How to DM in ten easy lessons

[LokiDR]

Some pretty good advice. You might also look at http://www.montecook.com/arch_dmonly12.html for Monte Cook's opinion.

The only part I take issue with is your first piece of advice.

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.

Rule 0 has a very important role in the game, but it is also a loaded gun. A DM who is just starting out has a good chance getting a little drunk on power. I know you mention that you should think of your players, but the first thing you say is "The DM is always right".

I think this would be better written as something like the following:

1. Know the rules
When you are running the exciting final battle of the lord of evil and you have to flip through the book, it just breaks the whole fun of the situation. If you studied up on the rules and still forgot, try to fake it as best you can. If you are wrong, oops, you'll live. It is just a game, after all. Once you have a good understanding of the rules you can change them and have a good idea of what that change will do. If the rules shift to making clerics better at mass destruction, the wizard who really wanted to be destructive with fireball will feel kinda stupid.

Ok, not the best writing I have done, but I hope you get the idea. Changing the rules, inadvertantly, spur of the moment, or without experience is not something I would suggest.

 

[Thalantor]

About knowing the rules:

True, you have to evade the event that you get drunk on power, but i wrote the list to be taken as a whole, so if a DM gets power-drunk then i would suggest to him to reread the list for further points. Although it could be worded a bit more clearly, yes.

About the magic vs lvl balance: Indeed, i would alter that to a +1 per 3 levels. My meaning was for what should PC's find in a dungeon. Stores are easy enough as you can calculate the cost and see what gold the average PC has, but what to give in a session in total and what in a dungeon..

Great replies btw.

 

[Mark]

Excllent article, Thalantor! It might do with a little tweaking, as some have said who have posted, but it's a fine piece of writing. For what site was it originally written?

 

[Furn_Darkside]

2. The DM knows what the players want, and vice versa.

Very nice work- I think #2 is one of the most important pieces of advice.

Not only do you all want to be on the same page of playing style: serious immersion rp or beer&pretzel play, but I think it is good to poll the players so they know what kind of adventures they like- fighting, puzzles, intrigue, romance, etc.

Cover this from the beginning, and you may save yourself a lot of headaches. heh.

FD

 

[Thalantor]

--------------------
For what site was it originally written?
--------------------

Mark,

I'm a regular at www.3rdedition.org , so i decided to write it for them. ( Only, the site-owner is a very busy man, so it's not posted yet, which i understand. But i wanted feadback on it, so i posted it here. If only he can forgive me.... )

EDIT: Ouch, on rereading it, i found quite a lot of typo's and grammar errors. Time to email the site-owner to see if i can re-do some things.. )

 

[Valmur_Dwur]

This is kinda of a mish-mash rule but in your Rule 0 what a new DM should do is make a list of things that he knows are going to be changed and then throw in the DM has the right to modify at any point to keep the flow of the adventure going. Any questions will be addressed at the end of the session. Also to include the pcs histories are needed not an option. And what type of game are you looking for. One of the hardest things for new DM's to understand is they need to pry their players minds to make their job easier. If you have a group that want to just hack'n slash that's fine but if the DM is running a who-done-it everyone's unhappy. By making your players write out a character history(even if it's only 2 paragraphs long) you learn a lot

 

[Spindel]

Good article, and I'll agree that maintaining Balance is the hardest thing to do. One of the most important things I see missing and I think is worth mentioning is...
"Don't go out of your way to kill the PC's. It's not them v's you. Also keep in mind that it's not your job to guarentee their survival."

Couple of ellaborations I'd recommend...
1) When applying Rule 0, make sure you make the ruling when looking at the PC's, not the table, this was you can see their reactions ankd wether you should back it out immediatly. DM's are human too.
2) DON'T take controll of the PC's. They can get very irate about it (and fair enough) especially if you put them in danger, or allow them to get out of a dire situation that they only have themselves to blame for. Having said that, I've found that taking over the PC's at the start of a new story and telling it through their eyes can be an excellent way to put them in the picture, but I do not make any decision on their behalf. If your going to do this, check that it's OK with the players first, some do tend to get rather posessive.
3) HAVE FUN!! I don't think you emphasized it enough in point 10.

 

[Thalantor]

Think I should make a "How to roleplay in ten easy lessons."? or a "How to make a background in ten easy lesson"." ?