Novice DM, looking for advice

[Umbran]

I'm personally not one for strong-arming anyone to play specific things. Note to everyone concerned that without a cleric, healing will behard to come by. Note to them that if they want a lot of straight out knock-down drag-out fights that a monk isn't as effective as a fighter. Then let them choose. The only thing in the story they get to control is their own character, so it should be the one they want (within reason). If they have no cleric, make sure healing magics are not too difficult to get elsewhere. If they have no fighter, don't throw quite as much heavy combat at them.

Not being able to pull stats out of the air isn't much of a detriment if you do enough preparation beforehand. In this city environment, that means having stats for guards, commoners, the generic enemy, shopkeepers, and various local folk already done up before the session starts. If you are good at improv acting, adding personality to these stats later won't be a big deal.

As for railroading, there are two approaches that come to mind:

1)Don't bother creating a "plot". Instead, create a situation. In a plot, you have already determined the waypoints - the characters must go to point A and do X, then got to point B and do Y. If they don't do these things, the plot falls apart. If you haven't prepared anything outside the plot, you either have to "wing it", or railroad them back into the plot. If, instead, you create a situation, without predetermining the solution, the party makes their own plot as they work to find one.

In your case, that means making up lots of stuff about this city and it's attackers. Detail anything that might affect the outcome of the situation, and let things flow from there. Setup the physical layout of your city. Figure out who the town leaders are. Figure out who the enemy leaders are, etc. If you know the NPCs, you know how they will interact with each other, the situation, and the PCs. From there, it's all improv acting

2)Know your PCs and players, and make a plot that you know they won't resist. It isn't railroading if you know they'll gladly bite at the hook. This doesn't work to weell if you don't know the PCs, if the PCs aren't strong personalities, or if the players aren't the most consistent. But, if the player has made up a background story that includes a beloved little sister, you know he'll take the bait if you put that sister in peril The secret here is to make sure that every PC has a reason to go along. Don't assume the party fighter wants to go save the cleric's sister. The fighter needs his own motivation. Few folks like to just "tag along".

All in all, for the general idea you've got, the first method I mention is probably the more natural choice.

 

[Gargoyle]

Re: The character thing is resolved

I showed my friend a print-out of the martial artist class from Beyond onks and he suggested to me that he be allowed to change his character to that class. Something I am eminently suited for.

Cool. The MA makes a better fighter substitute than a monk, but remember that he will still get hit more often than a fighter at low levels. His AC tends to catch up with fighters later though.

Now when you say 3-4 encounters per adventure what are you talking about. Does each encounter only have one combat? Where does all the time go? I was wondering if you could elaborate how one of your sessions plays out. Just for my own edification.

An encounter for my group could be a roleplaying encounter, or it could be a fight or chase, or traveling across a wilderness or dealing with NPCs in town; I tend to think of encounters like scenes in a movie.

Most of my players are married with kids and don't have a lot of time to game, so we make the most of what we have. A typical session for our group begins with a good fight, sometimes in medias res. (I'll start with "Roll for initiative" then describe the scene. Gets things going.) A combat for us could take an hour or two, depending on how many players are there and the size of the fight. Then we'll usually have a couple of non-combat encounters, such as a bit of dungeon crawling, dealing with wilderness hazards, or roleplaying in a town, then I try to finish with a good fight. We play from noon to five, then I award XP and figure out what they want to do next time.

If you have more time, theoretically you'll get more encounters in, but I've found that sticking to a quitting time causes them to stop fooling around and get on with the game. Once you play a couple of sessions, you'll know how much preparation you really need to do.

Edit: As far as "where does all the time go?", D&D just takes longer to play than most people plan for. Roleplaying takes time. Six seconds of combat can take several minutes of time. This is ok, as long as the game doesn't bog down in looking up rules, and the DM isn't neglecting any players, and as long as your combats aren't too slow from using too many house rules or 3rd party products. And don't forget that people are going to want to get snacks, use the restroom, and be social. That's part of why I play. It's an excuse for me to get together with my buddies, as much as it is a fun game.

 

[cdsaint]

lack of clerics not a problem.

Don't worry too much if none of your players want to play a cleric. Right now I'm running 2 games neither of which have a cleric as a PC, and both are working out OK. There are both plusses and minuses to not having a cleric in the party.

Of course the major detriment is the lack of healing spells. some of this can be solved by cheap and available potions, some by having a relatively friendly npc cleric available to provide cheap or free healing in a safe place. This also gives you a way to influence the party, because your npc cleric will surely have an agenda of his own, and the party will not likely want to alienate their healer.

Other pluses (aside from your npc's influence) include combat being even more scary. With the only healing being what potions you provide, you can make smaller, weaker encounters more challenging. Let's also not forget the higher challenge that those undead the necromancer who infiltrates the city raises will be. With a cleric in the party skeletons and zombies are not normally much of a challenge. Without a cleric these encounters become far more interesting.

In short, plan your adventures knowing that there are no clerics in the party. Use it, make it work in your favor. Enjoy

Chris