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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 5536066" data-attributes="member: 13966">My personal DMing gradesA. Improvisation/rules adjudication/gut checks.  I roleplay most NPC interactions on-the-fly and my campaigns are generally designed to be more reactive than predetermined; I adjust my general plotline, order of events, possible encounters, adventure locations, and possible endings as need be, based on what options/hooks/choices the PCs choose to pursue or where they choose to look.  If the group decides to ignore the obvious hooks and go looking for adventure in some random direction down the road, so be it.I'm very familiar with the rules, but I'm quick to correct myself whenever I forget or misremember one and a player questions it.  I'm good at judging the balance or fairness of particular rules and addressing it.I adjudicate any gray areas in the rules or wierd problems with them with an even-handed approach to maintain game-balance, prevent long-term campaign problems, prevent abuses, and still keep things reasonably tipped in the players' favor as they should be in a heroic fantasy game.  Just not so much as to make it easy (PCs get what they deserve; they screw up, they suffer the consequences; they make a simple mistake or forget something minor, I may throw them a bone once before letting the dice fall where they may).  I usually do a fair job of maintaining a balance between rules-adherance and keeping things fun.B. Attention to detail and preparation.  Though I tend to fall behind in prep-work a lot these days, I usually make up for it with final preparations on the day of a game or the night before, and I try to prepare a lot of material whenever I actually get around to it (though distractions, forgetfulness, and occasional mind-numbing boredom typically cause delays in my game-prep).I often have individual names (and sometimes ranks) for NPCs and such, some background/personality/tactical details for them, an appearance description, and fairly complete stats/gear/etc. for them.  I do a lot of world-building stuff and try to make sure that every encounter, NPC, item, spell, etc. makes some sense within the setting or campaign.  I even tweak random encounter/treasure results sometimes to make more sense and better fit the wealth by level standards.  I generally always have a detailed map of any region or structure the PCs are adventuring in, eitiher on paper, on the computer, or in my head.  I occasionally make custom scripts and linguistic forms for some languages used in the game, and go to some trouble making sure that it's consistent whenever the same word/phrase shows up in play or on a map that the players view.C. Open-mindedness and creativity in character/NPC/monster design.  While I suck at handling some types of NPCs, at least I can do a fair job of playing entertaining, funny, sarcastic/snarky, or just-oddly-interesting NPCs.  My players only tend to have a solid grasp of some challenges they'll face on any given adventure; I use a wide variety of monsters, templates, races, NPC types, classes, prestige classes, spells, NPC organizations, and such.  I often keep my players guessing and sometimes spring the unexpected on them.I also allow a fair variety of sourcebooks to be used in my games, so my players tend to have a broad selection of playable character options, and I'm open to houserule/homebrew game material or occasionally stuff from books that I don't own, as long as the player provides any necessary details of their PC on their sheet and if it meets with my approval after checking that.  I'll work with players to tweak classes etc. until they're reasonably balanced enough for my game, or until they suit the player's character concept if it just can't quite be done with existing rules material as-written.However, I'm not completely open-minded about all gaming material, so there are still several products, product lines, prestige classes, spells, races, etc. that are banned in my games, and I often have to turn away players who insist on using material that seems broken/offensive to me or material that they've acquired illegal electronic copies of.  I'm too leery of munchkins/powergamers and I can't accept some other players/PCs on moral grounds.  I'm also a bit of a prude and I dislike foul/immature language.  It's just the way I was raised.D. Running encounters quickly.  One way or another, most battles and non-combat encounters just drag on too long.  I spend too much time flipping through books or online-SRD pages, checking stats, trying to find out what the PCs' current AC/HP/etc. is, trying to get players to make up their minds and finally decide on their current turn's action, and needing to debate rules that players randomly dispute or misinterpret, forcing me to correct them which usually ends in a debate.Also, I tend to overestimate how many weak or mediocre monsters/NPCs the group can handle in one encounter within any reasonable amount of time (you'd think half a dozen 10th-level or so PCs could wipe out 2 or 3 dozen low-level kobolds or goblins and worgs pretty quickly with area attacks, full attacks, etc., especially when those kobs/gobs are almost incapable of hitting them, but no......).  Epic battles instead become a real drag, and big monsters tend to just result in overlong grapple/nickel-and-diming battles.  I don't misjudge what the group can handle; just how quickly or slowly they'll handle it.Sometimes, I get it just right and the dice rolls don't screw it up (I've seen sessions with obscene strings of natural 20s or natural 1s, where the PCs couldn't hit the broad side of a barn or couldn't avoid constant crits, or where the monsters/NPCs couldn't do anything but suck and die.....and it was REALLY bad whenever both me AND the players kept rolling terribly).F. Creating/roleplaying deep, complex, chatty, or socially-adept NPCs (or PCs).  Just not enough real experience in social situations outside D&D, and no natural charisma, so I can't pull it off.  At best I manage to run the NPCs as mildly interesting, somewhat-savvy in politics, or just slightly capable of manipulating PCs a bit.</blockquote>

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