Tips for a New DM

[Twyce]

So, a group of friends and myself are starting a table top RPG.

All but one of us are new to PnP RPing, so we are choosing a simple game system to help make it easy (the Dragon Age game). I have offered to be the DM, as I love creating stories and am very familiar with the DA universe.

Despite the fact that no one really knows what to expect, I am extremely nervous I might screw up. I was part of a Rogue Trader group awhile back, but it didn't last more than 4 or 5 sessions.

TL;DR: Any tips or advice for a new DM or thoughts on the Dragon Age game in general? I doubt we will be changing out choice, but it's nice to know what to look out for when using it.

 

[ratzofftoya]

I haven't tried DA, but here's a tip that may be controversial: totally railroad the players. Don't EVER let them know you're doing so, but feel free to fudge the shit out of dice rolls if it'll serve your story and campaign. And only provide the illusion of choice. Obviously, accommodate choice where you can, but don't let a player's desire to go completely off the trail actually cause problems in the game. Instead, subtly guide them back. But if you can't do it subtly, better to wing it.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Here's my thoughts:

Always stick to whatever rule interpretation you make at the table for at least the remainder of the session. If someone tries something and you don't know the rules for it, make it up and stay with that for the time being, but tell everyone that's what you're doing and you'll make sure you know how that rule works in the future.

I don't really agree with Ratz about railroading, at least not in the extreme, but I do think that the key to being a good DM is to make certain encounters and adventure sites "floaters". What I mean by this is that you design a cool bandit ambush along a cliffside trail with some neat trees for people to climb up and leap about during combat, but don't make it imperative that the PCs take the Ulvar Pass Road to have this encounter. Any mountainous road can work.

PCs will inevitably go somewhere that's not where you hoped they would go, and stonewalling them out of doing such is a good way to piss off players. Making certain options more appealing, via treasure, story related advancement, etc. is a good way to get players going in the direction of your plot, but sometimes they take a minor bit of your description or other trivial detail and turn into CSI: Blue Corpse Division when they should have simply chased after one of the suspects.

 

[Geekiest]

The biggest suggestion I can give you is to read your players well. Figure out what would particularly affect them or their characters and you'll have them on a hook for sessions and sessions to come. Just last week as a DM I used two characters' backstories to drop an offer for each of them. One to work against a certain noble. One to work for him. They both leaped at their side-quests, glad to have their backstories involved. Now they're at cross-purposes, and are primed next game to figure out how to deal with having talked themselves into the opposite sides of their friends.

Now, I don't recommend running things exactly like that too often. Party unity is also important to a good game. But really the important bit is that you provide little treats and morsels customized for the characters facing these challenges. People like to play to their strengths, and often their pasts coming back to bite them provides some fun drama. Give them space to provide you with your ideas. Often they'll hand you your plots to you on a silver platter they didn't even know they provided.

 

[Geekiest]

EDIT: Accidental double-post. My apologies.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I haven't tried DA, but here's a tip that may be controversial: totally railroad the players. Don't EVER let them know you're doing so, but feel free to fudge the shit out of dice rolls if it'll serve your story and campaign. And only provide the illusion of choice. Obviously, accommodate choice where you can, but don't let a player's desire to go completely off the trail actually cause problems in the game. Instead, subtly guide them back. But if you can't do it subtly, better to wing it.

I would disagree with that, but I do agree that a campaign should be a bit more railroaded than most people say or strive for. The biggest thing I find though is that whatever railroading you do should feel fluid. At no point should the players ever feel like DM is deliberately trying to stop them from doing something. However, it is important to have a degree of railroading to keep the plot on track. For example if the party decides to forgo visiting the city you've been strongly hinting them to go to that had an encounter with a crucial NPC. It may so happen that the NPC spontaneously had some business in the city they decided to visit instead. Really, you just don't want the players to ever think "I can't do this because the DM doesn't want me to".

I haven't played the RPG that you're using, but I have a fair bit of experience DMing for D&D. All I can really suggest, is don't try to plan out absolutely everything. That's going to be impossible, and your players will always find something you weren't prepared for. Plan out the most important details and wing the rest as it comes. I've ran a lot of interesting/amusing encounters with NPCs or enemies that were completely made up on the fly. Just make sure that the party never realizes that these are made up on the fly, and try to avoid doing it in a way that is unfair to the players. If the players cunningly outwit your plans and manage to avoid all of your traps and encounters on the way in, reward them for it and let them. Don't suddenly change something to make it impossible.

 

[John Connor M]

I can't remember where it was (possibly in a DnD handbook or something) but it was a breakdown of the ~5 types of player personalities you normally encounter and how to best deal with them which could be helpful to read.

Just googling that yielded this - http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2007/05/the_nine_basic_.html/

If you know the people you're playing with then you probably know what category they are likely to fit in and can hence tailor certain aspects to appeal to certain players and to prepare for things that they may unexpectedly do.

Don't feel like it has to be you against them, if you think they'd take dying at a certain point or something else that you've rolled really badly or that it'd ruin it for them then maybe fudge it a little.

 

[CAPTCHA]

I just ran a game of Call of Cthulhu last night. It was my first time DMing and everyone elses first time playing an RPG full stop. Things that went over well were:

1. The rules are there to be broken. A lot of skills (at least with CoC) are very vague in what they can be used for so make them up as you go. Ask yourself what a skills function would be in and out of combat.

2. You've got to get into character. Think how NPCs would react to certain questions. The local occultist might be stand-offish and private, but eager to talk to someone who displays knowledge in the matter.

3. Combat can be used to give the players a break. If it looks like people are flagging, give them some peril. It also gives the combat focused characters something to do and feel special.

4. Get some fancy dice. Everyone loves rolling dice and unique ones even more so. Try to get something strange and make up rules for how to use it. A dice with hit locations on it for example.

5. Get some pictures printed out. If the players are in an important area, put a picture of the place on the table, likewise with important NPCs. It doesn't have to be much, just something to give the players a focus.

6. Give the players lots of options of where to go next. Graveyard or local club, they're going to both eventually so let them pick the order. Scenes should be self contained anyhow. It's the job of the DM to remember what what has already been going on and tailor the scene to that moment.

7. Important facts, leads, events can be given no matter the delivery, no matter the dice role.

ED 8. The players are as important to creating the story as the DM. In my game last night I intended the players to be fighting degenerate hillbillies, but they mistook them for zombies, so zombies it is. Same thing goes for NPC names. If the players start refering to certian people with their own name, it's probably a better name than you came up with. Joquin Vilhila-Perirha become Whakeem Pheonix last night.
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A question of my own now however. What do you do with a player who rolls a bad character? I had on player last night who rolled a Bootlegger (pilot/accountant/chemist). I managed to give him something to do early on, when he made his own homebrew and went sold it on the blackmarket (1920 prohibition ftw). After that he was pretty much out of the game, bar being a secondary combat character.

 

[Jonluw]

but sometimes they take a minor bit of your description or other trivial detail and turn into CSI: Blue Corpse Division when they should have simply chased after one of the suspects.

Tell me about it.
My players were talking to a carpenter a bit back and they were asking him if he had seen the town priest.
To make the world feel alive, background characters need to be doing things, so I just made something up on the spot about how he hadn't seen the priest since a couple of days ago when he had been visiting the temple to repair a plaque.
The players immediately rushed to temple to investigate the plaque, ending up tearing down the entire altar and a back wall in the temple, as well as binding up and torturing the altar boy. No, they're not playing evil characters.
If you try to give things even just a little bit of flavour text to make them come alive, the players will always take it as a vital clue of some sort.
[sub]Incidentally, at this point they were debating whether to just torch the entire town and get out of there. I take it as confirmation that my horror campaign managed to get into their heads a bit.[/sub]

The advice about floaters is very good. The players need to feel that where they're going and what they're doing is their own choice, but events are seriously improved by being pre-planned.

I agree with ratz that you should fake dice rolls or otherwise break rules if it serves to make the game more interesting to the players. Just make sure they don't notice.
I am the GM! I am above the rules!

As for my specific advice:
Don't give the players more information than what is available to their characters at any given point if you can help it.
They need to feel like they're experiencing your world from the inside, not that they're outside observers.
For example, instead of saying "The door closes behind you", try saying nothing and instead just have the players discover that the door is suddenly closed. That's a good way to create unrest.

That's another piece of advice by the way: Don't tell your players everything. Occasionally let the stuff they see and hear be wrong because of the dark or somesuch.
If you tell them about everything that's going on, they feel like they're just sitting there watching events unfold. If you leave stuff out, they will be left wondering what is going on. They'll be actively engaged in the game.

 

[Dragonclaw]

The biggest thing to remember is that the adventure your players are on is an adventure they SHOULD be able to finish. I've seen FAR too many DM's that seemed to feel it was the party vs the DM and if the players won it meant the DM lost. You aren't their adversary, you are their GUIDE. Your job is to make them think, and yes, make them sweat occasionally, but ultimately it's to provide everybody with a fun time.

 

[ThriKreen]

As a DM/GM, you are there to provide a story for the players to feel a part of, that they can interact with and feel empowered to change. As mentioned above, don't think of it as an Them vs. Me situation, think of the ranking more as "Would they play with me again?".

Don't slip in NPCs that overshadow them (re: Mary Sue GM insertions).

You should railroad the story a bit i.e. they have to defeat the big bad by destroying the One Ring, just don't let them run off on a tangent to establish their own rival kingdom. Granted, one of them might surprise the party and switch teams, but that's part of the fun!

But don't railroad how they handle the encounters. If a rogue wants to climb a tree, let him. But don't cater everything to them either, if they fail something let them know so they think ahead next time.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Snip

I've had players end up faking their own deaths via flour mill fire/explosion because they decided to rescue a troll they'd encountered previously from a gladiatorial arena. A troll. It's a strange story. They also managed to kill the Quasimodo equivalent who lived in the clock tower of the god of the sun. Good times.

 

[TheRundownRabbit]

Be unpredictable and in depth, keep the game interesting but at a good pace for the players. Also, it doesn't hurt to be a little animated yourself, things like flaring up NPC dialogue with accent and emotion (this is where I see a lot of DM's fail and it makes the game less exciting and less immersive for the players). Keep these things in mind and Im sure you'll do great.

 

[Weaver]

A question of my own now however. What do you do with a player who rolls a bad character? I had on player last night who rolled a Bootlegger (pilot/accountant/chemist). I managed to give him something to do early on, when he made his own homebrew and went sold it on the blackmarket (1920 prohibition ftw). After that he was pretty much out of the game, bar being a secondary combat character.

This is why I just prefer point buy (not sure if CoC has point buy). I frequently butt heads with one of my friends about point buy vs. rolling. He prefers the excitement and randomness of rolling and I prefer the balancing of point buy. This person is going to be playing a character for months, they at least deserve a half competent PC who can do things for the party.

Just an anecdote, we started a pathfinder campaign last week and I rolled a character (as my roll loving friend was the DM) and he was shit. I mean, he was bloody trash. So we basically looked at each other and he's like... "Roll him again". I couldn't help but quip that point buy was designed to stop this from happening.