image courtesy: careerealism.com
My experience as a DM has been a unique one compared to a lot of other DM’s out there. I suspect many people DM’ing D&D started out early on, with the boxed sets, then AD&D, and followed the logical footsteps of the game up until the point where we are today with D&D 4e. My DM’ing experience was the following: one session of 2e, one bad session of 3.5, and a few session of Star Wars d6. It wasn’t until I hit my stride with 4e that I branched out with Star Wars Saga, and now Dragon Age.
As you can see, the transition assuming you started 25 years ago, is rules light first, rules heavy second. After all, you have to learn to crawl before you can run. But for us DM’s that began with 4e, we skipped that step. As a Newbie DM all over again with Dragon Age, I’ve found that having experience with 4e has been both a help, and a hindrance. I’ll explain why.
Game Prep
4e D&D is a game that was meant to be as easy for the DM as possible, and in that they succeeded hands down. 4e gives DM’s the tools that we need for our game prep without requiring much thinking beyond the creative placement of creatures, treasures and traps. Everything including the actual design work or math is done for you quite well, and presented in an easy format. Dragon Age, on the other hand, is very different. (Let me preface this that I’m speaking of the first boxed set here, which covers levels 1-5 of the game. Other future boxed sets address this, but I’m looking through the prism of a new DM who doesn’t know that). Dragon Age has no encounter building rules to speak of. In fact, the way experience is handed out, it’s all very abstract. Was the encounter easy for the players? Give them X experience points. Was it a bit hard for them? Then give them XX experience points instead.
Well… what if the encounter was supposed to be hard and ended up easy? or the other way around? What is an easy encounter mathematically anyway? What are the guidelines? How do I know if this enemy is too hard? You don’t, because the game doesn’t really answer these questions as well as 4e does. Set 2 supposedly goes into the game math a bit, but that doesn’t really help people running games with set 1, does it?
Another thing that struck me about this transition has been the thinking that had gone behind my encounter prep with 4e, and how that method just doesn’t work for me now. While prepping 4e, (and I’d like other 4e DM’s reading this to tell me if their experiences are similar), I would look at my encounters and balance them against how much time I had to play. So I would tell myself that “this encounter seems tough enough that the fight will last X amount of time, so let me make the second one lighter so that it will only last me X amount of time to resolve it”. This being due to the time constraints I have in our gaming sessions. 4e made me think like that due to the nature of tactical combat. With Dragon Age, I’ve found myself under preparing sometimes. I still haven’t shaken the mentality that “2 or maybe 3 encounters will be enough”, and that thinking just doesn’t apply for me. Granted, I have a couple less players, but I still think that overall the games are just that different. The combats move faster but then that makes for more planning for the night’s adventure, because I have to fill the gaps between fights. Are we roleplaying more? Yes we are, no doubt, and my players will all attest to that.
So yes, game prep has been affected in that there is more room for stuff now, when compared to my old way of trying to fit encounters into a set amount of time.
DM Control
One of my main gripes with 3.x D&D and beyond is that the game suddenly got full of rules that were once the realm of the DM’s judgment. Perhaps it comes from my days as a player when the DM was actually referred to as a judge, but I find that there are now plenty of opportunities for players to call out a DM on something and have that in a book to back it up. In Dragon Age, DM’s have a lot more leeway for things. I think this is part of the “feel” that the game has as an old school game. You’re probably going to ask me for examples, so I’ll just link you to this instead. That’s mostly what I’m talking about.
A rules light game like Dragon Age gives you the power (but also the responsibility) of making judgment calls on situations as you think that they should be handled, and not by the rule written in a book. It’s a big deal for DM’s who are used to only running D&D in the post year 2000 era. One of the main issues with that is consistency. You can’t decide things work one way today, and then decide the same thing doesn’t apply tomorrow.
Abstractions
With Dragon Age, I’ve had to learn to be quick on my feet and take in the scene I’ve set up and be ready to describe and be consistent with what I’m setting up for the players. DA is a game where the battle mat can be used, yes, but the rules also allow for an abstract combat, all-descriptions style. I’m partial to using the mat and minis, but have indulged in a couple of off the grid fights just to keep the brain engine running smoothly 🙂
I’ve had to learn to really be lot more descriptive with the situation at hand, the layout of the land, and the flow of the fight. The stunts system in Dragon Age (in a way similar to powers in 4e) allow you as both a player and a DM, to describe how they work and what’s happening on the battlefield. I could easily drop tiles down on the table, say “you see this” and move on with the fight, but I don’t want to do that with this game. You know why? Because I have too many gaps to fill in, because the combat not being the main focus of the game, is quick, and I have three hours to fill. Rich descriptions of locations, npc’s and situations don’t really take time away from anything else, so they are both necessary and welcome. I don’t want this to sound like I’m coming down hard on 4e, I’m trying not to. But it is very apparent to me that they are two very different types of experiences that each provide at the table.
I’ll admit, my preference is to use the grid in Dragon Age, just to avoid my brain having to keep up with placement and making abstract calls in the middle of a fight. I like having the grid and minis or tokens. I don’t feel like I’m playing the game in a way it’s not meant to be played by using them, so no need to change that.
Things I Miss
There are a ton of things I miss as a DM that 4e gave me:
- Online Support. There are just tons of resources for D&D. Dragon Age is lacking heavily from both the community and the publisher.
- Encounter Building. Hands down 4e has this down to a science. Dragon Age… not so much.
- Material. One boxed set, a Gm screen, and an adventure book is all that’s available for DA. Give us something else Green Ronin, at least on your website. What can a couple of adventure hooks cost you anyway?
- Community. The DA community is still pretty small, while D&D has, well, 40 years of people behind it. The DA forums aren’t that busy either, really.
To sum it up, the transition from D&D 4e to Dragon Age has been one of re-learning many things. Learning to be more descriptive, more abstract, and think a little quicker on my feet. While it’s also taught me not to take for granted some of the great work that went into 4e’s tools for the DM’s, as they certainly help.
Going from rules heavy to rules light can be a bit of a shock as well. I’ve had several “is that it? am I doing this right?” moments at the table recently, surprised to find that the answer is “yes, you are”.
I’d love to read your thoughts about changing systems and having to relearn ways of DM’ing in the comments below.
www. Newbie DM .com 
Smitty
February 12, 2011
Great post. I’m part of a group that plays 4e campaigns each week and I am getting ready to GM a Deathwatch game for them. After reading the rulebook, I find that DW runs well as an abstract game. This post makes me less nervous about the transition to more of an old-school play style. Keep posting your thoughts and any lessons you’ve learned.
Markus
February 12, 2011
There is actually some more stuff available for you. Green Ronin published a Game Master’s Kit and “Blood in Ferelden”, a collection of adventures. Both are available in PDF, so go over here and see what you can do with them 🙂
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?cPath=1487_5710
Markus
February 12, 2011
Oh, ignore my comment above. I didn’t read your article well, seems you found both of them already. My bad!
Robert N. Emerson
February 12, 2011
I’ll definitely agree that being the DM/GM of a game is all about meshing your own style with that of the game system being used, as I’ve had to transition from a variety of different systems including oD&D up through 4e and Pathfinder.
One point of defense, with respects to Green Ronin and what they’re doing with Dragon Age, I think they’re only allowed to do a certain amount of product within the Dragon Age license. I could be wrong, but I read somewhere that it’s a finite license and that it’s for a certain number of products and not a wide-open development license like you see with other gaming franchises.
A lot of games are lacking in equivalent electronic support, such as what has been done with 4e, but I think that’s also due to the fact that 4e’s big push was for there being more electronic support after prior years where they were just like most companies are now.
Overall, though, I think one big think for new DMs/GMs to learn is that you’re becoming not only the rules referee, but also the main storyteller for the group. Each player has their character, while the person behind the screen is everyone else. Also, the rules are a framework, not a cage. If it makes for a good game, fudging your way past a rule is a good thing, thus Rule One in most systems is that the person running the game decides on rules. So long as it’s done benevolently, instead of malevolently, it’ll be a good gaming experience.
Lastly, walking the fine line between cooperative and competitive is one of the hardest tasks for someone when running a game. If you let it turn into a me-versus-them thing, then it’s really easy to sap the fun right out of it.
Alphastream
February 12, 2011
I personally try to let go of “system knowledge”. Part of my joy with periodically playing/DMing a new system is that _difference_. What I try to harness is my collective knowledge of what makes for a fun story, for great RP, for fun combat situations. For example, with Shadowrun it can be so much fun to focus on negotiations with Mr. Johnson and to RP “quiet” moments where things might happen (moving through dangerous neighborhoods, passing checkpoints, doing legwork, etc.). There is a ton you do that would be just skipped over in D&D. The planning is just completely different. In Spycraft, a lot of the fun is around letting the players spend time devising a plan. You know, as DM, that you will likely roll with whatever they come up with, but they have great “fear” of things going wrong – so they create their own tension as they plan a heist/infiltration/highjacking/etc. Dramatic encounters with villains is another classic Spycraft moment and should be treated really differently than in D&D (paragraph of villain text… done!).
So, overall, my advice is to largely abandon any learned behavior around prep where it really has to do with the rules. The core of encounter construction, for example. The idea of balancing fights. The idea of what you can and can’t do. If DragonAge (I don’t know it) is rules light, then embrace that and be fast and loose with what happens. This is actually a real gift to be able to learn how to do that and you can then take that back to D&D later and find appropriate moments to use that skill.
Especially in the first sessions, let the players also show you what works. I have real trouble being quiet, but I try to do so and just watch how the players react. If they want to try random not-in-the-rules things, then that’s a good lead to follow. If they choose things that make planning “encounters” difficult, then that’s a good thing.
Swordgleam
February 12, 2011
This is helpful, as the last campaign I ran was 4e and I’m going to run a couple Dragon Age one-shots soon.
“I would look at my encounters and balance them against how much time I had to play. ”
I long ago gave up the delusion that I have any chance of predicting how long things will take my players. Anything the DM thinks is obvious or easy, the players second-guess and overcomplicate. Anything the DM things is going to be tricky, the players blow right through. I planned my encounters mostly based on party morale – a tough one to make them feel challenged, then a couple easy ones to show them how much better they’re doing with their new gear/powers/etc.
“Rich descriptions of locations, npc’s and situations don’t really take time away from anything else, so they are both necessary and welcome. ”
I did a lot of that in 4e. Just because 4e has more RULES for combat than it does for other things, doesn’t mean it’s combat-focused. But, I can see how starting out with 4e would make one more combat-focused, since you don’t realize how much else there is. Be interesting to see what someone who started out with a system like Dragon Age would do when moving to 4e. My suspicion is that they’d run a 4e game like mine – with many sessions that focused on everything but combat.
I agree a lot with what other people have been saying. The beauty of different systems is that they’re different. People who love System A shouldn’t whine because System B is different; they should play System B those times when different is what they want, and otherwise stick with System A. When I want om-nom-nom crunch I go with some D&D flavor; when I want cinematic or silly, I don’t. I don’t blame each game for not being like the other.
But at the same time, you do bring your DMing style to every system you play. I always use a lot of social encounters, and that’s going to happen whether there’s twenty pages of rules on social combat or whether it’s not even mentioned in the manual. I like to describe cool environments and I strive to have fights happen in awesome places, and that’s going to be true whether there’s rules for terrain and stunts or not. I’d hate to lose that part of my style just because whatever I’m running at the time isn’t especially well-suited to it.
Jeff Carlsen | Apathy Games
February 12, 2011
There’s another point that you’ve probably noticed by now but didn’t mention: once you leave D&D, encounters serve a different function. Combat becomes more of a part of the story. Some fights are meant to be easy. Others aren’t meant to be won. And, depending on the system, combat is something to be avoided.
That’s why the experience system is more abstract. It’s about accomplishments, not monsters defeated. There’s nothing wrong with the D&D way, but it’s simply one way, and a way that’s in the minority among systems.
Daniel M. Perez
February 12, 2011
Allow me to say this is one of those moments when I wish you didn’t have your own blog cause this would’ve been great for the Dragon Age Oracle. 😉
What you’re going through now is normal. I went through it years ago as I transitioned from Basic D&D up to AD&D then to other systems. In fact, everytime I switch to a new game, even now, I still go through this process; I just have 25 years of experience to draw upon to guide me.
Revel in the process of exercising your GM muscles. 4e has done a lot of heavy lifting for you: now, welcome to the weights room. Pick up a dumbbell and let’s go. 🙂
MJ Harnish
February 13, 2011
I’m glad to hear your thoughts and experiences with DA. Keep thhem coming.
Considering how poor quality most of the WotC adventures are, you could view DAs lack of them as an advantage. That said, there is nothing to keep you from using any of your D&D products as inspiration for DA – steal liberally and often is what I would suggest.
Also, keep in mind that the DA XP system makes a lot more logical sense than 4E’s – you hand out XP based on how hard the battle really turned out to be rather than preassigning a value based on a formula – how many “hard” 4E encounters have you run where the PCs mopped the floor with the opposition, or “easy” encounters where the PCs barely survived and then were given a palty sum that in no way reflected the difficulty or significance of the encounter? That doesn’t happen in DA.
Balancing encounters is a different issue, but having run a lot of 4E I don’t find their mathmatical approach any better than DM judgment – the fact is that they screwed up all the math on the solos anyways (especially at the paragon and epic tiers) so it’s clearly not a reliable method either.
Ace42
February 13, 2011
I find that there are now plenty of opportunities for players to call out a DM on something and have that in a book to back it up.
I always remind my players when they try to meta-game that the rules are there to simulate what’s going on “in game” and offer a framework for doing it; they are not what is determining the actions in game. Life in Faerun is not a series of X out of 20 chances, and on occasion stuff happens that isn’t simply a reductive function of dice rolling.
Also, GMing Paranoia is a handy way to teach players the triviality of rules when you control the world events are taking place in.
David
February 13, 2011
I don’t really have a comment on this particular post. I just wanted to represent all the lurkers out there who read your stuff and never comment. Good work and keep it up.
I may never play Dragon Age but I sure do enjoy reading about you playing it.
Gilvan Blight
February 14, 2011
Thanks for sharing this. I will be going through a similar experience in the next week when I run Dragon Age for the first time.
I personally started back in the 80s with Marvel Super Heroes then moved on to Warhammer Fantasy, Chill, Cyberpunk, Amber and then finally AD&D 2nd edition. I didn’t really dig into 2nd Ed until the ‘Complete’ books came out and fell in love with it with Skills and Powers and Combat and Tactics. Since then I did 3.5 and still run that and got into 4e pretty much on the ground floor. So I’ve pretty much hit every style there is including a bout with indie games and shared DMing.
A month or so ago I decided to check out the Eclipse Phase quick start rules. Amazing system with some of the best new concepts I’ve ever seen. Stuff that’s never been done before. I actually had a horrible time running it. I found I just couldn’t run abstracted combat anymore and/or my players couldn’t handle it. Maybe I wasn’t descriptive enough, maybe the players couldn’t visualize it but we had a really hard time figuring out things like cover, distance between combatants, effects of the environment. Making it worse was the fact the fight was in 0g in 3 dimensions. We fumbled through it but I think overall it would have run better with at least an abstract map and some minis to at least show approximate position.
Do you, or anyone else, have any suggestions on how to go back to abstract once you have been using a grid for 15 years or so?
roaet
February 14, 2011
I enjoyed the post and have also moved to DA after 4.0. I hope my players will enjoy it.
Alphastream
February 14, 2011
“Do you, or anyone else, have any suggestions on how to go back to abstract once you have been using a grid for 15 years or so?”
I spent a lot of time painting up my Mirumoto swordsman only to never once use it in a game of Legend of the Five Rings. Even though you could use minis, no one I played with (across many gaming groups) ever used them. There are things like flanking… every combat I ever asked, I received flanking. So, you basically could always get flanking if one other person was fighting that foe. Those of us used to the grid would say things like “I move around to engage them so as to set up flanking”, or “I move up to be in a flank with Yamato-san”, but it really didn’t matter. Much more important was to call their clan inferior, question their sensei, and call upon the spirits of the Dragon Clan as my twin blades sent him to the next stage in the cycle. And, because combat was less prevalent and cinematics more important than tactics, this really was better.
My suggestion is to completely leave the grid behind and do your best to enjoy the concepts, erring strongly on the side of fun. With Eclipse Phase, yeah, you can bounce off the bulkhead and end up next to the sentient octopus and flank with the swarm of ball bearings (your ally). I mean, when your ally is a swarm of ball bearings, are we really questioning whether in 0-g you could get a flank or move into the corridor or whatever? The idea is to just have fun. The more you can abandon the grid in your mind, not even tracking it remotely, but instead thinking of the cinematic “reality”, the better. Think of how in a movie like Face Off Nicholas Cage can shoot a chain link with great precision to cause a gang plank to descend but can’t kill his opponent. That’s actually very fun in many RPGs and should be a lot of what is used to describe situations.
So, if you hit a “Can I do x”, think less about the grid and more about a fun way to describe it. The game isn’t controlling the grid. All of that is just down to the attack roll or similar mechanic.
You may further want to steal form Spycraft’s way of awarding action dice for cool stuff. Sure, you can shoot that guy… but you could also do an athleticism check to jump up and into the forklift, spend an action to turn it on, and roll over the bad guy (true story!). That’s what a lot of these games are about.
Gilvan Blight
February 15, 2011
Thanks for the answer.
I think you may be thinking of Gamma World over Eclipse Phase, but your point still stands. It reminded me of something. We have no problem with this in Feng Shui, where part of my job as DM is to make the room as boring as possible so that the players can fill it. “You are in a kitchen in the back of the restaurant. The mooks each grab various kitchen implements” – Players: “Is there a boiler running I can stick a mooks face in?”, “Is there one of those hanging things with pots handing from it, and can I kick that into a mooks chest sending him flying into the cold freezer”, etc.
In that case we had no problem without a map. Where the problem lies is with things you note like flanking. I particularly worry about the 1stunt point to skirmish (move you or an enemy up to 2 meters). These are people used to 4e D&D and sliding bad guys, I’m mulling over how to present the game where this will work without the grid. Where there are ‘hard rules’ in the system for movement how do I keep that tactical element without the board, I guess is more my question.
Alphastream
February 15, 2011
I was meaning Eclipse Phase, but limited play may be blurring the lines!
I still think that you can’t take the sliding too seriously. The 2 meters is a guideline to help players and DM come to an agreement as to what is possible, not something to measure in a tactical fashion. The key here for such a power is what the PC is trying to do. If the PC is trying to set up flank, totally! Out the airlock? Well, that’s where the cinematography should kick in. Is it cool if the foe goes out the airlock? Is it uncool? Sometimes a foe dying is awesome, sometimes it is too soon. These kinds of games seem to embrace that. A minion should fly out the airlock to cheers from the PCs. An important foe… well, it should be a fitting time for it. Otherwise, perhaps the distance isn’t quite there but he is close enough that more could get him there. That gives you time for his farewell speech, at the very least, and perhaps to think about whether a space ship should zoom by and pick him up…
I try to think of these systems (and to some extent 4E) as shared discovery. You have encounter ideas, but the math is more fluid and the possibilities more open.
Machpants
March 2, 2011
“Do you, or anyone else, have any suggestions on how to go back to abstract once you have been using a grid for 15 years or so?”
Yes I do, I used a grif (of sorts, maths paper) with BECMI and all the way through to 4E. However only in 4E did I really ‘attach’ myself to the grid ‘cos the rules are so ingrained in the grid. Howver, like you, I went from DMing 4E to DA and I still use a grid and minnis. Why? Cos a grid makes it easier to draw out most mapped areas and minis look cool! But to keep the combat flowing I game ON the grid, but don’t USE the grid. All distances are judged by eye, you don’t snap to grid and just slide your mini where you want. Combat is fast as is inherent in DA, but has a bit more tactical thought because you are placing your minis, even if based on a trust/approx distance. Placing your minis to take advantage of terrain etc means I am liberal with ad hoc bonuses and penalties, as well as the interpretation of stunts.
But I agree it is hard to judge encounters at a start (but I have gone all old schooly and said ‘sod it, the players should learn to run if they are losing!’) and the support is lacking. But I love the game pity real life split my group 😦
Happy gaming.
Alphastream
March 2, 2011
I randomly ended up having map/mini-less battles (twice!) in my last home game session. You can click on my picture to reach my blog where I talked about it. The summary was to be really descriptive, have the battle merit the treatment (this was a battle with many forces where resolving all the movement/attacks was not needed), and to make sure to provide a benefit to powers that have movement/positioning aspects.
Gilvan Blight
March 2, 2011
Thanks for sharing.
I ran my Dragon Age game without maps, there were three combats. I ran them all without minis or maps. Of the 6 players who played one hated it. His RPG experience amounts to a few games of AD&D in high school and playing in my 4e Home game. He found keeping track of where he was required too much math and worth. He couldn’t visualize where he was or how far away the enemies were or how far the hazards were. Of the remaining 5 players one absolutely loved it, and was very impressed by my ability to run abstract combat. This was from a player who has been playing AD&D 2nd edition for the last 15 years or so and still runs it once a week. Amusingly his character sheet had a right angle triangle on it and he brought the Pythagorean Theorm into the game. The remaining players liked it and just found it different but not really better or worse than mini based combat.
Thanks for the advice, I do think it helped. I think one of the big things I need to do is make sure not to make the ‘map’ too complex. By placing specific set pieces in the terrain I was forced to figure out how far people were away from these set pieces. I think without those and a more general description things would have been smother and actually more cinematic.
That didn’t come out too clear. What I mean is this. Instead of doing something like:
“You are in a deep forest travelling down a well worn path. The path has deep cart ruts running down the edges of it and is about 4 yards wide. The road bends to the south east about 20 yards ahead of you. There are shallow ditches about 2 yards wide on either side of the path. Off to your right about 12 yards from the road in the forest is a large felled tree.”
I would do something more like:
“You are in a deep forest travelling down a well worn path. The path has deep cart ruts running down the edges of it. To the sides of the path there are shallow ditches and the path curves to the south east ahead. Off to the right hand side of the path is a large felled tree.”
Joe
March 6, 2011
@Gilvan – I’ve tried doing your second example in my own home games but I have players who absolutely NEED to know exact measurements. If I try to explain that it is unnecessary they have a mini meltdown and then get flustered.
David Wainio
September 13, 2011
My two cents is that when running abstract combat, do not fall into the habit of trying to keep an imaginary battlemap in your head to keep track of the fight. Instead, picture the combat like you were watching a movie or reading a comic. In those mediums, things of no concenquence are not prominate and sometimes not even shows. Things that the audience are to assume might factor into the action (a parked car, a shaky fire escape, a lady pushing a baby stroller) are brought to the forground.
Those ‘forground’ thingsgo in your descriptive narrative. Be open to adding logical things players ask about as well. In their mind if they picture a crate of empty beer bottles as something in the alley behind a bar then run with it. Sure, they plan to use it for some purpose but for me abstract combat is more about story telling than a tactical exercise of powers and resources (which 4E combat represents).
Dave
Guver
September 29, 2011
Great article. Thanks!
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July 8, 2014
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