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<blockquote data-quote="Shiroiken" data-source="post: 8240076" data-attributes="member: 6775477">A DM wears 3 hats: author, judge, and storyteller. Before the session I work as an author, designing challenges for the party to overcome. I'm personally a bit on the &quot;evil&quot; side, often designing challenges with no obvious solutions. I used to ignore CR, but I've started looking at XGtE's charts lately to gauge strength. Logic outweighs encounter balance, however, so if it makes sense for there to be 50 orcs, then I'm not going to tone it down to 12 just because. I always assume my players are going to outwit me, because 95% of the time, they do.During the session, I'm a judge: I try to impartially interpret the actions of the player by the rules. If they find and exploit a weakness I didn't intend, well good for them. If they miss something obvious, well that sucks. The dice are the final arbiter of anything in question, and they will kill PCs. Enemies in combat will act according to their intelligence and motivations listed in the adventure (or added by me).Being a storyteller takes place both before and during the session. I not only design challenges beforehand, but I also design story elements to motivate and affect the PCs. Sometimes these challenges draw upon the backstory, personality, bonds, and flaws of a character, and I try to focus upon the character development that might occur. During the session, I try to describe the world and events in a way to give the players the feeling of being in the world. Just as my encounter design is considered a bit &quot;evil,&quot; I do have a tendency to do this with my storytelling as well, but my players are aware that I run a mature game with adult themes.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Shiroiken, post: 8240076, member: 6775477"] A DM wears 3 hats: author, judge, and storyteller. Before the session I work as an author, designing challenges for the party to overcome. I'm personally a bit on the "evil" side, often designing challenges with no obvious solutions. I used to ignore CR, but I've started looking at XGtE's charts lately to gauge strength. Logic outweighs encounter balance, however, so if it makes sense for there to be 50 orcs, then I'm not going to tone it down to 12 just because. I always assume my players are going to outwit me, because 95% of the time, they do. During the session, I'm a judge: I try to impartially interpret the actions of the player by the rules. If they find and exploit a weakness I didn't intend, well good for them. If they miss something obvious, well that sucks. The dice are the final arbiter of anything in question, and they will kill PCs. Enemies in combat will act according to their intelligence and motivations listed in the adventure (or added by me). Being a storyteller takes place both before and during the session. I not only design challenges beforehand, but I also design story elements to motivate and affect the PCs. Sometimes these challenges draw upon the backstory, personality, bonds, and flaws of a character, and I try to focus upon the character development that might occur. During the session, I try to describe the world and events in a way to give the players the feeling of being in the world. Just as my encounter design is considered a bit "evil," I do have a tendency to do this with my storytelling as well, but my players are aware that I run a mature game with adult themes. [/QUOTE]

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