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As a follow-up to my blog post last week, I thought it would be fun to give my second impressions on DMing in the new season of Dungeons & Dragons Encounters. Be warned that there will be spoilers for anyone who hasn’t played this game yet (which I know is rare, since most places hold the Encounters sessions on Wednesdays). Don’t worry, this probably won’t be a regular weekly thing.

Last week, I had my first experience DMing, which was a bit rocky due to a couple of factors, mostly having to do with the fact that I didn’t have a chance to actually read the module before the game started. While the first time running a game can be a major learning experience, I found the second time to be equally teachable, if not more so.

The chief organizer of the game at my location has done a pretty good job of keeping the tables together, keeping the same players with the same DMs. This helps immensely, especially for the DMs as I figured out that particular players have distinct play styles and keeping them with the same DM makes it more likely that the DM will be able to accommodate such a play style. For example, I’ve got one kid at my table who likes to play rangers, but is also a pyromaniac and likes to use fire at every opportunity. So, I have to know what is in the area ahead of time, particularly what is flammable. I also have another kid at my table who I’ve figured out likes to take everything that is not nailed down if it will have a potential use later. So I have to know what can be taken and if it will pose any difficulty later. Knowing my players this way helps me to prepare much better, and as a result allowed the game to go much smoother.

As for the encounter last night itself, the way it was written was perfect, and I hope that Wizards of the Coast does more encounters of this style, although not all of them as that would get boring very quickly. To recap, this encounter picked up immediately where the previous one left off, with a dragon landing in the town square. The whole encounter was little more that an enormous boss fight. It helped things to go much smoother as there wasn’t as much role-playing to deal with, which is both good and bad, and many of the regular players seemed to like having a slightly simpler session for a change. It was also great using the same map, as the players already knew the area from the previous encounter and had fewer questions. I wouldn’t mind being able to reuse maps in other sessions when appropriate as it made things much easier.

Reading the session beforehand was a huge help, obviously. I read it twice to be sure I had all the details. This helped me get the characterization down and figure out some general mechanics and strategies beforehand, which again made things very quick and made me feel more confident in answering questions, particularly in the psuedo-surprise round that started the encounter as the players tried to figure out what was going on between the dragon and the Lost Heir, and knowing exactly what to tell the playsers. On the other hand, I couldn’t actually tell them all that much because they kept failing their skill checks, except for one player. So, ultimately the “surprise” round was wasted, but it was a nice touch. In fact, the encounter was written very well, with it being mostly a battle, but with a few details scattered around the encounter that were nice touches and gave it some flavor. I’ll admit that I tried to drop some extra hints during the encounter to my players without directly telling them what they would have found out from the skill checks. We’ll find out if they picked up on any of those hints or not. One of them did pick up on a hint that was specific to the encounter last night, that being that the dragon was being hypnotized by the Lost Heir during the start of the encounter.

On the whole, I feel that I learned about as much last night I did during the first session last week. I’m going to see how this holds up as I’m going to be DMing the entire season. The general rule from this point forward is to pay attention to my players and prepare ahead of time for their more unconventional questions and actions. That should add to everyone’s fun, including mine. I haven’t read beyond last night’s encounter in the module yet, so I doubt that the following sessions will be as simple as last night’s, so they are going to take some extra preparation.

As a cool bonus, my girlfriend got me some McDonald’s Happy Meal toys last year from “How to Train Your Dragon,” and I got to use the Nightfury/Toothless toy to represent the dragon on the map. The players and the other DMs seemed to really like the tongue-in-cheek nature of my miniature. I’ll have to think of some clever stuff to use in later sessions.

Warning: I’m about to geek out big time!

I play games. All kinds of games. While many would immediately think I’m referring to video games, which I do play sometimes, I’m talking here to good old-fashioned tabletop games. You know them: Chess, Scrabble, or things with dice. In particular I like role-playing games, and for the last year I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons for the first time in close to twenty years. This is primarily thanks to the D&D Encounters program that Wizards of the Coast is running, in which an official game gets played at participating locations (usually game stores) once per week, and it’s a short session so you pop in, play for an hour or two, then come back next week. It’s really convenient and has pulled me back into the fold.

It is 4^th Edition D&D. I know that many people deride it, sometimes for being simplistic, but more for having such a heavy focus on combat. I understand the criticism, and yes, most of the mechanics have to do with combat and not role-playing or exploration and puzzle-solving. But that should be expected because combat was always the most mechanically intensive part of the game through all editions anyway. As with most things in pen and paper role-playing games, it all depends on your game master. I’ve played some session that were very heavy on role-playing in the new system, and it was really a testament to the skill of the dungeon master, or DM for those don’t know the lingo. If the DM knows what they’re doing and can adjust to player styles and creativity, then a fun time is had by all.

So it came time last night to explore my own abilities as a DM, as I volunteered for the new season of Encounters (titled “Lost Crown of Neverwinter”) to run one of the tables at my local game and hobby store. For a little more information, this is what I’m talking about:

It was interesting and will likely prove to get more interesting, especially because this one takes place in the Forgotten Realms setting, which I have never played in and have only a passing familiarity with. And now I’m running a campaign in this world I have little familiarity with. Fortunately, I have a couple of players at my table who know more about the setting, which adds another layer of interest when the players no more about the world than the DM. Meta-gaming, ahoy!

A learning experience was had by all. It didn’t help that I got the module right before the game started, so I was reading it and flipping through it to look things up as the game was going on. But, then again, I wasn’t the only one, as the other two DMs were in the same boat. This led to some major confusion on my part and I had to correct myself and the course of the game a bit while playing. It also didn’t help that I had eight players at my table, as Encounters are typically designed for five to six players. We should have a fourth table running next week, if necessary, so we’ll hopefully have smaller tables which are more manageable, not to mention faster.

What did I learn from last night during my crash course as a DM? A few things.

Patience is the key, especially when dealing with kids, who tend to play a little slower because they ask a lot of questions. This isn’t a bad thing, though, because it leads to the second thing I’ve learned, and that is the need for creativity and to accommodate creativity. In playing over the last year, I’ve found that the younger players seem to come up with more creative solutions and actions, and it’s the DMs’ job to handle this. This was something I knew before hand, but knowledge and practice aren’t always the same thing. I started out by keeping to the rules and standard turn fairly rigidly, but then realized I was doing exactly what I knew I shouldn’t be doing and was making a huge mistake by not being flexible and knowing when to bend the rules a bit to make it a more fun experience. It’s all about player fun, and if you don’t achieve that, then you’re not doing your job.

It was difficult to get into the mindset of the DM. The hardest part was realizing that now I was making all the decisions for the course of the game and the world, not to mention controlling all the monsters and the characters that populate the world. I really need to work on my acting abilities. Plus, I’ve got to keep track of everything, such as initiative order, monsters’ health, character statuses, etc.

It’s a lot of work, but I still had a lot of fun. The work is definitely not without its rewards. You get to tell a story, which is kind of my thing if you haven’t noticed. I get to vary my characters as I play several different ones in a given session as the characters wander around town. It’s a good way to practice character voices in writing by actually trying to use them out loud and interacting with people to see how well they work. It’s also a good way to practice public speaking in a friendly and fun way.

In short, I need practice. I know I made mistakes, but I recognize them, which is the first step to correcting them. This should be a fun season, and I’m looking forward to continuing as the DM for the remaining sessions, although reading ahead and being a better prepared rather than getting reading the material right before we start and during the encounter. Overall, a really great and rewarding experience that may unexpectedly help me in other areas, especially in character voice which has been one of my biggest struggles in writing. I’ve committed to running the table for the whole season, which is thirteen weeks. It will be interesting to comparing how I feel at the end of the season to how I feel now. Anyway, onward to Neverwinter!