dungeons and dragons help

firstprime

so im a new player to DnD (got the 4E books two weeks ago and played two sessions with basic rules) and i am the DM. as it is im learning the rules as we go along and using keep on the shadowfell and its quickstart rules as a starting point. its difficult to learn the rules, DM sessions, draw maps, and try to think about writing campaigns and where i want our campaigns to go.

i could use some tips for playing.

also i wouldnt mind joining an online session if anyone would be willing to bear with a noob while i learn. i would be willing to dm for the group when i got good enough too.

anyone who would consider it?

firstprime

i think ive found a group if anyones interested

Sarky

A general tip for GMing any RPG is to pay attention to what your players want. You can craft the most amazing high fantasy scenario of politics, romance, betrayal, redemption and honour, but if your players just want to find some trolls and beat the crap out of them they'll end up disappointed. You don't have to cater to their every whim, but try your best to include something that'll appeal to each player at some point in the game.

humanji

Good to hear you found a group. Hope it goes well.

It's been a good while since I've done any pen and papers RPG'ing, but what I generally did when GM'ing was to not pay too much attention to the rules. Use them as a basis, but don't depend on them. Hell, in some of my games I didn't even use dice. I'd have everyone's stats in front of me and decide what the most likely and most entertaining outcome was. Just remember to be fair.

With regards to creating a campaign, start small so that you can get a feel for the group and then branch out. Maybe don't even have a main overall story arc, just a lot of smaller quests that you could possibly link together at a later point.

And don't be afraid to plagerise. My very first time gm'ing was a rip-off of Night of The Living Dead, set in an inn with NPC's based on the likes of various b-movie actors and characters. I chose this because I got to know the players and new they'd love that simple storyline, and they did. I did a few more small quests and then a larger one that tied into the previous games. We were all playing a campaign and didn't even know it until that point.

I'm not sure if that's just rambling nonsense or not. What I'm trying to say is that I find these things grow organically. You just have to give the people what they want.

hairyheretic

Also, expect players to blindside you. They will do things you will not expect. You've spent 2 months designing and populating a city with hundreds of NPCs and story hooks, and as soon as you start they'll be all for heading out into the wilderness

Be prepared to toss your carefully scripted ideas aside, and just run with it til you get far enough ahead to start plotting again

humanji

hairyheretic wrote: »

Also, expect players to blindside you. They will do things you will not expect. You've spent 2 months designing and populating a city with hundreds of NPCs and story hooks, and as soon as you start they'll be all for heading out into the wilderness

Be prepared to toss your carefully scripted ideas aside, and just run with it til you get far enough ahead to start plotting again

Or do what I do in that situation. An NPC, not unlike Mr T, beats the players until they have no choice but to follow my story.

Nevyn

or they get drugged and captured by slavers and end up in the city in rag order and with out most of thier gear.

GM = God Mode

You control all the varibles, ideally you shouldnt' get into a conflict power struggle with the party make the story hook intresting enough and have enough player hooks to have them drive themselves into the plot line.

Ugly_Child

I'm suggesting from now one that all GM's starting up and into campaigns should have a read of the Pathfinder Games Mastery Guide. About half of the book is just advice and setting neutral and is a damn good read, the best product I'm come across of it's kind.

LoLth

1. remember you WANT the players to succeed! Its not GM vs player. Its world vs player, the GM is just the force that applies the rules and keeps the story moving and takes care of the stuff th eplayers dont know about (yet).

2. As a GM its incredibly easy to kill a party of PCs and sometimes you have to be prepared to have a little luck go their way when an encoutner you didnt think would be an issue turns out to be their achilles heel.

3. sperate GM and NPC minds. NPCs wont *know* that Stabby McStabstab is a rogue specialising in backstabbing (unless they have prior knowledge) and so shouldnt treat him with suspiscion without reason. does this leave the NPC open to getting stabbed in the back? yep. but thats why Joe decided to play Stabby that way in the first place.

4. CONSEQUENCES! All actions have consequences. My pet hate is scenarios where the players finish the story and its all forgotten, next! everything they do has an effect on other things (and things others do will affect the characters).

5. living world: a campaign is not a storybook with neat chapters. have the overall storyline in mind at all times and drop a bit of foreshadowing into your scenarios. Perhaps a tactical map that gets knocked over during a fight spreading the markers all over the floor but its obvious that the evil Lord had plans on fighting the Elves of Wussywood. thing is, who do the black painted markers belong to? I always love the "aha!" moments when they happen

6. Mistakes happen. players will be unlucky or make a bad decision and everything will go horribly wrong. In general, I've found its better to let them off and work to recover from the mistake than have them die accidentally or pointlessly. When the time comes though and Brad the barbarian steps up to hold off the Red Dragon so the villagers can escape even though its certain death...then make it certain death and make it heroic. Jimmy chose that end for his character so make it count and dont disappoint!

7. Competition: I used to like having a second adventuring party in the area. If the group passed up an adventure opportunity, the other party would sometimes complete it instead and the group would hear the tale of their adventure being told. Adventurers are special but not unique! (and when one character died his replacement came from the other adventuring group with a history and some nice adventure hooks already in place). Of course, eventually the group decided to remove their rivals. that was fun and a very close fight. luckily there were enough survivors to merge into one group with some very interesting group dynamics (after a bit of GM manipulation of the storyline to make it the best option).

8. as already said. BE prepared for it all to go horribly horribly wrong. I had a lovely scenario set up where the big bad vampire gets caught up on while feeding in a rural vilalge and there's a car chase with the vampire flying overhead. Skill checks to be made as the car goes off road through a dark forest with the vampire leaping from tree to tree ahead of them and finally they corner it in its hideout and have to go in and destroy it once nad for all. or at least that's what was supposed to happen until one character decided that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and used the nearby quarry's stock of dynamite to blow the entire house to kingdom come and then netted the still burning vampire with a wire net he had bought earlier on for just such an eventuality and staked the vampire out for sunrise to flambee. Completely different from what I had planned. Not to mention the haunted mansion that the players never even investigated. No history, none of the rich tapestry of detail I had prepared to create an atmosphere. Nope. Thermite and a few molotovs through the windows sorted it out and once the flames died down it was relatively easy to excavate the hidden temple of evil in the basement with a JCB rented from a nearby town. I cried.

9. take inspiration from any source. One of my favourite scenarios I've ever run was a Traveller scenario based on The Rats trilogy by James Herbert. London underground is a scary place when the plaeyrs have limited ammunition and its their only route to the shuttle port that conencts them to their ship docked in orbit

10. Be vague. Prophecy is your enemy. Locking a prophecy or hook to one player character should be avoided. Too easy for it all to go wrong.

Sarky

All good points. One thing though:

LoLth wrote: »

1. remember you WANT the players to succeed! Its not GM vs player. Its world vs player, the GM is just the force that applies the rules and keeps the story moving and takes care of the stuff th eplayers dont know about (yet).

I can't entirely agree with this. Constant success can get boring for everyone. Be fair or even generous to your players most of the time, yes. But there's no need to be afraid of dropping a bombshell on them occasionally.

Don't let the forces opposing your party just wait for them to come knocking at the dungeon door. Have them take the initiative every now and then. Dark Lords should not muck about when it comes down to people getting in their way. Heroes took out the Overlord's lieutenant? Have another lieutenant or two raze their home town to the ground while they're down a hole fighting trolls. Or capture their loved ones to discourage them from interfering in the Evil Plan. Or any number of other retaliations. Having a proactive enemy who, every time the players hurt him, goes out and hurts them back can add a whole load of drama and emotional investment. They might have been able to stop it if they'd been there, but they weren't. Heroes make mistakes and suffer guilt too. How they deal with that adds to their story.

It's not exactly fair, but when used sparingly, it can work wonders.

AL][EN

All really excellent points LoLth pretty much what i was going to post about.

I'd have to agree with sarky. it is Player Vs world as you say but speaking from experience I used to run my games where I tended to hold back allot it players succeeded all to easily and i found as a DM it tended to get boaring after a while. This of course was waaaay back man many MANY moons ago when i first started DM'ing

Then i got my first taste of a player kill and it changed everything. Dropping random bombshells on players (so long as they have a reasonable chance of succeeding the encounter) is what makes games interesting.

If i could add also don't be afraid to punish (maybe punish is the wrong word perhaps enlighten would be a better word) players who take things to the extreme. While they are rare you'll find people who will just randomly do annoying or stupid things for no really good reason from a gaming or roleplaying point of view. For every action there is an equal or opposite re-action. if they start a murder spree don't be afraid in a few game sessions time a price could appear on their heads for example.

It doesn't happen very often but just remember when your running a campaign any major actions that a player/character does could effect the entire gaming world or campaign they are on, don't be afraid to show them this if their actions are negative.

LoLth

I agree that always winning takes the fun and challenge out of it but what I meant was, the GM has all the power he or she needs to wipe the group out at a whim. Dont take the group's killing off of your carefully designed monster within ten seconds of the dice bag being opened as a personal insult, instead you should be impressed by the group's ability and make note for when a challenge is required.

One other point: Character killing. Yes it happens and its terribly funny BUT I've seen players (grown men) actually get a bit teary eyed when a character pops his clogs of popping +5 . (or scores a critical success in his escapology check against the mortal coil?). I've found that, in some situations, maiming is the better option. An Example:

A ranger character was captured while scouting for the group. he , daringly?, tried to sneak right into the enemy army's camp and steal the General's map pouch, from his guarded tent. Logically, and realistically, execution would have been the easiest result and the character would be gone. Luckily, a mailing list I was a member of had suggested something for a similar situation a few months before. The player was given an NPC to control and not told his fate. During the rest of the scenario, the group discovered the Ranger, tortured and maimed and rescued him as an added bonus. The ranger was missing his right hand and his left eye as well as having had his legs shattered. Time and healing (I never liked full 100% healing in games, I ruled that magical healing just accelerates the healing process but scarring and disfigurement can still occur.) got the ranger back on his feet but useless as a ranger-with-a-bow and with a severe limp and reduced movement rate. The player loved it! he went dark and became a punisher type personality, class shifted to assassain/thief and retrained as a dagger/swordsman that uses natural poisons. Stats were reduced and skills werent as good but the character had a personality that made him unique and a step apart from the cookie-cutter, min-maxed, "yeah right you rolled those stats" masses. A few weeks later I had a player ASK if I could mutilate his character as well... luckily that didnt catch on or the group would have been a travelling freakshow.

AL][EN

That is absolutely genius ... If you don't mind I'm going to yoink that for future use. I cant tell you the amount of times that I've nearly had grown men in tears from PC Deaths ............. YOINK!!!!

Most of this stuff were talking about only really comes with experience i suppose that's a point i want to stress to the OP. Its allot of fun being god but allot of what were talking about here may seem scary now but it does get easier. If it all goes pear shaped your first few games don't worry about it. If your playing with mates in a group they'll understand your only learning the ropes. I've always found So long as your all having fun players and DM alike then it doesn't really matter about the rules in the short term most people wont care about them.

I suppose the last piece of advise i can give the OP is something a very wise man once told me a long time ago ... with great power ... comes great responsibility.

Sarky

That's exactly the sort of stuff I meant, and I'll be stealing that idea myself too. Much more fun than killing him outright for everyone involved. Gives the player more roleplaying hooks, drives home the fact that the enemy general was really not a nice man, and everyone's happy.

Of course if you do like party kill there's always Grimtooth...

Oh, here's some more advice, seeing as we're all nicking LoLth's idea (which he got from somewhere else). Be on the lookout in any book you read for ideas to steal. Robert E. Howard's Conan stories were invaluable to me when I ran a year and a half long Exalted game.

AL][EN

I assume your on about grimtooth's traps yea? otherwise im not sure what grimtooth is.

If your REALLY stuck for ideas you can always shamefully rip movie idea's off too they make pretty good scenario's.

Just change the details somewhat.

I was writing a Half-Life DND scenario there ages ago but my PC died and i lost the doc.

Sarky

Yup. Last time I saw a grimtooth dungeon at a con it came with 15 character sheets. Because traps SHOULD be dangerous.

Nevyn

One of the first D&D games I gmed for more then 3 people was trap based after an arguement that traps were shíte. I earned my Lady Death handle that evening.

A crises of faith is also an other fun arc to play, as is racism, had a lot of fun playing a half orc magling, having the exploits of the party made into a bards tale which has them as buffoons or evil doers was a good giggle as well, esp seeing how much damage to thier rep it was going to take before the decided to track him down.