DMing tips for 4E

[Kellus]

I'm going to be DMing my first game of 4e tomorrow, and was wondering if anyone had any tips for running things. I'm very familiar with the 3.5 system; how much does the DM's job change?

[Hzurr]

The biggest change is the number of monsters in an encounter. 4e emphasizes groups of monsters over individuals, so where encounters in 3.5 often involved the party and a monster or two, having the party fight over half a dozen monsters (or more, sometimes) is the norm. It takes a bit to get used to.

Another thing (which I still haven't really mastered) is using the monsters in the roles they're supposed to be in. Using minions to swarm, making sure that your leader monsters are in positions to help their allies, getting skirmishers in positions that let them move/flank, etc. The party faces this same kind of challenge with the more clearly defined party roles in 4e, but doing it as a DM is slightly different

[Yakk]

Build monster cards with details on them, ideally ones you can write on.

Find some markers (like many-colored poker chips) for marking and the like on the battle mat.

Have an initiative track.

There tends to be more monsters than in 3e per fight.

Prepare multiple encounters this way.

Get the players to have the same -- index cards with their powers on them, for ease of reference.

Read DMG page42, and the Wizards errata to it.

Read the DMG "making a monster" guidelines. When picking monsters out of the MM, make sure they are not way out of line with those guidelines (ie, drake swarm, fire beatles) -- the MM needs a bit of work.

Instead of fudging die rolls, do some in-fight balance based off of enemy tactics. Generally concentrated firepower is more powerful in 4e (this is true in general, but also true in 4e). If your players are blowing through things, concentrate firepower. If they are having problems, spread enemy damage out over more of the party.

With a bit of DM roleplaying, you can make this significant change in encounter difficulty seem like the actions of intelligent monsters, yet use it to keep the tension at the right level.

Do try to encourage 4 encounters per day with plot points. If players choose to have 5 minute days, then bad guys should have plots that progress and put the players in a worse position, and the players should be made aware of this through in-game mechanisms both before and after they take excessive rests.

Minions should never be tougher than any other creature in an encounter. You should describe minions in such a way that they are clearly the weakest opponents there, but don't call them minions. Having a lurker hiding as a minion is acceptable, but evil. Generally, types of monsters should move from boss type, to elite type, to normal monster type, to minion types as the players gain levels.

Ie, at level 1, the players might face an Orc as an Elite boss of the Kobolds.

By level 5, Orcs might be standard opponents.

By level 10, Orcs might mostly be minions.

By level 15, Orcs are only ever minions, except if you pull off the "these are orcs, but TOUGH ones" trick.

---

The skill challenge mechanics are crufty, and don't explain how to make them work that well.

The idea is that the impact of a single skill roll should be controlled and measured on solving a problem. If the player says "I solve the problem with skill X", and they get a success, and this isn't enough to defeat the skill challenge yet -- then their success results in the problem being worked away at, and not solved.

Generally, I'm in favor of a system with 'punishment for failure', rather than a cut-off. Ie, every failure burns a healing surge, or every failure means that the Duke contributes 1 fewer man-at-arms to help you on your quest.

Finally, you want the skill challenge to encourage everyone to help. So a time limit of some kind (or increasing negative effects over time) can help encourage the players to not "he's our face, he should make all social skill rolls". Use them with a sense of time pressure is easiest, with combat encounters used as "punishment" if the players are too slow (note that you should make sure the players can beat the punishment timer).

---

Read the 4e errata. There are some important stuff in there.

---

Keep track of passive player insight and perception rolls.

Keep track of player defenses.

---

Area powers roll 1 per target to-hit, and ONCE for every target for damage. This speeds things up.

---

Don't play your monsters as if they know the player's powers, but don't make them foolish either.

Have monsters semi-clump up. Have monsters semi-spread out. Deal with heavily armed opponents differently than lightly armed casters.

Allow the Defender to SOMETIMES use the "cause pain if they ignore me", but usually obey marks.

Gotta go.

[Kurald Galain]

Most importantly?

Do your homework. The only thing worse than a player who has to look up what his powers do every turn, is a DM who has to look up what his monsters do every turn. Winging it is better than slowing it to a crawl.

[Saph]

I've DMed both editions, and truthfully, there isn't much difference. If you can run a good game in 3.5, you can run a good game in 4e, and vice versa. The main difference is just that 4e's newer, and thus players won't know the rules so well (so be ready to make judgement calls or do a lot of looking up).

- Saph

[Tadanori Oyama]

Know where you want the players to go and have two or three backup plans to get them there. You're story (or dungeon) should be fluid enough to allow the players to feel like their not being railroaded and adapt if they pull something strange you weren't expecting.

Player cards are helpful for me. You bend an index card in half, put the names on it and get everybody's Defenses and any important Passive skills so you can do stuff without always asking the players for their information. They also double as an initative tracker device if you line them up and add cards labeled "enemy".