Dungeons and Dragons

[Mormolyce]

Have you guys seen Matt Mercer's dungeons and dragons sessions? There's a few up on Youtube. That guy is a great DM.

I say, as someone who's seen a few games but never actually played.

[Endus]

To me, attention to detail, sandbox stories (If you don't want to go into the dungeon, go marauding to the west, go for it), and doesn't flat out say "No" unless there is a major reason (Seducing a ghost for example). there could always be a chance. Might be highly unlikely and high difficulty, but possible. My last DM had multiple story lines going, if we didn't go necromancer hunting the necro guild got stronger and influenced X, if you went necro hunting, the human nobles to the south had slave raids happening, whatever you did, other things advanced making a TON of story options, no railroading to X.

EDITED TO ADD:

And as Captain N below said, adapts on the fly because dice don't care about your plans.

"Railroading" is terrible, but railroading is only when your players feel like they're being pushed down a set of tracks. There's a lot of ways for a DM to give players illusory freedom, so they never feel constrained but their capacity to derail your overall plan is minimal.

For instance, say your heroes need to recover a Whatsit, at the bottom of one of three short dungeons. If you're worried about putting the effort into the three dungeons and they might pick the right one first, wasting the other two, just cheat. The third dungeon they pick is the "right" one. There's no real need to define which is which ahead of time, right? You give them freedom to wander, in the story, but you're still the one telling the story. You're free to manipulate the setting behind the scenes so their choices work out the way you want.

The other important skill is figuring out what your players want, and motivating them. A really good and easy "hook" in early days is to give them an easy mission; "go get this jeweled cup back from the Goblins" or something. And have whoever gave them the mission screw them over. And get away with it. Bam, revenge motive. Find ways to twist the knife enough, and the PCs will hunt that bastard down just to get him back, even if there's no greater motive behind it. Works whether they're Lawful Good or Fuck Everything Evil.

As someone who has DM'd dozens of sessions, and been DM's by people who were much worse than me with far more experience- I can tell you exactly what the most important thing is, which is being able to deliver a game experience that the players want. If the players are going to have fun with you doing silly voices for all the characters, you do that. If they want their characters to fight against big monsters and hack and slash their way through a dungeon, you do that.

If you're playing with people who know the rules like the back of their hands or who are really into roleplaying, you should focus the adventure on that. The worst DMs I've seen had an approach to keep the session "on rails", punished players for not staying on course, policed alignments, etc. Of course, being able to improv new characters or even locations on the fly goes a long way.

Yeah, there's a lot of ways to play. Some people like to treat D&D as a wargaming system, and combat's a mathematical strategy game. Others prefer "theater of the mind" combat, which is more about cinematic setpieces. Some players like complicated dungeons, others prefer political/social games. I've had games where we were pulling off a major heist, and combat was the LAST THING we wanted at any point. I've had others where it was just combat city. It's a flexible system, regardless of the edition.

That said, having played since early 2nd edition, 5e is possibly my favorite iteration of the system. 4e is "better" as a mechanical system that defines everything concretely, but that can be restrictive and it's definitely overly complex for P&P (would work fine in a video game that handles mechanics for you). 5e takes things back to 2e/early 3.X, where imagination is king and a lot of the rules are "here's the loose framework, figure it out". The Backgrounds system adds the customizability to classes earlier editions missed, and includes rules on making up your own to fit whatever concept you have. I know new editions freak people out, and 4e was really hit-or-miss with people, but 5e's solid, folks. And there's not a lot of sourcebooks out yet, so power creep is basically nonexistent. There's a few issues (the PHB Ranger is pretty bleh), but there's a lot of Unearthed Arcana content available for playtesting that's not official but workable, and free which is a plus.

[Hiricine]

most importantly: BE FLEXIBLE! you will be surprised how blind players can be even if you put the key story element in front of their eyes with giant magical glowing arrows pointing at it with clear text saying "IMPORTANT PLOT DEVICE" and they would never realize it existence. Being a good DM is guiding your players in the story rather than forcing them or railing them to it. I understand there are moments for examples they are meant to be a little railed, but keep the controls in the players hand.

- Be DM, playing "The Rise of Tiamat" adventure.
-Players go to ancient tomb to find person of interest
-Fight through tomb, find person of interest at the end
-Take all the loot, find person and leave them there without killing him, apprehending him, etc.

Also protip for any wannabe DMs out there-- rather than rolling to discover loot or predetermining it, just put the loot in "tier" categories, make a bunch of small paper slips and put them in separate shoeboxes. Then when the players find a random piece of loot, have them close their eyes and grab a piece of "loot" out of the appropriate box. Adds a random element, allows for super OP items to get loose without giving the players a predictable way to make themselves OP.

[Beardless Man]

What makes a good dungeon master for a Dungeons and Dragons group? Is it roleplay capabilities? Is it attention to detail?

Really depends on the playstyle of the players. But I feel that a good Dungeon Master trait is adaptation. Players will easily undermine what they can to their ability, pull punches you may not have expected. If the dungeon master can easily work with the material you bring forward, then they are quite good at their job.

[Gamdwelf]

I like when the GM is my friend steve.

[pathora44]

Have you guys seen Matt Mercer's dungeons and dragons sessions? There's a few upon Youtube. That guy is a great DM.

I say, as someone who's seen a few games but never actually played.

Ya by a few I think you mean 105 episodes ranging from 3 to 5 1/2 hour sessions but yes Matthew Mercer is probably one of the greatest DM's to ever DM a game.

Fun Note: Matt's world is completely of his own creation none of it is taken from any books or modules. He has a story that he built up for years slowly but surely coming together to create this huge long arc fighting 4 ancient dragons called the Chroma Conclave. He has also created and wrote 3 different classes for the game and is publishing his own DnD book that is a compedium of his world Exandria complete with his classes and other info on his world. Oh and if you thought he does this as his only job you would be wrong. He does all this while being a professional Voice Actor who works on tons of projects including Blizzards very own Overwatch as the gunslinging cowboy McCree and Resident Evil icon Leon Kennedy along with tons of other voices in video games, anime, and cartoons.

[Thoughtful Trolli]

What makes a good dungeon master for a Dungeons and Dragons group? Is it roleplay capabilities? Is it attention to detail?

You make a good group by getting good players.

The biggest responsibility you have as a dungeon master, sadly, is to find the people who will make your group good, and kick the people who're ruining your group.

That's it. Everything else is just an extension of your personality. People can live with that. If they can't they're probably just not good people and ruining it for everyone else too.

If you don't intend to be this socially surgical, you'll just have to learn to live with hoards of murder hobos.

[XangXu]

Being a good DM is an even mix of the following

Story Telling
Pacing
Challenge

Holding a group's attention is important.

[Deleted]

Most of the time, preparation. If you prepare for most eventualities, you won't have to fail at winging it.

[Deleted]

What makes a good dungeon master for a Dungeons and Dragons group? Is it roleplay capabilities? Is it attention to detail?

Never played DaD but GM skill is the same. You must be flexibel, your player will never do as you plane. Knowing how to carefully steer them in the right direction widout they realise it. Noting is better then have a sandbox feeling of a living world then you are a player, noting is worse than having to feel that every step is opposed by the GM.

GM: Have plane out a adventure then the player travel through the mountain pass of inconvenience and evil spirits.

Player: Way go through the mountain pass to deliver this importent letter to the king? We have the money to hire a boat, and it will be as faster to sail around the mountain, and the King will surly reward us more for a faster delivery

A bad GM will say there are no boat to hire (despite there are in a big port city) and force them to the mountain pass. Nobady like that. A good GM improvises a sea adventure. A person say he is a capten on a ship that sail next day and ask to be payed in advance, but he is a imposter, maybe a very observe player realice the bluff (like demanding a ture of the ship and not only look at it at distance) but probably next day they stand at dawn at the dock and feel cheated.

Now the player do not have the money to hire a ship, after that they hopefully take the mountain pass, or the adventure change to "Find the impostor" or "become stowaways on a ship" or borrow/steal fight in the arena to get money.... it is all up to the players.

Becuse they did take time to hunt down the impostor and get the money back and get a ship, they are late to the king. But the King is happy becuse they are the only messenger who have arived, he ask them to investigate the mountain pass.....

As you see you must let the player do what they want, but you can guide them a bit, do not do the mortal sin and play against the players, was the player clever enough to expose the false captain, do not try to robb them again, if they do not do somthing stupid like throw money around in a bad area of the town.

[Mormolyce]

Ya by a few I think you mean 105 episodes ranging from 3 to 5 1/2 hour sessions but yes Matthew Mercer is probably one of the greatest DM's to ever DM a game.

Fun Note: Matt's world is completely of his own creation none of it is taken from any books or modules. He has a story that he built up for years slowly but surely coming together to create this huge long arc fighting 4 ancient dragons called the Chroma Conclave. He has also created and wrote 3 different classes for the game and is publishing his own DnD book that is a compedium of his world Exandria complete with his classes and other info on his world. Oh and if you thought he does this as his only job you would be wrong. He does all this while being a professional Voice Actor who works on tons of projects including Blizzards very own Overwatch as the gunslinging cowboy McCree and Resident Evil icon Leon Kennedy along with tons of other voices in video games, anime, and cartoons.

Okay so there's a lot!

VAs are legends.

[Svifnymr]

As someone who has DM'd dozens of sessions, and been DM's by people who were much worse than me with far more experience- I can tell you exactly what the most important thing is, which is being able to deliver a game experience that the players want.

Basically this. I see a lot of systems that push the sandbox method, but most of my groups have liked to interact with a story rather than drive the story. There have been many times where the players just sat there looking at the DM who asked what they wanted to do. Or Shadowrun sessions that spent more time trying to plan than run...

The worst DMs I've seen had an approach to keep the session "on rails", punished players for not staying on course, policed alignments, etc. Of course, being able to improv new characters or even locations on the fly goes a long way.

The other side of that is when a DM runs a pregen adventure, but either doesn't read it well or doesn't keep his group in mind when reading through it. Some "iconic" adventures would never fly with any group I've been in because of the railroading on one hand, or just assumption that players won't do some breaking action on the other.

- - - Updated - - -

That said, having played since early 2nd edition, 5e is possibly my favorite iteration of the system.

We bought our Basic Edition D&D in Zayres, a department store that died in 1990... It's been a while. We did everything wrong, but eventually learned the rules!

4e is "better" as a mechanical system that defines everything concretely, but that can be restrictive and it's definitely overly complex for P&P (would work fine in a video game that handles mechanics for you).

My current group formed during 3e, which quickly got out of hand in many ways. 4e was a logical over-reaction to that, forcing everything to "fit the grid" as I call it. Everything is formulaic or discarded. Flight can only last X rounds, so we don't have to worry about larger issues. Teleportation too. Everything either fits the grid or gets discarded, which is especially harsh to illusions or similar ideas that need to be arbitrated. My current group uses 4e, it's easier for the planning and execution.

5e takes things back to 2e/early 3.X, where imagination is king and a lot of the rules are "here's the loose framework, figure it out". The Backgrounds system adds the customizability to classes earlier editions missed, and includes rules on making up your own to fit whatever concept you have.

5e is my favorite, we tried a couple games and it really worked well, IMO. It's back to relying on the DM to adjudicate, and we're older with jobs and stuff, so the DM lacks as much time to prepare. Mostly online, Maptools works well for 4e's "click a power" mentality.

I know new editions freak people out, and 4e was really hit-or-miss with people, but 5e's solid, folks.

It's funny, I had to convert a bunch of 1e diehards to use some 2e mechanics back in the old days. They just hated New, no matter. They had so many house rules they didn't even recognize which rules were house rules. I went through the 2e-3e change, but folks had some optimism about it at least. 3.5 less so, Pathfinder capitalized on that "corporate rules getting you down!" mentality IMO and the switch to 4e sort of fragmented everything. 5e is a superior system IMO, but Wizards is not the same company it was during the 3e rush.

And there's not a lot of sourcebooks out yet, so power creep is basically nonexistent. There's a few issues (the PHB Ranger is pretty bleh), but there's a lot of Unearthed Arcana content available for playtesting that's not official but workable, and free which is a plus.

They seem to want to avoid the 3e "every book" stuff, and are below even 4e's pace. D&D is a sideline with a small staff and a focus on other areas. That said, the occasional books they do make are mostly adventures with some minor supplements. Ravenloft was great, Volo's was great, a lot of the new ideas they have are actually very creative even though they are totally different than previous editions. Beholders dreaming up other Beholders is a simply change for instance.

[ItachiZaku]

I remember playing MERP way back and the first session we had a string of terrible rolls that left half the party dead of dismembered in some way. We never played again. That was fun though, catch a -61 and a flaming arrow to the eye...

[Independent voter]

To do a really good sandbox world you'd have to put a ton of work into it or buy one somewhere.

So yes usually there's an adventure waiting for the players to find and if they decide they don't want to go they can fish or something. It's really more about how much time we have and we have less and less time as our responsibilities grow.

[Deleted]

20 y ago people were already too lazy to draw maps... Hasn't the whole scene died? Along with EU dark eye scene?

[Kathandira]

A good DM can read their players. Each player can have different ways they enjoy D&D. You may have some serious role players, you may have some power gamers, you may have some super silly players. The campaign has to cater to the appropriate player types.

A good DM also knows when to go by the book, and when to throw it away. On the scale of extremes, you have those who like to only do the talking, meaning no rolling dice, no character sheets, only the information which is provided to them from the DM. Then you have the other side who wants to have complete control over their characters fate by doing all that work. Then there is the middle of the road who may like a mix of either side. Knowing your players will help you decide which format you should take for your campaign.

[Kathandira]

My biggest flaw as a GM is that I babble on too much. Don't info dump too much through direct dialog. Let the players explore on their own. It doesn't matter if they don't figure out everything that happens behind the scenes.

My buddy is DMing for the first time in our new campaign. He is doing this a little bit too. I rolled a Knowledge History when speaking with someone who was asking me about my travels (my characters back story is he is an archaeologist) and he was going on and on and on. So much so that there was a point where I gave up attempting to commit any of it to my notes nor m memory.

[Forgettable]

As someone who has DM'd dozens of sessions, and been DM's by people who were much worse than me with far more experience- I can tell you exactly what the most important thing is, which is being able to deliver a game experience that the players want. If the players are going to have fun with you doing silly voices for all the characters, you do that. If they want their characters to fight against big monsters and hack and slash their way through a dungeon, you do that.

If you're playing with people who know the rules like the back of their hands or who are really into roleplaying, you should focus the adventure on that. The worst DMs I've seen had an approach to keep the session "on rails", punished players for not staying on course, policed alignments, etc. Of course, being able to improv new characters or even locations on the fly goes a long way.

This, to the tee.

So for a group of people just starting out with DnD you would suggest finding an experienced dungeon master?

I think probably the best ability scores a dungeon master can have are wisdom to understand what type of players are in the group and what they want, intellect to know how to actually get there, and charisma to make things entertaining along the way.

[Kathandira]

This, to the tee.



I think probably the best ability scores a dungeon master can have are wisdom to understand what type of players are in the group and what they want, intellect to know how to actually get there, and charisma to make things entertaining along the way.

And if you game with me, Con to be able to keep up with the players drinking.

- - - Updated - - -

Arghh this triggers my Post-Cringe-Stress-Disorder.

I'll talk to him this week about it. Since this is his first time, and really, our previous campaign was the first he had ever played, he is super green hands on wise. Material wise, he has had his nose buried in a wide assortment of books for a few months now. He knows the material real well, he just hasn't quite gotten the 'Mysteries of the DM' part down yet.

I only need...