Dungeon Master Rules

## Expectations of Dungeon Masters

### Real Life Comes First

This should go without saying, but we've seen a number of DMs within a Living Community burn themselves out. Never feel like anyone's fun is solely your responsibility. Never feel compelled to DM a game or encounter by a certain date. You will make mistakes, but laugh them off and learn from them. When you are relaxed, players can sense your relaxation. If you are really interested in a run's story and a metaplot's topic, your passion comes through with each encounter. It is The Grove's leadership's job to teach you the complex mechanics that is D&D 5e. Focus on having fun.

### Be a Fan of the PCs

Present the world honestly—things really are stacked against the Players—but don’t make yourself the enemy of the PCs. They have enemies enough. Be interested in the characters and excited about their victories.

If the players come up with a clever plan that completely negates your enemies plans, congratulate them on their cleverness. Play with the players, not against them. Challenge and risk can make for a great and memorable experience -- but don’t make the game you vs. the players. Assume competence, and don’t try to catch players in “gotchas” -- competent adventurer's might make a mistake or forget something if they’re pressured for time or under fire, but it’s good practice to give them the benefit of the doubt when they aren’t.

We’re fundamentally here to play games together and have fun, and as the DM you have a lot of control over how the game goes; with that great power comes great responsibility, and the responsibility is to try to make sure people have a good time.

### Call for Help

Don't feel shy to call a break and ask for help in our DM chat if you encounter a situation you don't know how to handle.

### Hold on Lightly

Always feel free to rewind, revise, and reconsider events as needed. This is not a “no take backs” kind of game. You can always say, “Actually, no... let’s say it was only two guys, instead. I don’t know why they’d have any more than that here.” This can be a tricky principle to internalize. It can be so tempting to put your foot down (often for no good reason) or to treat elements of the game as too sacred. Resist that impulse!

### Impact our Shared Setting

We want organic storylines that have an impact that is felt, those are exciting and cool games. We want to be able to write about an awesome pink mohawk dwarf barbarian punching a wall on top of a tower that sent its rooftop hurtling toward the ground causing a powerful strike to a dragon killing it instantly. As long as the core elements of the setting remain intact and major buildings can be repairable, go for it.

### Treat our Shared Setting with Respect for Other DMs

Tell a story together with other DMs. It really sucks if another DM blows up the homebrew gang that you created. This is a shared sandbox, don't kick down other people's castles. Try to build your castle around their creations. Share the setting with respect towards the other DMs.

### Understand the Setting is Vast

Players (and DMs) can play the kind of D&D they want to play. If you have a specific view of how D&D should be, you’re entirely free to pick people who conform to that philosophy, but it’s not okay to tell other people how to have fun, or their kind of fun is wrong. As the DM, it's your responsibility to communicate your particular style to your players - through a Style Guide as well as pre-game discussion.

The setting is vast enough that we can have God level battles above the skies of Baldur's Gate while adventurers creep through a crypt looking for treasure.

### Be Reasonable

Stay within reasonable expectations. It may be fun for a character to get Mithril armor from a goblin in the barrens on a low-threat run, but it really cheapens the experience of the player who slogged through the amazon to pry that same armor off a super-soldier during a grueling dungeon slog.

### Know the Major Rules for Key Aspects of your Game

If you have a major obstacle, know the rules related to that obstacle. If a big part of the run involves a cart chase or a climb up a mountain peak you should have a good grasp of the rules related to chases or climbs (or whatever the obstacle is). Ask Server leadership and team members for training on mechanics you want to learn.

### Modulate the Number of Players at your games

It is tempting to take 5 or more players on an encounter, and it is possible to do with an experienced game master leading a group of experienced players. However, the Server caters towards new players and the nature of online play limits some of the communication bandwidth found in real life. Consider limiting yourself to 3 or 4 players. If you seek to push beyond that number, have each player's role on the team be well defined and ask for their cooperation.

### Assume Competence

There are a lot of trivial decisions -- that is, decisions with a clear best choice and no downside -- that adventurers routinely make. These are things like knocking out a key figure instead of killing them, infiltrating in disguise, wearing a cloth when in a fire filled environment, setting up a secure location before the meet, running silent while sneaking, and picking up dropped equipment after combat. In general it’s best to assume that players do these things unless they say otherwise (or some kind of constraint -- like time -- prevents them). Exactly what assumed competence covers is a matter for debate and should be discussed with the players at your table in the event it comes up.

When in doubt, rule in the player’s favor; try to avoid “gotcha” moments. Generally for the sake of tidiness and expedient gameplay most DMs choose to assume competence, but each DM table is unique. The standard is to assume competence. The onus is on the DM to explain what they mean when they say they won’t assume competence, and it something they need to ensure players are aware of before a game begins, whether through the application thread, their style guide, or before the game begins.

Keep in mind that a lack of assumed competence doesn’t mean assumed incompetence. The nature of a community means that players will need to adjust to different DMing styles. Consider giving your players the benefit of the doubt in case they forget something obvious, or making use of the Common Sense quality to prevent potentially derailing situations.

**If this all seems fine for you, then read below on how we typically run encounters within The Grove.**

## Preparing Encounters

### Encounter Star System

The star system is designed to level players know in a non meta way how difficult a quest actually is, and how geared it is toward a specific level of character. This creates a 5 tier system, denoted by stars. All encounters posted **MUST** include the star rating based on the level the encounter is based on.

* ✭☆☆☆☆ - Designed for players between levels 1 - 4.
* ✭✭☆☆☆ - Designed for players between levels 5 - 8.
* ✭✭✭☆☆ - Designed for players between levels 9 - 12.
* ✭✭✭✭☆ - Designed for players between levels 13 - 15.
* ✭✭✭✭✭ - Designed for players between levels 16+.

Characters who do not fit within the range of the encounter star rating should be rejected.

### Encounter Tags

Additionally tags are required when creatures outnumber the players, and for the balance of the encounter. Please include any and all additional tags when making your encounter via #scheduled-games.

* [Easy], [Medium], [Hard], [Deadly], [Suicidal] - These are typically based on what the encounter builder on DDB states for the encounter difficulty.
* [Swarm] - For when the enemies outnumber the players on a 2:1 scale at least
* [Hoard] - When a hoard encounter is being run.
* [HB] - Used when an encounter contains Homebrew.

### Generating Treasure

While we allow for treasure to be issued within an encounter. Which can include magical items, we ask that Dungeon Master's limit the items they give out to the allowed items shown within the Items Listing. Any amount of mundane loot can be issued within reason based on the setting of the quest.

Additionally, each level has a set allowance for what can be earned before the encounter needs to be approved by an Admin below. If a magical item is issued however, an Encounter: After Action Report must be submitted to the List of Games page. The treasure rolls stated here are based on the command *!treasure #*. Where # is the CR average of the creatures in play.

### Advanced Treasure Generation (Hoards)

Hoards are a mechanic to be used under strict circumstances. Where in any quest wishing to make use of the command !hoard will need to be approved by an Administrator or World Builder prior to the quest occurring.

When using the Hoard generation, you forgo the above table of what can be issued and instead issue any and all items that are legal from the generated loot or equivalent rarity of your choosing. Then send your quest to the team so we can discuss and assist in it's creation.

Some things to keep in mind however, a Hoard must contain minion creatures that outnumber the party on at least a 5:1 ratio and the creature controlling the minions must be a Legendary Creature with a Lair. If you can meet both these requirements, then send it to us.

### Quest Rewards

In character there are multitudes of ways a player can obtain a quest one of which is your standard message board, this is typically where all quests and missions will be posted, random encounters can happen. But any player would likely value quests over random encounters. Thus within The Grove we typically request that quests happen for reasons, which is where Quest Rewards come into play.

Quests can be used to give gold based rewards which are not linked to GM rolls for random loot. The below table serves to try and boost the gold income of players to natural progression levels. These are based on average gold income for moderate level encounters. If your quest is harder, you may use the upper tiers of the rewards table.

Please remember that moderate is the standard D&D uses for level progression and encounter scaling and gives a natural curve. All rewards are displayed on a per player basis. These values were based on the typical earnings of a player over the course of their adventuring career.

#### Levels 1 - 4

* Moderate Reward 20gp
* Hard Reward 25gp
* Deadly Reward 30gp

#### Levels 5 - 10

* Moderate Reward 90gp
* Hard Reward 100gp
* Deadly Reward 110gp

#### Levels 11 - 16

* Moderate Reward 440gp
* Hard Reward 460gp
* Deadly Reward 480gp

#### Levels 17 - 20

* Moderate Reward 1,000gp
* Hard Reward 1,200gp
* Deadly Reward 1,500gp