𝐋𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐞 - Reduce prep time and improve your games with this monthly D&D magazine ▶▶ www.patreon.com/thedmlair 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐌 𝐋𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞 - Get back issues of Lair Magazine, map packs, 5e adventures, and other DM resources ▶▶ the-dm-lair.myshopify.com/ 𝗧𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 - Get your DM questions answered ▶▶ www.twitch.tv/thedmlair 𝐃𝐌𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐑.𝐂𝐎𝐌 - Get free D&D 5e adventures and DM resources ▶▶ www.thedmlair.com/ 𝐍𝐄𝐖𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 - Get free D&D 5e adventures and DM resources in your email ▶▶ thedmlair.getresponsepages.com/
What's this "four hour session" thing? I've DM'd, I kid you not, a THIRTY-HOUR session before. Sure, pizza breaks and head calls, but no sleepy-sleepy time. Sure, most sessions are in the 14 hour range. But FOUR HOURS? Everyone would be "Why are we quitting already?!"
Don't ask if they had fun, ask how they would want me to improve things. It makes them think your looking for constructive criticism and they are likely to respond
This. What kind of monster would tell their DM they don’t like their choices to their face? So don’t ask that question because it doesn’t really tell you much.
yeah - it's like when your kid comes to you, "hey dad, look at this house i built in Minecraft, isn't it cool?" there's only one answer. For a good primer on how to collect real feedback, i'd recommend a book called "the mom test"
"Give quiet players time to give feedback too." Holy shit thank you so so much for this. I am actually tired of being talked over in not only rp.. but also when giving feedback that at most points i just shut up ahd shrug. Extroverted players need to calm thier jets a bit and let the rest of us rp or talk.. and im not talking about when there is nothing left to talk/rp about.
Same. Unfortunately when I was shrinking back from spotlight my DM just took that as a sign and avoided casting spotlight on me for most of the campaign except for like once in a while when I'm totally not ready because I'm not given chances to get used to it 😂
I know roughly where my strengths and shortcomings are as a DM. I'm bad at describing areas my players find themselves in, which I alleviate by making very detailed maps. I'm horrible at prepping for a specific session, but I'm a master at improvising, so I've added a lot of rollable tables, lore, mechanics and other systems before I started the campaign, to facilitate that style of DM'ing so I have the tools for most situations.
I'm pretty much the same; my verbal skills are sub par so I use visuals instead. I use Inkarnate for regional and city maps and I use Dungeon Painter Studio for encounter maps. They're both excellent tools and I have immense fun playing with them and building my world.
I agree 100% with you. Any and all game masters have their strengths and shortcomings, you just have to be mature enough to recognize them sincerely and start working to: 1. Work around your weaknesses 2. Improve those weaknesses 3. make the most out of your strenghts If you're a great improviser, it makes no sense to prepare a game which relies heavily on prep and interconnection of details, like an intricate murder mistery. On the other hand, it's very interesting to once in a while try to challenge yourself, but that has to be a very conscious decision as well
I found my players talking about the campaign and what they wanted to do next. They even ask questions about places and history of the world. When they are doing this you know they are really in to it.
One thing I always do at the end of a session is High, Low, Hope. So they can tell me what was the best thing about the session, what was the worst thing and what they would like to see going forward. I borrowed that from theater :D
For the DM who is about to tpk their party, you might also consider throwing in a big red flag for them that they will die if they continue. Have them find a skeleton at the entrance with a note telling the horrors of the bbeg and how he barely escaped but is too injured to leave or something like that.
as someone who very well intended it for my impossible experience in the future. I really dont think handing the world to your players is a good sign either, you shouldn't also constantly overbear their actions so they'd plummet automatically-it's both atrociously unoriginal and time wasting for the peeps who came to, idk, roleplay ffs
Although that might just tell them the BBEG is evil and needs to be stopped. And it might entice them to save the day as the heroes by stopping the evil villain.
@@jacoboverstreet8553 a good way to warn the players is a “show of power”. For example, let’s say the bbeg is a dragon and the players want to kill it. As they approach, let the dragon already have someone around and as the party sees that, the dragon nukes the poor souls. Or maybe a nearby village is an unsuspecting victim. Either way, the party has no excuse to misunderstand what that thing is ready to do 😅
My current group is v conscious. They're like children determined to emotionally support the baby sitter so even if I as a new DM can't fully organize and focus on the quite people they will which is a nice group to have as a new DM. 😊
to avoid anchoring bias and groupthink, the best and fastest way to collect feedback is with post-it notes where people write their feedback individually without hearing what others are saying and then put it on the wall
I occasionally ask for a wisdom check from a paladin or cleric in the scenario of low health and time sensitive and then - the god of the cleric can indicate to the player character what is important
That still feels a little too hands on and specific to the group its better to let them just go through like Luke said or if annnnnnything maybe hide a few small healing potions through the dungeon so they still have to earn them
Thank you got touching on the self doubt, Luke. I feel like with how popular D&D has become, it’s hard not to compare oneself to streams, UA-camrs, etc. Or feel like you’re “copying” them if you have a similar encounter or use a same monster. It’s like no I just like Sphinxs I don’t care if Critical role or so and so used it. 😫
I pride myself in being a fair DM who trys to facilitate fun at the table, but I'm also lazy with prep, and am not great at belivable improvised roleplay for NPCs.
Something that helps: be calm upfront and fair as often as you can. You can be very open and fair or tough on your players and even explain why. This creates a judicial and non-judgmental attitude will make them much more honest and open if you ask if there were things they didn't like. So try to bring a good calm attitude to each session
@@theDMLair it's really hard to remember and to do, but being DM means you have to be a nonbiased referee. At least a lot of the time. It's hard work. But doing this makes them feel comfortable sharing more
Yeah that's rough. When I run online games having a camera is a virtual requirement. I bill it as "strongly recommended" but if none of my players had cameras, I probably wouldn't be able to effectively run the game, and I probably wouldn't want to. I want to SEE people I'm playing the game with.
Ironically enough my in person group when we moved online, I really wanted to use something like zoom or skype to have video (they didnt so we didnt). However, my online group i DM, I'm fine with only being voice. If they would rather have camera, I'm fine with that. But dont feel its necessary.
Difficult encounters make great stories. If the players make the situation more difficult with bad decisions it's win win for you really. If they fall, it's on them and there will be a good talk regarding about things that may be done differently, and if they prevail then they've had a fantastic experience with no extra effort on your end other than allowing the dice to fall where they may.
As long as difficult encounters aren't the only encounters. If the players never get a chance to feel good about themselves, they very quickly become dumb to the risk of death. That said, if the combats are difficult but fair and consistent, then the party can take actions to increase their odds. Unfortunately my experience has been that people who love to make encounters difficult(not those who love to make difficult encounters), don't care about being consistent arbiters of the world, only antagonists who win the wargame
Casting Calm Emotions on a Dominated party member was something I did quite often in the Badurs Gate video games. It did not dispel the Dominate, just suppress it, so if the duration of Calm Emotions was shorter the Dominate would kick back in. So you had to kill the person who cast Dominate before that happened. Legit tactic.
This would have been a great video even if it had only been the first five minutes. And it's nearly six times that length! A true treat. I will be sharing this with my less than confident DM in the future.
I feel like the more I've obsessed over what the Internet said makes a good DM, the worse I became. The only things I feel that matters is was it fun? If not that's what you have to fix.
Very much so, cause the internet is filled with random people and random people are... Sht They're has been so much horrible advice and demands that will hurt your game. If you want good advice, esperthebard, dm lair and how to be a great dm. Primarily them as they'll pay what's important, inspiration for the story, how to run the game. Not just "my dm didn't let me pick pocket the kind crown off his head or f the dragon"
My players are laughing and engaging, but when its not their turn and someone else does RP 2 out of 4 still look at their phones and sometimes need to be clued in to what happened. The last two read rulebooks instead. No avoiding that. Banning phones just takes more fun away because it feels oppressive and forced. I'm a introvert and not really filling the room as a DM. I just play the world responding to players and rarely impose turbulence on them. That's the most i can do without burnout. I'm not feeling bad since it is just as much the players job to fuel the game. When im already doing better than them at putting energy into the game, i don't have much reason to do even more to pull them in. It is important to have fun yourself, so you should put more thought into that instead of catering more.
"Hey (player looking at phone), you good? Just making sure, it seems like you checked out of the game there. Is something wrong? Are you not having fun? Is there something I can do better or is there something you were hoping to do?"
@@jamesstrickland8696 "Uhhhh, i don't know. All good" is what comes as a response. Tried that stuff already. Written in private too. Calling them out in front of the group makes them unhappy though when they weren't unhappy before.
You sound passive aggressive and conflict avoidant. You should be having that conversation with your players, instead of thinking "FINE. HAVE IT YOUR WAY. I'M ALREADY DOING MORE WORK THAN YOU!"
@@J05TI tried that, got the impression that they do not know what they actually want and want me to find out by playing. So the solution is to just throw stuff at them until something sticks. That quote is true came after experimenting for years to cater to them. Now im just tired.
When I started playing 5e, I never really DMed before despite playing may versions of D&D. In my first campaign as a DM (LMoP). The players were very active in saying things like. I don't get it, why are we doing this etc. I realized I was focused on combat and die roll, mechanics and not story or game play. I dumped the campaign there and then. I asked the party for another shot as a DM with a new campaign (OotA). Took a couple of weeks off. Watched a lot of videos like DM Lair, Great GM etc. Went into the new campaign with a fresh strategy. I still have most of the same group. DMing is now fun, players seem more engaged.
One thing I will say is important for any GM to avoid them saying things like that. Make sure your players always have a goal or direction and know it. If they do not they will get bored and either not be interested, or get bored and entertain themselves by going off the rails.
@@nature_laughslast6438 In general, my thought is, if they're going to complain or be critical, fair enough. Especially in my case. It wasn't the fault of the players. My aim now is to not give then a reason to complain again. It was easy to think about throwing in the towel. Group is still going, I'm still DMing.
@@TheNanoNinja Keep pressing on. I watched a ton of videos similar to yourself and did everything I could to improve. Honestly some days the group is just not feeling things. Many times the adventure is meh.. not all modules are good all the way through. But you always hope to get more consistency over time and be open to improvement. GL.
First thing I would recommend when you are doubting yourself is asking the party for improvement suggestions. If they say only minor improvements you're probably pretty solid, but if they say something about a thing you do often there's a big indication that you need to improve. Them coming every session is already an important indicator, if you try to improve yourself the party will definately appreciate the effort.
In regards to the wasp dungeon, one option in game that could make things interesting is to offer healing through "magic wasp honey," but with a cost. The stuff could potentially highly addictive (so there are now saves involved to avoid spending turns compulsively eating more), or could cause lethargy because it's super dense (think like the effects of the Slow spell). This way, you can offer a form of healing that stays in-world, but isn't just a handout because there is a risk element to it. Just my thoughts
Thanks so much for these suggestions, these are very useful questions! I'm coming to the end of a campaign now and want to check in with them to see what they would change and also see whether they want to continue with some of the ideas I have, play a different campaign or do something different altogether. They keep showing up, but I have to admit that I am terrified that they are all just humouring me!
I ran a holiday themed oneshot for a group I'm a player in and who I had never DMed for before. After the game a player asked me where I got the module from and I told him I made it myself and he was surprised because he thought I had gotten it from a professional and wanted to know where he could get ones like it. Best compliment I have ever received in DnD
Along with being careful of changing to much, remember that sometimes people think they want you to change something, but will have regrets after the change. This is like if you give them too much loot rewards and it kills the motivation. Little changes will also help you know what helped instead of trying to figure out which of thew 12 changes you made hurt the game.
If it's a living, breathing world, taking a long rest would still be a mission that failed under a time crunch. It's no different than if we went in, decided it was too much and left. We would fail the mission either way. So, as a player, I'm gonna to make the attempt.
I've had two groups TPK. The first started with the party splitting up. The second started with them letting them two low-level enemies escape to warn basically the entire dungeon floor they were there, turning what should have been three or four separate and manageable encounters into one big one. The thing with that one was that a similar thing had happened to a smaller extent in a previous dungeon, and they did nothing to prevent or mitigate it the second time.
I tend to start a new group of gamers off with scenarios I KNOW they can win even with the worst tactics. I am at first just gauging their level of tactical acumen. I very slowly increase the challenges they face as they go forward, trying to teach them any pitfalls of their approaches. I very much do not want TPKs, and I have always managed to avoid that.
@@panpiper New players, sure. When a group of experienced players does something dumb, though, and doesn't try to fix or get out of the situation, I let it play out.
Things that I can do better - remembering setting lore. Names and dates are not a strong suite - CR and pacing. First two sessions, because I was bad at assessing CR and with exp, the party leveled up. Twice. So now I'm trying to figure out how to make effective combat encounters. Unfortunately, we can't meet up with the restrictions that aren't likely to end any time soon, so the observations are not going to be easy to do.
I mean, early combat encounters can be like that. It’s usually a loaded gun though, since it’s just as easy to TPK a party as it is to give them a level up way to easily, I’d just go above what they can fight safely and have options for revival even after a TPK (I.E.:that Druid they met earlier cast reincarnate and brought them back half a continent away).
@@williamwontiam3166 I do have a solution for TPK. The god of the dead will offer to resurrect him, if they are willing to take care of a false cleric who blasphemes by digging up the dead and sending the souls of the dead to someone other than the proper deities (and details redacted if they might come across this)
One of the hardest thing for me as a DM is knowing if I’m being unreasonable or the players are just gaslighting me. An example was when most of the players had accepted a ruling that anyone could make an unarmed strike as a bonus action (not just Monk). I told them only Monk could do that and some complained over me “nerfing” the players. They also believed that you could cast more than one leveled spell per turn, but I told them they could only cast one leveled spell per turn. Again, more complaining. One player even left when he thought I nerfed rogue by making a ruling on hiding in combat, specifically you don’t get advantage on an enemy who is alert to you by hiding behind cover and then jumping back out of cover to attack them.
About hiding - you kinda do (get the advantage). Not only it's RAW, and it's not nearly OP or something (especially since Tasha's and Aim), it actually makes sense. Combat is chaotic. Remember that all the things players do in a single round all happen during the same 6 seconds. In those conditions, it's impossible to "be alert" to everything, you can't constantly be ready for that Rogue to jump out of cover and attack you, even if you know he's there. In combat, just losing an enemy out of sight by turning away would put you at a disadvantage, not to mention if said enemy is actively trying to hide their presence. If it was something that player liked to do, I totally get why they left when you forbade them to use a game mechanic as it was supposed to.
This has worked for me: I ask my players every once in a while after a session or in between "questions? comments? Concerns?" And I'll ask them individually usually.
the wizard just sabotaged his whole defence, by ordering the naga to wait till the players restore their powers. the naga should've killed them while they were asleep
Post session I always ask my players for constructive criticism to better curate the game to their play styles. Nothing feels better than before even asking, hearing them say "that was a great session!"
Great Video - jotting down your three questions and waiting til session 4 to toss them at the party (we've done 2 so far in the campaign). I've heard it said that the GM is the department of problems and consequences (In service if making a fun and interesting game). So, you want to rest in the middle of a hostile dungeon? 'hope you have a guard with a plan . . . or a Rope Trick Spell!
Remember that your players are not GMs: their criticism might not even be appropriate or true in most cases. What you should go for is the emotion they were feeling at certain key moments. Knowing how they felt might help you better than suggestions.
Some players have experience DMing for other campaigns, but most of them are familiar enough with the game to know what is appropriate/true in most scenarios, saying they don't know what they're saying just because "players are not Game Masters" (wich is just unrelated and you don't know if it's even true) is super patronizing, dude.
@@claire3614 if your players happen to also be GMs, then their advice will certainly hold more value than regular players. And that is IF they understand your intentions when you present them with something or when you adjudicate something whichever way. There's no patronizing here: sometime information has value, sometime it doesn't. As you grow and become better, you'll learn to make the difference. That's called deductive reasoning. The reason why you don't go hunting for criticism or advice is because it might not be useful, or even damaging in some cases. That's why I say you should instead focus on the emotion that they felt at key points in the game.
@@bonbondurjdr6553 I'm not assuming, but that sounds like the kind of DM that likes to antagonize players, be the enemy instead of a storyteller, and assume you know better than anybody else at the table because you are DMing and that's it. The value on an advise comes from more than just "you are a DM, therefore you are correct, period.". We all should accept constructive criticism, regardless of from where is coming from, and don't assume you know better because you are the DM and therefore you are the absolute law on everything, that way you are missing out a lot of feedback and people will eventually get tired of never changing narrative that doesn't accept the opinion and feelings of the players (the people that are ment to enjoy this GAME, you know?). As a piece of advice for you, just try to accept this advice instead of jumping all defensive, maybe? I don't think that "listen to your players and don't assume their opinions are less valuable than yours" is a bad advice in any scenario. But who knows.
@@claire3614 Everybody at the table should enjoy the game. I'm not being antagonistic: I'm simply stating the value of not relying on feedback and to use deductive reasoning. I'm not correct because I'm the GM, period. I'm just stating, once more, that the players do not have the same burden as a GM. As such, their advice comes from a different mindset than yours. Sometimes it will have value and sometimes it won't, you have to use technics to get the information you need/want and your brain rather than just accept everything as good feedback. But you're not understanding the nuance of what I'm saying, do you?
I thought I was ugly in my youth. It didn't even begin to dawn on me that that might not be true until around the age of 18 when I discovered that women were receptive to my approaches and that I was being constantly hit on by my gay friends.
Honestly this makes me understand all those crazy DMs who do crazy sessions online that often end up in horror stories. If you are expected to have a deep social understanding to somehow figure out someone's emotional state over the course of 4 hours based just on tone of voice and attentiveness (when tabbing and multitasking is a thing), while juggling 3-5 other people AND rolling background tables, enemy encounters + their rolls, looking up statblocks and notes about the adventure and dungeon, I definitely know I'm not fit for that sort of thing. The whole thing makes me want to outright give up on being a "good DM" and just insert whatever makes me happy in my games and let the players deal with it or leave if they want. As much crap as we give DMs who magic realm their players I think they are happier than a DM that needs to stress over so much book keeping.
I recently lost my first player after years of dming and It really was a blow to my confidence. I was having a hard time keeping things fun for them when they'd split from the party for long periods of time. My other players have been showing up for months on this most recent campaign though so I have to assume people are having fun.
To the person asking the first question: the fact you're worried about it at all shows you're probably doing a good job. Bad GMs tend to be selfish, unconcerned about what their players want. Odds are you're experiencing something called _imposter syndrome._ The solution is usually to demand less of yourself - don't worry about perfection, just do what you can to be your best self. This is extremely counterintuitive: if someone demands perfection, it's a sign they expect you to fail.
Do the work... AND since you actually care about the "job" you're doing, you WILL improve over time. I used to struggle horribly with whether I was "worth a damn" or not... I always tried little steady improvements... I'd listen to the "Table Chatter" to take notes during snack breaks and other pauses... after sessions while we packed up to go home... that kind of thing... I'd build my own prop's and maps... learned a fair bit of "antiquing" materials so they'd look old, even if it was cheap and quick and easy... brand new... AND I'd try to catch the Players between sessions, ask questions if I could away from the Table... usually about "what's working" or "what needs to stop or diminish"... and such... It would give them space to tell me about their honest thoughts without a crowd to see or hear them "tear it down" as such... I quit worrying about it so much when I started noticing Players were regularly talking "Game Talk" outside of the sessions... Whether they were plotting on my latest boss or something, or they were regaling someone else of their favorite bits of the adventure... it didn't matter. I'd engaged them so hard, they were still talking about it DAYS later... sometimes weeks or MONTHS after. When you notice that kind of engagement, you just sort of "know"... you can't be bad at this GM-thing and get that... ;o)
Well, I have been a DM for quite few years now. (11) I really didn't want the job. Yet, I am actually enjoying the "custodial" role. My worst XP as a PC: 3rd level party.. made a tumble check on top of a tower. A rope check to get around the ogre's neck, and a rope check around the pillars to strangle the ogre and tied it off. Well, turned out, the DM didn't have much lined up. Didn't really want to play and my party members were tearing up the monsters . He asked me to make another check. 🤷 Dude, it's tied off. What ✅ check? (So we didn't play again after that.) I learned from that and everything I do is a constant learning process including RPG. 🤣 "3rd level elf rogue whacked your heavy hitter with a rope. Now you're mad!" (I would be proud of my players. Not like I have a shortage of monsters.)
This video is my constant anxiety while running 😆. I know I'm not perfect, but I do know that they are having fun at least because for the most part the ones who are more active players are engaged. The more passive players are doing what they always do, but they still laugh along with the jokes and funny stuff that happens throughout the sessions and at least seem to be following the situation for the most part. 😁
For the BM not wanting to kill his party if it makes sense given the villain, and if they are cocky enough, you can give exactly one mulligan. Do not heal them, but if the villain is very sure of themselves and have them say that it’s not worth fighting the party when the cards are back so far against them and have him send them to the nearest town (or just walk away himself). It can only really work once per campaign, and only if the villain is cocky. And also really only works whenever the party is in the single digits of level.
If they are in bad shape and it's a ticking time clock just throw an encounter at them that you are fairly sure they can handle and make a staff of healing the loot
My last session, the players chose not to go find a safe place to even short rest after a mini boss fight. They then triggered a trap that knocked one of them unconscious and animated a trio of animated armor and their flying Swords. After using very bad tactics, they barely made it out of the fight, and still chose not to go find somewhere to rest. They triggered the next trap as well, which knocked the same player unconscious again. STILL they chose to push on without resting, despite knowing they were about to confront the big bad of the adventure. Ultimately they all fled, abandoning the barbarian as a sacrifice to cover their escape.
On the topic of the group that was about to go into the dungeon really messed up. The other thing you can do is let them heal up, get better prepared, etc... then let them go back through the dungeon. Don't tell them they were too late, let them DISCOVER that they were too late.
One I like is to ask them to "collectively come up with something that would make the game better." Kind of like giving someone the blank in a firing line, everyone has deniability. Additionally it's more ambiguous than something like "what could I do to make the game better?" So it encourages more honest. I don't do "what's good" and/or "bad" because that's too subjective, some people like constant battles, some would rather not even fight at all. All the important points will come out, for the party as a whole rather than specifically catering to a single player.
I would say if something wild is happening while they long rest they should get some hint to it while they rest. Like footsteps on the other side of the door or footprints in the morning or maybe a scream/howl/noise in the distance or eerie fog/cold This way they wake up knowing something happened and that their rest let more stuff happen, if there's no hint then they might think the encounter was always going to be as it was
My group recently had a TPK because of a combination of making a poor decision and rolling poorly on their dice. The party went to a rival guild's formal party because they needed to kill an enemy from another guild who was invited to the party. He teleported away, but the party killed two members of the rival guild, which caused the guild's order of assassins to start tracking them down. A few days later, the assassins (3) found the party (6) and surprise attacked them while they were sleeping at their house, starting a combat. While they kept missing their attack rolls, the assassins rolled almost 10 natural 20s throughout the fight (one of them had the assassin stat block, the other two were weaker). It didn't take long for the combat to progress to the point of no return, and the session ended when the last player died. It was the party's first TPK, but they all agreed that the TPK was still fun.
I was running dungeon of the mad mage and the layers took a long rest in the middle of the marsh level where there are two spirit naga's and a bone naga that they had already previously killed so i had them set up an ambush after they cam back at full strength, they bottle necked and this is already after one of their side kicks had died. My party are now suffering still major consequences because one of them touched a shrine from yuan-ti god of nightmares and s sitting at two levels of exhaustion after not being able to get proper sleep. Some party members are suffering diseases also. The cleric cannot swap out their spells until they find some fish to sacrifice to their evil deity it is all going well. Now all of this i had given them all the knowledge they needed to avoid nearly all of this unnecessary pain but low and behold they ignored it.
The biggest determining factor, for me, to know if my players are enjoying my game is when the session is over and they talk to me about new things they want to do with their character in the next few sessions. If they're not enjoying the game, they're not going to talk to you about ideas for their character.
Another good way to receive (more) honest feedback is not to ask questions that have a straight "yes/no"-answer or to ask to be "rated out of 10" but instead to ask about an area that you did well in - and an area that could still use some improvement. You can even phrase it in a way that coaxes honest answers out of your players by saying something like "nobody's perfect and I'd really like to improve my craft as a DM, so please be honest and give me an area where I could still improve and a short reasoning as to why". Most people will - even if they want to sugarcoat - at least be honest to the extend of telling you that "your descriptions of rooms that we explore could still be slightly more descriptive" or something alike, after praising what you did well for a paragraph or two.
I really like the three questions: What would you like to see more of? What would you like less of? What would you like to see specifically happen with your character? I also told my players that I’m using our D&D games as “Public speaking and problem solving sessions with an adult peer group” to improve my public speaking for work and I need feedback that I can report. So I passed out a survey where they ranked 1-10 Preparation, Presentation Flow, Speaker Confidence, Enjoyment of the Presentation. Spontaneous healing is bad, if choices don’t have consequences then what’s the point of the game. D&D isn’t a video game there should be no respawn. That said you could have a corpse of a previous adventuring party inside the BBEG room with one or two healing potions they didn’t get to use because they weren’t quick enough. Maybe a corpse of a cleric has an arrow through their throat while their hand is in their backpack grasping a Mass Healing Word wand with one charge left or other single use item. BUT make the player make Perception checks to notice the cleric corpse, and Investigation / Arcana check to use the item.
THIS! If you're the only 'real' player at a table of murderhobos [or vice versa] you're not doing anyone any favours sticking it out, you're a disruption/ distraction from the fun the table is having. Find a table that has _your_ type of fun!
To give healing randomly i go with bodies with healing potions and other buff potions. This emphasizes the danger of the dungeon, it isn't that much healing normally, and you give them some chance of lessening TPK. But if they step into a dungeon or a fight low health then they deserve it.
The way I deal with players going into tough battles without being ready is through something called intervention. The deities in my setting stake claim on souls, even if they don't, something like an arch-fey or an archfiend will. The more powerful the being is before they die, the more valuable the soul. Each character gets a single intervention, but the intervention is a conversation between them and this higher being that will cause story complications down the line. This means you can remove a little bit of lethality (it's like a single extra life in a video game) but you allow the players to keep their agency by allowing them to make the choice as to whether or not their character would want to come back. And because this system is inherent in my setting and is even taught about in some churches, it doesn't take the players out of my setting at all.
This sort of observational feedback is *very* difficult when running an online game especially when not using video-conferencing. Regular 1:1 chats, and the occassional "What if?" questionnaire are key to making sure people are OK... and making sure that you (as a DM) don't "leak" privately imparted information to other players, otherwise trust is blown.
When players are about to do something stupid I just suspend the game for a minute and tell players that they are about to do something stupid, but if they want to it's fine. Usually there is miscommunication somewhere and they just didn't realize it was as dangerous as it is or tought they were just supose to push forward and didn't want to slow the game down by retreating.
There is an alternative to facing the BBEG when they are too beat up to handle him. I am assuming that they don't realize that the BBEG is just beyond the next doorway. You can add a room with less significant minions that are the "guards" of the boss. Their resources will be even more depleted and they might realize that they need to back off before they go farther into the dungeon.
my group have this bad habit of begging to be allowed a long rest in a dungeon lol but for this first game i hosted, i didn't allow them the long rest. we're all players playing in a different game and have become good friends and i volunteered to DM for them for a bit while our main DM was still preparing the rest of our campaign. I ran a oneshot game i found on DMsguild. it's called Rise of the Necromancer and (spoiler alert) there was a room there that had a lot of jars of souls there. The players begged me to allow them to play as level 8 characters, which i allowed (i did buff and scale up the enemies tho) and this player had one idea where they should just try to talk to the owners of the souls in all of those jars. they opened one jar and the soul went in a skeleton and attacked them. so they changed their plan to go outside of the cavern to open a jar and then catch the soul. however, that player can only use it once per day and they were planning to take a long rest outside the cavern. the vanilla of the module has an indestructible skeleton guard (that doesn't attack) later in the dungeon but you need to find the spell that can make them move. what i did as they went on to go out of the cavern, i had those indestructible skeletons block the exit. so they went on with the normal pace of the oneshot, and since im a newbie DM, i wasn't able to properly scale the monsters up a bit, they even defeated the minor BBEG without a scratch on them. i realize now, i should have let them take that long rest and just made things worse for them if they took that long rest lol i realize now that if they took that long rest, they would be swarmed by skeletons, both indestructible and the normal ones, the smaller but quicker skeletons that will try to grapple them, some more ghouls, the minor BBEG of the oneshot, and (if i feel a bit more sadistic) the main BBEG of the series after the oneshot, for finishing the task given to the minor BBEG because the players were sleeping hahahaha that would have been a lot more fun for me in scaring them because of what they did.
For me a good example of a bad DM is a DM who sees basic questions as an attack and changing your class features without talking to the player beforehand and being called rude when you call them out this is what I had to deal with I ended up quitting that group because it was not fun anymore to be in that group which was a pity because the players was super cool
Here's a little trick I use to see how engaged my players are, If I question whether or not a player is engaged, I give them, in game, a lore dump mcGuffin, like they find a scroll, or a book, that has a lot of relevant information. and I tell the player, I will send them the detailed information out of game before the next game session so as to not waste game time on it, and since they are the only ones who are privy to the information,. I then wait four or five days, to see if that player reaches out to me. 9 times out of 10 if the player is engaged, and therefore to me, having fun, I'll get a text or a DM, asking "Hey don't forget to send me that info." Regardless I send them the info the day before the next session. I just find this gives me a little insight as to where the player is at.
Observing the players is the number one way to know if you're doing well. Another way I like to do it, is to ask the players after the game, "What was your favorite part of the session?" and then, "What was your least favorite part of the session?" Not only will this inform you as to how well you're doing, but also how you can improve. I often ask them other questions as well, such as who they think did the best roleplaying that session and deserves some extra XP or Drama-Dice (for games that have that); I might ask them what they think my NPC or villain is thinking, to make sure I'm getting the information to them that they need; I might ask them what they think is going to happen next; and I often ask them in one form or another what their characters plan to do next. If they say they're planning to head back to town to resupply, then I know I should probably prep a town for next session and some plot hooks, if they say they're going deeper into the forest, then I would prepare some forest encounter. Side Tip: Anything you prep and don't use, you could always reskin and use later.
A couple sessions ago, one of my players made a bad decision that resulted in the whole party beside themself basically getting TPK'd. Since those players were just starting to get comfortable with their characters (and this is one player's first RPG), I felt it fitting to let them keep their characters but with a twist. One became a robot, the other got transformed. The entire party did lose like all their money, relations, and almost of their gear. Now theyve made a few other bad decisions and when they get back into the material world, they'll get to experience those consequences. And who knows. Die? At least it was by their collective hand lol
In my experience, if you think your not a good dm yet you seek self improvment to become a better dm; then your a good dm already. A bad dm lives under the assumption that they are a good dm and does nothing to improve as they think they are doing fine as is.
I feel like I'm a bad dm constantly, even though I have done most of this, because my players rarely give me those golden dm moments. When the dm can sit back and watch their players engage with each other in character/ in world without the dm's engagement.
i'm a novice dm that started on the pandemic and because of the same pandemic and some responsibilities of mine i couldn't dm too much,i think i had 7 sessions in 3 years as a dm.i didn't have time at all to plan so it all went wrong and linear.i started asking for doubts opinions feedback etc and my players told me that i should make the game more flexible,then two days ago when i asked to rotate dms between ourselves so we all try the dm position as they themselves wanted to give it a try and i want to try again after failling and try to improve. two of my players,who suggested more freeroaming but liked my campaign,agreed to the idea but other one said "i'm just gonna tell you,as i am a bad surgeon,so i don't practice surgery" just when i want to plan things to allow them to have that,he goes and throws this at my face. i've been thinking how to improve and i get this thrown at me
In my case, I'm pretty good at improvising encounters or even entire quests in a way that they appear prepared, and in describing envirements players find themselves in, but I'm absolutely awful at preparing anything for the session- so over 60% of session ends up being improvised, there are no handouts and no maps. Also, I'm not very good at playing roles of npcs.
The guy I liked told me my games were boring, but he had absolutely no constructive feedback. Wrecked me from DMing for years 😂 I run every other week now, but even now I tend to get panic attack and postpone my game because I felt like I was gonna die. Tldr : If you're not having fun in someone's game, it's understandable. But try to be aware of what it is you don't enjoy and how it can be better for you.
2:40 well, I have a group or 5-6 players. One of them get up during session to do other stuff, mostly childish. Another go out for a smoke as I am explaining something important, some talk to eachother about anime and only 2 of the 6 players actually listen, ask questions and take notes. The other 3-4 player either interrupt me or do other stuff randomly. I don't know what to do, they make me feel like they are bored and that is the reason they do what they do. Also 2 of the players randomly say they have to go or make plans for other things, its like they just fit our session as a hang out expiriment and they just say stuff like "my character goes to the inn to sleep for the day" when they just left a few hours ago ( they think like every session is a full day when i already told them that time stops when we finish the session)
Are people always honest? Well no, not entirely. For instance I DID enjoy our last session. The fight was awesome. But just once I'd love to have ONE SINGLE GAME that was all about rhetoric and where NOT every single challenge devolved into combat. Did I stay awake...well mostly...except I might have snoozed off...just for a moment...cause of the late hour we're playing; I'm not bored, I'm just...freaking tired. I get up a lot earlier than most of you. Do I keep coming back? Hell yes! ATM this is the only game I know of. Plus I like all of the other players and I like the DM too. Even if he won't let encounters resolve in anything other than combat. (GRR!) Also, observation over the internet is challenging if you're not using a medium that can let you see their faces. Your three questions are excellent. No you probably don't suck as a DM. But we can all improve.
I have one player who hates the spot light. They're just there for.... being part of the group. Otherwise I can usually get everyone a chance at the spotlight.
A good measure of how the players enjoy your game...do they discuss it outside the game session? I still recall and discuss memorable game sessions decades ago.
𝐋𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐞 - Reduce prep time and improve your games with this monthly D&D magazine ▶▶ www.patreon.com/thedmlair
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐌 𝐋𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞 - Get back issues of Lair Magazine, map packs, 5e adventures, and other DM resources ▶▶ the-dm-lair.myshopify.com/
𝗧𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 - Get your DM questions answered ▶▶ www.twitch.tv/thedmlair
𝐃𝐌𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐑.𝐂𝐎𝐌 - Get free D&D 5e adventures and DM resources ▶▶ www.thedmlair.com/
𝐍𝐄𝐖𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 - Get free D&D 5e adventures and DM resources in your email ▶▶ thedmlair.getresponsepages.com/
What's this "four hour session" thing? I've DM'd, I kid you not, a THIRTY-HOUR session before. Sure, pizza breaks and head calls, but no sleepy-sleepy time. Sure, most sessions are in the 14 hour range. But FOUR HOURS? Everyone would be "Why are we quitting already?!"
Don't ask if they had fun, ask how they would want me to improve things. It makes them think your looking for constructive criticism and they are likely to respond
This. What kind of monster would tell their DM they don’t like their choices to their face? So don’t ask that question because it doesn’t really tell you much.
I have had the honor of giving you your 69th like
yeah - it's like when your kid comes to you, "hey dad, look at this house i built in Minecraft, isn't it cool?" there's only one answer. For a good primer on how to collect real feedback, i'd recommend a book called "the mom test"
"Give quiet players time to give feedback too." Holy shit thank you so so much for this. I am actually tired of being talked over in not only rp.. but also when giving feedback that at most points i just shut up ahd shrug. Extroverted players need to calm thier jets a bit and let the rest of us rp or talk.. and im not talking about when there is nothing left to talk/rp about.
Same. Unfortunately when I was shrinking back from spotlight my DM just took that as a sign and avoided casting spotlight on me for most of the campaign except for like once in a while when I'm totally not ready because I'm not given chances to get used to it 😂
I know roughly where my strengths and shortcomings are as a DM. I'm bad at describing areas my players find themselves in, which I alleviate by making very detailed maps. I'm horrible at prepping for a specific session, but I'm a master at improvising, so I've added a lot of rollable tables, lore, mechanics and other systems before I started the campaign, to facilitate that style of DM'ing so I have the tools for most situations.
Heh, same
Very detailed maps mean I don't have to describe whats there... You see the room, you see the chairs or lantern or bed roll.
@@elgatochurro exactly! You just have to focus on the mood/atmosphere and the mechanics :D
I am very similar, and use the same mechanisms to make it work haha!
I'm pretty much the same; my verbal skills are sub par so I use visuals instead. I use Inkarnate for regional and city maps and I use Dungeon Painter Studio for encounter maps. They're both excellent tools and I have immense fun playing with them and building my world.
I agree 100% with you. Any and all game masters have their strengths and shortcomings, you just have to be mature enough to recognize them sincerely and start working to:
1. Work around your weaknesses
2. Improve those weaknesses
3. make the most out of your strenghts
If you're a great improviser, it makes no sense to prepare a game which relies heavily on prep and interconnection of details, like an intricate murder mistery. On the other hand, it's very interesting to once in a while try to challenge yourself, but that has to be a very conscious decision as well
I found my players talking about the campaign and what they wanted to do next. They even ask questions about places and history of the world. When they are doing this you know they are really in to it.
That is the dream! It sounds like you are nailing it!
One thing I always do at the end of a session is High, Low, Hope. So they can tell me what was the best thing about the session, what was the worst thing and what they would like to see going forward. I borrowed that from theater :D
For the DM who is about to tpk their party, you might also consider throwing in a big red flag for them that they will die if they continue. Have them find a skeleton at the entrance with a note telling the horrors of the bbeg and how he barely escaped but is too injured to leave or something like that.
Blank character sheets in the printer is a sign.
as someone who very well intended it for my impossible experience in the future. I really dont think handing the world to your players is a good sign either, you shouldn't also constantly overbear their actions so they'd plummet automatically-it's both atrociously unoriginal and time wasting for the peeps who came to, idk, roleplay ffs
Although that might just tell them the BBEG is evil and needs to be stopped. And it might entice them to save the day as the heroes by stopping the evil villain.
@@jacoboverstreet8553 a good way to warn the players is a “show of power”. For example, let’s say the bbeg is a dragon and the players want to kill it. As they approach, let the dragon already have someone around and as the party sees that, the dragon nukes the poor souls. Or maybe a nearby village is an unsuspecting victim. Either way, the party has no excuse to misunderstand what that thing is ready to do 😅
I find that asking my players for a thing they enjoyed and a thing they didn't from the session has helped me alot with learning how I'm doing.
I posted this at the very beginning of the video
My current group is v conscious. They're like children determined to emotionally support the baby sitter so even if I as a new DM can't fully organize and focus on the quite people they will which is a nice group to have as a new DM. 😊
Sweet.
holy shit- puncuation bro, please.
to avoid anchoring bias and groupthink, the best and fastest way to collect feedback is with post-it notes where people write their feedback individually without hearing what others are saying and then put it on the wall
I occasionally ask for a wisdom check from a paladin or cleric in the scenario of low health and time sensitive and then - the god of the cleric can indicate to the player character what is important
That still feels a little too hands on and specific to the group its better to let them just go through like Luke said or if annnnnnything maybe hide a few small healing potions through the dungeon so they still have to earn them
Thank you got touching on the self doubt, Luke. I feel like with how popular D&D has become, it’s hard not to compare oneself to streams, UA-camrs, etc. Or feel like you’re “copying” them if you have a similar encounter or use a same monster.
It’s like no I just like Sphinxs I don’t care if Critical role or so and so used it. 😫
I pride myself in being a fair DM who trys to facilitate fun at the table, but I'm also lazy with prep, and am not great at belivable improvised roleplay for NPCs.
Something that helps: be calm upfront and fair as often as you can. You can be very open and fair or tough on your players and even explain why. This creates a judicial and non-judgmental attitude will make them much more honest and open if you ask if there were things they didn't like. So try to bring a good calm attitude to each session
Yes, 100% agree!
@@theDMLair it's really hard to remember and to do, but being DM means you have to be a nonbiased referee. At least a lot of the time. It's hard work. But doing this makes them feel comfortable sharing more
Luke: Observe your players
Me, staring at the faceless Zoom IDs of my camera shy players: 👁️👄👁️
I'm the best
Yeah that's rough. When I run online games having a camera is a virtual requirement. I bill it as "strongly recommended" but if none of my players had cameras, I probably wouldn't be able to effectively run the game, and I probably wouldn't want to. I want to SEE people I'm playing the game with.
@@theDMLair I have a terrible D.M. pokerface, so no camera might have worked well for me.
I prefer no camera, lest the other players see me constantly face palming.
Ironically enough my in person group when we moved online, I really wanted to use something like zoom or skype to have video (they didnt so we didnt). However, my online group i DM, I'm fine with only being voice. If they would rather have camera, I'm fine with that. But dont feel its necessary.
Im in the same boat, but it has more to do with me being camera shy, why would I expect them to show their faces if I dont want to show mine
Well, the most encouraging thing about this is -- you CAN improve!
It applies to life too.
Difficult encounters make great stories. If the players make the situation more difficult with bad decisions it's win win for you really. If they fall, it's on them and there will be a good talk regarding about things that may be done differently, and if they prevail then they've had a fantastic experience with no extra effort on your end other than allowing the dice to fall where they may.
As long as difficult encounters aren't the only encounters. If the players never get a chance to feel good about themselves, they very quickly become dumb to the risk of death. That said, if the combats are difficult but fair and consistent, then the party can take actions to increase their odds. Unfortunately my experience has been that people who love to make encounters difficult(not those who love to make difficult encounters), don't care about being consistent arbiters of the world, only antagonists who win the wargame
Casting Calm Emotions on a Dominated party member was something I did quite often in the Badurs Gate video games. It did not dispel the Dominate, just suppress it, so if the duration of Calm Emotions was shorter the Dominate would kick back in. So you had to kill the person who cast Dominate before that happened. Legit tactic.
I hate the calm options spell as written.
It is generally used by one player to steal player agency from another.
Heard the first 20 seconds and hit the like button. These are the weird issues no guidebook can help with.
That opening question is how I feel in a nutshell. Perfect video for me.
This would have been a great video even if it had only been the first five minutes. And it's nearly six times that length! A true treat. I will be sharing this with my less than confident DM in the future.
I feel like the more I've obsessed over what the Internet said makes a good DM, the worse I became. The only things I feel that matters is was it fun? If not that's what you have to fix.
Very much so, cause the internet is filled with random people and random people are... Sht
They're has been so much horrible advice and demands that will hurt your game. If you want good advice, esperthebard, dm lair and how to be a great dm.
Primarily them as they'll pay what's important, inspiration for the story, how to run the game. Not just "my dm didn't let me pick pocket the kind crown off his head or f the dragon"
It's amazing how Luke can turn video about how to tell if you'ra bad dm into rant about how it's not dm but players that are actually bad 😊
Luke, you really are a very good speaker and there is always a refreshing earnestness to your intelligence
I feel like that cat in the background has his stealth maxed out .
One tip is to record your sessions and then listen back to bits of it that you feel doubtful about, it will really clear up the ambiguity.
My players are laughing and engaging, but when its not their turn and someone else does RP 2 out of 4 still look at their phones and sometimes need to be clued in to what happened. The last two read rulebooks instead. No avoiding that. Banning phones just takes more fun away because it feels oppressive and forced.
I'm a introvert and not really filling the room as a DM. I just play the world responding to players and rarely impose turbulence on them. That's the most i can do without burnout. I'm not feeling bad since it is just as much the players job to fuel the game. When im already doing better than them at putting energy into the game, i don't have much reason to do even more to pull them in. It is important to have fun yourself, so you should put more thought into that instead of catering more.
@Charles Yuditsky I'd also take it as a hit. I must be doing something wrong if they *want" to mess with their phone.
"Hey (player looking at phone), you good? Just making sure, it seems like you checked out of the game there. Is something wrong? Are you not having fun? Is there something I can do better or is there something you were hoping to do?"
@@jamesstrickland8696 "Uhhhh, i don't know. All good" is what comes as a response. Tried that stuff already. Written in private too. Calling them out in front of the group makes them unhappy though when they weren't unhappy before.
You sound passive aggressive and conflict avoidant. You should be having that conversation with your players, instead of thinking "FINE. HAVE IT YOUR WAY. I'M ALREADY DOING MORE WORK THAN YOU!"
@@J05TI tried that, got the impression that they do not know what they actually want and want me to find out by playing. So the solution is to just throw stuff at them until something sticks. That quote is true came after experimenting for years to cater to them. Now im just tired.
My prediction of the first thing he would say based on the setup "dammit Jim I'm a DM advisor not a therapist"
When I started playing 5e, I never really DMed before despite playing may versions of D&D. In my first campaign as a DM (LMoP). The players were very active in saying things like. I don't get it, why are we doing this etc. I realized I was focused on combat and die roll, mechanics and not story or game play. I dumped the campaign there and then. I asked the party for another shot as a DM with a new campaign (OotA). Took a couple of weeks off. Watched a lot of videos like DM Lair, Great GM etc. Went into the new campaign with a fresh strategy. I still have most of the same group. DMing is now fun, players seem more engaged.
One thing I will say is important for any GM to avoid them saying things like that. Make sure your players always have a goal or direction and know it. If they do not they will get bored and either not be interested, or get bored and entertain themselves by going off the rails.
@@nature_laughslast6438 In general, my thought is, if they're going to complain or be critical, fair enough. Especially in my case. It wasn't the fault of the players. My aim now is to not give then a reason to complain again. It was easy to think about throwing in the towel. Group is still going, I'm still DMing.
@@TheNanoNinja Keep pressing on. I watched a ton of videos similar to yourself and did everything I could to improve. Honestly some days the group is just not feeling things. Many times the adventure is meh.. not all modules are good all the way through. But you always hope to get more consistency over time and be open to improvement. GL.
First thing I would recommend when you are doubting yourself is asking the party for improvement suggestions.
If they say only minor improvements you're probably pretty solid, but if they say something about a thing you do often there's a big indication that you need to improve.
Them coming every session is already an important indicator, if you try to improve yourself the party will definately appreciate the effort.
In regards to the wasp dungeon, one option in game that could make things interesting is to offer healing through "magic wasp honey," but with a cost. The stuff could potentially highly addictive (so there are now saves involved to avoid spending turns compulsively eating more), or could cause lethargy because it's super dense (think like the effects of the Slow spell).
This way, you can offer a form of healing that stays in-world, but isn't just a handout because there is a risk element to it. Just my thoughts
Thanks so much for these suggestions, these are very useful questions! I'm coming to the end of a campaign now and want to check in with them to see what they would change and also see whether they want to continue with some of the ideas I have, play a different campaign or do something different altogether. They keep showing up, but I have to admit that I am terrified that they are all just humouring me!
I ran a holiday themed oneshot for a group I'm a player in and who I had never DMed for before. After the game a player asked me where I got the module from and I told him I made it myself and he was surprised because he thought I had gotten it from a professional and wanted to know where he could get ones like it. Best compliment I have ever received in DnD
Along with being careful of changing to much, remember that sometimes people think they want you to change something, but will have regrets after the change. This is like if you give them too much loot rewards and it kills the motivation. Little changes will also help you know what helped instead of trying to figure out which of thew 12 changes you made hurt the game.
If it's a living, breathing world, taking a long rest would still be a mission that failed under a time crunch.
It's no different than if we went in, decided it was too much and left. We would fail the mission either way. So, as a player, I'm gonna to make the attempt.
I've had two groups TPK. The first started with the party splitting up. The second started with them letting them two low-level enemies escape to warn basically the entire dungeon floor they were there, turning what should have been three or four separate and manageable encounters into one big one. The thing with that one was that a similar thing had happened to a smaller extent in a previous dungeon, and they did nothing to prevent or mitigate it the second time.
I tend to start a new group of gamers off with scenarios I KNOW they can win even with the worst tactics. I am at first just gauging their level of tactical acumen. I very slowly increase the challenges they face as they go forward, trying to teach them any pitfalls of their approaches. I very much do not want TPKs, and I have always managed to avoid that.
@@panpiper New players, sure. When a group of experienced players does something dumb, though, and doesn't try to fix or get out of the situation, I let it play out.
Things that I can do better
- remembering setting lore. Names and dates are not a strong suite
- CR and pacing. First two sessions, because I was bad at assessing CR and with exp, the party leveled up. Twice. So now I'm trying to figure out how to make effective combat encounters.
Unfortunately, we can't meet up with the restrictions that aren't likely to end any time soon, so the observations are not going to be easy to do.
I mean, early combat encounters can be like that. It’s usually a loaded gun though, since it’s just as easy to TPK a party as it is to give them a level up way to easily, I’d just go above what they can fight safely and have options for revival even after a TPK (I.E.:that Druid they met earlier cast reincarnate and brought them back half a continent away).
@@williamwontiam3166 I do have a solution for TPK. The god of the dead will offer to resurrect him, if they are willing to take care of a false cleric who blasphemes by digging up the dead and sending the souls of the dead to someone other than the proper deities (and details redacted if they might come across this)
One of the hardest thing for me as a DM is knowing if I’m being unreasonable or the players are just gaslighting me. An example was when most of the players had accepted a ruling that anyone could make an unarmed strike as a bonus action (not just Monk). I told them only Monk could do that and some complained over me “nerfing” the players. They also believed that you could cast more than one leveled spell per turn, but I told them they could only cast one leveled spell per turn. Again, more complaining. One player even left when he thought I nerfed rogue by making a ruling on hiding in combat, specifically you don’t get advantage on an enemy who is alert to you by hiding behind cover and then jumping back out of cover to attack them.
About hiding - you kinda do (get the advantage). Not only it's RAW, and it's not nearly OP or something (especially since Tasha's and Aim), it actually makes sense. Combat is chaotic. Remember that all the things players do in a single round all happen during the same 6 seconds. In those conditions, it's impossible to "be alert" to everything, you can't constantly be ready for that Rogue to jump out of cover and attack you, even if you know he's there. In combat, just losing an enemy out of sight by turning away would put you at a disadvantage, not to mention if said enemy is actively trying to hide their presence.
If it was something that player liked to do, I totally get why they left when you forbade them to use a game mechanic as it was supposed to.
This has worked for me: I ask my players every once in a while after a session or in between "questions? comments? Concerns?" And I'll ask them individually usually.
the wizard just sabotaged his whole defence, by ordering the naga to wait till the players restore their powers. the naga should've killed them while they were asleep
Post session I always ask my players for constructive criticism to better curate the game to their play styles. Nothing feels better than before even asking, hearing them say "that was a great session!"
I love videos likes this since the advice is not specific to D&D.
The "Keep doing, Stop doing, Start doing" is a technique we use with customers to help drive innovation and improvement
Great Video - jotting down your three questions and waiting til session 4 to toss them at the party (we've done 2 so far in the campaign). I've heard it said that the GM is the department of problems and consequences (In service if making a fun and interesting game). So, you want to rest in the middle of a hostile dungeon? 'hope you have a guard with a plan . . . or a Rope Trick Spell!
SAAAAME feeling and question before I start the video!
Remember that your players are not GMs: their criticism might not even be appropriate or true in most cases. What you should go for is the emotion they were feeling at certain key moments. Knowing how they felt might help you better than suggestions.
Some players have experience DMing for other campaigns, but most of them are familiar enough with the game to know what is appropriate/true in most scenarios, saying they don't know what they're saying just because "players are not Game Masters" (wich is just unrelated and you don't know if it's even true) is super patronizing, dude.
@@claire3614 if your players happen to also be GMs, then their advice will certainly hold more value than regular players. And that is IF they understand your intentions when you present them with something or when you adjudicate something whichever way. There's no patronizing here: sometime information has value, sometime it doesn't. As you grow and become better, you'll learn to make the difference. That's called deductive reasoning. The reason why you don't go hunting for criticism or advice is because it might not be useful, or even damaging in some cases. That's why I say you should instead focus on the emotion that they felt at key points in the game.
@@bonbondurjdr6553 I'm not assuming, but that sounds like the kind of DM that likes to antagonize players, be the enemy instead of a storyteller, and assume you know better than anybody else at the table because you are DMing and that's it.
The value on an advise comes from more than just "you are a DM, therefore you are correct, period.". We all should accept constructive criticism, regardless of from where is coming from, and don't assume you know better because you are the DM and therefore you are the absolute law on everything, that way you are missing out a lot of feedback and people will eventually get tired of never changing narrative that doesn't accept the opinion and feelings of the players (the people that are ment to enjoy this GAME, you know?).
As a piece of advice for you, just try to accept this advice instead of jumping all defensive, maybe? I don't think that "listen to your players and don't assume their opinions are less valuable than yours" is a bad advice in any scenario. But who knows.
@@claire3614 Everybody at the table should enjoy the game. I'm not being antagonistic: I'm simply stating the value of not relying on feedback and to use deductive reasoning. I'm not correct because I'm the GM, period. I'm just stating, once more, that the players do not have the same burden as a GM. As such, their advice comes from a different mindset than yours. Sometimes it will have value and sometimes it won't, you have to use technics to get the information you need/want and your brain rather than just accept everything as good feedback. But you're not understanding the nuance of what I'm saying, do you?
@@bonbondurjdr6553 sure buddy, have a nice day 😊
I thought I was ugly in my youth. It didn't even begin to dawn on me that that might not be true until around the age of 18 when I discovered that women were receptive to my approaches and that I was being constantly hit on by my gay friends.
Honestly this makes me understand all those crazy DMs who do crazy sessions online that often end up in horror stories.
If you are expected to have a deep social understanding to somehow figure out someone's emotional state over the course of 4 hours based just on tone of voice and attentiveness (when tabbing and multitasking is a thing), while juggling 3-5 other people AND rolling background tables, enemy encounters + their rolls, looking up statblocks and notes about the adventure and dungeon, I definitely know I'm not fit for that sort of thing.
The whole thing makes me want to outright give up on being a "good DM" and just insert whatever makes me happy in my games and let the players deal with it or leave if they want. As much crap as we give DMs who magic realm their players I think they are happier than a DM that needs to stress over so much book keeping.
I recently lost my first player after years of dming and It really was a blow to my confidence. I was having a hard time keeping things fun for them when they'd split from the party for long periods of time. My other players have been showing up for months on this most recent campaign though so I have to assume people are having fun.
To the person asking the first question: the fact you're worried about it at all shows you're probably doing a good job. Bad GMs tend to be selfish, unconcerned about what their players want. Odds are you're experiencing something called _imposter syndrome._ The solution is usually to demand less of yourself - don't worry about perfection, just do what you can to be your best self.
This is extremely counterintuitive: if someone demands perfection, it's a sign they expect you to fail.
Do the work... AND since you actually care about the "job" you're doing, you WILL improve over time.
I used to struggle horribly with whether I was "worth a damn" or not... I always tried little steady improvements... I'd listen to the "Table Chatter" to take notes during snack breaks and other pauses... after sessions while we packed up to go home... that kind of thing...
I'd build my own prop's and maps... learned a fair bit of "antiquing" materials so they'd look old, even if it was cheap and quick and easy... brand new...
AND I'd try to catch the Players between sessions, ask questions if I could away from the Table... usually about "what's working" or "what needs to stop or diminish"... and such...
It would give them space to tell me about their honest thoughts without a crowd to see or hear them "tear it down" as such...
I quit worrying about it so much when I started noticing Players were regularly talking "Game Talk" outside of the sessions... Whether they were plotting on my latest boss or something, or they were regaling someone else of their favorite bits of the adventure... it didn't matter. I'd engaged them so hard, they were still talking about it DAYS later... sometimes weeks or MONTHS after.
When you notice that kind of engagement, you just sort of "know"... you can't be bad at this GM-thing and get that... ;o)
Well, I have been a DM for quite few years now. (11)
I really didn't want the job. Yet, I am actually enjoying the "custodial" role.
My worst XP as a PC:
3rd level party.. made a tumble check on top of a tower. A rope check to get around the ogre's neck, and a rope check around the pillars to strangle the ogre and tied it off.
Well, turned out, the DM didn't have much lined up. Didn't really want to play and my party members were tearing up the monsters .
He asked me to make another check.
🤷 Dude, it's tied off. What ✅ check?
(So we didn't play again after that.)
I learned from that and everything I do is a constant learning process including RPG.
🤣 "3rd level elf rogue whacked your heavy hitter with a rope. Now you're mad!"
(I would be proud of my players. Not like I have a shortage of monsters.)
What makes me a good DM? If I were a bad DM, you wouldn't keep coming to me week by week, now would you?
Why does the DM have a Claymore and a Grenade Launcher?
This video is my constant anxiety while running 😆. I know I'm not perfect, but I do know that they are having fun at least because for the most part the ones who are more active players are engaged. The more passive players are doing what they always do, but they still laugh along with the jokes and funny stuff that happens throughout the sessions and at least seem to be following the situation for the most part. 😁
Getting ready to passive aggressively send this to all my dungeon masters
For the BM not wanting to kill his party if it makes sense given the villain, and if they are cocky enough, you can give exactly one mulligan. Do not heal them, but if the villain is very sure of themselves and have them say that it’s not worth fighting the party when the cards are back so far against them and have him send them to the nearest town (or just walk away himself). It can only really work once per campaign, and only if the villain is cocky. And also really only works whenever the party is in the single digits of level.
Good vid. DM. Thanks for your input!
If they are in bad shape and it's a ticking time clock just throw an encounter at them that you are fairly sure they can handle and make a staff of healing the loot
My last session, the players chose not to go find a safe place to even short rest after a mini boss fight. They then triggered a trap that knocked one of them unconscious and animated a trio of animated armor and their flying Swords. After using very bad tactics, they barely made it out of the fight, and still chose not to go find somewhere to rest. They triggered the next trap as well, which knocked the same player unconscious again. STILL they chose to push on without resting, despite knowing they were about to confront the big bad of the adventure. Ultimately they all fled, abandoning the barbarian as a sacrifice to cover their escape.
On the topic of the group that was about to go into the dungeon really messed up. The other thing you can do is let them heal up, get better prepared, etc... then let them go back through the dungeon. Don't tell them they were too late, let them DISCOVER that they were too late.
I run two campaigns and everyone keeps coming back for more. I still am always trying to improve and be a better DM.
Other option: you may not be great, but your good enough for them :)
One I like is to ask them to "collectively come up with something that would make the game better." Kind of like giving someone the blank in a firing line, everyone has deniability. Additionally it's more ambiguous than something like "what could I do to make the game better?" So it encourages more honest. I don't do "what's good" and/or "bad" because that's too subjective, some people like constant battles, some would rather not even fight at all. All the important points will come out, for the party as a whole rather than specifically catering to a single player.
I think I may be part cat. That light or w/e in the background is super distracting. XD
I would say if something wild is happening while they long rest they should get some hint to it while they rest. Like footsteps on the other side of the door or footprints in the morning or maybe a scream/howl/noise in the distance or eerie fog/cold
This way they wake up knowing something happened and that their rest let more stuff happen, if there's no hint then they might think the encounter was always going to be as it was
My group recently had a TPK because of a combination of making a poor decision and rolling poorly on their dice. The party went to a rival guild's formal party because they needed to kill an enemy from another guild who was invited to the party. He teleported away, but the party killed two members of the rival guild, which caused the guild's order of assassins to start tracking them down. A few days later, the assassins (3) found the party (6) and surprise attacked them while they were sleeping at their house, starting a combat. While they kept missing their attack rolls, the assassins rolled almost 10 natural 20s throughout the fight (one of them had the assassin stat block, the other two were weaker). It didn't take long for the combat to progress to the point of no return, and the session ended when the last player died. It was the party's first TPK, but they all agreed that the TPK was still fun.
I was running dungeon of the mad mage and the layers took a long rest in the middle of the marsh level where there are two spirit naga's and a bone naga that they had already previously killed so i had them set up an ambush after they cam back at full strength, they bottle necked and this is already after one of their side kicks had died. My party are now suffering still major consequences because one of them touched a shrine from yuan-ti god of nightmares and s sitting at two levels of exhaustion after not being able to get proper sleep. Some party members are suffering diseases also. The cleric cannot swap out their spells until they find some fish to sacrifice to their evil deity it is all going well. Now all of this i had given them all the knowledge they needed to avoid nearly all of this unnecessary pain but low and behold they ignored it.
The biggest determining factor, for me, to know if my players are enjoying my game is when the session is over and they talk to me about new things they want to do with their character in the next few sessions. If they're not enjoying the game, they're not going to talk to you about ideas for their character.
I like this. If people are excited focused on what is coming next, or what they hope to come next, you've done your job.
Another good way to receive (more) honest feedback is not to ask questions that have a straight "yes/no"-answer or to ask to be "rated out of 10" but instead to ask about an area that you did well in - and an area that could still use some improvement.
You can even phrase it in a way that coaxes honest answers out of your players by saying something like "nobody's perfect and I'd really like to improve my craft as a DM, so please be honest and give me an area where I could still improve and a short reasoning as to why". Most people will - even if they want to sugarcoat - at least be honest to the extend of telling you that "your descriptions of rooms that we explore could still be slightly more descriptive" or something alike, after praising what you did well for a paragraph or two.
I really like the three questions: What would you like to see more of? What would you like less of? What would you like to see specifically happen with your character? I also told my players that I’m using our D&D games as “Public speaking and problem solving sessions with an adult peer group” to improve my public speaking for work and I need feedback that I can report. So I passed out a survey where they ranked 1-10 Preparation, Presentation Flow, Speaker Confidence, Enjoyment of the Presentation.
Spontaneous healing is bad, if choices don’t have consequences then what’s the point of the game. D&D isn’t a video game there should be no respawn. That said you could have a corpse of a previous adventuring party inside the BBEG room with one or two healing potions they didn’t get to use because they weren’t quick enough. Maybe a corpse of a cleric has an arrow through their throat while their hand is in their backpack grasping a Mass Healing Word wand with one charge left or other single use item. BUT make the player make Perception checks to notice the cleric corpse, and Investigation / Arcana check to use the item.
"Who made the decision to go into the dungeon severely injured?"
"Dawn powerwash dish-spray!"
(Because of placement of commercials)
I would like to add that just because your players don't have fun does not mean you are a bad GM. Maybe it is just a bad player/GM combination.
THIS!
If you're the only 'real' player at a table of murderhobos [or vice versa] you're not doing anyone any favours sticking it out, you're a disruption/ distraction from the fun the table is having. Find a table that has _your_ type of fun!
The secret is that all roads lead to the same destination
To give healing randomly i go with bodies with healing potions and other buff potions. This emphasizes the danger of the dungeon, it isn't that much healing normally, and you give them some chance of lessening TPK. But if they step into a dungeon or a fight low health then they deserve it.
The way I deal with players going into tough battles without being ready is through something called intervention. The deities in my setting stake claim on souls, even if they don't, something like an arch-fey or an archfiend will. The more powerful the being is before they die, the more valuable the soul. Each character gets a single intervention, but the intervention is a conversation between them and this higher being that will cause story complications down the line. This means you can remove a little bit of lethality (it's like a single extra life in a video game) but you allow the players to keep their agency by allowing them to make the choice as to whether or not their character would want to come back. And because this system is inherent in my setting and is even taught about in some churches, it doesn't take the players out of my setting at all.
This sort of observational feedback is *very* difficult when running an online game especially when not using video-conferencing. Regular 1:1 chats, and the occassional "What if?" questionnaire are key to making sure people are OK... and making sure that you (as a DM) don't "leak" privately imparted information to other players, otherwise trust is blown.
When players are about to do something stupid I just suspend the game for a minute and tell players that they are about to do something stupid, but if they want to it's fine. Usually there is miscommunication somewhere and they just didn't realize it was as dangerous as it is or tought they were just supose to push forward and didn't want to slow the game down by retreating.
There is an alternative to facing the BBEG when they are too beat up to handle him. I am assuming that they don't realize that the BBEG is just beyond the next doorway. You can add a room with less significant minions that are the "guards" of the boss. Their resources will be even more depleted and they might realize that they need to back off before they go farther into the dungeon.
my group have this bad habit of begging to be allowed a long rest in a dungeon lol but for this first game i hosted, i didn't allow them the long rest. we're all players playing in a different game and have become good friends and i volunteered to DM for them for a bit while our main DM was still preparing the rest of our campaign.
I ran a oneshot game i found on DMsguild. it's called Rise of the Necromancer and (spoiler alert) there was a room there that had a lot of jars of souls there. The players begged me to allow them to play as level 8 characters, which i allowed (i did buff and scale up the enemies tho) and this player had one idea where they should just try to talk to the owners of the souls in all of those jars. they opened one jar and the soul went in a skeleton and attacked them. so they changed their plan to go outside of the cavern to open a jar and then catch the soul. however, that player can only use it once per day and they were planning to take a long rest outside the cavern. the vanilla of the module has an indestructible skeleton guard (that doesn't attack) later in the dungeon but you need to find the spell that can make them move. what i did as they went on to go out of the cavern, i had those indestructible skeletons block the exit. so they went on with the normal pace of the oneshot, and since im a newbie DM, i wasn't able to properly scale the monsters up a bit, they even defeated the minor BBEG without a scratch on them.
i realize now, i should have let them take that long rest and just made things worse for them if they took that long rest lol
i realize now that if they took that long rest, they would be swarmed by skeletons, both indestructible and the normal ones, the smaller but quicker skeletons that will try to grapple them, some more ghouls, the minor BBEG of the oneshot, and (if i feel a bit more sadistic) the main BBEG of the series after the oneshot, for finishing the task given to the minor BBEG because the players were sleeping hahahaha that would have been a lot more fun for me in scaring them because of what they did.
If you ask if they have fun and the player gets descriptive on what parts were fun, the question becomes far more valuable
That intro...
GET OUT OF MY SKULL, LUKE!
I know it wasn't my question because I haven't had time to visit streams yet... but... ouch.
For me a good example of a bad DM is a DM who sees basic questions as an attack and changing your class features without talking to the player beforehand and being called rude when you call them out this is what I had to deal with I ended up quitting that group because it was not fun anymore to be in that group which was a pity because the players was super cool
Here's a little trick I use to see how engaged my players are, If I question whether or not a player is engaged, I give them, in game, a lore dump mcGuffin, like they find a scroll, or a book, that has a lot of relevant information. and I tell the player, I will send them the detailed information out of game before the next game session so as to not waste game time on it, and since they are the only ones who are privy to the information,. I then wait four or five days, to see if that player reaches out to me. 9 times out of 10 if the player is engaged, and therefore to me, having fun, I'll get a text or a DM, asking "Hey don't forget to send me that info." Regardless I send them the info the day before the next session. I just find this gives me a little insight as to where the player is at.
At the end of the session I state. Questions, comments, things which seem off. This gives them the chance to question some my calls. Etc.
Observing the players is the number one way to know if you're doing well.
Another way I like to do it, is to ask the players after the game, "What was your favorite part of the session?" and then, "What was your least favorite part of the session?"
Not only will this inform you as to how well you're doing, but also how you can improve.
I often ask them other questions as well, such as who they think did the best roleplaying that session and deserves some extra XP or Drama-Dice (for games that have that); I might ask them what they think my NPC or villain is thinking, to make sure I'm getting the information to them that they need; I might ask them what they think is going to happen next; and I often ask them in one form or another what their characters plan to do next.
If they say they're planning to head back to town to resupply, then I know I should probably prep a town for next session and some plot hooks, if they say they're going deeper into the forest, then I would prepare some forest encounter.
Side Tip: Anything you prep and don't use, you could always reskin and use later.
A couple sessions ago, one of my players made a bad decision that resulted in the whole party beside themself basically getting TPK'd. Since those players were just starting to get comfortable with their characters (and this is one player's first RPG), I felt it fitting to let them keep their characters but with a twist. One became a robot, the other got transformed. The entire party did lose like all their money, relations, and almost of their gear.
Now theyve made a few other bad decisions and when they get back into the material world, they'll get to experience those consequences. And who knows. Die? At least it was by their collective hand lol
I should note that these are level 3 characters, so still early game lol
We are our own harshest critic.
In my experience, if you think your not a good dm yet you seek self improvment to become a better dm; then your a good dm already. A bad dm lives under the assumption that they are a good dm and does nothing to improve as they think they are doing fine as is.
I feel like I'm a bad dm constantly, even though I have done most of this, because my players rarely give me those golden dm moments. When the dm can sit back and watch their players engage with each other in character/ in world without the dm's engagement.
i'm a novice dm that started on the pandemic and because of the same pandemic and some responsibilities of mine i couldn't dm too much,i think i had 7 sessions in 3 years as a dm.i didn't have time at all to plan so it all went wrong and linear.i started asking for doubts opinions feedback etc and my players told me that i should make the game more flexible,then two days ago when i asked to rotate dms between ourselves so we all try the dm position as they themselves wanted to give it a try and i want to try again after failling and try to improve. two of my players,who suggested more freeroaming but liked my campaign,agreed to the idea but other one said "i'm just gonna tell you,as i am a bad surgeon,so i don't practice surgery" just when i want to plan things to allow them to have that,he goes and throws this at my face. i've been thinking how to improve and i get this thrown at me
Great stuff friend 👏 👍
Oh... crap.
I need to remember this!
In my case, I'm pretty good at improvising encounters or even entire quests in a way that they appear prepared, and in describing envirements players find themselves in, but I'm absolutely awful at preparing anything for the session- so over 60% of session ends up being improvised, there are no handouts and no maps.
Also, I'm not very good at playing roles of npcs.
The guy I liked told me my games were boring, but he had absolutely no constructive feedback. Wrecked me from DMing for years 😂 I run every other week now, but even now I tend to get panic attack and postpone my game because I felt like I was gonna die.
Tldr : If you're not having fun in someone's game, it's understandable. But try to be aware of what it is you don't enjoy and how it can be better for you.
Good ideas
Asking questions help to let you know what to do for your games
2:40 well, I have a group or 5-6 players.
One of them get up during session to do other stuff, mostly childish.
Another go out for a smoke as I am explaining something important, some talk to eachother about anime and only 2 of the 6 players actually listen, ask questions and take notes.
The other 3-4 player either interrupt me or do other stuff randomly.
I don't know what to do, they make me feel like they are bored and that is the reason they do what they do.
Also 2 of the players randomly say they have to go or make plans for other things, its like they just fit our session as a hang out expiriment and they just say stuff like "my character goes to the inn to sleep for the day" when they just left a few hours ago ( they think like every session is a full day when i already told them that time stops when we finish the session)
Dude, you offer such good perspective. What is in your background besides DMing?
I have a background in management and leadership roles. It involves lots of "soft skills" or people skills. It helps me immensely with being a GM.
@@theDMLair i bet you're really good at it. Thanks for the reply!
Are people always honest? Well no, not entirely. For instance I DID enjoy our last session. The fight was awesome. But just once I'd love to have ONE SINGLE GAME that was all about rhetoric and where NOT every single challenge devolved into combat. Did I stay awake...well mostly...except I might have snoozed off...just for a moment...cause of the late hour we're playing; I'm not bored, I'm just...freaking tired. I get up a lot earlier than most of you. Do I keep coming back? Hell yes! ATM this is the only game I know of. Plus I like all of the other players and I like the DM too. Even if he won't let encounters resolve in anything other than combat. (GRR!) Also, observation over the internet is challenging if you're not using a medium that can let you see their faces. Your three questions are excellent. No you probably don't suck as a DM. But we can all improve.
I have one player who hates the spot light. They're just there for.... being part of the group. Otherwise I can usually get everyone a chance at the spotlight.
A good measure of how the players enjoy your game...do they discuss it outside the game session? I still recall and discuss memorable game sessions decades ago.
Imposter Syndrome?
I've had that as a GM so many times, and destroyed games because of it.