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i think it comes down to the players.Agreed -- for example, if one of them plays a dwarf cleric, you've got to be sure to beat up on him mercilessly ;) (Either that, or houserule that the pet lizard must make all ability score rolls for the hapless player...)
A definition that no one has proposed so far:
What makes a good DM?
One who brings beer.
So how does one become a good DM for PbP?
In all seriousness, my opinion of good DMs:
and my biggest ideal
So how does one become a good DM for PbP?
So far, you're hitting on all the points I can personally think of:
1. Remind players when to act, and keep them clearly apprised of the tactical situation (the map was excellent);2. Modify things as needed (I assume you're using Beta rules for the bad guys, and I'm guessing you lightened up that first encounter for us);
3. Use descriptive asides to reinforce the idea that each character is an important part of the ongoing action.
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i think it comes down to the players.Agreed -- for example, if one of them plays a dwarf cleric, you've got to be sure to beat up on him mercilessly ;) (Either that, or houserule that the pet lizard must make all ability score rolls for the hapless player...)
A definition that no one has proposed so far:
What makes a good DM?
One who brings beer.So how does one become a good DM for PbP?
In all seriousness, my opinion of good DMs:
Flexible
Decisive
Actor and my biggest ideal
Self-reflecting, always learning
now, if you could just learn how to e-mail beer...
(aside to kirth: i think we need to not buy anything between the two of us next time, let the other three feed and intoxicate US!!!)
(aside to kirth: i think we need to not buy anything between the two of us next time, let the other three feed and intoxicate US!!!)
I can just see it now, and it's not a pretty sight:
One host.
One DM.
Three other players.
No beer.
Seriously, though, you should be exempt from beer purchasing, because hosting is a pain in the butt. Silverhair doesn't drink the stuff, so I can see him not ponying up for that (snacks oughta be his responsibility this Sunday, though!). That means JJ might need to hit Kroger's on the way over...
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(aside to kirth: i think we need to not buy anything between the two of us next time, let the other three feed and intoxicate US!!!)I can just see it now, and it's not a pretty sight:
One host.
One DM.
Three other players.
No beer.Seriously, though, you should be exempt from beer purchasing, because hosting is a pain in the butt. Silverhair doesn't drink the stuff, so I can see him not ponying up for that (snacks oughta be his responsibility this Sunday, though!). That means JJ might need to hit Kroger's on the way over...
um, i vacuum (sometimes) and maybe put out a fresh roll of T.P., hosting ain't that bad ;)
um, i vacuum (sometimes) and maybe put out a fresh roll of T.P.
A fresh roll is so much better than a used roll. Give yourself credit.
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So how does one become a good DM for PbP?So far, you're hitting on all the points I can personally think of:
1. Remind players when to act, and keep them clearly apprised of the tactical situation (the map was excellent);
2. Modify things as needed (I assume you're using Beta rules for the bad guys, and I'm guessing you lightened up that first encounter for us);
3. Use descriptive asides to reinforce the idea that each character is an important part of the ongoing action.
I was gunning for the Beer/E-mail gag that Derek used afterwards, but I appreciate the feedback regardless! Like I've said, I'm open to any comments on the Discussion forum for improvement! :)
In reality, the hobbo goons did not gain much out of PRPG conversion (I'll let you guess why)
I'm guessing they, um, weren't wizards, then? (Cf. The Big Lebowski: "He fixes the cable?")
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I don't bother to come up with detail of places they don't seem to be going, and if the players want to hare off in some area that I've not fleshed out, I can simply say, 'Okay, let's play Warhammer Quest for the rest of the night, I've got nothing ready for this area.' and then spend the rest of the week working up some ideas for that area (in some cases just filing serial numbers off of previously established encounters for other areas and turning the 'gnolls' into 'lizard men' and the 'dire hyenas' into 'giant crocodiles').
I think the players have to meet the DM half-way here; it's best if they give an indication of their future plans at the end of the session, or in the time between.
Of course, they may not realise that they're going off-track. If you drop the name of a person or place into conversation, they can't be blamed for thinking it's a valid direction of enquiry, that's fully statted-up.
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I don't blame you for doing this, because it was very time consuming to prepare in 3.5, and preparing for areas the PCs might not visit was just plain impractical.
Because of familiarity with the system, I can whip up just about any mid-level encounter (that I'd want to use, I'm sure that some triple-templated, class-leveled monster with spellcaster levels freak with no legitimate story use would take me longer) in 15 minutes or so, so, if it were just a game system thing, I could tell them to go get us some pizza or something.
What I *can't* do is make it interesting and include the sorts of detail that creates new plot hooks for the party and stuff. That usually requires me to sleep on it and wake up with all sorts of spiffy new ideas. While *every* scene / combat in the game doesn't have to be an action movie set-piece with hidden dangers and things to swing off of and a bubbling pool of something dangerous in the corner that PCs (or bad-guys) could get Bull Rushed into, I try to make stuff a little more interesting than 'Orc, room, pie.' It isn't always just about the critters in the room, it's about the environment, too, and connecting things to any ongoing storyline (the bad-guy sending assassins after the party, or whatever, instead of just an endless sequence of random encounters).
3.5 may be 'really boring math' and designing a character might 'take a couple of hours' for Mike Mearls, but it's incredibly easy and intuitive *for me,* with all the templates and stuff, and the job is pretty much already done, I just have to plug and replace some numbers to tweak stuff. I try to deliver more than that, 'though, since anyone can flip open a book and say, "Suddenly! <roll dice> *Four* Allips attack! Roll Initiative!"
It ends up being a three-stage thing;
1) Encounter (beasties)
2) Playspace (setting)
3) Story hooks (if any, not everything is part of the 'big plan,' sometimes that cave just happened to have some carrion crawlers in it, roll initiative!)
The ability to mix standalone episodes with serial narrative.
The ability to do melodrama, slapstick comedy, horror, mystery and adventure.
The ability to be a director with a vision and to let the actors follow their own inspiration.
The ability to select players who get along with one another.
The ability to delegate and compromise.
The ability to switch between third, second and first person narration.
The ability to do foreshadowing and ret-cons.
The ability to min-max so that he can seed hordes with the right magic items to help the players who can't min-max keep up and remain relevant.
The ability to do encounters that are set in the ordinary world and in the extraordinary.
Chicks, of course. Your average D&D group has enough male virgins
Tragic is the fate of the female DM :-)
I will stick to the beer, then. And try to make my male virgin players blush by doing the nymph encounter, the succubus encounter or the "Glasya in the bath" encounter (don't ask!)
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Good DM's do 2 things exceptionally well:
Roll with the punches. If you've got an orc-ambush prepared and the party goes to halfling territory, knock 4 str off the enemies, give em 2 additional dex, and replace greataxes with spears. Or something like that. The use what they have prepared, combined with what the players give them, and create a greater whole.
Establish verisimilitude. If the party is a high-melodrama, comedy-driven game similar to one I'm playing in now, the gnome-a-pult concept that gets pased from city to city keys us in, or if the big baddie razes that farm town you encounter refugees on the road.
-t
A good DM is one that is up for 'creative' ideas..
such as a half-orc barbarian that acts as the party's 'trapfinder' by carrying a sack full of dead goblins, tossing a dead goblin on the tripwire (or presure plate, or switch, etc) that would have ended badly for the party ;)
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A good DM is one that is up for 'creative' ideas..
such as a half-orc barbarian that acts as the party's 'trapfinder' by carrying a sack full of dead goblins, tossing a dead goblin on the tripwire (or presure plate, or switch, etc) that would have ended badly for the party ;)
Didn't you hear the memo?
Only Rogues can find traps.
Apparently.
I try to deliver more than that, 'though, since anyone can flip open a book and say, "Suddenly! <roll dice> *Four* Allips attack! Roll Initiative!"
For me, improvisation is not about flipping open a book and randomly selecting a monster for the PCs to fight. If the PCs wander off track they run into a world filled with NPCs who have their own motivations. The trick is to figure out what sort of NPC would logically be in that area and whether they would see the PCs as a means to further their own motives or an obstacle.
NPCs include monsters but are not exclusively monsters. Not every encounter revolves around combat. NPCs can even be used to nudge the players back on track.
PC: “Hey, what are you doing out here, Mr. NPC Ranger Dude?”
NRD: “I am headed to the Goldshire Mines. I heard a group of bandits are using it as a base.”
PC: “Yeah, the last NPC wanted us to go clear them out. We were too smart for that.”
NRD: “Lucky for me. I heard the bandits have amassed quite a hoard.”
PC: “Bah, we are not interested in such worldly things.”
NRD: “Good thing the bandits did not kidnap your sister. Now, if you do not mind, I have a mine to clear out.”
PC: “…”
PC: “Wait. Did you say, ‘sister’?”
A good DM is one that is up for 'creative' ideas..
such as a half-orc barbarian that acts as the party's 'trapfinder' by carrying a sack full of dead goblins, tossing a dead goblin on the tripwire (or presure plate, or switch, etc) that would have ended badly for the party ;)
Didn't you hear the memo?
Only Rogues can find traps.
Apparrently.
Oh crap.. i must be playing DnD wrong.. lol
what i mean by 'trapfinding' is staying ahead of the group tossing dead gobos ahead of me ;)
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On the subject of rolling with events, and traps (though this is more of a 'hazard');
Our last-session-but-one ended with the party facing a huge patch of brown mold. The dwarf cleric had got drained of half his hp, and they'd established what was doing it. The players know how to beat his thing with a simple cantrip.
Only one problem; no arcane caster. Whoops.
Now, I could have been a jerk about it, and insisted that there was only one true way to get past this obstacle, and held up the game, but I didn't. We had an ooc chat about the various ways one could kill the thing, including dangling a sword on a rod and line, over the mold, till it got cold, then running in and smacking it, or making icicle daggers from the frozen contents of their waterskins.
In the end, they refused to use this ooc knowledge, and bundled the dwarf cleric up in bedrolls and blankets, and pushed him back in to clean up the walls and floor with tools attached to poles.
I was quite happy to let them do this, because, at the end of the day, it's a stupid patch of mold, it's done it's job of slowing them down, and they've worked together to beat it. They're not beating the BBEG of the whole campaign with a spurious loophole. Yet I have known DMs who would have insisted on there being one way, and only one way, to get past any given encounter, even at the expense of the patience and goodwill of the group.
(And of course, they may have got past it, but it's all extra time on the clock...that rival group's gonna jump their claim...)
Bearing in mind that this is for D&D/PFRPG (other games require other combinations of reffing skills). in no particular order:
1) Rule competence - it's a crunchy system and you do need to know the rules reasonably well.
2) Rp'ing ability - the ideal is that the players can tell which NPC they're talking to, just by the distinctiveness of the way that you play them.
3) Pace - the ability to push the plot forward before it starts dragging, but also the ability to give players room to play their characters.
4) Information flow - the ability to convey plot information clearly and succintly through description and NPC interaction
5) Descriptive ability & restraint - every character action is a descriptive opportunity, every locale description is a tightrope between bringing the world alive and turning the players into tourists in your travelogue.
6)Fairness - rule calls should be fair; spotlight time should be shared amongst players; whup-ass should be handed out when it's deserved.
7) An overriding imperative that the game should be fun for everyone.
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slightly off topic:
Swordslinger, have you ever heard of DM Tools ?
theres TONS of awesome NPC's, some quite well designed for combat spec, and with a huge sample size, you can find something that will fit perfectly, or at least can fit with some shoehorning.
that's what i do when i have little time to prep and am not running a premade adventure.
enjoy!
-t
complete with tail slung suggestively over the shoulder? (i loved that pic...)
1st ed. DDG, Finnish Mythos, Loviatar, "Maiden of Pain." Oh, yeah!
now, if you could just learn how to e-mail beer...
Well, it's somewhat easier to supply the DM with the nublie "virgins" over teh intarwebz... just have to know the right websites. >;)
On a more serious note, you could alway pull a Paizo Developer Appreciation stunt, and order them pizza from their local shop over the internet...
What I *can't* do is make it interesting and include the sorts of detail that creates new plot hooks for the party and stuff. That usually requires me to sleep on it and wake up with all sorts of spiffy new ideas.
I'm not sure if this requires noobie players, or if it simply requires that the DM has been especially devious in the past, but...
I've found that if I don't quite fill in ALL of the details, that my players will brainstorm amongst one another (metagaming to a certain extent) trying to figure out what sort of dastardly machinations I have in store for them. Frequently, they'll end up spinning off enough possible pitfalls that at least one of them (or some permutation or fusion) would make a decent hook or plot-twist.
Of course, a few of the sharper ones (who have been playing longer, in other groups) will get an alarmed look when this happens and warn, "Can it, don't give him any ideas!"
Heh. My own players have given me about as many ideas as I've come up with on my own in that regard.
"Hey, guess there actually is a teleport redirector thing."
Guy who is now in Dimensional Anchored Iron Maiden (with predictably painful results) after teleporting anyways: ...
Heh. My own players have given me about as many ideas as I've come up with on my own in that regard.
"Hey, guess there actually is a teleport redirector thing."
Guy who is now in Dimensional Anchored Iron Maiden (with predictably painful results) after teleporting anyways: ...
One of the many benefits of being a DM, and one of the banes of being a player. This happens frequently in our games.
I was quite happy to let them do this, because, at the end of the day, it's a stupid patch of mold, it's done it's job of slowing them down, and they've worked together to beat it. They're not beating the BBEG of the whole campaign with a spurious loophole. Yet I have known DMs who would have insisted on there being one way, and only one way, to get past any given encounter, even at the expense of the patience and goodwill of the group.
I couldn't agree more. A good DM should always encourage and stimulate player creativity. I have known too many groups who never did anything creative at all "because it was not expected in the published adventure". And I have known DM's who accepted only one solution to a problem.
I also have known a DM who invented problems and did not have a clue how to solve them. He just let players brainstorm and see what they came up with, and if it was a good plan, he let them go ahead. He was a very good DM and it made for very interesting playing sessions.
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I also have known a DM who invented problems and did not have a clue how to solve them. He just let players brainstorm and see what they came up with, and if it was a good plan, he let them go ahead. He was a very good DM and it made for very interesting playing sessions.
They're the best sessions, aren't they?
If you're an engineer, tasked with building a trap, you're going to build it to the best of your ability, aren't you? You'll sit back and go "No-one's getting past that!".
Not "No-one's getting past that, except for characters of an APL within 4 levels of my employer, using a variety of simple, common, core abilities and spells...".
It's up to the PCs to prove him wrong, not up to him to second-guess their party composition, and tailor the solution to them.
If you do that, you may as well leave the key under the doormat for them, and stick a cat-flap at the back of the Chamber of Death.
Having a visitor drop in on the game, who's not playing, but be able to cause them to laugh their c0ck off at the current situation.
You are evil.
(And of course, they may have got past it, but it's all extra time on the clock...that rival group's gonna jump their claim...)
You are evil.
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As far as puppet-mastering with invisible strings goes, who hasn't used that to some degree? It's almost required.
"What's that, Matt?"
"You want to give all your gold to a dead kid's parents?
That's mighty generous of you.
I don't know if his dad has much use for your magic armour and weapons, but, if you insist...I'm really impressed by this newfound generosity, it's like you're a whole new person."
In response to the original poster, I should like to posit: “His alignment, of course.”
As far as puppet-mastering with invisible strings goes, who hasn't used that to some degree? It's almost required."What's that, Matt?"
"You want to give all your gold to a dead kid's parents?
That's mighty generous of you.
I don't know if his dad has much use for your magic armour and weapons, but, if you insist...I'm really impressed by this newfound generosity, it's like you're a whole new person."
If we're IC then use my character's name please. The funniest thing was that Lee completely believed me! I ought to get some RP XP award for that. I love this game. Although, you are evil, as I have said in other posts :-)
But hey, life's rich tapestry and all that...
Can I just say to the assembled paizonians, that my DM is effing brilliant. But prone to going off-topic in a major way. Nobody's perfect though eh? :-)