Getting back on the horse

[Mouseferatu]

So assuming all goes well, I'm starting a new campaign two weeks from today, a campaign tentatively titled "In Tooth and Claw" and, at least initially, making heavy use of the fey.

While I've been gaming regularly, this'll be my first time DMing in a few years, and my first time DMing 4E. (I've been playing 4E since before it came out, via playtest drafts, but I wasn't running.)

Obviously, I've gotten to know the system really well, given that I've been both playing it and writing for it. But if any of you who've been running it have discovered any quirks or difficulties that I might not have come across without specifically having DMed it, I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

 

[Gothmog]

Hi Ari,

So far, 4e has been a blast to run, with few, if any difficulties. I'm running two campaigns, one is at 6th level, the other at 4th. A few things I do to help me and speed up play:

* I got some poker chips and painted them different colors (one for ongoing damage, one for dazed, one for stunned, one for dying, etc). Then, when a character is suffering from a condition during a combat, I put the chip under the base corresponding to its condition. Makes it easy to keep track of. (I stole this from Savage Worlds).

* I have a small whiteboard to track initiative on, and put it on the table in front of the players once a combat starts. It helps us to keep track of who goes when.

* This one speeds things up for players: USE POWER CARDS with all relevant info on them for that PC's power. This greatly reduces book-flipping, and once an encounter or daily power is used, you just put it in a discard pile.

Those are the three major things that helped to really streamline play. If I think of more later, I'll let you know.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I started a campaign a while back, and the only problem I ran into was trying to keep the encounters (combats) interesting. At low levels it seems like I can throw the same monsters over and over again at the PCs and it just gets dry.

Let your players Meta-game, at least a little bit. Especially during combats. It'll help them win and winning is the fun part of playing DnD. I'm not saying that losing is straight out, but at least be a little flexable.

Encounter building guidelines are crap! Follow your own judgement. You know how your players play, and you'll learn what they can and can't do. adjust yourself accordingly.

Get the DM screen, It's worth its weight in GP! Also, get a sticky-note for your DM screen and put "+5" on it... or not...

Don't be intimidated by the new fancy rules. I haven't changed my DM style at all between editions. Also don't be afraid to make a mistake or 2. Relax and have fun with the game... I mean that's what games are for, right?

 

[Benimoto]

The main thing I'm learning while DMing is that 4e monsters have a lot of HP and that you want to design encounters so that most of the monsters will die while the encounter is still interesting.

One thing I noticed while converting encounters from 3e to 4e is that you don't really want to create situations where you combine two encounters worth of creatures into one encounter. The classic example is where you have two encounters set up in a dungeon close enough that if the party makes too much noise in one encounter, creatures from the next room over come to reinforce them. In 3e, this could create some tough and exciting fights. In 4e, this can create some grueling and boring fights, since a lot of the interest and variety in fights comes from encounter-level resources, which are spent early.

Similarly, I found that you have to be careful how you use your elite creatures. They stay in the fight over twice as long as regular creatures, so you have to invest them with enough character to justify it. They can be twice as dangerous (and many are) or twice as flamboyant, or whatever, but they have to be twice as interesting in some way to justify their "screen time". Twice as durable (which is the default) can fall flat pretty easily.

EDIT: on the subject of battlefield props, I use miniatures pretty extensively, and I've found that little rings made of pipe cleaner are my favorite (and cheapest) prop to represent conditions.

 

[That One Guy]

Mr. Marmell,

I imagine most of the problems of play at various tiers have come up, and I also am guessing you've read or skimmed a lot to know...
-Minions can be too easy sometimes. Have them come in waves, or be intentionally weak. Similarly, if the party has no controller, minions can be quite scary. There are some good house rules on the boards for making them more dangerous.
-At low levels, the game is teaching the players how to play it. They have fewer resources to manage and fights can get dry pretty quickly. "Saying yes" to random ideas can be a good way of mixing up a fight. Offering objects that supply cover and interesting terrain can turn fights from boring to fun at these levels.
-Be tactically minded. Consider how the baddies will organize an attack in advance, or a few different strategies they might commonly employ. The MM should help w/ that.
* Impromptu attacks. If someone uses a random object (like a torch) I would suggest making it a limited use power (from page 42) instead of being an improvised weapon. A player in one of my games was going to do this and realized that as much as it would make sense (fighting those bloody frost zombies), it would be significantly weaker. Something like this is not good. Reward clever actions, but don't make them outshine encounter or daily powers... but letting them trump @Wills (IMO) is acceptable.
* Those bloody frost zombies. I don't recall what they're called, but they're the ones w/ that insane aura of cold (ice reaper?). They are really tough. Watch out for monsters that are inappropriately powered. If one ends up falling into your mix, don't be afraid to let it be a "weaker one" and reduce its HP or defenses.
* If it is emphasizing the Fey, then I'd say expand past what has been written about the Eladrin, etc. In my game I had them have structures of houses and fiefdoms that are somewhat removed from the material plane and struggles therein.

...But I honestly am quite jealous of your PCs, I'm sure you're going to be an awesome DM.

 

[Rechan]

Inspiration

There was a thread a few weeks ago on reading lists for the Feywild inspiration. I added many of them to my To-Buy list, and others I recall. They are:

Changeling: The Lost (White Wolf)
Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
Summer Knight by Jim Butcher (my personal recommendation)
Sandman (Vertigo Comics) and Neverwhere (novel) by Neil Gaiman
Faerie Tale by Ramon Fiest
The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson
War of the Flowers by Tad Williams
Hellboy II and Pan's Labyrinth (movies)

With that said, a general tip is that fey are alien mindsets, and they operate under different rules or laws. Such as: If you take food or drink they offer, you might be under their power, or you might owe them something significant. A promise made by a fey is always kept. Faeries cannot tell a lie, but they never tell the truth.

Organization

Buy you a three ring binder. In the binder, you should have a folder, notebook paper, and some cheat sheets. Have a bunch of names (mainly NPCs, but also sites and items, tales and songs) to reference when your mind goes blank.

Buy yourself some 4x6 inch and 3x5 inch notecards. The 4x6 inch ones work great for monster statblocks. 3x5 are great for magical items, power cards, quest cards, and notes to pass to players. I carry my monster cards and magic items in separate sandwich baggies.

Write out treasure parcels and magical items ahead of time, on a piece of notebook paper. Then, when the opportunity comes to give the PCs treasure, just reference your treasure sheet, pick one, and mark it off your list. I do this at every level, so I don't need to grope around.

Misc items at the table

I use post-it notes for conditions. Just jot down the condition, slap it on the player's shirt. But then, I'm cheap.

Multi-colored pipe cleaners work for marks (if you have multiple marking types; if you have one, the paladin or fighter likely will remember).

FrankTheDM has a great way of making cheap minis. Go to this thread, where Frank makes available tons of sprites. You download the sprites, then put them on a piece of paper, print it out, glue the paper to some card stock (I use empty cereal boxes), cut out. Instant mini. I also use colorful aquarium rocks for minis.

Misc

I know that you write many a gaming project, so you may not need this. Even so, it never hurts. Here's a bunch of monsters:
The_Jester's conversions; the Redcap and Shimmerling Swarm might be of most interest.
Keterys' original monsters
Monster Compendium over at the WotC boards.


I have attached a sheet with just Conditions on them. I highly recommend you print and put that in your folder for quick reference.

 

[malraux]

I'm sure you know this already, but reskinning is incredibly easy.

 

[Rechan]

Oh. Here's some general DM tips:

1) Players are sneaky, crafty, or very clutzy. You show them a plot hook, or a clue, and they will turn around and run the other way after a squirrel. So be prepared to deal with that, including dropping a breadcrumb in whatever direction they're headed.

Also, realize that you're going to have times where the session goes fast (and thus you need filler), or you need to stall to think of what happens next.

To address this, have a few En Route scenarios up your sleeve. These could range from "a wagon sits on the side of the road, where a lone merchant struggles to handle a broken wheel" to "here's some mysterious/creepy circumstance, with me not giving you any explanation."

2) On the topic of plot hooks. The Shotgun Method is sometimes best. The Shotgun Method is to throw out several hooks, and see which one they take. Each hook could lead to a different adventure, or the hooks could all be interwoven (one hook leading to a clue or an aspect of the adventure as a whole, so if they follow one, they would eventually find the rest).

If each hook leads to a different adventure, follow up on the ones they didn't follow ("Remember that mention of cows being eaten? Well there's now a shortage of beef, and the farmland is overrun with well fed kuthriks. Uhoh.")

3) Never create a scenario where the discovery/realization of one single thing is the key to overcoming the situation. Because if the players doing figure it out, then they're stuck, get frustrated, and start getting disgruntled.

4) Listen to your players. Listen as they talk amongst themselves of what they think is going on. This is some of the best sources of inspiration. If necessary, subtly probe them to see what they think.

5) NPCs and your World: Consistency is best. If the players are in a tavern and a window gets broken, the next time they come through, note the broken window (or the newly replaced window). NPCs should retain their mannerisms.

6) Here's a big one: Make sure your players talk to one another about what they want to play. Not only with regards to role/class, but their characters. Encourage them to know eachother in character, or have some reason to adventure together (to avoid the "Lone Wolf Syndrom" or the character who just has no reason to adveture with these guys).

7) When building your starting area, start small. Treat it like a bullseye. Flesh out the starting area really well. Then out beyond that, get some ideas going, put some general thoughts in there. Beyond that, just have some vague notions.

8) Betrayal is a spice, not a marinade. Don't use it too often, otherwise your players will think every NPC will betray them.

9) Don't be afraid to delegate tasks to players. One tracking initiative, one in charge of looking up rules questions.

 

[Jack99]

• Use solo monsters sparringly.
• You can note down the effect/status/condition next to the monster’s intiative on either the initiative card, or on the initiative paper. I found this to be much more helpful, since it helps keep the overview, while not cluttering the board with all sorts of things.
• Remember to mix of the encounters, but try to avoid 6 different monsters. It can be tempting, but I find it to increase the time of the encounter.
• Watch out with the xp system, while it still works at level +5, it does tend to create much longer and thus more boring fights. Example: 5 level 5 characters have an average encounter worth 1000 xp. Some DM’s I read about think a level 10 elite will do. Well, it can, but some types are going to be extremely hard to kill.
• My rule of thumb is. If it’s a boss, it’s elite.
• The best skill challenges I have made, have been achieved by using the average of the original DC’s and the new DC’s.

 

[That One Guy]

6) Here's a big one: Make sure your players talk to one another about what they want to play. Not only with regards to role/class, but their characters. Encourage them to know eachother in character, or have some reason to adventure together (to avoid the "Lone Wolf Syndrom" or the character who just has no reason to adveture with these guys).

Similarly, make sure that you have an idea of what kinds of characters the players want to play. Also, make sure they know the tone of the game. How good, grey, or bad they're going to be. Where does unaligned end and the other alignments come into play?