Forum

[Merkuri]

I have some advice from a player's perspective. I have never DM'd (unless you count the really lame games I ran for just my sister when we were in middle school and had just discovered the game), but these are qualities I value in a DM, or things I enjoy that DMs do.

1) Try to maximize fun. Everything you do should be to make the game fun for you and your players. Think about long-term fun, too. Things that are fun once may not be fun if you continue to allow them to happen. For example, preventing a character from dying seems like a good idea, but doesn't maximize long-term fun. Most people find that losing the threat of dying makes the game less fun. It's rarely fun to lose a character, but without that threat the whole "fun quotient" of the game goes down.

It can take you a while to figure out how to get the most fun out of a game, but if you keep this rule in mind whenever you DM you'll be on the right track to being an awesome DM. It's really the most important thing a DM can do, I think. Everything should take a backseat to fun. If a rule is getting in the way of your fun, ignore it, or change it. That's really why we're all here playing this game, and why the rules were created - to have fun. If following the rules to the letter is not fun, don't do it!

2) Encourage player creativity. One of the best ways to do this is to say "yes" as much as possible, but remember tip 1 above - make sure it'll keep the game fun in the long run. Like others have said, this usually means your "yeses" will end up being "yes, buts" or "yes, ands". One of the wost things a DM can do is to keep saying "no" to creative players because they'll eventually stop trying to be so creative, and that won't be fun for anyone.

3) Listen to your players, both to what they say and what they do. Ask for feedback, and try to take what they've said into consideration. Try not to take criticism personally. If a player says something bad about your DMing style they're usually not trying to hurt you, they're trying to make you into a better DM.

Look at how your players have designed their characters and give them challenges that the characters have been designed to overcome. If a player creates a character that has a lot of abilities focused around dragonslaying then that player probably wants to fight dragons, so toss in a dragon every now and then. Try to give every player a little bit of what they want. You don't have to give everybody everything they want all of the time, but if you can give at least one person what they want each adventure and you keep spreading the "love" around evenly you'll be doing great.

4) Don't be afraid to change things the players don't know. I remember reading some awesome examples of this on EN World before, but I can't think of any specific examples right now. Basically, if you have something planned out and the PCs somehow get it into their heads that something different is going to happen, feel free to wave your magic DM wand and make what they think into the real truth, especially if what they came up with is way cooler than what you had originally planned. If you get good at this they'll never even know you changed anything. It makes the players feel smart because they figured out your grand mystery and if their idea was better than yours it can also make the whole adventure more fun.

5) Make the world react. The PCs should have a real, tangible effect on the world around them. Have them overhear NPCs discussing things the PCs have done in neighboring towns. If they failed to pick up on a quest hook let them find out what happened because they didn't take action. If they saved a village let them hear events that have gone on in that village after it was saved. Adding little details to make the PCs know they had some effect on the world around them adds greatly to the immersion and make the players feel like what they did really mattered.