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Bumping with Alex Pardee

DMing is, at its heart, being willing to look up the rules for strange situations that the players get into, and then deciding whether or not to actually use the rule or come up with something that you think works better.
also, fudging the dice rolls. roll dice, lots of them. it makes players think important shit is happening, or that they have missed a secret door or a monster is spying on them....
but fudging dice; occasionally you will accidently overpower the group. this is fine, just don't let them know. suddenly, the monsters have a horrible run of rolls, they fail several critical saves, they swing and miss. it helps if you are already in the habit of not letting the group see you roll for npc's and such.

>>24215245

DMing is a wonderful art, and number one and at its core, you have to -enjoy- worldbuilding. You have to -enjoy- doing homework and putting together notes for awesome things that you want the PCs to be a part of.

Sometimes its a thankless job, but you really got to get into the role of being a storyteller, or at least, offering to be a storyteller, sometimes they'll just go off without you.

Anyways, to be a DM, I've got a couple posts for you. First of all, the basic first step which should take you about 2 hours:

Skim through the DMG cover-to-cover, bookmark exp awards, treasure awards, magic item generation table, NPC tables.

Second, read the Combat and Adventuring section of the PHB. Also read the INTRO paragraphs for feats and skills.

Third, bookmark a couple favourite monsters out of the Monster Manual.

Fourth, RE-READ the Combat and Adventuring chapters of the PHB.

You should now be competent enough to DM, everything else you need to learn is literally self-explanatory and step-by-step.

>cont...

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>>24215245

Game Design.

Pick and skim through a pre-published campaign setting, and/or prepublished adventures if you guys really want to become renowned heroes in Eberron or Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk.

If that doesn't matter to you, here is the template that I use to help me organize my campaign notes:

CAMPAIGN: NAME HERE
ULTIMATE GOAL: Slay the Evil Wizard or something.
INTRO 1: An eclipse comes suddenly and monsters start pouring down from a portal opened in the shadow of the moon!
INTRO 2: Heroic Barons and their lands have been sacked, desperate lords are posting bounties to go on quests their dwindling armies can't handle.
PERSONAL INTEREST Bill the Fighter: Wants a sword of ultimate power
PERSONAL INTEREST Jazz Spellhands: Wants to be respected and have a wizard tower.
LEVEL 1 QUEST: Save the Nearby town of Sunnydale
LEVEL 1 PLOT INFO: Someone summoned these monsters and is targeting high profile people, the town alchemist was slain first and his home fell through a rift into Hell
LEVEL 2 QUEST: Recover some Sulfur from the Haunted Mines
LEVEL 2 PLOT INFO: The lords of the land are trying to piece together an alchemical formula that can penetrate the monster's defenses.

>continued

>>24216882
lurking

>>24215245

Then I break down each available "quest" with just a little information about each one.

QUEST 1: Save Sunnydale
INTRO: Sunnydale is under attack! Travel there and check for survivors, save any you find.
METHOD 1: Fight your way in!
METHOD 2: Do some scouting, assault the Portals first with cleverness and stealth to reduce the amount of monsters you have to fight.
THEME: Aberrations!
FINAL AREA: The town square has a fountain filled with blood and spikes with bodies, on top of its raised plinth stands a tentacle beast feeding on all that venture too close. MiniBoss.
CONSEQUENCES: If hired by the Lords of the Land, they not only pay you money, but will ask you first over everyone else to go on quests for them; and trust you over other mercenary groups. Evil Wizard is aware of you and sends Random Encounters from now on.
GO TO NEXT: Discover the meaning of the Alchemist's tattered notes.

QUEST 2: Get Sulfur from the Haunted Caves
INTRO: Other mages, or court Wizards of the Lords, or any group of 3 or more bards, will identify that the notes describe an alchemical substance [quest item] that helps weapons ignore monster armor [-2 AC on hit, ignore aberration DR]
METHOD 1: Strike the earth! Go spelunking.
METHOD 2: Research the Cave's history and ask retired miners to draw a map of hazards and places of value, maximizing profit and minimizing danger.
THEME: Possessed Humans, use sneak attack and crits
FINAL AREA: The Pit. Ghosts and poltergeists previously possessing people have been gathering meat (even dead bodies) to feed a Very Young black Dragon. It is almost as tall as a man on four legs, and may be on the verge of growing into Medium Size, yet still count it as Small.
CONSEQUENCES: You may or may not have pissed off some mother dragon somewhere across the world in the far future.
GO TO NEXT: Investigate "coward" Duke Farnsworth who left your town to die (maybe surivivors?), it will take a week or two for NPCs to craft the alchemy you ordered.

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>>24217079

Post limit was bugging me.

Anyway, that took me all of 27 minutes to create, and you can straight up run an adventure up to finishing Second Level with that. (if your towns and dungeons are large, your encounters many, and random encounters during long days of traveling).

END your immediate concerns.

---

AFTER you understand basic functionality, the DMG and the DMG2 should be read cover to cover at least once. Then, once per week, re-read the "how to manage?" chapters of the DMG and DMG2 again. They will tell you Variant rules, they will explain how to exercise your DM powers and rule with an iron first.

Start reading books one at a time cover to cover.

They will re-assure you that you are in control of whats going on, and also offer diplomatic solutions to certain social dillemmas.

AFTER that, I'd go find some of Gary Gygax original articles on "how to" DM and articles where he rebukes dms and players. Its an eye opener in not only fairness, but good game-management and the application of honest difficulty.

AFTER that, with a minimum of 2 years experience, read up on the MATH that actually goes behind calculations such as "CR" "ECL" "EL" so that you understand how to moderate experience gains and ETC appropriately, instead of running into the flaws presented by the extremely poorly written "Default" examples.

Long story short, those are the nuts and bolts about why I think what I think if I had to condense 10 years experience into a couple posts.

>>24217184

>The End.

Also archiving because this is the sixth time I've posted these templates and I'm running out of new ideas to fill them in with. I'd rather just link to them in the future.

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>>24217222

Shall I sprinkle with instant skill for scrubs? It's a good set of training wheels.

>>24217264

Oh yeah, I forgot about the PC development part.

Yes, OP, related post is at least a decent way to make quests.

---

IF you are interested in doing more homework THEN;

Keep in mind the aforementioned "Personal Interests" and the related poster's instructions.

If everyone doesn't already have backgrounds written down, and if everyone doesn't already have an idea behind -why- they are all adventuring together, then here is what I do.

IN a case where I have to prompt Players to complete their own homework THEN;

I ask a player to write down one sentence about himself, it can be anything, anything at all. Such as "I like bunnies"
>This, and all following instructions, will allow you to occasionally put into your games things that please the Player
Then I ask the player to his right to dictate one thing about the original player's back story. They get to dictate one single fact about anything. From "he beat up a bear once" to "he cheated on his girlfriend".
Then I ask the original player how his character met the player on the right whom he's known ever since, such as "got in a bar fight" or "are on the same rugby team".

I move on to the player on the right, and continue this cycle until all Player Characters have a wealth of information for me to work with.

Your players now have information they have invested in themselves, your players are now invested in the personal interests of other players, and everyone has some kind of unique connection to the party as a whole, so they feel like a compatible team ready to take on adventures.

Good generic advice?
1.Never force yourself to create more than you must.
2.Whenever you fill in a major piece of the world, always devise at least one secret related to that place.
3. Whenever you have no idea what the probability of success in a given situation should be, it is 50%.
4. Always challenge both the players and the characters.
5. Simple, easily identifiable characteristics are the best tools for portraying NPCs.
>5a: Keep an description list: 1-2 for minor characters (portly, jolly) 3-5 for recurring characters (glasses, scarred, wizard, young), and 5+ for major NPCs who may be antagonists (white-hair, pretty, scowling, rail-thin, cruel, wears too many belts)
6. Once a roll has been made, and the check resolved, you should never ret on in order to correct a mistake.
>6a: by this I don't mean "screw the players, stick to your guns", I mean, if you (or they) flub damage from their attack (forgetting a buff), or you set a skill check too low (what's the DC to climb a curtain?), or you ignore a spell's duration (summon monster 1, for example) and play proceeded for a while and someone spots the mistake later, don't stop the game and "go back" to fix (x).
7. Running a good campaign is about creating a world, not about telling a story.
>7a: but in playing a game, a story will be told. You must accept that it is not necessarily the same story you set out to tell in the first place. Be flexible in your plot structure, and willing to change as need be.
Some amendments: