Need DM advice - please save my game

[Renion]

I'm running a weekly game with a set group of players. We're two sessions in and the party just reached level 2. We're running Keep on the Shadowfell, with some heavy modifications. I'd say my game is a 6 or 7 out of 10 on the fun meter. I want to take it to the next level. I want to improve as a DM.

Mike Mearls, in one of the gencon panels a few years ago, said you should DM every game like it's the last one you're going to play. I think that's a good philosophy for DMing, but implementing it is problematic. I want to run a fun game with a coherent storyline, but whatever "creativity" or "improvising" I come up with at the table - whatever new idea catches my interest this week - almost always derails the game. Also, having some epic new event occur every week kills the variety of the game. You can't just keep upping the epicness of a game every session and hope it works out. People need to do new things every game to keep it fresh.

I deliberately used a premade campaign because story structure and gameplay variety are so important to me. I don't feel confident improvising on the fly with the basic plot of the game. My players are having fun, but I feel like what would make the game more fun for me would take away from their enjoyment. How do you balance that? Where do you draw the line? What is a reasonable limit or guideline for including fresh ideas every week?

Sorry if this came off as a rambling mess. Thank you for any advice you can offer.

 

[timASW]

4 pieces of advice.

1. Dont listen to a word Mearls says about DMing, seriously, look at what adventures he's credentialed on. The best is complete dreck and it goes downhill from there.

2.On that same note get away from keep on the shadowfell as fast as you can.

3. Stop worrying, if your players are actually enjoying keep on the shadowfell so far you must be something very, very right when it comes to improvisation. "derailed" implies being on the rails is good. It usually isnt.

4. The way I keep it fresh is with short campaigns. I like to use the fast advancement track from pathfinder and wrap every campaign up in 6-8 months. Its not everyones cup of tea but I like lower level campaigns and I like to keep new stories and fresh enviroments coming. Those two things contradict each other for very long campaigns.

If your like me and you get a new idea every few months that really catches your interest and makes other things less fun until you get to try them out then build a group of players who enjoy that too and go with it.

 

[Ahnehnois]

My general goal for creative endeavors is this: to come up with an idea that I think is either the best idea I've ever had or the stupidest idea I've ever had, but I'm not sure which. And then implement it.

The way to "take your game to the next level" is to, each week, do one thing you haven't done before. Not just using a monster you haven't used yet, but something more substantial than that. Have an NPC turn against the PCs. Have a PC turn against the PCs. Start a session in media res without explaining how you got to where you are. Jump time forward a year. Design an encounter based on your worst childhood memory. Design a campaign based on a real-world news story. Romance. Mystery. Horror. Comedy. Fill in the blanks with your own tastes.

The point is that you're right, you can't just keep one-upping yourself with the same stuff. You have to try something new. If you're scared that you're going to make a fool out of yourself or screw up your game, that means you're doing it right.

***


Personally, I never use prepared adventures. I go in to a session with a couple pages of NPC stats, some plot points or scenes I want to probably use, and that's it.

 

[Teacher Man]

And remember that monsters are not necessarily stoopid. If your party uses the same tactics all the time, then have the monsters turn the tables on them. Most of the time the adventurers are on THEIR turf and once the party gets ambushed a couple of times they will hopefully learn from their mistakes, if not then it's on them when their characters get killed in an entertaining (for you anyway) fashion.

 

[Renion]

Great advice! I guess I'll try to stop worrying so much and just have fun.

I've actually recorded both of the game sessions so far on twitch.tv. If you're interested, check out the recordings here. I could really use some feedback on what is going well and what isn't.

http://twitch.tv/aaryonar/b/344030089 Game 1 Part 1
http://twitch.tv/aaryonar/b/344062411 Game 1 Part 2
http://twitch.tv/aaryonar/b/345870309 Game 2

 

[Libramarian]

Mike Mearls, in one of the gencon panels a few years ago, said you should DM every game like it's the last one you're going to play.

That sounds like a great recipe for DM burnout to me.

 

[Sunseeker]

This is one of those "Listen to what he means, not what he says." sort of situations. A DM should endeavor to keep every session interesting and fun, because on the chance the game ends that night, you want players to walk away thinking that they had a good time. Running each session like it actually is your last one is likely to have no different results than if you lived every day like it was your last. You will very quickly burn yourself, and in D&D, your players out. Sometimes "fun" is not about jumping off the Eiffel Tower with a rocket strapped to your back and wax wings glued to your arms in hopes you'll pick up enough velocity before you hit the bottom and fly away. Sometimes "fun" is more about reading a nice book in a quiet room.

If you consider your game to be a 7/10, and your players are regularly having fun, then I reason that you need to change very little.

 

[Elf Witch]

I get my players involved in the game. By that I tailor my games to the players characters this is harder to do with a premade adventure but it can be done with tweaking the adventure to fir the PCs backgrounds and aspirations. I also accept that sometimes I will be on fire as a DM and sometimes I won't this happens with all DMs. I am a great believer in doing things on the fly if I see my players are getting bored I speed things up if we are in combat I will take of hit points on the bad guys to speed things up. Or add in other things. If I see that they are really interested in something that I really didn't plan on I go with it. I know you said you don't feel confident doing things on the fly but I really believe this is one skill a DM needs to master.

I got over my fear of doing things on the fly by just doing it and I found that it didn't ruin the game or make my players have less fun.

 

[S'mon]

I think longer term campaigns work best with a certain cadence of rising & descending action & tension. You don't want a massive climax every session unless your sessions are very long and infrequent - say 8+ hours once/month or less. Interesting stuff should happen every session; IME a significant climax every 2-3 sessions is best. Waiting 7-8 sessions for a major climax is too long, unless you play daily, but if there is a huge crescendo every session it will all just blur together like a bad Hollywood action movie.

Edit: My expectation from WoTC published adventures like Keep on the Shadowfell is that they tend to be too long and grindy with climactic events far too rare, given how long each combat takes. My specific advice for you then would to initially skip up to about half the combats in the adventure - have a lot of rooms be empty, and keep the monsters back as 'wandering monster' encounter groups that can be used as eg mobile reaction forces, as 'restocking' of the lair etc. Make the dungeon much more dynamic than the linear-string-of-fights model WotC favours. One trick is to just roll a d6 per room encounter - 1-3 monsters are present as written, 4-6 they are initially elsewhere. You will find this greatly improves the adventure pacing.

 

[delericho]

Reading Chris Perkins columns, it became apparent to me that the way he writes (and runs) adventures for his own use is some worlds away from the way WotC write adventures for publication. Which is pretty much the root cause for the problems with their published adventures.

As far advice for the OP...

If your players are having fun (and it sounds like they are), then your game really doesn't need saving. Just carry on doing what you're doing, and you'll be fine.

That doesn't mean you can't improve, though!

My advice, for what it's worth, is this:

After every session, before preparing for the next session, spend some time thinking about what happened in the previous session.

What went particularly well? (Find something.) Consider why it went well, and what you particularly enjoyed. Endeavour to do more of this, or more like it.

What went badly, or at least could have gone better? (Find something.) Why did it not go as you had hoped? Is there something you could do differently that would be better? In future, either try to do it differently, or work to minimise the bad bits.

What rulings did you make? In hindsight, were these the right rulings? If so, write them down so you're consistent. If not, be sure to inform your players of this at the next session - don't change what has happened, but let them know you'll be doing it differently next time. Oh, and write that down so you remember!

How was the balance of the "three pillars"? Did you have enough combat? Too much? Just right? What about exploration? Roleplay? (Bear in mind that these don't need to be equally-prevalent, and don't need to be the same in every session. It's only a problem if you and your players feel it's unbalanced.) Be sure to tweak the balance as appropriate for next time.

What did you do that was "new"? What are you going to do that's "new" next time? (Find something.)

By doing this sort of wash-up, you should get a good idea not just of how the session went, but also why it was good/bad/indifferent. From there, you have a platform for making improvements for the next session and beyond.

(I also recommend doing a similar thing at the end of each major chapter/adventure within the campaign, and also at the end of the campaign. For each 'block', I tend to do an analysis proportional to the length of the block - 5 minutes for a session, half an hour per adventure, longer for a campaign.)