Im running my first full game Wednesday! advise?

[Neonchameleon]

Lots of good general advice above. So I'm going to go for three 4e specific pieces of advice.

1: Encounter/Short Rest/Daily. Bad names for what they are. When plotting and running, think of an encounter as a scene, a short rest as a scene change, and daily as an episode.

2: Fight Scenes. Fight scenes are a centrepiece of 4e. Make sure they aren't static line-fights with the two sides lining up to play patty-cake until one drops. To help, always put in at least one interactive piece of scenery (even if only a window to throw people out of or a camp fire to throw them in). Also make the spaces fairly large. And don't run more types of monster than you can cope with.

3: Skill Challenges are your friend - but don't let them near the players. What they are good for is dealing with improvised plans. In almost any other game system I know, until you get the hang of it you need to work out what each skill check as part of a plan should be. In 4e you just find a level for the plan, guess at the complexity (possibly modifying as the plan goes further off the rails), and mark off a tally chart of each success and failure. DCs are done for you - easy, medium, and hard depending what they are trying. Just don't let the PCs play mechanically to the skill challenge - they are simply a tool for you to very easily handle the mechanics and keep score so you can focus on the interaction or narrative.

 

[Iconik]

Descriptions. Descriptions. Descriptions. The more real you make the world feel the more believable it'll become. Although, don't go TOO overboard. Give the players what they need but don't bog it all down with too verbose descriptions.

Don't TPK or PK in the first adventure. Tbh, I don't believe in TPK or PK at all but, that's just my two cents.

Keep everyone in check. Try and let them know that tabletalk only derails adventures. If you're trying to flesh something out with one character while 3 others talk about Taco Bell, it just sucks. Really badly. I have an absolutely no table talk rule. If you want to gossip, stay home and lurk Facebook.

 

[Smoke Jaguar]

I agree with the descriptions. Go in depth. You almost can't give too much. You don't want to go on huge rants about the scenery but it really does set the mood and helps the players get in the mood. Think about the way the town looks, the bars, the people, the smells, the way the bad guys die, missed attacks, and anything else you can think of. Music can help too.

To help things run smoothly. I try to do all my initiative rolls before hand and have them in order for the bad guys, especially if an encounter is going to have a lot of them or a lot of encounters. I write them all down and leave spaces for PC's to be inserted. I think it is a huge buzz kill for the PC's to get all excited about a cool encounter and then wait 5 minutes for me to do all the initiatives. In general, try to do as much beforehand that you can so the game runs smoother and has less book keeping time.

If you don't know a rule, try to find it. If it can't be found quickly, listen to everybody's ideas and then make a judgment call. Use common sense. Then let the players know that is the ruling and it is final for the session but you will look it up for the official rule latter. It can be annoying when two players get into an argument about a rule that doesn't really matter all that much. Write down the rule and look it when you have time.

The more you get into it, the more the players will. The nights I am most excited, I can tell and feel that my players are as well. The nights I am not in the mood and kind of half-assing it, so are they.

You don't have to fit everything into one night but do try to have some variety.

I agree with basically everything else that has been said but I will try to think about it a little more. Good luck.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

I've never DM'ed, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. This is definitely a players perspective.

1. Don't be stingy with rewards - just follow the recommended parcels and guidelines for drops. Don't disallow items in the game without a very good reason. I would not allow boons, artifacts, or wondrous items except as rewards for major endeavors.

2. Don't metagame - in other words, if one of your players gets something like Repulsive armor, don't have every creature in every encounter from that point on, have a reach of 2.
Or all the undead in your games are NOT vulnerable to Radiant damage because your Paladin and Holy Avenger can deal Radiant damage.

3. When something comes up (and it will), don't change the Rules, change your story! That sounds odd, but let me give you an example - in one of our recent sessions, a thief who had stolen a valuable book from Everlund, was found dead at the entrance to a cave leading to the Tomb Of Horrors (our DM has been dying to start this with our level14 chars). So we said we'd have my religion trained Avenger use a Speak with Dead scroll. The DM argued that I couldn't because the DemiLich had eaten the thiefs soul. Not gone, destroyed. But the description of Speak with Dead clearly states you are talking to the corpse and not the soul.
So now, for the rest of our campaign, Speak with Dead will not work on anything that doesn't have a soul there. He changed the rules. What would have been better was if he simply had the corpse disintegrate or had the corpse not reveal anything useful. Later, in e-mail, he told us he did that to move things along faster, and not have the thief reveal anything. It could have been handled better though, IMHO - *not* by changing the rules.

4. Which brings us to when these events happen - try to look at it from all angles, make a fairly quick decision, and move along with the game. Breaking the flow of your session up to have a 30 minute rule discussion is not the way to go. Have all of your group agree that anything that comes up like that, can be discussed and worked out for future sessions in e-mail (or even a few minutes before the next session starts). I think others in this thread have referred to this practice, and I fully agree. A quick ruling, to keep the game going, and then discuss it later at leisure.

Have fun!

 

[Smoke Jaguar]

I fully agree with the points above.

One last thing I remembered, when the group needs to make a decision (go left or go right) give them time to talk. Do try to have something give them pressure though, whether it be in game (best way) or out of game. Don't them sit and argue over decisions when in the end it really doesn't matter all that much.

 

[webrunner]

Some tricks I've learned:
First, pre-roll monster initiative. It saves so much time at the table especially if it's minionful.
Second: I like to make cards with each monster on it: one side has the name and a picture, the other the stats, and then i make two cuts on the bottom and put them on top of the DM screen in initiative order, removing them as they're killed. I also ahve cards for the party members.

Also, I suggest these: Bendy Dungeon Walls they're cheap as sin and awesome as sin. That's like double as sin as even sin is.

Other than that, having something to track status effects and keep track of similar monsters is helpful (i use a set of sticky letter/number/color labels I got at the dollar store)

 

[Iconik]

Are Bendy Walls really that good? I was looking at them the other day. If I were to purchase them how many would you say to pick up to make it worth it?

I really like the idea about the cards on the DM screen. Got any examples you can show? One thing I've noticed about 4e is that keeping track of everything that's going on in battle encounters can be insanely frustrating. Which brings me to:

OP,

If you have multiples of a monster on the board doing battle, go buy some mini 6 sided dice and use those to keep track of which one is which.

Believability (is that a word?): I cannot stress this enough. I've posted once in this thread about it already but I will do so again. The more REAL you make things seem the better off the campaign will be.

Table Talk: Again, something I've touched on. It's so important. I abhor it. You should too.

Keep the game moving: Tell your party the second everyone sits down that any debate on rules or how something worked out goes on AFTER the session. Not at the table.

Awards: I have a a whiteboard on the wall where I keep notes, write quick maps, keep initiative order. But, I also use it for session awards. Things like "Most Epic", "Biggest Nerd (kept ic the most/best), "Biggest Sword" (Did most damage), "Biggest Paws" (The person that slowed down the game the most). Among others. We have goofy ones and serious ones. No one gets their feelings hurt. This is a good way to let ppl know how they are doing.

We went on about descriptions earlier and I will do so again here. I don't know if you're a big reader or not. I am. I've read hundreds of books. Millions of words. TONS of lengthy paragraphs on descriptions. This is a great way to learn how to give a good description. I usually write my descriptions out on paper. I then read it a couple of times throughout the week so I can get a good idea what's on there. When they get to that city street, ruin or room I'll have a good idea of whats in there. I WILL read it though. But, because I had read it a couple of times throughout the week it really doesn't sound like I'm reading it. Here's an example from last weeks adventure where the party was in the ruins of an ancient city underneath an existing city. I DO get this wordy. It's great. I notice now that my group all shut their eyes when I'm giving them descriptions. Best. Sign. Ever. Here goes:

"Upon clambering down the slick rocky surface of the tunnel you find that it dumps out into an extrememly large, open cavern. Here you can see more than you're probably supposed to as an unnatural light seems to make the place glow dully. In the cavern is what looks like an ancient plaza with old, dun colored building on each side. Some of them have since given in to time and gravity while others stand resolute as if in defiance of age. There are ghosts. Ghosts traipsing about up and down the street. In and out of buildings. Sitting in front of shops or gossiping on corners. They are the denizens of this ancient city and are going about their lives as if they had never died. They pay you no mind. You can hear shop owners hawking goods. Mothers talking to one another. Children giggling and playing in the streets and fathers talking about the good old days."

Fairly descriptive. And it's just interesting enough to make the group WANT to hear it. They enjoy my descriptions.

Anyway, good luck tonight. Let us all know how it goes.

 

[webrunner]

Are Bendy Walls really that good? I was looking at them the other day. If I were to purchase them how many would you say to pick up to make it worth it?

I really like the idea about the cards on the DM screen. Got any examples you can show? One thing I've noticed about 4e is that keeping track of everything that's going on in battle encounters can be insanely frustrating. Which brings me to:

I bought two packs, one pack is enough to cover an average room, two is enough to cover a large, complicated room. They stay up pretty well. The only issue is that some of the hooks break off easily as the plastic is cheap, but if you use these on the ends of your 'pre made' segments it should be alright. The fact it comes with doors too is a huge boon. It's also ridiculously inexpensive compared to things like Dwarven Forge and easy compared to papercraft terrain. It doesnt let you do anything really fancy but just having the walls there really helps a room map pop.

As for the cards, i make them using photoshop. Split the document into 3, landscape, name at the top, stat card on the bottom flipped, then i print on cardstock, fold it over, cut into three, tape on top edge, then cut two slots into the folded end. Then I draw a humorous sketch of the monster on the back (my Orc Scout had a cap, earpeice, and baseball bat, and one of my zombies had an I HEART BRAINS shirt on). Players get a kick out of it.

 

[Iconik]

I've been looking up Bendy Wall items this morning. I'm sold. Did you get the magna-map and the magnet stands as well? Or do they stay up on a regular dry erase map just fine?

 

[webrunner]

I've been looking up Bendy Wall items this morning. I'm sold. Did you get the magna-map and the magnet stands as well? Or do they stay up on a regular dry erase map just fine?

I use a 1-inch grid easel pad, but they stay up fine. Well the doors sometimes fall over, but the walls themselves hold each other up fairly well, especially if they're put around a corner.