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People Mentioned and some Changes:
+ Show Spoiler +T now equals Ted
Z now equals Zen
W now equals Walten
DD now equals Damien
DK now equals Donkey Ko-- I mean, now equals David.
So, we had our first session of D&D last night. It was incredibly, incredibly fail. And I completely blame myself. Walten didn't have his character sheet filled out, and Damien didn't have any items at all. Those were the two things that weren't my fault.
I had them appear across the river from a halfling city that they vaguely remembered getting kicked out of the night before, and they woke up the next morning on the riverbank with a horrible hangover. Walten's character, an extremely racist elf wizard, was in a tent with a half-elf bard (Zen's character), and the half-orc barbarian (Damien) was sleeping outside the tent near a female halfling ranger (Ted). Two sheets of parchment lay by their backpacks outside their tent; a map of the surrounding area, and a scroll written in Draconic that Walten had written detailing their quest - find the old tomb of Whipple the Wizened, which is mentioned to be north of Ravensford, the city they got kicked out of. They head north, and run into some dire rats. Ted decides to shoot them from sixty feet away, so they abandon their neutral nature and come running towards the party. After a very confusing combat that was probably wrong, all four rats are dead and Damien's down to half his health. They continue on north, eventually finding the cave...but what I didn't realize is what I had expected to be about a day's worth of travel was actually the length of a football field. Argh.
So what I think I might do is have them restart with a different campaign (Scourge of the Howling Horde) next session, and fix everything. Have a proper map prepared so they don't even have to worry about that, and do so much research tomorrow about combat that my head explodes. I refuse to fall down on the job twice in a row :/ At least they had fun...
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On February 27 2011 02:24 Tzel wrote:
They continue on north, eventually finding the cave...but what I didn't realize is what I had expected to be about a day's worth of travel was actually the length of a football field. Argh.
There is your problem. You are listening to the map that the players can't see.
Just tell them its a 1/2 a day's travel if you want it to be a 1/2 day's travel. Heck, tell them they need to make some survival rolls or they get lost for that 1/2 day. They won't know it originally said 100 yards, and unless there is some key point later that it is that close, there is no reason it can't be farther away.
As a GM your role is to run the game, not follow instructions exactly. Fudge rolls, change maps, introduce characters not originally there, etc. Make it your own adventure and everyone will be happier for it.
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I refuse to fall down on the job twice in a row :/ At least they had fun...
If they had fun, you didn't fall down on your job! That's what D&D is all about. The rules will come naturally as you play more and more. For now, just make having fun the biggest priority. Also, like PunitiveDamages says, as a DM you have to constantly be adapting based on what your party does, while maintaining that you are totally prepared for it, even if you completely aren't. You easily have the hardest job, but it sounds like you are willing to work at getting better. GL HF!
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Is this still 3.5? Or did you manage to get your hands on some 4.0 books (4.0 is actually really easy to pick up, even if you have someone familiar with 3.5 to help you)?
In any case, I can make a few suggestions.
You mentioned you messed up on combat and the best way to learn is just play. Find a Dungeon Delve book and play through it yourself. Actually I don't think they made Dungeon Delve until 4.0, so just make up a map, about 3 or 4 rooms, populate it with some monsters, and drop a premade party in. The ones from the PH should be fine. Make sure you have: 1 character with a 2 weapon fighting style, 1 character with sword and board, 1 character with ranged missile attacks, and 1 offensive spellcaster. If you want a step by step method of learning combat, there's a (fairly) easy method.
The first "room" should just be a corridor, 1x7 or 8 tiles, no obstructions. Goals for this room: 1) familiarize yourself with a charge; 2) learn basic combat, 3) learn reach weapons (not ranged weapons, although that can be included here too; I'm talking about things like polearms and other weapons that can attack 1+ spaces).
The second room, 4x4. Goal for this room: 1) attacks of opportunity (what triggers an AoO, what doesn't?); 2) flanking and other advantageous positions; 3) once the flank is in place, go back to attacks of opportunity and retry it now that there's a 2 on 1 situation.
Third room: an L shaped room, this room is 3 squares across, extends forward for 3 squares, then turns right for 5 squares. Goals for this room: 1) Combat from a corner: attack a mob hiding on the corner of the L from range (remember it gets cover!) 2) Have your spellcaster a) shoot a ray b) a targeted explosion (something like Fireball) c) a spell that emanates from the caster (either a cone or one that radiates in all directions). 3) Defend from the corner (how does this help? How does this hurt you?) 4) At the end of the long arm of the L there's an enemy archer and an enemy spell caster, hiding behind an overturned table (1/2 cover). How do you deal with this?
Final room: 4x8 room. Practice fighting with monsters with resistances. Some off the top of my head: Fight against a swarm (1/2 damage from weapons, double damage from area of effect spells). Fight against skeletons (how do they take damage against slashing weapons? against piercing? bludgeoning?). Fight against a monster who can only be damage by +1 weapons or better (what counts as +1 or better? does a vorpal weapon count as +1 or better? Are there attacks that effectively count as +1 or better?) Fight against any monster of your choice, then when it's damaged (but not dead), have your characters fight unarmed (how does subdual damage work?) Lastly, have 1 of your characters hit 0 health. Continue fighting a few rounds, and learn how saves to stabilize work.
General DMing tips:
1. It's okay to fudge things a little. As long as you're advancing the story along, and your players are having fun, it's no big deal to pretend a roll hit when it missed, or a roll miss when it should have hit. As a beginning DM, my advice is to let things progress naturally for a session or 2, and learn when things are truly critical. If someone takes a lot of damage, sometimes they're not in as much danger as you think. Remind players that they can always back off a little bit, set up camp (even mid dungeon sometimes) and rest/heal. Cheating to help the players is fine, just be sure you have no alternative. It's always more satisfying (for you, they don't know that you're cheating so they don't care) to see players get through challenges on their own.
2. Don't be so binary on rolls. Roll a 10 or higher to save the world, or else the world blows up in a spectacular explosion. Real life doesn't work this way, and neither should your rolls. There is always the opportunity for a partial success or partial failure. A player does clairvoyance when you're not expecting it/the result will ruin your surprise. And rolls a natural 20. Give him something, like an image of a tattoo. Don't give it all away and likewise don't just stonewall the player. This works for all skills. Diplomacy check just barely missed for key information? Have the informant become friendlier, enough that a night on the town plied with plenty of drink will loosen his lips. It'll cost the players a bit of coin, but your story is on track, and they didn't fail completely.
3. Anything that your adventure hinges on, don't leave it up to a die roll. You're just begging for a string of natural 1s to ruin your day.
There's a few other things, like don't use gelatinous cubes (MM says they're CR 3 or 4. That's a dirty, dirty lie.), and don't fight a land war in Asia, but those are minor things that you can find out more about by yourself. Most importantly, as long as they're having fun, you're doing fine. Learning to be a better DM is really learning how you can keep things fun, and more importantly, how you can enjoy the game while DMing.
Edited for more readability and less wall of text.
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I always recommend new DMs to try running published adventures until they get comfortable with the ruleset. Its tough to make up a good story if youre always fumbling through a combat or skill check.
If you are new to DMing, I highly highly recommend running 4E essentials instead of earlier versions of D&D. Even though I am very familiar with 3.5E, switching to 4E cut my prep time to 1/4 what it used to be. I would imagine that the gains would be even greater for a DM with less pre-4E experience.
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You've gotta learn to just roll with it and not plan ahead so much. Trying to keep players on rails never works. When I played 3.5 I would just design the general setting and throw some strings they could choose to follow if they wanted, and then make it up as we went along.
Also remember that as DM, what you say is law. Rule 0. You can override any rule in the book if it's detrimental to the fun of the game session.
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One thing as a GM: show confidence. Even if you map isnt accurate enough, if the players are failing to solve the riddles or are dying during the fights, don't show any doubt. Just deal with it, tweak the rules if you have to.
Players just want to have fun, they arent here to bitch about rule points. So you might do mistakes during your first games, it doesnt really matter. One thing is to be consistent through a whole day: use one set of rule, if it doesnt work as you wish then you have to change it later, just not in the middle of a game.
What is important is to finish your story and to give to your player the feeling that they achieved something.
Oh, and crush whoever try to mess with your story.
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EPT
