Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
To DM or not to DM. That is the question. Any advice?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7505038" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Zethnos, some further thoughts in response to your post. I'll preface them by saying that they're my thoughts based on my experience, and whether or not they generalise to <em>your</em> experience and goals in RPGing is something for you to judge:</p><p></p><p>If you're a new GM I wouldn't encourage relying too heavily on random encounters, as they require you to establish situation in real time, and that can be hard if you're not used to it. I would have a few antagonists and situations worked up in advance. A good example of the sort of thing I have in mind is the Prince Valiant Episode Book (which I think is on DriveThruRPG if you have spare money - and <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?653690-Playing-Prince-Valiant-RPG" target="_blank">here's a link</a> to an actual play report about how I used it in a recent session).</p><p></p><p>Some ideas about situations and antagonists I think are much more useful than ideas about how things are going to unfold.</p><p></p><p>As a first time GM, I wouldn't recommend adopting the approach you describe here. Althoiugh you say you dont' have any idea about how it would end, you also say you've got plans for how the first few sessions would go - which is 9+ hours of play already pre-planned.</p><p></p><p>I would think hard about how you want to start, what springboards that will offer, and trying to make sure that those are interesting and can lead to further engaging situations. I wouldn't worry about how the second session will go until you've played the first. And I wouldn't encourage setting up 5-level goals: that looks like trying to pre-plan your players' actions for about 10 sessions (30+ hours) of play.</p><p></p><p>I think the Dungeon World rules have very good advice on how to run a first session, and how - <em>once you've done it</em> - to then prepare for a second session. Some of it is system-specific, but I think it's adaptable to other systems.</p><p></p><p>Another way to handle the starting session is to have each player write a "kicker" for his/her PC - in 5e this would integrate with race, class and especially background. I won't explain what a kicker is in this post, but will link to <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?490456-Repost-first-session-of-Dark-Sun-campaign" target="_blank">another actual play post</a> which describes the technique and gives an example of how I used it to start my Dark Sun 4e game.</p><p></p><p>I think having a fun - exciting, engaging, <em>I really enjoyed that!</em> first session is far more important than planning for a long campaign whose true pay off will come many hours of play down the line. If you have a fun session then, even if the campaign ends up going nowhere, you got practice GMing and had a good time with the players. And if it was a fun session there's a good chance that it <em>won't </em>go nowhere because those players will want to do more fun RPGing with you!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7505038, member: 42582"] Zethnos, some further thoughts in response to your post. I'll preface them by saying that they're my thoughts based on my experience, and whether or not they generalise to [I]your[/I] experience and goals in RPGing is something for you to judge: If you're a new GM I wouldn't encourage relying too heavily on random encounters, as they require you to establish situation in real time, and that can be hard if you're not used to it. I would have a few antagonists and situations worked up in advance. A good example of the sort of thing I have in mind is the Prince Valiant Episode Book (which I think is on DriveThruRPG if you have spare money - and [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?653690-Playing-Prince-Valiant-RPG]here's a link[/url] to an actual play report about how I used it in a recent session). Some ideas about situations and antagonists I think are much more useful than ideas about how things are going to unfold. As a first time GM, I wouldn't recommend adopting the approach you describe here. Althoiugh you say you dont' have any idea about how it would end, you also say you've got plans for how the first few sessions would go - which is 9+ hours of play already pre-planned. I would think hard about how you want to start, what springboards that will offer, and trying to make sure that those are interesting and can lead to further engaging situations. I wouldn't worry about how the second session will go until you've played the first. And I wouldn't encourage setting up 5-level goals: that looks like trying to pre-plan your players' actions for about 10 sessions (30+ hours) of play. I think the Dungeon World rules have very good advice on how to run a first session, and how - [I]once you've done it[/I] - to then prepare for a second session. Some of it is system-specific, but I think it's adaptable to other systems. Another way to handle the starting session is to have each player write a "kicker" for his/her PC - in 5e this would integrate with race, class and especially background. I won't explain what a kicker is in this post, but will link to [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?490456-Repost-first-session-of-Dark-Sun-campaign]another actual play post[/url] which describes the technique and gives an example of how I used it to start my Dark Sun 4e game. I think having a fun - exciting, engaging, [I]I really enjoyed that![/I] first session is far more important than planning for a long campaign whose true pay off will come many hours of play down the line. If you have a fun session then, even if the campaign ends up going nowhere, you got practice GMing and had a good time with the players. And if it was a fun session there's a good chance that it [I]won't [/I]go nowhere because those players will want to do more fun RPGing with you! [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
To DM or not to DM. That is the question. Any advice?
Top