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A viable campaign is likely to suffer some attrition as it progresses,
with
players dropping out for one reason or another, and new participants
coming into the campaign milieu. SOme of these newcomes will be xperienced
players from other campaigns and have special characters they want
to continue
with. Other xperienced players will have no
characters, but they will have useful knowledge of the game which puts
them apart from true novices. Finally, there will be the totally uninitiated
participants -- those who have only a vague idea of the game or who
have absolutely no info as to what it is all about. Thse three types
of new players will have to be integrated into a campaign which could
be
in nearly any state of maturity, with the majority of players being
low,
middle, or high level. TO accomplish a smooth transition, I suggest
that the
most applicable form of those given below be followed.
Transferring PCs from other campaigns to yours is appreciated
by the participants coming into the milieu, as they have prolly
spent a good deal of time && effort with their characters,
and a certain
identification and fondness will have been generated. You can allow
such
integration if the xisting PC is not too strong (or too weak)
for your campaign and otherwise fits your milieu with respect to race
and
class. The arsenal of magic items the character has will have to be
examined
carefully, and it is most likely that some will have to be
rejected.
Getting started: I
Dear Dragon:
I find myself in a dilemma. I have been playing
AD&D games for some time now. I moved
to California and started off seven new people
to the world of role-playing. We have been
playing now for two years.
My first dilemma is encouraging players to be
DMs. I love playing as much as refereeing but
find it difficult to do so as of the last two years;
none of the players feel qualified to be DMs, I
guess. Please publish an article on DMing if you
haven?t already. Maybe they will read it and be
further encouraged.
My second dilemma is that I am trying to get
the gamers involved in the GAMMA WORLD®
game, but their excuse is that there simply isn?t
enough info on it to play in depth. If you have
any such information, please let me know.
My third dilemma is that I just recently started
trying to complete my collection of DRAGON
Magazines. I have seen issues where I can order
back issues, but they are currently outdated.
Please send or print a list of issues I may
acquire.
Mark Tarrance
Riverside CA
(Dragon #121)
We?ll check our files and see what we have on
how to become a DM. However, you might
simply encourage one of the players to run his
own game, keeping in mind that a novice referee
always makes lots of mistakes ? don?t rub
it in when they do. When I first ran a D&D
game, I rolled for monster encounters once per
hour of game time, flooding the terrified characters
with dragons and such. The players
forgave
me but carefully pointed out that the game was
a little slower paced than that. With their
encouragement, I became almost tolerable as a
game master.
We?re a little confused on what your players
think is missing from the GAMMA WORLD game
in terms of ?in depth?play material. You might
talk to them and get some specifics on what
they?re looking for, if they are really interested in
playing the game. Much of the work in detailing
the futuristic world of that game rests with the
game master ? i.e., you. You can make the future
into any form you wish, leaving as much or as
little of the Ancients? cultural debris lying around
as you like.
The back-issue advertisements for DRAGON®
Magazine are run frequently, but may be a little
irregular now and then.
Getting started: II
Dear Dragon:
I am a beginning DM who has never played in
or seen an established campaign. Because none
of my players have ever played before, I am not
sure how a few aspects of a game should be
run. For instance, when PCs travel through the
wilderness, do you just say, ?Okay, you just
traveled 72 miles through some mountains
without any encounters,? or would you go into
more detail?
A second question I have is about marching
order. How closely should it be followed? I
know it determines which characters can
attack, but what if a party is searching a room
for details and a monster shows up? Should I
use the marching order to determine who gets
to attack?
Finally, when characters wish to recover hit
points in a town, do you just roll for wandering
monsters each day until they are healed, or
should something else be happening at this
time?
I think that an article for beginning DMs
would be greatly appreciated.
Scott Sonsalla
Independence WI
(Dragon #121)
Well, now we will hunt for some articles that
help get new DMs started. Such articles would
certainly have helped me (as noted above).
You are free to give as much or as little
description about the events of passing through
the wilderness as you like. If you are primarily
concerned with getting the PCs to the dungeon
or castle they want to raid, it?s generally best to
skip over the details and just let them arrive.
However; it?s a nice idea to throw in an encounter
or two on occasion to keep the players on
their toes. At the other end of the scale, you
could roll for encounters as given in the DMG,
pages 47 and 182-189,
or you could devise a
random-encounter table of your own, adding
only the monsters you want the PCs to meet
When a monster is scheduled to show up in a
dungeon, first ask the players to tell where their
characters are and to describe what the PCs are
doing. After you?ve chosen the direction from
which the monster is coming, it should be easy
to tell who will be attacked first.
When characters are resting in town, you can
decide to roll for random encounters or not, as
you desire, as per the earlier question on wilderness
encounters. Usually, it?s nice to let the
PCs rest without encounters, but sometimes it?s
fun to toss in an attack by assassins or dopplegangers,
too.
By the way, we will pass all future letters
about how one should operate role-playing
games to our Sage Advice columnist for his
expert advice.
A good DM attracts many "drop-ins"
who
want to join in the action
immediately. When I
was a new DM, I expected
far too much knowledge
from everybody. My players
were (and
are) mostly busy students
and physicians who
wanted fun without having
to study rule books
or fill out long forms. Now,
I've learned to
provide a good selection
of pregenerated, preequipped
1st-level characters with
a emphasis
on fighters, clerics, and
thieves. (One fighter is a
good-aligned, nearly indestructible
troll
whose
claw/claw/bite damage starts
at 1/1/1-4 and
increases with level.) These
characters quickly
learn to swing their weapons,
cast cure light
wounds, and check for traps
without much
coaching. Other players are
always protective
and helpful.
My job is harder when a newcomer
wants to
be a magic-user, especially
when everyone else
is shy about making suggestions.
The familiars
of folklore ? including Tennessee
witch tales ?
serve as advisors. Even a
toad knows that sleep
is a great choice against
goblins, whether or not
the new magic-user learned
that during training.
Once the player has gone
on a few adventures,
a toad queried about professional
matters
will simply say, ?Ribbit!?
Of course, as David
Godwin (?Forum,? issue #133)
points out, such
levity is not acceptable
in a rigorous campaign.
(Neither is the troll fighter.)
How else can we help the casual
player who
wants to be a spell-caster?
Anyone with a sense
of humor can devise a weak
wand of wonder
variant. Ours has 100 effects,
including a 2-hp
fireball, an attack mouse,
a sheriff with a mock
subpoena, and a ranting cleric
of the opponent?s
alignment. This hardly affects
game balance,
but it keeps the wielder
involved. Players can
also have the newcomer keep
watch in the rear
or operate a magical item
(the wand of magic
detection is a good choice).
After a few sessions, everyone
wants to roll
up his own character. In
the meantime, how do
other DMs make newcomers
welcome? More
generally, what are the ways
that DMs make
sure everybody has a good
time?
Ed Friedlander
Johnson City TN
(Dragon
#139)