First time D&D DM - few questions

[Aval Penworth]

@midgardsormr.. Well if your players are able to avoid metagaming, okay. I have a couple of players who would completely change their tactics depending on how many damage dice I rolled.

I do agree that some open rolls add to the excitement of the game, however.

I actually use an electronic database rather than actual cards...but I still think cards are a good idea. I also have sketches of key NPCs which I display while the characters are interacting with them.

[mearrin69]

I tried the NPC/enemy index card thing and found it cumbersome (and I don't like to write and don't want to try to set them up to print) BUT one thing I really like doing is putting items found (at least magical/unique ones) on small cards with a "serial number" and hand them out as appropriate. When the PCs identify the item they can take notes on it. It's an easy way for me to keep track of stuff and the players seem to like getting something to hold on to when they find something. Plus, if they lose the card they lose the item...so it's easier on me since I don't have to look back and try to figure what they got off of Drow #43. I just have to keep a list noting the stats of the item on card #x. Paizo's item cards are cool but I don't want to write on them so they're kind of limiting for me (and I don't want to buy 100 packs).

I also make color NPC cards with non-metagame information on them so I can hand them out to players for reference.

BTW, I make (most of) my rolls in the open too. Yeah, the players figure out enemy stats but, believe me, they'll do it anyway. I'm pretty strict on metagaming during interactions and such but I allow some during combat.
M

[NeonKnight]

I too roll my dice in the open. I find it makes the game 'tense' and the players LOVE IT when the dice god turns against them

[mearrin69]

I tend to use a lot of images to immerse my players. I'm running a Call of Cthulhu game for my "Three DMs" gaming group and it's set in modern Portland so I'm loving Google's image search right now and things like Google maps and Yelp are really helping me add to the realism. Last night they met up with a priest at a doughnut shop (sounds like the beginning of a joke) and I was able to show them the site and pictures of their doughnuts from their menu. That's fun stuff. One of the PCs is an "online investigator" so she's always looking for stuff on the Internet...it's nice to be able to dig up actual web pages to show during play. Of course, you can't believe everything you read on the Internet, can you? Everybody knows that Snopes is operated by the Men in Black to hide the activities of the Old Ones from the unsuspecting populace...
M

BTW: Right now there's a pretty deep-rooted cult devoted to Hastur that's trying to offer up Portland as a sacrifice, culminating in the shifting of the entire city to Carcosa once they manage to get The King in Yellow performed. Right now they're sacrificing people around the city, outlining a pentagram as seen from above, and engaged in an insidious campaign to slip the Yellow Sign and other K.I.Y. items into the popular culture. Here's their patsy band's flyer (kludged together in Photoshop from stuff found on Google Images - bah...have to post it in a bit as it's not on my laptop as I had thought).

[mearrin69]

Ah. Here it is.
M

[Steel General]

The band looks like Marty Casey & the Lovehammers

[mearrin69]

That sounds familiar. I just pulled a band photo off of the Internet and combined it with some other stuff. In my world they're Nathaniel (Nate), Leander, Scott, and Lawrence (Larry).
M

[Jaxilon]

That is totally Marty Casey and the Lovehammers. I like that guy.