IcingDragon; "Force Feeding Plots"
Michelle "A Players Guide to DMing"
Jason "Evil Party Cohesion"
Jason "Labor of Love"
Sean "Challenging the Superparty"
Sean "Plot Threads"
Sean "Secret Societies"

DMing is just that. First and foremost, a DM must remember that it's not always fun. If you're a DM to have fun, you should be a player, plain and simple. Referees don't have fun. Judges don't have fun. Mediators don't have fun. The part of being a DM to remember is that it's the storytelling that's fun, and when you can construct a game in which you don't have to play referee, judge and mediator constantly, then you're going to have fun and so are your players. It's all about the plot. What furthers the story along? If you ask yourself this question, you can easily bypass things that slow the game down. What do the players want- both out of your campaign and their characters? Are they combat monsters, who'll fight anything you throw at them? Do they want political intrigue? Some dungeoneering? Steamy romance? Do they want you to scare the bejeezus out of them? Find out. Give them what they want. It's their story too. But remember, you are the DM. You don't have to make it easy on them.

D&D is a fantasy game, which brings up my next two points: Dreams & Desires, and Realistic Suspension of Disbelief.

When a player has something personal invested into their character, you can always tell. Those are the characters that players remember, the ones that meant something. Often, a favorite character dictates what a player's favorite campaign was- even if all the other players thought the game sucked. The point is, as a DM you have to look inside the character to see what the connection is to the person playing him/her. There's something in there that's attached to your friend sitting across the table. That being said, the world you create for the character is one that can be very pleasing to the player. Allow your friends to live vacariously through their characters. Let their dreams come true and fufill their desires. Sounds cheesy, but it isnt. That's why we play the game. It's a fantasy. As long as someone is willing to risk it all, life and limb, he can achieve anything. We rarely get opportunities for this in the real world. We cannot say "I'm going to conquer the evil barbarians, save the princess, woo her with my charms, and inherit the kingdom." But our characters sure can. They can set goals so lofty they reach past mortality. Chris's 1st level fighter could aspire to become the God of All Fighters. Molly's 1st level rogue could have dreams of epic power, being able to steal from the gods (the Fighter god's shield, perhaps). Joey's 1st level wizard may want to rule the Material Plane. That's okay, even if he doesnt accomplish that in the length of the campaign. If he's on track, he's happy. Vecna was a 1st level wizard, once. But we DMs and Players don't have thousands of years to track character progression.

Suspension of disbelief goes like this. "I cast Magic Missile and three bolts of magic energy stream from my hand to that orc over there." Everyone says, "Ok." Simple, right? We've never seen anyone throw bolts of energy, but we're playing a game, so we suspend our disbelief about what's possible and what's not. We can do this, and feel good about it, because of the level of realism and consistency that's put into it. Magic Missile has the same effect whenever I cast it. The mayor's name doesnt change from session to session. Our town has a name and is on a map and has the same towns surrounding it as it always has. This creates a stable world, which adds to our ability to suspend our disbeliefs. The DM is responsible for doing this, and when he doesn't, bad things happen. The world will seem to chaotic and random. Or it will be featureless and flat. It's not exciting to have new things pop up every second. It's tragic. Saying "There's always been a staircase there" about a room the party has been through 40 times (and never before had a staircase), is unrealistic unless there's a good freaking reason why it appeared all of a sudden. The party's wizard arch-nemesis created it to lure them into a trap: OK. The DM put it there to screw with the players, or to arbitrarily add another level to their dungeon/hideout/fortress: NOT COOL. Basically, what this means is that as a DM, you need an appropriate cause for everything that happens. It's a decent strategy to just say to yourself "I don't do anything. My NPCs do." Then, when you want the party to uncover the demon cult under the temple, you've got so many options. Who's the cult leader? An NPC bad guy you get to create. Who's the demon the cult worships? Yup, it's an NPC bad guy you've created. The cult followers, are they evil or misguided? You decide. But no one the party ever considers an ally or an enemy should be just an empty shell. They need to have reasons why they're an ally or an enemy. You can make up those reasons out of the blue, just make them consistent. The blackguard that just came to town is seeking revenge on the PCs? Why? Not because you think they need to fight a blackguard. Because they killed the Blackguard's mother, an evil priestess of the dark temple, in their last adventure. The PCs have motivations. NPCs need them too. It falls on the DM to make sure that happens.