#dm 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. 

Overhauling Exploration with the Illuminated Room System

Artsource

Despite playing D&D for over 20 years, every so often I'll encounter a bit of DM advice that completely changes the way I run my games. When it happens, it often feels like I've discovered a way we were always SUPPOSED to be playing, solving a problem that I'd had for years and sending me into a rage spiral about why no one seemed to figure this out back when I was first learning the game.

Lo and behold, two of my favourite online DM channels happen to hit upon the same idea mere months apart.

TLDR: To improve the efficiency and clarity of our exploration based gameplay, we should borrow from videogame UI design which makes it easy for players to know what to do by highlighting things players can interact with. From there, escape room design takes over, as interaction reveals new information, challenges, and puzzles. 

More ideas about how to use this system (and my own ideas about spicing it up) under the cut.

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.

Introducing - Fabulous Fuablo's Fantastical Pets

A travelling pet store that appears right when it needs to, full of tiny adorable animals that will tempt your players and force them to come together to count gold for how much that fuckin bespectacled baby bat is.

“The sweeping hills of Faerun unfold before you as your epic adventure begins. Your companions beside you and a sword at your back, you walk.” We’ve all heard these words before. They’re the flowery language that Dungeon masters try to employ when they want to immerse their players in the game. As every player knows, these kinds of descriptions don’t always do the trick. While you can’t force your players to be perfectly immersed, there are some tactics that can help.

1. Music

Music is used in almost every piece of media it can be to immerse viewers into the story. Having some kind of background music can change the tone of a scene drastically. Although, just playing any kind of background music isn’t going to work.

1a. Playlists for Vibes

Doing a bit of deep diving into the themes that you want to explore in your campaign is integral to this step. For example, if you’re doing a typical DnD adventure, you will definitely want a “Travel” or “Happy” playlist. On the other hand, if you’re doing a dark, spooky campaign, you may want to have a “Suspense” or “Eerie” playlist on hand.

Here are a few ideas for playlist vibes to help you get started!

Travel

Calm

Battle

Happy

Suspense

Danger

1b. Playlists for Places

Discovering the tone of the locations in your world is a whole other blog post entirely, but once you have them in mind, you can start making your playlists. Having playlists for a location can help give players an idea of what that area might be like and they will act accordingly. These places can be as broad as “Forested Area” or as specific as “The Mischief Inn”. 

When deciding, try to think about how you want your players to behave in these areas. How cautious do you want them to be with their actions? How do you want them to act around NPCs? How should they treat problems that they face? Combine these answers, and then find music that evokes the right mood to prompt those behaviors. 

1c. Playlists for Characters/NPCs

Presentation is always key when it comes to introducing a character. Havinig certain songs that go along with NPCs greatly improves presentation! Assigning one song or in particular to a character can once again set the tone, but also make for some fun moments. 

Picture this: your players have had a long fight through a dungeon, they’re on the way to rescue a beloved NPC, but haven’t found them yet, then suddenly there are those familiar beginning notes to the NPC’s song! The table erupts in excitement and your player’s gusto is once again restored. These fun moments can be absolutely pivotal for campaigns when your players are beginning to feel a bit worn down. 

2. Address the Characters, Not the People

(Peep the Dropout reference)

Players getting to feel like they are their character in the world fighting monsters is the fun of DnD. So, you should address your players as such. If you want them to feel like they are their characters, you should also view them as their characters. Instead of “What does Alvera do?” ask “Alvera, what do you do?” 

You can also remind players to have discussions in character. If players are talking about their plans for a heist, but they’re doing it all out of character, encourage them to have that talk in character instead! Putting your players into the position of their character making decisions on the fly is the perfect immersive tool.

3. Actions Before Rolls

Describing complicated maneuvers and convoluted plans is the heart of DnD. The plan is often far more important than the roll itself, and that is why I always ask my players to describe their action before they roll. This tip is something that I include in my set of “rules” that I’ve created over my years of being a DM. 

This may look something like a player usually saying “Can I roll perception?” While this is okay, it doesn’t give much context as to what they’re trying to do or learn from this roll. A better sentence would be “While I’m walking into the tavern, I want to look around and see if I spot anyone who matches the description of the person we’re looking for.” That way, I as the DM know 1) What the player is looking for, and 2) How to give them an answer that will set them properly in the scene. 

4. Let Your Players Do Cool Things

“The Rule of Cool” is the idea that a DM will abide by this rule and allow players to do certain things, even if it doesn’t completely follow the game rules. I do this quite often in my games since I tend to be a roleplay heavy DM and don’t often care as much for sticking to the rules. 

Although, you don’t have to throw away the rules to let your players do cool things. Doing things like providing inspiration in a dire moment, having an NPC help a player on a roll, or even helping your players make new mechanics for their characters can make the game so much more fun. Creating a game where your players feel comfortable to ask you to do the “cool” things is the most important part.

Conclusion

Eros via DM: some tips

Eros via DM: unos consejos

Vamos con algo distinto que no suelo hacer y que espero que no me de problemas. Recupero una vieja respuesta dada a un Ask que me pedía consejo para el proceso de charlas íntimas por mensajería instantánea o DM. Era mejor republicarlo que hacer reblog para editar palabras usadas y ofrecerlo también en mi idioma, pero no he querido ampliar la información que trae para que quede más claro lo básico. Podría escribir un manual, y no porque sea muy buena, sino porque he vivido muchos errores…