Friday, February 3, 2012

The Dungeon Master Art

Not as easy as it looks.

Randy was our DM tonight (or rather, our "Labyrinth Lord" as we were playing LL tonight). We used the Advanced Edition Companion, so the game had a lot of similarities to the ol' hodge-podge mash-up of B/X and AD&D of my youth.

Wellll...kind of, not really. In my youth, the LAST book we acquired was the Players Handbook, the tome which features rather prominently in the AEC. My friends and I played pretty much straight B/X with the addition of the Monster Manual and DMG for a year or two prior to adding "race-not-as-class" and new-fangled classes and fancy armor and spells above 5th and 6th level.

And, yeah, having done it that way really does give me a slightly different perspective. I know a lot of folks who got into D&D about the same time as myself did the "mash-up" thing and I've read several reviews praising the AEC for the way it reminds them of their past, albeit in a more coherent form. For me, it just feels like "AD&D Lite." That's not a terrible thing, by the way...it's just not "how I used to play as a kid."

Anyway, we played tonight and Randy ran the game; his first time running a game. Wow. It has been a loooong time since I've seen a completely virgin DM run a game. God...you forget how damn tricky it can be (especially with eight players sitting around the table!).

I mean, I've been doing it for 30 years (shit, that's a long time) and even when I have "rust" from a couple year plus hiatus, it's not that hard to get back into it. I mean it really breaks down to:

a) knowing the rules,
b) managing the game/adventure, and
c) managing the players

Now, I'm a pretty hard grader, but my gut reaction is Randy still deserves a B+ for the outing. He gets a ton of props for managing a game with a group that size in that kind of environment. My knowledge of the rules was probably about the same (or less) than his my first time out, and I only had two players. And, no, just because we're adults and mature and friendly doesn't make it a walk in the park. Not at all.

A couple years back I introduced D&D to a couple teenage friends (my "nephews") and they positively loved it. Quit their World of Warcraft accounts even. Their family moved to Virginia (Arlington) and I gave 'em a copy of Labyrinth Lord for the road. A few months or a year later, my wife and I were back east visiting their family and I asked if they were still playing and they said, no. Appears S. (the younger) just could not grasp the rules and Z. (the older) just "didn't do it right" (according to his younger brother)...and Z. admitted it was a lot harder than I made it look.

I guess. But Z was twice as old as I was when I started playing.

Randy called the game a "clusterf***" and, sure, it was if one wanted to play "by the book." He haphazardly made up rules ("roll a D6 for that") or bluffed or just made spot rulings. But that didn't matter because there were really only two players at the table (myself and Luke) who had any DM experience or a clear grasp of the rules. And for the most part we just kept our mouths shut.

And so Randy did what good DMs do: he played with a shit-ton of panache. He kept the players in line. He made rulings on what they could and couldn't do. He didn't dismiss things out of hand, but he didn't let "bossy" players (like *ahem* me) push him around or dictate how the game was to be played. He included everyone. He listened. He narrated and described. He ran combat pretty f'ing fast-and-loose (a guy after my own heart there). And his adventure was nice and succinct being wrapped up in a single evening.

It was also pretty damn creative/interesting from a background perspective. Oh, he ripped off (at least partially) the plot of some fantasy book I've never heard of...and he included zombies of a more cinematic (as in movie) type (Randy digs on the walking dead), so it wasn't crazy original spun from his own brain. But it was pretty different from most anything I'VE ever played in a D&D game...at least for 1st level characters. It takes a lot of balls to tell players that they've been locked in an asylum because they've been infected with a mystic disease that will eventually turn them into psychotic zombies...and, oh yeah, you have no equipment or gear. At least my character had his spells tattooed on his arm, since he had no spell book. F'ing brilliant stuff that!

A couple of us died, but were brought back to life during the course of the adventure...another nice touch (instead of making the 1st level scenario super easy and survivable he just included ways to "get back in the game"). Oh, yeah, and we fought a giant demon and killed it...with "lightning powder" we spread on the small cache of weapons we managed to acquire scrounging through the ruins of the asylum.

I've said I would love to run or play the old TSR module A4: Dungeon of the Slave Lords. Randy's scenario was better (or at least on par).

But, man, it is hard. Having all those eyes on you, wanting you to entertain them and wanting to do a good job...or at least not look terrible doing it. As a fellow Scorpio, I'm well aware how fragile the ego can be in these kind of situations (not that we'd ever show it...or any kind of breakdown!...in public). But he did a great job and everyone had fun and now that we're out of the asylum, we all want to come back and see what he's got for us next week!

Of course, Matt and Josh may well be back, so then the group will be back up to ten. Eleven if Dan's wife shows up.

All right, that's enough of a "puff piece" for ol' Randy. I'll be harder on him next week if he doesn't get the surprise system right. But I still want to play...I like my character quite well: a gnome assassin-illusionist.
; )

G'night folks.

11 comments:

  1. i also had a character with spells tattooed all over himself (one without any material components for each level). it was a half-elf defiler/psionicist in dark sun (yes, i admit it, i wanted to become a dragon... :D).

    reading that brought up some nice memories.

    also, a gnome assassin-illusionist?! what a douchebag! ;)

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  2. Blech, gnomes. BUT, at least he's got an innovative class to make up for the gnomishness! ;-)

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  3. Sounds like my kind of game. I've never bristled at the "you are all prisoners" intro to a game session. Even to the point of stripping away hard earned items. To me, the key is to put them in a place that all but guarantees the players will get them back if they survive the adventure.

    As for getting all the rules straight, if a player strategizes an action based on specific rules, sure it is important for the DM to understand the rules to be fair to the player. But for pretty much everything else? As long as a player understands their odds AT THE MOMENT OF ACTION, it is fine for a DM (LL!) to wing it. D6, D8, D20, doesn't matter. All that matters is "Roll this or higher to succeed".

    Sounds like Randy did spectacular. Especially for not allowing more experienced players to tell him how to run his game!

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    1. I thought Randy did pretty well for his first game, and even if he felt it was a "clusterfuck", he still managed to project an in-charge attitude. He was quick with his answers and dealt well with what is usually a pretty chaotic bunch of players. I'm sure he knows he should read up on the rules a bit more, especially with you and Luke at the table (watching you two when I knew a rule was wrong was kind of funny, actually), but I think the raw skills are all there.

      I was impressed he was willing to take on such a large group. For my first return to DM'ing, I only had to deal with two of you, and THAT felt like a clusterfuck to me. Hats off, Randy!

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  4. @ Heron/IG:

    Huh...I have no idea why your comment disappeared. I DID receive it (via email though).

    I completely forgot to mention YOU as an experieced DM, too...probably because you did such a much better job than Luke and I at holding your tongue. I agree though: Randy WAS impressive. I'll quote the text of your comment in case he's reading:

    Heron wrote:
    "I thought Randy did pretty well for his first game, and even if he felt it was a "clusterfuck", he still managed to project an in-charge attitude. He was quick with his answers and dealt well with what is usually a pretty chaotic bunch of players. I'm sure he knows he should read up on the rules a bit more, especially with you and Luke at the table (watching you two when I knew a rule was wrong was kind of funny, actually), but I think the raw skills are all there.

    "I was impressed he was willing to take on such a large group. For my first return to DM'ing, I only had to deal with two of you, and THAT felt like a clusterfuck to me. Hats off, Randy!"

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  5. If we're not following the rules, there's nothing stopping me from flipping the table over at any time.

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  6. what can I say, Google hates me. Anyway, at this point in time, I'm not sure I'd call myself "experienced". More like that middle-aged guy who "used to play a little ball".

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  7. Since you are handing out grades, what grade do you think that you earned as a player?

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  8. @ Mel:

    It'd difficult to be impartial with oneself, especially with a subjective (gut based) system of grading. It would be better to ask my fellow players.

    That being said, I guess I'd give myself a B+ for "out-of-character interaction" (helping players during character creation, biting my tongue when it came to rules and such), a solid B for "in-game effectiveness," and a C for role-playing (had a hard time finding a distinct personality for my character...possibly due to the extreme circumstance in which we found ourselves...and spent much of my time playing my normal "default" fashion).

    Depending on how you weigh those things, I guess you could say a little bit better than a "B" overall.
    : )

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  9. He ran you through a version of the opening level to the videogame "Dark Souls". Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind. Swiping things is a long and hallowed tradition in this hobby. Plus there's a bit of the Ouroboros thing going on, since Dark Souls is prettily heavily modeled on old school D&D.

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  10. @ Tom:

    Dammit! And here I wanted to rip off his ideas for a new campaign setting!

    At least he used something obscure...the last dungeon I designed was stolen directly from the original Conan film (you know, the one with Arnold?). Yeah, I'm REAL original.
    ; )

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