You are the Master (or Mistress) of the Dungeon. The Dungeon Master. Before there were Dungeon Masters, there were simply Referees. Dungeon Master was a term created when the players of a tabletop war game, kept wanting to explore the dungeons of a castle, instead of fighting the army outside. That was the birth of D&D. 

Many people have this belief that you must read, know and memorize each and every rule in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, before you can be a proper Dungeon Master. The problem is, the Dungeon Master’s Guide has a couple of hundred pages of rules. How is anyone supposed to memorize all that? 

I am going to suggest that you don’t. In fact, I’m going to suggest that you don’t even try. I am going to suggest that you take Gary Gygax at his word, and use all of the rules, or none of the rules, or any combination in between. It’s your game, you do what works best for you.

 

Why A Referee?

D&D got its start as an offshoot of tabletop wargaming. In war games, you had a Referee, someone who’s job it was, to set up the battles, then work out if one player or another could do some specific attack, and when. They Refereed the wargame. Now, I was never part of the original Wargames fad, I’m too young, but I have to believe the stories were light, with just enough in them to explain why two (or more) armies were fighting. 

Combat is where things tended to get complicated, and where you needed a referee, who could make decisions about what happened, based on some basic rulesets that everyone knew and understood. That’s also where the mindset that you need to know all the rules came from as well, even though there are now 50 years’ worth of rules and rule changes to take into account. 

Knowing the rules is good, for those who excel at memorization. I’m not one of them. I read the AD&D Player’s Guide and Dungeon Master’s Guide, and learned how to play the game, with their help. I had the Monster Manual, so I had everything I needed to start running my own games. The rules were, maybe not simpler, back then, but certainly you didn’t have players used to playing up to five different editions, to worry about. 

Making Rulings

Pretty much any time you, as a DM, will need to settle a difference of opinion, will be during combat. In fact, I can’t think of a single time I’ve ever had to make a rules-based determination outside of combat, ever. Sure, I’ve had players ask me if their character could, for instance, seduce a particular NPC, which usually came down to me telling them to have their character give the best pickup line they have, and roll the dice. If the line was good, I really didn’t worry about the roll, but we’re talking Geeks here, so the pickup lines were usually horrible, that meant it was up to the dice. Higher roll wins. 

Knowing this, you can figure out that you will need to know and understand the combat rules at a minimum. Things like Initiative, then movement, attack, action, bonus actions, reactions and attacks of opportunity. I know, if you are new, that sounds like a lot, but only a few of them will generally happen any give turn, usually movement and action/attack, with a possibility of bonus action or reaction, depending on the PC. 

If you can keep track of who’s turn it is, and what each character can do, you have everything you need to be a good DM. In last week’s post, I linked to several Combat Flowcharts. Using these will make your job that much easier. 

Starting At Low Level

I’m going to suggest, especially if you are a new DM, that you start a new party off at Level 1. Your players may complain about it, because Level 1 Adventurers can’t do a lot, but there are advantages. For the players, they get to learn who their characters are, and how they act or react, long before they get any real power. That means that when they do get power and abilities, the players know exactly how the character will use them. 

For you as the DM, it means you have much less to keep track of. During a fight, most of what you’ll need to be aware of, will be who’s turn is it, what can they do, and how badly did it hurt? You’re encounters will necessarily be with very low level “Monsters”, like Cultists or Bandits. This is ok, because you can always add more, to make the encounter more challenging. 

These low-level encounters have always been for the benefit of the group, to learn about their characters, and the classes they are using. While experienced players are likely to play classes they already know and like, new players will need this time to learn. So will you. I happen to know that trying a new character class can cause you to rethink what your favorite class is. Learning has always been the entire point, along with setting up the campaign, of starting everyone off at Level 1. 

Rulings, Not Rules

Your title is Dungeon Master, not Rules Lawyer. In fact, no one at the table has the title Rules Lawyer, so the first thing you should get used to, is making decisions based more on what suits the story, rather than the rules. If one of your players has a problem with this, tell them they can discuss it with you after the game, then give them the time after the session, to actually discuss it with you. 

I am of the opinion that everything everyone does in a session, is to accomplish one thing, move the story along. Progress the story, and the campaign. In another post, I said that you should always default to Yes. If a player asks if they can do something, the answer is yes, unless you have a specific reason they can’t. If you follow that one piece of advice, it will make DMing so much easier. Your players will be happy, and you will have a lot less decisions to make. 

When a question does come up, look at the story you and the group are making together. Is there a good reason not to allow the action? For example, a Palidan wants to leap across a 30 chasm, to catch a rope and tie it off for the rest of the group to follow. Well, that’s not likely to happen. Certainly not in full plate. If the player insists, I can point out that my house is forty feet long, and that the leap would be from the living room wall, all the way to the linen closet at the end of the hall. That’s about thirty feet. 

That is my reason for saying no. I don’t care how strong you are, or how much of a run up you take, you are not going to jump that distance in plate armor. If the player still insists, I let them try, and let the dice determine their fate. My players very quickly learn to dread the four words, “You can certainly try”.

To Rule, Or Not To Rule

I always prefer rulings to rules. There are some times when a rule is required, like the effects and scope of a magical spell, which no one is going to complain about being looked up. Generally though, especially in the heat of battle, once you have played a few session together, you will already know everything you need to about the party, so the only thing that really changes, are the monsters. Again, starting off at Level 1, will give you the time you need to get to know the party’s characters and their abilities. 

By the time you get to a place where Monsters they might face, have special abilities, or other unusual attributes you’ll need to keep track of, you’ll know the entire party forwards and backwards. Again, the only thing that changes, are the Monsters. Yes, as the Party progresses through Levels, you’ll need to keep track of upgraded abilities, spells or attributes, but over several sessions, that will become second nature. 

You know what Monsters you’ve set up, and where they can be encountered. Your job now, is to learn and note any special abilities they have. I’m not talking claw/claw/bite, that’s pretty standard. I’m talking about poisoning, and what type, how it progresses, and its effects. Breath weapons, stingers, or necrotic touch. Again, because you started everyone at Level 1, by the time this becomes relevant, you already know the vast majority of what can be done by the players. 

DM Notes

Another thing I want to talk about, are your notes. Every DM has, and uses notes. In your session prep, jot down the important things you want to make sure you remember in the game. A lot of this will be Monster attacks, and results of those attacks, should they hit. 

Don’t be afraid of using your notes during the game. In fact, I will sometimes make a big deal of it, if I need to check my notes. After a successful attack on a PC, the player wants to know what happened, “Let’s see what my notes say about that”, as I flourish the papers for all to see. Your players understand that you can’t know everything, you just appear to. Use that illusion to your advantage. 

You get to run your game, your way. As long as it’s balanced, or appears to be balanced, your players probably won’t complain. Let the story you are guiding your players through, be your guide as to what should happen. 

Killing Off Characters

As DMs, we are often accused of trying to kill our player’s characters. That’s not true, of course, but as I point out to my players, if you jump into the mouth of a Dragon, don’t complain that you got eaten! You never try to kill off characters. In fact, most of your effort will be trying to come up with viable reasons the characters didn’t die. You will have no shortage of times that any give player’s character should have died, but didn’t, that you can point out to a player who seriously accuses you of trying to kill their character. 

If you are afraid that your players will leave your game because they think you are constantly ruling against them and what they want, don’t be. Your hardest task as a DM, is figuring out how to keep your player’s characters alive. Now, if the player is just being stupid, thinking that I won’t ever let the character die, they learn quickly, just how wrong they are. I have no problem letting a player who is acting stupid, kill their character. While that player may be upset they have to role a new Level 1 character, the rest of the players will appreciate the sacrifice. 

If you let your story dictate how and what things happen, it makes your job as DM that much easier. As long as your players know that you aren’t purposely hampering their efforts to do things, they will be happy. Don’t worry about details of the rules, unless it becomes a problem for a player. Again, it’s only when they can’t do something, that they will tend to complain. Give your players permission to try things, and see where that takes the game.