One of the things I love doing online is bringing people together.
I love to see new communities prosper and people meeting new people. That’s why I was so excited to co-Create the RPG bloggers project.
I also love to gently push people to become more, to try scary, unsure things.
I say that success is not crucial, trying is.
In that vein, I’m happy to notice a new breed of Gamemasters and Dungeonmasters emerging from the blogging scene.
I know many of you are thinking about making the big jump. Others have tried it and considered the experience a failure for whatever reason. That’s okay, you should think about trying again!
That’s why I want to share the following with you.
In the last weeks week, two new DMs stood out for me (partly because they linked to my site, a blogger always likes that):
- Geek Dreamgirl ‘E’ made the jump and started posting her Virgin DM monologues, have a look.
- Eric Maziade discovered my blog not too long ago. While not a new DM per say, he hasn’t done it in 12 years. He started again for a group of his friend’s kids. Have a look.
Now there are a ton of GMing resources out there, as many of you know. My own blog being one of them.
I’d encourage starting DMs to start hunting around Forums, Wikis and blogs to start exploring what’s been said and done about GMing.
My personal picks for starters would be:
Martin Ralya’s Treasure Tables: While not updated anymore, it’s got more than 750 short, well written posts about GMing. My favorite of all is this one.
Then head on to Gnome Stew, the spiritual successor to Treasure Tables, a full team of GMs write some of the best tips and observations on GMing yet.
If you like forums but are daunted by the volume or the somewhat negative tone of the bigger ones, I invite you to check Patrick Benson’s You all meet in a Tavern. In fact, I was told that there’s a contest going on right now.
My forum is also a good place to check if you have questions. We are a small bunch, but the atmosphere is friendly and helpful.
As for my own stuff? I suggest you start with my Tropes Series, then check my 5 stages series and finally look at my unfinished ‘Robin’s laws of Gamemastering revisited‘ posts. I’ll finish it one day, I swear!
Once you feel ready to explore more, go and see the RPGblogger Network. There are more than 100 RPG blogs in there!
Fell free to post other resources you suggest to new GMs/DMs in the comments, including your own blogs.
If you are a starting GM/DM yourself and are blogging about it, let us know and provide us with some links.
For those unversed in posting links in comments, here’s the formula you must copy/paste into the comment form:
<a href="url">Text to be displayed</a>
Where url = the web address you want to link to.
I’m not entirely new to running games, but I’m just starting to blog about it.
I got to work with Robin Laws once while freelancing for White Wolf. He is an idea machine.
I have been seriously considering trying my hand at being a DM. Naturally, I want my 10 year old son and his friends to be my guinea pigs!
I have played some LFR 4e with my son but we were both players and I was thinking of using the C & C ruleset for my first DM experience.
Anyway, nice read and Eric’s blog certianly inspired this DM dad!
@Ian: Welcome to the Blog. I’m happy to see freelancers dropping by and saying hi, you are quite a numerous bunch out there!
I got to meet Robin Laws at Gen Con. I’ve been meaning to all weekend and I caught him only on the last day. I came up to him and apologized for ‘stealing’ from his book and revisiting it with my own spin on it. He laughed and said that he was all right with that, saying all authors like to be cited when Googling themselves.
@Rondor: Starting with kids has an advantage, low expectation and easier to impress… it is however offset with lower attention spans and no appreciation for your NPCs…
..scratch that last part, NO ONE will ever appreciate your NPCs.
Every so often, someone will appreciate your NPCs, if only for unintended humor value. 😉
-Ben.
Bens last blog post..My Spawn of Dajobas
CDM: Today I just decided to get the kids going on 4e from the start. In the end I can go simple-mode in the beginning if need be while at the same time taking advantage of the wealth of support that is sure to be upcoming. The truth is that for every 1000 DnD players there is 1 CnC player.
@Rondor: Good idea, support will be there for sure. Plus at 10, your kids will grok it real fast.
Stay tuned as I’ll likely post more D&D with my kids in the future. Or ring me up by email, I’ll happily share tips with you!
Not quite a new DM, as I have a few months running a Dragonstorm campaign for two people behind me, but there’s absolutely no way you could call me ‘experienced’ yet :p.
At any rate, I just started a Pathfinder campaign in which 4 of the 5 current players have little to no roleplaying experience (blind leading the blind). You can read about it here
Ironically, the one I’m worried about is the experienced player. Haven’t seen him in action, but when asked to play a good- or neutral-aligned character, his response was “But that’s no fun”…
It is really great to see these new efforts! I hope folks stop by and give them all a ton of encouragement! In the long run, more GMs just increases the possibility one of us veteran GMs might actually get to play in a game one of these days instead of run! 🙂
Zacharys last blog post..RPG Blog 2 Emailed To You!
Thanks to all the above-mentioned GM’ing blogs, I was inspired to throw my hat into the ring:
blogofopportunity.blogspot.com
I love what I’ve been seeing so far. Online resources for GMs are exploding.
Lyles last blog post..Game Night: First Blood
@Fox: Being a good DM is to always have the humility of knowing you could do a bit better and that there are things you still need to learn. At the same time its having enough self confidence to keep the humility in check so you can still give your players all the tools they need to make it a great game!
@Zach: We need more GMs for sure! I hope that my lil’ piece of Internet helps!
@Lyle: A pleasure Lyle! Good luck with that and drop in anytime if you have questions.
FUDGE, I just wrote out a 200 word ish post. /grumble, ALMOST fell to it again!! then I noticed the convenient copy field…
I am currently getting ready to play 4e with my little sisters, and mother.
They are all into fantasy some what, although my littlest sister wanted to be a bunny person… just told her that the villagers will be rising eyebrows.
(Keep on the shadowfell, I read through a good bit, it’s going to be fun.)
I even have 26’ish home made kobold’s made, well most of em mom did… I did the dragon shields though! 😀
Gotta get hobgoblins, that’s going to be a pain.
Oh well.
After I play with them, and my [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IKnowKungFu]4e-fu[/url] can become more apparent. I am going to see what friends my age I can pull in. /grin. (17 atm. this ought to be chaotic)
Hi Chatty, been reading here for a few months. Last time I DM’d was over 10 years ago, in college. I kinda skipped 3E, and now about four sessions into a 4E game with a few colleagues and my Mon-in-law using TeamSpeak and MapTool. Working pretty well so far.
Since we’re all learning 4E at the same pace, I’ve found it works best to just keep myself, as DM, at the same level as the others. In otherwords, I just think of myself as another player, but who happens to know what comes next, and who gets to play the bad guys. I ask just as many rules-questions as they do, give them suggestions for a better encounter, and even request their ideas for how to play a new scene. It gives the players some ownership of the campaign and removes anxiety from the mighty title of Dungeon Master.
@Andalore: Yeah, there are some issues with comments sometimes. Good call on the ‘copy’.
I like the idea of a Bunny person trying to help the city in Keep of the Shadowfell. That could be very funny. In fact, I would use the Eladrin for that and make it into some sort of Fey. That would make her vary happy.
Good luck in your game, I find it cool that you guys use D&D to have a family activity. I tried to show D&D to my dad when I was a teenager and he didn’t ‘get’ it, so I never tried again.
@Kevin: Don’t sweat the double post, all fixed! I have found that 4e can be very enjoyable without the DM being the main source of rules knowledge. As long as trust is established around the table, this arrangement can work fine!
I hope your 4e game goes well.
For resources, i would add http://www.roleplayingtips.com
So many tips (at #422 now) for Gm’s, players and anything related !
A definite site for any budding gm or player
Agreed, Johnn Four is a good buddy of mine.