Advice for a rookie DM

[Daniel]

I have just started playing D&D(3rd ed) and have gotten a gaming group together, but I think keeping everyone happy is going to be a problem as everyone one wants different things.

I will try to keep this brief:

Player 1: never played before, Wants to be extremely powerful.(in character generation he moans and moans at us to allow to keep rerolling until he gets super stats.

Player 2: Experienced Roleplayer, likes to play by the rules doesn't like the way Player 1 plays.

Player 3: Same as 2

Player 4: never played before, Everyone wants to play a good party but this person refuses to play good instead wants an evil person(against everyones wishes). He also wants to play silly characters, he has an half-orc thief with 5 Dexterity 16 charisma(I suppose that this character will be quite fun to roleplay).


I understand that as DM I have the power to stop players from doing what they want(e.g. not letting player 4 be evil). But by doing so he will not be happy and if I dont the other players wont be happy and the main aim of role-playing is for everyone to just have fun.

so any advice, I would like to keep all players happy if possible.

P.S any advice at all to a new DM would be appreciated not just advice on the problem stated above.

[ 02-27-2002: Message edited by: Daniel ]

[Micah Foehammer]

LOL ... now THAT sounds like a unique group.

As for some advice - well, at least you are starting off with the right idea; to wit, tying to make the game fun for everyone.

Now some specifics:
For player 1, if he wants absurdly high stats, it's going to be a challenge to you to keep things balanced. You can always simply refuse to let him have stats that are unbalanced - but you didn;t list specifics so I am not sure HOW unreasonable his stats are. Some solutions: (1) Tailor magic items so that his character can't get TOO many (alignment restrictions or class restrictions work well) so that he overbalances the campaign. Don't totally deprive him, but just be careful with what you dole out. (2) Devise some way early on to "steal" some of his stats and work that into the campaign. A special curse may work wonders. [img]smile.gif[/img] This guy can totally unbalance the campaign if you are not careful.

For player 4, Try to dissuade him if at all possible from having an alignment that is significantly opposed to the group. Failing that, remember that YOU are the DM and if you really dont want evil characters in your campaign, then tell him so. If he can't be dissuaded, and you still want him in the game, then you might consider asking him to come up with a written history and description of his character - make him justify his silly stats and why a character of evil alignment would fit in with this group. If he can do that, then you might consider letting him play what he wants. Remind him that the rest of the characters may just decide that any evil acts he commits may not be tolerated (depending on their alignments) and they may eventually ask his character to leave the group (or worse). This person may be tougher to deal with than the first one as he can potentially tear the entire group apart. on the other hand, he might be a lot of fun if he can successfully roleplay his character. [img]smile.gif[/img]

GOOD LUCK!!!!

[Larry_OHF]

There are websites that have valuable information for you...if you do a search for them. I may be able to dig up a couple if you ask me.

As far as players 2 and 3, you don't have much to worry about, I suppose. Player 1 needs direction, and you can promise him many valuables along his way, but they have to be earned...player 4 should meet the wishes of the rest of the players and be neutral if not good. A half-orc thief would be a good neutral character, but how can an evil char. travel successfully with a good party? Not very fun, as they will be too busy fighting each other for any real fun.

You can always lay the law down and say this is how it is going to be, and if you wanna play, then this is the limits...and if the foolish ones say that they are no longer interested...they would not have been any good anyway. A true devoted player will obey the rules set and compensate if the DM will not allow something. It seems that number 1 and 4 are too narrow minded to do anything fun.

I sometimes play with a group that has a guy who wanted to be a super-hero paladin with numbers over the wall. The rest of us were always picking on him and using him for bait. He eventually wised up that if he wanted to have fun, he would not try to over-do us.

I am not an experienced player...but I have been in a few games.
My advise, therefore, should not weigh as much as other posters that post after me that know what they are talking about.

[ 02-24-2002: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

[Daniel]

Thanks for the advice both of you, I will have a look for some of these sites that you have mentioned.

P.S - somthing I forgot to mention before(quite funny), this player 4 the Chaotic Evil, Half Orc thief is in a party with a Paladin, a Ranger whose Racial enemy is orcs and an elven sorceror who hates orcs so I suppose It could be fairly fun (Well I find it funny even if they dont)

[ 02-24-2002: Message edited by: Daniel ]

[Larry_OHF]

creature catalog

realms of Evil

Here are two of my favorites...

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Daniel,

Player #1 - From my experience, this guy is going to be nothing but trouble...unless you get a handle on it quick. Now I like super-stats just as much as the next guy, but there has to be some compromise. First off, unless he's a demi-human, there is NO WAY he can have any stat over 18. So, you choose the method he has to use to roll stats and make him stick with it...or give him a limit of..say 85 point...and let him distribute them any way he wants (that will give him 1 or 2 18's, but he'll have to sacrifice something else).
The bigger problem you're gonna face with this guy is when his character gets attacked. If he gripes about his stats, chances are he will gripe even louder when a monster starts pounding on him. One of my good friends (who started gaming at the same time I did) was like that. It got to the point that he would loudly and constantly complain about ANY damage suffered by his character. This just ruined the game for everybody else and eventually made almost everybody in our group want him thrown out.

Player #4 - I thought the evil alignment would be workable until you gave the specifics. A paladin will NOT work with a CE character and a Ranger with a racial enemy of orcs isn't going to travel with a half-orc (if you go by the books). It sounds like this guy also just wants to be a troublemaker from the start. There are plenty of other racial mixtures he could play...and a CN alignment will work almost as good as CE without creating too much party conflict.

One thing you can do is run a "closed" campaign. This means that YOU determine which rules do and do NOT work in your world. My first gaming experience was in a closed campaign. I played a ranger and - when the 1st Edition UA came out - I wanted to "double-specialize" him in the long sword. The DM wouldn't allow it. It was HIS world and HIS rules. It was also the BEST campaign I ever played in.

Rule #2 - Be EXTREMELY stingy with magic items. You don't have to give 2-3 items per player per dungeon. They will quickly cause disdain for the "less powerful" items. In the above campaign, I remember that I was THRILLED when my ranger got a +1 sword. That was GREAT. As the game progressed, the DM still kept magic VERY limited. He didn't give out much...but he did give out quality stuff.

If you put too much magic out there, you will soon be unable to challenge your players and the game will get very boring very quickly.

Just tell #1 and #4 that they have to abide by your rules...and if they can't do that, they will need to game somewhere else.

I finally had to do that to my friend that complained about damage. He would openly challenge my rulings as a DM during the game if he didn't like them. I finally told him that he could either accept my rules or leave the game...I didn't care which. I also made him tell me EXACTLY where his character was standing and what he was doing before I would begin any encounter. He was famous for "going into a room" and then saying "OH no, I never ENTERED the room...I just opened the door and then stayed in the hallway when I saw the monster in there, so he didn't have time to attack my character".

MAIN RULE: ESTABLISH YOUR AUTHORITY AS THE DM. The experienced gamers should be willing to give you some good pointers and back you up on your decisions.

Good Luck!

[Daniel]

Thanks again for the pointers everyone

P.S Larry those sites are great, much better than the ones that I found so thanks once again.

[Lord of Alcohol]

You have to put your foot down, player 1 needs a bit of coddling, player 4 sounds like an idiot. I had a guy roll up stats once using UA method for a dwarf (Duergar of course, all the more powerful in the expansion books) and rolled MAX in everything except one category. He thought the character "sucked" because he was one off from max except in that one category. At that point I told everyone they could make their stats whatever they wanted. Dont bother rolling just write what you want. I think they got the picture, the game would have gotten mighty tough lol

[ 02-26-2002: Message edited by: Lord of Alcohol ]

[Attalus]

I agree that you have to let them know right off the bat, who's boss. I once DM'ed a game, at which Galadria was present, and this player borrowed one of my PCs, a Wolfhound that was immune to vampires or werewolves. They got attacked by a giant (bad wandering monster roll) and this guy sent my poor dog against it while they all ran away! Well, I pretended to roll (useful manuver, BTW), and the giant threw a boulder that landed on this guy's PC, and left him with one damage point away from the Abyss, and of course the dog ran away, never to be found by them again. I didn't have any more truble from him.

[WOLFGIR]

Hmm, seems you gathered the usual first time players!
Player 2 and 3, no comments, they will be fine, and also you should rely also to their judgment as for their support.

No.1 No problem, but also take into heart that even powerful characters can fall to their deaths and so on. Next time you want to balance them, give them all the points system adjustment and let them all buy points to their characters instead of rolling them. The powerplayer will have the same possibilities as the others and can´t make a "superman" and he can´t complain since the others are facing the same restrictions.

Also, dont let him have too many magic items helping his stats to be higher and also don´t reward him too much for ordinary things. He is better than the rest and therefor it is expected of his character to do more for the same XP count. This tendancy can be handled pretty quick though and usually after some time the superheroes are not to fun to play anymore, and by all means, let them face superorcs and others. That way the balance will be kept.

Player no 4 is in my mind the most difficult though to deal with. Sure evil characters can be fun to try out but if they are evil and don´t blend in the group, think logically about it. How much does the rest of the group suffer cause of him? The ultra bad rouge sure can be fun for some time but if you don´t put up with his "stupidity" and lets him face real challanges and difficult dilemmas, he might change his mind. It´s no fun to constanly miss the rolls and never be able to do anything right. These persons can spoil a copmplete gaming session and if he can´t make a good story for his character being as he is and plys serious, you won´t loose that much by not keeping IMHO. Though that can be hard to make comming true in RL if he is a friend of yours. Try and talk some sense into him and tell him that you don´t want him to spoil the others gameplay.

From here you best try them out, and make the group work alot together, make them draw the heavy load of discussing and build a team here. Two players that have played alot can help your game and hopefully rub off some good qualities to the "newbies", make sure that everyone has fun though.