DM Tips to other DMs

Serra_Angel · Post by **Serra_Angel** » Wed Oct 15, 2003 8:45 pm

Here's a tip. Always have some NPC (preferably epic level) to save the PC's asses if they do something stupid. Or use it to give them quests. When we asked our DM's NPC why he wanted us to do it, he said, "Because the deities won't allow me to do it" (he's the first archangel.... what the hell do you expect) and we are still going in that campiegn. having to play during lunch at high school is bad sometimes, such as when someone who is borrowing the MM forgets to bring it back.... (btw we are freshmen, and no we don't have cars). And, some of the PC's are stupid as hell. in the beginning, the cleric shot the fighter/wizard in the back with a composite longbow. then the fighter killed the cleric. damn it we lost our cleric lol. and preferably MEMORIZE the NPC's stats. it will save you lots of time. give them doomsday spells if you like. use them to save the PCs from the prismatic dragon they pissed off. lol

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 5:28 am

Originally posted by Serra_Angel
Here's a tip. Always have some NPC (preferably epic level) to save the PC's asses if they do something stupid. lol

Bad idea...
It will take the pleasure out of the game. Whatever the players do won't matter since there is this uber guy (or gall

) will save their butts. Besides, if they do something stupid, they deserve to die. It will make the game more exciting for them as they'll do anything to keep themselves from getting killed.

Kevka · Post by **Kevka** » Sat Oct 18, 2003 2:04 pm

If it's an emergancy , you can have NPC's jump in to help.

But ONLY help.

Have them heal the party a little or cast a spell like bless.

Then the players can finish off the badies themself.

Mattaeus · Post by **Mattaeus** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 10:36 pm

When I DM’d I stick to a few good rules

1. Never, and I mean NEVER let a player bring in a character from another game. Transferring over the name exp lvl are fine and a choice of one or 2 magic’s if required and reroll stats. The reason I say this is because some players (Munchkins) think that they should be the most powerful character in the party and be able to do what they want in the campaign and they cheat. To this day I really don’t understand why not having a powerful and all mighty toon is detrimental to ones psyche.

2. Supervise all character creations and rolls. Know one ever got 3 18 rolls in a row without me watching, and keep notes on character stats, magic, HPs and skills.

3. Keep notes! Have a log book, write everything down that’s important; like major NPCs, dates, hoards, unfinished quests, unresolved situations, and as stated in 2. The more organized you are the harder it is for that 5th lvl toon to say “What do you mean you don’t remember giving me that +10 Holy Defender of Demon Slaying??”

4. Giving exp for not only killing monsters but evading them or getting out of a tough situation. If you show the characters that there are other ways of getting exp without killing everything they see, they become more willing to Role-play.

5. Now on the other hand a well played monster can be a lot of fun. Try taking that single monster against the party and using you brain to try to defeat them, or take a small party of low lvl monsters and use tactics. Iv mad a party of 4 6th lvls squirm from ½ a dozen Orcs that had high ground as an advantage as well as 50 to 90 percent cover and using Bows.

6. Don’t give too much at once! Dragon hordes are fun but they usually give WAY too much. I know your saying you don’t have to roll what they tell you to in the book. But its fun to! Especially when they see there treasure melt befor them from one to many dragon breaths…..it easily turns that 40,000 gold and platinum (not to mention the 300,000 copper) into a shiny new floor for that damp dingy cave!! Saves for anything magical and any gems as well as percent for how much platinum/gold/silver/copper where destroyed. I usually roll 2d4x10 as a start and dwindle down from there. Besides! If they got all that gold where the hell would they put it!!

7. Colorful NPCs, and plots as well as a good story line are good ways to keep your players interested. If they are interested in the story and want to see what happens they need to play right? But try to remember that you are the story teller and they are the players in you world; what they do and how they act change what the world is like around them, and you can never know for sure what the players are going to do.

8. I believe in being fare and giving chances in the game. I rarely kill a party off with no way out. For instance I had a mid lvl party get surprised by a haunt, well after a lot of bad save through the party got whipped out! Not killed just paralyzed until they where finished draining them at which point they would become part of the undead. The party in question had lackeys…followers, which were back at camp. Even though they were not even half there level they did have a number of them. To be fair I let the party play them as they went to rescue the heroes and put there fate back into the players hands.

9. Now stupidity on the other hand! If your players think there immortal and do acts of utter stupidity then they should be punished! A pally walks into a bar. To show off to his friends in a over full bar he pulls out a knife (not proficient in it) and throws it into a table to mark his territory and proudly says “Well sit here!” Fumbling his roll he misses the table and with a loud shriek a peasant grabs his chest as blood spits forth from his mouth. Within moments the bar becomes silent with anger as the parts path to the table is blocked with onlookers…they see the peasant slump forward. (surprise roll) within seconds of the death a roar begins, a chair flies across the room as the patrons become enraged. *combat round* …….The pally lost his paladin hood and forced change of alignment. Another piece of stupidity was a young mage with a wish ring! (I love them!) Wished a dragon hoard to be teleported into his tower. He specified the floor above him….45thousand tones of copper/silver/gold/platinum (it was a multiple dragon hoard) suddenly appeared and filled the next 4 levels above him. He heard a rumble and felt the floor shift under him, as he stood there waiting for it to stop he seen that one of the support walls next to him was vibrating and cracking….suddenly with tremendous force the center beam explodes into shards. I turned to him and asked what he was going to do…he replied “I’m going to wait and see if it looks like the floors going to come down”….you can use you imagination for what happened LOL.

But most of all HAVE FUN. If your not having fun something has to change

drowassasin · Post by **drowassasin** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 11:25 pm

I always like to do what I call double DMing, which is where you get two people that work together on a storyline, then one DM presents the storyline as an adventure, and the other DM helps with details such as monsters, etc. because sometimes it can get confusing if you are trying to figure out what six people are doing as well as what the monsters are going to do in any situation. This may not work for everyone, but it really is worth a try. It has almost always worked in my group. Also, if the players are trying to take a break, let them break for a while, but eventually they either need to come back to the game or clean up. One more thing, don't continue an adventure your players are obviously bored in doing.
- "Aramil"
-The unkown

FilipeTeles · Post by **FilipeTeles** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 7:24 pm

Put famous characters in your game(like Halaster,Szass Tam)and try to continue your campaign without making the players do another char everytime.This is a lot boring........
Sometimes your players could have a misterious power but because of this power the have to flee everytime because people are tryng to kill him(like baldur's gate),don't make them another normal adventurer...........

VaniKoro · Post by **VaniKoro** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 8:29 am

1) Bring your players into the game by using props. It can really make the game seem real if instead of just telling your players they receive a blood stained scroll from the bishop, you actually hand them a blood stained scroll from the bishop. Use some calligraphy, age the paper, add water, fire, or blood stains as appropriate. You can give them a burnt map with dwarven runes on it that they have to figure out how to decipher (hired NPC for example, or maybe one of the group speaks that form of dwarvish?).

Serra_Angel wrote:
Here's a tip. Always have some NPC (preferably epic level) to save the PC's asses if they do something stupid. Or use it to give them quests.

Originally posted by Rob-hin
Bad idea...
It will take the pleasure out of the game. Whatever the players do won't matter since there is this uber guy (or gall ) will save their butts. Besides, if they do something stupid, they deserve to die. It will make the game more exciting for them as they'll do anything to keep themselves from getting killed.

Agreed.

Elgoras · Post by **Elgoras** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 5:43 pm

1. if players are just searching for treasure hide a valuble item and if they pick it up have it end up bing a animated object. Ex. under a table theres a stased mitheril long sword if player finds it have it be animatered object and lung at the played.

2. if the paty is fighting a battle and a player isn't helping have a assasen vine grab him from behide and if the players don't help him he dies but if they do help him a player gets slamed into a coner and gaged on

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Sun Apr 18, 2004 3:34 am

Originally posted by Elgoras
1. if players are just searching for treasure hide a valuble item and if they pick it up have it end up bing a animated object. Ex. under a table theres a stased mitheril long sword if player finds it have it be animatered object and lung at the played.

I planned something like this too, the whole room had to come alive. A golem, animated objects and a .... forgot the name (a sort of shapeshifter that looks like objects and uses sticky slime)
Unfortunately, the players were a bit beat up and I desided to only use a weak golem and the sifter, it was still pretty cool though.

Mulligan · Post by **Mulligan** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 12:21 am

Originally posted by Elgoras
1. if players are just searching for treasure hide a valuble item and if they pick it up have it end up bing a animated object. Ex. under a table theres a stased mitheril long sword if player finds it have it be animatered object and lung at the played.

2. if the paty is fighting a battle and a player isn't helping have a assasen vine grab him from behide and if the players don't help him he dies but if they do help him a player gets slamed into a coner and gaged on

1

Bad advice. Players should not search for treasure unless they are in an interesting, SAFE area or they have defeated some foes, but to PUNISH them for doing it are wrong IMO.

2

Very bad advice. If you do this many times you'll end up playing as DM without players..... If players don't help he DIES ? No Save ? No Escape ? No way of saying "i erred", "i'm back on track?". Don't go there....

I am a DM of 16 years now, and this thread is full of good advice, I'm also a player, and i've made lot's of bad descisions over the years, but my group is content, and that satifies me.

I just wan't to give a really horrible example of DM'ing, from when i was younger, with a crazy DM.

In one session we met both Jesus and Hitler and did the "Alice in Wonderland" adventure, all inside a spaceship that'd crashed. And when players complained he did one amazingly horrible thing; he took a candy in his mouth and rolled it around in an ashtray full of ash and promised 10.000 XP for anyone eating it !!

DON'T EVER GO THERE !!!

After this session i left for good and started my own game, 15 years back and that game (my) still runs. Occasionally i tire of beeing DM, then my world is open for the players to run mini-campaigns in, or we play modules that can fit anywhere. One of my best friend is an Amazing "Dark Sun" DM, but he don't know much about rules, so we help eachother.

The best advice i can give is:

1-) Listen to your players, their actions affect your game-world as much as it affects them.

2-) You are there to help others have fun. If you remember this it's easy to share the fun.

3-) Tweak the rules, always. When something doesn't work as you like, make it work, and be fair.

4-) When all players/party's agree something's broken, like the Ranger in 3E/3.5 D&D, fix it with your own tweaks, but be careful of unbalancing effects.

5-) Have the Player's actions affect the world; new spell invented ? unless secret have Mage-guilds inquire. Pc's did something really STUPID ? Let them suffer for their actions, but don't kill them, instead let them have a chance to remedy themselves ( a new quest ?).

6-) above all : Have Fun

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 11:20 am

Originally posted by Mulligan

In one session we met both Jesus and Hitler and did the "Alice in Wonderland" adventure, all inside a spaceship that'd crashed. And when players complained he did one amazingly horrible thing; he took a candy in his mouth and rolled it around in an ashtray full of ash and promised 10.000 XP for anyone eating it !!

Sounds like one freaky game.

Coming from this, another advice.

Be original, avoid cliche's as much as possible. Naturally, this is harder in the beginning, then cliche's aren't bad. When you get more into the game though, try to be as original as possible to avoid players (and DM's) getting bored. Remember, you can be as original as you can imagine, think outside the box. Play a game from ending to beginning for instance, whatever you can think of.

Emancipator · Post by **Emancipator** » Tue May 25, 2004 3:30 pm

I Agree that using props is ace when you can get them, especially weapons or McGuffins. They give a lot more effect when you can say "You see a sword that looks like...THIS" (Cue large amounts of fawning to see who gets to hold it first...)

I have a problem though, In my last campaign the PC's all more or less declared their intent to be heroes, fight the good fight etc. The first thing they do is to find the opening of the plot, leave the city, go to a farm and con an old man out of 200 GP. Later on they MURDER an unconscious goblin that one PC said he wanted to interrogate. They do the quest, then go back to the city where a PC insults a wizard (Who he was trying to buy a ring off).

By this point i am rather confused as to why they are doing what they are doing, so to add some "Justice" i make the ring cursed (Anything he tried to levitate with it stuck to it). He then complains that i am "victimising" him and can't see what he has done wrong (He killed the goblin and conned the man). I explained why I did what I did, and he agrees to stop being so harsh.

Next session, he kills a sleeping troll who did not wake up despite being shouted at and nudged. (The troll was wearing the livery of the castle they were in and was obviously a guard)

What am i supposed to do about this?

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Wed May 26, 2004 3:37 am

It's important that players know they just can't get away with everything.
What you did with the ring is a good example, he tried to con a man but got conned instead.

So if they kill a guard, I bet the king would be mighty angry. He sends his guards the get the PC's and brought for justice.

I have to say though, from your post it seams like your story is missing a obvious goal or direction (but you could simply not have mentioned it). Make sure the players know what to do otherwise they can go off and do strange things.

Emancipator · Post by **Emancipator** » Sun May 30, 2004 9:48 am

Doing random things isn't the problem, everyone does it from time to time, it's the fact that they are behaving like thieves and murderers after they told me that they wanted to be heroes.

I have asked them whether they want to play evil characters, but the answer is a unanimous NO. So, do I let them do evil things with Good characters or stop them?

(Another example from same campaign, they are arrested by the Lord of the city because they have broken several laws. They are let out on the condition that they accomplish a task for the Lord. As soon as they leave jail, they try to kidnap a bakery worker!)

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Mon May 31, 2004 4:53 am

If the players don't act like their allignment, change it.
Let a cleric or paladin fall from grace with it's good god for instance. Action = concequense

But to be honest, I'd say the lord has had his fill and sends a bunsh of stronger characters (paladins) to fight this evil. No one should be allowed too just kidnap anyone. This is the roleplaying solution.

You could also just quit the story and tell them this isn't working. This is the out of game solution.

If you want to continue this conversation, I suggest you start a thread about.

Halsy · Post by **Halsy** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 11:09 pm

If you really want to improve your stories/plots/conventions/archetypes I can't suggest enough that you read Joseph Campbell's, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 80-7995312)

A must have book which utilizes this to great effect is Christopher Voglers', The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers (and the classic Jungian archetypes) is (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... ce&s=books). It deals more with screenplays, but the premise is the same. In effect what you're producing is a pageant anyway.

You should find these two books will help your writing immesurably - and thus your game sessions. Understanding archetypes and common mythic elements will make your writing much more dynamic because you'll know much better how to use archetypes to better effect and how to avoid stereotyping characters in your writing and sessions.

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 3:10 pm

That's good advice.
Read books, I recommend:
- Feist
- Hobb
- Jordan
- Tolkien

Halsy · Post by **Halsy** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 5:32 pm

I'd actually reccomend staying away from narrative fiction as people tend to subconciously plagiarize it and it makes the adventure overly familiar. Any good writer worth his salt does a ton of non-fiction research so they can incorporate that knowledge into their fiction to make it that much more believable.

Apart from the books I mentioned above, there's a considerable amount of information online. Do a search for 'jungian archetypes' or 'writing archetypes' or 'archetypes in literature, and you'll find a plethora of knowledge.

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 2:51 am

I disagree.
Feist for instance used to be an d&d player himself untill he started wrinting. The writers I mentioned are all very good. Their books are all extremely well written fantasy which will only give you a good idea about what fantasy should be like. It can give you idea's for stories, characters and make you more experienced in the fantasy genre.

- Feist, Riftwar Saga
- Hobb, Farseer Saga
- Jordan, Wheel of time
- Tolkien, Lord of the Rings

tirann · Post by **tirann** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 9:17 pm

Emancipator...

Just a quick thought on your wayward character.

I agree with previous topics, change his alignment. But in doing so don't forget to use the rules to your advantage. Physical damage can always be meausred by the roll of a dice. Try adding psychological damage to the mix as well.

If your character (in the most basic of moral terms) sins, then repents, then sins, repents, sins etc, make the character confused, the effect being the same as if a high-level mage casts the spell Confusion on him/her. WITH NO SAVE.

If the character is 'confused' about their allignment, make it so. If they get really confused don't be afraid to threaten them with a loss of Wisdom. A permanent Wisdom -1 won't inspire a 'hero' to become more confused.

Doesn't do the trick and you want to get realy nasty? Impose harsher penalties. "You are so sonfused about your personal moral compass that it plays on your mind constantly. You can't help but be constantly thinking about it. You suffer an indefinate -1 constitution as a result of your constantly having to reassure yourself of your own path in life. You are predisposed to distraction and thus have a lesser chance of loking after your physical wellbeing."

A 'hero' with reduced Constitution. I gurantee he'll seek counselling ASAP.