DM techniques

[clockworkjoe]

Make the world alive. Don't just use the world as a stage in which only the players and their principle enemies move. For example, if the players turn down a treasure map from a beggar, have them learn a week later another adventurer party accepted it and profited/lost as a result of it.

Give them mutually exclusive missions. Do they look for the boy missing on the moors or do they track down the smuggler who's dealing in forbidden tomes? Make them feel that their time is a precious resource.

 

[Celebrim]

Alot of good advice here. Some that stood out:

"The best beginning to a game I've played in was where the PCs were standing before a huge evil army."

That _is_ a great beginning and that or similar devices are great ways to get low levels working together. Perhaps they are all stragglers from the same army that was defeated in battle. Cool. Now they have history and a reason to work together. Moreover, the future campaign has purpose. Perhaps they all have a mutual friend who is in danger and needs thier help. Perhaps they are all members of the same small village when it becomes besieged (right in front of thier eyes) by some agent of evil. This is particularly cool if you spend some time introducing NPC's close to the characters and then suddenly start bumping them off (this also gives low levels some needed backup). Perhaps they are all pilgrims journeying together (for various reasons) to some holy place. The fighter is a guard, the cleric a guide, the thief a merchant plying wares along the way, one has a sick relative seeking healing and so forth.

All of the above are of course imaginative variations on "You have all agreed to perform job X for NPC Y, and you are now on your way to remote wilderness location Z. And here come the goblins!".

Some of the ways I've started campaigns:

One player is unjustly accused of a crime and needs help clearing his name from the witnesses. (This is going to work best if the PC's are good aligned.)

One player recieves a vision from his diety of an impending disaster and must get help from other members of the village to avert it.

The players are all street persons in a major city (I altered starting money). You know: the thief is a gamon, the bard a street performer, the cleric a pious and poor holy man, the fighter a rowdy for the theives guild, the mage an apprentice whose aged master has died. After a session to set the feel, they were all shang-haied and forced to serve as sailors in the navy.

The players village was destroyed by invading goblins and they are the only survivors.

Do help work up those PC's backgrounds. That in itself will give you ideas.

It is important to give PC's the illusion of choices. For instance, you can prepare a module so that the players are either the protagonists or antagonists in the story line depending on whose offer for help they accept. Or you can prepare two or three small modules that you can easily scale up a level or three before the campaign, and add one additional short option each week reflecting last weeks desicion. Small events can occur that show the progress of the story in areas that the PC's were not or could not take interest in during each session.

"I also like to start off with COMBAT! It helps everyone get into the game."

That's really good advice too. You may want to spend sometime setting the mood (especially if you don't want a hack and slash campaign), but combat is a great ice breaker - even if its only a brawl (which is also important since it shows you don't expect every encounter to be lethal). It might be a good idea to put a negotiation early in the course of affairs too. However, by the end of the first night you definately want to have at least one really tense rowsing combat - even if you are the sort of DM that expects some sessions to go by without a blade being drawn.

"Even if it means, that there are three doors, and i pick the wrong one, but the Dm has the same description behind all thre doors....

I did that once- the players noticed when I wouldnt let them into the other two doors..."

I thought this was an old trick (no matter which way you go on the map you go where I want you to), but the devious DM has boring descriptions or simple traps prepared for the unchosen rooms. (Look disappointed and say things like, "Are you sure you don't want to try door #2? Oh, well. *sigh* OR "Gee! How lucky can you get. Uou chose the right way first off!")

 

[Golem Joe]

When running D&D how do you DMs manage low level adventures. When starting an adventure do you give the players choices or do you say here is the adventure, just do it, and if the adventurers dont pick that path say goodnight and go home early?

I've learned better than that. If its one thing I can depend on, its for players to throw a big monkey wrench into any adventure you design -- especially when they are just trying on the shoes of their characters. Sure, there are a few that feel it is their duty to eat the worm and follow the plot, but it only takes one to lead the whole thing into uncharted waters.

So I do one of two things. If I already have a campaign fairly conceptualized (who the main villains are going to be, goals, etc.), I'll throw together 2-3 very rough plot hooks and toss them out there. I'll let the group decide which of these they want to follow before I really set to developing it. This way, I don't waste a lot of time on something that's destined for the file cabinet.

The other possibility is to break out a published adventure and run it. This way, the only work I have to do is to tweak the intro to fit my group, and perhaps tweak a few minor details for the campaign. This is sometimes preferable, especially if everyone is getting to know new characters or a new system. It takes some of the pressure off everyone. Then, when that's finished, the players are ready to tear into the real campaign.

Those are, at least, the things that work for me.

Golem Joe

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

The best way to get a bunch of newer players into the game (or even older players with new characters) is to start it out with some action, in my experience. My latest campaign started at a Midsummer Festival in Silverymoon in the Realms; the PCs were all there to have a bit of fun, and they all were contestants in games of skill in the market when all of a sudden....

Start stuff out with a punch, and keep the pace and excitement up. That way, they don't really worry about the rules very much.

P-Kitty did that with his Feng Shui game I played in at the Chicago gameday--we started the game in plummeting towards San Francisco bay without any parachutes then flashed back to how we GOT into the freefall.

It was absolutely amazing.

ya know, I really kiss P-kitty's ass a lot... all well, he deserves it, LOL.

 

[Bonedagger]

It was the first time I DMed, and the Adventure was the basic 'Hire to go get something' starting, so I could gauge the group.

First. My english isn't perfect. I didn't know the word gauge. I did, however, know the name Gague....

My reaction: "So he could do WHAT to his group?"


....Sorry

(I would have added a picture but I probably wouldn't have been able to find a suitable one for this board.)

 

[Schmoe]

Well, I have only run three actual campaigns, so I don't exactly have a pattern.

In the first, the PC's gathered in a town known to be the launching pad of many explorers. Each was looking to make his fortune, and they met in a bar and set off together to investigate the ruins of a nearby temple.

In the second, it was a one-on-one campaign, so it was very easy to begin the campaign based off of the character's background.

In the third, most recent and still on-going, I told everyone to make a character with some ties to a particular town, whether they were born there, still lived there, or whatever. Then I introduced the oppressive tax policy of the kingdom. With tax time just around the corner, the townspeople (and many PC families) were very worried about losing their farms and being carted away to the mines if they couldn't pay. Then I introduced several nearby possibilities for exploring and adventuring to seek out treasure to pay the town's taxes. It was a simple matter from there to have the PC's join together to try to save their home town.

 

[Uller]

If I'm running a prefab adventure, then yeah...it's pretty much "Here's the adventure. Go there or go home."

But I rarely run prefab adventures. They're usually just hack n' slash diversions from the norm (although I'm hearing such good things about the "Freeport" adventures, I may run those some time...)

When I'm running a campaign, I start out writing a one or two page "flavor" document. It is usually something very similar to the "intro" the the Fellowship of the Ring movie. Something vague that establishes the feel of the setting and gives the players a starting location and/or event. For location, it is usually an important city, a "home-base" village, etc. An event may be the death of a king, the start (or end) of a war, the collapse of a nation, the aftermath of a plague or disaster. Something to set the scene as desperate and interesting, yet sufficiently vague that I can mold the plot to the tastes and interests of the group as we go.

Then characters (and one page backgrounds) are created and the group is assembled. The first session will be nothing more than role-play with 3 to 5 adventure hooks for the PCs to discover and consider following (and probably one or two combat encounters just to keep things fun). By the end of the session, it is usually clear which hook the party is going to follow (if not, I just ask them). I make it clear to them that the decision they make will influence how I prepare for the next game, so they will be "held" to that decision.

Then for the second session, I flesh out that hook into a full-fledged adventure that will last 2 or 3 sessions. As the players make their way through the adventure, they may uncover some new adventure hooks and some of the ones they chose not to follow may "dry up"...maybe some one else took care of it, maybe events just made them no longer valid, whatever. Still others may have become MORE pressing (maybe the rumors of undead raiding the next village has turned into "no one from the next village has been heard from in two-weeks" because now the village is gone or cut off). This gives them a feel that the world is dynamic and living.

So essentially, I run my campaign like a "choose your own adventure" where the party is presented with 3-5 paths to follow from one adventure to the next(and they are certainly free to suggest other paths). Once they choose, I ask them to stick to the prepared adventure as much as possible. I spend a lot of time prepping and it is more fun to play through the prepared material than to force me to wing it. They respect that.

One thing I avoid is grand over-arching plot lines. More often than not, those develope completely on their own as the players make their way through the world. They anger a powerful NPC and that gives them a nemisis. They discover his plans to do something dastardly and now we've got a simple plot. To make things interesting, I'll give the NPC some allies (or a master) who want to prevent the PCs from interfering and now we've got a bit of mystery and intrigue...If I planned this all in advance, it would seem like I'm forcing the story and the PCs are just along for the ride. But if I build the plot around the actions of the PCs, they feel like THEY are in the driver's seat. That's they way it should be.

Although...it is true that some times they like to be lead by the nose. When the DM says: "Okay...you vanquished the Giant Thane and freed the Valley of Happy Squirrels. Now you can do A, B or C or something else. What do you do?" and the PCs respond with blank stares and shrugging shoulders, that's a good sign that they would like you to just lead them by the nose...

 

[Xarlen]

First. My english isn't perfect. I didn't know the word gauge. I did, however, know the name Gague....

Gauge. Like a meter that registers pressure, or tempreture. Basicly, I wanted to get a look at the characters themselves, their motives, their instincts, how they act. If I have an idea of their character, Then I can tailor hooks and plots on what would appeal to them.

For example, one of the players is very educated, and his wizard reflects that. He's really into mapping. Thus, the promise of new, undescovered, or relatively uncharted things get his interest more then simple riches and whatnot. Ergo, exploring magical Portals that connect parts of the continent would rouse his curiousity. However, in retrospect, the Cleric of Luck is just naturally greedy; he likes gold and gems and whatnot.

I know you asked for Starting out stuff, but later on, tailoring plots to your party should be easier. Equally, when your party throws a curve ball, you can lure them back in on the fly. Your party members don't go near the hermit's shack, to learn about the lizardfolk watching the town? They could come across a drunk or a child who's been out in the swamps, and seen it.

If they don't go check out the mysterious this or that, then let them hear about some disaster, that they obviously could've prevented.

Edit: Another thing or two to offer. If you Really want them to get into a plot, smack them with the Plot Hammer. I did this to a character: I gave him a dream. There was a hint that it was from his god (The deity's symbol floating in the foam of ale), and it forshadowed the coming of a plague demon, and sickness. It got the player's attention. He wanted to search it out. If he'd ignored it, ah well.

Note, that I had done this dream before the actual adventure: I stuffed a side trek in before they reached where they're going. Getting the hint that something evil is around, they could take a look (Ironicly, they were trying to see if the new NPC in their group was evil, and saw hints of it nearby).

Also, don't be afraid to drop hooks for future adventures During this one. Two of the characters split up, to look around for food while they were at camp. They went into a cave, found a collapsed mine entrance, and a gem sticking out of a pile of rocks. After moving some of the rocks, they found a dwarven skeleton with a broken axe haft sticking out of the back of his ribs, and a gem on the end. Near by, was the head of the axe broken off. So, the players pulled the stick out, took the axe.

It turned out that they'd unstaked a dwarven vampire. I let them wonder about what they'd just uncovered, but there were no hints that they'd done something Very Bad, until they were on their way Back from the current adventure. They went back, and didn't find the skeleton. They found dead barbarians, with teeth marks. The vampire stalked them for two weeks, and terrorized their town of operations.

 

[Bonedagger]

Gauge. Like a meter that registers pressure, or tempreture. Basicly, I wanted to get a look at the characters themselves, their motives, their instincts, how they act. If I have an idea of their character, Then I can tailor hooks and plots on what would appeal to them.

Yes. I looked it up.

I was talking about the pornstar Gague...

 

[Desdichado]

You miss P-cat's ass!?!! What kind of game day was this Chicago affair, anyway?