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Good questions.

They deserve some good answers. Let me try a quick reply to get the ball rolling.

What was your first DM/GMing experience like?

The first time I ever DM'd was because two great DMs, friends, and players with fiery personalities finally refused to be in the same room as each other. This kind of broke up the group, but some of us still wanted to play. Our only other experienced DM was in the throes of squeezing out a baby, and understandably did not want the hassle. I decided I would give it a go provided the rest were understanding. It worked out OK, and eventually even resulted in the first version of Grendon. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but was very aware of all the things I was doing wrong. Luckily, the players were understanding, and encouraging too. They claimed not to have noticed I missed a group of monsters out of the initiative order & such.

What are the "classic" mistakes and how do you avoid them?

Not being prepared. I gave up using pre-written games simply because as a DM you need to be able to deal with anything that crops up. I did not have the time to learn the entire module to the extent needed. I found having to look up what happens if the players turn right instead of left to break my enjoyment of the game, and so probably that of the players too. Writing my own meant that I already knew the whole thing as far as it was written.

The only way to avoid not being prepared, is to prepare.

If you had to only get one thing right what would be the most important?

Involve the players. Let them have fun.

How do you deal with power gamers and cheats?

That is a difficult one. The Min-Maxer is always a DM nightmare, as are cheats and other power gamers. Almost as difficult for the DM as the DM who needs to win is for players. I am not sure there is a single answer. Certainly folks who role-play rather than play games to win are easier to deal with. Rules lawyers are also both a boon and a bane. If you have one, use him/her as a lookup tool, provided they are accurate. It saves the DM a little work.

What is the hardest part of DM/GMing?

There is a hard part? Well, it is not always easy when you are sure the players will deal with X by doing Y, then the players come up with Z right out of the blue, which none of your careful planning even considered a possibility. However that is also part of the fun.

Len

I'll dodge answering this for now but may come back to it later, I'm not much of a one for discussing gaming theory online. However I can offer up some links. Greg Stolze wrote some words about it, and there is some sound advice in there, certainly a good starting point without being too big and crunchy:

How to run roleplaying games
How to play roleplaying games

Which reminds me, I haven't read that stuff in a while and reminders from time to time are good.

Dear members,

A woman who wants to be a GM!
What is the world coming to?

Sorry, I just could not resist.

Laurent,

DMing is neither reserved for males, nor even for galic snail-munching males.
The person who first ran a taster session for me, and is therefore probably responsible for getting me hooked in the first place was/is a woman.
(My first expedition to kill the rats in the shop basement.)

Len

Hey Laurent, I will have you know i played in a game where the females OUTNUMBERED the males... Alan even GMed it!

And this game is going to rattle my brain as two males are playing females, and the two females are playing males...

So far Ben and Dan are the only ones playing their own gender, Im just thankful it isnt a LARP!

Ashley,

Now for the more constructive answers.

What was your first DM/GMing experience like?

An opening session at the Sheffield Student Union.
I had been playing for a couple of years in Manchester (and carried on as a player too) but wanted to have a go at GMing, technically "DMing" at the time as I was running a D&D 3.5 adventure. My first players were new students, complete strangers to me and to one another. As usual there was a ratio of ten players for one GM.

My opening move must have been along those lines: "This is my first time as a GM. I have prepared this adventure. Let's roll those D6s".
They wanted to play and I needed players. The following week most of them came back, and they brought some friends too whom I had to turn away (new GM handling twelve people? No, thank you!), the game later stabilised at eight regular players, although I wanted only four.

Oddly enough I have never played D&D with people who were my friends, I mean before playing with them. So for me the "Let's learn the game between friends/family members" never happened.

What are the "classic" mistakes and how do you avoid them?

Over preparing the adventure... then forgetting to bring it with me!
No seriously, this is shameful. Back in Sheffield, I had written a list then forced myself to read it before leaving for the game ever since: "dice, adventure, battlemat, marker pens, item cards, etc"

After the first five or so session, GM fatigue settles in and one just want to prepare "later". Up to the point where to many "Ooops, sorry I forgot that in this room there was..." happen during the game. This is sloppy and when the GM must scold themselves back into delivering a higher quality experience.

Another mistake, albeit on a totally different level is ignoring a shy player or letting players to bully others.

Knowing the level of proficiency with the game for all involved is also key to a good game. The "new player" should not be spared a good 2D8+10 whacking if the die said 20, but the new player should also be guided and made aware of the typical team tactics. This is more for the GM to tell/order the core players to provide help than for the GM to stop and teach the game. Ignoring the new player because the GM does not know about their ability to play can break a game session. The regular players are annoyed and the new ones villified.

If you had to only get one thing right hat would be the most important?

Having fun running the game and ensuring the players are having fun is the most important. You already know of a recent example of what not "having fun" for me is.
The game can go tits up, the players can wipe out my monsters, or I can wipe out the players with Goblins rolling 20s, it does not really matter as long as everyone smile through the ordeal.
Re-rolling or cheating on the rolls that would result in a TPK through shear bad luck could also be the one right thing to do at times.

How do you deal with power gamers and cheats?

The simplest solution, which I should have adopted and will in the future is to tell them to leave the game, unless the game is designed for power-gaming.

Cheats are of various sorts, cheats can be fun and the but of untold jokes shared by the rest of the team. They are easy to curtail: when calling for skill checks, find ways of ignoring their characters. After a while their modified rolls of 34 may, as by magic, reverse to mere 17 like everyone else.
Also, ask them for every resulting roll to list their modifiers.
For those who cheat by saying "This is what the spell says", make them read again that part about "spell resistance" and wait for the "oh... sorry, yes...".
Tell your other players to always check the roll of the cheat in turn, so as every single roll is witnessed. Ask them to make their noticing pretty obvious.
The cheat who enjoys the game and wants to stay in it will never ask anything about the odd behaviour of the other gamers who check on his rolls.

Power gamers can be fun to play with, on the one condition that all players are power-gaming. If not, the standard players will not enjoy the game, therefore making it a bad game.

What is the hardest part of DM/GMing?

There are many hard part but no real hardest to me at least, in no particular order:

Being the centre of attention.
Playing every round. GMs cannot get their eyes off the ball.
Managing a group.
Adjudicating in-game (in character) conflicts and actual conflicts.
Knowing the rules. A GM must know the gaming rules. A GM does not need to know all the rules (such as classes) though. I tend to trust my players with the "Player's part" of the game.
The dedication part: People expect you to run a game. A GM can miss a player, but players cannot play without a GM.
The fact that the job should bring in £30 an hour per player but that we do it all for free!

Prepared adventures

I am an engineer, so the brain is not trained that much for imagination.
Well, I need to come up with innovative solutions at work of course, but as answers to problems or requirements, nothing artsy-fartsy.
Therefore I always run published adventures. I can wing it up at times, propose some side little encounters but I just love the safety of a prepared adventure.
The hard part, and to me annoying part, is already done. I take pleasure in trying to guess how my players are going to go through planned ordeals.
Ironically, running a published adventure is not always easier than designing one's own. Players are extremely good at "breaking" things, even when they do not want to!
The GM must read the adventure at least once first and sort of recheck the spells to be used by their evil NPCs. Good players, not always power-gamers, are aware of the expected level of challenge from a typical encounter. Because of jagged XP progression, the GM must adapt certain NPCs and situations, thus making the published adventure more work than the personally designed one.

I am more of a tactical-combat type of GM than a role-playing GM. Others have a diametrically opposite approach to gaming. Prepared adventures fit my style of gaming.

Laurent,

What was your first DM/GMing experience like?

Well the 1st level Barbarian somehow managed to kill the main bad guy (evil necromancer) when he popped by to taunt him so, it got off to a good start. Mind you this was back in AD&D 2nd ed. In the long run the experience was actually quite a good one because it taught me how to revise my DMing on the fly technique.

What are the "classic" mistakes and how do you avoid them? 2 classics I try to avoid are under/over estimating players and railroading people (this basically consists of forcing players into taking certain actions in such a way that it is obvious to the players). I avoid the 2nd one by being prepared to go off the page and let the players do what they think their characters would want to do. It is a two edged sword but, very good when it comes out right. As far as the 1st one goes I try to get to know my players a bit before we get into the real meat of the story. Alot of times running a sort of prologue or dream sequence before hand to learn playing styles and preferences.

If you had to only get one thing right hat would be the most important? Having fun. Both for myself and for the players.

How do you deal with power gamers and cheats? I try to get the "power gamers" to help some of the others "optimise" their characters better so not only do they get the benefits but, so do the other players. Ensure you have a look at the player types article in the DMG and similar articles elsewhere as they give you good ideas as well.I find a power gamer in the game isn't always a bad thing as long as you don't get too many of them in the same group (they can sometimes dominate a group as much as an Actor can). Cheats on the other hand (depends on what you mean by cheats) but, dice rolling is always done in front of at least one relatively independent witness. Mechanically, I insist that (for 4e) that I have a copy of their character in character builder and I level it up at the same time they level up theirs. If CB sends up a flag I mention it to the player and also mention to them any alternatives I can find that will give their character the same flavour but, maintains the legal tag.

What is the hardest part of DM/GMing? Finding the balance between "Rule Lawyer" and "Creative Genius". Overdose on either and the game can suffer horribly.

Brilliant guys, so far I have loads of advice...

Hey guys, i'm back hanging around the boards. Currently DMing my online game due to restrictions on real life stuff. I only started DMing with D&D 4e Jaxtasha so sorry if its 4e focused, but hope this helps;

What was your first DM/GMing experience like?

Quite nice actually. I had a nice group of PCs (nice in the sense that they were happy to just play alone) and a pre-written adventure. I was mainly happy that i could just get the basics down and handle most things with the help of page 42 of the DMG.

What are the "classic" mistakes and how do you avoid them?

IMO the classic mistake is to be in the wrong mindset as a DM. There are horror stories of DMs acting like they are playing AGAINST the party which obviously isn't the case. So my 'classic' mistake is that sometimes a DM can be too focused on a the game from their own perspective. Did the player just trump your Skill Challenge with a great idea? Well played. Barbarian just one-shotted your bad guy with a great roll? Nice roll.

Another mistake is assuming that if anything like the above happens its a 'dead end'. Lets take the One Shot example from above. So the BBEG is dead, cut in two is that the end of the encounter? Could be, but why not have something else happen like his body actually splits into two and runs off in separate directions. Who should the PCs follow? Now this does involve a certain amount of improvisation, something that i'm not fully comfortable with yet but you get the idea.

If you had to only get one thing right hat would be the most important?

Make sure everyone at the table has fun. That means not just the PCs (although this is paramount also) but yourself included. Creating encounters that are fun for you to run allows you to forget worrying about things like statuses and initiatives and just do something cool. Like leap a bad guy off a roof, or spill minions into the encounter to act as shock troops. Its important to remember that you should be enjoying the game just as much as the PCs.

How do you deal with power gamers and cheats?

I haven't had to deal with this as the people i play with i already know. If i was playing with a group of people who i didn't know at all, i wouldn't have thought it un-reasonable to lay down some ground rules first.

Re: Power Gamers, do you mean Min/Max type players? Now i don't think this is really a problem. That is to have a player who prefers to focus on that element rather than focusing on roleplay. Would you penalise a player for being focused in the opposite direction? I would say to let players do what they want with their character, and if optimising is that then so be it. However, you should have a caveat that if you, as a DM, feel that a certain power or feat combination is detrimental to the rest of the group then could can get it changed.

I would however take a stronger stand on cheating, mainly as i don't understand why someone would come to D&D to cheat. You can't really 'win' as an individual so why bother to up your ante. Either way, with a new group this can be solved by having a 'watch your neighbour ' rule, where each player has keeps an eye on his/her neighbours. To be honest, i think that how to handle this is actually a whole different subject, perhaps a separate discussion would be better?

What is the hardest part of DM/GMing?

For me is the motivation to do prep work, at the 'table' i have fun and I'm happy but it can be difficult to sit outside of that time and to the preparation which i know is needed. That's why when i do sit down i try to plan out ahead further so it gets easier.

But mainly its the fact that you are in charge whether or not other people have a good time or not, that's probably the hardest thing. Some people thrive on it, i get worried some times thinking 'Are they having fun?'. Nine times out of ten they are, so don't be too concerned with it.

Awesome... Prep isnt and issue for me, the teacher in me quite likes the planning...but the are the going to have fun definitely is!!