Rodney Thompson Looks Behind The Screen

WotC's Rodney Thompson is the author of the first in a new series of articles on the official D&D website, "a regular column by Dungeon Masters for Dungeon Masters that presents helpful tips for use in your D&D campaign." The first article looks at the creation of an adventure cheat/prep sheet, incuding the adventure, interludes, character arcs, encounters, and more.

You can read it here. Additionally, check out the DM Support Group video below!

[video=youtube;teHtEpCk64Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teHtEpCk64Y#t=123[/video]
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[Dire Bare]

Y'know when I said "tone down the snide" I didn't mean "magnify the snide by a factor of 10 and direct it back at people who have posted in this thread."

Sorry. I realized my own overreaction after seeing your first post, although just after I had posted myself. Tried to get back in to edit quickly, but not quick enough.

Good article for new DMs. If you're not a new DM, the article is not for you. Move along.

I would have loved articles like this when I was starting out.

Much better expression of my own thoughts. Thanks!

 

[Psikerlord#]

That type of article is going to be more for the Unearthed Arcana column. Find the link to the Ebberon article, and you'll see in the bold "what this column is for" they seem to be doing for a standard opening paragraph, they mention it there. This column is just doing what it says on the tin... tips for DMs, not variant rules.

True, probably better belongs in UA, but I thought the opening blurb did talk about DMs and their house rules as well as tips etc.

 

[lkj]

They have provided more DM advice today:

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/dm-support-group

I found it amusing. It is worth staying through the outtake. For the bees.

AD

 

[Sir Brennen]

True, probably better belongs in UA, but I thought the opening blurb did talk about DMs and their house rules as well as tips etc.

Actually, you're correct. They mention house rules in the text of both columns. Maybe the nature of house-rules will determine which column they'll present them in, like "I give bonus XP to players that bring me a Coke" would go in this one

 

[neobolts]

A nice DM 101 article. Made me wonder if I am not laying the story threads as much as I could be.

 

[Mercurius]

I actually found it useful and might give the template a whirl for my upcoming beginning session.

Some of you folks need to remember that not everyone is an experienced and/or recently practiced DM. There are new DMs out there, and DMs like me who have been playing for decades but not a lot lately and looking for ways to simplify and speed up prep.

The only thing lacking from the article is an example. I would have loved to see an actual cheat sheet from Rodney's campaign.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I liked the "previously on..." recap style. Definitely need to start building in some.pc backstory in our campaign and this was a good reminder of simple things that can easily be forgotten in the crash and thunder of the dice. And for a brand new dm I think this is excellent - we can all do with a reminder that we are ultimately presenting a weekly/biweekly episode of a shared drama* series.

* or comedy, depending.

 

[Curmudjinn]

While this may seem like obvious stuff to us seasoned DMs and players, there are many, many DMs who have zero structure to their games and seat-of-pants everything, then are depressed at their games constantly crashing and burning. I made myself stacks and stacks of 3x5 index cards over the years with cheat sheet information, now mostly lost to pizza stains and coffee spills.

I liked the article more as a reminder of things you forget over the years of running games. Most longterm DMs tailor their pre-game setup, but over time things that help the players or remind yourself may be overlooked. This could also serve as a reminder for module-DMs to not just run things by-the-book, adding in character and story detail of your own. There are plenty of tabletop gamers that are timid about drawing outside of the lines.

 

[JeffB]

For my own part, my comments were not based on quality of the article. As I have been running a kids game for the last 4 years, I am not lost on providing advice for newcomers.

My point is simply that these short web advice columns are the type of thing we would see multiple times per week, in editions past. On a great variety of topics. These days, this is our regular "support".


In addition, on the subject of the article: proper adventure support in bite size chunks, IME, is a better teaching tool than a web article. I would hate to be a new DM who used Phandelver and then had to step into the great void of 5e. The website is a major mess and hard to navigate, and the little adventure support there is, in the form of $30 hardcovers, needs a lot of massaging even for an experienced DM to make it work.

 

[HobbitFan]

Not a bad little article. Without the old mags, this is exactly the type of stuff they need to put on the website to support the game.

I know new DM me in the past would have appreciated the advice.

This and the UA Eberron article make a good start to website based support. The only niggle I have is how slow this is coming. The DM articles are going to be once a week and the UA stuff once a month.
I don't see why this couldn't have been up January.