DM'ing Advice Thread?

[wedgeski]

I was reading a couple of DM'ing advice threads over on the Wizards boards and they were pretty useful where they didn't tread old ground. It occured to me: has there been anything specific posted on ENW along the same lines?

I'm sure that a lot of us have read story hours, for example, where the game seems to have been raised to a depressingly high level (depressing for the rest of us anyway), and I for one would love to hear from the DM's of those games on what they believe is the secret of their success.

In this old thread, there were lots of posters who claimed they were great DM's. So, come on, what do you do that makes your games great?

 

[Ry]

I spend the game watching the players' reactions, and I almost never sit down. I concentrate on how my speech translates into responses in the players. We typically use a very small coffeetable with both drinks and the 8 1/2" x 11" page map on it, so the players' attention largely is on the actual real life human beings in the group. By doing this, I encourage gaming that looks away from the pages / maps, and focuses on the other players and DM. The first 15 mins to half hour of a game is spent on the shared "off-camera" life of the PCs, to help them get into character and bring the group together. PCs in my campaign are always created to be members of a party - such as boatmates on a viking warship, members of a mercenary company, aspirant shamans, etc. I have a rules-light system that supports this style of play.

 

[Hand of Evil]

See links below my sig - mostly this: http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?threadid=47525

 

[wedgeski]

See links below my sig.

Ah, brilliant, thanks!

Edit: Don't let that stop you posting to this thread if you feel like it.

 

[Odhanan]

I do sit down and relax during my games sometimes, when I do my part right.

Okay. I'll forget modesty for a moment, since the OP asks for it.

I think one of my games is fulfilling when you as a player are entertained. Now, entertainment can mean a number of things. That can be a "beer & bretzel" kind of fun, with lots of jokes and laughter, or it can mean an immersion into the game world that puts you daily troubles to second row for a few hours.

There are many ways to have fun. That's why there are many ways to run a game. I try to get to know most of them.

But what makes my games good, I think, is that I care for the players. I want them to have fun. That doesn't mean I give them anything they want - part of having fun comes from the fact of being challenged, mentally or psychologically speaking. Your character having trouble means that you have to run the extra mile to survive, and when you make it, you'll be more satisfied than just sitting there and feeling like the game is "same old, same old".

What I mean by caring for the players is actually listen to them play and strive to detect what makes them excited about the game to then build on it further.

Another thing that makes my games fun is that I don't quit tabletop games. I run the game until it's concluded, provided the players still want to participate in the game (same cannot be said for me and online, i.e. message board gaming. It's really time consuming and I've been burned several times because of it).

I develop the game world in depth. But that depth is in the background. If you care for it as a player, you'll find loads of secrets to discover, wonder about, investigate, and so on. If however you just care for the adventure at hand, that's fine. It's not one or the other, I try to allow both, so both types of players can have their fun.

What I'm very good at is creating factions and their relationships toward each other. I'm good at running dozens of NPCs at the same time too. And I'm very good on time management and extrapolating how the actions of this, that faction and the PCs affect the big picture, which creates the illusion of a world that lives and breathes.

Personally, I'm a perfectionist, and I want to master the game. Every single aspect of it. I want to really know what I'm talking about, and put what I know into action for the game. I study all the components of the hobby, whether its role-playing, tactics, styles of gamers, miniatures, building terrain, create the most effective dungeon, the most effective character, create a mood at the game table, deal with metagame issues, use music in the game, game design, whatever is relevant to RPGs. But I also try hard to not let it show in the game: i.e. I use my knowledge but I'm not trying to show it off.

My experience is varied. I'm not a DM who ran D&D for 20 years and just left it at that. I've been running literally dozens of different RPGs over the years, and I've been on many sides of the fences. I've been running the hard and fast Stormbringer. I've been running the immersive and dark Vampire: The Masquerade. I've been running the parodic In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas. Very different games really - and each of these experiences bring something to the game table.