonists of the story. I really don't get your point.

[stoutstien]

What? Even if the PCs are evil, they are still the protagonists of the story. I really don't get your point.

Because using good/evil or protagonists/antagonist adds preconceptions on impact of players' choices within the game. It creates static characters and linear static progress.

[JNAProductions]

Because using good/evil or protagonists/antagonist adds preconceptions on impact of players' choices within the game. It creates static characters and linear static progress.

The protagonists are the main characters of the story. They can be good, evil, amoral, or anywhere else on the moral spectrum. They can be opposed by people who are good, evil, etc. How exactly does saying "The game should focus on the PCs" make static characters?

[zinycor]

Because using good/evil or protagonists/antagonist adds preconceptions on impact of players' choices within the game. It creates static characters and linear static progress.

Then those preconceptions are wrong and should be corrected. In fact, I don't think that confusion even happens.

Edit: maybe you are confusing heroes with protagonists?

[stoutstien]

The protagonists are the main characters of the story. They can be good, evil, amoral, or anywhere else on the moral spectrum. They can be opposed by people who are good, evil, etc. How exactly does saying "The game should focus on the PCs" make static characters?

It's not the focus but the label of always being the protagonists.
It negates the core of the of the game which is action/decision resolution. How can you know how the world will react to the PCs before they make any choices?

Sidenote: I asked my wife and appears protagonists has more definitions than I realized. Calling the players protagonists In the boundaries of focus is fine I just have an issue with it as a literary device because the players are both the characters and the audience and the story isn't written yet.

I prefer to think in terms of goals, conflicts, choices, and consequences.

In short a PC can't be a protagonists because it 'is' the player.

[zinycor]

It negates the core of the of the game which is action/decision resolution.
What? How does understanding PCs as protagonists reject the idea of actions/decisions resolutions?


How can you know how the world will react to the PCs before they make any choices?

What? How does that even relate to the conversation?

[Man_Over_Game]

What? How does understanding PCs as protagonists reject the idea of actions/decisions resolutions?


What? How does that even relate to the conversation?

He is implying that if the players are always "Good Guys" (a common definition of Protagonist), nothing they can do is wrong.

You see this all the time with Murderhobos. The reason Murderhobos do Murderhobo things is because their actions aren't seen as negative, and/or they don't receive negative feedback as consequences for their negative actions.

Stoutstein is simply saying that if you want your Players to feel like Good Guys, then make them feel good when doing Good things, or make them feel bad for doing Bad things. Do not default to not having any moral feedback, or they'll turn the game into Fantasy GTA.

[zinycor]

He is implying that if the players are always "Good Guys" (a common definition of Protagonist), nothing they can do is wrong.

You see this all the time with Murderhobos. The reason Murderhobos do Murderhobo things is because their actions aren't seen as negative, and/or they don't receive negative feedback as consequences for their negative actions.

Stoutstein is simply saying that if you want your Players to feel like Good Guys, then make them feel good when doing Good things, or make them feel bad for doing Bad things. Do not default to not having any moral feedback, or they'll turn the game into Fantasy GTA.

Again, I don't see how this relates to my point.
PCs might be good or evil. The GM might be ok with with murderous or not. None of that changes the fact that the the PCs have wants and things that are in the way of getting those wants things and the story is mainly about that! Because they are the protagonists.

[Man_Over_Game]

Again, I don't see how this relates to my point.
PCs might be good or evil. The GM might be ok with with murderous or not. None of that changes the fact that the the PCs have wants and things that are in the way of getting those wants things and the story is mainly about that! Because they are the protagonists.

It stems from a difference in the definitions of the word Protagonist:


the principal character in a literary work, such as in a drama or story. (Your definition)


a leader, proponent, or supporter of a cause. See: Champion (Stoutstein's definition)




You: "The players are always the [Main Characters/Good Guys]."


Stoutstein: "But if they're always the [Main Characters/Good Guys], nothing they do will carry weight."


You: "How would that make sense if they were the [Main Characters/Good Guys]?"


It's just a bunch of irrelevant confusion caused by a poorly designed language.

[zinycor]

I never said players are always good guys, but otherwise you seem to be right.

[Man_Over_Game]

I never said players are always good guys, but otherwise you seem to be right.

I was showing both sides of the definition, so that it'd be easier to see where things stopped making sense for the other.

[deljzc]

Understand that probably one time during your session, something is going to happen you really didn't see coming and you have to decide how to handle it.

Do you "stop" and say "hold on, let's get this right and look in the rules" or do you want to "wing it" and kind of fudge your way through. Both are legitimate answers.

Decide how you are going to handle the real "sore spots" in the rules ahead of time. Hiding, sneak attacks, damage. Know that stuff well and stick to your guns. You are in charge there. Initiative - decide on a method and stick to it. Flanking and how you are going to run combat. Chases.

Stuff like that always seems to come up when you don't expect it.

It's hard because the players are constantly looking for an edge (that's part of the puzzle and enjoyment of playing). They are encouraged to think outside the box for solutions. But your rules and boundaries are written very much in boxes.

Good luck. It's fun, it's stressful and it's hard. But when the players are all having a great time and laughing, it's hard to beat that feeling of satisfaction you get.

[Lupine]

I am adamant about this being a no feat game.

I would not ban feats, as they let the players be creative, and give them tools to get a certain feel RIGHT. If you’re starting the game at level 1, then just let the game play: it won’t be until fourth level that they get feats/ASIs anyway.

When it comes to houseruling, i think it’s generally a good idea to let the game run as written, before pulling a wrench and fixing stuff.

In any case, if these are all new players, they probably will not be taking feats anyway.

[Trandir]

Good news everyone I lost a player (one that was problematic and the rest of the party kicked him out).

So I am back to a 6 players party.

[Spriteless]

Oh cool you got the benefits of kicking him out without the awkwardness of doing it yourself.

So some nitty gritty advice: Saying "Yes and...." when the player suggests something is good. Saying "Roll dice to see if you can do what you said" is also good. When they do something that ruins another player's fun, you can slow down time, describing things in more detail so that players can interrupt and hopefully compromise. When someone does something that ruins your fun, you can say "I am uncomfortable with that, let's dial it back."

[Man_Over_Game]

Oh cool you got the benefits of kicking him out without the awkwardness of doing it yourself.

So some nitty gritty advice: Saying "Yes and...." when the player suggests something is good. Saying "Roll dice to see if you can do what you said" is also good.

One thing that can work out well, if you develop a habit for it, is telling your players to roll for something they want to do, but not to describe it until after they roll.


Sometimes, you'll end up in situations where someone delivers a heartfelt speech...just to roll a 5. Now it's your job, as the DM, to deliver the bad news on their roll and good roleplaying by...coming up with some stupid reason why they failed, like their shoelace was untied or they sneezed in the middle of it and a strand of snot was sticking out through the rest.

Rather, these situations can be made a lot better by having the player decide what that 5-power speech means. Are they angry? Accusatory? Nervous? I dunno, but it'l be a lot better when it's their choice than when it is yours. It makes your players' characters a lot more dynamic and dramatic, while also giving players to choose how they fail. We spend so much time focusing on succeeding that we forget that some of the best parts happen when we don't.

[Zhorn]

Have a few extra dungeon maps on hand (I tend to go with; a cave, a crypt, and a house) for each session. These are not your session planned content, this is for the curve balls your players will throw you. These dungeons don't need to be all that big (for most sessions, 5 room dungeons plenty), don't need furnishing, and don't need a planned set of encounters (those details are filled in on the fly based on what your players were doing at the time). They are for improvising, and can stay in your bags for numerous sessions without replacing if they don't get used immediately.
If you DM with a laptop off to the side, have donjon dungeon generator either saved as a link or open in a background tab. When stuck for ideas, those can have enough simple details to flesh out a theme pretty quickly and makes it easier for you to run with an idea.

[Tanarii]

Read: DMG Chapter 8: Running the game

In particular: Using Ability Scores, p237-242

That's the most important thing you need to understand properly to run a game of D&D, assuming you already know the players handbook rules pretty well.