PbP DMing -- What's Involved?

Azaar · May 18, 2006

I'm the first to admit it: I don't have tons upon tons of experience when it comes to playing a PbP game, although I shore that up with the fact that I've been gaming off and on for nearly a decade and working on writing that Great American Novel <tm>. That aside, though, I've been considering the possibility of DMing a game or two.

My problem: I have virtually no experience DMing. I've done it once, and it went well for about three weeks and then I had no idea where I wanted to go. The game, of course, fell apart as a result.

I want to give it another shot, but other than looking over the tips and stuff from the DMG II, I'm not entirely certain where to begin. And the PbP aspect adds another dimension to trying to figure out how I would be DMing, that sort of thing.

So, I suppose I'm looking for you veteran PbP DMs for advice and insight. What sorts of things do you all do to prepare for a game, whether it be some module or homebrew campaign world? And what sort of tips can you give a would-be new PbP DM?

Lord_Raven88 · May 18, 2006

While not a veteran PbP DM, I'm happy to give you some tips.

Play the game, play in some PbP games as a player with a variety of characters, this will then give you an idea of what challenges you'll face,how other DM's do it, and it will also help you decide how you want to do things differently
Start small, try doing a one shot adventure to break the ice, this will then give you a taste of how it all works,
Make sure you have no more than 5 characters and don't start them higher than 5th level, this way things won't get out of hand, or get overly confusing.
Keep it simple, don't allow every rulebook under the sun, stick to the core books when you first start, you'll be surprised how complicated things can get.

When you're ready for a longer game, a nice way to start out is with an adventure path or something similiar, that way you don't need to go about creating a world from scratch nor do you have to design a whole campaign setting, there are lots of other tips I could give you, but the the most important are to start out small and to keep it simple, naturally I broke all of my own rules when I started my own PbP game.

Also be aware that DMing can be very time intenstive, in my current game game I have 6-8 players, to do one round of combat it can take me over an hour to do, especially when the players are fighting 6 opponents and decide to summon 3 critters to help out.

Question · May 18, 2006

An important factor is watching for people who dissapear and reacting accordingly. Way, WAY too many DMs dont know how or dont want to do anything about it.

E.G. Bob hasnt posted in a few days. DM doesnt do anything. Game stalls. People get bored and leave.

My advice is to contact the player after, say, 48 hours of inactivity. Dont be afraid to NPC chars in the meantime....by "NPC" i dont mean "Charge the iron golem as a wizard" or "Bob's character stands around and does nothing". Replace PCs who dont show after a week.

Oh and knowing how to keep the game flowing is another big thing. Too many DMs let the game get stalled on small stuff, like PCs trying to clarify something or chit chat. I had a game stall for a week+ because some of the PCs wanted to chat about food with the quest NPC, instead of, you know, playing the game with everyone else.

Azaar · May 18, 2006

Sounds like I'll need to post my email or something, then. Shame on me, I know, but I'm not a supporter (maybe once I get a bit more money, I can contribute), so I won't be able to use the private message function for anything like that. Or have everyone supply their email to me so that I can keep track that way.

My problem, from the games I've played, isn't so much that the game stalled, but that the DM just quit without notice. My second PbP game, I was playing a level 1 warlock, and the DM suddenly vanished after New Years, no warning, no nothing. The only D20 Future game I played, we had a good start, got into combat... and the DM quit posting. Took a month to catch up with him, and then we got some song and dance about how it would start back up... and never did.

So from all indications, I need to have an idea of what story I want to tell (assuming I delve into a setting of my own, rather than a ready-made module) before I get going. That's what killed my RL game several months back -- the lack of direction from not having a story like how I wanted.

So, what adventures would be considered popular? I have most all the D&D 3.5 stuff, as well as most of the Star Wars d20 (which I'm leery about, but a lot of that stems from being used to the WEG D6 system and it's focus on skills rather than levels) material, and I have a few adventures from Eberron, FR and whatnot.

Velmont · May 18, 2006

Ok, I've stopped to count the number of games I've joined in PbP. One thing is that the majority of teh games doesn't go for very long. Characters have a tendency to die before leveling.

It's been now 33 month I'm playing PbP, and I have only two characters which are more than two years old and they have both raised from level 1st to 6th.

If you want to try to be a DM, here my suggestion. Prepare a small adventure for a small group of low level. Then, try it in LEW. If something happen, it won't be the first game that would die before the end and LEW judge are used to handle that (but try to finish it...)

Or you can also try to start your own game. In that case, follow Lord Raven adveice. My first PbP Dming experience have died after a few pages. Like you, I had not much an idea in which direction I wanted to go. Now, I am playing a solo game as a master, so I have only one player and the game is going slowly but it is going up. I know where I want to go, what will be the final, some events that will happen between. If I really try, I think that game can finish in a few years

PbP DMing -- What's Involved?

Azaar

Explorer

Lord_Raven88

First Post

Question

First Post

Azaar

Explorer

Velmont

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