Hello, I just lost my D&D part a few days ago. They said my DMing was bad, which hurt me a lot, one big problem was me railroading them. They said I keep things going the way I placed them. I've never been a player for longer than a month in campaigns. So I don't know what's it's like to have a DM or know how to play as one that's good without listening to podcasts. So please help a fellow DM out with giving me some advice to not lose another D&D party. Thank you all for your time. From, Tater North.
DMing isn't easy. It takes a lot of practice to get good at, and your aren't going to be very good at it your first few times. That is ok. If your players are saying that you are railroading them, ask for their feedback. Why did they feel like it was railroading? What could you do to improve? If they rejected you immediately, then that isn't really your fault. It doesn't mean that you are terrible, it is just a way to grow.
Specifically about railroading: Railroading is a very easy thing to do as a DM. A small amount of it allows you to develop plot in a way that you expect, but takes away players agency. Allow the players actions to have effects on the world, and shape the plot of the story around them. If you really want to go anti-railroading, run a sandbox adventure. Just give them a map, and ask them where they want to go. You can come up with a story along the way.
Finally, Matt Colville made a Youtube series called Running the Game intended for aspiring DM's. I have heard that it is excellent.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
don't drive the story by the book, the nature of DnD is that its a story. The plotline is yours, as the DM, but how it plays out is down to the players.
If they choose to go in a different direction to the book, then just move the environment of the next plot twist you had planned - the nature of the plot will bring them back around to where you need them to be.
I don’t write a campaign. I don’t use a giant module. I have tons of smaller modules and a fleshed out campaign setting that I am very comfortable and familiar with. I know the NPCs, the factions, political powers, churches, etc. I know what they want and what they are willing to do to get it. All of that goes on in the world regardless of which choices the players make. If they decide to go deal with what the evil Duke is doing, that becomes their next adventure. If they decide to go do something else, that becomes their next adventure. When they get back, then hey will then find out what the evil Duke did. If they decide that interests them, then dealing with that becomes their next adventure.
I am constantly dropping opportunities for side quests or parallel adventures. Maybe one of the thieves’ guilds does something two days after a politician does something. Those two things may be completely unrelated to each other and unrelated to the quest they are currently on for one of the churches.
By having all of that stuff going on at once, it makes the world dynamic and allows the party to choose the course of their own adventure.
You may not have all of that put together, it took me more than two decades. But you can start to put that stuff together, just like I had to do in the beginning. It takes time, work, and dedication. But it all starts with one adventure. Pick two or three small modules that you really like, and drop hints for all three spaced out and let them pick the one they want to pursue, it hen have the other ones progress (or at least seem to) behind the scenes. Now, instead of following a railroad, they get to play in a sandbox.
Just pick a small Barony to start with, maybe a few small towns and some wilderness with a couple ruins. Just get a vague idea for things in your head, you don’t need every little detail, or even most of them. You only need one village to start with, and a rough idea of the other two. A couple small dungeons, maybe a few rooms each. Have at least two things happening. Tada! You have a small sandbox that could take your players months to get through while you curate more stuff for your collection.
Welcome to the other side of the DM’s screen, and good luck!
They actually said "Your DMing is bad"? Talk about jerks, be GLAD that game is over.
Anyways, the key to avoiding a railroad is to realize you need to stop thinking about telling some pre conceived story. Focus on world building and creating places and characters around your players, each with their own goals and schemes. Let the players tell the STORY FOR YOU as they interact with this world. As a DM, I consider it the players job to tell ME a story.
Not only do players prefer this freedom, but it takes a gigantic weight off of your chest not having to invent some grand railroad story. Just try to determine what they will likely do next session and prepare some content for it, stay a step ahead of them. Keep things interesting by evolving events and plot hooks the players are ignoring (or rather simply have no time for) into more and more formidable threats. This segues naturally to higher level content as the campaign progresses.
A lot of great advice above. And I also recommend Matt Colville’s videos on running the game.
just curious, were there specific examples they said about railroading? Hindsight being 20/20 maybe if there were specific instances we could provide possible alternatives that could help make it feel less railroading.
First of all, "You're a bad DM," is entirely unfair if all you did was make a railroady adventure. There are tons of things you can do well, even if a story is on rails. Were you fair in adjudicating things like advantage/disadvantage on checks? Did you let the players each have time in the spotlight? Did you make sure the PCs, not NPCs, were the primary heroes of the piece? Did you balance encounters so that they were challenging, not too hard or too easy? If you did those things, then you weren't a bad DM, rails or no rails.
I'm also not sure if you railroaded or not, based on your statement:
They said I keep things going the way I placed them
It almost sounds like you drew a map of the dungeon and put stuff in the dungeon and you kept the stuff where you put it. That is, in Room A you put orcs, in room B you put goblins, in room C you put trolls, and that was how the players found those rooms. If so, that is not railroading. That is building a dungeon. The same can be said for wilderness. You build areas or points of interest into the world. If the players can then choose whatever place they want to go, then that is not railroading.
Railroading is when you say "The first room they walk into will be orcs, no matter which hallway they take first, and no matter which room they enter. The orcs will surprise them and get a free round of combat, regardless of whether the PCs listen at the door, use magic to detect the orcs, or otherwise take action to avoid being ambushed." That's a railroad. But "I turn left and open the door," and you just tell them what they see in the room (which is what your very brief description sounds like) is not.
Also, your players need to acquaint themselves with the concept of learning. As a new DM, and one who has not done much playing before DMing, you cannot be expected to be able to do everything at once. The railroady adventures tend to help the new DM manage things, and in my opinion, players should be grateful you are willing to DM for them, and forgiving if your first adventures are a bit on rails. You will learn and get better. Some day you may not need the rails but for now they might be necessary "training wheels." If the players can't handle that, let one of them DM.
BTW, the quickest way to get players to be sympathetic to the work the DM does, is let one of them do it for a while. That person will change tunes very quickly, let me tell you. It happened to me. I had the same accusation (in Champions) of the adventures being "too linear" and "overly structured." Among other complaints. I had been GMing for 2 years, sole GM, no one else doing it. They were not appreciative. So I decided to take part of the summer off. One of the other guys made up a campaign in an "alternate earth" (with superheroes, you do that kind of thing) and ran most of the summer. We secretly planned that at the end of the summer, there would be a crossover of the 2 earths and he would run part 1, and I would run part 2.
Well, let me tell you... his campaign was more on rails than mine, and it was an absolute train wreck. He was arbitrary, as a GM. He was sloppy. He didn't balance combat so they were either brutally hard or trivially easy. Compared to my hand-drawn, color hexmaps, his maps were a freehand square on a piece of paper to just outline the walls of the room. (This is horrible in Champions, a game in which characters can pick up and throw objects -- a good GM will put lots of stuff on the map that players can use for this kind of thing.) His stories were obvious to be point of being ridiculous.
On the evening when we finished up his part of the campaign and the PCs of that world stepped through a mysterious portal, and he then got up and switched places with me, I got a standing ovation for being GM again. I actually felt kinda bad for the other guy. He was, I'm sure, trying his best. On the other hand my sympathies were limited by the fact that he had been the most vocal complainer before hand. BTW, he never complained again. In fact during his part of the run, he told me he wanted to cut his stuff short because he couldn't take the GMing. "How did you do this every week for 2 years?" he wanted to know. And the other question was, "How can you put up with these annoying players?"
So yeah, things look different on the other side of the screen, and many players don't realize that.
But again... railroading is a term tossed about like it is some sort of cardinal sin. It's not. In fact, some players actually like linear stories and what people here would call "railroading." It does not make you "a bad DM."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
For our last session, I planned the kidnapping and I was trying to make it happen so I had an evil character who was planning to help that. The player wasn't pleased by it and they all decided when I was sleeping to just leave. They also dislike me being in popular memes into campaigns or ideas I like, for example, Siren Head and an undead General Grievous. One person said grievous part didn't make sense since he's a warforged and those probably wouldn't be around that time frame. I just wanted to say, well our Kobold has a gun.
I did for most of those you listed. Encountering was different since some were easy and others were very hard. But for the railroading, I kidnapped a player, cause I had it written down, and wanted it to happen. I did and some players didn't like that at all. They all just decided to just leave when I was sleeping with no real reason until one talked to me about it.
Players, as a general rule, hate to be captured, and will fight tooth and nail to prevent it. They don't care that the captivity might be the hook for an adventure or might lead to awesome roleplay. Being captured = losing to them, and players hate to lose. I usually advise DMs not to try and play out a capture like this. If you want the captivity to be the premise of an adventure, tell them, "This next adventure you're going to start out as prisoners." It can help if you give them some agency.
So for example, you could say, "This next adventure will have you start out as prisoners to some slavers. The slavers are going to to be Yuan-Ti. They are invading nearby towns and capturing people. The local militias are not strong enough to handle it. Each of you should write up a short paragraph on how you got captured by the Yuan-Ti."
If you do it like this, then the players have agency. Yes, they are starting out captured, but you let them participate in writing the story of how. One could say he got into a drunken brawl, and woke up captured. Another could say he was riding by on his horse and saw the Yuan-Ti in great numbers attacking a farm, and he tried to stop it despite the odds, and got captured. Another might say she was the local cleric at the temple, and was captured standing her ground trying to defend her deity's altar from desecration. The players don't get to decide they weren't captured, but it can feel a whole lot more participatory to them (and actually be more participatory, not just feel like it) if they get to determine the details.
I had it written down, and wanted it to happen
Yep. We've all been there. But this is how railroading happens. You want it to happen so you just force it to happen no matter what the players do. And players hate this only slightly less than they hate being kidnapped. Although I'll lay odds that if what you wanted to happen was for them to WIN the fight and you made it happen, they'd suddenly be a lot more OK with the "railroading." The real "sin" for the DM comes when the railroading leads to players (at least by perception) losing.
Of course, there is no real winning and losing in an RPG, except in the sense that you all win if you have a good time. Defeat can often be fodder for awesome RP. But it takes very experience and sophisticated players to realize this, and even the RP vets still hate when their characters lose. They're just willing to stomach it once in a while.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
cause I had it written down, and wanted it to happen....
There’s the railroad. The thing is, it’s not really about what the DM wants to happen, it’s always about what the table wants to happen. All of you are in it together. When I DM I don’t tell a story. I narrate what happens, but that’s not the same thing.
I never start with a beginning middle and end like a story. I start with multiple beginnings, the players pick which story they want to follow and write the middle and end through their actions. I just narrate the events surrounding what they write, and then come back in with the epilogue and the “meanwhile, back at the ranch....” afterwords.
Yeah, taking away the player’s ability to say what happens to their characters can be off putting. If a player decides to escape a fight by jumping off a cliff or jumping into a mine shaft that ends in a lava pit is up to them. You telling a player they jump off the cliff because you want it to happen, even if it was something the character would never ever do ( maybe they are afraid of heights) and the player has no say in the matter can really take the fun out of the game.
if you want to kidnap a character I think you really have to have the player involved in the process before the gaming session and the two of you could collaborate on how it goes down and what the desired outcome should be.
ar least that’s my thoughts from a player perspective. If my DM came to me and brought up a kidnapping scenario I will be all in on that.
Of course, there is no real winning and losing in an RPG, except in the sense that you all win if you have a good time. Defeat can often be fodder for awesome RP. But it takes very experience and sophisticated players to realize this, and even the RP vets still hate when their characters lose. They're just willing to stomach it once in a while.
Interesting that you mentioned that. Just last night my character was dominated by an enemy. I sat back and was a spectator to what my character was doing, while disguised as another PC I might add. It was a little frustrating, and the other Players were all trying to figure out how their characters would figure it out without metagaming. But we’re all in our late thirties to early forties and 3/4 of the players are also DMs and we have all known each other forever. Most of us have been roleplaying together for almost 20 years and the rest longer. It’s different if it happens to my PC under that circumstance. And even that was unpleasant to an extent.
I would suggest to ask them what sort of adventure they like and take that into consideration when planning the next adventure. You have all the power as the DM but you have none if your players don't enjoy it. Make sure they are all happy and maybe tone down the memes and futuristic builds and keep it at a medieval stage; it is harder to DM with modern or futuristic content as there is less backstory for it.
You've been given some good advice above, but one thing that wasn't mentioned, I would strongly suggest:
Play more D&D.
If you've never played much, or only ever played under one DM, then that will tend to limit both your ability to see the players' perspectives, and to accept different styles of DMing. I know it might not be an easy option (especially now,) but I would encourage you to try to play as a player in multiple groups under multiple DMs (ones where you respect them and enjoy how they run things) more often. It's not an overnight fix, of course, but in general, having more playtime under your belt will also help with you being a better DM, and over the course of several months, it should really start to pay off.
Podcasts are not going to help you find your style. They show you how professionals do it, and their style only works for them. Experiment! Find a way to keep it interesting for the players with your own personal touch. I try to make mine funny and engaging so the players will want to play again.
That's like saying that I can't ever learn anything from watching a professional: I'll never learn anything from cooking by watching a professional chef on a cooking show, I'll never learn anything about woodworking from watching The New Yankee Workshop, etc.
Podcasts will not tell you how you should run your game, nor does it present a caliber of game which you should use as a standard to determine if your game is successful or not, but they absolutely can be used as a source of inspiration, a source of DM tactics, and clarification of how some rules and sub-systems work, as you see them in action.
Humans are - at least partly - social learners: monkey see, monkey do. We learn from watching others do, as well as doing ourselves.
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Hello, I just lost my D&D part a few days ago. They said my DMing was bad, which hurt me a lot, one big problem was me railroading them. They said I keep things going the way I placed them. I've never been a player for longer than a month in campaigns. So I don't know what's it's like to have a DM or know how to play as one that's good without listening to podcasts. So please help a fellow DM out with giving me some advice to not lose another D&D party. Thank you all for your time.
From,
Tater North.
DMing isn't easy. It takes a lot of practice to get good at, and your aren't going to be very good at it your first few times. That is ok. If your players are saying that you are railroading them, ask for their feedback. Why did they feel like it was railroading? What could you do to improve? If they rejected you immediately, then that isn't really your fault. It doesn't mean that you are terrible, it is just a way to grow.
Specifically about railroading: Railroading is a very easy thing to do as a DM. A small amount of it allows you to develop plot in a way that you expect, but takes away players agency. Allow the players actions to have effects on the world, and shape the plot of the story around them. If you really want to go anti-railroading, run a sandbox adventure. Just give them a map, and ask them where they want to go. You can come up with a story along the way.
Finally, Matt Colville made a Youtube series called Running the Game intended for aspiring DM's. I have heard that it is excellent.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
don't drive the story by the book, the nature of DnD is that its a story. The plotline is yours, as the DM, but how it plays out is down to the players.
If they choose to go in a different direction to the book, then just move the environment of the next plot twist you had planned - the nature of the plot will bring them back around to where you need them to be.
Do a little research on what is called a “sandbox campaign.” Honestly, this is the best accumulation of advice I can give you right here:
Matt Colville: Running the Game
Following that:
I don’t write a campaign. I don’t use a giant module. I have tons of smaller modules and a fleshed out campaign setting that I am very comfortable and familiar with. I know the NPCs, the factions, political powers, churches, etc. I know what they want and what they are willing to do to get it. All of that goes on in the world regardless of which choices the players make. If they decide to go deal with what the evil Duke is doing, that becomes their next adventure. If they decide to go do something else, that becomes their next adventure. When they get back, then hey will then find out what the evil Duke did. If they decide that interests them, then dealing with that becomes their next adventure.
I am constantly dropping opportunities for side quests or parallel adventures. Maybe one of the thieves’ guilds does something two days after a politician does something. Those two things may be completely unrelated to each other and unrelated to the quest they are currently on for one of the churches.
By having all of that stuff going on at once, it makes the world dynamic and allows the party to choose the course of their own adventure.
You may not have all of that put together, it took me more than two decades. But you can start to put that stuff together, just like I had to do in the beginning. It takes time, work, and dedication. But it all starts with one adventure. Pick two or three small modules that you really like, and drop hints for all three spaced out and let them pick the one they want to pursue, it hen have the other ones progress (or at least seem to) behind the scenes. Now, instead of following a railroad, they get to play in a sandbox.
Just pick a small Barony to start with, maybe a few small towns and some wilderness with a couple ruins. Just get a vague idea for things in your head, you don’t need every little detail, or even most of them. You only need one village to start with, and a rough idea of the other two. A couple small dungeons, maybe a few rooms each. Have at least two things happening. Tada! You have a small sandbox that could take your players months to get through while you curate more stuff for your collection.
Welcome to the other side of the DM’s screen, and good luck!
Edit: Labeled link.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
They actually said "Your DMing is bad"? Talk about jerks, be GLAD that game is over.
Anyways, the key to avoiding a railroad is to realize you need to stop thinking about telling some pre conceived story. Focus on world building and creating places and characters around your players, each with their own goals and schemes. Let the players tell the STORY FOR YOU as they interact with this world. As a DM, I consider it the players job to tell ME a story.
Not only do players prefer this freedom, but it takes a gigantic weight off of your chest not having to invent some grand railroad story. Just try to determine what they will likely do next session and prepare some content for it, stay a step ahead of them. Keep things interesting by evolving events and plot hooks the players are ignoring (or rather simply have no time for) into more and more formidable threats. This segues naturally to higher level content as the campaign progresses.
A lot of great advice above. And I also recommend Matt Colville’s videos on running the game.
just curious, were there specific examples they said about railroading? Hindsight being 20/20 maybe if there were specific instances we could provide possible alternatives that could help make it feel less railroading.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
First of all, "You're a bad DM," is entirely unfair if all you did was make a railroady adventure. There are tons of things you can do well, even if a story is on rails. Were you fair in adjudicating things like advantage/disadvantage on checks? Did you let the players each have time in the spotlight? Did you make sure the PCs, not NPCs, were the primary heroes of the piece? Did you balance encounters so that they were challenging, not too hard or too easy? If you did those things, then you weren't a bad DM, rails or no rails.
I'm also not sure if you railroaded or not, based on your statement:
It almost sounds like you drew a map of the dungeon and put stuff in the dungeon and you kept the stuff where you put it. That is, in Room A you put orcs, in room B you put goblins, in room C you put trolls, and that was how the players found those rooms. If so, that is not railroading. That is building a dungeon. The same can be said for wilderness. You build areas or points of interest into the world. If the players can then choose whatever place they want to go, then that is not railroading.
Railroading is when you say "The first room they walk into will be orcs, no matter which hallway they take first, and no matter which room they enter. The orcs will surprise them and get a free round of combat, regardless of whether the PCs listen at the door, use magic to detect the orcs, or otherwise take action to avoid being ambushed." That's a railroad. But "I turn left and open the door," and you just tell them what they see in the room (which is what your very brief description sounds like) is not.
Also, your players need to acquaint themselves with the concept of learning. As a new DM, and one who has not done much playing before DMing, you cannot be expected to be able to do everything at once. The railroady adventures tend to help the new DM manage things, and in my opinion, players should be grateful you are willing to DM for them, and forgiving if your first adventures are a bit on rails. You will learn and get better. Some day you may not need the rails but for now they might be necessary "training wheels." If the players can't handle that, let one of them DM.
BTW, the quickest way to get players to be sympathetic to the work the DM does, is let one of them do it for a while. That person will change tunes very quickly, let me tell you. It happened to me. I had the same accusation (in Champions) of the adventures being "too linear" and "overly structured." Among other complaints. I had been GMing for 2 years, sole GM, no one else doing it. They were not appreciative. So I decided to take part of the summer off. One of the other guys made up a campaign in an "alternate earth" (with superheroes, you do that kind of thing) and ran most of the summer. We secretly planned that at the end of the summer, there would be a crossover of the 2 earths and he would run part 1, and I would run part 2.
Well, let me tell you... his campaign was more on rails than mine, and it was an absolute train wreck. He was arbitrary, as a GM. He was sloppy. He didn't balance combat so they were either brutally hard or trivially easy. Compared to my hand-drawn, color hexmaps, his maps were a freehand square on a piece of paper to just outline the walls of the room. (This is horrible in Champions, a game in which characters can pick up and throw objects -- a good GM will put lots of stuff on the map that players can use for this kind of thing.) His stories were obvious to be point of being ridiculous.
On the evening when we finished up his part of the campaign and the PCs of that world stepped through a mysterious portal, and he then got up and switched places with me, I got a standing ovation for being GM again. I actually felt kinda bad for the other guy. He was, I'm sure, trying his best. On the other hand my sympathies were limited by the fact that he had been the most vocal complainer before hand. BTW, he never complained again. In fact during his part of the run, he told me he wanted to cut his stuff short because he couldn't take the GMing. "How did you do this every week for 2 years?" he wanted to know. And the other question was, "How can you put up with these annoying players?"
So yeah, things look different on the other side of the screen, and many players don't realize that.
But again... railroading is a term tossed about like it is some sort of cardinal sin. It's not. In fact, some players actually like linear stories and what people here would call "railroading." It does not make you "a bad DM."
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
For our last session, I planned the kidnapping and I was trying to make it happen so I had an evil character who was planning to help that. The player wasn't pleased by it and they all decided when I was sleeping to just leave. They also dislike me being in popular memes into campaigns or ideas I like, for example, Siren Head and an undead General Grievous. One person said grievous part didn't make sense since he's a warforged and those probably wouldn't be around that time frame. I just wanted to say, well our Kobold has a gun.
I did for most of those you listed. Encountering was different since some were easy and others were very hard. But for the railroading, I kidnapped a player, cause I had it written down, and wanted it to happen. I did and some players didn't like that at all. They all just decided to just leave when I was sleeping with no real reason until one talked to me about it.
Players, as a general rule, hate to be captured, and will fight tooth and nail to prevent it. They don't care that the captivity might be the hook for an adventure or might lead to awesome roleplay. Being captured = losing to them, and players hate to lose. I usually advise DMs not to try and play out a capture like this. If you want the captivity to be the premise of an adventure, tell them, "This next adventure you're going to start out as prisoners." It can help if you give them some agency.
So for example, you could say, "This next adventure will have you start out as prisoners to some slavers. The slavers are going to to be Yuan-Ti. They are invading nearby towns and capturing people. The local militias are not strong enough to handle it. Each of you should write up a short paragraph on how you got captured by the Yuan-Ti."
If you do it like this, then the players have agency. Yes, they are starting out captured, but you let them participate in writing the story of how. One could say he got into a drunken brawl, and woke up captured. Another could say he was riding by on his horse and saw the Yuan-Ti in great numbers attacking a farm, and he tried to stop it despite the odds, and got captured. Another might say she was the local cleric at the temple, and was captured standing her ground trying to defend her deity's altar from desecration. The players don't get to decide they weren't captured, but it can feel a whole lot more participatory to them (and actually be more participatory, not just feel like it) if they get to determine the details.
Yep. We've all been there. But this is how railroading happens. You want it to happen so you just force it to happen no matter what the players do. And players hate this only slightly less than they hate being kidnapped. Although I'll lay odds that if what you wanted to happen was for them to WIN the fight and you made it happen, they'd suddenly be a lot more OK with the "railroading." The real "sin" for the DM comes when the railroading leads to players (at least by perception) losing.
Of course, there is no real winning and losing in an RPG, except in the sense that you all win if you have a good time. Defeat can often be fodder for awesome RP. But it takes very experience and sophisticated players to realize this, and even the RP vets still hate when their characters lose. They're just willing to stomach it once in a while.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
There’s the railroad. The thing is, it’s not really about what the DM wants to happen, it’s always about what the table wants to happen. All of you are in it together. When I DM I don’t tell a story. I narrate what happens, but that’s not the same thing.
I never start with a beginning middle and end like a story. I start with multiple beginnings, the players pick which story they want to follow and write the middle and end through their actions. I just narrate the events surrounding what they write, and then come back in with the epilogue and the “meanwhile, back at the ranch....” afterwords.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Yeah, taking away the player’s ability to say what happens to their characters can be off putting. If a player decides to escape a fight by jumping off a cliff or jumping into a mine shaft that ends in a lava pit is up to them. You telling a player they jump off the cliff because you want it to happen, even if it was something the character would never ever do ( maybe they are afraid of heights) and the player has no say in the matter can really take the fun out of the game.
if you want to kidnap a character I think you really have to have the player involved in the process before the gaming session and the two of you could collaborate on how it goes down and what the desired outcome should be.
ar least that’s my thoughts from a player perspective. If my DM came to me and brought up a kidnapping scenario I will be all in on that.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
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Same. This is what I mean. Involve the player, and the whole equation changes.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Interesting that you mentioned that. Just last night my character was dominated by an enemy. I sat back and was a spectator to what my character was doing, while disguised as another PC I might add. It was a little frustrating, and the other Players were all trying to figure out how their characters would figure it out without metagaming. But we’re all in our late thirties to early forties and 3/4 of the players are also DMs and we have all known each other forever. Most of us have been roleplaying together for almost 20 years and the rest longer. It’s different if it happens to my PC under that circumstance. And even that was unpleasant to an extent.
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Content Troubleshooting
I would suggest to ask them what sort of adventure they like and take that into consideration when planning the next adventure. You have all the power as the DM but you have none if your players don't enjoy it. Make sure they are all happy and maybe tone down the memes and futuristic builds and keep it at a medieval stage; it is harder to DM with modern or futuristic content as there is less backstory for it.
You've been given some good advice above, but one thing that wasn't mentioned, I would strongly suggest:
Play more D&D.
If you've never played much, or only ever played under one DM, then that will tend to limit both your ability to see the players' perspectives, and to accept different styles of DMing. I know it might not be an easy option (especially now,) but I would encourage you to try to play as a player in multiple groups under multiple DMs (ones where you respect them and enjoy how they run things) more often. It's not an overnight fix, of course, but in general, having more playtime under your belt will also help with you being a better DM, and over the course of several months, it should really start to pay off.
Sterling - V. Human Bard 3 (College of Art) - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
Excellent advice -- if you can get it. Some of us struggle to have enough players just for 1 campaign.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yeah, I get that, especially with lockdowns still ongoing. Still, it's something worth mentioning, I thought.
Sterling - V. Human Bard 3 (College of Art) - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
Podcasts are not going to help you find your style. They show you how professionals do it, and their style only works for them. Experiment! Find a way to keep it interesting for the players with your own personal touch. I try to make mine funny and engaging so the players will want to play again.
I Love Gelatinous Cubes
And Gelatinous Humanoids.
I am a full supporter of the LGBTQ+ community.
Black Lives matter
Dont forget your mask!
That's like saying that I can't ever learn anything from watching a professional: I'll never learn anything from cooking by watching a professional chef on a cooking show, I'll never learn anything about woodworking from watching The New Yankee Workshop, etc.
Podcasts will not tell you how you should run your game, nor does it present a caliber of game which you should use as a standard to determine if your game is successful or not, but they absolutely can be used as a source of inspiration, a source of DM tactics, and clarification of how some rules and sub-systems work, as you see them in action.
Humans are - at least partly - social learners: monkey see, monkey do. We learn from watching others do, as well as doing ourselves.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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