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<blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 9284248" data-attributes="member: 467">One of the things that frustrates me a little with the current state of the D&amp;D fanosphere is that it caters almost exclusively to the new DM. Don't get me wrong, it is a very good thing that new DM's have such a massive support structure and so many examples to learn from and different perspectives to parse. i wish I had all that when I was a 10 year old and the only diversity of thought i got were arguments in the Dragon magazine Forum.Anyway, what I would like to do is create a thread intended for veteran DMs to ask questions and get answers from other veteran DMs. Just because we have been doing this for 40-ish years (or more, or less) doesn't mean we never hit bumps in the road. We don't need answers to questions like &quot;what is roleplaying&quot; or &quot;how do i make a dungeon&quot; or any of that. But there are things that still vex us.I will start:One thing I still struggle with after all of these years is finding a concise but effective way to note the PC abilities. I believe that in an ongoing campaign, the DM should at least no and sometimes even cater to the mechanics of the PCs -- because those mechanics, the things the players chose, tells you as DM a lot about what they are looking for in play. I am fine with the broad strokes and character motivations and personalities. Where I have trouble is thinking about specific abilities or classes of abilities that individual characters have. I want that information at hand when prepping or running so i can use it as a tool, but I don't know how to organize it and I am just not going to review character sheets all the time (especially with complex versions of the game like PF2 or 5E; Shadowdark is easier).So there we are. Help me out, and then ask a question of your own.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Reynard, post: 9284248, member: 467"] One of the things that frustrates me a little with the current state of the D&D fanosphere is that it caters almost exclusively to the new DM. Don't get me wrong, it is a very good thing that new DM's have such a massive support structure and so many examples to learn from and different perspectives to parse. i wish I had all that when I was a 10 year old and the only diversity of thought i got were arguments in the Dragon magazine Forum. Anyway, what I would like to do is create a thread intended for veteran DMs to ask questions and get answers from other veteran DMs. Just because we have been doing this for 40-ish years (or more, or less) doesn't mean we never hit bumps in the road. We don't need answers to questions like "what is roleplaying" or "how do i make a dungeon" or any of that. But there are things that still vex us. I will start: One thing I still struggle with after all of these years is finding a concise but effective way to note the PC abilities. I believe that in an ongoing campaign, the DM should at least no and sometimes even cater to the mechanics of the PCs -- because those mechanics, the things the players chose, tells you as DM a lot about what they are looking for in play. I am fine with the broad strokes and character motivations and personalities. Where I have trouble is thinking about specific abilities or classes of abilities that individual characters have. I want that information at hand when prepping or running so i can use it as a tool, but I don't know how to organize it and I am just not going to review character sheets all the time (especially with complex versions of the game like PF2 or 5E; Shadowdark is easier). So there we are. Help me out, and then ask a question of your own. [/QUOTE]

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