Ever asked a question on yahoo answers? They be jerks on there too. For every one honest informative answer you get seventeen smart-arse or downright offensive comments.

if they want props I'll let them play with my wooden battle axe and stage blades.

...as a straight line... Only lines that lack enough crookedness to make them appear to be straight.

Besides, we color outside the lines around here, anyway... Who needs 'em to be straight?

Okay, I'm off to antagonize some quilters for being patronizing and snotty to one of our Innmates... gotta hydrate first, though... I'm betting there are many, many, many faces to be slobbered upon in a quilting circle. *nods*

Think they'll have any of those groovy li'l cucumber sammiches?

I like to believe that they were just threatened by a young girl in their game. If it became cool for teenagers to quilt what would they do for christmas presents to them? I am still crap at making quilts but the soldiers I'm sending them to just care that someone cares enough to stab herself repeatedly with straight pens to sew a bunch of blocks together.

Maybe just a giant graph paper pad...

.... in the "game"!

First of all Let me welcome you to the RDINN fellow inmate and kudos to you for rising up to the rank of "occasional visitor" in such a short time. You weren't a newbie for long were you?

Also, way to go on choosing to go the "hard way" first with DMing. Ive been DMing since 2002. My first game was a homebrew, but you have one advantage I didn't have: newbie players. All my players were seasoned and well versed in the rules so I felt quite embarrassed when I would make a rules mistake and the players weren't shy about letting me know it.

I have to concur with my fellow innmates on these points:

The most important thing is that you and the players have fun. It's the main thing that will keep your players coming back session after session.

And to add my two cents worth on having fun, Everyone deserves to have fun during the game, even "Rules lawyers". They are the ones that have read all the rule books 20 or more times. Its the D&D books they read to their kids and then read themselves before going to sleep. lol jk (I think Im kidding anyway). Its fun for them to know all the ins and outs of the game's mechanics. Therefore rather than glaring across the table at them everytime they say,"Ahem....point of order...", put them in the capacity of "Lore Master". Not only will that player be able to play a character but is also charged with assisting the DM/GM with making adjudication decisions that more closely gell with the rules, and to be ready at a moments notice to QUICKLY find said rules in the books to back it up.

I also agree with Celeste on every point she made in her blog on Epic GMing. Even here on the Inn I use maps. I upload them to Photobucket and paste a link in pms to my players.

The best DMs I know are both preimptively creative and can think on their feet and/or fly by the seat of their pants. A living breathing world with towns or cities with NPCs and working government structures is great, but an invaluable skill is to create towns and NPCs on the fly straight outta your head, and if you get really good, whole dungeons too. That is a skill you will have to practice to perfect, though.

If there are any books you don't have, I can email you the pdfs of most dnd 3.0/3.5 ed books. Just let me know.

...regarding the "rules lawyers," T!

I like that.

Thank you much Tiamat. Luckily they don't know the difference between a halfling and a gnome, let alone the rules enough to contest me on them.

It's only twenty-five posts... I'm a chatter box...

So somehow flirt and Jozan have half conned half encouraged me to DMing on here... O_O

Edit: My boyfriend gave me a jumpdrive with all the 3.5 stuff I could ever use and then some, thank you though. ^_^

So, I am proud to say I'm not running screaming to you guys for help! Lemme sum up the night.

1. only one of my players showed up... T_T not off to a good start.
2. We decided we were going to have run regardless of everyone else sucking.
3. He rolled up a character (a half-orc fighter.)
4. Pizza break
5. My friend is freaking amazing because I said I wished we could do some sort of map or something so I could give him a visual of where things and enemies were. We went on a supply run trip and he made a giant graph board and then covered it in clear packing tape so we could use dry erase markers on it. Needless to say, I'm so in love with him right now.
6. Awesomeness ensued. We used spare dice for heroes and candy for the enemies and whenever an enemy was killed we got to eat the candy. Fun was had by all and I'm looking forward to next week when his brother can come too.

Now I just need to find a copier so we don't have to write out character sheets on notebook paper. XD

lol sounds like you had a lot of fun despite three bailing, that's always good!

good idea also on the packing tape/dry erase thing.

also get in the mind set of saving DnD paper. like when i'm at the library in my college i'm like, i should print at leat 10 character sheets so we have extra later.

well nice job on making a great night out of it, always have fun!

Sometimes it's better to start with a small group rather then a large one. Helps you get the hang of things before too many people all shouting trying to talk show up.

access to a printer or copier. As of right now I don't have access to either, so I can't make anything. We're just roughing it on steno pads. Actually I think I'mma let everyone keep the steno pads. They're handy, everyone can keep whatever notes and whatnot in them. No lost info either. Just put them on the game shelf with my books and dice bag when we're done.

I do need to get more d4s though.

I do wish I had at least one other person, it's hard having just me and the hottest guy I know locked in my room. XD

lol damn yeah it would be much better if at least one more was there. My friend DM'ed my brother and I for two years and it was epic.

His brother's supposed to come over tomorrow. I'm curious about what kind of character he'll play. I'm guessing monk.

having vast experience of two man parties, just make sure the encounters can be had fun by both. i remember i played a shifter assassin/rogue and my brother a warforged barbarian. something that was super easy for him would be too hard for me and something tailored to my rogue-ish skills would be impossible for my brother to be involved in.

just keep that in mind but i'm sure you'd be all good ;p

I'll have to figure out how to balance it. I supplied a healer NPC tagalong since I know neither of them will want to play a healer. XD They're more kill stuff sorta players.

So tonight's my fist run with more than one player, have three people coming to play. I actually designed a dungeon this time with all sorts of dangerous goodness. One of the players who has actually played with a different group made the mistake of saying he thinks I'm too nice to be a good DM so I've decided the kid gloves are coming off for this run.

Any of the more diabolical DMs have any fun suggestions I could use that won't TPK my people but leave them whimpering? I have some stuff but I'd love to get some ideas from someone more evil than myself.