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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bento" data-source="post: 4578112" data-attributes="member: 36597">Good thing about the game is you can often accomodate several different styles whether during a single session or over several. A good plan would be to make sure you have different opportunities during the session for different types of activities to take place. I also recommend running different types of adventures.   A really good source for learning how to do this is the Dungeon Master Guide 2. The front section provides tips and tools on how to plan and hit the right buttons for your players. About every 9 to 12 months I re-read it and pick up something new. I'd second der_kluge's advice on XP and action points. There's info on how to manage action points in both the Eberron Campaign Setting book and Unearthed Arcana. As for levelling up, don't give XP, but level up after accomplishing a story arc. Also make sure you have different ways for your players to solve encounters. If you always offer them opportunities to fight, they are going to take that route. Sometimes you have to pit them against a really powerful foe, or give them incentives not to fight (they solve a short term problem but make matters worse).  Some players may take to this while others will not. For those that don't at least insist they provide you some goals, character flaws, traits, etc. You can often use these to get them engaged in the story as much as you can a detailed history. Also be sure to pay back players who give you backgrounds. While it doesn't have to be central to the adventures, its nice that from time to time something from their past or a goal comes up that they can make progress towards.  Start with a mystery? That can be a good start, but takes some planning as you'll want to have some of the story perameters figured out. Who's making this happen? Why did they do it? How will the player's action affect things? What do you anticipate the player's actions to lead to?  You might want to also check some of the Story Hour threads for plot inspirations. Some of them are really mind blowing! Also don't be afraid to steal, er I mean appropriate, a really good story. As long as it isn't one the players are familiar with, it will be new and novel. There is now a lot of 3.5 material in used bookstores and pdfs at heavy discounts. Find out some of the best ones and read through them looking at how you could possibly use them as future advenures. Red Hand of Doom, and many of the Dungeon Crawl Classics by Goodman Games are really good to mine for ideas. Anyhoo, good luck and we hope to hear back on how it goes!</blockquote>

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