Despite the quests to rid the crypts of a hag, find rest for a ghost below a manor's cellar, and discover what evil makes the town fear the monastery, they decided to extort an old lady and kill some guards, so they are in jail. Luckily, I was prepared with some quests in case they ended up in jail.
matthewshimabuku Any possibility that the lady was secretly a hag? :D But yeah, that has happened to every planner. Now you oc have the option to give them a mission by judge/sheriff "to repent" by clearing the Evil from somewhere. Please tell us how did it continue anyway!
The rogue and druid worked with the standing lord of the town to find incriminating evidence against the head priest who, due to his status and the town's size, had jurisdiction over sentencing criminals. The standing lord offered the free members a key to the barracks to flee, but the remained, and when their jailed allies where taken for public punishment, the free members, standing lord, and sheriff confronted the priest. Battle started and the party saved the Lord and sheriff from the corrupt priest and his followers, and where pardoned.
I feel like I am both a "Preparer" and an "Improviser" at the same time. I usually have the "big picture" thought out, and changing/delivering/altering it on the spot as necessary.
I do the same thing. I write some notes on branching pathways the party might take, flesh out a few encounters and characters for each one, and improvise the rest. I always have DMing tools open on my laptop to help me with everything else. One thing I do that saves me some writing time is recycle things the party didn't end up doing into the next session, such as bypassed encounters, characters, or traps.
Exactly, it would be a shame if they missed something really cool. So, if the time feels right, I bring back the old encounter to perhaps drive the plot a bit.
I actually plan out everything in my head but only write down major "plot points" and possible options to handle them because my players are so random I have to improvise a lot. And I think that that is the best way so that my players write the actual book while I have only a summary until we play.
there is also the DM that thinks you can treat DnD as Mario Maker. As in he thinks he can just make people go through the most cruel adventures, by say, ignoring natural 20s and making the players fail anyway.
If it's a contest, a nat 20 will usually win unless you're competing against something too powerful for you. If it's a check, a nat 20 will often succeed unless the challenge is intended to not be completed yet or at all. Of course, an attack roll 20 IS a guaranteed success. I think it's fair to assume that in most situations, a nat 20 will be a success
I actually did a campaign once that had me adopt a DM style that was an odd mix of all the types you listed, with the exception of Wargamer and the DMPC. I stuck hard to specific plot points that were necessary for the campaign, leading to occasional half-joking calls of railroading, but what happened outside of those specific points was player-led. I improvised the vast majority of descriptions, names, and features of locations, but I still had a large number of interactions and other things planned, to the point where I knew exactly how any two NPCs, even those that had absolutely no chance of meeting, would interact were they trapped in a room together. Lastly, I had a rule set for myself beforehand: unless someone could reference a specific rule or in-campaign precedent, it went by whatever ruling worked better for the players.
I’m like the ultimate preparer. I spent months organizing a campaign (We took turns, so I had to wait a while before mine). I branched paths at whether or not they took a horse, whether or not they checked a wall, etc.
I have to say I am somewhat both a railroader, a sandboxed, and improved. When preparing to DM a game for a group, I first start by making a HUGE end of the world problem for players to Follow but I only introduce it, never force it. I also create my own land and that allows me to make a problem for each territory or kingdom. Improve actually usually goes to npc's and a little bit of dialogue. Don't know if it's the best way, but it's always been loved by my players because it gives them a story if they don't know where to start but still gives them plenty of freedom.
on the note of the DM PC, once a child who wanted to be an adventurer snuck away from home in an attempt to go on a quest with the party... and instead of returning him home, they just kinda shrugged and went "eh, it'll build character". for an entire dungeon, I was a dmpc, playing the weakest character in the party... and aside from him almost being 1-shot killed in a harpy incident, it worked out pretty well. dealing 1d4 damage with a child-sized bow every round if i managed to hit compared to the monks several d10 flurry of blows... he actually became pretty endearing to the party, and when they finally returned him, they didn't really want to see him leave... but I even had a player request to play as the villager all grown up when he finally does become a real adventurer. it's a great play style if you don't make yourself a snowflake... and on a side note, his parents were PISSED at the party.... but were conflicted and more easily forgiving when they saw the staggering amount of treasure "little Harold" brought home with him... since NPCs typically only scrape together a few copper or silver a day, having their kid come back with several thousand gold and a few magical wonders had them set for life, pretty much.
Here's the premise of a campaign I'm working on, and it's a mix of a lot of things. Right off the bat, I railroad for a bit. The players are forced into some sort of early action, forced to meet each other's characters or grow more familiar with working together, and try out their new characters for the first time. Then they are given some exposition; they learn what's going on in the realms and what they have to do, aka what the grand scheme of what they're doing. Then they are given a very vague, distant quest, like "find this NPC," but they're given no knowledge of what direction they should go, where this NPC is, or if there is a secret way of finding him. This leads into the majority of the game, which is a mixture of sandboxing and prepared stuff. The players are suddenly given the option of whether or not they want to actively look for the NPC, or they can go do whatever they want. They can go north, south, east, west, and talk to whoever. The world map is already written out, so I know where they are at all times. They meet two types of NPCs; ones I have prepared and named and fleshed out and usually have some sort of quest or side quest that comes from interacting with them, or ones I give a name and make up on the fly. Anyways, they can then choose where to go, who to talk to, what to do, and whether or not to actively follow the quest for the NPC they were given or if they just want to wing it and stumble upon him eventually. What do you think?
I'm currently trying out my first DM session while DMPCing. The key rule is that my character cannot lead the party, help with puzzles, use skills (unless directed to), or vote in PC party decisions (unless a tiebreaker is needed). It's basically to help increase the party size for skills and combat, which is tolerable.
I'm definitely an improviser DM it tends to work out well the players frequently compliment me on the flow and atmosphere of the story which is always great since I'm pretty much just going with whatever happens
Dual DMs, one is the improvisor and story teller, while the other is a writer and rulebook lawyer. The Story teller has freedom to make choices/rulings during the campaign, and will later have discussions with their coDM about the accuracy/fairness of those rulings. The coDM is free to interject sparingly during turning points to redirect the story.
I'd say I'm some sort of a mix between The Preparer and The Rule of Cool DM. I love to plan out a ton of possibilities for the direction of the game to go, depending on what the players decide to do. However, I'm always happy to improv new ideas when the players decide to go way off the beaten path and do something crazy. I'm also always happy to indulge in my players' random ideas (in Force & Destiny, we now have a mech suit for an Astromech NPC that has been in the party since the start of the game), as long as those random ideas are really entertaining and everyone at the table loves the ideas.
An interesting way I'm doing my very first DnD session, is that (since I only have one player besides myself) I have my own character to play as, and an "npc" of sorts that also tags along. As far as we've gotten, I think I've done fairly well with not making my character, or the npc, too over-powered. I'm definitely trying to make each character feel unique in some way, and make it out to be that they are equally awesome. Although, I will admit that we ran into a bit of powerscaling difficulty, where I was still getting a feel for how strong enemies in packs could be, so I had to pull a deus ex machina and give our party a temporary baby dragon. This dragon was meant to be introduced MUCH later on, and so I had to reform the story to having the dragon taken away from the party.
Redwall books in the background I started as an improviser/DMPC, the latter being because our group had 3 people including myself, and the former because we didn't really know what we were doing. Now I feel like a mix of all of them except the rules lawyer for various reasons. Improviser, because I HATE PLANNING. DMPC because our group still has 3 people. A little Sandboxer because I feel that it's more realistic, but A little Railroader because I've had players tell me not to be afraid to railroad them. Sometimes they feel like they've got too much freedom. Go figure. But the players suffer for dedicated improvisation, I realize this, so sometimes I force myself to prepare a skeleton plot arc. I'm aware that overpreparing is counterproductive. And during those first few sessions where I was improvising/DMPC, I trained myself to be the opposite of the epic DMPC described in this video. I deliberately separated my character from favor and from having too much sway in the story. These days I feel that my character's presence is forgettable because they do very little besides helping in combat. All in all I think it's healthiest to be a mix of the styles described here.
I am a planner, railroader, improviser. I have a few major stories that I put a ton of thought into to make extremely interesting, but as a fiction writer I'm am also slightly adaptable I can improvise my way to have them get on track of my major story while having them not even notice I've done it that way. My World, Major Cities, and Major Story Dungeons have prepared planned out maps. Smaller towns, random dungeons, or small islands on the sea don't have anything drawn out. As a bonus I'm also a sadistic DM who likes to throw very powerful or creative challenges at them. One day they'll fight what I call a Lichviathan. Speaking of which how often do you guys use Homebrew Monsters. (I'm not talking about just tweaking stats of preexisting monsters to keep them relevant, but monsters of your own creation.)
We use a lot of homebrew monsters. It helps that Ben and I are the creators of Mage Hand Press (mfov.magehandpress.com) where we write tons of homebrew material of our own creation. Not to bug you with advertising, but we like to think we've made quite a resource over there.
I'm pretty much a mix of the wargamer and the improviser. I don't plan much outside of a few interesting enemy encounters ahead of time. I always advise against people running their games like I run mine though, prepping is important and especially for newer DMs can really help. One of the major downsides for being an improviser is the lack of notes I take because I'm usually too busy making stuff up.
Just started DMing, had a weak DMPC help guide the players and secretly railroad them if they were taking too long. Didn't say a word in the third session, players were enjoying themselves and going along with the game.
A DMPC can be useful if the DM is playing with a set of new players Because then it can be used to help introduce them to the rules and help keep them alive while they get to grips with the system
Currently a DMPC in a sandboxish Dark Heresy. Great thing is, I've made my character a blank (in game slang for someone with no psychic presence), so the PC's keep forgetting that I am there all the time. DMPC can be greatly accomplished if you know how to play to the PC's and the world.
The incentivizer. This is the DM who likes to hand out rewards to their players for certain actions. They like to run linear games but let the players run the game in hopes of getting rewarded for doing so and mainly serves a overseer to answer questions.
I'm definitely a sandbox, rule of cool DM. I run my pathfinder game with half prep, and half improv in a world I create and rules I normally make up on the spot, but I leave the big debates to the book. Its still a tool to be taken seriously, just not so seriously that it kills the fun of creativity.
Improviser and planner here. I do occasionally allow rule of cool and rules lawyer into games. Basically, my goal on ever session is to have the PCs walk away from the table feel entertained, thirsty for more, and having to detach themselves from their character.
I ran a couple of sessions with my two brothers as a dmpc. I just made my character a healer who was forced on the adventure and follows whatever they decid to do. So they could go ahead and make damage dealing characters and have fun while My guy filled a seat in combat situations.
My first time playing, I was a DMPC, but it wasn't out of reluctance. It was just my brother and me, and even the Lost Mine of Phandelver needs a few people to play.
I am for sure a Sandbox DM, yes it takes a lot more work to prepare the campaign but it pays off and there is little chance they can derail the campaign
I'm gonna DM for the first time ever, but I also wanna play, so I have prepared a campaign with the specific mind set of keeping me as out of it as possible. The campaign in designed specifically around the characters my friends said they wanted to be. Me, I'm sure I'll have fun no matter what, so I decided to play a support bard so I can't make myself the star. I hope I do well and everyone has fun.
You've got a lot of the great DM tropes in here. I am definitely a on-the-fly, no-planning, sandbox-style DM. I do think your video could benefit from you guys being a bit less robotic, eyes on the camera a bit more often, some body movement. Otherwise, I could have just read this from an article.
I tend to be a bit of a combo of Improv and Rule of Cool. I keep a general idea of the story I want to tell with the help of the players and steal the idea of cut scenes from video games and narrate certain parts when appropriate but do not tie them to single location. I will have certain encounters planned out but like the cut scenes I design these to be slotted when I deem them appropriate for the players rather than hope the PCs will just randomly and blindly bump into them. when running Starfinder/Pathfinder GM stands as much for Gonzo Manager as it does Game Master.
I have a DMPC but the Charackter is only the healer and a buddy of the group usually do little but is the only one who speaks Draconian which was not planned. I am also always prepared, improvise quickly when my players do what I do not expect and design complex stories from small mini missions that only when you see the big picture make sense also even if I plan 3 ways my games love to find a 4 so I always have to change something. i think i am a slice of all but my experiences as a player with bad masters had to have something good.
My Girlfriend and I co-dm, in that she runs the game and I build the world and use my characters to create story hooks... I made her a DMPC. Her (my) goddess built a bar and got a few hats of disguise Now everything is her. Everything
4e is awesome if you aren't a hardcore RAW player. Roleplaying is 100% up to the DM and PCs so that has nothing to do with this edition. You don't even really need to do combat encounters all the time, as 4e has the potential for all of the RP of other editions.
yeah for some reason people think 4e is like "WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T RP" which is just stupid there is no difference in rp rules through out the entire history of the game. spells and powers or defenses are literally the only difference between 4e and any other edition. I would however use the BIFs(bonds,ideals,flaws) engine in my 4e game. People just blamed 4e for their pisspoor campaign/setting/Rp abilities.
i am the improviser mixed with the cool rule. generaly i try to do sandbox. my view is to create a fun story for the players. does not matter if the rules are bent a little, or dice are fudged for a good laugh or crazy story.
I had improviser once and the entire campaign ended because the group attacked the main villain causing them to almost kill us before a death God stepped in who after saving us essentially ended the campaign
I am a DMPC but I jave my character to help guide the players around or be a assisst and doing so I made mu character a mute so they cant talk and are actually along the ride to play with the players.When they gwt off track or going wrong way I use my character to try guide them back as best I can witbout ruining too much of the fun.
I'm super an improviser. But I don't use the tables I just kinda think up stuff as I g, sometimes without proper consideration to the rules but whatever. my players seem to like it! they keep asking to dm more campaigns they want to play!
Railroading is just plain annoying. No one enjoys it. But sometimes modules are written this way too. The first module book released for 5e was a full on railroading adventure from beginning to end. 4e... yeah we agree, F**k 4th edition's combat emphasis. They added skill challenges too little too late. I tend to write just enough to get by. I spend more time creating the world than I do making the encounters for the world. Players will take things in directions I never expect. Writing just enough to get by is sufficient. Gygax said the rules were guidelines... and that's why he never called any of the books "Rulebooks".
I think i am the improv/Wargm i like roleplay but it feels akward i dont like it but do it differently depending on which type of party that is playing
I feel like there's two sides to this coin. You have the Antagonist DM and the "Murder Hobo" player. Not my preferred style of play but certainly a prevalent one.
My current DM is like this, and while the challenging battles can be fun, it gets really frustrating where every single thing you do results in a shitstorm where the tiniest mistake is going to get you killed.
I am practically every single one of these at different points in the campaign. Two you forgot to mention, Sadist and PC friendly. Sadists seem like to hate their pc's and will do everything in their power to demoralize or damage the PC's without actually killing them. PC friendly is when a GM is the opposite, fudging rolls to save their Players or giving them build specific loot to make the players happy. Sadists have their place when a party member or members start to go off the rails a bit or start acting up in the world and you need to remind them they aren't gods. PC friendly is good for those occasions when your player has been having terrible luck and you want to keep moral up or just want to give them even more incentive to follow the story and progress. One example of this is dropping a minor artifact on the guy who recently had a string of 1's and/or died 1 or more times in the past few sessions by fluke. this actually happened to one of my players just last week where he got Crit every single Hit from a creatures Full Attack and took 126 damage total killing him in the first round of combat.
I think it's important for a DM to fudge a few rolls every now and then for the sake of telling a good story. Sure, I could have let that ogre's crit one-shot the newbie player's level 2 Halfling Rogue, but then the player would probably be turned off D&D entirely. Better to ramp up tension and say the lil' ankle biter escapes from that tussle with two hit points and a cool new scar. Yes, I'm lying to my players about a damage roll, and I'm bending the rules plenty, but you know what? It's all worth it to see my players having a great time. Good storytelling is the DM's primary objective, and if that means ignoring the results of a few dice rolls, then so be it. One could argue that this style of play conditions the player to not fear death. I counter that there are ways around that. Every now and then, kill a DM PC, or a player's mount, or some named NPCs, just to remind the party that mortality is still totally a thing. It'll keep 'em spooked enough that they won't get reckless. Bring the characters down to low health without dying, and describe in detail what damage is being done to their bodies (within reason) and the danger will remain tangible even while your DM fiat is keeping the entire party from dying. After all, just like with so much of a DM's job, it's all in the presentation!
I think a PC death should only be the result of stupidity, miserably failing EVERY roll, self-sacrifice or an epic fight which results in the tragic death of a team member. So when one of my players were to fall down a cliff, roll a 1 on his first roll to grab the ledge, roll a 1 on his roll to grab a root and another player were also to roll a 1 trying to grab their arm, there is nothing I could do without using some deus ex machina to keep them alive. And I think that this would ruin the story more than letting the PC die. On another note, I don't see a problem with fudging combat rolls to make the fight a little easier, if the PCs seem to have more trouble than anticipated. In the end it all comes down to what you and your players agreed on. Some care more about telling a story and some care more about the rules and dice rolls.
I think in general PC deaths should usually be a consequence of role play, not roll play. If it is due to rolls, it should never ever be depending on a single roll. That's usually just anticlimactic.
I bounce back in between Sadist and PC friendly. I guess it just depends on my mood. Though if I'm in a bad mood it's usually because the rogue put me in one...
They are the "Script Reader" type you tubers. The cons out way the pros with this sub type. The viewers get the feeling that you don't have any personality and can come off as if you have no idea what you're talking about.
I kinda missed an opposite of Wargamer, the Storyteller. The guy that puts a lot of depth into his NPCs, their backstories and motivations, and who likes to have a lot of dialog and politics in his games. They usually dislike resolving social situations via die rolls, and may even rule something like "if YOU can't lie, then your character can't lie too". Expect a lot of well-planned intrigue and some tough choices. This also means that the less... socially-inclined party members may get bored rather quickly. I had this DM once, he was a Storyteller/Railroader variant. The session kinda ended with us murdering three very important NPCs without even bothering to learn their names...
I kinda am astoryteller, even though I often feel like I might just not be good enough. my players seem to enjoy though. And I'm a biig fan of forgoing social rolls. It's just weird if rolls inexplicitly make stuff happen, like you're not even talking just rolling diplomacy or something. On the other hand there a statements that no roll ever could save, or on the other hand, someone really nailed whatever he needed to say while his charakter would be incredibly incompetent, or at least had a bad roll. Soo, most of the time we skip most of these rolls except for the occasional sense motive roll by the party.
PrimordialNightmare Whenever my PCs try to use their social skills I first wait for them to say what they want to say, *and then* roll their dice. I always add a bonus or penalty based on how convincing they sounded. Blantant, half-assed lie? -10 to Bluff. A really good rallying speech? +6 to Diplomacy. And so on...
sure but then that makes ability scores pointless...most players do not have a charisma of 18 so the pc becomes nothing more than an avatar. this kind of defeats the entire purpose of RPG. Maybe the player is playing a bluff trained bard because they deep down wish they had this skill in real life. So not letting someone roll a bluff skill because of the player (which is not in the game) betrays the very core of the game. Following this same logic, If the players can not cast magic IRL then they shouldn't be able to in your game. That being said players should attempt and be lightly pressured ( not punished) to come up with something.
Kari Knowlton You're right, of course. I'm not a fan of ignoring mechanics completely, but I don't like resolving everything by dice-rolling either. IMO, they shouldn't be able to get through every dialogue by having kickass Charisma score and saying "I bluff the guard to let us go". It's much more fun and immersive if they have to come up with an actual lie, even a silly one like "I'm actually a Governor's daughter, you know?" or "Bow before me, foolish mortal, for I am God incarnate!"
MY DMPC's favorite line "I'm not sure what to do here, but I will support you in combat!" My character participates in combat, which is fun for me, but when it comes to doing things in Exploration or Social pillars, he just says that he's not sure what to do. I will have him use his skill checks (History, Arcana, etc.) if requested by someone in the party. I find this works very well.
Jace Godfrey my D&D group literally snuck around the side of a mansion that they didn’t have to sneak into and broke in currently they are killing the guards
The hardcore DM, Who makes every encounter so tough that it makes a party feel useless to the point of rage. The opposite is the that is The EasyMode DM, every encounter is too easy to the point of bordom.
That's a really good one! I suppose in many ways, that's a variant on the Wargamer, but I totally think it's distinct enough to warrant attention. I've tried declaring a hardcore campaign once, and for me, that mostly meant using more traps and pulling higher CR monsters. After some too-long combats, I eventually mellowed out on it and went with smoother difficulty curve.
Zap zapzander i find it a challenge both ways with a big campaign im working on. my characters are high level, but not extremely high. it makes it difficult for me to give them a decent combat scenario. trying not to kill them all in a few turns, but also to not kill the monsters within 1 turn
Hardcore DM can be cool It really depends on if it's just he throws a hydra vs a level 1 party or does he make crazy rooms with timers,threats and treats where the encounters leave everyone at 1 hit point or with non but when they all finally exit that under dark chamber everyone will remember it.
Zap zapzander I'm a TPKer... Players gotta earn their XP, and most of my players learn how to roll a new character very quickly. My wife is on her 3rd character in just 10 sessions.
Nice job, guys. You both could use to loosen up as it comes off as scripted and stiff. Yes, I know that it is scripted, but it shouldn't feel that way. Still, gained a sub out of me.
If i may add some constructive criticism, you guys seem a bit stiff. Its very obvious you've put time and thought into this and are pretty passionate about it. I think a change in style from a script to just freely talking about this would do wonders.
I feel that it isn't really accurate to call these types of DMs because they are really all spectrums. A good DM will be able to be anywhere on any of these spectrums when they need to be. My campaign looks pretty sandboxy at a surface level but if you look at my notes or into my brain you will find a lot of hidden rails. I lean a bit more rule of cool than rules lawyer but even still we open the book quite a bit at my table. I've ran sessions where I had every detail planned out in advance and I've also ran sessions where I had no idea what would happen at all before sitting down to play. I've even had sessions that were pretty linear but then the players turned unexpectedly and suddenly there was something where they went to look that I had no idea was even there til they looked. I've had sessions that were entirely combat and sessions without combat at all. I also have a DMPC but he is far from the focus of the story and is actually several levels behind the players. He helps out in combat sometimes but his main job is to make the party famous. He has helped out with money and gotten a few freebies for the party. For a while he didn't even have a level and I revealed that he reached level one as random flavor. The excitement from my players felt so good. Right now we are currently wrapping up a sidequest focused around one player and already had a sidequest for another player and will eventually have a sidequest for the DMPC as well. Every little sidequest though has implications on the main quest that the party is just now starting to realize. I've put my players in a living highly interconnected world and everything they do and everything that is happening off screen affects something else. That makes a story really naturally come out even in a sandbox. I don't know if all of what I wrote really leads to the point I was trying to make, but my point is supposed to be that DMing works on a sliding spectrum and it is your job to adjust these sliders for your players so that everyone at the table is having the most possible fun.
Exactly how we feel, too. The archetypes we presented are mostly opposites of each other, and you can by all means have a bit of all of them in your DMing style. In our experience, less experienced DMs tend to be very much a single archetype until they learn to branch out. Mike ran his first game almost entirely on rails (single story that basically signposted the next waypoint) and I ran my first game as a vaguely-guided sandbox (7 macguffins that could be acquired in any order with little input from me) but now we both run a very modular style with elements of every style.
Yeah I do the same. One of my PC's went on a little trip to a nearby town and to avoid the 2 days travel being too boring for him I ended up throwing in a random encounter with a bunch of traveling and pretty interesting merchants that happen to trade a special item that they had "found". I came up with it on the spot simply because I wanted a bit of spice on his travel. It is now one of the major items on their main quest (Despite them not being aware just yet) that I didnt know how was going to end but I know now..if they actually survive that is.. I think they love it. What started out as a pretty open ended quest of helping finding some missing men that might have been captured by some slavers actually twisted to it being about a cult that they also just happen to run into by accident in another smaller sidequest..mostly because I felt like they found the slavers a bit boring compared to the cult followers so I just quickly changed the direction of the hint they got...Never even thought about it but holy fuck I actually improvise a lot..Litterally all my improvising ideas end up in the main quest one way or another..
Leo K I totally agree as a 4th ed Dm of ten plus years its amazing if you know how to dm for it and understand how to tell a good story and balance fights to make them dangerous but possibile to win. Death to Vecna and Haters
4e was intended to come along with a software program much like Roll20. Due to backlash it was never released. So the way the game was set up it would flow with the software online and be easy to use. Fanboy Nerds got in a tiff threw a babyman fit and ruined it subsequently causing the abandonment of the software project making them right... Much like the Darth JarJar Theory.
I have been DM for most of my gaming years and I would have to say that I am an Improviser/ DMPC. I tend to follow a storyline loosely because my players do the darndest things and always end up outside of the parameters of the story which leads to some very interesting games. As for being a DMPC I usually play an NPC Cleric because none of my players wants to be "stuck" healing the others instead of getting into the action.
Can avoid the DMPC by giving them away to heal themselves. MY usual tactic is make them figure out how to get potions before leaving... sometimes they steal them .. sometimes they win them at a game of dice...Other times we are running late and the local alchemist will give them a few because they are usually doing something for the town. On rare Occasions they buy them.
When I play DMPCs it's normally because I have a small group of friends to play D&D with. But I always try to be self-aware, and play a supporting character. I find that bards work very well as DMPCs because they support the characters, but can just kinda sit back as they blaze their own trails. A lot of the time, the bards only motivation is to witness heroes, doing heroic things, so he can one day be a renowned minstrel or something. Also bards can fight so there's that haha.
in an old Campaign I was forced to be an improvising DM PC due to the party having no respect, but I couldn't make them suffer as one of the disrespectful players was my girlfriend at the time, we didn't have enough players so I had to make a PC so we could fill the table, I tried not to be the centre of attention but they wanted a story they could engage in but never actually did, I tried to plan but they gave no shits about it :/ I would try so hard to show them "hey guys the story is here" but nope, despite being a party of good or neutral they wanted to start wars and steal from NPC's so I just went fuck it towards the end, it was getting really draining on me, any tips to prevent this from happening again? I want to give the story another go with a different group of players (I had it in a fantasy setting with some steampunk and clockwork tech to further the story) I would love to see a vid on how to handle players like I had while still keeping the rest of the game fair
Oh! We were totally talking about doing a "How to Handle 'That Guy' in Your Game" video sometime soon. That being said, this is a tough topic, and it gets pretty close to counseling territory. A lot of this has to do with making sure that you're running in a table with equitable players on terms that everyone's down for. For example, some players need shorter sessions, due to attention spans, rowdiness, or sleepiness. Other times, they need to be coaxed away from their phones. Every situation is different.
Indeed. I am about to DM ( I really want to play :( but hate having a DM character ) and I face a problem close to this. Of course my problem stems from the fact that 3 of the players ( out of 4 ) had a DM that played Dungeons and dragons like it was a pen and paper Gauntlet game ( the old game where there was no Roleplay.. just hack and slash and the DM saying, nope you cant do that). I am hopeful they take to the Roleplay aspect of D&D lol.
Wild Riot I would say when the first player who starts to do somthing remotely cool or roleplaying in any way praise the player straight away (that's a excellent dude!) and give them advantage. The rest of the players will see this then think, I want praise and an advantage too! Then your off the races always reward the behavior you want to see.
Well, I told them straight out that I actually have Roleplay in my Role play game and they were like " Oh wow... Cool!" soo .. I may be worrying over nothing. I know one wants the full package cause I told him of a homebrew I did for my family ( Parents first time, they did amazing ) and he was like " Wow.... That sounds cool!". As for the others. I told one last night I would like a backstory and he was like "wait...what?" and I was like " yea.. I have Roleplay in my ... you know.... Roleplay game" which then made him rethink his char and now he is stumped. It is interesting seeing how people transition from one type of DM to another to be honest. I am just thankful they are actually wanting to Roleplay instead of being murder-hobos .... Let's hope they keep that mentality at the table :P I planned to give out inspiration on the first, well thought out roleplay experience ...Let them know that this is a thinking man's game :P ... I still suspect one of them will be a murder-hobo >.> but hey. I only make the story .. it's their game.
I had a group in college where I was a player for a change. They were new so I was the DM a lot. One of them was going to graduate in a couple months so I assisted him in making his own adventure, it goes well the week he debuted, but had a project the next week and I was unprepared (I'm not an over planer but I want some prep) so I went to a random map creator and just improvised the hell out of it and it was honestly one of the best sessions I've ever had. Would I do that again? HELL NO. But the creativity and engagement the players had was some of the most rewarding things I gotten as a DM.
Been GMing for a long time, and I am definitely a Planner/Sandbox GM. Though I've found that being a successful sandbox GM requires borrowing tricks from the railroad GM.... all roads lead to Rome so to speak. Plan a few solid adventures and re-skin based on where the players want to go. (Temple, Monastery, Ruins... all the same encounters, just vary the descriptions a little). As for GM PCs... way too much work on top of everything else. When forced to use an NPC they will go along with whatever the PCs decide, and when asked what the party should do, they will recommend the most absurd or useless plan I can think of at that moment. It makes it very clear that the NPC is there to help them, not hold their hand. Though I feel you missed a GM type... the favoritist. This GM has a player (or players) that he really likes. Those players will always have their plans succeed, and will get custom items thrown their way. Everything in the game is designed to put the GMs favorite player/character in the limelight.
Been in a game with a GM playing favorites.... Wasn't long before the group turned on the favorite guy and robbed him ... and left him behind. Of course them DM quit DMing shortly after because according to him " We didn't know how to play" ... Man those were good times.
I made the mistake once as the DM to turn one of the players into the "Chosen One" of the main story. Basically everyone else in the group demanded "Chosen One" status at some point later on. But there can only be one... It's the "Chosen One", now the "Chosen Few". Nowadays, having learned my lesson, the Chosen One Status is reserved to NPC characters that exist within the world and the PCs have to live in unbearable irrelevance :D
The only time I have a chosen one player is when they are chosen for bad things :P Edited: Found out one of my players may be snooping youtubes on D&D stuff.. so took out the info here until after I torment them with it... I will say, Sometimes "The chosen one" doesn't mean what people think...
I wouldn't say "useless/absurd" but rather the one that fits their personality the best. Are they cowards? then they suggest that they all run as fast as their legs can carry them are they the more heroic wannabe they will suggest that people all run in as quickly as possible while just dodgeing all the arrows. It makes for just as shitty advice but it makes them seem more like a character rather than the DM telling them to figure it out themself :P
(e)I've got the feeling that I'm always giving my party to many hints. But I find it really hard to just sit lonely on my chair and do nothing while the Group doesn't get the solution of a puzzle. In regard of the different types, I see myself as a mixture of improver and sandboxer, because I normaly build my world, make an adventure for it, and leave details normaly out. The players do not recognize it, if I'm improving so I think I've done my Job well ;D. (d)Ich habe das Gefühl, dass ich meiner Gruppe immer zu viele Tipps gebe. Aber ich finde es eben schwer nur dazusitzen und nichts zu tun während sie an einem Rätsel nagen. Zu den verschiedenen Typen muss ich sagen, dass ich mehr eine Mischung aus dem Improvisierenden und dem Sandboxer bin, da, nachdem ich meine Welt geschaffen habe, nicht an Details außerhalb der Kampagne hängenbleibe und im Notfall improvisiere. Und da meine Gruppe dies bis jetzt noch nie bemerkt hat, nehme ich an, ich habe meinen Job richtig gemacht ;D.
Veloci Mongolensis I recently read am interesting tip. It said to create some sort of puzzle without any solution in mind. Then when the players do something cool just run with it and say they solved the puzzle.
(e) That's a really cool idea! Thank you very much. I'll try it next session. (d) Das ist eine richtig gute Idee! Vielen dank! Ich werde versuchen sie in der nächsten Session einzubauen.
I feel like I'm the complete opposite of you. I tend to hoard information and give out very little about the situation or anything, up to the point where I belive that my withholding starts to slow down campaign pacing too much. I just can't freely give information. It feels wrong. Though I have started to take measures against it and used an opportunity to inform my party about the many entrances to a dungeon even though my NPC might have gone a small bit out of character there.
I like to make the puzzle have several different solutions plus be a bit open to it. If the puzzle is to figure out which of the identical doors are the killer door then they can either go with whatever solution I have figured out and might hinted at like using detect magic to see what door light up with dark magic or send in the wizards familiar to see if it dies or not since it can simply be summoned again or if they choose to do their own thing like fucking destroying the nearby wall with their pickaxes then fuck it..Good solution.. Or I give them an obvious/easy solution that might have a VERY bad outcome from it or a very tough decision like having to sacrifice a soul in order to force the portal open like they saw another person do/heard about/could be able to guess thanks to easy to follow hints..or they could try something else.
Sometimes I feel the same, but my party always come to the wrong conclusion. " You sense that this person is not completely loyal to it's master." Oh, that means that they hate their master and we can just recruit them by asking, even they just met us
I sometimes find that the pace of action is so fast that I don't have time to read my notes. I end up forgetting a lot of prepped stuff and improvise instead.
Really informative video. Great presentation of information in a way that makes sense, and your production quality seems good. But the speaking feels really awkward... Really long pauses and stutters that shouldn't be making it into the final cut. That's just my opinion though, I'm a little nitpicky
Well, I'm the opposite and I'm sure I speak for many people when I say I prefer a video where it's more like someone's just talking to me naturally, then an overedited rapidfire dialogue with too many cut jumps, because there's nothing I find more annoying.
I'm so a "Rule of Cool" DM. I let a bard take a ranger's pack just so they would have a better chance at succeeding and having fun. I also nerfed a lot of characters and gave a non-ranger character an animal companion. I just like bending rules and flipping them a bit to help the players succeed and have fun in the game I've created.
I am what I would call a storyteller. I am a DM who does some prep, but mostly with main story points. Then I make the rest up on the fly. Ex: Party starts in a small town and I want them to leave the town, but don't decide how. Rogue thief decides to graverob to make some extra cash. No one saw this coming. After desecrating half a dozen graves, I decided to scare him by making the dead rise. I give him 2 zombies to mess with while everyone else does other things. He decided that instead of fighting for his loot it was better to run for it. Low and behold he started a zombie outbreaks, and guess who convinced his party to leave town...
You forgot the rare d&d master that doesn't put ever one in one place but instead have a massively complex and huge world that can handle ever one splitting off
That sums up my 2-year campaign in college. It took place in the same world as one of my players' previous campaigns, in which our PC/DM roles were reversed, so there was already a large mythos going for it that we were all familiar with. I spent all summer creating this continent and the major powers/civilizations and creatures that inhabited it, then started the campaign with the characters voyaging there and getting marooned -- and there went the extent of my railroading. The incentive to stick together was less "If you split off I won't know what to do" and more "If you split off you will get hunted and eaten one by one by T-rexes." We all look back now on that campaign and wish it could get turned into a book or something! It helped to have a couple DMPC's that either served purely out-of-the-spotlight roles (e.g. the bard) or were "crutch characters" whom they could choose to leave out of missions and such if they so wished (think the Fire Emblem cliché).
My DM style is “this is your goal, I have a preplanned beginning midpoint and the end, but how they get there and if they get this is based on their choices.”
I like to think I strike a pretty good balance between Improviser and Preparer. I also have several DMPCs, but I didn’t really mean to. I mean, I knew I’d have one, because the module I picked gives the party a destined ally who can help them against the BBEG, and I ended up making said destined ally a cleric because the module also has a powerful artifact that can only be wielded by a cleric or paladin and none of my players wanted to be a cleric or paladin. There’s also an NPC who was originally an escort mission, but the party ended up liking her, so I gave her a couple of fighter levels so she wouldn’t get killed tagging along with them. The party also adopted some ghosts and a specter they were supposed to exorcise, meaning guess who else I have to run? I do my best to keep these guys from stealing the spotlight, and the two with player levels are slightly lower level than the actual PCs, so I don’t think I’m one of those DMPC-ers.
I'm mostly a Preparer 0:40 The Railroader 1:16 The Sandboxer 2:00 The Wargamer 2:51 The Improviser 3:37 The Preparer 4:24 The DMPC 5:12 The Rules lawyer 5:56 The "Rule of cool" DM
I've been DM'ng for 2 years now, on the same campaign. Characters reach 20, they "retire" to the guild, where the next set of new recruits are ready to go. The world grows and changes with each groups choices. Usually resulting in the next group having to "clean up after", paying consequences for, or reaping rewards from the previous group's choices. It has worked out great and helped the players feel like they have taken a hand in building the world. Which they have. Good video, but lighten up a little. Let your personalities shine.
Personally, I think I'm a bit of everything, but I've recently come to think of myself as a "mixed edition" DM. I basically took 2e, since I had a bunch of books for it that had belonged to my dad in college, then applied some 5e rules that I liked from my brief stint as a player. So far my party of 7 has really enjoyed it.
Sort of planning on Dming, and I'm 99% sure I'm ogint to endup as the 'Rule of cool' type, simply because I wanna play dnd for fun, and reading rules is like... the one thing I hate doing unless its a life/death situation. (Or my Major project, but even then I skim xD)
Rule of cool isn't bad every dm does it. just limit it down to certain moments like say somone wants to use the fog and spin it around to make a posion. Just do it every once and a while.
While the rulebooks for 4e don't necessarily have rules or guidelines for roleplaying, the RP to combat ratio is purely up to the DM. I find it best to have 4e combat and then either grab an adventure from a different edition, and convert its encounters to 4e or have the adventure heavily sandboxed. You can still have roleplaying encounters like you could in other editions, and if you need rules for them, use the rules from said edition. Furthermore, the addition of utility skills mean that your spells that only serve a purpose for RP or non-combat don't waste a spell slot that would be either useful in a fight or have a more general use that makes up for it's lack of combat uses. Plus while the core 3 books (PHB1, DMG1, MM1) didn't cover roleplaying much, they did present all the abilities in a manner that is easy to understand, and if you wanted roleplaying guides, there were the books from other editions and books for settings like eberron.
I'm usually a cross between the 'Improviser' and the 'Railroader' where I have the 'pieces' setup in certain places, but don't nescecarily force my characters to follow those pieces. I have a villian and their overarching plan, usually, but I don't force the players to persue any one way of stopping them. I may drop hints or suggestions via NPC dialogue, but not usually. I think a good term for this is the 'Chessplayer DM,' as you have the pieces on the board, and the players represent the other pieces. It could go any number of ways, but there is some sort of underlying plot. How the players interact with it is up to them and how they 'move their pieces' in response to my own. I also sometimes have a bit of DMPC in there, but only if I couldn't get enough people to reach my desired minimum of 3 players. then I usually just make an NPC party member and have them more like a supporting cast NPC. they come along for the ride, can sometimes help with lore or exposition (if they roll well), but I don't give them extra special stuff or make them the center of attention. Hell, often times the NPC party member ends up weaker than everyone else as I let the actual PCs take the spotlight a lot more than the NPC.
*Looks down at 47 pages of maps, quests, NPCs, dialogue, etc. for the first game night*
I think I'm a preparer.
How did the first session go?
Despite the quests to rid the crypts of a hag, find rest for a ghost below a manor's cellar, and discover what evil makes the town fear the monastery, they decided to extort an old lady and kill some guards, so they are in jail.
Luckily, I was prepared with some quests in case they ended up in jail.
matthewshimabuku Any possibility that the lady was secretly a hag? :D
But yeah, that has happened to every planner. Now you oc have the option to give them a mission by judge/sheriff "to repent" by clearing the Evil from somewhere.
Please tell us how did it continue anyway!
The rogue and druid worked with the standing lord of the town to find incriminating evidence against the head priest who, due to his status and the town's size, had jurisdiction over sentencing criminals.
The standing lord offered the free members a key to the barracks to flee, but the remained, and when their jailed allies where taken for public punishment, the free members, standing lord, and sheriff confronted the priest. Battle started and the party saved the Lord and sheriff from the corrupt priest and his followers, and where pardoned.
matthewshimabuku same bro
I feel like I am both a "Preparer" and an "Improviser" at the same time. I usually have the "big picture" thought out, and changing/delivering/altering it on the spot as necessary.
I do the same thing. I write some notes on branching pathways the party might take, flesh out a few encounters and characters for each one, and improvise the rest. I always have DMing tools open on my laptop to help me with everything else.
One thing I do that saves me some writing time is recycle things the party didn't end up doing into the next session, such as bypassed encounters, characters, or traps.
Exactly, it would be a shame if they missed something really cool. So, if the time feels right, I bring back the old encounter to perhaps drive the plot a bit.
I actually plan out everything in my head but only write down major "plot points" and possible options to handle them because my players are so random I have to improvise a lot. And I think that that is the best way so that my players write the actual book while I have only a summary until we play.
thats what im trying to do
I do exactly what Rocks Fall does. Have my laptop open, have a rough outline, be open for improv.
there is also the DM that thinks you can treat DnD as Mario Maker.
As in he thinks he can just make people go through the most cruel adventures, by say, ignoring natural 20s and making the players fail anyway.
Those exist?
Dang why would someone even want to be a DM if he's not playing the damn game
Sadism.
aka, the condition of being sadistic.
-aka Ross-
That is just a bad DM. not a type. just bad.
Natural 20 aren't an automatic success. It's just the best result.
If it's a contest, a nat 20 will usually win unless you're competing against something too powerful for you. If it's a check, a nat 20 will often succeed unless the challenge is intended to not be completed yet or at all. Of course, an attack roll 20 IS a guaranteed success. I think it's fair to assume that in most situations, a nat 20 will be a success
glad I found you guys! i am joining my first campaign next weekend, not quite sure what to expect yet. great videos
I actually did a campaign once that had me adopt a DM style that was an odd mix of all the types you listed, with the exception of Wargamer and the DMPC.
I stuck hard to specific plot points that were necessary for the campaign, leading to occasional half-joking calls of railroading, but what happened outside of those specific points was player-led. I improvised the vast majority of descriptions, names, and features of locations, but I still had a large number of interactions and other things planned, to the point where I knew exactly how any two NPCs, even those that had absolutely no chance of meeting, would interact were they trapped in a room together. Lastly, I had a rule set for myself beforehand: unless someone could reference a specific rule or in-campaign precedent, it went by whatever ruling worked better for the players.
guys just earned yourself a new sub! looking forward to binge-watching your channel
I’m like the ultimate preparer. I spent months organizing a campaign (We took turns, so I had to wait a while before mine). I branched paths at whether or not they took a horse, whether or not they checked a wall, etc.
I have to say I am somewhat both a railroader, a sandboxed, and improved. When preparing to DM a game for a group, I first start by making a HUGE end of the world problem for players to Follow but I only introduce it, never force it. I also create my own land and that allows me to make a problem for each territory or kingdom. Improve actually usually goes to npc's and a little bit of dialogue. Don't know if it's the best way, but it's always been loved by my players because it gives them a story if they don't know where to start but still gives them plenty of freedom.
on the note of the DM PC, once a child who wanted to be an adventurer snuck away from home in an attempt to go on a quest with the party... and instead of returning him home, they just kinda shrugged and went "eh, it'll build character".
for an entire dungeon, I was a dmpc, playing the weakest character in the party... and aside from him almost being 1-shot killed in a harpy incident, it worked out pretty well. dealing 1d4 damage with a child-sized bow every round if i managed to hit compared to the monks several d10 flurry of blows... he actually became pretty endearing to the party, and when they finally returned him, they didn't really want to see him leave... but I even had a player request to play as the villager all grown up when he finally does become a real adventurer. it's a great play style if you don't make yourself a snowflake...
and on a side note, his parents were PISSED at the party.... but were conflicted and more easily forgiving when they saw the staggering amount of treasure "little Harold" brought home with him... since NPCs typically only scrape together a few copper or silver a day, having their kid come back with several thousand gold and a few magical wonders had them set for life, pretty much.
Here's the premise of a campaign I'm working on, and it's a mix of a lot of things.
Right off the bat, I railroad for a bit. The players are forced into some sort of early action, forced to meet each other's characters or grow more familiar with working together, and try out their new characters for the first time. Then they are given some exposition; they learn what's going on in the realms and what they have to do, aka what the grand scheme of what they're doing. Then they are given a very vague, distant quest, like "find this NPC," but they're given no knowledge of what direction they should go, where this NPC is, or if there is a secret way of finding him.
This leads into the majority of the game, which is a mixture of sandboxing and prepared stuff. The players are suddenly given the option of whether or not they want to actively look for the NPC, or they can go do whatever they want. They can go north, south, east, west, and talk to whoever. The world map is already written out, so I know where they are at all times. They meet two types of NPCs; ones I have prepared and named and fleshed out and usually have some sort of quest or side quest that comes from interacting with them, or ones I give a name and make up on the fly. Anyways, they can then choose where to go, who to talk to, what to do, and whether or not to actively follow the quest for the NPC they were given or if they just want to wing it and stumble upon him eventually.
What do you think?
I'm currently trying out my first DM session while DMPCing. The key rule is that my character cannot lead the party, help with puzzles, use skills (unless directed to), or vote in PC party decisions (unless a tiebreaker is needed). It's basically to help increase the party size for skills and combat, which is tolerable.
I'm definitely an improviser DM it tends to work out well the players frequently compliment me on the flow and atmosphere of the story which is always great since I'm pretty much just going with whatever happens
Dual DMs, one is the improvisor and story teller, while the other is a writer and rulebook lawyer. The Story teller has freedom to make choices/rulings during the campaign, and will later have discussions with their coDM about the accuracy/fairness of those rulings. The coDM is free to interject sparingly during turning points to redirect the story.
I'd say I'm some sort of a mix between The Preparer and The Rule of Cool DM. I love to plan out a ton of possibilities for the direction of the game to go, depending on what the players decide to do. However, I'm always happy to improv new ideas when the players decide to go way off the beaten path and do something crazy. I'm also always happy to indulge in my players' random ideas (in Force & Destiny, we now have a mech suit for an Astromech NPC that has been in the party since the start of the game), as long as those random ideas are really entertaining and everyone at the table loves the ideas.
An interesting way I'm doing my very first DnD session, is that (since I only have one player besides myself) I have my own character to play as, and an "npc" of sorts that also tags along. As far as we've gotten, I think I've done fairly well with not making my character, or the npc, too over-powered. I'm definitely trying to make each character feel unique in some way, and make it out to be that they are equally awesome.
Although, I will admit that we ran into a bit of powerscaling difficulty, where I was still getting a feel for how strong enemies in packs could be, so I had to pull a deus ex machina and give our party a temporary baby dragon. This dragon was meant to be introduced MUCH later on, and so I had to reform the story to having the dragon taken away from the party.
Redwall books in the background
I started as an improviser/DMPC, the latter being because our group had 3 people including myself, and the former because we didn't really know what we were doing. Now I feel like a mix of all of them except the rules lawyer for various reasons.
Improviser, because I HATE PLANNING.
DMPC because our group still has 3 people.
A little Sandboxer because I feel that it's more realistic, but
A little Railroader because I've had players tell me not to be afraid to railroad them. Sometimes they feel like they've got too much freedom. Go figure.
But the players suffer for dedicated improvisation, I realize this, so sometimes I force myself to prepare a skeleton plot arc. I'm aware that overpreparing is counterproductive. And during those first few sessions where I was improvising/DMPC, I trained myself to be the opposite of the epic DMPC described in this video. I deliberately separated my character from favor and from having too much sway in the story. These days I feel that my character's presence is forgettable because they do very little besides helping in combat.
All in all I think it's healthiest to be a mix of the styles described here.
I am a planner, railroader, improviser. I have a few major stories that I put a ton of thought into to make extremely interesting, but as a fiction writer I'm am also slightly adaptable I can improvise my way to have them get on track of my major story while having them not even notice I've done it that way. My World, Major Cities, and Major Story Dungeons have prepared planned out maps. Smaller towns, random dungeons, or small islands on the sea don't have anything drawn out. As a bonus I'm also a sadistic DM who likes to throw very powerful or creative challenges at them. One day they'll fight what I call a Lichviathan. Speaking of which how often do you guys use Homebrew Monsters. (I'm not talking about just tweaking stats of preexisting monsters to keep them relevant, but monsters of your own creation.)
We use a lot of homebrew monsters. It helps that Ben and I are the creators of Mage Hand Press (mfov.magehandpress.com) where we write tons of homebrew material of our own creation. Not to bug you with advertising, but we like to think we've made quite a resource over there.
I'm pretty much a mix of the wargamer and the improviser. I don't plan much outside of a few interesting enemy encounters ahead of time. I always advise against people running their games like I run mine though, prepping is important and especially for newer DMs can really help. One of the major downsides for being an improviser is the lack of notes I take because I'm usually too busy making stuff up.
Just started DMing, had a weak DMPC help guide the players and secretly railroad them if they were taking too long. Didn't say a word in the third session, players were enjoying themselves and going along with the game.
A DMPC can be useful if the DM is playing with a set of new players
Because then it can be used to help introduce them to the rules and help keep them alive while they get to grips with the system
Currently a DMPC in a sandboxish Dark Heresy. Great thing is, I've made my character a blank (in game slang for someone with no psychic presence), so the PC's keep forgetting that I am there all the time. DMPC can be greatly accomplished if you know how to play to the PC's and the world.
The incentivizer. This is the DM who likes to hand out rewards to their players for certain actions. They like to run linear games but let the players run the game in hopes of getting rewarded for doing so and mainly serves a overseer to answer questions.
I'm definitely a sandbox, rule of cool DM. I run my pathfinder game with half prep, and half improv in a world I create and rules I normally make up on the spot, but I leave the big debates to the book. Its still a tool to be taken seriously, just not so seriously that it kills the fun of creativity.
Sandbox, Rule of Cool. Def. I love this style of play because its all on creativity and its all on the players.
Improviser and planner here. I do occasionally allow rule of cool and rules lawyer into games. Basically, my goal on ever session is to have the PCs walk away from the table feel entertained, thirsty for more, and having to detach themselves from their character.
I ran a couple of sessions with my two brothers as a dmpc. I just made my character a healer who was forced on the adventure and follows whatever they decid to do. So they could go ahead and make damage dealing characters and have fun while My guy filled a seat in combat situations.
My first time playing, I was a DMPC, but it wasn't out of reluctance. It was just my brother and me, and even the Lost Mine of Phandelver needs a few people to play.
I watch these vids for the awkward silences between lines.
Once in my game a character a barbarian single handedly twisted the head off a boss but I let it slide based on his specific details and it was awsome
I run DMPC's only when I have a shortage of players.
My first time being a DM, more of a sandbox/rule of cool campaign, the results are hilarious but my players seem to be enjoyin the campaign so far
I am for sure a Sandbox DM, yes it takes a lot more work to prepare the campaign but it pays off and there is little chance they can derail the campaign
I'm gonna DM for the first time ever, but I also wanna play, so I have prepared a campaign with the specific mind set of keeping me as out of it as possible. The campaign in designed specifically around the characters my friends said they wanted to be.
Me, I'm sure I'll have fun no matter what, so I decided to play a support bard so I can't make myself the star. I hope I do well and everyone has fun.
You've got a lot of the great DM tropes in here. I am definitely a on-the-fly, no-planning, sandbox-style DM. I do think your video could benefit from you guys being a bit less robotic, eyes on the camera a bit more often, some body movement. Otherwise, I could have just read this from an article.
I tend to be a bit of a combo of Improv and Rule of Cool. I keep a general idea of the story I want to tell with the help of the players and steal the idea of cut scenes from video games and narrate certain parts when appropriate but do not tie them to single location. I will have certain encounters planned out but like the cut scenes I design these to be slotted when I deem them appropriate for the players rather than hope the PCs will just randomly and blindly bump into them. when running Starfinder/Pathfinder GM stands as much for Gonzo Manager as it does Game Master.
I have a DMPC but the Charackter is only the healer and a buddy of the group usually do little but is the only one who speaks Draconian which was not planned. I am also always prepared, improvise quickly when my players do what I do not expect and design complex stories from small mini missions that only when you see the big picture make sense also even if I plan 3 ways my games love to find a 4 so I always have to change something.
i think i am a slice of all but my experiences as a player with bad masters had to have something good.
My Girlfriend and I co-dm, in that she runs the game and I build the world and use my characters to create story hooks...
I made her a DMPC. Her (my) goddess built a bar and got a few hats of disguise
Now everything is her. Everything
4e is awesome if you aren't a hardcore RAW player. Roleplaying is 100% up to the DM and PCs so that has nothing to do with this edition. You don't even really need to do combat encounters all the time, as 4e has the potential for all of the RP of other editions.
yeah for some reason people think 4e is like "WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T RP" which is just stupid there is no difference in rp rules through out the entire history of the game. spells and powers or defenses are literally the only difference between 4e and any other edition. I would however use the BIFs(bonds,ideals,flaws) engine in my 4e game. People just blamed 4e for their pisspoor campaign/setting/Rp abilities.
Kari Knowlton Despite the fact that all of those are customizable.
i am the improviser mixed with the cool rule. generaly i try to do sandbox. my view is to create a fun story for the players. does not matter if the rules are bent a little, or dice are fudged for a good laugh or crazy story.
I've seen dmpcs done best when there support characters cleric/druids work really well for this.
I'm 100% improvisor dm
My friends know this all to well as I struggle occasionally to find encounter that aren't too generic
Im literally a good mixture of preparer and sandbox with a dash of sandbox
What is that green thing in the top left corner?
The moment when you are an estranged mix of all of them depending on how caffeinated you are (OvO)
I had improviser once and the entire campaign ended because the group attacked the main villain causing them to almost kill us before a death God stepped in who after saving us essentially ended the campaign
So basically
WarGamer = dm version of the Munchkin.
I'm the cool rule dm, I've only ever had one person (who was a rules guy) dislike my DMing
Everyone always says "f*** 4th edition" but everyone gets all butt hurt when I add on
"And ya f*** every edition after 1st edition"
Any good free random city creator program that also generates maps?
I'm planning on my first game soon but i think i'm gonna be a rule of cool DM
Improviser with Rule of Cool
I think I'm a planner who is willing to improvise heavily.
I am a DMPC but I jave my character to help guide the players around or be a assisst and doing so I made mu character a mute so they cant talk and are actually along the ride to play with the players.When they gwt off track or going wrong way I use my character to try guide them back as best I can witbout ruining too much of the fun.
I'm super an improviser. But I don't use the tables I just kinda think up stuff as I g, sometimes without proper consideration to the rules but whatever. my players seem to like it! they keep asking to dm more campaigns they want to play!
i have been literally all of these except rules lawyer
I'm definitely a sandboxer
Railroading is just plain annoying. No one enjoys it. But sometimes modules are written this way too. The first module book released for 5e was a full on railroading adventure from beginning to end. 4e... yeah we agree, F**k 4th edition's combat emphasis. They added skill challenges too little too late.
I tend to write just enough to get by. I spend more time creating the world than I do making the encounters for the world. Players will take things in directions I never expect. Writing just enough to get by is sufficient. Gygax said the rules were guidelines... and that's why he never called any of the books "Rulebooks".
Im so the improviser
So... Mark (Highrollers) is a mix of all of these, which makes "God DM??".
Off note: Any Highrollers here?
I am a massive and I mean massive improviser
The dmpc happened in my game and it did not end well
I think i am the improv/Wargm i like roleplay but it feels akward i dont like it but do it differently depending on which type of party that is playing
I feel like DMPCs would be fine, if the DM only uses them for a short period of time and has a good reason for having that character with the party.
Don't forget the Antagonistic DM, who seems to think his job is to kill the party.
cassandraoftroy it's not his job persay just a perk of being the DM
I feel like there's two sides to this coin. You have the Antagonist DM and the "Murder Hobo" player. Not my preferred style of play but certainly a prevalent one.
My current DM is like this, and while the challenging battles can be fun, it gets really frustrating where every single thing you do results in a shitstorm where the tiniest mistake is going to get you killed.
I act like i were an antagonist but have never actually killed players... Still they buy it and feel endangered
Wait, killing the players isn't my goal?
I am practically every single one of these at different points in the campaign. Two you forgot to mention, Sadist and PC friendly. Sadists seem like to hate their pc's and will do everything in their power to demoralize or damage the PC's without actually killing them. PC friendly is when a GM is the opposite, fudging rolls to save their Players or giving them build specific loot to make the players happy. Sadists have their place when a party member or members start to go off the rails a bit or start acting up in the world and you need to remind them they aren't gods. PC friendly is good for those occasions when your player has been having terrible luck and you want to keep moral up or just want to give them even more incentive to follow the story and progress. One example of this is dropping a minor artifact on the guy who recently had a string of 1's and/or died 1 or more times in the past few sessions by fluke. this actually happened to one of my players just last week where he got Crit every single Hit from a creatures Full Attack and took 126 damage total killing him in the first round of combat.
I think it's important for a DM to fudge a few rolls every now and then for the sake of telling a good story.
Sure, I could have let that ogre's crit one-shot the newbie player's level 2 Halfling Rogue, but then the player would probably be turned off D&D entirely. Better to ramp up tension and say the lil' ankle biter escapes from that tussle with two hit points and a cool new scar.
Yes, I'm lying to my players about a damage roll, and I'm bending the rules plenty, but you know what? It's all worth it to see my players having a great time. Good storytelling is the DM's primary objective, and if that means ignoring the results of a few dice rolls, then so be it.
One could argue that this style of play conditions the player to not fear death. I counter that there are ways around that. Every now and then, kill a DM PC, or a player's mount, or some named NPCs, just to remind the party that mortality is still totally a thing. It'll keep 'em spooked enough that they won't get reckless. Bring the characters down to low health without dying, and describe in detail what damage is being done to their bodies (within reason) and the danger will remain tangible even while your DM fiat is keeping the entire party from dying. After all, just like with so much of a DM's job, it's all in the presentation!
I think a PC death should only be the result of stupidity, miserably failing EVERY roll, self-sacrifice or an epic fight which results in the tragic death of a team member.
So when one of my players were to fall down a cliff, roll a 1 on his first roll to grab the ledge, roll a 1 on his roll to grab a root and another player were also to roll a 1 trying to grab their arm, there is nothing I could do without using some deus ex machina to keep them alive. And I think that this would ruin the story more than letting the PC die.
On another note, I don't see a problem with fudging combat rolls to make the fight a little easier, if the PCs seem to have more trouble than anticipated.
In the end it all comes down to what you and your players agreed on. Some care more about telling a story and some care more about the rules and dice rolls.
I think in general PC deaths should usually be a consequence of role play, not roll play. If it is due to rolls, it should never ever be depending on a single roll. That's usually just anticlimactic.
I bounce back in between Sadist and PC friendly. I guess it just depends on my mood. Though if I'm in a bad mood it's usually because the rogue put me in one...
You really wanna mess with a party, throw in a rust monster or 2
Stop reading a script. The more you improvise the better the connection with the audience.
William I was wondering if I was the only one who noticed... Still a good bid but found it really distracting xD
Seriously. The best part of the video was when they pointed out the map, which felt pretty improvized
+1, nice video guys but there are too much "pauses and read the lines", just like The Preparer =p
I came to the comments just to rant about the same thing, so uncomfortable, so awkward, relax a little.
They are the "Script Reader" type you tubers. The cons out way the pros with this sub type. The viewers get the feeling that you don't have any personality and can come off as if you have no idea what you're talking about.
I kinda missed an opposite of Wargamer, the Storyteller.
The guy that puts a lot of depth into his NPCs, their backstories and motivations, and who likes to have a lot of dialog and politics in his games. They usually dislike resolving social situations via die rolls, and may even rule something like "if YOU can't lie, then your character can't lie too". Expect a lot of well-planned intrigue and some tough choices. This also means that the less... socially-inclined party members may get bored rather quickly.
I had this DM once, he was a Storyteller/Railroader variant. The session kinda ended with us murdering three very important NPCs without even bothering to learn their names...
I kinda am astoryteller, even though I often feel like I might just not be good enough. my players seem to enjoy though.
And I'm a biig fan of forgoing social rolls. It's just weird if rolls inexplicitly make stuff happen, like you're not even talking just rolling diplomacy or something. On the other hand there a statements that no roll ever could save, or on the other hand, someone really nailed whatever he needed to say while his charakter would be incredibly incompetent, or at least had a bad roll.
Soo, most of the time we skip most of these rolls except for the occasional sense motive roll by the party.
PrimordialNightmare
Whenever my PCs try to use their social skills I first wait for them to say what they want to say, *and then* roll their dice. I always add a bonus or penalty based on how convincing they sounded. Blantant, half-assed lie? -10 to Bluff. A really good rallying speech? +6 to Diplomacy. And so on...
sure but then that makes ability scores pointless...most players do not have a charisma of 18 so the pc becomes nothing more than an avatar. this kind of defeats the entire purpose of RPG. Maybe the player is playing a bluff trained bard because they deep down wish they had this skill in real life. So not letting someone roll a bluff skill because of the player (which is not in the game) betrays the very core of the game. Following this same logic, If the players can not cast magic IRL then they shouldn't be able to in your game. That being said players should attempt and be lightly pressured ( not punished) to come up with something.
oops, i am signed in as my wife...
Kari Knowlton You're right, of course. I'm not a fan of ignoring mechanics completely, but I don't like resolving everything by dice-rolling either.
IMO, they shouldn't be able to get through every dialogue by having kickass Charisma score and saying "I bluff the guard to let us go". It's much more fun and immersive if they have to come up with an actual lie, even a silly one like "I'm actually a Governor's daughter, you know?" or "Bow before me, foolish mortal, for I am God incarnate!"
my fave part of elderscroll games are when i start as a prison, not a prisoner, just a prison
Skyrim is good, you start as dragon food
Gotta love being a large inanimate building used to hold people inside.
MY DMPC's favorite line "I'm not sure what to do here, but I will support you in combat!"
My character participates in combat, which is fun for me, but when it comes to doing things in Exploration or Social pillars, he just says that he's not sure what to do. I will have him use his skill checks (History, Arcana, etc.) if requested by someone in the party.
I find this works very well.
*sees channel name*
*subs*
Youngerhampster during a session, we had to roll to see who died last from a dragon flame.
Youngerhampster that's also why I subbed
lol, same!
Jace Godfrey my D&D group literally snuck around the side of a mansion that they didn’t have to sneak into and broke in currently they are killing the guards
420 likes, EHHHHH!
The hardcore DM, Who makes every encounter so tough that it makes a party feel useless to the point of rage. The opposite is the that is The EasyMode DM, every encounter is too easy to the point of bordom.
That's a really good one! I suppose in many ways, that's a variant on the Wargamer, but I totally think it's distinct enough to warrant attention. I've tried declaring a hardcore campaign once, and for me, that mostly meant using more traps and pulling higher CR monsters. After some too-long combats, I eventually mellowed out on it and went with smoother difficulty curve.
Zap zapzander dm souls
Zap zapzander i find it a challenge both ways with a big campaign im working on. my characters are high level, but not extremely high. it makes it difficult for me to give them a decent combat scenario. trying not to kill them all in a few turns, but also to not kill the monsters within 1 turn
Hardcore DM can be cool
It really depends on if it's just he throws a hydra vs a level 1 party or does he make crazy rooms with timers,threats and treats where the encounters leave everyone at 1 hit point or with non but when they all finally exit that under dark chamber everyone will remember it.
Zap zapzander I'm a TPKer... Players gotta earn their XP, and most of my players learn how to roll a new character very quickly. My wife is on her 3rd character in just 10 sessions.
Nice job, guys. You both could use to loosen up as it comes off as scripted and stiff. Yes, I know that it is scripted, but it shouldn't feel that way. Still, gained a sub out of me.
All Hail the rule of cool!
If i may add some constructive criticism, you guys seem a bit stiff. Its very obvious you've put time and thought into this and are pretty passionate about it. I think a change in style from a script to just freely talking about this would do wonders.
I feel that it isn't really accurate to call these types of DMs because they are really all spectrums. A good DM will be able to be anywhere on any of these spectrums when they need to be. My campaign looks pretty sandboxy at a surface level but if you look at my notes or into my brain you will find a lot of hidden rails. I lean a bit more rule of cool than rules lawyer but even still we open the book quite a bit at my table. I've ran sessions where I had every detail planned out in advance and I've also ran sessions where I had no idea what would happen at all before sitting down to play. I've even had sessions that were pretty linear but then the players turned unexpectedly and suddenly there was something where they went to look that I had no idea was even there til they looked. I've had sessions that were entirely combat and sessions without combat at all. I also have a DMPC but he is far from the focus of the story and is actually several levels behind the players. He helps out in combat sometimes but his main job is to make the party famous. He has helped out with money and gotten a few freebies for the party. For a while he didn't even have a level and I revealed that he reached level one as random flavor. The excitement from my players felt so good. Right now we are currently wrapping up a sidequest focused around one player and already had a sidequest for another player and will eventually have a sidequest for the DMPC as well. Every little sidequest though has implications on the main quest that the party is just now starting to realize. I've put my players in a living highly interconnected world and everything they do and everything that is happening off screen affects something else. That makes a story really naturally come out even in a sandbox.
I don't know if all of what I wrote really leads to the point I was trying to make, but my point is supposed to be that DMing works on a sliding spectrum and it is your job to adjust these sliders for your players so that everyone at the table is having the most possible fun.
Exactly how we feel, too. The archetypes we presented are mostly opposites of each other, and you can by all means have a bit of all of them in your DMing style. In our experience, less experienced DMs tend to be very much a single archetype until they learn to branch out. Mike ran his first game almost entirely on rails (single story that basically signposted the next waypoint) and I ran my first game as a vaguely-guided sandbox (7 macguffins that could be acquired in any order with little input from me) but now we both run a very modular style with elements of every style.
Yeah I do the same. One of my PC's went on a little trip to a nearby town and to avoid the 2 days travel being too boring for him I ended up throwing in a random encounter with a bunch of traveling and pretty interesting merchants that happen to trade a special item that they had "found". I came up with it on the spot simply because I wanted a bit of spice on his travel. It is now one of the major items on their main quest (Despite them not being aware just yet) that I didnt know how was going to end but I know now..if they actually survive that is..
I think they love it. What started out as a pretty open ended quest of helping finding some missing men that might have been captured by some slavers actually twisted to it being about a cult that they also just happen to run into by accident in another smaller sidequest..mostly because I felt like they found the slavers a bit boring compared to the cult followers so I just quickly changed the direction of the hint they got...Never even thought about it but holy fuck I actually improvise a lot..Litterally all my improvising ideas end up in the main quest one way or another..
the level of hate 4e gets hurts
Leo K I totally agree as a 4th ed Dm of ten plus years its amazing if you know how to dm for it and understand how to tell a good story and balance fights to make them dangerous but possibile to win. Death to Vecna and Haters
Our group is using 4e right now. We're totally new to the game and we love it.
I just started DMing with my friends and we started and are using 4e. We still have plenty if fun, and that's all that matters
Any system is what you make it. Hating on 4e for being a war gaming system is just poor GM skill and/or vision.
4e was intended to come along with a software program much like Roll20. Due to backlash it was never released. So the way the game was set up it would flow with the software online and be easy to use. Fanboy Nerds got in a tiff threw a babyman fit and ruined it subsequently causing the abandonment of the software project making them right... Much like the Darth JarJar Theory.
I have been DM for most of my gaming years and I would have to say that I am an Improviser/ DMPC. I tend to follow a storyline loosely because my players do the darndest things and always end up outside of the parameters of the story which leads to some very interesting games. As for being a DMPC I usually play an NPC Cleric because none of my players wants to be "stuck" healing the others instead of getting into the action.
Can avoid the DMPC by giving them away to heal themselves. MY usual tactic is make them figure out how to get potions before leaving... sometimes they steal them .. sometimes they win them at a game of dice...Other times we are running late and the local alchemist will give them a few because they are usually doing something for the town. On rare Occasions they buy them.
When I play DMPCs it's normally because I have a small group of friends to play D&D with. But I always try to be self-aware, and play a supporting character. I find that bards work very well as DMPCs because they support the characters, but can just kinda sit back as they blaze their own trails. A lot of the time, the bards only motivation is to witness heroes, doing heroic things, so he can one day be a renowned minstrel or something. Also bards can fight so there's that haha.
I'm proud to classify myself as "The Improviser".
Usually goes well, if in a roundabout goofy kind of way.
in an old Campaign I was forced to be an improvising DM PC due to the party having no respect, but I couldn't make them suffer as one of the disrespectful players was my girlfriend at the time, we didn't have enough players so I had to make a PC so we could fill the table, I tried not to be the centre of attention but they wanted a story they could engage in but never actually did, I tried to plan but they gave no shits about it :/ I would try so hard to show them "hey guys the story is here" but nope, despite being a party of good or neutral they wanted to start wars and steal from NPC's so I just went fuck it towards the end, it was getting really draining on me, any tips to prevent this from happening again? I want to give the story another go with a different group of players (I had it in a fantasy setting with some steampunk and clockwork tech to further the story) I would love to see a vid on how to handle players like I had while still keeping the rest of the game fair
Oh! We were totally talking about doing a "How to Handle 'That Guy' in Your Game" video sometime soon. That being said, this is a tough topic, and it gets pretty close to counseling territory. A lot of this has to do with making sure that you're running in a table with equitable players on terms that everyone's down for. For example, some players need shorter sessions, due to attention spans, rowdiness, or sleepiness. Other times, they need to be coaxed away from their phones. Every situation is different.
Indeed. I am about to DM ( I really want to play :( but hate having a DM character ) and I face a problem close to this. Of course my problem stems from the fact that 3 of the players ( out of 4 ) had a DM that played Dungeons and dragons like it was a pen and paper Gauntlet game ( the old game where there was no Roleplay.. just hack and slash and the DM saying, nope you cant do that). I am hopeful they take to the Roleplay aspect of D&D lol.
Wild Riot I would say when the first player who starts to do somthing remotely cool or roleplaying in any way praise the player straight away (that's a excellent dude!) and give them advantage. The rest of the players will see this then think, I want praise and an advantage too!
Then your off the races always reward the behavior you want to see.
Well, I told them straight out that I actually have Roleplay in my Role play game and they were like " Oh wow... Cool!" soo .. I may be worrying over nothing. I know one wants the full package cause I told him of a homebrew I did for my family ( Parents first time, they did amazing ) and he was like " Wow.... That sounds cool!".
As for the others. I told one last night I would like a backstory and he was like "wait...what?" and I was like " yea.. I have Roleplay in my ... you know.... Roleplay game" which then made him rethink his char and now he is stumped.
It is interesting seeing how people transition from one type of DM to another to be honest. I am just thankful they are actually wanting to Roleplay instead of being murder-hobos .... Let's hope they keep that mentality at the table :P
I planned to give out inspiration on the first, well thought out roleplay experience ...Let them know that this is a thinking man's game :P ... I still suspect one of them will be a murder-hobo >.> but hey. I only make the story .. it's their game.
If you need a player and some DM advice, I'm here :)
Once i ran a session with just a dungeon and I improvised so much that I only planed the map and the boss's custom stat block.
I did the exact same thing my last 2 session's, it was glorious.
I had a group in college where I was a player for a change. They were new so I was the DM a lot. One of them was going to graduate in a couple months so I assisted him in making his own adventure, it goes well the week he debuted, but had a project the next week and I was unprepared (I'm not an over planer but I want some prep) so I went to a random map creator and just improvised the hell out of it and it was honestly one of the best sessions I've ever had. Would I do that again? HELL NO. But the creativity and engagement the players had was some of the most rewarding things I gotten as a DM.
Been GMing for a long time, and I am definitely a Planner/Sandbox GM. Though I've found that being a successful sandbox GM requires borrowing tricks from the railroad GM.... all roads lead to Rome so to speak. Plan a few solid adventures and re-skin based on where the players want to go. (Temple, Monastery, Ruins... all the same encounters, just vary the descriptions a little). As for GM PCs... way too much work on top of everything else. When forced to use an NPC they will go along with whatever the PCs decide, and when asked what the party should do, they will recommend the most absurd or useless plan I can think of at that moment. It makes it very clear that the NPC is there to help them, not hold their hand.
Though I feel you missed a GM type... the favoritist. This GM has a player (or players) that he really likes. Those players will always have their plans succeed, and will get custom items thrown their way. Everything in the game is designed to put the GMs favorite player/character in the limelight.
Been in a game with a GM playing favorites.... Wasn't long before the group turned on the favorite guy and robbed him ... and left him behind. Of course them DM quit DMing shortly after because according to him " We didn't know how to play" ... Man those were good times.
I made the mistake once as the DM to turn one of the players into the "Chosen One" of the main story. Basically everyone else in the group demanded "Chosen One" status at some point later on. But there can only be one... It's the "Chosen One", now the "Chosen Few".
Nowadays, having learned my lesson, the Chosen One Status is reserved to NPC characters that exist within the world and the PCs have to live in unbearable irrelevance :D
The only time I have a chosen one player is when they are chosen for bad things :P
Edited: Found out one of my players may be snooping youtubes on D&D stuff.. so took out the info here until after I torment them with it...
I will say, Sometimes "The chosen one" doesn't mean what people think...
I wouldn't say "useless/absurd" but rather the one that fits their personality the best. Are they cowards? then they suggest that they all run as fast as their legs can carry them are they the more heroic wannabe they will suggest that people all run in as quickly as possible while just dodgeing all the arrows.
It makes for just as shitty advice but it makes them seem more like a character rather than the DM telling them to figure it out themself :P
(e)I've got the feeling that I'm always giving my party to many hints.
But I find it really hard to just sit lonely on my chair and do nothing while the Group doesn't get the solution of a puzzle.
In regard of the different types, I see myself as a mixture of improver and sandboxer, because I normaly build my world, make
an adventure for it, and leave details normaly out. The players do not recognize it, if I'm improving so I think I've done my Job well ;D.
(d)Ich habe das Gefühl, dass ich meiner Gruppe immer zu viele Tipps gebe. Aber ich finde es eben schwer nur dazusitzen und nichts zu tun während sie an einem Rätsel nagen. Zu den verschiedenen Typen muss ich sagen, dass ich mehr eine Mischung aus dem Improvisierenden und dem Sandboxer bin, da, nachdem ich meine Welt geschaffen habe, nicht an Details außerhalb der Kampagne hängenbleibe und im Notfall improvisiere. Und da meine Gruppe dies bis jetzt noch nie bemerkt hat, nehme ich an, ich habe meinen Job richtig gemacht ;D.
Veloci Mongolensis I recently read am interesting tip. It said to create some sort of puzzle without any solution in mind. Then when the players do something cool just run with it and say they solved the puzzle.
(e) That's a really cool idea! Thank you very much. I'll try it next session.
(d) Das ist eine richtig gute Idee! Vielen dank! Ich werde versuchen sie in der nächsten Session einzubauen.
I feel like I'm the complete opposite of you. I tend to hoard information and give out very little about the situation or anything, up to the point where I belive that my withholding starts to slow down campaign pacing too much. I just can't freely give information. It feels wrong. Though I have started to take measures against it and used an opportunity to inform my party about the many entrances to a dungeon even though my NPC might have gone a small bit out of character there.
I like to make the puzzle have several different solutions plus be a bit open to it.
If the puzzle is to figure out which of the identical doors are the killer door then they can either go with whatever solution I have figured out and might hinted at like using detect magic to see what door light up with dark magic or send in the wizards familiar to see if it dies or not since it can simply be summoned again or if they choose to do their own thing like fucking destroying the nearby wall with their pickaxes then fuck it..Good solution..
Or I give them an obvious/easy solution that might have a VERY bad outcome from it or a very tough decision like having to sacrifice a soul in order to force the portal open like they saw another person do/heard about/could be able to guess thanks to easy to follow hints..or they could try something else.
Sometimes I feel the same, but my party always come to the wrong conclusion. " You sense that this person is not completely loyal to it's master." Oh, that means that they hate their master and we can just recruit them by asking, even they just met us
I try to be a preparer but and up improvising
I sometimes find that the pace of action is so fast that I don't have time to read my notes.
I end up forgetting a lot of prepped stuff and improvise instead.
I improv based on how they seem to enjoy it
*end
Really informative video. Great presentation of information in a way that makes sense, and your production quality seems good. But the speaking feels really awkward... Really long pauses and stutters that shouldn't be making it into the final cut. That's just my opinion though, I'm a little nitpicky
Homie on the right has a harder time with teleprompters than potus.
Well, I'm the opposite and I'm sure I speak for many people when I say I prefer a video where it's more like someone's just talking to me naturally, then an overedited rapidfire dialogue with too many cut jumps, because there's nothing I find more annoying.
If it's not your line you probably don't need to read the cue card.
The Preparer = Beholder
I'm so a "Rule of Cool" DM. I let a bard take a ranger's pack just so they would have a better chance at succeeding and having fun. I also nerfed a lot of characters and gave a non-ranger character an animal companion. I just like bending rules and flipping them a bit to help the players succeed and have fun in the game I've created.
Ranger is not that good tho? Or is it?
I am what I would call a storyteller. I am a DM who does some prep, but mostly with main story points. Then I make the rest up on the fly.
Ex: Party starts in a small town and I want them to leave the town, but don't decide how. Rogue thief decides to graverob to make some extra cash. No one saw this coming.
After desecrating half a dozen graves, I decided to scare him by making the dead rise. I give him 2 zombies to mess with while everyone else does other things.
He decided that instead of fighting for his loot it was better to run for it. Low and behold he started a zombie outbreaks, and guess who convinced his party to leave town...
You forgot the rare d&d master that doesn't put ever one in one place but instead have a massively complex and huge world that can handle ever one splitting off
Those are just myths.
I guess i'm a myth then
That sums up my 2-year campaign in college. It took place in the same world as one of my players' previous campaigns, in which our PC/DM roles were reversed, so there was already a large mythos going for it that we were all familiar with. I spent all summer creating this continent and the major powers/civilizations and creatures that inhabited it, then started the campaign with the characters voyaging there and getting marooned -- and there went the extent of my railroading. The incentive to stick together was less "If you split off I won't know what to do" and more "If you split off you will get hunted and eaten one by one by T-rexes." We all look back now on that campaign and wish it could get turned into a book or something! It helped to have a couple DMPC's that either served purely out-of-the-spotlight roles (e.g. the bard) or were "crutch characters" whom they could choose to leave out of missions and such if they so wished (think the Fire Emblem cliché).
I'm all of these at once 😅
My DM style is “this is your goal, I have a preplanned beginning midpoint and the end, but how they get there and if they get this is based on their choices.”
I like to think I strike a pretty good balance between Improviser and Preparer. I also have several DMPCs, but I didn’t really mean to. I mean, I knew I’d have one, because the module I picked gives the party a destined ally who can help them against the BBEG, and I ended up making said destined ally a cleric because the module also has a powerful artifact that can only be wielded by a cleric or paladin and none of my players wanted to be a cleric or paladin. There’s also an NPC who was originally an escort mission, but the party ended up liking her, so I gave her a couple of fighter levels so she wouldn’t get killed tagging along with them. The party also adopted some ghosts and a specter they were supposed to exorcise, meaning guess who else I have to run? I do my best to keep these guys from stealing the spotlight, and the two with player levels are slightly lower level than the actual PCs, so I don’t think I’m one of those DMPC-ers.
I'm mostly a Preparer
0:40 The Railroader
1:16 The Sandboxer
2:00 The Wargamer
2:51 The Improviser
3:37 The Preparer
4:24 The DMPC
5:12 The Rules lawyer
5:56 The "Rule of cool" DM
I've been DM'ng for 2 years now, on the same campaign. Characters reach 20, they "retire" to the guild, where the next set of new recruits are ready to go. The world grows and changes with each groups choices. Usually resulting in the next group having to "clean up after", paying consequences for, or reaping rewards from the previous group's choices. It has worked out great and helped the players feel like they have taken a hand in building the world. Which they have. Good video, but lighten up a little. Let your personalities shine.
I'm a total improviser/rule of cool DM. I can actually pull it off, though.
Personally, I think I'm a bit of everything, but I've recently come to think of myself as a "mixed edition" DM. I basically took 2e, since I had a bunch of books for it that had belonged to my dad in college, then applied some 5e rules that I liked from my brief stint as a player. So far my party of 7 has really enjoyed it.
What kind of Dungeon Master are you?
Rocks fall, everyone dies.
Sort of planning on Dming, and I'm 99% sure I'm ogint to endup as the 'Rule of cool' type, simply because I wanna play dnd for fun, and reading rules is like... the one thing I hate doing unless its a life/death situation. (Or my Major project, but even then I skim xD)
Rule of cool isn't bad every dm does it. just limit it down to certain moments like say somone wants to use the fog and spin it around to make a posion. Just do it every once and a while.
While the rulebooks for 4e don't necessarily have rules or guidelines for roleplaying, the RP to combat ratio is purely up to the DM. I find it best to have 4e combat and then either grab an adventure from a different edition, and convert its encounters to 4e or have the adventure heavily sandboxed. You can still have roleplaying encounters like you could in other editions, and if you need rules for them, use the rules from said edition. Furthermore, the addition of utility skills mean that your spells that only serve a purpose for RP or non-combat don't waste a spell slot that would be either useful in a fight or have a more general use that makes up for it's lack of combat uses. Plus while the core 3 books (PHB1, DMG1, MM1) didn't cover roleplaying much, they did present all the abilities in a manner that is easy to understand, and if you wanted roleplaying guides, there were the books from other editions and books for settings like eberron.
I'm usually a cross between the 'Improviser' and the 'Railroader' where I have the 'pieces' setup in certain places, but don't nescecarily force my characters to follow those pieces. I have a villian and their overarching plan, usually, but I don't force the players to persue any one way of stopping them. I may drop hints or suggestions via NPC dialogue, but not usually. I think a good term for this is the 'Chessplayer DM,' as you have the pieces on the board, and the players represent the other pieces. It could go any number of ways, but there is some sort of underlying plot. How the players interact with it is up to them and how they 'move their pieces' in response to my own.
I also sometimes have a bit of DMPC in there, but only if I couldn't get enough people to reach my desired minimum of 3 players. then I usually just make an NPC party member and have them more like a supporting cast NPC. they come along for the ride, can sometimes help with lore or exposition (if they roll well), but I don't give them extra special stuff or make them the center of attention. Hell, often times the NPC party member ends up weaker than everyone else as I let the actual PCs take the spotlight a lot more than the NPC.