New D&D Player...

[Lucifer dern]

Well I've kind of ended up jumping in at the deep end.
I?m on a games development course
And me and a group my m8s also on the course decided we would start playing D&D
None of us have ever played a table top RPG before. But so many games are "based on" D&D it seemed like a good place to start.

However, we needed a DM... Guess who?
So unfortunately where doing this on a budget of...almost nothing, but my m8s brother tried to get into D&D but never did, lucky he had his old books lying about.
I?m sorry guys; 4th edition.
So I?m reading through them all like anything, I've wacked up a loose idea for are first adventure, learnt all the rules so i can recite them backwoods, and told my Players to do the same.

Any help you could give me would be good escapist. :/

I?m sure there are some DM gods on here, and I want to make sure this game works.
So any advice on playing will help
(Yes I?m already thinking about switching 2 3.5 or at least a hybrid of the 2.)

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

imo, the most important thing for a DM/GM is to be a good storyteller. game mechanics are important, but definitely secondary. mainly, as long as you are familiar enough with game mechanics to be able to create a challenge for your players without overwhelming them or boring them, you're fine.

 

[Rofl-Mayo]

Unfortunately I can't give any help. I played a few minutes of it with my friend and couldn't get into it. I plan on talking to him and setting up another game though. Now taht it has been two or so years maybe I'll find it interesting.

 

[Amnestic]

There's already some decent advice in general here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/538.245736-Starting-D-D-Any-advice].

Read the Check for Traps [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/checkfortraps] column as it's got some pretty decent advice on the whole.

If it's your first time DMing, you might want to consider running a prebought adventure until you guys get into the swing of things first, then move onto your own inventions.

Make sure people bring snacks!

 

[Lucifer dern]

imo, the most important thing for a DM/GM is to be a good storyteller. game mechanics are important, but definitely secondary. mainly, as long as you are familiar enough with game mechanics to be able to create a challenge for your players without overwhelming them or boring them, you're fine.

I like that idea, I choose 2 be the GM just for the story telling
I've already got riddles and handouts ready
Bit worryed about group composition though, Theirs 4 of us (including me) they want to be :
cleric
paladin
warlock
Im not sure how things like traps work without a rouge around :/ People tell me we should have gone for the red box route, but we didnt even have the money for that :/

 

[not_the_dm]

A good point from Amnestic, the published adventures make a DM's job a lot easier. H1: Keep on the Shadowfell is the best place to start 4e, especially if you haven't done any table-top RPG before.

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

imo, the most important thing for a DM/GM is to be a good storyteller. game mechanics are important, but definitely secondary. mainly, as long as you are familiar enough with game mechanics to be able to create a challenge for your players without overwhelming them or boring them, you're fine.

I like that idea, I choose 2 be the GM just for the story telling
I've already got riddles and handouts ready
Bit worryed about group composition though, Theirs 4 of us (including me) they want to be :
cleric
paladin
warlock
Im not sure how things like traps work without a rouge around :/ People tell me we should have gone for the red box route, but we didnt even have the money for that :/

not sure what they've changed in 4th, but in older editions, clerics could cover some of the duties of a rogue, through trap disarming (or at least detecting) spells.

 

[Naheal]

So long as you have someone with Thievery, traps shouldn't be an issue. Also, as a DM, you can eliminate traps altogether when you don't have someone with Thievery around.

 

[not_the_dm]

imo, the most important thing for a DM/GM is to be a good storyteller. game mechanics are important, but definitely secondary. mainly, as long as you are familiar enough with game mechanics to be able to create a challenge for your players without overwhelming them or boring them, you're fine.

Bit worryed about group composition though, Theirs 4 of us (including me) they want to be :
cleric
paladin
warlock

That's quite a good group really. The cleric has buffs and healing skills wih some good combat abilities, the paladin is one of the toughest chars, able to tie up several enemies and heal himself and others, and of course the warlock has some seriously hard hitting spells against single targets. We ran 4e with a elf ranger, a human rogue and a human warlock... 3 strikers, meaning relatively low health and lots of damage. Not a road for first timers...

 

[Amnestic]

So long as you have someone with Thievery, traps shouldn't be an issue. Also, as a DM, you can eliminate traps altogether when you don't have someone with Thievery around.

Do Clerics not get the Detect Traps spell in 4th?

 

[Cormitt]

imo, the most important thing for a DM/GM is to be a good storyteller. game mechanics are important, but definitely secondary. mainly, as long as you are familiar enough with game mechanics to be able to create a challenge for your players without overwhelming them or boring them, you're fine.

Only one other thing that I could even think about adding to this. The (EDIT) best DM's I've ever played with have always remembered, it's not the GM vs the Players. So if you've got a good story don't go overboard by trying to take out the players with way over powered encounters. It's the surest way to kill you game. It killed enough of mine over the 30 years I've been playing. Be sure to keep the encounters interesting and somewhat difficult, so there's alway a chance their characters could get killed, and you'll do fine.

Total opinion. Burn the 4th ed stuff it is way beyond bad.

 

[Speakercone]

For a first timer, I'd recommend using a premade adventure or two to get you rolling and used to the system, with emphasis on how encounters should be balanced. After that you should feel free to design whatever you want. Also, don't worry about your players dying. If you do your job right, their deaths should feel imminent at all times.

One tip, combat can sometimes feel like a spreadsheet. My solution is once every couple of turns, sum up what's just happened. "so the warrior charged in, fell over in front of the troll, the rogue then jumped on top of its head and stabbed it in the shoulder before being shaken off. the cleric meanwhile healed the warrior while picking him off the ground and the warlock lit the troll on fire, slightly scorching the rogue's cloak while he retreated to safety." that sort of thing.

It gives a sense of action to the erm...action.

I hope you enjoy. I look forward to hearing how it goes

 

[Lucifer dern]

imo, the most important thing for a DM/GM is to be a good storyteller. game mechanics are important, but definitely secondary. mainly, as long as you are familiar enough with game mechanics to be able to create a challenge for your players without overwhelming them or boring them, you're fine.

Only one other thing that I could even think about adding to this. The (EDIT) best DM's I've ever played with have always remembered, it's not the GM vs the Players. So if you've got a good story don't go overboard by trying to take out the players with way over powered encounters. It's the surest way to kill you game. It killed enough of mine over the 30 years I've been playing. Be sure to keep the encounters interesting and somewhat difficult, so there's alway a chance their characters could get killed, and you'll do fine.

Total opinion. Burn the 4th ed stuff it is way beyond bad.

yeah id have got 3.5 but 4th was all we had to work with
i've been told a few nifty tricks to hybread the rules with 3.5 to get the bonuses of both.
I never really got the problem with 4th edition antil i read into it :/ The whole game feels less tactical, yet far less focused on creativity and imagination.
I mean the minature usage i get, minatures must be a huge source of income for them.
But some of the shit they did with spells and rests just dont hang right with me :/

 

[Megalodon]

My advice is probably wasted by this point, but I'd sasy don't plat D&D.This is only the view of me and my mates, but the D20 system basically sucks, it's very arbitary and complicated. Case in point, in our current campaign, our tank paladin was hurt by a suprise crossbow bolt because he failed a reflex save, completely ignoring the fact he was armoured to the gills.
A system like the D100 that Dark Heresy uses, the dice pool of World of Darkness, or the roll and keep system from Legend of the Five Rings (this one i haven't played, only had it described), are smoother, better RPG systems. D100 being the best as far as I'm concerned. Dice Pool is fine for storytelling, but isn't brilliant for combat.

 

[Naheal]

So long as you have someone with Thievery, traps shouldn't be an issue. Also, as a DM, you can eliminate traps altogether when you don't have someone with Thievery around.

Do Clerics not get the Detect Traps spell in 4th?

It's automatic with the Thievery skill, which you can pick up either during character creation (class dependent) or through a feat (class independent. Feats are gained every 2 levels rather than every 3, so this isn't as big of a deal anymore) Rationale is that, if you're trained in disarming traps, you can detect them. Thievery covers disarming traps, opening locks, and pickpocketing.

Also, most non-combat spells have been swapped to "rituals". They don't consume spells per day, but some consume Healing Surges, which are used to heal throughout the day. If you run out of Healing Surges/day, you can't heal, even through magic. The only exception is an ability that heals you but doesn't consume a Healing Surge, which is fairly rare and usually requires the caster to spend one of theirs to heal you.

Furthermore, rituals are skill based. All require training in Arcana, which is fairly common for even divine or primal casters (druids, shamans, barbarians), but some require Religion or Nature in addition to that. Once the ritual is cast, many require an actual skill check to determine how powerful the effect is going to be.

I honestly don't think that Detect Traps exists anymore beyond beyond a bonus to perception when searching for traps.

 

[Lucifer dern]

My advice is probably wasted by this point, but I'd sasy don't plat D&D.This is only the view of me and my mates, but the D20 system basically sucks, it's very arbitary and complicated. Case in point, in our current campaign, our tank paladin was hurt by a suprise crossbow bolt because he failed a reflex save, completely ignoring the fact he was armoured to the gills.
A system like the D100 that Dark Heresy uses, the dice pool of World of Darkness, or the roll and keep system from Legend of the Five Rings (this one i haven't played, only had it described), are smoother, better RPG systems. D100 being the best as far as I'm concerned. Dice Pool is fine for storytelling, but isn't brilliant for combat.

World of Darkness is what im going to try if D&D fails to captivate, or becomes to cumbersom. Im a big fan of Vampire the Masqurade. so thats the same sort of advantage i have with D&D

as for published campaigns, I get the impression my first game is going to set ALOT of opinions in my players, I want to show them how I intend the game to be played; if I can trully captivate them with my own epic starting tale, even if the rules and balance are a little ropey, It should set an impression as 2 how future games will be
Im defintly thinking about usuing a published adventure in my secound game though.

For the moment, ill avoid traps as per all your good advice. I dont want to risk killing players this early on too much, though of course I dont want them to know that. No ones really fermilure enough with the rules to be prepared for extra skill checks to get involved if I can avoid it anyway I guess

Oh and thanks for the check for traps thread, I never even looked at it before despite reading almost everything on the site, seems pretty dame usefull.

 

[Cormitt]

yeah id have got 3.5 but 4th was all we had to work with
i've been told a few nifty tricks to hybread the rules with 3.5 to get the bonuses of both.
I never really got the problem with 4th edition antil i read into it :/ The whole game feels less tactical, yet far less focused on creativity and imagination.
I mean the minature usage i get, minatures must be a huge source of income for them.
But some of the shit they did with spells and rests just dont hang right with me :/

Ya it didn't really sit right with me either and when my last group decided it was the way to play I stopped playing. As for 3.5 stuff there's lots of "resources" that you can download. It's just a much better system.

But hey. Good luck. I wish you guys all the best!!

 

[not_the_dm]

imo, the most important thing for a DM/GM is to be a good storyteller. game mechanics are important, but definitely secondary. mainly, as long as you are familiar enough with game mechanics to be able to create a challenge for your players without overwhelming them or boring them, you're fine.

Only one other thing that I could even think about adding to this. The (EDIT) best DM's I've ever played with have always remembered, it's not the GM vs the Players. So if you've got a good story don't go overboard by trying to take out the players with way over powered encounters. It's the surest way to kill you game. It killed enough of mine over the 30 years I've been playing. Be sure to keep the encounters interesting and somewhat difficult, so there's alway a chance their characters could get killed, and you'll do fine.

Total opinion. Burn the 4th ed stuff it is way beyond bad.

yeah id have got 3.5 but 4th was all we had to work with
i've been told a few nifty tricks to hybread the rules with 3.5 to get the bonuses of both.
I never really got the problem with 4th edition antil i read into it :/ The whole game feels less tactical, yet far less focused on creativity and imagination.
I mean the minature usage i get, minatures must be a huge source of income for them.
But some of the shit they did with spells and rests just dont hang right with me :/

Don't do 3e or 3.5... there is a rule book for everything, even gravity... one of the main differences between 3e and 4e is that 4e is far, far simpler to DM.

 

[Lucifer dern]

imo, the most important thing for a DM/GM is to be a good storyteller. game mechanics are important, but definitely secondary. mainly, as long as you are familiar enough with game mechanics to be able to create a challenge for your players without overwhelming them or boring them, you're fine.

Only one other thing that I could even think about adding to this. The (EDIT) best DM's I've ever played with have always remembered, it's not the GM vs the Players. So if you've got a good story don't go overboard by trying to take out the players with way over powered encounters. It's the surest way to kill you game. It killed enough of mine over the 30 years I've been playing. Be sure to keep the encounters interesting and somewhat difficult, so there's alway a chance their characters could get killed, and you'll do fine.

Total opinion. Burn the 4th ed stuff it is way beyond bad.

yeah id have got 3.5 but 4th was all we had to work with
i've been told a few nifty tricks to hybread the rules with 3.5 to get the bonuses of both.
I never really got the problem with 4th edition antil i read into it :/ The whole game feels less tactical, yet far less focused on creativity and imagination.
I mean the minature usage i get, minatures must be a huge source of income for them.
But some of the shit they did with spells and rests just dont hang right with me :/

Don't do 3e or 3.5... there is a rule book for everything, even gravity... one of the main differences between 3e and 4e is that 4e is far, far simpler to DM.

hmmm didnt consider this. 4e seemed kinda limited, but then maybe thats necessery for new players, I if every player suddenly descides a rule is stupid, or something from 3.5 is a better idea, I can always implement it.

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

on the other hand, just because there's a rule book is not to say you have to use it. or at least not all of it. i liked a lot of the extra books for 3.0, but i only utilized what i thought would benefit our game. and that's one of the first rules of GM/DM: the rules are only there as guidelines.