That was my biggest fault I believe with my DnD games, I'd plan out these intense fights for the PCs but then would pull the punches when it looked like they would be overwhelmed.
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Anakha's Wii painfully thought these words up:
My first session as Dungeon Master with my DnD group is tonight. I was wondering if any of the more experienced DMs on this board had any advice.
Don't be afraid to fiddle with the rules. I spent a long time as a DM playing 100% by the rules. When I finally started fudging things, my games got to be a lot more fun.
Always challenge your players, but never overwhelm them and never put them in a position they can't get out of, barring monumental stupidity on their part.
If the fight's supposed to be epic, don't be afraid to beef it up if lucky rolls are making it too easy. Likewise, if the PCs are rolling badly, don't be afraid to pull some of your punches. Nobody likes losing a character because they were unlucky enough to roll three ones in a row on saving throws.
One of my group's favorite rules was what I called the "cool shit" rule. Often, when you reach the higher levels, fights become a matter of 'I hit the monster' repeated over and over, because DnD's 'special' attacks often scale quite poorly. Charging, jumping down at someone, etc really don't add enough to your attack roll to be worth worrying much about when you're throwing around numbers like +20 to hit. So instead I would assign bonuses on the fly, always significant, as long as what the PC was doing made the rest of the group go 'oh man, that's cool'. It made combat a lot more fun.
Most of all, don't kill 'em unless they deserve it.
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ACES! Another post by Zaeron:
Don't be afraid to fiddle with the rules. I spent a long time as a DM playing 100% by the rules. When I finally started fudging things, my games got to be a lot more fun.Always challenge your players, but never overwhelm them and never put them in a position they can't get out of, barring monumental stupidity on their part.
If the fight's supposed to be epic, don't be afraid to beef it up if lucky rolls are making it too easy. Likewise, if the PCs are rolling badly, don't be afraid to pull some of your punches. Nobody likes losing a character because they were unlucky enough to roll three ones in a row on saving throws.
One of my group's favorite rules was what I called the "cool shit" rule. Often, when you reach the higher levels, fights become a matter of 'I hit the monster' repeated over and over, because DnD's 'special' attacks often scale quite poorly. Charging, jumping down at someone, etc really don't add enough to your attack roll to be worth worrying much about when you're throwing around numbers like +20 to hit. So instead I would assign bonuses on the fly, always significant, as long as what the PC was doing made the rest of the group go 'oh man, that's cool'. It made combat a lot more fun.
Most of all, don't kill 'em unless they deserve it.
You would like Exalted, I think.
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Greenlit wrote this stupid crap:
At the end of the night: Rocks fall, everyone dies.
Or it's the one place they didn't look. Whichever will annoy the survivors more.
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ArchAngel had this to say about Captain Planet:
You would like Exalted, I think.
Indeed. There are official rules for being a bad ass.
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Xyrra had this to say about pies:
Or it's the one place they didn't look. Whichever will annoy the survivors more.
Nobody ever looks up...except for me. I -always- make it a point to say that I look up when I make Spot/Search checks. Damnati fucked around with this message on 04-08-2007 at 12:00 AM.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
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Greenlit had this to say about Robocop:
At the end of the night: Rocks fall, everyone dies.
Except me.
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Batty had this to say about John Romero:
Except me.
Batty is immortal, Batty has inside him blood of kings,
Batty has no rival, No man can be his equal,
Take him to the future of your world,
Born to be kings, Princes of the universe.
Wish there was a good group around here. :/
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Mortious had this to say about the Spice Girls:
I always make my scenarios too complicated and it ends up more like storytelling than D&D. I much prefer being a player. But my local group was never that good anyway. After half an hour they got bored and started making the character sheets into paper planes.Wish there was a good group around here. :/
It always surprised me that there isn't an Evercrest DnD group that meets online.
Actually, come to think of it, wasn't there one, a long time ago?
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Zaeron stumbled drunkenly to the keyboard and typed:
It always surprised me that there isn't an Evercrest DnD group that meets online.Actually, come to think of it, wasn't there one, a long time ago?
I ran one on IRC and one on the RP Boards for a while a year or more ago. Faeth has ran several, Zaza as well, Parcelan ran a Warcraft one and maybe others. Oh, and Oz has had a couple.
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So quoth Mortious:
Online DnD is ok but it doesn't have that spark that real pen and paper sessions have. It's more cold and inflexible.
That really just depends on the people involved, and what's going on.
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Alaan thought about the meaning of life:
People are also easily distracted. Combat is especially one slow son of a bitch.
BOTs and/or Scripted Software alleviate this. (Not entirely, but some)
Although I've known live games to get even more bogged down during combat, or due to distraction as well, heh.
Or from players splitting up to go thier own ways during an adventure, THAT is always a pain. Avoid writing in story events that leave the suggestion to splitting the party up being advisable. The group may still do it anyway, but if you wrote it in that way yourself, you deserve what you get from having to deal with it.
Kat is my favorite virgin sacrifice! A game was just never right unless I/we could sacrifice Kat somehow, or removed Batty's manhood in some way. Although we usually just left that up to people like Xyrra.
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Anakha's Wii was listening to Cher while typing:
Well, the session only had 1 near death, and i had a feeling that that particular encounter might have been a bit much, so I adjusted accordingly. Other than that, the session went rather well. They just got lucky the kobold sorcerer barely missed with his scorching ray.
In the first session of a game some friends and I started last week, the DM managed a TPK on the second encounter. We're a group of three level 13 Gestalts (Healer/Monk, Fighter/Warmage/Elemental Savant, and myself, a Rogue/Psion) and what we woke up was apparently something around level 16. A big ass shield guardian in the second to last section of World's Largest Dungeon. We decided we were going to call it all a very bad dream for our characters and started over.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
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Damnati stumbled drunkenly to the keyboard and typed:
In the first session of a game some friends and I started last week, the DM managed a TPK on the second encounter. We're a group of three level 13 Gestalts (Healer/Monk, Fighter/Warmage/Elemental Savant, and myself, a Rogue/Psion) and what we woke up was apparently something around level 16. A big ass shield guardian in the second to last section of World's Largest Dungeon. We decided we were going to call it all a very bad dream for our characters and started over.
How did 3 13th level Gestalts lose to anything CR 16? I've been playing a game with 4th level Gestalts on and off for about four months now, and we've taken stuff up to CR 10-12 and come out alive. Admittedly, not by much, and there were times when it didn't look like we were gonna make it. I figure by the time we hit 10-12, the only thing that'll challenge us will be epic stuff or maybe some of the bigger dragons.
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Katrinity's fortune cookie read:
I ran one on IRC and one on the RP Boards for a while a year or more ago. Faeth has ran several, Zaza as well, Parcelan ran a Warcraft one and maybe others. Oh, and Oz has had a couple.
Yeah. Running a Victorian steampunk game off the Fuzion system these days, on the online since my friends and I are scattered around the country for college.
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Zaeron Model 2000 was programmed to say:
How did 3 13th level Gestalts lose to anything CR 16? I've been playing a game with 4th level Gestalts on and off for about four months now, and we've taken stuff up to CR 10-12 and come out alive. Admittedly, not by much, and there were times when it didn't look like we were gonna make it. I figure by the time we hit 10-12, the only thing that'll challenge us will be epic stuff or maybe some of the bigger dragons.
For one thing, it wasn't just the shield guardian, we got ambushed by a group of gargoyles as well. In addition, I don't think it was a normal shield guardian. He referred to it as "EL 16" and we didn't get thoroughly owned; we nearly killed the guardian but it made some royally badass attack rolls that crushed myself and the monk. After we died, my dragon cohort and the elemental savant dropped it before being raped by the gargoyles. Damnati fucked around with this message on 04-09-2007 at 01:53 PM.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
