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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nai_Calus" data-source="post: 4737917" data-attributes="member: 79670">I'm DMing my first campaign, and I'm still getting a feel for it, but there's a lot of things I've learned from playing that I'm trying to keep in mind:The players are not the characters. This cannot be emphasised enough. Social skills, Knowledge checks, this stuff is in the game for a reason. Sometimes the guy who has 8 CHA IRL wants to be the charismatic guy. As long as he makes an actual effort and doesn't say anything horribly stupid, let him use Diplomacy, etc to back up his words. The characters are well above average intelligence but they're not getting your puzzle? Let them make knowledge or intelligence checks to figure something out about it.Don't rely on puzzles that involve players noticing positions of things on battlegrids as a primary method of solving it. Battlegrids that they don't seem to be on. Especially if you're doing it online and one of the players *can't see the tokens* on the other map due to loading errors... Similarly, any puzzle that has to be primarily metagamed, don't do. Nothing takes me out of the game faster than being forced to metagame and my character's abilities suddenly meaning nothing.Be consistent. Making things up on the fly is good, but not when it completely disregards the rules and previous encounters.Don't shut it down when the players try to think of other ways to solve the puzzle when they're not seeing your One True Solution. At least provide reasons other than 'why would you want to do that?'.Don't use totally unbelievable obstacles. If I'm in a freaking half-full magma chamber, jumping around on platforms 10 feet above the surface of the lava... Uh, I'm not jumping, actually. I'm dead. It's going to be several hundred degrees in there and possibly a thousand or more.Know what your players are capable of, what your monsters are capable of, and ensure that their gear and capabilities actually give them a chance. If you're not using WBL guidelines for characters created above 1st level, make damned sure you give them enemies to fight that they can actually deal with. The players can tell when you're singling them out for being picked upon. Don't do it. If you have a problem with them, talk to them, don't try to screw over their characters at every turn. Listen to them when they have problems with you as well and don't dismiss it as 'whining'. Trust between the players and DMs is important. Once that trust is shattered it stops being fun. If you don't trust your DM to not screw you over...Do not under any circumstances let a player shut down another, especially in a group where the players involved are the only ones really RPing and the other guy(s) are just there to fight. If a new character will clash with another existing character in a way that absolutely cannot be resolved without ludicrously tortured logic, it probably shouldn't be allowed. No sane person is going to run around in potentially deadly situations trusting their lives to someone who has poisoned them for literally no reason, or who has attacked them for subdual damage with the promise to not use the flat of the blade next time. The profession is too dangerous and the world too large to stupidly stay with people you know will harm you. If you can't enjoy a character that doesn't have Dramatic Physical Conflict with another character, I don't want you in my game anyway. Never mock your players' characters or their traits. If you hate the character that much you should have vetoed it at character creation. Mocking it OOC when a character brings up in-game that he keeps a journal just makes the player feel like they shouldn't even bother RPing.Now if I can just get past the problems of combat being long and boring due to the nature of online playing and us not being able to use voice chat for talking. It just simply takes too long to type out a description of what you're doing in combat, then move your token, then roll your dice and usually having to mention some modifier it takes too long to find in Fantasy Grounds. Same with describing rooms and such. The players get bored waiting for me to type and then having to read what I typed, instead of me just being able to say things. Urgh.</blockquote>

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