So, I am going to become a RPGA DM

[smerwin29]

The Introductory Adventures have nothing to do with the experience of the judge or the players. They are specifically designed (or at least they are supposed to be) to be played by 1st-level characters and introduce the players to certain aspects of the campaign: NPCs, plots, settings, etc. Although I am not familiar with any of the Bissel intro mods, I strongly suggest playing as many of them as you can before PCs hit 2nd level.

 

[pedr]

Now, though, I have to order an adventure. Should I do the Introductory Adventures first? Are they helpful, even though I am anexperienced GM outside of the RPGA? Should I make contact with my triad, even though I am going to start with a home game? Any special notes about doing it this way?

If you are going to run a regional adventure, like a Bissel introductory then you'll have to make contact with your triad. The only adventures you actually download from the RPGA members' area are Core adventures - all the others are place-holders. Ignore the document which is available for download with the placeholder as it's out of date. Instead, first check that an adventure exists to match the placeholder. Second, once you've ordered it (or the generic 'Living Greyhawk Introduction' placeholder), send an email to your triad's Point of Contact (POC, address should be in the LGCS and on their website) with the name of the adventure you want to run and the event code which the RPGA system generated for you. They should then send you the scenario files and passwords. It's worth doing this as far in advance as possible as it relies on a volunteer to have time to process the request.

You can also download most regional and metaregional adventures (but not introductories) from the RPGA website itself: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=lg/region/bissel for Bissel and http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=lg/region/sheldomar for metaregionals. This is only of limited use, though, as the files are password protected and you don't get the Adventure Record file, so you'll still have to contact your triad for those.

One warning: introductory adventures are still written for parties with an average party level of 2, which is only possible if there is a table of six 1st level characters, or people bring lots of riding dogs or warhorses. It's strongly recommended that you play intro adventures with full tables of six - or with very well designed characters. The only TPK we've had in our local group which has run games pretty much weekly since the start of year 2 of the campaign was when I was DMing a party of 4, including 2 people who were new to D&D, through an Onnwal intro module. Fortunately the newbies weren't too put off and have come back for more!

Welcome to the unique world of RPGA DMing - have fun!

 

[Ghendar]

First session do a total party kill to establish your authority.

Sounds like a KoDT strip.

 

[Hellefire]

Homeplay rules

For home games, they need to be registered as home games at least 5 days in advance. Just put Homegame as convention type, use the Home game filter, and select the campaing world (or home if its your own) from the list of available of adventures and add it. Afterwards, you need to go back in and fill in rpga numebrs for the DM and players. Pretty easy really, and using an entirely homebrew world with your own house rules, etc is fine. Only worth 1 RPGA point per 'session', but easy to do.

I have also been interested in starting some Living campaigns lately, but found I stabbed myself in the back. My players are all new to gaming. I introduced all 5 of them. I've been doing it for 27 years, and am pretty good at getting people hooked. The down-side is, I got them so interested in the campaign I started for them, that they want to keep playing those characters and in that campaign. I ordered and played a couple modules for them for one of our game days, to give them ideas of what higher level characters can do and to expand their horizons some. A couple got into it some, but most just whined about getting back to my campaign world. So I'm not sure how to talk them in to trying the Living thing. Another problem - I am in Poland, where there is no LG realm,and few or no RPGA memebers (as far as I know I was the first). I also don't speak Polish, so my pool of possible players is shrunk to those who speak English. The only thing I have figured out so far is to play some online LG games. So, I am working on that and trying to find new players.

Whew, sorry for going off on a tangent. The home play thing is pretty easy for RPGA. If you have any questions about that let me know. LG things - I am a complete newbie, the closest I have ever gotten was old Camarilla/LARP stuff (as far as a large area multiple player persistent world). But I am looking forward to learning.

Aaron

 

[Emirikol]

You'll enjoy home-gaming LG. I always did

jh

 

[Reynard]

It looks like things are coming together -- at least for having 4 consistent players, anyway. So now the question is whether I should run one of the camapigns (one of the prospective players mentioned Legacy of the Green Regent) or just random adventures that look cool?

Any advice?

 

[Hellefire]

Well, there are essential differences between campaigns and random adventures. The main difference being characters and consistency. While you can use the same characters in random adventures, in my experience they toss pre-gen characters at you a lot. Of course, these can be adapted. With a campaign, well, you have the same characters with a somewhat logical timeline. It helps with the verisimilitude and suspended disbelief. I tend to use an ongoing campaign for the msot part, with some random adventures thrown in for variety or during logical breaks.

Aaron

 

[MerricB]

It looks like things are coming together -- at least for having 4 consistent players, anyway. So now the question is whether I should run one of the camapigns (one of the prospective players mentioned Legacy of the Green Regent) or just random adventures that look cool?

Any advice?

Legacy of the Green Regent is over; you're not going to be able to play that campaign (except possibly for the last adventure).

You should definitely *not* run random adventures. Most RPGA play these days is in one of the two styles of campaign - the "Living" campaign such as Living Greyhawk or the "D&D Campaign" of which Living Greyhawk, Xen'Drik Expeditions and Mark of Heroes are the main ones.

From my own experiences, I'd strongly recommend... doing both. I run a RPGA adventure every Friday afternoon. Xen'Drik Expeditions is just getting started, so that's a good way to start (note, the online character tracking is currently badly broken, but you can still play the first set of adventures without trouble).

Here are the pros and cons of each campaign style:

Living Greyhawk
Pros:
- About 20-35 available adventures each year (and you can play any adventure released in the last 2 years)
- Adventures available for levels 1-16.
- Certain published adventures may be run in Living Greyhawk (Fantastic Locations, Red Hand of Doom are planned).
- Set in Greyhawk

Cons:
- Characters must begin at 1st level. This is a *real* pain when you have someone new to the group. It causes me the most frustration.
- Character tracking involves much paperwork.

Differences:
- Characters are run more as a regular home game, maintaining equipment, feats, etc. from session to session.

Mark of Heroes
Pros:
- New characters always begin at a level commensurate with the rest of the party.
- Least paperwork of the three campaigns
- "DM's Marks" allow the DM to create their own adventures, in addition to the regular releases.
- Set in Eberron

Cons:
- Not the breadth of adventure choice of Living Greyhawk
- Adventures aren't available every month.
- Not that many adventures
- Campaign currently at 10th level, moving towards its end.
- Online character tracker currently broken.
- Limited lifespan

Differences:
- Characters are tracked online for class, level & GP. They may be radically rebuilt between sessions. MoH is a good campaign to experiment with, and is also great for people who don't play D&D regularly.

Xen'Drik Expeditions
Pros:
- New characters always begin at a level commensurate with the rest of the party.
- Four different factions (it's almost like 4 campaigns), each with different goals and adventures.
- Less paperwork than Living Greyhawk
- "DM's Marks" allow the DM to create their own adventures, in addition to the regular releases.
- Set in Eberron
- Limited lifespan

Cons:
- Not the breadth of adventure choice of Living Greyhawk
- Adventures aren't available every month* (possibly. For the period September 2006-January 2007 there are only 5 adventures available).
- Not that many adventures
- Character tracking online is currently broken

Differences
- Cabal of Shadows faction allows evil characters. Character level & gold is tracked online, and a adventure journal keeps track of advancement choices, so there isn't the radical retooling per Mark of Heroes.

###

I run all three games. Living Greyhawk is really great, but, as I said, when I have to introduce a new player to the group, things really get tricky - a 1st level PC doesn't fit into a group of levels 6-7. It works somewhat better as a convention game where you can always find other groups of the right level.

Mark of Heroes & XE suffer from the lack of adventures (I can run LG every week, but that's not true of those two campaigns), but they're much friendlier to new players.

I like them all. I'd recommend you start with a few Xen'drik Expeditions & Living Greyhawk adventures, and see how it goes.

Cheers!

 

[Reynard]

What about Living Kingdoms of Kalamar. I can't tell from Kenzer's site if this is still active or not, or even if it is D&D 3.5 or just 3.0. Does anyone play LKoK? If so, how many players are there out there? I have always wanted to try KoK as a setting and if LKoK is an active RPGA setting/campaign, it might be a good opportunity.

 

[Silver Moon]

My wife and I were the RPGA Coordinators for two different annual conventions for a number of years. My top three pieces of advice are:

1. Let the players role play. The worst RPGA DM's I've ever seen are the ones who curtail role playing in order to make sure they complete the entire module. Unfortunately many modules put all of the "good stuff" at the end, but I would not let that get in the way of a chance for people to play, after all, the first two words in the organization's name is Role Players so let them role play. So what happens if they spend a half-hour role playing in encounter two in a six-encounter module? You make encounters three and four as simple and quick as possible so allow time at the end to not only finish the module but allow for more role playing.


2. Don't let cheaters spoil the game for you and others. The single most common type of cheating that I've seen (and it happened a lot) was folks would find out from their buddies key information from somebody who played the same module in an earlier time slot (or even worse, actually read a copy of it). If the player is blatant about the inside knowledge call a break and take them aside and confront them directly. If they are more subtle but you still suspect they know things that they shouldn't call a break and take them aside, but make the conversation about how they shouldn't dominate the game and should also give the other players at the table a chance to play.


3. Don't take a bad judging score personally. There are many styles of gaming and people are used to what they are used to. Chances are you'll run into players whose preferred style differs from how you run your game. It happens, just try to make sure the majority of the players at the table have fun, you can't always please everybody.