My selection of tips for the Dungeonn Master
November 7th, 2005

 

Abstract

This article is to present my personal tips about the profession of being a Dungeon Master. Please keep in mind it is done without any pretention. The fact is that I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons for 19 years as of this writing (yes, I started I was eleven years old), so I kind of learnt a few things here and there about role playing. Now don't assume I have been playing non-stop for 19 years, there has been periods of several years during I did not play, or played very little.

Introduction

Being a Dungeon Master is, for most of us, not easy. Tough some would say, as it is tough for me. Very rewarding, but tough. The Dungeon Master has to take care of pretty much everything: writing the plot, creating PNJ (non-player characters), bringing to life these PNJs by giving a voice and behaviors, keeping the interest of the players high, throwing memorable combats to the table, making sure the characters will get to the goal but still make sure they fought for it, and the list goes on.

I have been a Dungeon Master for 15 years. Currently I'm running a game that has been going on for 10 years. So here I wish to provide with some of the things that I have learnt as far as being a Dungeon Master goes. It is less likely that you will find any of these tips in books. The Dungeon Master Guide, 3rd edition, does a great job at teaching the Dungeon Master how to be a good Dungeon Master. But still, there are things that are left untouched, and these things are the most challenging aspects of being a Dungeon Master.

So bare with me, what follow are my advice about how to approach certain issues. I realize that some Dungeon Masters are very good at these things, but this is not my case. Hopefully they may help you get better with these things that give you a hard time.

1. Influencing the players to make the good decision

For me, this is one of the biggest challenges of being a DM. The problem is that you want the players go in one direction, but they actually can decide otherwise. You have a prepared a campaign, with strong points. In that campaign there are some key points that will influence the remainder of the campaign. At these key points, it is very important that the player make the decision that will make your campaign work. While you can prepare for several eventualities, this is just too much work and it will just make your life easier to have the player go in a direction that fits your campaign. However the thing is that you don't want to look like you're "pushing" the players in one direction rather than another.

This part discusses tips about how to deal with this problem, that is, to bring the players to make the decision you want while maintaining the appearance of complete freedom.

A - If you don't want the player to do something you really don't want, don't give them any reason to do so.

To maintain appearance of freedom, you have to provide players with several options at any time, but put a maximum of emphasis on one, make it appear like the unchallenged logical one.

B - What is logical to you is not for the players

Now here comes the catch: what is absolute logic to you is not necessarily for the players. Never expect the players to take the most logical decision. Even if you make one option appear more logical than another, keep in mind that the notion of "logic" is a very subjective one.

In the end, if you really want the players to go in a direction rather than another, your most reliable solution is to give them a very, very good reason to do so. When a player has a very good reason to do something, it is then that it will become logic.

C - Knowing who you deal with

Now, what I mean by very good reason to do something all comes down to
1- knowing the players
2- trust the players

Let's elaborate on this.

Knowing the player: It means that you know the player's personality enough to know anticipate how he/she will react to circumpstances. This is not easy, as some players in your game may be old time friends, but some might be people you just met. All in all you have to size the player and its personality. This will give you a better idea of how he/she will play his/her character, and what decisions the character may make.

Trust the player: It means that you have to put faith in the fact that the player will play its character as he/she should. If the player is running a character that is lawful good, with a strong sense of truth, for example, then you expect the player to play the character this way at any given time.

Knowing and trusting the player will allow you to better anticipate their next move.

D - The player decides, not the character

So if you can anticipate how will the players react to the scenario, then it's easy to give them good reasons to take a decision you want them to take. Remember that a player will, most of the time, play the same kind of character. It is very, very uncommon for a player to make his character do things that are strongly against his personality. Players that are very honest persons that play evil characters, for example, may play violently, be provocative or break the laws, but you will rarely see their character lie, especially to the other player characters.

In short, the player is either at the image of the player personality, or the image of what the player would like to be in real life. For instance, an inconfident player may play a loud and leading character, however you will rarely see these players head first into "compromising" situations (something that have a fair chance of making their character look bad).

So, by counting more on your knowledge of the player rather than the character they play, you will have better success at bringing them to the decision that favors you.

E - Use the PNJs to influence decisions

On a side-note, if you are with a party that is not very pro-active, that is, that waits for things to happen before taking a decision (wich is oftenly the case), or you want to increase the chance they take "your" decision, then use the PNJs to influence their choices. Use their henchmen or their followers, wich are PNJs they usually trust. These the PNJs are not leaders, they can be used easily to suggest "innocent" things to the player, or take actions that will force the players to make the decision you want them to.

However, be careful to not be too pro-active with that. Use the PNJs only to suggest things, making one option appear more logic or interesting, but stop there. You must always leave the final word to the players. Also if you do a lot of this, then the players will get in the habit of counting on the PNJs to lead the party, wich defeats a bit the game.

F - A funny story: near disaster

When I started my current campaign, the players met with a dwarf king. Within the first hour of the game, the player had gathered various informations about the plot. It came down to two solutions: they could try to find the traces of a caravan that passed by 50 years ago, or they could try to find the tomb of a dead priest to get more informations. My campaign required them to take the second option, but they decided to seek the old caravan. Wtf?? I mean we have been playing less than an hour together and they are already threatening to ruin my campaign?? Of course, I had nothing prepared in case they took the caravan option! I had a moment of panic (at that point I flew to the bathroom, see below). After coming back to calm, only through careful suggestions that I could make them choose the other way.

If I had take into account that
1- The players could have chosen the "wrong" way, wich for me was not logical whatsoever
2- I didn't know the players very well (we had only met 6 months before)
3- I didn't know what to expect from them,
I would have make the second option 10 times more appealing. I would have put a lot more emphasis on making the first option less promising.

2. Various game tips for various game situations

This part discusses tricky situations and general tips about not how to screw up the game. There are tons of situation that you could not anticipate or did not know key informations about the players, and then there is this moment when everything threatens to break apart. Sometimes it will not be obvious to the players and you avoid disaster, but other times you screw up big, big time (it happened to me once...)

A - The bath room is your friend

This might sound like something stupid to say, but in my case it has proven true more than once. When you're in trouble, take a tour to the bath room to think about it. You do not even need to actually take a pee or go for a Number Two, the point is to give you time to calm down and think about how to get out of trouble. It might not be the bath room, but the important is to have a place where you are alone and focus.

Of course there are cases where it's impossible. Leaving for the bath room when the characters open a door, for example, is not exactly the best timing. In this case, just do your best.

B - Know how healthy the players are

I once forgotten the fact that players did not drink a strong potion of healing offered by a stranger, and thus, were fairly injured when they entered a fight with a strong opponent. It became clear after the first round that they would not survive more than two more rounds, because when I prepared that combat I assumed they would have healed from the previous combat. If you want to avoid such situations, always keep note of how healthy the characters are. Another option to ask them before the combat begins, and readjust the opponents' stats.

Anyway, if you end up in a situation like this, you just can't make the foes miss blows all of a sudden or lower their armor class, it will just be too obvious. However you can change saving throw stats. You can make the foe have a bad luck, like dropping its weapon or even throwing it away, or a part of the ceiling falls on its head. If there are nearby people, one or two can jump in the melee. One of the foes may see something that distracts it from the fight. The idea is to give more time to the players to either heal themselves, flee, or win the fight.

C - Know where important objects are

This is probably my biggest screw up, I'm ashamed just to think about it. The characters were in a super big boat (big like the Titanic for example), and they were carrying wizardry books of extreme value. Although they didn't tell anyone about these grimoires, the chief wizard of the boat had heard of rumors about a group of people who matched the players that stole grimoires to a very, very powerful wizard. Of course he wanted these books. So he waited for the characters to come back to their room, and when the characters came in, they saw the wizard reading the books, sitting on a bed (he wanted to speak with them, hence the reason he did not leave with the books).

There was just one problem with this: the player that carried the books said that he was carrying the books in his magic pocket, and he was carrying the pocket at that moment. So this totally unexpected circumpstance led me a second screw up of the dumbest nature (I should have take a tour to the bathroom, wich I did not..... lesson learnt): I said "forget what happened guys. Instead, when you open the door, the wizard stands there, and casts a dispel magic... that works. The books fall on the floor."

You just can't make things up like that. It doesn't work at all, and you look stupid.

A year later or so I discussed that moment with one of the players, who happens to be a very good DM. I asked what he would have done in my place. This tip is his: "before doing something like that, I would have asked the you where the books are. It doesn't tell much about what is going to happen, although you will just intrigued because you suspect *something* will happen with the books." I thought this was totally true.

3. Larger campaigns

This section focuses on running larger campaigns. By larger campaigns, I mean multiple long campaigns with the same players and characters. For instance, I have been running the same campaign for 11 years as I write this. While we have not played non-stop for 11 years, we played 3 major campaigns plus "solos", for a total of about 3 years of one game every 2 weeks over 11 years.

This brings a few problems. These problems are due to the fact that these campaigns are actually part of the same large campaign, wich will hopefully culminute in many years from now. This type of campaign is called oignion-skin campaign, where each game and campaign is just another layer of skin taken out until the players get to the very bottom of the story.

A - Keeping records

In fact, the biggest problem in such campaigns is too keep records of what happened, and most importantly, what was said. Since each campaign is only a part of the larger campaign, and that what was said in the first campaign still has relevance in the 3rd one (and that the third one migh happen 5 physical years after the first one), keeping these detailed records become critical. Especially when you have to deal with a priest of time that can access any memory at any time, to recall any information he has come in contact with.

B - Typing

The first step to keep good records is to type your adventures. Of course, it is not all DMs who will type their adventures. For instance, a DM friend of mine doesn't write a single line, instead will draw a few symbols on a sheet of paper.... that his game for the evening. However if you can type, then type. When you look for information few years laters, you'll just be glad you did.

C - Post-mortem

After the game is over, type a summary of what happened. Not everything that you typed previously happened, so just taking out what did not happen will make your life even easier when you want to recall past events. Then add your own notes and, if possible, what was said.

D - Information to the players

To make a synthesis of the two previous points, there is one area that really needs your attention: the information you give out to the players. That is, what important can PNJs tell them, and most of all, what they CAN'T learn from a PNJ. Experience has taught me that it's easier to write down before the game what the player can learn from a particular PNJ. Then, during the game or after, I just need to cicle what was said. So if my priest of time uses his memory abilities and asks you what did the king said when they spoke about the missing stone on the king's crown, well, you'll know exactly what to answer.

E - Letters

If you are like me, you probably give out a lot of letters to the players. I like to hand-write letters on parch-like paper, then taint these letters with various products (like Soja sauce and coffee) to make it look old or tainted with blood. These letters come from a variety of PNJs, always important ones.

Always keep a copy of the letters you give out. Players can loose the letters, and if these letters contain valuable information, then you'll be able to face an inquisitive players like the priest of time in my game.

 

 

4. Accessories

This section discusses the accessories that be employed by the DM to make the game a better one.

A - Music

Music for games is good, and sources abound. Movie sound track, classical and medieval music is easy to find, and now with computers you can even make a playlist for each "chapter" of the game. However, I believe that finding music and creating playlist must not be your main focus. All in all, I think you must not spend more than an hour or two on building your playlist.

Also, players get very critical, and very quickly, about music. If they hear the same tracks every game, they get bored. If the same tracks loops for some time (like in a long combat for example), they get bored. If your tracks happen to be in their personal library, they also get bored. More, players expect music to change as soon as the mood of the game changes. They expect a combat music to end as the combat ends. All of this means a lot of time must be spend on building playlist. Finally, some players get irritated at DM who waste time at changing CDs, as they feel it spoils the momentum. In this case, a computer with a playlist ready to play is your only option.

B - Sound effects

First, I have to say, sound effects are great. One of my friends who is also DM uses them in his games, and he's very good at it. A few well-placed sound effects works wonders.

However sound effects are a lot trickier than sound tracks. Sound effects do not abound as much as sound tracks, so more research must be spent on finding them. Plus, sound effects effects generally require some carefuly timing. That means at certain moments, you won't be able to do much other than focusing on getting the effect to kick in at the right time.

C - Computers

If you want to use a computer for your game, no problem. A laptop is highly preferred, due to compactness.

Now the thing is, with computers, you must be absolutely sure that you got everything you need. Looking for documents on your computers during a game is not fun. Also, keep in mind the computer doesn't replace combat sheets and paper, as taking notes and changing stats on a computer, during the game, is very counter productive. This will break the rythm and bore the players.

D - Miniatures and maps

Before getting into miniatures and maps, think twice.

Miniatures are great. They help visualize the combat very well, and to keep track of all that is going on. However, the problem with miniatures is that if want to enjoy them truely, you need to spend considerable money on them, and time if you paint them. The problem is that you would need one miniature for each possible monster and optionally PNJs, then for many of them you would need a certain amount of copies. That means it's just impossible to use miniatures to completely re-create a combat scene. So you are better getting about 50 monsters, and get some of them in multiple copies for bigger combats. The sad thing is that you'll have to reuse a lot the same miniatures, for a variety of monsters that have nothing to do with the actual miniature.

Also, the same goes for maps. You just can't put full dressing on maps for every combat. Instead you will simply draw with a temporary marker on a map the trees, the bushes and the rocks. That sucks. But at least you know exactly what is going on.

One more note regarding miniatures on maps. There are cases when there a lot of miniatures at the same time on the board. I'm speaking 15-20 and more. This is very problematic to manage. The only way to do that efficiently is to have some sort of identicification system. On of my friend came up with a good idea: I got flat paper miniatures, and glued them on a 1cent coin. He also glued a letter and number on the coin. This had the advantage of having miniatures that are the type of monster they stand for, it was cheap to build, and very effective.

Oh and if you ever considered having some sort of 3D space where miniatures would hang on little wire, like marionnettes, forget about it. It's crap. I tried this once, for an under water game, and it turned out to be a nightmare to manage (a visit to the bath room was necessary). At one point we said fuck it and we played the combat in 2D, on the table map. Until the day we get zero-gravity chambers to put the miniatures or miniatures that are alive and can breed in a dense liquid and that would swim from place to place on your command, there is little hope of coming with an effective 3D system.