New DM basic dungeon preparation question

[Obryn]

You can get a large pad of 1" square paper at most office supply stores. Use these to prepare detailed maps of known encounter areas before the session. You can make them as simple or complex as you feel like depending on available prep time. You can fold them up and store them in a folder.

This is what I do for my games, and I strongly recommend it. It was among the best $20 I've ever spent. 4e, more than previous editions, benefits from interesting and compelling terrain. It won't matter if you're a little off on some measurements, but interesting maps are (imho) essential for players to get the most out of forced movement effects.

Also, I think Fiery Dragon released their Creature Counters for KotS for free. I expect they probably still are, if you check their homepage. If you can, print these out in color on some cardstock... It makes a big difference if you don't have a ton of minis. I like them so much I've bought them for every other adventure we've gotten to. It's easy to separate them out by encounter area, too.

It takes some time to get comfy in the DM seat. Don't give up if it doesn't go well at first.

-O

 

[Feeroper]

Thanks for all the advice so far! While I am intimidated a bit, and I know it wont always go smoothly, Im also very excited about being DM, and once Im comfortable enough, I cant wait go through a custom campaign with my group.

 

[Fraisala]

Thanks for all the advice so far! While I am intimidated a bit, and I know it wont always go smoothly, Im also very excited about being DM, and once Im comfortable enough, I cant wait go through a custom campaign with my group.

oh, and put some thought into how you're going to handle keeping track of initiative order. I know, a little irrelevant to the question, but if your early experiences are anything like mine were, it can derail your game a lot easier than you'd think.

 

[Ktulu]

I almost always describe rooms and hallways without drawing them at all. To me, the players get a stronger sense of the cramped and small-ness of a dungeon, or the large expanse, if I describe it without putting a couple lines on the table.

When they get into a combat I lay out the room, but I don't draw the entire thing, ever.

The other benefit to this is, I can design the encounter "rooms" in the dungeon or cavern, and largely ignore the rest, giving them options and directions on the fly. I used to do the whole "draw the entire dungeon" and walk them through room-by-room, but it often took more time to draw, erase, and redraw than it does to just describe. If a fight is to break out, or a trap that designates area (i.e. a flooding trap, or electrified floor, etc...) then I'll draw it out and work through the scene.

I guess you could say I run my dungeons like a show runs it's sets; the enterprise wasn't fully existing in a warehouse, only main set-pieces were built. It wasn't necessary to show the characters walk from one end of the ship to the other, only that they arrive via means we recognize (elevators, hallways, etc..).

 

[Zaukrie]

oh, and put some thought into how you're going to handle keeping track of initiative order. I know, a little irrelevant to the question, but if your early experiences are anything like mine were, it can derail your game a lot easier than you'd think.

Assign a player to do it. You have enough to do.

 

[Arnwyn]

For encounters, I have a dry-erase white-board with a 1-inch grid printed on it, which is always front and center at our game table. Any time tactical positioning becomes important (so, most, but not all fights in 4E) I sketch out the outline of the encounter area and use D&D mini's to represent players, monsters, hazards, traps, and so-on. It takes just a few seconds to draw the room, terrain, and what-not, and if you do it *while* you're describing the room to the players, no time is wasted, and it becomes a neat little bit of exposition.

Before the players take their characters into an area, they know nothing about it (other means of gathering intelligence -- such as scrying or having an informant -- notwithstanding). But, after they've been there, I assume they can find their way back out unless the structure is specifcally designed to not allow them to do that easily (such as a maze, or building that changes shape). This means that unless another fight breaks out, they can usually say something to me like, "Okay, we retreat through the north corridor past that statue of the minotaur and rest in the room with all the rubble", and I'll just allow it.

This is pretty much exactly how we do it.

I draw on our (fairly massive) white-board on the fly as the PCs move along, just drawing to the limits of their sight/darkvision/light source/whatever, and describing while I draw. It doesn't take me very long to draw things in, so there's almost no time wasted (in fact, my players would like more time wasted so they can discuss and strategize a bit more!).

 

[roguerouge]

A bit of column A a bit from column B and a touch of C. For some encounters, I just make something up, like if it's a wilderness encounter or an urban encounter. I've run 3e combats in 1e style, with no map and just verbal descriptions. But for major set pieces? I have it all planned out or the module authors do.

 

[jcayer]

We use a whiteboard with 1 inch squares. It has served us well and with colored markers makes it easy to see where there is water or fire for example. Although, I do like the idea of the large gridded pad for pre-drawing intricate locals.

I try to draw only what the players can see and when they can see it. An excellent example of this is they walked into a large room with a dragon in the center. No one looked around and for a change, the DM's plan worked. There were 4 alcoves on the wall where they walked in that no one saw until the guards walked out mid first round and everyone was out of position.

As for mini's, I had a bunch of the old lead ones, so each party member chose their own and uses it every session. For monsters, I use dice. It works well since I can group the dice based on monster group(all the orcs are D6s, the goblin archers, d8, etc). What is really nice is we take the time to make sure they all have a unique number facing up. It makes targeting them and keeping track of their hit points so much easier.

For initiative, each player has a small post it with their name on it. We put them in init order, along with dice(for the monsters) down the side of the board. Works great. Someone usually moves something down the order so everyone knows who is coming up next.

But like everyone said, have fun. Improvise. If you ask my players, one of the most memorable experiences was something I improvised. They were fighting a black dragon in the top of a tower. The party attempted to draw him into the hallway where the terrain was much better for them. So they all flee out there and ready an action for when he comes through the door. Instead I tell them it sounds like he is flying away. Then he crashed through the ceiling on top of 3 of them. Never planned it, cheated in that he crashed through where it would impact them the most, and they never saw it coming.

 

[Pravus]

I am new to DMing in general...

Also, for the official published adventures, do you go into the the encounter layouts in the adventure guide and recreate the grid needed for said encounter (for the ones not included on a grid map in the module package) on 1 inch graph paper or something else ahead of time? Or is that done on the fly?

I am wondering did you buy the adventure and therefore have the battle mats or did you download the PDF from WotC and do not?

If not I don't think the kobold encounter would be all that difficult to run without a map or a very rough map with miniatures. Only the final two encounters would be better with some pre-drawn maps ready to go.

As to what to show, most of the first few encounter areas in Keep on the Shadowfell have light so having them predrawn and ready to go will speed things along. It is only when you get to the last few areas on the first level where everything goes dark and you need to worry about what the Player Characters can see. Then I tend to draw to the limit of their light source (which in my case is a Wizards Light Cantrip--so not very far).

While many here are suggesting a vinyl battle mat or white board both of these options are expensive upfront. I frequently use a 1" grid pad I bought from Staples (I think I paid $12 or $13 for my pad). The added bonus is if you end a game session mid fight the next game you already have the map ready to go.

If you later decide to spend more money and get something else you haven't spent too much money for the experiment.

 

[Leif]

Welcome. DMing is hard, so be prepared to be frustrated occassionally.

Rule 1: do what makes it fun for the players and you. If they like super detailed maps, do those. If they don't care about that stuff, don't worry about it.

Rule 2: wing it a lot. precision in map drawing is not critical. Wing the battles to make them more dramatic. Let the PCs get a few wins under their belts before really testing them.

Rule 3: prepare your encounters ahead of time. If you have minis or counters, bunch them up by encounter (I use baggies or little plastic boxes to group minis that go in one encounter together)

Rule 4. Have fun (yes, this is the same as rule 1 - this is a game, played for fun - some people have a hard time remembering this)

As for your actual questions:
I usually pre-draw (or in my case, organize 3D terrain I've made) the encounters so that I can place them on our table. Now, I have a decent sized table and a room dedicated to roleplaying, so that isn't realistic for everyone. I'd recommend having the key encounter areas pre-drawn to a large extent. You don't want the scenario described above where you are in the middle of the excitement and then have to stop the game.

Remember, no one (or at least most people you'd want to play with) will be a stickler if they later re-drew the maps you laid out and a room or two overlapped. Don't get too caught up in perfection, find the balance that you and your players enjoy.

Zaukrie's post is very good advice. Except for one thing -- I caution you that you shouldn't try to 'wing it' too much until you have played enough to gain a working familiarity with the rules. When you're starting out, I think you'll be best served by having everything written down. You don't have to follow what's written JUST BECAUSE it's written, but that gives you a place to start, and you can adapt the written situation to whatever particular alterations have been made to those circumstances by your actual game. That makes basically no sense. Look, dude, there's not a person alive who can tell you exactly how to DM a game. Just keep your Monster Manual and your DM Guide handy, and jump right in! IT'S A BLAST!!