Some Q's about DM's and everything around it

Drayton · Post by **Drayton** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:49 pm

Greetings ladies and gentelmen, Im Drayton and i have some questions about DM's. Im the local DM here, or soon to be at least, and ive been that for about.... say 4 days?(!). My group is made up by three of my friends and me ( and sometimes even my girlfriend tags along on a adventure, yes you may take that the wrong way ). Anyhow, lets get to the point here.

Im the groups natural " leader " in Dungeons and dragons so too speak, since im the oldest and spent the most time infront of the computer and got a thing for coming up with stories fast. We had about 3 adventures now, with both good times and awfully bad/silly/wierd encounters. I really enjoy beeing the DM most of the time, since the ide that you run a hole town or even a hole country instantly spawns different things i would love to see in it and tell about.
But i also envy my PC's when they make a highfive ( yes maybe its OOC , but whatever

) when they slay a tough foe or solve a dark mystery and adds XP and money to their evergrowing stack of wealth. YES, i know if you want to level and get stats your better of playing WOW or some other MMORPG but i like it anyway since it gets more personal on paper.

Oh dear i went out of topic again, hmm

Well, we tried with different DMs, my friends trying to make their storys and such and well..... i dont really get that feeling when their telling their stories and discribes the encounter we are facing. The fact that they never done anything like it is of course a big factor and with a little practise im sure they get better, but is there some tips or tricks we could use to ease up on the preasure you get by running an entire country? ( Or town witch also could prove a daunting task to a unexperied DM, such as myself and my friends.)

The next little thing :

When im the DM, i have no problem comming up with things or playing the NPC's, but the thing i DO have problems with is fights. For example when they enter a dungeon and starts fighting monsters, i instantly get bored and want to tell more tales and such. Is there some way i could spice up those encounters?

Hehe, this turned out to be quite a novel this post, but i figured i just might spill the beans

Thanks in advance, Drayton Greenbottle ( yes im planing on changeing the surname, any suggestions on a halfling surname? )

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:59 pm

Hmm, well first off, welcome!

Secondly, it seems you and your friends have a micro-managing problem. The thing to remember, everyone has their own preferences, wants, likes and dislikes. Some players like lots of killing and action instead of role-playing. Others like the opposite, and still others like a balance. Personally, I tend to run games where I go into detail with things that are important to the plot. For example, I won't go into detail describing a building unless it is important, or bait to distract from what is truly important. The same with NPC's. It works well in towns. You don't NEED to describe every tailer, inn, merchant, castle, peasant, etc in sight.

Third, the fights thing is all dependant on how the party wants things done really. I'd say, discuss it with them. Ask what they want, and work out something. You could always get into a descriptive, roleplaying type fight scene. Focusing more on the fun of it, than the dice and the numbers. As the DM, you can just decide when they hit or miss rather than using dice. Keep in mind, if you screw with combat too much, you may slow it down too far to keep it interesting. You may need to custom tailor how you do things in order to keep the game moving at a fast pace. No one wants to spend an hour at a single encounter.

I sometimes tend to quickly work out with the character sheets and the enemy stats the average chances to hit, save, and average damage that everyone has relating to each other. Rough averages, and then I do it all in my head. The players roll for themselves, but sometimes, it just works out to be more fun and exciting to see a quick result from the DM rather than watch him throw 30 dice when handling the 12 goblins that ambush the pary every round. That can be tricky though, as if the goblins constantly hammer the party good, they will probably get pissy and say you are a nasty, sadistic cheater of a DM.

Drayton · Post by **Drayton** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 9:10 pm

Well, that was some really god feeback! Love to see a forum that really " works " and thanks for the warm greetings

Well, infact i also tend to just say like " you see some normal housing " and such, with a little twich sometimes to make it interesting. Hmm those things about the combat really sounds interesting! Theese days we just roll, roll ,roll, roll, roll, roll Etc etc etc X Forever, and we really get the feeling " GET IT OVER WITH!!!! ", thats a really good tip, im gonna try it on the next game after some thinking first of course.

And yes, we DO have a mix in what each of the PC's like in a adventure. We got David, hes the groups barbarian ( although he plays the druid!! ), he tends to go away by his own, never bending for something that looks dangerous. We got Joel, hes the one that likes to draw theese pictures for us with words to describe whats hes doing and sometimes its not really that interesting to the rest of the group hehe

And my girlfriend, whos the roleplayer of the group ( strangely enough ! ) She LOVES making up history for her char and add small tweaks and other interesting stuff

But the rules in D&D swamps me! Its so much and i dont really feel like reading the Dungeon master book for a whole day ( i probly forget 50% anyways!!! ) :S

( OH, and sorry if my english is kinda bad

not my native language )

Thrandir · Post by **Thrandir** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:33 am

Hi Drayton,
Just joined the forums myself and found your post

The only advice I would give is go with the flow. I've been playing DnD since 1979 (Yes I'm an old gamer) and my group use aspects from all incarnations of DnD plus ideas etc.. from other RPG's and turn them into a set of house rules, which is available to all members of the group.

I do recommend reading the PHB & DMG though, read them in small sections at a time and if it sounds good for your style and group then use it if not mod it to suit or just don't use it. I still read the various 'rules' books I have and often think "hey I like that idea now" and I put it to the rest of group. We discuss it, tweak it or get rid of it depending on the consensus of the group. The others also do the same and over a period of time we have a commonly accepted interpretation of the 'rules' for our group.

If your having fun then there is really no problem.