One Thing You Can Do to Become a Better DM

[Rel]

Play...with GMs who are really good. And run games for those GMs too and ask them what they think.

There are some really amazing GMs around here and if you get a chance to sit at one of their tables then do it. Getting plugged into that kind of company where you can bounce ideas off each other and help one another when you get writers block is just awesome.

I think I'm a pretty good GM and I've thought that for some time. But I think my games took a discernible turn for the awesome when I started hosting the NC Game Days and going to GenCon. When you start playing with some of the GMs in that circle of people then you are going to learn stuff that takes your game to the next level. And hopefully you pass on some of your own tricks to them as well.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Three things, but they sort of tie together: When to change things and when to let them stay.

Don't change things just because it looks like the PCs have figured out what is really going on. If they are figuring things out, and this allows them to skip a bunch of your adventure then let them!

On the other side of the matter - if the PCs have been obvious about what they are up to then have the villain change tactics (unless he really is stupid, then he's allowed to follow his rut).

And, finally, let the PCs fail when they screw up.

The Auld Grump

 

[Cyronax]

If you're starting a new campaign in a new setting, and that new setting may have some restrictions on races and classes, I suggest the following:

During the character generation phase, work with your players to decide what classes and races you will allow. Let them decide what they want to play before you start making restrictions.

On the flip side having anything available isn't bad either it just has a different feel for the campaign.

 

[Rune]

1.) Describe things. Don't say an troll charges the camp. How about "The small fire at your feet makes it hard to see. Whatever is out there sounds like a bear moving through trees. A rotting stench hits your nostrils. A creature breaches the fog bearing straight towards you. Even hunched it stands well over 7 feet tall. It lopes with an awkward stride and terrible speed, the large powerful arms drag the ground, ending with vicious claws. It's nose long, mouthfull of jagged teeth. It attacks you with both claws."
Player: WAIT! You're going to let THAT attack me?!
DM: Yes.
Player: Im gonna die.
*note this is like seasoning so use it for important things or just to throw the pc's off the normal you round the corner and see three orcs. If you do it for every encounter it will get sort of old and will cause some lag.

"WAIT! It gets a surprise round? How did I not smell it? I have a Passive Perception of 35! And an Initiative of +27! ...Yes! Natural 20! Now, who's a scary b..."

 

[NewJeffCT]

Three things, but they sort of tie together: When to change things and when to let them stay.

Don't change things just because it looks like the PCs have figured out what is really going on. If they are figuring things out, and this allows them to skip a bunch of your adventure then let them!

On the other side of the matter - if the PCs have been obvious about what they are up to then have the villain change tactics (unless he really is stupid, then he's allowed to follow his rut).

And, finally, let the PCs fail when they screw up.

The Auld Grump

Good points - I've seen posts over the years here on enworld about DMs fudging die rolls because they didn't want their BBEG to die right then. However, I think the players should be rewarded if they can knock off the BBEG faster than you had planned, be it through great strategy, great planning or even great die rolling, or some combination thereof.

My comment is, you can always make a new BBEG - after all, the Emperor was behind Darth Vader, one of the great movie villains of all time. If Luke had killed Vader instead of Jabba the Hutt at the start of Return of the Jedi, the Emperor would still be there putting the finishing touches on the new Death Star, and likely would have tried even harder to turn Luke to the dark side after Vader's death... after all, he wouldn't have Vader to fall back on anymore.

Also, going back to those moments - when I get together with some of my old gaming group, we still talk about that campaign from 1998-99 where some of the memorable moments were "surprise" tactics and/or great die rolls that took out a major villain. My ranger charged an evil elf fighter/mage, and major villain, who likely would have killed my guy in the blink of an eye once he got his turn. However, my ranger scored a critical hit and then got a magical roll on the very harsh crit table we used back in 2E days and it was a 5x damage modifier and I killed him with one blow. My PC had often been frustrated by bad die rolling in combat until that point, so it was very memorable for me to take out a major bad guy when I was level 7 or so and this guy was like level 9/9.

 

[Rune]

On the subject of props:

Here's a very easy one I like to pull out for old maps or ancient texts. Age your paper. Just throw it in the sink and pour coffee or tea over it, then, hang it up to dry (clothespins on a line work just fine). It works on paper that already has writing/drawings/print on it. It works on paper that you still have yet to write/draw on (although printing is out). It can be crumpled, torn, and burned. Glue it to a couple of wooden dowels and you've got a scroll. Try it. It's good for you.

 

[Flatus Maximus]

Relax. Don't worry. Have a homebrew.

 

[Imperialus]

Assume that their plans work.

To me at least there is nothing more frustrating than knowing what your goal is, and trying to get there but constantly having roadblocks thrown up at you until you somehow stumble across the magic 'right' way to get from A-B. When you do figure it out there's no sense of accomplishment, just relief that the pain is finally over.

If the players throw something at you that is unexpected (and makes some degree of sense) have that magically be the "right plan". You might have to move things around a bit but they don't have to know that.

For example, I was running Ghost Cartels for my Shadowrun Group. Towards the end of the first 'chapter' there is supposed to be a (pretty epic) firefight in a downtown parking garage. Now I have managed to instill a proper sense of fear of the police in my players so they weren't too keen on getting into a running gun battle in the middle of Seattle. Instead they let their target get kidnapped and planned to follow him and extract him somewhere quieter. Now technically speaking they were supposed to fail the adventure at this point, but instead I let them trail their target to an abandoned shopping mall in the barrens and assault it from there. The cops still showed up (the target individual was high priority and they were trailing him too) but they were able to bring a gang that they had allied with into the mix to keep the HTRT's occupied while they dealt with the Yakuza holed up in the mall.

 

[Pbartender]

On the subject of props:

Here's a very easy one I like to pull out for old maps or ancient texts. Age your paper. Just throw it in the sink and pour coffee or tea over it, then, hang it up to dry (clothespins on a line work just fine). It works on paper that already has writing/drawings/print on it. It works on paper that you still have yet to write/draw on (although printing is out). It can be crumpled, torn, and burned. Glue it to a couple of wooden dowels and you've got a scroll. Try it. It's good for you.

If you have a printer that uses wax-based toner, print on it first, then age it.

Also, if you put the paper on a cookie sheet, you can put in the oven on the very lowest setting ("Warm & Hold" or ~200F-250F)... It'll dry a lot faster, and get good and crackly around the edges.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Start a thread on ENWorld. Disguise it as a thread where lots of useful advice will be shared but secretly know that its real purpose was to mine other DM's deep gamer brains for nuggets of useful information.