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Oh, Man, Do I Need Some DM Tips. . .
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<blockquote data-quote="Bawylie" data-source="post: 7038429" data-attributes="member: 6776133"><p>1.) the strongest RP elements come from meaningful decisions, not prose. Extra words does not mean extra roleplay. Therefore, on each player's turn, endeavor to identify their goal, place an obstacle between them and their goal and then ask what they do about it? The more regularly you do this, the more meaningful decisions they make that flesh out their characters. Later, when you're good at this, you can work on getting tricky. For now, focus on putting things in the way and asking "what do you do?"</p><p></p><p>2.) If you don't have time in your prep to create battle plans for your monsters (or read stat blocks in your published encounters) make life easier by using more straightforward baddies. Those without spells, generally. On their turns they use their nastiest attack on the closest adventurer. This should last for about 2-3 sessions so you get comfortable reading stat blocks quickly and having baddies act on their turns without pauses. This is a skill. Nastiest attack, closest adventurer. Then, when you're comfortable at moving baddies along on their turns quickly, you're going to start changing their tactics. On the baddie's turn, you ask yourself what it wants out of this situation and what's the best thing to do to get what it wants. Then you do that. Still with fairly straightforward baddies. Another 2-3 sessions of this before you start introducing complex monsters. Add 1 to an encounter with straightforward monsters. The complex baddie will start by using its nastiest attack on the closest adventurer. After a couple sessions, you can start asking yourself what it wants and what's best for it to do. But at first, nastiest versus closest. These are skills. Nobody starts good at them. You must train. </p><p></p><p>3.) Ah encounters. At the start, it's okay that they seem to devolve into HP attrition. You've got to learn their basic format, taking turns, tracking stuff, moving from player to monster to player. But when you've got that down, you need to start asking yourself what purpose the encounter serves. Why are we having this fight? What's at stake? What do they players want? What do their enemies want? You're going to want to start posing questions to yourself like a wartime newsreel. "Will our boys reach the bridge before ol' Gerry?" Questions like that tell you when your encounter ends. See, the HP of a baddie only tells you when that baddie is dead or done fighting. HP tells you nothing about your encounter. The purpose of the encounter tells you when you need to end it. And you need to end it no later than when your newsreel question is answered. "They made it to the bridge" means that encounter is done. Generally, your encounter has run long when your players repeat the same action round to round. You're just bookkeeping at that point. Instead, when it seems like victory is clear, say "You make quick work of the rest of them and move on."</p><p></p><p>4.) BBEG fights are often anti-climactic bc many DMs fail to have a purpose for the encounter and fail to consider what the BBEG wants to accomplish. Drama doesn't happen when good guys and bad guys get together. Drama happens when two people want the same thing but only one can have it. Or when opposing parties want mutually exclusive things. Train up your skills running regular baddies in regular encounters. Train up placing obstacles. Train up setting stakes in an encounter. Then your BBEG won't be playing catchup. You'll have drama. </p><p></p><p>5.) Cliffhangers don't just happen. You can't even have them unless you know what happens next. That sort of thing is the result of long term planning. Don't end every session with a cliff hanger. For now, end every session with a question. When you become very familiar with story structures, your campaign world, and the desires of your NPCs, then you can mess around with cliff hangers. Before that, its haphazard and hack. </p><p></p><p>6.) some folks want to say "D&D doesn't do X or Y" or something something about design philosophy. That's waffle. It's what comes of using the rules before using your brain and then blaming weird or undesirable outcomes on the system. When if we'd only used our brains first, we might've actually gotten the outcomes we wanted. Whatever. </p><p></p><p>Anyway. All this stuff is a skill and it's okay to be bad at it. Just do better than you did last time and you're solid gold. </p><p></p><p>Oh, one last thing. Don't tell the players what their characters do. Make them tell you instead. That's why we ask "what do you do?" And why we follow up with "ok, cool, how?"</p><p></p><p>I attack the wizard</p><p>"Ok, cool, how?"</p><p></p><p>I track the fleeing baddie.</p><p>"Great, how?"</p><p></p><p>Once you know what they want and how they try to get it, you can then ask for ability checks and think about what obstacles to place between them and their goals. Make these questions a habit. They pay off big. </p><p></p><p></p><p>-Brad</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bawylie, post: 7038429, member: 6776133"] 1.) the strongest RP elements come from meaningful decisions, not prose. Extra words does not mean extra roleplay. Therefore, on each player's turn, endeavor to identify their goal, place an obstacle between them and their goal and then ask what they do about it? The more regularly you do this, the more meaningful decisions they make that flesh out their characters. Later, when you're good at this, you can work on getting tricky. For now, focus on putting things in the way and asking "what do you do?" 2.) If you don't have time in your prep to create battle plans for your monsters (or read stat blocks in your published encounters) make life easier by using more straightforward baddies. Those without spells, generally. On their turns they use their nastiest attack on the closest adventurer. This should last for about 2-3 sessions so you get comfortable reading stat blocks quickly and having baddies act on their turns without pauses. This is a skill. Nastiest attack, closest adventurer. Then, when you're comfortable at moving baddies along on their turns quickly, you're going to start changing their tactics. On the baddie's turn, you ask yourself what it wants out of this situation and what's the best thing to do to get what it wants. Then you do that. Still with fairly straightforward baddies. Another 2-3 sessions of this before you start introducing complex monsters. Add 1 to an encounter with straightforward monsters. The complex baddie will start by using its nastiest attack on the closest adventurer. After a couple sessions, you can start asking yourself what it wants and what's best for it to do. But at first, nastiest versus closest. These are skills. Nobody starts good at them. You must train. 3.) Ah encounters. At the start, it's okay that they seem to devolve into HP attrition. You've got to learn their basic format, taking turns, tracking stuff, moving from player to monster to player. But when you've got that down, you need to start asking yourself what purpose the encounter serves. Why are we having this fight? What's at stake? What do they players want? What do their enemies want? You're going to want to start posing questions to yourself like a wartime newsreel. "Will our boys reach the bridge before ol' Gerry?" Questions like that tell you when your encounter ends. See, the HP of a baddie only tells you when that baddie is dead or done fighting. HP tells you nothing about your encounter. The purpose of the encounter tells you when you need to end it. And you need to end it no later than when your newsreel question is answered. "They made it to the bridge" means that encounter is done. Generally, your encounter has run long when your players repeat the same action round to round. You're just bookkeeping at that point. Instead, when it seems like victory is clear, say "You make quick work of the rest of them and move on." 4.) BBEG fights are often anti-climactic bc many DMs fail to have a purpose for the encounter and fail to consider what the BBEG wants to accomplish. Drama doesn't happen when good guys and bad guys get together. Drama happens when two people want the same thing but only one can have it. Or when opposing parties want mutually exclusive things. Train up your skills running regular baddies in regular encounters. Train up placing obstacles. Train up setting stakes in an encounter. Then your BBEG won't be playing catchup. You'll have drama. 5.) Cliffhangers don't just happen. You can't even have them unless you know what happens next. That sort of thing is the result of long term planning. Don't end every session with a cliff hanger. For now, end every session with a question. When you become very familiar with story structures, your campaign world, and the desires of your NPCs, then you can mess around with cliff hangers. Before that, its haphazard and hack. 6.) some folks want to say "D&D doesn't do X or Y" or something something about design philosophy. That's waffle. It's what comes of using the rules before using your brain and then blaming weird or undesirable outcomes on the system. When if we'd only used our brains first, we might've actually gotten the outcomes we wanted. Whatever. Anyway. All this stuff is a skill and it's okay to be bad at it. Just do better than you did last time and you're solid gold. Oh, one last thing. Don't tell the players what their characters do. Make them tell you instead. That's why we ask "what do you do?" And why we follow up with "ok, cool, how?" I attack the wizard "Ok, cool, how?" I track the fleeing baddie. "Great, how?" Once you know what they want and how they try to get it, you can then ask for ability checks and think about what obstacles to place between them and their goals. Make these questions a habit. They pay off big. -Brad [/QUOTE]
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