1,001 DMing Tips and Tricks

[Remathilis]

You heard me.

To any new DM, or even an old one which could use some new tricks or a refresher course, list your nuggets of wisdom for DMing D&D 3.5 in a new campaign from level one on.

To get the ball rolling.

1.) The trick to cheating or making stuff up on the fly is the seem unphased by the change and act completely as if you intended that (why yes, I had assumed the kobolds WOULD take you prisoner...)

2.) Have 3-5 blank dungeon maps handy. You never know when you need an ogre den, a prison to escape from, or a random evil lair.

Your turn...

 

[Rasyr]

Actually, most such tips should be useful for just about any game.

3) Never use "random" encounters. Have a few possible encounters written up in advance for the area in which the players are, and then when one is called for, select an appropriate one and use it. In other words, let the timing of the encounter be random, not the encounter itself.

 

[moritheil]

4. Never allow metagaming to gain a foothold in your game.

 

[LordBOB]

5. Always carry a frying pan with you just incase your players get outta control!

 

[Tinner]

6) Stumped for an NPC personality or name? Look in your school yearbook. There's always some big lunk that would make a perfect ogre, or the odd guy with the goofy nickname that would be the perfect leader for the Thieves Guild.

 

[Look_a_Unicorn]

4- Jotting down brief notes as the games goes- including any thoughts that strike you as interesting, followed by a 30 minute organisation sometime before the next game can really help you keep track of ongoing developments in your campaign.

5- Things are never too rushed that you can't take a few seconds to remind yourself of an NPC's personality and make decisions on that basis, rather than reacting as yourself. (And a few choice words under a stat block can thumbnail a personality reasonably well so you don't get mixed up: Smug, Angry, Short-tempered, serene...)

6- Varying your descriptions of a random group of identically-statted creatures (group of Orcs) makes things more interesting. Weapon & armour descriptions, tactics (eg One tries to break weapons with his heavy club...) etc while still using same stats...

7- Not all your creatures are as smart as you. Eg- A few WILL provide attacks of opportunity to the players now and again... The ones that are smarter than you (statistically) CAN meta-game a bit on the player's weaknesses to reflect that intelligence

8- Your creature have a self-preservation instinct too, as any intelligent creatures do. Assuming they are intelligent of course . Cut this element out if you want more hack & slash- emphasise it for realism.

9- You are the DM- it is your world. DO NOT allow players to play characters that don't make some kind of sense in this world unless you are happy to play a non-serious game.
This includes characters that revolve around one specific cool 'thing' rather than having an appropriate personality/backstory.

10- Modification to 9- you are all there to have an enjoyable time. Make sure if you want an angsty/hard-bitten/dark/realistic campaign then you only have players with a similar mindset!

11- Know the rules- and the escalation of power contained therein! Especially with D20 you can't have a powerful kingdom in a magical world that does not itself know of and use the available magicks!! I.e. no standard castle full of knights and crossbowmen will be enough to secure an area as it did in our history!

 

[Mercule]

15) If you try to show the whole world to the PCs, they won't get a feel for any of it. Focus on key locations.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

8. A trick I use for emergency NPC names is to surreptitiously look at the ingredients on the back of the can of soda or bag of chips I'm holding. The middle 2 or 3 syllables in a chemical's name can sound plausible enough and they've not caught on yet.

 

[shilsen]

7) When a player says, "That doesn't make sense" about a plot point, raise an eyebrow and say, "Good point. So how are you planning to find out why it happened?"

8) Never assume the PCs will do something.

9) Don't pre-plan more than a session or two ahead in any more than the vaguest terms. The less you pre-plan, the less chance of actually railroading your PCs towards what you already have planned.

 

[devilbat]

10) Don't be afraid to fudge your rolls. If a PC needs to be hit, or it's better for the BBEG to miss, make it so.