So, been playing 5e for a while, and have run other game systems, but am thinking I want to give DMing a shot. A little scary for sure, but I'm wondering what lessons learned the more experienced DMs out there have picked up over the years that made things easier for yourself, more fun for your players, or were just good things to know?
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"You think you have won! What is light without dark?
What are you without me? I am a part of you all. You can never defeat me. We are brothers eternal!"
If you expect them to talk, they'll fight. If you expect them to fight, they'll talk. (They may continue to try talking while they're fighting.) If there are two roads out of town, they'll go cross-country. If you kill off the NPC who would otherwise provide direction, they'll immediately try to see if they can raise them from the dead.
The main thing is to just give it a go. You'll learn more from doing than from anything else. Start with a small, contained, adventure. Play it to the end. Review how it went and try another one. When possible, try to shift feeling scared about not being good a good enough DM to being curious about your progress towards mastering the DM skill. There is a lot to learn, and you can have a lot of fun doing it.
Define the clues, secrets and treasure for your session, but don't lock them to a specific NPC or location.
Eg.: To open an abandoned cellar-door the characters need to find the lost key. The first character rolling a decent check while searching for the key will find it. If they're looking through the drawers of an old desk and roll a 17 investigation check, they find a secret compartment with the key stashed in there. Or if they're picking the pockets of a sleeping guard and roll a 16 sleight of hand check, the key falls from the guards pocket while snatching their coins. Or if they roll a nat 20 when they're ...etc.
This has saved me a ton of prep work and makes sure the characters almost always get the stuff they need for the adventure. How sad is it for everyone if they check the floor, ceiling, desk and altar, but forget to check the painting where the bloody key is hidden...no one wins.
If your group is like mine, they are smart people, and they will foil your plans every step of the way.
Oh, and remember that really cool old pirate with a hook (no pun intended) for an adventure with a load of treasure you created? Yea, no. They will want to every detail of the waitress you will have to make up on the fly.
Or how about they are about to ascend the stairs into the mighty University of Mages where all mages go to study. Imagine the sights, the people, the books. Yawn. Lets talk to the guy selling sausages on a stick outside.
- Be consistent in your judgments and apply the rules fairly to each player and to yourself. There’s few things worse than a DM who forces one player or the party to follow a different set of rules than they apply to themselves. If you need to change a judgment or rule interpretation - and you will, even veteran DMs make mistakes - just let your players know that you are changing it, why you are changing it, and that the new way will be consistent moving forward.
- If players like an NPC, make a note of that NPC and have them show up later. There’s a certain joy players have when they see someone they really took a shine to, even if it might be a year or more since they last spoke to that NPC.
- You as the DM have meta knowledge which you can use to design encounters, but NPCs do not. Just like your players should not be metagaming, your NPCs should not either.
- Be prepared to adjust combat on the fly, adding more monsters, increasing the enemy’s HP, giving them a heal or new attack, having the NPCs run or turn on one another, etc. CR is a terrible system that vastly underestimates party power, making it hard to balance. Sometimes that balancing has to take place during combat to ensure the fight is the appropriate difficulty.
- Listen to your players if they have problems and be prepared to mediate differences.
- If you are playing in person (particularly at your residence), make sure you have sufficient space to play, a plan for snacks and drinks (which may or may not involve the other players bringing something) and all the other trappings of hosting.
- Keep your finger on the pulse of what players like and what makes them uncomfortable. Each group has different tolerances, so never assume something that you might find acceptable or which has been acceptable in other campaigns you have been in will work in your campaign. If something does not work, you can try to reshape it into something that does.
You can make a mistake both because of something you did and because of something you didn't do. For that reason, talking things out with players is always good.
Have a dungeon ready! Always have a level appropriate dungeon!
A lot of dungeon masters go into a game of dungeons and dragons without having a dungeon ready to go- never do this. You need a dungeon, that is your absolute top priority as a Dungeon Master, because without a dungeon you can’t actually play the game of Dungeons and Dragons.
Have a dungeon ready! Always have a level appropriate dungeon!
A lot of dungeon masters go into a game of dungeons and dragons without having a dungeon ready to go- never do this. You need a dungeon, that is your absolute top priority as a Dungeon Master, because without a dungeon you can’t actually play the game of Dungeons and Dragons.
I do not think it is necessary to have a full level-appropriate dungeon ready unless the party is expected to go into a dungeon soon-ish*. You, as the DM, control when they find a dungeon, so it is not like they can randomly stumble upon one unless you tell them “you found a dungeon.” There are plenty of places - cities, forests, etc. where you can give the party other things to do.
Rather than prepare a full dungeon, you should have a few generic encounters that are level-appropriate. Terrain appropriate beasts in the wilds; some guards (never know when the party might need to be arrested), mages, assassins, etc. in cities. Bandits are a great thing that you can have to slot in everywhere.
*My “soon-ish” comment reminded me of another piece of advice - your party will never move at the pace you think it will. You could have multiple sessions pass where nothing tangible happens because the party is goofing around; or you could have the party churn through some content and reach a story point faster than intended. As DM, read the room and the pacing - you have lots of ways to both speed up and slow down the action, but need not always exercise those tools if folks are enjoying themselves.
If your group is like mine, they are smart people, and they will foil your plans every step of the way.
The way this was expressed to me is that, despite the best of planning, the party will piss all over what you have planned. :P
They will also pick up on things you think are minor and go towards objectives you didn't even think about. So be prepared to be flexible and play off the cuff.
Don't be afraid to read through these forums and all types of media to steal ideas from. Not everything has to be created from scratch.
Don't be afraid to turn up/down the difficulty of an encounter.
Lastly, make sure you weave some elements of your groups characters into your overall story. These often lead to the best surprises and most remembered moments. ;)
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#OpenD&D #ORC
"...or you can find the secret tunnel that leads to the Vault of Dickish DM which is filled with 10,000,000 copper coins and a 5,000 pound solid gold statue of a middle finger that is too big to fit through the door."
BL, I'd say espionage and diplomacy at least as played in D&D are actually forms of exploration. On a thread about interrogation, I actually suggested treating an interrogation/interview subjects mind as puzzle (that could be trapped). Social or reconnaissance crawls are still crawls in the end. Both types of mission intend some form of "discovery."
I'd also say be happy if your action or drama is full of cheese. Entertainment doesn't have to be gourmet.
But the puns, the DM needs to know when to let the puntacular flow but also when to tighten up the tap.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I'm an eternal DM and I see a lot of good advice here already. I have text conversations with players between sessions about their characters. I pay close attention to them in game and try to take little things they do or say and make it "a thing" in the game. It's important to me that they contribute to the story, at least to a degree. Sometimes they come up with things that are better than I had. I go with it and pretend it was the plan all along. Or I might say, well that wasn't what I had in mind, but I like it so yes. But as others have said, I have no problem saying no if their idea is too problematic.
Visuals go a long way. I always have tons of pictures of NPCs, monsters, settings, loot, etc. printed out. All sorts of maps I make with Inkarnate too. A lot of them I embed in the Notes section of the campaign page on the DnDB website. Others I just use at the table.
Props at the table are cool for them too. Gems, wands, coin pouches, magic beans, letters of introduction, wanted posters, etc. Try to avoid sharp weapons though. Trust me.
Maybe not as much of an issue with all of the online tools nowadays, but as an older DM I always take the time to write out a Battle Sheet before each session. All the monsters and NPCs in the encounter the PCs will face, with the most important stats: AC, HP, ATT/DAM, and a note for any special resistances, attacks, etc. I have the monster manual or larger stat black open for reference if I need it (for saving throws) but having a scratch pad with the vitals helps me jump right into combat and keep it moving.
A recent lesson learned (after 25+ years of DMing): If you plan on running a non standard or unusual encounter (a chase, skill challenges, etc), make sure you figure out ahead of time how you are going to clearly communicate any different mechanics or story points to your players. You can always count on being the only one who sees it "clearly" in your mind's eye. Your players do not have that benefit.
For example I just ran a large combat, a wererat horde attacking a keep that the PCs needed to defend. I knew it was going to be extensive and layered. In my mind, it was very clear that this keep defense was going to happen in multiple waves. I did not do a good job communicatingthis beforehand. When the attack started the PCs all jumped into critical now-or-never mode and the whole encounter got off to a rough start. Although we all stuck the landing together, there was some honest frustration and confusion in the beginning. The lesson learned was that if I am ever going to try and do something outside the normal box, I've got to realize that my players don't see it as clearly as I do, and I've got to figure out how to communicate my vision.
Some really good advice already, so will try not to be too repetitive!
- Make sure to balance your players time in the spotlight. Some will naturally be more forthcoming/loud than others, and this can be quite daunting, but by cycling through your players, making sure everyone has the opportunity to act/RP/describe is important and gets easier if your stick to it
- Don't argue long and hard about rules during a session. If something comes up that it open to interpretation or needs a lot of reading, tell the group that for now you are ruling it like this, but that before next session you will have a closer look to establish how it will be resolved longer term.
- Sense the mood at the (possibly virtual) table. Some sessions, even with the same players, they will be in a giddy mood and wants to lean on comedy - bad time to do that really emotional scene. Other times they might be a bit sluggish to react or initiate something - so nudge them, set time limits or drive the story more in moments like that.
- Make sure the players are with you and trust you. Get them to tell you what they are trying to achieve in full before breaking down dice rolls, but don't use it to hit them over the head with it. If players start breaking their action steps down to try and do something because they don't think the DM would let them, it becomes slow and can be frustrating for everyone else.
- Make sure you are having fun too. If you are not enjoying being DM, it will shine through eventually. It can be stressful and challenging, but in the end, it should be about telling a great story and enjoying that process!
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Tell me what you you are trying to achieve - we're telling this story together ....at least I thought we were - Now I am not so sure [OGL 1.1]
My only hard set rule is that it's about fun. If people aren't having fun, then it's your job to fix it. That could be a lot of things, but virtually everything can be fixed with creativity and communication with the players. The only thing that really can't be fixed with storytelling is a toxic player. Then it's still your job to fix that.
Let the players dictate the pace and path. I used to spend a lot of hours building campaigns that rarely ever worked out the way I planned. Now, I just make plot points and have a bunch of encounters prepared. We don't even need to get to the plot points, so long as the players are enjoying the game and I can come up with the next step quicker than the players can decide on a new path.
Being a DM is just like any other skill, you get better with practice. Don't worry if everything falls apart at first. If you make sure people are enjoying it, then that's what really matters. And if they aren't, ask them why they aren't having fun and adjust your style and/or world to be more enjoyable..
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So, been playing 5e for a while, and have run other game systems, but am thinking I want to give DMing a shot. A little scary for sure, but I'm wondering what lessons learned the more experienced DMs out there have picked up over the years that made things easier for yourself, more fun for your players, or were just good things to know?
"You think you have won! What is light without dark?
What are you without me? I am a part of you all. You can never defeat me. We are brothers eternal!"
No plan ever survives contact with the enemy. :)
If you expect them to talk, they'll fight. If you expect them to fight, they'll talk. (They may continue to try talking while they're fighting.) If there are two roads out of town, they'll go cross-country. If you kill off the NPC who would otherwise provide direction, they'll immediately try to see if they can raise them from the dead.
There's nothing you can do except roll with it.
Don't get overly bogged down in rules that don't add much to game play...like encumbrance. Reward creative play, even if it's not what you expected.
Your players will not be as interested in discovering your lore as you are in making it.
Always have a list of names ready for random NPCs.
The main thing is to just give it a go. You'll learn more from doing than from anything else. Start with a small, contained, adventure. Play it to the end. Review how it went and try another one. When possible, try to shift feeling scared about not being good a good enough DM to being curious about your progress towards mastering the DM skill. There is a lot to learn, and you can have a lot of fun doing it.
Good luck!
Define the clues, secrets and treasure for your session, but don't lock them to a specific NPC or location.
Eg.: To open an abandoned cellar-door the characters need to find the lost key. The first character rolling a decent check while searching for the key will find it. If they're looking through the drawers of an old desk and roll a 17 investigation check, they find a secret compartment with the key stashed in there. Or if they're picking the pockets of a sleeping guard and roll a 16 sleight of hand check, the key falls from the guards pocket while snatching their coins. Or if they roll a nat 20 when they're ...etc.
This has saved me a ton of prep work and makes sure the characters almost always get the stuff they need for the adventure. How sad is it for everyone if they check the floor, ceiling, desk and altar, but forget to check the painting where the bloody key is hidden...no one wins.
If your group is like mine, they are smart people, and they will foil your plans every step of the way.
Oh, and remember that really cool old pirate with a hook (no pun intended) for an adventure with a load of treasure you created? Yea, no. They will want to every detail of the waitress you will have to make up on the fly.
Or how about they are about to ascend the stairs into the mighty University of Mages where all mages go to study. Imagine the sights, the people, the books. Yawn. Lets talk to the guy selling sausages on a stick outside.
You get used to it.
- Be consistent in your judgments and apply the rules fairly to each player and to yourself. There’s few things worse than a DM who forces one player or the party to follow a different set of rules than they apply to themselves. If you need to change a judgment or rule interpretation - and you will, even veteran DMs make mistakes - just let your players know that you are changing it, why you are changing it, and that the new way will be consistent moving forward.
- If players like an NPC, make a note of that NPC and have them show up later. There’s a certain joy players have when they see someone they really took a shine to, even if it might be a year or more since they last spoke to that NPC.
- You as the DM have meta knowledge which you can use to design encounters, but NPCs do not. Just like your players should not be metagaming, your NPCs should not either.
- Be prepared to adjust combat on the fly, adding more monsters, increasing the enemy’s HP, giving them a heal or new attack, having the NPCs run or turn on one another, etc. CR is a terrible system that vastly underestimates party power, making it hard to balance. Sometimes that balancing has to take place during combat to ensure the fight is the appropriate difficulty.
- Listen to your players if they have problems and be prepared to mediate differences.
- If you are playing in person (particularly at your residence), make sure you have sufficient space to play, a plan for snacks and drinks (which may or may not involve the other players bringing something) and all the other trappings of hosting.
- Keep your finger on the pulse of what players like and what makes them uncomfortable. Each group has different tolerances, so never assume something that you might find acceptable or which has been acceptable in other campaigns you have been in will work in your campaign. If something does not work, you can try to reshape it into something that does.
You can make a mistake both because of something you did and because of something you didn't do. For that reason, talking things out with players is always good.
Have a dungeon ready! Always have a level appropriate dungeon!
A lot of dungeon masters go into a game of dungeons and dragons without having a dungeon ready to go- never do this. You need a dungeon, that is your absolute top priority as a Dungeon Master, because without a dungeon you can’t actually play the game of Dungeons and Dragons.
I do not think it is necessary to have a full level-appropriate dungeon ready unless the party is expected to go into a dungeon soon-ish*. You, as the DM, control when they find a dungeon, so it is not like they can randomly stumble upon one unless you tell them “you found a dungeon.” There are plenty of places - cities, forests, etc. where you can give the party other things to do.
Rather than prepare a full dungeon, you should have a few generic encounters that are level-appropriate. Terrain appropriate beasts in the wilds; some guards (never know when the party might need to be arrested), mages, assassins, etc. in cities. Bandits are a great thing that you can have to slot in everywhere.
*My “soon-ish” comment reminded me of another piece of advice - your party will never move at the pace you think it will. You could have multiple sessions pass where nothing tangible happens because the party is goofing around; or you could have the party churn through some content and reach a story point faster than intended. As DM, read the room and the pacing - you have lots of ways to both speed up and slow down the action, but need not always exercise those tools if folks are enjoying themselves.
I really appreciate the pointers and advice, very, very helpful!
More! :D
"You think you have won! What is light without dark?
What are you without me? I am a part of you all. You can never defeat me. We are brothers eternal!"
The way this was expressed to me is that, despite the best of planning, the party will piss all over what you have planned. :P
They will also pick up on things you think are minor and go towards objectives you didn't even think about. So be prepared to be flexible and play off the cuff.
Don't be afraid to read through these forums and all types of media to steal ideas from. Not everything has to be created from scratch.
Don't be afraid to turn up/down the difficulty of an encounter.
Lastly, make sure you weave some elements of your groups characters into your overall story. These often lead to the best surprises and most remembered moments. ;)
#OpenD&D #ORC
"...or you can find the secret tunnel that leads to the Vault of Dickish DM which is filled with 10,000,000 copper coins and a 5,000 pound solid gold statue of a middle finger that is too big to fit through the door."
BL, I'd say espionage and diplomacy at least as played in D&D are actually forms of exploration. On a thread about interrogation, I actually suggested treating an interrogation/interview subjects mind as puzzle (that could be trapped). Social or reconnaissance crawls are still crawls in the end. Both types of mission intend some form of "discovery."
I'd also say be happy if your action or drama is full of cheese. Entertainment doesn't have to be gourmet.
But the puns, the DM needs to know when to let the puntacular flow but also when to tighten up the tap.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I'm an eternal DM and I see a lot of good advice here already. I have text conversations with players between sessions about their characters. I pay close attention to them in game and try to take little things they do or say and make it "a thing" in the game. It's important to me that they contribute to the story, at least to a degree. Sometimes they come up with things that are better than I had. I go with it and pretend it was the plan all along. Or I might say, well that wasn't what I had in mind, but I like it so yes. But as others have said, I have no problem saying no if their idea is too problematic.
Visuals go a long way. I always have tons of pictures of NPCs, monsters, settings, loot, etc. printed out. All sorts of maps I make with Inkarnate too. A lot of them I embed in the Notes section of the campaign page on the DnDB website. Others I just use at the table.
Props at the table are cool for them too. Gems, wands, coin pouches, magic beans, letters of introduction, wanted posters, etc. Try to avoid sharp weapons though. Trust me.
Maybe not as much of an issue with all of the online tools nowadays, but as an older DM I always take the time to write out a Battle Sheet before each session. All the monsters and NPCs in the encounter the PCs will face, with the most important stats: AC, HP, ATT/DAM, and a note for any special resistances, attacks, etc. I have the monster manual or larger stat black open for reference if I need it (for saving throws) but having a scratch pad with the vitals helps me jump right into combat and keep it moving.
A recent lesson learned (after 25+ years of DMing): If you plan on running a non standard or unusual encounter (a chase, skill challenges, etc), make sure you figure out ahead of time how you are going to clearly communicate any different mechanics or story points to your players. You can always count on being the only one who sees it "clearly" in your mind's eye. Your players do not have that benefit.
For example I just ran a large combat, a wererat horde attacking a keep that the PCs needed to defend. I knew it was going to be extensive and layered. In my mind, it was very clear that this keep defense was going to happen in multiple waves. I did not do a good job communicating this beforehand. When the attack started the PCs all jumped into critical now-or-never mode and the whole encounter got off to a rough start. Although we all stuck the landing together, there was some honest frustration and confusion in the beginning. The lesson learned was that if I am ever going to try and do something outside the normal box, I've got to realize that my players don't see it as clearly as I do, and I've got to figure out how to communicate my vision.
#OPENDND
Some really good advice already, so will try not to be too repetitive!
- Make sure to balance your players time in the spotlight. Some will naturally be more forthcoming/loud than others, and this can be quite daunting, but by cycling through your players, making sure everyone has the opportunity to act/RP/describe is important and gets easier if your stick to it
- Don't argue long and hard about rules during a session. If something comes up that it open to interpretation or needs a lot of reading, tell the group that for now you are ruling it like this, but that before next session you will have a closer look to establish how it will be resolved longer term.
- Sense the mood at the (possibly virtual) table. Some sessions, even with the same players, they will be in a giddy mood and wants to lean on comedy - bad time to do that really emotional scene. Other times they might be a bit sluggish to react or initiate something - so nudge them, set time limits or drive the story more in moments like that.
- Make sure the players are with you and trust you. Get them to tell you what they are trying to achieve in full before breaking down dice rolls, but don't use it to hit them over the head with it. If players start breaking their action steps down to try and do something because they don't think the DM would let them, it becomes slow and can be frustrating for everyone else.
- Make sure you are having fun too. If you are not enjoying being DM, it will shine through eventually. It can be stressful and challenging, but in the end, it should be about telling a great story and enjoying that process!
Tell me what you you are trying to achieve - we're telling this story together ....at least I thought we were - Now I am not so sure [OGL 1.1]
My only hard set rule is that it's about fun. If people aren't having fun, then it's your job to fix it. That could be a lot of things, but virtually everything can be fixed with creativity and communication with the players. The only thing that really can't be fixed with storytelling is a toxic player. Then it's still your job to fix that.
Let the players dictate the pace and path. I used to spend a lot of hours building campaigns that rarely ever worked out the way I planned. Now, I just make plot points and have a bunch of encounters prepared. We don't even need to get to the plot points, so long as the players are enjoying the game and I can come up with the next step quicker than the players can decide on a new path.
Being a DM is just like any other skill, you get better with practice. Don't worry if everything falls apart at first. If you make sure people are enjoying it, then that's what really matters. And if they aren't, ask them why they aren't having fun and adjust your style and/or world to be more enjoyable..