Reynards Rules, or What I've Learned in 20 Years of DMing

DMing is hard. Part science, part art, it is all work. This isn't to say, of course, that it isn't also rewarding and fun, but DMing well takes effort, experience and practice. Moreover, every new edition, every new group of players requires that the DM relearn the craft, sometimes on a superficial level but also sometimes on a fundamental one.

That said, in my 20 years of DMing, I have developed a number of rules I endeavor to follow when I run Dungeons and Dragons. Sometimes, I find that they don't all work for the players involved, and sometimes I find that they don't work with the edition being used. In these cases I either try and alter my style and preferences (not an easy thing) or play with different people or different rules.

All that said, I give you Reynard's Rules of DMing:

The DM isn't always right, but he is the one that always decides what's right.

Among the many roles the DM plays during the course of running the game, the most important is that of Final Arbiter. The DM arbitrates not only rules questions, disputes and applications, but also arbitrates the non-mechanical aspects of the game, up to and including conflicts between the players and even the players and the DM. DMs, being human, are far from infallible, and a good DM listens to his players. In the end, however, the DM must have the final authority over te solution to any dispute or question, because it falls to the DM to keep the game moving and keep everyone involved and entertained.

It's the DM's World, but it's the Players' Story.

One of the greatest responsibilities and rewards of DMing is building and running the world in which the PCs adventure. Creating people, places and things with which the player characters can interact, and then having those Nouns respond to that interaction, is both fun and challenging. As such, the DM should be free to include or exclude, limit or expand any or all of the traditional tropes of D&D in his world. That said, it is easy for the DM to fall into the too common trap of starting to care more about his creations than the players' interaction with those creations. If the world is immutable, if the NPCs are insurpassable, if the setting's secrets are inpenetrable, the DM has lost perspective on the reason those two or eight people are sitting there on the other side of the screen. Consistency, versimilitude and plausibility are all important and the hallmarks of a good DM; relegating the PCs to tourists and window shoppers is not.

Know when to hold 'em, know when to roll 'em.

Dice are important in D&D (see below) but they are not an end unto themselves. One othe most common mistakes many DMs, both novices and veterans alike, make is to rely too much on the dice. Too often, an important aspect of the game or adventure is hinged on a die roll when a random result or the possibility of a bad roll will slow down, or even outright ruin, the game. It is important to identify these situations and not require rolls where rolls will lead to incongruent or troublesome results. As an example, let's say there's a secret door in an old mansion. If the door leads to a hidden room where the previous owner stored his treasure, requiring a random roll to locate the door is perfectly acceptable. If, however, the door leads to final confrontation or other aspect that makes completing the adventure impossible, requiring a die roll is just begging to stop the adventure in its tracks and/or tempt one to "fudge the result( again, see below). Better to require that the PCs look for the secret door through simple description of action and, if they look in the right place, allow them to find it (make sure, though, to give them some clue of where to look in the first place, or the players will be forced to read your mind or search every square inch of the place).

Let the Dice Fall where they May.

As an addendum to the above rule, once you have determined that a particular situation does warrant the the use of dice, never fudge. Stick by the result of the die roll, interpret and use it as best you can and keep going. After all, you thought it through (didn't you) and said "Yes!" to a die roll. Now, it is incumbant upon the DM to roll with whatever result lands face up. This is particularly important in combat. Not only should the dice stay where they fall, they should bhe rolled out in the open so everyone knows it'sthe dice, not the DM, determining the outcome of the battle. Note that this maxim applies to die rolls by both the DM and the players, and die rolls affecting eother the PCs or the monsters/NPCs. If Villain McEvil goes down because of a lucky critical on the part of the players, that's how the cookie crumbles. Fudging the result (of which pumping up the villain secretly behind the screen is a form) is nothing short of cheating.

The Players are Your Friends; their characters aren't.

Also known as "Adventuring is Dangerous Business", this rule is a philosophical one, covering many different aspects of running a game, from creating the world to arbitrating rules to designing adventures. A D&D world is most entertaining when it is filled with dangerous Nouns, all within reach of the PCs so that the players can decide where to go, when to do it and what to do once they get there. Not every boy off the farm is destined for greatness, however, and pretending otherwise -- whether through never designing a non "level appropriate" challenge or by fudging as described above or building a world that caters to the players and their characters above all else -- does a disservice to those players and characters that survive and thrive in such a treacherous world and profession. In the end, the cream will rise to the top and your players will thank you for it, whether directly or when they are in the game store or at a convention telling anyone who will listen about the time their paladin held the door against the orc horde while his wounded companions escaped.