• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 22:38
CEST 04:38
KST 11:38
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
TL Team Map Contest #5: Presented by Monster Energy4Code S RO8 Preview: herO, Zoun, Bunny, Classic7Code S RO8 Preview: Rogue, GuMiho, Solar, Maru3BGE Stara Zagora 2025: Info & Preview27Code S RO12 Preview: GuMiho, Bunny, SHIN, ByuN3
Community News
Classic & herO RO8 interviews: "I think it’s time to teach [Rogue] a lesson."0Rogue & GuMiho RO8 interviews: "Lifting that trophy would be a testament to all I’ve had to overcome over the years and how far I’ve come on this journey.2Code S RO8 Results + RO4 Bracket (2025 Season 2)11BGE Stara Zagora 2025 - Replay Pack2Weekly Cups (June 2-8): herO doubles down1
StarCraft 2
General
Classic & herO RO8 interviews: "I think it’s time to teach [Rogue] a lesson." Rogue & GuMiho RO8 interviews: "Lifting that trophy would be a testament to all I’ve had to overcome over the years and how far I’ve come on this journey. The SCII GOAT: A statistical Evaluation Code S RO8 Results + RO4 Bracket (2025 Season 2) feardragon: Blizzards biggest blunder with SC was…
Tourneys
RSL: Revival, a new crowdfunded tournament series [GSL 2025] Code S: Season 2 - Ro8 - Group A [GSL 2025] Code S: Season 2 - Ro8 - Group B SOOPer7s Showmatches 2025 Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament
Strategy
[G] Darkgrid Layout Simple Questions Simple Answers [G] PvT Cheese: 13 Gate Proxy Robo
Custom Maps
[UMS] Zillion Zerglings
External Content
Mutation # 477 Slow and Steady Mutation # 476 Charnel House Mutation # 475 Hard Target Mutation # 474 Futile Resistance
Brood War
General
BGH auto balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ Recent recommended BW games BW General Discussion FlaSh Witnesses SCV Pull Off the Impossible vs Shu StarCraft & BroodWar Campaign Speedrun Quest
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues [BSL 2v2] ProLeague Season 3 - Friday 21:00 CET Small VOD Thread 2.0 [BSL20] ProLeague Bracket Stage - Day 4
Strategy
I am doing this better than progamers do. [G] How to get started on ladder as a new Z player
Other Games
General Games
Path of Exile Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Beyond All Reason What do you want from future RTS games?
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine US Politics Mega-thread UK Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Vape Nation Thread
Fan Clubs
Maru Fan Club Serral Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Korean Music Discussion [Manga] One Piece
Sports
2024 - 2025 Football Thread NHL Playoffs 2024 TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 Formula 1 Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
A Better Routine For Progame…
TrAiDoS
StarCraft improvement
iopq
Heero Yuy & the Tax…
KrillinFromwales
I was completely wrong ab…
jameswatts
Need Your Help/Advice
Glider
Trip to the Zoo
micronesia
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 27731 users

(D&D) The first Session

Blogs > Tzel
Post a Reply
Tzel
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States72 Posts
February 26 2011 17:24 GMT
#1
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...

I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.
PunitiveDamages
Profile Joined June 2009
United States131 Posts
February 26 2011 17:32 GMT
#2
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.
BW forever
firexfred
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States78 Posts
February 26 2011 17:56 GMT
#3
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!
Tribute
Profile Joined September 2010
United States146 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-02-26 18:42:59
February 26 2011 18:31 GMT
#4
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.
kNightLite
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States408 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-02-26 21:45:37
February 26 2011 21:44 GMT
#5
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.
Hinanawi
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States2250 Posts
February 27 2011 00:01 GMT
#6
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.
Favorite progamers (in order): Flash, Stork, Violet, Sea. ||| Get better soon, Violet!
Groslouser
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
France337 Posts
February 27 2011 01:26 GMT
#7
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.
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 22m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
PiGStarcraft480
RuFF_SC2 203
Nina 99
StarCraft: Brood War
Icarus 8
Dota 2
monkeys_forever635
LuMiX1
League of Legends
JimRising 591
Counter-Strike
Foxcn194
Super Smash Bros
amsayoshi40
Other Games
summit1g10288
C9.Mang01189
shahzam726
ViBE240
Trikslyr64
FunKaTv 10
Organizations
Dota 2
PGL Dota 2 - Secondary Stream2206
Other Games
gamesdonequick1020
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 14 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• practicex 11
• gosughost_ 3
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Doublelift5439
Other Games
• Scarra1605
Upcoming Events
Korean StarCraft League
22m
SOOP
6h 22m
sOs vs Percival
CranKy Ducklings
7h 22m
WardiTV Invitational
8h 22m
ByuN vs MaNa
MaxPax vs Solar
Reynor vs Creator
Gerald vs Spirit
Cheesadelphia
12h 22m
CSO Cup
14h 22m
BSL: ProLeague
15h 22m
Hawk vs UltrA
Sziky vs spx
TerrOr vs JDConan
GSL Code S
1d 5h
Rogue vs herO
Classic vs GuMiho
Sparkling Tuna Cup
1d 7h
BSL: ProLeague
1d 15h
Bonyth vs Dewalt
Cross vs Doodle
MadiNho vs Dragon
[ Show More ]
Replay Cast
1d 21h
Wardi Open
2 days
Replay Cast
2 days
Replay Cast
3 days
RSL Revival
3 days
Cure vs Percival
ByuN vs Spirit
RSL Revival
4 days
herO vs sOs
Zoun vs Clem
Replay Cast
4 days
The PondCast
5 days
RSL Revival
5 days
Serral vs SHIN
Solar vs Cham
Replay Cast
5 days
RSL Revival
6 days
Reynor vs Scarlett
ShoWTimE vs Classic
Liquipedia Results

Completed

CSL Season 17: Qualifier 2
BGE Stara Zagora 2025
Heroes 10 EU

Ongoing

JPL Season 2
BSL 2v2 Season 3
BSL Season 20
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 2
NPSL S3
Rose Open S1
CSL 17: 2025 SUMMER
2025 GSL S2
Murky Cup #2
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 7
IEM Dallas 2025
PGL Astana 2025
Asian Champions League '25
BLAST Rivals Spring 2025
MESA Nomadic Masters
CCT Season 2 Global Finals
IEM Melbourne 2025
YaLLa Compass Qatar 2025
PGL Bucharest 2025

Upcoming

Copa Latinoamericana 4
CSLPRO Last Chance 2025
CSLPRO Chat StarLAN 3
K-Championship
SEL Season 2 Championship
Esports World Cup 2025
HSC XXVII
Championship of Russia 2025
BLAST Open Fall 2025
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual
IEM Cologne 2025
FISSURE Playground #1
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.