How to be a Good DM - D&December
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- A good Dungeon Master makes sure everyone is having fun. And that's hard.
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The most common thing any DM I've ever played under has ever said is, "You can try."
I say that all the time to my players
That's always the best answer
Mr. Super Nintendo Chalmers q
ques thats fair. "You can try to fight that dragon...but you may not make it"
"Can I do x?"- I don't know, can you? I'll let you try.
Mr. Super Nintendo Chalmers my DM used this little gem quite often... "Are you sure...?"
I've always liked the term "You can certainly try!" I believe a good DM follows that.
I'm pretty sure I've said that DMing without realising, my players wanted to talk to an angry owl bear... it didn't go well, I remember the thing I said to the guy who asked "You want to talk to an Owlbear, you can try..."
To add on to what Jared was saying, especially about the executioner bit, there's nothing wrong with wanting something specific to happen. If someone is going to stop an execution by casting a spell, don't just tell him 'no', say there was a ward, or an anti-magic guard who's job it is to prevent that. It makes MUCH more sense as it explains why the action can't happen.
+CreepsMcPasta Or even better have it block the executioner, but when a fight breaks out with the guards about it have a randy guard run up and kill the executionee while they are distracted.
+CreepsMcPasta But the magic guard might notice the spell, causing the executioner to quickly finish the job and now there are guards searching for the person who cast the spell and defied the law (or whatever). Then they might attempt to arrest and execute that person as well.
+CreepsMcPasta I usually find it best to "stat the scene" (have rules ready for important NPCs etc) but not script it, just wing it as you go along. It allows for player shenanigans, and it's easier to plan for "this guy has to be dead by the time the scene's over" than "the guy needs to be executed like this at this point" (have him make a break for it when the executioner freezes, and the guards hunt him down, that sort of thing).
Fors Clavigera So like I was suggesting?
deceptiveauto Pretty much, yeah (only noticed your comment after I'd posted :S )
The thing about "don't have cut scenes," yeah it's annoying if the DM won't let you interrupt a villain's monologue and such but there's a great way to sneak them in without players feeling like you're taking control: Overheard conversations.
If the players are about to break into the villain's room but they hear him having what sounds like an important conversation, you know what their reaction is going to be?
"Shh! Shut up guys, wait! He might say something useful..."
Players will gladly stop and let you drop exposition here because they get that sense of "we're not supposed to be hearing this". ^^
When the rogue is scouting around, perfect chance to sneak these in.
so basically, by all means put cutscenes in there, but make sure to be sneaky about it
Good advice
I offer a hint from my own bag of tricks at how to be a DM.
If a player does something, like looking for traps or hidden doors, there is the right answer and the wrong answer. The wrong answer is "There are no traps". The right answer is "You find no traps".
Just my two cents at how to be a good DM.
+ThePariahDark This has served me to no end over the past many years. Just saying "You did not seem to find at trap at this point" has scared the shit out of my players more then once.
+ThePariahDark Oh yes, we fireballed many rooms on pure paranoia. Sometimes the room exploded, usually not.
Guilty as charged. When I know there's no danger around, even if I don't say it, it shows in my mannerism. They can usually tell if its safe to proceed based on all the no verbal stuff going on. I need a better poker face...
There are some players who hear "You don't find..." and resolve to stay put repeating checks until they find something.
Man, I didn't realize it was a youtube comment that gave this philosophy, I really took it to heart and have been using it.
My last session, one of my players decided to search for treasure while walking through an ancient old ruin that (in the published adventure) was usually barren.
He crit the search roll, so I went "okay, fine, I'll roll on the random treasure table, he'll find something, I guess."
I rolled a 95 on the d100 table, which is essentially "Treasure Hoard! roll 1d4 times on Magic Item Table F!"
And I essentially rolled some of the most insane magical items in the book. *sigh*
So I thought "I'm not gonna just GIVE it to them!"
And thus said player turned over a rock, and then summarily fell into a small dungeon I drew up in about 5 minutes. boom, demon infested ruin with an ancient altar where a Barbed Devil (and his four Bearded Devil bodyguards) were summonning a Horned Devil!
The party consists of six level 3 characters.
Cue the most epic combat I've ever had in my entire GMing career. :)
(They won! but not without Four of them getting downed to 0hp, and one of them deciding to tear off his shirt and grapple the barbed demon!)
+Andar Broment (Muskie) This would likely fall under the 'don't show the players the dice rolls' category for me. If it's more compelling to the story, they can find a single ruby.
The 'rules' are more like guidelines for the DM.
+Andar Broment (Muskie) I love this. It is just perfect.
+DKlarations Ah, but The players had fun and I got to practice whipping up dungeons on the fly! so I'm totally cool about it :)
oh...my....god......that is awesome
Or they could just find (remnants of) a map
An important note: The never say no rule does not prevent you from looking at the player and saying 'Are you a f*cking idiot?'
Also, a basic, yet effective, way of giving a proper consequence of a good deed is having the owner of the local shop give a discount on items. It's small, but it can be a nice detail when you save a town with a well-meaning shop owner.
+Nioxi Sterling On the first point. I prefer the calm "just so I got it right, you are going to X?", giving them a chance to rethink the decision and if they say yes then tell them what to roll. If their character should know better than explain why it probably is a bad idea, but still let them to it if they want to.
On the second, good idea. Small but excellent, the players will return for that incentive. Thus giving them a sense of a hometown and then you can make them interact more with the same NPCs, perhaps offer them a house in the town. Let the NPCs come up and greet them every time they show up, tell them rumors and news etc.
And then it is no longer a single use bare bones town.
angelowl89 The response I provided was more intended for comedy than advice, it's probably better to go with your response than mine.
I will admit that it was pretty funny and very appropriate a lot of the time. :D
+Nioxi Sterling as a DM the only time I say no is when they try to do something that is actually not possible. They want to take a running start and do this amazing jump, and they're in a tiny trolley cart. Which in that case I tell them you can try something else, but you are restricted due to the size of this cart.
The owlbear turns it's hat backwards in response to the arm wrestling challenge.
I yell at my party member to not do this. It's against my deity's wishes!
I yell at the owlbear in owlbearese, which I speak fluently, "Have at thee, Bird-Bear"
Just a show of hands who got the "over the top" reference?
*raises hand as you say "Just a show of hands"*
*lowers hand as you say "'over the top' reference"*
+zempmasterz lol I got it.
BAD GM STORIES?
Once I was playing Rifts. The other player and I were playing as modern day rock stars who got sucked into the apocalyptic Rifts setting, and we found ourselves in a meadow surrounded by a dark forest.
The GM explained that we heard the SOUNDS of BATTLE coming from EAST. So, unarmed and playing the characters, we headed WEST. Guess what we found.
A battle. Same thing happened 3 more times, so we came back to the meadow where it was safe. That's when the GM's all-powerful multi-dimensional heroic GMPC showed up with a letter written in "dragonese". I said my character can't read this. "Okay, then it's written in 'faerie'". I passed the page to my other modern-era companion, scratching my head. "So what languages DO you speak?" the GM asked in an incredulous tone.
"English. My rockstar character speaks, reads, and writes english." I told him.
I don't know if this pissed him off or not, because as we headed off towards some village under the protection of "Stevens" the GMPC we ran into a red dragon.
I lasted one round, burnt to a cinder as a ran in fear and horror from battle.
...
The same GM also said in another game: "While you are sleeping, it gets so quiet outside, that you wake up."
[comment deleted]
Robert Baratheon gold pot what?
i was making a joke because the last thing i was able to read was "guess what we found".
but now in the notification window i can see the whole comment, so there is no joke to make....
It cut off, please continue
Robert Baratheon Instead of making short statements made as questions, please form more coherent questions, and I will respond with answers in kind. Thank you. :)
There's always the classic DM "Are you sure?"
If they're doing something really stupid. that will oftentimes make them think twice.
There's been a moment or two where I've gone: "That's a dumb" -Looks at character's Int- "You know what, go for it; Try and jump through that pipe (Or whatever)"
"Are you sure?" is the best thing to say when everything is perfectly safe.
unless you're my players
then you just say "Yes, I'm sure"
Friend I DM for has a bow as his main weapon. Partway through a fight, he runs out of arrows and decides to improvise. He approaches an enemy, throws his bow in his hands and yells "THINK FAST!" And kicks him in the nuts. I laughed so hard, I rewarded him with an automatic "kill" by having his target collapse in howling pain.
I believe that's an Uncharted reference? I think in the second Uncharted game there was a melee animation where the main character tosses his gun to an enemy and punches him. Not sure if the family jewels were involved, but there ya go.
"I go to arm wrestle the owlbear"
. . .
"okaaaaay"
"The owlbear is uncooperative and proceeds to bite your nipples off"
Also, an idea I got from a GM I had once -- have the players make flash cards that include their saves and certain skills so that you can make secret rolls for them. For instance, perception checks to notice that something is wrong -- telling them to roll can give it away. Although you can use that to rattle the players where necessary,
"roll perception!"
*party rolls*
*GM rolls*
"you notice nothing out of the ordinary. You do see a deer move through the underbrush, though."
+unnamedenemy9 My regular GM tends to write that down in his laptop for that reason. It can be fun to roll some not actual rolls and then continuing on describing a perfectly normal situation.
+unnamedenemy9 I want my screen name to be "UncooperativeOwlbear". As opposed to a tame or well-trained owlbear.
16:46 -- Thank you so much for mentioning this. My players were so shocked the first time I had monsters retreat. They were so used to video games and having suicidal mooks throw themselves at them constantly.
+Cyber Dynasty Then you're really satisfied when you have their head fly off.
+Jonathan Herzog metal slimes are annoying because of their ability to do so
+Jonathan Herzog I'm a really average DM and i've never think about this before but it's makes so much sens. I'll start doing that.
+Jonathan Herzog I have a friend who frequently DMs and he NEVER makes anyone retreat ever.
we once set up a wall of spinning blades, killed all his allies, had backup on our side, had an ice spell on the ground that caused people to take freezing damage when they entered the space.
and this was in a campaign with 6 players, so this 1 guy, 1 GUY ran into the blender and immediately got annihilated even though there was an easy exit to get backup if he just turned around.
+Jonathan Herzog In our last session, one our players utterly destroyed one of the enemies, who was a mage. Then our lizardfolk player took advantage of that and intimidate checked the remaining 3 mages into not fighting anymore. DM went along with it and ended the battle. It was really cool.
Once I had a player who said, "I run up to the owlbear... AND FUCK IT!"
I said yes... XD
I told my parents about these videos, so they got me a D&D starter set for Christmas
Welcome aboard. X3.
me too
so hyped
+TheMechanicalReaper I understood a lot of D&D but I never really had a copy of some of the basic rules (small stuff like calculating armor class) So I was overjoyed this Christmas when I got my hands on my starter set, I'm still planning to do my own adventure not a premade one, but this should help to improve it for us
Goddamit! I wanted a D&D starter kit All i got was a PS4 and like 10 games
+TheMechanicalReaper Welcome to the community! Have fun slaying your first goblin or kobold!
"I don't suppose we can hit X to skip this villain monologue?"
I've lost count of the number of times I've shot/blown up/ stabbed/ colapsed a building onto a monolouging villain.
I'm sure the DMs LOVE you.
You can hit THE VILLAIN to interrupt the monologue :)
"I didn't know you changed your name to X. Shut up."
The DM I play with does something awesome. When someone kills something, he says, "You attack him, and..?" forcing the player to come up with just how the monster was killed. It'll always be like, "You attack him, and?" "I take my rapier as Ardath is grappling the lizardman. My blade runs him through, barely missing Ardath's armpit." It's awesome, and gets everyone super involved.
Character: *laying on the ground, beaten and bruised, both legs broken, barely staying alive*
Player: I want to want to kick flip the evil witch off a clif and then flip her off
DM: N-
ProJared: *in the distance* ALWAYS SAY YES
Give me a fort save, a will save, anddd an attack roll at -10
For your most vital tip around 4:30, I reference one of Matt Mercer's key phrases, "You may certainly try."
so basically, follow the rules like pirates follow the pirates' code. i.e. they're just a set of guidelines more than solid rules
Ah the list of names... I never got around to making any. I'm the kind of DM who tells the party that the Innkeeper is named Ian Keeper and they'll have to speak to Joe Trader to get more gear though.
I might be a bad DM...
+GradualGhost
Well, it depends if the mood you want to set is a serious one or a more light hearted one, where a certain amount of humor is present.
I remember DM-ing an adventure, where one of the player characters was a tiny dwarf (only a few inches high) and the other players just threw him into battle, like a living hand granade. ^^
+GradualGhost You can keep a bunch of name generators in a webbrowser for those events. Try finding those with serious names. Just remember to write the name down as well. "Arther, innkeeper, gnome male, purple hair".
Your list of NPCs can grow as you go along as long as you improvise and write things down. Writing stuff down is highly underrated amongst both players and DMs.
angelowl89 Oh I know, I'm just lazy.
That works too. XD
All of my shopkeeper are called Joe. Especially the women. After awhile, it became a joke.
Another NPC had a name that changed everytime the met her. Charol, Carol, Sarah, Charlene, etc.
Uncreative names can always be good.
I use to have a group I played with, but I stopped because the DM made his own character to travel with the party... but it was obvious his character was the "main" character and always saved the party when there was trouble, and the story would focus on him, and he could not fail, he would get special buffs, skills and spells making him similar to an anime character, and he wouldn't let the party fail either. It became clear we were just there to make his character look awesome when we got our butts handed to us by an enemy that he designed to be unstoppable by anyone other than his own character.
+aristokraticassassin Worst form of a GMPC ever, I usually avoid them like the plague, but I did have my current group ask a npc to join their guild and travel with them, they are amazing at the fighter role, but are 100% shit at everything else. The party has thus far had great fun at the npcs expense and making fun of her when she can't do some simple things like start a fire by herself. She also runs away from anything that would be too "icky", like a caterpillar creature I made for them to fight.
Sounds like a blast
Cortarian Yeah. I definitely don't mind DMs having their npc's join the party, especially if the players are ok with it, but a good dm know's to use them as more of a support character and not transform the character into the star of the show.
This happens a lot with noob DMs
I had this happen. the npc was more powerful than us and none of us could fight him. it definitely felt like he was a god or something.
Rule 0 - So long as everyone's having a good time, let it ride. When people *stop* having a good time, change something up.
This is my GM Golden Rule that I obey above all others. Even if it means a TPK, even if the story I had would be completely derailed beyond recovery, I will obey that one rule, and I know the night will still be awesome.
A list of detailed things I've found that enhance my games quite a bit:
-Use notecards to give players hidden information without having to take them away from the table. Do this for both good and bad things, too, so that players don't auto-cringe or get excited every time you do it. This is also a good way to be able to juggle one or two sub-plots concurrent with the main story without slowing much down or revealing too much
-Are your players starting to predict when ambush combat encounters are coming up because you pulled the battle mat out, to your annoyance? Consider having "false battles" - roll out the mat, draw the area out (assuming you didn't beforehand) and get miniatures, etc. Then have them move through it...and then once they reach the end, roll up the mat and say "good job". Combining this with the above, you can also make "fake notecards", where you just write "this is a fake - destroy this card and don't tell anyone", to keep people on their toes.
-On the above note: the one thing I would recommend you practice is how to make descent battle maps *quickly*. You will inevitably come across a combat encounter you didn't plan for, and the thing that *always* takes the most time is drawing maps out. The faster you are at it *while also making sure everything is relatively clear*, the better the game will flow and the more fun everyone will have.
-Do you have a large group that you game with (7+ people) and find GMing for too many overwhelming? Consider making one of them Assistant GM. Lots of great points to this: you still control the overall story direction and majority of NPCs, but give them other interesting things to do - have them control some of the monsters, be in charge of battle strategy, let them roleplay one of the major villains for you, etc. You can also use them outside of game as a sounding board and idea generator to make your game even more glorious then it would be with just you (two heads are better then one, etc). And it's great for people who haven't GM'd properly before since it gives them exposure to the fun stuff without the usual pressure that the full role has.
-Similar to the above: did a player die or otherwise become unplayable? While they wait for their character to come back (or write up another one in between games), have them play as a powerful monster or roleplay as an NPC for the game's remainder. It gets them back in the action quickly so they can keep having fun, and provides the other players with unexpected twists if they're used to your fighting styles and tactics.
-Video game music exists for a reason: it's great for helping to set the tone. Likewise, if you have some background music from games or movies playing while you game (20+ minute ambient stuff without lyrics works best, I find), it can help set and keep people in the proper mood. It's especially good for new groups who've only played videogames but not D&D - they're used to music helping inform their moods in games, so this will help ease them into the pen and paper nature of things.
-Who says TPK has to be the end of the adventure? This is the beauty of D&D vs videogames - there is no Game Over screen unless *you* say it is. So why not just continue on from there? Have the Big Bad conquer the world, but have a resistance movement spring up. Or if he destroyed the world, have the gods pull adventurers from another dimension be pulled in to help clean up the mess and try and restore it (big aspect of story telling: there's no such thing as "permanent" out there). Sure it'll require work and player cooperation, and it'll likely be a lot tougher and more bleak then before, but it's a great way to keep the story going and keep from having to throw your world away completely. It may even allow the eventual recovery of the original story plan if you're creative enough about it (maybe the ancient prophecies were deciphered wrong, perhaps?).
-Want to include an actual puzzle in the game but don't want to frustrate your players (too) badly? First, make sure it's not time-critical (at least, at first) so they have time to study the problem properly, and ensure that *all* of the pieces needed to solve it are in the room the puzzle's in, or at least near impossible to miss on the way there. Also, make sure it's not overly complex: this is D&D, not Myst, so you don't want players to have to struggle too hard with it. Logic puzzles (Hanoi Tower, Number Sequences, etc) tend to work best here since they're the most straight-foward to understand and solve while still being challenging enough to be satisfying when solved and are generic enough that they can be adapted to most settings, from locks on a Dwarven vault to trap mechanisms in an ancient temple to encrypted writings in a Wizard's grimoire.
-When using traps, place them in places that make sense. Traps usually go in areas that people are not likely to use often, if ever, and are also used as substitutes for guards since you usually can't watch all entryways all the time. Also, unless it's a place the trap's creator *never* intended to return to, try and figure out how the creator could bypass said traps, even if it's "he's a wizard, so he'd just teleport straight to the top of the tower". This will give a greater sense of realism to your world when you have a ready explanation for players if/when they ask about it instead of going "I dunno, just thought it would be an interesting challenge and the Rogue looked bored."
-Technology is your friend for more then just finding groups, too. If one or more of your players can't make it to the home due to some life event (travel for work, etc), ask if they can video-conference in. Have them send you a copy of their character sheet and set up a web cam to point at the table/battle mat area. Then just have them roll on camera for you. One of my friends got so sick he went to the hospital for a while, but he didn't miss a single game because of this method while he was out.
-If possible, figure out food and drink plans for everyone *before* people arrive at the place you're going to play at. At best, this will prevent the inevitable delay from people getting hungry mid-game and ordering food, traveling to get it, eating it, etc; at worst, you can anticipate and incorporate the delay as a mid-game intermission so people can refresh and prepare for the rest of the game.
-Don't be afraid of giving characters "Star Treatment" if they saved a town - they *saved the town and everyone in it*, right; why wouldn't the town want to aid their heroes? And it doesn't even have to break the game, either. Sure, giving them unlimited access to the magic items in the local shop for free is a bit much (the town may have need of those in future of the heroes leave, after all), but why not free room and board at the local inn? Why not permanent discounts at local shops for mundane stuff like clothes, adventuring gear or other (cheap) goods? VIP access to places they had to sneak into before, like the local keep or mayor's manor? Showing proper appreciation for saving their lives goes a long way to ingratiate a party toward townspeople who called on them for help,
+darkmage07070777 I like that rule. One of the best campaigns I have been part of was a derailed one. A character was getting married and told his best friends (the party) that they could stay at his castle while he was away on his wedding. Offended they got drunk, hired some mercenaries and burned down the barony. Then with the loot they hired even more mercs and managed to conquer half the country, as well as the northern regions of the neighbouring country.
They even got an alliance with said neighbour after the king of said country officially gave up those regions in exchange for a military alliance against a crusade. Then we were busy organizing the bureaucrazy, the army, claiming the rest of the country and proclaiming the restoration of a long dead kingdom.
It was awesome.
+angelowl89 Heh. We just recently left off one of my games with my Paladin trying to kill her Barbarian lover (rolling to hit and for damage and all) after he wished for her unborn baby to be "safe from all harm" (got teleported from her womb to a pocket dimension somewhere in the multiverse) so she could fight without being concerned (without her permission, natch), resulting in the entire city watch of about 200+ guards being called down in medieval riot mode during one of their major holy days and a complete departure from what was originally planned for the game. One player was quoted as saying "I don't know how you're going to get out of this one". Two days later, I had a plan for rolling with it and getting everything back on track.
Rule 0, man. Never doubt its power for awesome games.
Then the PCs are legendary in that area. If you ever play a new campaign in the same setting refer to those events. Thus giving a sense of time progression. :P
+angelowl89 Good one! You could even have some of the new players be the descendants of the previous characters, following in their progenitors' footsteps as would-be-heroes!
"That's is. That's the secret. Say Yes." Ladies, Gentlemen, and Pineapples, Dungeon Mastering is basically Improv.
I would argue it's coming up with bs for why your players have to do something XD
SuicideSam basically improv in a nutshell. Shit happens, the players do shit, shit changes.
theyellowgreninja W but what if someone tries to replace someone's arm with their dick
"You can try, but it is *highly* likely that this person will die. do you still want to continue?"
*Grabs saw* "So, that would be medice or a craft check?"
I would like to add something to the Cut scene point. If you DO insist on finishing your monolouge, or having someone be executed, think of ways IN GAME to stop the players. I have had a similar situation where the ranger shot an arrow at the boss, I think he was an evil Alchemist too actually, and instead of saying "Oh no let him finish" I had one of his undead minions get in the way of the shot, and then have the big bad become very upset that the players didn't let him finish.
Along the same lines, if the Big Bad is a Villain with a sense of fair play, who wants to finish his speech, I had him set up traps before hand, and preface to the players that he just wants to speak his mind before the fight. They can ask questions and converse, but if something gets in the way of him having a fair duel, such as in your case, when a player attempts to charge him, I had him drop Alchemist Fire from a trap in response, and asked that there be no more interruptions like that.
Either way, always keep the players engaged with the game. Do stuff that makes sense IN GAME, not just outside, because that is metagaming, just from the GM's perspective instead.
+knate44 This, ingame solutions are always superior to real life solutions.
I did a TPK, but the next party slowly started uncovering a mystery 300 years layer, and led them to find that their whole party was covered up, and that the bad guy had taken over as a political mastermind, turning adventures into monsters by having them raid refugee camps, claiming bandits, having them defile holy graves, claiming necromancy. and eventually, the party got caught up in his own web.
in the end, they fought the resurrected corpses of the last party, as well as the city of innocents. they had to get through the last dungeon without killing civillians, because that would prove, they were bad guys, and they'd be wanted across the nation.
it was the most badass way to force the players to not fight, and to let cutscenes play out
knate44 I actually had this happen to me while DMing last night where my ranger shot at a boss mid monologue and I just had the boss catch the arrow mid flight and watched my players gasp in horror. (They eventually killed the boss though no worries❤️)
The top qualities of a good DM (in my opinion):
Agreeability
Adaptability
Creativity
My ex broke the game and just about all interest I had in pnp games - at least for a while.
Said ex played it in a dictatorial way that " _You MUST do this, you MUST do that, and I will make the character for YOU!_ "
After one or two hours of straight up boredom of doing nothing, I threw my arms in the air and said " _Fuck this! You play it, I'll go do what I want instead._ "
That being said, my interest is still there, but I remain cautious.
Villain: Blah blah blah.
- Suddenly sees a big brute comes running straight for him
Villain: H-Hold it! I -I wasn't dooooneee!
Big Brute: GRAAAARRR!!!
+Zeithri Or, more likely- "Hold Person. NOW, AS I WAS SAYING BEFORE THAT LUMMOX TRIED TO INTERRUPT ME...."
*****
Reminds me of that fan-made D&D video with the guy who kept killing the guy trying to monologue x3
+Zeithri Sorry about your first RPG experience like that. Some Dungeon Masters wanna do little else but tell a story with no real concern about player fun, which, yeah, they ARE telling a story, but it should be everyone at the table BUILDING the story.
+Zeithri The guy sounds like a rotten DM, and any player or DM worth their salt would sympathize with your situation. I really hope you do end up playing with a decent crowd someday - heck, just tell 'em you had a bad first experience and they'll probably be extra sure to make you feel welcome.
TheGamerDarius
Yeah, wasn't the only field me and my ex didn't clash ( _obviously :P_ ) but it was one of the biggest disagreements. I think said ex's reasoning was that, players making their own characters is an issue while I argued against with " _Well what's the bloody point then?_ "
I do want to try again and I have always had an interest in setting up my own stories, even started writing a few of them. My main points of interest being Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 pretty much, but also Starship Troopers, Street Fighter ( _and modify it as well_ ) and Bubblegum Crisis 2033 to mention a few. So I do have an interest still, just that that first experience when I finally got around to test it.. Yeaah.
Another helpful tip is creating obstacles that the players have the capability to overcome. An example would be if the players are going into a dungeon, well, dungeons have traps. But if the players are missing rogue, make it to where they don't need to disable the traps, just get around them. If their are wizards or clerics, have magical traps. If their is a ranger, have traps that just needs to be spotted and can be jumped over. It makes the players feel like their characters are more useful.
+IcyHaze02 There is a trick from Star Wars Saga: droids. An astromech droid can help navigate and pilot ships for example. If the party is missing something like a guide or want som extra muscle. Let them go hire someone. That way they can work around weakness in the party when relevant.
I always forget about hirelings. But yeah, that is also an option. That way, it helps circumnavigate character weaknesses.
Me too, waaay too often. Somehow it is easier to remember in star wars saga than in other games.
I had a party of fairly powerful characters that had this problem (no rogue), they solved by having the fighter hurl dead goblins ahead of them to set off traps;)
My dream in life is to have Pro Jared DM a game for me. I imagine he would be a brutal but fair Dungeon Master. :P
+DreamcastGuy can i join that session?
+Raezeman me too!!!
i would totaly want that to me my first d&d session,,,,(i have no friends)
ok i may im actualy on the new projared D&D google comunity thing (fan made i think)
+Bas Bruines try Roll20.net! it's really great for playing D&D (or any RPG) with anyone online.
So I wanna share this Pathfinder story. So a few friends and myself (who is DMing) are playing through a premade adventure called Rise of the Runelords, and we recently just cleared a dungeon called the Catacombs of Wrath, where at the end of it, you're supposed to fight this quasit, which is a tiny demon. However during a forced Sense Motive skill check my friend rolls a 1 and thus critically fails the roll and begins to think that every comment made by the demon is a sexual advance on him. Throughout the fight, he made repeated attempts to grapple and romance the demon eventually succeeding. I rolled a d% for pleasure and he got a perfect roll. I decided that the demon turned into a beautiful succubus that was completely devoted to having consensual sex, enough to give him an enchanted booty-call whistle, *but* his character failed to wrap his willie (meaning he got a low roll after the perfect) and ended up impregnating the succubus. My friend then jumps from his chair and runs to his room only to come back with another character sheet. This sheet was for his very first character, and as I look through the stats I ask him why he showed it to me and he merely points to his race, a half-fiend who, he explains, hates his terrible mother and goes on an adventure looking for his father. I look back up at him, stifle a huge laugh and just nod my head in agreement. I now await the time to have a random half-fiend show up into the game to charge at my friend and just scream at the top of his lungs "DAAAAAADYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!"
+Hiro Gaitou
this is amazing
+Hiro Gaitou This is glorious.
he ran to his...? what exactly?
i have a story muself as well,
i was starting a new adventure on dnd with mu friends and some visits, and for fun i placed 18 on charisma ( we tole the dice for the stats and then place them where we want ) and became a girl so o can charm the enemy or other males( including teammates ) and then the visiter desided to fuck me and i became pregnant... so yea that is mu story :)
+Eugenio Sada (KingMcDonalds) myself* sorry about spelling
FISTMEDADDI
I have a bad GM story. I used to play with this one guy that absolutely had to have the story go his way. He made plans for every contingency, so that if they tried something else, it would still end up where he wanted. He even made enemies and such with such high stats that the party would lose when he wanted them to.
I had him as a player once in one of my times as GM, and any times something bad happened to him, he would either derail the whole gang to whine abotu it or he would just quit until what happened to him didn't. He even whined when he was hit by a joke trap that made him wet himself, threatening to leave unless the effect was removed.
Sheesh, he was officially "That Guy". If he couldn't lighten up and have fun, then that's his fault.
Why was he there?
the worst DM I've ever had was easily the guy who was obsessed with making every single enemy we faced rediculously overpowered, giving bonus XP to undeserving players, picking favourites, making our "heroes" about 30 times weaker than average civilians (an average civilian once threw a beer mug at my character and got +16 to the roll WITH the penalty for improvised ranged weapon).
I put up with all of it, and he kicked me from the group for saying "woah this guy was barely able to summon zombies yesterday, but now today he has 18 ArchLiches he summoned? he must have some evil god giving him power, or some crazy artifact or something" in character. I even apologised for that, even though it was just my character speaking to his allies.
+PaladinGear15 That seems like a ridiculous reason to kick someone out of a group. Surely you had commented on some of the previous stuff too, so that the DM was tired of hearing about it? Not saying he's in the right for doing it, just that something with a bit more buildup seems necessary. 'Cause if not... just dang.
Aohaku I get what you mean, but let me put it into perspective; 1st level we encountered demons and got chased out of the cave,
2nd level we encountered a beholder and a level 30 wizard who happened to own the Inn we were staying at saved us (we waited about 6 turns for the battle to end. we gained no experience for our petty efforts)
3rd level, we encountered 18 ArchLiches and their leader who was apparently a student next to my level 3 sorcerer who happened to practice necromancy.
(all of these encounters involved a fight by the way, DM refused to allow stealth, bluff, or anything like that, and if you rolled a nat20, someone instantly noticed you anyway, immediately, every time.)
Dang! Sounds like a serious case of killer DM. Considering skill checks aren't affected by critical success or failure by book rules (though a common house rule is to allow them to anyway). I can't imagine the campaign went on for much longer after you were banished anyway. That kind of pure BS can only go on so long.
Aohaku too bad I never really made friends with the guys in that campaign, I know two other guys left before I got kicked, but they got replaced immediately.
it woulda been nice to know how that ended.
+PaladinGear15 Yeah... That is just silly. Silly and dumb. It is kind of the point of RPGs to feel empowered and be able to do things, which can't happen if you are constantly on the run. Compare that stuff to the latest pathfinder campaign I played, sure we were desperately on the run from the powers that be after breaking out of a prison.
But we still broke out of that prison of our own power (at level 1), killed a score of guards and kidnapped the captain. Then we managed to kill a higher leveled paladin in plate armour by ganging up on him , burning down a fort while the guards slept, wiping out an entire village with a summoned devil etc.
All through some planning and clever use of skills and class features. Seriously, if the players are not having fun then you are doing things wrong. Even in horror campaigns you can be thrilled that your character survives impossible odds through their own strength.
one of my favorite moments as a player came from Basic D&D. I was playing a Thief and said I wanted to climb the nearest tree, our characters were on top of a treeless hill and after being informed I replied Jokingly, "I climb... the AIR!" and rolled my percentage dice getting a 5% and my DM decided ok I'll teach this guy... and the wind caught up in my cape and took me air borne ever so slightly, but just enough to push him off the hill and up high enough that he fell and took some fall damage. from then on we played cat and mouse while i tried riding the wind the same way he did before... and on the third success I rolled a 1%... he took my character sheet a silly Lvl 1 thief and gave it back with a cloak of gliding on it. He then became known as Windrunner. One of my favorite moments ever... in Keep on the Borderlands no less.
Excuse my bluntness, but preparing for DnD is like having a girl over.
Clean the place and yourself.
Dim the light and set up some candles.
Prepare a playlist.
And have lots of tissues on standby.
What would you use the tissues for in the DnD situation?( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
+Sassy Nick For the snacks :) greasy fingers and character sheets/books doesn't go well together.
+BobvanKay This man knows how it works.
+BobvanKay So true! In fact, in our grup until your sheet doesn't get stained with water is not truly earned xD we baptise them in a way
+BobvanKay I had a friend who always got his sheets covered in cheeto dust until they became an illegible mishmash of eraser stains and orange smears.
Incidentally, he also had to bring his own controllers over when we played video games.
It's a battle:
You find an archleech, a dragon, a banshee and a gnoll playing cards.
:P
its time to d-d-d-d-d-d-d-duel!!!
I body slam the dragon.
Daniel Syck
Music starts out of nowhere, the ground opens and a ring starts coming out of it, the gnoll hits you with a chair and helps the dragon give you a double elbow drop!
:P
+Left4Coragem I try to stand up (roll 1).
I run for the ring. If need be, I jump toward it.
I have a curse that makes rings litterally irresistable to me. I'm a well-known criminal who steals and hordes rings.
We should totally have a D&January (Jragons is spelled with a J, yeah?)
Issun McGoodmage it could be d&j (dungeons and dragons with jared
I spent about ten minutes setting up a map and putting figures out and such to get an encounter ready. The party used magic and bluff checks to circumvent the fight entirely and I let it go. Always reward your players for thinking outside the box. Never get to married to the narrative. Be flexible. Also it's a good idea to have access to level appropriate enemies and encounter maps in case of emergencies. I just googled keep maps and found several interesting maps for future use. Above all have fun.
+necogreendragon Yep. It is fine to get visibly frustrated and tell them that they were not expected to do that, but also state that it was pretty darn clever and that you should have been prepared. That makes them feel proud rather than hurt.
necogreendragon I've had players try to seduce the boss of the current adventure and I let them (she was a succubus so it kinda worked out). It was funny because they went from creeps on the other side of a hole in the wall to a loving boyfriend and thought nothing was suspicious.
@@Duchess_Van_Hoof yeah
Rule no. 1 to being a good DM: Fuck the rules.
Cheonging101 Rule no. 2 to being a good DM: Apologize to the rules and give it 20 dollars.
Rule no. 3 to being a good DM: a year later sue the rules claiming that the 20 dollars was a loan, and that you had a verbal agreement that you would get 30 back.
"Tomorrow on Judge Judy"
Rule 4: lose the case.
Rule 5: Sue the rules for emotional damage.
In one of my old campaigns, my party entered a portal and ended up outside the place we were playing d&d. we met ourselfs playing ourselfs.
A lot of what being a good DM is boils down to being flexible; saying yes and letting the players choose where to go and do what they wanted, including being able to interrupt scripted events. It allows them to write their own story and play the characters how they want. Which is admittedly difficult sometimes, but does make things more interesting and more fun.
Personally, when I DM, I do homebrew campaigns, but I do them a bit differently by creating these huge continents with a variety of kingdoms and events, a lot of which they can miss because the players just may never go someplace, with a grandios plot coming in later once they've gained a few levels and become familiar with the world, providing a gradual build of greater danger they eventually discover and are motivated to stop. Because I write fanfics as a hobby, I found that easier than most; and because I put a lot of that stuff on a laptop instead of dozens of papers, I was able to adapt and keep track of those things better, as well as recycle them. Or, as I often did, use the same continent, but centuries later, with signs of the previous set of adventurers being present, while some have changed, and even though the lands are the same, the maps and kingdom boarders and landscape may have changed. A dormant volcano home to a clan of fire giants in the past has now erupted and those fire giants are gone, leaving just a blasted landscape, invited new creatures, and uncovered signs of a ruins with the volcano, accessible now that there is less lava, and the new adventurers can choose to investigate once they have gathered some gear to protect them from the great heat, leading to the discovery of why the volcano erupted. When being a DM, you are helping to write a story, but your job is to provide bullet-points; let the players fill in the details and bring the story to life.
And let your players do what they want and work with it, as that helps develop their characters and make them much more interesting. For example, I was playing in a fairly large group, about 7 people total, and I was playing a fighter, but we were playing with a guy who was new to D&D and wanted the challenge of playing a sorcerer. Right from the start, they made it clear they intended to do a lot of sitting back, watching, learning, and get a feel for things as they didn't really know the rules or how the game was played past the basics. But early on, we were helping the guards of a port city ambush a pirate group who had a base inside a cave, and the pirate captain was giving us a hard time when we joined the guard squad to help arrest and capture them, though killing wouldn't sadden anyone. Myself and our other fighter, a dwarf, were having a very hard time against the pirate captain, even with the help of the guard lieutenant, and the sorcerer wanted to help out without hurting any of us with his spell, so asked the DM if he could aim a magic missile spell at the pirate captain's head. The DM was flexible and told him to make a roll for it against his ranged attack skill, which the sorcerer made. The DM made his own roll, then explained that one of the sorcerer's magic missile bolts hit the pirate captain in the eye, popping it, causing him to drop his finely crafted steel cutlass and stumble backwards off his boat in pain, only to hit the stone of the cave's dock with his head, busting it open, before flopping into the water. Seeing that caused the rest of the pirates to all surrender, and saved our skins from a lot more healing as the captain was higher level than us (us three fighters hadn't hurt him at all). And it began a trend of the sorcerer being more involved, and aiming his spells more, developing the character into a precision spellcaster, which the DM supported and let them put skill points into so they could reduce aim penalties and let him use his skills in even more creative ways. The sorcerer had a ton of fun, as did we, as it was so interesting to see the results of their ideas, like cast a fog cloud spell anchored on the figurehead of the ship chasing us, then watch them plow full speed into some coral shallows, letting us pick them off until they surrendered and take the cargo from their ship for ourselves. That was awesome!
And that's why I love D&D. I love great stories. And they allow us, both as players and as DMs, to be part of them by writing them or see them written, in amazing ways we never would have thought of.
Some friends and I were playing a Chaotic Evil campaign, in which we had traits/flaws. My wizard was a necrophile and a dracophile and we rode around on a giant bone dragon... she was my true love. Our one and only goal was to attain "power", so we flew around on my "Boner Dragon" and would enslave villages by flying over them, finding the where the Lord of the town or city lived, and would drop an Adamantium Instant Fortress from the sky and crush them while they slept. We would then summon literal waves of rats to belch forth from the gates of our fortress and immediately devour all babies and children. Upon enslaving the population we would stuff the villagers into "bags of unlimited holding" and take them back to our volcano where we sacrificed them to the Demon God Borobos.
+Che Pirozak-Lillick I have not laughed so much at the suffering of innocents like this sense what... last Tuesday? Or was that Monday?Either way I laughed then AND now.
+Cortarian I have hellacious stories for days about that campaign if anyone is interested...
+Che Pirozak-Lillick I am interested! MORE STORIES NOW!
Wow
Coming January, I'll be DMing for the first time. I have an ambitious plan, but I've had the luck of having played with some of the best DMs in my area. So, for my first try, I'm going all out as far as story, and the world is concerned. I very carefully chose my players. While the world is vast, and I have a specific storyline of a war between Kingdoms, I'm letting the players choose their path. If they want to fuck off from the war and would rather go sailing in the sea, hunting Mermaids, I'll allow it, as long as it ends up in an enjoyable experience for everyone.
One thing I would mention for others, the 5th Edition DM's Guide is *extremely* helpful, I can't put into words how well it frames things for new DM's, and gets you into the right mindset. It actually recommends sometimes you bend or break rules (well, not the basic ones) to make it more fun for everyone- especially the players.
I'm absolutely sure there's a lot that can only be learned through pure experience though.
RpgDestiny So, how'd the game go?
We wish to know how it went. Do you still play.
This actually reminds me of this time when I was a DM with my friends. They were SUPPOSE to go and stop this Wizard from enslaving this village. I had multiple paths for them to take, but they said, "Nah. We don't wanna fight some evil wizard. We wanna go explore this forest!" It was the one thing I didn't have planned, so I improvised a new campaign, but I still wanted to use that evil wizard somehow...
So, one adventure later, they're suddenly attacked by Zombies, like, out of nowhere. And they kept getting attacked and when they asked why, I told them that Wizard is now a Lich and is trying to kill all Adventurers. No exceptions. That got them excited enough to go fight him now!
I remember my first time as Dungeon Master. The party came close to killing a dragon, I told them it was nearly dead, the fighter moved in for the kill, then I screamed "BREATH ATTACK!", the dragon scored a critical hit, and the entire party was incinerated.
I assume they were pumped to make some new characters and try again?
***** Yes. They all learned a valuable lesson that day: just because a monster is almost dead doesn't mean that it can't still kill you.
+Sam Geuvenen that's actually a plot point in The Princess Bride.
***** Uhhh, when did that happen again? Was it the giant rat?
+Sam Geuvenen when Westly was "mostly dead". "There's a difference between 'mostly dead' and 'all dead'." In this case, the heroes are the "monster", though.
I never say no.
If the Fighter wants to go Super Saiyan, roll a 1d100. (100=Super Saiyan)
By God, Have I had some unlucky games...
The Fighter was punched by the Black Mage (Wizard) and rolled to Super Saiyan.
He then punched the Black Mage Across the world, into next Tuesday (7 Turns later)
Billy rolls to super sayan.
Billy rolls 100
His enemy Jeff rolls to super sayan.
Rolls a 1.
Dies.
Rule #1: make sure your players ARE HAVING FUN
*Me:* "The baron is offering you a great monetary reward, a whole village and it's lands to rule over in his name, a mansion in said village to act as your home base and a free license to excavate/explore any ruins in the barony without punishment for the crime of "looting the baron's property".
The bandit king, on the other hand, is the only person that has the information you need and has good connections with any local underground societies, cults and operations. Helping him would likely grant you a sort of "underground" diplomatic immunity against those assassins that are still after you. Then there's...
*The players:* "Yeah we're just gonna ignore them both and delve into the city's sewers to look for a way out of the city so that we can go hunting for deer in the woods."
*Me:* "... Uh... Okaaaay then. You're not listed as wanted criminals in the barony so you could just walk out the city gates and..."
*The Players:* "Naw man. Through the sewers we go. Hey, maybe we should make a hidden base in the sewers while we're down here!"
*Me:* "... Why do I even bother making anything but sewers?"
*"Sewers=FUN!"* to my players.
@@RuSosan If its a medieval style city you could always just say there are not connected city sewers.
@@ageco.6896
If only. I designed and thus also described the town as an advanced one with freshly fixed sewers running under it when they entered soooo... Yeah. No way out of that one.
@@RuSosan Oh well, at least you know now
@@RuSosan Year late, but say that the majority of the sewer system is undergoing maintenance, and is inaccessible.
I would love to try out being a DM. Seems like it would be the most fun role to play, personally. Although I'd have to train a bit...
And have friends to train with...
And have friends...
Gonna go cry myself to sleep now. Bye.
+Classy Reviews Don't worry your beautiful to me :) (I love making this joke)
deceptiveauto D'aw, I'm blushing xD
This is all fantastic advice, Jared. I'm not experienced with tabletop RPing, but most of the points still apply to other forms of RPing, such as forum RP (which I've done regularly for three years or so) and in that kind of game everyone is simultaneously a player and a DM, controlling their own characters, sometimes monsters, and quite often NPCs related to their planned plotlines. We've had cases of "good DM" and "bad DM" interspersed throughout our years-long forum runs, and while our forums have very minimal rules and mechanics (it's more like "co-op writing," really), all of the major pitfalls of tabletop RPing tend to crop up.
Also, I laughed out loud at the monk charging the alchemist while he was monologuing... because I did the same thing to the antagonist of Oblivion. There's nothing in that game that stops you from attacking while he's talking, and if the difficulty is set particularly low (as it was for me because FUCK THAT GAME'S LEVELING SYSTEM) you might just one-shot him. It was glorious. He went down like a sack of potatoes. Epic finale denied!
Make sure you research gods, if a character worships a god, ask them the god, write it down and then look up information about the god. The worst dm incident I have ever had happened because the dm did not look up my god forcing bad things that are against what the god would do. He almost took away my cleric powers because he did not research the god before trying to make a side quest. Because of this stunt we fell behind and messed up the store's scheduling where my d&d happens. Now most people don't go to a store for it but even so knowing any gods involved is important, it also would allow you to mess with the players in the proper manner if they go against the god instead of my incident which made everyone at the table pissed at the dm.
so the tl'dr version. know any god info if needed or piss off the group because you didn't know what you were doing.
***** the dm still needs to have the basics if it effects the game, a god for paladins and clerics does impact the game largely since those gods dictate actions taken by the players and allows them to cast magic. if dms want to make side quests out of gods they personally need to do more research to make the quest so it doesn't meta game or spoil the quest for players.
+Blackestfang A good DM will also consider bumping up the significance of any gods/saints etc that the PCs are involved with - that stuff's a goldmine for plot hooks.
+Manek Iridius I'd respectfully disagree with your second point - unless you're playing a setting with a structured series of events like Lord of the Rings, bringing things the players are invested in into the foreground at the expense of other things can help reward their interest and make them feel involved. Some settings like Golarion and Forgotten Realms are made to be tinkered with and customised within reason.
Fors Clavigera he did manage to do this once though. In anther side thing he made a mystical mansion and when we went to check it out there was a ghost there named after the god and the place was a holy place for that god. This was a fun little place, the two who worshiped the god stayed in the house and helped with a farm that was near by while the others peeked around to figure out what the place was. but then he did the very bad side quest that was by the god's direct actions instead of the spirit of what the god is.
players should research their gods as well. I accidentally summoned Anubis and got the party started on the main quest accidentally.
My first time being a DM I had a great experience when it went into a small side-quest in town, the party had just gotten to the town I decided there were going to be three things of interest, so I decided on a general store and a tavern but I couldn't think of a third building so I said that they also noticed a shady looking guy go into an alley, one of them followed which I wasn't fully prepared for that to happen so I made it a drug deal. He decided to sneak and follow the guy and when he was standing in front of a building he knocked him out and took the drugs off of them, he tied him up in front of the police office he looked around for the guy who sold the drugs and saw him go into the tavern he got one of the other party members to go in with him(note: this other party member is guard in another town) so the party member he brought in went over and told the man he was under arrest and grabbed him to start dragging him. The man tried to hit his hand away but failed and accidentally hit him in the face, the party member took the man by the jaw and slammed his face against the bar and dragged him out by the hair and threw him through the window of police office. Then the party member that had the drugs went to another alley and sold them for 110 gold(note the man who they arrested bought them for 100 gold).It was the most fun thing and the funniest thing that happened that session.
The best way to mess with your PCs; ask for perception rolls at random pointless moments all the time, so that they won't know if there really is something to see when the roll is really needed.
mageofmoltor amen
DM: make a perception check
PC: ah shit it's a 3
DM: ok....... So you make your way down the hallway and you come to a great room etc etc.
PC: ;~;
"Being the butthole that i am i said "Hold on, i'm not done yet""
Now a good DM would've said "The alchemist notices the monk charging him, he shouts "Hold on, i'm not done yet-" , roll xDy"
Yeah as a DM pretty much never write out speeches or dialogue. The only time this rule can be bent is for literal text, like letters, the players might find. In my experience pre-planned monologues and speech always is awkward and awful (that said you SHOULD plan the general tone and knowledge important npcs might have).
+GameNub Quin I remember my friend was dming once and had this one guy give a huge speech, me being my neutral evil rouge I kept telling him to shut up and just pay me for saving his life already.
+GameNub Quin The Gamers. 15 seconds, then arrow to the throat.
Totally agree! I made the mistake of not having something written actually written down and forgot what it exactly said... And I never pre plan speeches because so damn much can change in just ten minutes of game time before said speech should take place. Like my players will say something to piss the npc off or whatever, and now I have to cut the speech short to start a battle lol
I used to get a lot of crap for this philosophy, so it's always good to know other people shared it.
I spent a lot of time thinking on my feet as a GM in D&D, White Wolf, etc., specifically because I'd let the players go where they wanted. And this was often seen as a bad thing. I worked around sequence breaking and I let them try their own ideas, even if I thought they were bad. Yeah, I'd warn them of potential consequences and set the difficulties/rolls, but hey, that's what a GM should do.
+Zachary Amaranth You are the storyteller and controls the world, the players are the main characters. There is nothing wrong with them being proactive, having motivations and actually making their own plans. Your job is to make the world react, create the enemies, the allies, those stuck in the middle, the enviroment etc.
In other words, your players kind of play an Bethesda RPG and those are popular for a reason. Even old Baldur's Gate 1+2 had lots of branching paths and different quests depending on your choices.
The best campaign me and my buddies ever played was a total derail where the characters got drunk, hired some mercenaries, burned down the barony. And wound up conquering a whole bloody country. We came to the aid of a neighouring country during a hostile crusade in exchange for the border regions, we created a new military structure, an entire industry, solved the starvation problem in the country etc. We resurrected a dead kingdom somwhat by accident and damn it was awesome.
I'm remembering a time my uncle was DMing a war scene, and the commander's were monologing . my mother's character (an albino drow thief and assassin) just said "f**k this" and shot an arrow at a orc. my uncle's response? "he goes down. everyone on the humans and monsters side looks at you dumbstruck. the chaotic war now begins."
He's fantastic
"The characters will still get the experience points; they don't have to kill them, just defeat them." I *really* wish all DMs lived by this rule. It should be writ bold across the first page of every DM guide. Not only does this make more sense from both a narrative and realist perspective, it also discourages your players from being murderhobos who respond to any slight with an all-out attack. After all, if you kill someone then you'll never be able to fight them again.
YES YES and more YES that description is perfect. I often feel that many new DMs and many players have this idea that the Dungeon Master is this malevolent entity that has the sole intention of stealing your character sheets. As a long running DM, lemme tell you all, there's nothing more gratifying than seeing your players get wrapped up in your worlds, and also when a split second moment of improv opens up a whole new storyline. Some of the best moments came from rolling with the crazy or unique things my players have hypothesised about.
There are three kinds of "Yes".
The flat "Yes" - full-on permission. More likely the one you'll use, as it gives the players the ability to decide what happens.
"Yes, and" - take their good idea, and build on it.
"Yes, but" - acknowledging the merit of the idea but recognizing the negative consequences of the action.
You can say "No" if it's really going to fuck up all the things if you don't, but if you use those 3 forms of "Yes" correctly, you shouldn't have to.
Also something that happened to my party, not every enemy wants to kill the players. This happend to our duo where we were taking back a dwarven stronghold from gnolls and had defeated most of the warband except the magic using scout leader and some minions unfortunatly the dice weren't in our favor(mine really didn't get over 10 that combat) that night and we lost, much to our surprise the GM told us we awoke much later with an ear missing and the gnolls gone, that gnoll, schlee ,is now a target for us, it would not surpirse me if we get another shoot at that bastard soon as the GM has woven Gnolls into the conflict we have with a local corrupt merchants guild.
I remember my first game of Dungeons & Dragons; I was the Dungeonmaster because nobody else wanted the work even though I was probably the least experienced player there. Still, the other players in the group were pretty impressed by my work. Turns out, I was a natural at improvising.
I think that a good idea for a video is how to start a campaign.
Omg your "secret" about letting the players do what they want is exactly why I stopped playing with my friends. Our DM was constantly micromanaging us and I got so fed up with it. I found myself being able to do more in Oblivion haha
Just in time!
I'm running my first session as the DM soon, and I was hoping to see something helpful in that regard.
I ran my first campaign (Pathfinder) 2 years ago, and it ended up lasting 11 freaking months! I made plenty of mistakes, and there were some awkward parts (for example I had to houserule a spell a player was 'abusing', then undo that houserule later because we were both just reading the spell wrong) but by the time we wrapped up the players admitted they'd gotten sick of Pathfinder as a system awhile ago but kept playing because they were having fun and liked the story I was telling!
Moral of the story is: If your players are good and you're all having fun, a lot of problems are much easier to smooth over than you might fear before you start :)
3:11 The DM I play with doesn't do this very often. A recent example from a few games past is he had set up a falling tile trap. Step on the wrong panel (which was easy to do as they were randomly scattered and you had to have a jump DC of 20-30 to make it, which was next to impossible for our group), you would trigger all the panels to fall and everyone drops 100 feet down.
I have no idea what the DM's solution was. We spent over 6 hours total on this thing and no level of creative thinking seemed to be a solution to this thing. No secret switch or the like; just some randomly scattered safe tiles and a reset tile. Step on the reset tile, the trap resets.
But after falling for the millionth time (we had no choice but to fall a lot to make it across), we got the idea that after triggering the trap, we would re-arrange the tiles so we line up the safe tiles to be in a straight line. We asked our DM how much these 5 foot by 5 foot tiles weighed; he responded with an absurd number of 600 pounds. Everyone just then turned to me, which my character has the highest strength out of anyone, and asked if I could lift it. After checking, I said I could actually lift 600 pounds by myself while under the effects of Bull Strength.
Once our DM heard me say that, he went on to say "Oh, in that case, the tiles weigh more than that. You can't move it."
He does this kind of stuff a lot. He's changed rules that we previously followed before or make stuff up on the fly to change how the game normally plays, ultimately just telling us "no, you can't do that." He claims he likes to challenge his players, but he instead often times beats us within an inch of our lives with things we've got no way of overcoming before granting us a "mercy" for it. I just think he mixes up "me VS the players; I must win" with a legitimate challenge.
This is a very nice video, and outlines why I think I never got into DnD although a good friend of mine invited me and a group into it several times. To reiterate on the "always-say--yes"-rule... wIth our games, most of the time we wouldn't get an outright "no" whenever we did something, however there would be almost no response from characters or the world in general. No matter what we tried, most of the responses would be either negative or brief removed from any information or human interaction. The characters didn't feel human and barely even functioned as NPC's since they couldn't answer even basic questions like "could you point us to X" or "so what do you have in stock?". Basically everything felt like a stop sign or an empty area filled with cardboard-people. The worst thing you can do as a DM, especially for newer players, is to throw players into a world were every interaction does squat all, and the player is left to wander aimlessly in a world that isn't described at all. You have to assume characters, be them and live them, and give purpose to people. I don't care how nihilistic a person might be, the aim of DnD is to give Purpose to a persons actions through his character (or vice versa, i.e. make actions have purpose). So basically, be a yes-man as Jared said. Be the world your players are living in, live out the characters and give them at the very least some form of personality or purpose, even if you can only manage stereotypical ones. Also, there's nothing wrong iin having a few "coincidental" things happen in the game even it might seem "unrealistic". Things like tht happen in life all the time, but you have limited time when playing DnD so you need to have atleast a few clutch-moments or significant events when playing. The world needs to seem as it's "going on" without the players, living. Of course, don't go overkill with ridiculous events, but above all try to make the players have fun and purpose in your world.
+Yous0147 That just sounds like a bad DM, making the world interesting and lively is their job. You can have plenty of fun just haggling prices with some NPC.
angelowl89 Yeah, that's exactly what I felt as well, especially when reading about other people's adventures. I get uber excited and just feel like "Yes! This I'd love to be a part of". I feel like my DM at the time was a power gamer through and through, and as such didn't have much interest in the actual roleplay aspect of the game. Maybe why our encounters were solid despite the lack of roleplay.
Old school DnD, the dungeon master designs a dungeon to kill the PCs and the players crawl through it and try to beat it. The game was never intended to be played like that. :/
Lol, like hero quest? (a board game pretty much only about traversing a dungeon and fighting) I know what you mean, there is much more to DnD than just fight, level up, become stronger. I don't find that aspect appealing by itself, especially given that I find DnD's classic fighting mechanics to be cumbersome without roleplaying. I feel it was designed as a setup as simple as possible to simulate believable behaviours, i.e. a system to regulate our imagination so that things don't become too ridiculous..If it was only about power-gaming, I'd honestly be more interested in playing a video game than polaying a PnP game.
I miss these videos :'(
Jared you've still got people in your corner!
Jared is a little rules light and while I agree with a lot of what he says I'd also say that as the DM you should really read through the books and know most of the rules. And don't be afraid for your first three or four sessions of a game that is new to you to have the group stop and look stuff up. This way, you know what exceptions and tweaks you are making are fair or the rules simply don't talk about; and what exceptions you are making that are stepping on the feet of, say, an ability another a character class gets or simply a tweak that will be too overpowered.
+GameNub Quin I would strongly suggest to not have the group stop and look stuff up. It really gets in the way of the flow of the game and story. Instead I'd recommend to write what situations and rules yourself and the group doesn't entirely understand and come back to them at the end of the session while going with what sounds the most reasonable for the time being. Unless everyone is just total beginners and you're not sure AC works or some shit like that. It makes sense to prioritize learning the game, just not to prioritize looking up the official way that wrestling works in the middle of a tense scene.
For your first few sessions of a brand new game, most players can accept stopping and learning. What I wouldn't recommend doing is stopping and looking a rule up for people brand new to the hobby, because they will think that it is part of the game rather than players getting acclimated to new systems. Unless like you said, it is something very important that nobody knows in which case look it up regardless of the group.
Also when you're new to a system, or even not, mark page numbers of important stuff like combat rules and where equipment is statted in the book.
+yellowtheyellow 1 in 25 people can both initiate and maintain a grapple correctly, can you? XD
+GameNub Quin To avoid getting stuck on details we have a houserule: when in doubt the DM makes a judgement call regarding it and tell us how to do it. Then we check up on the actual rule during lunch or other breaks.
It’s funny how you mention the bar bit. In one of my campaigns I’ve done, I was playing a human fighter and the party was taking a rest at a local inn when the moon came out and one of the patrons turned into a werewolf and we started to fight. Given how I had left my sword at the blacksmith to be repaired after it was broken in the last fight, I had no weapon on me. So what did I do? Grabbed a chair, broke it over the werewolf’s face, and proceeded to use the legs if the broken chair as improvised bludgeoning weapons. I actually dealt the final blow and to this day, the friends in my party and I still joke about how I once beat a werewolf to death with a chair.
I'm all for using homebrew settings and such, but when you're starting a campaign, I think it's a really good idea to have a "Zero session". During this session, you collaborate with the players and define elements of the setting. Things like various bits of the setting's history, current events, interesting facts. Same goes for any major NPCs, even when they're made on the fly. It's also during this Zero session that everyone makes characters and they make them together, because then they can work with the other players in defining their relationships to each other. It's fine if you want to start them off meeting each other for the first time before their adventure, but it makes it a lot more interesting for the players if they do that with each other. The setting as a whole will be more meaningful to them when they have that personal connection because they helped define it.
Also, finding ways to cut combat short when it starts to drag on too long is a good idea and I appreciate that you mentioned monsters running away, because I've never thought of that. I like what 13th Age does with the Escalation Die. Starts at Zero and increases by one each round and players receive a bonus on attacks and damage equal to the number on the escalation die. Or something like that.
+Ben Freeman We basically devoute an entire session to discussing what the campaign is about and designing characters together. Then if we have time left we try them out. We also have a rule, you can change most stuff before the second session if something feels off.
As a DM myself, a crucial thing is to plan ahead, just 2 or 3 outcomes. Taking your execution example: 1) what if the PCs interfere, 2) what if the PCs interfere, but fail and 3) what if the PCs don't have time or cannot interfere?
Casting Hold Person, but failing to affect the executioner would possibly reveal the PCs' presence and possibly delay the execution.
If you want to see any of the tips here in action check out Critical Role. The DM Matt Mercer uses all of the things Jared talked about to great effect.
Your DnD series videos have been AWESOME Jared. Just started playing this year and its hard to find comprehensive down to earth advice about playing. RAWK ON man.
How about a video about alignments?
+Leo Stephan I dunno, alignments is what people do wrong 99.99% of the time no matter their experience with things. And EVERY player, DM and passer-by have their own idea of what the alignments are and how they should be enforced.
+dr4coknight Honestly: I really dislike the alignment system. The rules are... vague at best and it limits character development. "Oh you can't kill that person. You're a paladin, you are lawful good." If Alignments are in some way important (grace of a god or something like that) the GM can manage that just fine.
I think alignments in regards to players are stupid. Everyone I've played with is an alignment hipster, "I'm chaotic good so that means I can help the townspeople while stealing all of their stuff and it makes sense within my character." It excuses lack of player choice as character building.
+Leo Stephan I think that's a good idea, because these videos from ProJared is mainly for newbees.
My own personal thought is that I like D&D because of the alignment-system. There's lots of other RPG:s out there and what makes D&D special is the alignment-system. And there's hundreds of arguments you can make about it but it all basically comes down to how hard you should follow alignments without it getting contradictory. Because for every argument there's a counterargument.
Maybe the most important thing is that everyone in the group have roughly the same view about alignments.
I have also come to the conclusion that the best view about alignments to not make it conflict with itself but at the same time matter is to see it as a one tool that say something about your character, not everything about your character. For example, your alignment doesn't describe if your characters have any flaws, goals or hobbies.
I also find it better to see it as how your character "wants to be" and not as how your character "actually are".
D&D 5 is actually good about this because the background-system give you more to go about than just the alignment.
+Sami Uusitalo I totally agree with this. Now, excluding classes that require alignment (cleric, paladin etc..), alignment seems to hold players back rather than enhance their play. People get confused by Lawful and Chaotic. People think Lawful Good means being nice to everyone and Chaotic means "lulz I'm so random!"
It seems to be more constructive if you let players be who they are then at a higher level (maybe level 5 or something) give them an idea of what they are
I had an adventure when my players didn't like it. They were breaking into a evil noble's fortress as assassins, and they couldn't agree on anything. I came up with an entire adventure and dungeon on the spot, and they loved it. Non-linear haunted houses are always fun.
Player: Am I stupid?
DM: Yes.
Player: B-b-but, am I worthless?
DM: Yes.
Player: But do I have no friends?
DM: Yes.
*Player's Character kills himself*
Thanks ProJared! This is great advice! =)
No, the Dungeon master isn't really supposed to directly give the players that sort of info.
The questions would have to be?
Player: May I think I'm stupid?
DM: Yes you may
Player: B-b-but May I think I'm worthless?
DM: Yes you may
Player: May I think I have no friends?
DM: Yes you may
*Player's Character kills himself*
Man! That one cracked me up! XD
"It's basically game design" thank you for saying this, I find this video incredibly insightful
Oh man, DMs that are advocates to the rules can be the actual worse.
There was this one combat in GURPS, that a player wanted to use his wrestling skills to fight. Turns out, in GURPS, you need to make a skill check, then a strength check against the target with a penalty, then you hold them for a turn, then need to roll against their strength again to see if they break free, and THEN you, say, powerbomb them on the floor.
Fun thing is, GURPS has a VERY complicated table about fall damage. And I mean COMPLICATED. In the end, his damage amounted to zero. And would continue to do so because in the rules, unless the opponent is falling from higher than 2 meters, or is being tossed by a gorilla, 9 times out of 10 the damage is zero.
FUN
Good advice. I think it's really important to have chats with your players after every session if time permits. I think it's very key to teach your players to recognize when you have put work into something and allow it to happen if it makes sense. For example, if you are approaching a legendary city and the DM has something written to read off, let him read it completely. If the main villain has a speech prepared, let him talk, it is much more dramatic to hear him out and gain insight to his thoughts than to interrupt him and never know. This is not a hard rule but it is a good guideline. Finally, if you are well aware that your DM has an epic dungeon planned that he put a lot of work into, go to the dungeon. It's different than railroading when the player is feeding the DM and helping him have fun too. It's not to say that you always have to go where the DM wants, but when it's very good for the game, do it if it makes sense for your character.
I've never played D&D before, and honestly, I don't know whether creating my own character or being DM appeals to me more.
+Colin Parlett If you are the DM, you can make all the characters.
+Colin Parlett The way that I look at this is as follows: Police can't use a taser unless they've been tased before and know how much it hurts. If you don't play at least one game under the bootheel of a DM, you can't really know what's fun and what's annoying. Like as a DM, you might think it's fun to send wave after wave of combat at your players, not letting them rest and refusing to let up, but as a player that can be really stressful and annoying and make for a really shitty session. There are other, less obvious examples, but my point is that it's difficult to get a grasp of how people under your control feel if you've never been in their shoes.
If you are a storyteller, be a DM. If you are a storyteller and an aspiring voice actor, be an excellent DM
+Colin Parlett
my suggestion, play a few games (with multiple DMs if possible) to get an initial feel for the game before trying to be DM.
+Kenyon Erickson Or if you have friends who never played it either, try to figure things out together by playing a premade adventure or two. Possibly swap around who is DMing. Feel free to add random small things for spicing things up. Like a barfight, an odd merchant selling snakeoil, some travelling knight or such.
I had a DM once, that was the best ever. Challenged us, allowed us some fun, and overall set a good tone, and had good rewards. One day he became the worst DM and decided "I am going to make this hard for you all" got a god complex and killed us all. Never played with him again.
When I DM, I always have a bunch of ways characters can get out, so it rewards them for being creative. I also LOVED creating the over-world, complete with a world map and history.
Also YES TO 17:40 !
I really would like you to talk about how to prepare great homebrew settings.
There is just so many things to a setting itself that i'm always kind of intimidated and have no self-confidence about my setting actually being prepared well enough to be played.
I want to create my own settings cause i love to do it, but i find it really hard to pull off.
+WoWEvenusWoW I second this. I can give you one advice though, remember to tell the players that they are practically alpha or beta testing a game. It is not finished but stuff that show up in the campaign can be made permanent, the setting can grow everytime you test it out.
I just initiated my 10 yo cousin and 7 yo niece to roleplaying yesterday, via a light session. Though improvised, it was very fun, especially when my niece, seeing a river, avoided an ambush by asking if she could freeze it with her powers (she played a cryomancer, thanks Frozen), did, and managee to cross it, while my cousin failed his check and broke through the ice. Anyway, my thanks to people like you for keeping the spirit alive and teaching to the uninitiated, Jared.
2:27 Learn this one trick to becoming the greatest dungeon master now!
There's a few things I'll add. First of all, establish your rules policy from the start. For me and my friends it was "anything from any of the books is fine, including some interpretation differences". Everything is your discretion, so be fair. Another thing, be careful with words. I remember one DM I had was clever by saying after every stealth check that "You think you're hidden". Too much disclosure can influence the player to make decisions they shouldn't know stuff about. Finally, don't be purely antagonistic. As the player should cooperate, so should the DM in order make the adventure enjoyable. It's certainly tempting to try and "win" by beating the players, but in the end you just end up hated. Changing things up for the players when needed shows skill and understanding. The rest is really up to you.
You may not be perfect or incredible, but would you say that you're... Pro, Jared?
I haven't played DnD in a while, but I like to listen to The Adventure Zone, a DnD podcast starring the McElroy Brothers and their father. It's fun, and funny, and actually a good story too.
Saying yes is one of the most important parts about making the game fun. There was a point where there was a locked chest, but none of the players are rouges or rouge-like. No one had the key and no one could pick the lock. One player decided to roll a bunch of stat checks against the chest. One was dexterity, and he failed it. The DM said, "You throw it into the air and try to dodge it, but it hits you in the face." He eventually unlocked it with a constitution check, where he and the chest both drank poison but the chest lost.
I have a question that you haven't really touched on all month... Death, do people die in this game? like if someone arm wrestles an owl bear do they have to answer to there head getting bit? if you try to catch a Bastilla shot and you don't roll a 20 do you get a hole in your stomach and slump over dead, even if your playing well but a bad die roll ends up getting you shot multiple times by a Predator's gun, do people die? what if one person dies do they have to sit out while the party carries on... and another question that I don't fully get treasure and money... are there specific items you buy back at stores like better swords and how much should a party make in a dungeon?
(also side note Thanks so much for making these videos I've really been enjoying them)
+HeeminGamin If the critical roll is made behind the screen, you can always fudge it - but always in favor of the group. If the player does something obviously reckless - like wanting to catch a ballista bolt - all bets are off. Let the dice roll as they may.
You can also migitate death in combat by spreading the damage out, especially with mindless beasts and automatons. They won't - and shouldn't - target down your glass cannon wizard, instead going for the most obvious and/or nearest target: the frontline Fighter/Barbarian. If bad comes to worse and it'd be appropriate for the enemy to do so, go for capture over kill. Bandits may want to sell them as slaves, cultists might need live sacrifice and other evil beings might just want to taunt them one last time. Whatever the cause, they get another attempt.
Also remember that in D&D, death is not necessarily the end. As long as your party lives, the fallen members can be raised. At a high enough level, they might even create their own failsafes.
Just, as a DM, don't let death either get too punishing (taking most of their cash AND a level of experience) or too casual (cue "revolving door afterlife").
As for treasure, there are guidelines for what a group should earn on a specific level, in terms of money and loot.
As a rule of thumb, give every character one magical item per level, and enough money so they can keep up with expenses (inns, potions, plot tokens, spell components, ammo, etc.) and then some to spend on various trinkets.
Some stuff, like weapons and armor, will be replaced every few levels, but some items like Bags of Holding will stay with them for a long time.
+Smilley MLK I personally take a more heavy handed approach with death but otherwise I fully agree.
+HeeminGamin Yes, until you reach high level and the game goes overpowered. But if the players have made unique characters they want to play and feel invested in then death will become a serious matter and they will try to stay alive at all costs as a rule, which makes sense. One of the worse parts of DnD is how little death in combat matters, death by age is a lot more threatening interestingly enough.
Regarding treasure it is important to remember that if your players kill a character then they can loot anything that character was carrying. It is easy to give them to powerful stuff by accident if they kill someone they were not supposed to. Otherwise, I can easily see a mastersmith or alchemist selling magical stuff, or a wizard's bookstore. Not too expensive stuff but some. And I totally can see adventurer's shops buying and selling all sorts of stuff people bring in, letting them buy something rare or odd stuff if they can afford it.
Yes to everything. But people who die can make a new character or be ressurected if it is possible. But the chance of losing the character is what makes the game fun.
I remember being told a story about how the players totally changed the DM's plans. The idea the DM has was to lead the players into a big battle. All they had to do was go ask this one guy to join some resistance or something of the sort. the DM had a plan to cause a fight with the players by expecting them to react a certain way.
All the players did was walk in, ask the question, then walk out. No begging was used or insults thrown. Nothing for the DM is justify the planned battle. This lead the DM to have to re-plan everything after that point. All because they expected more of a reaction from their players.
Now you can't plan for everything, but always know players can end up doing the something totally different then expected.
If I'm gonna start D&D, I really want to make a Zelda themed campaign.
And I just really wanna talk to bleeeh, the shopkeeper
+LennyPerson I never thought of that, could be fun.
angelowl89 IKR?
The issue with that is making sure it's only 'themed' around stuff, not based on it entirely; if the scenario is too heavily based in references, your players will know exactly what to do all the time.
It is fun to take a setting, but you still have to design the adventure. I have been thinking about playing in Middle-Earth, would be cool.
The way I've been Dming for about 30 years on and off, is Adlib adlib adlib. I never once prepared anything. At most I'll make little notes in the start, and I'll keep notes along the way. I find it is really easy to just come up with new npcs, personalities and such. Basically I have an idea in my head about what I want for the players, and then it just blooms. My players actually help me create the adventure along the way without ever knowing it. This helps with a lot of problems that gm's often have, like when a character does something that you mentioned early. Since I have nothing ready set up, I don't care if they cast hold person on the executioner. The one problem is that games can take a looooooong time, I've had adventures that have lasted the better part of a year.
I'm sure we all know that DM that punishes you in-game whenever you're not cooperating with them as a player. For instance, someone is metagaming or something and the DM is like "the building collapses around you, make an impossible saving throw to not take a shit ton of damage."
"WTF WE'LL DIE FROM THAT."
"Well then don't metagame."
Or that DM that gives too much slack to the players, like you're about to die in a mechanically fair way and they're like "your faith in your deity makes you feel strong and you don't die."
Honestly... what's the point?
Timothy Keith my first time we all died and our dm was like... okey you all get revived by the deity and some of you are reformed to the new deity now. (we all were new) and thus my chaotic neutral became lawfull neutral. and was pretty pissed about it xD (and now probably ded bc she was revived and there are these guys who go after death cheaters?)
A DM did this to a player in a public game once. Not exactly a self-aware person built an even less self-aware character that was basically an idiot. With great amount of warning the character decided to grab a growing ball of death - surprise, surprise it's a sphere of annihilation. Most of us at the table let out a sigh of relief that we wouldn't have to be dealing with that character again.
Our DM let's us know a bit of metagame knowledge, but only in terms of maps. The only character who gets metagame knowledge besides that is our Charismatic leader, Regor, and he literally only knows that he isn't real and that it's all a game. So his character just kinda has stopped caring about anything but getting money and it works surprisingly well for the party because his character comes up with elaborate plans to get in and out of places without a trace (though our pyromaniac/bomb obsessed character usually ruins the plans). Overall, giving players some meta knowledge can actually make the game more fun in a way xD
I liked this video. I am actually trying to become a good DM and appreciate that you put this video together to help people like me. I wasn't sure about some things like the constant stat checks and not doing everything the way it is intended, I was worried that the players would get bored and not have fun. So I'm glad you cleared some of that up. Now I've started making a world for my D and D group. It's a great game and I love all the endless possibilities the game can have. For example: the adventure led to a dark cave, with monsters, puzzles, traps, everything. Then the players reached the treasure room, and the Mage immediately took out a knife and jabbed his two buddies! He killed one of them and sliced the eyes of the other blinding him permanently. It was kind of mean of him, but he is a chaotic bad character and wants money to pay for a estate to live in, so I decided it was more fun if I let it slide. Plus the other players thought it was funny and didn't mind. Thanks for your help and keep up the good work!
Jared, please host a competition/giveaway where you randomly pick a bunch of subscribers/commenters for a 1 time or few session D&D session with you as DM and live stream it! I am sure it would be EXTREMELY popular, then give me a position because I gave you the idea
+Troy Tyranitar Seriously, he could probably do only this and still have lots of active subscribers.
TL;DR I hosted a beginner session, used the tips in the video, improvised most of it and it went well.
My sister and I hosted our first D&D session today. Her and her friends were the players and I was DM. None of us had ever played the game before so it was a novice DM and 4 novice players but it actually went down well. We were doing a pirate adventure and I did a small amount of preparation (I made a map, gave the islands overlords, Spain, Portugal, England etc. and I made a town for the starting island) but I didn't prepare any of the islands and I ad-libbed most of the stuff and it worked pretty well.
Creating the characters attributes, skills and inventory took a long time as we didn't really know what we were doing but they were all friends so they keep each other entertained while I set up most of the character stuff (I was the only one who had read the players manual in some depth. We were doing 3.5 btw). When we finally got started I described the island they were on and the places they could go, they weren't sure so I recommended the tavern as a pretty good bet and they accepted. This is where I used the #1 tip for the first time. As my sister (who was captain) was about the to talk to the barkeep her friend who was playing a stout, mean Irishwoman jumping and said "I punch him." then I said yes. My sister who was charismatic tried a check to calm her down so I made them roll Irish's wisdom vs. Cap'n's charisma. Irish rolled high and Cap'n rolled abysmally and Irish had her way and caused a full tavern brawl causing her to be barred from the pub. Everyone enjoyed this very much and set up a system for the rest of the session where if there was a disagreement in actions they could roll against each other with the appropriate stats.
Because they had bottled their chance at getting the main quest from the tavern, I just made up a mysterious character who gave them a note and a treasure map piece and then he darted off. RPing was good in this session. My sister had got a number of scarves that the players could wear on their heads like a pirate bandana and a ukulele which our bard could play when they needed to perform to convince people. We had several improvised songs with my sister and the bard as a duet and a big performance near they end when everyone joined in. We had lots of fun when I allowed them to do silly things like getting their characters naked to distract crowds and flashing boobs to persuade people (if they rolled low I would say that the character was more into guys).
When they went to different islands I would create some reason to go there then create the features and characters on the fly and this seemed to work surprisingly well. When it came to difficulty class on rolls I hadn't read much into skills so a lot of dice checks were made on judgement calls vaguely using their attributes and skills to decide and there wasn't any complaints about this. Later they returned to starting island they had sneak on because they had created a lot of trouble with their antics. They entered the fortress to see the governor to get information. They bluffed their way past the guards by pretending to be a band that would provide entertainment for the governor.
Here is where I had my best improv moment. I hadn't planned anything for the fort but as I was describing what I thought the interior would look like I said there was poster on the wall saying there was a ball at the fortress and this created so many ideas that it allowed me make it as I went along and make it almost seem planned (playing games like Sid Meier's Pirates gave me lots of inspiration for my improv). This allowed me to set up a dramatic finale to the session with them angering the governor, stealing his map piece then fighting guards and escaping the castle. Overall things went really well considering the circumstances.
My tips for other beginners from my experience of my first session is:
1. teach some else the basic rules from the players handbook before the session so it speeds up the preparation.
2. using a list of names makes it easy to create characters on the fly
3. listen to suggestions and jokes from the players and integrate them into the world as you go
4. describing failures and successes (especially critical failures) in a humorous manner can really help entertain your players
5. if with other novices don't be afraid to be very casual on the rules and make up basic rules as you go along. They probably wont care and it can speed things up and make it easier to understand.
What if someone asks to intimidate a rock/door/other inanimate object? What should the DM do then? This is surprisingly common in my campaigns
Just let them roll and say that the object doesnt respond. But if you have finished a big story arc maybe let one objects actually react and you can base something off of that.
WOAW WOWOWOW thanks. I guess that's better than saying "No you can't intimidate that rock, it can't feel anything."
+The Mandalorian Gamer "I intimidate that table and chair set" "They quiver in terror at the sight of your massive buttocks"
+The Mandalorian Gamer Simple, "the rock is not particularly frightened by your display". A short joke and they still got to do their roll.
In regards to cutscenes, I find that putting depth into developing the location or npc over the time the party is in that location is the proper way to inject description and/or dialogue, without monologuing.
For example, if my players decide to travel down the market, (I grab my notecards for The Marketplace). On that notecard I have what’s within, relating to both sight and smell, as well as noteworthy interactions, or quest-line starters. If there are any people of importance to my PCs, I make them one of the things a PC sees in this location (and maybe how he/she is interacting with the world).
DM: “You all pass by a few shop carts on your right and left, [look at passive perception, pick someone in the party who is observant], Hercules(PC), your eyes fall on an older man, wrapped in a cloak, right hand on his sword, arguing at another man, you hear, “[tough, Welsh accent] you knew there was something lurking down there, and you sent me anyway!” The man pulls his sword in a split second, ready to cut down the man across from him down. [pause and look at the players and say] What do you do?”
if the players engage, it begins my notes on that quest-line [tabbed in my notes]. If a player interrupts that in the middle, I simply cut the scene short, or ignore the PC in the same way the NPC would (and if I’m worried the npc will be too shallow if engaged, or they’re integral to that quest-line, I give the npc a short background, description, personal motivations, and proclivities on a notecard.
If you keep the “cutscenes” loose and part of PC interaction, they can become both useful to PCs and provide motivation for PCs to explore. A good dm finds a way to do this seamlessly (whether that be light, medium, heavy prep), a bad dm thinks they can just improv it, and provides minimal exploration motivation, descriptive depth, and engaging npcs/enemies.
Be careful how much you homerule things though. I've personally had a GM invalidate my entire character's class because he couldn't be bothered to read the rules for my class and he homeruled my character out of utility. My personal rule is that a GM should skim the entire book and then find out what their players are going to specialize in so they can particularly target those areas. A lot of players care to some degree about some rules and not knowing them can be a real downer on the game. Your job is to know which ones matter to the players and which ones do not.
+Rob Lowe As a rule the GM needs to be pretty knowledgable about the rules and setting. Recurring houserules should be decided upon as a group.
I agree, I don't really house rule unless we are making characters or if we are playing 5e; dealing with combat, because I don't use miniatures. Otherwise there are SO many RPGs in the world- no need to house rule until it's entirely new game.
Rory Rumfelt Or you can create a brand new game from the ground up like I did. I don't recommend it though, it took me over 1 and a half years and I'm past the rules creation phase and into beta testing. Running a campaign that takes them from level one to max level, my friends who are testing it for me are half way through it. Going quite well so far. Still don't recommend it unless you have a passion for it, and an untold amount of free time that you are willing to spend on tiny nitpicks to see what would happen.
Cortarian Nice! any chance I could get a peek at the core rules?
Rory Rumfelt I'm not quite comfortable to let the public have a good look at it yet. Though when I'm a bit more along I'd be happy for public feedback on it.
I remember when I got the chance to play as a DM. Our regular DM wasn't going to be able to show up, and I figured I could try a one-shot in the meantime, dip my toes into the water to see what it was like while still giving everyone something to look forward to.
It... didn't go so well, I went a little too ambitious on the homebrewing on an already homebrewed system, and when the party took the puzzle route, I had exactly zero puzzles to work with. (Not to mention, I had to come up with a set layout on the exact day it happened, poor planning on my end.) There was even a moment where we had to take a break because it was kinda overwhelming. I did, at the very least, have one particular highlight as a DM during all of my fumbling of the game.
We were having the party stealth inside a gigantic castle, and during our time, the group came across a door that they were supposed to go through. They were making all sorts of rolls at this point, trying to attract as little attention as possible, and an earlier moment in the party did hint to the guards that something was amiss. So when the leader of the party tried to open that door...
"Alright, as you go for the door, I'm gonna need you to roll... nothing. The door opens just fine."
It was enough to ease some of the tension in the party, at the very least. The rest of the night simply involved more improv puzzle creating, as well as pretending the crew solved a puzzle I didn't even intend to make, but I like to say it was worth it for being able to troll the players at least once in my life.
Is it bad to fully describe an environment?
I mean, does it limit the players options if I as DM do a really detailed description of the place?
Depends Realy. If you say there mountains far away, they might want to go to them. But if you say the ground is sand, then they can't through rocks at peaple.
+Neseni CAt I would keep the description to a few sentences. Describe the most important features. Let the players to ask if things you didn't describe are in the room. Some limitation or a framework can be a good thing, but you can improvise at any time.
+Neseni CAt It's a fine line - they need to know what's going on in the room spatially but describing all the engravings on all the pillars can be a bit much. Make sure to add stuff for all the senses. Cave underwater? Dripping sounds, cold air and a damp smell, that sort of thing. Just try not to insist on how the players should feel - going "a sense of dread washes over you" can be like going *FEEL SCARED*. If in doubt, describe in general terms, and if the player wants to know more about something specific - "What does the throne look like?" - fill them in.
+Neseni CAt Don't waste time on stuff that most people do not care about at first glance, such as the numbers of windows or the like. Give a general sense of the area and the atmosphere. If you are in a castle corridor, say something like:
"You enter a long corridor with a series of doors on the lefthand side and barred windows on the other. Tattered cloth hangs from the walls as a reminder of its former occupants, you hear the whining sound of the cold wind as it blows through the cracks and little more. At the end there is robust door in remarkably good condition compared to the rest.
Then you hear a creaking sound of old wood, possibly from a sideroom."
Ideally, this should give the players a sense of direction, give them a reason to explore and something out of place to discuss. If you have given them rumors of the place being haunted then they will be on their guard and on their toes. But it is vague enough that they will start trying figure things out like "how many side doors are there?", "I sneak up to the doors and try listening into the rooms", "How is my animal companion reacting to the room?"
+Neseni CAt I'd say mention only what is important with some minor but slightly vague details sprinkled in, only really flesh things out if the players have a very high perception check (for dungeons) or if they ask/explore (everything else)
I'm new to DM-ing. This helped as far as railroading. As far as letting them make stupid decisions, I let them. 2 level 3s, a level 2, and a level 1 are in the sewers. They decide to descend a deep hole. After climbing 80 ft down, they spot a slumbering gargantuan spider (I rolled a percentage die to see if it was awake or sleeping). Instead of letting it be they go, "We're gonna fight it!" I give them a look but let them. They dropped alchemical fire onto it. A now flaming spider is racing toward them. The hulking fighter gets a nat 20 on ripping a gigantic boulder out of the crumbling wall behind him and drops it on to the spider. It gets hurt but is still coming at them. INSTEAD of RUNNING through the tunnels it obviously wouldn't be able to fit through, they STAY in the room. Only one person, the gnome cleric is smart enough to move to the hallway. The level one gets one-shot down to -6. As this is happening, swarms of spiders from its den are racing up. Do they run? Nope. They ended up beating it, but it was a long encounter. I will ALWAYS let my players do the stupid, it makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside knowing this could be the heroes end.