What's it like to DM?

[Crothian]

take notes, bookmark the thread, print it out...you have options

 

[Asmor]

/me wonders when he can get a brainjack and just download threads right into his cerebral cortex. Would come in extra useful on some of those 70 page story hours ^_^

 

[pawsplay]

I sit down to every session with a stack of NPCs in a folder on my left, and on my right, a notepad with one page of ideas I can use in case the players don't get themselves into enough trouble. It's my philosophy that if you set things up right, the players and the events will take care of the story. Sometimes the players get into a "sit and wait" mode. This is to be discouraged in every way. The players are going to spend some time reacting to the GM, that is inevitible. I am never happier than when my players are enthusiastically involved in shaping the game.

However, to improvise requires a set of learned skills. First, you begin with a pre-published adventure. It will probably seem somewhat lame, but your players won't care. Then, when you're ready, you move on to adventures you write yourself, with the acceptance that half-way through (if that far) the PCs will swerve from the plot, and you'll end up throwing most of it in the trash while you wing it. It's nothing to fret about. Then you move up to "configurable" adventures, which are more resistant to player tampering. Basically, the adventure is three to five scenes you want to include, and have a number of ideas about how they could arrive in each of those scenes. In between, you riff. Eventually, you'll have run so many scenes, you can strip down their descriptions to the bare essentials, which will fit, as I noted above, on a single piece of notebook paper.

 

[pogre]

A famous detective writer - Dashiel Hammet? - once said something to the effect of "Whenever I'm writing a story and I don't know what happens next, I have armed thugs kick open a door. It gets the action moving every time." That's true in D&D, too!

Encapsulates my entire Dming style - keep it moving all the time.

 

[Breakdaddy]

I've got a game in about 30 minutes. I am running it and loving it. Ive got great players and a fun story developing; who could ask for more? Ive been DMing since 1984 and seldom play any other role in our groups.

 

[Crothian]

DMing is just fun. It seems to be unique as far as it goes. I can't think of anything else really like it. Perhaps writing or making a movie is, but I think you have much mor econtrol in those formats. DMing you have to trust your players and they have to trust you or bad things can happen. You have to believe that they will make choices realistic to their character and not to try to ruin the game.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Thornir Alekeg wrote:

"1) Start with some preprinted modules. They let you get the mechanics of running a game down without stressing about the story as much."

I have to disagree. I started out with my own material and it seemed to work out pretty well, starting with very small ideas; a single encounter, or maybe two. The inn hasn't seen this month's caraven and it's two weeks late. The PCs find that a pair of orcs has set up an ambush at the bridge a couple of miles outside town. Once they deal with that, things are pretty-much solved and they get free dinner and drinks at the inn. When one PC goes wandering off into the woods looking for clues, she finds kobolds. When another PC looks for someone to pay the PCs for their efforts, he finds them and pockets most of the reward for himself for his initiative.

By way of contrast, the first time I ran a module and the PC's did something that the module's author hadn't anticipated, I was completely at a loss for how to deal with the situation. I spent 90 minutes of intense worry pulling encounters almost at random from the MM, and trying to get the party back on track. They eventually did, but when the adventure was over all of the players thought that the most interesting part of the module was the part I had created on the fly to cover the hole.

 

[Professor Phobos]

Like herding cats.

 

[Professor Phobos]

I'd just like to say that I think the advice to start with a published module, while not necessarily a bad idea, isn't particularly necessary.

In the end, if you can't create adventures and guide campaigns yourself, you'll be stuck with published scenarios forever- my advice is to pick up some of the classics (Masks of Nyarlathothep, that famous Warhammer FRP one- Enemy Within, Coming Full Circle...) read them to get an idea of how a good campaign would be written.

Then do it yourself- this is a vital skill, and campaigns tweaked to the characters you get are always superior than often bland "bolted on" published ones.

But- and I stress this- do not plan. Plans fail. Create situations that will adapt to PC action, not a set of stock scenes they'll follow along.

Your job is to make Points A-Z. Their job is to get from A to B to C, etc etc.

 

[Asmor]

I've got a game in about 30 minutes. I am running it and loving it. Ive got great players and a fun story developing; who could ask for more? Ive been DMing since 1984 and seldom play any other role in our groups.

Jesus, I've barely been living since 1984 (11/27/84)