Messages

121

RPGs / Re: How much do you game per week?

« on: August 12, 2009, 07:42:50 PM »

I've been playing in a (mostly) weekly 4-5 hour Shadowrun 4e game and Just began DMing a D&D 3.5 game with 1-2 weekly sessions (depending on the Shadowrun game) also 4-5 hours, so i suppose about 8-10 hours not including preparation or the 20 hours of AP podcasts I listen to in a given week.

122

RPGs / Re: Bad GM habits

« on: August 12, 2009, 06:52:58 PM »

Aside from the occasional "substitute GM" I just started DM-ing my first campaign yesterday.

The party consists of a Druid (D&D virgin), Rouge (Stat-monkey who thinks money is free), and a Hexblade (an experienced gamer and DM). Things were going very smoothly, I found that when an incident occurred that I wasn't prepared for that I was very adept at improvising. The encounters were tough but not too tough, and the NPC's were memorable and the party enjoyed interacting with them.

Here's were it started going wrong: My preparations had accounted for two story arcs in the first session (if possible) and as I am a heavy smoker playing in a smoke free environment I had "scheduled" a smoke break at a certain plot point. Unfortunately, the druid's wolf companion was unconscious after the encounter and he was solely focused on tending to her. He was role playing it very well but I needed a f#@king cigarette and didn't give a damn about his dead dog. I suggested they continued to follow the creatures who were apparently leading them somewhere (where they were going to be healed). I went as far as to move their miniatures for them repeating "it would behoove you to follow the charmed bird" I began sweating and staring intently at any player who would make eye contact. The rouge was trying to argue the point that they should leave the river they were near and return to the settlement because "EVERY BAD CREATURE DRINKS FROM WATER!"

At this point I had to roll to see if I had lost any sanity, the druid and hexblade began bickering about the process of healing methods and pulling out the PHB and sourcebooks. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that the thought of recreating the scene where Napoleon plays Risk in "Bill and Ted's blowjobbing extravaganza" and just knocking everything off the battle map occurred to me twelve too many times. I also found that I couldn't not use the word  "behoove" in every dialog that ensued.

Two cigarettes later I return and the stars aligned and everything returned to it's natural order. The rest of the gaming session continued to impress and intrigue the players. Everyone left satisfied so I can't be doing that bad... but I really need to invest in some gum or something.