Welcome to the first installment of my new weekly advice column, DMing 101. Since it’s the first installment I thought I should include a little introductory explanation about the purpose and nature of the column first. My goal is to provide tips and advice to new 4th edition D&D DMs – or those still on the fence – in easy to digest chunks. These will be supported by links, references, and concrete examples from my own games. While the advice I will be offering is largely universal and applicable to most RPGs, I’m focusing on 4th edition D&D for a few reasons:
- I am running two regular, ongoing 4E campaigns from which I can draw a lot of examples from. In contrast, most of my indie RPG activities are very short term or one-shot games which don’t work nearly as a source of regular material.
- The lion’s share of players out there are playing D&D of one flavor or another, and thus I’m targeting the largest audience available. Almost everything I’ll be writing, at its core, can be used for any type of D&D game, irregardless of which edition you prefer.
- There’s a lot of support material out there that can be used for new 4th edition, as well as ready access to the books, which makes it a natural choice.
- Trying to write advice columns that are truly system neutral are a pain-in-the-ass which often aren’t terribly useful at the table since they lack concrete examples.
If you’re an experienced DM, you may or may not find some of the advice useful – since a lot of it comes with experience – and you may or may not agree with everything. That’s okay because there is no right or wrong way of playing and different methods work for different people. A lot of the advice I have to offer is based on my own style which involves playing with a regular group of players in a campaign built around one or more stories centered on the characters. Thus, if you’re primarily DMing Living Forgotten Realms games, some of the advice isn’t going to be applicable or even feasible.
What I’m not going to write about:
- Mechanical optimization of monsters, traps, or NPCs
- Min/maxing characters
- How to intentionally kill PCs
- Analysis of rules, updates, or mechanics
Tip #1: Good DMs are made, not born
So let’s start with my number one piece of advice, aimed at readers who are still on the fence about trying to DM or think they don’t have what it takes: Good DMs are made, not born. Running a game is not a talent one is born with and which only is possessed by a mystical few. It is a learned skill, honed with practice over years of play. Sure there are certain personality types that naturally gravitate towards GMing and the ability to think on your feet or create stories out of thin air helps but even those are unlikely to be completely inborn. In fact, neuroscience has revealed that the majority of things we like to think of as natural talent are in large part the result of a lot of very focused practice.
DMing is not rocket science. It is merely a mixture of creative storytelling, impartial judgment, and proper preparation (how much prep largely depends on your choice of RPG system). Improv skills are a plus, but hardly required to get started and they can be learned too. The same applies to running an exciting combat encounter or creating an interesting NPC. Practice. Review. ..read more


Session Summary
The second volume in the two Dresden Files RPG books released by Evil Hat, Our World features an incredibly detailed overview of the world, creatures, and characters featured in the Dresden Files universe as established by the series of novels. The authors (and specifically Chad Underkoffler) clearly put in an exhaustive amount of research in detailing every notable character (these are likely to be used as NPCs in the RPG) from the novels up through Small Favor. The book also features an enjoyable short story by Jim Butcher that provides both a window in to the world and provides a fix for the compulsive Dresden-verse addict. The book is available both as a hard cover and a PDF; I’m reviewing the hard cover version here but everything I have to say applies to the PDF as well.
What’s in the four chapters?
The images shown on Life After the Apocalypse are really awesome.
The GameMastery Face Cards Enemy deck is the latest in Paizo’s line of playing card-sized play aids. They are designed to be handed out by GMs to give their players a face to put to the names of major NPCs. Most of the faces come from Paizo’s previous adventure paths and thus are perfectly suited for GMs running one of the adventure paths. For example, King Mokknock, from The Howl of the Carrion King, portrait appears on one of the cards. However, the images are generic enough that almost anyone will find a use for most of the enemies pictured. Also, while most of the faces definitely look somewhat sinister, enough of them are relatively friendly and so aren’t going to be a dead giveaway when introduced before the big reveal.
Session Summary
The shrine was as
The group continued to carry out a search of the monastery, with Amaruq volunteering to climb up in to the choir loft and have a look at the pugwampi nest. While there were no signs of any additional pugwampis, it was clear that this was their main nest. A bit more unsettling was the fact that amidst the nest was a large throne made up of bones and discarded bits of detritus.

