Dungeon Master Requirements

PREPARING TO DUNGEON MASTER

Being a Dungeon Master for a West Marches campaign has its own cons and benefits distinct from your average game. West Marches campaigns require a lot of preparation at its initiation, but can practically run themselves when they're advanced enough. Once forward preparation has been progressed, running the game and planning a game become significantly easier.

What You Need To Run A Game

In order to become a a DM in this campaign, you’ll need the following:

Old-School Essentials Basic Rules. This PDF document is free on the Necrotic Gnome website and contains all the basic rules of the game. For a more complete experience, we recommend you use the Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Referee Tome.
Internet. You will need an internet that can handle voice chat streaming.
Microphone. You will need a microphone compatible with your computer and discord because Sidhranor games are done in Discord Voice Channels.
Google Account. You will need a google account to access the campaign notes on Google Drive.
Roll20 Account. For obvious reasons.
Dungeon Tools. You will need a method of creating keyed dungeons ranging from small haunted ruins to sprawling labyrinths. We recommend either Dungeonscrawl or good ol graph paper.
Image Editing Tools. You will need a method of editing the Dungeon Master maps to submit new changes and make game notes.

The following are optional but would be nice to have.

A Cheat Sheet (Referee Screen, Page, etc)
A Binder to hold printed copies of the random tables and maps.
Access to a printer/scanner.

Additionally, you will need to be at least 18 years old due to the maturity and authority needed to perform the duty of a Dungeon Master.

RUNNING ADVENTURES

As a Dungeon Master in West Marches style campaign, its important to understand that Sidhranor is a social beast even more then regular styles of D&D play. While during games you only run for a small group of players, you also need to keep in mind the larger roster of players when designing encounters, rewards, and discoveries. It is important for West Marches Dungeon Masters to engage in socially responsible ways.

FACILITATOR OF FUN

You have the most important role. You guide the narrative and bring the words on the pages of the adventure to life. While guiding the players, it is also your responsibility to make everyone feel welcomed at the table creating a fun and fair environment. Here are some things to keep in mind.

Appear Passive. The world may be active, but you the DM should appear to be passive. You’re not killing the party, the drow is. It’s not you, it’s the world. Encourage the players to take action, but leave the choices up to them. Rolling dice in the open helps a lot. The sandbox game really demands that you remain neutral about what the players do. It’s their decisions that will get them killed or grant them fame and victory, not yours. That’s the whole idea.
Wild Exploration. Be careful not to change the focus to urban adventure instead of exploration. You can have as many NPCs as you want in town, but remember it’s not about them. Once players start talking to town NPCs, they will have a perverse desire to stay in town and look for adventure there. “Town game” is a dirty word in Living Community/West Marches. Town is not a source of info. You find things by exploring, not sitting in town — someone who explores should know more about what is out there than someone in town.
Let the players take over. Don’t give game summaries for the players, don’t clean up the players maps, nor give them details they didn't look for. You want the players to do all those things. If you do it, you’ll just train them not to.
Competition is what it’s all about. Fair rewards, scarcity, bragging rights — these are the things that push the game higher. You could have a “solo” West Marches game with just one group doing all the exploring, and it would probably be a fun and pleasant affair, but it’s nothing compared to the frenzy you’ll see when players know other players are out there finding secrets and taking treasure that they could be getting, if only they got their butts out of the tavern.
Fear the social monster. This is the big, big grand-daddy of all warnings: even more so than many games, a West Marches campaign is a social beast. In normal games players have an established place in the group. They know they are supposed to show up every Tuesday to play — they don’t have to think about that or worry about whether they “belong” in the group. On the other hand West Marches is a swirling vortex of ambition and insecurity. The thrilling success or catastrophic failure of the campaign will largely hinge on the confidence or insecurity of the player pool. As a Dungeon Master, you should do your best not to "shake the boat" and try to foster a welcoming social environment.

DEALING WITH DISRUPTIVE PLAYERS

If a player is acting in a disruptive manner during a play session, attempt to address the issue as soon as it becomes clear that someone (including you) might be uncomfortable. Take the player aside and explain why the behavior might be causing others to feel uncomfortable. If the problem persists, contact senior staff members for help with resolution.

Safety Tools

Safety tools help ensure players aren’t pushed beyond their comfort levels. There's a difference between making players uncomfortable and making characters uncomfortable. These tools let your players know you want them to have a positive and memorable experience. Some common safety tools are provided below, each with a summary of how they work.

Pregame and Postgame Discussions. Use time before the game to explain content warnings, set boundaries, and collaborate on a safety plan. Then decompress and discuss improvements at the end of the game. My favorite way to gain feedback to ask players is what their favorite, least favorite, and most interesting part of the session for them.
- Learning their favorite part of the sessions lets me feel satisfied and learns what kind of things they like.
- Learning their least favorite part lets me understand the things they may not have enjoyed without casting blame.
- Learning their most interesting part lets me focus on certain parts to develop in future games.
Be Welcoming. Welcome and encourage respectful and open conversations about issues as they arise. Show that you’re listening by avoiding defensive responses.

KEEP THE GAME MOVING

If the game gets bogged down, provide hints and clues to your players facing puzzles or engaging in combat and roleplay interactions that get frustrating. This gives players “little victories” for making good choices based on clues received. When playing within a given time constraint, it is important to gauge the pacing of your game. It’s okay to make adjustments when you get bogged down to promote a play experience that feels complete. In Sidhranor, its also important to inform players that failure is expected, and its better to move on and try something new before coming back with more experience (and levels). This reinforces the sense of a living world and the player agency required by a West Marches style of play.

Ruling THE GAME

As the DM, you are charged with not only moderating the player experience, but also fairly adjudicating the game’s rules and rewarding your players’ characters for their accomplishments. You are the referee on the field and will be called to make quick, hasty decision that you can only hope turn out to be right. But your rulings will usually be wrong, and that's okay!

THE RULES OF THE GAME

Sidhranor play uses Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy. You can issue rulings to your table when the rules of the game are ambiguous or vague, but you must otherwise adhere to the rules as they are provided in the core rulebooks and can’t change them or make up your own; “house-rules” not found in the House Rules tab aren’t permitted for use. You must always try to use the most current incarnation of a rule.

Becoming a Dungeon Master

Rules and Requirements

Being a Dungeon Master for a West Marches style campaign can be tough but is also extremely rewarding, more then any other style of game the West Marches type feels like a living world. When you become a Dungeon Master you have to exchange the privileges of a player with the responsibilities of a Dungeon Master. For this reason, we do not allow Dungeon Masters to have player characters of their own in Sidhranor. Much of the enjoyment of a West Marches game is the discovery, the secrets, and the exploration, all of which is plain to see behind the DM Screen. To protect the fairness and equality of players, we have these rules that DMs must follow.

A Dungeon Master must not at any point run a Player Character in Sidhranor during or after becoming a Dungeon Master.
Dungeon Masters are not allowed to share DM information with Players, such as secret locations or methodology.
Dungeon Masters are not allowed to display severe favoritism.

If at any point a Dungeon Master decides to step down from their responsibilities, they will be given a special role similar to the RP role that allows them to still have a community presence without disrupting server balance.

Applying to Become a Dungeon Master

There are many reasons to become a Dungeon Master in Sidhranor, its a great way to learn to DM, maybe you want to invite your friends but the player cap is reached, perhaps you like taking on a more authoritative or storyteller role. Application is fairly easy and also serves as both a way to learn how to run West Marches style games and a way to ensure the quality of our Dungeon Masters are up to snuff.

Your Dungeon.

All would be Dungeon Masters must create a dungeon that contains 10-20 rooms. These rooms can be traps, puzzles, enemies, bosses, etc. When creating this dungeon it is important to understand what kind of Environment it would be. When making your dungeon, decide roughly what level characters adventuring in it should be. When creating a dungeon, consider these (optional) things.

Good West Marches Dungeons have areas that the players can't immediately clear, whether they're missing a piece of the puzzle or an encounter is too strong to bypass at the initial level. This promotes players to return to the dungeon at higher levels or have higher level players investigate it themselves.
A Good West Marches Dungeon has variation, players may get bored fighting the same kind of goblin every five squares, and its interesting to not only change up the creature dynamics, but also the theme and environment of your dungeon. Maybe a rushing river hazard runs through the middle of a large chamber, posing dangers to cross it.
A Good West Marches Dungeon has history, why was the dungeon created? who created it? Is it still maintained by its creators or did new management take it over?

There are many good guides to creating simple yet deep dungeons on the internet, but i'd like to direct new DM's to Matthew Colville's video on "Your First Adventure". The video goes over how to create a simple and interesting dungeon as well as its history, plot hook, and encounters.

I would also recommend reading the dungeon creating section in Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Referee Tome, and using either that method or the one found in Actual Dungeon Mastering: How to Design Dungeons.

Building a Dungeon.

There are many ways to put together a dungeon that anyone can read and run. But your Dungeon will need two things, a square graph image of the dungeon (which each square representing 10 feet), and a Key that details the rooms encounters are in, any wandering monsters, the history of the dungeon, and how players might hear about this dungeon. A good template to take from would be the Random Dungeon generator made by Donjon that can help you understand the kind of information that would be needed.

When building the square graph image of the dungeon, you can use sources like the free Dungeonscrawl (My favorite), Dungeonographer, Dungeon Fog, Dungeondraft, or even a clearly visible scanned print or photo of a dungeon drawn on graph paper. If you want graph paper template, please ask senior staff.

Once complete, upload all the information and format it on a Google Document.

Finalizing the Process.

Once you've made a dungeon, and it has been reviewed and revised by senior staff, you are now a Dungeon Master! At this point, you would speak to the team about where your dungeon would be, and how players would learn about it. Is there an ancient stone tablet that speaks of a lost treasure in your dungeon? Are a band of goblins terrorizing the area? the possibilities are near endless! Many dungeons have plot hooks to other dungeons within their dungeon! Perhaps its a location that might just be stumbled upon...

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