New DM/GM looking for advise.

[GothamKnight200]

Hello, I am new to these forums and I am also bew to being a Dungeon Master. What tips would you guys give me to make my games as fun and interactive as possible.

[Knaight]

My standard advice for new GM's is that you will screw up. Things will go wrong. Games will behave in ways entirely different and often worse than intended.

Understand that your players will understand that. They'll generally get that GMing can be tricky, and cut you slack. When you err keep moving; learn from your mistakes but don't obsess over them. More than anything, don't stress out about your mistakes and not GM at all because of them. The only way to get better is to go through that period of ineptitude, and the easiest way to do this is to accept it will happen.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Remember the golden rule: playing a game should be fun. If people aren't having fun, you may need to make some changes somewhere. Part of this is getting to know your players; different people enjoy different things.

My top tip is to gather as much advice as you can. There's lots out there, so if you read enough of it, you're sure to absorb some of the fundamentals. Also, watch youtube videos of games and listen to podcasts. That way you can see what other DMs are doing, see what works and what doesn't.

[miinstrel]

Learn how to "wing it" with rules adjudication. Slowing the game down to look up every little thing is awful. Make a decision to keep things moving forward and look up rules during the break or after the game. If it's something related to a player's ability and they don't like how your ruling went... well they should have known their abilities better from the get go.

Also, read up. There are a number of fantastic DMing blogs out there. TheAngryGM is one of my favorites, though IMO he gets into some more advanced subjects that may be more appropriate after you get your feet under you.

Ultimately, you're the fun facilitator. Make sure everyone's having a good time. You'll figure out your style as you go.

[Mike Miller]

Learn how to "wing it" with rules adjudication. Slowing the game down to look up every little thing is awful. Make a decision to keep things moving forward and look up rules during the break or after the game. If it's something related to a player's ability and they don't like how your ruling went... well they should have known their abilities better from the get go.

I definitely echo this comment. If there are rules questions and nobody remembers/people argue about it, just learn to make it work quickly and look it up later. It can be better if you have to make it up instead of going by Rules-As-Written (RAW) and figure it out later, than to have the session come to a stop looking something up. It is time consuming and breaks immersion. Improvising is a skill you will develop if you keep GMing for a while.

You will definitely make mistakes, it happens. Just learn from it and keep going. Determine what you find most fun and what your group finds most fun and work off of those as much as possible. For example, my very first group loved dungeon crawls the most. I loved statting out creatures the most. It worked out very well to just make lots of interesting creatures and have the party fight their way through them.

Expect the unexpected! The players will, without a doubt, do something you didn't see coming. It will happen frequently and suddenly. I would also recommend always having options for everything. If you devise your own campaign and have ideas of certain events that have to happen, make alternate paths to that event and multiple outcomes.

[Honest Tiefling]

1) Be prepared. Learn the rules, so you can focus on running the story or combats you want.

2) Running an adventure published for your system isn't a bad idea. Try to find a short one that isn't supposed to lead to another adventure (or just ignore those bits). It might make for a good starting point, even if you decide not to continue the game afterwards and restart.

3) There's nothing wrong with taking a smoke/food break if you need five minutes to collect yourself.

4) Tell your players to strongly consider if issues they are having can be discussed after the game. Rules-lawyering from well-intentioned players can and probably will happen, but it's important to keep everyone involved and to actually play with the time you have, and mistakes will happen. Everyone needs to learn to roll with them, player and DM alike. No one is going to learn to be a good DM or player if you halt everything to point out these mistakes instead of talking about them outside of the session.

5) People like different things. This might sound like common sense, but often groups of friends will butt heads trying to get the game THEY want. Either learn to be buddies outside of the game and find new gaming buddies, or learn to appreciate other game types and take turns. Be aware that if your players are as new as you, they might not know what they want until a few sessions in.

6) No plot will survive contact with the player characters. You will never be able to predict what they do. Learn to love this and how creative and inventive your players can be.

7) Communication is king. Remember what I said about communicating out of sessions? Make sure everyone feels like they can address problems. Even the greatest of groups sometimes needs to sit down to address something, it's not something to be afraid of.

8) If you are stuck, sometimes have something very destructive and very urgent happen. Assassins and fire are my favorites, because they demand an immediate response. They might give you enough of a breather to figure out where to go next, and add some action if things have slowed down by accident. Both can occur randomly if you cannot tie them to the main plot.

[Ninja_Prawn]

demand an immediate response.

This reminds me of something the Angry DM wrote about narration and setting the scene. His advice was basically that you only need three or four sentences to set a scene: one or two to wrap up the previous scene and set the tone, one to point to a medium-term objective and one to set up an immediate conflict. It's best to keep it short, because no one wants to listen to the DM waffle on for ten minutes at the start of every scene.

Thus, when you stop talking, there should always be something for the players to react to. They also get frequent reminders of what they're actually supposed to be doing.

That's quite a useful tip to bear in mind.

[Lorsa]

Hello, I am new to these forums and I am also bew to being a Dungeon Master. What tips would you guys give me to make my games as fun and interactive as possible.

My first tip is that fun is subjective. What my group finds fun might not be the same things that are fun for your players. Experiment around with various things until you learn what makes your players tick. It may not be the answer you are looking for but it is unfortunately the truth. Noone can give you tips to make your games fun without knowing your players.

As far as interactive goes, you need an open mindset. Try to have a world which is as fluid as possible, able to adapt to whatever the players do or say. Remember that each NPC you create is a real person with goals, motives and personality. Don't make the world too static and don't be married to a specific outcome of an adventure.

[GothamKnight200]

Thanks for the advice you all, I took some good notes and I will come back to tell you how my first game went.