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Post by ripx187 on Mar 24, 2017 17:50:41 GMT -5
- Don't ignore older Editions, no system is complete.
- Story happens during play, not during prep.
- When players can try anything, there is no such thing as balance.
- Challenge is dictated by the players, not the math.
- Don't use 10 different monsters when just 1 will do.
- Original ideas are easier to run than published ones.
- Text-blocks are for the DM, not the players.
- People wrote these books, learn from them.
- Don't control players, react to them.
- General ideas are better than specifics.
- Resist using new ideas right away; let them develop as not to waste them.
- Over-preparing is worse than being under prepared.
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Post by tetramorph on Mar 25, 2017 9:04:47 GMT -5
Read the blog post too.
Good solid stuff, man.
I only differ as to the penultimate suggestion.
Sometimes I get stuck carrying my precious snowflake idea around like its the monalisa or something when I just need to trot the darn thing out. I'm not a creative genius. Just a normal creative dude. I need to remind myself to let my own ideas see the light of day and my scared and precious self sees something like that penultimate suggestion and uses it as justification to carry his monalisa around a little bit longer!
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Post by ripx187 on Mar 25, 2017 13:31:55 GMT -5
I can dig it, tetramorph. My problem was (and still is, but I try to resist doing it) that I'm fickle; a good idea can be like a girlfriend, you got her and everything is great and then you see a new one, and for no better reason than this one is new, you dump the old one. There is a balance; one doesn't want to beat a dead horse either and have a new idea ready for when the current one has almost been exhausted. Always leave them wanting more! |
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Post by Mighty Darci on Mar 31, 2017 11:58:33 GMT -5
I can dig it, tetramorph . My problem was (and still is, but I try to resist doing it) that I'm fickle; a good idea can be like a girlfriend, you got her and everything is great and then you see a new one, and for no better reason than this one is new, you dump the old one. There is a balance; one doesn't want to beat a dead horse either and have a new idea ready for when the current one has almost been exhausted. Always leave them wanting more! Words fail me! Do you have a girlfriend(or wife) or female players? I can't decide which smiley would be most appropriate. This might fall under TMI!? Let's try  . |
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Post by ripx187 on Mar 31, 2017 15:37:00 GMT -5
Ideas are precious, Mighty Darci especially the good ones. It isn't nice to treat them so poorly. It is best to sit down and take your time getting to know them better. Appreciate them for who they are and let them contribute to the game in their own way. Don't rush them, don't force them to do anything that they aren't ready for. Understand that these are deep and complex creatures that will take you to places that you couldn't believe existed before. Why do you think that the mythical avatar of the Muse is female? |
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Post by Mighty Darci on Mar 31, 2017 21:17:42 GMT -5
Ideas are precious, Mighty Darci especially the good ones. It isn't nice to treat them so poorly. It is best to sit down and take your time getting to know them better. Appreciate them for who they are and let them contribute to the game in their own way. Don't rush them, don't force them to do anything that they aren't ready for. Understand that these are deep and complex creatures that will take you to places that you couldn't believe existed before. Why do you think that the mythical avatar of the Muse is female? I was commenting on this. It sounds to me like you were saying you treat ideas and girlfriends poorly. |
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Post by ripx187 on Mar 31, 2017 22:10:18 GMT -5
I only talk big like that when I know my wife isn't looking  I didn't even catch that. No, I was always a big nerd; I'm pretty sure that most of the women that I had any romantic involvement with were unaware that we were a couple. |
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Post by Mighty Darci on Apr 1, 2017 6:39:55 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2017 12:02:08 GMT -5
Give 'im hell, Darci!
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Post by bestialwarlust on Apr 4, 2017 11:02:11 GMT -5
Don't strain yourself to come up with something original all the time. Use and borrow existing idea's, then modify them and make what you borrowed look like an original idea.  |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 16, 2020 3:09:35 GMT -5
So many people have not seen this and since I have been taking a deep dive into the early days of my OD&D I thought I would bump this to the top, so people can comment. Also I was curious if ripx187 has anything he would like to add to this a little over three years later. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 16, 2020 3:34:24 GMT -5
I also thought I would add my comments, since I see that for some odd reason I never commented on this post. - Don't ignore older Editions, no system is complete.
When I first reffed there were no older Editions. Story happens during play, not during prep. Absolutely story is what is created during play, story does not exist before play starts. When players can try anything, there is no such thing as balance. Balance is not important, balance does not exist in the real world, why should it exist in an imaginary world? In the real world when someone starts talking about a level playing field, look for their thumb on the scales. Challenge is dictated by the players, not the math. Yes, I would say that challenge is a function of how far over their heads the players think they can punch. Don't use 10 different monsters when just 1 will do. Simple is often better than trying to be cute and complex. Original ideas are easier to run than published ones. Frame this! Text-blocks are for the DM, not the players. I played OD&D for a very long time before I ever heard of a text-block. (over 30 years) People wrote these books, learn from them. Study the books if you referee, you may not ever use them during the game, but it is very useful to know what is in them. Don't control players, react to them. Controlling players is called a railroad, do not do that, bad form. The players and the referee take turns acting and reacting. General ideas are better than specifics. General ideas feed your improvisation at the table. Resist using new ideas right away; let them develop as not to waste them. This is a good thing to do, unless of course lightening strikes, learn to recognize when the lightening is real. Over-preparing is worse than being under prepared. Absolutely, in fact I think it is difficult, if not impossible, for an experienced referee to be under prepared. I am ready to run a game anytime anywhere with no notice. By that I mean I walk into a room and a table of players are waiting. I do not know any of them and they say, "We were waiting on you, here is your chair, your paper, your pencil and your dice and your combat tables." "I say, let us play!" |
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Post by ripx187 on May 16, 2020 11:35:44 GMT -5
The Perilous Dreamer do you use this same approach for established groups? I can't imagine how you can manage a campaign without keeping notes and having things in front of you during the game. I am not smart enough for that, and I have played with a DM who went that route but wasn't smart enough to pull it off either. The first few games were fun, but after that things began to fall apart. I prep less than I used to. I still like to have a map, I don't key the whole thing but I do flesh out important rooms and make notes where I have to. I can improv a village, but I've got to take notes on what I invent. Sometimes a player latches onto an NPC which I created on the spot and promptly dismissed in my mind. Suddenly, after a couple of sessions the player wants to return to the NPC and I have no idea who they are talking about. I say a couple of sessions, but this can happen during the same session. It has happened during the same session. I also dig the magic which happens when players return to a village and look forward to seeing NPCs who live there. They get to town and go see them and the NPC wasn't just statically sitting behind the counter while the players were gone, but was up to something and living his or her life while the players were away.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 16, 2020 13:10:48 GMT -5
The Perilous Dreamer do you use this same approach for established groups? I can't imagine how you can manage a campaign without keeping notes and having things in front of you during the game. I am not smart enough for that, and I have played with a DM who went that route but wasn't smart enough to pull it off either. The first few games were fun, but after that things began to fall apart. I prep less than I used to. I still like to have a map, I don't key the whole thing but I do flesh out important rooms and make notes where I have to. I can improv a village, but I've got to take notes on what I invent. Sometimes a player latches onto an NPC which I created on the spot and promptly dismissed in my mind. Suddenly, after a couple of sessions the player wants to return to the NPC and I have no idea who they are talking about. I say a couple of sessions, but this can happen during the same session. It has happened during the same session. I also dig the magic which happens when players return to a village and look forward to seeing NPCs who live there. They get to town and go see them and the NPC wasn't just statically sitting behind the counter while the players were gone, but was up to something and living his or her life while the players were away. For a campaign you have to take notes of what you create, but I make my notes as brief as possible. Yeah the players want continuity on the NPCs that you use so you have to have a way to remember them, so it is good not to overdo it on the number of NPCs at any given location. But to walk in and do a one shot, I can do that with zero prep, for a campaign very minimal prep that is really kind of prep as you go by taking those quick concise notes. IMCs my players have traveled so much they tend not to revisit places much so that also lowers the prep when you are always going somewhere new most of the time and only returning to a few base spots now and then. |
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Post by ripx187 on May 17, 2020 11:21:18 GMT -5
So many people have not seen this and since I have been taking a deep dive into the early days of my OD&D I thought I would bump this to the top, so people can comment. Also I was curious if ripx187 has anything he would like to add to this a little over three years later. It's been 3 years, already? It is interesting looking at this. Much is the same. I would like to add at least one that is important. Don't dismiss published material. I enjoy DIY, but I also had it stuck in my head that using a supplement or other published material was cheating or stealing. I don't get paid to create my own material for every little idea, nor do I have the time to do it all myself; it is just unrealistic to think this way. A good supplement is a valuable tool in the process. Instead of creating a monster from scratch every time I want to introduce something that the players haven't seen before, I can just use stats from the MM and describe it differently. I now have something that I know won't break the game and I didn't spend all day writing things down for something that I'll probably never use again. I think that a healthier way of thinking about professional work is to know that it isn't quite finished yet. It still needs me to refigure it so that it works perfectly for my game. Mash ideas together, tinker with the details and see what happens. Besides, if all you are using are only your own ideas, you are going to end up with something that can slowly become predictable. Hours and hours went into generating content for a supplement, except the help. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 17, 2020 12:26:06 GMT -5
So many people have not seen this and since I have been taking a deep dive into the early days of my OD&D I thought I would bump this to the top, so people can comment. Also I was curious if ripx187 has anything he would like to add to this a little over three years later. It's been 3 years, already? It is interesting looking at this. Much is the same. I would like to add at least one that is important. Don't dismiss published material. I enjoy DIY, but I also had it stuck in my head that using a supplement or other published material was cheating or stealing. I don't get paid to create my own material for every little idea, nor do I have the time to do it all myself; it is just unrealistic to think this way. A good supplement is a valuable tool in the process. Instead of creating a monster from scratch every time I want to introduce something that the players haven't seen before, I can just use stats from the MM and describe it differently. I now have something that I know won't break the game and I didn't spend all day writing things down for something that I'll probably never use again. I think that a healthier way of thinking about professional work is to know that it isn't quite finished yet. It still needs me to refigure it so that it works perfectly for my game. Mash ideas together, tinker with the details and see what happens. Besides, if all you are using are only your own ideas, you are going to end up with something that can slowly become predictable. Hours and hours went into generating content for a supplement, except the help. You can mine everything in the world for ideas! So go separate the wheat from the chaff! Some things have a lot of wheat and some have a lot of chaff. |
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