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<blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 5457655" data-attributes="member: 32740"><p>What could go wrong? It's not so much the possibility of things going wrong - that'll happen regardless. It's the fact that many things don't HAVE to go wrong because so many other DM's have been there before you and already know where the dangers are.</p><p> </p><p>1. LEARN the system well before you decide to start making major changes to it. Yeah, you may have grand ideas for your first campaign being the best game ever and the game to end all games - but the reality is you're not likely the reincarnation of Gagax or Arneson. Give it a year or even two of steady play before you decide to re-write the whole game in order to better fit your masterwork.</p><p> </p><p>2. Know that the more effort you're putting into changing things the less likely it is that the players are going to care or want to put up with it. Every change you make has to be documented for your players to learn and refer to. If they are as new at the game as you are, you're NOT doing anyone any favors by messing up their learning of how things were supposed to work in the first place, much less being able to appreciate whether or not your changes are worth the effort on their part to accomodate YOU.</p><p> </p><p>3. Players want and deserve consistency. For them, the fun of D&D is not found in using it as an ongoing experimentation with rules. The more you change things as a game goes on the less faith players will have in you and your skills as a DM. They won't invest effort in their characters if they know that you're just going to nerf their powers when they figure out good ways to use them, invalidate their builds with changes to how this or that mechanic will work, or learn that eventually you're going to throw yet another wrench into your own works and change it all around AGAIN. Particularly in an RPG whose gameplay for the players revolves around "System Mastery," having a RELIABLE, PROVEN system is generally more important than scratching your itch to tinker.</p><p> </p><p>4. Having said all that don't ever put the RULES in charge of your game. YOU run the game - not the dice, not the rules, not the players. Don't be AFRAID to make changes - just be sure that you're changing things for well-considered reasons and with a good working knowledge of what the consequences of those changes are going to be.</p><p> </p><p>Whatever their various flaws and strengths may have been - every version of D&D WORKS. Every version has both added improvements as well as introduced new problems. Changes and additions made by individual DM's will always be expected, even necessary, but NEW DM's are far better advised to devote their efforts to learning to run the system AS-IS first.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Man in the Funny Hat, post: 5457655, member: 32740"] What could go wrong? It's not so much the possibility of things going wrong - that'll happen regardless. It's the fact that many things don't HAVE to go wrong because so many other DM's have been there before you and already know where the dangers are. 1. LEARN the system well before you decide to start making major changes to it. Yeah, you may have grand ideas for your first campaign being the best game ever and the game to end all games - but the reality is you're not likely the reincarnation of Gagax or Arneson. Give it a year or even two of steady play before you decide to re-write the whole game in order to better fit your masterwork. 2. Know that the more effort you're putting into changing things the less likely it is that the players are going to care or want to put up with it. Every change you make has to be documented for your players to learn and refer to. If they are as new at the game as you are, you're NOT doing anyone any favors by messing up their learning of how things were supposed to work in the first place, much less being able to appreciate whether or not your changes are worth the effort on their part to accomodate YOU. 3. Players want and deserve consistency. For them, the fun of D&D is not found in using it as an ongoing experimentation with rules. The more you change things as a game goes on the less faith players will have in you and your skills as a DM. They won't invest effort in their characters if they know that you're just going to nerf their powers when they figure out good ways to use them, invalidate their builds with changes to how this or that mechanic will work, or learn that eventually you're going to throw yet another wrench into your own works and change it all around AGAIN. Particularly in an RPG whose gameplay for the players revolves around "System Mastery," having a RELIABLE, PROVEN system is generally more important than scratching your itch to tinker. 4. Having said all that don't ever put the RULES in charge of your game. YOU run the game - not the dice, not the rules, not the players. Don't be AFRAID to make changes - just be sure that you're changing things for well-considered reasons and with a good working knowledge of what the consequences of those changes are going to be. Whatever their various flaws and strengths may have been - every version of D&D WORKS. Every version has both added improvements as well as introduced new problems. Changes and additions made by individual DM's will always be expected, even necessary, but NEW DM's are far better advised to devote their efforts to learning to run the system AS-IS first. [/QUOTE]
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