NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raloc" data-source="post: 3314702" data-attributes="member: 28093">I'll throw in my two copper here.  I personally don't think you need a super-human knowledge of the rules to be a good DM.  Far more important is your ability to recall rules that are important to *what will happen* during the session.  I find my own sessions go best when I follow some guidelines:1) Prepare before the session  a. Read monster stats  b. Get NPCs ready  c. Find out and rationalize the motivations and tactics of a. and b.  d. Prepare the home terrain of your a. and b. and possibly give them some tactical advantages therein.2) Anticipate the actions of your players for the session  a. What did they do last session?  Where are they now?  Where are they headed?  What is their goal?  b. Detail the actions of NPCs/creatures in relation to a.  c. Try to think of where the players might head away from your planned session3) Start the session with action or drama  a. If starting with action, try to tie it into the plot of previous sessions  b. Same thing goes for dramatic bits  c. Mix up a. and b. by starting off the session where the PCs left off, and wait until they're feeling "secure" before springing the action on them.4) Write major descriptions (even of battle scenes and the like) beforehand (try to anticipate)  a. If a major baddie is going to bite it this session, or you think he might, write up the majority of his speech or description of his death scene before hand.  b. Write descriptions of major geographic features or overland traveling  c. Write descriptions of any miscellany that's important to the session (dungeon description, items, etc.)5) End with action or suspense to keep your players coming back.Other than that, I try to fix any issues that my players bring up (slow combat, slow game in general, too much RP, too much combat etc.).  I find that using things the players are unfamiliar with helps as well (especially if you have long time RPG players).</blockquote>

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