Greetings from Canada

HeathLambert

HeathLambert

My name is Heath and I live in London, Ontario.

I've been interested in roleplaying for about 2 years now. I have very limited experience playing Dnd v3.5 but, I'm familiar with the rules for the most part. I have a small group of friends who are also interested in roleplaying, but none of them have experience so the role of DM has fallen to me. I don't have much experience running a game so any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks :)

FemmeLegion

Hello, Heath!

I've found some really good resources on "Treasure Tables":http://www.treasuretables.org/ - personally, my favorite articles have covered things that only tangentially relate to the game itself and are more about people-wrangling. (For all that I can be pleasant and personable, I still have a long way to go in the realm of social skills.)

Also, my personal view on rules vs. story: Rules changes are fine as long as you're consistent about it. If you know from the start you're going to change a rule - say you hate the current Diplomacy skill rules and would prefer to use "Rich Burlew's system":http://www.giantitp.com/articles/jFppYwv7OUkegKhONNF.html instead - then tell people right away, so they don't build characters around a misunderstanding and find themselves "nerfed". Also, if you're going to tweak a rule, make sure you can explain why - and if applicable, make sure the tweaking stays consistent. I think of game mechanics like Newton's laws of physics: there will be a few things that will appear to defy them, but really it's just because the perceiver's understanding is insufficient - and when you shift that understanding (e.g. particle physics), you'll find it's consistent across that board too. Though I don't advise making it so the PCs have to devote twenty years of their lives researching to find this out. ;)