This morning I had the pleasure to get an email from a reader asking me a few questions to help him out in his D&D 4e DMing. As usual, I love doing that and it creates instant fresh content of interest for other readers in a similar situation. Win/win says I.
Let’s dive into it shall we?
Our friend Steven introduces himself and his situation and asks his first question:
I recently started a 4E campaign for three of my friends. They have never really played D&D besides one or two sessions a long time ago. However, they love RPG video games and two of them are recovering WoW addicts.
I was the only person with real D&D experience before so I offered to DM. I got into the game about 12 years ago when my oldest brother played with his friend in high school and I have played from AD&D to 3.5. I’m now DMing for the first time, using the 4E ruleset.
When we tried to form the group we tapped a bunch of people who at the time didn’t seem interested but after we started playing, three of them wanted to join us.
Do you think 6 people is hard to manage for an DM who is still kinda getting the hang of things?
It so happens that I’m currently DMing a group of 6 players. I don’t think its hard to manage; six players is just one more than what the game was designed to accommodate by default. Mechanistically speaking, it’s just a question of adding one more monster of the party’s level in each encounter and you’re good to go.
No, your troubles will likely be related to dealing with the social aspects of a large, newly created group of players. I don’t have many issues because my group is established (some players playing together since the mid 80’s). However, the 4th edition of D&D is, first and foremost, a team game, moreso than the previous edition of the game where single PCs could, quite often, take on a whole encounter of the party’s level by themselves.
If your group has not gone through the phases of becoming a team, I predict some rocky periods where confusion and lack of performance (and often lack of fun) prevails. PCs will split up and will likely focus only on the nearest threats during combat, making failure more likely. Plus the players themselves will be disorganized, distracted and you’ll have to deal with players talking together while others are waiting for the action to move forward.
Some aspects of this, you won’t have a choice. All gaming groups go through growing pains and hopefully, it merges into a functioning entity where everyone has fun within a few sessions.
Regardless, here’s a few tips to deal with larger groups.
During combat, use an initiative tracking tool that also allows you to track status aliments (ongoing damage, Stun, Immobilized, etc) of both PCs and monsters. I prefer Paizo’s but you can make your own or use a Laptop PC.
Also during combat, in order to refocus players and keep the action moving, tell your players 2 turns in advance that theirs is coming up. So during player 1’s turn, say “Okay! After Jeff, Jim and Bob are up , so start planning please”.
Finally, try to discourage the party from splitting up, at least until the whole group has grown used to playing together and you’ve all worked out in advance how to play when the party is split up.
Okay, I’m rambling here. Here’s Steven’s second question:
Second, I have never been a fan of premade adventures, mainly cause I feel like the DM can come up with better stories, or at least that’s what I saw in the past from the DMs I played with.
Because of that I created a whole region with its own history, a map of the area, key locations and other such things. However, because I never really DMed before I was afraid my story wouldn’t flow right or give the new players and opportunity to learn to play (or I might just make encounters too hard). Therefore I picked up a copy of Shadowfell Keep and worked that whole area into my world.
Do you think I should follow up this story with the next premade campaign or try to move more into this world I created?
While it’s undeniably true that homebrewed adventures can be better than published ones, not all DMs are adventure designers. Published adventures have the distinct advantage of being already written, which can allow DMs with overly busy lives to play without spending too much time prepping.
That being said. D&D 4e is one of the easiest editions to prep for since AD&D 2nd Edition.
To answer your question, it really depends on how ready you feel to create your own material. Since you possibly have your hands full handling a rowdy 6 PCs group, I suggest that you give Thunderspire Labyrinth a try (Gah I sound like a Wizards of the Coast peddler…now were I the ironic kind, I’d have linked to wizards’ site. he he he!).
First it is rather well designed and a good opportunity to see how heroic level encounters can be staged. Second it’s a huge dungeon setting, most of which is undeveloped. If you are ready to play around with the timing of the adventure, possibly getting rid of the whole ‘save the poor slaves’ plotline, you can go wild and create your own sub-dungeons and test your mettle as an adventure writer DM.
Question #3
Also do you have any advice for making encounters(fighting ones, not the skill ones)?
Since you mention in your email that you’ve read the DMG cover to cover. I don’t think I could give you more tips. Still here are the things I’ve learned in the last few months.
Mix 2 or 3 different monsters per encounters, with varied roles. However, try not to mix brutes and Soldiers together too often because the high defense and hit points makes for overly long fights.
Add elements that your PCs (and the monsters) can interact with. Crumbling walls, pillars that can be toppled, pits of mud, tapestries that can entangle foes, ledges and pits, etc. Those are mere examples of what you can do. Heck, I once staged a fight with poisoned cushions that players kicked in monsters faces.
Your best friend here is page 42 of the Dungeon Master Guide. with only this table, you can create all types of cool interactive elements to all of your fights.
And I am sure you have it somewhere in your blog but, any general advice for a starting DM? I got a bunch of years of playing behind me but any tricks you could throw my way? Any helpful programs or templates for DMs?
I’ve spent almost 1000 words here already so I don’t want to overload you.
Still here’s a few posts I wrote you might want to look at.
- The aforementionned Stages of a Gaming group.
- Giving, receiving feedback (Part 1 and Part 2)
- My trope series of posts
- My page on D&D 4e tools
From the rest of the Internet, have a look at the following:
- Treasure Table: A GM specific blog (now inactive) and forum (still active) that’s filled with short GM focused goodness
- Gnome Stew: By Treasure Table’s creator and 9 other GMs
- Dungeonmastering.com:A great site filled with short essays on DMing
- Newbie DM’s blog: He’s new to it too and shares his experiences with skill
This is just a small sample, have a look at the RPGbloggers Network’s D&D 4e feed for a metric ton of blogc on the subject.
I’m also sure that readers here have a few tips to add. Sound off!
Everyone else, you want to send questions that might appear in a post? Send them to chattydm@chattydm.net.
Congrats, new DM!
Tips:
1. Establish your rules OVER the rules to your players before each game. What I mean is this; You can’t know all the rules by heart at first (Even if you played before, playing and dming is two very different thing). And you don’t want to go through all your rulebooks everytime there’s a hole in your memory or an argument at the table. My personnal rule is “You ARE the rules”. Judge what is the best course of action, and do it. If there was a better way set in the rules, you can adjust that in the next session.
2. DON’T BE SCARED TO KILL. PC’s are not your friends. You ask your friends to roleplay a character. You need to roleplay your own. You are the Dungeon Master. You represent life, death, luck, badluck, mother nature, God, etc. The only reason why it’s important is this; credibility. If you’re not a credible threat to the life of your friends PC’s there’s no suspence. And a RPG session with no suspence is like a flat action movie. Exemple: The Matrix (suspence:good), The Matrix reload & revolution (No suspence; no fun, nothing). It doesnt mean you can’t fudge up a deadly damage roll you throw (that’s what a DM screen is for). You can. But when a player takes unnecessary risks and fail. If there is no concequence then it’s BORING! Boring for you, and especially the players.
3. Why do you want to be a DM? Answer this, and keep it at the center of what you’re creating. Then you will have fun, and most likely they will too.
I think the Chatty DM has offered a lot of great advice. I have a few more suggestions for Speeding Up Your Game and the inevitable arguments about Adjudicating and House Rules. I hope you find these links useful.
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Something I would also suggest – and this concept comes from Burning Wheel/Burning Empires – is to create the campaign as a group, players and DM together. This is a divergence from the typical paradigm of the DM getting some insights and then creating a campaign ‘in a vacuum,’ so to speak, and then presenting it in play to the players (via their characters). Some things to brainstorm include:
What do you want the world to be like? What is the flavour of the world? Will it be epic or ‘under the radar’? What issues are stake? What is evolving, progressing or declining? Who are the antagonists (or what sorts of antagonism do the players want to face)? Will it be gritty or high fantasy? Is magic common or viewed with suspicion? Are adventurers themselves common?
Creating the concept for the game as group gets everyone involved and ensures everyone has a stake. It also makes things even easier as a 4e DM to prepare adventures because you know what their triggers are (they’ve told you!).
Happy gaming, Steven!
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About the point #3 in my comment earlier. As an exemple the answer I would give to that is the power of the roleplay itself.
Has a player I was taking alot of space. I was often vividly describing what my character was doing. At one point the DM said to me something like this: “Dan tell me what you do and let me describe what happens. If you want to do my job, just start your own game!”
I did not argue with him. I did start my own game, and I took what was concidered only a xp bonus opportunity and made it the center of my DMing style. Roleplaying is more important in my games then any other part of it. You get more xp if you roleplay properly, even more if you go the extra mile and describe vividly what you do or try to do. If you keep me updated on the state of mind of your character, more xp. Roleplay can even replace dice rolls sometimes, and I’m not talking about charisma related rolls (Bargain, etc). I’m talking about attack rolls, saving rolls, etc, etc, etc. I’m not saying that you never roll. I will often ask for a roll even with an amazing roleplay performence, but the difficulty of the roll will be less then if he just rolled it.
Roleplay is God in my world.
That’s why I DM. To empower those who has the guts to look like fools!!!
Great suggestions and link so far. Thanks.
One thing bears mentioning D_Luck, and I might have left this out of the questions he sent me, is that Steven’s group does not Roleplay much yet. As many people new to tabletop gaming, especially those coming from a Video Game background, Roleplaying does not come naturally nor is it considered as fun.
As the group evolves, some will undoubtedly discover the sheer thrill of building a story and acting in character. It just may not appear now.
What D suggests is surely one of the great ways to play the game… it’s not however the best way or the correct way. I don’t want to step on D’s toes (I’m sure he’s got a thick skin anyway) but I just want to make it clear to all the new DMs that there is no ‘Correct’ way of playing D&D except the way that’s fun for the whole group.
Hell, my group still likes to kill stuff and take Phat Lootz! Occasionnaly, after a few beers, we feel like going into story mode. When we do, we often find these sessions to be more satisfying, but more often than not, we’re more comfortable just throwing dice and having fun just hanging together.
I agree with you Chatty, there is no such thing as BadWrongFun! 😀
Hell yeah!
😀
The focus on roleplay is only my answer to the question I proposed he should ask to himself. The only right answer is the one you give to yourself.
A game like I described happens not very often. Especially if you play with players with no experience. But my focus is on the roleplay. You just need to have fun while DMing. If you don’t the players, most of the times, wont have much fun either.
All good my man! All good. It’d be nice to get together sometime and compare notes on our styles 🙂
I’m a noob GM as well. Those questions and answers were very helpful. Something else that helps is that I’ve been writing up each game session. I have also been soaking up the writings of some very nice folks like Chatty @ the RPG bloggers network.
The biggest tip I can give you is that when you ask for help from most of the bloggers they are very willing to offer their expertise.
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One thing that I find helps newer players – and even players who’ve been around the block a bunch of times – is making sure the characters have a reason to be together outside of the “we’re on a first quest/our players are in a D&D game together so we have to stick together” thing.
Fortunately, Steven, it’s still early enough in the campaign that you can have the players add in more backstory without things going crazy. Have each player explain their character’s backstory connections with at least two other characters – it helps build the teamwork dynamic 4e encourages with the added effect of giving your players custom-fitted roleplaying opportunities that will outshine the prepackaged stuff in the (admittedly awesome) Wizards modules.
Doing stuff like that works, as trite a suggestion as it is on the interwebs. By asking the players to add something cool to their characters – the one thing in your world they have control over – you raise the stakes for them, and they raise the stakes for themselves. D&D mechanically encourages defenders to get in the mix of things and absorb hits that could go to the strikers, leaders and controllers; Only you and your players can create a situation where the guy roleplaying your defender actually wants to protect the party members.
Once that stuff starts happening, your job as DM is easy.
Another thing you can do to draw your players out of their roleplaying shells is to have them roleplay in a more accessible, less obvious way. Do you have a campaign blog (mine is my Web site, with my players and I co-writing posts both in-character and out of character) or campaign wiki? Encourage your players to do some in-character writing.
My policy is that anyone who writes anything in-character – be it a journal entry, a short story, a sentence or even a word (provided it’s the “right” word) – gets one extra action point at the start of the next game. This is useful for us, because we can only meet every three weeks; I think it could work for you because you have 6 PCs fighting for screen time and who might be a bit hesitant to roleplay at the table. Getting them used to investing in the game world will only make everyone have more fun; And not everyone is comfortable roleplaying at the table. It’s daunting to improv your character the way he is in your head – but when you can spend some time writing something down it’s much easier to make that come across.
I don’t know, not everything works for every GM. But I’ve found the above works like a charm for my 4e game – the first 4e game I’ve run, fyi.
I’ve started to try something near the end of my last game.
I had a remark from a player saying that I didn’t describe the details of every shot taken during a fight – she felt I mostly skipped over her actions.
It made me notice that I usually describe only the most significant actions. I got tired of describing missing with an arrow, when my ranger throws two arrows per round.
So I’m trying to impart this new concept: describe me your attack and I guarantee a description of the result.
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wow, so much to intake but all of it is really useful,
thanks Chatty and everyone for the help!