DM Practice stuff. I need to not suck as a DM.

[Mulet]

My campaign will be returning to it's 40th session in the new year, and I'm using this time to become a better DM.

I bought HeroLab and am creating a level 8, and a level 16 NPC for every single class, excluding the prestige classes. Then facing them in an Arena against each other to learn classes, rules, spells and feats better.

What other stuff can I do to learn the rules, and become a better DM?

[Mystic_Snowfang]

Rules don't make the GM. It's if your players are having fun. For backup, make sure you always have a stable internet connection to check rules on the fly.

[rainzax]

Psychologically?
figure out why each of them "come to the table," and use your DM power to deliver on that.

Physically?
I recently off-loaded a bunch of responsibilities to my players, so as to free me up to focus on the story elements. tracking initiative, looking up rules, recording status effects... enlist your players for this nitty gritty. I think a good game is all about pacing, and this allows you to direct your focus towards that.

also, nothing sucks worse than finally getting everybody at the table and wasting that time with accounting, leveling up, explaining new house rules, and all the other things that could have totally been done over the internet. it's amazing when a game can go 40 sessions and not break apart. respect everybody's time by being firm about handling business before game day, so's you can jump right into the game the moment your last player arrives.

[SiuoL]

Good DM will make each players feel important. Say a caster being good at everything, make them fight many things in a day. Now when the caster runs out of spells, the fighter can shine!

If there is a bard and a rogue. Don't let the bard outshine the rogue. Make some NPCs that doesn't like music or poems, just straight words from the rogue, clear yet informative. Have bosses that are all mighty and powerful but can't deal with sneak attack. Maybe a boss with 299 hit points, but each sneak attack that hits, it will gain a counter. After 3 counters, the boss will die.

Change rules or add rules to make the story fun for each players are what makes DM/GM good. Not being a rule lawyer.

[Eltacolibre]

There are only a couple of things to remember about being a good DM:

1) Make Every Sessions like it is the last session. Frankly while it is cool to plan for epic encounters with demon lords , titans or the BBEG of your campaign, you frankly never know when the game is going to be over because of real life situations. So if you have a cool idea, use it, you will always have new cool ideas, don't hold anything back.

2) Make story that excites you. If you are excited about it, your player will follow. Look at movies, tv shows, books, video games well any media really, don't be afraid to copy or take inspiration from what you like and translate it to the game and guarantee you, your players will enjoy it.

Don't stress the small stuffs and have fun.

[Hark]

Learn to be flexible and adaptive. Players are more that capable of burning your story to the ground with minimal effort. Give more control to the players in developing the story. Get ideas and plot lines from them. They are much less likely to smash stories that are what they really want to be in. Try not to force your story told the way you want it on the players, it tells your players that they don't actually matter.

For rules just study up on rules you know you'll need and take some notes ahead of time in special abilities. You can also speed things up my having players keep the rules for their own spell or abilities on notecards to avoid the endless hunt for rules in the books.

[Ckorik]

While rules don't make the game - be consistent if I have to make a ruling I do to move the game along - if we need to lookup a rule it's a 2 min rule - if nothing if found quickly we rule it and move on - I research after the game is over and if I made a mistake I either adopt a new homerule or I admit what I did wrong and how we'll rule it in the future.

It's not really the fine details of the rules but the consistency - if you ban something for your players your monsters shouldn't be able to do it either - and if you rule how something works in one session your players should expect it to work the same way in a later session.

After that it's mostly about having fun and telling a story - try to add sound/smell and texture details to your descriptions - have the world react to the players so they feel like they are playing in a reactive world (this is the biggest advantage to tabletop over a computer game after all).

That's about all I got - I never feel like I do a good enough job and constantly try to find new things to help move things forward.

Brewer's guide is pretty good (IMO)

Here is a link https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=652EA6399D011D3!107&ithint=fi le%2c.pdf&app=WordPdf&authkey=!AK5Gvgq8AwYimSM

[Mulet]

Mystic_Snowfang wrote:

Rules don't make the GM. It's if your players are having fun. For backup, make sure you always have a stable internet connection to check rules on the fly.

I run herolab, pcgen, combat manager, two custom written pieces of software, two projectors and hand put new 3D printed props or regular props at least once a session. We even dress up for important boss fights and events.

Material cross links into other campaigns they have played, and is prepared weeks in advance, constantly re-written to accommodate their choices and effects.

But I can't dm like chris perkins yet. He is fast, smooth and very rarely wrong. Little things, like this:

Descriptive text must be short, powerful and devoid of ambiguous or flavour only content. This is to prevent confusion, they may show itself months later!

Always include a named enemy, with a distinctive feature in every combat. It provides an focal point, and draws out roleplay.

And of course, I need to be a god of the rules. Disputes and questions must be settled in seconds. Otherwise 20 minutes here, 10 minutes there, winds up with everyone either going home at 2am, or nobody knowing WTF is going on in the next session, because the context and emotion of the situation was lost. If a rule book crosses the table, then I am failing.

[wraithstrike]

You do not have to have the rule book memorized and doing so does not make you a good GM. Just like other things it is just a piece of the puzzle.

Your players should also know the rules to some extent, and they can also help you find rules. Many of the board members here have high system mastery and know the game well, but still get the rules wrong at times, if going directly from memory. Sometimes the interpretations are wrong when reading the book. Many GM's will also tell you that it is more important to keep the story going than to get every rule right. If you cant find the rule quickly then make a ruling to keep the game moving. In my opinion taking more than a minute or so is too long. YMMV. After the game when you are not pressed for time go back and try to find it. Then inform everyone of what your findings were. That way there wont be any confusion.