Basic GM mistakes

[Amitiel]

The, as of this writing, still ongoing 'Save my Game' thread, brought up several basic DMing mistakes that crop up a lot. As I sat here I thought about a few more, not wanting to clog the thread I started a new one.

#1, Obvious clues? One I've run into time and time again. DM leaves clues to what's going on about to happen, defeat the bad guy ect. And thinks they're totally obvious. No one else sees them, because surprise they aren't obvious to anyone else. Even worse is when they are pointed out they still don't see them as leading to the conclusion the DM was leading to. Put them up here if you have to, but get a second opinion on how good the clues are.

#2 Monty Haul, DM doesn't plan out the money rewards well leading to charaters with obscene amounts of money. I was guilty of this one, the rewards were based on the characters keeping a small fortress they cleared out and one of them held title for. I gave them larger rewards based on the upkeep and taxes on a remote outpost. When they gave the Keep away I had to throw away my planned rewards as being to much and use the DMG tables, which were almost as bad. (The updated tables in MIC are far better at balanced rewards.)

#3 If your monster/villian/ect has magic items they can use, use them!!! Even if you randomly roll treasure for a critter, if it has ssomething it can use go back and make a tactics note they have it and use it. In that same line of thinking pre-buff your encounters. If you have a standard Orc ambush (5-8 orcs+1 orc adept) put some basic useful buff spells or scrolls on the adept and use them, at this low level encounter Bless can make all the differance.

#4 Tactics. With some exceptions, most monsters aren't going to charge straight at the party and fight toe to toe. This has not stopped DMs from having every monster do just that. Hobgoblins misuse has always been a pet peeve of mine (and of several writers of Dragon as well as over the last several decades I know of at least 3 articles that complain about it) They tend to get treated as variant orcs. Many DM's miss this line

These creatures have a strong grasp of strategy and tactics and are capable of carrying out sophisticated battle plans. Under the leadership of a skilled strategist or tactician, their discipline can prove a deciding factor.

This line is basically unchanged from my first edition books. Yet I keep seeing them charge forward and fight to the death just like orcs. These creatures are born with one purpose, to wage war. Considering they lack the strength advantage of orcs, or the mass numbers of goblins they have to be skilled. Read up on ancient cultures war tactics, romans or spartans are good choices. (I prefer roman legions over the spartans.)

#4 This is table top not Baldurs Gateark Alliance, not every encounter is combat, reward your players for talking their way out of trouble, give exp for completing social goals, especially unspoken ones.

#5 Pay attention to the character traits your players bring to the game. Many people play characters far differant from themselves, if they've established certain character traits, don't be surprised if they keep in character around NPC's even if they are intended plot hooks. Example: Playing in a D20 modren game our GM was rather surprised when 2 of us just up and left a meeting with a major NPC, because we objected to his tampering with our minds. Yet this was completely in character for us as we both had in character reasons for dislikeing anyone messing with our heads. As a result the game broke down since we needed to know what he was going to say. We managed, eventually to get back on track.

#6 Don't always give into players on side issues. I've been in at least three games that collapsed under the weight of 'on the side' things we were doing that came back to haunt the GM, and in one case almost came back to de-soul a player (bad deal with Asmodeus). Pay attention to what these seemingly unimportant items are.

#7 I'll say it again, be prepared, the absolute worst game I was ever in the DM frequently showed up and just randomly rolled what monster we were going to fight, repeatedly, all night long.

#8 If you think the players are pulling a fast one make them back up and step by step them. If your not sure, look it up, if its vague go with your gut. Your not BA and their not Brian.

#9 It is not DM vs Player, Don't fall into this trap.

#10 avoid absurd McGuffins, I think the worst one was a sword that contained the soul of every kind of dragon, made the weilder completely immune to thier magic/breath weapon and could kill dragons in single hits, recieved at level 3, the dragon ginsu killed about 26 dragons in not to many adventures later. Might as well have called it the sword of power-leveling.

#11 If your going to house rule work it out in the begining and stick with it. Nothing annoyed me like the DM who after we found about 20 items arbritrarily changed how Identify works.

The spell determines all magic properties of a single magic item, including how to activate those functions (if appropriate), and how many charges are left (if any).

Became 'The spell determines one magic property of a single magic item, and casting time became 6 hours.

#12 Don't lie to railroad your players, especially about map features. In a Conan game (which after the first game I never returned to) the GM in an attempt to keep our enslaved selves from escaping (thus 'ruining' his game plan) he declared the city (Shadazar) was in a desert with no water in 5 days travel in any direction, this seemed rather strange to thoose of us looking at the maps, especially since Zamora has a rather large population, and what little desert there is in Zamora is 60 miles across (slightly less than 3 days travel) and that's taking the long way. We didn't argue just to keep th adventure moving, me might as well have, the whole adventure was lame and pointless.


That's all I can think of at the moment, mostly from getting frustrated at the memories. Three of these examples are a single DM who ran for almost 2 years. (it was a game strore he booked the time slot, he got it until he stopped coming or we did.)

 

[Psimancer]

#13: Not Every Combat need be Challenging.

 

[awayfarer]

I'm still fairly new as a GM, but I'd like to think I've learned a few things.

14: Not anticipating player reactions

Never assume that when your players encounter "Event A" that they will only react in a specific way. Try and have an idea of how things will go if they try different tactics. You might have to do off-the-cuff stuff to keep the game going, so be prepared for this. Furthermore, don't disallow something just because you hadn't thought of it as a possibility. If it seems reasonable it should be allowed.

15: Don't overplan

This can be just as bad as not having enough stuff prepped. Try not too include so much nifty stuff that you get bogged down. If you do have a ton of events planned, don't get too upset if not all of them manage to happen due to time constraints or lack of player interest. (We don't wanna go in that room! Every other one has had a baby tarrasque swarm in it!)

16: Don't steer the pc's

Please don't tell me that as soon as my PC gets into town he heads straight for the tavern. Maybe I've got some friends in town I want to see. Maybe I want to check the apothecary to see if grannies foot ointment medication is in stock. Don't tell me I feel compelled to buy the wheel of goat cheese. Don't tell me that I'm interested in the busty blonde tavern wench; I prefer brunettes.

17: Avoid unnecessary rolls

(I say this but admittedly I'm still getting the hang of it)
You probably don't need a spot check to see if the PC's notice a five story building or a jump check for a character hopping over a 1 foot puddle in the street. If there doesn't seem to be any reason why a PC would fail a check for something rather easy, or if the roll doesn't really add anything important to the game, nix it.

#13: Not Every Combat need be Challenging.

Agreed. Your PC's are the star of the show, let them feel like it.

 

[PeterGirvan]

The number one basic GM mistake....worrying about making mistakes.

I've seen too many players who have the makings of great DMs---but because they fear making a mistake, they never even try and our pastime is the lesser for it.

 

[Edheldur]

Everyone is supposed to have fun. EVEN the GM. I've seen lots of campaigns just die because the GM didn't enjoy what was happening. Players and GMs are entitled to enjoy the game.

 

[Wraith Form]

I'm still fairly new as a GM, but I'd like to think I've learned a few things.

Me too. Here's a few of my observations:

#19 (because #4 was done twice!) - You don't have to provide the names of the monsters the players are fighting. There's always some smart-@ss in your group who's gone and memorized every page of every monster stat in the MM. As soon as you announce that those gobbos start to charge the party in mass swarms, the smart-@ss smirks, kicks back, and loudly announces to everyone at the table, "Goblins have a max of 9 hit points and AC of about 14. We should be able to sic Conak the Blade-Weilding Purée Machine at them with no prob."

So don't tell the players, especially at low levels, what the beastie is. In fact, I love to change the skin color ("mottled green-grey, like a rotting corpse") or add something a little different ("pointed, batlike ears") to clichéd monsters, or just flat-out use an NPC who has created a name for the critters in his own language (for ex, goblins in my world are aunadar, so named by an elvish explorer my players met). It throws the players, especially that dang smart-@ss, and allows them to feel the wonder & amazement--and hopefully fear--that their characters should be feeling being up against those unknown opponents.

#20 - From personal experience: If you're not a professional game writer, please start with pre-written adventures as training wheels...until you can ride, or write, without them. Those adventures are made for you, as a beginning DM--a balanced, playtested, usually well-written plot that is paced in such a way that they players feel threatened but have opportunities to rest & recover, and the opponents are generally appropriate for the player levels. Dungeon Magazine is excellent for these kinds of adventures, and is cheap.

If you start your 3rd game night ever as a n00b DM with stories you've written yourself, several things may happen: If your players don't like the story, you might get offended; also, you have to scramble for an alternate adventure. If you don't have a VERY clear idea where your story is going, you can get writer's block (my game went on hiatus for 2 months while I hammered through writer's block, and the adventure still sucked). And finally, you might accidentally throw opponents that are severely overpowered against them (the same writer's block adventure ended up in a TPK, which is part of why it sucked). Luckily my players stuck with me...and the TPK helped me springboard into another series of pre-written adventures that they've been more happy with...but man was I embarrassed.

#21 - If the party splits up, don't panic. Just deal with it by turning to the first group of players and asking what they're doing. Also, don't give unequal time to one group--give roughly 5 minutes of time to each group, and end as close to a cliffhanger moment within that encounter as possible before turning to the next group and dealing with their encounters. Cycle through each group until they get back together again. ...Oh, and I like to 'politely remind' (since the expression 'enforce' sounds so negative ) the players that they shouldn't be relying on player knowledge regarding their decisions.

 

[Amitiel]

I wondered if anyone would notice, I forgot to run this through the spellchecker where I catch those mistakes. Give it up for lyxdexia, woo!!!

That said here's
#22 as an add-on for 20, if your going to run pre-fab adventures, read the whole thing first. Put sticky notes in it if you have to as referance, but learn the adventure so your not caught with your pants down if they take a path the designer didn't intend.

Example, there is a rather infamous pre-fab 1st lvl adventure that came out in the early days of 3rd ed, where you have to enter a temple with a pair of large adamantium doors, the designer apparently never realised how much 2 doors made of 800lbs of adamantium were worth. Our poor DM was more than a little flustered when we went back to the temple and tore down the walls to get the doors.

 

[robberbaron]

All great advice.

Edit to #5: Players may not play themselves but most players, IME, always play the same 'character', regardless of class, race or alignment.


#23. Always assume your players are going to look at a problem in a different way to you.

#24. Don't worry about being sent out of the room so the party can plan a surprise for your NPCs. Even if it feels like they can't trust you. It's only because they know they can't be trusted and are feeling insecure.

 

[meomwt]

#25 Let the players do most of the work.

Say you have a player who has a Druid PC. They can spontaneously cast Summon Nature's Ally spells and swamp your bad guys with wolves. Make them run the summoned critters, not ask you for the stats from the MM. Encourage them to have sheets with stats for all the creatures they are likely to Summon with their character sheet, then all they have to do is pull out one piece of paper and roll away.

Similarly, make sure they keep their familiars and companions up to date, keep loot lists for themselves and keep track of their own initiative scores. Your job is hard enough as it is, if you can get players to do most of the work it makes your life a lot easier.

#26 Don't be afraid to improvise (but keep notes afterwards!)

If the players do something unexpected, or an opportunity presents itself, don't be afraid to make stuff up on the spot. I've run sessions where plans went awry early on, and I had to improv large chunks of stuff until we got back on track. If some of the improvs will have an affect on your campaign down the line, write it down in your notebook so that you have lifeline in the future.

 

[hopeless]

Reg: GM Mistakes

27) Keep an open mind and be impartial

If you previously declared that you were going to whittle down two adventuring groups specifically so each player didn't have to run more than one character as a result of having two separate campaigns crossover with each other please remember that if one of the players pulls something that actually prevents you from eliminating a few characters don't the following week decide to ignore the facts that occurred the previous session because they're inconvenient.

28) Don't punish a player for imaginative and creative use of their characters abilities because you don't know better,

29) Treat new players better
I've personally seen a dm treat a new player who has next to no experience of playing the game lose three characters purely because the dm decided anyone outside of his chosen clique were immune to his player killer habits. He even gave an npc character to an occasional player and then made sure he couldn't receive an enchanted weapon even when offered by another player's character (Magic weapon spell) because he was running a confused form of sentient undead who was stuck until he could redeem himself which in that case was fighting a black dragon.
In the first case that new player ended up walking on tables because he had nobody to talk to on the matter and I am STILL kicking myself for not doing anything about it myself except to let a mutual friend know so he could talk to him about it.

30) Remember its a game for a group of players not a chosen minority
Being ignored because another player likes to be the main "hero" is no excuse to ignore another player who openly asks you questions say buying stuff that he thinks would be useful only to discover you have moved the game on and deliberately ignored what he was saying which in this case he later claimed he didn't hear me, BUT I know darn well he did.

31) Ignoring these examples can lose you players
Tired after finally realising I was wasting my time I finally quit and wish I hadn't gone back after the first time when he assassinated my character in a church dedicated to his own god after the first time in several years of game that he actually met another member of his own faith outside of Waterdeep. The group were en route to fight an army of devils and had the only cleric assassinated not such a good idea when you don't even bother to have an npc cleric available to step in now is it?

32) Its supposed to be a game for mutual enjoyment not a way to prove you're the alpha wolf

By the end I was simply turning up because I didn't want anyone else to go through what he did to the others but that meant I was his chief rival and having a character aged 60 years to be told repeatedly that he couldn't be healed even though he had the money available to pay for it is hardly called being "fair"
My cleric became a sorceror purely because he had been aged 60 years and I wanted to see what sorceror's were about since noone had run one before... and then we suddenly had a couple of sorceror characters with me being teased because a 7th level cleric/1st level sorceror wasn't considered much use, well it would if the dm didn't choose the character's spells and then declared the character was corrupted even after I asked if the church of helm didn't have arcane spellcaster amoung their faithful.
Sorry better stop there reopening too many old wounds that I thought I'd got over.