How to be a proper DM

[Dragon queen]

How do you be a good Dm? I was thinking of being one but I am not really sure how you do that... I was thinking that It would be a little hard because you have to remember not to make an Npc a Mary Sue, no railroading, and no forcing the player to do something. But what if the player does not do what the adventure was supposed to be like for instance they were supposed to meet at a tavern but they go into the wilderness instead or kill someone they knew they weren't supposed too. Advice requested please.

[Thelas]

As a first idea, what would happen in the real world if someone killed someone else? Especially someone important or famous (like say your quest-giver NPC, and if they aren't you can make them one, I suppose)?

If they go into the wilderness, there are random encounter tables in the DMG for a reason.

[graeylin]

Sometimes DMs and players forget there is a whole world of communication outside of the game, in that thing we call real life.

the team wants to not meet at the tavern?
1) switch to the mysterious stranger telling his story over a campfire that night
2) in real life, tell your team "Guys, i have this whole plot centered on meeting in a tavern,and if you insist on the woods, we can't play tonight"

Someone kills someone? Arrest (or at least chase and some consequences), trial, punishment.. it was their choice to make the action, let them live with it.

a list of people names, and place names, can be made on scratch paper... just use it, scratch it out, and move on.

I think the most important part of being a DM is communicating. the more you do of that, the better DM you are.

[storybookknight]

Practice, practice, practice. That's the best way to be a better DM - through experience.

There are also a number of very helpful GM blogs and websites -
here are a few helpful places to get started, and many have links embedded that go to other fun places.

[valadil]

My first piece of advice is this. There are a variety of ways that you can play an RPG. You can smash in the door and kill bad guys. You can smash in the door and get killed by bad guys, unless you've read each and every splatbook. You can go with pure roleplaying or storytelling. Etc. All of these forms are valid. But whatever you choose to prioritize in your game - fighting, mechanics, roleplay, story, etc - your players still have higher priority than that.

Communication is key too. So many player DM conflicts come from each side trying to play a different game. Let them know you're doing an RP heavy game so they don't show up optimized to hell. Or let them know you're doing Tomb of Horrors, so they show up optimized to hell and still find it difficult. You need to match player expectations to the game that you're offering. D&D is too big of a label and covers too many types of games. You need to be more specific.

The big piece of advice going around lately is called "yes, and." It comes from improv comedy. When your players make a request agree to it and build on it. Obviously you can't always say yes, but it's a good starting point to say yes unless there's a bad reason instead of saying no unless there's a good reason.

My personal advice is to pay attention to everyone at the table. I know a couple DMs who focus only on the player who is having the most fun. It's pretty easy to get wrapped up in that one player who likes the plot so much more. But it really sucks to be one of the other players at that kind of table. Obviously you can't make everyone happy all the time. Sometimes players are just having a bad week and don't really want to game but showed up to be polite. Don't worry about it if you can't entertain them. But you should offer entertainment to them. The way I do this is by writing a bit of intrigue for each player. It won't always be much but it'll be addressed to them and it should be something that player finds interesting. Label these with the players names. If you see someone at the table yawning or playing with their phone, hand them personal plot at the next opportunity. That should wake them up and get them back in the game more often than not. The players who were already active won't be put off by this. They're happy and enthusiastic, so they'll jump all over something another PC finds interesting.

[Kislath]

Plan for contingencies.

Your players are GOING to do stuff that you didn't expect. It's inevitable. The trick is to expect as much as you can, and the way you do that is simple: You know what is going on in the area around the party, so you know what things would logically happen if they went in any direction.

An adventure is not a story. It is a framework. The players tell the story, and you just give them stuff to work with in the telling of it. The thing to remember is that things work best when you just let them do what they will, because they hate being led around by the nose.

For example, in my current game, the party has to board a ship which will be setting sail very soon. HOWEVER, I made the mistake of making a lamely humorous remark about lost cheese and wererats, and now the party is trying to decide if they'd rather go hunt rats instead of doing their assigned mission. I can only let them decide for themselves, and if it's a rat-hunt they want, then it's a rat-hunt they'll get, but if they miss the boat it's their own fault. In a similar situation, you'll have to do the same, and let them do what they will, and hope that somehow you can get them back on track. My players are going to have a big problem if they miss the boat, so getting them back on track will be very tricky for me, but I'll either find a way or let them go of on a whole new adventure I never planned. The only important thing is that THEY have fun, and THAT is the one thing you must bear in mind always if you want to be a good DM.

[Oslecamo]

Plan for contingencies.

Your players are GOING to do stuff that you didn't expect. It's inevitable. The trick is to expect as much as you can, and the way you do that is simple: You know what is going on in the area around the party, so you know what things would logically happen if they went in any direction.

The problem here is that you really can't plan against all madness that will pass trough the players heads.

Thus, or you waste dozens of hours stating everything in the village, or you state the things you believe are more important and improvise the rest.

This way if the players enter a zone you really didn't expect them to enter, you pick a sheet of paper, quickly draw some the zone out of imagination, then roll some dices on random tables to put stuff on it, make up a description and presto! All behind the DM screen of course.

[Swordgleam]

It takes a while to figure out what kind of DM you are. Both in terms of the way you run a game, and the way you plan for one.

As someone mentioned, some people prefer games with more fighting, or more roleplaying, more challenging encounters, or more easy ones. A really good thing to do (and one that a lot of DMs don't) is to ask your group before the campaign starts, "Hey guys, do you want really hard fights, normal fights, lots of character development, mysteries, politics, or what?" And then whatever they tell you they want most, try to do more of that than anything else.


Your planning style is also important. Everyone will tell you that given a choice of A, B, C and D, your players will choose E: none of the above about 75% of the time. How you handle that is a big part of your DMing style.

There are two ways of dealing with this: you can try to plan for every possible contingency, and have such a fully detailed world that even if the players say, "Hey, that one city in the corner of the map looks cool, let's go there instead of taking out the bandits in the forest here," you know what they're going to find.

Or, you can have a vague idea of what might happen, and then just wing it. Have a couple of rough plans for encounters and areas and NPCs, and then just fit them in with whatever the players' plans are. Some people find this a lot easier than planning everything, but a lot of people find it very difficult. Neither way is "better" - it's just whatever works for you.

And of course, no one is perfect. If the players say, "We're going off to the city in the corner of the map," you can always say, "Wow, guys, I had no idea you'd do that, and I only had time to plan for the bandit encounters for this session. Would you mind doing that instead, and I'll figure out that city for next session?" Obviously you can't do that all the time, but no one will begrudge you the occasional break to plan things out.


In terms of players doing stuff like killing NPCs, one of the most powerful tools at your disposal is the simple question, "Are you sure you want to do that?" Most players don't want to disrupt the game - if they say "That guy looks suspicious, I attack him" and you ask them if they're sure, a lot of them will rethink their plans.


It's also always good to have a back-up plan. If your main quest is for the players to find the Ancient Artifact, don't just have the high priest know where it is - the players might kill, ignore, or mistrust him. Also have the scholar have a map to the Ancient Artifact, a consortium of merchants be searching for the Ancient Artifact and want to hire someone to find it, and an evil villain with easily-bribed minions be looking for the artifact as well. That way, no one screw-up on the players' part makes it impossible for them to complete the quest.

[potatocubed]

I would suggest picking up a 1st-level module and running that for your first GM outing - most of them are okay at worst, and they give you a sort of 'safety net' while letting you figure out what you're up to.

If the adventure goes completely off the rails - and it may well do - you'll just have to make things up. Thinking on your feet is one of the trickier bits of GMing to learn, but the best way to learn is to do it. Just remember that it's okay to sometimes say "Guys, I need a moment to work out what happens next."

After a while you'll get to know your players well enough to predict what they're going to do in certain situations, and then crafting your own adventures becomes much easier. Just... stick with it, and it'll all make sense eventually.

Oh, also? Ask for feedback. Talk to your players after the session and find out what they are/aren't enjoying. So long as you listen to them, you're more or less on the right track.

[Oslecamo]

In terms of players doing stuff like killing NPCs, one of the most powerful tools at your disposal is the simple question, "Are you sure you want to do that?" Most players don't want to disrupt the game - if they say "That guy looks suspicious, I attack him" and you ask them if they're sure, a lot of them will rethink their plans.

Well, there's always the veiled threat method. This once hapened to me:
Rogue:So, I use my skills to look for anything I could steal whitout being noticed in the shop while the keeper is busy with the other party members.
DM:You feel a extremely powerfull and dangerous aura around the displayed items.
Party: GRAB THE ROGUE! OUT OF HERE! NOW!

[Satyr]

If you give your best to make sure that the campaign you run is the best you can come up at the moment, based on what you feel is the best, you are on the right way.

Stay true to your campaign. It's yours, and you will likely be best with the campaign you enjoy the most so don't compromise my idea of a good game for the wishes of any players. Treat everybody equal, and fair, but in any conflicts it is your task to find a solution games. It is your obligation as a Gamemasters to make the game as good as you can. You want your players to trust you, so earn their trust. And remember: You are the one-eyed among the blind, and it is your task to guide them into a great campaign. It is not your player who run the game, and frankly, it is not their game. It's yours, so take the responsibilty for it and try your best.

Try to favor the interest of the group as whole over the singular interest of any single player (including yourself) but also always favor drama and an interesting story over superficial fun. Treat your camaign with respect, and try to make it an outstanding experience. Do not abide shallow entertainment for solely entertainment purposes, nor make bad jokes to lighten up the mood. Try to keep as concentrated as you can and never expect anyone to contribute more to the game than yourself, or las much as necessary. Listen to the criticisms of your players and if it makes sense, try to use it to make the campaign better, but the place for criticism is not during the game session - may be afterwards, maybe during the offtime per mail, not during the game.

A good campaign is always only as good as its worst component (including the players), so you should try to make everything interesting - the back story, the setting, the events in the campaign, the player characters, the NPCs, the opposition... one lame element is likely to spoil everything. Therefore it is very helpful to invest time, thought and work into your concepts and the like. A good campaign is almost always the result of a lot of work.
And yes, players are one component of this. Bad players are as likely to spoil a campaign as a predictable or inconsistent plot. This can easily become a problem when ou recognize that you like someone as a friend, but not as a gamer.

[Swordgleam]

A good campaign is always only as good as its worst component (including the players), so you should try to make everything interesting - the back story, the setting, the events in the campaign, the player characters, the NPCs, the opposition... one lame element is likely to spoil everything.

I disagree with this. I'd argue that a campaign is as good as the most awesome thing that happens in it. Because when you look back, you don't think about how the plot barely held together and one guy always showed up late and took twice as long to figure out his actions as everyone else. You think about the time you took down an ogre in one hit with a critical from your throwing ax, or that fight on the deck of a pirate ship in the middle of a storm, or the time the rogue successfully bluffed his way out of prison with nothing but an illegible note that could have been from the mayor.

I think a DM should do their best to make everything not suck, but we all have our weak areas. And I think shooting for perfection is more likely to make you into a stressed-out nutcase than make your game great.

[bosssmiley]

Simple: be more like Jeff.

(He siphons sustenance and win from the air using his epic moustache. True story.)

[Oslecamo]

I think a DM should do their best to make everything not suck, but we all have our weak areas. And I think shooting for perfection is more likely to make you into a stressed-out nutcase than make your game great.

This is very true. You can build a perfect campaign out of unperfect parts. The DM is still an human, and the players know it. Don't feel ashamed to skip parts you're bad at if the pressure is geting too great, if it means you can then show your best qualities to the players. Some/Many DMs even ask help from the players, and you shouldn't feel bad for that.

And heck, some of the most memorable moments on campaigns are when things go completely wrong!

[LurkerInPlayground]

How do you be a good Dm? I was thinking of being one but I am not really sure how you do that... I was thinking that It would be a little hard because you have to remember not to make an Npc a Mary Sue, no railroading, and no forcing the player to do something. But what if the player does not do what the adventure was supposed to be like for instance they were supposed to meet at a tavern but they go into the wilderness instead or kill someone they knew they weren't supposed too. Advice requested please.

Gentleman's agreement.

My understanding is that it's hard to do a freeform campaign without more experience. Until then, the players may not actually mind being on rails. It's not unreasonable to set game expectations and give your players an agreed-upon motive. ("You are all good guys who grew up in this village and know each other.") You're basically setting the rules of the game there.

As for Mary Sue-ism, that's easy to avoid if you are a terribly self-conscious person. In most cases, it simply a matter of realizing that these characters aren't about you, but about what about what is logically consistent with the setting. This a person with their own history and personality and it's your job to guess at what seems "in character" for them: flaws and all.

[The Big Dice]

There's been some good advice here, but something I try to bear in mind is: what would I think of that if I was a player in this game?

If I wouldn't like it, then why would my players like it?

Other than that, read everything you can on being a GM. There's a very good article by Greg Stolze on this page. There's one on being a GM and another on being a good player. Scroll down to the bottom, they're there. John Wick's Youtube channel has some good stuff in there too.

Try different things, don't be afraid to experiment with ideas and styles and eventually you'll hit on something that works for you and your players.

[Emmerask]

Practice, practice, practice. That's the best way to be a better DM - through experience.

This
And there are very many different ways to dm, find the style that is best suited for you and stick with it no matter if some people tell you that for example sandbox is the way to go (even if you tried and just can´t dm that way) ^^

[Raum]

How do you be a good Dm?

1) Communication. The GM's description is the players' only view into the the game world, you have to be able to communicate. 2) A willingness to correct mistakes. You're human, you will make mistakes - so plan for them. Learn to recognize them and take steps to correct them. 3) Creativity. You can pull ideas from anywhere but the best are usually those sparked by player input. They're the ideas that make your game unique! Look for them and encourage them.

I was thinking of being one but I am not really sure how you do that... I was thinking that It would be a little hard because you have to remember not to make an Npc a Mary Sue, no railroading, and no forcing the player to do something. But what if the player does not do what the adventure was supposed to be like for instance they were supposed to meet at a tavern but they go into the wilderness instead or kill someone they knew they weren't supposed too. Advice requested please.

If your adventure has a "supposed to be like" it's too late, you're already building railroad tracks. To avoid it, plan goals instead of events. Remember that there are multiple paths to reach any given goal and even goals themselves may morph or die based on events. New goals will arise to replace older ones. In other words, treat a campaign as a living thing. Life is change, to be static is to be dead.

[Satyr]

I disagree with this. I'd argue that a campaign is as good as the most awesome thing that happens in it. Because when you look back, you don't think about how the plot barely held together and one guy always showed up late and took twice as long to figure out his actions as everyone else.

Interesting perspective. I don't share it, but I can follow your argumentation and I see the point here. It is very likely a question of perspective.
I usually run games these days, and when I sit in the wrapup. I often focuses on wha could have been made better, analyse the parts that didn't worked out that well and try to improve them.
Besides, I usually don't know beforehand which element is going to be the best in a campaign, and surprisingly often stuf I found very cool did not play that much of a role for the players, or stuff I found mediocre at best became crowd favorites.

You can build a perfect campaign out of unperfect parts.

No, not at all. There is no perfection. There is only the constant strive for improvement. You try, you fail, you try better, you fail better.

And heck, some of the most memorable moments on campaigns are when things go completely wrong!

Oh yes, I remember those. With horror.
I don't know if campaigns actually can go wrong at all, at least on the level of the game. There is nothing wrong with a failure in the campaign, or characters dying, or anything like that, if it is the logic result of the campaign development (including player options). A campaign is not necessarily a "success" because the players are the winners in the end, nor does it work the other way round either. As with any other narative, a tragic end might be a better choice instead of a stereotypic happy end, and the best endings are usually ambivalent.
Neither is it wrong when the campaign takes an unexpected turn - I like being surprised, especially as a gamemaster, and the things I usually consider to be most fun when I honestly have no idea what is going on and just start to weird out the players (the JJ Abrams style of gamemastering).
The only things that truly can go wrong are events outside of the game, especially when the game turns frustrating, or seems to lose its pull, or if a player has an ego-fit, or if manage to do something stupid that ruins your campaign for ever. Probably every roleplayer can tell his personal horror stories, and while these are usually memorable, they are not necessarily pleasant memories.

[Swordgleam]

Interesting perspective. I don't share it, but I can follow your argumentation and I see the point here. It is very likely a question of perspective.
I usually run games these days, and when I sit in the wrapup. I often focuses on wha could have been made better, analyse the parts that didn't worked out that well and try to improve them.

I think that's the difference. As a GM, of course you're going to look back on a session and think to yourself, "Man, I totally screwed up that NPC - he was supposed to be a sympathetic character. And things just went downhill from there. What an awful session." The players won't even notice - they're busy thinking, "Wow, we totally owned that evil NPC. Then we took all his stuff - and we don't even know what all of it does! Go us! What an awesome session."

To me, the players' opinion of a session/campaign is the measure of its success, not the DM's opinion.

[Iceforge]

How do you be a good Dm? I was thinking of being one but I am not really sure how you do that... I was thinking that It would be a little hard because you have to remember not to make an Npc a Mary Sue, no railroading, and no forcing the player to do something. But what if the player does not do what the adventure was supposed to be like for instance they were supposed to meet at a tavern but they go into the wilderness instead or kill someone they knew they weren't supposed too. Advice requested please.

Alright, I'll bite, I don't mind sharing some ideas and thoughts on how to GM (I avoid the term DM for personal reasons).

This is in no way a guide to GM'ing and nothing of this is absolute, but merely personal observations and opinions, which you can use if you like and disregard if you do not like.

The only rule which you have to obey no matter what is the golden rule:

"If the players around the table (in this sense, you, the GM himself, also counts as a player) are having fun, then you are doing it right!"

That is the golden rule.

The GM "job" can be divided into various areas, the first major seperation is "Prep" and "At the Table", where prep is all you do prior to a game session/adventure/campaign and "At the Table" is what happens while at the table.

Prep can be divided into "Before Game" and "During Game" based on when it is happening (but note that some "Before Game" and actually happen during the game, as you might opt to change some unknown parts of your campaign world in the middle of everything to make it better fit)

At the Table can also be divided into sections based on time "Starting", "Running" and "Ending", based on where you are at the story, all 3 of those can happen during 1 session, like in a one-nighter, or they can be spread out over years, for a long epic campaign.

So lets focus on those 5.

Prep:

Before Game:

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This is the part where you are creating the setup for the specific game. When I say "you are", I am being general, as often the GM is the one responsible for this, but this can also be done together with your players, and I strongly recommend that it is at least partially done together with your players, as you can then use their inputs and likes to shape the world, which increases their enjoyment.

One method I find that works quite well, to avoid the game starting and them then "not going to the tavern" problem, which you was refering to, would be to make the start of the game into a catalyst or while you are gathered for them to give you input for the game, ask them how they want to know each other in the game; Make them know each other and be together prior to starting the game will make it a lot easier for you to start the game up once you are ready, as you will have an idea how their internal mechanisms will be working.

Lets say you that the game got 3 players, called A, B and C.

Player A wants to play a halfling paladin who's mission in life is to stop the ridicule and belittlements that halfings living in human society suffers. He wants social conflicts involving halflings and humans to occure during your adventures, but not need for it to be the dominant factor of the game

Player B wants to play an Half-elf wizard, out to gain power, both by advancing his abilities, but also through whatever power he can obtain by the wealth adventuring is bound to generate.
He desires lots of opportunities to go wild with his spells and to advance his power and wealth.

Player C wants to play a archtypical human cleric of Pelor, out to rid the world of undead and who desires to meet lots of undead monsters during your adventure

So the players start talking about how they could know each other and they come up with that the Human cleric grew up in the same city as the halfling paladin, and was friends with the paladin, so Player A and C are childhood friends and as such, he does not have an unfavourable view of halflings and might actually condemm how friend is being treated by some uneducated humans.

Player B experienced his own mistreatment as a half-elf living among humans, andn when the others meet him, they quickly clicked, as the was all out for adventuring (and correcting wrongs, in the case of the paladin), so they have a bond.

Now you got some clues as to what you need and what they want once you start the game as well.

So you need to make a good adventure hook to drop on them in the beginning, which is easier than it may seem. My idea for this setup would be a medium sized city, which used to be just a small halfling settlement, until a deposit of X was found in the nearby mountains (think Gold, Silver, Diamonds or important crafting metals), and the settlement was swarmed by humans, who was seeking to make themselves rich on the new found treasures; The former halfing inhabitants quickly found themselves to be secondary citizens in their former home, and the treasures of their lands being taken away by greedy humans who couldn't care less for the original halfling inhabitants.
Some halflings got enough of this and decided to strike back at the humans where it hurts: They wanted to make the mine collapse, so the humans couldn't get their precious money from it.
Unfortunately, the halflings didn't know as much about structual capacities as they could have and the mine did not collapse during the night as planned, when it would have been empty, but instead during the morning, killing many human miners in the process.
This lead to a harsh punishment against the entire halfling population, once the culprits was found, and they became even worsely treated by the human populance, who soon made new mines and continued making wealth.
This was several decades ago, and most of those involved in the conflict is now dead, but the tension left by it still lingers and the halflings are not living well in this town.
Recently, humans have re-opened the collapsed mine, as the deposit was said to have been extremely rich in that area, but once they had cleared the old collapse, they was meet by undead horrors; Only a few of those who went down their survived to tell the tale, and their stories are slightly conflicting and does not reveal much about the true nature of the undead in the mine.
With the mine opened, horrible creatures come out at night and attack the village, which has lived in fright ever since, and has send several young people out to collect help, one of those are going to meet your group and ask for help.

Now you got a setup, you just need to make some important NPCs for the city and some unimportant ones as well.

Immediately, some important NPCs would be:

Innkeeper, as they are going to need a place to live
-related minor NPCs: Staff at the inn, other regular patrons at the inn
Local town ruler, who should be the owner of the mining rights.
Leader of the minority of halflings
Local church leaders (Pelor may or may not be represented in the city)
Local merchants (smith, magic items vendor, jewelry merchant, tailor, and what else you expect your players to go shop at, plus 1 or 2 undefined NPCs you can quickly use if they go to an unexpected type of shop (and trust me, that WILL happen more often than you'd think)
Local militia captain, who has been in charge of organizing the nightly defense
Some local thugs who bullies some halflings as the players go by
-related equally important NPCs: Halflings being bullied

I am sure you could add more, no need to make full sheets for any of these (except maybe the thugs, for whom there is a real chance the halfling paladin might act harshly on)
But make a brief description of apperance, a name and try and give each of them a quirk or something to remember them by, like a speech thing (stutter), walking (shaking steps), attitude (racist towards halflings), apperance (scars) or anything else, which gives the player something to identify the NPC by, if you just give them a name, the NPC is going to be forgotten.

And then you need to decide what those undead things in the mine is and based on which undeads there is (can be more than just 1 type) then you should make some fitting vague descriptions for local scared citizens to give the curious PCs, and include some false ones as well; People in panic tends to see things a bit differently than they really are, and even if it is just a zombie, a local might still be convinced the things was calling his name as it was reaching in through the broken window of his hut.

Also a neat thing to add is make some guilds up that fits your idea about the world and your characters and decide if any of those guild should have a base in the city. Maybe they will not be important right now and seem irrelevant, but if you introduce a theives guild early on, they wont be surprised later to find out they have to deal with the thieves guild which has guildhouses in almost any major city (but somehow just managed to stay completely hidden until relevant)

During Game:

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The techniques here are much like those used when preparing for a game, but you should be taking notes of what they do and then think about expanding on those things. If the wizard from the above example continues to ask local people for rumours about mighty beings, maybe add a quest hook by letting a soon-to-be encountered NPCs have heard of a fitting beast of legend not so far away, as this plants an adventure hook with the party for something to do once they have dealt with the current problem.
If he asked for anyone having problems with bandits, it could be someone coming, whos town was pillaged and burned down by a horde of pillaging and looting goblins, so once they are done, they go to his city and start tracking the goblins, if they so choose.

Do not be afraid to put more than one of such hooks out for your players to follow, a easy mistake to make is not wanting to overwhelm your players with options, but if you only give them a 1 or 2 options, they can easily end up feeling as you are leading them by the nose.

A subtle way of making them go the way you want them to go anyway, is by putting a time contraint on some of the options you prefer them to take.

If the example with the pillaged town, let them know that they have to act on it soon. Maybe someone else present when the survivor tells his story says that the goblins was likely out pillaging as the season of rain is strongly approaching and they need supplies to survive the rain without having to leave their caves, as goblins hate rain (filthy things don't really care for a natural bath)

Hopefully, this will make the PCs realise, once they are trying to figure out what to do next, that the rain will likely remove the tracks of the goblins and if they want any real chance of tracking and finding them (and get the loot) they need to do so now and also, as the goblins are gathering supplies they could easily be going to pillage more towns soon as well.

If the other plot-hooks doesn't require immediate action to be resolved, then dealing with the goblins becomes much higher priority, and as that is something you let the players realise themselves (hopefully) they will feel like they was the ones making the decision on what to do.

At the Table:

Starting:

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Start with something to do RIGHT NOW!

Many GMs (new ones especially) start their games up with the players having nothing to act on, but expects them to act on something.

For instance "You are in the town, what do you do?"

They usually have something they want the players to do, but they don't give that away, afraid of railroading, but my take is that when you start the campaign, railroading is fine.
Sure, someone might come and disagree with me on this, and say I am taking away control from my players by doing this, but I would not mind, in the example I have been using until now, to start the game like this:

"You three has been traveling together for a while, scouting taverns, local guardsmen and guilds for jobs to do. While traveling through the small town of Erosfield, you meet Jonathan at a local tavern.
Jonathan is a young man, about 5"6, with fair blonde hair and blue eyes, which are marked by great sorrow. With his stuttering and scared voice, he told you about his blight: His hometown of Downswell was plaqued by undead hordes which was released from an old, formerly abandoned, mine almost a month ago, and the local militia has been unable to do anything else, but hold the plague at bay for now, and he had been sent out to gather help.

You have all heard about Downswell before; It is a medium sized city in the kingdom/empire/whatever that mades it's wealth on mining gold which was plentifull in the rich mountains nearby.

There was some conflicts in Downswell in the past, maybe 30 or 40 years ago, the details escape you, which lead to the supression of the there-living halfling population, which was blamed for the conflict, but also the details of this conflict of the past escapes you all for now.

You agreed to help Jonathan and Downswell, which had promised the great reward of 1,000 gold pieces to the one or those who could rid the city of it's problems.

You have been traveling with Jonathan for almost a week, and now you have arrived at the city gates of Downswell."

Now, that is straight to the action, I do not need for them to go anywhere to get the first plothook, as I have actually forced that one upon them right from the beginning; The players are free to investigate the situation of Downswell and then, if they so choose, leave the city to fend for itself, if they judge it to be far to dangeorus for the promised rewards, but hopefully your players won't be out to sabotage you and mostly, players are playing to have fun, and as long as they can have fun, they generally don't mind being railroading into starting the game, so they can avoid the tedious and boring part of finding out what they are supposed to do in the beginning.

Also, I am not going to tell them to investigate the situation or have them entering the mine as we start; I am leaving that option up to themselves, so they can choose if they are going to be cautious and find out more about the dangers before going to the mine or if they are going to go up there right away, kicking-in-the-door style of gaming.

Running:

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Once your game is started and the initial start is done, during which you can find out how the players interact as a team and which of their initial stated wants and needs they really want, you can continue to design plot-hooks for them.

Not all plot-hooks need to have appeal to all of them, or even the majority of them. Actually, having most plot-hooks only appeal to some of your players immediately can be a good thing (as long as you make sure that following the plot-hook gives all of them something to do), as then you can really instigate debate among your players about what to do next.

You need to be able to maintain the fun of the group during play, which means that you need to end scenes when your players are starting to get bored with the scene in progress, for instance you could have the players talking to the innkeeper and the patrons at the inn, and they might engage in that with enthusiams right away, but after about 5 or 10 minuts, they don't know what to ask anymore and some of them starts to sit and stare blankly out into the air (hopefully you will pick up the signals before they start yawning), and you then move to end the scene as quickly as possible.

Somethings when you need to end a scene, one player might be troublesome.
Sometimes one player will be the one leading a scene, which is fine, as that player gets to shine a bit and be in focus, but if he is talking alone with the innkeeper about the nightly attacks for 5 minuts and the other players are starting to be bored with it, by giving signals (like staring blankly into the air, dice stacking or yawning), then you need to move to end it. Don't just end the scene without a reason through, as that will just frustrate the one player engaged in the scene, but maybe the innkeeper breaks up the conversation, saying he needs to get back to serving his paying patrons and then walking away from the PC.

Knowing when to end a scene (or interaction, as some would call it), you can keep players more engaged, as nothing can drain the entusiams for a session in a player like spending 30 minuts listening to a conversation between the GM and one of their fellow players about a subject that they are not really interested in themselves.

Hopefully ending a scene/interaction will lead to the players talking together about their next step, which is by itself a scene, and one of those where you need to be really aware of when to end. The players might discuss if they need to talk to more people or they should go straight to the mine now, and then you need to be ready to step in at the right moment to ask "So, what do you do now?".
To early, and they will feel preasured, and to late, and they will start to get bored.

But do not worry about that, it is usually obvious when you need to ask, as when there is a more than 5 second period without any of them saying anything (and not looking like they are just thinking really hard), or when they turn their looks to you, then they are ready.

Between sessions, you need to look over your notes (you are taking notes, RIGHT?) of what your players did and what they seemed interested in, and plan more stuff that fits those interests and you have to try and predict what they are going to do next, so you can prepare for it.

If they are likely to go into the mine next session, a map of the mine and a list of the creatures inside can be handy, as well, as some ways to make one or two of the encounters more interesting (like let one of them happen next to a deep pit that they players are bound to not want their character to fall down in during the battle)

Ending:

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This is the toughest part of running a game, in my opinion, and the one that most GMs has least knowledge about, because unfortunately, many games does never meet a natural end, but are instead cancelled or discontinued for whatever reason.

Do not be disappointed if your game does not make it to some spectacular ending, often real life stuff can come in the way or interest for a specific storyline might die out before the story itself ends.

But if you get to end a storyline, make the end answer some most questions the player have to the game and let them know what happened after the end as well.

Maybe the adventure ends once the town of downswell is saved, let them know that their heroes left downswell with their reward, let them briefly know what happened next with their adventures ("they continued their journey to more adventures and more fame" can be enough for a short game) and what happened in town.

Did it become safe?
Did the halflings start to get better treatment by the humans?
Did they build a new temple to Pelor to honour how one of Pelors cleric helped them out?

Many options for what to tell them, and from your notes and experiences from the table, you will have a good basis to know what your players want to know.

I hope some of this is usefull to you :)

[nepphi]

Without going into tons of pieces of advice, I have one general rule and one example for it.

Talk to your players. Let them know you're new to the DMing thing, and get the feedback you need to make good decisions. Ask them how things went, and what they might like to see more or less of.

As an example, I always ask my players the same few questions before a game starts, so I can get a feel for how the game is going to go;

1 - What makes you go 'wow, I get to play [character name] today!" What makes you excited about your character?

2 - What are your in-character goals for the game, and your out-of-character goals for the game?

3 - What song do you think best fits your character's personality (optional, but I find there's a lot of inspiration in music).

4 - Do you like Firefly? If not, GET OUT! (insert a joke of your own choice here, to keep everyone at ease).

5 - Knowing I probably will -not- give it to you, what's one piece of really, REALLY overpowered twink-cheese that you think would be fun for your character to have?


Your exact questions may be different, or you may not use questions at all. The idea is to get people talking about what they want out of the game, and this is the way I've found best for -my- style. YMMV, but I hope the principle helps.

[Dragon queen]

So... I make sure that I stick to the campaign , but what happens if it would be impossible to improvise? Such as they decide "We don't want to talk to anyone" so I take them to a camp then they say "This village is far away from civilization so we will raid it." since I can't tell them no they go ahead and raid away. Then when I say " The camp was part of he government so you are here by sentenced to jail and execution." Then they say in the jail " We try to break out" rolls a 7 and I say "You are not able to break out." then they say "You are such a railroader and the worst Dm ever. You can't even play right!" They leave and all the time that took for you to prepare it is now wasted. This never happened just want to know what to do in such a situation.

[nepphi]

You can deal with that by preparing ahead of time.

For example, I don't like evil campaigns. I can't run one at all, because I'm a fan of the heroic. Consequently, I talk to my players and tell them "I will not run for evil characters. I don't mind some anti-hero or grim and gritty flavoring, but understand that I focus on a heroic game. If you want something different, I don't think I can run for you."

Then we talk, and get an idea for things. If the players go off the rails (such as my cousins did when I told them this same thing, then they spent the first hour of the game trying to murder and rob merchants), I close up the books and say "you clearly don't respect the discussion we had. I won't run for you."

It's harsh, but you have to set boundaries and establish what sort of game you want. Talk to your players, stress that you want to cooperate (meaning it goes BOTH ways), and be willing to be flexible and inflexible as the situation dictates.

[Iceforge]

Nepphi is right, talk with the about it first.

If they do not respect that, they are simply either not mature enough to respect such restrictions or they are purposefully trying to screw with you, and you should handle that as Nepphi suggested if it is ruining it for you.

If they then blame you for it, you should just ignore them, as those players who would blame it as railroading in such a situation are just immature pricks who can't see how they screwed it all up themselves by their behaviour and would have blamed you for anything anyway, no matter how good a GM you had actually been.

Once you get better, you will be able to handle more and more absurd situations, but if the players are just screwing with you, just for the sake of screwing with you, then play with someone else.

Sometimes it can be handled, I had many sessions with my close friend and others where they have with full intend screwed up everything I had planned just to mess with me, which can be fun when done in the way they was doing it, where it became a competition to find out if they could screw up any thing I threw at them or I would be able to construct something they couldn't screw up, and we all enjoyed that, but that is the exception, not the rule

(the particular session started like this: "You are soldiers returning from battle as veterans; You are riding along the dirtroad and before the break of dusk you will once again be home in the town in which you was born, which you have missed during your 8 year long service. As the day advances, clouds of black smoke becomes clear in the horizon and your fears are confirmed, as you pass the hills and can now in the horizon see your hometown ablaze" to which the players responded with "Alright, well, we had enough trouble already, clearly there is trouble ahead, let turn around and find a place with a inn with some cheap whores!")

[Swordgleam]

Such as they decide "We don't want to talk to anyone" so I take them to a camp

You don't take them anywhere. They say, "We don't want to talk to anyone." Then either you say, "Okay. So what do you do?" or you make something happen that requires their attention. For example, someone could come up to talk to them.

then they say "This village is far away from civilization so we will raid it." since I can't tell them no they go ahead and raid away.

You say, "Are you evil? This village is full of civilians." It's good to decide beforehand if you're willing to run an evil campaign. If you are, and they still want to raid the village, tell them they'll have to face the consequences of their actions. If you aren't, tell them that up front, and if they say they're going to raid the village, just say, "Heroic characters don't raid civilian villages."

Then when I say " The camp was part of he government so you are here by sentenced to jail and execution." Then they say in the jail " We try to break out" rolls a 7 and I say "You are not able to break out." then they say "You are such a railroader and the worst Dm ever. You can't even play right!" They leave and all the time that took for you to prepare it is now wasted. This never happened just want to know what to do in such a situation.

The guards have to catch them first - that gives them a chance to bluff or fight the guards. Then, in prison, they should have several chances to break out. If they fail at all of that, it's hardly your fault. But the campaign still doesn't have to end. Instead of executing them, they could be assigned to community service. Then you just give them the quest you had prepared for them anyway.

[Dragon queen]

...You know that could work. What if they try to do something terriblt absurd that really has nothing to do with D&D. Like they say "we go throw the mayor in the volcano." Or " We make a kobold pie." Do I tell them no you can't. I won't let you do that it has nothing to do with what you should be doing, or say that is clearly against the law.

[Swordgleam]

If they do something like that, just stare at them without blinking until they get back on track. You should usually try to say yes to things players want to do, but if they want to do something absurd, the best bet is to act like they're not being serious (even if they are).

In general, though, you should only try to run games for people who are going to respect the game. People who deliberately try to screw up your sessions aren't much fun. Doing unexpected things is fine, but flat-out absurdity doesn't have much place in most campaigns.

[Iceforge]

...You know that could work. What if they try to do something terriblt absurd that really has nothing to do with D&D. Like they say "we go throw the mayor in the volcano." Or " We make a kobold pie." Do I tell them no you can't. I won't let you do that it has nothing to do with what you should be doing, or say that is clearly against the law.

Ask them to please take the game seriously, if it isn't fitting with the game you are trying to run.

[Dragon queen]

Got it take it seriously. What happens if they say its no fun then? Communication is the key so do not respond and carry on or tell them something?