Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Whisper_Swiftblade 04-18-06, 04:59 PM	A freind told me I should DM our next campain but it will be my first time, and advice would be helpful. (yes I know there are probally other threads like this)
Valeur 04-18-06, 05:04 PM	1# A DM should be True Neutral. Balance on the fine threads of balance - and you should be fine. 2# Use description alot. Unexperienced DM's only descript what is essential, not what gives flavor to the world. Like "you walk into the room. A sword is hanging on the wall, the sword is yada, yada, yada. Oh, yeah, there's a table and some books too."
Herald@Large 04-18-06, 05:37 PM	3. Do you have a copy of the DMG? If not, get one and read it. 4. Do you have a copy of the MM? If not, get one and read it. 5. Make sure you understand DR, ECL, and CR. 6. Stick to core classes and races until you get your feet on the ground. 7. Avoid house rules until you're more experienced. 8. Plan ahead. Have your adventure figured out. Draw up maps, roll up NPCs. Have random monsters ready. Figure out treasure & traps. 9. Be prepared to improvise. 10. Ask your players to be patient with you while you're learning. 11. Don't let your players bully you. 12. Don't railroad your players. 13. Learn when to say no. (and stick to it!) 14. Learn when to say yes. 15. Make sure you have a comfortable chair that supports your back. 16. Bring your own munchies -- don't expect your players to feed you. 17. Bring extra pencils, scratch paper and dice. 18. Have fun!
Whisper_Swiftblade 04-18-06, 06:03 PM	Thank I will try to keep those in mind
Fakespy 04-19-06, 03:51 AM	Don't roll percentile dice to see if players should get something outrageous like the deck of many things, ect. One of my friends did this in his campaign and ended up having one character lose his intelligence, one character imprisoned, my character was killed by a dread wraith, and another character get a small castle. Needless to say that campaign was over quickly
Gray Eminence 04-19-06, 04:49 AM	1. Start with a party of generally good alignment (LG, NG, CG, maybe LN). No evil members until you are VERY experienced. 2. Keep records on the players' mayor stats. 3. Read all spells your players may cast. 4. Be sure to understand which bonuses stack and which do not. Make sure that you check every bonus (for PCs and NPCs alike). 5. Separate DM knowledge from NPC knowledge. Metagaming is also disencouraged for DMs.
Mav_Rick 04-19-06, 05:16 AM	1- Put yourself in your monster shoes when running battles. How YOU would think and how a Kobold would is 2 different things. 2- Reading quick info on monsters from the MM or the like can give you ideas how to run them. So read up. 3- If you don't want to railroad then too much (or not at all, although I don't advise total freedom if it's your first game), only plan 2-3 sessions in advance. Know the basic idea of your plot, but keep room for detour along your plot line. 4- For first timer, get a pre-made adventure.. It gives plenty of hints how to run encounters and the major stuff is done for you. It would help you prevent a DM burnout on your first adventure. Remember these: - You're not a bad DM when you admit your errors, you are when you don't. - Don't expect anything from your pcs. Sometimes they can react to situation like geniuses, sometimes like complete dumbass.. - No plan is fool proof, because fools are so ingenious. - Drink lots of water or pop. Although pop will give you headaches before the end of the session. - Don't be shy to pull them back In-Character if they stray from the game. Plenty of time to talk about the last guy you fragged or your kids and all that some other time. - If previous don't work fast enough, slap them with a DM stick of Pc bane +3 aka A broken Tv antenna! Works for me. - Try not to fudge dice rolls but if you have to do it, try to make sure your Pc's don't notice it (i.e: change in your behavior). If they did, don't do it again. It can break the DM-PC trust. - If you dices are black and starts rolling 5-6 crits per night when you DM, never use them again for playing PC and put them in a separate bag from your other dices. They'll become stuff of legends.. They'll make your PC complain and shake everytime you take them out to DM.. But beware, they might petition to have them remove from the game (it can happen, trust me). If it does, use your DM right to say No.. lol MOST IMPORTANT RULE OF ALL DM!! DMing must be fun for you, if you don't enjoy it, don't do it.
reff42 04-19-06, 05:27 AM	19. Always have a backup adventure the ones on the wizards website work fine, cause you know, sometimes the players really like to diverge from your plans, and should be given oppurtunity to do so. I prefer to make my own, but look, I'm typing on the wizards website @ 4 in the morning. I find this crap fun. 20. 'useless' items. If your describing a room, say everything that is in the room, even if it is bolted down. Eventually one of your players will say hey, I can use this... and you should reward them for it if it's a good or even slightly viable idea (they'll get better at it if you eventually start only giving out bonuses for GOOD ideas) 21. nonspecific rewards- little do my players realize but the rewards from NPCs that have asked them to do things is based on how much they get from the task itself. Aw, they missed that search for the hidden treasure... oh well he'll give em a little extra to make up for it. Ah, I didn't expect them to steal from small children, thats comming out of their pay. 22. NPC motivations- bob the wizard may ask them to retrieve some goblin toes.. but why? Does he need goblin toes for a spell? will any goblinoid work? What if the players bring back just part of a toe? will that work? The NPC doesn't have to be specific (and in fact most of the time shouldn't be that specific) but know why your NPCs are doing things will help you roleplay them and make the world more convincing. 23. Watch your players- if your players are getting bored with roleplay, combat generally perks them right up. Tie it in. If the characters are after a corrupt merchant, maybe someone overheard them talking about it and hired thugs to attack them. Did the eavesdropper talk to the merchant? How will this affect the rest of the adventure? Just cause it's not planned doesn't mean it shouldn't fit or affect anything. 24. Be flexible- this I can't stress enough. Players are wierd. ALL OF THEM. They will find some way to destroy your carefully laid plans, and some of them might think that you wanted them to kill that child. 25. Punishment- stupid actions demand consequence. A jovial king might think it's funny that a character screamed obcenities in his presence. A normal King might just throw him in jail for a day to cool off. If he decides to escape from jail, have no qualms about killing him. Execution if he survives his escape attempt. (this has come up far more often than I've wished) 26. Character appearance matters- People are not going to react well to adventurers who just crawled through a sewer. I don't care if your the pope, you'd best take a bath before you ask me about rumors. 27. Check their sheets. It might just be ignorance, or a misread rule, but especially with a new DM characters tend to get a little... liberal. 28. shank somebody- if the party is uncooperative or high and mighty, or has the feeling of 'we're invincible' change some situations to better suit your baddies. If you think tactically (with intelligent creatures of course) someone will eventually die. (not a bad thing, keeps them more on their toes) 29. master their reactions- subtlety is your key weapon. Make them flesh out their characters, get a feel for them. Then find out what truly motivates them by prodding with adventures. *poke poke* gold *poke poke* revenge. See how the party reacts, individual characters. Then you can use that later to make them go where you want without 'forcing' them. Again, rule 19 is useful, in case they don't take the bait. 30. I know somebody already covered it, but description description description! A character can't fall in love with a stat block, but can love that auburn haired bar wench who always sticks her chest out as she sets the drinks on the table. Her simple brown dress accentuates the low-cut white blouse. No wonder she gets good tips around here. That in now way is connected to her stats, but already the characters begin to like or hate her. They may not remember her twelve sylable name, but they sure remember the way she serves drinks. 31. Try not to say 'no' directly. If characters have big dreams, and it's a level 1 campaign, explain that people have to start small, and show them what they'll need to do to attain that big power. rules help here, and a good understanding of the game mechanic and how/why things are the way they are (or know enough to bs it) 32. get an offical DM screen. Lots of convenient charts and tables on it. 33. Fudging rolls- for the players- good (not much though) against the players- bad. they will somehow find out, and they will kill you. 34. Character stats- if you have a writeup for a character great. if you don't, appoximate. If you didn't bother making up stats for a character they probally shouldn't be fighting it, which means far less xp, then it doesn't really matter if he has a +13 or a +15 beacuse you miscalcualted or forgot his racial mods or something. 35. Talk with the players- if your whole campaign centers around 1 thing, such as them joining the army, let the players know. It's metagame thinking and bad, but it's better than making them. They'll find in character reasons to do what needs to be done if they're a decent group, and you've planned relativly well. For example, a peace loving druid who just wants to protect a specific forest, bad character for a war campaign. Unless the forest gets burned down by the opposing army of course.... But if you talk to the player, cause you don't want to burn down his forest, the character will suddenly see the opposing army as a great threat to his forest and will go preemptivley strike it. I think thats enough for now. I'm tired and I can't belive I just wrote for nearly an hour
Senevri 04-19-06, 07:32 AM	Here's more on the line of what not to do: 36: Yes, sneak attack _is_ that good, or: Don't unnecessarily nerf your players. 37: Think twice before allowing the character to craft item X/Take Prestige Class Y. It's easier to not allow something than to take it away later. 38: If you're running a pre-made adventure, read ahead. Preferrably, read it completely to start with. Nothing is more annoying than, after your players have taken out a room, you read the description for the next room, and it starts with, "If the occupants hear sounds of combat, they..."
Ankalagon 04-19-06, 07:48 AM	39. Stick to core books. If a player really wants to use something from another book read it thoroughly first. However I will advise you are unlikely to spot a potential problem without more experience (you will still miss with experience). 40. Try and make player Death an OK thing. It's one of the hardest things to do as a DM and accept as a player but it's OK. Really it is. 41. If a player tells you what a rule is go with it but check it when convenient. 42. If you are fuzzy on a rule, go with the fuzziness but check it later. 43. Try not to get caught up in player hysteria. They will smile when they do well but do not go looking for the next smile. The biggest smile of all will come from enjoying your game and your fairness in that game. Not from a +10 vorpal sword of kill anything or easy kills to bounce levels to get that next feat or PRC.
mojorooks 04-19-06, 08:38 AM	44) the rules are guidlines. Just because you can't find an artifact more suited to you adventure doesn't mean you can't make one. The MM says goblins are evil, but that doesn't mean the party won't encounter a LG Goblin Paladin. If you are running a module, try changing some things to make it more YOUR adventure. I was running a module and changed the BBEG to The Red Skull (marvel comics). It completely changed the feel of the module and made it fun for me. 45) just because you suck doesn't mean your players won't like you. I am a crappy DM (i forget to throw out plots, plot lines don't match up, forget that I allowed an evil PC in the game, etc) but my players seem to love it!
JulesCARV 04-19-06, 10:48 AM	40. Try and make player Death an OK thing. It's one of the hardest things to do as a DM and accept as a player but it's OK. Really it is. For the record, Ankalagon is 100% wrong here. Player death is a very bad thing. If you, as DM, cause player death, then you've done a terrible job. Really, I can't imagine being a much worse DM than that. Now, character death, on the other hand, including characters controlled by players, is an acceptable thing, so long as it doesn't happen every other session :).
Han Duo 04-19-06, 10:51 AM	46. Try to award/allow every creative thought or input a player has. 47. Don't panick when the players do something unexpected that may screw up your plot. Just let it happen and try to find a later opportunity to rectify it in another way. 48. Remember reason number one that you and your players are there: to have a good time. Whatever you do, make sure that remains your main goal!
Han Duo 04-19-06, 10:53 AM	For the record, Ankalagon is 100% wrong here. Player death is a very bad thing. If you, as DM, cause player death, then you've done a terrible job. Really, I can't imagine being a much worse DM than that. I am sorry man, that's our house rule: if your character dies you die! Didn't we explain this when we started? :D