Hey all, i'm a new poster here, but have lurked here for a while now, and wrote the following article for another site, but wanted to see what you all think of it. Any critisism is welcome, i have a pretty thick skin. 
PS. The intro of the article is in connection with the other site : www.3rdedition.org. This should not be seen as an advert, merely as an explanation.
So, what do you think??
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How to DM in ten easy lessons
Roaming the forums for a while now, I see a steady stream of aspiring DM's looking up at the "established DM's" with puppy-dog eyes and a big question mark over their brow hoping we could advise them how to be extraordinarily well accomplished in this fine art. But since the truly great one's are way too busy and had to learn it the hard way as well, they asked me to write an article about the fine arts of DM-ing. Well, they didn't actually _ask_ me to do it, and who the _established_ DM's are is also a mystery to me, but an article has to start somewhere, eh?
So let's start. I'll try put down some useful pointers to focus on while you are developing your own style of DM-ing, which in the end is the most important. But before I start off, I must emphasize that DM-ing isn't easy when the following criteria aren't met first.
You and your players must be relaxed and no lingering irritations must cloud the atmosphere. Food & drink must be amply available. The players must give their confidence in the DM concerning rules-questions or plot-development. And all of you mustn't be afraid to speak up at the _end_ of the session to analyse bottlenecks or accomplishments.
This will lead to an atmosphere were everybody feels good about the game and the social atmosphere which is extremely important to get the creative juices going. Don't worry, this is all the tree-hugging hippy-stuff I'm going to write here, so here are the pointers:
1. The DM knows the rules, starting with Rule 0.
It will come up quite a lot in situations where things get hectic like combat / negotiations with the king / split up of the party, when in the spur of the moment you need to make several rule-decisions which may or may not be correct. Make sure that when that happens and the players starts to bawl about it, that these things are discussed in the break or at the end of the game, because you as a DM will need the time to play out the encounter in a good way. If unsure what to do, use the Rule 0. Which means "The DM is always right." It's your world they are playing in, it's your rules they are playing by.
2. The DM knows what the players want, and vice versa.
Of course you world would be pretty empty without the players and their characters to see it. And that will only happen if they like your game. So make sure you know what they look for in a game, and that they know it from each other. This will give all of you the opportunity give everyone what they want, be it powerful magic items, endless hordes of critters to kill, or long-drawn role-play sessions where the elf marries the dwarf.
3. The DM might know much, but a notebook has a better memory.
You just had an enticing session with many new NPC's, a dozen new magic items, and a book full of leads to work. Then everybody goes on a well-deserved vacation for 3 weeks, and when you come back most of you forgot the details. You try and rescue what is still left, but somehow the height of engrossing atmosphere is somehow lost. This could have been saved if you kept notes on what happened. Then you just read up on it before the session, and it will help you spark back the things you thought up. It is very vital that continuity between sessions on details are preserved. This keeps a world alive and believable. So if the new shopkeeper is names Harry, write it down.
4. Picture your world as an expanding globe, growing when it needs to.
Don't you hate it when you have a complete own mapped out with histories for each bar maiden and stable boy, and the group decides to go elsewhere? You can avoid that by not making extensive details for things that haven't happened yet. You could just have idea's about generic tavern histories or magic items, and then when you need one you just pick one of the stack. But it is very time-saving to only think up the world in a 30 minute time-radius around your party, with general hints as to the frame of your adventure or campaign.
5. Starts simple, the players will make it hard for you.
You've made the most intricate dungeon ever, with diabolic traps and strange machineries for which you wrote entire manuals for them to find in a strange language which your players need to figure out. Then they decide to go back to town and hire 25 workers to cut down the forest and smoke that dungeon out, with several burning timbers thrown in the hallway, in the hope of letting the wood inside catch on fire. Thank you players, you think to yourself, and proceed to bury yourself in tables to calculate what happens. Or you could give them a pretty straightforward dungeon, and think up traps along the way. (It would be fun if there was a trap behind that door.. ) As long as the players get to use their skills to detect these things, and it gets recorded on the XP list for that evening, then there is nothing wrong with that.
6. If you can't invent it, steal it.
The amount of material available on the internet is staggering, and the best part is you can rip it off for free. (Not counting the copy-righted material, of course.) It's no crime to borrow several things for your campaign if that improves it, just as long as you're polite enough to thank the creator by sending him a thank you mail, or post a praise on his forum. It would be a waste if you spent two weeks thinking up this cool monster only to see it was already posted last month by someone else.
7. Be very watchful of game balance.
So, you kept your players content in the first few levels, and the level 3 paladin is happily swinging away with his fresh new Holy Avenger, and then you notice that any monster that is not 4 levels higher than your party is instantly killed and the monsters that are 4 levels higher hand the butts back to the party without breaking a sweat! You have no idea what to do to regain some modicum of challenge and the campaign bleeds to death. That is why it is important that you find a way to keep the challenge equal in the whole campaign. This is by far the hardest thing to learn and do as a DM, and a thing that changes per party and DM.
My rule of thumb here is, that magical items never have more plusses than half the party level, and the total wealth hovers around 1000 x their level in gold. So a level 6 party would have access to +3 items max, and around 6.000 GP to spend. This is of course flexible, and only a starting point. It is important you get a "feel" for it, and don't neglect non-GP awards like guild-contacts or reputation. This has potentially more worth than gold.
8. Kick the offensive player out.
Ah, the horror of every gaming group and the nightmare of every DM. The player that won't conform to or respect the group's ethos at the table. Otherwise known as the disruptive idiot. For the most part these players are easily identified, but some are not. Certain players could very well be the nicest of the bunch, yet at the table he syncs out with the rest of the group.
The hardest part is then to inform the player that he has to change his gaming ways, or find another group. This is never fun to do, but remember that ousting a player has nothing to do with how good your friendship is, only with how the group harmony is disrupted. You could oust your best friend, as long as you make clear it is because irreparable gaming differences in mentality or other things. Players should also remember that this also counts for the DM. While there may not be a good substitute for the ousted DM, it is at least a strong signal to the DM that he's doing it wrong. Don't let him sit there just because "we don't have anyone else." That just destroys gaming fun.
9. Don't expect it to work the first time.
I'm not even close to the level of expertise I want to reach as a DM, and I don't suspect I will reach it anytime soon. In my first three short campaigns I stunk horribly. It was by the grace of my friends who understood I had to learn too, that I was able to continue, and now I have a game going that is challenging and entertaining. At least that's what they told me a few weeks ago. What this means is, don't be afraid to make mistakes in the beginning or to try out daunting situations, or you will never learn. I've had a friend of mine who DM-ed who refused to use wizards or clerics as enemies, because he didn't want to deal with the complexities of spell casting as a DM. His campaign didn't last, because after a few sessions we had a tried and tested standard way of dealing with any enemy, because they would never use magic. So beware of this, and make it a point to the players that you as a DM may need as much thinking time as your players do to make the encounters work to their fullest.
10. Have fun yourself.
Bottom line, you play the game to enjoy yourself. Don't be too rigid in rulings sometimes, and allow some Out of Character talk at the table (OOC-speak), but stop it before it gets out of hand. Put in some humor in some NPC's, and sometime give the players a break, and you will find it lifts the enthusiasm big time. You don't have to do any heavy role-playing if your group doesn't want to, and you could go an entire campaign without combat, if that is the kick of your group. Play it anyway you want to, just make sure that that is the way you want to play it. Even if it means breaking some game-rules. The rule set was meant to be customized, so enjoy it.
11. Some little things to keep in mind.
These are just little DM things I use as a handy little help:
- If in doubt about a situational modifier, make it +2 or -2. In any situation.
- Need a name for NPC's at the last moment, but you can't think of one? Take the name of a relative.
- The plusses on a weapon are also extra powers. So a +3 sword and a +1 flaming burst sword are equally powerful, cost-wise.
- If you don't know how to progress the story in a campaign for a session, just throw in a non-story encounter. These often last a full session, and saves you time to further think up the story.
- Go to www.3rdedition.org or www.ENworld.com for all your gaming needs.
- Make a solid plan of who brings the food and the drinks etc. And the fact that you are DM should give you some slack, as you do most of the work.
- Pressure your players to make backgrounds. It bonds them with their characters, and lessens the chance that they will go on a village slaughter for the fun of it, because a new PC is made very quick. Let them invest time.
-------------------------------------------------------------
PS. The intro of the article is in connection with the other site : www.3rdedition.org. This should not be seen as an advert, merely as an explanation.
So, what do you think??
---------------------------------------------------------------
How to DM in ten easy lessons
Roaming the forums for a while now, I see a steady stream of aspiring DM's looking up at the "established DM's" with puppy-dog eyes and a big question mark over their brow hoping we could advise them how to be extraordinarily well accomplished in this fine art. But since the truly great one's are way too busy and had to learn it the hard way as well, they asked me to write an article about the fine arts of DM-ing. Well, they didn't actually _ask_ me to do it, and who the _established_ DM's are is also a mystery to me, but an article has to start somewhere, eh?
So let's start. I'll try put down some useful pointers to focus on while you are developing your own style of DM-ing, which in the end is the most important. But before I start off, I must emphasize that DM-ing isn't easy when the following criteria aren't met first.
You and your players must be relaxed and no lingering irritations must cloud the atmosphere. Food & drink must be amply available. The players must give their confidence in the DM concerning rules-questions or plot-development. And all of you mustn't be afraid to speak up at the _end_ of the session to analyse bottlenecks or accomplishments.
This will lead to an atmosphere were everybody feels good about the game and the social atmosphere which is extremely important to get the creative juices going. Don't worry, this is all the tree-hugging hippy-stuff I'm going to write here, so here are the pointers:
1. The DM knows the rules, starting with Rule 0.
It will come up quite a lot in situations where things get hectic like combat / negotiations with the king / split up of the party, when in the spur of the moment you need to make several rule-decisions which may or may not be correct. Make sure that when that happens and the players starts to bawl about it, that these things are discussed in the break or at the end of the game, because you as a DM will need the time to play out the encounter in a good way. If unsure what to do, use the Rule 0. Which means "The DM is always right." It's your world they are playing in, it's your rules they are playing by.
2. The DM knows what the players want, and vice versa.
Of course you world would be pretty empty without the players and their characters to see it. And that will only happen if they like your game. So make sure you know what they look for in a game, and that they know it from each other. This will give all of you the opportunity give everyone what they want, be it powerful magic items, endless hordes of critters to kill, or long-drawn role-play sessions where the elf marries the dwarf.
3. The DM might know much, but a notebook has a better memory.
You just had an enticing session with many new NPC's, a dozen new magic items, and a book full of leads to work. Then everybody goes on a well-deserved vacation for 3 weeks, and when you come back most of you forgot the details. You try and rescue what is still left, but somehow the height of engrossing atmosphere is somehow lost. This could have been saved if you kept notes on what happened. Then you just read up on it before the session, and it will help you spark back the things you thought up. It is very vital that continuity between sessions on details are preserved. This keeps a world alive and believable. So if the new shopkeeper is names Harry, write it down.
4. Picture your world as an expanding globe, growing when it needs to.
Don't you hate it when you have a complete own mapped out with histories for each bar maiden and stable boy, and the group decides to go elsewhere? You can avoid that by not making extensive details for things that haven't happened yet. You could just have idea's about generic tavern histories or magic items, and then when you need one you just pick one of the stack. But it is very time-saving to only think up the world in a 30 minute time-radius around your party, with general hints as to the frame of your adventure or campaign.
5. Starts simple, the players will make it hard for you.
You've made the most intricate dungeon ever, with diabolic traps and strange machineries for which you wrote entire manuals for them to find in a strange language which your players need to figure out. Then they decide to go back to town and hire 25 workers to cut down the forest and smoke that dungeon out, with several burning timbers thrown in the hallway, in the hope of letting the wood inside catch on fire. Thank you players, you think to yourself, and proceed to bury yourself in tables to calculate what happens. Or you could give them a pretty straightforward dungeon, and think up traps along the way. (It would be fun if there was a trap behind that door.. ) As long as the players get to use their skills to detect these things, and it gets recorded on the XP list for that evening, then there is nothing wrong with that.
6. If you can't invent it, steal it.
The amount of material available on the internet is staggering, and the best part is you can rip it off for free. (Not counting the copy-righted material, of course.) It's no crime to borrow several things for your campaign if that improves it, just as long as you're polite enough to thank the creator by sending him a thank you mail, or post a praise on his forum. It would be a waste if you spent two weeks thinking up this cool monster only to see it was already posted last month by someone else.
7. Be very watchful of game balance.
So, you kept your players content in the first few levels, and the level 3 paladin is happily swinging away with his fresh new Holy Avenger, and then you notice that any monster that is not 4 levels higher than your party is instantly killed and the monsters that are 4 levels higher hand the butts back to the party without breaking a sweat! You have no idea what to do to regain some modicum of challenge and the campaign bleeds to death. That is why it is important that you find a way to keep the challenge equal in the whole campaign. This is by far the hardest thing to learn and do as a DM, and a thing that changes per party and DM.
My rule of thumb here is, that magical items never have more plusses than half the party level, and the total wealth hovers around 1000 x their level in gold. So a level 6 party would have access to +3 items max, and around 6.000 GP to spend. This is of course flexible, and only a starting point. It is important you get a "feel" for it, and don't neglect non-GP awards like guild-contacts or reputation. This has potentially more worth than gold.
8. Kick the offensive player out.
Ah, the horror of every gaming group and the nightmare of every DM. The player that won't conform to or respect the group's ethos at the table. Otherwise known as the disruptive idiot. For the most part these players are easily identified, but some are not. Certain players could very well be the nicest of the bunch, yet at the table he syncs out with the rest of the group.
The hardest part is then to inform the player that he has to change his gaming ways, or find another group. This is never fun to do, but remember that ousting a player has nothing to do with how good your friendship is, only with how the group harmony is disrupted. You could oust your best friend, as long as you make clear it is because irreparable gaming differences in mentality or other things. Players should also remember that this also counts for the DM. While there may not be a good substitute for the ousted DM, it is at least a strong signal to the DM that he's doing it wrong. Don't let him sit there just because "we don't have anyone else." That just destroys gaming fun.
9. Don't expect it to work the first time.
I'm not even close to the level of expertise I want to reach as a DM, and I don't suspect I will reach it anytime soon. In my first three short campaigns I stunk horribly. It was by the grace of my friends who understood I had to learn too, that I was able to continue, and now I have a game going that is challenging and entertaining. At least that's what they told me a few weeks ago. What this means is, don't be afraid to make mistakes in the beginning or to try out daunting situations, or you will never learn. I've had a friend of mine who DM-ed who refused to use wizards or clerics as enemies, because he didn't want to deal with the complexities of spell casting as a DM. His campaign didn't last, because after a few sessions we had a tried and tested standard way of dealing with any enemy, because they would never use magic. So beware of this, and make it a point to the players that you as a DM may need as much thinking time as your players do to make the encounters work to their fullest.
10. Have fun yourself.
Bottom line, you play the game to enjoy yourself. Don't be too rigid in rulings sometimes, and allow some Out of Character talk at the table (OOC-speak), but stop it before it gets out of hand. Put in some humor in some NPC's, and sometime give the players a break, and you will find it lifts the enthusiasm big time. You don't have to do any heavy role-playing if your group doesn't want to, and you could go an entire campaign without combat, if that is the kick of your group. Play it anyway you want to, just make sure that that is the way you want to play it. Even if it means breaking some game-rules. The rule set was meant to be customized, so enjoy it.
11. Some little things to keep in mind.
These are just little DM things I use as a handy little help:
- If in doubt about a situational modifier, make it +2 or -2. In any situation.
- Need a name for NPC's at the last moment, but you can't think of one? Take the name of a relative.
- The plusses on a weapon are also extra powers. So a +3 sword and a +1 flaming burst sword are equally powerful, cost-wise.
- If you don't know how to progress the story in a campaign for a session, just throw in a non-story encounter. These often last a full session, and saves you time to further think up the story.
- Go to www.3rdedition.org or www.ENworld.com for all your gaming needs.
- Make a solid plan of who brings the food and the drinks etc. And the fact that you are DM should give you some slack, as you do most of the work.
- Pressure your players to make backgrounds. It bonds them with their characters, and lessens the chance that they will go on a village slaughter for the fun of it, because a new PC is made very quick. Let them invest time.
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