What No One Tells You About DMing D&D

There are SO many videos on D&D advice and DM tips, but most either gloss over or just not talk about some very important aspects of being a good DnD DM.
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[pointyhatstudios]

Tell me about the DnD drama that ended your campaign (for educational purposes, definitely not because I'm nosey)

[sterlinggecko]

being an introvert with a favorite hobby that requires a group of people is a cruel cosmic joke. 🤷

[Wraithward]

8:43 "Not all your friends are D&D friends." Fucking seriously. Thank you SO much for saying this aloud. I've since figured it out myself, but I really needed this message outlined for me like five years ago. It'd of saved sooo much heartache and insecurity and maybe prevented me from believing I can "convert them" to "real roleplaying." God, I wish I could Like this video multiple times.

[purplesugar]

At my table, we follow the mantra "The DM is a player too". Before a campaign each player gets a role. One of us is the recorder, one is the scheduler, one is the rules lawyer, etc. this offloads some of the DM's work, and makes each player more committed to making it to the table.

Been doing that and our group always finishes the campaigns we start, since it feels a lot more like a collaborative effort we all have a stake in and want to see through to the end.

[vatril]

One tip I want to share is: Intermission Campaigns. I was feeling a bit burnt out with my high effort homebrew campaign and couldn't keep up with the writing. So instead of taking a full break I told my players that we will run a pre-written that requires very little prep for a few weeks until I have the time and energy to continue with the main game. That pre-written ended up taking 6 months, but we just restarted with the main game and I am full of ideas and plans again.

Would recommend.

[hillogical]

There's a flip-side to the "feedback" problem. That is GETTING the feedback. I have made projects for friends and have gotten ZERO real, actionable feedback before. Some people are so conflict averse that they will need to have a plank, pitcher of water, and a towel involved just to get ANY feedback out of them. Edit: I just shot that comment from the hip prior to the reveal that some questions were in the description. I'll empty the pitcher.

[elpinguino]

In my table and many I've seen, we use a simple system called "Stars and Wishes" where we the players give me each a Star, something they liked on the session (be it something about the session itself or another player's interpretation) and a Wish, which is something they would like to happen in the following sessions, which can be a wish por the plot, a something they would wish to see changed, whatever there's on their mind. We take 5 minutes at the end of each game for this, and it helped MASSIVELY for my GMing.

[Umlee-Kerymansrivarrwael]

The campaign I am currently running gas been killed, resurrected, killed again, animated as a zombie, slain, made into a flesh golem, slain AGAIN, and finally eaten by a corpse flower. I will never give up on it. It is my child.

[Ariande]

Usually my campaign dies cause i get bored and start a new one. If you have adhd try to run shorter stories. It will help you not wanna start a new game all the time.

[frantremblay]

My ad experience:
"And in this hellspace, I received a lot of a little type of torture called..."
ad begins "Papa Johns!"

[gonaldginkus]

The fact that you illustrate and dramatically narrate sponsor transitions with the same effort as your other illustrated segments is incredible

[catsRPG]

My first D&D game was a lesson I shall never forget.

I was in campaign ran by a friend of mine, an altogether great guy and a great DM - initially. Unfortunately he fell into the category of DMs who rather play computer games than prepare for D&D. And so after a first few great sessions, he opted for the lazy way out.

20 minutes before a session, he would download the first free map he could find (we played on Roll20) and he took the story there. ‘Story’ being a generous word because it made absolutely no sense. We went from a prison to a forest to a sewer to a temple to a dessert to a city street to the moon to… You get the point.

He prepared ONE map with a combat encounter and nothing else. Railroad like you wouldn’t believe it. We couldn’t do anything and we couldn’t go anywhere apart from that one thing we could do. So the session consisted of lots of stonewalling and hampering our way until we ended up going in the direction he wanted us to.

He never directly said no to anything - he would call for a roll, but the result was always a ‘nope’, doesn’t matter if you rolled a 1 or 20.

You need information from the captain of the guard? He says he’ll give it to you, if you do him a favour. Go check on the old hermit living in the forest. He hasn’t been seen for 3 weeks. Can’t send my men to do it, lots of crime around lately, need them in town. Just do this welfare check for me and I’ll tell you everything I know (upon locating the cabin in the woods, the hermit turned out to be deleted by a bunch of undead).

Suppose we want to make a persuasion check to convince the captain to tell us without needing this favour first - a thing of life and death, time is of the essence, blah blah blah. Give me a persuasion check. 1? The captain says ‘this is the deal, take it or get out of my face.’ 20? The captain says ‘really sorry but I need this done, I’m being chased by the mayor, if there was another way I would sob sob just do what I say’.

Time wasting was his forte as he needed to fill a 3 hour session with something and he only had a 30 mins fight prepared.

Are we in a rich quarter or the slums? Give me a perception check. Wait, what? Are the buildings around in good order or rotting wooden frames falling apart? Is the street cobbled or a dirt road covered in mud? Are the people we see distinguished ladies and gentlemen or rough looking folk in threadbare clothes? Why do I need a perception check for? If I look around, is there a chance I will miss any of the above? Just wasting time.

And there was travel. Oh the travel. Every location was apparently 5 days away. Every night he would call 4 tines for a night watch perception roll, for all five days. 20 rolls for no reason, just to waste time. We knew he had no night encounter or ambush prepared, he was just playing for time. He would even roll a d20 and pretend there was something going on behind the scenes. Didn’t matter what we rolled, ever, it was just a distraction. Then every morning he would say ‘what would you like to do?’ How about getting to the fluffing destination? And of course constantly asking if there’s anything we would want to do. As in ‘role-play for half an hour, need to waste some more time before I throw you on the one map I got ready to go, we don’t want the session to end in one hour.’

Apart from that one time when he tried to railroad us into taking a wanted person to a location, and sensing it was a trap, we refused to go and started looking for alternate ways. He called for a break 30 mins into the session, then 20 mins later, as we were about to return, he just posted in Discord ‘Do you want to call it for the day as something has come up on my end’. Yes, something has come up on your end indeed, your railroad failed and the only thing you had prepared is useless now and you don’t know what to do for the next 2 hours.

And of course, then there was the last minute cancellations as he ‘wrote’ 😂 himself into a corner. 20 minutes before session start we get a message - ‘there is no D&D today btw as I’m helping my sister move’. Because he didn’t know that yesterday. Or the day before. Or the whole entire week before. No time to reschedule, see you next week. Or telling us how ‘busy’ he is, but every time you look in Discord he’s online playing MMOs.

After one session, we told him we were going to raid a pirate ship next time, as a heads-up. Next game didn’t happen until 3 weeks later, this time for IRL player reasons. He had whole 3 weeks to get something prepared and what did he do? Download a ship map and populate it with NPCs… The pirate captain, described previously as a ‘wizard-looking type in robes’, his first officer, described previously as ‘massive dude in full plate mail’… AC10, 4 hit points. So was the entire pirate crew. 3 weeks to produce this… Garbage. I left after that. He never asked why I’ve left or what the problem was.

I became a DM after that and I swore I never do the things he did. Turns out being on the receiving end of a shit-show teaches you a lot about what to avoid if you don’t want to ruin your game. Thanks for the lesson Zach.

[Sir_Lorekeep]

DM tip for custom monsters for those of you who want to have unique monsters, but don't have enough time to make every monster stat block by yourself: just reflavor an existing monster. Alter damage types, or give it a new trait, ability, or resistance/vulnerability, and bam! New monster. Got a bear? Give it a flying speed, the Firebolt cantrip with con as the castng skill, and resistance to fire damage and hey! It's the Lesser Fire Drake.

[ts]

Great Video, I agree with almost everything. One problem that isn't mentioned though and that is often overlooked ist the asymmetrical amount of effort and expectations that are put on the dungeon master and the player.
The typical gamester invests much more time and often money in the gaming session than the average player. The moment the session starts he has already invested a lot of resources and wants the session to be a success to get something out of this investment. The Player just needs to show up and is just investing the time for the session itself. And this investment of time is happening in the moment: If you do not get what you want out of it you can just go, do something else, mentally check out or start an off topic conversation with your friends.
That is compounded by the fact that the gamemaster can not stop playing without the game coming to an end and game mastering can be very demanding. Individual gamers only control their character and can check out at any moment without the game stopping.
That can very easily lead to gamemaster burnout, especially when you have a GM that wants to get better and wants constructive criticism, but doesn't see that it is not his responsibility alone to have a fun session.
I see it as my responsibility as a player to make sure that everyone has fun. That means I support the GM by following its plot, I try to learn the rules, I make sure everyone gets the spotlight and I help the beginners.
I had a funny conversation a few weeks ago with another player. He wanted to do a really cool thing, but there was a lot going on and the DM kind of forgot. And he talked to me after the session and said: "yeah well I was kind of tired and down and didn't really felt like reminding the DM. And than I told him that this kind of ruined the evening for me and he (the dm) took that very hard."
And I was like: "Yeah he took it very hard, I mean you didn't remind him so that is kind of on you." "What? no its his job to run the session, he didn't do it." "No it is the job of everyone at the table to make sure we have a great session and that everyone has fun. He already prepped and run the game. What did you do?"

tl, dr: a very often overlooked fact is that a lot of player behavior, especially not taking responsibility, can really negatively impact the GMs motivation and lead to campaigns ending.

[kisahhk]

Another important point about improving scheduling is the high expectations for sessions that are between 3 and 6 hours long. What helped our group keeping a regular schedule was doing "short" 2 hours sessions which are much easier to include in a busy schedule, sometimes even doing a couple a week when we can.

[questionswithbaldbryce]

Since I returned to DnD in 2020, I have completed 7 campaigns and only had 1 fizzle out. What is my secret?

1) shorter campaigns. Build them in ways that could continue if the players demand a “second season”, but satisfying if they don’t.
2) shorter sessions. With having kids and friends who have kids, I had to get used to shorter sessions. I’m talking 1.5-2 hours. But they great! They improved my description skills, only allow players to go so much off the rails before I can prep more stuff, and make a great date night for married with kids folks.
3) play with who shows up. I have a hard rule of “if I have ONE player available who wants to play, I play”. What that means is people who are invested in the game never face disappointment of not playing one evening (which prevents player burn out), and players who might not be as invested need to decide whether they are going to make it a priority or get left behind.

Not for everyone, but these things have REALLY worked for me :) GREAT VIDEO!

[DangerDurians]

On the criticism note, I read something a while back that really helped me,
Criticism is easier to take (and understand) when framed based on what something does, not what it doesn’t do
The example I was given was for books

“this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals".
Becomes
"the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

[bradprutzman]

Your hard-core scheduling of every week at the same time and place is enormously important. My Tuesday 6pm group has been playing for 5 years. Sometimes a player (including me) has to miss a week, but the game goes on. We take an occasional break for a holiday, but even that is discussed weeks in advance. When you know the game is going to happen with or without you it provides a lot of motivation to be there! This is the best scheduling advice I've ever heard and I attest that it works!

[claudiaborges]

I’d add to the expectations part:
-Tone
-DMing style
-If and how backstories relate to the game
-If and which characters roles players should fill
-what kinda challenges they’ll have to face
-how players should expect to interact with the world or have stuff happen to them
-how much seemingly random and sudden bs happens in the story
-even the which “6 cultures of play” (basically the underling philosophy of the game) from that one article which the questing beast made a video about

[DBArtsCreators]

I actually ask players for feedback (hell, I ask people for feedback in general), but the biggest issue I've always had ever since I was a kid is that no one EVER wants to give it when asked; they only want to 'give it' when they are annoyed, angry or otherwise in a bad mood & looking to take it out on someone.
Could just be the people around me, but unless it was a teacher I'm just about never able to get anyone to give me any feedback whatsoever (positive or negative. At most just a vague 'I like it!' or 'I don't like it.', followed by the person's complete refusal or inability to explain why they feel that way to any extent); and pressuring people to any extent for more info has always just led them to being upset with me.

Frustrating as hell, because is makes me feel like either my stuff is boring & I'm just being humored for the sake of my feelings, or I'm secretly a joke to them and just an excuse for people to hang out.
An underlying tendency towards paranoia & assumptions on my part does not help matters.