Indeed, don't worry Nox about forgetting stuff, happens all the time.
Especially when you contradict yourself (happened once, was really annoying) or when you contradict canon
I sometimes use email between live sessions to add info, or add cut scenes. I suggest you do the same for additions to your game.
Or you could send an email "here's the
whole story he told, for reference" (with added details).
Or an email to a player "by the way when you met ABC, you noticed that XYZ (added detail). You thought it wasn't important at the time."
Nox wrote: - What is the part of Being a DM that you enjoy the most?
Planning my game, then DMing it ! I write my sessions more or less like a movie scenario, with planned encounters, fun or important talk, and story possibilities as well (to put the group back on track, to add atmospherics, or when they have a choice to make and I don't know what they will do).
This session scenario includes music and images as well.
When I started this campaign in 2003, I wanted it to be as "real" as possible, with plenty of NPCs : some relevant now, some put there as adventure seeds for later, some just for RL atmospherics. I love planting seeds, or insert cool RL NPCs for atmospherics, even if I have nothing planned for the moment with them.
RL is dangerous. That is the feeling my players have.
And most NPCs have their own picture, so the players can't tell which one is relevant or not.
For reference, as a DM tool, I keep an excel file with the NPCs they meet (which session (s), what important details is known to the PCs, what isn't, and possibilities / links I could explore in the future). This list has about 300 NPCs !
As other said it here, I'm not into linear let's-get-to-the-boss modules, it's very free flow. But to do that, you have to be ready to switch your scenario at the last second, or prepare side tracks quests to give you time to prepare for that new choice they made (without it looking like you are trying to gain time).
So my PCs think they are 90 % in control of their choices, while I know it's only 10 %
With playing with the sense of urgency, or hearing what trusted NPCs have to say, I have usually them go where I want.
I'm often looking to surprise them, with new revelations and encounters.
I play a grim and gritty game, where PCs have nothing for free : no free spells appear in your spellbook when you get a level, you cast what you found before, or try to make exchange with NPCs you meet. No magic school to help you. No free raise dead. Very few magic items to loot. Very few deus ex machina knowledge that the players "know", what you learn is what you know, nothing more (you were an ignorant barovian when you started, after all). But all of this is done through exchange of services (sometimes with strings attached, of course! = adventure hooks), meeting useful NPCs that know things, etc. I think it is cooler RP that way, and again it makes it more "real".
Once in a while, I ask my players if they like the game, or if I should change something, and the answer is always that they like it a lot, and that it is unique. Great job !
- What is the most annoying thing you find when you DM?
Rule lawyers! I have a player like this and it's a bit annoying. I had to talk to the group a few times (not pinpointing him in particular) to explain my game style in this campaign, and remind them/him it's not a game of "me vs them", but a game where everybody should be having fun and have a good time.
The goal isn't to win an argument based on logic. It's magic, dude, not logic
Another thing that was a bit difficult was to tell them/him again and again that I have both feet on the brake when it is about getting new levels, and that I was using a slow progression table for getting new levels. Because I love this campaign and do not want to start over a new RL campaign.
Also, I don't feel RL works well when PCs are high levels (they started at 3rd in 2003, they are now are 7-8th only, after 70 sessions of 8 hours!).
I love it that my 7-8th players are still afraid of cannibal zombies, because they know they are not the kings of the hill in RL, and they always fear getting out at night *grin*
- Your Dm style is more of the Dungeon crawling, or roleplaying-investigative?
After running very traditional D&D games before 2003, this one is definitively 75 % investigative and role playing. Even when they are dungeon crawling, there is an investigative part going on.
Meeting so many NPCs also enforce roleplaying, and when done right, gives a sense of mystery to the game (who is this guy? who is
really this guy? Why is he there? Etc.).
"A full set of (game) rules is so massively complicated that the only time they were all bound together in a single volume, they underwent gravitational collapse and became a black hole" (Adams)
