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[GlyphGryph]

If you must give them valuable things, make them fragile, rare, and/or make using them have a cost. If you give them a wand of fireball, have it be a cursed or flawed wand of fireball - it works, but deals some damage to the character using it or has a 25% chance of knocking them unconcious or something. Personally, I love things that drain experience, but that's just me. Or, if you're slightly less mean, give them a nice powerful item with only a single use so they actually need to make a tough decision about when and where to use it.

And then fake them out by introducing something that looks tough, but isn't, followed by something that is. ^_^

Final bit of advice
Forget D&D and play and play a real RPG like Hackmaster, Call of Cthulhu (Classic, not d20), Paranoia, Shadowrun, Witchcraft, Wild Talents, Big Eyes Small Mouth, Traveler, etc.

[Truean]

Your focus should be on fun for all involved and this means you.

1.) Have a DM PC (a player character run by you) who is a support role character. They provide healing and status buffs. Their personality is not a leadership role, but they help the leaders. They are quiet and shy so as not to overshadow the PCs. The entire point of their existence is to make things smoother for the PCs and thus more fun. I recommend this character be a cleric or bard.

2.) Look at things from the perspective of your enemies. Flexibility requires at least loose planning. Your PCs will surprise you. Know how to adapt. They will find innovative and screwed up ways to get around whatever you throw at them that you never thought of. Try to plan from the point of view of the villian/organization what they would do if ______ happened. Sometimes even just calling for help or reinforcements is huge. That artifact the PCs are after--gets hidden (or even replaced by a duplicate)--if they kick in the door and alert everyone to their presence. Enemies aren't stupid (at least some aren't). They will react to someone breaking in and full on assaulting everything.

3.) Look at things from the perspective of your players. While its good to make your world real and viable, "what will your players do with that ______?" Figure out why your players would want to interact with something and how. Railroading (forcing choices on players) comes from not doing this. You have to figure out what would motivate your players and their characters to do things and give them that motivation. You will fail at this at least some of the time because you are human, so have multiple reasons for them doing a given thing.

[nenjin]

Attrition is a great tool in the DM's box for checking players.

One of my DM's favorite tools is fire. Natural fire, regular fire, whatever....if your PC have backpacks loaded with scrolls and potions and magical junk....hit them with some magical fire, and make all their stuff roll saving throws.  (Cold attacks for potions.)

It's little details like that, that often get over looked by DMs in the heat of the moment, which can add that extra level of challenge and randomness and make for a more realistic experience. You don't necessarily need to kill or severely wound players to threaten them.

Another decent tool is like, rust monsters. The non-magical version of destroying PC's shit.

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

....Paranoia....

ahhhh, such fond memories of that game.  But, boy, does it take a good Dm to run.

One idea might be to play the original D&D. Not AD&D, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0....etc.  Find the book (probably at half price books or online used at Amazon or something) called D&D Encyclopedia.  Its the rules of the original game, no miniatures.  Modern D&D is heavy on miniature combat and light on roleplaying.  Old D&D is mostly roleplaying and gets rid of all the needless rules for table top combat.  Its simple, straightforward and geared for unlimited levels.  DO not mistake the current D&D new boxed material to be anything like the old D&D boxed material.  NOT EVEN CLOSE.

Full Disclosure:  I HATE 4.0.

Rust monsters (among others) are the DM's tool for getting rid of stuff he never should have given out in the first place.  I would also advise against the saving throws for equipment.  Its time consuming and rule heavy, same with object hardnessa and hitpoints.  Just wing those based on common sense.  IMO

[nenjin]

Then it comes across as an arbitrary decision by the DM to destroy your stuff. You don't need to roll saves for their clothes or their socks. The 14 healing potions they've been lugging around to make everything ok after every fight though....those are prime candidates for culling. We had some adventures go from easy to really, really dangerous, because one unlucky set of saves completely took away our safety net (our healing potions.)

Occasionally just ruling that stuff is destroyed is good in terms of plot, but not in terms of regular combat. That's when you should leave it up to the dice, to keep the random element of fun and danger.

'Cyclopedic D&D is good for people that are new to roleplaying, or people who want an extremely pared down system that leaves them freedom to do other things. Personally, we only play Cyclopedic when we have a nostalgia craving. After 2 years of it, we graduated to AD&D and mostly never looked back.

Rust monsters can be used as deterrents too. Not all rust monsters need to jump the party and munch on their expensive platemail. We've been presented with a room of rust monsters before, that we had the option to enter. It made for some interesting party discussions/decisions/strategies as we figured out what we were going to do about it. Meta-gaming veterans will usually say "fuck it, whatever is in there can stay in there."

People always act as though they're JUST for destroying mistakes. Not so. Take a low level party, eat their gear, and force them to work with weapons they're not familiar with, or to value the "trash gear" that gets overlooked in every D&D party after level 4. You end up with a very different kind of low level game.

[GlyphGryph]

And if you want shit to get real, don't forget creatures that drain experience or ability scores.

Freaking ghost python things...

[Truean]

Recognize that "challenge appropriate (rating)" is all relative.

Relative Equipment: (hell that's just self explanatory with what you have v. what they have).
Relative Tactics: My Kobolds are smart and are NEVER 1/6 challenge ratings. They will bait you, ambush you, trap you, throw rocks to distract you with sounds, etc. They will use cover and concealment to fire on you from elevated, spread out positions and then freaking 8 of them will try to grapple you at once. They'll bang on rocks at night in shifts to keep you from being able to sleep and piss in the general direction your party is resting in (from a good safe distance) for the sheer hell of it. Also they use poison/disease (filth) tipped weapons. How many saving throws will you make til you roll a one? 

Rushing in headlong has its place but it can't be all the game is about or it gets really boring. It's also massively stupid for every enemy to fall to that one tactic.

[Neonivek]

Now that I may be becoming a DM again, and that I've been getting progressively WORSE at DMing, this topic has become extremely relevant to me.

Though it is very DnD focused and I am going to be using Hero System.

Anyhow here is my tip:

-Know yourself

There is a lengthy story involved in that one... but suffice it to say I banned 5-dot artifacts and Manses in Exalted. NOT because I think all of them are overpowered either. Though I won't run Exalted anymore...

[Vorthon]

@Gorjo MacGrymm:

That's kinda hard considering I only have access to the SRD for 3.5e... and not the actual rulebooks. I'm planning on doing some flea-market runs to try and find them, though.

[Darvi]

Oh, and another thing. Don't let your players use flaws, or severely limit them in doing so. Trust me.

[Vorthon]

Oh, and another thing. Don't let your players use flaws, or severely limit them in doing so. Trust me.

Are those in the Dungeonmaster's Guide? I've read both the Player's Handbook and Monster Manual I for 3.5e (My old employer would occasionally run a D&D session. I actually managed to show up for one. Good times...)

[Darvi]

They're not. Basically, they give a character a penalty slightly worse than what a feat could compensate for, and he gets a feat instead. Our wiz chose a -1 for melds attacks and -1 for ranged attacks and got twice the sudden maximize feat instead. That was basically a guaranteed 48 damage fireball ( we were level twice a day.

[Lord Shonus]

Unearthed Arcana, which is a collection of variant rules for 3.5.

[GlyphGryph]

Never use Unearthed Arcana. Ever. It is the worst. The worst.

Also, there are plenty of awesome games with good perks/flaws systems. D&D is not one of them.

[Vorthon]

OVISIGATH
 
Small Magical Beast     
Hit Dice:   1d10 (5 hp)     
Initiative:   +4     
Speed:   50 ft. (10 squares)     
Armor Class:   17 (+1 size, +6 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 17     
Base Attack/Grapple:   +1/+0     
Attack:   Bite +1 melee (1d4), slam +1 melee (1d3) or claw +2 melee (1d3)     
Full Attack:   Bite +1 melee (1d4) and 2 slams +2 melee (1d3)     
Space/Reach:   5 ft./5 ft.     
Special Attacks:   Flare     
Special Qualities:   Invisibility, Expeditious Retreat, Locate Object     
Saves:   Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +0     
Abilities:   Str 8, Dex 18, Con 10, Int 6, Wis 12, Cha 10     
Skills:   Hide +10, Listen +5, Spot +5, Move Silently +5     
Feats:   Improved Initiative     
Environment:   Warm Deserts     
Organization:   Solitary or pair     
Challenge Rating:   1     
Treasure:   See below     
Alignment:   Usually chaotic neutral     
Advancement:   2–3 HD (Small)     
Level Adjustment:   —   

The Ovisigath is a small, scuttling creature native to the Pearly Wastes. They are fond of valuable items and will steal them from travellers who pass through their domain.  COMBAT  A ovisigath is intelligent enough to form and enact simple plans, and prefers to avoid conflict, instead waiting until its targets are asleep. They use their expeditious retreat and invisibility spell-like abilities to quickly sneak into a campsite. If confronted, they use their flare supernatural ability to dazzle their foe(s)  Flare (Sp): Three times per day an Ovisigath can cause a burst of light as the flare spell. It most often uses this ability if startled or caught in the act of stealing 
Invisiblity (Sp):
Expeditious Retreat (Sp):
Locate Object (Sp): Each Ovisigath prefers one type of valuable. This spell-like ability functions as the locate object spell (Caster level 1st), except as the follows: It is always active, and is permeantly attuned to the Ovisigath's prefered type of valuable. An Ovisigath's treasure consists solely of its prefered type of valuable. To determine an Ovisigath's favoured type of treasure/valuable, roll 1d20 on the table below:

1d20     Treasure
1–10     Gem     
11-13    Art Object     
14–18   Coins     
19–20   Magic Item   

Skills: An Ovisigath has a +4 racial bonus on Listen and Spot checks.

EDIT: Derp, forgot the descriptions for two of the spell-like ability descriptions...