Novice DM Looking for Advice

[jimmifett]

For the player giving you a hard time, tell him "Would you like to DM or Play?" in front of the group the next time he tries stuff. That person now gets the message and you don't have to say anything else. Get the issue out of the way so everyone can have fun instead of dancing around on worrying about hurting someone's feelings.

Besides books, I'd invest in props:

Get a battle mat if you use minis.

Nothing says awesome like the DM saying "You have killed the bandit leader, while searching the body, you find this..." and then toss a pouch of campaign coins on the table for the players to open and count.

Learn how to make paper look like parchment for notes/maps/clues for the players. I believe i've heard someone say they soak the paper in tea for a day and then let dry. For added fun, take a lighter and burn random areas of the parchment while rolled up, then put out the fire. Now the players have incomplete details from said map/note/clue they have to put together. Just make sure there is a way to get the missing information from other sources.

Colored dollar store stones, for use as gems/jewels.

A [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaxShzl1aTQ"]Magic Murder Bag[/ame] to carry all your DM stuff in. I use a leather messenger bag, but i'd love to get a doctor's bag.

Candles. When the players enter a dungeon/place where they have to use torches, dim the lights enough to where you can still see, and light a candle or two for flickering light.

Mood Music. If you have a PC or laptop, there is some software for managing scene music. Avoid music with lyrics unless it's chanting of some sort. Movie scores make for excellent scene music. Indiana movies, Hunt for Red October, Dune, Conan, Predator, Aliens, Wrath of Khan, various anime and video games.

 

[Cor_Malek]

Uh, oh - we need a comic relief.

/me does a silly dance.

What he does can be a good stimuli to yourself - it's good that you second guess the plot you designed, it makes you a better GM. Also, consider the fact that if he's very genre savvy, he sees certain plot hooks miles ahead, and challenging you might be the only way for him to have some fun. So he killed your boss easier than suspected. That's something he should be rewarded for, not punished.
Believe me, between sheepish players that just look for a railroad to follow, and the ones that shake their fist at the sky - the latter are way more fun to lead in long run. He'll be frustrating for a while, yeah. But you learn much faster, you have to overcome some obstacles yourself - so you don't end up as the only one not surprised all evening, and more importantly - it won't get boring for a looong time.


OK, that's enough of buzzwords, time for more specific advice:
Monster Quest. He's genre savvy and knows it? Hah! Then just plan with this fact in mind. For example, he probably knows that werewolf did it. It's always the werewolf, and it's almost always the guard captain, this kind of plot will not fly.

Note: if you don't get the werewolf thing, look at the bottom of this post.*
But what if it wasn't, really? It is the kind of mystery so painfully obvious, and reoccurring that he might not be the only one who noticed it.

What really happened is that the captain disappeared, that kind of person has enemies all around. All other clues were fabricated by X, who wanted to shut some mouths eternally, for better or worse reasons. He knew that he could plant some evidence to be found, hell - he might even give some more important ones to PC's himself (ie hunter, "nay, these are not wolf tracks, they're far too big!")!
When they have enough clues to suspect it's the captain, introduce him. He enters the village in rugged clothing, with wounds all around. In reality, he was captured when was wandering in forest (your PC's might know this, at least that he disappeared while in wild), and managed to escape. He sure as hell will not get along with PC's, and will concentrate on getting to barracks to gather strike force and lead it to the cave/shack where he was being held. They might kill him, they might try to "save him", meh. What matters, is that our imposter doesn't know about it, and another crime will be committed while your PC's are captains alibi.
Ta daah.
Be warned though - this must all fit nicely, and ultimate goal is that the party learns true murderers identity (even if they kill the captain), there's no point of planning all this if they never learn that it was no werewolf.
Also - he might have seen this trick already, but if he questions your abilities, I think he'll rather throw himself at the bait and the hook, swallowing even the bobber in the process. Because it's always the werewolf.

Monster quests can involve many more instances where basically it's not the monster. Note, that those are very popular as well, and players will generally expect this. So they have to be hidden behind even more obvious classic. Don't overdo it though, or else they'll just switch and always assume it's not the monster.


*As to why:
X disappears, and then there's a wave of violence. You look for a murderer, but look! Those are not sword slashes, those look like bites! And there's a trail of wolf tracks (though slightly larger)! And the crimes were always commited at midnight...
It's fantasy version of "the husband did it". Used as a classic example when explaining usage of clues, repeatedly used in video games (Baldurs Gate, and The Witcher for example), in terms of fantasy cliche second only to "you all sit in a tavern...".

 

[jydog1]

more fun props - I ran my first LFR mod last week and needed minis for goblins mounted on wolves. Didn't have any, so I made some out of play-doh. they loved it and took delight in having whomever took a bad guy out squishing it. Play-doh also makes for a great way to make difficult terrain visible on battle mats and easily molds into altars, platforms, etc.

I also made a wagon out of cardboard and toothpicks with squares marked off on it, but perhaps I went a but too far there.

I love the suggestion made above - next time he tries to bully you, ask him if he wants to GM instead.

 

[Pbartender]

For the player giving you a hard time, tell him "Would you like to DM or Play?" in front of the group the next time he tries stuff.

I love the suggestion made above - next time he tries to bully you, ask him if he wants to GM instead.

Just be warned... If you are going to do this, make sure that you are prepared for him to answer, "Yes, I would love to DM!" and for him to be better at DMing than you.

Because it could happen.

 

[Dandu]

"Well... you can't."

 

[jimmifett]

Just be warned... If you are going to do this, make sure that you are prepared for him to answer, "Yes, I would love to DM!" and for him to be better at DMing than you.

Because it could happen.

or, simply say "Are you the DM?"

 

[Pbartender]

"Well... you can't."

or, simply say "Are you the DM?"

"Maybe I should be."


Of course more often than not, those sorts of responses will come off as snarky, petty and vindictive. That won't help anything.

In order to take care of a devious, manipulative player, you need to equally devious and manipulative in turn, but in a completely different style.

The goal is to make said player look like an immature and ill-mannered lout who's only purpose is opposing the DM and disrupting the game. You take the moral high ground, and that gets the other players on your side. Then, even if you personally can't convince him to stop, eventually the other players will start backing you up.

If you resort to simply trading insults and snide comments, then you end up looking no better than the other guy and the players will never take you or your complaints seriously.

For more, read Macchiavelli's The Prince, and Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Not only will they help you handle the rough players, but they'll give you some good advice for your Evil Overlord NPCs.

 

[Cor_Malek]

For the player giving you a hard time, tell him "Would you like to DM or Play?"

next time he tries to bully you, ask him if he wants to GM instead.

or, simply say "Are you the DM?"

Doing so, would on the spot transform problem into conflict. Besides, if the "problem" here is that he out thinks DM rule and tactic-wise, it will also be detrimental to the DM himself. Because by taking this stance, you'd be basically saying: "I have no good arguments, so I'll hide behind my authoritah!". Imagine any dispute you've had with someone with authority over you (boss/upper managment/teachers/parents) who used this line of thinking ("because I said so!") and recall how annoying that is.
Not only that, but it is something no leader should do, ever. If someone is struggling for power for sake of power, indulging him in this fight will only make things worse, because essentially you join his game. You're already one move behind. But Pbartender already described what you could do instead, so I'll leave it at that

 

[jbear]

I might be missing something here, but didn't you say the guy was your friend?

Friends usually talk problems out when they arise, or at least they should if they intend on being friends for very long.

Snarky remarks at the table aren't going to get you any where. Not anywhere you want to go. it will just create tension. You'll feel bad. He'll feel bad. Everyone will feel uncomfortable.

As for tricking you into provoking a 'whatever' from 'whoever'... well, lesson learnt, and he's unlikely to pull that off twice now isn't he. As for second guessing a plot.... be flexible with your 'plot'. A story can grow in quite a dynamic manner. Take comments, suspicions and the fears of your players and turn them into a reality... only even worse. Have fun with it.

I remember a night when two of my players got together to try their hand at DMing. The other players weren't accostomed to their authority and were second guessing them a lot. I bit my tongue until I couldn't anymore. They had written a big 'intro' into the adventure whereby we were taken onto a slave ship. Only they tried to do it in a way that our characters could 'act'... only they couldn't really act, because everything we tried was met with an obstacle. I even wounded myself to fill my mouth with blood. All I wanted to do was spit on the captain. I asked them to tell me if he came near me. Strangely he didn't... it felt like an opportunity missed out of fear i was going to come up with something that was going to mess with their story that they wouldn't know how to handle. One of the other players however was out of line with her second guessing. I didn't interfere because they had to be able to sort it out themselves.

When the battle came around ( a monstrously over powered woman riding a kraken, accompanied by some other nasties... far above our level 1 capabilities), I suspected, and rightly so, that we weren't meant to fight these people, that they wanted something that had nothing to do with us, an idol of a goddess we found in the cargo hold. Our cleric worshipped the same god and so when our captors forced us up onto the deck to fight we ran out singing praise to this goddess and declaring our loyalties.

So, as we had guessed far too early what was going on, the novice DMs conferred and decided since they didn't have any other material prepared, they needed to make it harder than that. The woman decided we were mocking her goddess and began shouting unintelligible words at us. We were balsted for a round. The enemy was so powerful that in one round our cleric was reduced to dying and we couldn't hit anything, and the few of us who did hardly caused a scratch.

So totally frustrated my character picked the idol of the clerics dying body and marched to the edge of the boat, dropped my weapons, bared my chest and offered the idol up to the woman. Of course she accepted it and their attacks ceased. Suddenly she started talking about doing her a favour. Well, neither, nor my character felt like listening to her spiel as the cleric lay with her head mangled and dying on the ship's floor. I interrupted at this point, and demanded if she wanted to beg any favours then she would have to heal our dying companion first.

They were offended by me cutting them off, decided that she was too. And off she went, leaving us to battle our captors.

It was tense from this point out and noone was having very much fun. It was a mistake on my part. i wasn't sympathetic enough to the difficulties they were facing. The other player was totally out of line, and had already created earlier tensions. Their inexperience was part of the problem too, an inability to take the players input and create a game with it.

That is a very important part of a DMs job. If your player goes to the effort of making a successful stealth check to secretly wound his own wrists and take blood into his mouth without the guards notice, at least provide him with a chance to spit on someone. Would it have changed anything... yes, I would have felt like I was playing a game and not stuck in a movie.

As for setting up unlikely scenarios where massive amounts of suspension of disbelief is required... well, your players can only do so much. Throwing encounters at them where there is only one solution (which is then changed if the pcs hit on it too quickly) is not a good design either.

It is difficult to know exactly how problematic your player is, the information offered is a little scarce. 8 months of experience is not a lot, but not little either. You can learn a lot in 8 months.

My suggestion would be to have a friendly chat with your mate, tell you'd like him to ease off. Tell him you are making an effort to improve your DMing but you'd appreciate his support at the table during that learning process.

Then I'd get hold of some modules, even from earlier editions, and rip out all the parts of them you like (especially storywise). Readjust them to fit into the system you are playing, put them all together with your personal touch. This will give you a lot more confidence than running stuff that you have made yourself.

 

[jimmifett]

Doing so, would on the spot transform problem into conflict. Besides, if the "problem" here is that he out thinks DM rule and tactic-wise, it will also be detrimental to the DM himself. Because by taking this stance, you'd be basically saying: "I have no good arguments, so I'll hide behind my authoritah!".

I'm of differing opinion. When I'm DM and i've had players that have already played a module and start to spoil it for others or question when I change up order of events or start questioning DM descisions I normally try to ignore the player and push the game forward for the fun of all. Usually one of the other players ask for me "are you the DM?" and this ends the other player's annoying tendencies.

But if after a time no one else has spoken up, I will do so myself in as calm a manner as possible. With work and family, my time for fun is limited and valuable to me. I am not there to argue the finer points of rules discussion DURING the game (afterwards, sure), I am there to make fair rulings and present an entertaining time for all. If a player cannot act accordingly during the game, they get thier one warning that session, then they can GTFO. I don't baby or coddle the feelings of players. They are adults (or teens wanting to be treated as adults) and can act like it. Sure, there is the occaision that I risk coming off as a jerk, but I can live with that and my players know I'm fair. If i'm not having fun too, I'm not going to be as enthused about running the adventure, and the players will notice me not caring and the fun level will depreciate for all. If a problem player can't be dealt with early in a session, it's better they aren't there.