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Gorbash
2008-02-03, 11:14 AM
So here I am, a long-time player about to be transformed into a horrid monster, known as the DM! So, I'm just intrested in how you DMs see DMing. Is it as fun as playing a PC? Do you have any tips and tricks to share? I'll be running the Savage Tide adventure path, set in Faerun (I kinda like Eberron better, but except for the races/classes of the PCs, it would still be just a generic setting, since Eberron has its own flavor).

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-03, 11:46 AM
First off: yes, DMing is just as much fun as playing a PC, but it is *different*. You have more toys, but you have more responsibilities. Don't be tempted to let the power go to your head, or to treat your NPCs as being like the PCs you've always wanted to play.

My most important advice is this: remember being a player? Good. That's the most important skill a DM can have. Don't do anything that would annoy you if your DM did it, give your players the chance to do all the sorts of things that you know you'd love to do if you were a player. I don't just mean giving them loads of phat lewt, I mean the kinds of adventures, challenges and ideas you like to be given when you're playing.

And learn to enjoy watching the players enjoy themselves. As DM your primary job is to make sure everybody has a good time.

Theli
2008-02-03, 11:52 AM
I'd re-iterate the treating NPCs as PCs bit... It does not end well. :/

Keep your character fantasies for when someone else is DMing.

Shraik
2008-02-03, 11:55 AM
I find DM'ing as much fun as being a PC. For those who don't/can't do much in combat/RP'ing, you always have something to keep yourself, and the party occupied. Its also a great way to express yuor imagination and creative ideas for characters that DM's wouldn't let you play(just don't make them more important then the PC's)

bugsysservant
2008-02-03, 11:59 AM
First off: yes, DMing is just as much fun as playing a PC, but it is *different*. You have more toys, but you have more responsibilities. Don't be tempted to let the power go to your head, or to treat your NPCs as being like the PCs you've always wanted to play.

Ignore him! The most important thing a DM can do is have a good avatar. Nothing impresses PCs more than a really kickass DMPC, and if it saves them frequently from otherwise unwinnable battles, so much the better, because then they're grateful too. Also, the best way to insert verisimilitude into a game is to use elements that you know to have worked previously. And what elements are you best familiar with than your own retired characters? That's right, contrary to popular belief, using your favorite old PCs as NPCs will really make the world feel real.

The second most important thing that a DM can have is a really good plot. Frequently, players will ruin your plot by acting stupid. Prevent this at all costs! The slight dip in realism that any such occurrences would cause is more than balanced out by the gratification the players will have when they see your well crafted storyline. You've got to think long term here.

I'll be back later with a few other tips, but I have to go now, and as long as you follow those you should be off to a good start. Remember, a group can generally lose a player and still continue, but a group of players can't play without a DM. You're the most important person at the table and should be treated as such.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-03, 12:04 PM
Its also a great way to express yuor imagination and creative ideas for characters that DM's wouldn't let you play(just don't make them more important then the PC's)

Warning, One True Wayism Ahead:

While obviously different things work for different groups, I would be very careful about seeing DMing as an opportunity to do things you weren't allowed to do as a PC. As a player-turned-DM you are in a good position to understand both sides of the table. Ask yourself two things:

Firstly, ask yourself "as a player, would I have been annoyed if the DM had but a character like that into the game".

Secondly, ask yourself "as a DM, would I allow a player to bring a character like that into my game."

Now that isn't to say that you *can't* recycle old character ideas. Perhaps you had this great idea for a Blackguard or Assassin character, but your DM never ran an Evil campaign, and perhaps he'd make a great villain. That's cool, put him in, just remember he's supposed to lose.

On the other hand, just because you always wanted to play a half-celestial half-dragon who was the Chosen of the Gods, but your DM wouldn't let you, that doesn't make the character a good one to include in your campaign.

bosssmiley
2008-02-03, 12:10 PM
So here I am, a long-time player about to be transformed into a horrid monster, known as the DM! So, I'm just interested in how you DMs see DMing.

Dming is like juggling enraged cats while unicycling through a unmarked minefield...blindfolded.

Well, you asked. :smallamused:

its_all_ogre
2008-02-03, 12:38 PM
ultimately find out what sort of game they want to play and run that.

does not mean it should be easy, but players all like different things and you need to offer something for everyone.
at this point you need to think about if you'll enjoy it too, as you will put more work most likely into this and hence should have a good time too.

i enjoy dming but as someone else mentioned it is a different enjoyment than the playing enjoyment.

Miles Invictus
2008-02-03, 04:06 PM
On the other hand, just because you always wanted to play a half-celestial half-dragon who was the Chosen of the Gods, but your DM wouldn't let you, that doesn't make the character a good one to include in your campaign.

Aside: That could make for a good quasi-antagonist. Everyone knows he's the Chosen of the Gods, so he makes a living by following other adventuring groups around and taking the credit for their deeds. The players, obviously, will want to discredit the dirty lying son-of-a-bitch as soon as possible, and hilarity will ensure.

Anyway, I basically agree with Dan. The important thing is to give your players the spotlight. That doesn't mean they have to be the biggest, baddest adventurers in the land, but your story should be all about them. By necessity, then, your characters need to be background NPCs.

Your greatest asset as a DM is flexibility. Even if you have well-intentioned players who cheerfully follow your obvious plot hooks, they will inevitably do something to throw off your carefully designed adventure path. Always have a list of names and combat stats for bit NPCs. That way, you'll be ready for unexpected roleplaying and unexpected combat.

Townopolis
2008-02-03, 04:16 PM
All of this is good advice, except for the tongue-in-cheek, but anyways. I have on thing to add.

Never, ever, Ever, EVER run a campaign in a world that you don't like/don't like very much. Your players may love the setting to death, but if you don't, it will suck.

A lot.

And it won't be any fun for you, it'll be a chore.

And you spend a lot more time between sessions immersed in that world, working on the campaign. It's not worth it. Rather, find something you really like, and tweak it to meet your players' interests.

(Of course, on the other side, don't try to run a campaign in a world your players just won't like. That's a good way to find yourself without players.)

sonofzeal
2008-02-03, 04:18 PM
I should mention that there are two schools of DMing - the Strategic and the Tactical.


The Strategic DM works out his world in intricate detail, has all the NPCs and encounters set up beforehand, and knows exactly how he wants the story to unfold. The biggest strength to this style is richness and depth to the world and plot; the weakness is that players will tend to either deviate and ruin your plot, or feel railroaded, or find some loophole in the world and exploit it ruthlessly.

The Tactical DM knows the central bits of the story and the most important NPCs, and makes everything else up on the fly, tailored to what the PCs are doing. The biggest strength to this style is that you can cope with almost anything that happens, and tailor things to your PCs and Players much better; the weakness is that detail and complexity will often suffer.

Gorbash
2008-02-03, 04:54 PM
Well, as I said, I'm new to DMing, so I will be runing Savage Tide adventure path, so no creative ideas yet... But I do have a favorite PC who retired, whom I might use at some point... Dashel Kaleid, Human Rogue/Shadow Thief of Amn, how I loved him... I might advance him to lvl 20 and put him in a final fight with Demogorgon... Instead of Eladrin band, put in a Shadow Thief band... Although I have no idea why would Shadow Thieves wanted to kill Demogorgon so badly... So, I guess I'll just put him in the adventure at some point...

Also, about the setting... We've played in Faerun for years, so I'll have no trouble with that... We all love it, although we would love to play in Eberron, for that special flavor Eberron has, but even though I could transfer it there, it wouldn't be it, bah I can't explain it. All of you who are familiar with Eberron know what I'm saying.

And please, keep up with good advices. I think I'll apply everything I've heard here into my future DMing. :)

Ascension
2008-02-03, 05:13 PM
Before applying everything said, note that bugsysservant was joking.

I hope.

...and while it's not necessarily a bad thing to include Dashel, advancing him beyond the PCs' capabilities just because you think he's cool is a quick way to lose friends.

Gorbash
2008-02-04, 03:47 AM
I don't want to put him in as a DMPC, far from that... I just want him to appear at one time, as a quest giver, or to help out PCs, or something like that... A minor role a for a major character in my D&D experience. :smallsmile:

Ranis
2008-02-04, 08:37 AM
First rule of DMing is simple: However much you think you need to prepare ahead of time as far as exactly where you want your PC's to go, or do, or say, or see, scrap it. Don't write it down. Keep it in your head.

As a DM, you are the actor on the stage for the PC's, who are essentially your audience. The trick with this certain audience is that you have to give them the illusion that they are the actors. However, with good improv coupled with an uncanny ability to make things up on the fly and never let the game get on a railroad track nor let your audience become actors.

Before the game, get as much as you can in your head. Plan it all out. DO NOT WRITE IT DOWN. Because if you write it down, Gygax Law states that: PC's will break down, go around, through, under, or in any way evade, break, destroy, or otherwise beat down anything that you do to keep them in a subway system down Railroad Way.

And last, don't do this:

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b171/Ranis__/Poster215.jpg

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-05, 01:20 PM
I don't want to put him in as a DMPC, far from that... I just want him to appear at one time, as a quest giver, or to help out PCs, or something like that... A minor role a for a major character in my D&D experience. :smallsmile:

I hope people aren't jumping on this little detail too much, but I think there's some specifics that you should think about.

"Helping the PCs out" can *actually* cause resentment if it's handled wrong, and quest givers can be some of the most loathed characters in the game - if only because you get the "why aren't you sorting this out yourself" issue.

A good rule of thumb for whether an NPC will annoy the bejeezus out of your players is this: are you prepared for your players not to like this guy, not in the *cool* sense of "not like", where they want to kill him for his crimes against all the free races of the Realms, but the down and dirty "oh Gods not this pillock again" sense of "not like."

If that's okay with you, you should be fine. You'll probably handle things right. If it would bother you, come up with a character you're less invested in.

Tormsskull
2008-02-05, 01:37 PM
*image snip*

hahahaha. That's awesome.

My advice to you, Gorbash, is probably going to be different than others have said.

It sounds like you are running a module, which is great for starting DMs, but I'm also getting the feeling that this might be a high-level module. As a starting DM, one of the best things you can do is start at level 1. It makes the number of things you have to worry about significantly reduced.

From that point, you can watch the PCs grow, and start to learn some of their interests/tactics, and then craft future stories/plots around that.

One of my biggest tips: Don't make everything the PCs do the end of the world. Everyone these days is so worried about making their players feel important because they think that is what engages them that they lose sight of the scope. Every adventure ends up having to be "The world will end if the PCs don't save the day", which gets really boring really fast.

Let your players see what an average character goes through on a daily basis, and then slowly, through time, give them the opportunity to become great heroes. This allows them to feel like they are apart of a living, breathing world rather than just numbers on a sheet of paper.

Anyhow, welcome to the wide-world of DMing, best of luck to ye.

Darth Mario
2008-02-05, 02:17 PM
Well, as I said, I'm new to DMing, so I will be runing Savage Tide adventure path, so no creative ideas yet... But I do have a favorite PC who retired, whom I might use at some point... Dashel Kaleid, Human Rogue/Shadow Thief of Amn, how I loved him... I might advance him to lvl 20 and put him in a final fight with Demogorgon... Instead of Eladrin band, put in a Shadow Thief band... Although I have no idea why would Shadow Thieves wanted to kill Demogorgon so badly... So, I guess I'll just put him in the adventure at some point...

I would be very, very, careful about doing this. A few things I've discovered over my many years DMing:

1. Old PCs = Bad Idea 9 out of 10 times, no matter what the role. Old PCs as BBEGs or mooks work better than other kinds, as long as you're willing for the guy to die, but allies are a no-no. At the very least, my personal natural tendency is to give them a larger role than the players are comfortable with, so they turn into DMPCs no matter how few adventures they appear in. This might just be me, but I would be careful.

2. The best quest givers are the kind that really couldn't hope to manage the quest on their own, but are obscenely rich/politically powerful. Not only does this add realism as to why they themselves are not undertaking the quest, it gives the players that little extra motivation. Giving your quest givers a good sense of humor (or at least making them funny in some way) is another good way to motivate the players.

Bonus item: The BBEG my players most feared/hated was named Robert Ender. He appeared in a D20 Future game I ran. He and the PCs were stranded on a planet together and he started picking them off one by one (they destroyed his ship, which he had a deep connection to). Now, he'd never actually engage them as a group if he could avoid it, and when he did, it would be on his terms. His terms happened to be "Everything the PCs enter is rigged with explosives."

Only once did he get in a fair fight with a PC, and he certainly didn't mean to. Over the corse of that campaign, he killed 4 PCs out of a group of 6 players; two by explosions, one by driving them off of a cliff (and jumping free at the last minute), one by shooting them in the head after pretending to be an innocent bystander.

He was a level below them.

Moral of the story: Your NPCs don't need flashy abilities. They need brains.

Fiery Diamond
2008-02-05, 02:49 PM
I agree with lots of what's been said. Bugysservant was joking - I hope. Love the Railroading picture.

I have some advice of my own to add. I've been DMing for about a year (this is my second campaign I've run, it's been on for a semester so far). I'm a college student doing this.

1) If you want an NPC to be integral to the story in a non-antagonist way, make him/her likable. I have an NPC who has traveled with the party from day 1. She is usually a poor combatant, doesn't run the group in any way, etc. She is a person of political importance but not political power. You know what? She's still with the party because when it came time that she was no longer essential to the party's mission, they invited her to continue with them - because they liked the character.
2) Make it fairly obvious what level of power exists in your campaign setting - is this a world where commoners are regularly third or fourth level and adventurers or other people of power might be up to level 20, or is it a world where level 5 is the pinnacle of humanity, or somewhere (and where specifically) in between. It makes the integration of roleplaying, environment, and combat much easier. That way, your level 7 characters have some idea of where they fall, power-wise, in the world.
3) I see you want to use a pre-made setting. Congrats. I have no advice to give on that, as I much prefer to create my settings from scratch: if you do this, it is essential to give the players some idea of what the setting is like.
4) Don't railroad. It's evil.
5) There are different styles of DMing. I think the previously mentioned Strategic and Tactical styles is a HUGE oversimplification. I, for example, don't usually give the players a set road with forks in it - I give them a path in the wilderness and let them wander off. I don't do a lot of preparation for more than one session at a time.
6) Most of the things already said.
7) Accommodate your players, but don't let them walk all over you. Sometimes there's a pretty fine line. Know where it is.

Loreweaver
2008-02-05, 03:26 PM
A DMPC is a good idea for any party. Usually they don't roleplay too much but come in handy in combat. And the way our DM plays his is that you can ask his PC a question without having to go out of game.

Which is handy and with our party, if we have to talk out of game we get off track and crap. haha

Darth Mario
2008-02-05, 04:12 PM
A DMPC is a good idea for any party. Usually they don't roleplay too much but come in handy in combat. And the way our DM plays his is that you can ask his PC a question without having to go out of game.

Which is handy and with our party, if we have to talk out of game we get off track and crap. haha



I'm going to 95% disagree with that statement. Unless your group is undersized (say, only one or two players) a combat DMPC really isn't necessary. The CR/ECL system sucks, but it really doesn't suck so bad that you're accidentally going to TPK a group of four or more with an appropriate challenge (unless it's That Damned Crab) without serious stupidity on the part of the players.

Likewise, I find that roleplaying a DMPC, if you use one, is a necessity; otherwise, the PCs will see him as either just another tool for them to use or a chance for you to play your own game. If it has personality, motivations, and is genuinely likable, then and only then will the players not resent it.

Yes, DMPCs can be used to feed the players information, but what often happens to me when I use one is that the players rely on it 100% as far as story goes, and just stop trying to figure things out for themselves.

However, I agree with laughing. Laughing is good.

Dairun Cates
2008-02-05, 04:27 PM
Consequently, I added a major NPC in a campaign which, while he has some fun powers, I designed him to be morbid and mildly anti-social (He pulls off his own body parts and clones himself from them). Only two of my six PCs knew someone like this was coming and yet, a couple of them are trying to claim him as a best friend or sidekick after meeting him once. He's just really supposed to be one of the few competent people at a school of super heroes.

AslanCross
2008-02-05, 04:51 PM
I've never actually played as a PC, but I definitely enjoy being a DM. Now it really is different in that ultimately your precious built NPCs will have to take the back seat (if they're allies) or die (if they're villains). You also have to be able to accommodate players' whims. I've found that winging it is actually often more fun than following a rigid script. However, there are some things you really have to prepare: monster stat blocks (I spend endless hours doing this especially if they're custom monsters), skill check DCs, possible responses to what your players might do.

Ultimately you have to know how to improvise, but planning is still very important.

Name_Here
2008-02-05, 05:14 PM
DMing is teaching a group of idiot savants. The secret stuff that you never want them to find out as you reveal it to them piece by piece over the course of years they'll figure out in the first 5 minutes of you introducing the first low level goon of the shadow group. However then when you make a riddle or a puzzle that a 5 year old should be able to figure out they will immidiately turn blind, deaf, and have an approximate mental accuity of a 2 year old.

"The ancient golem approaches the ground shaking with each multi-ton footfall. When it get to 10 ft away from you it stops and asks you this riddle 'What color do you get when you mix blue and yellow?'"

9 times out of 10 even a ridiculously easy riddle will get you at least 10 minutes of them staring blankly at you as you shift in your seat under the akward silence followed by 15-45 minutes of them debating the correct response disregarding the first couple because they are too stupid and then hammering out a plan so stupid and suicidal that any PC with an WIS higher than a 2 would ever follow through with.

Dairun Cates
2008-02-05, 05:23 PM
4) Don't railroad. It's evil.


You know. Everyone talks about it, but have we ever gotten a solid definition on railroading? I mean, where does the line of plot and railroading blur? Not that I don't try to avoid it, but I think it doesn't help new people to say, "Don't Railroad".

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-05, 05:33 PM
You know. Everyone talks about it, but have we ever gotten a solid definition on railroading? I mean, where does the line of plot and railroading blur? Not that I don't try to avoid it, but I think it doesn't help new people to say, "Don't Railroad".

Pretty much every discussion about what Railroading is *specifically* ends in an argument, because everybody draws the lines in different places.

A very broad, rather touchy-feely definition might be: Railroading is when you make decisions on behalf of the players which the players feel they should have been permitted to make themselves, or when you remove from a player decision the significance the player feels it should have had.

The problem here is that so much of it goes on inside the players' heads. Some people, for example, feel railroaded if the GM doesn't ask them which road they want to take when they travel between cities, while others only care about the destination, and are willing to let the GM handle the minutiae. On the flip side, some people are happy to go wherever the GM sends them, but will be deeply upset if he tries to control their means of travel.

AslanCross
2008-02-05, 06:02 PM
An extreme, but nonetheless valid example of railroading was a story that was posted on the old "Worst DM thread" somewhere here. The PCs were traveling across a flat, featureless plain. They came up to a city, which had no doors and was too high to climb. They tried to go elsewhere, but there was nothing else in the world. o_o

I'd define railroading as deliberately, unrealistically restricting the players' options. Deliberately in that you WANT them to follow exactly one course of action, and unrealistically in that given the situation they would logically have other options available.

In some situations, other options would be available, but their consequences might not be desirable. For example, I once locked up my players for a crime they did not commit. They were a mostly good- and pragmatic neutral party, so they didn't want to stage a jailbreak in the middle of a capital city. There was the option of lockpicking the cells and springing everyone, but they didn't take it. But it was there. (They could have also fought the troops who arrested them, but they didn't do that either.)

Railroading would be:
DM: The soldiers take all your belongings and throw you into a well.
Player: Okay, I try to climb out. I make a climb check.
DM: The walls are too slippery. You can't climb out.
Player: I look around for a way out.
DM: It's too dark. You have no darkvision.
Player: I feel around, then.
DM: The noxious fumes from the decaying matter beneath you make you woozy. You begin to become paralyzed.
Player: Can't I make a fort save?
DM: *can't think of a save DC on the fly* ...No. You pass out.

Of course, even then this situation would probably work in a horror campaign (just not a very good one, I guess.) Even then, the situation still is a bit logical. (A bit.) The story about the city with no gates and unclimbable walls, however, isn't.

I think the best rule of thumb here is that the PCs should be free to choose to do whatever they want, but they are not free to choose the consequences. To be fair, I also think the players should also have enough faith in the DM to know that the DM is there to move the plot forward. If they just say "No, I don't wanna" to every plot hook, then what are they playing for? o_O

To be perfectly honest, I really think it's very difficult to railroad to the point that the players don't enjoy the game anymore, and I think this is typically the result of a DM who can't improvise.

Isomenes
2008-02-06, 09:19 AM
However, there are some things you really have to prepare: monster stat blocks (I spend endless hours doing this especially if they're custom monsters), skill check DCs, possible responses to what your players might do.

I must second this notion--calculating important skill check DCs and determining which ones are important in the first place are driving me nuts. I've got nice, chewy fluff, complex NPCs, some thoroughly statted monsters and EGs, and a good sense of the geography, but I'll be darned if trying to think of skillful actions a player can take won't trip me up. The DMG has only limited advice in this department, though the table of skill examples will be well-used.

I guess it's easier to calculate more mundane tasks on the fly, but how do you go about assigning sane knowledge DCs?