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.