Basic GM mistakes

[Amitiel]

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

You know, I actually only played regularly with one guy who does this. Every charater he plays is a Drizzt clone (even in Star WarsRPG). Who never speaks of his past, even to the Dm. I did warn him that if he didn't pony up a charater history I would make one for him. http://www.seventhsanctum.com/ is very helpful in that regard

 

[Wraith Form]

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.

Well that's easy. Unless you have a dwarven miner in the group or someone with massive ranks in Appraise, you just don't tell them what the metal is.

I mean, seriously, if you see a silvery-grey piece of jewelry, can you tell immediately if it's silver, titanium, white gold or iron? Thus....

#Fourty-whatever - Omitting information can be as helpful as providing it (in certain situations).

 

[awayfarer]

Oh, come on. I do a little end zone dance every time I whack a PC. Of course, since I play over OpenRPG, none of my players ever actually see this. (waves at Awayfarer)

I can't exactly say that that information suprises me.

Y'know, it's funny. I don't actually want to kill any PC's, but I'm really looking forward to beating seven kinds of hell out of you guys. Thank god* for stabilization through action points eh?

*The diety, not the player.

 

[sniffles]

# 42 (?): Don't come up with too many house rules. Unless the RAW is just a game-breaker for you, leave it alone. The more house rules you create, the more difficult it is for anyone to remember them. If you have to have house rules, try to have them as minor variations on the existing rules (death at -CON instead of -10, for example), rather than whole new sets of rules for a given situation.

#43: Set expectations for the game before you start. Include things like the level of magic, level of lethality, and expectations of roleplaying versus hack-and-slash. It's a lot easier to make it clear up front than deal with clashing expectations after the game is in progress.

#44: Try to limit the amount of things you do that negate the characters' class abilities. Just because you may find it annoying when a player uses his cleric's ability to cast scrying doesn't mean you should always make your villains scry-proof. And as a corollary to this, don't make your BBEGs all capture-proof or death-proof, either. Sometimes the players like the satisfaction of being able to destroy the uber-villain. Every villain doesn't need to be like a comic-book villain who constantly reappears.

 

[Joshua Randall]

My favorite quote about DMing -- I think it's from Monte Cook in the 3.0 DMG -- but may be from Robin Laws' book:

Don't look for ways to say 'no' to the players. Find ways to say 'yes'.

 

[sckeener]

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

You know, I actually only played regularly with one guy who does this. Every charater he plays is a Drizzt clone (even in Star WarsRPG). Who never speaks of his past, even to the Dm. I did warn him that if he didn't pony up a charater history I would make one for him. http://www.seventhsanctum.com/ is very helpful in that regard

I've seen this happen a lot. It is the small things that are telling. I mean on the surface I haven't seen the exact same character, but you do get windows in the subconscious of the players. The reason is pretty obvious, they've invested part of themselves into the character.

Play with the same people enough and you can probably pick them out. Such as my favorite DM, when playing a female, she has to be evil. His male characters are usually trust worthy and good.

For myself, my female characters all seem to be non-evil monogamous lesbians and my males characters are corrupting polygyny hetrosexuals. I've tried playing other ways and have successfully, but they aren't as fun for me. It is work playing someone else 10 to 12 hours straight.

 

[atomn]

35) Don't be afraid to let PCs die. If you pull punches to ensure the PCs success, you may rob them of the sense of accomplishment.

36) But try to avoid having the PCs die in an anticlimactic way. I feel it is perfectly fine to fudge things to prevent a PC death that is completely pointless, unless the players brought it upon themselves through sheer stupidity. (e.g. Running a pre-written adventure the PCs had to climb over a rubble strewn area on a mountain. They needed to make Balance checks with a DC of 5. One of the players failed three checks in a row, which by the rules had them falling over the edge and pretty much plunging to their death. Pointless and unfun, so I changed it so they took non-lethal damage from falling rubble and were knocked unconscious).

Both excellent points in my book!

45. While I know some people wouldn't agree with this; don't be afraid to fudge results if it makes for a better story. In one of my first GMing experiences there was a simple encounter with a knight who challenged the characters to (non-lethal) combat in order to pass over the bridge he guarded. The wizard cast Charm Person, he missed his save and they were free to pass without any challenge. It was a valid use of the spell but it negated the whole encounter and any roleplaying interaction.

 

[Storm Raven]

45. While I know some people wouldn't agree with this; don't be afraid to fudge results if it makes for a better story. In one of my first GMing experiences there was a simple encounter with a knight who challenged the characters to (non-lethal) combat in order to pass over the bridge he guarded. The wizard cast Charm Person, he missed his save and they were free to pass without any challenge. It was a valid use of the spell but it negated the whole encounter and any roleplaying interaction.

I totally disagree. Creating a preconcived "roleplaying encounter" and trying to make it work in the way you, as the DM, want it to, is generally obnoxious. The PC came up with a completely valid way of dealing with the encounter. Roll with it. Which brings me to me points:

46: Be flexible. The PCs will, almost certainly, approach many situations differently than you think they will. Don't try to force them back to what you "wanted" the situation to be. Roll with their choices. It helps if, when designing a scenario, you consider what might happen if the PCs fail, avoid, evade, or confound the situation. It helps to consider NPC goals, rather than planning NPc strategies. Why did the knight challenge the characters to a nonlethal duel. Does using magic offend his sensibilities? Will he bear a grudge against the party now?

47: Don't bite off more than you can chew. You often don't need to do as much as you are doing, at least at first. You probably don't need to come up with an entire continent worth of setting. You may not even need to detail an entire nation. Look at the Temple of Elemental Evil - the needed setting consisted of two villages, a vaguely defined city and a couple of almost completely undefined nations. Yet it provided sufficient material to carry the characters from 1st through 8th or 9th level.

48: Don't redesign stuff "just because": Lots of DMs get the rules writing jones. They decide to add facing, create "realistic" damage systems, rewrite the magic system, and so on. These sorts of things are time-consuming, usually frustrating, and steal time away from creating interesting adventure material for the PCs. Unless you really need to make a major rule change, it is probably not worth it.

49: D&D (and d20) may not be the right system to use: If you must rewrite sections of the rules, you may be better off using a different system. If you want to have a setting where magic is low-powered, uses a point system, and prerequisites, you may be better off using GURPS than using d20, because GURPS gives you those things without you having to spend time on rule writing.

50: Resist the temptation to plan lots of stuff out: Many novice (and not novice) DMs make the mistake of envisioning an entire campaign arc at the outset, and trying to move things so that the arc plays out. And then they try to plan out everything for the arc on Day 1, prepping setting material that won't affect play for the next six months. Given that six months from now all of your carefully laid plans will probably be in ruins, this is probably wasted effort.

51: Never expect PCs to resolve a situation by means other than killing things: Many DMs think they can have someone fight the PCs, have the Pcs surrender or be captured (or run away) and get lots of role playing goodness as a result. This is amost always a recipe for failure. PCs hate to be captured. They hate to surrender. They hate to run away. They will frequently obstinately refuse to do these things in the face of overwhelming odds, resulting in TPKs and bad feelings.

52: Don't make the campaign hinge on a preset outcome of a situation in which players can influence that outcome: Don't make moving forward in the campaign dependent upon the PCs making friends with the guy they mistakenly thought was their adversary and who they have been opposing for the last ten sessions. Give yourself a trap door in case they kill the guy. Always have a trap door to let ou recover from PCs deaths, NPC deaths, failures to overcome obstacles, failures to pick up on clues, and so on.

 

[Slife]

I mean, seriously, if you see a silvery-grey piece of jewelry, can you tell immediately if it's silver, titanium, white gold or iron? Thus....

Yes.

 

[moritheil]

41. Don't sweat the small stuff. If you are off by a point or two on the bad guy's spot check, don't worry about it. It likely didn't matter that much anyway.

Addendum: Everything is small stuff.