Doxory?

lakmiseiru: When considering DMing D&D games for people whose gaming style I don't know

Asked 2 years ago

seborn: Any brilliant advice would certainly be appreciated. Shameless advocacy is often good, too.
barnex: Any brilliant advice would certainly be appreciated. Shameless advocacy is often good, too.
jmorzins: Any brilliant advice would certainly be appreciated. Shameless advocacy is often good, too.
meri: A dungeon-crawl can be made plot-intense more easily than the other way around.
dlepiane: you can always add more plot if people like the game but hard to keep interest if they're bored in the first place
transistorman: oh god, i made this mistake once. just go for brainless "yay, XP!" things. once you get to know the people, plot works better.

Alex: It depends very much on the crowd, and how experienced they are. If they've done some roleplaying before, you can have a more combat-heavy run, and expect the PCs to fill in. If they're new to roleplaying, not burdening them with too many combat rules, and spoonfeeding them more thinky, roleplay-y stuff is probably better. Also, kick-the-door in is good for oneshots, while Intreague is less so.
Diane: If you guess wrong, it's easier to change from plot-heavy to plot-light than the other way around.
jimd: A better choice is one that is consonent with the group's wishes.
Brbrlla: OOoooooh - a breakdown in decisions by the sexes - I say that I would like the plot-heavy stuff, and my boy-toy sez it's 'cuz I'm a girl. He says he'd like the smash in the door battle scenes with elf sex at the end. So, is it mostly XX or XY?
hawkeye: People play D&D for different reasons, so your best bet is to start with the plot-heavy stuff and if you find them wandering/nodding off quickly move into a hammer-smash-face mode.

seph: try to find out what they like
Kake: Assuming you don't have time to find out which they'd prefer, I'd go for whatever you enjoying DMing the most; that way you're likely to do a better job, plus they won't get an inaccurate idea of your preferred style and pester you in the future to do things you don't like!
Kake: Assuming you don't have time to find out which they'd prefer, I'd go for whatever you enjoy DMing the most; that way you're likely to do a better job, plus they won't get an inaccurate idea of your preferred style and pester you in the future to do things you don't like!
djdrue: The story is the most important. smash in the door is boring... you must evaluate the player's ability and mood. you can always leave more clues to make the story easier to figure out, and you can always drop more monsters in a boring think-through adventure.

If you make a stupid choice because a website tells you to, it's your own damn fault.