The Fourth Coming: Teaching Novices to Master

30 Jun

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Eventually, as you play in a RPG, you’ll eventually want to expand your creativity beyond just a single representative player character … or your Game Master will move away, get married, become a parent, or most often be diposed if not outright lynched for corruption from this virtually god-like power. For this, many turn to the DMG.

Admitly, the Dungeons Master Guide (DMG) is the core book I’ve used the least. From my own innate awesomeness? That, and other more common reasons. Parts of it are useful: treasure tables, XP formula and magic item descriptions mainly. The nuts and bolts of DMing: how to dramatically screw characters, how often, and how to keep players from leaving has always been a hands-on training from actual play.

You play under a DM for months to years seeing how it’s done. If he sucks, you develope a style different from his; if he’s awesome, he’s emulated. My first DM - E Double the Jerk - was excellant in my introduction to roleplaying, hence my continued involvement in the hobby some 16 years later. I’m more generous than he, the jerk, but I’ve yet to lace exciting tension as well as he has because of it. On the other hand, my players are more likely to be creative since they dont fear as much. This stuff aint book learn’in.

The 4th edition DMG is an attempt - like the player’s handbook (PHB) - to show newbies the ropes so they can introduce friends into the tabletop fold. After mentioning the checklist of great Wizards of the Coast products you’ll “need” to run, they discuss the types of players encountered and how to appease and intrigue them - also how to rein’em in. The Actor type shouldn’t blab about their character and feelings until the Slayer flips out and kills the listener - a non-player race so therefore a pot of XP to be had. Nor should the Slayer count down from one minute whenever blood isnt being shed to start the murdering - especially when they’re talking to the Actor’s long-lost NPC brother.

After a brief discussion of considering what kind of game you want to run - pros and cons of having a single DM and campaign versus episodes - the second chapter gets into how to run. Preparing enough, narrating, giving out enough information for players to decide actions, pacing and improvising: all the things another RPG product will tell ya as a chapter in a single book, without charging another $40 after you bought the PHB.

The improvization advice is dumb. They note that DM’s can be afraid of being caught flat-footed with player choice so they over prepare. Then, they advise preparing small stock encounters and names of character they may meet - in other words over prepare. I advise preparing in abundance in my discussion of Sandbox games, a detailed setting gives the party room to roam - so atleast everything is tied together rather than a hodge podge of cliches. The last chapter gives you the town of Fallcrest and the surrounding Nentir Vale as an example of how to set up a medieval fantasy locale, an intersting place to run your party through the 10 levels of the hero tier.

The writers do advocate the “Saying Yes” attitude, using the player’s ideas to build your plot instead of shooting them down for doing your job of setting creation. More gamers will read the DMG than my articles on the subject, for now, so it’s good to introduce this concept to as many of the youngsters as you can.

After this, things get weird. From learning the basics of running, we go directly to Combat Encounters in chapter 3 - EASY SLAYER! Mainly a reiteration of PHB info. Chapter 4 explains how to build encounters and the fifth deals with non-combat encounters like talking to folks and traps. Is this how player’s have read the DMG? I’m guessing that this content ordering was done for the reluctant DM’s that have been drafted into the position. These first chapters are the absolute minimum you’ll need to DM like a video game such as Golden Axe or even Assasin’s Creed: Step 1, Make up a reason to send the party there; Step 2, Run the fight that’s waiting for them there; Step 3, repeat 1 & 2 for your entire DM career.

After learning how to run, the next step for a true storyteller (elitism activated!) is learning about Adventures - crafting a narrative and how to present it as taught in chapter 2. This is what we’ll discuss tomorrow, along with campaigns and THE world. This version of D&D comes with an established fictional setting - to save you the trouble of being creative.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Everything, with these Tags: Fantasy, Gaming . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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