First time D&D DM - few questions

[Midgardsormr]

Whaaaaaat? Why would you do that? Experienced players can work out the opponents stats in a few rounds with open rolls.

Because it eliminates my temptation to fudge rolls to save the party.
Because my players don't really metagame all that much.
Because I keep things moving quickly enough that they don't have time to do a whole lot of calculations before their turns come 'round again.
Because even if they do figure out the enemy's stats, that's not all that unrealistic. Most experienced fighters can manage to gauge an opponent's skills after fighting them for a short time.
And because it doesn't spoil anything if they do figure it out.

[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

[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 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.