Olaf the Stout
Hero
We all have our strong points and our weak points when it comes to DMing. What are your strengths as a DM/GM?
I think my strengths are:
Rules knowledge - I've been DMing a 3.5E game pretty much every fortnight since 2006 (with a couple of "baby breaks" in there). So I've gotten to the point now where I have all of the major rules pretty much memorised. At the very least, I know where in the rulebooks to look to find what I need. Most of the problem rules interactions have come up in-game and have been dealt with, so it's rare that the game will get bogged down due to trying to figure out how the rules apply to a given situation.
Ruling on the fly - Which brings me to my next strength, ruling on situations on the fly. Sometimes the rules don't cover the situation you're in exactly, or it is unclear as to how a couple of rules interact with each other. In a crunch-heavy game like D&D, this can quickly bring the game to a screaming halt. However, my rules knowledge, combined with my experience has taught me how to quickly come up with a ruling on the fly to keep the game moving. I do it with the provisio that, while the ruling holds for that particular session, I'll review it properly after the session is over, check online how others have handled the situation and come up a ruling for how the situation will be handled in the future. This bogs the game down, whilst the players don't have to worry about being stuck with some ill-thought-out on-the-fly ruling forever.
Thinking on my feet - Even when running pre-written adventures, few plots survive contact with the PCs. I've definitely learned (sometimes the hard way) how to deal with the curveballs that the players can throw at you. I now have a pretty good idea of what motivates the various NPCs in my adventure. So when the PCs decide to do something I really didn't expect I can adjust things on the fly by considering the NPCs' motivations and thinking of how they would respond to the situation.
Minis - This is a bit of an odd strength, but I consider my pre-painted D&D minis collection is one of my strengths. My collection is large enough now that I can generally closely represent most humanoids and monsters that the party face. If I don't have a mini of the actual creautre, I generally have a close proxy. Given that 3.5E's combat system almost forces you to have combat on a battlemat, I've found it adds a lot to my game that my players have a close visual representation of exactly what their PCs are fighting. The fact that I have them sorted out so I can go through over 1,000 minis to find exactly the mini I need in under a minute helps a lot too.
So what are your DM/GM strengths?
I think my strengths are:
Rules knowledge - I've been DMing a 3.5E game pretty much every fortnight since 2006 (with a couple of "baby breaks" in there). So I've gotten to the point now where I have all of the major rules pretty much memorised. At the very least, I know where in the rulebooks to look to find what I need. Most of the problem rules interactions have come up in-game and have been dealt with, so it's rare that the game will get bogged down due to trying to figure out how the rules apply to a given situation.
Ruling on the fly - Which brings me to my next strength, ruling on situations on the fly. Sometimes the rules don't cover the situation you're in exactly, or it is unclear as to how a couple of rules interact with each other. In a crunch-heavy game like D&D, this can quickly bring the game to a screaming halt. However, my rules knowledge, combined with my experience has taught me how to quickly come up with a ruling on the fly to keep the game moving. I do it with the provisio that, while the ruling holds for that particular session, I'll review it properly after the session is over, check online how others have handled the situation and come up a ruling for how the situation will be handled in the future. This bogs the game down, whilst the players don't have to worry about being stuck with some ill-thought-out on-the-fly ruling forever.
Thinking on my feet - Even when running pre-written adventures, few plots survive contact with the PCs. I've definitely learned (sometimes the hard way) how to deal with the curveballs that the players can throw at you. I now have a pretty good idea of what motivates the various NPCs in my adventure. So when the PCs decide to do something I really didn't expect I can adjust things on the fly by considering the NPCs' motivations and thinking of how they would respond to the situation.
Minis - This is a bit of an odd strength, but I consider my pre-painted D&D minis collection is one of my strengths. My collection is large enough now that I can generally closely represent most humanoids and monsters that the party face. If I don't have a mini of the actual creautre, I generally have a close proxy. Given that 3.5E's combat system almost forces you to have combat on a battlemat, I've found it adds a lot to my game that my players have a close visual representation of exactly what their PCs are fighting. The fact that I have them sorted out so I can go through over 1,000 minis to find exactly the mini I need in under a minute helps a lot too.
So what are your DM/GM strengths?
