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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kannik" data-source="post: 5849711" data-attributes="member: 984">This may not all be 4e specific, but I will try to keep it to what I have learned while DMing the current part of the campaign through 4e (and much has been facilitated by 4e):Make interesting encounters interesting:  While I am still lax on including fantastic terrain I have found 4e's monster design paradigm delicious.  I can create the creatures/NPCs for an encounter in very little time, even on the fly, and still make them (usually) interesting and unique.   I get to think of the desired effect and then easily create or steal or reskin the abilities that make it fit.  The last fight with one of the major adversaries was a "shadowsassin" who essentially went 3 times per round, using living darkness/shadow for an attack, creating shadow copies of a Myrkul statue (minions), plus his own shadowdancemulitattack against multiple party members --- and he got taken out by a readied action and being dazed and thus unable to merge back into the shadows after his attack.  Brilliant and exciting for the players.Let the players' own imaginations/paranoia lead the way:  There is one of you, and many players.  Left to their own devices they will come up with the craziest ideas of what may be going on.... great!  Let them, and steal bits of it to incorporate into the story or villain's plan.  Not only does this make for better exciting plots, but it lets the players feel great as they 'figured it out'.  Let the players', the reverse:  If you are running a campaign with a backstory to be found, discovered, investigated, stopped, and etc, overshare.  Then overshare some more.   Even when you think you've said plenty remember you know what's going on, so it seems obvious.  The players may not.  Check in if the players know what's going on, and if not, add more clues.Give a sense of accomplishment:  Allow for bits of the adventure to give a sense of progress.  Or even bits of a combat -- I'm starting to realize that combats may seem grindy only when progress seems to be stalled for a time.  For the adventure at large, if it seems like much random wanderings (unless that is the specific campaign type you're playing) then be sure to let the players know they are accomplishing something.  I didn't do this in my current campaign and the player interest suffered (made worse the way I designed it that had them feel like they were going back to square one every new city they went to).  It would have been easy, something even as simple as the PCs overhearing how conditions were improving for people, or rumors of great happenings in other cities, to let them know they were making a difference.  Find the right balance between sandbox and aquarium for your group:  or put another way, how many guideposts or rails you have vs letting the party wander/figure things out/etc.  It's a balance that will be different for everyone I think, and it's a skill I'm still learning to develop fully.  I've let the party spin their wheels in one (logical, but fruitless) direction for a while leading to some boredom.  I've put a heavy handed guidepost too early in others.  Just be aware of it and play with it and be ready to loosen or tighten as you go along.   Similarly, find the balance of pacing in everything in the game (fights, negotiations, tavern tales, etc). Let the players be inventive:  I've always played in inventive and tactically thinking groups.  Let 'em be, I say.  I even gave each player an at-will card called "Do something creative."  I run skill challenges as a framework hidden in the background and let the PCs say what they want to do/try, and ask for skill rolls as required.  Certain actions may create auto successes, creative uses of powers may add, all that.  If they do something I didn't think of (and the NPCs wouldn't either), sweet!  Something cool happens and away the PCs go into victory (for the moment.... muahahahahahaa... er... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />)Build trust:  Trust is such a nebulous thing to pin down and there's trust on many levels.  As one of Chris Perkins' players put it:  they trust him to lead the adventure to a cool and exciting place.  Keep listening and have whatever conversations it takes to build that trust with your players (and vice versa), and the game will really start to sing. Let the RP shine:  Let the players find their "unique" voice in the game, be it through traditional role play or maybe just a character concept they like a lot.  Let the players have some investment in the game and their character.  Reskin as necessary to get what they want with some assurance that it won't break the game.  (and do feel free to keep the game from being broken -- see trust above)Use some unusual things unusually:  a bit of a tortured title, apologies... every now and again do something nifty in the game be it a prop, music, special printed/laminated map, 3d terrain, whatever.  Pull them out not all that often, so that when they come out it sets the tone that 'something big/unusual is going down here'.  It will feed into the player's mood and thus into their play, RP and the epicness of the event.  There might be more... but I'll stop for now.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />Thank you for starting this thread!  This kind of DM sharing is glorious and has the capacity to really make all of our games shine just that much more.  Peace,Kannik</blockquote>

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