This week we had one of our regulars missing from the campaign. Normally this can be easily accounted for, you make up some sort of reason why the character needs a sidequest, or even play them out through the battles and such. Sometimes though, you want to make sure that everybody is there for the session. My particular reason was that this was going to be the very first dungeon in 4E.
The players were all ready to make their way into a secret secret passageway beneath a tomb in the hills, and all of a sudden the Tiefling Warlock (our missing PC) dropped to the flour and started frothing at the mouth. At the same time, an NPC who happened to be outside keeping guard, ran in saying there were monsters approaching from the outside.
The DM'ing strategy here was to give some sort of plot twist that may have been related to the fire beetles recently battled that would cause the players to cease their descent. At the same time, I set up an encounter outside that would pose a threat and keep their interest.
What I had not planned on was that they sealed the passageway behind them with the Warlock inside. This was to defend the unconscious from the attacking monsters, but while they fought kobolds outside, I had a different scenario play out below ground.
The heroes fought a good battle against the kobolds, but had a surprise waiting when they went to retrieve their fallen friend. As they descended the ladder to the room with the Warlock, they heard munching and chewing sounds, followed by moaning. When one of them pulled out a fire beetle gland for light, they saw 2 zombies chewing on the Warlock, and two more coming out of the dungeon entrance, or exit, as they recently discovered.
When all of the battles were finished, the players decided they needed to get medical attention to the frothing Warlock. They started heading back to town, and one more random encounter on route to the village was enough to make a well rounded session. Unfortunately, with all of the combat, and such little mystique and intrigue, the Warlock will be behind in XP for next time. These kinds of situations can be remedied with solo side quests and things of that nature. And in this digital age there is also the option of running an RP only sidequest for the PC to have him earn some XP in ways other than quests and combat. An entire quest could be done through emails, or even online using Gametable and Ventrilo, depending on how deep you prefer to go as a DM.
One thing that is exceptionally important: If you take great care in designing your campaigns, don't let an absent player take advantage of you. The planning that you put into your game is at least worth the regular attendance of your players. If you let them come and go as they please, and this interferes with the continuity of the storyline and such, or hinders others gameplay experience, don't just give them the XP they missed unless it's really for a good reason. Conversely, if you improv every session, don't lecture players on attendance when the entire game is made up on the spot. Let your players know where your boundaries are, and be understanding of when it's appropriate to miss a session, and when it's not. Everyone has their reasons, and missing out on XP might not be a fair penalty for some of those reasons.
-Lance of the Hill People
Showing posts with label DM'ing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DM'ing. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
DM'ing: What Constitutes a Failure
Apples and I got into a discussion about Tuesday's post, and I encouraged her to post her opinion in the comments. She did, and now I shall respond
This is a clarification on what it means to fail as a DM. Failure as a DM can mean different things. Sometimes it can be blatantly obvious and effect the entire session or even campaign. Sometimes it can be nothing but a personal failure that not another soul would necessarily know about. And sometimes it could be a hazy mixture of the two.
Ways to Fail
Nobody Has Fun: This is the absolute worst way to fail. The worst part about it is that it's not always in the DM's control. However, as the DM, you will often be the one expected to facilitate the game in such a way that everybody can find it enjoyable. If this is unattainable with certain players behaving unacceptably, that would be a good condition to ask the player not to return, or at least warn them a few times first.
Besides players behaving badly, the DM can have a lot to do with this as well. The game exists in a world that you describe, but that doesn't make it your playground. You do not have control over the players, and they are most certainly not your toys to manipulate as you see fit. DM's on power trips is a fast road to failure, while letting the players have an equal say in their destiny will bring you many successes in the fun factor. Make sure you listen to the players, and let them build onto your story, as opposed to succumbing to your puppetry.
Preparation: Don't come under prepared! If nothing else, have at least one random encounter that the players can triumph over during a session. If the players do nothing but fail, then this can also reflect very poorly on your DM'ing. If an encounter of supposed average difficulty ends up squishing the PC's, you should give them something easy by the end of the session if possible. Give them at least one victory no matter how they manage to come by it. If they have to talk their way out of something to survive, that could be an even greater success than bashing goblins to bit through brute force. Be prepared to improvise if necessary too.
Also, don't come over prepared! This can be very dangerous as you may find your players are completely disinterested in your storylines or quests. If you throw them a bone, and they don't take it, make sure to let them seek out something different. If you put your entire planning into that one quest and dungeon, and eventually end up forcing the players through it, they will feel forced through it, and will not enjoy it nearly as much. This method will work on rare occasions though, and I will go into that more in a later post.
The key point to all of this though, is that failing as a DM has nothing to do with how far the campaign went, or what the players accomplished, or whether the game ever got past the first session. Failure means nobody had fun, failure as a DM means nobody had fun, and there's something you can do about it. The same can be said about certain players though, so make sure to consider this from different angles. Find what you need in your world to give the players a good time, and give it to them. If it gets stale, switch it up a bit and experiment. You won't have your best successes until you've had your worst failures.
This is a clarification on what it means to fail as a DM. Failure as a DM can mean different things. Sometimes it can be blatantly obvious and effect the entire session or even campaign. Sometimes it can be nothing but a personal failure that not another soul would necessarily know about. And sometimes it could be a hazy mixture of the two.
Ways to Fail
Nobody Has Fun: This is the absolute worst way to fail. The worst part about it is that it's not always in the DM's control. However, as the DM, you will often be the one expected to facilitate the game in such a way that everybody can find it enjoyable. If this is unattainable with certain players behaving unacceptably, that would be a good condition to ask the player not to return, or at least warn them a few times first.
Besides players behaving badly, the DM can have a lot to do with this as well. The game exists in a world that you describe, but that doesn't make it your playground. You do not have control over the players, and they are most certainly not your toys to manipulate as you see fit. DM's on power trips is a fast road to failure, while letting the players have an equal say in their destiny will bring you many successes in the fun factor. Make sure you listen to the players, and let them build onto your story, as opposed to succumbing to your puppetry.
Preparation: Don't come under prepared! If nothing else, have at least one random encounter that the players can triumph over during a session. If the players do nothing but fail, then this can also reflect very poorly on your DM'ing. If an encounter of supposed average difficulty ends up squishing the PC's, you should give them something easy by the end of the session if possible. Give them at least one victory no matter how they manage to come by it. If they have to talk their way out of something to survive, that could be an even greater success than bashing goblins to bit through brute force. Be prepared to improvise if necessary too.
Also, don't come over prepared! This can be very dangerous as you may find your players are completely disinterested in your storylines or quests. If you throw them a bone, and they don't take it, make sure to let them seek out something different. If you put your entire planning into that one quest and dungeon, and eventually end up forcing the players through it, they will feel forced through it, and will not enjoy it nearly as much. This method will work on rare occasions though, and I will go into that more in a later post.
The key point to all of this though, is that failing as a DM has nothing to do with how far the campaign went, or what the players accomplished, or whether the game ever got past the first session. Failure means nobody had fun, failure as a DM means nobody had fun, and there's something you can do about it. The same can be said about certain players though, so make sure to consider this from different angles. Find what you need in your world to give the players a good time, and give it to them. If it gets stale, switch it up a bit and experiment. You won't have your best successes until you've had your worst failures.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
DM'ing: How to Start
I've been approached by multiple people in the course of my D&D career who have mentioned or asked about becoming a DM. Every time someone brings it up, I usually get excited. There are few things in life that I have studied and practiced more than being a game master. This is not limited to simply D&D mind you, but to almost every aspect of gaming. Through my World of Warcraft career I have been a party or raid leader at every possible opportunity. Whenever a board game comes on the table, I usually try to take the reigns and lead everyone in the right direction to start understanding the rules and getting the most out of the gameplay. These are the kinds of things that a DM does.
The Dungeon Master is in no way in charge of the actions that the party takes though. They can't give orders to the players, but simply tell them the reaction to every one of their actions. One of the in game PC's is usually the one who does the leading, but the DM leads in a different way. It is of great responsbility to the DM to keep the players interested in what is happening in the world. It is also of equal responsibility to the players to let the DM know that certain aspects of the world are no longer interesting to them. They can do this by direct means, such as plainly telling the DM, or subtle means, such as looking for or inventing quests that have yet to be alluded to.
These are some of the basic precepts to being a storyteller and a world master, but how does one start? Like THIS!:
Step 1: Just start. There's only two good ways to learn, do it yourself, or do it with someone else.
Apples had her first DM'ing experience by teaming up with me for a large session amongst our college friends. We had discussed it for a long time, and eventually decided she would do a sort of apprenticeship under me. We worked out storylines and geographies together, but I did most of the world making. She took care of a lot of the details at that point. When the sessions actually ran, we would have one person take over as storyteller, and another person as the combat referee. The game was successful for the length that it lasted, and all had fun. Apples soon took over her own game though, and was learning a lot from being forced into both roles at once. She soon learned how mentally tiring it can be, but all in all, she did a great job.
The other method, my method, had a lot more failures in it. I played two sessions of D&D with my oldest brother before I found that I really wanted to play it a lot more. Very few of my friends had ever heard of it, as I had very few friends at that age anyway. I picked up DMG for the 2nd edition books and read through the whole thing. I also read the entire players handbook, and over time the entire monstrous manual. 5 years later I was DM'ing in high school for a small group of friends, and having a blast. Those 5 years carried a lot of utter failures and ridiculous jaunts, but you have to start somewhere. As my body matured, my gaming became more sophisticated, and I slowly added more players of different backgrounds under my belt. Every new person I DM'd for was a new lesson in how my games should run, and eventually I learned the ultimate lesson: It's all about fun. No matter how many times anybody tells you, that is what it comes down to in the very end. However you manage to get there with your gaming group is the actual difficult part, but every group will either find that, or disperse.
Step 2: Learn the Rules
Plain and simple, pick up the PHB and read every rule that applies to combat and character creation. You will often find that you are the one that everybody asks the questions of. The questions come fast at times to, so it's good to have a bag of tricks up your sleeve just in case. One of my favorite tricks is to answer a question with another question, or perhaps put some mystery behind it. "How come he gets to be a Dragonborn, but I can't?" "Good question, maybe you should go on a quest to find out." or "The book says scale mail costs 45! How come he's charging me 100g!?" "Why would he charge so much for scale mail?"
Making a mistake at times can often lead you into a quest or a chance at a unique RP encounter without you ever planning it. Mistakes can be what keeps the world fresh and interesting. However, eventually the mistakes should be sieved out to a minimum, and the fresh and interesting should be as intentional as possible.
Step 3/4: Make Some Encounters/Create A Story
These two steps are completely interchangeable. Sometimes if you have a story, you can just throw some monsters in there for fun and excitement. Conversely, if you have some great encounters planned, figure out how the players will end up wandering into them! Sometimes it can be easier than you think. A good adventuring group should be wanting some adventure anyway; make it easy to find, and give them so good rewards for it!
More next week.
-Lance of the Hill People
The Dungeon Master is in no way in charge of the actions that the party takes though. They can't give orders to the players, but simply tell them the reaction to every one of their actions. One of the in game PC's is usually the one who does the leading, but the DM leads in a different way. It is of great responsbility to the DM to keep the players interested in what is happening in the world. It is also of equal responsibility to the players to let the DM know that certain aspects of the world are no longer interesting to them. They can do this by direct means, such as plainly telling the DM, or subtle means, such as looking for or inventing quests that have yet to be alluded to.
These are some of the basic precepts to being a storyteller and a world master, but how does one start? Like THIS!:
Step 1: Just start. There's only two good ways to learn, do it yourself, or do it with someone else.
Apples had her first DM'ing experience by teaming up with me for a large session amongst our college friends. We had discussed it for a long time, and eventually decided she would do a sort of apprenticeship under me. We worked out storylines and geographies together, but I did most of the world making. She took care of a lot of the details at that point. When the sessions actually ran, we would have one person take over as storyteller, and another person as the combat referee. The game was successful for the length that it lasted, and all had fun. Apples soon took over her own game though, and was learning a lot from being forced into both roles at once. She soon learned how mentally tiring it can be, but all in all, she did a great job.
The other method, my method, had a lot more failures in it. I played two sessions of D&D with my oldest brother before I found that I really wanted to play it a lot more. Very few of my friends had ever heard of it, as I had very few friends at that age anyway. I picked up DMG for the 2nd edition books and read through the whole thing. I also read the entire players handbook, and over time the entire monstrous manual. 5 years later I was DM'ing in high school for a small group of friends, and having a blast. Those 5 years carried a lot of utter failures and ridiculous jaunts, but you have to start somewhere. As my body matured, my gaming became more sophisticated, and I slowly added more players of different backgrounds under my belt. Every new person I DM'd for was a new lesson in how my games should run, and eventually I learned the ultimate lesson: It's all about fun. No matter how many times anybody tells you, that is what it comes down to in the very end. However you manage to get there with your gaming group is the actual difficult part, but every group will either find that, or disperse.
Step 2: Learn the Rules
Plain and simple, pick up the PHB and read every rule that applies to combat and character creation. You will often find that you are the one that everybody asks the questions of. The questions come fast at times to, so it's good to have a bag of tricks up your sleeve just in case. One of my favorite tricks is to answer a question with another question, or perhaps put some mystery behind it. "How come he gets to be a Dragonborn, but I can't?" "Good question, maybe you should go on a quest to find out." or "The book says scale mail costs 45! How come he's charging me 100g!?" "Why would he charge so much for scale mail?"
Making a mistake at times can often lead you into a quest or a chance at a unique RP encounter without you ever planning it. Mistakes can be what keeps the world fresh and interesting. However, eventually the mistakes should be sieved out to a minimum, and the fresh and interesting should be as intentional as possible.
Step 3/4: Make Some Encounters/Create A Story
These two steps are completely interchangeable. Sometimes if you have a story, you can just throw some monsters in there for fun and excitement. Conversely, if you have some great encounters planned, figure out how the players will end up wandering into them! Sometimes it can be easier than you think. A good adventuring group should be wanting some adventure anyway; make it easy to find, and give them so good rewards for it!
More next week.
-Lance of the Hill People
Sunday, June 15, 2008
DM'ing: It's Your World Now
Today I would like to write about originality. I am a DM that takes great pride in the worlds and stories that I create, and I was slightly taken aback by something I read in the newest Dungeon Master's Guide. They sentence I read specifically said that as a DM you are not expected to be original. Now I know my post about Recycling is frighteningly similar to that idea, but I do not condone the message that is being sent.
Being a DM means more than just being the moderator and planner of an adventure. Your players look to you to make the story interesting to them. While recycling other material, you may see different reactions from your players, and they may become more or less interested depending on how exciting you have made it. Completely reusing published material in a D&D campaign can really set you back in the eyes of the players. In fact, I've been called on it multiple times, "Isn't this the plot to?" or, "Hey, this NPC is acting a lot like that guy from Monty Python." Etc.
While originality is not required to be a DM, it offers you something that you can't get from modules and premade settings.
Credibility: When it all comes down to it, players would rather see a fun and enthusiastic DM tell his or her own story, before they play through a story they already know. This gives the DM some credibility with the players. The players really believe that the storytellers words are the actual chronicle of this world. When you take an already known story and run your players through, they have every right to carry predictions with them, as opposed to happily living in mystery.
But you may ask, "Lance! You seem to have all the answers, how do I do this originality thing?"
And I may respond, "Simply my friend! Just create!"
Just Create: Start with an idea, something simple at first, and run with it. Keep in mind, the idea doesn't have to be amazing or epic or extraordinary. The idea can be the most mundane thought, and you can turn it into an epic quest. You could make a campaign out of making breakfast even! The egg you crack into the frying pan on your stove might be the same egg that a storm giant cracked onto his own hearth, a wyvern or a Roc's egg no doubt. And the orange juice you poured into the cup is obviously an elixir of nourishment that one of the party members finds that very same morning.
Take it from there: my version of the story is that the party investigates the mysterious elixir to find a sage who knows very well that the substance is only found in the high peaks where the Roc's make their nests. The elixir is worth a small fortune, so the party goes up to investigate to try to make a buck. When they finally scale the cliff face, the Roc's turn out to be friendly, and peaceloving. The offer all the elixir the party wants if they'll help them battle the storm giant that has been trapping their kind. And it can go on from there.
Don't be afraid to let your mind wander when making your campaigns.
-Lance of the Hill People
Being a DM means more than just being the moderator and planner of an adventure. Your players look to you to make the story interesting to them. While recycling other material, you may see different reactions from your players, and they may become more or less interested depending on how exciting you have made it. Completely reusing published material in a D&D campaign can really set you back in the eyes of the players. In fact, I've been called on it multiple times, "Isn't this the plot to
While originality is not required to be a DM, it offers you something that you can't get from modules and premade settings.
Credibility: When it all comes down to it, players would rather see a fun and enthusiastic DM tell his or her own story, before they play through a story they already know. This gives the DM some credibility with the players. The players really believe that the storytellers words are the actual chronicle of this world. When you take an already known story and run your players through, they have every right to carry predictions with them, as opposed to happily living in mystery.
But you may ask, "Lance! You seem to have all the answers, how do I do this originality thing?"
And I may respond, "Simply my friend! Just create!"
Just Create: Start with an idea, something simple at first, and run with it. Keep in mind, the idea doesn't have to be amazing or epic or extraordinary. The idea can be the most mundane thought, and you can turn it into an epic quest. You could make a campaign out of making breakfast even! The egg you crack into the frying pan on your stove might be the same egg that a storm giant cracked onto his own hearth, a wyvern or a Roc's egg no doubt. And the orange juice you poured into the cup is obviously an elixir of nourishment that one of the party members finds that very same morning.
Take it from there: my version of the story is that the party investigates the mysterious elixir to find a sage who knows very well that the substance is only found in the high peaks where the Roc's make their nests. The elixir is worth a small fortune, so the party goes up to investigate to try to make a buck. When they finally scale the cliff face, the Roc's turn out to be friendly, and peaceloving. The offer all the elixir the party wants if they'll help them battle the storm giant that has been trapping their kind. And it can go on from there.
Don't be afraid to let your mind wander when making your campaigns.
-Lance of the Hill People
Sunday, June 8, 2008
DM'ing: The Benefits of Mapping Your World (Even if the Players Don't See It)
This is the first in a long series of weekly articles on ways to help spread some constructive ideas and strategies on DM'ing. The next few weeks will have everything to do with creating your own worlds, as opposed to using a module or a published campaign. The 4th Edition Dungeon Masters Guide gives you plenty of good reasons to use pre-made campaigns and adventures, but if you're style is anything like mine, you spend most of your time in your own worlds.
As you may have guessed from the title, this particular segment is about making maps. Let me just put in the disclaimer that I am in no way artistically inclined with a pen/pencil/crayon/stencil, but I love drawing maps. Now why do I draw maps as opposed to writing or just remembering the setting? First of all, memories of your D&D world can easily fade when a certain region has not been visited recently. Even though it was only a week for the players, it could be months in reality! Also, writing out the description of the entire world before you map it is generally regarded as a poor mnemonic when it comes to accessing stored data in your brain. In other words, visuals really help you remember things about your world without having to specifically look them up. A small crook in the ocean line on your world map might remind you of the fact that you named the nearby port city "Crookshore". It's a little known fact there are no mussels on the coast near Crookshore, they were eaten to extinction by a band of Kuo-Toa that were left behind after a raid. But I digress.
I've established that memory is a driving tool for having a visual, as opposed to written or remembered, map, but there are other important facets that I come across while drawing:
Creating is Familiarizing -
As you draw at your world in a visual format, you get to see and feel the land being made in real-time. You understand the work that gods themselves put into the shaping of lands, and you are able to really connect with the continental shapes that you've drawn. It's not just the facts, it's what you yourself have created from nothing, and you are more likely to identify with the lands earlier on. There will be many instances where you will be put on the spot to describe your lands. The deeper the connection you have to the contours of the terrain, the more detailed your descriptions will be become, and players love details.
Frame of Reference -
When you craft the world from your imagination, you not only familiarize yourself with the terrain, you also get to convince yourself of some of the more important aspects of the geology. Why is the Dwarven City built in this part of the mountains? Does a Human settlement really belong that close to an Elven wood? These are the question that you can answer when placing cities, towns, and settlements throughout your worlds.
Improv becomes Lore -
Old DM pros know that there's a lot of improv involved when you create your own world. One of the greatest challenges of a DM that uses homemade settings is the tricky questions the players like to ask that you are rarely prepared for. "How does Talonvale survive as a farming community without a nearby source of freshwater?" You might not have thought of that when designing your landscape, but maybe you came up with the answer on the spot just then. The answer has just become a part of the lore of the town as well. There's not above ground river, but there's a massive channel of underground waterways that just so happen to be infested with and the townspeople need help!
Lore Inspiration -
When drawing the map for my first 4th Edition setting, I came upon one of my favorite connections. It was suggested by one of my PC's that I set the campaign in a world that was once struck by a huge war or disaster of some sort. I had no idea how that might get implemented at the time, but as I was drawing the hilly landscape that players would start in, and the mushroom forest valley below, I realized that the best explanation for a giant forest of mushrooms surrounded by hills, that are surrounded by mountains, was quite obvious in fact. The mushroom forest grows out of a crater cause by a massive impact in the center of the continent. This impact could have been a meteor, a ritual gone wrong, or perhaps a god falling from the heavens. Making your maps can and will inspire you to think about more than just geography and geology, but about what makes your setting unique.
Check back next Sunday for more tips on creating a setting of your own.
-Lance of the Hill People
As you may have guessed from the title, this particular segment is about making maps. Let me just put in the disclaimer that I am in no way artistically inclined with a pen/pencil/crayon/stencil, but I love drawing maps. Now why do I draw maps as opposed to writing or just remembering the setting? First of all, memories of your D&D world can easily fade when a certain region has not been visited recently. Even though it was only a week for the players, it could be months in reality! Also, writing out the description of the entire world before you map it is generally regarded as a poor mnemonic when it comes to accessing stored data in your brain. In other words, visuals really help you remember things about your world without having to specifically look them up. A small crook in the ocean line on your world map might remind you of the fact that you named the nearby port city "Crookshore". It's a little known fact there are no mussels on the coast near Crookshore, they were eaten to extinction by a band of Kuo-Toa that were left behind after a raid. But I digress.
I've established that memory is a driving tool for having a visual, as opposed to written or remembered, map, but there are other important facets that I come across while drawing:
Creating is Familiarizing -
As you draw at your world in a visual format, you get to see and feel the land being made in real-time. You understand the work that gods themselves put into the shaping of lands, and you are able to really connect with the continental shapes that you've drawn. It's not just the facts, it's what you yourself have created from nothing, and you are more likely to identify with the lands earlier on. There will be many instances where you will be put on the spot to describe your lands. The deeper the connection you have to the contours of the terrain, the more detailed your descriptions will be become, and players love details.
Frame of Reference -
When you craft the world from your imagination, you not only familiarize yourself with the terrain, you also get to convince yourself of some of the more important aspects of the geology. Why is the Dwarven City built in this part of the mountains? Does a Human settlement really belong that close to an Elven wood? These are the question that you can answer when placing cities, towns, and settlements throughout your worlds.
Improv becomes Lore -
Old DM pros know that there's a lot of improv involved when you create your own world. One of the greatest challenges of a DM that uses homemade settings is the tricky questions the players like to ask that you are rarely prepared for. "How does Talonvale survive as a farming community without a nearby source of freshwater?" You might not have thought of that when designing your landscape, but maybe you came up with the answer on the spot just then. The answer has just become a part of the lore of the town as well. There's not above ground river, but there's a massive channel of underground waterways that just so happen to be infested with
Lore Inspiration -
When drawing the map for my first 4th Edition setting, I came upon one of my favorite connections. It was suggested by one of my PC's that I set the campaign in a world that was once struck by a huge war or disaster of some sort. I had no idea how that might get implemented at the time, but as I was drawing the hilly landscape that players would start in, and the mushroom forest valley below, I realized that the best explanation for a giant forest of mushrooms surrounded by hills, that are surrounded by mountains, was quite obvious in fact. The mushroom forest grows out of a crater cause by a massive impact in the center of the continent. This impact could have been a meteor, a ritual gone wrong, or perhaps a god falling from the heavens. Making your maps can and will inspire you to think about more than just geography and geology, but about what makes your setting unique.
Check back next Sunday for more tips on creating a setting of your own.
-Lance of the Hill People
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