Dungeons and Dragons and Table Top Gaming

[Mentat]

30 minutes ago, Jace, Extat said:

Gertrude plays DnD... 

That's like finding out your auntie plays the Finger Dance. 

Not only does she play it, she's great at it. She breathes real life into PCs.

7 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

But I am nervous I don't know the rules that well and it was difficult for me to introduce clues/story elements without it being super obvious/transparent about introducing a quest or something.  Subtlety is not easy, although I suppose for a first adventure there are worse things than being too obvious. 

Being too obvious is indeed something you shouldn't be afraid of. There's a huge information imbalance between the DM and the players, and players not catching something you thought would be obvious to them tends to be a problem far more often than the reverse. Always be more explicit than you feel you need to is generally a good rule for DMing.

[Maithanet]

49 minutes ago, Mentat said:

Being too obvious is indeed something you shouldn't be afraid of. There's a huge information imbalance between the DM and the players, and players not catching something you thought would be obvious to them tends to be a problem far more often than the reverse. Always be more explicit than you feel you need to is generally a good rule for DMing.

Good to know, and that does make a certain amount of sense.  I just felt like (from my perspective anyway) the ratio of useful information to scenery/setting stuff was extremely high.  But then I've never been that great at descriptions.

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Gertrude said:

The first D&D book I bought with my allowance was the original monster manual. :p

OG 

First time I played was Thanksgiving of 1999, my first holiday with my new step dad's family. I was six years old. 2nd edition. 

I've always had a mental image of you as a sort of sexy librarian accountant who doesn't take suss from nobody... Y'know, someone who wears her hair up and narrows her eyes at unexpected persons. Will reassess. There's a dorky component here I've been missing 

[Gertrude]

1 hour ago, Mentat said:

Not only does she play it, she's great at it. She breathes real life into PCs.

As do Mentat and Relic  Great team (along with our other teammates)

Edited October 24, 2023 by Gertrude

[Werthead]

I use the analogy of video games in different styles of DMing:

• The Skyrim model (aka the Bethesda or open-world model): there's a big central storyline going on, but the DM knows the players might miss the hook or, depending on the group, might be leery of being railroaded into some corridor adventure, so sprinkles a bunch of minor plot hooks (side-quests) and has the quest unfold in a generalised area where the players can go and generate various encounters (particularly good if running a pregen world with a well-established area, like Forgotten Realms' The North or Pathfinder's River Kingdoms, with a ton of sourcebooks that you can use to generate an encounter or even whole sub-adventure on the fly). Depending on the DM, the DM might have the big main plot still unfolding in the background anyway, or it's permanently "on hold" until the players circle back around to it (imagine playing Oblivion and the game isn't waiting for you to go to Kvatch, but has the Oblivion Gates opening anyway, demons spewing forth, Martin showing up to save the day, but your PC is basically not involved at all, just randomly seeing shit go down from afar because they'd rather do something else). Not necessarily recommended for first-time DMs.
  • A sub-variation of the above where the DM cleverly moves the plot around so players will bump into it regardless. The DM directs the players to go to the elven village of Dwendor where the plot kicks in, but the players decide instead to go to the dwarven mine-town of Buttsmoke. The DM then basically has exactly what was going to happen in Dwendor happen in Buttsmoke instead.
• The Dragon Age model (possibly the Baldur's Gate model, or BioWare model overall): there's a fairly big central storyline going on which is much more overt and in-the-playters'-faces-from-the-start. There's a sort of-open world-ish-but-not-really thing going on. The DM is more railroady than in the first instance but there is side-stuff for the players to do as well (of varying amounts, but usually not huge). The DM will get shit for being too restrictive in choices but the players also understand that the DM has put a bunch of work into planning the campaign and are willing to engage with the story. The players and DM may have also collaborated on character backgrounds so the characters have a direct tie into the story or subplots in some fashion. Probably the most common type of D&D campaign. Baldur's Gate III is actually a good example of this, although most such campaigns are nowhere near the density and scale of BG3.
• The first-person-shooter/Half-Life 2/Call of Duty model, where the players are on a strict railroad and get swept from setpiece encounter to setpiece encounter almost by the nose. Player choice will be limited, the DM will arbitrarily say "you can't do that," or "you can't go there," all the time. However, this kind of thing can work for an adventure or a sub-part of a campaign (the players fall into a cavern from which there's one way out, and until they get out there's kind of just one route through a bunch of spectacular monster encounters and puzzles) and can be fun as a one-shot, convention adventure or similar. Just beware of DMs who want to run a whole six-week campaign like this, as it can become unfun very quickly.

 

4 hours ago, Maithanet said:

So I am going to be DMing my very first session of D&D in a couple of weeks.  We have a group of 5 players (plus me) that all say they're excited to try out D&D.  I am a little nervous as I have very little experience as a D&D player (just a few sessions ~ 20 years ago) and zero experience as a DM.  I'm using one of the precanned D&D starter kits (Dragons of Stormwreck Isle) to make things a bit more manageable. 

Nonetheless, I am a bit nervous about how this is going to go.  I did a dry run with my wife (playing just 1 character) which was good practice and fun, but I think managing 5 players will be a very different challenge.  Obviously things will go a bit more slowly with 5 than with just 1, so I won't have to be talking quite so much.  But I am nervous I don't know the rules that well and it was difficult for me to introduce clues/story elements without it being super obvious/transparent about introducing a quest or something.  Subtlety is not easy, although I suppose for a first adventure there are worse things than being too obvious. 

It's a solid starter adventure. I'd say the biggest challenge a first-time DM faces is knowing when to let the table talk and when to gently hint it's time to get on with things, and that only emerges from knowing the people and personality dynamics involved. Most players are generally respectful of the DM's time and will engage with the adventure as planned. First-time DMs also do get a fair bit of patience, in my experience.

One thing to work out ahead of time is how close to the rules you want to stick and how willing you and the players are to handwave things. Getting flustered and spending five minutes trying to find a semi-obscure rule you weren't expecting to come up versus quickly making a ruling (even though it might be "wrong" pedantically) to keep the game flowing smoothly. That sort of thing emerges, fairly quickly, I'd say, with experience. Sometimes you get players who'll be quite (unreasonably) angry about that and demand everything by the book, but most I think will be happy to handwave things to keep things going. 5E is definitely less pedantic about everything being by some obscure rule than 1-4E in that sense.

Are you planning on having a Session 0? Those can be a great way of kicking things off and breaking the ice. These are sessions where no actual gameplay happens, but the players create characters (perhaps seeing if they can tie their characters into the world or campaign better), talk about ideas, the DM can set expectations and everyone can relax before mayhem kicks off.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Werthead

[Maithanet]

I am planning on having a combined session zero and first chapter, since the first part of stormwreck is fairly short.  So I'm hoping it's only like an hour of session zero.  They're using the premade characters and picking them out in advance, so I'm encouraging people to invent backstory and character traits in advance.

[Gertrude]

Don't be afraid to ask for feedback and discuss what worked and what didn't after a session. I don't know your group, but usually people are just happy to be playing and are grateful for a DM stepping up, so will be pretty forgiving. Basically just communicate and it should be good  Don't be afraid to talk to your group about your expectations and what isn't working for you as well.

Take this with a grain of salt as I have very little experience DMing as well. You will make mistakes and you will be nervous. Just push through it and it will be fine. Mostly no one will notice except you. I have had a lot of good DMs over the years, and a few bad ones. The bad groups usually happened because not everyone was on the same page about what they wanted out of the game. Figure out what the players (and you) like about the game (fighting, problem solving, RP, hanging out) and lean into it.

Also, I think your estimate of an hour is optimistic. Nope, I don't know the module you're using, I just know that it always takes longer than you think it will.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Gertrude

[baxus]

On 10/24/2023 at 2:55 PM, Mentat said:

While I mostly agree, in a one off session within a convention where the adventure needs to be concluded within a certain (usually brief) timeframe, I can be more understanding of the DM more or less gently steering players away from ways to deal with the situation which they think will be long-winded, useless or counterproductive. I agree the DM in Toth's anecdote seems to have been too blunt and unwilling to improvise or entertain how the player's ideas might be effective or fun. They might have designed an adventure based on combat or infiltration rather than social skills and just weren't good enough at DMing (DMing is by no means easy) to adapt on the fly.

I agree with you on everything here, but there was nothing gentle about what this DM did. It was so blunt that it killed everyone's buzz.

20 hours ago, Gertrude said:

The first D&D book I bought with my allowance was the original monster manual. :p

Just to be clear, what is THE ORIGINAL Monster Manual?

My first D&D book was 3ed Monster Manual, the summer between graduating high school and starting college. A friend bought Players' Handbook and I got Monster Manual so we were basically good to go. 

20 hours ago, Maithanet said:

So I am going to be DMing my very first session of D&D in a couple of weeks.  We have a group of 5 players (plus me) that all say they're excited to try out D&D.  I am a little nervous as I have very little experience as a D&D player (just a few sessions ~ 20 years ago) and zero experience as a DM.  I'm using one of the precanned D&D starter kits (Dragons of Stormwreck Isle) to make things a bit more manageable. 

Nonetheless, I am a bit nervous about how this is going to go.  I did a dry run with my wife (playing just 1 character) which was good practice and fun, but I think managing 5 players will be a very different challenge.  Obviously things will go a bit more slowly with 5 than with just 1, so I won't have to be talking quite so much.  But I am nervous I don't know the rules that well and it was difficult for me to introduce clues/story elements without it being super obvious/transparent about introducing a quest or something.  Subtlety is not easy, although I suppose for a first adventure there are worse things than being too obvious. 

You need to make sure you don't overthink it. It's basically a conversation between you and your party, just with added rules to determine what is allowed and what's not. If you are not sure about specific rule, ask your players and you can discuss what seems like the best suited way to handle the situation at the time. You can always make a house rule if you don't know or don't like the "official" rule, just make sure that you don't change things too much without talking to your players about it.

As far as being subtle or obvious, just imagine how would you like to have the info presented to you. I assume you wouldn't like to be beaten over the head with it but you don't need to go GRRM-deep with it. You bring it up in conversation and if players don't pick up on it, repeat it a bit later on. If everything else fails, you can have them roll some ability checks for their characters to see if they remember the situation or the hint that was described... If they fail those checks, well then their characters just have a brainfart and need to work a bit harder.

[Maithanet]

16 hours ago, Gertrude said:

Don't be afraid to ask for feedback and discuss what worked and what didn't after a session. I don't know your group, but usually people are just happy to be playing and are grateful for a DM stepping up, so will be pretty forgiving. Basically just communicate and it should be good  Don't be afraid to talk to your group about your expectations and what isn't working for you as well.

Take this with a grain of salt as I have very little experience DMing as well. You will make mistakes and you will be nervous. Just push through it and it will be fine. Mostly no one will notice except you. I have had a lot of good DMs over the years, and a few bad ones. The bad groups usually happened because not everyone was on the same page about what they wanted out of the game. Figure out what the players (and you) like about the game (fighting, problem solving, RP, hanging out) and lean into it.

Also, I think your estimate of an hour is optimistic. Nope, I don't know the module you're using, I just know that it always takes longer than you think it will.

Yeah, I think the group will be forgiving of my shortcomings.  I am hoping they'll be open to me just improvising how to handle things rather than searching out obscure rules, because that's definitely what I'm planning on doing.  Just in the practice session with my wife, she kicked a zombie down the stairs and I didn't know how to do the stairs damage.  Perhaps I should have just looked at falling damage, although the distance isn't really the thing so much as the hard stones.  Regardless, I gave her an extra D6 of damage when she had a successful hit to reward the creativity. 

1 hour ago, baxus said:

You need to make sure you don't overthink it. It's basically a conversation between you and your party, just with added rules to determine what is allowed and what's not. If you are not sure about specific rule, ask your players and you can discuss what seems like the best suited way to handle the situation at the time. You can always make a house rule if you don't know or don't like the "official" rule, just make sure that you don't change things too much without talking to your players about it.

As far as being subtle or obvious, just imagine how would you like to have the info presented to you. I assume you wouldn't like to be beaten over the head with it but you don't need to go GRRM-deep with it. You bring it up in conversation and if players don't pick up on it, repeat it a bit later on. If everything else fails, you can have them roll some ability checks for their characters to see if they remember the situation or the hint that was described... If they fail those checks, well then their characters just have a brainfart and need to work a bit harder.

Right, I'm not going to be beating people over the head with where they need to go.  I'm sure people will figure it out.  I'm generally just very curious what the vibe is, what people are most interested in, and whether I can keep everyone engaged.  5 players is a lot of players when nobody has any experience to speak of. 

[Gertrude]

4 hours ago, baxus said:

Just to be clear, what is THE ORIGINAL Monster Manual?

Not the first run or anything, but it was the Advanced D&D Monster Manual with the bad art on the cover. It would have been in the early 80s. I can still picture the drawing of the catoblepas. For some reason, that monster has stuck with me for all these years, even though I've never played with one. 

[baxus]

20 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Right, I'm not going to be beating people over the head with where they need to go.  I'm sure people will figure it out.  I'm generally just very curious what the vibe is, what people are most interested in, and whether I can keep everyone engaged.  5 players is a lot of players when nobody has any experience to speak of.

The main thing is to make it clear to everyone that you are all on the same team and need to work together in order for everyone to have fun. And that you can't expect everyone to be great at it the first time around. The more you play the more experience you will all gain (in more ways than one  ) and more will you improve as a DM and they will improve as players.

I've recently played one adventure with 3 "rookies" so I understand your position, but I did bring in one friend I've been playing with from the start so that was helpful.

[horangi]

On 10/24/2023 at 3:05 PM, Maithanet said:

I am planning on having a combined session zero and first chapter, since the first part of stormwreck is fairly short.  So I'm hoping it's only like an hour of session zero.  They're using the premade characters and picking them out in advance, so I'm encouraging people to invent backstory and character traits in advance.

Are you playing in person or online?  One thing I found is that it actually takes a lot longer to run through campaign sections then I expect when creating it, especially if you are doing a lot of improv as characters explore their environment.  On the plus side it means your content goes farther.  Battles particularly can take an hour+ depending on how much the players consider their options.  That has led to me dropping a lot of the scrub battles out (which the official adventures seem to love) and go for one or two more curated thematic battles a session. 

[Maithanet]

43 minutes ago, horangi said:

Are you playing in person or online?  One thing I found is that it actually takes a lot longer to run through campaign sections then I expect when creating it, especially if you are doing a lot of improv as characters explore their environment.  On the plus side it means your content goes farther.  Battles particularly can take an hour+ depending on how much the players consider their options.  That has led to me dropping a lot of the scrub battles out (which the official adventures seem to love) and go for one or two more curated thematic battles a session. 

This is in person.  And it's quite possible I'm underestimating how long these things will take.  But the beginning of the quest the characters get off the boat and introduce themselves, and then are ambushed by 3 zombies.  Then they walk up the stairs to the town and talk to the NPCs there to get some idea of what to do.  That's it.  Yes, talking to NPCs can take on a life of its own, but if we run out of time on that part we can just cut it short and pick up later.

[horangi]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

This is in person.  And it's quite possible I'm underestimating how long these things will take.  But the beginning of the quest the characters get off the boat and introduce themselves, and then are ambushed by 3 zombies.  Then they walk up the stairs to the town and talk to the NPCs there to get some idea of what to do.  That's it.  Yes, talking to NPCs can take on a life of its own, but if we run out of time on that part we can just cut it short and pick up later.

OK yeah, that is quite a short section, you should be fine.

[Werthead]

I usually find timing how things will go is a fool's errand. I've done enough prep to last for what I thought was 3 sessions and the arseholes players have burned through it in half a session, and other times I've done zero prep and they've taken 5 sessions on some completely bizarre non sequitur random bullshit I threw in to fill up time but then turned into the highlight of the campaign.

[horangi]

7 hours ago, Werthead said:

I usually find timing how things will go is a fool's errand. I've done enough prep to last for what I thought was 3 sessions and the arseholes players have burned through it in half a session, and other times I've done zero prep and they've taken 5 sessions on some completely bizarre non sequitur random bullshit I threw in to fill up time but then turned into the highlight of the campaign.

Yeah, I hear you. I've been lucky enough to have players that have also been DMs, so when some person suggests going off on a truly tough to reconcile tangent, they pull them back into the scope of the campaign. 

[baxus]

Back in the day when I was DM-ing a campaign set in Faerun, Cormyr to be more precise, I couldn't find a map of its capital (forgot the name) so I drew one, put in some locations of interest (home of characters, some important shops, guardhouses etc.) and created templates for different types of people they could encounter (craftsmen, guards, commoners etc.) and would let players roam free (keeping their mini quests in mind, obviously) and do what they want and face consequences of their actions. It was surprisingly easy to do. But that would require a certain type of player and, having played a lot with those players before, I knew that would suit them and they'd love it.

[Werthead]

8 hours ago, baxus said:

Back in the day when I was DM-ing a campaign set in Faerun, Cormyr to be more precise, I couldn't find a map of its capital (forgot the name) so I drew one, put in some locations of interest (home of characters, some important shops, guardhouses etc.) and created templates for different types of people they could encounter (craftsmen, guards, commoners etc.) and would let players roam free (keeping their mini quests in mind, obviously) and do what they want and face consequences of their actions. It was surprisingly easy to do. But that would require a certain type of player and, having played a lot with those players before, I knew that would suit them and they'd love it.

Suzail!

One great benefit these days is all this stuff is available online instantly. There's even programmes to instantly generate city, tavern, dungeon etc maps whilst you're sitting at the tables.

[SpaceChampion]

On 10/24/2023 at 3:43 PM, Gertrude said:

As do Mentat and Relic  Great team (along with our other teammates)

Few people know the original satanic panic involved these three before those bloody heavy metal kids stole their thunder.

[Gertrude]

15 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Few people know the original satanic panic involved these three before those bloody heavy metal kids stole their thunder.

As a young teenager we did pop some popcorn and watch a shitty tape of Mazes and Monsters on our Betamax. It was inspired by us after all, apparently.