The Grand Adventure (or, a first time DMs trials and tribulations)

[Victrix]

Which really, is a much more impressive topic title than the content you are likely to find here

My friends and I just recently decided to start playing D&D (3.5), and as I was the driving force behind this, I'm now in the DMs chair, frantically attempting to recall rules, arbitrate the ones we do remember, keep the adventure moving, keep the combats moving, act out the NPCs with some semblance of realism, and vainly strive to give the players a glimpse into another world.

We're playing in the Forgotten Realms. Due to time constraints, all the adventures will be preprepared. Last weekend, we started on the Forge of Fury (wth is with that Roper and the Dragon?). There have been some screwed up rules, some confusion about characters and combat, and a general amount of bumbling along, but my players seem to be having fun, and I am, so that's all that really matters. Their next step will likely be a Dungeon adventure, but which one depends on what they decide to pursue.

Adlibbing an adventure fills me with something like cold, stark terror, due in large part to the limited amount of time I have to prepare any adventure. I've been reading and soaking up advice like a sponge, but the time to act on some of the useful tips I've found doesn't exist at the moment. At the same time, I don't want to railroad the players, and I'd like them to have choices about where to go and what to do (within some limits, even with extra prepared encounters and mini-adventures, I can only wing it so far at this point).

I've got a good selection of books for reference material, and a nice stack of Dungeons from when I had a subscription some years ago. I've also got plenty of miscellaneous rules questions and probably a few about general DMing, but I suppose those belong over in the rules forum.

I tell you what - D&D is *really* well designed. It's very easy to explain, easy to play, and pretty easy to extrapolate from existing rules for unexpected situations.

At the same time, it sometimes has an annoying amount of Rules In Different Places (advancing the Druid's Wolf companion proved to be a book and page shuffling wonder), and while the DMG (and DMG2) have some excellent and well written tools for constructing adventures, campaigns, monsters, classes, items, and so on, they tend to run light on practical advice for how to pull it all together and actually play the game. That might seem painfully obvious, but I assure you, to my group of players and to me, it is anything but.

The books seem to bizarrely skirt around the issue of actually playing the game. The PHB has straightforward and nicely organized tools to create a character, and mostly clear rules for combat and spells. The DMG has straightforward and nicely organized tools to create an adventure, trap, monster encounter, npc, map, campaign, magic item, and so on, but while it happily dances around concepts of playing the game, it never really digs into them with as much vigor as other topics.

On some level, I wish there were a set of 'newbie oriented' modules out there. I realize that Sunless Citadel/FoF/etc are probably partially supposed to fill this need, and Dungeon adventures provide a lot of grist for the mill, but even with those resources, some things simply aren't obvious.

Ah well. Again, as long as we're having fun, I suppose that's the most important point. I just want to provide all the hooks I can for my players to have fun with. Especially in the case of one of my players who spent some time on his background and would be prime for a set of custom encounters and adventures oriented around his character (something that I can't quite so easily adapt from a printed module or a Dungeon adventure).

That's enough words for now

 

[The_Gneech]

Hail and welcome! As for introductory materials, there is a lot to be learned on the Wizards of the Coast site, particularly in the adventures section. When it comes to handling the rules, don't panic and just make your best ruling with the information you've got. As you get a little practice under your belt, it'll rapidly come faster and more naturally to you.

-The Gneech

 

[Victrix]

Ooh, great link, thank you. I was just discussing the possibility of running mini adventures for two of my more enthusiastic players, so those should do nicely for that purpose.

I also realized that I haven't really *used* the DMG (mechanically) yet. It rarely seemed to get referenced while we played (a good thing imo). I'm realizing its more of a construction kit than a rulebook at the table (in most cases). So I may sit down and try to hash out at least a small adventure by hand, just to get a feel for it. Assuming I can get the time of course

The most useful bits I can think of to create would be mini adventures and encounters/fights/npcs/locations that are *directly* relevant to something the players have done or sought out. Tricky to come up with if they just say 'we ride north for a week', but if they follow along with introduced npcs and situations in the adventure, I might be able to come up with some likely stuff that they'd actually run into.

 

[derbacher]

Originally posted by Victrix
On some level, I wish there were a set of 'newbie oriented' modules out there. I realize that Sunless Citadel/FoF/etc are probably partially supposed to fill this need, and Dungeon adventures provide a lot of grist for the mill, but even with those resources, some things simply aren't obvious.

A good one for this is Orcfest by Fantasy Flight Games. It is 3.0, but easily converted. It went through an adventure, adding rules and pointing out what to do and when to do it for the new GM. It is still out there, and can usually be found pretty cheap. I used it when 3.0 started, and had my daughter use it when she ran her first game. It does a great job of hand-holding while you learn things.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

The books seem to bizarrely skirt around the issue of actually playing the game. The PHB has straightforward and nicely organized tools to create a character, and mostly clear rules for combat and spells. The DMG has straightforward and nicely organized tools to create an adventure, trap, monster encounter, npc, map, campaign, magic item, and so on, but while it happily dances around concepts of playing the game, it never really digs into them with as much vigor as other topics.

This is so true it makes my teeth hurt. I'm glad to see it pointed out. People typically pick up "how to play" by osmosis, through joining experienced groups; it's not at all easy or obvious. I mean, prewritten modules handle the scenario design part, but what people actually do during a session still has to get figured out.

Good news, though: If everybody at the table is honest about what they like and don't like about the sessions, and everybody's supportive of each other, it's really not that hard to get everybody into a groove that works for that particular group. Heck, it'll probably be easier than it is for a lot of people, because it sounds like the people in the group were friends before the game started.

As for resources, there's a book called Robin's Laws that you can probably find on Amazon; it's pretty useful. Dungeon sometimes has some pretty good advice, and the shorter adventures are good examples of how little you can prep and still have an interesting session.

My other suggestion is a little "out there", but I've gotten a lot of use out of it. It sounds like you want to incorporate elements into the adventures that deal with the character's individual issues, which I love doing. I got a lot of value out of the book Sorcerer & Sword, which is available at http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/ and other places. It's technically a supplement for another RPG, but most of the book is solid, no-nonsense advice about how you can create scenarios, even whole campaigns, based on the classic sword & sorcery model. If you like R.E.Howard's original Conan stories, Moorcock's Elric, or Fritz Leiber's stuff, there's a lot you can draw from here.

What I like about Robin's Laws and S&Sword is that they're not specific about in-game stuff; they're about the players and GM working together to figure out what's the most fun for them. Get that part right, and believe me, any "mistakes" you make on the technical side aren't important.

The big thing is to relax and enjoy it. You don't need a lot of prep and backstory to have a fun campaign; stringing together modules, playing up the things the players get most interested in, and slowly dropping in some improvised stuff (and expanding it as your comfort level goes up), and you'll be golden.

 

[Wraith Form]

This is so true it makes my teeth hurt. **SNIP**

The big thing is to relax and enjoy it. You don't need a lot of prep and backstory to have a fun campaign; stringing together modules, playing up the things the players get most interested in, and slowly dropping in some improvised stuff (and expanding it as your comfort level goes up), and you'll be golden.

Yeah, that was an excellent observation, Victrix, about the DMG skirting around the adventure-running process--and I agree 100% (being fairly unskilled at DMing myself). I'll be in the "hot seat" fairly soon, so it's reassuring to read that I'm not the only one a bit nervous about running a game..!

Thanks for the advice, Sweeney...I've seen Robin's Laws around and for some dumb reason never stopped to buy it, but I always suspected it was a good resource.

Victirix, Sweeney has the right idea here...have fun, do your best and try to relax and it'll come out OK. (I say that from my limited DMing experiences.) Continue to ask advice on these boards, too--there are some exceptionally intelligent and creative (& friendly!) people here that will do everything they can to help.

 

[Victrix]

This is so true it makes my teeth hurt. I'm glad to see it pointed out. People typically pick up "how to play" by osmosis, through joining experienced groups; it's not at all easy or obvious. I mean, prewritten modules handle the scenario design part, but what people actually do during a session still has to get figured out.

Which is tricky when your entire group is new Still, even failing ALL other aspects of the game, D&D makes for a fairly entertaining skirmish combat game. My group is all tactically minded, and we've played together (in other types of games, video games, online games, etc) for years, so we tend to go through combats in a quick and entertaining manner. I (and some of my players) hunger for a bit more than a string of monsterbashing, though none of us are interested in straight IC roleplaying for 15 minutes at a time.

I suppose it will just evolve in time.

Good news, though: If everybody at the table is honest about what they like and don't like about the sessions, and everybody's supportive of each other, it's really not that hard to get everybody into a groove that works for that particular group. Heck, it'll probably be easier than it is for a lot of people, because it sounds like the people in the group were friends before the game started.

Indeed, longtime friends, so reading their likes and dislikes is a lot easier. Creating or modifying content to match those whims? Well, we'll see

As for resources, there's a book called Robin's Laws that you can probably find on Amazon; it's pretty useful. Dungeon sometimes has some pretty good advice, and the shorter adventures are good examples of how little you can prep and still have an interesting session.

Robin wrote the beginning section of the DMG2 didn't he? It was exceptionally useful and well written advice, though perhaps not entirely relevant to my situation, and again, focused mostly on pre and post-game topics, rather than large amounts of in-game topics. Makes me curious about that book though.

Dungeon (and Dragon) has lots of useful small articles on various aspects of playing the game, but the problem is, they tend to be scattered through a foothigh stack of issues, on a wildly disparate series of topics. I wish there was a Book of Playing D&D. I suppose D&D for Dummies or Laws is as close as I'm going to get I'll poke around for Robin's Laws.

My other suggestion is a little "out there", but I've gotten a lot of use out of it. It sounds like you want to incorporate elements into the adventures that deal with the character's individual issues, which I love doing.

Absolutely, I can't imagine what could be more fun for them than to find hooks that suit their character, and adventures that are keyed off of those situations. Even small encounters or situations in the world. "The High Forest is expanding northward" prompted a flurry of note taking and curious questions from the party Druid, and that was just an offhand mention when he queried a ranger guide en route to Khundrukar.

I got a lot of value out of the book Sorcerer & Sword, which is available at http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/ and other places. It's technically a supplement for another RPG, but most of the book is solid, no-nonsense advice about how you can create scenarios, even whole campaigns, based on the classic sword & sorcery model. If you like R.E.Howard's original Conan stories, Moorcock's Elric, or Fritz Leiber's stuff, there's a lot you can draw from here.

Love all of them, though I don't know if my players do. Which company? I don't see any search function on there, and the catalog looks to be organized by company, not alphabetically, unless I'm blind.

What I like about Robin's Laws and S&Sword is that they're not specific about in-game stuff; they're about the players and GM working together to figure out what's the most fun for them. Get that part right, and believe me, any "mistakes" you make on the technical side aren't important.

Yeah, that's part of what I'm looking for. Also, solid advice for using the tools presented would be very helpful as well. The DMG/2 have plenty of tools to put together an adventure, but you can't hand someone a carpenters toolbox and expect them to build a house, which is how I feel

The big thing is to relax and enjoy it. You don't need a lot of prep and backstory to have a fun campaign; stringing together modules, playing up the things the players get most interested in, and slowly dropping in some improvised stuff (and expanding it as your comfort level goes up), and you'll be golden.

Yah, that's the hope. Two of the players are interested enough (after our first session wound up being a marathon 8 hour game from 8pm to 4am ) to have asked me to run some small adventures for the two of them, as our third player can't play in the 'main' game as frequently. I'm looking over resources for some one shots, and maybe I'll use this smaller group to test some handmade adventures.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Sorry. Sorcerer & Sword is by Adept Press; you can also get it directly from www.sorcerer-rpg.com. I don't want to push any product too hard, it's just a resource I've found useful in "bottom-up" campaign design, where how things go in the first few sessions shape the direction of later games.

Robin's Laws is mostly about figuring out what your players will like, and giving it to them. It might be useful after you've got a few more sessions under your belt and want to start tailoring adventures to the types of action your group shows an interest in.

I daresay you're in an uncommon situation with a group where nobody's played before. Hopefully we can rustle up some additional advice.

One thing you might try with the one-shots is to take the situation as presented (in Dungeon or off the Wizards website), and modify motivations and personalities of the NPCs involved. That way, at least to start with you won't have to think about balancing combat or making maps and can start tweaking the little things.

 

[Victrix]

Got it, I'll look that over

Hmm, the DMG2 covered that in some detail at the beginning, it sounds similar. I know all of my friends very well, and vice versa, so the 'figuring out' info is somewhat less useful than the 'do this' info. There aren't any personality conflicts, I don't have to deal with any smelly uncouth individuals, and there's a distinct lack of non game melodrama, so that's fairly well taken care of

I do still keep tabs on who tends to brighten up when a particular game element comes up. What I want to learn is how best to extend those moments into more fleshed out and lengthy encounters or full adventures. Be it tweaking a pre-made adventure slightly to conform more to the party, or crafting something from whole cloth.

I've begun to do that to some extent - inserting an npc here or there, or tweaking encounters (eg, the Succubus in FoF seemed gratuitous and stupid, I've replaced it with a dwarven spirit to tie into the dwarven undead section better, and give an alternate dialogue area, as with a Gold Dwarf in the party, the Duergar are going to be hostile at best). And so on - little things really. The tricky part is moving it from 'idea' or 'brief encounter' to something more fleshed out.

At some point soon, I'll try to sit down and do something custom for the smaller two person group, they're not going to complain loudly if it sucks, I'll just keep a backup premade adventure that I've gone over in case we wind up in trainwreck territory.

 

[Dave Turner]

Victrix,

If you're going to be pressed for time and are going to rely on published advenures, you could do far worse than to pick up the new Shackled City Adventure Path book. It's a massive campaign that takes characters from 1st to 20th level. It was originally published serially in Dungeon magazine. The new book compiles all the original material and adds new stuff. I've never played it myself, but it's a "campaign in a box" and, from what I hear, is well-received.