What makes a good DM?

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Azisien

1. Sense of humour

2. Doesn't mind sparing the lives of PCs that just had really bad luck

3. Incorporates multiple play styles

I guess a good DM is pretty similar to what I envision a good person to be. Oh!

4. Organized

I totally should have had those on my list. :gonk:

I'd also like to add, as the counter-situation of #2, that a GM should not be afraid to punish a player for doing something incredibly stupid. Like if they're in a science lab and to stop the bad guy from concocting a flesh-eating ooze monster and they start smashing bottles all over the place rather than, say, shooting him, they totally deserve to be caught in a chemical explosion with glass stuck in their body. Assuming the bad guy was what they were throwing it at, they might succeed in stopping him, but they'll probably lose a good chunk of their own HP and will have to deal with adding a load of unsightly scars to their character's appearance until such time as they can amass enough money to get them removed.

[Cid Highwind]

On top of whats already said-- you shouldnt be afraid to bend combat rules to your advantage. You know what fights the players are supposed to win. You know what fights they are to be smacked down on. You know which ones are going to be epic fights that the plot has built up on, and the stakes are on the line. If you dont, you should.

If some pissant hobgoblin inexplicably rolls a double crit on the wizard, knocking his HP down to -15, after he was at near-full health, let it slide, especially if the party doesnt have a means of resurrection yet. Have the hobgoblin brain him a good one, maybe knock him to -5, so he isnt dead yet, but dont force a good player to reroll for no good reason. If they were fighting something known to be deadly and nasty, by all means. The players NEED a good reaffirmation of their mortality. But when something happens like this, it can only be bad. Nobody likes dying like that, it isnt fun, or heroic, and it will only break your campaign when the party goes back to town for a rez. The players cant see your dice, or at least they shouldnt. They dont know that you effectively just killed one of them, let the flow of battle go on naturally.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, you can never know too well what is going to be a hard fight for the players, a few errant numbers makes it an impossible fight, or an easy one. This usually isnt a problem, but we all like to put bosses in our campaigns. The dragon, the king, the archlich, etc. These are meant to be a difficult, epic fight, but how much is too much? Dont worry about it. If one of the player characters scores a lucky hit, halving the HP of your campaign boss, breaking the fight, making it boring, dont be afraid to tack on another 100 or so HP to the boss. In fact, my campaign bosses never have a set amount of HP. I dont even write it down. When I feel the player characters have put forth a heroic effort, have given it their all, the boss drops. No point it letting it drag on for another half hour, or stop before it got good.

[ThunderousWrath]

To me, the most important aspect of being a good DM is the ability to work with your players. Obviously there's not always the oppurtunity for that sort of thing -- let's say you're the convention-type and you're playing with a group of strangers -- but generally speaking, the oppurtunity is always there.

My friends view me as a good DM, and I attribute their praise to that single aspect of my DMing style: I make sure I know about what they want as players, and I make sure I know about their characters. As a DM, knowing the PCs really helps to build a strong storytelling atmosphere and encourages strong roleplaying.

2. Doesn't mind sparing the lives of PCs that just had really bad luck

This one I go back and forth on. Personally I approve but typically I don't spare anyone. This is because the group I DM for as actually expressed that they prefer the element of random death in a fight against say, a Beholder.

There's a funny story that goes with this, though. I was DMing, and the party was fighting a Shield Guardian who had a Fireball spell stored. The Guardian was instructed to blow itself up once its HP fell below 20 points.

The bard -- Fiddlin' Abe -- was on the verge of death, and he decided to risk everything on a single desperate round. First, the player actually said: "Fiddlin' Abe believes in luck." Then he charged up and made what probably would've been the killing attack.

Natural one.

Then the Shield Guardian's turn came up, so it activated its Fireball spell. Fiddlin' Abe was the only one close enough to be damaged by it. I ordered him to roll a Reflex save.

Natural one.

"Dave," I said to the player. "Roll again." Abe was an important character in the story of the campaign, plus he was well-loved around the table, so I figured I'd let him live through the blast. He certainly didn't deserve to die out of sheer bad luck.

Natural one.

"Dave," I repeated, "I think there's something wrong with your d20. Because I'm the nicest guy in the world, I think I'll reroll this time." So I grabbed my d20 and rolled another save for him, throwing in a healthy 'the DM doesn't want this guy to die' bonus.

Natural one.

"Dave," I said, "it looks like there's some kind of higher power who insists that your character dies tonight. Normally I'd let you get away with this, but I can only assume that if I prevent Abe's death, I will be the next one targeted ala Final Destination. So I'm sorry, but..."

Here I turned to the other characters. "You open your eyes after the blast, and to your dismay find only the charred husk of a fiddle where your friend once stood."

Dave laughed it off. And then he came back as a really cool Wizard / Psionicist / Metamind, so in the end it was okay.

[Particleman]

o.O Four natural ones in a row? The odds of that happening are 1 in 160,000. You must have been right about somebody wanting Daves character dead.

[BitVyper]

I once rolled four natural twenties in a row. After that, I just decided to go for broke, and tried a bunch of crazy crap, and almost all of it worked. I effectively ended what was supposed to be a very difficult encounter in the space of two rounds.

[Azisien]

Only 1 in 160,000 if rolling the die was truly random, which it isn't, quite. I mean damn, it's still frickin' crazy, just not get hit by lightning crazy. I do love consecutive 1's or 20's though, some of our funniest/best descriptions have been with those. Stories like those probably deserve their own thread, so against my urges I'll just say, wooo!

[secretskull]

One thing you should remember. Sometimes, you need to let the players win. Even if you've worked hard to make a truly epic recurring villain, and he gets killed by some dumb luck/ or unexpected planning by the heroes' side, as hard as it is, sometimes you need to let him die.

The characters are heroes, it's their job to overcome challenges beyond the normal human boundary. You can just force them into your plans. If they only win when you want them to then it just cheapens their victory. Don't be afraid to go off-track.

[Cid Highwind]

Yeah, sparing a characters life against a Beholder is a whole 'nother story versus sparing their lives against say, a goblin. Because, yeah, the Beholders whole story is that it has two or three ways to kill you in one attack if you cant save. A goblin? Its whole story is thats its a miracle it learned to breathe.

[Ryong]

1) Escalate enemies properly.

i once played a round of 3D&T with a bunch of friends. Five of us died to three bandits on our first encounter. We died in one hit, each. Not knocked out, killed. In one hit. One of us with a punch in the face, even.

[Cid Highwind]

Yeah, thats what I was saying about "You never know how strong the players can be" and if you dont get it right, some enemies should drop/raise in power.