Hello everyone!
Seeing that many friends around me decided to take the honored yet heavy mantle of Dungeon Master, and bring their stories and imagination to the table, I have decided to give them some pointers for their education ahead.
I will speak about the importance of rules, player to Dungeon Master communication and vice-versa and dealing with on the spot ruling and consistency. Keep in mind that this here article is just my opinion on the matter and you are welcome and encouraged to comment in the section below.
I will begin with the basics of being a Dungeon Master, and that is the Dungeon Master's Guide.
Since the inception of this game, all the burden of a story well knotted was placed upon a Dungeon Master, the arbiter of rules and the speaker of stories, moreso in this modern day and age.
Having all the digital tools and documents and reference materials surely helps, but as a Dungeon Master, you are required by your group's requests and by the story you unfold, to have a firm grasp of the rules as written. How much can you travel at what pace, how much supplies the group can gather and use, what magic items and monsters are appropriate and at what level, so on and so forth.
All this wealth of information can be found in the Dungeon Master's Guide. It is your duty, new Dungeon Master not only to read it, but to understand it and place all its information in the player's context at any time. That is the reason there are few Dungeon Masters at one time, as this job requires a first hand experience as a player, first. You need to know and be aware of what are the player's choices and how those can make or break your story and you need too have a firm grasp of the rules that regard the character's creation and evolution.
After you have had read the Dungeon Master's Guide, the next step is to create an adventure. Pay attention! Not a world, not a region, not even a kingdom, but an adventure. It is ok to keep it simple and to ask your players if they are experienced, how something must be done or dealt with. Rely less on the percentile dice and more on the rules as they provide the consistence a new Dungeon Master needs. This is a piece of a puzzle, where a good understanding of the rules is required for an adventure is a complicated machinery. You need to tweak its inhabitants, give them a sound reason to be there and have the appropriate treasure (which they can make use of it against the adventurers!).
These simple mechanics of an adventure will later on pave the road for the next big thing: a kingdom, or a region, where you can let your imagination run rampant! But with moderation and caution, with an eye to your group and your story. Great care must be exercised when you intend to modify an existing monster, magic item or spell as the D&D mechanics are quite fragile and can break a game when measure is not applied.
As a new Dungeon Master, preparation time, or prep is important. I cannot overstate this enough: PREPARATION.TIME.IS,IMPORTANT. As a new Dungeon Master. Use the rulebook often and apply the advice inside judiciously to create and plan the next session to its finest detail. Consider both the player characters and your evolving world and NPC's thus giving the impression of a living, breathing world around them, Prepare locations, monsters, loot, and NPC's and keep an eye at their mechanic and their synergy so all those won't overshadow the player's actions at the table.
This brings me to how you, new Dungeon Master, should communicate with your group of players. First of all I recommend that you never go past four-five players. Past this number, you risk failing to properly measure a proper encounter and fail to engage everyone, thus some people at the table might get bored (even if they say they don't!). The rule of thumb is to have the number of players at the table as much as you can afford to manage AND tell your story in comfortable and clear way.
If more players show at your table and want to play, propose to form a second group. and hold for them a second story, maybe a branch of the first giving you a chance to intertwine the two in cool ways.
As a Dungeon Master, you need to inspire openness and social grace but you need to know your limits and know when to say "No" and when to refuse a certain request, Make all the accommodations for your group, but also teach them not to overstep certain boundaries of your story and remind them of those boundaries.
And lastly, remember that your fun derives from telling the story, and their fun derives from enjoying it. All these pieces of the puzzle form this amazing picture: rules understanding, rules and story consistency and good table communication.
Have fun and a great time!
No comments:
Post a Comment