DM'ing

[deadly7]

So I'm going to FINALLY be DMing a campaign with my friends soon, and I need to prepare myself. I'm thinking of starting them off with a massive dungeon crawl--which means I have a lot of work to do. What tips do you guys have for successful DMing? I definitely don't intend to follow all of the rules laid out in the DM's guide, will definitely have a set storyline leading up to a final "boss" battle, but other than that, I'm not too sure what else I'll need. Obviously I should have monsters rolled ahead of time and stuff, right?

EDit: Forgot to mention, this will be D&D 3.5

[iago]

Personally, I'm not a fan of dungeon crawls at all. They tend to be long and tedious and not overall entertaining. But, if you really want to, I recommend using a pre-made module. "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" is a really good one that I'm currently involved in. It's incredibly detailed, and provides for a fun game.

My biggest piece of advice is to know the story extremely well and to be flexible. Your players aren't going to do what you expect, they never do. But, if you know the story and the NPCs well enough, you can ensure that they react in a realistic way. One thing that I do when I'm writing my own adventure is to write backstories/motivations/needs for all NPCs, even stories that the players probably won't find. But, by knowing this stuff, you can react realistically.

I posted a campaign I wrote (not for D&D, but it doesn't matter) somewhere on this forum. You can see the backstories there.

The other thing I do (not that this works for dungeon crawls) is create a situation with events and NPCs and a world, but not with a particular plan for what the characters are going to do. Then, I let them loose in the world and let them do whatever they want. I find that players tend to have fun when get that much freedom.

[deadly7]

Cool. I'll look into that. What about just DM'ing in general? Any tips/tricks for that?

[iago]

I don't know, I'm not a very good DM

But really, the game has to be a mix of seriousness and fun. If you're too serious, the game isn't enjoyable, but if you aren't serious enough, the game just goes way off track.

Be well prepared, and know the rules (or make cheat notes) for everything you intend to use. Nothing disrupts gameplay like flipping through rulebooks every turn (but believe me, it _will_ happen).

Encourage (ie, force) your players to do a backstory. Make them decide on their character's history, motivation, likes, dislikes, etc. Experienced players will generally do this on their own, to some degree, but new ones might need a guide. I highly recommend starting with this list of questions and modifying it to suite your needs. Encourage the players to seriously think about their characters' motivations and personality, and to behave accordingly.

[Sidoh]

But really, the game has to be a mix of seriousness and fun. If you're too serious, the game isn't enjoyable, but if you aren't serious enough, the game just goes way off track.

Heh, I can definitely see the truth in that.  The only times I've roleplayed have been with my boss from highschool, who is a phenomenal GM.  He's GMed games for national tournaments and I'm always impressed with how inventive and flexible he is.

I think what always makes it so fun, as iago said, is the freedom to do whatever you want.  I've ran adventures with him where there's a pretty clearly defined plot.  These are usually when he takes stories from movies, shows, books, etc.  We never follow it completely, but it's there as a skeleton and it's usually pretty recognizable.  He always changes the important details so we can't predict what we're supposed to do, etc.  I'm not sure if this sort of thing is something iago likes, but I usually prefer there to be that skeleton.  I want to know that I'm working toward something big, otherwise it just turns out to be a glorified dungeon crawl.

Incidentally, I always tell my boss about some of the stuff you've done, iago.  Particularly the miniature painting since that's short and doesn't take up too much time to talk about.  I really need to send him some links of your paintings.  The last time I played with him (about two weeks ago), he was gearing up to repaint a bunch of his miniatures and make new props with plaster, so it'd probably be of more interest to him than usual.  I know you have all the stuff in your gallery, but do you have a collection of your favorites?

[iago]

It's hard to pick a favourite, usually my favourite is whatever I just finished painting.

[deadly7]

I'm intending the first bit to be a dungeon crawl just so I can get used to DM'ing fights and stuff like that, since that's a large part of what D&D is about. Afterwards, I'll make sure to have it more of a story and open-ended and stuff.

[deadly7]

So day one just happened (a couple days ago)..
The story started off with the party split up (only 4/6 of the party was there).. the first group pretty much rocked the monsters they were fighting; the second group were both in negative HP, so we cheated around it, rolled listen, and the first group saved the second. Then they all were having fun fighting skeletons that were -5DMG to all attacks except bludgeoning, but nobody had bludgeoning. Then the barbarian raged the boss monster on the first level (40 dmg hit! it was beastly.. especially for level 1) and totally took me by surprise. Since we didn't haev a rogue, I cheated around the traps and let the party find traps using search.. they had fun figuring out how to cheat one of my traps (a magical trap that would explode a fireball in a 20-ft radius when any organic substance passed through or above).. they ended up using a dead orc's decaying finger attached to an arrow to shoot into the room. Haha. It was great.

[iago]

Sounds like you guys cheat the rules a lot, but everybody enjoys it, which is by far the most important part! I prefer games like that to games that strictly and boringly follow the rules.

(a magical trap that would explode a fireball in a 20-ft radius when any organic substance passed through or above).. they ended up using a dead orc's decaying finger attached to an arrow to shoot into the room. Haha. It was great.

We had something similar last time we played. A chest with a magical trap that nobody knew how to disarm. So we used Summon Monster (or something) to summon a monkey to open the chest and go splat. Ha!

[deadly7]

Sounds like you guys cheat the rules a lot, but everybody enjoys it, which is by far the most important part! I prefer games like that to games that strictly and boringly follow the rules.

Yeah. I didn't really read the rules in the DM's guide. I went "Okay,this section is important. Let's read it." "Rules? Fuck that! Next section" Most of the rules are either common sense or just ridiculous (for example, I let my druid level up inside the dungeon even though he's supposed to be outside to level. He just won't be able to get a new animal companion until he goes outside. The way I see it, he killed shit, so he deserves the level.. and he'll NEED the level if the party wants him to live in the dungeon.)

[deadly7]

So, today, things took a turn for the worse (as far as the players see it).. Two of the people died because they slipped on a very narrow bridge; the water that the bridge was over was, basically, an insta-kill. They didn't like that I didn't let them swim out or anything, but I gave them two chances to save themselves (one DC15 balance check to get over the brdige, and if that failed, a reflex save to save themselves). At least my party has firepower now...

[iago]

So, today, things took a turn for the worse (as far as the players see it).. Two of the people died because they slipped on a very narrow bridge; the water that the bridge was over was, basically, an insta-kill. They didn't like that I didn't let them swim out or anything, but I gave them two chances to save themselves (one DC15 balance check to get over the brdige, and if that failed, a reflex save to save themselves). At least my party has firepower now...

I think that's a bad idea for a DM, basically putting player's survival on luck rather than roleplaying.

[deadly7]

I think that's a bad idea for a DM, basically putting player's survival on luck rather than roleplaying.

It was to add an element of realism. I actually did devise a way for them to kill the monsters, which really wasn't too hard to see (at least, in my mind). There was a 5 foot gap at one of the sections between the bridge and the monsters, and so anybody that had successfully made a bluff check could have jumped across and tackled the monsters and pushed them back five feet. That's what they did the second fight (after the new characters were rolled).
That, and the party had ZERO firepower, which made fighting in general boring as hell (a bard, a druid, a barbarian, a crap-ass ranger is what the four people usualyl are). Having killed them will at least make it more enjoyable.. "That guy has 40 health? Oh well. *cast spell* BAM"

[iago]

It was to add an element of realism.

I don't play games for realism, I play them for fun. And I get attached to my characters, too, if the DM went and killed one off for almost no reason (due to a bad roll), I'd be pretty upset, and might even stop playing.

Typically, the DM shouldn't just randomly kill off a character, even if they should. At the very worst, make a secret roll, ignore it, and pretend it was successful. Have a deus ex machina or something show up and save the day, or have some fluke/coincidence save them. It may not be realistic, but it make the game more interesting. The only time a character should die, really, is when they do something incredibly stupid.

[deadly7]

I don't play games for realism, I play them for fun. And I get attached to my characters, too, if the DM went and killed one off for almost no reason (due to a bad roll), I'd be pretty upset, and might even stop playing.

Typically, the DM shouldn't just randomly kill off a character, even if they should. At the very worst, make a secret roll, ignore it, and pretend it was successful. Have a deus ex machina or something show up and save the day, or have some fluke/coincidence save them. It may not be realistic, but it make the game more interesting. The only time a character should die, really, is when they do something incredibly stupid.

Well, these were level two characters that they had played for all of.. two hours. I doubt anybody got toooo attached, especially since everybody knows that in a couple weeks the campaign's over anyways (we all leave for college/armed forces/stuff)

I gave them TWO chances to redeem themselves.. a balance check (DC 14) annnnd a reflex save (DC 10 i think). Those are ridiculously easy to beat.. especially since none of them had on full plates or anything.

[Newby]

I agree with iago. Dying in anything but fights is stuuuuupid. It's what makes NetHack frustrating as hell.

[deadly7]

I agree with iago. Dying in anything but fights is stuuuuupid. It's what makes NetHack frustrating as hell.

I forgot to mention. They WERE in a fight, they just couldn't get at the people shooting at them. Heh. Otherwise they could've just Take 10/Take 20 across the bridge.

[iago]

I agree with iago. Dying in anything but fights is stuuuuupid. It's what makes NetHack frustrating as hell.

I forgot to mention. They WERE in a fight, they just couldn't get at the people shooting at them. Heh. Otherwise they could've just Take 10/Take 20 across the bridge.

Same deal, really. Possibly even worse, since it gives me the impression that you pretty much put them in an impossible situation.

[deadly7]

Same deal, really. Possibly even worse, since it gives me the impression that you pretty much put them in an impossible situation.

DC 12 is NOT impossible by any means. :p

[iago]

Same deal, really. Possibly even worse, since it gives me the impression that you pretty much put them in an impossible situation.

DC 12 is NOT impossible by any means. :p

Guaranteeing a roll of any kind is impossible.

[Mythix]

Sorry to bump an old topic but theres a few points from the many campaigns I've ran.


You as the DM are a storyteller, but it is NOT your job to magically save characters when a mistake is made or a trap is set. Many problems with PC's is the fact they put their own personality into their character instead of playing the character inside the box so to speak. Setting DC's for not your average feats of strength / dex is common. They always had the chance of going "We're not prepared for this, lets go back and regear" Too many players are hack and slash anymore and don't realize.. "Hey we can run!". It always depends on the group you run.

If you have any questions or want tips and tricks on dungeon crawling / generic rules of thumb let me know deadly. A book will only get you so far running a campaign playing helps and making mistakes as a PC will make you a better DM.  I've incorporated a few things that a lot of my PC's got messed with in the game because it was something that is easy to rig, common to see, and takes a bit of thinking to get passed. It all depends on how you want to play it. The slayer, the thinker , the talker or maybe a bit of all three.

[deadly7]

Thanks for the tips, Miffsex! But I think my campaign pretty much is dead (one guy leaves for colege in week, one leaves for navy, we all have college going on soon.. i'm busy as it is with other things..) Heh. It was still fun while it lasted, though.. I enjoyed nearly killing them for being stupid and not having a smart party (they started with no tanks at all.. damn, I had to nerf everything. haha)

[deadly7]

I miss playing D&D.

[Newby]

I miss playing D&D.

Me too man. Me too.

[iago]

I miss playing D&D.

Me too man. Me too.

I still play weekly mostly!

It's been awhile lately - November was a bad much - but it sounds like we're getting in gear now!

[rabbit]

Can we try T&T++ again sometime?  I never got to play and I really wanted to

[iago]

HAha, no time.

[Blaze]

As unserious our last game was, I had a ton of fun doing it. 

[deadly7]

As unserious our last game was, I had a ton of fun doing it. 

I agree so much.

Next year (after May 31, 2012!) I can DM some T&T if people are for it. Although it may not be T&T, but D&D 3.5. I believe I have all the books on my external HD somewhere..

[iago]

Haha, I didn't. It's a pain being a DM when nobody's paying attention after putting a ton of work into preparing. Ah well.

[deadly7]

Haha, I didn't. It's a pain being a DM when nobody's paying attention after putting a ton of work into preparing. Ah well.

I paid attention!

I think an easy remedy to this would be to have two IRC channels instead of one. One can be strictly DM-Player interaction, the other can be player goofing off.

[iago]

Haha, I didn't. It's a pain being a DM when nobody's paying attention after putting a ton of work into preparing. Ah well.

I paid attention!

I think an easy remedy to this would be to have two IRC channels instead of one. One can be strictly DM-Player interaction, the other can be player goofing off.

A better solution is to stick with gaming in real life, where you don't have to deal with the limitations of the Internet.

[Sidoh]

Haha, I didn't. It's a pain being a DM when nobody's paying attention after putting a ton of work into preparing. Ah well.

I paid attention!

I think an easy remedy to this would be to have two IRC channels instead of one. One can be strictly DM-Player interaction, the other can be player goofing off.

A better solution is to stick with gaming in real life, where you don't have to deal with the limitations of the Internet.

An even better solution is iago buys everyone a tablet device of their choosing. I don't know how it'll help the game, but it still sounds like an even better solution to me.

[deadly7]

A better solution is to stick with gaming in real life, where you don't have to deal with the limitations of the Internet.

I think a cool project would be to have an online tabletop platform. The DM could customize the game maps and when the "group leader" says move into/out of a room, walk on a square, etc, the DM's predefined traps, monster attacks, etc. all happen.

I have no idea how to actually implement this though.

[Blaze]

It sucks we couldn't find an awesome whiteboard application back then.. thinking about it, it's pretty easy to do right now in canvas/html5.  Maybe I should look into doing that as a side project..

[Sidoh]

It sucks we couldn't find an awesome whiteboard application back then.. thinking about it, it's pretty easy to do right now in canvas/html5.  Maybe I should look into doing that as a side project..

Interesting!

I'd actually be fairly surprised if something like it didn't already exist. It seems like it'd be rather easy to implement with some node, jquery, raphaël, etc.

If it doesn't, it'd be a pretty fun project.

[Blaze]

We ended up having iago use gimp or something and just keep uploading an image as he draws more of the map.  It would be really cool if you could upload images into the whiteboard, have layers and all that cool stuff... live.  None of that's hard to do these days, either.  Sounds like a very useful product.

[iago]

Games where you wander around a pre-created dungeon and fight monsters is boring. I'd much rather have a more involved game. That kind of stuff can't really be automated.

[Blaze]

Games where you wander around a pre-created dungeon and fight monsters is boring. I'd much rather have a more involved game. That kind of stuff can't really be automated.

I was meaning more like you can have a few room shapes pre-drawn (such as a large dining hall sort of thing), and you can just like, upload that image and then draw a wall to connect it your current map.  Some things can be prefabricated, but you're right, when the entirety of a floor or dungeon is set in stone (get it? stone? dungeon?  I'm hilarious!), it allows for far less freedom, and freedom leads to fun!

[iago]

I played D&D last night, and we didn't use a single drawn map.

[Blaze]

Well, we did when we played online T&T! 

[deadly7]

I played D&D last night, and we didn't use a single drawn map.

I'm confused. How do you know where you're going then?

[Blaze]

I played D&D last night, and we didn't use a single drawn map.

I'm confused. How do you know where you're going then?

"You are in a large, sparsly furnished dining hall. There are three doors, one North, one South, one West.  There is what appears to be a drunk Goblin, who hasn't noticed you, playing with a fire in a fireplace"

[iago]

I played D&D last night, and we didn't use a single drawn map.

I'm confused. How do you know where you're going then?

"You are in a large, sparsly furnished dining hall. There are three doors, one North, one South, one West.  There is what appears to be a drunk Goblin, who hasn't noticed you, playing with a fire in a fireplace"

Or don't wander around dungeons at all.

[Blaze]

You can change that to a forest, an apartment, a city block, anything, and my point still stands, if you do it via the internet at least. :crossarms:

[deadly7]

I don't understand. How do you conduct fights if you don't have a map? You can't say "There's some monsters somewhere the room, fight them". Distance between units matters. Spacing and separation of your team matters. The environment all matters. Or is your D&D more of a story telling? For example, "You open the door. You see five monsters. What do you do?" "Fight." "*roll roll roll* You kill them all and take 20, 10, 15 damage apiece."

[Blaze]

The entire dungeon floods, rocks fall from above, and you are struck by blue light from the sky.  Roll to see how painfully you die!

[iago]

We don't do fights very often. When we do, we occasionally use a map, if it's complex, but normally don't bother.

[deadly7]

The entire dungeon floods, rocks fall from above, and you are struck by blue light from the sky.  Roll to see how painfully you die!

I roll 20 and a magic genie comes and saves us.

We don't do fights very often. When we do, we occasionally use a map, if it's complex, but normally don't bother.

This sounds rather dull. What do your campaigns consist of? Walking around and talking to the townspeople etc? A fight a day (plus any monster creepings if resting in an open area at night) is about what I like. Keeps the story moving, adds some excitement, and lets the people level up for the fun fights I have planned later.

[iago]

We don't do fights very often. When we do, we occasionally use a map, if it's complex, but normally don't bother.

This sounds rather dull. What do your campaigns consist of? Walking around and talking to the townspeople etc? A fight a day (plus any monster creepings if resting in an open area at night) is about what I like. Keeps the story moving, adds some excitement, and lets the people level up for the fun fights I have planned later.

It depends. It's a mixture of fighting, exploring, politics, mystery, horror, and more. Especially at higher levels, we generally do one or two fights each game, and then a lot of other non-combat stuff.

We've had a once/week campaign going for over 2 years with the same players, so I assure you it isn't dull. Combat is pretty dull, most of the time, so we don't focus on combat.

In other news, we started a Pathfinder campaign on Friday to fill in the days when not everybody can make it to our usual 3.5 session. So far, I like it.

[Blaze]

The entire dungeon floods, rocks fall from above, and you are struck by blue light from the sky.  Roll to see how painfully you die!

I roll 20 and a magic genie comes and saves us.

The genie turns out to be evil and instead burries you in sand where you suffocate and die.  The end.

[Sidoh]

I've not RPed a lot, but I generally find combat far less interesting than a storyline. Dungeon crawls or anything close bore me to death and make me wish I was doing something else.

[iago]

On a related note, this is from last week's Pathfinder session. You find a locked door with the following configuration of tiles:
https://yfrog.com/odnyrpbj

and 20 buttons labeled 1 - 20. Which do you press?

[deadly7]

I've not RPed a lot, but I generally find combat far less interesting than a storyline. Dungeon crawls or anything close bore me to death and make me wish I was doing something else.

I find this to be a false dichotomy. I fully agree with you and iago that a hack-and-slash D&D campaign would be boring as all hell. But why does that immediately translate to "There should be as little fighting as possible"? A storyline can require a "dungeon" (ie: some place where multiple fights might be necessary) or the occasional fight. Like I said, when I was a DM, I tried to average one fight a day.

I'm not saying one way is right and one way is wrong, but I'm genuinely having a hard time understanding a campaign where all you do is talk and make decisions about certain things ("Do we go in this room? Do we back? Do we accept this quest? Which door?").

[Sidoh]

I've not RPed a lot, but I generally find combat far less interesting than a storyline. Dungeon crawls or anything close bore me to death and make me wish I was doing something else.

I find this to be a false dichotomy. I fully agree with you and iago that a hack-and-slash D&D campaign would be boring as all hell. But why does that immediately translate to "There should be as little fighting as possible"? A storyline can require a "dungeon" (ie: some place where multiple fights might be necessary) or the occasional fight. Like I said, when I was a DM, I tried to average one fight a day.

I'm not saying one way is right and one way is wrong, but I'm genuinely having a hard time understanding a campaign where all you do is talk and make decisions about certain things ("Do we go in this room? Do we back? Do we accept this quest? Which door?").

It's not a false dichotomy. You have fighting and not fighting. If you spend your time in battles, you can't spend that time doing other stuff. You spend X% of your time in battles, and 100 - X% of your time in not battles. I find RPing more enjoyable if X is pretty small (no larger than 10).

common mister deadly... that's not what 'false dichotomy' means. This some other logical misstep. Arguing that there are two categories, and one category is generally less desirable than the other, and therefore that category should be minimized as much as possible isn't a false dichotomy.

At any rate, that's not what I said. Some combat (or challenge, etc.) is necessary to make it feel like a game and not a story.

[Blaze]

On a related note, this is from last week's Pathfinder session. You find a locked door with the following configuration of tiles:
https://yfrog.com/odnyrpbj

and 20 buttons labeled 1 - 20. Which do you press?

I would either push all of them, or the last one.

[iago]

On a related note, this is from last week's Pathfinder session. You find a locked door with the following configuration of tiles:
https://yfrog.com/odnyrpbj

and 20 buttons labeled 1 - 20. Which do you press?

I would either push all of them, or the last one.

That'd both be wrong.

FWIW, I'm the one who figured out which button to press during the game, and I was right.

[deadly7]

It's not a false dichotomy. You have fighting and not fighting. If you spend your time in battles, you can't spend that time doing other stuff. You spend X% of your time in battles, and 100 - X% of your time in not battles. I find RPing more enjoyable if X is pretty small (no larger than 10).

common mister deadly... that's not what 'false dichotomy' means. This some other logical misstep. Arguing that there are two categories, and one category is generally less desirable than the other, and therefore that category should be minimized as much as possible isn't a false dichotomy.

At any rate, that's not what I said. Some combat (or challenge, etc.) is necessary to make it feel like a game and not a story.

Not going to respond to the rest, since the bolded explains why I said what I did, and why I found it a false dichotomy. You can have 0% fighting and 100% fighting, or any number in between.

That'd both be wrong.

FWIW, I'm the one who figured out which button to press during the game, and I was right.

Glad you found a campaign you enjoy. Puzzles like that sound completely boring, though. An hour spent "No wait, push 3!" "No wait, push 1 and 3!!" Did bad things happen if you pushed the wrong buttons?

[Blaze]

On a related note, this is from last week's Pathfinder session. You find a locked door with the following configuration of tiles:
https://yfrog.com/odnyrpbj

and 20 buttons labeled 1 - 20. Which do you press?

I would either push all of them, or the last one.

That'd both be wrong.

FWIW, I'm the one who figured out which button to press during the game, and I was right.

How about 9?

[Sidoh]

Not going to respond to the rest, since the bolded explains why I said what I did, and why I found it a false dichotomy. You can have 0% fighting and 100% fighting, or any number in between.

This was, of course, what I meant, if it wasn't obvious already. I never meant to (nor does it seem I did...) say that you can either have 0 fighting or lots of fighting. I'd like to think I deserve more credit than that.

On a related note, this is from last week's Pathfinder session. You find a locked door with the following configuration of tiles:
https://yfrog.com/odnyrpbj

and 20 buttons labeled 1 - 20. Which do you press?

I would either push all of them, or the last one.

That'd both be wrong.

FWIW, I'm the one who figured out which button to press during the game, and I was right.

It seems like there could be some nerdy cellular automata reference in there. If that's the case, you're a nerd.

[deadly7]

This was, of course, what I meant, if it wasn't obvious already. I never meant to (nor does it seem I did...) say that you can either have 0 fighting or lots of fighting. I'd like to think I deserve more credit than that.

I visit other websites where people exist in lands of all-or-nothing instead of the fine gradient that is life. I sometimes forget I have more intelligent friends.

[iago]

No, no celullar automata.

Glad you found a campaign you enjoy. Puzzles like that sound completely boring, though. An hour spent "No wait, push 3!" "No wait, push 1 and 3!!" Did bad things happen if you pushed the wrong buttons?

We're level 1 and starting a brand new game that none of us has ever played. There's gotta be some simple stuff. And it's amusing to have the occasional puzzle.

Of course, we wouldn't spend an hour sitting around not getting it. The DM would start giving us hints and pushes if we didn't know. Fortunately, I recognized the pattern fairly quickly and, though I didn't know what the entire board represented, I did figure out what the next number in the sequence was.

[iago]

Hint: each column represents a number.

[Blaze]

Hint: each column represents a number.

7?

[iago]

Hint: each column represents a number.

7?

Your strategy of guessing randomly will eventually work, but not yet.

[dark_drake]

On a related note, this is from last week's Pathfinder session. You find a locked door with the following configuration of tiles:
https://yfrog.com/odnyrpbj

and 20 buttons labeled 1 - 20. Which do you press?

I would either push all of them, or the last one.

That'd both be wrong.

FWIW, I'm the one who figured out which button to press during the game, and I was right.

13?

[Blaze]

Hint: each column represents a number.

7?

Your strategy of guessing randomly will eventually work, but not yet.

I've had reasoning beside my last two guesses, with the most reasoning being behind the latest.  Oh well.

[iago]

On a related note, this is from last week's Pathfinder session. You find a locked door with the following configuration of tiles:
https://yfrog.com/odnyrpbj

and 20 buttons labeled 1 - 20. Which do you press?

I would either push all of them, or the last one.

That'd both be wrong.

FWIW, I'm the one who figured out which button to press during the game, and I was right.

13?

Lucky guess, or can you explain why?

[dark_drake]

Lucky guess, or can you explain why?

Fibonacci sequence . 1 (1 white square), 1 (1 white square), 2 (2 white squares), 3 (3 white squares), 5 (3 white squares and 2 black squares with the black squares overlaying two of the white ones), 8 (3 white squares, 3 black squares on top of those, and 2 white squares on top of 2 of the black squares).

13 would come next.

[iago]

Lucky guess, or can you explain why?

Fibonacci sequence . 1 (1 white square), 1 (1 white square), 2 (2 white squares), 3 (3 white squares), 5 (3 white squares and 2 black squares with the black squares overlaying two of the white ones), 8 (3 white squares, 3 black squares on top of those, and 2 white squares on top of 2 of the black squares).

13 would come next.

*applause*

To be honest, I didn't figure out how the '8' was encoded - the DM told me after - but the 1 1 2 3 5 pattern was enough for me to get it fairly quickly. I thought the black ones counted as 2, which made sense for 5 but not 8. We wound up saying screwit, let's try 13. And it worked.

[rabbit]

I don't see it

[Sidoh]

y'know...that's one of the first things i checked for. guess i was too lazy/dumb to see how it was encoded.

TAing discrete math does terrible things to you...

[Blaze]

My reasoning behind 7 was very close, ignoring fibonacci entirely.  I thought black squares were taking away, not adding.

[deadly7]

y'know...that's one of the first things i checked for. guess i was too lazy/dumb to see how it was encoded.

TAing discrete math does terrible things to you...

Completely OT: It amazes me how clueless my discrete math class as a whole was. As a TA is this normal? Do people just not understand logic?

[Sidoh]

Yes, there are quite a few that just don't get it. Some will begin to understand after you spoon-feed them. Most semesters, the drop rate is something like 40%.

This is the nature of a weeder class, I guess.