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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DonTadow" data-source="post: 3030696" data-attributes="member: 22622">Hey, this is IRon DM Dreads. I've been in both years and will do it next year, its quite fun from the DM point of view.  I'd say  there were three or four iron dm quality dms there this year 3 pretty good ones and probably 3 or 4 ones that should have stayed at their home campaign.  It's a difficult tournament to DM. Its also a different style of DM'n than you do at home. At home I dont have time constraints and my players/friends are very forgiving. So you tend to really lax on rules in a home environment.  At the Iron DM tournament the players look for you to be the definiative rules judge and to know everything or at least have the guts to rule on something and move the game along.  YOu can have exciting campaigns at home, but it doesnt translate to an Iron DM.  They are looking for you to perform and bring them into the world not sitdown and roll dice after dice checking for the AC.You also go tto have an aura of cockiness and confidence in your dm'n style. Even if i dont know something (in either home or iron dm) I"ll say something and my players treat it as gold. There are some aspects to the tournament that I find interesting now that I've played two years in a row. Finding a compatbile group is important. This may seem wierd, but I DM better with people closer to my old age or older first edition folks (they didnt need no stinkin aofo).  I look for groups with one or two women, because women are more into roleplaying than pure hack and slash which is a style I enjoy running more. ONce I pick the group, then you got to compile everything. I think of one way to use all of the things, then I chuck those things and use the second, this is because I know that half the other DMs are going to use the monsters in the most traditional sense (which is usually my first thought) so I don't do that. Players don't come to gencon to roleplay in something they can do at home. The most important aspect in my games is that I try to vibe with the players, get theri names learn something about them. I'm crafting an adventure for them, it should be catered to them. It's very easy to pick up ingame hints at what they want to do if you're paying attention to hte party and not burying your nose in the dmg. Though speech before the tournament is limited to introductions and the three words, during the game is prime opportunity. In both tournaments I ended up crafting a third to half the adventure after the game started from listening to how the PCs reacted to things. For instance, I was in the middle of a way too long combat this time around and i found a couple people yawning so, note to self, these people don't want long too tactical combats.</blockquote>

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