My Dad used to be a DM. Later on when he had me, as many parents do he would tell me bedtime stories. But these weren't out of a book - these were 'Possumcat stories', set in a world where me, my little sister, and a creature named Sam the Possumcat were the main characters improvising our way through a series of oneshots that wove a greater canon over the years. Each 'Possumcat story', Dad would set up an adventure premise, tell part of the story, then prompt me at points to choose what the characters do next. Whatever I chose would influence the direction of the story, whether it be tempting fate and opening the crypt or playing it safe, whether or not we try to steal some dragon gold, whether we investigate the gurgling bunyip sounds, etc. He totally ran my very own D&D-lite experience my whole early childhood! Best Dad ever. ❤
@@saschafeld5528 There's no real animal called a Possumcat. 'Sam the Possumcat' was the name given to a plush toy my Dad had once given my Mum as a present that they thought looked like a fluffy mix between a possum and a cat. The plush toy was actually of a greater glider, an endangered type of possum in the eastern Australian states.
As a worldbuilder, here’s a tip: it’s often better to make one, really fleshed out halfling village for the players to get invested in than an expansive world. And if you can isolate them in an abundant setting, even better.
When dming I tend to do a crap load of world building that never actually are used lol. Like there are certain types of magic sea weed that has thousands of leaves that thrive in magma, (Hence the name Magma Leaf) that can be used to either imbue fire resistance, or even power a thermal generator. Sadly I am pretty bad right now at getting my players to think outside the box. So while stuff is there. It doesn't get used ;--; (I use my short story worlds for a lot of my dnd games so thats why there are so many little details) I try to be Architect at least most of the time so they still have some freedom.
Lol, this is so much of what I do not do as a minimalist. I get the players inveted by making them do a lot of the worldbuilding work for me. I give each player a sort of loose ownership of their home town.
Yessss, this is what I’m doing. I’ve been focusing on building regions of one or two towns and a handful of tiny villages but my players haven’t left the starting town yet, but have the option to!
I’m planning on eventually running a homebrewed series of One Piece campaigns, and this is basically how I wanna do that. The world of One Piece is indeed abundant, and the fact that all the places are islands makes isolation natural, and reunion significant
@@BlueJay-ip5ykIt doesn't matter if you use it not. More accurately, it's there to be used if someone goes that way. It also helps complete the picture for you. I have rituals mapped out for a race of plains horse barbarians when there is very little chance of a player group ever travelling there. Of course, if someone wants to play a horse barbarian, then these are the people and they will need to understand the lore of the tribes.
A tip for The Conductor DM's. At the end of your sessions or story blocks ask your players what want to do next and be prepared for that. That way they get to choose what to do and you got to build awesome adventures, enjoy!
Basically running a Conductor game means instead of having player agency and cooperative storytelling as improv during the game, you have it as concertation BEFORE the game.
@@ugurcankarakas6554 This was basically my one piece campaing. In session because was always islands...it was difficult to make really big changes. But after the sessions,i always took note of what they wanted to do and added the stuff for then,i changed even story bits to fit better with the current party wishes.
This is great until they end a session heading towards a town, only to start the next session and say "hey, I remembered we heard about this other thing nearby, we should do that instead"
I always tried to be a conductor (because I foolishly thought that was what all DMs were supposed to be) until I finally realized that I’m in fact a minimalist (or maybe more cool cousin) but once I stopped forcing myself to be what I thought a DM was and just followed my gut, I found my true type and honestly it makes all the difference!
Look into the Micro-RPG system "Roll for Shoes." As a person who discovered my type to be "minimalist cool cousin," it is easily my favorite role play game method
@@janejvmmsvictoria5857 agreed! I was just about to comment that I am an Architect Worldbuilder when I saw this comment. I'm glad to see there are others who feel as passionately about this style of DMing as I do.
As a minimalist, I'll sometimes do stuff that even I didn't expect. My players somehow ended up in the Feywild. Don't ask me how, because I do not know either.
I have another archetype for you: Apocalypse Prepper As a DM I like to prepare all the rollable tables, all the items the world has, easy ways to access less-used rules on the fly, creating important NPCs, creating maps, etc, so basically everything I'm going to need over the course of a campaign, before the campaign starts, except for the story itself (other than a premise and starting point). I like to call this my campaign skeleton. The rest is left up to the players and their interactions with the world, and I improvise a story depending on how they interact with the premise. So, much like an apocalypse prepper, I prepare for (nearly) every mechanical eventuality, but improvise to survive when chaos hit the fan.
I love a good minimalist. My friends and I would play like that when I first started playing D&D. We would just sit around and one of us would DM and the rest of us would talk about what we were doing. No dice. No books. No character sheets. We just had a good group that could create a narrative out of the blue. I wish I could find another group like that.
I used to DM like that before I got my first DnD book. Full roleplay, entirely made up rolls when I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with nonsensical difficulty checks. My players still have very good memories of it !
The problem with the minimalist as I see it, is that though they tend to leave for the most choice, story telling and flexibility, that they rarely have much prepared or use much in terms of rules or structure, which makes it very hard to get a balanced game, especially with players of different experience and personality. Of cause you did stretch "good" minimalist, and I suppose that would be great then. I have just known too many bad minimalists for me to look for minimalist DM's. In fact I have known a lot of minimalists who while giving you the most choice available, made your choice virtually pointless because of the randomness and lack of preparation given to the game. I think the World Builder would make the safest good DM, though a good Architect would be great too. The Boxer, Nick Fury, Conductor and Cool Cousin is not for me at all. The more prepared the DM is the better, sure it is hard to have the time for that kind of commitment and it make it hard to be a DM...but I think it is the most fun.
Honestly, players like yourself are a one in a hundred gem. I reckon all DMs, not just those that are a worldbuilder, would praise you for taking notes, being invested in the world and noticing little hidden tips and hints the DM gives the players now and again (easy to miss if nobody is paying attention to the world or the story, and just wants to murderhobo everything in sight)
My dm literally made a new floor for the campaign on the spot because the dwarf barbarian thought breaking all the stone circles on the floor would solve a puzzle of some kind(we failed the perception checks). He ended up making a 30 ft hole which we fell down and we had to fight out of it. Earlier in the campaign I also seduced 13 armor pieces into being lighter so I could hold them.
Intro 0:00 Nick Fury 0:06 The World Builder 1:28 The Cool Cousin 3:10 Baldurs Gate Sponser 4:18 The Boxer 5:48 The Minimalist 7:06 The Conductor 8:32 The Architect 9:32 Outro 10:55
I myself, am a Props DM. Whether I'm running a one shot, homebrew, or module, I try and have a prop for just about anything the party might come across, but for things like actual gear and such. For instance I'll have printed magic scrolls, small bags of coins, potion bottles of all types, a few backdrops of a medieval tavern to help set the mood, color changing lights. I once ran a one shot for a friends birthday, with one of the players bringing her 5 year old kid, as she couldn't get a sitter, and since he would be playing his switch in the other room all evening, I went and asked if he wanted to play a ghost. I told him I'd let him know when it was almost time, then when he heard the bell, to put a long black wig on his head, backwards, and to stand in the doorway. I told him after everyone turns to look at him, to just leave. (the players were inspecting a clients family home as he had not heard from them in years after he had left to do his own thing away from his parents) I ring the bell as I tell them that they see the what looks like a little girl walking from one room to another at the end of the hall. he comes into the doorway with the wig on over his face, one person notices, then everyone else looks and freaks out, everyone turns back to me to try and figure out wth is going on, he then leaves as they are looking at me, they all look back (not seeing him anymore) they look back to me, and I just simple ask them "What?". It was amazing. I also had changed all of the lights in the room to blue and green, including in the bathroom. I heard one of my players as they had to go from down the hall say "god dammit" as he turned on the lights in there. It was great.
I'm definitely a Nick Fury, Architect, and World Building DM. I just love running huge open world games where my players fight armies and literal gods. Using existing rules and homebrew together to make powerful players and enemies that clash against each other like world ending tsunamis is just so rewarding. Balancing the narrative and mechanics together is always so fun for me to give to my players to interact and play with.
@@nottheonlyjustin Bro I can't blame you, all that stuff is so good. My inspiration is very similar with manga. The cool fights and moments that I strive for. The building blocks that were implanted when we were younger, we are now able to create ourselfs. It's like stepping in the foots of giants. Plus fighting monstrous beings that could destroy the world is always entertaining.
@@commandercaptain4664 I find the best thing you can do is respect your party's power while also respecting the scale. If your players have fun by steamrolling everything in front of them, then let them. There's nothing wrong with a power fantasy, as long as everyone is on board. However, if your players do want a challenge, and a really cool cinematic one at that, then you have a couple of options. Anytime your players one-shot your bad guy, tell them that it doesn't work and say try something else. This is a terrible idea and will make your players not have fun. The other way is by manipulating the fight with the story. Instead of killing the bad guy, they cripple him, allowing him to use his power to retaliate. This is good because the players still have a huge impact, but they don't speedrun the fight. If you want the fight to last longer, get creative. Manipulate the scene to allow for a more entertaining fight. I don't quite know how to say how, besides you get used to it. I find this becomes easier with experience. However, the most important part is everyone has fun. As long as you're trying, your players will appreciate you and enjoy what you have written. That will make it way more cinematic and epic than anything else.
@@commandercaptain4664 I actually prefer to run high level adventures with my ideal level range for a campaign being level 10-20. One thing to note about high level adventures is it is okay to let them steamroll some encounters like the other reply said with encounters having variable difficulties from easy to deadly. My last adventure was a dungeon crawl type adventure which I believe lends well to high level games. One piece of advice I think would help is to have more encounters between long rests. At higher levels, this is pretty important otherwise, they're just going to nova their daily combat encounter. In my game, my players end up rolling initiative often more than 4 times per long rest along with other types of encounters like puzzles or RP and take 2-4 short rests per long rest. Basically what I am saying is that at high levels, you need to make more stuff happen between long rests. That could be done by making long rests harder such as by having stricter location requirements, increasing the time between long rests or the time that long rests take, or by increasing the frequency of encounters that can drain the party of resources like hit die, spell slots, or racial abilities. An easy thing to help when using WOTC stat blocks is for select monsters like bosses to have an HP increase because they really lowball their hitpoints at higher CRs. Liches normally have 135 HP, but mine have 250 which made for a really great and close boss fight with 3 level 14 PCs. There were also minions. I only buff the HP for significant monsters so I don't turn every mob or beast encounter into a slog.
Worldbuilders are also the most likely to use gritty realism resting rules. It stops players from just throwing fireballs at any problem and actually lets time pass in the world. My DM is definitely one. He is quite "restrictive", but any spell, class or race he bans is usually tweaked and then added back. We can go many sessions without combat and just filled with dialogue and lore. And we are all super into that!
I go for a minimalist/cool cousin style in the game I run. I made it extremely clear when we started the game that this was going to be a mostly improvised game because we're all busy adults with very little spare time and we'd rather spend it together rolling dice and slaying monsters than prepping for weeks just for plans to blow up immediately after starting the session. I also told my players that they can do basically anything if the situation warrants it and in return for making them feel like heroes I pull out bigger enemies. Picking good encounter tables are the name of the game if you try this.
This is exactly how I run my games, we're all adults trying to escape for a few hours and should celebrate the miracle of getting together. I like my games to have good internal logic, and I do say "no" sometimes, but my general rule is "if you can justify it, you can try and go for it". The best part is that the dice usually know best whenever I do this. When my players are trying to be a little annoying, the dice say no for me XD it hasn't failed yet. I'm really good at storytelling naturally, so I make sure to have a few written encounters and the general story in mind, but I spend most of my prep time making "cool" stuff for my players to enjoy and feel special.
It's a fun way to GM for sûre. I do tend to have a red string of main events and 2-3 Maps per game but most of the game is improvised. Tho I am probably going go take away Maps altogether, it can be a chore to find or make Maps
My DM for our 1-20 campaign was definitely an architect. Ended up as a war cleric / tempest sorcerer with a greatsword that could be loaded with a gemstone like a gun, the damage going up the more expensive the gem was.
@@some1337dude1 Be my guest, it's rad as hell. Bonus points if the damage type changes depending on the type of gemstone. It's a good way for random gems in a treasure trove to feel like an actual reward instead of trash that needs to be haggled with
I haven't DMed yet, but I immidiatelly recognised myself in the nick fury and the architect DMs. I haven't started the campaign yet, but I've already created a lot of overpowered items, subclasses, races and even some rules to make battles more epic, all of this to make my players able to stand up to literal gods from mythologies around the world that I've been studying to create the custom monsters, items, classes and races.
A tip for minimalist GMs; a decent way to do a percentage 'roll' is to just use a clock with a stopwatch feature; have the player start and stop the clock while not looking at it, and use the tenths and hundredths of a second as the tens and ones digits. You have a d% in your hands probably right now.
I think a good GM has elements of several of these types. I used to be a minimalist but as I got older I became more of a worldbuilder, but I do some of all this.
I'm a mix of World builder, Conductor, and Architect. My games are heavily story driven with me usually leading my players through the story while also allowing them to have creative freedom, almost all my games are homebrew as well so my story can fit in with the rules of the world and there can be more epic moments without rules hindering it.
Same, I always create my own universe, quest and plot hooks. I know exactly what will happen at some point but how the party gets there is totally up to the player’s ideas and initiative
I am a blend of the same three, for the same reasons. Every game I have ever run is in my own world/universe, and I always end up homebrewing a significant portion of the rules. Though I do also have minimalist tendencies; I prefer systems that are not too rules heavy and put the onus on me (the GM) and the players instead of stats or dice.
i’m still planning my world, but i’m definitely an architect and a conductor. i don’t just have one railroad, i have 9. either you get on the railroad or you all die and get on a different railroad (no joke, i actually have a plan in story for a TPK)
I learned DnD as a minimalist DM with my twin. We would switch off and on as the DM. Eventually we evolved into world builder/architect DMs with a huge universe of worlds and characters
I love that you called one a Conductor! I got so much flak from my first DM campaign for railroading my group. I soon learned to be more Rule of Cool than One Track Only. 😁
I've never felt more seen by a DnD video, lol. Definitely a bit of a "Nick Fury"-DM. I think it was Matt Colvile who said something along the lines of "If you give your players a ton of magic items, you're going to break the game. On the other hand, if you have books full of monsters and loot, you might as well use all of it". Can a party of four level 10 characters take on a flying Godzilla with regeneration? If you deck them up with holy avangers, staffs of power and +3 adamntium armor, they might!
The two tables ive been at the longest and enjoyed the most are essentially polar opposites. One is pure minimalist and the other is an architect/world builder(currently on our second reset to get everything "just right" lol)
This video was really eye opening and helped me narrow down why I have enjoyed some DnD sessions a lot more than others. I think the way I approach the game meshes better with certain DM archtypes than others. This is also making me realize I must be really annoying to more rules-heavy DMing styles.
World-builder over here! I really enjoy creating locations and NPCs, creating a scene of place and experience. But I'm also something of the Cool Cousin, because the players are part of the world-building. What they tell me about their character's backstory informs the world building. I love it when my players are invested in their characters and act creatively. Minimal prep Maximum player agency Improvise!
I ve started running a DnD campaign with my siblings right before I go off to college and I was so happy when they told me that I was letting them have a good time. I love being a part of the cool cousin archetype. Like having them fight an evil swordsman in a mountain is cool and I want their cool plans to work like sheathing his sword as an attack ( I fudged that roll so they could succeed ) It just is really fun to make a villian of the week for them to battle that I have to make interesting. Have a great day and great video as per usual.
Conductor style is necessary for new players. D&D is pretty abstract, and it takes time for them to understand how to live in it. The flexibility of a conductor creates a space to explore without analysis paralysis.
I think I would call myself a 'Navigator' DM. I do a lot of the World Building stuff, but I also have the storyline and setpeices from the Conductor. How the players get from setpeice to setpeice however, I leave that mostly up to improve, fun, and what makes sense for where they are. And if the players throw me some curveballs when the setpeices come along, I love seeing the crazy results.
As a D&D and DM expert I'd love to hear you run down the list of dragons. Just a comprehensive quick guide on the actual dragons of the game. The types, ages, what the do and how they each work within the game. Dragons are part of the titles of the game and yet they both appear rarely in the games and often times seem mishandled when they appear. Now there is a very substantial list it'd be cool to hear your opinions on each and how you handle dragons as characters and enemies in your games.
I think this really just depends on a few things. Most DMs, in my experience, aren't particularly fond of using dragons in their campaigns because most believe it's a played-out trope not just in D&D but in other fantasy role playing games and media/literature. Kinda like, "Oh what's the big bad ending boss monster of this campaign? That's right. An ancient red dragon with a god complex that wants to take over the world!" It's been done a lot. Players who have been at the table for a while with different groups for many years often groan because it's predictable. But that's not to say that dragons are a bad monster to use in games. There is A LOT that a good DM can do with the many types of dragons available. And all of them are very unique in personality, morality, motivation, appearance, and ambition. Just in the 5E monster manual alone there are 5 chromatic dragons and 5 metallic dragons all complete with extensive information on every detail about them. And some tips on how to play them as a DM. I think some DMs just have this preconceived notion that dragons can't be fun anymore and are boring. And don't even bother to go over their descriptions in the game books. Because if they did, they would realize there is just so much more to dragons than some people realize and if you're creative you can find really cool and interesting ways to insert them into a campaign and have them interact with players. To be clear, I don't want to come across like I'm trying to give an answer for this guy it's just that I felt this comment resonated with me because I've been a strong advocate of using dragons in campaigns for a while now and wish they didn't get overlooked the way they are nowadays. Just my two cents
I think I'm a cross between a Conductor and Cool Cousin DM. I dont really care what the party does as long as their having fun and I make loose notes and maps so I dont worry too much on detail and wing it. Although I always try and have a strong cohesive natrative tying it all together and make sure that all the beats get hit whether the party know it or not
I like this. Give a story and some fun, but let me cut my own arm off juggling axes if I happen to get sidetracked while everyone is gathering quest info.
Roll for Shoes is a great micro-rpg system that you might enjoy. It's really easy to be a cool cousin/conductor, especially if you have some minimalist tendencies, and you typically get the full story in a few hours.
This is also how I prefer to dm. Have a narrative in mind with some story beats. Then let the players loose and sprinkle in those ideas or make up new ones or even drop some ideas. I had a group that was very time constrained. So I made a Google survey for them that allowed people without time to essentially randomize a character and ran different one shots that each where themed differently so every time they played it was a different style of game. But we were playing wrath and glory for 40k universe.
I hate being restrictive but love building tight and contained worlds. I having a background in theatre and improvisation but also have a love of "sticking to the source material" and being a conductor. It certaintly poses it's challenges but that's what's great about it. "Always find a way to yes." Is what I learned in improv. D&D is a cooperative experience. I may have a specific world and vision in mind about how this world works, but will gladly accept additions and changes to it if the player understands what I'm doing and works with me.
If anyone is looking to get started on DMing, I've compiled a list of things that I feel contribute to a good experience, and leans more towards Cool Cousin/Nick Fury type DM: First of all, don't be afraid to modify the rules of the TTRPG you're using. For example if you're using DND 5th edition, some of the subclasses are on the weaker side. If one of your players comes up with a character that they really wanna play and they have a weaker subclass don't be afraid to give them a bit of a nudge to make them more on par. Example is in my current campaign I play a monk. At low levels monks can do 1d4 dmg with unarmed strikes. Monks are meant to use a simple weapon like a staff or shortsword to give them more damage. But if your player is like me and wants to only use fists for thematics they're gonna feel weaker. So my DM bumped my damage up a bit to match the other characters which use firearms. My DM also lets us take both feats (powerful unique passive traits) and stat increases at level ups instead of forcing you to pick one or the other as per the actual rules. Hold a session 0 with your friends that are gonna play. Help them set up their character sheets and gear and familiarize them with the table top system you're using if its online (I use Roll20, so teach 'em how it works). Set everything straight, work with everyone to make sure there's no issues or problems so by the time the real first session starts you're all good to go. Plus its a good way to get every one excited to actually play next time you all gather. When crafting your story, start with some big outlines or plot points. Then ask how will you guide or nudge your players in that direction? Its good to have an overarching plan, but a lot of DMing is playing it by ear cause you never know how your players will approach a situation. Be prepared for them to do things that might sidetrack the story. The best way to do this is I've found is to have say, your first or second session take place in a hub area with some NPCs. Get a feel for how your players approach situations. Do they go around and question townsfolk? Do they try to sneak into bedrooms to look for documents? Do they jump to conclusions and immediately think a suspicious looking guy MUST be the the villain? Etc. The biggest thing is to give your players options. Don't force them to do one thing or it'll feel restrictive and linear. Do they go ask the local sheriff for why someone was murdered, or do they go see the victim's family? Let them decide if they go to the raided military convoy or the burned down church first? Also instead of a typical "everyone meets in a bar", be unorthodox. Mu party members met on a train heading out into the wild west and had to work together when it got robbed. You are the DM. Your job first and foremost is to make a fun experience for the players. Your job is to craft a fun and memorable experience. You DO NOT try to fight the players. You DO NOT try to put your players in situations that'll get them slaughtered. Nobody likes seeing their character they put so much love into die 3 sessions in. Take it easy with enemies and combat early on. Start off with easy encounters and ramp it up when you start to get a feel for how strong they are and how they play. Don't be afraid to nerf HP behind the scenes or fudge a roll to swing combat in the players favor if they're getting their butts kicked. Like one of the party members cast a spell that made the ground slippery. This spell can make enemies fall down if they fail to roll high enough on a dice on their turn. Our DM said that a powerful enemy that was at 1 HP slipped and hit his head and he died upon failing his roll. This isn't supposed to happen, but its your campaign. Do whatever you want to make it enjoyable, funny, and engaging. You can even have say an NPC that can revive dead players in town if you have people unfamiliar with DND so they don't need to make lots of backup characters. I personally think a milestone level up system is better than EXP. EXP is a pain to keep track of for each character and means your characters can all be varied levels depending on how many things they kill. Milestone means you level characters up upon hitting certain points of the story or after a big fight. Its easier to keep everyone on the same playing field and helps make big victories feel more rewarding since you deem when they happen. Reward your players when they do something memorable, very funny, or impressive or after a big fight or successful investigation. DND has rules for generating powerful loot items but you as the DM decide when to reward inspiration, a special dice that can be used whenever the player wants to boost their roll on a dice once. Try to aim to give out one piece of inspiration per session. It provides a good incentive for your players to think outside the box instead of just taking the direct approach. Heroforge is an excellent free browser program that lets you design 3D models of characters for tabletops using a simple "select which piece of clothing/weapon/species you'd like" sort of system. It's a great way for your players to make a character they connect with and really want to play due to how many options there are. For reference for DND 5e, I use the site 5etools which has everything you need to know. Again IDK what system works good for star wars but I'm sure you could find a way to make star wars work in DND with some thinking. There's also good places that have free maps to use for your TTRPGs. Lastly some people can be shy at the table. If you're doing a campaign like mine online feel free to let them role play through chat instead of saying aloud all their actions. And make sure to iron out things before they become big problems like if you have a very creepy or aggressive player that causes drama outside of the actual game. Its happened before, you can read the horror stories online. That's all I have off the top of my head for now, I might add more and reply to this comment later. I hope this helps
I'm not sure this is all great advice. First of all, don't worry about plots or stories. It is for players to do that. The story is emergent from what happens not something you decide beforehand. You might have a bank in a town. It's up to players to choose what to do: ignore it, store their loot in it, try to sell them services or rob it. The GM creates the situation not the narrative : Maybe the bank manager has a serious gambling addiction and can be coerced into aiding a robbery. Maybe the bank is built on an ancient k'th'cti sacrificial altar. Secondly, I am not responsible for other people's enjoyment. Does your favourite musical artist fret about what you enjoy? I run the game I am happy and comfortable with. It may be that some players hate my GMing style or the tone of the campaign. Not my problem. They can leave. When you consider how much effort most GMs invest relative to the effort put in by many players they should think themselves lucky rather than expect me to do more. Shy people are all well and good, but the joy of TTRPGs for me is the role playing; freeform amateur dramatics. If you can't do that, what are you bringing?
The best way to be a conductor is to give your players control over the levers. You built the train, and you know where all paths lead, but it’s the players that pull the levers to decide which path they go down. If you do this perfectly most players won’t even think your game is railroaded, they’ll think it’s a really dense sandbox.
I did this in a wrath and glory (40k themed system) game I ran. One I mixed 2 different elements where it was set at the start on a train and I had made it a mystery themed and based on the conclusions the players came to and what they decided to pursue. It would change the enemy's and factions they encountered. The party are all close friends. And some were giving their one buddy a hard time so I would check in with him quietly and basically dark gods whispered to him. In the end he decided to fall to chaos and betray the party. Then with his death he had orchestrated things to appear that they had turned Heretic and almost got the surviving members executed. Also had another one. Where 1 of the players and I setup her death at the hands of an ork warboss in the first session of play, and had her make her real character that would be introduced in the chaos of the escape.
8:33 My first time DMing I was The Conductor. I ran a Christmas-themed one-shot, featuring a parody of the Polar Express that would quite literally railroad my players where I wanted them to go. Also I loaded it with references to Tom Hanks movies, with the conductor being Forrest Gump and the party fighting a battle against the toys from Toy Story. Also there was an homage to the fight against the Phantom Train from Final Fantasy VI, because why not.
I'm definitely the Boxer type. I run things as written and am thrown when the players want to diverge from the scenario entirely. Was thinking that we were missing a couple of types of DMs, but when you mentioned "toxic" ones at the end being their own video some day, I was okay with them not being in this video. I can think of five toxic types of DMs just off the top of my head. I've had all five.
If it’s a one shot, it’s kind of unreasonable for players not to engage with the scenario anyway. (e.g. It’s not railroading to be reluctant to let players to decide to go fishing across the continent instead of investigating the creepy circus the whole module is about.)
In the classically moral sense, every type can be good or bad, depending on the group. Less imaginative players may expect being railroaded to a destination that they approve.
I prefer to run my own worlds as then I know how every NPC relates to every other and will react to the players actions, rather then them going off the rails of a boxed adventure and there being insufficient stuff in the book to easily deal with it - Once they deviate every subsequent part of the adventure as written likely needs adjustment. That said the last boxed adventure I ran everyone enjoyed and I found a good challenge as the players were off the rails at nearly all times so I had to get very inventive and keep track of these new bits well enough that when they get back to something near the box text that text isn't actively wrong...
Definitely a Worldbuilder, Architect, and a Conductor when I absolutely must be. My Homebrew world, Cacophony, is designed to allow for any kind of character without having to rework the system. My personal rule is anything goes as flavor so long as it works within the mechanics. And if it doesn't, we can work something out. Had a player reskin an Aarakocra as a griffin, and it worked out just fine. Was so willing to work with me on it a good chunk of worldbuilding holes got filled in with his help. Also, why does everyone hate fly? It was super easy to compensate for. Bolos and bolo-arrows plus gravity. He was okay with this because I didn't surprise him with it. His character would know to look out for it. Also, he gave me a more than legit reason to have griffons be enemy combatants. Darn I wish I could dm that game more.
I am definitely a world builder/minimalist type of DM. I like making huge sprawling worlds where each NPC and monsters has a reason for being but once that is set, give me a pair of dice and go wild!
Great video. I think every DM/GM is a little different and may often be a combination of the above archetypes. I also feel that as you get more experienced and confident with running games your own preferences develop. Personally, I am a very PC-focused gm who is a combination of conductor-worldbuilder-architect in that order. I tend to run my campaigns in Acts that usually go to level 20 (pazio style) with a clear campaign to follow set in an otherwise sandbox world (with lots of NPC, places to go and side quests to do) that is affected by the outcome of each act. I make my pics the centre of the conflict and not side characters and make an effort to weave the backgrounds (specifically the npc they know) into the plot. In session zero and every time I have a new player, I work to develop PC into a plot and more specifically their friends, family, mentors, rivals and enemies in an effort to give them personal dilemmas and make their choices more meaningful. This is easier to do than it may seem as you simply give your PC a series of questions to complete and before they know they will create enough background info to work with. Also, I always give my PCs a home early on (usually in a large hub full of NPC and stuff to do) and have good law enforcement to avoid them being homeless or murderers.
I'm a new DM. I'm a mix between Boxer and World builder. Running Lmop and I've already done some changes to it. Minor ones, but you know burning down the Stonehill Inn cuz the party left half of the RB hideout alive so they enacted some payback when the party resumed their exploration of the now more trapped and ambush prepared place 😅
I mostly like to mix the first three you spoke of for my DMing style. I want the PCs to be able to face the more interesting monsters and challenges I come up with, but I also have the world do what it does independently of the PCs (and it's highly effected by the PCs actions). I also remove elements that are more confusing (like that Bonus Action spells rule) or slow the game down (like keeping track of exact coinage, ammo, or encumbrance) and tend to lean into the players' creativity when they come up with fun ideas. But I never plan more than a few sessions in advance because player actions could change everything. I'll occasionally dip into a little bit of the Architect as well, but usually only if I think of something fun that doesn't have a way to do it within the ruleset... Like adapting the Laraken from 3.5e to 5e, or needing a system to keep track of how close to death a nymph outside her terel is while the party escorts her home, racing against the clock of her eventual demise. This has backfired once before... When I had a sort of "Tower Defense" styled game session that one time...
I'm probably the Cool Cousin, Architect, Minimalist or at least a mix of them. I always like whenever my players are having fun and do like feedback on what was a rough spot or what was really fun. I really don't prep too much but I do have a general idea of where the game is going. Like the types of players I don't think a GM/DM is just one type but usually a mix of different type. I honestly do want a video on the negative types of GM/DMs. This is mostly as a guide to help people identify problematic traits some GM/DMs have so they can either address and correct the problems or you can leave for less negative one. I've had only one bad GM but it was for so long I didn't realize how bad they truly were, it was also the first one I had so I didn't have other references.
Funny thing about us in the architect/minimalist camp… we tend to have a cool cousin streak, mostly because when the players want to do something, we just gin up a mechanic for it. I’m notorious for my on-the-fly mechanics for player’s out of the box ideas.
I definitely lean heavy into the "Cool Cousin" one. I'm all about story and players having fun, and fudge dice to aid players. When I started I was way too Conductory... then I swung way too Minimalist, but that was tough. "You want to go to...a forest? Ok, there's a house...what do you expect to be there? Oh...you're not going to tell me?" Quick Google search... Hansel and Gretel...ok... it was tough.... I've found a fun middle, of "Prepare, but be ready to throw it all out when player stray from the path...." I also have someone in my group who is the Architect type...and then keeps trying to interject that into this campaign, even though he's a player. "My character would give this to all the other characters!" Uh....whatever, fine.... They're virtually gods at this point, at level 15, they took down a Tarrasque...in one round.
My group would say I’m Nick fury, world builder, with a heavy dash of cool cousin, pinch of conductor, and architect. I love to run a decently high powered group with ancient threats, interwoven story with cool rules, player abilities, and huge story pay off
I'm definitely a Nick Fury dm. I made a whole book of CR 30+ monsters just so I can give my players everything they ever wanted and have fun on these epic boss fights
Being a world builder and having your plans subverted is the most terrifying and exciting thing as a dm. It’s like having all the neurological pathways just fall out from under your feet. We’ll the party it’s let the secret rebel leader they were protecting die, the one keeping all these disparate rebel factions together…
I've become a DM for the first time for two separate campaigns; one digital and one physical. I learned I am a Minimalist DM so far, but am always trying to improve for everyone.
If those are my options i'd say i'm a bizarre combination of nick fury and the cool cousin. I give out magic items and levels like candy because i love for all my quests and encounters to be epic, but at the same time I prefer more laid-back storytelling and usually throw in random silliness just for a laugh and encourage the use of the rule of cool.
I feel like this would be a long video, or even multiple videos, but I'd love to see content on how to play to the strengths of and improve the weaknesses of these different DMs; I'm a worldbuilder for sure, I love developing everything and making intricate countries that play into each other, but I know that improv is hard for me and often I feel like I forget to bring up important stuff in the right moment because I'm scrambling to react to my players. These feel like the most accurate categories I've seen so far, great video!
Robert Hartley (DM for Viva La Dirt League on UA-cam) is a great example of a Conductor DM done right. He has his whole multi-year campaign planned out with plot points set up over 3 years ago in episode one recently brought back up as a crucial plot point to be explored soon, but the players still have total control over what they do. If the players continually fail to pick up what he's trying to put down, he will rant about it on stream, but won't force it in the game. The DM just has to incentivise the players to go in the direction he wants, and maybe have a baddie throw them in a teleporter if they _need_ to go to the Sponsored Content Location at a certain time 😛
My friends and I JUST started playing D&D and our DM is basically cool cousin to the MAX. The whole concept is that rules barely matter and if it’s funny, you can do it. The first thing I ever did was break int a hospital and attempt to drink the IV fluid. During our second session, our barbarian was embedded in the side of a pirate ship Looney Toons style, so he rolled for strength. When we asked what he was doing he said that he was going to flex his muscles, and if he rolled a 20, the ship would explode. We laughed for a good thirty seconds and then he rolled a nat 20, prompting us to laugh even harder.
So much fun to watch.... going I'm a bit of this, a bit of that... assigning percentile values & trying to not wind up at more than 100% xD Thanks for the cackles & giggles
According to this I am an array of DMing types, including a bit of The Nick Fury, The World Builder, The Cool Cousin, The Minimalist, and The Architect. Just a large slew of different bits cause I like to run a really open sandboxy game in my homebrew intricately crafted world where I essentially roleplay the entire world around the players and improv my way through what ever happens while also setting them up with all kinds of cool swag and trying to get them to come up with cool ideas to do.
I think my main dm is quite a bit of a world builder dm. He is honestly quite good at it. He always makes sure to help us build a character that is well incorporated and has tons of connections to the world we are in. It’s honestly a ton of fun. It’s cinematic without being boring either. Not too much exposition. He is also an architect to some degree. He is very good with his balance of it. And he likes rule of cool though he asks that choices be made with the personal story of the party and character when making those requests. He loves to focus in on the story of the characters however. So…yeah. I wish I had a better way to describe him. He is just a really good dm and very compatible with the way I want to play dnd. It’s honestly amazing and I’m very grateful for that. I know not everyone has the means to find a dm who suits them so well and I’m just happy I have. It’s been a really fun journey and I’m excited for the future of it too!
I resonate with the Nik Fury and Cool Cousin DM style. I'm still very new as a DM and I'm excited to keep getting.more experience as time goes on. Great video.
I fit parts of almost all of these except the boxer and conductor. I love building my own universes and having things moving along in said universe but also my world is incredibly flexible and prone to changes based on what my players want/do. I love seeing what creative things my players will come up with and love giving them custom made items just to see how they use them. (Like a gyroscope that just flips the upside down to the nearest surface above them) I also love custom game mechanics. In my campaigns subclasses are relabeled to specializations and subclasses are extra classes earned by interacting with the world. The subclass level is half of the players current total level and does not contribute to the max level.
I become a combo of minimalist and cool cousin after trying to cram and come up with very intensive, but very specific worlds and roles that I felt were boxing my players in and leaving me disappointed if they didn't explore everything. Now, I have the most relaxing and entertaining DM sessions where I can play up people's power fantasies, enable shenanigans, and come up with rules and shit on the fly to make fights and interactions creative and dynamic.
I’m probably a flexible conductor with a sprinkle of nick fury and architect. I like adventures, dungeon crawling, and some RP moments sprinkled about.
My DM is a mix between Box, conductor and cool Cousin and I love it. It's a straight forward campaign but we have the freedom to improvise and lots of rule of cool rules for certain situations. It's just fun to play because we have chaotic character and scream up a lot but find always a way to get to our goal. But if we die there or not is up to the dice
I'm a conductor with a little bit of world builder (or boxer, depending on what my players want). My main goal is to understand my players narrative desires and the characters they want to play and build a story and world where of course they're going to end up exactly where I expect (in the end) because I'm giving all the players exactly what they want. I use the world-building or boxing elements to help expand beyond the main trail because players will always inevitably take an unexpected path, but in that case, I have the world (whether I built it or I got it from a sourcebook) ready to explore, but they'll always end up eventually heading towards the goalposts that I set for them because it's actually the goalposts they set for themselves.
I have a world builder/conductor Dm, and a world builder minimalist!! The first has a whole story, world, history, and detailed major npcs, The second has but a pencil drawn map, a story and a d20, *_both are amazing stories/games that are so full of life fun and levity I am so blessed._*
I'm definitely all of these combined. Is anyone else like this? I personally started out with more of a sandbox homebrew world as a minimalist and worldbuilt while my players played and explored the world I was building around them. Between sessions I created more in-depth NPC's, and made the world alive so that things were happening with or without the players, but also sometimes created things because of character choices or on the spot. I stick to RAW for structure and have an affinity for understanding the rules, but I also modify rules and create homebrew rulesets and houserules to suite our collective game. The boxer is probably the one I am the least, but I still enjoy throwing some modified premade adventures into pre-existing campaigns. I use many generic monsters, but also create my own or modify existing things. I use many resources but also play with few or none if it suits it. I rule of cool often in cases where the rules themselves fall short. I make large plot points that can and will happen, but when it makes sense, and only some time after the adventure began. I also make sure my players find powerful and relevant weapons, but also balance it with random stuff also, as well as anything really OP most likely requiring some adventure to unlock it's power. Meanwhile, most encounters will be challenging and my games have my close calls, but I throw in balance with some easy wins here and there too. My most boxer traits are on the occasion I run a small mini adventure in my pre-existing campaign, rather than running a module. While most DM's may start out with running a module, and work up to how I started, I am the opposite and for me running a module is more difficult than simply creating and improvising and worldbuilding around it.
I'm the architect type, I love it when players customize their builds and I give players and monsters awesome stuff. My own builds are crazy and fun, thanks for the awesome video!! 😀👍
I began as a conductor, then learned how to world build from a Faerun campaign setting box. Now I act as an architect with my own feywild realm and world builder. I feel like I've crossed all of these, haha. Actually, my group appears to be wanting to come back for more and more. We're near the end of the first campaign in the new world creation approach and they're asking what the second round is, even if our player group is definitely nonstandard. We have a dragon, kobold sorcerer, had a ponykind druid (They have a new work schedule now, alas.) and a sphinx-type character. Fortunately, it's the seat I love playing the game from!
I’m about to play D&D for the first time with some friends and I’m going to have to be the DM and boxer sounds like who I’m gonna be for the first couple sessions
I lean heavily to the cool cousin style of DMing, with a fair bit of the world builder mixed in. Just make sure everyone has a good time, don't stop them doing what they want, and make sure everyone at the table communicates their expectations. You can build the world around their choices and make new races and classes if they want to play something unique. You're all there to have fun!
I have an archetype for you. The Sadist. A DM where everything is a trap and every encounter leads to party surprise. They don't describe anything or clue the party in on what's going on in the world prior to throwing a dart trap at you for (their) fun, or ambushing you on the road. They even laugh when your team is hit with an unexpected trap or an enemy deals a critical hit, taking glee in the torment of others.
This was great! I'd love to see tip videos for each dm type and also system recommendations. I think I'm a conductor DM with some minimalist tendencies, depending on which system I'm running
I'm definitely a combo of the storyteller and the architect. I create a deep, lore filled world and change certain abilities or create new ones to fit in my world.
I am a mix of these. I find giving the players constrained agency works well. An example would be giving them three options, they get to weigh the pros and cons, they get to choose. I have all three ready in advance. I also will let them know if they did something crazy and managed to jump right through something. "Congratulations, you ruined all my plans, roll initiative 😅"
I feel like I'm half of these. I've done minimal prep, I've planned campaigns years into the future. I've played adventures straight out of the box. A nice example is my current Shadowrun game. I'm mostly running adventures from their organised play system (SRM season 4), alternated with a few detailed adventures from their own books, and loosely defined adventure seeds from books that contain a bunch of such adventure seeds. At first, I stuck pretty close to the material because we were just learning about the world (not to mention the rules), but as the players get more invested and develop their own ideas about what's going on and what's important, they set more of their own goals and go more off the beaten path. I also started out around Seattle and focused on some local events to flesh out the city a bit more and make the place feel real, but as the game progresses, we occasionally leave the city and visit some other places, including an extended visit to Tir Tairngire (until they were banned from the country). I want the world to feel like a real place where stuff happens regardless of whether they do anything or not, so that's definitely World Builder. But I'm using a lot of published adventures to do that, so that's a Boxer. And there's definitely a place we're going with this, so I might also be a bit of a Conductor. And I'm definitely rooting for the players, but probably not enough to make me a Nick fury or Cool Cousin. Anyway, there's value and risk in all of these types of GM. I think it's best to find a balance between them that works for you and your group. Certainly don't try to stick to one of them; try to learn from all of them. But knowing which one you are may help you grow.
Ever since the beginning i just winged it as a dm.. i guess minimalist described it. Now i play with “theatre of the mind” and replace the miniatures with handhelds like rings & maps & lots of board games ect. I love the way we play how its a endless video game. I still write a story and purpose but its them who roam freely.
I think there's a sweet spot between the world builder and the minimalist that I aspire to, one that I would lable the gardener. Like the world builder, I like to prepare locations, characters, factions, cool details. Details I can use to navigate the world and make something if the players are not in a proactive mood. However nothing is set in stone until it happens at the table, and a world is never complete until the group is done with it. The players still get to control the direction if they want to and I get to discover what the story is going to be at the same time as everybody else.
I actually started as a World Builder (because there was no established worlds and few modules back then), now I'm a Boxer because of a combo of burnout, lack of time, and power-creep problems.
100% boxer with flexable conductor, and a hint of nick fury. I do truly love the minimal planing as the books do the heavy lifting but they seem to create heros and i like to make my players feel that but the box can only give so much and the players have their own story as well. So i weave the book and character stories together which allows me to flex my creativity and give them what they want.
Baldur's Gate 3 is out now on PC! Check it out right here! bit.ly/DnDShorts_BaldursGate3
How was this commented a day ago. Also, I'm happy to see cinderblock Sally and zackspeaksgiant etc. play it
My isn’t it for consoles!!!!
This video got me thinking about DM classes. Like different rules, mechanics and genres are categorized by dming style.
@@donncha-fv7nemaybe UA-cam has an option for prereleasing comments on your video? Lol
It's so awesome that you got this paid spot, I feel like you'd have praised this game eventually in a short or something.
My Dad used to be a DM. Later on when he had me, as many parents do he would tell me bedtime stories. But these weren't out of a book - these were 'Possumcat stories', set in a world where me, my little sister, and a creature named Sam the Possumcat were the main characters improvising our way through a series of oneshots that wove a greater canon over the years. Each 'Possumcat story', Dad would set up an adventure premise, tell part of the story, then prompt me at points to choose what the characters do next. Whatever I chose would influence the direction of the story, whether it be tempting fate and opening the crypt or playing it safe, whether or not we try to steal some dragon gold, whether we investigate the gurgling bunyip sounds, etc. He totally ran my very own D&D-lite experience my whole early childhood! Best Dad ever. ❤
that sounds like such a beautiful way to share stories with you! your dad sounds awesome❤👍🏻
That's inspiring :)
pretty much how Tolkien got writing LOTR too
What is a Possumcat?
@@saschafeld5528 There's no real animal called a Possumcat. 'Sam the Possumcat' was the name given to a plush toy my Dad had once given my Mum as a present that they thought looked like a fluffy mix between a possum and a cat. The plush toy was actually of a greater glider, an endangered type of possum in the eastern Australian states.
As a worldbuilder, here’s a tip: it’s often better to make one, really fleshed out halfling village for the players to get invested in than an expansive world. And if you can isolate them in an abundant setting, even better.
When dming I tend to do a crap load of world building that never actually are used lol. Like there are certain types of magic sea weed that has thousands of leaves that thrive in magma, (Hence the name Magma Leaf) that can be used to either imbue fire resistance, or even power a thermal generator. Sadly I am pretty bad right now at getting my players to think outside the box. So while stuff is there. It doesn't get used ;--; (I use my short story worlds for a lot of my dnd games so thats why there are so many little details)
I try to be Architect at least most of the time so they still have some freedom.
Lol, this is so much of what I do not do as a minimalist. I get the players inveted by making them do a lot of the worldbuilding work for me. I give each player a sort of loose ownership of their home town.
Yessss, this is what I’m doing. I’ve been focusing on building regions of one or two towns and a handful of tiny villages but my players haven’t left the starting town yet, but have the option to!
I’m planning on eventually running a homebrewed series of One Piece campaigns, and this is basically how I wanna do that. The world of One Piece is indeed abundant, and the fact that all the places are islands makes isolation natural, and reunion significant
@@BlueJay-ip5ykIt doesn't matter if you use it not. More accurately, it's there to be used if someone goes that way. It also helps complete the picture for you.
I have rituals mapped out for a race of plains horse barbarians when there is very little chance of a player group ever travelling there. Of course, if someone wants to play a horse barbarian, then these are the people and they will need to understand the lore of the tribes.
A tip for The Conductor DM's. At the end of your sessions or story blocks ask your players what want to do next and be prepared for that. That way they get to choose what to do and you got to build awesome adventures, enjoy!
Basically running a Conductor game means instead of having player agency and cooperative storytelling as improv during the game, you have it as concertation BEFORE the game.
Yep that way instead improv during the game I can design awesome and interesting encounters that suits my players choices
I do this a lot, it REALLY helps me feel prepared while there players still get to choose what they're doing.
@@ugurcankarakas6554 This was basically my one piece campaing.
In session because was always islands...it was difficult to make really big changes. But after the sessions,i always took note of what they wanted to do and added the stuff for then,i changed even story bits to fit better with the current party wishes.
This is great until they end a session heading towards a town, only to start the next session and say "hey, I remembered we heard about this other thing nearby, we should do that instead"
I always tried to be a conductor (because I foolishly thought that was what all DMs were supposed to be) until I finally realized that I’m in fact a minimalist (or maybe more cool cousin) but once I stopped forcing myself to be what I thought a DM was and just followed my gut, I found my true type and honestly it makes all the difference!
Look into the Micro-RPG system "Roll for Shoes." As a person who discovered my type to be "minimalist cool cousin," it is easily my favorite role play game method
My DM is a world builder with a bit of architect. It's incredible. The best DnD I've ever had.
You should tag him so he knows and we can all celebrate his gift
@@nathaniel3931 It is objectively the best DMing style - says me, a DM of the same hybrid style
@@janejvmmsvictoria5857 agreed! I was just about to comment that I am an Architect Worldbuilder when I saw this comment. I'm glad to see there are others who feel as passionately about this style of DMing as I do.
World building architect here with a little bit of conductor in him. Not the best DM, but my players enjoy the games. 🤷♂️
@@bryanyoung9966 As a DM mostly to kids, I've had to force myself to be a conductor DM. Otherwise I'm an worldbuilding architect.
I am a minimalist, and I have mastered the art of: “Yes I predicted that of course”
Same bro 😂
Still remember the time when my party burned Down a goblin village and I had to make a map of the treasury just to say I knew it.
Improvise, adapt, and overcome
As a minimalist, I'll sometimes do stuff that even I didn't expect. My players somehow ended up in the Feywild.
Don't ask me how, because I do not know either.
As both a minimalist and an cool cousin, you can imagine how I like to run things. Chill 3000 XMaster Hyper edition.
I am a minimalist DM. My husband is a worldbuilder. Our friends have lots of fun 😂
I have another archetype for you: Apocalypse Prepper
As a DM I like to prepare all the rollable tables, all the items the world has, easy ways to access less-used rules on the fly, creating important NPCs, creating maps, etc, so basically everything I'm going to need over the course of a campaign, before the campaign starts, except for the story itself (other than a premise and starting point). I like to call this my campaign skeleton.
The rest is left up to the players and their interactions with the world, and I improvise a story depending on how they interact with the premise.
So, much like an apocalypse prepper, I prepare for (nearly) every mechanical eventuality, but improvise to survive when chaos hit the fan.
A combination DM of World-Builder, Conductor and Apocalypse-Prepper, that's just physics.
Then I would by a Mix between Apocalypse-Prepper, Worldbuilder, Conducter and a tiny bit of Architect.
This is my style too 😃
That's me with over 30 macros on my roll20 table haha
I absolutely love this. This is my favored style of dmming for sure. Imrov is my elixir of life, but I obviously need a body to fill it with
I love a good minimalist. My friends and I would play like that when I first started playing D&D. We would just sit around and one of us would DM and the rest of us would talk about what we were doing. No dice. No books. No character sheets. We just had a good group that could create a narrative out of the blue. I wish I could find another group like that.
That sounds awesome
How White Wolf was. Storytelling.
sounds somewhat like regular roleplaying but not in text form
I used to DM like that before I got my first DnD book. Full roleplay, entirely made up rolls when I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with nonsensical difficulty checks. My players still have very good memories of it !
The problem with the minimalist as I see it, is that though they tend to leave for the most choice, story telling and flexibility, that they rarely have much prepared or use much in terms of rules or structure, which makes it very hard to get a balanced game, especially with players of different experience and personality.
Of cause you did stretch "good" minimalist, and I suppose that would be great then. I have just known too many bad minimalists for me to look for minimalist DM's.
In fact I have known a lot of minimalists who while giving you the most choice available, made your choice virtually pointless because of the randomness and lack of preparation given to the game.
I think the World Builder would make the safest good DM, though a good Architect would be great too. The Boxer, Nick Fury, Conductor and Cool Cousin is not for me at all. The more prepared the DM is the better, sure it is hard to have the time for that kind of commitment and it make it hard to be a DM...but I think it is the most fun.
My current DM is 100% a worldbuilder. He literally congratulated and praised me for taking notes 💀
Honestly, players like yourself are a one in a hundred gem. I reckon all DMs, not just those that are a worldbuilder, would praise you for taking notes, being invested in the world and noticing little hidden tips and hints the DM gives the players now and again (easy to miss if nobody is paying attention to the world or the story, and just wants to murderhobo everything in sight)
My dm literally made a new floor for the campaign on the spot because the dwarf barbarian thought breaking all the stone circles on the floor would solve a puzzle of some kind(we failed the perception checks). He ended up making a 30 ft hole which we fell down and we had to fight out of it. Earlier in the campaign I also seduced 13 armor pieces into being lighter so I could hold them.
So you seduced the armor into letting you wear it.
...
Whatever you're into man.
Intro 0:00
Nick Fury 0:06
The World Builder 1:28
The Cool Cousin 3:10
Baldurs Gate Sponser 4:18
The Boxer 5:48
The Minimalist 7:06
The Conductor 8:32
The Architect 9:32
Outro 10:55
Thank you for the time stamps.
Thanks for the sponsorship skip(don’t get me wrong, BaG2 is still an favorite, BaG3 will surely deliver too)
True old school D&D players knows this one. The Monty Haul DM.
My DM surely is a Baldurs Gate Sponser, he won't shut up about this freaking game. I wish he was a Cool Cousin tho...
@@juanma9767 okay funny joke I’ll give you that
I myself, am a Props DM. Whether I'm running a one shot, homebrew, or module, I try and have a prop for just about anything the party might come across, but for things like actual gear and such. For instance I'll have printed magic scrolls, small bags of coins, potion bottles of all types, a few backdrops of a medieval tavern to help set the mood, color changing lights. I once ran a one shot for a friends birthday, with one of the players bringing her 5 year old kid, as she couldn't get a sitter, and since he would be playing his switch in the other room all evening, I went and asked if he wanted to play a ghost. I told him I'd let him know when it was almost time, then when he heard the bell, to put a long black wig on his head, backwards, and to stand in the doorway. I told him after everyone turns to look at him, to just leave. (the players were inspecting a clients family home as he had not heard from them in years after he had left to do his own thing away from his parents)
I ring the bell as I tell them that they see the what looks like a little girl walking from one room to another at the end of the hall. he comes into the doorway with the wig on over his face, one person notices, then everyone else looks and freaks out, everyone turns back to me to try and figure out wth is going on, he then leaves as they are looking at me, they all look back (not seeing him anymore) they look back to me, and I just simple ask them "What?". It was amazing. I also had changed all of the lights in the room to blue and green, including in the bathroom. I heard one of my players as they had to go from down the hall say "god dammit" as he turned on the lights in there. It was great.
I'm definitely a Nick Fury, Architect, and World Building DM. I just love running huge open world games where my players fight armies and literal gods. Using existing rules and homebrew together to make powerful players and enemies that clash against each other like world ending tsunamis is just so rewarding. Balancing the narrative and mechanics together is always so fun for me to give to my players to interact and play with.
I also feel like these 3 but mostly heavy on the Nick Fury. I grew up watching godzilla, and reading comics. Bring on the super heroes
@@nottheonlyjustin Bro I can't blame you, all that stuff is so good. My inspiration is very similar with manga. The cool fights and moments that I strive for. The building blocks that were implanted when we were younger, we are now able to create ourselfs. It's like stepping in the foots of giants. Plus fighting monstrous beings that could destroy the world is always entertaining.
You may seem ideal to handling high level gameplay with ease, which is not an easy task for the majority of DMs. How do you go about doing that?
@@commandercaptain4664 I find the best thing you can do is respect your party's power while also respecting the scale. If your players have fun by steamrolling everything in front of them, then let them. There's nothing wrong with a power fantasy, as long as everyone is on board. However, if your players do want a challenge, and a really cool cinematic one at that, then you have a couple of options. Anytime your players one-shot your bad guy, tell them that it doesn't work and say try something else. This is a terrible idea and will make your players not have fun. The other way is by manipulating the fight with the story. Instead of killing the bad guy, they cripple him, allowing him to use his power to retaliate. This is good because the players still have a huge impact, but they don't speedrun the fight. If you want the fight to last longer, get creative. Manipulate the scene to allow for a more entertaining fight. I don't quite know how to say how, besides you get used to it. I find this becomes easier with experience. However, the most important part is everyone has fun. As long as you're trying, your players will appreciate you and enjoy what you have written. That will make it way more cinematic and epic than anything else.
@@commandercaptain4664 I actually prefer to run high level adventures with my ideal level range for a campaign being level 10-20. One thing to note about high level adventures is it is okay to let them steamroll some encounters like the other reply said with encounters having variable difficulties from easy to deadly.
My last adventure was a dungeon crawl type adventure which I believe lends well to high level games.
One piece of advice I think would help is to have more encounters between long rests. At higher levels, this is pretty important otherwise, they're just going to nova their daily combat encounter. In my game, my players end up rolling initiative often more than 4 times per long rest along with other types of encounters like puzzles or RP and take 2-4 short rests per long rest.
Basically what I am saying is that at high levels, you need to make more stuff happen between long rests. That could be done by making long rests harder such as by having stricter location requirements, increasing the time between long rests or the time that long rests take, or by increasing the frequency of encounters that can drain the party of resources like hit die, spell slots, or racial abilities.
An easy thing to help when using WOTC stat blocks is for select monsters like bosses to have an HP increase because they really lowball their hitpoints at higher CRs. Liches normally have 135 HP, but mine have 250 which made for a really great and close boss fight with 3 level 14 PCs. There were also minions. I only buff the HP for significant monsters so I don't turn every mob or beast encounter into a slog.
Worldbuilders are also the most likely to use gritty realism resting rules. It stops players from just throwing fireballs at any problem and actually lets time pass in the world.
My DM is definitely one. He is quite "restrictive", but any spell, class or race he bans is usually tweaked and then added back.
We can go many sessions without combat and just filled with dialogue and lore. And we are all super into that!
I go for a minimalist/cool cousin style in the game I run. I made it extremely clear when we started the game that this was going to be a mostly improvised game because we're all busy adults with very little spare time and we'd rather spend it together rolling dice and slaying monsters than prepping for weeks just for plans to blow up immediately after starting the session. I also told my players that they can do basically anything if the situation warrants it and in return for making them feel like heroes I pull out bigger enemies. Picking good encounter tables are the name of the game if you try this.
Sounds like you would enjoy Roll for Shoes, my favorite mini-rpg as a cool-cousin/minimalist who doesn't have the time to prep for hours
This is exactly how I run my games, we're all adults trying to escape for a few hours and should celebrate the miracle of getting together. I like my games to have good internal logic, and I do say "no" sometimes, but my general rule is "if you can justify it, you can try and go for it". The best part is that the dice usually know best whenever I do this. When my players are trying to be a little annoying, the dice say no for me XD it hasn't failed yet. I'm really good at storytelling naturally, so I make sure to have a few written encounters and the general story in mind, but I spend most of my prep time making "cool" stuff for my players to enjoy and feel special.
It's a fun way to GM for sûre. I do tend to have a red string of main events and 2-3 Maps per game but most of the game is improvised.
Tho I am probably going go take away Maps altogether, it can be a chore to find or make Maps
My DM for our 1-20 campaign was definitely an architect. Ended up as a war cleric / tempest sorcerer with a greatsword that could be loaded with a gemstone like a gun, the damage going up the more expensive the gem was.
Im stealing that weapon idea. Thanks nerd.
@@some1337dude1 Be my guest, it's rad as hell. Bonus points if the damage type changes depending on the type of gemstone.
It's a good way for random gems in a treasure trove to feel like an actual reward instead of trash that needs to be haggled with
I haven't DMed yet, but I immidiatelly recognised myself in the nick fury and the architect DMs. I haven't started the campaign yet, but I've already created a lot of overpowered items, subclasses, races and even some rules to make battles more epic, all of this to make my players able to stand up to literal gods from mythologies around the world that I've been studying to create the custom monsters, items, classes and races.
A tip for minimalist GMs; a decent way to do a percentage 'roll' is to just use a clock with a stopwatch feature; have the player start and stop the clock while not looking at it, and use the tenths and hundredths of a second as the tens and ones digits. You have a d% in your hands probably right now.
That is GENIUS
Great for a hiking RPG!
@@Naren25 Lookup a Fate variant, SHERPA
@@jbdelphiaiii7637 Will do
"Cool Cousins usually run funnier games"
*Shows the most harrowing adventure ever put to screen*
I think a good GM has elements of several of these types. I used to be a minimalist but as I got older I became more of a worldbuilder, but I do some of all this.
I'm a mix of World builder, Conductor, and Architect. My games are heavily story driven with me usually leading my players through the story while also allowing them to have creative freedom, almost all my games are homebrew as well so my story can fit in with the rules of the world and there can be more epic moments without rules hindering it.
Same, I always create my own universe, quest and plot hooks. I know exactly what will happen at some point but how the party gets there is totally up to the player’s ideas and initiative
I am a blend of the same three, for the same reasons. Every game I have ever run is in my own world/universe, and I always end up homebrewing a significant portion of the rules. Though I do also have minimalist tendencies; I prefer systems that are not too rules heavy and put the onus on me (the GM) and the players instead of stats or dice.
im a mix from all of the types.
same here
i’m still planning my world, but i’m definitely an architect and a conductor. i don’t just have one railroad, i have 9. either you get on the railroad or you all die and get on a different railroad (no joke, i actually have a plan in story for a TPK)
I learned DnD as a minimalist DM with my twin. We would switch off and on as the DM. Eventually we evolved into world builder/architect DMs with a huge universe of worlds and characters
You know the day is gonna be great when a dnd shorts notification appears
I love that you called one a Conductor! I got so much flak from my first DM campaign for railroading my group. I soon learned to be more Rule of Cool than One Track Only. 😁
I've never felt more seen by a DnD video, lol. Definitely a bit of a "Nick Fury"-DM. I think it was Matt Colvile who said something along the lines of "If you give your players a ton of magic items, you're going to break the game. On the other hand, if you have books full of monsters and loot, you might as well use all of it".
Can a party of four level 10 characters take on a flying Godzilla with regeneration? If you deck them up with holy avangers, staffs of power and +3 adamntium armor, they might!
The two tables ive been at the longest and enjoyed the most are essentially polar opposites. One is pure minimalist and the other is an architect/world builder(currently on our second reset to get everything "just right" lol)
This video was really eye opening and helped me narrow down why I have enjoyed some DnD sessions a lot more than others. I think the way I approach the game meshes better with certain DM archtypes than others.
This is also making me realize I must be really annoying to more rules-heavy DMing styles.
World-builder over here! I really enjoy creating locations and NPCs, creating a scene of place and experience. But I'm also something of the Cool Cousin, because the players are part of the world-building. What they tell me about their character's backstory informs the world building. I love it when my players are invested in their characters and act creatively.
Minimal prep
Maximum player agency
Improvise!
I ve started running a DnD campaign with my siblings right before I go off to college and I was so happy when they told me that I was letting them have a good time. I love being a part of the cool cousin archetype. Like having them fight an evil swordsman in a mountain is cool and I want their cool plans to work like sheathing his sword as an attack ( I fudged that roll so they could succeed ) It just is really fun to make a villian of the week for them to battle that I have to make interesting. Have a great day and great video as per usual.
Conductor style is necessary for new players. D&D is pretty abstract, and it takes time for them to understand how to live in it. The flexibility of a conductor creates a space to explore without analysis paralysis.
I think I would call myself a 'Navigator' DM. I do a lot of the World Building stuff, but I also have the storyline and setpeices from the Conductor. How the players get from setpeice to setpeice however, I leave that mostly up to improve, fun, and what makes sense for where they are. And if the players throw me some curveballs when the setpeices come along, I love seeing the crazy results.
As a D&D and DM expert I'd love to hear you run down the list of dragons. Just a comprehensive quick guide on the actual dragons of the game. The types, ages, what the do and how they each work within the game. Dragons are part of the titles of the game and yet they both appear rarely in the games and often times seem mishandled when they appear. Now there is a very substantial list it'd be cool to hear your opinions on each and how you handle dragons as characters and enemies in your games.
I think this really just depends on a few things. Most DMs, in my experience, aren't particularly fond of using dragons in their campaigns because most believe it's a played-out trope not just in D&D but in other fantasy role playing games and media/literature. Kinda like, "Oh what's the big bad ending boss monster of this campaign? That's right. An ancient red dragon with a god complex that wants to take over the world!" It's been done a lot. Players who have been at the table for a while with different groups for many years often groan because it's predictable. But that's not to say that dragons are a bad monster to use in games. There is A LOT that a good DM can do with the many types of dragons available. And all of them are very unique in personality, morality, motivation, appearance, and ambition. Just in the 5E monster manual alone there are 5 chromatic dragons and 5 metallic dragons all complete with extensive information on every detail about them. And some tips on how to play them as a DM. I think some DMs just have this preconceived notion that dragons can't be fun anymore and are boring. And don't even bother to go over their descriptions in the game books. Because if they did, they would realize there is just so much more to dragons than some people realize and if you're creative you can find really cool and interesting ways to insert them into a campaign and have them interact with players. To be clear, I don't want to come across like I'm trying to give an answer for this guy it's just that I felt this comment resonated with me because I've been a strong advocate of using dragons in campaigns for a while now and wish they didn't get overlooked the way they are nowadays. Just my two cents
I think I'm a cross between a Conductor and Cool Cousin DM. I dont really care what the party does as long as their having fun and I make loose notes and maps so I dont worry too much on detail and wing it. Although I always try and have a strong cohesive natrative tying it all together and make sure that all the beats get hit whether the party know it or not
Same here!
I like this. Give a story and some fun, but let me cut my own arm off juggling axes if I happen to get sidetracked while everyone is gathering quest info.
Roll for Shoes is a great micro-rpg system that you might enjoy. It's really easy to be a cool cousin/conductor, especially if you have some minimalist tendencies, and you typically get the full story in a few hours.
This is also how I prefer to dm. Have a narrative in mind with some story beats. Then let the players loose and sprinkle in those ideas or make up new ones or even drop some ideas. I had a group that was very time constrained. So I made a Google survey for them that allowed people without time to essentially randomize a character and ran different one shots that each where themed differently so every time they played it was a different style of game. But we were playing wrath and glory for 40k universe.
I hate being restrictive but love building tight and contained worlds. I having a background in theatre and improvisation but also have a love of "sticking to the source material" and being a conductor. It certaintly poses it's challenges but that's what's great about it.
"Always find a way to yes." Is what I learned in improv. D&D is a cooperative experience. I may have a specific world and vision in mind about how this world works, but will gladly accept additions and changes to it if the player understands what I'm doing and works with me.
If anyone is looking to get started on DMing, I've compiled a list of things that I feel contribute to a good experience, and leans more towards Cool Cousin/Nick Fury type DM:
First of all, don't be afraid to modify the rules of the TTRPG you're using. For example if you're using DND 5th edition, some of the subclasses are on the weaker side. If one of your players comes up with a character that they really wanna play and they have a weaker subclass don't be afraid to give them a bit of a nudge to make them more on par. Example is in my current campaign I play a monk. At low levels monks can do 1d4 dmg with unarmed strikes. Monks are meant to use a simple weapon like a staff or shortsword to give them more damage. But if your player is like me and wants to only use fists for thematics they're gonna feel weaker. So my DM bumped my damage up a bit to match the other characters which use firearms. My DM also lets us take both feats (powerful unique passive traits) and stat increases at level ups instead of forcing you to pick one or the other as per the actual rules.
Hold a session 0 with your friends that are gonna play. Help them set up their character sheets and gear and familiarize them with the table top system you're using if its online (I use Roll20, so teach 'em how it works). Set everything straight, work with everyone to make sure there's no issues or problems so by the time the real first session starts you're all good to go. Plus its a good way to get every one excited to actually play next time you all gather.
When crafting your story, start with some big outlines or plot points. Then ask how will you guide or nudge your players in that direction? Its good to have an overarching plan, but a lot of DMing is playing it by ear cause you never know how your players will approach a situation. Be prepared for them to do things that might sidetrack the story. The best way to do this is I've found is to have say, your first or second session take place in a hub area with some NPCs. Get a feel for how your players approach situations. Do they go around and question townsfolk? Do they try to sneak into bedrooms to look for documents? Do they jump to conclusions and immediately think a suspicious looking guy MUST be the the villain? Etc. The biggest thing is to give your players options. Don't force them to do one thing or it'll feel restrictive and linear. Do they go ask the local sheriff for why someone was murdered, or do they go see the victim's family? Let them decide if they go to the raided military convoy or the burned down church first? Also instead of a typical "everyone meets in a bar", be unorthodox. Mu party members met on a train heading out into the wild west and had to work together when it got robbed.
You are the DM. Your job first and foremost is to make a fun experience for the players. Your job is to craft a fun and memorable experience. You DO NOT try to fight the players. You DO NOT try to put your players in situations that'll get them slaughtered. Nobody likes seeing their character they put so much love into die 3 sessions in. Take it easy with enemies and combat early on. Start off with easy encounters and ramp it up when you start to get a feel for how strong they are and how they play. Don't be afraid to nerf HP behind the scenes or fudge a roll to swing combat in the players favor if they're getting their butts kicked. Like one of the party members cast a spell that made the ground slippery. This spell can make enemies fall down if they fail to roll high enough on a dice on their turn. Our DM said that a powerful enemy that was at 1 HP slipped and hit his head and he died upon failing his roll. This isn't supposed to happen, but its your campaign. Do whatever you want to make it enjoyable, funny, and engaging. You can even have say an NPC that can revive dead players in town if you have people unfamiliar with DND so they don't need to make lots of backup characters.
I personally think a milestone level up system is better than EXP. EXP is a pain to keep track of for each character and means your characters can all be varied levels depending on how many things they kill. Milestone means you level characters up upon hitting certain points of the story or after a big fight. Its easier to keep everyone on the same playing field and helps make big victories feel more rewarding since you deem when they happen.
Reward your players when they do something memorable, very funny, or impressive or after a big fight or successful investigation. DND has rules for generating powerful loot items but you as the DM decide when to reward inspiration, a special dice that can be used whenever the player wants to boost their roll on a dice once. Try to aim to give out one piece of inspiration per session. It provides a good incentive for your players to think outside the box instead of just taking the direct approach.
Heroforge is an excellent free browser program that lets you design 3D models of characters for tabletops using a simple "select which piece of clothing/weapon/species you'd like" sort of system. It's a great way for your players to make a character they connect with and really want to play due to how many options there are. For reference for DND 5e, I use the site 5etools which has everything you need to know. Again IDK what system works good for star wars but I'm sure you could find a way to make star wars work in DND with some thinking. There's also good places that have free maps to use for your TTRPGs.
Lastly some people can be shy at the table. If you're doing a campaign like mine online feel free to let them role play through chat instead of saying aloud all their actions. And make sure to iron out things before they become big problems like if you have a very creepy or aggressive player that causes drama outside of the actual game. Its happened before, you can read the horror stories online.
That's all I have off the top of my head for now, I might add more and reply to this comment later. I hope this helps
I'm not sure this is all great advice.
First of all, don't worry about plots or stories. It is for players to do that. The story is emergent from what happens not something you decide beforehand. You might have a bank in a town. It's up to players to choose what to do: ignore it, store their loot in it, try to sell them services or rob it. The GM creates the situation not the narrative : Maybe the bank manager has a serious gambling addiction and can be coerced into aiding a robbery. Maybe the bank is built on an ancient k'th'cti sacrificial altar.
Secondly, I am not responsible for other people's enjoyment. Does your favourite musical artist fret about what you enjoy? I run the game I am happy and comfortable with. It may be that some players hate my GMing style or the tone of the campaign. Not my problem. They can leave. When you consider how much effort most GMs invest relative to the effort put in by many players they should think themselves lucky rather than expect me to do more.
Shy people are all well and good, but the joy of TTRPGs for me is the role playing; freeform amateur dramatics. If you can't do that, what are you bringing?
I swear my DM completely changes his playstyle every camapign. I'm not complaining though, the variety is fun
You are 1 of the only creators whose adds I don't just skip automatically. Great stuff!
The best way to be a conductor is to give your players control over the levers. You built the train, and you know where all paths lead, but it’s the players that pull the levers to decide which path they go down.
If you do this perfectly most players won’t even think your game is railroaded, they’ll think it’s a really dense sandbox.
I did this in a wrath and glory (40k themed system) game I ran. One I mixed 2 different elements where it was set at the start on a train and I had made it a mystery themed and based on the conclusions the players came to and what they decided to pursue. It would change the enemy's and factions they encountered. The party are all close friends. And some were giving their one buddy a hard time so I would check in with him quietly and basically dark gods whispered to him. In the end he decided to fall to chaos and betray the party. Then with his death he had orchestrated things to appear that they had turned Heretic and almost got the surviving members executed.
Also had another one. Where 1 of the players and I setup her death at the hands of an ork warboss in the first session of play, and had her make her real character that would be introduced in the chaos of the escape.
You can bang a bear, I laughed so hard I cried... well played
8:33 My first time DMing I was The Conductor. I ran a Christmas-themed one-shot, featuring a parody of the Polar Express that would quite literally railroad my players where I wanted them to go. Also I loaded it with references to Tom Hanks movies, with the conductor being Forrest Gump and the party fighting a battle against the toys from Toy Story. Also there was an homage to the fight against the Phantom Train from Final Fantasy VI, because why not.
I'm definitely the Boxer type. I run things as written and am thrown when the players want to diverge from the scenario entirely.
Was thinking that we were missing a couple of types of DMs, but when you mentioned "toxic" ones at the end being their own video some day, I was okay with them not being in this video. I can think of five toxic types of DMs just off the top of my head. I've had all five.
Boxer also are starters. They learn. Respect them for that. Also I have an idea about the types of toxic DMs. We all had our moments with them. 😅
Combo fury and architect
If it’s a one shot, it’s kind of unreasonable for players not to engage with the scenario anyway. (e.g. It’s not railroading to be reluctant to let players to decide to go fishing across the continent instead of investigating the creepy circus the whole module is about.)
In the classically moral sense, every type can be good or bad, depending on the group. Less imaginative players may expect being railroaded to a destination that they approve.
I prefer to run my own worlds as then I know how every NPC relates to every other and will react to the players actions, rather then them going off the rails of a boxed adventure and there being insufficient stuff in the book to easily deal with it - Once they deviate every subsequent part of the adventure as written likely needs adjustment. That said the last boxed adventure I ran everyone enjoyed and I found a good challenge as the players were off the rails at nearly all times so I had to get very inventive and keep track of these new bits well enough that when they get back to something near the box text that text isn't actively wrong...
I get the impression for some reason that SOMEONE is a bear chasing power bottom...
Definitely a Worldbuilder, Architect, and a Conductor when I absolutely must be. My Homebrew world, Cacophony, is designed to allow for any kind of character without having to rework the system.
My personal rule is anything goes as flavor so long as it works within the mechanics. And if it doesn't, we can work something out. Had a player reskin an Aarakocra as a griffin, and it worked out just fine. Was so willing to work with me on it a good chunk of worldbuilding holes got filled in with his help.
Also, why does everyone hate fly? It was super easy to compensate for. Bolos and bolo-arrows plus gravity. He was okay with this because I didn't surprise him with it. His character would know to look out for it. Also, he gave me a more than legit reason to have griffons be enemy combatants.
Darn I wish I could dm that game more.
I am definitely a world builder/minimalist type of DM. I like making huge sprawling worlds where each NPC and monsters has a reason for being but once that is set, give me a pair of dice and go wild!
Great video. I think every DM/GM is a little different and may often be a combination of the above archetypes. I also feel that as you get more experienced and confident with running games your own preferences develop.
Personally, I am a very PC-focused gm who is a combination of conductor-worldbuilder-architect in that order. I tend to run my campaigns in Acts that usually go to level 20 (pazio style) with a clear campaign to follow set in an otherwise sandbox world (with lots of NPC, places to go and side quests to do) that is affected by the outcome of each act. I make my pics the centre of the conflict and not side characters and make an effort to weave the backgrounds (specifically the npc they know) into the plot.
In session zero and every time I have a new player, I work to develop PC into a plot and more specifically their friends, family, mentors, rivals and enemies in an effort to give them personal dilemmas and make their choices more meaningful. This is easier to do than it may seem as you simply give your PC a series of questions to complete and before they know they will create enough background info to work with. Also, I always give my PCs a home early on (usually in a large hub full of NPC and stuff to do) and have good law enforcement to avoid them being homeless or murderers.
I'm a new DM. I'm a mix between Boxer and World builder. Running Lmop and I've already done some changes to it. Minor ones, but you know burning down the Stonehill Inn cuz the party left half of the RB hideout alive so they enacted some payback when the party resumed their exploration of the now more trapped and ambush prepared place 😅
I mostly like to mix the first three you spoke of for my DMing style. I want the PCs to be able to face the more interesting monsters and challenges I come up with, but I also have the world do what it does independently of the PCs (and it's highly effected by the PCs actions). I also remove elements that are more confusing (like that Bonus Action spells rule) or slow the game down (like keeping track of exact coinage, ammo, or encumbrance) and tend to lean into the players' creativity when they come up with fun ideas.
But I never plan more than a few sessions in advance because player actions could change everything. I'll occasionally dip into a little bit of the Architect as well, but usually only if I think of something fun that doesn't have a way to do it within the ruleset... Like adapting the Laraken from 3.5e to 5e, or needing a system to keep track of how close to death a nymph outside her terel is while the party escorts her home, racing against the clock of her eventual demise. This has backfired once before... When I had a sort of "Tower Defense" styled game session that one time...
I love World Builder DM, and man Baldur's Gate 3 is so much fun
I'm probably the Cool Cousin, Architect, Minimalist or at least a mix of them. I always like whenever my players are having fun and do like feedback on what was a rough spot or what was really fun. I really don't prep too much but I do have a general idea of where the game is going. Like the types of players I don't think a GM/DM is just one type but usually a mix of different type. I honestly do want a video on the negative types of GM/DMs. This is mostly as a guide to help people identify problematic traits some GM/DMs have so they can either address and correct the problems or you can leave for less negative one. I've had only one bad GM but it was for so long I didn't realize how bad they truly were, it was also the first one I had so I didn't have other references.
In the classically moral sense, every type can be good or bad, depending on the group. One group’s bad DM could be another’s perfect DM.
I just recently found bg2 and am hooked. Going in almost blind. Took some getting used to but getting better.
I’m an architect/minimalist with a dash of world builder. It’s great fun for me, and my players seem to love it too
Funny thing about us in the architect/minimalist camp… we tend to have a cool cousin streak, mostly because when the players want to do something, we just gin up a mechanic for it. I’m notorious for my on-the-fly mechanics for player’s out of the box ideas.
@@spacemangroove same here
Honestly, the greatest DMs are the mix out of all of these
I definitely lean heavy into the "Cool Cousin" one. I'm all about story and players having fun, and fudge dice to aid players. When I started I was way too Conductory... then I swung way too Minimalist, but that was tough. "You want to go to...a forest? Ok, there's a house...what do you expect to be there? Oh...you're not going to tell me?" Quick Google search... Hansel and Gretel...ok... it was tough.... I've found a fun middle, of "Prepare, but be ready to throw it all out when player stray from the path...."
I also have someone in my group who is the Architect type...and then keeps trying to interject that into this campaign, even though he's a player. "My character would give this to all the other characters!" Uh....whatever, fine.... They're virtually gods at this point, at level 15, they took down a Tarrasque...in one round.
My group would say I’m Nick fury, world builder, with a heavy dash of cool cousin, pinch of conductor, and architect. I love to run a decently high powered group with ancient threats, interwoven story with cool rules, player abilities, and huge story pay off
I'm definitely a Nick Fury dm. I made a whole book of CR 30+ monsters just so I can give my players everything they ever wanted and have fun on these epic boss fights
Brilliant video, scratches an itch not any other mainstream youtubers have really explored
The real trick is for a DM to be able to switch into each of the 7 types as needed throughout the campaign
Why? I don't see the need to rail road and "Nick Fury" sounds a bit juvenile.
Being a world builder and having your plans subverted is the most terrifying and exciting thing as a dm. It’s like having all the neurological pathways just fall out from under your feet. We’ll the party it’s let the secret rebel leader they were protecting die, the one keeping all these disparate rebel factions together…
How do I change the settings on my DM?
Kidnap them put them in rehabilitation for three weeks and then you’ll get a brand new DM that will be willing to do exactly as you say😊
A very large stick
Using a clip of EXU Calamity as an example of a “funnier game where players have maximum agency” is WILD
I've become a DM for the first time for two separate campaigns; one digital and one physical.
I learned I am a Minimalist DM so far, but am always trying to improve for everyone.
I discovered you today. You have already provided me more information than everyone else, and I thank you for it.
If those are my options i'd say i'm a bizarre combination of nick fury and the cool cousin. I give out magic items and levels like candy because i love for all my quests and encounters to be epic, but at the same time I prefer more laid-back storytelling and usually throw in random silliness just for a laugh and encourage the use of the rule of cool.
I feel like this would be a long video, or even multiple videos, but I'd love to see content on how to play to the strengths of and improve the weaknesses of these different DMs; I'm a worldbuilder for sure, I love developing everything and making intricate countries that play into each other, but I know that improv is hard for me and often I feel like I forget to bring up important stuff in the right moment because I'm scrambling to react to my players. These feel like the most accurate categories I've seen so far, great video!
Just a cool drop of fellow UA-camr Mr. Tarrasque, right in the middle there, lol. He _does do_ a lot of UNboxing though.
You missed the type that just wants to talk on and on for 4 hours. Not a lot of those but man we players hate them.
Nah he mentioned brennan mulligan
Robert Hartley (DM for Viva La Dirt League on UA-cam) is a great example of a Conductor DM done right. He has his whole multi-year campaign planned out with plot points set up over 3 years ago in episode one recently brought back up as a crucial plot point to be explored soon, but the players still have total control over what they do. If the players continually fail to pick up what he's trying to put down, he will rant about it on stream, but won't force it in the game. The DM just has to incentivise the players to go in the direction he wants, and maybe have a baddie throw them in a teleporter if they _need_ to go to the Sponsored Content Location at a certain time 😛
I don't think that railroady campaigns are ever done right; even when the GM hides the tracks. I think it's lazy.
My friends and I JUST started playing D&D and our DM is basically cool cousin to the MAX. The whole concept is that rules barely matter and if it’s funny, you can do it. The first thing I ever did was break int a hospital and attempt to drink the IV fluid. During our second session, our barbarian was embedded in the side of a pirate ship Looney Toons style, so he rolled for strength. When we asked what he was doing he said that he was going to flex his muscles, and if he rolled a 20, the ship would explode. We laughed for a good thirty seconds and then he rolled a nat 20, prompting us to laugh even harder.
Im about to start the tyranny of dragons campaign on Wednesday next week and i cant wait to dm it
So much fun to watch.... going I'm a bit of this, a bit of that... assigning percentile values & trying to not wind up at more than 100% xD
Thanks for the cackles & giggles
According to this I am an array of DMing types, including a bit of The Nick Fury, The World Builder, The Cool Cousin, The Minimalist, and The Architect. Just a large slew of different bits cause I like to run a really open sandboxy game in my homebrew intricately crafted world where I essentially roleplay the entire world around the players and improv my way through what ever happens while also setting them up with all kinds of cool swag and trying to get them to come up with cool ideas to do.
I think my main dm is quite a bit of a world builder dm. He is honestly quite good at it. He always makes sure to help us build a character that is well incorporated and has tons of connections to the world we are in. It’s honestly a ton of fun. It’s cinematic without being boring either. Not too much exposition. He is also an architect to some degree. He is very good with his balance of it. And he likes rule of cool though he asks that choices be made with the personal story of the party and character when making those requests. He loves to focus in on the story of the characters however. So…yeah. I wish I had a better way to describe him. He is just a really good dm and very compatible with the way I want to play dnd. It’s honestly amazing and I’m very grateful for that. I know not everyone has the means to find a dm who suits them so well and I’m just happy I have. It’s been a really fun journey and I’m excited for the future of it too!
I resonate with the Nik Fury and Cool Cousin DM style. I'm still very new as a DM and I'm excited to keep getting.more experience as time goes on. Great video.
I fit parts of almost all of these except the boxer and conductor. I love building my own universes and having things moving along in said universe but also my world is incredibly flexible and prone to changes based on what my players want/do. I love seeing what creative things my players will come up with and love giving them custom made items just to see how they use them. (Like a gyroscope that just flips the upside down to the nearest surface above them) I also love custom game mechanics. In my campaigns subclasses are relabeled to specializations and subclasses are extra classes earned by interacting with the world. The subclass level is half of the players current total level and does not contribute to the max level.
I’m a nick fury dm and my party loves it and I love them loving it
Fun! Nice to see how each of these fit in my DM style. I can see all of these at least a little in my work. We all have a scale if each of these.
I become a combo of minimalist and cool cousin after trying to cram and come up with very intensive, but very specific worlds and roles that I felt were boxing my players in and leaving me disappointed if they didn't explore everything. Now, I have the most relaxing and entertaining DM sessions where I can play up people's power fantasies, enable shenanigans, and come up with rules and shit on the fly to make fights and interactions creative and dynamic.
I’m probably a flexible conductor with a sprinkle of nick fury and architect. I like adventures, dungeon crawling, and some RP moments sprinkled about.
My DM is a mix between Box, conductor and cool Cousin and I love it. It's a straight forward campaign but we have the freedom to improvise and lots of rule of cool rules for certain situations. It's just fun to play because we have chaotic character and scream up a lot but find always a way to get to our goal. But if we die there or not is up to the dice
I'm a conductor with a little bit of world builder (or boxer, depending on what my players want). My main goal is to understand my players narrative desires and the characters they want to play and build a story and world where of course they're going to end up exactly where I expect (in the end) because I'm giving all the players exactly what they want. I use the world-building or boxing elements to help expand beyond the main trail because players will always inevitably take an unexpected path, but in that case, I have the world (whether I built it or I got it from a sourcebook) ready to explore, but they'll always end up eventually heading towards the goalposts that I set for them because it's actually the goalposts they set for themselves.
I have a world builder/conductor Dm, and a world builder minimalist!!
The first has a whole story, world, history, and detailed major npcs,
The second has but a pencil drawn map, a story and a d20,
*_both are amazing stories/games that are so full of life fun and levity I am so blessed._*
I'm definitely all of these combined. Is anyone else like this?
I personally started out with more of a sandbox homebrew world as a minimalist and worldbuilt while my players played and explored the world I was building around them. Between sessions I created more in-depth NPC's, and made the world alive so that things were happening with or without the players, but also sometimes created things because of character choices or on the spot. I stick to RAW for structure and have an affinity for understanding the rules, but I also modify rules and create homebrew rulesets and houserules to suite our collective game. The boxer is probably the one I am the least, but I still enjoy throwing some modified premade adventures into pre-existing campaigns. I use many generic monsters, but also create my own or modify existing things. I use many resources but also play with few or none if it suits it. I rule of cool often in cases where the rules themselves fall short. I make large plot points that can and will happen, but when it makes sense, and only some time after the adventure began. I also make sure my players find powerful and relevant weapons, but also balance it with random stuff also, as well as anything really OP most likely requiring some adventure to unlock it's power. Meanwhile, most encounters will be challenging and my games have my close calls, but I throw in balance with some easy wins here and there too. My most boxer traits are on the occasion I run a small mini adventure in my pre-existing campaign, rather than running a module. While most DM's may start out with running a module, and work up to how I started, I am the opposite and for me running a module is more difficult than simply creating and improvising and worldbuilding around it.
I'm the architect type, I love it when players customize their builds and I give players and monsters awesome stuff. My own builds are crazy and fun, thanks for the awesome video!! 😀👍
I feel like I’m a mixture of a conductor, world builder, and a teeny bit of the architect
Love your show! Would really like to see you cover Pathfinder 2e also.
I began as a conductor, then learned how to world build from a Faerun campaign setting box. Now I act as an architect with my own feywild realm and world builder. I feel like I've crossed all of these, haha.
Actually, my group appears to be wanting to come back for more and more. We're near the end of the first campaign in the new world creation approach and they're asking what the second round is, even if our player group is definitely nonstandard. We have a dragon, kobold sorcerer, had a ponykind druid (They have a new work schedule now, alas.) and a sphinx-type character.
Fortunately, it's the seat I love playing the game from!
I’m about to play D&D for the first time with some friends and I’m going to have to be the DM and boxer sounds like who I’m gonna be for the first couple sessions
I lean heavily to the cool cousin style of DMing, with a fair bit of the world builder mixed in. Just make sure everyone has a good time, don't stop them doing what they want, and make sure everyone at the table communicates their expectations. You can build the world around their choices and make new races and classes if they want to play something unique. You're all there to have fun!
Really nice descriptions! Could be cool to make a quiz to see which ratio of levels we are, as I'm sure DM's are at least a mix of 2 😁
I have an archetype for you. The Sadist. A DM where everything is a trap and every encounter leads to party surprise. They don't describe anything or clue the party in on what's going on in the world prior to throwing a dart trap at you for (their) fun, or ambushing you on the road. They even laugh when your team is hit with an unexpected trap or an enemy deals a critical hit, taking glee in the torment of others.
Great video, and the best ad I have seen from your channel.
This was great! I'd love to see tip videos for each dm type and also system recommendations.
I think I'm a conductor DM with some minimalist tendencies, depending on which system I'm running
I'm definitely a combo of the storyteller and the architect.
I create a deep, lore filled world and change certain abilities or create new ones to fit in my world.
I am a mix of these. I find giving the players constrained agency works well. An example would be giving them three options, they get to weigh the pros and cons, they get to choose. I have all three ready in advance. I also will let them know if they did something crazy and managed to jump right through something. "Congratulations, you ruined all my plans, roll initiative 😅"
I feel like I'm half of these. I've done minimal prep, I've planned campaigns years into the future. I've played adventures straight out of the box.
A nice example is my current Shadowrun game. I'm mostly running adventures from their organised play system (SRM season 4), alternated with a few detailed adventures from their own books, and loosely defined adventure seeds from books that contain a bunch of such adventure seeds. At first, I stuck pretty close to the material because we were just learning about the world (not to mention the rules), but as the players get more invested and develop their own ideas about what's going on and what's important, they set more of their own goals and go more off the beaten path.
I also started out around Seattle and focused on some local events to flesh out the city a bit more and make the place feel real, but as the game progresses, we occasionally leave the city and visit some other places, including an extended visit to Tir Tairngire (until they were banned from the country).
I want the world to feel like a real place where stuff happens regardless of whether they do anything or not, so that's definitely World Builder. But I'm using a lot of published adventures to do that, so that's a Boxer. And there's definitely a place we're going with this, so I might also be a bit of a Conductor. And I'm definitely rooting for the players, but probably not enough to make me a Nick fury or Cool Cousin.
Anyway, there's value and risk in all of these types of GM. I think it's best to find a balance between them that works for you and your group. Certainly don't try to stick to one of them; try to learn from all of them. But knowing which one you are may help you grow.
Ever since the beginning i just winged it as a dm.. i guess minimalist described it. Now i play with “theatre of the mind” and replace the miniatures with handhelds like rings & maps & lots of board games ect. I love the way we play how its a endless video game. I still write a story and purpose but its them who roam freely.
I think there's a sweet spot between the world builder and the minimalist that I aspire to, one that I would lable the gardener.
Like the world builder, I like to prepare locations, characters, factions, cool details. Details I can use to navigate the world and make something if the players are not in a proactive mood.
However nothing is set in stone until it happens at the table, and a world is never complete until the group is done with it. The players still get to control the direction if they want to and I get to discover what the story is going to be at the same time as everybody else.
I actually started as a World Builder (because there was no established worlds and few modules back then), now I'm a Boxer because of a combo of burnout, lack of time, and power-creep problems.
100% boxer with flexable conductor, and a hint of nick fury. I do truly love the minimal planing as the books do the heavy lifting but they seem to create heros and i like to make my players feel that but the box can only give so much and the players have their own story as well. So i weave the book and character stories together which allows me to flex my creativity and give them what they want.