basic steps to being a DM


Advice


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okay so i already know the whole speech about needing to be open so suggestion and plan everything out i'v listened to exsperiance'd DM's give me motivational speeches about how "i can do it" and all that but here is the thing that i NEED to know instead of just telling me the same things over and over

what the hell does a turn look like, what the hell do i do DURING a game

what i mean by this is what dice will i be using actively and for what perpous, how do i make a random NPC do i make them like a normal character, is there a fast way of doing it? i'v herd "read the rule book" enough i have read the rule book and im not finding the answers im looking for

is it illegal to just tell people the main rules of the game for the DM, im trying to DM pathfinder and i still havent started my game because i dont know what the hell im suppost to do besides read the starting module that i have picked out

here is an example of my problem, so my PC's are walking down a forest path and i want to set up a random encounter, what do i do?

what dice do i roll, again how do i determine what jumps out at them, do i make the random encounter characters ahead of time is there a fast way of doing it, again how would i do that

i read the rule book and im not finding the answers i need, please someone help me..your my only hope


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TL;DR: Here are some free example adventures. Look through them to see how some encounters are set up and how some scenes are described. =]

Okay, first of all, welcome!

Secondly, DON'T PANIC. This can all seem intimidating up-front but it mostly boils down to rolling a few dice and basic addition.

Thirdly, the Core Rulebook (abbreviated CRB) doesn't actually have everything you need to run the game unless you want to play with custom-built NPC's as enemies, without monsters. Thankfully, this website has most of the text of the rulebooks available for free! On the left side of this page, right under the search bar, there's a link called Rules Archive (PRD). From there, you can access the rules on all the monsters in the Bestiaries, NPC Codex and Monster Codex. One of the helpful links for you would be the Bestiary Encounter Tables, which lists some example random tables for low- and mid-level encounters based on location. Or the Bestiary Monsters by Terrain link.

For your particular example, you could scroll down those pages to the parts with "Forest" in the name and see what types of monsters they suggest. Or on the second link there's a list of monsters suitable for "Any" terrain. The CRB Gamemastering section has advice on how to pick appropriate challenges for your party based on their levels.

Let's suppose your party consists of 4 player characters that are all level 1. You might decide to throw a Wolf at them to start with. It's CR 1, so it's an average fight for the players, not difficult unless they get really unlucky, and it'll be good practice. Or you could try a small party of 3 Goblins or 2 Giant Centipedes. The CRB page I linked above says how to adjust the CR and the XP based on how many enemies there are. As a general rule, fights against 1 enemy are relatively easy because the players outnumber them and can therefore make more attacks and cast more spells per round than that single opponent.

Assuming you pick 1 Wolf as your first encounter, here's basically how it works:

1.) The GM describes the location that the players are at. In this case, you can describe the road, forest, weather and anything else you think is important for now. Try to keep it relatively brief.

2.) Let the players talk to one another in-character and get into the mood.

3.) Once you think it's time to start the encounter, decide whether or not the wolf is going to try sneaking up on the players or is just hanging out.

-Option A: If the wolf is trying to sneak up and attack the party, you can roll a d20 and add the Stealth bonus (+6) to the result. Make a note of what that total is and ask the players to roll a d20 and add their Perception bonus. If any of them have a Perception total equal to or higher than the wolf's Stealth total, it means their character notices the wolf — describe it and what it's doing. Ask the players what they want to do. If nobody rolls high enough on their Perception, skip straight to step 4 below.

-Option B: If the wolf is not trying to hide, describe it and what it's doing straightaway. Ask the players what they want to do.

4.) Have everyone roll a d20 to determine Initiative. Roll a d20 to determine the wolf's Initiative as well. Note everybody's Initiative on scratch paper in order from highest to lowest. If the wolf managed to sneak up on some or all of the players, there's a Surprise Round where the wolf and anyone who noticed it gets to make 1 move OR standard action. After that, normal Rounds with all actions available start and turns progress normally, with whoever has the highest Initiative total going first, and progressing down to the next, then the next and so on. Once everyone has taken their turn, that Round is over and you start a new Round.

5.) When it's someone's turn, you ask them what they want to do. It's their character and they get to decide what to do, but it's the GM's job to make sure what they're doing is allowed. For instance, if they wanted to Move closer to the wolf and Attack it with their sword, that would be fine so long as they're close enough to reach. If the player wanted to Run somewhere and then Attack, that wouldn't be allowed because Running takes a Full-Round Action, which doesn't leave room for an Attack.

6.) Let's say Player A Moves up to the wolf and Attacks. They roll a d20 and add their Attack Bonus (usually Base Attack Bonus + their Strength Modifier, but small or large characters get some penalties or bonuses because of their size). You check the wolf's statistics from the Bestiary to see that it has 14 AC. If the player's d20 + Attack Bonus is 14 or more, they succeed and roll for damage. You can describe how little or how badly hurt the wolf is after the blow, or how it managed to dodge the blow if the player doesn't roll high enough. If they were using a longsword and managed to hit the wolf, they would roll a d8 and add their Strength modifier to the damage.

7.) Let's say the wolf attacks Player A. The wolf's statistics say, "Melee bite +2 (1d6+1 plus trip)". This means that the wolf attacks with its bite and adds +2 to its d20 roll. If it succeeds, it rolls a d6 and adds +1 damage, as well as getting to attempt a free Trip Combat Maneuver. The Combat page explains how Combat Maneuvers work. Whether it succeeds or fails, describe what happens to the players.

8.) Ask the next player what they want to do, and so on. Practice makes perfect, so running through a few sample fights like this can help you learn the rules as you go. Good luck. =]


thank you so much this has been the first actual pointing in the right direction i have gotten for DMing, im bookmarking everything you have linked which will be super helpful for starting a game

do you know of any other can's and cant rules, like running as a full round action was not something i knew about that is good to know, are there any more rules that i should keep note'd down


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Going on from Cuuniyevo: welcome!

Moving on to... encounter design. Not a set of can and can't rules, more a set of should and maybe-nots that took a little trial and error.

CR (Challenge Rating) is a very useful guide, especially for low-level play, but not all CR is created equal. A few things to keep in mind:

1) CR is not built to pit the players against a life-or-death struggle. It is meant to provide a measure of difficulty in terms of expended resources, not a measure of difficulty in terms of an index of deadliness. It is also a measure of intended experience and treasure reward, a sort of 'experience budget' for your party. A party of 4-5 first-level PCs will most likely steamroll a CR 1 encounter, and you shouldn't be disappointed when CR-appropriate enemies get overcome like this. However, if your party meets 4 successive CR 1 encounters, by that last encounter you will see the 'expended resources' coming to the fore. Casters may very well have fallen back to using cantrips or crossbows as their contribution to the fight, barbarians might abstain from raging so they don't run dry mid-fight, melee combatants are more likely to be asking for in-combat heals.

2) A lot of low-level combat will be resolved by 'hitting the thing until it is dead'. The two biggest enemies of this tactic are Armour and Damage Reduction. An enemy that turns into a meat sponge becomes frustrating for players and for the GM. Even if you've built a CR-appropriate encounter, check the AC and DR of your enemy. If you put something with an AC of 17 against first-level PCs, you will frustrate them, because even a raging first-level barbarian has a less than 50% chance of hitting them. If you put something like a zombie or skeleton into the mix, make sure they have a chance to bypass its damage reduction.
(Sidenote, Damage Reduction is always written in the format DR amount reduced/damage type which bypasses, e.g. DR 5/cold iron)
(Second sidenote: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/npc-classes/non-player-characters - monsters are easy to take the stat block and put into play, but NPCs offer a greater range of challenges until quite high levels. This is a useful guide for building and equipping NPCs.)

3) 4 CR-appropriate encounters is meant to come of as a full working day for an adventurer. If you want that day to be especially dramatic, CR higher than Average Party Level gives you more monsters or better monsters to work with. An individual encounter for 4-5 Level 1 PCs probably shouldn't be more than a CR of 3, but a mixture of CR 1 and 2 encounters with a 'mini-boss' fight of CR 3 in a day is not unreasonable.
http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20encountercalculator/
This is a 3.5 source, not a PF one, but the CR system is sufficiently similar. It can help with working out your monster budget for when you want to make an encounter more challenging.

4) Reward your players. If you put them through an ordinary set of hurdles, don't go out of your way, but if they went through hell to finish the day, make it worthwhile. Loot is not the only way of rewarding your players - I run a campaign in a setting that is less wealthy than Pathfinder's Golarion, so I tend to reward with bonus XP, narrative breakthroughs, and the in-game trust of authority figures at least as much as I shower players with gold and gear. Giving individual players individual rewards based on good displays of teamwork or keeping their tactics fresh and effective is perfectly fair. Disguising those rewards, or making them more indirect than "and extra money and XP for you, Bob, for your well-timed intervention" may help keep things smooth.

5) Space out the combat. Combat after combat done well can provide a good atmosphere - hectic, warlike, dramatic, what have you. But give them the opportunity to put their non-combat skills to work, to roleplay, to observe the environment you describe to them as it changes while they move from Combat A and Combat B, and so the players can feel like its a relaxed social outing rather than being pressed into fighting roles. Non-combat encounters: hazardous environments, traps, preparations leading up to a known combat encounter, social encounters, investigations; are a boon for spacing out the combat.

6) Take care of yourself. GMing can be very involving. Notice when you feel tired, or frustrated, or disappointed, or angry and should pull back a little. Notice when you're hungry, or thirsty, or busting for the loo. It may sound obvious, and it is, but don't forget it anyway.
Don't be afraid to treat it as a relaxed social gathering for yourself. Take the time after a session to unwind a little, take some time during just to hang out with your friends, or get to know the strangers you've mysteriously invited.

7) Get lots of spare d20s and d6s - it helps keep the game rolling.You can get full sets of polyhedral dice, but these are the ones that will get the most exercise. A couple of d10s are a perfectly fair substitute for d%. d8s, d12s, and d4s will go pretty unloved a lot of the time.

8) Putting your PCs in mortal danger is something to save for a rainy day. Keep them challenged, not dead. Killing PCs isn't fun... mostly.


and again thank you for the tips thats just even more stuff that i can use to actually get a game off the ground, cause i'm not afraid of f#*!ing up as a DM but i at least wana know when i have f#@+ed up, because out of all my friends we all dont know dick about pathfinder or dnd rules in general and the only system we know how to play is 4th edition and we don't like how broken 4th is or the fact our DM at the time didn't really try to challenge us or if he did we just plowed right through it like nothing because we were just too over powered at only like 5th level

and i have spent hours reading the core rule book and i still felt like it told me absolutely nothing about what i'm suppose to do, i didn't find a lot of rules in the RULE book, its ether that or im just stuiped and cant see whats right in front of me

but now that i have these quick resources that you guys have givein me i feel confidant that i can actually start a game

Scarab Sages

This is one of the most friendly and helpful boards I've ever seen when DM's post for help.

Don't worry about absorbing and fully understanding all the rules in the CRB at once. Pathfinder is a rules-heavy system and the bulk can take a few games to get used to. It flows well once you get the basics down though. Promise.


Warted Wartoad wrote:

here is an example of my problem, so my PC's are walking down a forest path and i want to set up a random encounter, what do i do?

what dice do i roll, again how do i determine what jumps out at them, do i make the random encounter characters ahead of time is there a fast way of doing it, again how would i do that

Remember that as GM you have ultimate power. You can do whatever seems like it will be fun for the group. You could roll a dice to choose an enemy (if you can find or make a random encounter table), or you could pick an enemy in advance and make them fight that, or you could roll a dice and pretend you're looking something up in a random encounter table but really just pick the one you already chose - the players aren't going to know the difference.

As a novice, I'd suggest not doing actual random encounters - better to pick things in advance so you can read through their stat blocks beforehand, rather than having to do it mid-game.


Download a free copy of Troll in the Corner's Guide to the Combat Round to help you keep actions under control. Print it out and keep it at the ready. It will also help you track attacks of opportunity which can become very confusing in the heat of the battle and can drain time and energy trying to dig through the rules to find out if an action provokes an AoO (attack of opportunity) or not.

Beyond that, if you say you've heard it all, then it's time to stop asking questions and just run a game already. It's like reading about swimming and never jumping in the water.


You might have the core rulebook but for beginners I suggest The Beginner Box. I ran my first game with it. It is very beginner friendly and allows you to play with the basics of the game and can help introduce you to the more complex rules once you have the simpler rules down. Basically it is the best introduction to Pathfinder for new players and for new DM's alike.

Go to Beginner Box.

On the left side of the webpage it says, "Beginner Box". Click that and you will get a better view of what you get with the box.

Sovereign Court

I'd start with an AP or module. (Though I think the beginner box has a few adventures as well.) Paizo makes really good ones - they're one of the main reasons for Pathfinder's success. In it they have all of the encounters already planned out for you including descriptions, general role-playing opportunities etc.

After the first one, you can keep using APs, or go off on your own from there. My first campaign started from the adventure in the back of the Eberron 3.5 book. After that I went off on my own - one of the minor characters from the adventure asked the party to look into a murder... and off went the campaign.


@choon
yeah i can see i am glad i came here for help

@Matthew Downie
yeah i get what your saying, but i was useing the random encounter thing as more of an example of what the hell do i do without spending the next hour looking through the book for something that i dont know if it's even there, this is my biggest fear as a DM, to bring game to a complete halt because i have to or cant find something

@brother fen
wow i didn't even know this thing existed and this is definitely something i'm gonna keep on hand at all times because this is partly something i wanted to know about the game thank you so much

@Whitehowl79
thank you for the suggestion i would be happy to buy a beginner box if i had money to purches one right now

@Charon's Little Helper
yeah i have like tons of modules from free RPG day and a suggestion to get dungeon crawling classics #29 which has some grate modules like one called when Kobalds fly or something

but im interested in looking at the paizo modules if they are as discript as you say, any suggestions?


Warted Wartoad - something to remember

You're playing with friends. It's OK to make a mistake or a quick ruling to keep the game moving. Later on, if you find that you were wrong, let them know (or keep the original ruling as a houserule!).

In my DMing I found that we (myself and the players) had more fun if I botched a ruling and kept the game running, versus researching the answer then an there.

If there's a lull in the game play, if in doubt, look at one of the players randomly and ask "ok, so what do you want to do?". If no one knows, throw something at them, like:

"All of a sudden you hear a scream outside!"
"A brute goes up to the players, picking a fight."

If you and your friends are having fun, you're DMing right. That's the most important thing.


@alaskaRPGer
yeah im not worried if im DMing for my friends but as of late it seems like its more likely that in order for me to make a campaign im probably gonna have to include some random people, because i really only have one friend right now that i can actively count on


Apologies if anyone linked to it already, but the Monsters by CR list is extremely useful for making up encounters quickly.


Warted Wartoad wrote:


@Matthew Downie
yeah i get what your saying, but i was useing the random encounter thing as more of an example of what the hell do i do without spending the next hour looking through the book for something that i dont know if it's even there, this is my biggest fear as a DM, to bring game to a complete halt because i have to or cant find something

Here is an "expert GM move" to help you with looking up rules: If you don't know something, ask your players. If they don't know, make a call on the spot and jot down the question on a piece of paper. Then look it up after the game session. Next session, inform everyone of how it really works. You'll keep the game moving and (bonus) earn the respect of your players. Also, as a group you'll probably never forget that rule again.

Over time, you might find your players become "experts" on certain areas of the rules. This is a gold mine - use them like a human rule reference.

Whatever you do, don't halt the game. Just keep rolling with it.

Sovereign Court

Warted Wartoad wrote:


@Charon's Little Helper
yeah i have like tons of modules from free RPG day and a suggestion to get dungeon crawling classics #29 which has some grate modules like one called when Kobalds fly or something

but im interested in looking at the paizo modules if they are as discript as you say, any suggestions?

The one I ran for a 1st session for my niece & nephews was The Rise of the Goblin Guild. It's pretty simple and has a good mix of combat and some goofy role-play.

Plus a chase scene - which I liked, but I know some people loathe them with a passion. *shrug*


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Warted Wartoad - I would agree that the Beginner Box is a great place to start. I introduced my son to it when he was 11, then went away on a work trip. I came back and he was DM'ing his friends, and three years later he's never looked back. But I understand you don't want to buy that when you've already bought stuff for the full game of Pathfinder.

I don't know if you've already seen this (since you say you've read lots of tips on GM'ing), but Broken Zenith has a useful page of resources, including 10 Tips for New GM's. He also has put together a free 13-level dungeon which is designed to introduce players to the game in a gradual fashion : Jacob's Tower. It starts out with skill checks and saving throws, goes to simple combats, and gradually levels up in difficulty and complexity.

In keeping with your original question about a random encounter, he's even got random campsite encounters.

Best of luck with DM'ing - have fun!


Don't feel like you have to do it all yourself. Delegate. Have one person with a copy of the PRD or CRB to look things up for you. Have someon else track initiative. This leaves you free to stay on top of what's happening.

Allow for corrections (based on the rules) to occur after the game, if possible. Have your players help you out! Very few people can stay on top of all the rules in PF - especially since they keep adding more and more new Feats, classes, archetypes, and mechanics.

As long as your players see that you're willing to admit when you were "wrong," they're less likely to get upset when something does go against them.

Good luck to you!


thank you all so vary much for all these resouces they have actually been able to give me the answer's im looking for im vary glad i cam here for help, your all wonderful

i dont think i have any more questions but if you guys still wanna give out advice and suggest stuff i still will periodically be reading these posts and hopefull if there is anyone else like me who needs help they can find the answer's here

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