D&D General What is YOUR GM style?

[Swarmkeeper]

1. Prep enough to be ready but not too much as to be rigid (Sly Flourish: Helping Dungeon Masters run great D&D games.)
2. Share the spotlight
3. Provide good balance of exploration, social interaction, and combat
4. Give motivations to the NPCs
5. Play hard but root for the PCs
6. Roll in the open
7. Know the rules and make quick adjudications
8. Encourage action so the PCs Get Stuff Done
9. Work PC backstories - and other things important to the players - into the story
10. Laugh

 

[Lanefan]

9. Run weekly at the same time on the same day. Start on time and end on time.

Start on time, yes.

End on time? What is this foreign concept you speak of? Play 'em till they drop, says I, and leave 'em wanting more!

 

[Shiroiken]

1. Crush your enemies
2. See them driven before you
3. Hear the lamentations of their women

 

[pogre]

Start on time, yes.

End on time? What is this foreign concept you speak of? Play 'em till they drop, says I, and leave 'em wanting more!

I would love to do that, but I have a few players driving in from a long distance. It is important that I get them back on the road in a timely manner. If we are heading towards a big encounter at the end of a session will pull them aside and ask if they want to go an extra 45 minutes or if they need to be on the road on time. That's pretty rare though - I usually time it to 4 hours on the dot.

 

[el-remmen]

I would love to do that, but I have a few players driving in from a long distance. It is important that I get them back on the road in a timely manner. If we are heading towards a big encounter at the end of a session will pull them aside and ask if they want to go an extra 45 minutes or if they need to be on the road on time. That's pretty rare though - I usually time it to 4 hours on the dot.

This.

And also, I find it keeps a long-running game running smoothly if you and your players non-gaming responsibilities are not interfered with by the game, thus, for example, no one's partner (like my poor non-RPG playing wife) grows to resent the game because it goes overlong too often or whatever.

 

[Retreater]

1. Always down to try a new system - though I usually come back to D&D.
2. I prefer a faster paced game where something is happening. (Doesn't have to be fights. I just don't like spending time shopping or things like that.)
3. I love tactile elements. Puzzles to move, nicely painted miniatures, 3D terrain. (Joke's on me since moving to VTT, all that is useless now.)
4. I love it when a good mystery comes together - though it's hard to pull off.
5. I have a reputation for being a Killer DM. I guess this is largely because I think in terms of scenes and not fights. Players don't like to run away - I should remember this.
6. A weakness of mine is that I don't include all players equally. A more direct player gets more attention. I should work on this.
7. I have a hard time saying no to character concepts, using splats, or even when players disagree with rules interpretations. I prefer to just let it go.
8. I get bummed when I don't run encounters to their fullest.

 

[Fenris-77]

1. I'm a medium prep guy. I prep threats, and bits and pieces like small dungeons and encounters, but I don;t sew them up into a narrative. That;s what the players do when the make decisions with consequences.

2. Fast is good. Fast makes people make decisions in the moment. It's not always a tactical thing.

3. Tactical is great though. Yes. Players should have to think. Maybe quite hard.

4. Mysteries are tough. I have my own approach there.

5. I don't kill PCs, players kill PCs.

6. Weaknesses? My expectations of narrative brilliance on the part of the players qualifies. It's probably unfair.

7. I have no problem saying no if it doesn't fit.

8. Not getting engagement does suck, yeah.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Quantum Ogres: My prep style could be argued as containing quantum ogres, however the way that I do prep work they really aren't.

For example, if you have two roads through a forest you can take I may preassign road A as being the rocky trail and road B as the river trail but those ogres are on a list of encounters I am going to use whenever I need something to happen, which is then edited to fit the situation.

If you encounter the ogres on road A they might be ambushing you from a cliff rolling boulders at you and on road B they might be fishing in the river with nets.

 

[Fenris-77]

There's a big difference between there may be ogres in either direction due to random encounter rolling and there will be ogres in either direction because that's the next encounter. Quantum ogres is the latter, while the former is just random encounter generation. If they area has ogres it has ogres. Some roll rocks. Some fish and drink beer in big row boats. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

There's a big difference between there may be ogres in either direction due to random encounter rolling and there will be ogres in either direction because that's the next encounter. Quantum ogres is the latter, while the former is just random encounter generation. If they area has ogres it has ogres. Some roll rocks. Some fish and drink beer in big row boats. Nothing wrong with that.

I was not super clear in my example. My campaigns have little prep work on details and lots of jotted down ideas. So ideas are assigned locations on the map occasionally ahead of time (this demon lives in a house in X city) and other times as needed (the players are getting bored so I'm gonna grab an encounter from the idea board....oh look it's picnicking gnomes attacked by small giant ants).

What I never do is reuse an idea the players bypassed. So If I introduce the picknicking gnomes running around screaming and the PCs shrug and ride away...then that's it for that encounter.

I have semiquantum ogres in that I don't design many details for places not travelled but I do have a vague idea what sorts of things from my idea board might be in any area.