Tips for a fledgling DM?

Salad Shooter

First Post
I've never really DMed before, most of my experience in that area comes from spur of the moment, single session hack and slash games, and watching my DMs. Are there any tips on how to run a campaign for 4-5 players that I should know? Things I should or shouldn't do? Things to watch for? General Tips? Anything would be appreciated.
 

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Keep things simple, you can make them complicated later. Keep the game flow moving, a stalled out game is tough to get goiong again. Have fun, relax, and just do your best.
 

Main suggestion I can make is to always have a general idea of where you want the story to go but know that players will probably get there in ways you never thought of. Know the area and the scene, and let them figure out how to play it.
 

There must be a hundred of these threads.

Simple Tips:
1) Start small - don't decide to create a massive home brew campaign world and not start playing until you finish it. The idea is play, either choose a prefab world or make up a small piece of a home brew and build it as you go.
2) Start small - likewise, don't stat up the Wizard/Lich/Vampire BBEG the party will take on when they reach level 19 now. He should just be a name that people who work for him know. None of his 1st level underlings should have met him.
3) Don't over plan - players never go where you want them to go. This is not a bad thing. Just don't spend 90 hours creating the perfect dungeon crawl and get upset when they decide to buy horse and ride to the next town because they've heard the wine is better there.
4) Don't under plan - This is actually harder to deal with. But don't be afraid to tell the players that they've gone somewhere you didn't expect and that you need a few minutes to think about it.
5) Write down every good idea your PLAYERS give you - They sit there at the table with you trying to figure out what's going on and while doing so they come up with ideas you never considered and which are better than you considered. Steal these ideas and spring them on the party in a later adventure.
6) Keep it Simple - don't create elaborate plots with 100 red herrings unless you like to annoy your players.
7) Keep things moving - Every game put out by Steve Jackson Games has the 50/50 rule in it. Every GM should know it. If you have no idea how something should work that the player attempt, roll a die behind the screen and if it is in the high 50% he succeeds otherwise he fails. This assumes there isn't a rule for the action - does the princess blush at his galant advance? You could use Diplomacy versus Sense Motive but that doesn't tell you whether or not she is flattered at the attempt, just whether she recognizes it as flattery.
 


Flexor the Mighty! said:
Just always remember what is best about being a DM...

Murdering PCs with more prejudice than is available in Trent Lott's house?

Oh wait no, the best thing about DMing is creating your own world. My bad. GAME ON!
 
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Re: planning. I often find that inside of planning 'The PC's go here, and then here, and then here' I'm better off planning 'The orcs are trying to capture this village. The kobalds are helping but will run the moment things look bad.' Plan out NPC plots and motivations then adapting as the PC's inevitably find things to do I didn't expect.:)
 

tips

don't be afraid to have one or more of your players help you to keep track of things. when ever I get bogged down in my game with too much stuff I will tell one of my players to keep track of the innitiative, run basic npc henchmen etc. this frees you up to concentrate on running the encounters.

this is major. REALIZE EARLY ON THAT YOU CAN KILL THE PC'S AT ANY TIME. DONT MAKE EVERY ENCOUNTER A DEATH ENCOUNTER.

it usually thakes new DM's a while that they are not trying to BEAT the players, but rather to run a chalanging and interesting game where the players can shine and have fun.

remember. you don't have to always be right but you do set policy. so if you make a mistake and your players point it out to you then be prepaired to change your mind or at least to explain to your players why you want to chang or eliminate the rule in question.
 

Thanks! All sorts of nifty tips. I remember the one non-hack/slash game I did run (a Vampire: the Masquerade game) ended in disaster after the players did something I didn't expect, completely trashing the storyline...gotta love players, I know, I'm a player myself :-)...with all this sage advice, how can my campaign go wrong? Heh...overly-creative players....oh well, when I run a game, it'll be MY turn to take a beating, right?
 

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