Hey Trubo. You were right!
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Hey Trubo. You were right!
Even being right, it still sounds dumb. Oh well.
Dumb, yet fair
Some old guy/lady walks up to you, gives you a book, says "I'm too old for this shit" and puffs out in a cloud of mist.
You acquire a wizard's spellbook, containing six first level spells. You learn your magic from this book, and it shapes your own shorthand and notations - as such, you don't need to copy these spells down into a different style.
This conversation has inspired my next high-level D&D character.
Krond, the Wise: A high-level barbarian with a single level of wizard, who goes around in full magus garb, insists in solving everything with magic, and ends up beating the hell out of people with his quarterstaff in a predictable, yet comical way.
You go carousing one night and wake up the next morning with a headache and a spellbook you don't remember writing.
A black book drops from the sky outside the window of your classroom.
The one of the giant rats you cleared out of the sewers last quest had one tied to it's back. All to go along with it's nice little hat, glasses and fake beard.
Spellbooks fall, everyone gets one level of wizard.
Ended up doing my first session of LMoP last night, with a group consisting of one of my friends and a bunch of randoms we met on Roll20. It was rough as all of us were mostly new but it enjoyable. Overall I kind of think I didn't do the best job as DM, but everyone said they had fun which is good.
Wasn't sure if you were looking for a group still Trubo, but sorry I didn't let you know. Since I had to resort to having mostly randoms, I tried to grab newcomers specifically so my inexperienced DM skills wouldn't be too annoying.
Awesome. I love how many people are doing LMOP. It gives everyone a common experience.
As long as your players had fun then you did good. You'll improve with each game. Just reflect on what you did.
No problem. Don't have anything permanent on Sundays, but AL games aren't too terribly difficult to find.
Speaking of which, was in DDAL07-14 The Fathomless Pits of Ill Intent last night. Felt like a DDAL05-07 Chelimber's Descent done right in that all the traps were set up in ways that you wouldn't be able to figure out they were traps without some sort of really clever thinking. One example involved what looked to be a pool of water.Spoiler:
Just finished the third session of LMoP, things seem to be going well. I was a bit worried having mostly random players but everyone seems to work well together, and everyone's inexperience hasn't been an issue.
As a DM I can't help but still feel a bit lacking though. I don't get much in the way of feedback/suggestions despite asking for it unfortunately (probably due to everyone being strangers). I think my biggest issues is playing NPCs - I might understand their character, but reacting to player responses in-character is a bit of struggle, making the NPCs seem samey (at least to me). Maybe it'd help if I did voices but I'm not sure I feel comfortable doing that lol.
Not getting a lot of feedback isn't necessarily a fault of your own -- most people don't approach things in the mindset that involves analytically breaking things down. Usually when I ask someone how something was, they just say "good" and that's about it. You have to learn to read the mood and interpret their reactions yourself. Though, obviously, it's nice when you have players who delve into their reactions to things.
Another way to approach it is to focus on very specific questions. "Did you think allowing PvP in that session made it more fun, or would it have been better without it?" Etc. That way you at least have a concrete situation to discuss.
Also, consider that their inexperience means they don't have much to compare the game against, so it's hard to say what's good and bad aside from the fact that they enjoyed it, which is the goal.
I suppose strangers could play a factor, but that can be assuaged by time and stressing that you're not asking to get praise but trying to calibrate your skills. Sometimes people assume when you ask for feedback you just mean "tell me how good I am" which isn't the case, or they feel awkward about offering any downsides since you might take it personally. If they do give you some feedback, don't try to argue with them about it if you think they didn't appreciate something enough. If you give off a vibe that you get prickly when people don't "get" your masterpiece then you just make them shut down and stop giving any feedback. Just take what they give you and evaluate it for what insights it might hold.
It sounds like you're doing a good job and will settle in to the role more as you go.
Random question, Sesto. What's your time zone?
EST, why?
Lock your doors, Sesto.
mAc, what are you plotting