Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Briccone 04-03-06, 12:55 PM	I have been a player for about 5 Years. The DM of our group has been playing since the beginning and DMing 17 years. There are two other guys who have been playing since the beginning and another two guys that have been playing 17 years. I was curious to see what life was like behind the screen and give our current DM a break. It was a campaign for 11th level characters. I had to throw in the towel half way through the campaign as many of the players were leaving the table at the end of the night unhappy, or in some cases angry. Now I know I made the basic, first time mistakes of trying to follow the written word too closly instead of free-wheeling it to fit the current situation, Killing off players, etc. My question is I am hesitant to ever DM again, and I wanted to see if there were any DM's out there with other first time horror stories and have since become better?
OwainEvans 04-03-06, 01:07 PM	Don't feel bad...when i started DMing, I actually couldn't stand how long the battles took to finish, so i reworked the crit rules to if you could hit the crit roll multiple times, then you could stack your crit. One of my players tried to warn me that wouldn't be smart, but i didn't listen, so when they started destroying everything in one round, i threw something at them that should have killed them in the first round cuz i was mad, and they killed it in less than a round. They were lvl 9 the monster, a "Hellfire Wyrm", was about CR 26!!! Ever since, i have looked at the rules creation as, if it sounds kewl to me as a player, then it's a definite "NO" to being used as the DM.
infideli 04-03-06, 01:07 PM	I have a friend who tried GMing the first time I met him, it was a Vampire game. He was horrible and I would never play that with him again. Later he GMed a D&D game and he was a lot better. Now I am told that he has an on-going campaign that is well-liked. Most recently, one of my characters took part in the trial and execution of one of his characters, however, and that has so far been the last I saw of him and roleplaying. With him as a GM my main complaint was that he seemed to have no story for that first session and was waiting for the players to come-up with actions and goals in a passive environment. What do you think your weakness was? What did the others complain about or get upset by? How did your DMing differ from the previous DM? G
Mobar2006 04-03-06, 01:22 PM	My first time DMing was with Star Wars d6 system, and at the time, the session went well enough, but looking back on it, I blew it big time. The big mistake I made was having a DM PC. My advice is live and learn, ask your players what they liked and what they hated. Since this was your first time they should allow you time to get up to speed cause it IS different on the other side of the screen.
Illion the Red 04-03-06, 01:25 PM	An axiom for first-time DMs: You will make mistakes. You will have to stop and double-check rules. Your players will get frustrated. You will get frustrated. You will get better - if you keep at it. The only thing I would have urged you to change is the level of the characters. I would never recommend a DM start their first DMing experience with characters above 2nd level. The higher the level, the more complex the characters and foes they face. I've been DMing since...well, let's not get into that...a really long time. I still make mistakes. I forget names. Heck, this weekend, I forgot the name of the primary deity in my own homebrew world. I had it in my DM notes, so it didn't take more then 3 seconds to look it up, but I still forgot it. What I have found to be the primary key to fun sessions is to find out what kind of game your players enjoy and tailor your games to fit it. Sometimes, this means that you shouldn't run that particular group due to incompatible styles. The primary skill (from my experience) to develop, is the ability to improvise. The PCs will never do what you expect better than 80% of the time. Learn how to roll with it and run it "on-the-fly" and you'll find that a sizable portion of your problems may just disappear.
erc1971 04-03-06, 01:35 PM	The fact that you have the capability to recognize you need improvement and not blame your players is the first step. This is the most important thing a person needs to realize in order to improve, so you are already half way there. To start, I would not worry much about fancy plots and other such things. Stick to the RAW, and limit the books a bit so you have less to worry about (like some idiot trying to make Pun-pun or something). Then, run a basic dungeon crawl. The dungeon crawl limits the world to the dungeon. Less things to worry about while you adjust to life behind the screen. Then, as things become more comfortable, you can expand a little bit at a time. Another helpful tool is to ask your players (who have more DM'ing experience than you) what you did right and what you did wrong. Find out what they enjoyed, and what they found boring or bland. Be open to suggestions, and over time you will improve.
Briccone 04-03-06, 01:57 PM	What do you think your weakness was? What did the others complain about or get upset by? How did your DMing differ from the previous DM? I would say my main weakness was that I was so tied to make sure that the adventure followed the book that I failed to improvise properly if the party didn't. Two main complaints that I heard was that I was a little two rough on the players (Just because you make the rolls to disintergrate a player, should you actually do it.) and the other was my main wekness, when the game started to get away from the module I couldn't improvise enough to get it back on track without causing the players to get frustrated. Because the DM has been playing for close to 30 years and DMing for 17 needless to say he puts on an excellent game. No one expected me to put on a game like him, but the game was no way near what we were all used to.
Illion the Red 04-03-06, 02:16 PM	Two main complaints that I heard was that I was a little two rough on the players (Just because you make the rolls to disintergrate a player, should you actually do it.) and the other was my main wekness, when the game started to get away from the module I couldn't improvise enough to get it back on track without causing the players to get frustrated. This is a tough one. Usually, my answer is *poof* - instant cloud of dust. The only time I would really break from the true result is if it would completely destroy an entire campaign. Having the entire campaign hinge on a single (or even a few) roll(s) of the dice is bad design to start, but even more so, is just asking for Murphy to come and slap you all upside the head and run off laughing hysterically. I also run my games (at least for now) without a DM screen. If the players want to see my rolls, they certainly can - and that really cuts the complaints on them being hit with criticals. An example from my campaign had a PC stabbed with a poisoned rapier by an assassin (OK, 3rd level rogue, but it was an assassination attempt). The rogue rolled a 19 on the attack - a threat, and then rolled a 4 on the confirmation roll. The PC was hit, but it was not a critical. The rogue rolled a grand total of 3 points of damage between sneak attack and weapon damage - yes absolute minimum. The kicker here, though, is that the PC failed both con saves and rolled max damage on each of the initial and secondary poison saves. She went from 13 Con to 1 Con over the course of one minute - and was down to negatives. If not for the rest of the party's heal checks to keep her alive until they got her to the temple, it would have been time for a new PC. I had set up the encounter so that the rogue would have a hard time surprising the PCs, but he managed to do so anyway. The PC won the initiative, so was only flatfooted for the surprise round - and that saved her life. This time the dice went both ways on me. After this event, the PCs decided to leave the city - for good. I had based all of my campaign preparation around them being in the city for a good long time. This left me in almost pure improvisation mode. (Guess that's what I get for almost killing off a PC before they made it to 3rd level).
Spike_Fightwicky 04-03-06, 02:19 PM	What do you think your weakness was? What did the others complain about or get upset by? How did your DMing differ from the previous DM? I would say my main weakness was that I was so tied to make sure that the adventure followed the book that I failed to improvise properly if the party didn't. Two main complaints that I heard was that I was a little two rough on the players (Just because you make the rolls to disintergrate a player, should you actually do it.) and the other was my main wekness, when the game started to get away from the module I couldn't improvise enough to get it back on track without causing the players to get frustrated. Because the DM has been playing for close to 30 years and DMing for 17 needless to say he puts on an excellent game. No one expected me to put on a game like him, but the game was no way near what we were all used to. Here's my thoughts: - As Illion mentioned, if it's your first time DMing, you should stick to low levels (preferably 1st or 2nd). At that level, monsters and players are alot simpler and easier to manage. - Your players should have cut you more slack. If they knew you were a 1st time DM without nearly as much experience in the system as they had, they should have been trying to help you out or give you pointers instead of getting angry or unhappy and leaving. - As for getting sidetracked on modules, that's just something you'll overcome with experience. Keep in mind, it WILL happen (PCs always do the last thing you think they will). When it happens, it's up to you to figure out what happens next, preferably without railroading them back onto the module. The easier you can adapt to sidetracking, the more natural the game will seem (until the PCs don't even know they've sidetracked). Here's a story for you: One of my friend on his first try DMing: None of us had much idea what was going on and we were being somewhat railroaded towards all of our next goals (he knew what was going on, but couldn't give us enough info). Eventually we got to a tribe bugbears we were supposed to get information from, but talks broke down and we all got in a large melee. The PCs (who were given too-powerful items for our level) beat them easily. We then went to the lead tribe village, and fought our way to their leader. Our wizard demanded their leader step down and let him take over. After another fight, we wiped them out. The DM, ended the game after that because he had no idea how to get us back on track and vehemently stated that he never wanted to DM again. Eventually he decided to try again. Following a similar theme, he had a huge complex story brewing in his head, but the players had next to no information on what was going on (and we kept getting items that were too powerful for our level). We blindly kept going until we ended up fighting a group of medusas, who TPKed the party. After this event, he again stated that that would be his last time DMing.
Briccone 04-03-06, 02:55 PM	That is one regret that the DM had. He said that an 11 - 13 level campaign was too much for my first time. Not only are the PC's powerful but so are the monsters. It was really hard to keep track of spell-like abilities that I never encountered before. Also, characters of that level are more apt to really change things up in a way the module does not anticipate.
DM_Firecracker 04-03-06, 03:32 PM	My first time of DMing was a complete nightmare. I had been roleplaying for way less time then anyone else at the table, I was nervous about making my speeches, forgot NPC names, and let the PCs bowl me over until I couldn't handle their characters anymore. I thought that I would never do it again! Now I have a different set of players, but the roles haven't changed a bit. You allways end up the munchkin, the rules-lawyer, the newbie, and the cheater. Now I understnad how to identify my players for their type, and taylor my games to make sure they have fun. I still forget names, I still get outwitted, and there are times that it is tough to handle, but the expierance is what makes the difference. Just work your way into it, try using some modules for a while, and then slowly start working your own creations into the world, and everyone will be having fun once you learn how to deal with them, and they learn how to deal with you.
sneak_Blast 04-03-06, 04:14 PM	I remember our first game. It was scary. Infact, it was so scary that I'm not even going to talk about it. ... .... Fine! I'll tell you. We had just learned about D&D and were very excited to start playing. We did not know at least half the rules due to the fact that we were all total newbs. One of our players volunteered to be the DM for our first session. At that session, we spent at least half the time (8 hour session) making up characters and such. I had a big fight with one of the players about who could be the main arcane caster. He had done some 3.0 D&D and he knew the power of sorcerers. He did not step down and I eventually became a druid. (which I am VERY happy for now. Druid = strong brokenage :D ) Anyway... we started the first dungeon with the DM who had printed it directly from WOTC. He had no plot, campaign, or anything of the like. Just several adventures and a dungeon. We did the dungeon which was not TOO bad. We ended up ignoring due to lack of info. half the rules, like hardness. We broke down 5 in. stone doors by chopping away at them with daggers. lol. We finished the dungeon and "went back to town". We didn't actually have a town, just a figurative place where we cashed in all our stuff. We were all somewhat bored at this point since we had been spending the majority of our session arguing and looking up rules. The DM decided to have us face a herd of centaurs for no apparent reason. We were like, "Um... they are going to kill us...ya...". Our DM said, "Don't worry... he he he." I was thinking this sucks. We ended up facing them based on the fact that we had determined that the DM could do ANYTHING he wanted to. I used obscuring mist and we argued about concealment rules. The centaurs ended up killing themselves because when they tried to hit us, they killed each other even though their arrows would never do that in one or two hits. At that point, we were extremely bored with the crappyness of the DM and we had to go anyway. We left and spent the rest of the afternoon looking up rules to prove other people wrong on various accounts. (arguement grudges, but hey, we learned the rules) If I hadn't liked D&D a lot in the first place, I would have probably quit right there and then. I was the DM the next time we played. I was a bit better, I mean, I had a plot and all, but since we still didn't know most of the rules, the campaign was not-a-so great. More on THAT next time if I feel like telling it. :rolleyes:
pres_man 04-03-06, 04:20 PM	My suggestion, try again, starting at level 1 with fairly new players (or players that have only played 3.x). Perhaps an experienced DM or two, but only if they are extremely patient and willing to allow you to make mistakes without pointing them out during the game. Basically experienced DMs should provide guidance outside of the game and provide support during the game. This is extremely difficult for many people because they have certain ideas of how things should be done. I would also suggest you ask yourself, why am I doing ____? Why do I think it should work that way? Don't be afraid to make an on the spot the decision, but make it clear that you'll reconsider the issue later and listen to the players' views. When in doubt usually it is best to lean in the players favor.
sneak_Blast 04-03-06, 04:43 PM	Well, right now, we are doing fine. That was just nightmares of DMs recalled. (thankfully ;))
JohnArbuckle 04-03-06, 07:29 PM	This was actually, my second time DMing. Now heres what happened: Me and my friends, play D&D on thurdays. I'm the DM, and my friends are the players. We're highschool freshman, and I'm kind of the scapegoat of the group. My players don't respect me, but I'm going to get them to. On the second adventure (the frist one went really well) I invited two other people, a friend from math class, and his girfriend, oth of which I've played D&D with before. The adventure takes off very slowly, with Dusty (math friend) interrupting the adventure constantly. After chastising him, Ivan (the fighter) tells me "I'm only saying that because I'm a *****y control freak, and wish you had control in real life, and a moron" not understanding his sudden in sulting nature, I told him "Ivan, stop insulting the DM, you're insults are unfound and stupid" then he poiuted and just quitted the game. He then began to act SO emo, that everyone else left. Then the other players said it was completely my fault, for instigating arguments. I told them all I wanted was a little respect. Rick (the ranger) said he respects me as much as any DM, but the other three said they could never respect me. Ivan left, and the next day he denied pouting.
Bruunwald 04-03-06, 07:52 PM	Let's take a quick trip back to 1981. It was about this time of the year, it was my very first game as a player, and I had no idea what I was doing. I was eleven years old and clueless. So I did not complain or balk when the DM allowed my 1st-level fighter to go into a ruin with his usual 14th-level party. My first walk through the first door resulted in an unseen spider biting my fighter (the beloved Testor, named after the paint), who instantly died. The others did nothing to bring me back. One of the more evil players snickered. I sat and watched them semi-play for a couple hours. I got the hint that this was a setup to discourage me from asking to play further... so I didn't. I grabbed another pal and started DMing for him a couple months later. In my complete ignorance, wanting nothing more than to play this game, but having no real example from which to draw, I systematically read off every statistics block for every creature that came up in the first two modules I ran. Finally, my pal mentioned, "Hey... uh... I don't think you're supposed to be reading those parts out loud. Probably it would be better if I didn't know how many hit points the monsters had." He had never played before, either, but definitely caught to at least that part a lot quicker than I did. :D I say, give yourself a break. You know you messed up. Kudos to you for being aware of this. Fight half won. Now forgive yourself. Start again at a lower level, as many have said. And when the players mess with the plot, go with it, no matter how goofy you think you may look in your ad libbing. The first few times they do it, you may seem flabbergasted and lost. You might come off as clueless. But in the doing, you will learn and adapt. Be prepared to be silly, but let go of your inhibition and fear. Fear kills, failure teaches.
Gnal 04-06-06, 08:42 AM	Hi all, I am the DM that Briccone took over for. Couple of comments, 1) Other than a half-dozen cons in the early 1990's (including GenCon twice), I have not *played* since the late 1980's! 2) I was so *giddy*(**) at getting the chance to play, that I really did set him up for failure by doing some things: a) 11th - 13th level characters. b) Since he doesn't have any modules, etc. I let him run the Istivin 3 magazine arc in Dungeon 117 - 119. c) This arc, if played RAW, and the PC's don't have the *correct* equipment can cause a TPK with bad rolls (for the PC's). :D My son, he and Briccone work at the same company, was his "rules-DM" for helping with the rules. It would have been a lot better if: 1) At *highest* the PC's were 3rd level. 2) It was a 1 magazine adventure (which usually takes 2 nights). Some of things that Briccone could have done better, but these usually come with time and experience: 1) Don't roll in the open. Since the PC's weren't doing anything stupid, I would have rolled the disintegrate behind the DM screen and commented on how lucky the monk got. (3 bad rolls!) 2) Should have had a method of getting the characters together at the beginning. We spent a lot of time on "why are we all here at this gate, not knowing each other". Even just an email stating, you all have adventured before and have come to Istivin to investigate rumours of....... 3) You were arguing with Chris about some rules/ways an NPC would act. Now, believe me, I know he can be a real pita when it comes to the rules, but you needed to either, heed his advice and move on, or just say let's talk later and move on. In this case he, IMHO, was correct. But in either case, it really took away from the game. 4) Don't let anyone play a CN barbarian! Don't take any of the above as being a slam on you. I've had 17 years to learn how to handle these kinds of things, and when I started it was with two groups, 1) a bunch of guys my age who really just wanted to get together and kill stuff, and 2) the boys, Chris and buddies, at age 14 who just wanted to get together and kill stuff, so since I didn't like killing PCs, even when they did stupid stuff, I just ran the games. It was only years later, that the group of guys changed to ones who actually liked to Role Play (some), and Chris and buddies out grew, kick in door - kill stuff - get treasure - repeat, phase of gaming. Right now, you need to play more of the character classes, especially an arcanist, and participate in more high level campaigns, before tackling something like this again, even at the early levels. -- Gnal (**) and being school girl giddy is a sight to see in a 58 year old, fat, balding grandfather!
dragor_shadowfury 04-06-06, 09:25 AM	one of my friends who is DM'ing too, started uot relly horrible. his errors was: never run a epic or near epic lv campaign when you're new (ECL 20) remember to read the statistics of monsters (one of the PCs defeated a golem with phantasmal killer) don't run a DM PC when you're new roll hidden when you're new, better too prepared than too little prepared but now he's an a bit-better-than-average DM, just because he kept trying
Dakini 04-11-06, 03:39 PM	I sympathize with your experience here. It is really hard DMing for the first time - especially DMing for players that have been successful DMs for many many years and know the rules better, etc. The only way to get through it is to just keep on truckin'! But you're going to have embarrasments and times you can't quickly react to some PC maneuver that's based on better knowledge than you have of the rules, etc. A lot of long-time DMs are eager for the chance to be players so are willing to put up with a first time DM's steep learning curve. Some however conveniently forget that they ever had problems DMing. I definately agree with the advice about running a lower-level party. Good luck on adventure #2. :)
DarthMarasmus 04-11-06, 06:17 PM	My first game was terrible. It was atrocious. I would even call it a travesty. Am I going to go into detail about it? Absolutely not because it was that bad. Let's just say that I broke nearly every rule in the DMG that a good DM follows. I railroaded, I deus ex machina-ed, I gave out way too cool of stuff to way too low of characters, so forth and so on. But, I am better now. I still tend to be a bit generous with powerful magic items (largely because I hate to be 10th level and still be swinging a stupid nonmagical sword!!), but I don't give out artifacts without a damn good reason (damn good in my eyes and they're almost always a homebrewed artifact, so no Hand or Eye of Vecna, etc.). My advice regarding rolls is this: Tell the players ahead of time that if they want to see your rolls, you want to see theirs. I go by the honor system: I don't watch your rolls, you don't watch mine. The reason I do this is two-fold: 1) I want the players to trust me, so I trust them first. Now, if they roll 10 crits in a row, I'm going to get a little suspicious, but otherwise, I take a laissez faire approach to the players and their die rolling methods. 2) I don't want them to watch so I can fudge rolls sometimes. Combat's no fun if nobody ever gets hit and it also really sucks if you can't hit what you're fighting.
Razieliffied 04-11-06, 11:52 PM	The first game I DM'd? 4th level. Two hours later. 28th Level. IT was pretty much 'just' hack and slash. 'you kill the monster'...'here's another one!' The last game I played with a bad DM? He was called dane. He led us half way across faerun in less then 20 minutes, dropped in every overpowering npc from the books, and had us die. 8 times. We dont let dane DM anymore.
Vacerious 04-12-06, 12:20 AM	My first time DM'ing, I was dumb enough to allow 3.0 edition psionics into the campaign and allow a campaign with 8 people. After the second session, that campaign went under. :D
DepthCharge 04-12-06, 12:38 AM	Although I'm sure this isn't the record, I have would have to assume it's close. I was the DM who couldn't say no. Most everyone I knew wanted to play, and so I figured, hey, why the hell not? I had 11 players. I looked in the DMG and discovered that CR's are intended for parties of 4. The words "Oh my" found their way to my lips. "That explains why any combat we do takes 4 hours." I had some vague notions of a plot, I drew up a world, called it 'Erth' (lame, I know), and let the PC's loose. The party Paladin took over, his noble lineage and phat stats pretty much leading the party around by the nose. In fact, the whole 'roll your stats' thing was insane because, of course, I had an inordinate number of folks who rolled up incredible characters. The Paladin, at like, 4th level, IIRC, bare-knuckle boxed a DIRE WOLF into submission (in order to make it into a mount). We may have reached level 5, I'm not sure. Eventually, I burned out under the sheer weight of that many players and the campaign spiraled off the face of the Erth (heh). Now, I'd like to think I've learned from my mistakes, but I'm still capable of making them. I've got a new campaign world, and let my players chose their stats (although in a wrong fashion that resulted in characters attributes that range from a 40-50 point buy), I've limited the party size to 5 players (which is tough enough to round everyone up for, you have an idea of the 11-player party was like). All in all though, it wasn't too terrible, but certainly educational.