#DM Tips

[swordofsuns]

Dms, Tell your Players Shit

Tell them when your killing off an npc that's close to them. Let them help you make everyone else cry.

Tell them you plan to kill their sister, or their soulmate, or their best friend, or whatever.

Because no matter how good your players are at improv they will be better if they planned what to say. You don't have to tell them when or how. Just tell them

Because I don't think my players could improv things like

(her sisters name is ash) "I won't let you burn out my little flame."

(in response to "hey, it's fine. It's fine, I'll see you next time. It's fine.") "But I didn't get enough of you this time." (They reincarnate.)

(in reaction to its best friend of 15,000 years dying, woo immortal and unaging friendships)."you were the one constant I could rely on, you can't just make me care and leave without me like this"

But I told em what I plan to do and they are planning w me

[inbabylontheywept]

Babylon's 6 D&D Tips

I DM’d D&D for ten years. I started in middle school, and I kept it up until my sophomore year of college. This is my mini-guide for what the game is, what it isn’t, and how to play it well. So. From the top.

Tip 1: Don't make your main storyline time dependent. 

D&D is an amazing open-world experience. You can pick at any detail. Nothing is a non-interactable part of the scenery. If there’s a sewer manhole, you can lift it up and climb down. If there’s a house, you can look inside and rob it. If there’s an NPC that you meet at the market, you can follow them home and see their whole life. Their parents, or their partner, their trade - all of it. It will be made up on the fly by some sort of reasonably skilled improv speaker, but it will also exist after that. That’s how the world is built. That’s the secret sauce that makes D&D beautiful.

If your plotline is too urgent, it kills those opportunities. The worst example of this that I have isn’t even from D&D, but FO4. The game is clearly built around exploration and adventure. The plot is built around rescuing your kidnapped baby. There’s a lot of tension between those goals. The plot does not work with the game mechanics, and it's really, really, jarring.

Be wary of doing that. It's surprisingly easy.

Tip 2: Don't set up giant, epic, fantasy battles between multiple armies. 

D&D is not a very good epic-battle simulator. There are games that have streamlined combat mechanics to allow for whole armies to fight, but D&D is very detail oriented, and trying to control too many people at once makes combat slow to a crawl. That very creative DM who can tell you every detail of an NPC’s life is also just not very good at multitasking. 

If you really, really want to - fine. But you should be ignoring standard mechanics when you do so. Move to a “cinematic mode” and just go by vibes. And generally, take a moment to “get” the game before modifying it. If the kind of plot you really want is urgent, and involves epic scale armies, maybe look into different RPG systems. D&D specializes in exploration and small, focused parties. Using it for things outside of that is kind of like hitting nails with a wrench. 

Tip 3: Don't prepare your plot like it's a book. Kill your lore codex. 

D&D is a collaborative storytelling adventure. That's the secret sauce. Writing out codexes and trying to crystallize the world before you start playing ruins the collaborative element. It’s genuinely better if you build as you go. It lets your players give input. And it saves you a lot of time. Why bother trying to write up who the Mayor of Snoresville is if there’s a good chance your party never even talks to him?  

(I would also apply this to writing in general. If you want to write all of your world's lore before starting your book, you'll never start your book. And you'll go crazy. Fear the lore codex.)

Tip 4: Prepare your combats and your NPCS rigorously, but generically. 

This ties in to Tip 3. If you spend a lot of time preparing the lore of the Bandit Leader of Redgrove, things like his family history, or his trauma, or his deep-down character motivations, and then the party never goes to Redgrove, it all goes to waste. D&D evolves rapidly and chaotically, so building things in a modular, reusable way really pays off. 

So. I tend to have two big pools for my NPC work. One is a character sheet pool. I keep it small and focused. I can generalize most melee classes ahead of time, so I can have an Archer, a Brawler, a Tank, and some Generalist Infantry. That’s like, 80% of your martial enemies, done. Spellcasters are a bigger pain in the ass, but a few pre-mades thrown into a campaign pays off if you know your themes. If you’re dealing with a death cult, make some death clerics. A dragon will probably have sorcerer acolytes. 

My second pool is a pool of character mannerisms. Some should absolutely be practiced ahead of time. Figure out what mannerisms make your villain really pop. And if the party skips that villain, just move those mannerisms to some new guy down the line and you’ll still be fine. Nothing wasted. A lot of the mannerisms are going to be picked with no heads up when the party does something weird, like following a random merchant around for a few days just to see how they live. You can get through almost all of those extremely well with just variations on the 4 humors, the 3 socioeconomic classes, and regional dialects.

Tip 5: Give your players permission to inject themselves into the world. 

It is common for people to over-formalize the rules and responsibilities of “being a player” vs. “being a DM.” I think the most common way to phrase it is something like “The Players are in charge of their characters and their backstories, the DM is responsible for the worlds and its NPCs, and both need to stay in their lanes.”

It’s isn't just better to mix it, it's necessary.

Failing to share these roles forces the world to exist in a crystallized state before the campaign even starts - at least if you want to integrate backstories into the plot. Groups that fail to do this can often feel like the characters were born the day the campaign began, and did nothing interesting beforehand. 

So, for DMs: Don’t be afraid of trying to inject NPCs and details of this world into your player's past. Imagine that your party rogue goes into a town and finds a fence for selling some stolen trinkets. Maybe, have the fence recognize the rogue. “Gods of fire, it’s McClellan. I haven’t thought about you since the candy-rat incident. You took a real beating making sure I got away that day. Glad to finally have a chance to pay you back!” 

Now, the rogue still has a choice here. They can say something like “Ah, this guy is mistaking me for someone else, but I can roll with it to get a better deal.” It’s their character, and their choice. But they can also go, hey, I do know this guy. I was apparently part of something called “The candy-rat incident.” I can decide how I know this guy, and where, and for how long, and what that incident was. That’s not less control - that’s more!��

And for players: Don’t be afraid of injecting your past into the world. Maybe you’re a fighter in a wartorn setting and you run into a group of deserters robbing refugees by the roadside. The DM has clearly planned this as some vindication, some enemies you get to thrash without feeling bad. But you have different plans. You take your helmet off, and you look the deserter’s leader in the face, and you say “Jack, you saved my life back on Stone Ridge. You were a good man once. You could be one again. Ride with us.” 

Now that's powerful stuff. Do you even know what Stone Ridge is? Hell no. Are you gonna? Hell yeah. And what you just did was way better than the DMs plan of bonking bad guys to feel good. You changed the writing of the world, commandeered an NPC, and made the whole encounter far more interesting.  

Tip 6: Ignore all portrayals of D&D in the media. 

The best players that I get are people with no experience with D&D of any kind. The second best are those that are willing to drop their preconceptions at the door and just play. The worst are people that have seen D&D portrayed somewhere and are insistent on imitating the portrayal. The exact nature of the failure varies - at worst, they’ve seen some kind of tongue-in-cheek parody, like order of the stick, and then hyperfocused on all the worst parodied aspects as the whole point of the game. D&D is not about outsmarting the mechanics (which is trivially easy, and largely pointless - it just makes your own storytelling less fun), nor is about turning everything into shallow tropes about Horny Bards and Dumb Fighters and Insufferable Paladins. At best, they’ll have seen some kind of ultra-cinematic example of D&D played on a podcast, where the DM has a theatre degree and ever party member is a professional actor. Those people are nice, but they often have unrealistic expectations.

[swordshapedleaves]

This is I think, my best prep tip as a DM:

When the players are about to visit a new town, pre-generate several NPCs who fit the demographics of the town, but don't give them jobs. Your town is Mostly human, with a number of halflings and gnomes? Make a list that's mostly humans with some halflings and gnomes mixed in, with names that match the vibe you're going for and maybe the barest description + a quirk of some sort.

So the list would look something like this:

Ophelia Bracegurdle, older Halfling woman who laughs a lot

Norabecka Johnson, a young human woman who seems tired

Geraldofinio Babblecock Nimsy, gnome gentleman who takes pains to maintain a fabulous mustache

Etc.

Then, when the players are like, "Can I go to the blacksmith?" You look at your list of NPCs and the one at the top is Ophelia Bracegurdle. She's your blacksmith now. Then they want to go to the tavern, where Norabecka is the innkeeper and Geraldofinio is a patron having a drink at the bar. He's using a straw so he doesn't mess up his mustache.

If they had gone to the inn first, Ophelia would have been the innkeeper with Norabecka as the patron, and then Geraldofinio should have been a blacksmith with some sort of mustache guard to keep the sparks off.

Making the list ahead of time doesn't take much time, and you can often re-use the people you never got to at the next town.

Your world will seem vibrant and interesting and like you have everything planned out.

Have fun!

[anim-ttrpgs]

If you’ve ever tried to run a “murder mystery” in D&D5e, you know how it goes. There’s not much that can be rolled, the PCs’ abilities barely help them, they get stuck, the DM has to walk them through, etc.

If only there was an better way to do mystery adventures in a TTRPG!

[sheepintheastralsea]

if you are a dungeon master (or even a fantasy author/worldbuilder of any kind) and you don’t know about donjon let me make your life a million times easier

want to make a fantasy calendar with your own year-lengths, weeks, months, and lunar cycles? https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/calendar/

need to come up with some medieval town demographics? https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/

want to make a map and layout of a city/town? https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/town/

want a fleshed-out tavern complete with menu, innkeeper, patrons, rumors, and secrets? https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/inn/

leading your players through a dungeon and want to customize the size, treasure, layout, theme, etc? https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/dungeon/

tired of creating lists of magic items for different shops to sell, or hoards to be looted? https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/magic/shop.html and https://donjon.bin.sh/d20/treasure/

even a customizable initiative tracker! https://donjon.bin.sh/d20/initiative/

and that’s only scratching the surface! I really recommend all dms check this out. oh, and it’s completely free!

[dailyadventureprompts]

Want to know my spiciest d&d take as someone who introduces a lot of people to the game?

Classes (and subclasses) should be rated for complexity, and newer players should be steered away from overly complex options so that they're not asked to do double or triple the work of memorization of other players. This is especially true if the player is going to be slower to pick up on game mechanics, be they young, old, or simply not someone who's very experienced with games in general.

Think about it this way: everyone at the table is expected to learn the base game (what dice to roll, how to pilot their character by talking, actions in combat), some of which is written down but the rest being vibes based and mostly communicated through gentle coaching by the DM. On top of that a portion of your players are going to have to learn how spells work, effectively doubling or trippling their early game class features. This is to say nothing of druids, who not only have to learn all the base features and spells but also have to keep several different statblocks on hand when it comes time to turn into animals/summon familiars. If you have my luck, it's always going to be the shyest/most anxious player at the table who selects the most complicated class, paradoxically meaning the player who's least likely to ask for help is usually in most need of it.

I'm not saying we should restrict all new players to only playing vanilla human champion fighters, but I think a level of oversight is absolutely necessary when guiding new folks into the game. Consider running a trial adventure that's limited to martial classes, introducing a few magic items half way through to give them a taste of what spellcasting could be like.

Forget about the traditional Tank/dps/expert/support/caster party balance, that shit is for experienced players who know what they're doing.

[sonofdysonsphere]

The key to being a good GM in tabletop rpgs is to listen to the same song on repeat and slowly going insane while thinking about a scene you are planning that your players might avoid entirely.

[emeraldmakes]

🏙 𝘾𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙍𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙤𝙢 𝙀𝙣𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨 🌃

Cities are filled with a mix of people with different motives and morals. Who knows what could happen with that many people in one space.

1. Cries for help are heard from a dark alley

2. The town guards arrest one of the (innocent) party members. When questioned, they produce a suspect sketch that looks exactly like said party member

3. Strange noises start coming from a sewer drain

4. A sketchy salesman approaches the party and attempts to sell "wishing scrolls"

5. A stray cat starts following the party

6. The party is stopped as a wedding parade proceeds through the streets

7. An old man who appears to be homeless sits on the corner of the street. He refuses any money or gifts from the party

8. The party finds a shop with a woman who claims to be a fortune teller. Any further investigation reveals her to be a fake, except when the prophecies involve a death

9. A tabaxi cat burglar runs past the party and throws a bag of stolen goods in their direction before disappearing around a corner. Seconds later, town guards appear in pursuit.

10. A Cleric has set up on a corner, providing Lesser Restorations at a discounted price

[mytortoisegotstuckinatupperware]

fun DM tip

out of game, just ask your players to roll a D100 (preferably over text). do not elaborate. keep them guessing.

[sschmendrick]

Every time I look at how to create a world for a campaign or just plan a campaign on the internet you usually get : start small with the town and maybe the few places around, you don't need to know everything about the world to start the campaign.

However what if your players want to create characters that come from beyond that place. You'll need to tell them what the world is like, what others kingdoms and lands there are and what is happening in there for them to be able to put their character in there and know what is going on so they have some guidelines about the world's alliances etc ?

How do you do ? (Also if I'm looking at it wrong please tell me I am but an aspiring DM)

[thirteene42]

if you're struggling to find a way to reward your players for silly things they do as a DM, make them Xbox achievements. If you look up Xbox achievement maker on most browsers it's at the top. they love it. it's enrichment in their enclosure.

[quantumblog]

Brennan Lee Mulligan on TPKs

"The easiest feeling of dread I feel as a dungeon master is in a difficult combat when players start changing their mind turn to turn about what the overall strategy is. That has presaged every TPK I've ever seen. The only times that all the players get wiped out is when someone's like 'We gotta run' and they spend their turn runninng, and the next person is like 'I'm gonna follow them' and the third person says 'Shit, the artifact! I'm gonna swing twice and get the artifact' and then person number four goes 'Are we staying or are we running? I'm gonna cast a spell to try to pull the artifact, OK they saved, shit umm, I'm gonna move into this hedge for better cover for next round' and the first person is like 'Next round?! Well I'm gonna run back then!' and now you're blowing your action economy, and the damage is piling up, and that's when people die."

Worlds Beyond Number Fireside Chat for WWW ep11 "Promises Promises"

[blankd]

DM/GMing Tips

(aka what I learned with my campaign which ran for about 4 years, totaling 131 sessions, so I must have been doing something right)

*these tips are NOT exclusive to DnD, more than one of these is bound to help in running a TTRPG, if you have a specific question, feel free to hit up my askbox

Session 0 is important for setting expectations for everyone involved as well as establishing your safety tools if desired (every table is different).

The game's story is not exhaustively penned by the GM but by the players who will tell the story after the session sends. If you want to tell a specific story, you'll be more fulfilled writing a book.

Have a start and an idea of what the end could be, the rest will be sorted in play. (If you're using a module, read ahead and make notes that are useful for yourself.)

The job of the GM is to put the players in Situations or Throw a Grenade.

Hooks are opt-in and more passive, "I heard there's a dragon", Situations/Grenades are direct and require player input immediately, "there is a dragon attacking RIGHT NOW". There are pros/cons to both, use them to create tempo and tension.

The moment you ask the players what they want to do, the proverbial pen is in their hands. NEVER take away a Player's agency. If logic/mechanics would make that action impossible, present it as such, and let the consequences play out where applicable.

Reward curiosity, if a player asks a question, have an answer, even if it's just flavor. You're also only human, if you need time for the answer, give what relevant info you have in the moment and give a more detailed follow up later if it needs ones. (This is a skill, don't feel bad if you start off with more blanks than answers.)

Provide in-game feedback for actions players take. Not everything needs to have far-reaching repercussions but there should be some kind of cause-and-effect to make the world and the beings living in it feel reactive.

NPCs should have an immediate, but simple purpose and an additional aspect to give them a little meat. If the players take interest in that NPC, you can build them out further through conversation. This will become easier as you get a grip on improv.

Have a list of names or a randomizer if you find you're at a loss for NPC creation.

Have an idea toybox. Players don't know NPCs or encounters they never meet, if they 'miss it' you can turn it into an opportunity to meet them later. There is no science to it, but you'll get a feel for what can be repurposed or upcycled, sometimes that change in context makes them more memorable. Sensibility creates believability, exceptions create curiosity. A 'missed' merchant ending up displaced in a weird location can expand into a better hook than simply being found in a bazaar.

Player cleverness and diplomacy should be rewarded, if they say something convincing, roll with it the best you can. However never forget that the more important/powerful an NPC, the stronger their convictions. Certain NPCs should be beyond convincing and it's up to you to convey that.

Don't forget the spirit of the game! RP can get pretty intense, but at the end of the day this is about COLLABORATIVE imagination and expression. Make the best memories you can.

[firsttimedmsendhelp]

Okay here’s another question for you lovely people who play tabletop rpg games. Where can I get miniatures and terrain for my DnD campaign without it costing an arm and a leg to ship outside of the US? Because I’ll find something on amazon or whatever and the prices are ehhh but yeah I’m willing to pay that much it’s fine every once in a while but then when I wanna check out it’s suddenly double that price? Excuse me? Is this all a sign to DIY my own sets? Where do I even begin. Is this a ploy to trick me into buying a 3D printer? Me? A simple minded maiden from the middle ages who thinks technology is some form of witchcraft and sorcery with a 3D printer? I still don’t know how to switch the keyboards language on my work computer without going into the settings. WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

[oldschoolfrp]

Roleplaying tip: Use props to get into character and keep players excited and engaged (The Bot Abusers Manual, supplement for Paranoia, West End Games, 1992; interior art credited to Rob Caswell with Michael Vilardi)

[dailyadventureprompts]

Hi there! I hope your having a wonderful day!

So i had a question, or more acuratly wanted to ask for some advice. Ive more or less recently started dming, mostly in the form of one-shots for my main group. And ive stumbled across the following issue: while i love the lore building and describing and rp-ing i really struggle with combat. I tend to get overwhelmed and forget about effects and skills, and struggle with coming up with 'battle tactics' (which is what our campaign dm suggested) or make it way to easy because i worry about the players being dissappointed by 'loosing'(eventhough they've mentiones they would love harder combat and would even be okay with a tpk if it was earned)

So do you happen to have any suggestions or ideas on how to practice running and organizing combat and/or scalling or ways to not get so overwhelmed?

(Im sorry if this isnt quite what you do, i just didnt really know who else to ask)

This is ABSOLUTELY what I do friend, every part of the dungeon mastering experience is worth talking about because that's how we improve.

If you're having trouble learning your way around combat you're more than justified: it's a whole second game, and strategic skirmish tactics requires a very different skillset compared to the collabrative storytelling rules you're just now getting a handle on.

First, lets talk about what combat in d&d is even FOR: Fights in d&d are really no different than any other challenge, they're a hurdle you as a DM employ to introduce drama to a narrative and engage your players, not all that different from a locked door or an obstinate NPC that needs to be convinced. The difference is that when you call initiative, you are shining a spotlight on the moment to moment decisions your party makes when time is limited and greatly raising the stakes: Seconds matter in combat, quick thinking matters, mistakes matter.

To use a simple example, recently I ran a road encounter where the party came across a gnomish merchant who's wagon had been attacked by predatory flightless birds. The question wasn't "can the party defeat the birds", I knew they could, the question was " Can the party defeat the birds before they eat this poor gnome who will be a friend/ally to them later"

The reason you're having problem with tactics and being worried about killing your party is that you're thinking about combat as its own isolated thing rather than a dramatic beat as part of a larger story. Most fights in D&D are NOT about attacking the party directly: Instead the baddies have something they want to accomplish (Take, devour, defend, slay) and it's a question of whether the heroes can stop them before they accomplish their mission. Combat only takes 2-4 rounds generally, which is a limited time for your players to put their thumbs on the scale and try to alter the course of events. Tactics are emergent out of goals, so think about what your minions would want to happen and how they would've gone about achieving it before the party comes by to wreckingball through their carefully laid plans.

Another example: An enemy force is attacking a castle the party are guests at, looking to secure hostages in preparation for a coup attempt by a rival noble. While the villains' over all job is to capture pieces, the initial wave of badguys are primarily concerned with slowing the party down to prevent them from interfering with the other attackers around the castle, meaning they'll fight defensively, potshots from cover and barring exits.

When you refocus the badguys' goals away from killing the players and towards things that push the plot in a particular direction (especially one the party would generally like to stop) you’ll have a clearer idea of what the enemies want to be doing, which not only helps you decide how they act, but also pick what enemies go into a fight.

If you're feeling totally overwhelmed another option would be to switch to a game system that focuses less on crunchy combat. It's drastic but everyone has game systems that fit better with their particular DMing style, especially in the early days when you're first developing. I'd highly recommend Forged in the Dark, or Powered by the Apocalypse systems, as they still have the punchy action-forward storytelling of d&d without having to manage much on the mechanics side.