What is the #1 most important thing to remember about DMing?

[Thanee]

Rule #1: It's just a game.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Odhanan]

Your role is to enable the players to interact meaningfully with the campaign milieu.

This means you are a tough, neutral, fair, referee. You thrive to master the game, and not let the game master you. You are not going out of your way to humiliate or save characters from their doom, but role play the environment in such a way as to provide a meaningful challenge (including possible death) for them. You act as a good host, and demand from the players to act as responsible guests. You help forge a group dynamic that allows everyone to feel at home when playing the game. You play out the natural consequences of the character's actions in the game world. You welcome feedback, listen to it carefully, and consider it as you thrive to maintain a certain consistency of the game world and play experience throughout the campaign.

 

[Fifth Element]

You're not the only one at the table. As DM you invest more time and effort than the other players, but this does not mean that your preferences are the only ones that matter.

 

[Jeffrey]

Remember that I owe my players the respect to allow them to mess up/lose, and that as the DM I cannot ever either win nor lose.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Better to play to your strengths as a DM than worry about doing it some other DM's way. Be yourself.

However, as a follow up, when you work on your weaknesses, be prepared to compensate the players for the trouble this will call. There is a time to try, again, for your sly, dramatic voice--and there is a time to remember past failures and go with 3rd person narrative to properly set the scene. There is a time to try out that new monster who you aren't sure about, and there is a time to go with the tried and true.

Think of DMing like cooking. You don't take a brand new, difficult dish to the company cookout, but you can try it on your family when ordering pizza is an option if it fails.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Run the game so that your players will want to come back, and have stories to share!


Oh, and everyone should have fun ;-)

Sent from my SPH-M900 using Tapatalk

 

[ExploderWizard]

You misunderstood what I wrote.

It is quite possible. What did you mean?

 

[TheUltramark]

1. Don't get too drunk.

2. Make the players pay for the pizza.

also occasionally the halfling's leaf may come into play...you gotta keep that under control too

 

[alms66]

Heh, totally opposite to me.

Your world will never matter as much to the players as it does to you. You have a choice to make. Is your world more important to you than your players or not?

For me? An engaging story trumps any amount of scenery every time. Make sure that your campaign is the most important thing you spend time on.

Oh, you're right, the players won't care as much about the world, but having that world background knowledge, I find, greatly improves my ability to improvise at every game session - yes, the entire game session. I do love world building too though, so I probably still over-do it some.

But, just an example, I came up with the creation story (how the world really came to be) and it entirely shaped the rest of the world I created. Now, I've been lucky and have played with the same gaming group for years, so they know the setting and they love the setting, but they've never seen or heard that story, nor will they ever, as it's just something that's not known to many beings left alive at this point - but from that simple act of writing down the "real" creation story, I made the setting and game sessions that they've loved over the past 5 years.

I don't want to put words in someone else's mouth, but when I read alms' post, I agreed because those things are story. The orc army moving out of the hills towards your village? That's a story, right there, waiting to happen.

Both as a player and as a GM, I don't really enjoy sitting down with an entire plot. I think alms is kind of saying the same thing: you sit down with some knowledge of interesting things that are happening in the world and play those our, honestly, in response to the players actions.

It's a really different approach than having an entire story waiting for them. Instead of having a series of encounters to get to the orc boss, who will then reveal the demonic influence or whatever, I just set things in motion and then play them out in response to the players.

I don't really think of that as setting building. I don't come up with a history of that orc tribe, because really, who cares? It's more like story seeding: creating interesting things that are going on that the players can interact with. In particular, setting up those interesting things so they're aimed right at what's important to the characters.

Yeah, you pretty much got my meaning dead-on. If you know the surrounding locale and it's inhabitants like the back of your hand, as I said above, it's so easy to just run a session, winging it the whole time. And, perhaps best of all for some folks, this way, you can never be blamed for railroading the PC's.

Of course, unlike you, I'd have probably written up some history on the orc tribe, maybe even some personal stuff about some of the major players in that tribe - like I said, I can go overboard sometimes, but when I start, the ideas just never seem to stop flowing so, I do what I do, and I do a lot of it while I'm at work... lol



Oh, just thought of another great example:
A war started in the background, just part of the world moving along - but when the players got wind of the rumors of war to the north - they finished up what they were doing, spent all their loot on goods to get them up to the front-lines...
For some reason, they really wanted to fight in a war that particular session and it turned into months of gaming gold.

 

[Hussar]

I don't want to put words in someone else's mouth, but when I read alms' post, I agreed because those things are story. The orc army moving out of the hills towards your village? That's a story, right there, waiting to happen.

Both as a player and as a GM, I don't really enjoy sitting down with an entire plot. I think alms is kind of saying the same thing: you sit down with some knowledge of interesting things that are happening in the world and play those our, honestly, in response to the players actions.

It's a really different approach than having an entire story waiting for them. Instead of having a series of encounters to get to the orc boss, who will then reveal the demonic influence or whatever, I just set things in motion and then play them out in response to the players.

I don't really think of that as setting building. I don't come up with a history of that orc tribe, because really, who cares? It's more like story seeding: creating interesting things that are going on that the players can interact with. In particular, setting up those interesting things so they're aimed right at what's important to the characters.

I find that organic games grow pretty much the same way as organic vegetables - sure they might be healthier and even tastier, but, they die a lot more often too.

But, to be fair, this is totally a playstyle thing. I can appreciate it works for some people. Me? I have had played in failed campaign after failed campaign (and by failed, I mean the campaign died a sputtering death after half a dozen levels or so because the DM burned out half way through) and DM'd more than my share of the same.

Now, I have a plan. String of pearls is one of my favourite styles. Sure, you set the players free on a given scenario, but, that scenario is framed by the DM and the links to the next scenario are present within the current one. Those scenarios will stretch throughout the entire campaign until they reach some sort of conclusion and climax.

I'm just tired of playing levels 1-6 over and over and over again because campaigns never seem to go anywhere.