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<blockquote data-quote="thorgrit" data-source="post: 6820266" data-attributes="member: 61124"><p>1. Being too nice - I'm rather guilty of this myself. I need to restrain myself from being a Monty Haul DM. But doing to try to keep people interested may backfire - if they always win, if there's no penalty or real consequence, they may see *that* as no point to playing the game. If there's a situation where there really is no consequence for failure, then don't even ask for a roll (classic example, climbing a short wall with nothing going on around, just narrate the athletic PC gets over it fine, but the weakling PC either takes a few tries or needs some help). If there's a roll they make that you feel is vital, don't negate the failure, but find some way to fail forward (searching one of the big boss's hideouts for secret plans, best they can roll is a 7, they still find the plans - in the hands of a powerful lieutenant and minions who ambush them).</p><p></p><p>2. Taking shortcuts - Shortcuts are fine. Just learning a game, it's hard to keep everything in your head all the time. The key part is learning what to shortcut and what not to. Starting out, it'll be a really jarring (and boring!) experience if you have to stop and spend a few minutes looking up every single action the players take. Bring your players in on some of it, saying that it'll take some experience and practice, and you're just going to go with what you think makes sense at the time. If you or a player gets concerned about how something was handled, then make a quick note and look up that section at the end of the session or between sessions. As part of this, don't take on learning that should be offloaded to players. As part of the races and classes and spells that exist, you shouldn't be expected to know all the ones that your players have. Make it clear up front that if someone's playing a dwarf fighter, that they write down all the things they have and what they do; you shouldn't have to remember and explain poison resistance or superiority dice. Especially spellcasters, they should be ready to quote the exact text (or *accurate* summary) of spells they cast, instead of asking you what Scorching Ray does.</p><p></p><p>3a. Houserules - totally natural to want to tinker with a system, and adapt it to suit your and your player's needs and wants. I'd highly advise not doing it until you've had some experience with what you're changing, and what the consequences of it would be. And when you do have that experience and make some changes to "your" vision of the game, you may want to set those changes aside and go back to by-the-book when you're teaching new players, to avoid confusion between how they see the game run vs what the book tells them or they see in other games. Always have player buy-in from house rules, and have a written-down list of them for players to reference up front when you're talking about starting a game / character creation. DMs that suddenly spring major house rules on me during the third or fourth session is my biggest pet peeve.</p><p></p><p>3b. Can't give you much advice there, as I do it myself. One player in my group is a character optimizer, strategist, and is good at noticing and putting together player character option combos to extremes that may stray from what the system may intend. He's aware, and tries really hard not to let it mess up the game, sometimes to the point of making deliberately gimped characters, or focusing optimization on weird or inconsequential areas. If he had a character concept that involved playing an Aarakocra (birdlike player race that gets flight at level 1), I'd say I'd be concerned it may lead to trouble, and ask him to reconsider. (I don't accuse him of "cheating" or "ruining the game", just I know at times he'll press every advantage and that'll either lead to some fights being too easy or me having to constantly contrive ways to negate the advantage.) Another player may be inspired by the race and want it for story reasons, and I know they're not a tactical genius that will see things I don't 90% of the time, I'd be much more inclined to let them. Don't know if all that helps you though.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="thorgrit, post: 6820266, member: 61124"] 1. Being too nice - I'm rather guilty of this myself. I need to restrain myself from being a Monty Haul DM. But doing to try to keep people interested may backfire - if they always win, if there's no penalty or real consequence, they may see *that* as no point to playing the game. If there's a situation where there really is no consequence for failure, then don't even ask for a roll (classic example, climbing a short wall with nothing going on around, just narrate the athletic PC gets over it fine, but the weakling PC either takes a few tries or needs some help). If there's a roll they make that you feel is vital, don't negate the failure, but find some way to fail forward (searching one of the big boss's hideouts for secret plans, best they can roll is a 7, they still find the plans - in the hands of a powerful lieutenant and minions who ambush them). 2. Taking shortcuts - Shortcuts are fine. Just learning a game, it's hard to keep everything in your head all the time. The key part is learning what to shortcut and what not to. Starting out, it'll be a really jarring (and boring!) experience if you have to stop and spend a few minutes looking up every single action the players take. Bring your players in on some of it, saying that it'll take some experience and practice, and you're just going to go with what you think makes sense at the time. If you or a player gets concerned about how something was handled, then make a quick note and look up that section at the end of the session or between sessions. As part of this, don't take on learning that should be offloaded to players. As part of the races and classes and spells that exist, you shouldn't be expected to know all the ones that your players have. Make it clear up front that if someone's playing a dwarf fighter, that they write down all the things they have and what they do; you shouldn't have to remember and explain poison resistance or superiority dice. Especially spellcasters, they should be ready to quote the exact text (or *accurate* summary) of spells they cast, instead of asking you what Scorching Ray does. 3a. Houserules - totally natural to want to tinker with a system, and adapt it to suit your and your player's needs and wants. I'd highly advise not doing it until you've had some experience with what you're changing, and what the consequences of it would be. And when you do have that experience and make some changes to "your" vision of the game, you may want to set those changes aside and go back to by-the-book when you're teaching new players, to avoid confusion between how they see the game run vs what the book tells them or they see in other games. Always have player buy-in from house rules, and have a written-down list of them for players to reference up front when you're talking about starting a game / character creation. DMs that suddenly spring major house rules on me during the third or fourth session is my biggest pet peeve. 3b. Can't give you much advice there, as I do it myself. One player in my group is a character optimizer, strategist, and is good at noticing and putting together player character option combos to extremes that may stray from what the system may intend. He's aware, and tries really hard not to let it mess up the game, sometimes to the point of making deliberately gimped characters, or focusing optimization on weird or inconsequential areas. If he had a character concept that involved playing an Aarakocra (birdlike player race that gets flight at level 1), I'd say I'd be concerned it may lead to trouble, and ask him to reconsider. (I don't accuse him of "cheating" or "ruining the game", just I know at times he'll press every advantage and that'll either lead to some fights being too easy or me having to constantly contrive ways to negate the advantage.) Another player may be inspired by the race and want it for story reasons, and I know they're not a tactical genius that will see things I don't 90% of the time, I'd be much more inclined to let them. Don't know if all that helps you though. [/QUOTE]
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