Dungeon and Dragons GM Help?

Question

I was assigned to be GM for my groups Dnd session and we take the game "seriously." Not in the sense that we dress up and mock fight, but we like to describe the game. Our standered GM is on vacation and he usually thinks up of elaborate stories during combat. Something to the extent of "With a forcefull blow, your greataxe cuts through the Troglodytes arm, with a loud hiss it slumps to the floor dead." "Your shortsword deftly slices through the ribs of the orc, dealing moderate damage" "You swing your mornning star at the kobald, but the kobald manages to duck at the last second" "The orc charges towards you with scimitar in hand, the orc swings and hits your forearm, You recive 7 damage"Those are some of his. I'm "creative," but i really bad at on the spot descriptions of combat, does anyone have any aids or diagram typw things to help me

Answer 1

Use minis!!

Answer 2

Well you could get a thesarus and make up some cue cards of similar phrases ahead of time, you may which to make seperate ones for blunt, cutting and piercing weapons.  Something about a slash to the side of the face with a mace just doesn't ring true.  Nor would a bashing blow from an arrow.

More importantly you now have a chance to develop your own style, after the session talk to some of the more subtle players ask for constructive criticism.

But most importantly, remember the dice are never in control -- you are.

Answer 3

There really are no aids and diagrams for stuff like that, you are the GM for now, don't do things exactly like the other GM, you should describe the action any style feels comfortable with you.

Answer 4

personaly i use almost a madlibs type aproach.

i use 2 ranges, how well they hit, and how much damage they did. keep a list of body parts, shots that just barly hit the AC usualy hit limbs or the body at most, while shots that easaly beat the AC are either head shots or body shots.

then describe how much damage they did, if they just barely hit the hand but did insane damage, your sword embedded its self in his wrist nearly severing it. also keep a list of words for the attacks of the differnt typs of weapons they are using, "hack slash chop impale, stab ect"

but realy, find your OWN stye and what your good at. trying to just copy someone else is fine for a start. but you will only be your best when your doing it YOUR way

Answer 5

You know, there is no right or wrong way to GM. As you start out, you may find yourself just struggling with the rules. Just have fun. Your style will be your style. You may be more of a "roleplaying" Gm than a "combat" GM. You won't know until you try. Also, feel free to steal liberally from your vacationing GM. The ones you used were great!

The Dragon Compendium from Paizo has a "Good Hits and Bad Misses" table that is pretty brutal for players. There are also some critical hit cards also available from paizo.com that are very cool.

Try listening to podcasts as well. Dragon's Landing and Fear the Boot are my two favorites. You can find either of them on itunes or download them direct from their websites. (just do a google search!)