Am I a bad DM? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Am I a bad DM? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
The_Fan
04-26-05, 07:24 AM I realized something last week that few people should ever be forced to admit: I can't run my own adventures.

Oh, I'm good at modules. I can add my own little spice to them without really changing anything. As an example, one time I ran "Queen with the Burning Eyes" from Dungeon, and after killing the muggers the PCs realized they needed to do something with the bodies. Thinking quickly, they started hauling them over to the pool of lava and tossing them in. Took them several trips. On the third trip, they ran into two Boromar halflings tossing a dwarf in who said, "We didn't see nothin' if you didn't see nothin'!"

When I run a module, my adventures are filled with such little moments like that. However, when I run my own adventures, I'm lucky to even have a coherent plot. Often it ends up as a few random things that happen. The players do something entirely unexpected and random, ignoring what seems like obvious plot hooks to me in favor of minor details I attempt to throw out for flavor. Encounters I thought would be easy turn out to be near-TPKs, encounters I thought would be hard turn out to be a cakewalk.

Worse, I get so nervous I can hardly breathe sometimes. I'm one of those people who, at a funeral, would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. When I run a module, I have no problem. I already know what's likely to happen, I just have to add in the details. When I have to do both, I choke.

Am I a bad DM? Is there any advice you could give me to help me out, or should I just stick to modules?
sherretz
04-26-05, 08:10 AM You may want to ask this question in the "What's a DM To Do?" section. You'll get more and better answers overall.

Some quick advice is as follows:

Plan as little of the adventure as possible. The less you plan, the less of a chance there is that the PCs will ignore your obvious plot hooks and plod on endlessly. Just get a general idea of what you want to accomplish in the adventure, make up some NPCs, and go nuts.

A good example: You want the PCs to fight some undead, so you decide to use the town's graveyard as the adventure point. You can add in flavor like people in the town seeing their brother for the first time in six years; after he died. Or, you can have the PCs be summoned by the mayor to look into reports of disturbed and empty graves at the graveyard. If you just use minor hooks and you know the undead they are going to fight, then go from there. Leave it up to the PCs whether they want to investigate why these people are coming back to life; and who is recruiting them for an undead army.

If you could give some examples of what you tried and it didn't work, then we can help you more. Also, use the CR in the Monster Manual(s) as a guide for what you should pit your PCs against in battle. If you read up on CR in the MMs, it should help you to scale encounters appropriately. Also, if the "difficult" encounters that turn out to be cakewalks are the PCs taking on NPCs, then make the NPCs tougher and map out a strategy ahead of time.
The_Fan
04-26-05, 08:10 AM erk...wrong forum. Sorry. Thought I HAD posted this there...this is what I get for posting without sleep.

And as for your advice...yeah, I already do that. I've studied the CR rules extensively to get a handle on it. I try to take the adventure to them, but they flee from it. For example, I was trying to tie up a loose end from Grasp of the Emerald Claw with Xulo. I dropped hints everywhere that could have led them to anything having to do with this adventure.

So what do they decide to do?

Go to Xen'Drik and wander until they find a temple to loot.

I had to basically stop and ask them why they were doing that. Apparently, they thought that's what I wanted them to do. They never misinterpret me like that when I do a module.

Anyway, I'll repost this on the other forum after I've gotten some rest.
Danahan
04-26-05, 08:22 AM I totally agree. When I DM, I improvise a majority of the adventure and never have problems with it. Most of the time I draw the dungeon map as the PCs are exploring it. All of it out of the whim with no problems. The Number One Rule of DMing is to never believe that your PCs will do what you want them to, because chances have it, they will do something completely different. Throwing them good adventure hooks doesn't necessarily mean that they will take them. You said, that sometimes battles that you want to be hard for your PCs end up being cakewalk, well you are the DM, God, so you can do whatever you want. If the PCs kill a boss easily for an example, give him extra hp, so that he dies when you want him to, lol. Sometimes I do that one. PCs land the finishing blow on a boss and I give him an exta 10 hp so he can last longer and then when he gets attacked next round I give him another 10 hp. He will finally die when I see fit.
Judging Eagle
04-26-05, 11:17 AM I once pitted a pair of ogres agaisnt a group of level 1 PCs.

The orges were sort of walking down the road and asked if the PCs were "tough."

Sure enough one of them said they were, and the orges (who were looking for tough stuff to fight, but weren't sure what qualified) attacked.

One of the orges bull-rushed a the dwarven cleric to get to the ranger in the back who had said that they were tough while the other charged the fighter (who promptly got enlarged); the party bard and his formian older 'sister' helped the fighter and the rogue flanked both ogres and started to sneak-attack w/ her bow (yes, an 8~ PC party).

Soon enough the PCs had killed one ogre and the last one started to run away (with under 10 hp), and the ranger got lucky, critted him and shot it through the neck and killed it.

After that I realized that I have to throw much higher CR's at my group (at level 3 I surprised them with a mountain bullete [cr 7~] and the two wizard's three scorching rays did over half the damage (one roll was nearly maxed, 3 6s and a 5 on 4D6 -_-).

I'd reccomend doing the following, run a few adventures, read a few hundred (yes, and even that won't be enough) good non-DnD/fantasty/sci-fi/tom clancy (i'm a real big sci-fi fan but there's tons of crap books so by giving you a broad sweep of what not to read, it should help) to get a feel for how people tend to act; after you've got an idea of how people act, have people approach the party (adventurers aren't unheard of, so ppl will approach them with business proposals) and give them a rough idea of what they need to do.

After they've got themselves established somewhere, or state that they'd like to do something or that they'd like to go somewhere or meet someone, start thinking of a way to get them to do that and write down notes on what they'd have to do, who they'd talk to, etc. etc.

Right now I'm running a whole campaign in a home-brewed world using a single adventure from an old dungeoun as the whole spring-off point. The PCs went from looking into a keep that was for sale, to going into the mountains to establish a mine to haul stone with the aid of 'liberated' kobolds (however the PCs favour their goblin servants and soldiers, the kobolds they simply treat well in exchange for having them work in a mine).
Gargs454
04-26-05, 12:45 PM The mere fact that you are asking this question indicates that you are not a bad DM. As for designing your own adventures, well its one of the more difficult aspects of DM'ing. Here are a few thoughts off the top of my head though to see if that helps.

1. Ask yourself why the PC's don't seem to take your plot hooks in your own adventures, but do in the published ones. Is it because your hooks are vague? Is it because in the published adventures you don't leave them any alternatives?

2. If you are having trouble getting the PC's to grab a hook, there really is nothing wrong with throwing in a random encounter that is designed to drop the hook right on their heads. An example could be something along the lines of a child in distress in the streets who is running from somebody. When the PC's finally catch up to him (after dispatching the pursuers perhaps), the child then tells how he accidentally saw something horrible at (insert dungeon locale here). If the PC's can't catch that hook, then they just aren't trying. Note this isn't even railroading since all along you have given them their choice.

3. Ask yourself why you are able to adapt better in published adventures. What is it about the published adventures that is different from yours? It could be that the published adventures are so thoroughly written and organized that its easy to follow. Maybe you don't give yourself enough notes and you are trying to wing too much stuff on the fly already. Perhaps the published adventures have little sidebars with ideas for side encounters, or perhaps its just that you are too nervous when running your own work and you clam up. If the latter is the case, then the only real remedy is to keep at it. Keep trying new adventures and hopefully you will get more comfortable. Talk to your players after each session to learn what they like and dislike, this will help you produce an adventure that is even more enjoyable for them.

4. Have prepared lists for names of NPC's and possible random events (like the halflings tossing the dwarf into the lava). If you have it written down already, it makes it a lot easier to come up with during the game.

5. Try adapting a published adventure. This will give you a decent idea for pacing, just change the monsters in the encounters and change the plot a little. With Forge of Fury for instance, you can make the place overrun with Githyanki or Drow (with appropriate CR adjustments of course), then change the history of the mountain to suit your needs, and maybe alter the layout a little. Do it right, and the players may not even realize what you have done.

6. As for difficulty of the encounters. One of the things with D&D is that every encounter has the potential to be really easy or really difficult for the party. The very nature of dice rolls makes this so. If the party starts out with 4 crits in a row (which I have seen happen) chances are they are going to have a good time of it. If on the other hand, they can't roll above a 2 for the life of them, then no matter what they're facing, they are likely to have trouble. Also, if an encounter seems to have been too easy for the party, check and make sure you played the encounter to the best of its abilities. Make sure the monsters/NPCs/etc. use all of the tools available to them. Wizards should be casting spells and staying out of melee range, rogues should be flanking, mind flayers should be dominating and using previously dominated minions as fodder.

Personally, I find that I am the type of person who needs a lot of things spelled out already. I don't tend to be very good at improvising. However, every DM is different. Having things planned out though doesn't mean that you are screwed when the party doesn't do what you expect them to do. Just because you mention that there is a "terrible dungeon to the North" doesn't mean that there can't be a "Cursed temple to the South". Though you do need to be careful that it doesn't become railroading. One way to avoid the appearance of railroading is to limit the flow of information. If you do not describe things overly much, then the PC's won't know that you just repositioned the dungeon . . . though you do need to be prepared to improvise should they later decide to go back to the original hookpoint.

Also, if you mention that a cult has taken over a dungeon to the north, there is nothing to say that the cult hasn't spread further than anyone realized and also corrupted the temple to the South. Placing a letter between the cult leaders in the southern dungeon then makes it clear to the party that this is a growing organization.

As I stated you need to be careful when doing this because it can lead to railroading, but hopefully if you lay the hooks right, you won't need to do this anyway. In my experience, most players are dying for a reason to adventure and will quickly jump on a plot hook.

As for your Xen'drik example, go back and ask your players why they thought you wanted them to go there. Perhaps you said something that you didn't realize or you may have mispoke at one point. It certainly sounds as though the party is trying to cooperate with you, so make sure you find out why they thought what they did.
On_the_wings_of_TPK
04-26-05, 03:45 PM I realized something last week that few people should ever be forced to admit: I can't run my own adventures.

Oh, I'm good at modules. I can add my own little spice to them without really changing anything. As an example, one time I ran "Queen with the Burning Eyes" from Dungeon, and after killing the muggers the PCs realized they needed to do something with the bodies. Thinking quickly, they started hauling them over to the pool of lava and tossing them in. Took them several trips. On the third trip, they ran into two Boromar halflings tossing a dwarf in who said, "We didn't see nothin' if you didn't see nothin'!"

When I run a module, my adventures are filled with such little moments like that. However, when I run my own adventures, I'm lucky to even have a coherent plot. Often it ends up as a few random things that happen. The players do something entirely unexpected and random, ignoring what seems like obvious plot hooks to me in favor of minor details I attempt to throw out for flavor. Encounters I thought would be easy turn out to be near-TPKs, encounters I thought would be hard turn out to be a cakewalk.

Worse, I get so nervous I can hardly breathe sometimes. I'm one of those people who, at a funeral, would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. When I run a module, I have no problem. I already know what's likely to happen, I just have to add in the details. When I have to do both, I choke.

Am I a bad DM? Is there any advice you could give me to help me out, or should I just stick to modules?

I've bolded the cuase of what i'm guessing is 90% of your problems. From the sounds of things you are a fine DM you make mods fun and interesting. Thusly the players are having fun. No-one can/should ask more of you.

However when it comes to home brew adventures, you seem to lack confidence in yourself. Sure you can be confident that a mod will work right. Some-one else wrote it, even if it sucks it is still not your fualt. But a home made mod, now that is something different. Everything is on you, you wrote it and your DMing it. What you need to do is have enough confidence in yourself, that you can trust in yourself that every mod you run will be good. And if by chance you happen to have a bad session, well everyone has an off day.

Perhaps some oritory, or public speaking courses may help you. Something for you to over come your lack of confedence in yourself.

goo'luck with'er
Ut-Napishtim
04-27-05, 01:08 AM Perhaps some oritory, or public speaking courses may help you. Something for you to over come your lack of confedence in yourself.

Sound advice there. You know back when I was in high school Speech was a mandatory class. That's probably a good place to start, and then you can build on that. If your school offers it anyway.
Head_PC 1
04-27-05, 02:49 AM If the PCs have no problem with you just running modules, youve got nothing to worry about. If they demand that you make something different and you cant, then youll just have to let someone else DM for a while, maybe you could even learn from that person. Just keep doing your thing, eventually youll have the confidence and ability to go it alone. :)
MageofMyth
04-27-05, 10:34 AM Having played with The Fan in a d20 Modern game, I feel qualified to give some advice. I don�t seem to remember having any problem following your stories or figuring out what to do.

However I think the real problem is your group of players. I have personally had more than one of them say to me that they enjoy screwing with you. One said that she was going to see how quickly she could mess up your game. They don�t really seem to treat you as a friend, more as a toy to play with. I believe that with different players it would be easier for you to calm down, and things would work better.

But this is just my opinion.
The_Fan
04-27-05, 02:06 PM Having played with The Fan in a d20 Modern game, I feel qualified to give some advice. I don�t seem to remember having any problem following your stories or figuring out what to do.

However I think the real problem is your group of players. I have personally had more than one of them say to me that they enjoy screwing with you. One said that she was going to see how quickly she could mess up your game. They don�t really seem to treat you as a friend, more as a toy to play with. I believe that with different players it would be easier for you to calm down, and things would work better.

But this is just my opinion.

I remember that. And now said player is happily on another continent. I hope it stays that way for a very, very long time.
MageofMyth
04-27-05, 02:53 PM Well then one player that said that out of at least three is gone. But you still have the other two.

Did we get all your hints in the Modern Game?

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
The_Fan 04-26-05, 07:24 AM	I realized something last week that few people should ever be forced to admit: I can't run my own adventures. Oh, I'm good at modules. I can add my own little spice to them without really changing anything. As an example, one time I ran "Queen with the Burning Eyes" from Dungeon, and after killing the muggers the PCs realized they needed to do something with the bodies. Thinking quickly, they started hauling them over to the pool of lava and tossing them in. Took them several trips. On the third trip, they ran into two Boromar halflings tossing a dwarf in who said, "We didn't see nothin' if you didn't see nothin'!" When I run a module, my adventures are filled with such little moments like that. However, when I run my own adventures, I'm lucky to even have a coherent plot. Often it ends up as a few random things that happen. The players do something entirely unexpected and random, ignoring what seems like obvious plot hooks to me in favor of minor details I attempt to throw out for flavor. Encounters I thought would be easy turn out to be near-TPKs, encounters I thought would be hard turn out to be a cakewalk. Worse, I get so nervous I can hardly breathe sometimes. I'm one of those people who, at a funeral, would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. When I run a module, I have no problem. I already know what's likely to happen, I just have to add in the details. When I have to do both, I choke. Am I a bad DM? Is there any advice you could give me to help me out, or should I just stick to modules?
sherretz 04-26-05, 08:10 AM	You may want to ask this question in the "What's a DM To Do?" section. You'll get more and better answers overall. Some quick advice is as follows: Plan as little of the adventure as possible. The less you plan, the less of a chance there is that the PCs will ignore your obvious plot hooks and plod on endlessly. Just get a general idea of what you want to accomplish in the adventure, make up some NPCs, and go nuts. A good example: You want the PCs to fight some undead, so you decide to use the town's graveyard as the adventure point. You can add in flavor like people in the town seeing their brother for the first time in six years; after he died. Or, you can have the PCs be summoned by the mayor to look into reports of disturbed and empty graves at the graveyard. If you just use minor hooks and you know the undead they are going to fight, then go from there. Leave it up to the PCs whether they want to investigate why these people are coming back to life; and who is recruiting them for an undead army. If you could give some examples of what you tried and it didn't work, then we can help you more. Also, use the CR in the Monster Manual(s) as a guide for what you should pit your PCs against in battle. If you read up on CR in the MMs, it should help you to scale encounters appropriately. Also, if the "difficult" encounters that turn out to be cakewalks are the PCs taking on NPCs, then make the NPCs tougher and map out a strategy ahead of time.
The_Fan 04-26-05, 08:10 AM	erk...wrong forum. Sorry. Thought I HAD posted this there...this is what I get for posting without sleep. And as for your advice...yeah, I already do that. I've studied the CR rules extensively to get a handle on it. I try to take the adventure to them, but they flee from it. For example, I was trying to tie up a loose end from Grasp of the Emerald Claw with Xulo. I dropped hints everywhere that could have led them to anything having to do with this adventure. So what do they decide to do? Go to Xen'Drik and wander until they find a temple to loot. I had to basically stop and ask them why they were doing that. Apparently, they thought that's what I wanted them to do. They never misinterpret me like that when I do a module. Anyway, I'll repost this on the other forum after I've gotten some rest.
Danahan 04-26-05, 08:22 AM	I totally agree. When I DM, I improvise a majority of the adventure and never have problems with it. Most of the time I draw the dungeon map as the PCs are exploring it. All of it out of the whim with no problems. The Number One Rule of DMing is to never believe that your PCs will do what you want them to, because chances have it, they will do something completely different. Throwing them good adventure hooks doesn't necessarily mean that they will take them. You said, that sometimes battles that you want to be hard for your PCs end up being cakewalk, well you are the DM, God, so you can do whatever you want. If the PCs kill a boss easily for an example, give him extra hp, so that he dies when you want him to, lol. Sometimes I do that one. PCs land the finishing blow on a boss and I give him an exta 10 hp so he can last longer and then when he gets attacked next round I give him another 10 hp. He will finally die when I see fit.
Judging Eagle 04-26-05, 11:17 AM	I once pitted a pair of ogres agaisnt a group of level 1 PCs. The orges were sort of walking down the road and asked if the PCs were "tough." Sure enough one of them said they were, and the orges (who were looking for tough stuff to fight, but weren't sure what qualified) attacked. One of the orges bull-rushed a the dwarven cleric to get to the ranger in the back who had said that they were tough while the other charged the fighter (who promptly got enlarged); the party bard and his formian older 'sister' helped the fighter and the rogue flanked both ogres and started to sneak-attack w/ her bow (yes, an 8~ PC party). Soon enough the PCs had killed one ogre and the last one started to run away (with under 10 hp), and the ranger got lucky, critted him and shot it through the neck and killed it. After that I realized that I have to throw much higher CR's at my group (at level 3 I surprised them with a mountain bullete [cr 7~] and the two wizard's three scorching rays did over half the damage (one roll was nearly maxed, 3 6s and a 5 on 4D6 -_-). I'd reccomend doing the following, run a few adventures, read a few hundred (yes, and even that won't be enough) good non-DnD/fantasty/sci-fi/tom clancy (i'm a real big sci-fi fan but there's tons of crap books so by giving you a broad sweep of what not to read, it should help) to get a feel for how people tend to act; after you've got an idea of how people act, have people approach the party (adventurers aren't unheard of, so ppl will approach them with business proposals) and give them a rough idea of what they need to do. After they've got themselves established somewhere, or state that they'd like to do something or that they'd like to go somewhere or meet someone, start thinking of a way to get them to do that and write down notes on what they'd have to do, who they'd talk to, etc. etc. Right now I'm running a whole campaign in a home-brewed world using a single adventure from an old dungeoun as the whole spring-off point. The PCs went from looking into a keep that was for sale, to going into the mountains to establish a mine to haul stone with the aid of 'liberated' kobolds (however the PCs favour their goblin servants and soldiers, the kobolds they simply treat well in exchange for having them work in a mine).
Gargs454 04-26-05, 12:45 PM	The mere fact that you are asking this question indicates that you are not a bad DM. As for designing your own adventures, well its one of the more difficult aspects of DM'ing. Here are a few thoughts off the top of my head though to see if that helps. 1. Ask yourself why the PC's don't seem to take your plot hooks in your own adventures, but do in the published ones. Is it because your hooks are vague? Is it because in the published adventures you don't leave them any alternatives? 2. If you are having trouble getting the PC's to grab a hook, there really is nothing wrong with throwing in a random encounter that is designed to drop the hook right on their heads. An example could be something along the lines of a child in distress in the streets who is running from somebody. When the PC's finally catch up to him (after dispatching the pursuers perhaps), the child then tells how he accidentally saw something horrible at (insert dungeon locale here). If the PC's can't catch that hook, then they just aren't trying. Note this isn't even railroading since all along you have given them their choice. 3. Ask yourself why you are able to adapt better in published adventures. What is it about the published adventures that is different from yours? It could be that the published adventures are so thoroughly written and organized that its easy to follow. Maybe you don't give yourself enough notes and you are trying to wing too much stuff on the fly already. Perhaps the published adventures have little sidebars with ideas for side encounters, or perhaps its just that you are too nervous when running your own work and you clam up. If the latter is the case, then the only real remedy is to keep at it. Keep trying new adventures and hopefully you will get more comfortable. Talk to your players after each session to learn what they like and dislike, this will help you produce an adventure that is even more enjoyable for them. 4. Have prepared lists for names of NPC's and possible random events (like the halflings tossing the dwarf into the lava). If you have it written down already, it makes it a lot easier to come up with during the game. 5. Try adapting a published adventure. This will give you a decent idea for pacing, just change the monsters in the encounters and change the plot a little. With Forge of Fury for instance, you can make the place overrun with Githyanki or Drow (with appropriate CR adjustments of course), then change the history of the mountain to suit your needs, and maybe alter the layout a little. Do it right, and the players may not even realize what you have done. 6. As for difficulty of the encounters. One of the things with D&D is that every encounter has the potential to be really easy or really difficult for the party. The very nature of dice rolls makes this so. If the party starts out with 4 crits in a row (which I have seen happen) chances are they are going to have a good time of it. If on the other hand, they can't roll above a 2 for the life of them, then no matter what they're facing, they are likely to have trouble. Also, if an encounter seems to have been too easy for the party, check and make sure you played the encounter to the best of its abilities. Make sure the monsters/NPCs/etc. use all of the tools available to them. Wizards should be casting spells and staying out of melee range, rogues should be flanking, mind flayers should be dominating and using previously dominated minions as fodder. Personally, I find that I am the type of person who needs a lot of things spelled out already. I don't tend to be very good at improvising. However, every DM is different. Having things planned out though doesn't mean that you are screwed when the party doesn't do what you expect them to do. Just because you mention that there is a "terrible dungeon to the North" doesn't mean that there can't be a "Cursed temple to the South". Though you do need to be careful that it doesn't become railroading. One way to avoid the appearance of railroading is to limit the flow of information. If you do not describe things overly much, then the PC's won't know that you just repositioned the dungeon . . . though you do need to be prepared to improvise should they later decide to go back to the original hookpoint. Also, if you mention that a cult has taken over a dungeon to the north, there is nothing to say that the cult hasn't spread further than anyone realized and also corrupted the temple to the South. Placing a letter between the cult leaders in the southern dungeon then makes it clear to the party that this is a growing organization. As I stated you need to be careful when doing this because it can lead to railroading, but hopefully if you lay the hooks right, you won't need to do this anyway. In my experience, most players are dying for a reason to adventure and will quickly jump on a plot hook. As for your Xen'drik example, go back and ask your players why they thought you wanted them to go there. Perhaps you said something that you didn't realize or you may have mispoke at one point. It certainly sounds as though the party is trying to cooperate with you, so make sure you find out why they thought what they did.
On_the_wings_of_TPK 04-26-05, 03:45 PM	I realized something last week that few people should ever be forced to admit: I can't run my own adventures. Oh, I'm good at modules. I can add my own little spice to them without really changing anything. As an example, one time I ran "Queen with the Burning Eyes" from Dungeon, and after killing the muggers the PCs realized they needed to do something with the bodies. Thinking quickly, they started hauling them over to the pool of lava and tossing them in. Took them several trips. On the third trip, they ran into two Boromar halflings tossing a dwarf in who said, "We didn't see nothin' if you didn't see nothin'!" When I run a module, my adventures are filled with such little moments like that. However, when I run my own adventures, I'm lucky to even have a coherent plot. Often it ends up as a few random things that happen. The players do something entirely unexpected and random, ignoring what seems like obvious plot hooks to me in favor of minor details I attempt to throw out for flavor. Encounters I thought would be easy turn out to be near-TPKs, encounters I thought would be hard turn out to be a cakewalk. Worse, I get so nervous I can hardly breathe sometimes. I'm one of those people who, at a funeral, would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. When I run a module, I have no problem. I already know what's likely to happen, I just have to add in the details. When I have to do both, I choke. Am I a bad DM? Is there any advice you could give me to help me out, or should I just stick to modules? I've bolded the cuase of what i'm guessing is 90% of your problems. From the sounds of things you are a fine DM you make mods fun and interesting. Thusly the players are having fun. No-one can/should ask more of you. However when it comes to home brew adventures, you seem to lack confidence in yourself. Sure you can be confident that a mod will work right. Some-one else wrote it, even if it sucks it is still not your fualt. But a home made mod, now that is something different. Everything is on you, you wrote it and your DMing it. What you need to do is have enough confidence in yourself, that you can trust in yourself that every mod you run will be good. And if by chance you happen to have a bad session, well everyone has an off day. Perhaps some oritory, or public speaking courses may help you. Something for you to over come your lack of confedence in yourself. goo'luck with'er
Ut-Napishtim 04-27-05, 01:08 AM	Perhaps some oritory, or public speaking courses may help you. Something for you to over come your lack of confedence in yourself. Sound advice there. You know back when I was in high school Speech was a mandatory class. That's probably a good place to start, and then you can build on that. If your school offers it anyway.
Head_PC 1 04-27-05, 02:49 AM	If the PCs have no problem with you just running modules, youve got nothing to worry about. If they demand that you make something different and you cant, then youll just have to let someone else DM for a while, maybe you could even learn from that person. Just keep doing your thing, eventually youll have the confidence and ability to go it alone. :)
MageofMyth 04-27-05, 10:34 AM	Having played with The Fan in a d20 Modern game, I feel qualified to give some advice. I don�t seem to remember having any problem following your stories or figuring out what to do. However I think the real problem is your group of players. I have personally had more than one of them say to me that they enjoy screwing with you. One said that she was going to see how quickly she could mess up your game. They don�t really seem to treat you as a friend, more as a toy to play with. I believe that with different players it would be easier for you to calm down, and things would work better. But this is just my opinion.
The_Fan 04-27-05, 02:06 PM	Having played with The Fan in a d20 Modern game, I feel qualified to give some advice. I don�t seem to remember having any problem following your stories or figuring out what to do. However I think the real problem is your group of players. I have personally had more than one of them say to me that they enjoy screwing with you. One said that she was going to see how quickly she could mess up your game. They don�t really seem to treat you as a friend, more as a toy to play with. I believe that with different players it would be easier for you to calm down, and things would work better. But this is just my opinion. I remember that. And now said player is happily on another continent. I hope it stays that way for a very, very long time.
MageofMyth 04-27-05, 02:53 PM	Well then one player that said that out of at least three is gone. But you still have the other two. Did we get all your hints in the Modern Game?