Rules to DM By

Last week, we talked about some rules for players of DnD. This week, I’m going to drop some tips for the other person at the table- The DM. While the players spend every meeting telling a piece of the story, it’s your job to create the world and the sweeping plots of that story. It can be difficult to manage your story while still giving players space to create, but I have, once again created a memorable “golden rule” for you to use:

The Golden Rule: Don’t Be a Dick
Beginning to notice a theme? As DM, you are the lord and master of the game world and the players are guest artists in your masterpiece. It is really easy to be a dick to them, particularly if they are being a dick to you or their fellow players. Resist that urge and follow my five rules of DMing. Once again, Jonas and Jerkwad will help me with demonstration.

Rule One: Stay Open
When Wizards of the Coast puts out advice for DMs it’s always along the lines of “Say Yes!” While this is certainly a good aspiration, I have found that players have a tendency to push the limitations well beyond what is feasible. Unless they are absolutely ridiculous, always stay open to player ideas. Let the player make a case for what they want to do and then compromise. That way, you can keep your DM cred and the player can drop a zombie through a chandelier and onto another zombie.

Jonas is sending waves of enemies against a group of players on a bridge. Their Swordmage gets an idea and runs over the side of the bridge. Throwing his weapon- a transposing sword- the mage changes places with the largest foe and send it falling to its death. For a moment, Jonas is flabbergasted and tries to come up with some way it doesn't work. Ultimately, he has to accept it as legitimate and come up with ways to prevent it in the future.

Jerkwad is running a campaign of his own creation. For the sake of his world, he banned numerous classes and races, including dwarves. One of his players really loves dwarves and proposes that he plays a shorter, stockier human with second wind and a minor action- essentially, a dwarf. Jerkwad tells him no without bothering to explain why and refuses to hear anything else about exceptions.

Rule Two: Your Story is Not That Important
As a DM, your story is what drives the campaign and motivates the characters. It provides the backbone and structure for each adventure. It’s important enough to spend time thickening and developing, but it’s not important enough to hinder the player’s enjoyment over. Taking five to ten minutes to monologue about an important event or character is fine, but spending an entire meeting mulling over lost histories is a bit much. Make sure you involve the players, otherwise you’re just working on your book.

Jonas wants to detail an important event in the history of his world, but he knows his players won't appreciate a sit-down history lesson. He decides to send them to the ruins of a fort used during the battle and tells the history through notes scattered throughout the ruins. This way, he is able to tell his story and still keep the players engaged.

Jerkwad has a very important event that must happen in his plot, but doesn't trust the party to do it correctly. When the party arrives at the location of the climatic battle, he locks them in a Force Cage and uses his own NPC to battle the villain. The players are forced to sit and listen to the play by play of the battle with being able to do anything.

Rule Three: Your Goal is to Challenge, Not Murder
Sculpting encounters can be one of them most fun and challenging parts of DMing. You need to make sure your party won’t just skip through the battle like a field of daisies, but a totally party kill isn’t much fun either. You want to craft challenging encounters, but that isn’t always accomplished with bigger monsters. Terrain and traps can add complexity without necessarily grinding up everyone’s characters. Note : I once DMed for a party that was both optimized and synergized. For them, the only way to challenge was by trying to murder them.

Jonas is coming to a major climax in his campaign and he wants to make sure the heroes have a hard time with the final villain. He doesn't want to throw any random underlings into the fight, but the monster alone won't be enough of a challenge. Instead, he sets the fight on an electrified floor trap and gives his beastie immunity to its effects.

Jerkwad is running a notoriously difficult campaign setting and wants to make sure the party is always fighting for their lives (note: not necessarily a bad thing). To this end, he selects powerful monsters and grinds the party down, killing the defender twice. For their final fight, he takes a nasty brute monster and upgrades its damage output. This turbo-monster put all but one of the characters to zero hit points... and killed the defender again.

Rule Four: Cater to Your Players
Everyone plays DnD for different reasons and everyone gets enjoyment from different parts of the game. As DM, you should facilitate ways for everyone to have fun. Many players have the most fun when they are exterminating foes; they are certainly the easiest to please. Others, however, may prefer chatting up NPCs to get important information or infiltrating the baron’s manor after dark. Try to let everyone have equal time to succeed.

Jonas enjoys campaigns that are combat heavy and sends the party into situations where combat is the only answer. He has a lot of fun developing these encounters, but a player remarks that she'd like use her character's skills once in a while. Another player asks if he can try to negotiate with the hobgoblins that have ambushed them. Jonas begins to implement new kinds of encounters and develops ways to end an encounter without violence every now and then.

Jerkwad also enjoys campaigns with a lot of violence in them. When his players express an interest in other kinds of encounters, he tells them that this is his campaign and he will run it how he chooses. If they don't like it, they can leave. When a party member attempts to negotiate with enemies, he lets them roll, but then has the monsters attack them anyway.

Rule Five: Have Fun
Being the DM is harder work than most people give it credit. You have to set up elaborate plans and engaging worlds for the expressed purpose of letting some other people crash around in them. Some days, things are going to work perfectly and the party is going to destroy what you put together. Other days, your minions won’t be quite strong enough or that monster you made yourself is just going to get steamrolled. Remember when that happens that you are supposed to be having fun, too, and roll with it.

Jonas has been planning the first battle of his campaign for a while. He wanted to overwhelm the party with a hoard of enemies. Because his goal was to challenge, not murder, he went with a number of weaker enemies, rather than trying to swarm with enemies of the party's level. What he failed to realize is that this means the enemies cannot hit the players and the players cannot miss. After a few rounds of frustration, Jonas gives up and starts joking about how terrible the enemies are.

Jerkwad was really hoping to bring a cocky party down a few pegs in their latest meeting. The party proved to be even more resourceful than he predicted and breezes through the fight. Jerkwad gets frustrated and nasty and spend the rest of the night in sullen silence, making the players feel bad.