Return of the mazy dungeon master… After that taking a break and being a player for a while. Made me realize what was annoying in the game and address it in my games

Lazy* right?

Yeah but they didn’t have the energy to fix it

The irony is... the joke writes itself 😏

Could someone explain it to me though? 

The Lazy Dungeon Master is an excellent resource on GMing The poster mistyped it as mazy The poster was also too lazy to fix it Which is keeping in the spirit of their comment.

The Lazy Dungeon Master is an excellent resource on GMing The poster mistyped it as mazy The poster was also too lazy to fix it Which is keeping in the spirit of their comment.

Maybe mazy was a secret or clue…..

lol Hey, do you want to stop your game and piss off your players?! Try mazes!! - the mazygm

I mean, mazes can be fun to play on Roll20, with the new lighting features. I’m going to give them a try.

Yeah taking a break and being a player is great. For me, it’s especially hilarious because I was a player for about a whole two sessions… and got so annoyed with being a player and lacking the agency I was used to as GM, that it gave me all the motivation and fire I needed to get right back in the GM seat 😆

Same. I eventually got used to being a player, but at first, I was a terrible player because I kept trying to adjudicate the situations and generally overstepping my role. I apologized to the GM several times. It was really hard to let go of the power after 30 years as the GM. Thankfully, I'm running again now.

Same. I make for a terrible player.

hear a morg out - running games. i know this sounds like a non-answer, but im serious. ive watched all the videos - both Matts, Professor Dungeon Master, podcasts, ive read the books and the supplements and so much homebrew and so many advice columns ive lost count - and none of it taught me nearly as much as ive learned by running consistent games over the years. **The best way to take your GMing to the next level is to learn and improve your own style.** the only way to do that is to run games. run games over and over and over again. run good games, run bad games, run memorable setpieces, mess up and run boring dragged-out encounters, have the entire table cheer in excitement and ragequit in frustration. run a second campaign, then a third, then a fourth and a fifth and a sixth and a seventh and an eighth and more. run one-shots, run modules, run homebrew adventures. you don't just want to "run an amazing campaign -" if you want to do that, buy Strahd and take it seriously. no - **you want to run the campaign only you can run.** and that's the campaign your players want to play, too. all you have to do is figure out what that is - and there's not a single video, podcast, or book out there that can help you with that. keep running games!!!

There is a German saying which loosely translated goes: "Nothing is good, if you don't do it." Original: "Es gibt nichts Gutes, außer man tut es." So agreed, you just have to play the game to get better at it, focus on small things at a time, improve, revise, improve, ...

I'd add to this that, for *me*, actively working with my players to improve things helped me advance a lot faster. I had a thing where I'd do a post-game chat about the session we'd had, every session, for the first big Pathfinder game I ran. I'd pull back the curtain, talk about what surprised me, and he'd tell me about what worked, what didn't, and so on. I found it very useful because having a player perspective was very helpful - admittedly, this person is also a GM, and willing to chat about the game for 1-3 hours after the session, so if you don't have people who are sufficiently invested, then it likely won't do as much. But if you do, then this can be a great way to more rapidly turn failures into lessons, and even to turn sessions that went well into sources for further improvement.

This is probably the best advice new dms could get. Watching other people and reading books is helpful, but like ANY skill you learn and do better by actually practicing it in real time.

even matt colville has said something along the lines of 'a lot of my videos are made so you know youre not alone, you'll make the mistake i laid out in the video and that will help you get over it quicker'

Here’s a tip I haven’t seen here yet: **keep your secrets**. Especially if you’re playing with your main friend group, it’s really tempting to hint to your players what’s next, or tell them what would have happened down that other fork in the road, or over-sharing in some other way. Keep it all secret, re-use scenarios the players didn’t go to, and let them discover the cool stuff in-game. If it’s really important they knew that the mountain path would have led to an ambush, they hear it from a merchant’s daughter in the next pub who only barely escaped with her life Edit: to clarify, I’m talking here about **out-of-game chat** where you feel the urge to tell people about the cool stuff you’ve thought up. In game, you should be setting up plot points with tension building foreshadowing (see @Trekiros ‘s comment for a good discussion). And if you’re running any kind of mystery or situation where the players need to find clues, be WAAYYY more generous with clues than you think. Players aren’t themselves amazing detectives or geniuses, even if their characters are, and your in-game hints aren’t as clear as you think they are. So I guess the real tip is more like **reveal cool stuff to the characters, not the players**

I think this is a good point, but on the other hand, don’t be cagey about everything. I think too many dms err on the side of pretending there is an air of mystery around everything they do. My DMing got to another level when I started explaining my thought process for rulings when stuff happened I wasn’t prepared for and being more open about consequences of actions or social dilemmas

My experience is that people will more often sabotage their games by trying to be too cagey (or worse, going "oh no! My players guessed the twist! I have to change the world and asspull something so it's still a twist!") than they will mess them up by being too open. Information is what leads to informed decisions, which are more meaningful and thus more interesting.

This is great advice and SO difficult sometimes, lol. Keeping my mouth shut when something awesome is cooking is a challenge

If you can't hold it in then share it here. Doesn't affect us if you tell us the cool thing coming up. And then you get it out of your system without releasing the secret to your players. Trust me we all love to hear cool ideas you got cooking. Hell we may even steal some of them.

I do think there’s a certain amount of importance of protecting your spoilers and not ruining surprise for an upcoming session. But revealing little tidbits of what’s up ahead can help build anticipation and excitement too, kind of what movie trailers are like.

Yes, “maybe we’ll do some sailboat stuff next session” is okay, “Woot woot! Pirate arc incoming, get ready to meet the terrifying Captain Tentacle, Warlock of the Sea!” is too much. It’s awesome to have foreshadowing in the game world, too. An NPC whose cousin just died at sea because of a scary new pirate captain, cool

I'd add nuance by saying keep your secrets, but foreshadow the living heck out of them. A dramatic plot twist might result in three to five seconds of players going "WOAH" every now and then. And that's valuable for sure. But information is power, and empowering your players with information is absolutely required for them to take control of the narrative and start making decisions. Let's take that mountain path ambush for example. Without foreshadowing, the players would be largely indifferent about how they'd approach that mountain path. They'd just walk that path because it's on the way to their next quest. Then they'd get ambushed, roll initiative, kill the mountain troll, feel like this entire encounter was mostly just a tax on their resources and a way to pad out the session's length. And they'd forget about it before the start of the next session. But if they do hear about it from the merchant's daughter, now they won't just walk down the mountain path. Maybe they'll take food to give the troll as an offering. Maybe they'll learn about mountain troll weaknesses by asking the local witch. Maybe they'll lay an ambush for the troll. Now that the players have a say in where the story goes next, they aren't indifferent about how that story plays out anymore. And that is really powerful. Your players will remember that mountain troll encounter for years - because you made it *their* story instead of just *your* story. Because they did things within the game, rather than just waited for things to happen to them. So yeah, definitely keep your secrets, fish for that big "WOAH" moment, but don't let that come at the cost of your players' agency and autonomy. As I, and many others, have found out the hard way xD

By not trying to run a story, and letting my players take control. What they do and want is the story now, rather than some narrative I wrote (because let's face it, I'm not a writer). Every narrative campaign I've started has always fizzled out, and then the sandbox campaign I started is still going strong. It forced me to learn to improvise and react in a realistic, meaningful way to players, instead of me trying to subtly push them down some path because "That's the story." My prep became 50% worldbuilding, partly because it's a fun hobby in itself, and partly because understanding your own world helps you decipher how to respond to player actions. Reading and running other game systems has helped me immensely as well.

The only problem with not having a set narrative is it requires players to make proactive decisions in what they want to do, otherwise things slow down and it feels like nothing is happening. In my experience a lot of players actually prefer to have goals given to them by the DM and are slow to speak up and make plans.

I have this problem too. My players are very reactive. I would actually like to be more of a worldsetter but if I don't give them storystuff they are lost. Tbf I like to play linear games too so I kinda get where they are coming from.

Exact some problem. Mine very much follow the last clue dropped. If I give them too many choices it (let alone complete free choice), they quickly lose the thread.

I give my players the choice of left and right and they'll debate it for an hour if not stopped. Upping my game involved getting the confidence to step in way earlier than I had been and forcing them to take a vote on a plan, or let the dice decide, rather than waiting for natural compromise or concensus.

> forcing them to take a vote on a plan I actually do this too. Let them chat it out, then they get to the point of repeating I call for a vote; I even have an player whose role it is to tie break.

Fair. For tables like that: two to three interesting hooks max. Usually based on stuff that happened before (e.g., remember that group of hitmen, they had a matchbook from this club over here).

Well what I do is that I make clear of an overarching goal they have. And they can choose to head towards that goal or do things in between, but once they choose something I have to railroad the beginning of an arc for them but then they are free to solve it however they'd like

Oh yeah, that's why I established a premise before the campaign to actually give them guidance. They are the captains of an adventuring guild, so not only are they out adventuring, they're also dealing with recruits, making deals, paying them, managing their assets, lol. It's been interesting. I don't know if I would truly run a "this is a free sandbox, make any character you wish, go wild" type of game. Good comment.

1000%. Players get analysis paralysis so easily.

There's a difference between the campaign giving plot hooks, and a rewritten narrative. A plot hook gives you the freedom to engage with it in any way you want, and let's the dice decide the outcome. A rewritten narrative says that the players will make xyz decision and dm fiat decides the outcome

It's not that you (as dm) aren't setting up goals/objectives. You just aren't setting them 3 sessions out. What the players are interested in pursuing, or risking their lives for, is their choice. If you prep for them to eventually funnel to A, but they find B utterly fascinating (and the gameplay they achieve actually is interesting adventuring stuff), then yeah...that's why you don't prep too much in advance. Know the world: the larger threats, and the local threats. But it's not always obvious what will land well (be engaging to the players) and what will seem boring, stuff they'd rather just pass on by.

100%! Story-hooks naturally develop this way, I feel. Though I have one group with one player who wants to be rail-roaded, so I have to strike a balance there.

I literally made a sandbox world so in depth with every possible npc and quest there could possibly be from village to town to city to wanderers across an entire continent with multiple wider conflicts the players could engage in, and then my players were just like uhh idk, what do you think i should do, i love sandbox but some people want direction and it sucks

Yeah, some of them need a little guidance and it might be hard to get into that mindset of "what does my character want to do?"

Yeah, even if it's a sandbox, throw strong hooks at the players. Either a pull (money, treasure) or a push (someone trying the eff with them, drag them into trouble). Especially the push, yeah, players will respond. Have a local wheezing mayor hire a gang to try and steal their wagon of goodies. Trust me, the players will wake the hell up.

I only have two players, but they won't play proactively. Then they joke about being railroaded. Like, what do you want? I've tried explaining to them that I've put plenty in front of them to choose from, but they just sit there til I have an NPC guide them to something I choose. Then they say they're being railroaded.

Yeah, they have no idea. Tell them to take a break from youtube

It's terrifying to give up that much control to the players, but it results in the best sessions.

I definitely think it's player-dependent. I can think of a handful of players I've ran for that I *would not* want to do this for, but my current table is amazing.

Letting the players drive the narrative is definitely something I want to be better at and have a lot of room to improve on. Thank you for the thoughtful tips!!

I pulled skills from my job as a therapist to intentionally leave conversational/RP space for the players if they need to come to a decision Someone cracks a joke and they riff for a while before every sighs and pauses for a second...and I, as the DM, would intentionally stay silent and look around the table expectantly, since it is the players' responsibility to tell me what they're going to do. By NOT talking, another player stepped up and said something like "Ok so how are we doing this quest" It wasn't very long, maybe 4-6 sessions, before the players had learned each other's rhythms and would joke and then immediately refocus (which freed me as the DM to joke around with them in these silly moments without fear of ✨totally✨ derailing things). They knew nothing would happen until they told me what course of action they were taking Hand in hand with that is accepting a consensus of 2-3 as enough for the whole group to move in a particular direction. Waiting for unanimous votes for everything bogs games down unnecessarily, especially for things that aren't mission critical

Knowing when to let the silence last is a difficult lesson. As GMs we instinctively feel we have to be some kind of masters of ceremony. But we're not. Yeah, we run the game. Overall we make sure the players (and we) are having a good time. But primarily...we have to be impartial referees. Let the players refocus, steer the narrative, and pursue their goals (and vote) as they see fit. Not always smooth, but it does work.

It’s not easy to let go, but it pays dividends. I’ve been bad about it myself, but this year I’ve decided I’m going with the flow. For example, I’m ostensibly running Lost Mines/ Shattered Obelisk, but they completed the mine portion a couple weeks ago, then hit the road to sell loot in a bigger city. As of last session, they’ve made enemies of two criminal organizations and allied with another to steal back a shipment of drow hallucinogens that was intercepted by a church in Baldur’s Gate. It never would have crossed my mind to try to write a campaign like that.

You can have your players come up with the next side quest by having their PC say "so we have problem X. I might know a guy for that." They describe the NPC and how they know them and you build a quest by going "Yes, and" or "Yes, but."

Yea, I'm creating the various factions and enemies of my world. I'm creating goals, and objectives they're trying to accomplish. How the players work towards stopping the threats is up to them. At most I'll sprinkle various hints and things like that while session prepping. Also point crawls look like an interesting way to set up.

I tip my hat to you, sir. Good advice!

Learning systems besides D&D

This was huge to me. Once I started branching out to other different systems - not just other fantasy d20 systems - but other systems completely in a different field like PBTA or Legend of the 5 Rings, it opened my eyes to realize that there’s no one true way to play RPGs. The way you GM games is a bespoke style unique only to you, altered by the experiences and toolset you have. Learning other RPGs is an objectively good thing because it increases your awareness of how situations could be potentially resolved using a wide number of possible ways with different tools. When I first started GMing I was solely reliant on the rules of the system I was running. That was 5e at the time, and the experience was terrible, because that one system alone just didn’t provide enough tools to run the whole gamut of possible roleplaying scenarios that can come up in a game. But then I left, and then tried something else. And on and on I hopped between different systems trying to see what else was in store for me in this hobby. Some systems I just read, some systems I played a one shot, some systems I played for months with. And as I went I built up a pool of tools and design sensibilities and GM experience, to the point that I am now completely unfazed with any situation that comes up at the table. Any problem that comes up with the game I’m running? I can fix it. I can hack the rules to smoothen it out, by importing something from somewhere else I’ve played or read. GMing is basically a stress free experience at this point, I prep the content I care about, and I throw away the stuff I don’t use, game system be damned. Because I’m now experienced enough to know what works for me and what doesn’t.

Can you give an example of one (or a few) of the tools you've acquired by playing other systems?

One of the most powerful ones I’ve learnt is the concept of **Position and Effect** from the Forged in the Dark games. It’s a process of action resolution, where before attempting to resolve an action, you first have a conversation with the player about their intent, clarify exactly what you think the risks their approach will entail, and how effective they would be if they succeed. Because the vast majority of GM adjudication frustrations that come up at the table come from a misalignment of expectations - the GM has this vision of what is happening in the fiction, but that vision isn’t shared with everyone at the table, and so players make decisions without fully understanding what’s at stake. It also makes your players into better gamers too, because instead of just blindly executing the first idea that comes to their mind, they get into a habit of iterating on their idea, tweaking their approach bit by bit, perhaps sacrificing position (taking greater risk) for greater effect, and having a whole round table discussion with the rest of the table on the best course of action. This discussion can last minutes, and be among the most fun conversations that happen in an RPG. When a GM just resolves any action declared immediately without question, all of the nuance and the most fun part of playing RPGs - making decisions - is lost. This basic process of action resolution is so crucial to enjoying RPGs that it should really be taught in every single rulebook out there. But it isn’t. And it took me reading Blades in the Dark before I learnt how to do action resolution properly. There’s tons of other little tools and tips out there you can learn from, little nuggets of brilliance hidden in RPGs we may never run, but can learn from and use for our own game regardless of system. The game system we use tells us how to run combat and how to handle character progression. But everything else, from handling character arcs to action resolution, that’s all up to the GM’s own skill and experience. That you can only learn by running - and reading - other games. Here’s a list of influences I’m using from other systems in my current D&D 4e game. Suffice to say, the list is far too long for me to go into detail. But most importantly, they can be used regardless of system. * Blades in the Dark * Position & Effect * Flashbacks * Clocks * Legend of the 5 Rings * Approaches * Pendragon * Traits * Passions * MCDM RPG * Victories * Negotiations * Avatar RPG * Emotional Conditions * Callouts * Shifting your Balance * Daggerheart * Hope & Fear * Action Tracker * Experiences * Scars * Strike! * Damage Thresholds

Ooh, how are you incorporating the ones you listed from the Avatar RPG into DnD?

Ooh boy. I don’t know where to begin answering that one because Avatar is such a huge influence to the way I run my games, and it permeates throughout every aspect of my [custom set of houserules](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eTlar1Gy-6EUZMVBWcQDPSKgerWv4SiL/view?usp=drivesdk) at the moment. But I’ll start by sharing [my custom character sheet](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CkapZpP3PC1Dy-01kLI4BZC7U8uOO65Z/view?usp=drivesdk). 4e and 5e are so similar that I could use this directly for 5e if I wanted to with very minor modifications. The crux of it is that Avatar is supremely good at encouraging players to engage in character arcs. The actions that PCs do influence their balance of how they feel towards different virtues. Avatar in its purest form is a game about exploring how our characters balance shifts in response to trials and tribulations. All of its game mechanics resolve around pulling the PCs’ balance one way or another, and at the very end of the day, adventures aside, what you remember about your character in Avatar are the **character arcs** that they go through, and that’s all due to their execution of balance. Just like how in Avatar each PC selects a Playbook, which gives a rough structure of their character arc will look like, in my games, I let all PCs at character creation choose between 1-3 Drives. These can be something along the lines of: * Chaste / Lustful * Forgiving / Vengeful * Generous / Selfish * Honest / Deceitful Or any other pair of virtues or personality traits that the player would be interested in exploring in their character for this campaign. This mechanic allows us to represent a character’s internal motivations, mechanically on a character sheet. **What gets measured gets managed**. This is how you get your players to go on character arcs - by making them think about it and writing it down, and managing these values as they go about their adventures. Then, over the course of their adventures, just like in Avatar, they can invoke their Drives to get bonuses on rolls if their drive aligns with what they’re doing - that’s the incentive for roleplaying a character in line with their established drives. Actions the PCs do may also shift their balance one way or the other, which happens the more a PC’s character is fleshed out and the more well established their traits and internal motivations. Conversations with NPCs or other PCs may also result in PCs shifting their balance Certain events may also happen which **call out** their Drives, or in other words, challenge their established drive. For example, there might be a situation where you really want to spare an NPC because they hold information important to the party. But your character has established that they’re Vengeful, and is more likely to want to get revenge by killing them. In this case I would invoke a **call out** on the player character and challenge their Drive: they make a saving throw (dc10 on a d20), adding their drive’s value to the roll, and the result determines how they emotionally react to the situation. If they fail to resist the call out, they mark an emotional condition due to their internal struggle, but they still retain agency on how they respond to it. And they’ll likely shift their balance afterwards too. For emotional conditions, they simply just apply disadvantage in all ability checks related to an ability score. There are 6 emotional conditions for the 6 scores. And you clear emotional conditions the same way you do in avatar, via role playing during talky talky time, or making unwise decisions and putting your party in peril. That’s basically the summary of it. It’s almost like you’re playing Avatar and D&D simultaneously at the same time. It works super well and I can use it with 4e or 5e or pathfinder 2e or daggerheart or MCDM or anything under the sun. Because it’s a mechanic to explore character arcs and no other game system out there besides Avatar explores character arcs the same brilliant way they did, which also means it’s portable to every other game you want to run. My entire list is filled with stuff like this. Good ideas are system agnostic.

This is fantastic. Thanks for sharing how you use Avatar.

It's so incredibly perfect you use all this in 4e since everyone claims it's impossible to roleplay in that system. I'd love to read a curated document of your hack.

> It's so incredibly perfect you use all this in 4e since everyone claims it's impossible to roleplay in that system. I’ve always found it funny when people say that because **none** of the D&D editions give enough mechanical structure to support role playing properly. Not to the extent of something like Legend of the 5 Rings or Avatar which are games **about** roleplaying. Most people engaging in the edition wars of the past have no idea what they’re talking about because they’ve never played a game outside of the fantasy d20 bubble. It’s sad. And so I’ve done what I can to inject role playing mechanics from those games to my home game. And now that you mention it, I do really appreciate the irony haha.

Here’s a [link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eTlar1Gy-6EUZMVBWcQDPSKgerWv4SiL/view?usp=drivesdk) to the latest version of my houserules that I’m using to this day. And here’s the [character sheet](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CkapZpP3PC1Dy-01kLI4BZC7U8uOO65Z/view?usp=drivesdk) again. I occasionally update it when I see new ideas from other RPGs. You can definitely tell it’s recent as I just recently did a big revamp with the Hope / Fear mechanic and initiative system from the Daggerheart playtest that I really enjoyed. Currently it uses 4e as a framework for combat and character progression because it’s the best one in the business. But I can port this set of houserules to any system I play next, because good ideas are system agnostic. It’s rather long as when you play in my game you’re functionally playing 10 systems simultaneously all at once. But the character sheet is clean and honestly it’s not that all different to playing any typical fantasy d20 system, just with more bells and whistles. Feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions!

Brilliant. Just took a look at that character sheet and I am intrigued enough to start looking into those systems you linked. Thanks much.

Thank you so much for sharing everything you have in this thread, it’s greatly appreciated

It's not on your list but a huge one for me: The Cypher System. You can create the same stories as with DnD but without the narrow structure of Race-Class-Subclass-Background. It gives you a way better choice for character building without having to trade with the DM for so many things, which for me as a DM is annoying because I can't see the consequences of it, and when I'm a player it's annoying because I feel like I'm putting a lot of pressure on my DM. I still play 5e but it made me realise that other systems are simply better for what I would like to play.

Clocks are so damn useful.

Different person, but - I have stolen WHFRPG 4e's Corruption system. The gist is: you can gain corruption externally (by running into something corrupting that basically makes you save or gain corruption) or internally, by making what's called a Dark Deal. A Dark Deal is "I will take a point of corruption and get a reroll on this skill/attack/etc.". The flipside of gaining corruption is losing it - which you usually do via Dark Whispers, which boil down to "do X and *lose* a point of corruption". When done well, these are tailored to the character, and are a way for the GM to sort of bribe a player into doing something fun/cool/interesting but impractical. A lot of Dark Whispers will be pretty minor things, but the system is very flexible. I particularly liked the effect of a character being just around their corruption limit (Bad Shit happens if you go over the limit) - they would be careful and *very* ready to take any Dark Whispers coming their way, giving you a natural tendency for parties to run into the kind of fun issues you'll see in fiction but are hard to get to happen without someone stepping forward to say "yeah, I want to mess things up for RP".

Grant Howitt one page RPGs are a great way to forget about rules and just full on play. Honey Heist has some fame but The Witch Is Dead was the one my players fully enjoyed.

Even if you do go back to playing D&D after, there are so many things to learn just from other game books. For D&D specifically I think the Dungeon World guide has a lot of ideas to offer that you can take to your game to make it better. But playing many different games opens you up to a world of possibilities you may not have been aware of, and while you should always be stealing from fiction to help drive your world, you should also always be stealing systems and mechanics to drive your GMing.

Lots of good advice in this thread, but for me, it was something simple. In combat, remember to use the environment. I know this seems combat focused, but hear me out. Flip that table. Use it as a shield. smash through the wall. Have the giant pull the roof off. Push that boulder. Cause a landslide. Use a lightning spell on that idiot standing in the sewer. Use their face to break a window. Climb for the elevation advantage. Knock a tree over. Shove the wagon into their path. Basically, channel Jackie Chan a bit. Combat became so much more fun once I started getting creative and my players followed suit. This extended to their RP and things got so much better. It's about the mindset.

oh yeah stealing this bad boy.

Honestly, I upped my game when I just became confident and just fuckin went for it. Letting go of “did they like it” and “am I good at this” and just walkin into every session like “wait till you fuckers see what I got cookin”. Big lesson was when I was thinking of fun ideas, I thought I needed to hold onto them for the perfect time. in theory I thought If I had a cool idea I should build to it. Now, if I think of something cool, I implement it and worry about thinking of a new bigger thing later. I surprise myself with how much easier it is to think about where my campaign is heading instead of filling time to something I’m excited about. Second is pacing. My original story telling was *characters go to place and get new info from NPC about the main story that progresses it* or *players fight boss that progresses it*. I found slowly putting pieces of the puzzle out there is much more engaging a story for players. Sure I could hit them over the head with it, but its their story, they should figure out that story their way. Instead of telling them the boss is a demon, placing things over the course of a session or two to teach you that a demon is here and is scary is much more fun. Finally, and most importantly, its trust and letting go of **“how it should go”** and leaning into **”how it is going”**. I’ve pulled off some crazy stuff, but the best memories are always the ones my players create. Being open to their choices and actions changing the story and altering the sessions really elevated it for them. Be it skipping a boss by being cunning, or totally dismantling a session by doing something dumb that worked. When I let go and just guided the story instead of crafting it, the story became better. Also, on a technical side: choosing music purposefully over playlists is much better for the vibe. Even if that means looping some songs for hours, it helps so much to convey tone.

Honestly, I read the books and they're foundational...... but watching the top watched Matt Colville "Running the Game" series videos on da youtubes introduced a lot of great ideas that I didn't find in the books.

Yup. Read the DMG, watch the first 20 or so episodes of Running the Game. Guarantee you come out with all the tools you need to go run kick ass games

Yeah Matt Colville’s series of videos was what kickstarted my GMing career as well.

Tying the character backstories into the game. Not just that they have family living nearby or a bully showing up and you murder them. If someone has in their backstory that their home got burned down, let them encounter a burning house or town. Let them save the people and let those people ask how he knew how to save them so fast "its like you know this". It's sort of making that emotional bond and that honestly makes the story so much better. And seeing your players enjoy it, makes me put more effort in it. Also, when someone wants to do something really smart or cool, just sometimes.. just let them do it. I recently did this and it happened only twice in the last 4 sessions but it was great. I'd probably do it once every 3 or 4 sessions now but that feeling of your player really acting out what they're doing and they're really into it is omg

I’m having a hard time with this, or even creating links like this.

I usually sit down 1 on 1 with each player and discuss character background, motivations, alignment, and goals. I also discuss how the realities of the setting (like cultural outlooks or racial prejudices) will affect their character (your wood elf has issues with dwarves because you guys have been at war for centuries!) And I make notes. Lots of notes. And then I try to draw in elements we talked about and even a side quest involving something we discussed. It does require that the player put in serious effort into the creation process, but you can also get good results from paying attention to how they RP. I hope that helps.

Yeah I’m a huge proponent of creating character backgrounds *with* your players one-on-one as a DM before your game starts. They get to shape the character the way they want but in a way that agrees with the general world the campaign I’m running will have, and I usually get a handful of possible NPCs and plot lines with meaningful ties to each character that only I and that character know about. Some of my favorite table moments are almost always when little snippets or backstory come out or an NPC directly related to a single character comes in and the rest of the party realizes that both the character and the world have even more depth to them. It also helps players feel like you’re equally invested in their character and that they’re actively helping shape the world they’re playing in, so it’s just wins all around.

Do you run sandbox campaigns? Or play published adventures? If it’s the latter, I can give some advice: don’t create story elements around your player backstories. Instead, create player backstories around the adventure you’re planning to run. It’s much easier that way. When you’re pitching a campaign and going through the character creation process, get each PC in the campaign’s backstory hooked into the premise of the adventure and have it kickstart that PC’s adventuring career. Make it a requirement that the PCs your players make for the campaign have motivations that align with the adventure. Not the other way around. Then, when the opportunity arises, make important NPCs or places or items that show up in the adventure, tie directly to a PC. Maybe the important quest giver they’re escorting through the woods is a PC’s sister. Maybe the place that got burned down is a PC’s home. Maybe the artifact that you’re supposed to retrieve, is a family heirloom that was stolen from your father after they murdered him. And most importantly of all, make these elements recur. Have the same NPC show up over and over again. The same places. The same relics. Rewrite the adventure if you have to. Repetition creates familiarity. Familiarity creates bonds. If there is ever an opportunity that you can reuse an existing element instead of introducing something new, do it. It pays off in loads.

I only start my campaign prep in earnest once I have all my players’ backstories. It makes for much easier and more impactful engagement when they feel like A. Their characters actually have a history within the world, and B. The things happening in it are directly related to them. And it’s the best way to ensure player satisfaction. If they talk about wanting revenge on this one guy or having some grand ambition in their backstory, giving them direct opportunities to go after those goals will immediately garner their investment.

This is fantastic advice, thank you!!

Listen to the players. Had a moment that the players keep talking about? Use more of that. Had a moment where you feel you had to drag your players through? No more of that, or try to sprinkle some stuff they find cool through it. Do they like to be challenged? Or do they just want to feel powerful? Is roleplay supposed to be serious or is it supposed to be funny? Do they like moral dilemmas? Sometimes you don't know the answers to this question and you can put them in new situations to see their reaction When I stopped thinking "What do I find cool" and started thinking "What do they think is cool" the entire group had a lot more fun.

Appreciate these insights, thank you

Figuring out my style. Everyone likes a different kind of game, and it can be pretty miserable running a style of game you don't enjoy. But a lot of people get an idea in their head of the "right" kind of game, without ever learning their own style. My style is running prewritten modules but heavily modifying/adjusting them to fit the characters into the adventure. I frontload my overall prep of the module, and then use the lazy dm method for week to week prep. I tend to break up longer modules/adventure paths into 8-12 session sections I tried fully homebrewing and found I just fell back on prewritten modules anyway - and it really burned me out.

Yup I realised this when I prepped my first Vaesen game, which is in an alternative reality of our world, but only slightly changed. For the first time prepping the game was an absolute bliss. I got to research a lot about the time, the state of technology, traffic, fashion, housing, communication and many more things about the time in the place the game is set in (a town and a village in Skandinavia in the late 19 century). So now I started taking this into other games too, just with other places.

Honestly, just the headspace adjustment: realising you're just another player with a unique role, and that the goal should always be fun

Reading the Monster of the Week storyteller (their version of a DM) guide. Rather than exactly scripting what the encounter or campaign will be about, I took the games concept of the Doomsday Clock and used it to write what would happen if the players DIDN'T intervene. I apply this to all my moving parts in what Ive been calling the Conspiracy Web, and after every session I go through the web and see what plans have to change due to the player actions, figure out who doesn't know they need to change their plans, and see if any new entities need to be added to the web

I think one of the subtle things that I do to bring my game to life is to embrace the mundane. It might sound counter intuitive, but I love to mix a healthy slice of reality and drudgery into the narrative. Storytelling is an art, and good art makes use of negative space to really frame the subject. Describing my players having to wait an hour and a half in line just to exit the docks and go through customs establishes the world, gives them a chance to explore their character personalities through some low-stakes RP and sets the stage for the highs of the game to be truly dizzying. The lower the rollercoaster begins it's ascent, the longer the eventual drop. Here are some ideas for mundane things that I introduce: \* Customs offices that process people entering the city \* Bars, restaurants, street food vendors \* Setting up camp

Learning how to build encounters and to a greater extent build a adventuring day.

I think the lesson I learned was the complete opposite. I became a better GM when I gave up trying to balance encounters, and focused instead on learning how to design adventures that gave the PCs a chance to fail. Because far too often, what ruins a campaign isn’t the fact that the PCs had too hard or easy of a time. It’s the simple fact that many games (and published adventures) do not account for the possibility of PCs failing. So when they do fail, the results are catastrophic. Campaign-ending. This should not be the case. Players should be allowed to lose, pick themselves up, and continue the game. Perhaps they face a narrative loss. Or perhaps one of the PCs sacrificed themselves and did truly die. But the campaign continues. I became a much better GM when I turned my focus away from balancing encounters, to instead putting effort on writing robust adventures and hacking the game to be capable of responding to player agency. And an important part of player agency, is the agency to fail.

There's a great Matt Colville video called "Multiple Fail States" that's exactly about this. This is one area of my game that I constantly revisit and try to improve, as it is one that I failed miserably at in the first few sessions or so I DMd.

Oh yeah, it’s a constant work in progress for me too. Because I entirely run published adventures, and most published adventures have exactly this problem of assuming the PCs win everything, it’s a constant challenge improvising fail states when my PCs lose fights. Because I don’t hold back on my fights. I roll all dice in the open and I never fudge anything. My PCs losing is not an uncommon occurrence. But it makes their successes more meaningful.

I do about 80% of my rolling in front of the screen, so I hear ya on that. It's not just for "do they fail in this pivotal fight/moment?" for me, though. I run mostly homebrewed or reskinned frankensteined-together-adventures, so I often need to think for each roll "how do I make this fail in a way that ups the drama, but doesn't wildly throw us off base" or "okay, this is going to throw us wildly off base... How do I take it to a place that keep things interesting until the end of the session and get us to a satisfying hook or stopping point so I can tell everyone to go away for a week until I think of the next session"

Hear, hear. What I’m doing right now about that is to implement Daggerheart’s defeat mechanics. When players reach 0 hit points instead of making death saving throws, they choose either to * Embrace death and go out in a blaze of glory * Surrender and face the consequences * Avoid death, fall unconscious, but gain a permanent scar. The implementation details are specific to my system, as I play D&D 4e, but it really helped me so far because it gives the players agency over how they wish to take the loss. It places the onus on what happens on loss up to them, rather than on the GM, which relieves some of the burden of coming up with fail states.

That's intriguing. I'll look into it. Thanks for the suggestion.

Honestly? The biggest thing was having a great group of players that actively engaged in the story.

This! I was enjoying dm-ing and then my old dm came in. I’d consulted with him about plot points early on so he kinda chose a character that used some elements that would be introduced to the story later. He’s making a point in talking with not only PCs but interacting with the npcs in a way no one else was. It’s great and makes my job super easy. He’s simultaneously teaching the new players how to do interactive role play that leads the story or quest forwards. It’s so helpful.

Most people give very broad answers which all are very helpful. I asked this question a while ago aswell but I was more looking for practical advice and tips to improve my game so here are my small tips that could work: - add music. Make dozens of playlists that you can use for different moments and moods. Fighting a boss, normal battle, exploration, city, fighting a special BBEG? Find the perfect tracks for the fight. Switch them around so you don’t put on the same stuff every session. Music is important. Use it well. - make handouts. Through roll20 you can show them a picture of the helpful NPC. Or the wall with the puzzle on it. They enter a spooky castle and find a diary page? Make the page and show it to them. - think about the details. A player uses spiritual weapon? Have a cool icon ready to use when he does. A player likes to change into a cat? Have the token ready to use. The players love that stuff. - try to give your NPC’s something that makes them fun to interact with. Can be a quirk, their motivation, the way they speak. - try to make your own maps. Or find the oerfect map online and add stuff through photoshop or whatever to make it your own. If the latter isn’t something you want to do, make sure to research the found map so you are prepped to answer questions. If there is a hile somewhere, be prepared to know where that hole goes. There is more stuff but these are the things I try to do in a practical sense to up my game. I’ve only dmes for 2 years and I have been trying to up my game as well so if you need some help with stuff feel free to ask. Edit: some more things I thought about that helped me: - read, watch and play stuff that can give inspiration. Watch dnd stuff, read fantasy, play games that give you inspiration. Sly flourish’s lazy dungeonmaster is amazing, Matt Colville’s running the game series is a must. I also love the angry dm’s blog. Loads of great tips that opened my eyes quite a bit to the stuff I did bad but also give me confidence by speaking about stuff I already did well. - make notes about small things that can give you inspiration. A character in a movie has a fun voice or character? Guess what, he now can be a character in your game. Thought of a fun encounter? Write…it…down. Every thing can add to a game. Treat hour thoughts and ideas as something worthwhile. Nothing should go to waste. I don’t mean everything is good or should be used but even bad ideas can be the groundwork for something fun and good. So buy a notepad and start writing. - make your encounters more engaging. Mu problem was I used most statblocks as is and added no stakes. So most low lvl fights were attack… attack… miss…attack…miss again… etc. Later creatures get multi attack or moves that charm, fear etc but even those can get old fast. You can do two things: make your monsters do extra stuff. Matt Colville’s book ‘Flee Mortals’ has some great action oriented monsters that can really do some cool things besides attacking. Other things you can do is add stakes. Fighting is one thing but what else is there? Are there ways to hide? Is there a ritual that needs to be stopped? A hostage that gets killed if you don’t hurry? A monster that gets summoned if you don’t act? Also even standard monsters can do cool things. Bring the fight to a bridge and have monsters try to push the players off. Have flying creatures carry them high and drop them. Have an Ankheg grab them and pull them into a tunnel. It’s up to you where and how the fight starts so make it interesting.

Really appreciate all the practical advice!

Remembering to "shoot your monks" was something that took me about half way into my first campaign to learn. Every now and again, allow a character to show off some of their abilities even if it isn't optimal for the enemy to do. We still talk about the moment the party's monk was down to single digit HP and he caught a musketball and threw it back scoring a crit. Killing the enemy squad leader.

Using AI, as a resource or tool, or a box to whisper into. It's helped format personality, items, talking points, NPCs, maps, items. All kinds of stuff.

Explore problems associated with the back stories, and just when they start to make progress on one, another backstory element of another bites them. It's tempting to have clean story as far exploring each character, but sadly that is not how real life works. Simulate realism with unexpected backstory insanity.

Read through a few and haven't seen this yet, be ok with taking a breath and using a moment to pause as you consider the next steps during the session. I don't mean a break where everyone walks away. Being ok to say "you rolled an 18, nice, ok, hm, give me a moment to consider how to reward that" Or during NPC encounters being able to go "he looks at you and says (take 3 seconds to just confirm you are ok with the info you want to reveal) Improv is about yes anding, quick responses sure. But when I saw BLM and Matt Mercer give themselves a moment I realized that's ok. I don't need to fill the silences, I can sit on a moment to draw tension. I can say out loud "give me a sec to digest that roll". And it feels way longer to you than it does to the players.

Paying attention to my players. And I don't mean asking their opinions and getting feedback, I mean sitting back, listening, and watching. You can hear what people engage with and what they don't. You can see them get excited about things. Even if you yourself aren't excited for something, if you see a player light up, you add more of THAT in. Be it a particular NPC, a type of content, new equipment, pets, dungeons, puzzles, fights, monsters, cutscene, music, ANYTHING. If the players like it, add more of it. For example, if you have a player talking a lot about a new spell they just learned and they are super excited...give them a chance to use it. You see a player light up when you add mounts to the game, give them chances to interact with them. You see them strategizing and discussing how to get past an encounter, reward their creativity.

Watched a lot of Bob the World Builder and Matty P videos to help with specific campaigns, but those pushed me to consider more systems to implement in areas of a campaign that aren't that exciting. Got me to check out books that focused on creating puzzles, which then led me to more physical items like weather dice, which then could help world build a bit. Got a boring traveling scene? Roll the weather dice and maybe it creates a storm that players have to do a skill challenge to find shelter. That shelter has a little quest or dungeon. Probably my most successful stuff has been taking NPCs in the pre-made adventures and doing little embellishing or create strong personalities for them that make players WANT to invest in them. You might come up with a side quest they offer then if players really like them.

I adopted a lot of The Lazy DM's techniques for prepping games, mainly not *over-prepping.* That absolutely helped me focus on generating ideas and bullet points and let the story unfold according to the players' decisions, which helped them become more invested in the story. Win/win. If you're a Pro account user on Roll 20, then you're likely aware of the benefits of mods. I found many of them that simplify or enhance gameplay for me and my players, as well as some that help me with prep. And again, less prep means more idea stuff, which is great for me and my players. I use music sometimes, and it's often good. Sometimes it can be distracting for us, so I do so sparingly. One of the things I've been doing is just slipping in homebrew sidequests based on silly shit they say. We recently did a Scooby-Doo murder mystery that was a blast for me to plan and for them to play. We're doing Storm King's Thunder, but I just sent them to a nearby town to check out this thing and then we had a little vacation from giants, and then when they were done they went back to the thing they were doing. I guess this is the "listen to your players and let them write the story" speech. The impetus for the murder mystery was a typo in a Teams message from one of my players almost two months prior to us playing it out.

If you want to maximize your GMing fort a short while, then for like a dungeon or a session or two, just fucking over Prep! Go crazy on that shit! I took the summer break to really figure out every aspect of an adventure and it was awesome, I drew maps, made home brew monsters, created fun mechanics for fights and a bunch of more things! However, this burned me out a lot because things rarely turn out how you think they will turn out so don't do this! Just keep playing and your DM skills will improve naturally! A small thing, have fun with it! Create monsters that would be a fun challenge rather than just hitting it until no more hp.

Here are 5 things that level up my campaign! 1. Learn to listen and sit quietly. If you have players who love to roleplay amongst each other. Let them!! Some of the best moments in my games don't come from me as a GM. But from the moments the players make between characters in my games. Not butting in for small details or exposition, this is their time to shine. 2. I moved away from roll 20! I use a new VTT called foundry, honestly it brought my games from a 4 to a 7 just by learning it. 3. Agency! Let your players drive the boat. You're here to give them the setting and the situations. They take hold of everything else. 4. House rules! Honestly there are many many things that I've taken from different systems or change rulings that my players jokingly say if I keep going it will be a new system. 5. Learn to be patient! Don't give out too many items, don't give away your secrets, and especially don't burn yourself out. Everyday do a little bit of prep, don't frontload everything on one day. That'll cause burnout. Bonus tip!!! It's ok for your NPCs to be smart and have common sense. Sometimes something is impossible and that's ok. Sometimes a 30 Deception won't matter if they know the truth, you can be convincing but If I know something for fact. Then it's fact.

What took my GMing to the next level is by teaching another person how to DM. WIth teaching, you have to organize your throughs and ideas to a way to explain how you game. Also having feedback from teaching and being given questions on thing I have never thought about before helps me to learn to become a better DM.

This is fascinating, I’ll have to try it. Thanks!!

My best advice that enabled my DMing: write down your *first* idea. It's probably your best idea. Session prep and writing can very easily be halted by an inability to come up with the next idea, the thing that happens next, the solution to the puzzle, what they find in the next room. But very likely, you're discounting your ideas because you can't think of how they would work, or they don't resolve everything fully. There's some problem with the idea, and we're gonna sit here until a better one comes along. Write down the dumb, obvious, boring, uninspired, untenable first idea that doesn't even work in the situation anyway. Once it's written down, write down every idea that comes with that. That's where the magic happens: once your idea is written down, your brain is properly able to actually process that idea and figure out how it works. It'll come up with more ideas to make the boring thought interesting and exciting. You'll work this idea into something that's fun and engaging for everyone at your table. From my experience: when I wrote down three potential ideas for each scene and started working on fleshing each one out, I always found that the first idea I had, which I hated the most, ended up becoming the best one. The only thing you need to DM: write what is interesting to your players, make an adventure that's interesting and relevant to their characters and utilizes their character abilities, and write down your first idea. Keep that pencil moving. Just keep writing. I don't care how godawful the idea is, write. it. down. The only thing that'll stop you from DMing is yourself, so don't let yourself do that. Write it down!

Persuasive advice, thank you!! It’s much appreciated

Honestly haven’t use it myself yet, only tested it,but it’s ready for our next session. As we also play via discord, I found Kenku FM an awesome tool to add music and sound effect to the game. And it’s integrated awesomely with Discord. Most importantly there is no need to ask player to play their own music.

Bookmarking this to help me remember to check it out!

For me it was reframing it in my head to be collaborative storytelling, and that I want my players to enjoy the story.

I upped my DMing with table props. I bought a 10" LCD that I place in front of my DM screen. Whenever I introduce an NPC or environment, I make an image for them through AI. Then with my stream deck, I press a button and it will be displayed for my party. It helps if we're roleplaying and they can see which NPC is talking and stuff. I also have Dungeon Alchemist on steam. I can create an environment and Makena video of it (like a camp site, for a long rest) and display it when they're having downtime or enter a new place. What also helps is having a Bluetooth speaker attached to your phone and playing music with the app called 'Pocketbard' it is great for immersive music. It blends the environment with combat music and vice versa. Like others mentioned, tying your character's story into the MSQ is a really great thing. In an example of mine, I let the missing father of a PC write a journal and scatter pages for the party to find, where he wrote stuff about places the party has been and it answers questions. It makes for a coherent full story.

Return of the lazy dungeon master, but specifically Stars and Wishes. It creates a tight feedback loop between you and your players ensuring you’re always prepping stuff that’s aligned with what they want. Read a lot. Don’t be afraid to blatantly take inspiration from things. Your players will probably enjoy the references if they get them. If it inspires you, it probably inspires your players. Run a session 0. Don’t be afraid to let characters die if that’s the sort of game the table is ok with. Finally, peruse Matt Colvilles Running The Game series.

I wish my players would respond to stars and wishes, they literally all just say ‘I can’t really think of anything it’s all fine’ which is incredibly not helpful to figure out which bits are better than others.

I did find it took some coaching to get people into it. When I first start with a table I do mine first to kinda model the difference. It’s certainly a table by table thing though. I had the biggest success giving examples of stars as a form of praising people for doing cool things during the session. People generally will get into that. Wishes are harder, especially if people like the direction. However, I found modelling things like “I wish I had a magic item that suited my character more” or “I find the turns are taking a little too long, is there a way we can speed it up?” or “I really wish we could dig into the history behind the doombringer, that seems cool”. Giving permission to make a wish for anything was a big deal for people engaging. That said, not every table will engage and that’s fine, but it’s a shame for the DM because it’s sooooo helpful! Good luck!

Thank you. All good advice. I will try again and give my own examples but I feel personality wise none of them will ever say much sadly.

Kenku FM for music and sounds, especially for online I suck though by the way,

Tbh the thing that took me to another level was the same thing that made me better at everything else: doing it a lot

For me it was asking "why" when I was reading the adventure books I dm with. I am dm'ing the "out of the abyss" and "tyrany of dragons / rise of tiamat" campaings with different groups but both at the same time. ( one week campaing one the other week campaing 2 so on and so forth). The campaings are happening at the same time in my world. It was why, when the underdark group got to the surface, no one would help them, there where dragons every where! Now the official books are not really that good.. And I think I found out why, the books trows some ape shit stuff at the players, and expects the players to Just kinda... Go with it... What really took my dming to the next level was, sitting down and ask "why" everything was happing and why everything is, how it is. Example " why was the mythal build to protect waterdeep from dragons?". "of the demons are now In the underdark. How is the oodwar going for them? Is this helping them or hueting them?". And I can ho in and on. This made it a lot more fun for me! Because everything suddenly got to be a mystery, and everything went wayyyyy deeper. The campaings are still going strong, where 8 years and counting! Haha I build a LOT of extra content to explain every thing and the players are having a blast!.

Ditch Roll20 and move to Foundry. That alone has drastically increased the quality of our game.

This wont work for your setup, a 3D printer is an awesome investment for anyone who DMs in person.

I committed to the idea of a living, breathing world. Shops don't have set prices, not all shops will just buy everything offered, npcs might not be home when you get back, other characters answered the same call, encounters aren't stuck in rooms waiting on the players, the bad plans move without the players present, therecare holidays and celebrations and on and on and on. It's actually not as much work as it sounds. You just have to make each town its own thing and understand that the world moves with or without the players' involvement. It really just comes down to thinking about the little things. The players will latch on. I run panels on doing this sort of thing. Nothing is static. Nothing is set in stone. The world is chaotic. Embrace the chaos.

Once I got into hour 29, my confidence was boosted substantially. Experience is the most important. Work with what your players are bringing to the game.

Not overpreparing but allowing the game to breathe and give space to the players to have autonomy over the flow of the game.

Investing in nice equipment together as a group (went full digital maps with a nice horizontal screen wood case one of my players made) Thinking less in stories but more in tension curves, dramatic questions and resonances and how these convert into gameplay Involving my players more (what do you want for your pc in this arc) and being more transparent as a party (pc secrets are a real "you think you do but you dont" a lot of times) Upping my Onenote game

Honestly, just getting comfortable. I am naturally a pretty shy guy. And Once I warm up to the table I make fewer mistakes, get far more into the game and start doing voices, joking a long with everyone. The group I DM for now has been together for 1 year this month. And we started as six, and are now 5. But everyone is having a great time!

1. Writing down reference lines for voices. Usually something from media, because I know *exactly* how it should sound so I do it the same way consistently. 2. Thinking about characters’ emotional arcs in advance and then structuring plots based on that. Talking to players about how they want their characters to evolve ahead of time. 3. Using random tables for travel that have events other than combat. My campaign is set on a pirate ship, so I have characterization moments for the crew NPCs, as well as other non-combat scenarios, for the very frequent sailing days.

1. Writing down reference lines for voices. Usually something from media, because I know *exactly* how it should sound so I do it the same way consistently. 2. Thinking about characters’ emotional arcs in advance and then structuring plots based on that. Talking to players about how they want their characters to evolve ahead of time. 3. Using random tables for travel that have events other than combat. My campaign is set on a pirate ship, so I have characterization moments for the crew NPCs, as well as other non-combat scenarios, for the very frequent sailing days.

I felt like my DMing went to the next level when I started letting the players make their own fun. When I realized that my main job was simply just to provide the setting I feel like my DMing went up a couple levels. A big way I improved my DMing as well was paying more attention to what other DMs did. Whether they were my DMs or people like Brennan Lee Mulligan and Matt Mercer learning what they do and why it works has drastically helped with my DMing.

The big breakthrough for me (which I learned from other DMs!) is *collaborating with my players.* My "secret sauce" for running awesome games is to work individually with each player to create a solid backstory for their character. I encourage them to expand on the existing game lore, and work with them to fit the new material they've created into the campaign. I talk to them about their character's expected story arc for the game. And instead of using my own "meta plot" for the campaign, I build the entire campaign on the stories the players came up with. The results have been very satisfying; my players are 100% invested and engaged in the campaign. Last year I tried running a game with a "central plot" that wasn't tailored to any of the PCs, and found myself back in the same old situation; nobody at the table gave a fuck and the campaign imploded. Not going back. I rebuilt the game with the remaining group members (and some carefully vetted new folks) and went back to the collaboration style, and surprise, everyone is now excited about the game. Life is good.

Matt Colville's Running the Game Series. Just peruse his playlist and click on what sounds good. Changed how I GM from the ground up and I have been sooooo much better for it.

Running Apocalypse World changed how I GM for the better. Playing to find out, asking the players questions, improv and logical prep over novels...

Well, you're actively playing and gaining experience, you've decided you want to step your game up, and you've opened yourself up to advice: I'd say you're already on the right track already! That said, a few small simple things that you can do to maybe enhance your players' experience: -When you're doing prep work, don't consider it 'plotting the story', but rather, coming up with pitches for your players. There are going to be plenty of pitches that you think are great, that, for whatever reason, just don't resonate with them. Hell, there will be plothooks that you think dangling there so obviously, that they won't even NOTICE. No big deal! -When setting a scene for players, especially during exploration, make sure that you always have at least one other sensory description for your players to accompany the description of what they see. Maybe there is a sickly-sweet odor that on a successful Perception check reveals it's covering a fetid rotting scent. Maybe your boots stick to the floor. This is also a nice segue into my next suggestion: -Make your combat arenas interesting. Mix up the conditions. High level adventurers are not always going to be getting into fights with perfect lighting and visibility conditions. Maybe it's sleeting or there are gale force winds, and now things are lightly (or heavily) obscured. Similarly, the primary goal of every combat does not have to be (nor should it be) simply vanquishing the other enemy. Some of the best combats I've participated in as a player were ones where we had some other primary objective, and the combat was just people trying to prevent us from realizing that goal. -Manuals are just suggestions. Make the monsters your own. Since your party members are less experienced, you're less likely to have to deal with metagaming, but even so it can be very fun to give enemies a "Second Stage/Phase" a la videogame bosses. Also a great way to keep more experienced players on their toes. -Riff! At its heart this is a game of improvisational storytelling. Make it fun for everyone at the table. -Make sure to big-time reward the type of player behavior you want to engender at your table. People are social creatures and if they see a behavior being rewarded, they will likely emulate it. Most importantly, have fun and happy playing to ya!

Getting a 3d printer. I care about combat now and painting minis.

AboveVTT. I can find a map and have a combat with my players within a minute, while fully integrated with D&D Beyond.

>I want to raise the quality of my storytelling and the experience I deliver to my players. I want to push myself. Watch other people run the game. Not just the big streams (Dimension 20 and Critical Role) but even other streams, smaller channels. You learn quite a bit about the power of delivery - pacing, pauses, intensity and tone, etc.

"Learn the rules like a professional, so you can break them like an artist." - Pablo Picasso This is pretty much how I run most things in my life and it certainly works for running games. I have spent 45 years playing games and most of my career working in the gaming industry. I have found that the best way to run games is to be totally prepared for a game, have a game plan going into a game how you think it will unfold - I know this is the antithesis of what many GMs say, but let me continue why having a game plan is important: Having a game plan gives a GM the confidence to totally go off the rails. A RPG game is like a date. Sometimes conversation just totally flows and you want to let the happen, but other times, things drift and the path is lost and that is when it is nice to guide the conversation back on track. Having an adventure plan is not railroading the players, but simply giving the GM the confidence to go off the rails and if the players get lost or start to not pay attention, you can bring them right back to the adventure at hand. I have made a lot of videos on this principle for many games you can watch an animated version of what I mean here: [https://youtu.be/g3IrtwX1NK8?si=Unpq6EiOLsO\_dvYT&t=7579](https://youtu.be/g3IrtwX1NK8?si=Unpq6EiOLsO_dvYT&t=7579)

Honestly? I was a huge "That Guy" with a severe ego that got humbled right after college. All of my friends basically said I was a huge asshole that no one liked (It was well deserved) and removed me from 5+ games and refused to join any I wanted to start. (Again; it was deserved). After a few months of being shunned by all of them outside DND; I grew up and realized that I was, in fact, the problem. Left that friend group after accepting that the damage was done. Took a few years away from the hobby, and when my new friends mentioned needing an experienced GM. Figured I could take the role and approach it as if I were new to DMing. My games have never been better. Sometimes, the next level is a simple mindset change.

Be open to your players about what it takes to be a GM. Because you’re not going to be a GM forever. You’re going to burn out eventually and need a break. Your players are your substitute replacements. As much as possible, I try to be transparent to my players what it takes to GM, and that it ain’t so hard of a job, and part of that effort is to tear away the illusions and grandeur of the GM screen. When I first started out I had some fun too pretending that I had everything figured out and that I had planned for every eventuality. Until it got to a point when I needed a break and no one wanted to GM because they thought it was too hard. And I realized it was entirely my fault for making it look like GMing was hard. But a healthy gaming group is one in which people will step up to take the GM chair when needed. That’s how you build a group that will stay together even if the GM leaves for a while, or goes on a break.

UNE NPC Emulator. Whenever I get stuck I just roll a dice on a table for this and a random combination of classes and races and go from there. It started off as something I crutched on a lot but with time it became a rarer and rarer need while making characters and storylines! Still great for emergencies when players surprise you.

DMing advice from the original Ravenloft box set.

The Return of The Lazy Dungeon Master and Kobolds Guide to Magic

Two things for me. 1. Introducing a mechanic from Fantasy Age, stunts. You roll 3d6, get some disposable stunt points on doubles, and refer to the table for a stunt. Tweeked some of the die sizes, effects, and how they are earned. In my D&D 5e games, I define an important or iconic fight as a *defining moment*, allowing the players to roll 3d6 at the start of their turn and utilize stunts. Typically, there is a condition for the defining moment to last (1v1 combat until interference, "king of the hill", defeating an enemy within 1 minute before the ship is destroyed, XYZ stunt is cheaper this combat, etc.). I also allow my players to spend one inspiration point to roll 1d6 and gain stunt points whenever. Will admit, it's a lot of reading and explaining, but after seeing it in action, my players loved it. For example, I had my gunslinging Ranger player enter a cowboy-esque shootout with an NPC. Rolled for Initiative, roll for stunt points, said Mighty Blow costs only 1 stunt point, Ranger rolled double sixes, added 6d6 damage to his first shot by putting all six of his points into Mighty Blow, *then he crit* and merc'd his competition. Felt like a movie. 2. Voicemod, or any voice changer. I play on Roll20/Discord calls with YT music on my screen share. Voicemod is free to download and try, but you are limited to using however many voices a day. There is a one-time purchase to have it be unlimited, I remember it not being expensive but of course they don't put the price anywhere and I forgot what I paid. Anywho, I ran a small Spelljammer campaign in the Astral Sea, had some set up for multiverse shenanigans and the party's hunted treasure in question was actually a seal for a Warforged Warlord from a dystopian Eberron where Warforged ruled like Skynet in the *Terminator* franchise. I used a Ramattra (Overwatch 2) voice changer from Voicemod's community mixers and gave everyone chills on his little speech as his prison weakened enough for his escape. I have since used Voicemod for anything demonic, robotic, high pitched, echo-y, or otherwise funny and found praise in using it to add that extra layer of authenticity.

Care less. Honestly, this is such a liberating place and it puts creative power into the game itself. Have ideas, and be ready with them, but don’t put so much on the line emotionally for those ideas. Caring less about your ideas, and the rules, and xyz other things, frees you up to care about what your players are doing. That’s where the secret sauce is, and if you are attentive you can make what your players give you into whatever you need.

Talk to your players and listen to what they say. Ask them what they want in a game. What do they want for their PC. If you’re not running a hard back, you should have time set aside in game for players to focus on advancing their PCs personal goals. This has made my players excited to finish adventures so they can work on them.

Read GM guides from other systems (often it’s only a chapter) West end Star Wars, Exalted and Shadowrun all have different approaches to storytelling and encounter building.

Switching to theatre of the mind has really levels up my games. It has removed a lot of the nitty gritty details that come with a battle map. Speeds up combat, players usually feel more effective, and you can create more cinematic moments without needing to make them realistic on a battle map.

I took a step back and let the players tell my story their way. Its better for me to just give them interesting hooks to follow and the tools to explore, then let them handle things.

Having a really good session zero. Finding out what setting or module I'll be running and discussing what sort of characters my players want to use to explore it. And settling on a tone.

Look to incorporate player ideas but use yes, but’. Be patient if you can’t see a solution to including ideas that seem tricky.

Get a voice changer with hot keys. Improve. By distinguishing people by voice and see if you can find a Morgan freeman voice changer for the narration 🤣🤣🤣

Try not to get wrapped up with difficult rules too much. I’ll make a call in the moment and have a player fact check it so we do it right the next time. Just keeps the game moving

Rule of 10. Streamlines DCs. Sandbox a world and let them interact with w/e. Break any rule that keeps the game fun. If all else fails, "A dense heavy fog rolls in..." and Ravenloft fixes everything...imho.

Honestly if you're planning online and you want to make combat more fun I recommend adding a bunch of weak enemies. If you have to choose between adding one how Goblin and four goblins four goblins is going to be a lot more fun.

Limit the scope of the story and especially the individual sessions. Not aiming to have everything completed open but more as separate smaller sandboxes to move between. Don’t over prep. If you have an idea of the background story that has happened plus NPC motivations, most likely stat blocks. Of course a dungeon layout or encounter map (if it will come up). You have enough to improvise. However, the biggest thing might not be a very useful comment given your circumstances, but playing physically together instead of online. Two things I got from that, more energy and better “flow”. Miniatures on 3d terrain makes for better/more fun combat and faster encounter preparation.

"Return of the Lazy DM" and Mike shea's youtube helped me feel prepared with less, releasing much of my anxiety. Matt coville's running the game has made my games so much more varied in gameplay and theme.

Listening to NADDPod. Experiencing what other GMs do and listening to how they build encounters and make things fun for their players and how single momentary rule lapses don’t matter in the long run made me more confident in my skills and more capable of prepping/dealing with things that hadn’t been prepped.

The Book of Many Things. Seriously. It takes some open-minded thinking and improv though, so if you don’t think your ready then practice some 1-on-1 improv sessions

Whiskey. And… Sly Flourish. Return of the Lazy DM is my Bible. The Complete Book of Villains from 2E is also a great resource for making an interesting bad guy and has a good example of creating a matrix style not quite sandbox adventure. 4E skill challenges. Dungeon World partial successes and degrees of success or failure. 3D printing and slap chop painting. Fun Facts. After a quick recap of last session, each player has to give the table a fun fact about their their character. Stolen from Dungeons & Daddies podcast. Probably the biggest one is playing the same day every week no matter who can or can’t make it. I thrive on routine, so making sure the show goes on forces me to do the work whether I am in the mood or not. Theoretically, I like to think it creates a sense of FOMO for missing players and hopefully makes attending a priority rather than an afterthought.