DM Primer

From Shahara

Outline

This is a primer for prospective DMs here. It details what information we need before giving you the all-clear to run plots, some basic standards we want to see upheld, and information on how to submit completed plots.

• Applying as a DM.

We need the following information sent to staff (Use Raeft's in-game @mail if no staff is on, but otherwise just page one), to declare you officially a DM and allowed to run plots:

An outline of your DMing experience, nothing spectacular required.

The names of all of your current characters and alts.

An outline of a brief (3-4 encounters) plot summary for an ECL 3 party.
This should include the rewards you would give out, challenges you
would present, etc, and a summary of the backstory.

You will then be required to run said plot for an admin-created temp
character, and some other players. If you are approved, you will receive
the share of XP that would have gone to the temp-character, on a character
of your choice, and will be considered officially able to DM here.

• Rules governing DMs

You cannot simply run a plot whenever you feel like doing so. Plots need to be pre-arranged, and you can't just "spring" them on people within the grid without prior Admin approval. (The grid mostly centers around a highly protected city, and EXP and item rewards for encounters within the city need to be monitored since rampaging dragons should not be running down main street.)

DMs must follow the DMG guidelines on treasure rewards per encounter. This does not mean each encounter needs to give out the specified gold and XP awards, and DMs are given some leeway. But the -average- should work out. For example, with a party of four level 3 characters, over three level 3 encounters, the total xp and gold value of all rewards should not exceed 675 XP per character and 2700 total GP worth of equipment/gold/whatever. (The first two monsters could have nothing, and the last have all 2700 GP worth of stuff, but the total average for the adventure should follow the guidelines set out in the "rewards" chapter of the DMG.) We need to do this to keep wealth accrual reasonable, and so XP gain and net worth gain have to be commensurate.

The reward which DMs receive for plots is 50 percent of the combined XP that would normally be awarded to all characters in the plot during the course of the normal adventure. Even if the DM's character participates in the plot, they do not receive additional XP, their share is simply "sunk". Their gold and item rewards need to be "fair". Exploiting involvement in running the plot to gain extra goodies will not be tolerated.

Plots do not need to be pre-approved. The exception to this is if the total XP of the plot is to exceed the average that would be granted over that number of encounters for that many characters of the given level, or the same for gold, or if unique and special items are being awarded. The last must be reviewed and approved by staff. Plot logs DO need to be submitted for the gear and gold and XP to be officially added to the sheets of involved characters. These logs need to be submitted complete, but any OOC not directly related to the plot is to be removed. List the participants at the top along with which character they are playing as. List a summary of all encounters and their rewards at the bottom. Email the whole thing to:

darkriftwalker@yahoo.ca

All Dungeon Masters must keep up with plot logs and theme notices that will be frontpaged on the wiki when they are relevant. This is to make sure that they are knowledgeable of the history of the game and don't end up forcing a retcon by contradicting some previously established fact.

• Guidelines for DMs (Or: What We Can and Cannot Do)

DMs are responsible for the power they have over players in plots, which is absolute. Players are responsible not only to report misuses of this power if they occur, but also to bow to it when it is not being misused.

The DM's word is law, even if it directly contradicts every accepted rule. Remember this, but never use it as your guiding principle. That is to say, to keep the action from slowing down, DMs are not expected to stop and look up rules that are obscure or they are unfamiliar with (though ideally they should be familiar with as much as they can be), in the middle of sessions. If a DM says that, for whatever reason, someone's 60 on a hide check just -wasn't- good enough, then they are right.

DMs decide what players alignments are, but should give players private warning when they're teetering on the edge of an unintended alignment change.

DMs call for checks, not players. If a character says, all in one line: "I use my action to make a spot check, here's my spot check, with my <insane modifiers and bonuses here>, the result is ninety-two.", you can say: "No, you don't make a spot check. It was right behind you, had initiative, and was readying an action to club you on the back of the head when you started looking.". In short, DMs decide when checks are made. If a player is in an untenable position to hide, and does not have Hide In Plain Sight or something similar, they cannot hide. Players should be discouraged from jumping the gun and making checks unless you have given the go-ahead or it's the kind of thing they absolutely know is unconditional.

Reward clever use of powers. Illusions should work very well if used craftily. Divinations are intriguing and should be handled correctly unless the villain has used spells to stop them, and so on. Knowledge checks and Diplomacy should be sure avenues to victory: just as sure as chopping someone's head off randomly until you hear what you want.

At the same time, do not be afraid to be clever with abilities. When you use illusions, be careful to give no hint that they ARE illusions. This cuts down on metagaming.

Do not be afraid to use Geases, cursed items, curses, Charm, Dominate, and so on. These are core staples of D&D, and if your will save can't stand up to them... we've all had fun with vampires before, no?

Watch out for metagaming. Change things up a bit. If players whose characters have 5 intelligence are suddenly and always remembering the exact spells to tell their mage to cast on a type of golem, or the weaknesses of some aberration or another... etc., then chances are they're just smart or have seen and played the monster before. Discourage this by changing the monsters. DMs are absolutely allowed to do this.

Remember to encourage players to think about realistic elements.

Keep an eye on OOC communication. In a smart adventuring party that's likely been together a long time, it's not a big deal for a few combat tips back and forth. They'd know each other's capabilities and such. But if a player has no way to alert the rest of the party that something is there, page them the information and tell them they currently have no way to tell the rest of the party. And so on.

At the end of the day, you decide what happens in the plot, but fun is the goal. Have fun with it, and remember that telling ongoing stories is encouraged. Feel free to create unique items, just remember you have to run them by us. Feel free to create or change monsters, but likewise, let us know.