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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bloodstone Press" data-source="post: 1515152" data-attributes="member: 12468">This is the crux of all advice I give to new DMs. I started DMing less that 12 hours after the first time I played, back in 1984. I really enjoy it. It is, as others have said like conducting an orchestra or playing improvisational jazz. You have to be able to feel the flow of the game and work with it.  As for planning what the players will do, my advice is to NEVER plan a game. Instead, PREPARE for it. Instead of trying to anticipate all the crazy ideas your players will come up with (which you can never do), you should COUNT on the fact that they will think of unexpected things and do unexpected things.  For example, I've seen several DMs construct difficult situations and pre-plan a way for the players to solve it. But the players never guess what the DM had planned. They come up with a lot of good ideas, but since it isn't the solution the DM planned for, he keeps telling them "Nope. doesn't work. Try something else."    When I was a teenager, I finally realized that a DM simply CAN'T anticipate every idea the players will have. So constructing situations with a single pre-planned solution will ultimately devolve into a mere guessing game for the players, which isn't any fun.  Now, what I do is plan encounters that I can not think of a way out of. Rather than try to anticipate what the players will do, I count on the fact that they will do something I didn't think of. In fact they BETTER think of something or they will probably be killed, because I didn't plan for a solution, that's their jobs.  The key to running a game like that is keeping an open mind to the player's ideas. They are going to be desperately grasping at straws, trying to save some lives or at least escape with their own. When they ask "I try to do X." Let them give it a shot, as long as it is within the capabilities of their character. Then, if the dice and the numbers on the page determine success, then boo-yah! Good Game! If not, well, its a tragic tale... but still usually a good game <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  The only catch to running games like that is that some players aren't used to it. I've played with a few gamers over the years who were completely confused when I threw them into a tough spot and didn't offer any obvious solutions. Needless to say, I don't game with those people any more.</blockquote>

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