Community

That's totally awesome of you! Finding DM's (or even people willing to consider it) is difficult and I'm glad you have decided to step up and give it a shot. To be honest essentials is a great place to start DMing as the adventures are fairly easy to run.

The biggest challenge I had when I first started was finding a way to track initiative and conditions in combat as that 5 ongoing damage, or that stunned (save ends) is pretty easy to forget sometimes. I researched some ideas and decided to go with DM screen initiative trackers and I posted them up in this forum for everyone to use.

A lot of the encounters sessions can go by really quick if you just hop into the combat. I try to fit in roleplaying before, during and after each encounter the best I can. Roleplaying is hard to pull off in my group as the players are constantly changing from week to week and the majority of people don't feel comfortable enough to role-play in front of strangers. Perhaps you will be a lucky DM and get some very energetic players that can role-play and pull the other players out of their shells.

Another way to do this I have seen used by Chris Perkins is to ask your players a lot of questions about themselves. Things like:

Player: I want to hit the skeliton with my Greataxe
DM: Does your Greataxe have a name?

At this point it allows the player to roleplay some and the whole table might have some fun coming up with a funny or witty name for his greataxe. This also helps your characters start defining themselves and gives them distinct personalities like Fargrim the Dwarven Slayer with the greataxe named Betty.

As far as combat goes, I try and encourage players to describe what their characters are doing. Rather than say "I will use my XXX power on the XXX monster, I roll a 24 vs AC, I hit for 16 points of damage and slide the target 3 squares" I encourage "After I narrowly ducked under the massive great sword of the Orc last round, I thrust my full weight upwards into the orc knocking him off balance sliding him three squares as he struggles to remain on his feet. The orc then feels a sharp pain in his shoulder and looks down surprised to find my crossbow bolt managed to find a weakness in his armor and he has taken 16 points of damage".

If my players don't do this then I try and do it for them to add a little flavor to combat and help people visualize what is going on. If a player does anything like this or brings out any kind of roleplaying immediately reward it with praise or maybe even a +1 bonus to their next attack power or AC until the end of their next turn.

Most of all, try and be energetic and fun as energy is contagious and spreads when seen. Make a fool of yourself roleplaying an NPC so that players won’t feel nervous to make a fool of themselves giving it a shot. If people are able to reach their comfort zone and feel like they can be themselves without ridicule everyone at the table will have far more fun. 

Anyways, thats what I have learned so far and there is much more on the path in front of me. Best of luck to you and try and have fun! 

Mar 3, 2011 -- 11:38AM, JSollars wrote:

1.) Do you use mini hang-tags for conditions, or colored paper clips or some such method?


2.) I do have another questions regarding new players. Do other DM's bring them in as their PC just now showed up and has no knowledge of the previous sessions, or do they assume that the PC was already there kinda in the background so they do a recap and bring them up to speed on events thus far?

1.) In my post that you can find under the pinned DM resources thread I included condition markers which are just mini tents that I hang over the cards but colored paperclips would work just as well.

2.) As far as new players I just assume that they were there the whole time. I do that because players are constantly coming and going on a weekly basis and it would be a pretty big strain comming up with way the new characters join the party week after week. I also give them the Party exp, for example any new players starting in chapter two will start at level 2. I also give a summary of past events every game for the new players and to help the older ones remember hwat they did. 

Mar 3, 2011 -- 12:19AM, JSollars wrote:

Any advice for a newbie Encounters DM would be appreciated. I have a copy of the module to study up on during the week and I own copies of all the Essentials books, and I subbed to DNDi this week, if that helps at all. Any tips to encourage RP and not just focus on combat? Useful hints for getting players with no 4e experience involved?

Excellent advice from ArmyVetDM. I too find that being descriptive helps guide players toward also being more descriptive in their actions.

One thing about Encounters is that you have the latitude to make small changes. You can add an RP moment that isn't there, even in combat. For example, have an NPC ask a probing question to a PC. "You fought well. Where did you learn your combat style? Surely you have a tale as to how you learned to fight this way?" When I ask a question like that, I often will say in my normal voice "I don't know how much you have considered your PC's past. Feel free to think about the answer for a bit." If appropriate, I use another NPC to do something else or describe something, then I come back to the PC. "So, what do you say, where did you learn your ways?"

Another example is an NPC that says "Have you ever had to confront your fears / be brave / fight when you thought you could not prevail" and let the player make up a response from their past.

In a combat, I like to give foes a personality. When you do your prep, think over the foes and see if any of them could have an RP angle. You can model them after movie characters, famous people in history, etc. Jack Nicholson saying "You can't handle the truth" is an example of a personality you can adopt... picture an elite brute coming after a soft PC and yelling "You can't handle my axe!" or something similar in a mock Nicholson voice. The idea is to be fun and light, but also evoke a response.

Another example of this would be a musketeer-style foe that challenges the PC and says things like "at last, a worthy adversary. If you wish to surrender, however, I shall understand." That tends to get a response from players.

This is harder with things like undead or slimes, but still possible. An example:
DM to player: "Tell me something about your family history."
Player: "I left my family, who were nobles, for a life of adventuring."
DM: "Interesting, because you see that this skeleton is dressed in shredded clothing. One of the clasps on the shirt bears the symbol of your family... perhaps someone in your family once came to settle this land."
Something like that does't actually go anywhere, but stimulates the player a bit and can cause the players at the table to more often think about their backstory. (In a home campaign, this would become something, perhaps a side quest).

If you want to try something interesting, this can be fun for a new Encounters season or even for a new player. This is the "one connection" method. Each player must choose one other PC and create a backstory connection. No PC can be chosen twice. The connection can be "He caught me stealing and forgave me" or "we fought together in the war of three nations" or "we did a job for a noble once". The idea is to give players a start at working RP as a team. This trick can work really well, and if you add it to all new  players it actually helps connect them to the group very well. With a new player I often encourage the players to help the new player with the connection. An established player might say "You are a thief? What if we both..." and the fun begins.

Finally, RP is a great "cost of admission" for giving a PC a break. The PC is about to die, pursued by an undead warrior. You want to help them out. You say something like "Tell me about one ancestor you had that would be famous". Then you can have one of the undead say something like "You remind me of Crimeas, a friend I had in battle... Could you be his son?" The foe hesitates. You give the PC a social or history skill check to buy time or distract the foe, giving them a chance at survival... but also forcing a bit of RP to emerge.