Out of curiosity, what is like the most common mistakes and I know I need to do it myself to get that experience but I am thinking I’m doing those like tavern Check points, where everyone can go in and interact
Assume that no matter how good your clues are, the Party will always come up with a different answer at best, at worst they will not even notice your clues.
Assume that no matter how good your clues are, the Party will always come up with a different answer at best, at worst they will not even notice your clues.
This is a good one. Always give your players three clues for every one you think they need. And even then, don't punish them for misunderstanding the clues. I always fall back on an old story from my youth:
I was playing in a game with a bunch of my friends, and we'd spent weeks in this dungeon, fighting monsters, tripping traps, generally having a grand old time. We got to the end of the dungeon and beat the boss, and were headed into the treasure room, but my DM had one last puzzle for us. There were three levers and a riddle whose contents I couldn't remember now if you put a gun to my head, but the gist was this: Pull the right lever, treasure room opens. Pull one of the wrong levers, treasure room fills with lava, destroying everything. Pull the other wrong lever, treasure room fills with lava AND opens, destroying the treasure, and us with it. We spent an hour fussing over the riddle, fighting amongst ourselves, and making check after check to give us whatever clues we could, before we pulled the lever and boom! Treasure room opens! We cheer! We get treasure! We eat pizza and go home!
A few years later, the DM and I are getting drinks and reminiscing about our wasted youth, and I mention how cool that dungeon was, and how hard the riddle was. You know what he says? "You know, you guys pulled the wrong lever."
Apparently, we'd misunderstood a portion of the riddle and, try as he might to correct our understanding, we just barreled on ahead like dumbasses and pulled the wrong lever. We should have been utterly obliterated by lava. When I asked him why, then, he didn't kill us as intended, he said, "You all spent an hour figuring out that riddle. If I had killed you after all that, everybody would have been pissed, and the night would have been ruined. It was more fun to just let you guys get the treasure."
Remember that, as DM, you are the god of fun. It's common for new DM's to obsess over rules and planning, which is good. But if you're too dogmatic, you're going to miss opportunities to fudge a roll, change a rule, or abandon a plot hook the players aren't following in favor of something they're more interested in. DnD, like all other TTRPG's, is just a framework for getting together with friends and telling a story. If the framework gets in the way of the story, don't let it. Be flexible. There's nothing wrong with there being no wrong lever.
Ultimately, pretty much every mistake ends up being "running things wrong for your specific group".
I will add a couple of specific bits of advice:
Talk to your players outside of the game. Find out what they think they want. Listen to how they think things are going. If there's a problem within the group, don't try to solve it in-game.
Your players will never pay as much attention to your worldbuilding as you do.
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Out of curiosity, what is like the most common mistakes and I know I need to do it myself to get that experience but I am thinking I’m doing those like tavern Check points, where everyone can go in and interact
Assume that no matter how good your clues are, the Party will always come up with a different answer at best, at worst they will not even notice your clues.
This is a good one. Always give your players three clues for every one you think they need. And even then, don't punish them for misunderstanding the clues. I always fall back on an old story from my youth:
I was playing in a game with a bunch of my friends, and we'd spent weeks in this dungeon, fighting monsters, tripping traps, generally having a grand old time. We got to the end of the dungeon and beat the boss, and were headed into the treasure room, but my DM had one last puzzle for us. There were three levers and a riddle whose contents I couldn't remember now if you put a gun to my head, but the gist was this: Pull the right lever, treasure room opens. Pull one of the wrong levers, treasure room fills with lava, destroying everything. Pull the other wrong lever, treasure room fills with lava AND opens, destroying the treasure, and us with it. We spent an hour fussing over the riddle, fighting amongst ourselves, and making check after check to give us whatever clues we could, before we pulled the lever and boom! Treasure room opens! We cheer! We get treasure! We eat pizza and go home!
A few years later, the DM and I are getting drinks and reminiscing about our wasted youth, and I mention how cool that dungeon was, and how hard the riddle was. You know what he says? "You know, you guys pulled the wrong lever."
Apparently, we'd misunderstood a portion of the riddle and, try as he might to correct our understanding, we just barreled on ahead like dumbasses and pulled the wrong lever. We should have been utterly obliterated by lava. When I asked him why, then, he didn't kill us as intended, he said, "You all spent an hour figuring out that riddle. If I had killed you after all that, everybody would have been pissed, and the night would have been ruined. It was more fun to just let you guys get the treasure."
Remember that, as DM, you are the god of fun. It's common for new DM's to obsess over rules and planning, which is good. But if you're too dogmatic, you're going to miss opportunities to fudge a roll, change a rule, or abandon a plot hook the players aren't following in favor of something they're more interested in. DnD, like all other TTRPG's, is just a framework for getting together with friends and telling a story. If the framework gets in the way of the story, don't let it. Be flexible. There's nothing wrong with there being no wrong lever.
Ultimately, pretty much every mistake ends up being "running things wrong for your specific group".
I will add a couple of specific bits of advice:
Talk to your players outside of the game. Find out what they think they want. Listen to how they think things are going. If there's a problem within the group, don't try to solve it in-game.
Your players will never pay as much attention to your worldbuilding as you do.