Why Your Villain Falls Flat (And How to Fix It with Show, Don’t Tell) | Part 1 of the Show Don't Tell Mini Series

3 april 2025 | 31 min

Most villains fail not because they're weak—but because your players aren’t emotionally invested. In this episode, we kick off a powerful new storytelling series with a focus on “Show, Don’t Tell”—starting with the most misunderstood piece of storytelling in D&D: the villain.

You’ll learn:

Why simply saying “he’s the bad guy” never works
How to build villains that evoke real fear, anger, or awe
A concrete method for triggering emotional investment
Real-world villain examples (and mistakes to avoid)

Ready to turn your villains from forgettable into unforgettable? Let’s roll.

👉 Want even more insights? Patrons get bonus content featuring improv warm-ups, DM scene setting, and personal geeking out sessions. Join at https://session0studios.com/patreon

Special thanks to:

Benj Weyland for our Graphic Design

Techsenpai, Juka and TJ Max for being great moderators!

Foxy Beard for being a patron.

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Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

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You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Diving Deep into Theme, Fate, and Storytelling with Jay Foster from Swole Initiative

28 mars 2025 | 53 min

What does it really mean to be a strong Dungeon Master? Is it about rules mastery, epic voices, or maybe... sonic attacks and diamond scales?

In this episode of How to Be a Better DM, returning guest Jay Foster from Swole Initiative joins Justin Lewis for a monster of a conversation—literally. First, Jay becomes the first victim of our brand-new segment, “What’s Your Monster?” powered by our friends at WorldSmith. (Spoiler: It’s epic.)

Then we dig deep into the power of theme in D&D campaigns—what it is, how to discover it, and how to use it to elevate your game. Jay breaks down how theme connects your villains and player characters and why letting go of rigid story control actually leads to better storytelling.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed trying to wrangle plotlines, player choices, and big ideas, this episode is your antidote.

🔥 Topics Covered:

How to find the theme in your campaign (even if you didn’t plan one)
How to use your villain’s motives to reinforce story
Why players make better stories than you do
When to take control as a DM—and when to step back
The creative advantage of doing less prep

🎲 Plus: Jay shares improv tips, pacing tricks, and how to get players out of a “tavern loop.”

Whether you're a brand-new DM or an old-school storyteller, this episode will sharpen your storytelling tools—and maybe inspire your next legendary monster.

🧰 Sponsored by WorldSmith – Try their encounter generators and prep tools at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast!

🎧 Subscribe, leave a review, and share the show if you love what you hear!

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Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

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Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

GMing 101: Top DM Tips from Dragon Steel Nexus

20 mars 2025 | 76 min

How to Help Players Fit Into Your D&D Party

13 mars 2025 | 23 min

Why Your D&D Party Won’t Stay Together (And How to Fix It)

6 mars 2025 | 31 min

Your party has already split 30 minutes into session one—again. The rogue sneaks off, the barbarian wrestles in the local church, and the bard… well, who even knows? If you’re tired of struggling to keep your party together, this episode is for you. Discover the Coalescence Event, a powerful DM tool that ensures your players stay united through meaningful storytelling, emotional stakes, and shared goals. Learn the 9 essential methods to organically bond your party—from shipwrecks to common enemies—and create a campaign that feels natural, immersive, and unforgettable.

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Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

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Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

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Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

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Alignment in D&D: Outdated Relic or Roleplay Goldmine?

27 februari 2025 | 36 min

Alignment—one of the most debated mechanics in Dungeons & Dragons. Is it a vital storytelling tool or an unnecessary restriction? In this episode, Tanner and Justin dive deep into the purpose of alignment, its impact on roleplay, and whether it should still have a place in modern campaigns. Plus, hear real stories of alignment gone hilariously wrong and discover ways to make it more meaningful at your table. Don’t miss this insightful discussion that could change how you run your game!

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Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

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Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

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Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

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The Lost Episode? Lessons from Ashley May King on Mastering the Art of DMing in Horror and Mystery

20 februari 2025 | 47 min

Ever lost something truly great? Well, our first recording with Ashley May King disappeared into the void, but lucky for you, she’s back for an incredible conversation about writing horror and Mystery! Join us as we dive into storytelling, Dungeon Mastering techniques, and how to create unforgettable tabletop adventures. Don’t miss this episode of How to Be a Better DM!

Check out more of Ashley at https://www.instagram.com/ashleymayking/

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

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Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

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Long Vs Short D&D Campaigns: Which is best for you?

13 februari 2025 | 27 min

Do you think that there is the perfect length for a campaign? Well, rather than spending forever finding that out, let's instead consider the advantages of both extremes of campaigns: a short, 5-15 session campaign, or a long 20, 30, 40+ campaign carried throughout the years.

Our sponsor, Worldsmith: session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

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The Dos and Don'ts of the Early Campaign

6 februari 2025 | 30 min

There’s one mistake I’ve made over and over as a DM, and every time, it has sucked the life out of my campaigns. The worst part? I didn’t even realize I was doing it. But fixing it? That took just one simple change. Today, I’m sharing that tip with you—along with 12 others—to make sure your early campaign isn’t just fun but keeps your players hooked all the way to the endgame.

Intro

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, the show that helps you craft unforgettable D&D sessions. I’m Justin Lewis, and for over three years, my cohosts and I have explored every dungeon master challenge under the sun. Today, we’re tackling a crucial question: How do you make your campaign’s opening strong enough to keep players coming back for more? Whether you’re a new DM or a veteran, these 13 tips will help you sidestep common pitfalls and build a campaign that players can’t wait to continue.

The first few sessions of your campaign determine whether your players stay invested—or quietly start looking for another game. If you get this wrong, you might find yourself scrambling to keep their attention, dealing with last-minute cancellations, or, worst of all, facing a total campaign collapse. But if you get it right? Your players will be hooked, excited, and fully immersed in your world. Let’s make sure that happens.

Starting their first campaign is exciting yet nerve-racking for many people. You want to make sure you’ve gotten it all right! Most often, though, we feel we are falling short of where we want to be. That’s all right, though. Almost nothing is more instructive than doing things wrong and learning from them.

Your campaign's early stages can be a pivotal period for your party and yourself as a DM. Everyone is still learning how to play together and the early stages of any campaign are when it is most fragile. It’s not that difficult to stop playing because the emotional investment hasn’t yet been made.

So to help you safeguard your early campaign and help you overcome the fragility, here is a simple list of Do’s and Don’ts for your early campaign.

And there’s one tip near the end of this list that completely transformed my campaigns. It’s something I overlooked for years, but once I figured it out, my players became way more engaged. I’ll share that one toward the end—so stick with me.

Before I get deeper into this particular rabbit hole, let me just say that every DM has their own way of doing things—these are just my lessons. Take what works for you and leave the rest.

Ok here are my do’s and don’ts for the Early Campaign.

Do Plan out the Story Arcs

Because the early campaign is so fragile, one way to strengthen it is by planning out your story arcs. That’s why you should apply the CASE method. For those of you that don’t know that that is, check out episode 157, but in brief, the CASE method stands for Campaign, Story Arc, Session, Encounter.

You use the case method to plan each portion of a campaign by building that portion with its smaller constituent parts, encounters build sessions, sessions build story arcs and story arcs build campaigns.

Have you ever felt lost 2 sessions into your campaign? That’s why the CASE Method exists.

In this case, that means that you storyboard and timeline the general story arcs you think are going to happen. You want to do this so that at the very minimum, you have a general idea of the flow of the campaign.

Your Story Arc plan is not going to be what happens. Player choice and the natural flow of the game is going to dictate which story arcs get played and which simply fade into irrelevance.

It’s important to have a general idea of the direction of the campaign so that you can tease certain things that are coming down the pipe (more on that when we get to number 13).

For example in one of my professional DMing groups, the story revolves around the party being essentially stuck in the Underdark. I’ve given the party a magical item that transports them to the surface, but only for 24 hours, and then returns them to the Underdark. While at the surface, I’ve prepared some minor story arcs to explore each player’s back story. Planning these out can help me pace what is happening on the surface compared to what is happening in the Underdark.

Don’t Overplan

Even though you should have a general idea of what is going to happen, you should only ever be 2 to 3 sessions. When I say prepared, I mean prepared. As I’ve already mentioned you should always have a general idea of where the story is going to go (though you should also remember not to “Should” all over yourself), but don’t worry about having the nuts and bolts of 5 sessions down the line prepared. Things will change so much by then that there is no possible way you’ll be able to predict what your players will want to do and therefore what will be salient to your session planning.

One great example is my current personal campaign. The party had done a long trip through the Astral Sea and had finally returned home to Waterdeep. There they discovered a lot (honestly far too many) plot lines that were intersecting and all seemed either too urgent or not urgent enough. The party essentially decided to skip a year of gameplay, fast-forwarding through a lot of story arcs that I had been working on. I was ok with this, but a portion of the work had to be chucked out because we simply didn’t have the time to do it. So plan general notes, but don’t overplan, because the second you do, your party will skip what you got. It always happens.

Do Allow Room for Player Added Story Arcs or Sessions

One big mistake I made as a novice DM was not allowing for room for players to create story arcs or sessions that are added to my game. I’m not saying that the player becomes the DM though that is certainly an option. What I mean is any particular player makes decisions left and right. Some of those decisions can blossom into full adventure side-quests comprising sessions or full story arcs. If your story is too rigid and prevents that from happening, your players won’t feel as much ownership of the story. This will limit their emotional involvement and therefore their engagement and their fun. When they can drive sessions and story arcs, but there are still sessions and story arcs where the world drives the conflict, the players will be engaged and immersed in the world because it will feel real and responsive.

Another example of this comes from my campaign. One of the party members wanted to go on a quest to find some long-lost friends. This arc eventually took the party through the Astral Sea. They ended up being slaves for a time and it was a fun and interesting story arc that only existed because the player’s character had the desire to go save his friends. I wasn’t planning it, but that player helped add something new and unique to the story. Thank goodness he did.

Don’t Forget the Sizzle

Sell the sizzle, not the steak. You gotta have the steak, but you can’t forget the sizzle either. In this metaphor, you need the substance of your game to be good, the steak. But it’s the sizzle that your players remember. It’s the sizzle where you take the game to the next level.

The world’s greatest dungeon masters have learned how to derive their main source of enjoyment from seeing their players enjoy the game. Therefore, the greatest DMs are always looking for ways to make the game more fun and memorable for their players, hence the sizzle!

A great example of this comes from our Cayden Ottley, who’s been on this show quite a bit. Last summer, Cayden ran our group through a small campaign of his own design. The campaign had us going through a very large and whimsical forest.

Cayden is a skilled artist and he paints really good miniatures. Our jaws literally dropped when he placed a massive snail on the table—its shell wasn’t just a shell; it was an intricately painted house, with tiny glowing windows and moss creeping up the sides. Suddenly, we weren’t just playing D&D; we were there, in the world.

Now obviously Cayden has a 3d Printer and can print some cool things, but it was the care and detail he put into the painting of the minis that made our jaws drop. It sizzled.

At the start of today’s episode, I mentioned that there’s a mistake I constantly make and it has hurt me time and time again. This is that mistake. I fail to make my sessions exciting and I fail to bring the sizzle. Because of this, I’ve often wondered how fun and engaging my sessions are. So here’s my challenge for you: What’s one thing you can do this week to add more sizzle to your game? A prop, a sound effect, a player-driven story arc? Try it out, and let me know how it goes. Message me on Instagram or drop a comment on our latest post—I’d love to hear your ideas!

Do Settle on a General Theme for the Campaign

Within the early campaign, it’s a great time to settle on a general theme for your overall campaign and to start trickling out signs of that theme. Foreshadowing has to come before whatever happens next, so in the early campaign that’s the best time to make that happen.

For new people, a campaign theme is a general idea or pattern of messages that seems to resonate with the campaign. For example, in your campaign you may have the theme of friendship and what that is. Then from your theme, you “ask” interesting questions about your theme in the form of putting the characters in situations where you don’t know what they would do.

An example of questions you could ask about the friendship theme is having one of the best friends of one of the characters show up as one of the party’s enemies. Throughout the campaign, you could have this frenemy do things to antagonize the party, but also do things to help their individual friend. The question would be, are the frenemy and the character who knows them still friends? When did they stop being friends if they did?

Pick a theme idea, and then start to let that seep into the very essence of the game.

Don’t Force that Theme Every Session

One of my biggest critiques of Disney’s batch of Star Wars movies and shows is that often, Disney tries to shove their message down your throat, rather than trusting the audience to be intelligent enough to read between the lines and discover whatever message they are trying to sell you. Frankly, I’m a bit against most things Disney has done in the last couple of decades, but that’s a whole different podcast.

With your games, you should avoid the Disney treatment. Don’t force the theme down the throats of your players. Don’t make it obvious, especially in the early campaign, and don’t make it so every session has to do with the theme. It should be sprinkled about until large theme elements come up, for example, the BBEG might be heavily connected to the theme. That means when you foreshadow the BBEG it’s likely that you may need to also sprinkle theme elements about.

Often though, theme elements will come in the form of scenarios or questions that you essentially pose to the party and see how they react. But overall, let the theme color the story and not get in the way of it. If the party is having a hard time connecting to the story because the Theme is in the way, then just get rid of it. The theme should somewhat feel like the pacing of the story. The closer to the climax the more theme elements you can drizzle out. This is a nice tactic because when things get serious and the stakes are high, players can also look around and see a lot of familiar threads and then they’ll make a lot of connections to earlier parts of the game.

Do Figure Out What Motivates Each Player and Each Character

In your early campaign, find out what motivates each player and what gives the highest level of satisfaction and enjoyment from D&D. You do this by testing out different scenarios and observing the reactions of each player to each scenario.

Every player plays for different reasons and every player enjoys D&D for different reasons. I’ve seen this a little more lately since I started Dungeon Mastering professionally for clients. For example, in one of my groups, there is a player who is very much motivated by loot-crafting items and acquiring stuff. Because of that, I’ve tried to help him find cool ways to use a particular crafting ability that comes with his character. I’ve tried to open up the crafting so that he can craft a lot more and craft cooler stuff. Moving forward, I think I need to sprinkle in interesting and useful random magical components, or materials that could be used in crafting so that he can then go crazy trying to think up ways to use it.

Other players in that same group, however, are not so loot-focused, though they very much do like loot. For these players, I add in puzzles or combat or whatever else it is they are interested in.

You also need to figure out which of your players care more about hanging out with friends than they do about the story. And as a pro tip, the motivations of players can change, even from session to session. Sometimes the group gets together after a hard week in the real world and it takes a bit longer to get the game started and a bit longer to get things going seriously.

News flash!

That’s because that week the group is motivated by hanging out with their friends, so you don’t need to make things as interesting or serious. Instead, be relaxed and roll with the punches, possibly adding in some funny and low-stakes encounters for the party just to blow off some steam.

Additionally, find out what motivates each character. Matt Coleville of MCDM says that you need to chase your characters up a tree to get them engaged. You can’t chase them up a tree unless you know what they care about. Find out what the character cares about and twist it to your aims.

Don’t Go Nuts with the Sprinkles (Magic Items)

It can be a challenge for new DMs to know when and how to dole out loot, especially magic items. In the early campaign, do not give out too many magical items. This is for 2 reasons.

First, when figuring out encounter difficulty, the Challenge Rating of monsters is pitted against the average Party Level, at least how the 2014 Dungeon Master’s Guide has you do it. This method does not consider the magical items within the group very well. Adding magical items throws a whole new variable into the system that can be hard to deal with.

Second, the party may just want to sell the magical items because often magical items can be worth thousands of gold pieces. This can very quickly offset the economy of your adventuring party which can result in the acquisition of other, more powerful items, or the creation of lucrative situations that could quickly unbalance the game. If this happens you can just make things harder, but often the solution to giving the party so many toys up front is to take away the toys or to devalue them by making everything else harder. Often this solution is not so fun. Better to trickle out the sprinkles a little at a time.

Do Homebrew Monsters

Early on in any campaign, make sure to do homebrew adversaries often. Even if you are a very experienced DM, doing the practice of making a baddie that is correctly balanced to the skill level of the party is a great exercise. In the later campaign, you may probably want or need to homebrew a baddie because of player choice and improvised situations. You want to be able to already have the skills necessary to do homebrew them without a lot of stress. Hence the early campaign practice.

For example, if you have a group that is between levels 1 and 5, it’s easy to make a monster that balanced, well at least easier than making a monster balanced for a party between levels 15 and 20. The monster will have one or two abilities and that’s it. Not so many variables.

In one of my paid campaigns, the party is fighting some Goliath Gnoll Demon Hybrids. Homebrewing those was a lot easier than homebrewing the BBEG in my campaign where the party is level 16.

Don’t Flesh out the Entire World

Do not flesh out the entire world while still in the early campaign. This goes for homebrew campaigns as well as prewritten modules. Worldbuild just enough to make problems and enough to make those problems interesting.

A great example of this is the old Dreamworks movie Robots. I love that movie. I used to have to watch that movie in Spanish for some Spanish homework. I was watching Robots the other day and I noticed one particular scene. It’s the scene where Madame Gasket climbs up the ventilation shaft to talk to Ratchet who is getting a back massage. If you look around that room he’s in during that, there’s nothing there. They are literally in a no-name room with nothing interesting going on around them. That’s because the storytellers at Dreamworks know that you match the details of the world to the problems of the story you’re telling.

Do Be Willing to Go Off Script

Early on in your campaign, you will have written something down for your session, or you’ll be playing off of the pre-written module. Then a player will want to do something not in the “script” or even better, you’ll have a better idea of something to add to the game. Do it.

This is officially your permission to just go with it. Follow that instinct you have and go off script. It’s especially important to follow these feelings to go off script in the early campaign because 1) it sets the tone for the rest of the campaign, and 2) it allows you to follow the added story elements for longer (which will result in a much more fun campaign).

A great example of this comes from one of my paid campaigns. The party is in the Underdark and I had set up for them to find this temple. I’m running Out of the Abyss so this is the Temple of Ooze I’m talking about. In one of the central chambers, I had decided to add an Oracle to give the party the “Quest” to sort of speed things up for the party, giving them some crucial information.

While roleplaying this part, I feel like the Oracle felt sad for the party. So in a moment of Inspiration, I had the Oracle give the party a boon; Magical manacles that could transport the party to the surface, to a place where they’ve been before, for 24 hours, and then at the end of the 24 hours, the manacles would bring the party back to the Underdark to a place they know.

I loved this idea because it really follows one of the major themes I’m trying to get across and it also facilitates fast travel, which in this campaign we’ve done away with the tedious day-by-day travel, so it just makes sense overall.

Doing stuff like this is crucial in the early game because it will set the game up later to be fully driven by table interactions.

Do ForeShadow

Early on in the campaign, you should sprinkle in foreshadowing elements. Foreshadowing, for those of you who don’t know, is where you drop elements that connect to later events. In Star Wars Episode 1, when Yoda says, “Much fear I sense in you” about Anakin, that’s an example of foreshadowing. It’s important to sprinkle in these foreshadowing elements early in the game, even in a somewhat vague form because it helps make the entire story feel cohesive. You do need to be careful though not to foreshadow too much. It can’t be too obvious nor can it be too ambiguous.

A simple example of Foreshadowing

Writing a Homebrew One-Shot: Part 5

30 januari 2025 | 57 min

Welcome back to the 5th installment of our short series on writing a Homebrew one-shot.

In this episode, we're joined by our friend Rob Van Auken and we continue work on The Chimefall Ceremony: For Whom the Bell TolIs.

This miniseries is designed to help give you an idea of how to collaborate on a project like this and how to write and publish a one-shot.

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

DND for Kids? Much Easier and More Rewarding than you Thought with The Kids Table DND

23 januari 2025 | 52 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today, Tanner and Justin are joined by Ryan and Allison from The Kids Table DND (https://www.youtube.com/@thekidstablednd).

Playing D&D with kids is a very intimidating concept for some DMs, and in today's show, we dive into how to do it right and the benefits it can lend to the kids and to the adults playing alongside them.

Today's show is not just for parents. It' useful for every DM to really diveinto Simplicity and learn how to do things in an easy and user friendly way.

Mentioned in this episode:

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Frustration with D&D: Resolving D&D and DM concerns

16 januari 2025 | 21 min

Have you ever been... frustrated with D&D? Or with your game? Or even your player interactions? Great news: you can always solve the frustrations that come as a DM--the problem is that a lot of DMs try to push down and ignore the signs of their own frustration, leaving their game and their feelings towards it to get worse and worse. Today, Tanner discusses some easy ways to resolve frustration with various aspects of the D&D experience.

Mentioned in this episode:

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Writing a Homebrew One-Shot: Part 4

14 januari 2025 | 63 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

On today's show, we are joined by Rob Van Auken to continue our work on our homebrew one-shot, For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Chimefall Ceremony.

This episode should help you learn how to do a collaborative project with friends as well as how to write and publish a one-shot.

Here are the links to the previous episodes in case you need them:

Part 1: https://session0studios.com/podcast/homebrew-collaboration-with-rob-van-auken-part-1/

Part 2: https://session0studios.com/podcast/the-chimefall-ceremony-homebrew-project-building-with-rob-van-auken-part-2/

Part 3: https://session0studios.com/podcast/for-whom-the-bell-tolls-homebrew-collaboration-part-3/

Mentioned in this episode:

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

DM Coaching: Timelines and Weather with Samantha Fortune

9 januari 2025 | 50 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today is a coaching episode with Samantha Fortune.

We talked about using a timeline to prep sessions and to use real-life weather to inspire the weather in games.

Samantha also highlights the power of in-game favors and using those to motivate characters to do things or to intimidate them to do things.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

DM Goals and Resolutions for 2025

2 januari 2025 | 22 min

Welcome back!

Today, I'll talk about my goals as a DM for 2025. May these inspire you to make your own goals.

Develop my Sizzle

Create the Ultimate Session Planning Framework

Finish and Publish 3 One-shot Adventures

Improve combat / Make it Less Boring

Perfect the CASE Method

Work on my Skills

Work on Interpersonal Communication and Relationships

Work on the Game part of Roleplaying games

Improve my min/maxing of Combat encounters

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

2024 in Review and What Lies In 2025

26 december 2024 | 24 min

In any publicly traded company, shareholders who own a portion of the company can expect a year-end review and a prospectus of what the new year will bring. This is to give some accountability of those running the company to those who’ve invested their time and money into it.

Well, seeing as how you’ve decided to invest at least your time into this podcast, I think it only fair that we give you some sort of report so that we can be somewhat accountable to you for what this show is doing and what it will do in the future.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

I’m Justin Lewis and for over 3 years now, you and I have been figuring out better ways to help you improve your DMing craft without having to devote extra time, money or stress.

You might be new to the show, in which case, thanks for giving us a chance and letting us invade your earspace, or you might have been with us from the beginning, in which place, please make yourself known to us because we actually have no idea who has been listening to us since the beginning. Whoever you are, we’re happy your here.

Let me let you in on how I view things.

I view you listening to us as an investment. Of course, we are doing everything we can to make sure you get tremendous value everytime you pop us in your earbuds and go for a run, or do the dishes, but frankly, we know what we are. We know we aren’t the most professionally produced show. You can probably tell simply by hearing my baby boy in the background. We also know that we don’t do this full-time and honestly, are still growing as dungeon masters ourselves.

But…

Many of you choose to listen to us anyway. In fact, many of you are grateful to us and have binged our show! Somehow, despite our weaknesses, you’ve still managed to find some good and enjoy it. To me, that shows that you are putting an investment into us. You’re devoting some of your precious time to listen to us and to us that investment of yours requires us to do the very best we can to make the show better.

So for this episode, don’t consider yourself a dungeon master only, but also consider yourself an investor in our show and consider me the CEO giving you a report of how things went this year. Now I know this analogy only goes so far, but I hope you get the idea.

Let me first start off by giving a brief summary of what we did this year:

Monsters.Rent: When we first started 2024, we had just closed up shop on our previous business model of Monsters.Rent. Obviously, for us to be able to keep doing this podcast, we needed to figure out some way to use it to get resources so we could make it better. Previously, we tried creating a D&D mini subscription rental service. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t figure out how to make the logistics of it work. We had a nice run, but over time we just realized we couldn’t make it work.
Session 0 Studios: So instead, we pivoted to Session 0 Studios. We brought on Cayden and Jake and created Session 0 Studios and started our new show The Pact and Boon. For those of you that don’t know, The Pact and Boon is our sister show which is an actual play show following the stories of 3 unlikely adventurers who start their journey in the pits of Hell. Full transparency, over this last year, we had quite a few road bumps with that particular show and have honestly had a pretty hard time aligning ourselves on how to keep it going. If you follow that show, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve been on hiatus for a second. First off, we’re very sorry about that. Because The Pact and Boon is so new, we got excited and bit off more than we could chew. So coming in the new year, we’re going to restart up the show and settle on a more consistent posting schedule even if we don’t post as much. We’ll also have a new element added in where each of us will switch off being the Dungeon Master! Starting in January of 2025 we’ll have Tanner running the show for a while so make sure to tune back in because it will be a very fun time!
Conventions! With the switch to Session 0 Studios, we made a bigger play to go to events and conventions. I say bigger but really that just means we went from 0 events to technically 3. The first event was Dead Wars hosted by our friend Andrew Ashby of We Geek Together in Provo Utah. Andrew has been so great to us and our shows and we were very lucky to not only attend Dead Wars but also to host one of the panels at the event. Towards the end of this year, I was also able to host 2 panels at Dragonsteel Nexus 2024 which was so fun and, with luck, we’ll be able to release the audio for those of those panels on this show as podcast episodes so stay tuned!
Podcast Guests: Over this last year, we were able to get some really great guests on the show! Among some of the more noteworthy were author Dan Wells, and influencers Jay Foster from Swole Initiative and Jay from Jay’s Tabletop Terrain. We were really lucky to make these connections and we’re hopeful to keep doing more with these guests as well as other guests in the future.
Our Podcast Appearances: We also appeared as guests on a handful of podcasts which was such a great experience and is honestly one of the best ways to expand our reach and get our name out there.
Services: As I mentioned, one of the biggest challenges we’ve had with the podcast was getting resources so we could improve the quality of the show, expand our reach, and honestly justify this project to our wives. This year were able to make some great headway into that department. We created a few affiliate relationships with brands like Monument Studios and Roll and Play Press, which, thanks to you, have proven to be pretty successful relationships! In addition to that, we began offering our Professional Dungeon Master services which have grown fairly well, though we expect that particular service to still be in its beginning stages. That service is particularly important because it gives us more experience and puts us in unique and challenging circumstances, all of which helps us create better podcast episodes and help you more and more. In addition to that, we began offering our Dungeon Master coaching services with the first session being a free offering to anyone willing to let us record that and put it up as a podcast episode. So far this service has been very fun, and a great learning experience. We’ve met some very awesome people (spoiler, we’ll be releasing their sessions as episodes in the new year so you can meet them too) and it’s really helped us learn how better to help more and more people.
Instagram: Over the last year, I have put a fairly big emphasis into Instagram and growing our presence there. I have not become InstaFamous, and if you know me personally, you know that if it weren’t for the podcast, I wouldn’t really be on Instagram at all. I’m proud of the growth we’ve had on Instagram and that’s important to us because the more reach we have, the easier it will be for us to get higher-tier podcast guests and the more social proof we have. Essentially, the more reach we have, the better we can make the podcast and its content for you.

Overall 2024 was a really great year of growth and new horizons!

Now let’s get into 2025.

Let’s get real. First of all, let me be completely frank about the show. This is just from my perspective as I haven’t been able to chat with the other hosts about this yet. While I would love to do this full-time and be able to devote much more time to the show, it’s just not there yet, and unless some things change pretty drastically, I’m not sure that it would be able to sustain even one of our cohosts on a full-time basis. We are all going to do the very best we can, but for most of us, we have other commitments and frankly, other areas of life that require more of our time, attention and diligence. We love the show, and we care deeply for you our listener, but sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do. So in this next party when I talk about all of the stuff I hope to be able to do in 2025, take it all with a grain of salt. We might not be able to do it simply because we’re doing other stuff to take care of our families.
Podcast Episodes: Ok with that out of the way, the first thing I hope to be able to do is to start releasing extra episodes every week. These episodes will often be Coaching Episodes, sessions from our Professional Dungeon Mastering, or the Homebrew Project we’ve been working on with Rob Van Auken. From time to it might be me giving one of my RAW episodes, and if you’re new what that means is that it’s an episode where I don’t really edit it, and the rules are if I yawn in the episode more than 5 times I owe you another episode. I’ve had a theory for a while that you’d appreciate a 2nd episode each week, and the only way to prove or disprove that theory is to get your feedback via direct messages or just to see whether or not you listen to those episodes.
Podcast Guests: Next, my plan is to get better guests on the show. I’m very likely going to have Jay Foster back on the show and maybe Jay from Jay’s Tabletop Terrain. I’m also hoping to start to reach out to bigger names like maybe Matt Colevile. I also want to have Zach from ZachtheBold on Instagram on the show and some of the people that I paneled with at Dragonsteel Nexus. The big thing I really want to do this year is to make real connections with guests rather than have them on the show and just have it be a once and done thing. I’d love to have the guests on the show and then maybe do a one-shot with them and really connect while having fun.
Social Media: This year, I’m going to experiment with social media a little more. I’m going to release the content I’ve been putting out on Instagram, but put it out on TikTok, and maybe even dabble a little into Linkedin, though that will mostly be team-building stuff and I’m still unsure about that. One thing is for sure though, I’m going to scale back the new social media content production to a much slower pace. Posting a new video every day was just too much, and honestly, I think it was somewhat counterproductive algorithm wise. I also think it would be better for me to spend my time creating better quality content rather than more content. But I also hate social media so yeah there’s that.
The Pact and Boon: As I’ve already said, we’ll be restarting the Pact and Boon and because of the work we’ve put in in other areas of Session 0 Studios, we do have a little bit more resources to make recording those shows better and easier for us so that it’s both a more convenient experience and a more fulfilling one for you.
Professional DMing: We’re going to continue working on getting professional DMing clients and building out our client base as well as expanding our skill set.
DM Coaching: We’re going to continue offering free recorded sessions and hopefully gain a paying client or two, though for now the free session episodes is helping us content wise as well.
Patreon: Since we already have Done For You DMing in the form of Professional DMing and Done With You DMing in the form of DM Coaching, we’re going to really work on our Patreon to offer Do It Yourself content in the form of courses, homebrew resources and more.
Youtube
Resource Modules
WolrdSmith.Io

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

A Simple Session 0 Checklist

19 december 2024 | 23 min

Welcome back to today's show.

Here's a simple session 0 checklist to help you set your games up for success

Get the First Session Scheduled

Set Expectations

2a. Your Expectations

2b. The party’s Expectations and Wants

Table Rules

The Premise of the Story

Playtesting

Party Connections

Tools

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Challenging Yourself With Challenge Rating in D&D

12 december 2024 | 24 min

It's hard knowing what to throw at your players during an encounter. Luckily, D&D has a nifty challenge rating system set up to help you out. Easy!.... right? Actually, no. So many DMs don't know how to approach Challenge Ratings for their encounters because of the dense tables and calculations. However, it isn't something worth stressing about at all, as you'll learn in today's episode.

Mentioned in this episode:

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Important Lessons Learned in 2024 about being a Dungeon master

5 december 2024 | 29 min

All things must end. But endings always bring new beginnings. As the year 2024 comes to a close, many of us become thoughtful and introspective. In my case, the introspection has allowed to think on the many changes I’ve personally made throughout this year and the dungeon master I’m morphing into. So today, I’d like to share some of the most important lessons I’ve learned over this last year and hopefully some of these lessons can help you too.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. If you’re listening to this show, you’ve tried not being the dungeon master. You’ve stopped DMing and have just tried to be a player for a while, but for whatever reason, you just can’t not be the DM. Other people stop showing up, you feel the urge to write and run the story or it’s just in your blood. And because of that, we made this show to help you with your affliction! I’m your host Justin Lewis and I’m very happy to be chatting with you today of all days because tomorrow on December 6th, I will be guesting on 2 panels at Dragonsteel Nexus in Salt Lake City. Dragonsteel Nexus is the convention put on by Brandon Sanderson’s company Dragonsteel and I’m lucky enough to be able to participate. If you’re in the area, you should grab a ticket and come and hang out with me in real life. I’ll be joining a panel on TTRPGs for Authors and Writers and another on GMing 101. It should be a fun experience and frankly, I am a little nervous so any positive vibes are appreciated.

This year was the first year where any of us here at Session 0 Studios and How to Be a DM were able to guest on panels. The first happened earlier this year at Dead Wars in Provo Utah and frankly, we’ve all evolved a lot since then.

But before I get to the lessons learned, I must tell you guys something; I’m going to be a little vulnerable here. I’m a sham.

I’m not saying this for sympathy or anything, I’m just trying to be real and vulnerable. On most days, I feel like a big fat phony. It’s mostly because I honestly consider myself to be a pretty mediocre Dungeon Master. Looking back over my DMing career, I see a huge gap between where I am and where I want to be. It’s humbling really. I’ve gotten so much better over this last year, but that improvement has really only made me more aware of how much farther there still is to go.

When I first started How to Be a Better DM, I started it for a few reasons. First of all, I love podcasts and I love podcasting. Back in 2016 and 2017, I’m pretty sure I told people that podcasts were among the things I did for fun. I love the medium and I love being able to say something. I think we all have something to say, and maybe podcasting is my way of saying something.

Secondly, and this is something most of you are probably not aware of, I had a previous podcast and that turned out to be less than successful, as least in my eyes. I want to do this full-time and the previous podcast wasn’t really going anywhere. It was a personal development podcast about doing hard things to make your life better. I called it The Hard Thing Podcast. Yeah… I know… Not the greatest name. Towards the end, I actually ended up rebranding it to Becoming the Hero which is actually still live to this day. I stopped doing that podcast because I’d tried putting together a summit of previous guests which included a couple navy seals, army rangers and a CIA spy. It was an online summit and even with a small advertising budget, I didn’t get any signups even when I dropped the price to free. I felt like I didn’t have any authority in that space and I eventually stopped putting out episodes because I felt the target market was too broad and that I couldn’t compete. When I stopped putting out episodes and nobody reached out asking where I’d gone, I knew it was the right decision.

In contrast, I saw Dungeons and Dragons as a great market to get into. I love the game and I felt like I did have something to offer. I also felt like the audience was much more specific so maybe my content would resonate more. So far, this show has been much more successful than the previous podcast and that is in no small part thanks to you, my listening friend.

We’ve come a long way to be sure, but the farther we come, the more I realize we need to get so much better and put out much better content for you. Again, it’s humbling to realize the responsibility we have to make our show better because of the trust you’ve put in us.

So on one hand I feel to say thank you. You’ve allowed me to do some really cool things, things that I don’t necessarily feel like I deserve or merit, but still you’ve allowed me to do them all the same.

And on the other hand, I feel a weight of responsibility. I want to fulfull on that responsibility, and I want to tell you that I’ll do my best. It’s because of this weight of responsibility that I want to share what I’ve learned this year, to help you know that your investment is paying off.

So let’s get to the most important DMing lessons I’ve learned this year:

Let Go

This is probably the most important lesson I’ve learned as a Dungeon Master, a podcaster and a business partner. Let go. This might be a lesson that is perhaps too individualized for myself, but I tend to grab a hold of things that are important to me and then not let them go, even after I probably should. I grab so tight that they don’t have a chance to grow on their own.

In my D&D games this is manifested in sessions that seemed too stressed out or forced. Deep down it stems from a fearful attitude towards life and a scarcity mindset.

For you this might show up as never feeling like you have enough prepared for your sessions and always worrying that you won’t know what to do. You might feel a particular road block in your writing and you’ll tend towards trying to railroad your players, not because you actually want to direct the story, but because you are afraid of just letting go and seeing where the story takes you.

To fix this, practice trusting yourself. You don’t have to have everything perfect, but if you trust yourself and believe that whatever the party throws at you will be fun and that you’ll be able to throw something fun back at them, then you’ll see that everything will work out. In a more practical way, prep a session where you purposefully only prepare half of the session, the first half, and then you see where the story takes you.

What If Questions

I’ve learned, from various podcast interviews that one of the roles of the Dungeon Master is to be a mad scientist. We’re literally supposed to look at the game and the story with a curious eye in addition to our judgemental eye. For me, the most important questions that I could ask are, “What would the party do it….” or “what would happen if I …”

This is the best way to drive your story, because it’s the players that are driving it and you’re simply giving the party the ingredients and they do all the baking, of half-baking in many cases.

When you don’t do this, there isn’t any wonder fo you and you risk telling your players a story rather than letting them discover the story that the table wants to tell. The reason this is an inferior experience is because the game is a collaborative storytelling experience, it’s built so that everyone can build the story together. Besides, everyone at the table has something to contribute, and if you want to tell a story all by yourself, then go write a story!

To do this in practice, between now and your next session ask yourself what would the party do if this happened. In my current campaign, the party is attending a memorial service that then erupted into some sort of cosmic battle with an ancient red dragon appearing out of nowhere. If you’re in my campaign, stop listening.

I was thinking about the red dragon and how they are likely not strong enough to defeat it yet. So I thought, who would be an interesting NPC to introduce? I then had the though, what would happen if the enemies of the party appeared and helped them defeat the red dragon and then asked for a truce with the party to fight a different enemy? What would the party do?

This is an interesting question because I honestly don’t know what the party will say, but I do think that it would be fun to investigate both alternatives.

Sizzle It Up

This lesson is one I learned from our very own Cayden Ottley on the show here. Over the summer, Cayden took over our private campaign to run a story he made and it was a fun and enlightening experience. Cayden is really good at painting miniatures and he used to be a band (see Texture Love on spotify), and as he DMed for us, he used his high-quality painted minis and he even used some voice changing gear and both of these tools made the experience much more fun.

I contrasted that to my own DMing (which is actually something that you shouldn’t do lol, don’t compare) and I realized that I never really put sizzle into my games. Despite what I’ve said on here many times, I wasn’t that much of a showman.

To be clear, each DM has their own style and each game comes with its own expectations, and you should certainly try to meet those expectations.

You can however, find ways to add sizzle to the game, add things that might impress the party, add things that take it to the next level. Because of Cayden’s inspiration, I’ve decided to try to start learning how to paint minis and see what other ways I can add sizzle to the game.

In practical terms, here’s what to do. Think about what resources you have at your availability. If you have a room where you can dim the lights, do that. If you have a 3d printer, use that. If you have access to music or ambiance, use that. But don’t just use it, leverage it. Really find out all the tools that you can use and use them to make the game sizzle.

Lean into Your Strengths

In my previous lesson, I mentioned how Cayden is really good at painting minis and he has a background in sound technology. Naturally, he used these two assets to make his game better. Earlier this year, we had a podcast with author Dan Wells. Dan explained that you should figure out what your strengths are as a DM and lean into those, that’s exactly what Cayden did and that’s what I’m trying to do more and more of.

For sure, finding your strengths as a DM is pretty hard. It takes effort and trial and error. I’m slowly learning that I am better at puzzles and roleplaying than I am at combat. It’s hard to realize that you aren’t that great at combat or whatever it is in your case, but the sooner you can learn the better because then you can do something about it.

I’ve started to lean more into roleplaying and trying to portray characters better.

Have Fun

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Simplify and Supercharge your World Building with Worldsmith.io

29 november 2024 | 44 min

The Art of Foreshadowing: Planting Seeds for Big Reveals

22 november 2024 | 17 min

Want to take your campaign from good to unforgettable? In this episode, we’re diving into the art of foreshadowing! Learn how to plant subtle clues, create epic payoffs, and keep your players hooked with those jaw-dropping "aha!" moments. Whether it’s a prophecy, a recurring symbol, or a suspicious NPC, foreshadowing is your secret weapon for immersive storytelling.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

What foreshadowing is and why it’s essential for a cohesive campaign.
The difference between direct and subtle foreshadowing (and when to use each).
How to plan your big reveals and drop hints that feel natural.
Practical DM tips for layering clues, using red herrings, and tracking your foreshadowing efforts.
Real-world examples you can adapt for your table.

Quick Highlights:

Start with the reveal: What big moment are you building toward?
Use NPC dialogue, environmental details, and symbols to plant your hints.
Repeat clues and let them evolve, but avoid overwhelming players with too many.
Encourage player speculation—sometimes their theories are better than your plans!

Resources Mentioned:

Tips for managing clues and continuity in your campaign.
How to balance foreshadowing with the flow of gameplay.

Connect With Us:

Did you use any of these tips in your campaign? Share your story!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

To Randomize or Personalize Loot: That Is The Question

14 november 2024 | 17 min

How to Start an Actual Play D&D Podcast With Brennon from the Afterlife Pod

7 november 2024 | 41 min

DM Coaching: DMing for Kids and Tying Up Loose Ends with Aaron Singh

31 oktober 2024 | 43 min

Oh No! Your party is in trouble! Deus Ex Machina, I guess??

24 oktober 2024 | 21 min

How to Flesh Out Your Afterlife - Questions to Ask to Help Develop the Concepts of Afterlife in your Homebrew World

17 oktober 2024 | 25 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today we talk about the afterlife. Listen to episode 109 of our show to learn about death in D&D if you want more on this topic.

Here are some questions to help you flesh out the topic of the afterlife in you

Is there an afterlife?
How many types are there? With many different gods who rule over many different domains, you need to know how many afterlifes are there?
Are there any negative ones?
What is it like in any of those afterlifes? You need some sort of description of the experience a soul would have in that afterlife.
What interactions do souls have with their deity and with other souls?
What determines whether they end up in one afterlife versus another? Is it a pick and choose, or do actions determine the eternal resting place of a soul.
Is there a chance you end up where you don’t want to be?
Is it permanent? Once you’re in one type of afterlife, can you change to a different afterlife, even if you don’t want to?
Has anyone returned to life from the afterlife? If so, what do they remember?
Do people know or understand the afterlife?

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

When Your D&D Group Loses Momentum

10 oktober 2024 | 23 min

8 Tips for Begginner Dungeon Masters

3 oktober 2024 | 15 min

Swole Initiative: Player Check-ins and Campaign Themes with Jay Foster

26 september 2024 | 51 min

What to Spend $50 on For Your D&D Hobby

24 september 2024 | 19 min

The Skills of the Dungeon Master

19 september 2024 | 31 min

Welcome back to the show!

Today we talk about what skills you need to develop as a DM.

Mechanics

Understanding the basic gameplay of the game

Being able to make twists on the rules or invent new ones to suit your game

Player Management

Scheduling Management

Relationship Management

Story Writing

Being able to create beautiful settings

Being able to build amazingly real characters

Plot twists, turns and developments

Pacing

Roleplaying

Voice Acting

Personification of the different characters

Improvisation

Previous episode about improv: https://session0studios.com/captivate-podcast/improve-and-comedy/

Presentation

Online Game Technology Mastery

Minis and Maps

Lore

Full understanding of the lore of your world

Full understanding of available DnD Lore

Experience Planning

The extras

The Wow Factor

Combat

Speeding it up

Keeping it Interesting

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

RAW: Voice Acting Tips from a Non-Voice Actor

17 september 2024 | 22 min

Welcome back to today's RAW podcast episode.

This is a special episode where it is shorter and less edited and more real.

On today's show we talk about 8 voice acting tips from a non-voice actor.

They are:

Tip #1: Commit
Tip #2: Faster or Slower
Tip #3: Eye Contact
Tip #4: Loud or Quiet
Tip #5: Pauses or Breaks
Tip #6: Your Breath
Tip #7: Inflection and Emphasis
Tip #8: Accent

If you like today's episode reach out to us and let us know.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Focusing on Your Strengths: What Makes You a Great DM?

12 september 2024 | 19 min

Sometimes, it feels like all of your efforts are focused on the things you DON'T feel good at as a DM: maybe you don't feel like you do voices well. Or you don't feel great at drawing maps. Or maybe you feel like combats drag a bit. Whatever it is, you definitely have spent too much time focusing on your weaknesses. Stop it! This episode is all about finding and focusing on your strengths as a DM. You've got them, and we're going to talk about them!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

RAW: How to Move DND Along

10 september 2024 | 19 min

Welcome back to this RAW episode of How to Be a Better DM.

This is from an Instagram Live I did about how to move DnD along when it gets slow and boring.

Here are 8 tips to help you move things along in your DnD games:

When the party has been planning too long introduce a complication.
Describe something trivial in suspiciously extreme detail.
Make the bad guys make a move
Jump Cut
Talk honestly with your players
Skip the Boring Bits
Bring the Energy
End things Early

Mentioned in this episode:

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Dan Wells: What are You Good at As a GM?

5 september 2024 | 53 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM!

Today is a special episode with our guest, author, and professional Dungeon Master Dan Wells!

Check out information about Dan Wells here: https://www.thedanwells.com/

Dan is partnered with Dungeon Master Direct which has some great events coming up: https://dungeonmasterdirect.com/

On today's show, we talk about:

Professional Dungeon Mastering
How it's ok to use pre-written modules for professional dungeon master campaigns
As a dungeon master, you need to figure out your strengths and your weaknesses and lean heavily into those.
You also need to lean into the collaborative nature of RPGs

This episode was facilitated and recorded in the space at We Geek Together in Provo. You can shop at their store in Provo or online at https://www.wegeektogether.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

How to Give Just a Little More to Your Roleplaying as a Dungeon Master

3 september 2024 | 21 min

You’ve probably wondered if you could do or give more. Specifically with your roleplaying, you may have finished a session and thought that you could do better. I’ve been there too. I’ve had many sessions where I’ve wished that I was a much better roleplayer.

Luckily today, we’re going to share 7 tips to help you give more to your roleplaying.

Welcome to How to Be a Better DM.

This is the show that helps you speed up the learning curve of being a DM without spending extra time, and extra hassle.

I’m Justin Lewis, and I’ve been helping dungeon masters now for over 150 episodes. I’ve spoken with Voice Actors, writers and even real life experts, all to help you be a Better DM.

Why Give more to your Roleplaying:

We’ve all had those experiences after a really good roleplay where there’s almost this stunned silence
Part of why we got into D&D was to reach that full immersion
Your players want you to give everything you have

How to Give more to your Roleplaying:

Be vulnerable
Try things that may not work out
Think about your players altruistically
Forget yourself
Try some real life Improv Classes
Practice your Acting/Public Speaking
Use the White Space of DMing

Mentioned in this episode:

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

How do Bounce Back after a Bad Session | Dungeon Master Coaching with Al

29 augusti 2024 | 51 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today we talk about how to bounce back after a bad session. Today is also a very special episode as it is our first published Dungeon Master Coaching episode.

If you want to sign up for some dungeon master coaching, go to https://session0studios.com/coaching/

If you let us record the first session, the first session is free.

Mentioned in this episode:

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Linguistic Tactics for More Realistic Characters with Ethan Myers from Lyres for Hire

22 augusti 2024 | 35 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today, we talk with Ethan Myers from Lyres for Hire. you can check him out at https://www.instagram.com/lyresforhire/?hl=en

We talk about some linguistic tactics to use to make characters sound more real.

The 3 recommended in today's show are:

Phonotactics: keeping the general rules for sounds and sound pairs consistent within a region
Idioms: Creating sayings or turns-of-phrase to communicate complicated ideas
Jargon: Specific vocabulary related to niche areas

Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

How to upgrade your games with Monument Studios

15 augusti 2024 | 54 min

On today's episode, we have Tyler & Noah, the musical masterminds behind Monument Studios.

As some of you know, Monument Studios has been a sponsor of How To Be a Better DM, and our Live-play D&D show The Pact & Boon for the better part of the past year. Their app Fantasy + is a must have for any dungeon master! Tune in to hear about their upcoming Kickstarter launching on August 20th, and how you can get some of the most amazing rewards ever offered on the platform!

Check out Monument Studios here:

https://www.monumentstudios.net/

Check out their music app Fantasy + here:

https://www.fantasy-plus.com/

Enjoy 10% off your first month with the code BETTERDM. Support us and support these amazing artists, while also giving your players the best experience possible.

Don't forget to check out their Kickstarter as well:

Join the Campaign

Mentioned in this episode:

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

In the Footsteps of Giants: Part 1

13 augusti 2024 | 34 min

3 Questions To Determine a Combat Encounter’s Length

8 augusti 2024 | 25 min

When you are planning a combat encounter, do you know how to get it into the "Goldilocks" zone in terms of length? You don't want it so short that no one got anything out of it, but you also don't want it so long that all the players are secretly praying that it will be over after the next turn.

To help you plan the length of your encounter, whether beforehand or on the fly, here are 3 questions:

Question #1: Has each player had a chance to feel either useful, powerful, or seriously threatened?
Question #2: Has this combat encounter had at least one “story-worthy” moment?
Question #3: Does the length of this combat match its importance?

Learn how these questions can help you execute an appropriately-lengthy combat in today's episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Play D&D with Us

Did you know that you can have one of our hosts here at How to Be a Better DM be your dungeon master? That’s right. All of our podcast hosts are professional dungeon masters that you can hire for your private or corporate dungeons and dragons game. We can do one-shots or long-term campaigns. If you want to schedule your first session with us, go to https://session0studios.com/dungeon-master-for-hire/ and get started.

Dungeon Master for Hire

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

11 More Things Every Dungeon Master Should Remember Part 2

2 augusti 2024 | 19 min

Things Every Dungeon Master Should Remember

As a Dungeon Master you have so much to remember, it’s a wonder you can even remember your own name. Yet, what if, by remembering a few more things, you were able to not only make your game better, but feel better yourself, and make everything you do as a Dungeon Master better?

I know what it’s like to deal with all the disappointment of a dungeon master. You deal with so much and rarely get thanked for it. Yet that’s ok, because you didn’t get into this game to be thanked. You got into the game to be the best Dungeon Mater you could ever be.

To become the best, here are 11 things that you need to remember.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. This is the show for the Dungeon Master who has other things going on in their life and doesn’t have any extra time to work on their craft. We’ve been crafting episodes just for you for the last 3 years or so, and today are bringing you another personally crafted episode to help you amplify your dungeon master skills.

This will be part 2 of this episode with part 1 having come out yesterday.

Today I'm going to continue on a topic that hearkens back to episode 2!

Here are 11 things every dungeon master should remember.

It’s Not Your Sole Responsibility to Make the Game Amazing

You Get What You Give

It’s All a Skill

You Are Not Matt Mercer or Brenden Lee Mulligan

You Don’t Have to Be Completely Original

Show Don’t Tell

Make It Corny Until It’s Not

It’s Just a Game

Be In the Moment

Your Best Is Yet to Come

It’s Not the Accent but the Actor

Mentioned in this episode:

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

11 More Things Every Dungeon Master Should Remember Part 1

1 augusti 2024 | 33 min

Things Every Dungeon Master Should Remember

As a Dungeon Master you have so much to remember, it’s a wonder you can even remember your own name. Yet, what if, by remembering a few more things, you were able to not only make your game better, but feel better yourself, and make everything you do as a Dungeon Master better?

I know what it’s like to deal with all the disappointment of a dungeon master. You deal with so much and rarely get thanked for it. Yet that’s ok, because you didn’t get into this game to be thanked. You got into the game to be the best Dungeon Mater you could ever be.

To become the best, here are 11 things that you need to remember.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. This is the show for the Dungeon Master who has other things going on in their life and doesn’t have any extra time to work on their craft. We’ve been crafting episodes just for you for the last 3 years or so, and today are bringing you another personally crafted episode to help you amplify your dungeon master skills.

This will be part 1 of this episode with part 2 coming out tomorrow.

Today I'm going to continue on a topic that hearkens back to episode 2!

Here are 11 things every dungeon master should remember.

It’s Not Your Sole Responsibility to Make the Game Amazing

You Get What You Give

It’s All a Skill

You Are Not Matt Mercer or Brenden Lee Mulligan

You Don’t Have to Be Completely Original

Show Don’t Tell

Make It Corny Until It’s Not

It’s Just a Game

Be In the Moment

Your Best Is Yet to Come

It’s Not the Accent but the Actor

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Play D&D with Us

Did you know that you can have one of our hosts here at How to Be a Better DM be your dungeon master? That’s right. All of our podcast hosts are professional dungeon masters that you can hire for your private or corporate dungeons and dragons game. We can do one-shots or long-term campaigns. If you want to schedule your first session with us, go to https://session0studios.com/dungeon-master-for-hire/ and get started.

Dungeon Master for Hire

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

How to Start Terrainscaping for your D&D Games with Jay’s Tabletop Terrain

25 juli 2024 | 36 min

Have you ever seen amazing terrainscapes worthy of legend and have looked on with envy?

Do you want to learn how to start getting into terrainscaping so you can have amazing battlemaps like all of the famous actual play shows?

Well, this is the episode for you.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today Justin and Tanner are joined by Jay from Jay's Tabletop Terrain on Instagram. You can learn more about Jay and what he does by going to: https://www.instagram.com/jays_tabletop/

In today's episode we talk about questions like these:

How does one start into crafting or assembling terrain for their D&D games?
Which is cheaper in the longer run, buying/3d printing or crafting terrain?
What handful of pieces are staples and should be first in the list to start with?
How do you measure distance for tactics in combat if there isn't a grid?
How do you use terrain to improve the gameplay rather than taking away from it?

And more.

Let us know how you like this episode, but thanks for giving it a try.

We'll be back next time with another great episode.

Until then, let's roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Play D&D with Us

Did you know that you can have one of our hosts here at How to Be a Better DM be your dungeon master? That’s right. All of our podcast hosts are professional dungeon masters that you can hire for your private or corporate dungeons and dragons game. We can do one-shots or long-term campaigns. If you want to schedule your first session with us, go to https://session0studios.com/dungeon-master-for-hire/ and get started.

Dungeon Master for Hire

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Lessons Learned My First Year DM'ing

18 juli 2024 | 13 min

Downtime Activities in D&D, Part 4: Running a Business

11 juli 2024 | 30 min

Where Have My Fingers Been & Why Players Should All Be DMs - Guest Appearance on RPG Academy

8 juli 2024 | 56 min

10 More Tips for Even Better One-Shots

4 juli 2024 | 19 min

“You creep slowly through the cobwebbed dark of the crypt, your breath coming out in puffs of steam that you’re trying your hardest to cover. You reach the corner and peer around down the hall. You see the source of the thumping sound. It’s a creature the size of an ogre, with the same proportions. The only difference is that where an ogre would have 1 head, this creature has 6, along with 3 extra arms and a 3rd leg that it drags behind it. Oh… and the entire body seems sewn together in the most grotesque way….

It’s some night in the future. That’s the sound of you pulling off the perfect one-shot. You’ve gathered a full party of friends and now you’re playing a once in a lifetime game.

But how do you create the once-in-a-lifetime One-Shot?

One-shots are fun, but getting them right is a skill that needs to be developed. Luckily for you, I’m going to share some tips that will help improve every single one-shot you ever play. The more often you play, the more likely it is that you create the Once-In-a-Lifetime One-shot.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. This is the show that helps you, the Dungeon Master, craft better stories in less time and with less stress. We’ve been helping dungeon masters new and old for over 150 episodes now. I’m Justin Lewis and I’ll be your guide for today.

I love one-shots!

You probably know that if you’ve listened to the show for any amount of time.

If you want to go back and listen to the other episodes I’ve done about one-shots you can listen to:

And Episode 101.

The Most important would be Episode 82 which is 10 Reasons to Do One-Shots as a Dungeon Master.

So I’m not going to talk about why you should do one-shots, but just know that you absolutely should.

Instead, today I want to talk about some more tips to help you push the limits of your abilities. I want you to make your next one-shot the best the world has ever seen.

Tip #1: Go All Out

Going all out for a campaign could be daunting and possibly exhausting depending on a lot of factors and circumstances.

Going all out for a one-shot is much easier in comparison. So with this next one-shot you do, give it everything you got.

It’s a simple fact of dungeon master, and most things in life actually, but what you put into something is what you’ll get out of it.

With your next one-shot, go all out!

Obviously I say that hoping you’ll exercise some degree of temperance. I don’t expect you to rent out a suit of armor and act out every single part. Use your judgment.

But if you are thinking critically, then you’ve probably thought of at least some sort of 1% type action that you could do that you don’t normally do. Maybe you don’t do music and you could add it to your game. Maybe getting some real candles could spice up the atmosphere. Try to push yourself just that little bit and go the extra mile. Your players will appreciate the effort.

Tip #2: Write It Yourself

As a DM, you’ll need to practice the creativity it takes to manage and perform full campaigns. Practicing your writing abilities goes a long way toward that end. So with your next one-shot, try to write the entire thing yourself. It’s a great practice in story creation, development, pacing and character creation.

Because one-shots are so short, your story needs to be punchy as do the characters. You know pretty easily and clearly, if the story doesn’t really land.

One-shots are also a great opportunity to try writing stories that you don’t normally tell to stretch yourself and push your limits.

Tip #3:Be Clear About the Character Creation Options

When preparing your one-shot, prepare the character creation options for your players. Because it is a one-shot, you are going to go all out. Your players are going to do the same exact thing. They will try to make the most wacky characters and sometimes the most min-maxy characters. This could easily break your one-shot.

If you’re trying to write and publish a one-shot then this is a good thing. You want to test out the limits of what you’ve created.

But if you’re just playing for fun, then maybe say no to the changelings or the flying creatures.

At least just know what you want to allow and what you don’t so that when character creation happens, you aren’t making things up on the spot.

Tip #4: Plan for a Small Break in the Middle

To make the one-shot even more fun, plan a small break in the middle. Announce the break at the beginning of the game and explain when it will happen. This will help your players manage themselves so that they don’t get up and grab something during some of the best parts of the one-shot.

It also makes the mood much more relaxes and allows you to strategize and gameplan in the middle of the session.

Tip #5: Playtest what You’ve Written

Since you’ve written this one-shot, I’d highly recommend playtesting it as much as is possible. If all you can do is just a quick run-through in your head, that is exponentially better than not doing that.

If you can, test out parts of the one-shot, either with yourself or with some volunteers to make sure the mechanics work and are interesting. You’re also trying to ensure that the game isn’t too easy or too difficult.

Playtesting will allow you to make sure the game is going to be fun.

More than anything though, it will allow you to just remember what you’ve got going on. Going through it once or twice will allow you to more easily recall the important elements during the game.

Tip #6: Try a Theme or Mechanic You’ve Never Done Before

This tip goes in line with the tip to go all out, but this is your opportunity to try a rule you’ve never used before. Try out insanity mechanics or the Alert Level mechanics. If you get it wrong, that’s fine because it’s a one-shot.

Some other interesting mechanics you may try out are:

Diseases

Called Shots

Possession

Metamorphosis/Transformation

Reputation

Sentient Weapons

Weapons that Grow or Build

Persuasion of the Masses.

Those are just some examples, but hopefully, they got you thinking of what you could try out.

Tip #7: Don’t Worry About Making It Unique

This tip might be somewhat contradictory of tip #1, but don’t worry about making it unique.

What I mean by that is that you might be tempted to try to make it something no one has ever seen before. Even as I write this, I am thinking of a one-shot I’m preparing. As I’ve been working on it, from time to time I’ll think, “Well that sounds exactly like so many other shows out there. This character won’t work because it’s such a cliche”.

Don’t worry about that. The uniqueness that we all crave so much will come in time. Just focus on making this one-shot as fun as possible. If you do that and you really care about your party, then it will all fall into place.

Tip #8: Consider Letting the Party Plan the Classes

One problem one-shots can run into is having 3 rangers in the party (speaking from experience).

If that’s what the party wants, then that’s fine, but if you sense some awkwardness as the party is describing and introducing their character, then that’s probably why.

When people make characters, they often want their character to feel special and unique. Often, if there is more than one character with the same class at the table, there is a chance that one of them doesn’t feel unique.

Before the one-shot, connect all your players together with a text thread, a phone call, an email or even an in-person meeting **GASP**.

Let them talk about what each of them want to play as before the game begins. This can help them form a good party, or just avoid forming a bad one.

It can also allow the party to hash out how their characters know and relate to each other. If you want, you can insert that bit yourself, but giving them parameters (you all know each other and have worked with each other for a while) can allow them the creative freedom to come up with some pretty cool stuff.

Tip #9: Skip the Boring Bits

You see this on a lot of actual play shows where there is a time limit, but they do skip a lot. In your one-shot play, you don’t need to do the traveling and exploring if you don’t want to. If there is something that seems boring, then move on.

Because one-shots are often with limited time, you often do have to trim the fluff or risk not being able to finish.

This is actually good practice for normal games. Sometimes we ask for skill checks just to add some sort of difficulty rather than actually pushing for an interesting story. When you trim the fluff and skip the boring bits, you’re always evaluating whether the current encounter or scene is worth doing. Having that mental critique is useful because hopefully, at the end of the day, everything that happened was 100% worthwhile to the party.

Tip #10: No Phones or Tablets

I know that nowadays in the crazy digital age, we’re all slaves to our devices. But every once in a while, it’s a nice treat to get back to the origins of tabletop roleplaying games.

Do away with the phones and tablets and computers. Have everyone agree to use pen and paper for the one shot. They can write down the spells they are going to use before hand.

I know this is (weirdly) a big ask.

But getting them to give you their full attention (so no phone distractions) can make for a very fun game. Plus, I think a good amount of us need the break.

There you have it, 10 more tips to help you make each one shot you do even better than the last. As I mentioned at the start of the show, one-shots are so important.

Often, getting a group to stay together is one of the hardest parts of a being a dungeon master. If you can get good at doing one-shots, you’ll enjoy yourself much more because your scheduling headaches will be limited to just one day rather than week-in and week-out.

With these 10 tips, you’ll be able to have a much more fun time. I am curious though. What sort of one-shot will you create?

When you do any sort of one-shot, reach out to us and let us know how it goes for you. We’d love to be a part of your journey.

As you go on and DM, you’ll have ups and downs and all arounds. No matter the challenges you face, keep going. Every man, woman and child is better on the other side of challenge. Thanks for listening to How to Be a Better DM. It’s you who makes this possible. So with your blessing, we’ll be back next week for another great episode, but until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Yes And... Why Improvisation Isn't About You | Talking Improv and Comedy with TJ from Comedy Sports

27 juni 2024 | 58 min

How do you improvise things that make the game better? How do you add comedy to the game without making it corny?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. Today I talked with TJ Salmon from Comedy Sports, located in Provo Utah. For more information check out https://www.comedysportzutah.com/

The biggest lesson of today's show is that improv, and comedy, both of them, it's not about you. The best Dungeon Masters do everything they can for their players. They build the story on what their characters add. The best way to be a DM is to DM for your players.

Thanks for listening today.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

How to World Build Using Conflict: Into the mind of Jake Packham (DM of The Pact & Boon)

20 juni 2024 | 17 min

In today's episode, we talk to Jake Packham, who is the dungeon master behind our live-play show "The Pact & Boon." Listen as we ask Jake how he goes about applying his inspiration to create compelling campaigns, and grow his home-brew world of Calignos.

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

How to World Build in a Player and Character Focused Way

17 juni 2024 | 17 min

Here's a bonus episode for you about how to World Build with Your players and Characters in mind.

Here are some helpful tips:

When you world build for players, you leave open spaces that players can help fill
It gives your worldbuilding direction, which makes the story that much better.
It saves time and effort because you only build about 20% more than what the players will interact with. Think about rendering in Minecraft.
Your players get to help build the world
You can add cool things as you progress through the story

Hope you enjoyed this Instagram Live episode.

Happy DMing

Mentioned in this episode:

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Downtime Activities in D&D, Part 3: Carousing

13 juni 2024 | 19 min

In today's episode of How to Be a Better DM, we are continuing our exploration of downtime activities, and we are focusing on the mother of all "timewasters," carousing! But, is it a waste of time? Or is carousing in D&D one of the best opportunities to enrich your story, introduce characters, and build memories through the craziest experiences!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Easier DND Prep and Planning Through the CASE Framework

6 juni 2024 | 26 min

Abridged Show Notes

Feeling overwhelmed by D&D campaign planning? Struggle to connect your grand ideas into a single, captivating story? This episode unveils the CASE Framework, a simple yet powerful system that will transform your planning sessions. Learn how to craft unforgettable campaigns, memorable story arcs, and engaging encounters that will leave your players begging for more. Listen in and unleash the true potential of your D&D world!

Planning Your D&D Campaign with the CASE Framework

This episode dives into the CASE Framework, a system for planning D&D campaigns of any size.

The CASE Framework stands for:

Campaign: The overall plot of your entire campaign.
Arc: Story Arcs within the campaign, like modules you might run from a book.
Session: Individual sessions that make up your story arcs.
Encounter: Specific challenges or interactions within a session (combat, puzzles, social encounters, etc.)

The framework helps you brainstorm and organize your ideas, ensuring everything ties together into a cohesive story.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Why is planning sometimes the hardest part of being a dungeon master? Wouldn’t it be nice to have some sort of guide to help you through your planning, no matter what you are planning for? On today’s episode, I’m going to introduce you to the CASE framework. Through it, you can take any aspect of the entire campaign and work on it without having to worry about writer’s block. This framework will help new Dungeon Masters the most, though old DMs will likely benefit from using it as well.

The CASE Framework is incredibly simple, but often, it’s the simple things in life that save us time, energy and money.

This is How to Be a Better DM, brought to you by Session 0 Studios, and I’m your host Justin Lewis. Our show has been helping dungeon masters new and old for over 150 episodes now and today we are going to help you tell better stories for yourself and your friends as you play D&D.

Want to start out the show today with a few words of gratitude. Over the last couple of months, the show has grown, we’ve launched our new Actual Play show, we’ve done a panel at our first live event, and we’ve just been blown away by the support you’ve given us.

Now enough sappiness. Let’s talk about the CASE Framework.

Why the CASE Framework

The CASE Framework will help you break down each individual part into smaller constituent parts. It will also help you make sense of the smaller parts by fitting them into the larger framework.

One of the most important parts of the story is the throughline. It’s not a story unless all of the events are connected. If they weren’t, they’re just random events, not necessarily one story. Having the same character throughout each event isn’t enough. They need to tie together somehow. You can have “side quests” but the campaign should feel like a campaign.

The nice thing about the CASE Framework is that you can really start your planning with any part of the framework. It helps to remember the framework as a whole so that as you do plan the S for example, you keep in mind the A and the E and to a lesser extent the C.

Let me also explain that this framework doesn’t touch improv during your game. This is all about the prep so any improv you do will have to use some of our other tips.

One last thing that is nice about this framework is that it can help you plan the timing of your game. Despite how much we may not want them to, all things come to an end. That’s a good thing, because the longer something goes on, the higher the chance there is that it spoils. Every story has a climax then a wrap-up and a close. D&D is no different. Knowing the climax and the end from the beginning can help make sure the campaign doesn’t get stale. If it’s boring, it’s time to move on.

Now let’s get into the framework.

The framework goes as follows

Campaign

Arc (as in Story Arc)

Session

Encounter

Campaign

C stands for Campaign. As I mentioned at the start of today’s episode, each part of the framework is tied to the parts before and after. The C and E are a little bit different because obviously they are only tied to one other part.

In this step, you think about the main plot line of the campaign. The CASE framework works so well because you can start with any part of it, whatever is easiest for you to get going.

You also need to think about the scope of what you are planning. If you want to run a full campaign then you need to do the C. If you only want to run a small Campaign, or a Story Arc then you just need the ASE. Lastly, if you want to do a one-shot, then you just need the SE.

A campaign is generally made up of at least a few story arcs.

For the purpose of the CASE Framework, when you work on the C you’re going to work on it in 3 parts.

The General Idea (You’ll get used to doing this)
Break the Idea into Steps (Story Arcs)
Develop the Important Players

Let’s go through each of these.

When planning a campaign and you decide to start on the C of CASE, the easiest way to start is with the general idea of the campaign.

In my case, this is where I toy with multiple ideas to settle on the one that I actually want to pursue. For example, I’m starting to plan the next homebrew campaign for my friends.

If any of you are listening, stop listening right now. Also for the rest of you, this will likely give away some spoilers for any one-shots that I put on for you in the future, so keep that in mind.

I’m planning on putting the next campaign I run in my homebrew world of Integrity. I’ve talked a lot about this world, but it’s constantly changing.

So as of right now, I’ve got a few main plot lines bouncing around in my head, for example

Humans are dying off because their connection to an Elder Diety is gone, so now there is an organization called the Unseen that is trying to reverse that but they are going about it in the very worst ways
The world itself is in chaos and every nation is poised for all out war. Basically the world is on the brink of world war. There is also a secret organization called The Breach that is led by a man who wants to bring peace to the world. To do this, he is trying to conquer the world. He believes that either he will succeed and conquer everything, uniting the world under himself, or the rest of the world will unite against him. Either way, he believes the world will be united.
Originally, on this world, the Elder Diety was threatened by the falling of a corrupted seed from the Worlds Tree (Yggrdasil). That seed fell into the world and started corrupting the lesser gods, turning many of them to be evil. That seed is still in the world, and whatever protection the elder god used to keep the corruption at bay is no longer working, and now the corruption is not just moral but it’s also physical.

I have more ideas but you get the idea. I’ve been working on these major plotlines for a while. They all seem very interesting to me, but I don’t want to create a campaign that lasts forever.

So what will likely happen is that I will pick maybe one or two of these major plot points and set them into motion, meanwhile, I might pick one or two of the plot lines I didn’t choose and use them as minor story arcs. Either way, putting the ideas on paper like this helps me to realize what I want to do with my campaign.

I know a lot of people love to wing it, and that’s totally fine, but you don’t get the amazing callbacks or foreshadowing that you may find in well-thought-out novels if you do that. Having a strategy is never a bad thing.

It’s also the opportune moment to think of the theme for your campaign. Some people don’t care to put themes in the campaign, but I think it can leave a nice little easter egg for your players if they are paying attention (and if you do it right).

The theme should help flavor and govern everything you do to a very small extent. For most part, about 20% of what you do should be overtly theme related and the other 80% should be subtly theme related.

Let’s talk about an example just to hammer down this point.

One theme that I’ve been thinking about that may or may not connect with any of the previous plot lines I mentioned is the idea of change.

I might not be able to articulate it well, but what is mean is the involuntary change that happens throughout the course of life. It’s that feeling you get when you look back over a year, two or three and realize that without even trying to, you have changed and become something different, for better or for worse.

I’ve thought that it might be cool to create some enemies, or big bosses that can literally corrupt, even from the viewpoint of turning humans into monstrous creatures. Perhaps, summed up, the theme would be metamorphosis. I think it might be cool to play with that.

For most of the campaign I would probably try to make it so NPCs react to the PCs differently after some time to highlight the changes. For the overt 20% that is highly tied to the theme, I would probably have some sort of traumatic event happen to one of the PCs that could possibly force them to multiclass or physically change them somehow.

But that’s enough about the campaign at large. Let’s dive into story arcs.

Arc

The Story Arcs could be considered a campaign within a campaign. Often the modules you can run from books could be considered either Campaigns or Story Arcs, depending on how long the module is or how long the DM strings it out to be.

Just like most stories, the story arc has a beginning a middle and end. One of the major differences between the story arc and the Campaign is that the Campaign plot line might be interrupted by a non-salient story arc while the story arc might be interrupted by a non-salient session or two.

Let explain what I mean.

In a campaign, let’s the say the main plot line is to have the party fight the Dragon Queen.

As a DM you are well within your rights to introduce a story arc that follows the desire of one of the PCs to acquire an ancient Ancestor Blade. In this story arc, the party fights not dragons, but giants and the entire feel is off. The party would understand that this isn’t the main plot line and when they are done they will get back to what is more pressing.

Now in the Story Arc where the party decides to look for the ancestor blade, there might be a few sessions where they decide to just go shopping, which doesn’t necessarily move them towards their goals. They might want extra gold for the shopping, so they could theoretically take a job in the local town of clearing out a nearby band of gnolls. That would take a couple sessions and would not be connected to the giants or the dragons in any way.

Does that make sense?

When it comes to story arcs, the theme and purpose can be much more specific than the campaign. In my previous examples, my campaign plot lines were focused on the world as a whole. The themes had to do with personal change, unwanted or otherwise.

Within this campaign, I’ve been thinking of toying around with some story arcs that would fit within it, for example:

A story arc that involves the party getting shipwrecked.
A story arc to introduce the Breach, the worldwide domination organization
A story arc to walk my party through Spark, a very unstable and powerful magical drug that one of the countries actually uses for technology

And these aren’t even touching any of the story arcs my players will introduce just by having compelling backstories.

Just like campaigns, story arcs need adventure hooks. The best part about a story arc is that the adventure hook and how your players react to it determines whether the story arc will pan out and become part of the campaign. If you drop the hook, but your party doesn’t grab onto it then you don’t really need to worry about that particular story arc.

If the hook is related to an important plot point for the campaign, then tough luck. I hate to tell you this, but unless you want to railroad your party then they can choose what to pursue or what not to pursue.

That said, there is nothing wrong with making consequences happen from choices the party makes or doesn’t make.

Let’s say you drop the hook that there is a kingdom nearby where the king has been curse and is suddenly an undead lich. Let’s also say they don’t investigate that hook.

They can’t get mad at you when the Lich’s kingdom suddenly attacks one of the neighboring kingdoms, a kingdom the party is in, with an undead horde. You as the DM introduced a problem and they let the problem simmer and grow. The problem still exists despite the party’s lack of interest in the problem.

Some story arcs will go the way of the dinosaurs though and won’t even exist if the party doesn’t investigate them. That’s ok. Let it happen. You have so many other fun and interesting ideas anyways.

Session

After the Story Arc comes the Session. These are the daily building blocks of your story arc and campaign. Without the session, nothing happens.

Just like with the Arc and the Campaign, you want to think about the purpose and goal of your session.

I think it’s good to remind you about the PUT A CLUE framework that I introduced back around episode 151.

P stands for Purpose

U stands for Unfinished Business

T stands for Timeline

A stands for Arcs and Acts

C stands for characters

L stands for location

U stands for the Unexpected

E stands for encounters.

I won’t go into the full framework, but I do want to touch on a few parts.

First of all, like I said, you want to think about the purpose and goal of the session. This is so very very important because it sets the tone for everything else you do as far as session prep is concerned. You need to think about the feeling and mindset you want your party members to be in at the end of the session. You can even think about what they were feeling at the end of last session to help bring it all together.

Let me also point out that the A and E are relevant to what we are talking about today.

The A stands for Arcs and Acts, forcing you to think about how the session fits into the story arc as a whole. The E stands for encounters, making you think about the encounters that will make up your session.

The CASE framework works on the idea that each component makes up the larger part that it fits into. Your sessions make up your story arcs and your encounters make up your sessions.

You can use this to plan the timing and the continuity of each part.

One last note about sessions is to remember to give yourself some breathing room. Plan too much but relax and let what happens happen. No need to worry about every single little detail, though you can spend a lot of time in preparation.

Encounter

Finally, we get down to the Encounter level. Just like with every other step, you want to think about the purpose of each individual encounter.

As a basic rule of thumb, each session could have 3-5 encounters, although you could have more or less depending on the session.

When you build out the encounter you want to remember what you want to accomplish with this particular encounter. Sometimes the purpose could be as simple as giving the party a challenge. I think the best encounters are ones where the purpose is not so obvious. For example, one purpose might be to make the party feel endangered, or maybe one encounter’s purpose is to hint at a plot secret.

Intrinsically connected to the purpose will be the type of encounter it is. For example, a puzzle encounter might have a difficult job of making the party feel in danger, if there are no combat or trap elements. Similarly, a combat encounter will have a hard time hinting out a major plot point if there is no social element involved or if it is a straightforward combat encounter. So think about what type of encounter you want it to be.

For those of you who use random table generators, I would also encourage you to think outside the box in every single encounter. Don’t let an encounter slip by without adding in something cool and memorable. Let’s say that you roll on a random table and now the party is fighting a group of 3 bugbears. It should be a simple encounter, because your party is a much higher level than the bugbears after all. So what if the three bugbears resembled the Three Stooges? This combat encounter would quickly turn into something else that is much more memorable and hopefully enjoyable. You can make every encounter just that much more special if you so choose.

How to Use the CASE Framework

Now let’s come to the most practical part of today’s show.

How do you use the CASE Framework?

If you remember, the CASE framework is supposed to help you prepare any individual part of your D&D experience.

You use this framework quite simply.

Step 1: Choose the portion you wish to work on.

If you are not in a current campaign, then the most logical step is to work on creating the campaign. If you are in the middle of a campaign, then you need to choose between working on the next Story Arc, Session or Encounter.

Step 2: Review the larger portions around the part you want to work on. If you are working on the Story Arc, then you need to review the Campaign work that you’ve already done. Think about the major themes of the campaign and the things that you want to accomplish.

Step 3: Split what you are working on into its smaller parts. So if you are working on the Story Arc, you can logically split it into groupings of sessions.

Step 4: Fill in the Details. Everything to this point has gotten you the bare bones. What’s left is to just fill them in.

The CASE Framework doesn’t help you do all of the work. Instead, it orients you and gets you started in the right direction with the right scope. It’s really more of a compass and a map. It points you towards what you should do and helps remind you of what you have done.

End

D&D can be a complicated thing. Sometimes as DMs we overcomplicate. I am 100% at fault there. The real magic happens when you can simplify a great story. If it’s simple, yet gripping, then there’s no way for you to mess it up.

The CASE Framework is an attempt to help simplify and demystify the entire Planning process. It doesn’t give you the exact details of every moment, but rather it helps you tie it all together. It helps you create 1 story, rather than a series of random and unconnected episodes. If that’s what you were going for, then that’s totally ok. For those of us who want to create something more integrated, this should help.

Remember

Campaign

Arc

Session

Encounter.

If you ever need to improvise anything, just remember to think about the entire framework when you do.

With this framework, I believe you’ll plan your entire...

Railroading and the Illusion of Choice: Do Players Care About Being Railroaded?

30 maj 2024 | 36 min

Welcome back to another episode.

Today we walk about railroading, allowing players to do whatever they want, focusing on player perception and making sure the game is fun for the player at all times.

If you want more, check out session0studios.com

If you want more specific resources, check out these other episodes:

Tips for Improv: Episode 161

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

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Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Build Your Dream D&D Game Room: Top Tips from Daniel Hanzlian

23 maj 2024 | 28 min

Ever dreamt of creating the perfect D&D game room, but felt overwhelmed by budget, and space limitations, or clueless about the coolest tech hacks? This episode is your one-stop guide! We'll delve into inspiring ideas, from crafting an immersive atmosphere to incorporating unexpected gadgets to elevate your campaign. Whether you're a seasoned Dungeon Master or a newbie setting up your first session, get ready to transform your game room into a legendary space that will have your players begging for more!

Craft Your Dream D&D Game Room: From Budget Hacks to Tech Tricks

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. In this episode, we journey deep into the realm of D&D game room creation with the incredible Daniel Hanzlian, the mastermind behind the inspiring Instagram account @danzlianthedm! If you've ever fantasized about building the ultimate space for epic campaigns but felt restricted by budget, space, or a lack of tech know-how, then buckle up!

We'll cast a spell on the following:

Budget-Friendly Fantasy: Unleash the power of creative solutions and discover how to craft an immersive atmosphere without breaking the bank.
Optimizing Your Space: Maximize your square footage for legendary gameplay, whether you have a grand hall or a cozy corner.
Tech Hacks for Tabletop Titans: Learn how to leverage unexpected gadgets and digital tools to elevate your campaign to new heights.
From Inspiration to Implementation: Turn your game room dreams into reality with a step-by-step approach that's both practical and awe-inspiring.

Ready to transform your game room into a haven for unforgettable adventures? Dive into this episode and discover the secrets to crafting a legendary space that will have your players cheering for more!

For more ideas and inspiration, be sure to check out Daniel's work on Instagram: @danzlianthedm

Find out more at https://session0studios.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Home Brew Rules From Different Game Systems on the Level Up Your Gaming Podcast

20 maj 2024 | 55 min

10 Places That Your Fantasy Town NEEDS!

16 maj 2024 | 20 min

What's up everyone! Thanks for listing to how to be a better DM. Here's a quick synopsis of today's episode hosted by (me) Cayden Ottley.

In today's episode I talk about 10 places that you need in any fantasy town that your players are visiting. This obviously varies from place to place depending on setting, political system, and your own rules to name a few, but this comprehensive list will help you get started. Enjoy!

Tavern - A place to meet, drink, dance, and potentially hear gossip. The Tavern creates great rollplaying opportunities and is a classic place to receive epic quests.
Marketplace - Every town will have some sort of commerce. People need to make a living! A marketplace allows the party to pick up unique items unique to the area, and potentially meet some interesting NPC’s.
Government Building - The place where decisions are made and justice is served. This is the place for political intrigue, where players might petition for help, confront corrupt officials, or attend important meetings.
Blacksmith’s Shop - No town is complete without at least a few blacksmith’s shops. This is where weapons are forged, armor is repaired, and custom gear can be crafted. The blacksmith can be a valuable ally, providing expertise and perhaps even quests.
Church or other site of worship - Spirituality plays a crucial role in many fantasy settings, so a church or other site of worship is a must. This place provides solace, guidance, and perhaps divine intervention.
Food or wealth source - Every town needs a source of sustenance and income. This could be a farm, a mine, a fishing dock, or any other resource. It’s the lifeblood of the town’s economy and a potential source of conflict or adventure.
Jail - The jail is where lawbreakers are kept, and it can be a grim reminder of the town’s darker side. It’s also a potential adventure site—whether your players are breaking someone out, investigating a mysterious prisoner, or serving time themselves.
Hospice - A place of healing is vital for any community. The hospice, whether it’s a grand hospital or a healer’s cottage, offers medical care and respite for the sick and injured. It can be a haven for your players to recover, learn about local ailments, or meet knowledgeable healers who may need help with curing a mysterious disease.
Criminal Layer or Resistance Base - Every town has its shadows. A criminal lair or resistance base adds depth and intrigue. This hidden location is where rogues gather, plots are hatched, and rebellions are planned. Whether it's a thieves' guild, a rebel hideout, or a smuggler’s den, this place can provide players with under-the-table jobs, secret information, and morally complex decisions.
Inn - Last but certainly not least is the inn. Similar to the tavern, the inn offers a place for travelers to rest, but it’s also a hub of activity where stories are shared and alliances are formed. The innkeeper can be a font of local lore, and the inn itself can be the starting point for many adventures.

Mentioned in this episode:

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

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Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Downtime Activities in D&D, Part 2: Crafting Items

9 maj 2024 | 20 min

Want to step up your crafting game in D&D? Think of implementing 3 aspects into your crafting: Skills/Proficiencies, Materials, and Place. These will help you make crafting attainable, story driven, and worth it for your players.

Mentioned in this episode:

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Simplify and Streamline your Session Prep | The PUT A CLUE Framework

2 maj 2024 | 35 min

Why are prepping sessions so hard? Why can’t it be as easy as remembering a simple phrase, maybe something strange like PUT A CLUE? Why can’t I save time by learning this phrase PUT A CLUE and then using it to prepare my sessions so much faster?

Friend, you’re in luck. Today’s episode is for you.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, the show to help dungeon masters new and old learn how to take their DMing skills to the next level. I’m Justin Lewis and I’ve been helping Dungeon Masters solve simple and complex problems with my cohosts for over 150 episodes now. We’ve talked with professional voice actors, writers, podcasters, and even real life blacksmiths, all to help you fix your DMing mistakes, and truly become the World’s Greatest DM.

As I mentioned today’s show is about helping you do Session Prep in a way that takes less time, far less mental stress, and helps you structure yourself to get finished faster and in a more complete way.

To do that, I give you the PUT A CLUE framework. Simply fulfill each of the aspects of this framework and your Session Prep is done.

The PUT A CLUE framework breaks down as follows:

Purpose: Understand the general goal and purpose of the session

Unfinished business: Wrap up and recap what happened in the last session

Timeline: Write down a general chronological plan of what you want to have happen

Acts and Arcs: Separate that timeline into a few acts (or scenes)

Characters: Prepare characters and their actions that are needed for the session

Locations: Prepare the setting and maps needed for the session

Unexpected: Prepare a twist or something unexpected for the session

Encounters: Flesh out the mechanics and final details of each encounter

Maybe it’s simplifying session prep, but in that case, GOOOD!

There’s no reason session prep has to drain your soul.

Try out the framework and see how it works for you.

Thanks for listening to today’s show.

This podcast is a part of the Session 0 Studios Network.

Mentioned in this episode:

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

What Would a Fantasy Blacksmith Shop Look Like - Wastatch Forge Blacksmith Interview Part 2

27 april 2024 | 29 min

Dive deep into the captivating world of blacksmithing in Dungeons & Dragons with our special guests Matt and Stan from Wasatch Forge. In this thrilling episode, we unravel the secrets of the blacksmith's shop, from forging blades to the mystical infusion of magic into steel. Discover the craft behind the art, and uncover how you can enhance your D&D experience with authentic blacksmithing knowledge. Don't miss out on this immersive journey into the heart of craftsmanship and adventure!

Welcome back to part 2 of our interview with Wasatch Forge. This is How to Be a Better DM, the show that is designed to help new or veteran dungeon masters become masters.

Today we dive back into Wasatch Forge for the 2nd part of our interview.

Check them out at https://www.wasatchforge.com/

From today's show you will:

Gain insights from master blacksmiths on accurately portraying a blacksmith shop in your D&D game.
Learn about the tools and equipment essential for blacksmithing, including anvils, hammers, and forges.
Explore the historical accuracy of blacksmithing techniques, debunking myths commonly seen in movies and games.
Delve into the process of creating a Memorial Blade infused with the cremains of a loved one, blending artistry with emotion.
Discover the potential for incorporating blacksmithing quests into your D&D campaigns, adding depth and authenticity to your storytelling.
Get tips on managing player expectations regarding the availability and limitations of blacksmith services in-game.
Gain a deeper appreciation for the dedication and craftsmanship of blacksmiths, both in fantasy worlds and real life.

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

What D&D 5e Gets Wrong About Blacksmiths - Wasatch Forge Interview with a Blacksmith

25 april 2024 | 49 min

Dungeons and Dragons 5e gets a lot wrong about Blacksmiths. There is almost no realism. Pretty strong statements right?

But that's exactly what we dive into in our conversation today with Matt and Stan from Wasatch Forge, a local blacksmith school here in Salt Lake City Utah. Visit https://www.wasatchforge.com/ for more information.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today is the first part of our interview with Wasatch Forge. Come back on Saturday for Part 2.

We talk about a few things today, not the least of which being:

How can you incorporate blacksmiths into D&D in a realistic way?
What are some pet peeves about blacksmiths in D&D
What do most DMs get wrong about Blacksmiths

Overall it was a very fun conversation.

Mentioned in this episode:

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Bonus: Always Find Players for D&D, How to Do Lycanthropy in Your Game, The Longstrider Spell, on the Next Session Podcast

23 april 2024 | 61 min

Finding players can be difficult. Having lycanthropes in your party can be difficult. Using the Longstrider spell can be difficult.

Lucky for you, we talk about all of that.

On today's BONUS episode, Tanner and Justin are invited onto the Next Session Podcast with Alyssa and Adam.

They have a great conversation sharing tips for always finding players, tips on how make lycanthropy work, a cute cow/bumblebee mashup, and finally the Longstrider spell.

Check out the Next Session Podcast at https://www.nextsessionpodcast.com/

They really do offer amazing content.

Mentioned in this episode:

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

5 Tips for More Immersive World Building!

18 april 2024 | 11 min

Downtime Activities in D&D, Part 1: How to Build A Stronghold

11 april 2024 | 28 min

Podcast Takeover! 2nd Episode of New Actual Play D&D Show - Pact and Boon

6 april 2024 | 136 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

This is a special bonus episode.

In today's episode we give you Episode 2 of the Pact and Boon actual play D&D show.

If you want to subscribe to the show, check out session0studios.com/pactnboon

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Pact and Boon Episode 1: Podcast Takeover!

5 april 2024 | 98 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

In honor of the release of our newest podcast, The Pact and Boon (session0studios.com/pactnboon/) we are releasing the first episode of that show on this podcast today.

Pact and Boon is an Actual Play 5e D&D podcast and we are so excited about it. Go and check out the rest of the episodes that are out right now (a total of 4 episodes right now).

If you come back tomorrow you'll get to hear episode 2 on this show of the Pact and Boon.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

20 Tips for First Time DMs

4 april 2024 | 25 min

Do you dream of trying out being a dungeon master, but are unsure of yourself or your abilities? Do currently DM but wish some parts of it weren’t as hard or complicated? Today’s episode is filled with 20 tips to help you skip some of the mistakes that we’ve made in our DMing journey. With these tips, you can gain the confidence to DM like you never have before. More importantly, with these tips, you’ll know that you are a good DM right now and that with some practice you can get even better.

TLDR:

The tips can be boiled down into a couple of META tips:

Relax and Play the Game (It’s just a Game)
Everything you Do can be improved even just 1%
Practice is what will improve your game.

Feel free to read the tips below, or read the full episode transcript if you want to dig in deeper.

The tips:

Intro
Go Slow and Deliberate
Follow the Fun
Let your Players Do Some of the Work
Do Homebrew Early and Often
Read Everything You Can
Spend Some Time Everyday Writing
Foundation First
Details Make It Incredible
Always Be Meeting People
Make Your Player Characters the Stars
Know What You Are Good At
Don’t Try to Have Your Best Session Ever
Steal Ideas (Except When Making Money)
It’s Ok to Look Things Up
Success Is Measured by People’s Enjoyment
You Will Get Better
You Make the Rules
Commit
Listen to Podcasts and Watch Youtube Videos

Mentioned in this episode:

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Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

How to DM in a Public Place | Tips for Public Dungeon Mastering with Andrew Ashby from We Geek Together

28 mars 2024 | 38 min

Have you ever wanted to go to that cool game store down the road and play a fun game of D&D but are maybe somewhat shy and nervous about being a DM in a public place?

Wouldn't you like the ability to DM in any place at any time?

Today we are going to walk you through some tips on how to manage yourself in those public places and how to make sure it's fun for you and your players every single time!

This is How to Be a Better DM. Today, Justin, Tanner and Cayden sit down with Tavern Keeper Andrew Ashby from https://www.wegeektogether.org/.

Here's what we talked about:

Always make sure everyone at the table is having fun and feels safe
If your party is shy about being in public, make something exciting happen to get them out of their own heads
Talk to the owners of game stores to find out what tools they have for you
Find the locale that fits what you need
Find ways to mitigate distractions even while out in public
The best thing to do is to commit to doing the DM thing and everything else will be much better.

We enjoyed today's episode so much and want you to check out We Geek Together.

Make sure to get your seat for the upcoming Dead Wars event (the world record breaking D&D game that's coming up, yeah you should be there!). Go to https://www.thedeadwars.com/ and get your seat!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

5 of the BEST online resources for a more immersive world.

21 mars 2024 | 15 min

Thanks for tuning in today! Today's show was hosted by Cayden Ottley, and focuses on (in our opinion) the best online resources to help create a more immersive experience for your players. Here are the links to all of the websites mentioned in the episode:

https://www.fantasy-plus.com/ - (Monument Studios) Use code: BETTERDM for 10% off! (it's only $4.99/ month and totally worth it.)
https://www.dndspeak.com - Look for their Magical Mushroom d100 among a variety of other lists.
https://www.thievesguild.cc/shops/ - Amazing list of shops and prices for a better marketplace experience for your players.
https://chartopia.d12dev.com/chart/561/ - D1000 of totally random magical effects for whatever you want to use them for!
https://watabou.itch.io/ - An amazing map generator that allows you to create a world or dungeon for your PC's to experience in seconds.

All of these resources except Monument Studios are free. And let's be honest, $4.99 is a steal for what monument studios is offering. I hope you can put these to good use!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

When and How to Speedrun D&D Sessions

14 mars 2024 | 16 min

Welcome to How to Be a Better DM!

Do you ever see your players losing interest halfway through a quest, a dungeon, or an NPC conversation? Well, they may be bored, which means you should learn to speedrun certain plot point and encounters for the sake of your players' fun.

Tanner discusses when to shorten, speed up, or cut out certain parts of your well-planned sessions, and how to do it effectively.

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

How to Write a DND Heist One Shot | Why You Should Play a DND Heist One Shot

7 mars 2024 | 53 min

How to Write a DND Heist One Shot

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, I’m your mastermind for today, Justin Lewis, and you’re here with me to learn how to tell better stories for yourself and your friends as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons 5e. aHow to Be a Better DM is presented to you by Session 0 Studios, D&D podcasts and shows to sate your ever deepening hunger.

I’m excited for today’s show because it’s actually something that I’ve been working to improve personally. I’ll explain a little later in today’s show, but I’m really excited to get into today’s show. Before we do, I don’t know who needs to hear this, it’s probably you, the DM listener that I’m currently pointing at, but you need to hear this.

You’re doing wonderfully. You may think you aren’t a great DM or you may have had a session recently that was less than encouraging, but know that you are doing well. First of all, most players could never do as well as you are as a DM. Second, being a DM is hard and it is a skill that requires practice. You’re doing splendidly so don’t give up.

Now, I hope that wasn’t too sappy for you because today we are going to talk about doing a DND Heist One Shot!

Why Do One Shots at All

Before we talk about heists, I want to take a moment and talk about why you would even consider doing a one shot. Back on episode 82, https://session0studios/captivate-podcast/reserve-1/, we talked about 10 reasons why you should one shots. Let me just summarize one of the points and also explain why this particular topic appeals to me. You see, with one shots you can try new mechanics, and new scenarios that might be intimidating to pull off in your actual campaign. Doing one shots challenges you.

Why Do a Heist One Shot

Now the next question is why you should do a heist one shot?

Well the first answer is that, it’s fun. Think about all of the heist movies you’ve seen. There’s the Italian Job. Oceans 11, 12, 13 and so on, Army of Theives (which if you’ve seen, then in our upcoming live play Show, Calignos, the character played by Tanner Weyland, my cohost on this podcast, resembles the main character of Army of Thieves so much it’s delightful).

The list of fun movies is endless.

The second reason is that I think a heist, more than other types of one shots, is somewhat more technically challenging. Let me explain. In order to make any particular one shot as good as it can be, there requires a certain level of believability. You must also strike a balance of difficulty. If the crown jewel of Tethrezrembot is only moderately difficult to steal, then your party will likely think the one shot was more a joke than an actual challenge.

To that end, the thing that the party is trying to heist has a perceived value proportional to the difficulty of stealing that object. That means if the party is to believe the value of the target, then the defenses need to be difficult and believable. Also the party will want a sense of accomplishment.

Original Characters or New Characters?

So the first question you need to ask when doing any one shot is whether or not it will be canon in your campaign or not, and whether or not your players will create new characters. These are generally two separate questions.

For example, in my current campaign, I am planning an extra special one shot for my players. This is a spoiler so if any of my players are listening please stop listening. In my campaign the BBEG is named Dreamtaker, and he was a very powerful Fey Creature who was split into pieces in order to be stopped previously. The pieces of Dreamtaker are all items.

In my current campaign the party has fought against Dreamtaker a little here and there, and one of the characters has actually been possessed by Dreamtaker essentially and works for him.

I am planning a heist one-shot, where, somewhere else in the universe, another group of mercenaries has been hired to steal an artifact. Unbeknownst to those new characters, that artifact is a piece of Dreamtaker. This one-shot will still be cannon, but it will take place far away from the main plot line and with totally different characters. I’m going to use this one-shot to explain why Dreamtaker has assembled another piece of himself without simply saying so to my players.

When you do your heist one-shots, or your one-shots in general, ask yourself whether it will just be a non-canon, fun experience, or if it will be salient to the main plot.

The advantage of making it non-canon is that anything that happens doesn’t have to really make sense in the grand scheme of things. You can be more loose and have fun with how you do certain things. On the flip side, one of the advantages of making your one-shots canon is that your players will take things a little more seriously.

Once you’ve made your choice you can move onto the next consideration, whether or not to make your one-shot an Ensemble one-shot.

Ensemble

An Ensemble is, simply put, a group where everyone has a unique and specific role. This plays very well with the heist because generally, in a heist you want as few people as possible, but you still want every job taken care of, and you often need the best at doing any particular job. Think about all your favorite Heist type movies or shows. One of the best examples that I can think of is called Leverage. It’s a show about a group of people who used to be thieves who decided to use their talents to help people in need. It’s a fun show and it shows off the Idea of the ensemble beautifully. There are 5 characters in the group and each character has a specific job. There is the mastermind, the grifter, the acrobat, the techie and the muscle.

So why do I bring this up?

In your Heist, you’ll need to consider how the ensemble will be created. Even if you don’t help create it actively, it will be created. For example, let’s say you decide to have your party keep their same characters. Each member of the party will find a part to play. Most often this will mean that the party will sort of split up responsibilities during the planning phase of the heist. This is a good thing because it should actually help you in your planning phase. What I mean by that is that you’ll likely match the challenges of the heist to your party. You’ll create opportunities for each member to feel like they are the only person that can handle that particular obstacle. Conversely, you’ll likely put in some roadblocks that seem party specific that they’ll have to think their way out of.

If you decide to have your party make new characters, it might be fun in the outset to have them pick roles within the ensemble that you want them to fulfill. That way they would make their character specific to the role.

Some examples of role that could be fulfilled are:

Mastermind

Grifter

Con-man

Techie

The Muscle

The Impersonator

The Getaway Driver (Depending on your world)

The Acrobat

The Sneak

The Safecracker

The Demolitions Expert

The Distraction

The Forger

The Artificer (For building things like replicas or special contraptions)

The Face

And those are just to name a few. If you want more ideas, just watch any good ensemble show and you’ll get a good idea.

The Target

Now that we’ve talked about the party and the roles they’ll be playing in our one-shot, we need to talk about the prize, the target, the booty. As any good thief knows, it doesn’t matter what you get, only what you keep. Similarly, why would you want to keep something that doesn’t have much value?

In order for any heist to make any sense, the target must be valuable. Since you are devoting a one-shot to the heist, I would say that the target has to be pretty valuable. If you want to turn the one-shot into like a mini-campaign, the target would be even more valuable.

Often, you’ll likely make your own target but you can also choose artifacts from any of the sourcebooks that have already been published.

As a general rule of thumb, it’s generally best not to make the object of the heist a world-ending relic, unless that happens to be part of your overall plot if the one-shot is going to be campaign cannon. I say when in doubt, just make it a priceless object of monetary value, that way the only motivations are greed rather than world domination.

When making the target, you also want to make it have a nice backstory itself. In a way, the object of the heist is also a character and it needs fleshing out. Think about the Pink Panther movies (more so old ones) where the Pink Panther diamond almost seemed to have its own mind and will. The Pink Panther itself was a character in that series. That’s why the opening credits always started with some smooth jazz and cartoons depicting the Pink Panther evading and generally getting the better of Jaque Clouseau.

So maybe in your one-shot you want to make your target have a life of its own. You could even go so far as to even make the target sentient, whether it’s an object or a person. Adding this sort of complication adds another layer into the story and can make for a more dynamic experience for your players.

The Owner of the Target

Now, the next big consideration is the person who owns or is in charge of the object of the heist. If the target is a person, (a kidnapping) then the owner of the target would be someone in charge of their safety or someone really close to them.

Thinking about the owner of the target is important because all of the planning that happens hereafter will take into account who the Owner is and what resources they have at their disposal. It also incorporates the willingness of the Owner to kill to protect whatever the target is. Really flesh out the owner because when you come to the planning phase, and really everything after this phase, you’ll be in a much better situation.

So let’s go through a quick example so far. If you are in my current D&D campaign and you are listening, stop listening for a second because I’m going to reveal some spoilers.

Great.

So, I am currently planning a heist one-shot. As I’ve mentioned, my players will be creating new characters, but the one-shot will actually be canon within the universe of my campaign.

First, some things you need to know about my setting. I’ve sort of stolen some ideas from Aerois, the High Rollers’ 2nd campaign. Specifically, instead of the Astral Sea being a sea, for my campaign it is all of space, and other planets are considered planes. Some planes do also exist as well though. So because of this there are magical Astral Space ships and such. So theirs sort of an element of higher technology within the universe. That’s important.

The party will be creating characters who are essentially a group of thieves for hire. They will be hired to acquire an object that, unbeknownst to them is actually a piece of the BBEG. That part will be a small reveal to my players at the end. The person who possesses the target is actually a Celestial named Hezriel. I’ve yet to determine exactly what Hezriel is, but he has been keeping vigilant against the BBEG to prevent the BBEG from rising to power again. Hezriel will reside on a planet that is maybe a little more advanced that we are in our reality. The heist will take place in Hezriel’s skyscraper.

So with that example, already, we have a lot to go off of. Because Hezriel is a celestial, and he has some fortune and power, we can plan some things in the next phase that will make a lot of sense. We also know the motivations that Hezriel has for keeping the Target Object and the motivations that the party will have to acquire it.

This is the importance of fleshing out the Target and the Owner of the Target.

The Adversarial Forces

Somewhat tangential to the Owner of the Target, you’ll want to flesh out both the forces that the Owner has at their disposal, and also any other rival groups who might be competing to acquire the Target Object. In every Indiana Jones movie, there are the rival groups, and while it isn’t a heist in the traditional sense, Indie is always on the hunt for knowledge. National Treasure is another great example of a heist with a rival group.

Especially in a one-shot, adding in another rival group can keep the plot and the action going. People act differently when they realize that everything they are doing is technically a race with another group or another person.

That said, adding in another group does add another layer that you must create and if this is one of your first one-shots, you can easily choose to forgo the competitor group and that’s ok.

Going back to my previous example with my weekly campaign, I don’t plan on having an adversarial group compete with my party to steal the Target object. I feel like that would detract from them being able to fully enjoy the experience of new characters and a new situation.

Now that we’ve down all the ground work, let’s hop into the actual planning phase of the one-shot!

Your Planning Phase

For many people, planning something like this can be quite daunting. In fact, for me, planning something like this is daunting, because compared to other one-shots, this requires technical DM skills. But guess what, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM, where you are going to learn how to do all of the technical stuff. So thank you. Thanks for putting your trust in us and letting us have the chance to make or break it. We never forget you, whether you’re at the gym right now, washing dishes, driving to work or out walking your dogs. We appreciate you and wish we could sit in on all of the games you DM.

Location Location Location

In the meantime, let’s dig into planning the actual nuts and bolts of the one-shot. The first thing you need to figure out is the Location of the target object. This means where in the Universe, in the realms or on the world is your target object located. This is very important because stealing the ancient artifact of a hidden Gumuchi Tribe is very different from stealing a Piece of Dreamtaker from Hezriel Tower within the technologically advanced Pomalen City.

So think about where your object would be. Extrapolate, logically from who owns it, what it is and why people would want it, to figure out the best location for your one-shot.

From there you can hone in to specifically the building the object is in. For heists, the building always matters. In heists, you need to sneak in and sneak out or getaway fast. That means that you need to know where all the exits are and where everything important is relative to everything else.

I would say, in order of operations do this:

Pick the object
Pick the owner
Pick the location of the building the object is stored in
Create a layout of that building

Once you have a map, it will be much easier to let your players plan through the heist.

With the map, there are somethings you might want to consider noting on a personal copy of the map. For example, in a large skyscraper like I am working on, I’m going to want to note air ducts and how they connect, but also secret passages that wouldn’t necessarily be on public government records. I can choose if and how the party could uncover those depending on how they plan and the actions they take. You can obviously forgo this step if you feel that the building the target object would be in wouldn’t have anything like that.

Technology Level

Obviously, you’ll need to plan the level of technology that your party will be dealing with. You’ve probably already made this decision when you chose the location of the target object, but let’s talk about a couple of considerations.

Low Tech:

If the party is doing a heist in a low-tech area, they will likely have access to magic, this is D&D afterall. You need to decide if the owner of the target object also has access to magic. It would be pretty strange if your party could use spells like invisibility but the person protecting a very important object didn’t have access to spells like See Invisibility. I would at the least make both of them to be on the same footing, though it makes more sense for the Owner of the Target Object to have more resources available.

High Tech:

If the party is facing off against a high-tech opponent, then you as the DM will need to worry about things like alarm systems, CCTV security cameras, elevators and stuff like that. You’ll also need to make it so simple things like disguise self or minor illusion can’t just easily disrupt the whole system. If magic is a thing then the high-tech needs to be able to see through it.

I personally think it would be very interesting to have a high-tech party go up against a low-tech Target Object owner and discover that it’s very difficult somehow. Having chosen a tech level, it should be pretty easy now to start to visualize some of the traps and things that you would naturally use.

The Vault

The next thing you need to decide on is the vault. Since before this step, you’ve already made the layout of the building that the heist will take place in, knowing what the vault looks like will be easy.

Also, for context, when I say vault, I actually just mean the final spot that the party must pass through in order to get the object. The Vault could just be a room, it could even be a person if the target is constantly on someone’s person.

The idea here is that this is theoretically the final stage before Target Acquisition and Escape. We are gonna work backwards a little and think about the things starting from the end.

So, combine what you know about the layout of the building with what you know about the resources of the Owner of the Target. That combination of knowledge should help you be able to think about things like “what sort of protections could this owner afford?”

Going back to my example, let’s flesh out the Vault. So we know that the building and the world that the heist is going to take place on is somewhat high-level tech. I’ve decided that the vault will be 3 or 4 levels underground in this massive skyscraper.

Now, as far as the owner of the object is concerned, Hezriel, the celestial, is quite powerful and has quite a few resources at his disposal. He could theoretically have any sort of protection device that I could think of. This means that I don’t need to limit what I can think of in terms of laser alarms, security cameras, and things like that.

Hezriel is lawful good though, so really anything he employed would be forthright and not sneaky. He wouldn’t have a legion of invisible imps hanging around for example. Instead he would just have strong technology and then a legion of guards on call that could be called upon at a moment’s notice.

So with all of those considerations, I’ve decided to make the vault a suspended room on underground level 3 or 4. The basic idea is that if something trips a major alarm, then the suspended vault is released and falls along rails to underground level 10 where more guards are waiting.

Inside the vault is just a very large room with shelves and stands for different artifacts. None of the other artifacts matter that much. In this case, I don’t mind if the party steals a little something extra because it’s not going to affect the rest of my campaign.

Guards

Now might be...

How and When to Make Realistic, Unforgettable NPCs

29 februari 2024 | 24 min

Are you tired of making throwaway NPCs that your players forget the next day? Then this podcast discussion with Tanner, Justin, and Cayden is for you! We discuss when to utilize realistic NPCs and ways to improve the realism of your NPCs, as well. Let's roll initiative!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

The Joys of World Building, & How To Start!

22 februari 2024 | 13 min

On today's episode, Cayden talks about his experience in creating home-brew worlds and mechanics without knowing much about DND in the first place. For those of you who want to play but may not have a great basis in the game, this episode is for you! But Seasoned players, don't turn away just yet. You may learn a thing or two about getting creative and improvisation.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Focusing on your DM "Problem Areas" + Some Announcements

15 februari 2024 | 22 min

Knowledge vs. Experience: How to Make D&D Character Grow Realistically

8 februari 2024 | 27 min

A Tour Through the Feywild

1 februari 2024 | 36 min

Welcome back to How To Be a Better DM, the Official podcast of Monsters.Rent.

I’m your Tour Guide today, Justin Lewis, and we have another special tour lined up today.

First, before we get into today’s tour, we need to talk about our sponsors: you. Without you, we wouldn’t have this tour, so thank from the bottom of our hearts.

2nd, we do have a gift shop. You can visit it at the end of the tour, just go to monsters.rent/shop and there you can pick up all the knick knacks and things that you’ll never use that you only pick up on vacation. There will be also your classic “I went to the Feywild and All I got was this T Shirt” T shirt, but you don’t really want that because let’s be honest, Vacation gimmick shirts never ever look cool.

3rd thing, in the show notes of today’s tour, there are some links that may be affiliate in nature, meaning that if you purchase something from the link, part of that will go towards supporting Better Dungeon Master Tours. Be aware of that fact.

Ok, with the boring stuff out of the way, let’s get ready. First, everyone, make sure you are wearing your protective yellow vests. Do these vests have special protective charms? No. Are they reflective and very bright so they are easy to see? Yes. Will Better Dungeon Master Tours charge you a fee for losing your vest? Yes. So please do not lose them.

I see we have some familiar faces here today. I recognize a few of you from our Tour through the Shadowfell. It’s great to also have some first timers here with us a Better DM Tours. As I said, I am Justin Lewis, and I’ll be your tour guide today. If you love the tour or have comments about my Tour Guide style, feel free to leave a rating or a review. If I get a good rating and a review, my bosses might give me a raise (although let’s be honest, my boss is a real hard case and would never give me a raise). Anyways, who’s ready to have some fun!!!

Mirror Planes

Ok, follow me, the tour has officially begun. As most of you know, there is a multiverse of dimensions and planes. Most of you know this because most of you came from different realms.

Within each Universe, there are also different planes of existence depending on the model that the Universe follows. The Dungeon Master’s Guide actually makes pretty good mention of this. It talks about different Universe models that connects different planes. It ranges all the way from the Soap Bubble model where each plane is sort of like a soap bubble, randomly bouncing off or intersecting with other planes, all the way to the One world model, where all of the planes are just places on the same world.

In many models, the Feywild is a distinctly different place than the material plane. In many of those models, the Feywild is also considered a mirror plane. In fact, in this universe, that is exactly what is the case. The planes are separate places, but the Feywild is a mirror plane of the Material Plane.

Ok, follow me everyone. So pay attention to your surroundings right now. As you’ll notice we are in a forest, you can see that in this part of the forest, it is fall. The leaves are losing their color, you can see that we’ve been walking through piles of leaves and there is a slight nip in the air. Remember that. Oh and yes, Mr. and Mrs. Craig, please don’t wander off, I know those bunnies are cute, but I really wouldn’t. Bunnies can often lead you into places that are rather difficult to escape from.

Anyways, let me give you a brief refresher on mirror planes. Mirror planes are planes that closely resemble another plane. Often, landmarks like cities, forests, oceans are in the same location and the same general shape. Each plane does have its own effect on the landmark though so you may notice some changes. Yes, I see a couple of you who were with me on our tour through the Shadowfell nodding in remembrance. When we pass into the Feywild, you’ll notice similarities but also important differences. Ok everyone keep up.

Traveling to the Feywild

As you may remember with the Shadowfell, traveling to the Feywild in most universes is a process. In most cases, you’ll have to use a spell like Gate, or the more accessible Plane Shift Spell. Gate will let you transport there easy peasy, no problem. Plane shift will require you to know either the Sigil sequence of a teleportation circle within the Feywild, or you’ll need a tuning fork attuned to the Feywild. This means you’ll have to find someone who’s traveled to the Feywild before and hopefully they have a tuning fork that would work.

Today, we are going to use a convergence. Some of you may remember that that is how we got to the Shadowfell, well that’s how we are getting to the Feywild too.

For those of you joining us for the first time, a convergence is essentially where the planes intersect so much, that they are one and the same. This overlap allows creatures to pass through from one plane to another. The convergence we are going to is a very interesting place and I can’t wait to show you.

One last bit of warning before we get to the convergence. Even though the Feywild is technically the plane of Faeries, it is still home to many wild and dangerous creatures. Even if you see something “cute” don’t be fooled. Also, don’t just take any food that any individual or creature gives you. Some of the food of the Feywild could be considered charmed so check with me before you eat.

The Convergence

Ah, and here we are at the convergence. So a couple points to note. Do you see how those trees over there are evergreen and covered in snow, yet not even 20 feet away are the trees we’ve been walking through, the trees that seem to be in fall. And over there, you can see a swath of cherry trees in full Spring bloom. Lastly, in between the cherry trees and the trees of fall, you can see a swath of trees green with the sunshine of summer. You see, we weren’t just walking through the forest. Instead we walked to the corner of the forest, the very edge of this ancient forest. It just so happens that 3 other forests share this corner. Where each forest meets each other forest, we have this, the convergence.

In this case, no one quite knows how this convergence came to be, but as you can see from the large rough stone monuments built in a rough circle around the exact point where all forests converge, this place is considered holy for Druids.

In fact we do have permission to be here, if you look over there. Hello Fairwind.

Fairwind: “Hello Justin, and hello guests of the Better Dungeon Master Tours Company. Welcome to the Druidic Circle of the Seasons. Yes this place is very holy, so I’d ask you kindly not to step on any of the plants of pull of leaves and then rip them apart as you walk along. I hate it when people do that.”

Thank you Fairwind. We should only be here for a few more minutes. Ok, so because this site also functions as a druidic circle, it isn’t the same as the Shadowfell entrance we used last tour. We can’t just walk into. In this case we all have to enter the Druid circle and then start skipping around. The feylike attitude and action will trigger the convergence and pull us into the Feywild. It only works if you commit so everyone, enter the Druid Circle. Now on my count, I want you all to start skipping around, if you want to hum a little diddy, that’s fine, but if you don’t do it, you’ll be left behind and the tour is not giving any refunds.

Ok, 3, 2, 1, Skip.

La la la la la la la la la la

It worked!

Everyone is here… except the Petersens… of course.

Oh well.

So, the first thing you should not is the similarity to the Material Plane, but let me assure me, we are on the Plane of Faerie.

For one thing, note how the converging forests aren’t representative of all of the seasons any more. Instead, now it feels like twilight on a summer’s day. It’s warm, and pleasant. You can also note how the sun seems to be setting, though you can’t see it. It will remain like that during our entire journey through the Feywild.

You can also look around and see random Faerie lights. Those small bobbing little lights are what I’m talking about. You may occasionally giant fireflies lazily flying along.

Good question Miss Pratt. Though the Feywild may appear light and pleasant, it is still a dangerous place.

In fact, let me draw your attention to the forest in front of us. You see a nice forest that seems open and inviting. Now turn around, look at the forest directly behind us. See how it is full of brambles and very overgrown? That’s because we are actually on a boundary line between the Unseelie and the Seelie.

Let me explain to you a bit about the Seelie and the Unseelie, but first, we must walk.

Everyone, please follow me.

The Courts of the Fey

Ok, so please, nobody eat any of the fruit, as I said. If you get charmed and “choose” to remain here in the Feywild, we will not be giving you a refund.

The Courts of the fey are divided into two factions. You have Queen Titania who rules the Summer Court of the Seelie fey, and then you have the Queen of Air and Darkness who rules the Gloaming or Winter Court of the Unseelie Fey.

No, that’s not entirely correct Mr. Roberts. The Summer and Winter Courts do not directly align with good and evil, though that’s an obvious mistake people make. You may have many Seelie who are good and many Unseelie who are evil, but the divide of the factions comes, more than anything else, from the opposition the two Queens feel for one another. They are jealous and utter rivals and will try to oppose each other simply out of principle if need be.

Of course, you may have other creatures that do not give allegiance to either court. Formorians and night hags are wonderful examples of this. You may also have independent fey entities who reject the courts entirely. In my homebrew campaign, an entity named Dreamtaker was a great example of this, until he went crazy and tried to take over everything.

Ok, as we are walking, definitely notice how your surroundings almost seem like you’re in a dream, but you know you aren’t. And actually, this might be an opportune moment to talk about some of the effects on adventurers while they are in the Feywild.

Effects on Adventurers in the Feywild

They Feywild is a very magical place.. Oo did you see that, over there, that bobbing light is actually a little pixie.

Anyways, as I was saying. While you see a place of trees and wildness, and yes the trees are getting progressively bigger, but while this is what you see, people on the material plane view this place as a dangerous place, and with good reason.

There are tales of children going missing into the feywild, kidnapped or lured away by fickle fey creatures, only to return decades later without ever having aged a day. The feywild is a strange place and there are many different version with different rules so to speak.

In fact, the Dungeon Master’s Guide give you some really great examples. There are different ways to affect an Adventurer’s Memory or you can reflect the fact that time may move differently in the Feywild than in the material plan. In the DMG it does give you some mechanical ways to play this out, but I would encourage you dungeon masters to first opt for a narrative reason as to why the characters had a time warp and what the difference in time with the material plane is.

Alternatively, another effect you can have on adventurers in the Feywild is that with any spell that is cast or magic item used, there is a certain percentage of strange things happening. Choose a percentage, let’s say 10% just because that would make things really fun. So any time a character casts a spell (excluding cantrips) or uses a magic item, roll a percentile dice. If they get your chosen percentage or lower, then roll on the Wild Magic table or make your own Wild magic table. Doing this can be a really fun way to display the randomness and whimsy of the feywild.

This is a completely arbitrary rule and you don’t even need to follow it.

Hey what happened to Mr. Armonav? He what? I told you. Don’t accept any food from anyone on this trip, well, unless I say so.

Mr. Armonav, come here. (Snap noises) Hey, Hey, can you hear me.

Yes, I know he’s charmed, I can see that. Does anyone know here Dispel Magic or Break Curse?

No one? You came to the Feywild and you didn’t prepare any spells?

Well, lucky for you Mr. Armonav, I have a Magic Mind here. Here drink this.

What’s Magic Mind? Oh that’s right, there are a few of you here that weren’t on our tour through the Shadowfell.

So Magic Mind is a potion and a productivity shot from the Material Plane. It’s designed to replace your morning coffee, tea, or energy drink. It also works very well to get rid of charmed spells that might fall upon you when you accept food from a scantily clad dryad like Mr. Armonav over here. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to trust scantily clad women.. Or men for that matter.

Anyways, Magic Mind has a lot of really magical ingredients including Ashwagandha, Lionsmane Mushrooms and even Vitamins. While it does work wonders on Charmed Persons, it also helps promote productivity in the ordinary person.

Oh, you want to know where to get Magic Mind? Well sure. So, as of January 2024, you can now purchase them in any Sprouts Food Market across the Material Plane, or maybe a more economical way to get them would be to go to https://www.magicmind.com/JANbetterdm and use the code BETTERDM20 for a discount of 20% of a one time purchase or a discount of up to 56% if you sign up for a subscription. Also, in case you couldn’t tell, Magic Mind is the sponsor of today’s Tour through the Feywild, so a big thank you to Magic Mind. They actually provided these special vests you are wearing that have the enchantment to stave off any of the random effects of the Feywild, that’s Magic Mind infused garments.

One last thing about magic mind. For this month of January, they are giving an even better discount. You can get 1 month for free when you subscribe for 3 months. So with the BETTERDM20 discount code that can get you up to 75% off of a 3 month subscription. Pretty useful if you are going into the Feywild!

Anyways, Mr. Armonav, drink this… down the hatch…

That’s better. Ok, where was I? Oh that’s right, I was just talking about the effects of the Feywild.

Well, as you can see based on what is around us right now, one of the effects of the feywild is that plants can grow to very fantastical proportions. You see those giant mushrooms over there next to that giant fern? Not to mention the massive trees all around us.

Yet at the same time, you can pass through a wood where the trees are normal sized.

Creatures of the Feywild

So let’s talk about the Creatures of the Feywild. Obviously, if you wanted you could have your players meet elves in the Feywild, they are afterall descended from, or directly from the Feywild themselves. I suppose you could lump the eladrin in with that as well. Almost all of the elves are somehow descended from elves in the Feywild, but Eladrin seem to be much more closely connected. They are analogous to the Shadar-kai of the Shadowfell.

Basically any creature of whimsy would be a good fit here. Naturally you have your pixies, I mean we’ve seen an abundance of pixies this whole time. Fairies likewise. You could also find some unicorns in the Feywild, but more often than not, the Unicorns will find you.

A note on Unicorns. The legends say that Unicorns are perfect and good. For the most part that is true, however, I’ve heard tales of adventurers meeting some unicorns that were less than helpful. They were arrogant and had a superiority complex, so be warned.

Hmm, if you look over there right now, you can see a treant moving among those fir trees. Treants are most often grouchy and crotchety. They would usually kill adventurers rather than speak with them, so that might be a good foe for your campaign.

Because the Feywild is, well… wild, any sort of wild thing can feasibly be here. If you want a magical lion to fight your party, you could probably find it here. Same with plants. It would not be too far fetched to find a carnivorous plant here that would be a great challenge for your party.

And just like with the courts, don’t make the mistake of associating the Shadowfell with Evil and the Feywild with Good. A better summation would be Shadow versus light, in the physical sense. As you can see around you, this place remains in a sort of soft warm light, compared to the Shadowfell’s general darkness. So I would play on that particular theme and use creatures that might be extra charming, or fantastical. Honestly, even the comparison of light versus shadow isn’t even that accurate considering that the queen of the Unseely fey, the Queen of Air and Darkness, well you get the point.

It might be interesting to let your players think that the Feywild is quite safe, but in reality it isn’t…

Queen Titania

You might be wondering where we’ve been walking this whole time. Yes, I can see that there are many more flowers around us, also, yes I did see that giant caterpillar smoking a Hukkah. Best not to mess with that.

We are on our way to have an interview with Queen Titania herself. We are actually walking to the Summer Court. Normally, this would be very difficult, because the Summer Court moves, but we were able to come to a deal with Queen Titania that she would allow us to come and have a nice chat with her.

Everyone, a couple rules.

First rule: Use the buddy system. The Feywild, and fey creatures in general are very charming. The Seely Court especially. If you notice your buddy acting dreamily or in a strange way, give them a cuff upside the head and that should clear things up.

Second rule: Always obey my commands. If I say to run, we need to run. For those of you who remember the tour through the Shadowfell, you know what I’m talking about.

Third Rule: Do not eat any of their food. As they are quite charming, sometimes, whether incidentally or intentionally, their food becomes laced with a bit of their charming magic. I’ve never had this happen, but other guides have had tour members eat some food and decide to stay in the Feywild forever.

Last rule: Enjoy yourself! You’re on vacation so just sit back and enjoy the experience. Flash photography is allowed, though I’ll be honest, photos from the Feywild never really turn out. Don’t know why.

Ok, so here we are. Notice the perfectly manicured gardens that almost seem to have sort of a wild side? Notice how the forest seems to embrace the Summer Palace as if hugging an old friend. These denote the power of the Seely Queen.

Guard: “Halt”

Tour guide: “Of course.”

Guard: “What is your business...

How to Use Conditions in D&D for Better Story Telling

25 januari 2024 | 26 min

Tanner Weyland (00:01.046)

Hello and welcome to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of, wait, I should probably not say that anymore, shouldn't I?

Justin Lewis (00:09.162)

So as of this recording, you should still say, well.

See, that's part of the logistics that I wanted to talk about tomorrow, but I'd say just say it until we decide on anything specific tomorrow with Kayden.

Tanner Weyland (00:27.446)

Okay, cool. Sorry, you'll have to cut this all out. Okay. Hello and welcome. Oh, sorry. You're good.

Justin Lewis (00:33.352)

No, it's fine.

Justin Lewis (00:37.354)

.

Tanner Weyland (00:40.534)

Hello and welcome to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters .Rent. My name is Tanner Weyland and I'm here with Justin. Say hi, Justin.

Justin Lewis (00:52.042)

Hey, how's it going?

Tanner Weyland (00:54.644)

Oh man, so good. So good. How are you?

Justin Lewis (00:58.79)

I am recovering from moving, which is the worst. So I'm actually doing pretty good, though. What about you?

Tanner Weyland (01:09.366)

Good, yeah, you know, it's, my wife and I are trying to get back to the gym, which of course is its own bag of stuff. You know, you go, you're like, oh, there's so many people. I feel so self -conscious, but it's been good. So we got back from that today, but yeah, excited for that, because we used to be really into it, and then we moved last year, and we just haven't been, you know, for a whole year.

Uh, but yeah, we're doing better now with that. So excited about that. And I'm more excited to talk about our topic today, which is conditions. Now, specifically, I'm thinking like, uh, conditions that affect the status of the player, like exhausted, petrification, prone, poisoned, things like that. Uh, Justin, tell me, uh, what has your experience been either as a DM or a player in regards to conditions? Like, have they been a positive, a negative or

or something not even worth mentioning for you.

Justin Lewis (02:12.554)

I think they've been sort of both. Naturally, when you're a player, if a condition is foisted upon you, it's generally a bad thing, right? There are few good conditions. As a DM, my experience with conditions has really mostly been in combat. So I'm really excited today to talk about possibly ways that conditions can be.

Tanner Weyland (02:31.358)

Mm -hmm.

Justin Lewis (02:42.458)

expanded upon in combat and possibly outside of combat.

Tanner Weyland (02:49.414)

Agreed because I think that's a real issue, right? Where, uh, when a condition is done for the DM, it's just another, you know, plate to spin. And for the players, it's usually like against them because frankly, I think we can agree on this. A lot of time players have seen that it's not worth specking in, in the ability to cause conditions. That's not always true, but I do find that a lot of players are like, Oh,

If it's an enemy we can kill pretty quickly, it's not worth, you know, blinding them or something. And if it's a big boss, chances are their resistances are too high or something. You know what I mean?

Justin Lewis (03:31.176)

Absolutely, you definitely, this is really going into the mechanics of gameplay and this is probably, I would say as DMs, you're probably either good with the story aspect or the mechanical aspect.

Justin Lewis (03:52.042)

Or if you're a lucky DM, sorry, I just had to yawn there for a second. Or if you're a lucky DM, you're good with both. And this is definitely more commonly used with the mechanical aspects of D &D where you have to, you know, I saw on a TikTok the other day where you look at your player character sheets and understand what they're going to use. And then you create monsters that would...

Tanner Weyland (03:57.366)

You get.

Justin Lewis (04:21.21)

Challenge them, but also be excellent opportunities for them to use certain things. So for example, you know, like in the case that you just said, someone who needs to be blinded, it would be a good idea if you have a character who can use spells to blind to maybe put something in there that blinding them would be a really, really good idea, right?

Tanner Weyland (04:37.588)

Mm -hmm.

Tanner Weyland (04:42.902)

Yeah, exactly. Right. Because there's going to be, you know, I think if you open yourself up to, you know, using these more and more creatively, then you're and we'll get to this later, then you're going to find that combats are more interesting and role playing and the consequences from combat are going to be a lot more interesting too. But before we get into that, I'd like to just quickly mention the sponsor of this episode, Magic Mind.

You know, we've been talking about this for a second, but we really love this little potion. That's just like a shot of energy in the morning. For me, it really is weird because it's so small, but it really does give me that kind of kick in the pants that I need to start out well instead of just kind of dragging my feet when I get to work, you know?

Justin Lewis (05:36.842)

Absolutely. Speaking of conditions, there are two conditions that I think in real life we've all, well, maybe three, we've all sort of dealt with. First of all, exhaustion, right? That's a condition we'll be talking about later. And in D &D, it's very severe. Magic Mind is great for exhaustion with a lot of really helpful ingredients, including ashwagandha, lion's mane mushrooms. And, you know, it's full of adaptogens and

Tanner Weyland (05:52.296)

Yep.

Justin Lewis (06:06.826)

really helpful.

Justin Lewis (06:12.458)

really helpful ingredients. More than that, they actually have this awesome deal going on. So first of all, if you want MagicMind, you can go to Sprouts, Farmers' Markets, anywhere and get them. But the better place to get them, and I might be a little biased, in fact I am, but the best place to get them would be to go to magicmind .com slash Jan, that's J -A -N, better D -M, B -E -T -T -E -R -D -M. So MagicMind.

dot com slash Jan Better DM and then use our code betterdm20. It's like giving us a little bit of extra credit if you do that. So we really appreciate it. But doing that gets you either 56 % off of your first subscription or 20 % off of your first one time purchase. So that's a great deal in and of itself. But in the month of January 2024,

Tanner Weyland (06:51.998)

Mm -hmm.

Justin Lewis (07:10.058)

while we're recording this. So this will come out on the 25th. You have six days left. You can get an extra 20 % off, meaning on a three month subscription, you get the first month free, right? So that can be almost up to 75 % off just with these deals. And it only lasts for the rest of January. Again, better magicmind .com slash Jan, better DM, better DM 20 at checkout.

But the other two conditions that this helps with is slowed. So if you're slowed in D &D, you can only do one action or a reaction. Casting spells takes twice as long, essentially. You can't run. Magic Mind does the opposite. So you essentially get hasted, where you can take two actions. You can move twice as fast, and things just are so much better. So don't be slowed, be hasted. Go get Magic Mind.

magicmind .com slash better the sorry magicmind .com slash Jan better DM back to you Tanner.

Tanner Weyland (08:18.934)

Perfect. Thanks, Magic Mind. Now to continue with our talk about conditions, like I really want to dive into the ways that they could be utilized better. Because let's take exhaustion. When was the last time that you used exhaustion like against your party or or with any campaign that you've been in?

Justin Lewis (08:47.338)

Honestly, it's been a very long time. And I say very long time probably because I don't actually remember. I think I might have used it within the last six months, but they probably only gained one level of exhaustion, which is still something, but also in the context of what they were doing, not very much. And personally, I think my issue is,

I'm sort of afraid of the consequences myself, right? And this kind of goes back to what I was saying about needing to understand the mechanics because when you tell a player that they have a point of exhaustion and then you throw them into a combat encounter, that could seriously, they're at risk of dying, right? Just because their roles are gonna be so hampered.

Tanner Weyland (09:19.752)

Yes.

Tanner Weyland (09:39.988)

Yeah.

Tanner Weyland (09:44.758)

Yeah, and that's kind of what it, that's what keeps a lot of DMs from approaching or utilizing exhaustion. I think it's that, you know, just like, oh my goodness, this is kind of big. But then also it's the fact that I think most DMs think, oh, this is mostly going to happen if they stay awake longer than 24 hours. And how often does that happen? Like, frankly,

there's usually enough going on in the story that they're having multiple combats, like in a row or just like in a day. And so they're just begging to have a long rest by the end of it so that they can get, you know, there's, there's everything back. Right. And so if you think of it kind of within that box, it's exhaustion feels limiting. It feels like it's unlikely to happen, but think about it from, from the terms of.

like an adventure, right? When would you be exhausted? It would be when you're going through really extreme weather conditions or something that's physically or mentally, you know, hard on the players or taxing. So think about this. Your players are on kind of a more an expedition type like campaign where they're traveling, you know, through jungles, forests, things like that. Those are perfect times to

to have them get the exhausted condition. And if you don't know, exhaustion has six levels. At the first level, you get disadvantage on ability check. Second, speed halved. Third, disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws. Fourth, hit point maximum halved. Fifth, speed reduced to zero. So they basically can't move. And then sixth, death. So that's where like...

It can get really serious very quickly because the first one's like, Oh, disadvantage on ability checks. That sucks to speed half. Okay. You can still make it work after that. That's it's kind of a lot. And, but it's kind of a really cool mechanic because think about it. You know, if your players are kind of going through this journey and you know, you're like, Oh, you're in a really cold, you're on a cold tundra and the winds, you know, biting at them and you know, roll, uh,

Tanner Weyland (12:00.01)

role constitution saving throw to see if you do okay. And, and basically it's like, Oh, it gets harder the longer they're out there and then they start failing. And some players are doing worse than others, you know, like the, uh, the mages who don't have much constitution, they're over there just, you know, they're walking a half speed. Whereas the, uh, the barbarian and everyone else is doing pretty good. That's a great storytelling opportunity and they haven't fought a single monster, right?

Then if you do throw in like a combat then that you know kind of ups everything You know the the stakes and I think that's just a great thing and it doesn't even have to be when they're on an expedition think about if they were in the city and They were you know They were supposed to go through the sewers and kind of wade through the sewer water to find you know Missing girl or something right wouldn't that be a great time to be like, okay?

real constitution saving throw because they're wading through like this stuff. They've got, you know, it's really dark kind of rough conditions and they didn't have to be out in the wilderness. It was right underneath their feet. You know what I'm saying?

Justin Lewis (13:11.594)

Yeah, absolutely. I love the picture you've painted. If you need a great example of this situation, you can think back. If you haven't had a chance, Critical Rules, second campaign, spoiler alert, there's a part where the Mighty Nein are basically, they find themselves in a tundra situation. So really, really cold. And they gain

levels of exhaustion because they're traveling through this cold situation. They're stepping through deep snow. That's a really great example. But I really love the picture Tanner painted. You if you need to think about this in simpler terms, maybe you can think of Oregon Trail, right? The video game that we all played in computer class when we were younger. Or, you know, the Donner Party. Like these people are real life examples of

Tanner Weyland (13:55.988)

Yep.

Justin Lewis (14:08.842)

having to essentially deal with levels of exhaustion, right? Even up to the point of death. Now, another alternative rule that you might be interested in using, and I sort of just came up with this, and I don't know if this would be a good idea, but allowing spell casters to cast two spells in one turn in exchange for receiving a point of exhaustion. And...

Tanner Weyland (14:35.092)

down.

Justin Lewis (14:35.69)

You know, you might play with that a little bit depending on the spell level or whatnot and obviously who they're fighting, but that might be an interesting way to basically be like, yeah, you can definitely cast another spell. It's going to cost you this much. And you know, you're actually going to feel the effects because now, you know, their roles are going to be at disadvantage and then soon their speeds are going to be halved.

and things like that, but that might be another interesting way to add more exhaustion into combat itself.

Tanner Weyland (15:02.846)

Yep.

Tanner Weyland (15:08.31)

Yeah, I love that, especially where, you know, if you want to homebrew a few things, then I mean, not only spell casters, but it's like, okay, let's have, you know, the the melee characters, they can make maybe, you know, two, maybe even three actions.

You know, in, in, uh, in a turn, but they're going to increase the thing of, uh, a level of exhaustion. And while that might feel like, Oh, that's broken. It's like, well, they need to have a long rest to get rid of that. So that means until they have that next long rest, they, they get disadvantaged on their ability checks. You know, that's, that's a rough time. Um, so play around with that. I don't want to spend all of our time on exhaust exhaustion, but I think it's a classic example of.

You know, of DMs feeling like it's just not practical when it could have so much story implications, you know, and I just love it. Um, but let's move on to some of the other ones like poison. Uh, if you're poisoned that that's common condition, right? You're fighting some spiders in the forest. Uh, they start singing and they take, and you take not only the normal damage, but also some point at poison damage. I think that this one, you could really stand to do a lot more homebrew.

with it, right? Where, where it's like, okay, yeah, they're poisoned, but it's not just adding points of damage, right? It's like, oh, it's poisoned, but the effect is every this many hours, you know, they take a temporary point of condition damage, right? Where like, there's a lot of different effects that poison can have in real life. And we should let that actually show, you know, when someone becomes poisoned.

So that that's kind of my two cents on that, where it's like, okay, make the what happens, play around with it. Don't always make it just straight damage that happens every, you know, every six seconds, but also make it have interesting effects and also interesting cures. Right. Cause if you have that kind of situation where it's like, Oh, this poison isn't going away, but also you don't have to solve it immediately. Cause it's not going to kill you in a minute.

Tanner Weyland (17:24.566)

then that gives your party a chance to you know, that it gives the chance for the ranger to have an Aragorn moment and be like, okay, I'm going to use roll nature and see if I can find these herbs that will heal it, right? Or something like that.

Justin Lewis (17:40.938)

Absolutely. One thing I will say around herbs is, well first of all with poisons as a whole, you need to kind of make the punishment fit the crime. And that's the weirdest way of saying, make sure the poison fits the level the characters are at. So if they're higher level, then if the poison is really going to like impact them at all, it should probably be kind of quest worthy. Whereas if they're lower level,

Tanner Weyland (18:08.342)

Yeah.

Justin Lewis (18:09.418)

it makes sense for them to get bit by, you know, just, you know, a lower level spider and have to find an herb in the same forest they're in to fix it, right? Because it's going to be a little bit harder for them. Also on that note, play around with the location of the antidote relative to the location of the poison or venom, I guess, technically speaking. In D &D it's the same thing, but, you know,

Tanner Weyland (18:20.66)

Yes.

Tanner Weyland (18:32.97)

Yes.

Justin Lewis (18:37.034)

you might put the antidote in the same forest, or you might put it somewhere else. If you put it somewhere else, have the presence of mind to make sure that the effects of the poison don't outright kill them before they have a chance to get the antidote, right? Like Tana was saying, make it pressing, but not pressing to the point that they die. Last thing I'd say is, in real life, poisons, they sort of...

Tanner Weyland (18:49.118)

Yeah.

Justin Lewis (19:04.906)

kind of overcome your body, right? And Lord of the Rings is a great example. Frodo descends more and more into becoming a wraith, right, because he was poisoned. At first, you know, his effects, his symptoms were not as severe. So if you're home brewing it, that might be something you could also play around with. You know, however long it takes, their symptoms start to become more severe because the poison is reaching different parts of the body.

Tanner Weyland (19:35.03)

Yeah. And I think there's just to speak also to the effects. There's some effects that's like, Hey, you could totally have so much fun with this. Like, think about it. Does a barbarian need, you know, uh, do they need charisma? Not really. But imagine if they got poisoned with something that kind of eats away at their flesh, or at least just models it like, like it makes it modeled where they just look bad. And so like over time, day by day, they're looks are looking worse.

And they need that kind of antidote and they don't know where it is. And that's a great story thing where, oh, they've got to do this whole thing. Like this is built into the character now where they're looking physically...

Helping Your Players Advocate For Themselves in D&D

18 januari 2024 | 16 min

How to be Silly in D&D

11 januari 2024 | 18 min

Welcome to How to Be a Better DM!

Today, we're talking about how to invite silliness and funny business to your table, and why it can help your group enjoy the entire experience.

Here is the episode transcript for anyone interested:

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters. Rent. I'm Justin Lewis here with my friend Tanner Weyland. Hi. Yeah, that's all I got, sorry. Yeah, good to see you all. Great to be here. Tanner and I are in rare form today. We just recorded another episode, which, which went a little bit long.

So we're going to kind of do this fast mode. We're going to do a speed run, uh, but which probably means we'll just go the normal length because I'm a little bit. That's how it always goes is we're like, Oh, let's be fast. Okay. 20 minutes later. Exactly. Uh, without further ado though, let's jump in actually first a quick mention, follow us on Instagram at how to be better DM and at monsters.rent.

Now let's jump in today. We're going to talk about the flip side of one of our episodes last month, which was how to add tragedy to your game. So they were talking about how to, how to add comedy to your game and in the Shakespearean. Uh, definition of the word comedy just means a happy ending, right?

Everyone, like Tanner said, last time, everyone gets married. Essentially in this episode, we're going to talk specifically about making people smile, laugh, or giggle kind of that sort of comedy, the comedy that we're, we're more familiar with today. Not necessarily just a happy ending because obviously everyone wants a happy ending, but more of how to add comical moments or silly moments, or, you know, he has and gaffaws and laughs to your game.

Yeah, and it's so important because I think, you know, being a DM and playing D& D is so much of it is about fun, and it's hard to separate fun from funny, right? In terms of just Practicality, right? Cause you're having more fun if you think things are funny and in, and if you're able to joke with each other and riff, and that's, you know, sometimes there's not always a place for that in every part of the game, right?

Because like we mentioned last time, if you don't have tragic moments or more serious moments, then the game kind of loses some of its weight. But, but honestly, I would argue that, uh, that if you have five times the amount of comedy to tragedy. Then you're in a pretty good place because people are, are happy to come.

They feel like they're in a very friendly environment and you know, but, but there's also some issues, right? Like sometimes people don't feel like, you know, maybe things are too straightforward or you feel like there's not enough room for, for growth, you know, or not growth room for like silliness. Where people are like, Oh, everyone wants to just get through the encounter.

They don't want to hear me make a joke about like, Oh, I hit this guy in the knee, you know, or, you know, or trip him up because everyone wants to know if the mechanics are right for that and everything like that. Right? The people who get over serious is my main point. And I think that you can get around that by just, you know, as the DM putting your, uh, best, you know, silly foot forward and being like, Hey, not everything needs to be super serious, you know?

Absolutely. Uh, you definitely need to know the tenor of the table, and maybe that's the wrong phrase. Understand What people want and when, uh, and if you listen to your characters, you'll get a good sense of when they're willing to be silly or when they're willing to be serious. My, my rule of thumb is when it's a specific, uh, plot point, it's probably going to be serious.

And when I say specific plot point, I mean, like, if something happens one way or the other, the campaign has major consequences, right? The different differences in trajectory, but if it's not so, uh, serious, obviously in terms of consequences, definitely feel free and add in some, some comical elements. Uh, also if it is serious, there's no.

Nothing wrong with sort of taking breaks in between the seriousness, right? So if they're in, you know, a starship and they have to find their way off before everyone knows they're there, uh, you know, you can take a small moment to be like, yeah, you open up a door and you find us a storm trooper sitting on the toilet.

Right? Uh, you obviously close that and then you get back to work. Right? There's nothing wrong with that. But when you get to the final boss scene and you're fighting the dark Lord in his capital ship. You may or may not want comical elements unless your party trades in comical elements on a day to day basis, right?

If they fight that way, then that's how you need to play. So, so definitely listen to your party. Yeah. And, and speaking about party, I think. Uh, as a DM, you can certainly build in moments that you think will be kind of funny, like challenges specifically, if you throw in like a puzzle or a skill check, that's just kind of silly in general, right?

you know, Like people trying to work through, uh, like sneakily through a factory filled with a bunch of breakable statues and then, you know, something falls over, then it's like, you kind of like, there are ways that you can turn like a skill check or something else. Kind of into a potentially comedic situation, right?

But, but I think the best way that you can actually add it into your campaign is just paying really close attention to what your players want to do. So sometimes players want to want to do something that, you know, in, in real life, you just couldn't do. And I'm not talking magic. I'm saying like, no, it just doesn't make sense.

And you know, there's a couple options. You could go with that. You could be the DM who's like, no, that doesn't make sense. Try again. Or you actually do it, but it goes how it should go, which is terribly. And that's hilarious. You know, where essentially you don't always have to shut down your players. If they're just doing something stupid or something that wasn't that well thought out.

It's like, no, let, let them do it and then play it up. Don't like, don't turn their mistake into something that's just like, Oh, take 10 steps back, but instead be like, Oh man. You let's accentuate how funny this is and how terribly it goes, and you can do that a lot with your tone and how you act and you're like, okay, roll that diet, you know, and then explain and be like, so you wanted to do this.

This is what actually happens that I think that you really want to just. Embrace what your players are kind of the, the, the opportunities they give you, right? Both in terms of their mistakes, but also sometimes they're, they're being a little bit silly in a conversation and they, and you can tell that instead of like letting your characters over seriousness.

Pull them back to being serious, you know, give into that like more often than not and like kind of let the conversation Tend in a sillier direction a lot of it is just adding silliness to the game isn't so much You being super funny, but it's more about Not shutting down the natural funniness and the silliness that comes with just playing with a bunch of people, right?

That's probably the best tip that we can give is that if you want comedy in your game Realize that you don't have to be the comical person, right? You can just let your players be the funny ones, right? They'll do funny things. They'll do things like Tanner said, that are nonsensical. And every so often you can do things that are somewhat similar, or you think that would make them laugh, but you don't actually have to be the comical one.

Just let your players be the funny ones. Everyone will laugh and you know, uh, life will go on. Yeah, and kind of going along with that, if you make a mistake and let's say you're like, Oh, this is going to be so difficult. And then the player comes up with a really overly simplistic solution that totally works, then laugh at yourself, you know, be like, okay, so I plan on this.

Well, well, I guess this is done. Okay. What now? You know, they're like, that's, that's also a funny situation. And if you open up and kind of let yourself be a little bit vulnerable there, it can be hilarious for your players too. You know, uh, I think in terms of adding silliness, lightheartedness is the key to it.

All right, don't, don't try and ridicule players to an extreme extent. You can kind of poke fun at like what they chose to do, but you know, don't just like, if you can tell it's bothering them, move on. You know, uh, or, you know, make, make it so that you're more laughing at the situation rather than them. Um, because you don't want to start making fun of people that way in a way that they get really hurt by.

Um, but, but I think that, that you can absolutely add it to every session. That you do, and it's only going to make it so that players are excited to come back week after week and going off of something. I heard from writing excuses, which is Brandon Sanderson's writing podcast, or at least it was. I don't know if he still does it, but they say for comedy, you take something normal.

And add something unexpected. So example, you know, my storm trooper pooping on the toilet, right? The party is running, trying to find a place to hide. They open the door. Storm troopers basically in full armor sitting on the toilet, right? That's Normal, because that's what people do, but it's also unexpected because you're like, this is a star destroyer.

Why is it, you know, they're not supposed to have bathrooms in the galactic empire, you know, of the seven. Another example. Yesterday, my wife and I were kind of joking around, like, what if you don't tip the door dasher? Like who's bringing you your food. And I was like, yeah, he just brings out like a giant bean, like a bean, like the size of a bowling ball and just gives it to you.

That's what he gives it to you. And it's, it's, it's normal. Cause it's food, but it's also like, it's just a big bean, you know, like it's weird. So, so kind of stuff like that. She, she got a kick out of it, but, uh, stuff like that, where you take something slightly normal. And you make it unexpected in some way that sort of breaks people's state and makes them put their head up and pay attention.

But also when they think about it, they're like, that's Why? Like what? Uh, it's easier said than done, obviously, but that's sort of a small framework that you can work off of. Yeah. And a lot of times funniness, uh, and silliness is just a bad contrast. Like you were saying, right. It's like, Oh, that's just, that's odd.

Right. Like it's finding something that like, Oh, maybe works, but it's a little bit off kilter, like, Oh, there's, you know, there's three pigs that you could win at the fair. Uh, two of them are like pork chop and then another one's bacon. Then third one's like Guillermo, right? It's like, it's just, it's about that incongruity and, and you can play with that a whole lot of ways where it's like, okay, maybe they're in a serious conversation with an NPC.

Who's all business. And then suddenly they mentioned the weather and he gets really weirdly specific, right? He's like, uh, no, but please, the nine day forecast says this, how dare, you know, like, it's just adding a little bit of weirdness within like a bunch of normalness. And sometimes that's the most funny situation that there is.

Right. Uh, but yeah, I would say that, you know, something to avoid though, when trying to be funny is trying too hard. Um, because I, I've, I've been guilty of this in my life. Uh, I've, you know, I've had multiple people being like, man, you're really funny when you're not trying. Uh, thanks. And, and through my tears, I'm like, thank you.

Uh, and. I think that that's kind of the key where it's like, Hey, you know, if a joke doesn't land or something that you thought was going to be silly, no one really paid attention. That's okay. Don't let it, uh, you know, trip you up at all. Just keep going. Uh, and you know, once again, don't take it too personally.

If something you plan to be funny wasn't, uh, More be excited when you're able to accentuate the funniness that a player is trying to get going, right? Or just create it out of what they're doing. That's oftentimes a lot more funny and You're gonna enjoy yourself a lot more that way because you have less expectations built up.

Definitely don't try to be funny Just do things that you think would be funny And if you can make yourself laugh, then that's a win. And it's very likely that other people will laugh. Sometimes they won't, but that's probably the third tip that I would give. Do things that would make you laugh. Not do things to be funny, but do things that you think are funny, right?

And there's a very fine line there. One is, you're trying way too hard. The other is, haha, this is great. Do you understand the difference? Yeah, exactly. And so I think, you know, we said we keep it short and we will because frankly, it's a simple topic. But, you know, I guess my main, my last thought before I pass back to Justin is, you know, don't fight the funny, uh, if you don't have to, right?

If it's a really serious moment, then it's okay to do it then. But for most of the campaign, don't let mechanics or you thinking that something's ridiculous, like become like a negative, right? Let them accentuate things and actually make it funnier. Kind of like, uh, you know, it's like letting the stream flow, you know, remove the blockages rather than try to redirect it.

If that makes sense. I love that. That honestly, we should make that into a t shirt Tanner. Don't fight the funny. Uh, cause that is, I love that saying so much. So here's my last, um, my last thought. Why are impatient people always so skinny? I don't know why. It's because they can't stand the weight. Uh, that, that was a small joke for you, but yeah, see, so, uh, don't overthink it.

Just do things that have fun. And if you do need to, you can go look up jokes online, right? Uh, if that's what you really need to do, but I wouldn't resort to that. Uh, just my top three tips. Let your players do the funny, uh, don't fight the funny as Tanner said, add normal to unexpected. And then lastly, do things that make you laugh and you should be just fine.

Uh, this has been how to be a better DM. We're so very grateful for you listening to us again in this new year, and we wish you the best roles for you and the worst roles for your players. I'm just kidding. Uh, but seriously, natural twenties for everyone. Uh, we'll be back next week for another great episode until then let's roll initiative.

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A Tour Through the Shadowfell

4 januari 2024 | 37 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. Thank you for joining me, I’m Justin Lewis, and today, I will be your guide through the Shadowfell. We have a lot to cover, including me talking with a very special guest later in the show.

Real quick if I can, I would like to say thank you to all of you who have joined The Guild. It’s been amazing seeing the collaboration between everyone in the Discord server and getting to know people from across the world. It’s also been cool to see some of the homebrew creations you have made. It’s fun being a part of it and seeing you guys make it really cool so just wanted to say thank you guys.

Now, let’s take a tour of the Shadowfell.

In today’s podcast episode, you will come with me as we enter into the Shadowfell, look for some of its inhabitants, talk about some of its dangers, and hopefully make it back out alive.

The Shadowfell is a very dangerous place. Please, stay with the rest of the group, we don’t need any Wandering Wanda’s or Misbehavin Mavens.

We have a big group in the tour with us today so if you get lost look for this big yellow flag I am holding up.

Alright, so as you all know, right now we are standing in Faerun, one of the worlds of Dungeons and Dragons. Traveling here was no easy feat for many of you, but this tour is going to be worth the cost. Also, I can see many of you looking around warily. I know we are walking into a crypt. It’s ok, I’ve used a turn undead spell, so most of the undead in this general area should be turned right now… hopefully. I’ll explain why we are here in this crypt a little later.

What is the Shadowfell

Before we get to the Shadowfell, there are a couple things that you should probably know, like what the heck is it in the first place?

Well, because the multiverse is so vast and complex, the Shadowfell can be anything you want it to be, but for the most part it has some similarities multiverse to multiverse. I will also say, that because the Shadowfell changes D&D game to D&D game and sourcebook to novel, I might miss some things in this edition of a tour of the Shadowfell, so if I miss anything, please let me know. Send a message to @howtobeabetterdm or @monsters.rent on Instagram.

The first thing you need to know is that the Shadowfell is always a separate plane unto itself, a demi-plane, or a region, depending on where in Reality you find yourself. Generally, traveling to the Shadowfell is a bit more involved than just going there, but we’ll get to that in a second.

On this tour, we’ll be visiting the Shadowfell as a completely separate plane than our own. We’ll explain a little more of what the Shadowfell is once we get there, but for now, know that it is a plane of shadow, darkness, despair and danger. So should be a fun place to visit right.

Traveling to the Shadowfell

Ok, then, when it comes to travelling to the Shadowfell, there are a few options.

Of course you can use the Plane Shift spell to get there, but aside from needing to be able to cast a 7th level spell, that means you must also have a tuning fork tuned to the Shadowfell, or know the specific sigil sequence of a teleportation circle within the Shadowfell. The tuning fork is a littler easier to come by, but the spellcasting ability, not so much. With the tuning fork, it needs to already have been attuned to the frequencies of the plane, meaning it was on the plane and it was struck on something.

Alternatively, you can simply find a place where the planes converge. These places are naturally called, convergences. For any planes that share a convergence, these Gates can be virtually anywhere, but they usually are where magical energies pool. For example, you might find a dark wood where the shadows of 7 trees overlap, or you might find that a pipe in a sewer leads straight to the Shadowfell, or you might find a crypt with a corner of a mausoleum that is just a bit too creepy. In fact, that last example is the one we are going to.

Alright everybody, step this way. Mr. Johnson, please don’t frolick with the resident undead, yes thank you, I’m aware they want to eat you and bite you. Please stay with the group.

Ok, everyone, we are now in one of the mausoleums of the Crypt and if you look in that corner, no light penetrates it at all. Over there, right now, is a gate to the Shadowfell. Now, in a moment we are going to walk through there. But first, let me warn you, intraplanar travel is sometimes unpleasant. If you feel sick, put your head between your legs. Please don’t throw up on the nice vests we gave you, as you will have to return those at the end of the tour.

Ok, here we go… Lets step through the portal……

And voila, we are in the Shadowfell (sound of people throwing up in the background).

General Conditions

Yes Miss Collins, very good question. How do we know that we are in the Shadowfell indeed?

Well, you see, the Shadowfell is what is called a Mirror plane or dimension. It mirror what is on the Material Plane, or our plane. It is similar to the Fey Wild and any other mirror planes that exists.

This means that many things you would find on the Material Plane, also exist in the Shadowfell, with some changes however.

First of all, have you all noticed the chill? Are any of you feeling depressed? Those are effects of the Shadowfell.

Now, I also want you to look around at the Mausoleum. Do you notice any changes?

That’s right, this mausoleum looks much more run down, dirty, and frankly in disrepair. The walls are crumbling and some black ichor seems to be oozing in the corners. The Shadowfell isn’t a perfect mirror, instead, it is a shadowy representation, a darkened simulacrum.

Follow me everyone, we are going to exit the Crypt. Please don’t wander from the tour group, I have a special protective charm here that can protect you, but only if you stay within 30 feet of me. In my last group, a young couple snuck off, and let’s just say, they didn’t get their complimentary Shadowfell Tours Baseball Caps.

Again, notice how similar our surroundings look to the material plane. Yet notice how the gravestones we are walking past are much more decayed and run-down.

Also, look up in the sky. Though it feels like nighttime, there are no stars, and no moon. Even look at my torch. Where this burning light provided about 30 feet of light in the material plane at night, it only provides about 10 feet of light, which is why I provided each of you with a torch as well.

Now, one last thing you should all know before we continue the tour is that even though the Shadowfell is a mirror plane of the Material Plane, it still shifts. That is partly why it is so dangerous. Places may shift location from time to time and even disappear or be replaced with new places entirely. No please, everyone steps into the Tour vehicles. These vehicles have also been warded, but please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicles at all times.

Possible Enemies You can Encounter in the Shadowfell

Right now, we are traveling to a Domain of Dread called Barovia, and I’ll explain that and much more as we continue, but first let me tell you some of the creatures you might find in the Shadowfell.

First of all, notice the trees we are passing. See how the trees are desiccated and craggly. You won’t find greenery in the Shadowfell, unless it is by some foul magic, in which case, I would run far and fast if I were you.

Basically everything here wants to kill you, well not everything. There are the Vistani.

The Vistani are wanderers who wander the Mists of the Shadowfell without being affected by it. They wear bright colors and are known for their musical talent as well as various other trades including entertaining, silversmithing, cooking, and horse-trading to name a few. An adventurer traveling through the Shadowfell might come upon one of their Caravans if they needed to trade for some goods or just some sort of respite from the despair of the Shadowfell. But the Vistani are not ones to cross, they have the “Evil Eye”, an ability that lets them curse anyone they look at. Still, they won’t kill you on sight. In fact, we are coming upon a Vistani caravan right now. Notice the bright colors.

Ho there! How are the roads!

Vistani: “Terrible. Would you like to buy anything?”

Actually, I would love to buy something. What have you got by way of magical potions?

Vistani: “We have a potion of Engorgement, a Potion of Haste, and a Magic Mind.

Oh yes, a Magic Mind! That would be perfect, they are actually the Sponsor of Today’s Tour through the Shadowfell. Would you mind explaining to my tourists what the Magic Mind is and does.

Vistani: “Of course! In the Shadowfell, we are covered with a misma of despair. If you stay here too long, you might be overcome with this despair. You might find yourself waking up, dreading the day, feeling sluggish and like your mind is filled with cement. Magic Mind is designed to help stave off the effects of the Shadowfell despair. It has wonderful ingredients including Ashwaganda, Lionsmane Mushrooms and many more vitamins. It’s the perfect thing for adventurers in the Shadowfell.”

That’s right, and because it is the sponsor of today’s tour, you can purchase one in the gift shop at the end of the tour, or visit any local Sprouts Food Markets, or you can go to https://www.magicmind.com/JANbetterdm and use the code BETTERDM20 at checkout. That gives you 1 month free with a 3 month subscription, but it is only for the month of January.

Oo, Oo, look over there!

If you look out over that forest that is just down in the valley from us, see that very tall figure. Yes, I’m talking about that enormous creature that seems made of shadow and has large horns. That is a Nightwalker. That is one of the creatures that adventurers might find in the Shadowfell. It is definitely one of the more challenging creatures, with a Challenge Rating of 20. The Nightwalker is a sentient creature of undeath and darkness. It takes pleasure in suffering and the corruption of other creatures. The nightwalker generally stands about 20 feet tall and has a natural weakness to sunlight. The nightwalker also has a strange ability to turn its victims into Bodaks, which is another creature adventurers might find in the Shadowfell.

In fact, if you look at the Nightwalker’s feet, you can see a bodak now. See those humanoid looking creatures that have rough clothing on, black skin and a face that looks hollow with a mouth that is too long for the face? That’s a bodak.

Bodaks are similar to Nightwalkers in that they are sensitive to sunlight and they are equally malicious. While a Bodak’s Challenge rating is only a 6, it has a lot of damage resistances that make it a very challenging foe. Add to that the fact that the Bodak has an aura that when activated can cause necrotic damage to most around it within 30 feet. It’s definitely a foe to beware of.

Wait… Listen… do you hear that mournful howl?

Yes, here, let’s take a quick detour… Drive the vehicles this way… And yes there it is.

Over there, sitting on that boulder is a Lonely Sorrowsworn. See its pale body and it’s black tears. Also notice how it is reeling in its long harpoon-like appendage. It has one on both arms.

Sorrowsworn are very interesting creatures. The Shadowfell is a melancholy place, and sometimes that pervasive despair can cause the creation of a Sorrowsworn. There are different sorrowsworn types, and each embody a particular type of despair.

The Lonely Sorrowsworn we have here embodies the deep desire for companionship. Because of this, the Lonely Sorrowsworn shoots out its appendages and pulls its victims closer to it.

The Angry Sorrowsworn can be distinguised by two bickering heads. The Angry also uses violence to sustain itself, making its attacks grow stronger when its opponents fight back. The flip side to that is also true, meaning that if adventurers want to avoid bad encounters with this beast, stop fighting it and its attacks will weaken and it will become confused.

The Hungry Sorrowsworn can be spotted by their gaunt and emaciated frames. They have no fat on their bodies which leads them to constantly seek anything to fill their bellies. They will eat adventurers alive if necessary.

The Lost Sorrowsworn have multiple limbs and grasp at anyone they see in a desperate and fearful attempt to overcome the anxiety of being completely lost. These Sorrowsworn are created by people visiting the Shadowfell who become lost and wander in the mists.

The smallest Sorrowsworn are the Wretched Sorrowsworn. These small creatures are called The Wretched Sorrowsworn. They run in packs, ranging the Shadowfell, devouring anything they come upon. If you adventure in the Shadowfell, beware the massive numbers of these creatures.

There are many creatures that one might find in the Shadowfell. Basically any undead creature or any creature of shadow can be found here. We won’t spend too much time on the creatures because we have an appointment in Barovia.

Domains of Dread

Before we get to Barovia, let me tell you about the Domains of Dread. The Domains of Dread are what you might consider a Demiplane, located within the Shadowfell, somewhat separated by everything else by thick mist. Now this might change universe to universe.

The mists surrounding the domains prevent its inhabitants from leaving through simple means, which means that these Domains of Dread are in some way, sort of prisons as well as terrifying places to visit. In fact these Demiplanes of Dread were created by the Dark Powers, unknown beings of, well, dark power, that then sort of subjugated the lords they installed over each section of the Demiplanes of Dread.

Look here, here are those mists that I was talking about. Everyone please stay inside the vehicles as we pass through.

There are multiple sections within the Domains of Dread, but the oldest and most well known is rules by the vampire, Count Strahd Von Zarovich. In fact, The Curse of Strahd Module, takes place in Barovia, under the watchful gaze of the Count himself (1, 2, 3 ah ah ah).

Whether or not it takes place in the Shadowfell, I believe is up to the Dungeon Master.

Ah, and here we are, at Barovia. Barovia was originally a location in a material world that has long since been forgotten, but was transported here to the Shadowfell by the Dark Powers using those mists that we just passed through. As you can see, Barovia consists of a large valley that is mostly dense forest, with some cliffs and rocky outcroppings. Looking overhead, you’ll see the dark overcast sky. It’s always like that. Unlike some other areas of the Shadowfell, Barovia may seem slightly more similar to the material plane in that the trees and animals that populate this region are similar to what we have in the material plane. If you look to your right and left you’ll see hardwood trees while up on that ridge over there are more evergreen type trees.

Now look at the top of the valley and you’ll see our next destination itself; Castle Ravenloft, Strahd’s own home and center of ruling.

Now that we’ve entered the town itself of Barovia, notice how unwelcoming and distrustful the inhabitants here are. Slamming doors and wayward glances are normal here.

Over there, you’ll see the Amber Temple, an ancient temple built by wizards who were then corrupted by the Dark Powers. Inside you’d find images of dark beings from all across the multiverse. In fact, that temple is where Strahd forged his deal with the Dark Powers in the first place.

It’s a pity we weren’t able to visit the other three villages in the valley, Vallaki, Krezk or Oraşnou, but, if you want to visit those villages, then you can book the extended tour. This is afterall, the introductory tour.

Ah, now we ascend up the steep slope to that rocky outcropping, upon which, you can all see, the tall Castle Ravenloft. Strahd’s home.

As we ascend, turn your heads back and notice that you can see most of the Barovian valley. This is presumably why the castle was built up here, as well as its natural defensive nature that any castle should afford.

Ok, everyone please exit the vehicles. Remember as we enter the Castle, we are Strahd’s guests. At Better Dungeon Master Tours, we pride ourselves on our guests survivability rate, and we have a deal with Strahd that as long as you stay with the tour guide (me) you won’t be harmed. If you wander off, I can’t help you.

Yes, these enormous wooden doors were handcrafted decades ago, notice the dark and wonderful workmanship adorning them from top to bottom.

Ah, Count Von Zarovich!

Strahd: “Please, call me Strahd. Welcome to Barovia and welcome to Castle Ravenloft.”

Very well Strahd. Thank you so much for hosting our tour group. Your valley is most impressive.

Strahd: “Thank you. Please follow me. The room you just entered into is our foyer. We will go through just two more rooms before we sit down to have our interview. This next room we are entering is the chapel. Every good castle must have one, and Raveloft is no different.

Moving on, we are passing into the main dining Hall. Notice the enormous chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. All three are handmade from Crystal long ago, before I was brought to this accursed plane. Here you will all find seats at my table with a wonderful meal prepared.”

Excellent. Now Strahd, as you know, our tour involves mostly Dungeon Masters who would care to introduce the Shadowfell to their players, but there may be a few players here too.

Strahd: “Yes, this is one reason why I agreed to the interview. If your tourists had been nothing more than peasant, I would have killed each and every one of them.”

Of course. So with our audience in mind, what would you say is the hardest part of traveling in the Shadowfell?

Strahd: “I think the hardest parts involve the pervasive despair for one, and a difficulty of providing food. The Shadowfell is a very difficult place to live. Most of the creatures here are inedible for mere mortals. Even the more mundane creatures that have managed to survive here will not taste fully satisfying. It is part of the curse living here. Any DM that wishes to bring their players here could highlight the despair and for characters who spend extended periods of time here, the DM might choose to have them gain levels of exhaustion, or perhaps shift their entire roleplaying demeanor to be more melancholy and more depressed.

As far as the food is concerned, any food the adventurers eat, unless it has been blessed, will taste dull, and possibly bland. Its very taste will add to the melancholy and despair of the Shadowfell. The water will feel less...

2023 in Retrospect and the Prospects of 2024

28 december 2023 | 37 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today, Tanner and Justin talk about the joys of 2023 and what to look forward to in 2024. The transcript is below.

We also mention today's sponsor, Magic Mind.

Get 1 month free off of a 3 month subscription by going to https://www.magicmind.com/JANbetterdm and using the code BETTERDM20 at checkout!

Justin (00:03.449)

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. I'm your host today, Justin Lewis, here with Tanner Wayland, my brother in arms, my compadre, my colega. How's it going?

Tanner Weyland (00:18.222)

Such a good man. I'm so many things. I'm excited.

Justin (00:22.386)

Well, you are everything, but you're also Tanner. And that's exactly what we need. I'm being a little nostalgic today because today is the last podcast episode of 2023. Now I never thought we would get to 2023, right? Because you never see yourself moving forward in time. But I think today it would be ad propo, whatever that means, to take a look back.

Tanner Weyland (00:28.891)

Hahaha

Justin (00:50.253)

at 2023 and also take a look forward into 2024, maybe do some divination magic and see what the future holds for us. What do you think, Tanner?

Tanner Weyland (01:00.042)

I'm down for that. Yeah, let's, oh, go ahead, sorry.

Justin (01:01.773)

Excellent. Well, I was gonna say, let's start with 2023. And Tanner, if you want to kick us off.

Tanner Weyland (01:07.463)

Ciao.

Tanner Weyland (01:10.826)

I mean, yeah, just to on a personal note, it's been, it's been a busy year. One things have gotten busier with the podcast as we'll talk about, but also, uh, I mean, just personally got a dog. We got a house, uh, a house at the start of the year, dog halfway through the year, good old banjo. He's a, he's a cutie. He probably just heard me bless his heart. Um, but yeah, it's been a great Christmas season. Uh, Kirstie and I are doing well. Uh, otherwise, you know, just.

Things are busy, but we're keeping up over here. How about you, Justin?

Justin (01:42.841)

Yes, things are also busy for us. We had a baby. That's probably the biggest thing that happened to us personally this year, back in August, my wife and I had a baby. Funny story, for nine months, we thought the baby was gonna be a girl. The ultrasounds told us it was gonna be a girl. And then the baby came out as a boy. So check your ultrasounds, people. You don't wanna surprise like that. But having a baby has been very rewarding, very tiring.

both those things.

Tanner Weyland (02:13.962)

Yeah. And I mean, I believe that that's, that's the thing about kids. You get a lot from them, but, uh, they request everything from you.

Justin (02:22.277)

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, specifically talking about the podcast, we've had actually a really good year. It's been fun seeing the podcast grow. And one of my favorite things this year has been just in November, we had our highest download month. We had 5,000 downloads in the month, over 5,000 downloads, which is not a small thing, right? I think...

Most podcasts never get past 10 episodes, right? Just that's how it is statistically. And you're in the top 50% of podcasts if you get more than 100 listens on any episode within the first seven days, and we get around 200. So we're probably in the top 70% of podcasts maybe. Obviously it is kind of an exponential curve, but it's really cool to see the growth we're having. And more than that, I think is

you know, having people reach out and being like, yeah, you guys are helping us, you know, DM better or helping me. I just like listening to you guys. And it's just, it's fun to think, you know, we did something that people like, which in this day and age is pretty, pretty rare.

Tanner Weyland (03:40.914)

Yeah, you know, I think that it's a great thing just seeing that, you know, I don't think of us as any kind of exceptional people. Like, obviously, we have a lot of advice on being DMs, but it's nice to know that it's like, hey, if we and, you know, the guests we bring on, just share some of our thoughts, you know, think a little deeper about the individual parts of being a DM, then you can do really good work. It's kind of like a journaling in your personal life where it's like, yeah.

If you just spend a little bit more thought deconstruct things a little bit, uh, regurgitate it in a good way, then essentially you, you learn, there's a lot to learn from just a simple review of things. Right. And so that's, that's been kind of an interesting thing. And I've loved knowing that we're, we're helping people that way.

Justin (04:30.853)

Absolutely. I mean, even though we talk a lot about DMing, I would in no way, shape or form claim us to be the world's best DMs. Well, I can't speak for Tanner, but myself, I DMed just last night, and afterwards I was like, man, I need to get way better. But I'm sure that that's how a lot of people feel. And honestly, that's why how to be a better DM exists, because we want you to not feel that way instead. Finish the session being like, wow, that was so great. I'm just so happy.

Tanner Weyland (05:01.65)

Yeah, exactly. And you know, we try and change it up with the with the topics if you know, in the future, if you guys ever are like, hey, we want specific topics or types of content, like, we've considered, you know, reviewing

other people's games, you know, as they DM we considered a lot of different types of things. We always try and get on guests who we think would be valuable. But if any of you have any ideas, we of course welcome that.

Justin (05:32.785)

Yeah, actually, you can go on Instagram, look up at howtobetterdm or at monsters.rent, send us a message, suggestions, or even content that we missed in an episode. You know, if you think that a particular episode needs to be fleshed out a little bit more, definitely let us know. Or if, like Tanner said, you want us to basically, you know, commentate on your session, you just have to record your session and send it to us. But...

Really over this last year, like Tanner mentioned, we had some pretty great guests. I think one of my favorites was Victor Bovine. And that's mostly just because, you know, I kind of cut my teeth on the Forgotten Realms by listening to the Drizzt o'Urden series by R.A. Salvatore. And Victor Bovine was the voice actor, right? And so, you know, his voice for me is Drizzt o'Urden. And it was really cool to, you know, to listen to him. It was also fun, you know, hanging out with Andy from WeGeek together. And,

having like that live podcast feel, which is kind of rare for us just because our guests are mostly not in the same locale. Though I do think, you know, moving into the next year, I think it would be cool to have more and more in-person guests if we can get them.

Tanner Weyland (06:47.254)

Yeah, agreed. Like Andrew, he was great. Cause I mean, you should have seen all the technical issues we had going into that. Cause we, we weren't onsite, you know, we, we didn't do it at either of our places or at a studio, we went to we geek together, you know, his store set up there, just so many technical issues getting it set up. And then once it was finally done, it was just cool to actually have a chill conversation and we even thought that we had lost like the, the recording and we found it. And so like that one.

I think I'm nostalgic for it from like a trauma standpoint because it was like both you had the bitter and the sweet you know but that one was memorable for me

Justin (07:26.663)

Yeah.

Justin (07:29.817)

Agreed, agreed. Also, we want to say thank you to everyone who participated with us in the one-shots of last year. We know that they weren't as periodic. They didn't happen every month. But we were grateful to you for joining us and having fun with us, even amidst the technical difficulties of the one-shots. I know the last one that I did, very technically difficult.

And hopefully in the next year we can have more one-shots and more people join. Even if there are opportunities for live one-shots in person, if there's a group of listeners here in the Utah region, we can get together and do a one-shot that way. That would be fun, I think. But again, just wanted to say thank you for everyone who participated and also for all the guest DMs we've had over the last couple of years.

Tanner Weyland (08:24.298)

Yeah, absolutely. It's always fun seeing you guys, meeting you guys, and also just playing. We learn a lot every time that we do, because it's one thing playing with a party that you've played with consistently. Playing with a new one always is such a learning experience. So thank you for being, I mean, our friends and our guinea pigs to some extent. So thank you.

Justin (08:48.895)

Yeah

Absolutely. Another great thing that we did this year was the guild. And the guild is sort of a kind of collaboration between the podcast and Monsters.Rent. And really it's all the same thing, but just for your information, the guild is basically a free community that the goal is to connect people.

who are like-minded in the same space, but also give them resources and things like that, right? We have the beginning of a Dungeon Mastering course, and we have some downloadable resources available online through the guild, again, all free. And for me, the coolest thing of the guild has been, one, seeing people slowly kind of come in, right? And every new person that enters the guild adds so much to everyone who's already there, and...

hopefully to themselves, but also seeing the collaboration between the people within the guild, seeing people talk about homebrew monsters that they're working on or puzzles that they found. It's just really cool to sort of sit back and see you guys, because if we could bottle up all of your knowledge and experience, I think that would be way more informational and helpful than what we can say.

And it's frankly just kind of a treat just to be kind of on the receiving end of that.

Tanner Weyland (10:18.93)

Yeah, absolutely. That one's been just fun seeing like it's growing slowly because we haven't been doing it that long. But but every time it does then you feel you know, like, like you each new person is like a measurable help to everyone else. And I love that.

Justin (10:35.013)

Yeah, yeah. It's also growing slowly, I'd say, because I don't know about you, Tanner, but I have no idea how to do Discord, right? Like, I don't know technically very well. But also, I'm not like a people person, per se, so it's kind of a stretch for me being like, yeah, welcome, let's talk about these things. So it's definitely a new experience.

Tanner Weyland (10:58.962)

Yeah, absolutely. So thank you for your patience with us, if you are a part of that. And if you're not, come join, you know? Add to the milieu, as the French say, of the voices and everything. For us, I mean, probably the thing that's made me busiest this year is, I mean, aside from the podcast in general, it's Monsters.Rent. You guys have heard us talk about that, you know, for a hot second now. But...

Yeah, it's just been kind of an eye opening experience where it's like, yeah, there's a lot more to a, uh, miniature rental business than you'd think. Uh, but it's, it's had a lot of, uh, a lot of ups, some downs, but, um, you know, I think for me, like, uh, a big up was just, you know, at the start, there's always a question when you're starting kind of like a side venture, a side project.

of like, okay, how much do we throw ourselves into it at the start? And do we do it slowly? Do we just jump in and, you know, see if we can swim? And I think we got a good experience with that with the dead wars that we geeked together through, through back in, was it May?

Justin (12:14.773)

I think it was May, April, around there.

Tanner Weyland (12:17.25)

May, April. Yeah. Because you know, we, we made and painted like, what it was like 200 minis for that. And then beyond that, we, like we went to the show, we had a booth, you know, we got a sign printed, you know, we kind of put our best foot forward. And that was kind of a an interesting experience. I really like that.

Justin (12:26.345)

200. Yep.

Justin (12:43.293)

Yeah, I think it was fun for us because it helps solidify kind of the real business aspect. When you start a business, it's sort of like in your head until it goes out in public, right? Once you start getting people signed up and people buying things from you, then you're like, wow, this is like a real business. And for me, that was just really fun. It was also sort of...

kind of validation, talking to a lot of people saying, yeah, this is like a really great idea. Now, obviously, people saying that and people buying whatever you have to sell, two very different things, but it was a big event for us. And I think it did move us forward, at least in maturity, business-wise, right? But another kind of highlight was when we sort of upgraded our boxes, and we're still sort of working on this process actually,

Tanner Weyland (13:33.303)

Yeah.

Justin (13:41.001)

the inside of the boxes, but we started using these wooden boxes that were kind of custom designed. They have the Monsters.Rent logo and everything on them. Actually, if you go to our website on mobile, you can see there's like a cover image of a video that actually displays the box really well on the homepage. But those boxes are pretty sweet. And honestly, just the box itself is like cool enough that...

someone should like want to buy it, but I mean, who knows?

Tanner Weyland (14:13.798)

Yeah, exactly. That was, it's kind of nice having a little bit more individuality, uh, to our products, cause that's what we hope to do. The priority obviously is just like, Hey, we want to make easily accessible and rentable minis, you know, that are affordable so that people don't have to, you know, buy a bunch that just sit around cause they don't want to reuse same minis all the time, but it's also nice to, you know, make a little bit more of an individual product that way. Uh, I've really enjoyed, uh,

beyond that, also we've just gotten some really good help, like some amazing help from a few influencers. And obviously, you know, it's more in the D&D space and the, you know, but we really like Bennett and Courtney, Bennett, you, if you don't follow him, you should, you absolutely should. He's at, he's at the Ben Chewie, C-H-E-W-Y. And Courtney, she's at the Curly.

K U R L I G I R L I cosplay. So it's the Curly Gurly Cosplay. They've both been so helpful, honestly. We really loved the videos that they put out for us and kind of having that partnership set up. And if you haven't heard of them, go check them out, because they're great.

Uh, regardless though, we're so grateful for them and everyone else who's been helpful along the way, because you know, we've, we've worked with quite a few people, some people haven't been able to keep working with us, uh, like just because of time constraints or, or other things, and we're just so grateful for anyone who's, you know, put any time into this and, and also to any of you who, you know, gave us a shot. And so we were truly appreciative for that.

Justin (16:02.737)

Absolutely. Uh, probably the biggest thank you that we can give from a monsters.rent is to the current users of it, uh, the people who are sticking with us regardless of, you know, how many technical hiccups we have or, or how, uh, non user friendly the website may or may not be at any given moment because, you know, it's always in flux, um, and actually, you know, Bennett going back to that.

Uh, the video, he made us a video and you can see that video on the homepage right now, if you, if you go there, uh, it's a pretty sweet video, uh, really well done, so definitely go to at the Ben Chewie on Instagram, tick talk and you know, give them a follow, but I think another cool thing that really for us has been just kind of a treat has been the ability to accumulate or have the ability to produce something like over a hundred

different minis, including 12 bundles of different themed minis. And seeing the different files and things has been really fun and nice. We actually signed up for the commercial license of someone on my mini factory. Right. And that's allowed us to kind of accumulate these minis and they're really well done. But I think moving forward, we have hopefully, you know, some other plans. We'll tell you that in a second.

But anything else you want to talk about in terms of 2023?

Tanner Weyland (17:30.606)

Uh, mostly I, one thing that we forgot to mention with the podcast was just sponsorships really, because we've been, you know, one nice thing is we, we like putting out the podcast, uh, up till now though, we like, with a couple exceptions, it hasn't really made us money, you know, which we're happy to still do it, but it's nice that the sponsorships allow it to be more of a long-term thing.

And like for example, Magic Mind. Honestly, we've been working with them recently and they've been so helpful and supportive and we just really appreciate that.

Justin (18:10.909)

Yeah. Uh, when they first reached out, um, and this is sort of a little bit behind the scenes, like how the sausage is made kind of deal. Obviously the podcast costs money every month for the hosting and things like that. It costs us time. And, you know, we really love it. And. We, if we do the podcast, we can't do other things that might provide for us financially, you know, for our families and things like that. Tanner has a wife and a dog. I have a wife and a dog and a baby.

So we can't do this all day every day just because we have jobs. When Magic Mind reached out and they're like, yeah, we'd like to partner with you. Honestly, it sounded a little bit too good to be true. So I was like, is this real? Just because I've had people, on Instagram you always get those people are like, yeah, you're woman of the year. And I'm like, I'm a man. So they were like, yeah, we'd like to work with you guys. And

through the whole process, they've just been so nice. And to me, it shows me really what's behind their product, which is Magic Mind, it's a productivity shot, but it shows kind of the culture of their company. With our first sort of promotion, it was kind of a little creative, I was a little nervous of how they'd receive it, and we sent it over, and our contact over there was just like, yeah, this is so great, she was just so praising of us, that to me, again, it just showed

if they are that excited and that emotional and energetic about, you know, the promotion, then that's obviously what's behind the productivity shot, Magic Mind, which is, you know, a subscription for it's supposed to replace your coffee or your tea in the...

Give the Gift of DMing, presented by the Ghosts of Christmas

21 december 2023 | 12 min

How and Why to Add a Little Tragedy into Your Games

14 december 2023 | 29 min

Welcome back to today's show. Today we talk about tragedy.

Here are some of the questions we talked about today on the show:

Writing Tragedy into your Game

What is tragedy in D&D and what are some examples?

Why use tragedy?

Environmental Tragedy

Personal Tragedy

What makes tragedy earned?

What are some wrong ways to go about adding tragedy to a D&D campaign?

Mentioned in this episode:

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What to Do When a Player Is Missing

7 december 2023 | 30 min

What to Do When a Player Misses a Session

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, the Official Podcast of Monsters.Rent, the only rental subscription service for D&D minis.

I’m your host today, Justin Lewis, and today, you and I will talk about a topic that affects every gaming group at least once in their campaign. To be honest, it’s somewhat a thorn in my side as I personally hate when this happens. It can interupt the flow of the game and cause some confusion as far as the story goes as well. It’s a plague, and today we will find the cure…

But before we get to that, I just want to let you know that we want to hear from you, literally. We want to start featuring some listener questions or tips on the show, so go to Instagram, then go to @monsters.rent and send us a message, either audio, video or text, of a question you want answered, or a tip you have found helpful in your DMing experience. We’ll mention it on the show and also give you a quick shoutout. We realized that you have a wealth of experience that should be shared as well. So why not share it. Again, go to @monsters.rent on Instagram and send us a message and we’ll get it up on show.

So, the plague that I was talking about earlier? It’s when a player misses a session or can’t make a particular session.

Let’s take a scenario. This is a text thread between you and your group.

DM: D&D tonight at 6. Does that work for everyone?

Alex: Yup, I can’t wait.

Sean: Of course bruh, I’ll bring the soda.

Maddy: I’ll bring snacks. Does everyone like Japanese Algae candy.

Alex: No way, that stuff’s gross.

Maddy: Alex, I saw you eat like 10 handfuls of the stuff last week.

Jerry: I’m really sorry guys, I can’t make it tonight…

The rest of the thread: stunned silence for the next 3 hours.

This is a very common situation. The reason why there is stunned silence in the text thread for the next 3 hours is because every wants to play D&D that night. Jerry is the only one not able to make it. Everyone else is wondering, “What do we do?”

That is, in part what I want to talk about today. What do you do?

First off, let’s talk about what you can do and then let’s talk about why and when you should or shouldn’t do any particular thing.

I also want to make it very clear. Don’t feel guilty for wanting to play D&D without one of your players there. It happens. Also, don’t feel guilty for rescheduling for a later time. I’ve said this before, but D&D is a hobby and other things take precedence sometimes. That said, let’s talk about your options.

Here are, as I see them your only options:

Reschedule the Session for a Different Time
Play Anyway
Kidnap the delinquent player, duck-tape them to a chair, wax their eyebrows off for the impertenence of missing a session, and play anyways

That’s everything you can do. That last one might be somewhat…. Hmmm I think the word is illegal… but you get what I mean.

So now that we know what can be done, let’s talk about what should be done….

Reschedule the Session

Probably the least the desirable option is to reschedule the session. This is likely the least desirable because it’s assumed that everyone in the group wants to play D&D. This is essentially making everyone suffer. I’m not bitter, I’m just stating the facts.

Sometimes though, it is the right choice.

The most common reason for a rescheduling is that multiple people in the group can’t make it. You’ll have to come up with your own hard and fast rules, but in my group, if 3 people can’t make it, then for sure we are rescheduling. If 2 people can’t make it, then it’s like 85% sure that we are rescheduling. If 1 person can’t make it, it’s 60% sure that we are rescheduling.

I would say that rescheduling, regardless of the right choice, is likely the easiest option for the DM. Everything else is somewhat more involved.

Now, I will say, just because you reschedule DND doesn’t mean that you have to reschedule games. You could still meet up with the members of the group who can make it and play a different game or even play a one-shot. There’s nothing wrong with that. For that reason alone, rescheduling is a very powerful option when it comes to a player missing a session.

It’s also a good option because you don’t really have to make any other considerations.

So with that, let’s transition away from this option that is really the simplest and easier, and let’s make things a bit m ore complicated.

Present but Non-Participating

So, for the next few options, we are assuming that only one player is absent and that the DM and the rest of the group have decided to proceed forward regardless of their absence.

Now, you have to make a choice as the DM as to what happens to the character who, for the time being, is without a puppet-master.

The next obvious and next easiest method here is to simply have that character present, but not doing anything. Whenever roleplaying situations happen, that character doesn’t interact and just is a walking potato.

This method might work, but more often than not, it will be comical to the other players who will ask, “What does Gregarious do in this situation” to which you’ll have to respond as the DM, “Gregarious seems zoned out and doesn’t really respond to the rest of you.”

While funny, this method sort of breaks the 4th wall, remind you and your players that this a game and decreasing the overall immersion.

If your players are wonderful and considerate players, they may not mess around with the C (it’s just a character since the P or Player is missing).

I don’t prefer this method because it’s far too easy to just transition to one of the other methods anyways. I feel like doing it this way with the Character being present but Not-participating is just a non-decision, as if the DM couldn’t decide what to do.

Besides we all know that as soon as combat happens, it will be as if the character isn’t there or someone will take control over the, so let’s talk about the other methods because those are much more likely.

Present and Subbed

One method you can employ is the Present-And-Subbed method. In this method, you let someone else at the table take control of the character. For all intents and purposes the missing player is being “subbed” or substituted by another player at the table.

If you do go with this method, I would put a couple of stipulations on the gameplay.

First of all, I would recommend that the subbing player does not do any roleplaying for missing player. I recommend this because no one wants words put in their mouths so if you have someone playing for you there is a chance that things would be said that the original player would never say or things would not be said that the original player would say. It just gets really confusing really fast. I would just avoid it.

Next, and this actually has to apply whether you or another are controlling the missing PC, but can they die. In my games, if you are not present, your character can’t die. That’s just because I don’t trust myself or my rolls enough to keep characters alive, so if you were going to die and bleed out, you don’t because you are “on loan” and that’s just not fair. In your games, are characters whose players are gone able to die?

If they can, make sure the missing player knows that. In fact, that should be a table rule set up at the beginning of the campaign before any players are ever missing.

You also need to decide if the missing player has the right to Retcon anything when they return. In my opinion, I would opt against this except for various roleplaying aspects. When it comes to the major choices, the player shouldn’t get to choose what happens when they are gone. That said, the players controlling them shouldn’t be able to make any big decisions with them either. When a character is being subbed they should really almost just be an NPC that gets to help the party in combat. Simple.

Present and Under Control of the DM

That last option that allows the character to still remain present is controlling them yourself as the DM. In my opinion, this can be pretty simple to do, but it can also get annoying. For example, if your players use digital character sheets that you the DM can see then it gets a little easier to play the character. If they don’t then you’ll have to keep track of a sheaf of papers.

Also, the more obvious consideration is that as the DM you are controlling scores of baddies. Do you really want to be in charge of another character during combat? My general opinion is to give a player control over the character during combat at the very least depending on how many adversaries there are. If there is just one, then I’m find doing it

So if keeping a character around is so energy and focus consuming, why would anyone choose to keep the character present instead of just having them leave?

There are a few reasons.

The first reason is that, depending on your party and table rules, the character has to be present to gain XP. That’s how it works in video games, but that may or may not be how it works at your table, for example, I prefer to just have everyone in my party level up at the same time based on story points. That’s because I don’t like math. Also, I don’t have players who leave for extended periods of time.

The second reason a DM might choose to have a character stick around while their player is not present is because they are integral to the current story at hand. This might be the same reason that you choose to reschedule the session if a player is not around, because they need to be present to make certain decisions. Having the character participate without the player is not an ideal situation but it does allow the story to move on and it makes it so the entire party isn’t just waiting on the one person.

The third reason is that it doesn’t make sense for the character to just disappear. There are different ways to make the character disappear which we’ll talk about next, but if you are in the middle of a dungeon or stuck on a speeding train, having the character just say, “Gotta go” doesn’t make sense and breaks the immersion.

Not Present

So now that we’ve talk about keeping the character present, let’s talk about having the character be absent in addition to their player.

There are in my opinion 3 ways to make this happen.

You can have the character stay behind.

You can have the character actively choose to leave.

Or you can have something else pull the character away.

When you have the character stay behind, this is simply that the party decides to go somewhere and the character decides to remain where they are waiting for the rest of the party to return. I saw a great example of this in High Rollers, the group from the UK when one of the players was not there they had her character, Nova, just stay at the inn. Obviously this worked because the party was staying at an inn in a city. If there were in the middle of a desert without food or water, having the character stay behind would be nonsense.

When you have your character leave, the character decides that another path is more important than traveling with the party, even for a short time. In the 2nd campaign of Critical Role, Yasha did this multiple times because the player had other commitments.

When you choose this method, you have to have the player or yourself come up with a logical reason as to why the character left. If the reason is, “Because I wanted to find mushrooms in the forest,” that either fits with your campaign or your character or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, the other players will not find that a rewarding answer.

More than anything, when a character leave the party and comes back, that should be an excellent opportunity to develop the story arc of that character, providing great roleplaying for the party when the character returns. So don’t waste it. Use it as an opportunity to have something cool happen.

How to explain why they come back?

Speaking of the character coming back, when a character leaves, you will have to decide if they will come back or not. If the character was just a temporary thing, or the player wants to have a new character then having them leave is not a bad thing.

In most cases though, the character will come back, and that means that you and the player who was missing need to figure out a plausible reason not only for why the character leave but more importantly, why they came back and how they came back.

In some instances, it’s easy.

Nicholas Tracagious left to go commune with his deity in the forest. He came back because he was done. The only reason that specific scenario could work is because in this case, the party remained in the same city, able to move freely. If the party had been embroiled in a dungeon, then having Nick Tracagious show up would be somewhat weird, unless, his deity in the forest had shown him a specific place in the dungeons where he could special psychedelic mushrooms and the place where those mushrooms are found just so happen to coincide with where the party is. Honestly, even that scenario would seem a little too coincidental.

A quick sidenote though.

D&D is your story. That means that even though some things might seem coincidental, it isn’t because you are the weaver, tying all the threads together, weaving a great and beautiful tapestry. Was it a coincidence that Han Solo and Chewbaca were in the Mos Eisley cantina when Ben Kenobi went looking for a way off planet? Or was it the force? Was it just coincidence that Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli were all present at the Council of Rivendel or were they destined to be there. It doesn’t matter, because they were there. Sometimes I analyze things too much and fall into the trap of thinking, “What a funny coincidence that those two characters are there,” and then decide not to make that part of the story happen. In movies and stories, “coincidences” happen all the time, and honestly that might be why the stories or the movies even have a plot, because of the “coincidences”. So, I know I say that you have to make things “make sense”, and I know that I’ve been using a “lot of air quotes”, but just as long as your story is gripping and entertaining, don’t worry to much about it.

Side note over.

So, thinking about reasons why a character would return, there are a few possiblities, but obviously, if you can think it up, then it will probably work.

The simplest reason is that, like what I’ve already mentioned, the character that left finished the thing they went to do, so they came back. Simple, easy, doesn’t need much more explanation than that.

Another simple reason is that the thing they went to do lead them back to the party anyways. This method is great if you want to tie in the reason they come back with what the party has going on right now. An example of this would be DewStar the Druid left because she had a strange vision about her communing with nature in a white glade. She leaves, finds the white glade, and while there has another vision about finding a black glade and her party. She starts her search. She finds the black glade, right as a Death Night begins attacking her party in the very black glade she saw in her vision. After the party dispatches the black glade, DewStar discovers that at the center of the glade there is the grave of an ancient druid who’s spirit is at unrest for some reason. See, the character left and returned, both seemingly for plot points.

Another simple reason is that the missing character had their own agenda and then whatever the party was doing leads the party to the missing character. It’s somewhat similar to the previous reason, but there are slight differences. In this case, the missing character doesn’t really have any intention of returning to the party, or they intend to return much later. The party then, does the returning, surprising everyone involved.

When it comes down to it, you don’t need to make it make sense, unless you want to dwell on the fact. If you just want to gloss over that so-and-so returned from skinny dipping in a mountain lake, that’s fine. Gloss over and move on. The rest of your party will move on too, no problem. If you do want to spend time on, make sure that it’s a satisfying and fulfilling answer to the question of, “Why did you come back here and now.”

Table Rules for Communication

While we are on the subject of players missing sessions and things like that, I think it would be apropos to talk about how communication around missing sessions happen.

Here’s the truth of it: it will change on a case by case basis.

Here’s the ideal that we all strive for: Every missing player alerts the group at least a couple days in advance.

I know things don’t always pan out that way, but it’s best to alert the group as soon as you know you will be missing so the group can make decisions and plan what they will do.

For example. This previous week, I was sick. I was hoping I would feel better by the time the day of our session came around, but I wasn’t. So I texted the group that I couldn’t do it that day. On other occasions, members of our group have had conflicts and they’ve alerted us that they would be out of town a week in advance.

This allows the rest of us to decide if we will continue playing anyways or if we will hold off and wait until they get back. So really the only rule for communication is communicate early, clearly and often.

What if the Missing Player is Integral to the Story

What do you do if the missing player is integral to the story?

Here’s where I put on my Tough Love hat.

The simple fact of the matter is that you will have to decide yourself. But let me tell you that no decision is wrong. If you decide to move along with the story, that’s totally fine. In fact, maybe the player being gone will help you write a more creative story. Either way, you are the DM, you are ultimately the person with the most control over the session and whether it happens. Yes, your players may all decide to skip a week, but you get to decide if the week is skipped any time you want. Don’t forget that. Also, lord that over your players in a really jerky way. Just know that if a player is missing, and their character happens to be a big decision maker right in the center of what’s going on in the story right now, you can play without them. They may not like that, but if that’s what it takes to keep your group playing and having fun, then do it.

From sickness, to work trips, to family conflicts, our players will have lots of reasons why they may or may not be able to make the session happen. That’s probably especially true in this next month and a half as we move towards Christmas and the New Year. When your player turns up missing, don’t feel...

Online D&D Sessions and The Future of D&D and Generative AI: Andrew Clayton from Foundry VTT

30 november 2023 | 38 min

Focus on the Positive, DMs

23 november 2023 | 15 min

Villages Vs Dungeons: When and How to Use Both

16 november 2023 | 36 min

Tanner Weyland (00:04.783)

Hello and welcome to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. I'm here with Justin Lewis. Say hi, Justin. Hi, Justin. We are here today to talk about a fun little topic, basically, Dungeons and Villages, when and how to use either. So I mean, this topic, I've always find it interesting, like the composition of a campaign, you know?

Justin (00:13.631)

Hi Justin.

Tanner Weyland (00:33.535)

If you treat it like a like a sandwich, it's like, okay, what you know, it's a nice BLT. Do you put the tomatoes on first? Do you put you know, are you a maniac and you just put a bunch of bacon and just like a leaf of lettuce? You know, what do you do? And how do you kind of balance it? That's kind of what a lot of DMS have to do when it comes to being like, Hey, I want a really cool dungeon. But I also want to have some of the more role playing heavy

Villages and kind of switch it up. Have you ever thought about this kind of balance that you have Justin?

Justin (01:09.986)

I haven't necessarily thought of the balance, but I certainly have fallen into the blunders that we're going to talk about with each of these. And when you do, it's pretty annoying because you kind of kick yourself and be like, dang, that dungeon could have been so fun or that village could have been so fun. I will say, I definitely think one might be a little bit easier because, well, we'll get

I'll reveal all as we talk.

Tanner Weyland (01:42.847)

Exactly. So for the purpose of this discussion, just to give a little roadmap, we'll kind of dive into dungeons and villages or cities, you know, we're saying villages, but we mean any kind of settlement where it's going to be, you know, more NPC centric built. So that's kind of what we're thinking about when we think of village. And it could be any size could be a little, you know, three shacks by the side of the road, or it could be an entire city.

Surrounded by huge walls with giant palaces within it, right? And it just kind of the that's we're bundling that as one experience done on the other side dungeons now It's not always a dungeon per se but it's kind of like a curated Experience where you know, the adventuring party is going into one specific place and exploring, you know

And it's not somewhere they're just traveling through. It's like, no, it's, it's a specific kind of, uh, self-enclosed experience. Uh, so kind of getting into it, let's, let's talk about dungeons and what kind of makes a dungeon special.

Justin (02:50.622)

Yeah. And one other thing I'd like to also add, just sort of a caveat. These are traditional dungeons and villages. You could theoretically take whatever we're talking about, like the aspects, and apply them to the other one, right? For example, by nature, dungeons will be, or seem more railroad-y, right?

Justin (03:19.85)

Choices have been made and now choices are restricted, right? Like once Aragorn follows the path of the dead and he goes into the mountain, the ghosts know he's there, right? He can't just, well, he could just turn around and walk out, but those are his only two choices. Proceed, stay where he is. I guess three choices or go backward. But, but theoretically you could make a village more railroad-y, but we're going to talk in general terms. So that's really the first.

point of a dungeon and kind of what it is once you're in it, it's either stay where you are, which is kind of not really a choice, go forward or go back.

Tanner Weyland (03:58.467)

Exactly and once you're at the dungeon you can kind of expect You know, I think it's gonna be reskinned and you're going to as a DM, you know We talked about this before you want to give a variety of experiences, you know, don't have every combat be the same Have interesting mechanics and include traps here and there and make sure they're not all the same either But that's kind of what you're expecting in the dungeon. You're gonna expect a lot of combats with various creatures

A lot of traps that or just you know obstacles and skill checks that the party is gonna have to deal with and of course loot. I think that that's Another big difference between villages and dungeons is a dungeon So long as you beat the enemy or the challenge or whatever it is The treasure is just sitting there. You don't have to barter. You don't have to pay anything you paid with your time And and your characters, you know

bodies essentially, right? And I think that's kind of you, that's what you expect. And yeah, it might be within a druids ancient enclave or something or it could be in a crypt, you know far below the city, you know, or whatever it is. The skin is going to look different and the types of monsters is going to be specific to the environment, but it's still kind of those elements, you know.

Justin (05:22.494)

Absolutely. Kind of to that point, you know, a traditional way of making dungeons is coming up with either the map first or kind of the end goal first, right? So if they're going into this crypt to destroy a lich, you know, you know that they're going to fight the lich at some point, unless they leave the crypt, right? That's just how it is. And then you sort of fill everything in

challenges to make it more difficult and things like that. So with all that said, compared to a village, a dungeon is a lot more obvious in terms of goals, right? People don't necessarily go into a dungeon and then halfway through be like, wait, like when we get to the end, what are we gonna do? It's like, no, we're gonna kill the baddie and take the loot, right? Like that's the dungeons part of Dungeons and Dragons.

Tanner Weyland (06:19.511)

Exactly. And so I find that dungeons are, they're nice in one way and they're difficult in another. First, they're really nice in the way that it's simple. You know, the players, like I was running a campaign and I had a dungeon.

You know, this was one of those campaigns that kind of sputtered out pretty early on because school happened and all this other stuff, right? But we had gone through it opened up with essentially a dungeon crawl, you know, kind of like a smaller to medium sized one took a few sessions and And then it was like a couple villages in a row and they the players like afterwards. They were like, Oh, I really like that initial dungeon.

And I think that the reason why is because like, Hey, when you're just opening up to adventure, uh, especially if your party isn't amazing at role play, you don't scratch that. Even if they are amazing at role play role playing, I think that you have, there's a lot of difficulty in launching right into role playing. If you haven't had kind of those more like grindy dungeons that you have to go through, right? You kind of need experiences.

in order to really enjoy a village. And I think dungeons are a perfect place for that.

Justin (07:40.778)

I couldn't agree more and I actually think based on what you said, it sparked kind of this thought in my mind that I often talk about galvanizing experiences at the beginning of campaigns or with one shots that force the party to be a party, right? And those galvanizing experiences can be, you know, shared trauma or they could literally be we've all been hired to do the same thing. And

Tanner Weyland (08:08.98)

Yeah.

Justin (08:10.134)

To your point, Tanner, I think doing dungeons at the beginning of a campaign is very important because it does allow the party to sort of form those bonds. And even thinking, you can do dungeons in sort of a very non-dungeony way. So the example I'm thinking of is the Erois campaign of high rollers. They're a group out of the UK, and I've been listening to them

lately and spoiler alert if you haven't listened to it but their campaign starts with session one they're on an airship and they're being attacked right and basically chapter one of this campaign the airship crashes in the lowlands which is a wild and inhospitable place right and there's like five or six survivors fibers including the party

Actually, there might be more because I think there were NPCs. But in a larger sense, that is a dungeon because their options are we have to find civilization or we're going to starve, be attacked by wild elves, things like that, right? And I might be kind of expanding the definition a little bit, but you can do things like that.

And I do think that starting campaigns with a dungeon is a very good idea. Because again, it does give everyone that clear reason of why are we traveling together? Why are we cooperating? Because everyone always likes to pick those characters that are mysterious and don't trust anyone, you know.

Tanner Weyland (09:53.531)

Yeah. And, and, you know, I think for all the strengths of a dungeon, because like you mentioned, it's, it's right in the name. As much as people love dragons, dungeons comes first. Uh, and, but I think that the issue is that sometimes they can be fatiguing, especially for a DM, but also for players, right? Where it's like, if, if it's big enough, well, I mean, caveat, if your players come in being like, Hey, I want to do a huge dungeon, you know.

Uh, just like multi-level and that's basically the entire campaign's one big dungeon that that's, that's the exception. If you're just including a dungeon as part of the campaign, if you do too long of a dungeon, then it's just, it's a lot of combats. It's a lot of the party being essentially on edge the entire time, right. Being like, Oh, you know, stealth into the next room for like 10 sessions in a row. You know,

And it just becomes so fatiguing. And so it's like, Hey, you know, pick your battles, uh, specifically by, you know, making it so that not every dungeon is super long, uh, occasionally, I think it's totally worth it to do a longer dungeon, especially if you've got really big consequences and if you build it up, then the players are like, Oh, okay. Prepare well. Cause you know, there's no coming back or not for a while, at least then, you know, a longer campaign can be fine.

It'll still be fatiguing, but it's kind of like the hard days work type of fatigue. Otherwise you don't want to do that consistently in my opinion.

Justin (11:24.138)

Yeah. I would actually add two examples of my current campaign. Um, so I had my group in the underdark and my thought process was, well, in the underdark, you don't really, you guys don't know where you're going. So you're, you're literally wandering around. Uh, and I was making the map as I went, basically rolling on random tables to see what rooms were, were next. And they weren't keeping a map, right?

And suffice it to say it went on far too long. And I did that because I was like, yeah, I want them to feel the frustration of being in the underdark, right? Being lost. But I think it failed because you don't want your players to feel that you want the characters to feel that. So exactly right, Tanner. You don't want to do too big of a dungeon, but you said something very important. If you prepare them for the scope of it and the scale.

I think that's the secret sauce.

Tanner Weyland (12:26.203)

Exactly, you know, because any type of here's the great thing. We talk about Dungeons and Dragons being about storytelling and it's absolutely right and stories come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, but as a general rule, you know, if you're not really building a dungeon up, then maybe make it small to medium length, you know, and then for longer ones, you want to give that kind of a gravitas to it beforehand.

Um, but, but enough about dungeons, let's talk about villages and cities. Um, I think it's no surprise that first and foremost, they're just much more role playing focused, right? You don't go into a dungeon expecting to talk with every mimic who's pretending to be a chest, right? You go into a dungeon to just, you know, hack and slash and find stuff. Villages. It's like, no, that's, that's the key difference is like people. NPCs and you're going to be talking a lot.

and how you kind of utilize those role-playing opportunities can be the difference between a very boring city or village and a very exciting one, you know?

Justin (13:33.482)

Yeah, absolutely. Kind of what I was saying before, you know, Aragorn goes into the path of the dead. He's in the dungeon per se. It's not exactly the same thing, but his choices are stay put, move forward or go backwards in a, in a city, a village, a settlement. Your decisions are, uh, go forward, stay put, go backward, go right, go left, go up, go down, go inside, go outside that, you know, there's a lot more choices. And.

To this point, as I said with a dungeon, the game mechanics were a lot more obvious with a dungeon, right? There are traps that cause things. In a settlement, you have more choice, right? And because of that, you're...

The game mechanics aren't as obvious. You might gain favor in the eyes of a baron because you did something for them, which isn't a direct game mechanic, but it's something that your dungeon master or you might be factoring in because you slaughtered this orc that was holding this person hostage or something like that.

It's sort of a subtle game mechanic that's not so obvious, but it still has impact. That's another aspect of villages and cities that is very different than traditional dungeons.

Tanner Weyland (15:04.323)

Exactly. And I think, I think if you look at it the right way, then Villages provides you a lot more creativity, especially where, you know, like you were saying, the mechanics aren't obvious. So make your own mechanics, and specifically, make it in a way that provides both direction and development for characters. Because I think that's where Villages really shine, where it's like

if you look at a dungeon in terms of like, oh, that's a place where they get kind of galvanized together as a party, the place where they grow as individuals is in a city, you know, in a village, that's where the characters can be like, hey, I'm gonna go pray at the nearest, you know, temple of the God that they worship, right? Or they're going to go look for a specific type of equipment that they're looking for. Or maybe they're, they're like, hey, I want to go find

you know, the best pie in the city or whatever it is, right? The point is, is that in a city, if you encourage it, players can really get connected with their characters. They can get really invested in their characters, uh, personal, you know, goals and aspirations and growth. And that's, you know, that's just such a great, uh, part of it. And in terms of the mechanics being more fluid, uh, you know, I think that in a city and once again, just as a.

caveat here, cities also should be, you know, you shouldn't keep a player in a city too long, you know, um, kind of same as a dungeon, uh, they should go out and then come back kind of thing. But with that in mind, uh, you should be willing to kind of play around with some interesting mechanics, like, Hey, maybe your players want to start up a food cart or a business, or they want to, you know, go and study at the local library and like get something out of it.

Justin (16:34.312)

Heh.

Tanner Weyland (16:58.639)

Villages, you know, if you're creative, they can be so much more than just a place where they get a couple side quests from some needy passerbys and also buy equipment from the local store, right? They can be something where you actually do real things that we do in life, right? But for a party of players, right?

Justin (17:20.21)

Absolutely. And I think in a city, it is the time to really pay attention to those moments where your players express sort of an interest of their character that might seem unorthodox or kind of like a waste of time. Go full in on that, right? If someone's like, you know, like my character likes animals, so maybe they would want to go see a zoo. Spend time making some pretty cool encounters at the zoo.

where they could actually make some progress in their character's life. Like they could maybe find an animal companion or a secret treasure or something, like treat their simple interests as important because then they'll share them more often and they'll kind of go down those rabbit holes. And also kind of going back to what you were saying about your own game mechanics. I think one of those that

we're going to talk about on a future episode is character reputation. And, uh, sorry, my computer just, did I cut out there? Okay. Yeah. My computer just was like, Nope, I'm going to sleep. Anyways, um, character reputation can be a very powerful mechanic, especially in a city because there's people with whom you can gain reputation or lose it. Right.

Tanner Weyland (18:30.895)

You're good.

Tanner Weyland (18:49.707)

Yeah, exactly. And I think that, you know, aside from developing personal character arcs, developing relationships with NPCs, that can't be understated, right? Because it's like, hey, it character reputation is important on the city wide level. And I think that's really fun. But also like with individual characters, you know, in video games, they do it really well, where they're like, Oh,

You kind of have to reach a certain level of like favorability with an NPC. And then that unlocks different opportunities or, or whatever, you know. And I think that we, as DMs, when there's a city, I feel like it's actually worthwhile to kind of create, you know, a little, you know, a little, uh, level. Uh, for some, at least for some of the major NPCs, right. That they're going to be interacting with on a regular basis and kind of make it so that they are.

not only encouraged to develop themselves, but also develop relationships with NPCs by doing like side quests and stuff. And I think side quests is, you know, something that you should really emphasize in general in a bigger city. Because it's like, you know, with a main quest, you kind of think of it as continuously going forward and moving on to the next place and the next place after that.

in a city you don't especially if it's bigger, you don't want to go there, visit once, and then just never use it again. You know, especially if the players haven't had the time to really wring it of all its good, you know, opportunities. And so it's nice in a city to, like you were saying, it's like, hey, make essentially a side outing, or a side quest of going to the zoo, or oh, hey, my uncle's farm, I haven't heard from him in a while.

Could you help me? You know, and you just really, it's a chance for you to play around with different, you know, opportunities and kind of quest lines that aren't just the main big earth shattering quest, you know?

Justin (20:56.99)

Absolutely. Thinking about this and thinking about some of the challenges that you will probably encounter when running cities in your game. I'm just thinking about some of the challenges I've had in the first one is it's really easy for the one player who usually...

A D&D Tavern: Setting Up the Iconic Campaign Element

9 november 2023 | 31 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, the Official Podcast of Monsters.Rent. If you are a podcast listener, I am currently waving at you because I am recording myself on video to add to our Youtube Channel, How to Be a Better DM.

Today’s show is going to talk about one of the most common D&D tropes out there. It’s the place where all great adventures start, and usually where most adventurers end their day. It’s the place that I like to imagine myself in when I record these shows, and you and I have sat down at a table to swap stories.

But before we get to that, I just want to take a moment to say thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I was chatting my my boss at my day Job, and he asked about the podcast and Monsters.Rent. We got to chatting and he looked us up on Spotify and Apple. Because of you, we have over 50 ratings on Spotify and over 15 on Apple Podcasts. That’s so awesome. Just seeing that made my day. I can honestly say that from. Myself and Tanner, if we didn’t have you listening and interacting, this would be much more lonely. So thank you so much for listening and adventuring with us :)

A couple weeks ago, I was running the free Halloween one shot. Spoiler alert, but ther is a tavern in the one shot. If I can be Frank with you, during th one shot, the party went to the Tavern and honestly I did not have it as fleshed out as I wanted. Improv is great, and it’s a very important skill to have, but have a plan that goes well is usually better. I had to improvise. In my opinion, it wasn’t as cool as it should have been.

So it got me thinking. Basically every D&D campaign has taverns in them. They are a mainstay of th hobby. So I decided to do an entire podcast episode on taverns, specifically on how to use them and how to prepare them and how to populate them. We’ll talk about some tips to make it easy for you to run them in your games.

The Importance of a Tavern

Let’s first talk about the importance of taverns. First f all, you can choose not to hve them in your game, which is completely fine.

However, as I’ve already said, a tavern is a very classic trope of D&D games. It can function as the base of operations for your party. It can be sort of that “safe space” that your band finds all along their journeys.

It can be much more than that however. For one thing, it can be a place of great player-to-player roleplaying, which in my opinion is some of the most important roleplaying there is.

Combat can be so quick paced and hectic, that sometimes it is nice to metaphorically kick back and have a nice drink with friends.

Sometimes you also need your bad guy’s to “Kick down the door” as Brandon Sanderson and Friends say on their podcast, Writing Excuses. What better place than a tavern.

I think the most important reason to feature a tavern in your game is because our characters are adventurers. That, by definition, means that they rarely return home. People still want to feel a sense of home, or at least a sense of coziness. That’s exactly what taverns were created to do. Throughout history, ever since the fall of the Roman Empire, taverns became a place of refuge for people on the road. So why not sit back and enjoy the feel of a homely tavern with your friends.

Elements of a Tavern

Obviously, if you want to feature a tavern, then it would be good to know the most basic elements of a tavern. As I like to say though, once you know the rules, you can learn how to break them in fun and interesting ways. So let me tell you what you will most likely find in a tavern, and then you can change things up in very new and interesting ways, however you wish.

The Barkeep

Since a tavern is a type of bar, you obviously need a barkeep. The most basic requirements of a barkeep are that they serve drinks. In more common tavern settings, the barkeep is behind the bar. Often they know a lot about the town or the setting, but sometimes they don’t. In most cases te barkeep is just as iconic as the tavern. That means that the tavern is a great time and place to really make a unique character that probably won’t become embroiled with the party as a pocket NPC.

Patrons

Next, you have the patrons. While the party may or may not ask about the barkeep, they will most definitely ask about the patrons. That’s because the patrons pose possible threats, opportunities and surprises for the party. Here too you can create characters that will delight and entertain your party, but don’t be surprised yourself when the party adopts one of them or tries to kill all of them.

Drinks - Food

Taverns are food service establishments, and more importantly, drink service establishments. That means that you have to have food or at the very least, drinks. More importantly, you’ll need to know how much the food and drink costs because that will be a very real cost to your players.

Servers

If the tavern is big enough you may need to add in some servers. These are like waiters and waitresses in the real world. It’s a pretty simple thing to add in and these characters can even be unique and interesting or they can be simple and boring. It’s all up to you. You see servers aren’t necessary to a tavern like a barkeep or food and drink are.

The Bulletin

Another interesting, yet unnecessary, piece to add into your tavern is the Bulletin. This is simply a board with various notices pinned upon it. Most of the time, the notices are for jobs that need doing. This can function as a very important game element, drawing your players from one plot hook or adventure hook to another. Simply add this to the corner of any tavern and watch your players dive into each adventure.

The Interest

The last thing that you may or may not want to add to your tavern is “The Interest”. This is a blanket term for anything that makes the tavern experience memorable. First, if you don’t want or care that the characters or players remember this particular tavern, then don’t put an Interest in the tavern. An interest is anything that would make someone remember this tavern. One way you can think about this is, “Why would people come to this establishment over any other tavern?” Or you can simply think, “How can I make this tavern experience more fun for my players?” It’s similar to how you find some sort of quirk to add to NPC’s to try to make them more memorable too. To help you understand what I mean, let’s do a couple of examples.

In favor room in water deep there is a tavern called the yawning portal it’s a very famous tavern and there’s actually a source book named after it. The yawning portal actually has a well if I remember right in front of it. The well supposedly leads to the Waterdeep underground dungeons that’s one example of a interest it’s easy to remember and it makes the tavern somewhat famous more or less. Another example comes from the Halloween one shot that I hosted a couple weeks ago. I had a tavern in my one shot that is called Caliagri’s cavern. This tavern is actually in a sinkhole. When you enter the tavern building which resembles just a small shack, you descend into the sinkhole and that’s where you find the tavern and the end as well as a bathhouse using the natural spring that caused the sinkhole. That’s one example of an interest for a tavern.

How to Add One in Your Game

Now that we’ve talked about basic elements of a tavern let’s talk about how to add one into your game. First we need to think about how often tavern show up and where. I think a good rule of thumb is for every 25 buildings in a settlement a small tavern should be present. For every 50 buildings in a settlement a large tavern should be present. When you start to add taverns to cities you don’t need to do this hard and fast rule because the city will be big enough that it will have many taverns. at that point what you need to do is sync up a list of taverns that would be most commonly recommended or most prominently found. It would also be a good idea to create a list of terrible taverns or bad taverns, because shady dealings of the underbelly of society happen in these bad taverns. you can also add taverns as way points or stopping points on large roads. They almost act as hostiles but there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to add in a tavern there as well. I find that having a tavern in mind when a party enters a town is very important because more often than not they will seek out a N or a tavern for room and lodging.

As far as where the tavern should be placed, there are no rules. You could have a tavern out in the middle of nowhere. That said, With towns and cities, the center of the city will likely be home to older taverns and the periphery will probably have newer ones.

Now, let’s get to building your tavern.

Naming Taverns

For the most part, every tavern will need a name. No matter what though, every tavern will need something that it’s called by other people. Sometimes those two things are different. If you decide to have a tavern who’s owner never named it, everyone in the town might call it Some Guy’s Tavern, which would then be its defacto name, but not it’s actual name.

Naming taverns is quite easy, because you can do whatever you want. That said, here are some tips to help you do it even faster.

Focus on the interest. If you’ve already picked the interest for the tavern, then you can just go off of that. Going back to my two examples earlier, both the Yawning Portal and Caliagri’s Cavern draw their names from their interest.
Do it Quick without hesitation. If you are coming up with a tavern on the fly, then your players will sense your hesitation. So name the tavern, stick with the name and defend it. Don’t let your players bully you into thinking it’s a dumb name, even if it is.
Verb + Noun. If you are having trouble making up a tavern name, you can take a cue from the Dungeon Master’s Guide and do the Verb/Adjective + Noun formula that might have gotten its start with J.R.R. Tolkein (i.e. the Prancing Pony). You simply pick a noun and then attach an adjective or an active ing verb to the front of it and you got a nice tavern name. Let’s do some real quick. The Red Blade Tavern, maybe something for pirates. The Belching Barrel. The Shifting Mercury. See, it’s pretty easy.
Name’s Noun. If that doesn’t fit what you are looking for, you can opt for the Name’s Noun formula. You pick a name, make it possessive and then pick a noun. For example, Cagliari’s Cavern, Arthur’s Round Table (that sounds like it should be a themed restaurant), Vergoin’s Vestibule. Lots and lots of names.

With these tips, naming taverns should be a piece of cake and your players will always think you are the most prepared DM in the universe.

Describing Taverns

After naming the tavern, describing it is the next step.

First, don’t forget to do some work on the outside of the tavern. This is an easy trap for people to fall into, in fact, I struggle with this myself, but the tavern experience begins outside the tavern. Are there drunkards sleeping in the ditch off to the side of the tavern? Does the tavern have well-paid bodyguards? Is the plaster peeling or is the tavern made of rich mahogany wood? All of these facts tell your party about the establishment before they even set foot in the door.

Try and hint at what might be within the tavern when you describe the exterior. It’s important to do this most of the time so that when do decide to break the rules and make the inside the opposite or contrary to the exterior, you will catch your party off guard. That’s how you get the rewarding reveals.

Moving inside, don’t forget to describe the scene from the five senses. Tell your players what they smell, what makes their mouth water, what they hear, the temperature of the room.

After you get that taken care of, it’s a good idea to explain the layout of the tavern. Obviously every tavern will be different so to help you out, let’s describe 3 generic tavern layouts that you can use in your games at the drop of the hat.

First, the Cantina. In this Tavern, the room can be any size but the bar itself juts out into the middle of the room with the barkeep being able to service people on both sides, or there being 2 barkeeps. The tables are arrayed around the bar in a circular pattern.

Second, the classic Bar. In this tavern, one wall is dominated by the bar and the tables are arrayed throughout the room.

Lastly, you have the L Shaped Bar. The room itself is l shaped with the bar following the shape of the room. With these three tavern layouts, you can easily describe the shape of the tavern if you are pushed to create a tavern on the fly.

Roleplaying

Now, let’s talk about the most important part of the tavern, roleplaying.

The first thing you need to know is that you don’t need to be ready to roleplay everyone in the tavern, but you do need to be ready to improv roleplay everyone in the tavern. What I mean by that is that you simply need to prepare a few select characters in the tavern. Everything else is just gravy.

Being a dungeon master is a lot like being a fisherman. You prepare the bait, but the fish decides whether they take it. So, being a good fisherman is knowing how to get the fish to take the bait. So with this metaphor, you need to prepare what you hope your characters will interact with. So spend much more time working on things that you actually want to play through. I make this mistake all the time, adding in interesting details about peripheral NPCs and then I get a,l surprised when the characters interact with that peripheral NPC instead of engaging with the important part of the story that I put forth. Obviously that’s where improvisation comes from, but it’s a better experience if your players think you are improvising but really you are going off of stuff you have prepared.

I ramble

So to roleplay a tavern well, you simply take the basic parts we’ve already discussed and you flesh each out a bit more.

We’ve talked about creating NPCs often enough on this show so I won’t talk about actual making the barkeep or the maids or the patrons more than just that you need to answer the question of why are they in the tavern still. In the barkeeps case, it will probably have something to do with why they started the tavern because often they will be the owner. Or, they could just be like a helping hand that needed a job. for the servers it might involve not being able to find work elsewhere or working to go somewhere else. Those motivations are easy generally. With the patrons, it goes a little deeper. The patrons are there for drinks, of course, but why are they there in a large sense? Why have they come to this town or settlement or city? are they regulars? Are they new like the party?

You see, in a sense, good roleplaying is just asking questions about a character, answering those questions, and then acting out the answers. That’s a bit simplified, but you get my point.

So the next thing you need to do is decide whether the character in question regards the party or a given character in a positive, neutral or negative light.

Understanding how any given NPC will treat the party goes a long way to helping you roleplay them. As a default, most people will treat them in a neutral way. One thing to remember too is that people go to taverns for different reasons. Some people go to get drunk. Others go to socialize. If you know why your NPC has come to the tavern, then when the party approaches them to talk, you can respond in the right way with either, “Piss off, leave me to my drink,” or “I don’t recon I’ve seen you lot in town. Where’s abouts you’ve come from?”

When it comes down to it, roleplaying NPCs in a tavern is not any more difficult than roleplaying any particular NPC except that they all have a reason to be in the tavern.

Helpful Tips

To finish up the episode, let’s talk about a couple helpful tips to remember to make your party’s tavern experience sublime.

Always have the NPCs in a Tavern Fleshed out a little

As I’ve said before, anything you put in the scene is likely to be interacted with by your characters. Don’t put an NPC in a scene tht you don’t want to or are severely underprepared to roleplay. So whenever you create a tavern, write what NPCs are in there whenever the party enters. Write down at least a couple tidbits about the NPC just to help you when it comes time to roleplay. This is a tip specifically for beforehand prep, it does not apply to improvising. That said, it would not be a bad idea to keep a quick reference list of NPCs who have been somewhat fleshed out that you can put into your tavern. I would make the list tavern specific so that you’ve covered the “Why are they in the tavern” bit.

Flesh out the Barkeep

Just as important as the NPCs is the barkeep. This is the person who the story of the tavern itself revolves around because they are most likely the owner, most often the operator. If the tavern is supposed to be forgettable then the barkeep doesn’t matter, but we don’t play D&D to spend hours and then forget them. So give your barkeep some sizzle. Give them an interesting quirk and help the players remember them.

Make Sure to Charge Your Characters

This tip goes for every economic encounter in the game, but don’t forget to make your players deduct money from their character. It’s important because it helps with the immersion, but it also factors in a real cost to the characters. While 1 or 2 gold might not seem like enough, it could be the difference between buying a suit of armor or not. As I’ve said before, have a list of costs that could be incurred in the tavern. Try and make them specific to the tavern, but if not, you could just use sort of a blanket tavern cost for drinks and food and lodging if it is available.

Explain the Difference Between an Inn and a Tavern

Speaking of lodging, I find it helpful to explain to my party members whether or not the tavern has any lodging attached to it. An inn is different than a tavern, though they share similarities. An inn always has lodging and a tavern always has drinks. Sometimes an inn has a bar and drinks and sometimes a tavern has lodging. When you describe your tavern, make sure your players know whether lodging is available.

Helpful Resources

I want to give you some helpful resources, so in the show notes of this podcast episode, or if you go to the URL of the podcast on our website, there will be a list of resources at the bottom of the show notes. Hopefully these help you create the best taverns ever!

Things to Remember

As we come to the close of this episode, I hope you enjoyed talking about taverns and I hope that you got some great ideas for ways to add taverns to your game. They can be the best place for some deep roleplaying, or they can just be a nice pause point in between battling epic monsters. Last thing I’m going to say is that as always, if you...

Post-Session Reflection for DMs: Journaling Towards Success

2 november 2023 | 15 min

Should You Invite Guests to Play In Your D&D Campaign?

26 oktober 2023 | 22 min

DND, Faith, Religion and Gods: How to Do It Right

19 oktober 2023 | 38 min

Welcome to How to Be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. I’m your host today, Justin Lewis, and together we are going to talk about how to improve your gameplay both from a mechanical and storytelling point of view.

Today, I’m excited to talk about an aspect of the game that for me holds a lot of interest and for a lot of people can be a rich source of story elements and intrigue. At the same time, for other people it can be completely boring, and possibly offputting. I’m talking about Gods, faith and religion.

Before I get into the rest of today’s episode, I want to take a moment to talk about The Guild. For those of you who don’t know, the Guild is our unique membership for dungeon masters. It allows you to connect with other DMs like yourself and get access to a library of video courses and downloadable resources for your gameplay. Oh and it’s 100% free. I hope you’ll join us there, so go to monsters.rent/get-started and scroll all the way to the bottom.

Table Comfort

Now, the very first thing you need to do is assess your table’s comfort level with the topics of God, Religion, and Faith. In some cases, you’ll have a natural understanding. In my case, a few members of my table are also members of my faith, so I knew that they would be ok having some of those topics in the game.

In other circumstances, it would be a smart idea to ask if the table is alright with those themes and topics being in the game. In most D&D settings, having a mystical god or gods is all part and parcel to the game, but depending on how your players feel about it, then you might want to tread lightly. Some games might be focused on the path of divinity, others might have gods as simply an afterthought. No matter what you do, you want to avoid these two mistakes.

Avoid Pushing Religion

Saying this as a religious person, you absolutely do not want to turn your D&D sessions into sermons. I know you’re probably thinking that that would kind of be funny, and it might, but honestly, you don’t want to force players into roleplaying something they don’t want to roleplay. A person’s faith is a very personal thing, and if someone is not a person of faith, religion or Diety, then they don’t have to be even in a make-believe world.

Avoid Making A Farce of Religion

On the other side of the coin, you definitely don’t want to make fun of religion and make it appear as something that is farcical. Even though your players may be ok with it, it’s best not to form bad habits because there will come a time when you sit down to play at a table with someone who cares, and then you’ll make the slip up of a lifetime. Best to avoid those big mistakes. Extend the same consideration and courtesy you would to any other sort of way of life.

Now, with your players on board for having Gods be an active part of the game, let’s talk about some other questions you need to ask. These questions apply to both homebrew settings and settings that are prewritten, but the questions will apply a little differently to each.

How Involved Will Your Gods Be

The first question that you need to ask is how involved will Godhood (god or gods) be in your setting or game. This is important because if they won’t even matter, then you likely don’t need anything else in this episode. I’d still recommend listening to the end because you never know when a player might ask you a question or make a choice that will make the gods much more involved.

In different settings, Gods behave differently. In some games, Gods are active members of the universe, granting divine boons with ease. In other settings, Gods are basically hidden from sight, deigning not to intervene with their followers’ lives.

It’s important that you know which type of setting yours is and how the Gods will interact with players and NPCs alike. Really, the interaction of Gods falls on a spectrum with an asterisk. The spectrum is set up with very involved on the left and not involved at all on the right. The asterisk stipulates that the spectrum can describe the entire setting and the involvement of each individual deity. An entire pantheon can be relatively involved with one or two being basically inactive. Or you could have the inverse where the pantheon is basically a non-entity with one or two who are trying to control the universe. Both instances can make for a very fun campaign.

Interactions with Players

Unless you have players who make clerics or paladins you don’t necessarily need to have the gods or god interact with your players. In fact, you could make a case for why your god doesn’t interact with the devoted paladin or cleric.

But if you do have gods who interact with players you need to know how involved the gods will be with those players. Will the god in question have multiple role playing scenes face to face with the player? If they did would that be normal for the player or the god? Each of these choices has impacts on the story and you should definitely help your players realize when something special is happening.

Will your players know that it is a god they are interacting with? Maybe your deity has decided to be a beneficial patron of the player but will not show themselves. The players then may draw the conclusion that a wealthy land owner has decided to show them favor.

Sometimes you’ll need to realize that if one God is involved, like very involved, then that might push another deity who is at odds with the one helping the party to get involved. You might put your party in between a turf war of two gods. That could make for a pretty epic campaign.

I would say that you need to set some pretty simple yet clear guidelines for yourself on what the party members can expect from a deity. Do they hear whisperings of advice when the player has no idea what to do? Or does God just show up in a brief Vision and explain that a certain task needs doing?

When you have established your “rules” for how Gods interact with players, then you get to occasionally break them, which becomes a very fun Plot device.

Will You Have One God or Many

This question is more about the setting than the individual player interactions. Is your pantheon filled with numerous gods, only a handful or just one? This question naturally morphs into other considerations. For example, if your pantheon is filled with multiple gods, then the likelihood of all of the Gods having omniscience goes way down. Having 7 beings who all know everything that is happened yet have cross purposes becomes very difficult to handle very fast. Or, the gods just know everything to the point that the don’t really do anything against each other so then the Gods become more observers than actors. I suppose you probably could figure out a way to make it work, but I haven’t.

If you have one God, it’s much more possible for them to have omniscience, but having them favor certain things becomes more difficult. Either the God is the God of everything or for some reason your God just very partial to only a few things, like they’ve decided to be the God of the harvest, but there are no other gods. That could make for a very silly setting or one that just doesn’t make sense.

With this question also comes the question of whether or not the characters and the world at large even know about all of the Gods. It might make a fascinating campaign if there are a slew of gods that hide from the world.

Is Your God Good, Neutral or Evil

Now, that you’ve come up with the number of gods that will populate your pantheon, you need to decide whether or not they will be good, neutral, or evil. You also need to decide whether the gods will actively fight against each other or will they be friendly towards each other and, even if they are somewhat antagonistic towards one another, they’ll still be somewhat friendly?

Let’s take an example. Let’s make up two gods. We have Ordos and Sruptos, the good god of order and the evil god of chaos respectively.

In your setting, will Ordos and Sruptos be battling each other, to the death if possible? Or will they, by nature of the invincibility of Gods, be forced to be cordial and respectful to each other, using mortals as pieces on a game board rather than soldier in a battle? All of these questions add to the narrative and help you know how to bend and twist the story.

If you have multiple gods, then it is common to have gods who have all sorts of alignments.

If you have only one god, then alignment isn’t really useful, unless it is pivotal to the story. For example, if you only have one god, but that God just so happens to be evil, that could be the genesis for a very interesting campaign setting. I’d imagine that the God has some sort of rules that prohibit them from taken certain actions, which allows the characters to still choose to be Good if they want, or the entire cosmos is evil and everything just works within those parameters.

As you can see, how God’s act and react shapes in very large ways how your story goes.

Can Gods be Killed?

Now, I just brought up a point that forces us to think about these next two questions: 1. Can Gods be killed? And 2. Can anyone become a god?

In the previous example of Ordos and Sruptos, I explained that they might have to treat each other like game partners because they can’t kill each other. The fact that both are invincible is very important because it explains why they would want to be nice to each other. They are essentially stuck with each other forever.

So in your campaign, you need to decide early on if Gods can be killed. It may be that that turns out to be the secret quest of one of your players. They want revenge on one of the Gods because they let their wife die or something like that. That can become a very epic story very quickly.

You could also take the opposite approach and show that the God’s cannot be killed. In the same story of a player who wants revenge, the entire story could be about the God trying to gain back the trust of the vengeful player, while also explaining that they can’t be killed. The DM could even throw in some touching moments where the God explains that he’s tried to kill himself but it didn’t work.

If gods can be killed then you need to start figuring out what does and doesn’t kill a god. As I’ve already mentioned, that means that you also need to figure out why any other gods haven’t already tried killing their rivals. In most cases, God Killing will be a very difficult task. In many ancient mythologies, Gods were “killed” but if their body parts were reunited, the God was essentially brought back to life. In other fantasy settings, like Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere, when a “god” dies, their power essentially either rests on the planet the God was bound to or the power seeks out another “host” transcending them to godhood. How will it be in your setting? Can anyone kill a god? What happens when the God dies? If they were the God of sunrises, does the sun stop rising? All of these are important

Can Anyone Become a God?

The next question that needs to be addressed is whether or not becoming a god is possible. This too could potentially become a personal quest of one of your party members, so you need to know whether or not it is possible. This question can be decided in the moment, though as you are roleplaying.

If the answer is yes to the question of can anyone become a god, then you probably need to answer the follow up question of “Why aren’t there more Gods?” The natural answer will likely be because becoming a God is very difficult. A more interesting answer might be that becoming a God is not even actually that desirable for reasons that are unknown to most people.

The point I’m trying to make with these two questions of Killing or Becoming Gods is that diety can be very powerful plot points and since they can be very powerful, you must treat them with care and attention. Your player’s will wonder why Gods can be killed at the drop of a hat. You better have a good well thought out reason. True, you can probably come up with something cool in the moment, but it needs to make sense because in most cases Gods have their hands in a lot of pots, so to speak.

Using Faith as a Plot Device

Now that we’ve talked at length about using Gods in your campaign setting, let’s start diving even deeping into how to move your story along.

We all know that great stories in D&D start with plot hooks, or rather simple introductory elements that entice player’s to explore a particular story line more to eventually find a much large and more fulfilling story.

A simple example of a plot hook is, “While digging through this dungeon you find a strange bow made out of black wood in the hands of a corpse that dried up decades ago. You pick up the bow and in your mind you hear, “Hello!” The player does not know practically anything about the bow except that it said hello which is interesting and curious.

When it comes to faith, there are limitless plot hooks to use. That’s probably the most common way to use Faith or Religion or God as a plot device. It can help start the story.

Another interesting tidbit about plot devices is that they are just plot hooks, except usually you have knowledge that connects past experiences to the plot hook.

An example of this would be, “While traveling on this long road to do your Diety’s bidding, you turn a corner and see your God bartering with a local merchant. He does not notice you. You approach him and confront him, only to have him completely vanish. Before he did though, you put your hand on his arm and were not shocked with his power. He felt warm, and mortal…”

This plot device has the same elements as a plot hook, in that it makes the consumer of the story curious and incentivized to finish the story, but we have some knowledge of the god before the exchange.

In my estimation, there are only two ways to really use plot devices and certainly only 2 when it comes to faith. The Push and The Pull

The Push

A plot device is designed to move the story along. Since our players are the main motivators of the story, a plot device in D&D is designed to get the players taking action in any particular direction. A good DM then, gives lots of reasons for players to have their characters choose various paths.

The Push method is generally something that happens or exists in the space a character is in that the character wants to avoid or eliminate. In the case of faith or religion, a few examples include

The character grew up as a child of insane cultists worshiping a demon lord
The character lives in a town where a religion runs rampant and is very xenophobic
The character has been persecuted themselves
The character does not agree with the popular religion of their area

For the most part, the Push method is the installment of some sort of negative circumstance for the character. The idea here is that the character wants to avoid something negative.

The Pull

The pull method then is quite the opposite. It is the pursuit of something positive. Usually these circumstances exists (or don’t yet exist) elsewhere. Some great examples of this are:

The Character wants more peace in their mortal life
The character wishes to attain great spiritual power
The character wants to rid the world of evil (or good)
The character wants to restore a religion to its previous glory

In all of these, the character is reaching for something that they do not yet have.

In reality both of these methods are really the same. It doesn’t matter much whether a character is running from the hopeless condition they are in, or if they are running to find hope somewhere else. In fact, it only matters if it matters to the player and the character.

Using Faith as a Character Driver

Now, let’s talk about using faith and religion as tools to affect change within a character’s life and make them more dynamic. Usually, this means introducing conflict. I sometimes view conflict in a story as sort of a very hard object that will either break a clump of minerals of crack bits off, slowly revealing the precious gemstone inside.

Either way, we use these elements to create instances in which the character knows that things have changed and that they can’t continue being the person they were.

Religion, faith, and God are perfect for this kind of application.

My go-to usually involves something that my character in question already wants. I then try and make them want that thing either more difficult, more confusing, or strangely attainable. I figure they already have this motivation, so let’s put a twist on the motivation. When it comes to religion and faith, there are a few examples that you might try.

The Faith Crisis

The first method is one that a lot of us have probably experienced so I would maybe opt for this one first, although it strangely might be harder within a fantasy D&D setting. This is the faith crisis. Most of us who grew up with one faith or another probably had wonderful experiences as a kid but then realized that the world is a lot harder to make sense of when we grew up. You could have the same thing happen to your player. Admittedly, it’s very common that a faith crisis develops when someone thinks about the religious organization rather than the tenets of the religious organization, but there is nothing wrong with a character questioning the tenets of their God. In the very well written books of R.A. Salvatore, spoiler alert, Drizzt Do’Urden, the skilled Drow Elf from the Underdark realizes that he has no affinity for the teachings of the Spider Queen Lolth. He experiences a faith transformation and decides to forgo all the customs and teachings of his entire people in favor of what he believes to be right and good. That’s a perfect example.

Also, a quick side note, these Character Drivers must always come with some benefits and some negative consequences. In the case of Drizzt, he was able to live with a clean conscience, but he was also forced to leave his homeland or face death.

Now let’s make up an example of a faith crisis that your character might undergo. The most obvious faith crisis would be for the character to discover that a large part of their religion is just a cover for malignant activities. That’s too easy. Let’s do something a little more nuanced.

Also, I must add that a faith crisis doesn’t always mean that the character abandons the faith. Sometimes the Faith Crisis turns into a metamorphosis.

So for our example, let’s say Exander the Tiefling Paladin serves my homebrew god of Coronus, or Crown as he is commonly called. Crown champions the leader, the patriarch, those in command, and those who make difficult decisions. He is all about guiding those who lead people. Exander decided to follow Crown because Exander’s father, Exantos, prayed to Crown for guidance in protecting and providing for his family....

Andrew Ashby: World Record Dungeons and Dragons Game, We Geek Together the Tabletop Tavern and the Patterns of Successful DMs

12 oktober 2023 | 40 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent

We have an awesome podcast today for you. We were able to sit down and chat with Andrew Ashby, owner of We Geek Together. We Geek Together is a store focused on Tabletop Gaming but themed after a tavern, and it's located in Provo Utah. Last April, Andrew hosted the Dead Wars, which was a 1000+ Player D&D game that broke a world record. Today we talk a lot about Dead Wars but also about some important tips for DMs of all experience levels. Below are a list of questions we had prepared for Andrew, but the conversation was so much better than these questions.

Andrew also started his own podcast as well which you can find on his website.

Show Notes:

Warm up question: what have you been geeking out about recently?

Section 1: Dead Wars

Summary- Talking about orchestrating Dead Wars

Questions:

Where did the idea first begin for you to beat the world record?

What was the session prep like?

What were the biggest hurdles you had to overcome and how did you get past them?

How was finding players and DMs for the event similar to finding players for a normal game? Different?

Would you recommend this style of group D&D play to DMs wanting to get a big group together?

What tips would you give to any DM who wants to put on a multiple group session or event?

Section 2: Running the Tavern

Summary - Talking about setting up a D&D business that is very welcoming of DMs

Questions:

What made you want to start this kind of business?

How did you test and prove your business idea?

What specific goals or values are the focus of WGT?

What would you say is the best part of WGT for DMs, specifically?

How did you figure out what to put in the tavern?

Section 3: Patterns of the Most Successful DMs

Summary - talking about what sets the best DM’s apart

Questions:

What positive patterns do you see in the groups that play the most often?

How do your regular DMs do effective session prep? And how do they create immersion?

What sorts of tools or equipment do your regular DMs use?

What are the most noticeable differences between an engaged table of players, and one that is stalled?

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

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Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Are Random Encounters in D&D Good Storytelling, or Bad?

5 oktober 2023 | 21 min

How to Run an Expedition In Your D&D Campaign

28 september 2023 | 25 min

Tanner Weyland:

Hello and welcome to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. My name is Tanner Weyland and I'm here with Justin Lewis. Say hi.

Justin:

Hi there.

Tanner Weyland:

Well, everyone, we are so happy to be together. As you know, Justin with his new baby, we haven't had as much of a chance to record. How's it been, Justin?

Justin:

Honestly, having a baby is easier and harder, much harder than I thought, right? It's just, it's crazy. The effect. Honestly, if that doesn't tell you what you need

Tanner Weyland:

I'm

Justin:

to know about

Tanner Weyland:

sorry.

Justin:

having a baby, then I don't know what would.

Tanner Weyland:

Exactly. I love that though that Jan was timed perfectly.

Justin:

Seriously.

Tanner Weyland:

Either way, we're super happy to have you back and just to be recording again. Let's let's hop into a fun little topic, kind of a creativity focused topic about how to make a campaign that is focused on going on an expedition. namely what makes an expedition-based campaign different from a normal campaign. Now, Justin, have you ever seen any movies that come to mind of an expedition or a journey or something like that?

Justin:

Absolutely. There are many, many out there. And just to give you kind of an idea of sort of the breadth that you can go when you think of Expedition, there's Atlantis, the Disney animated movie, which is a hidden treasure, I'd say. I would love to play a D&D campaign in that world. That would be so fun. And on the other hand, there's Alien versus Predator. Both of those are expeditions right but obviously there's twists and turns along the way

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, exactly. You know, I think. I think it's such an important story format for movies especially, but for D&D there's so many great things that you can do with it. Many D&D campaigns, like longer running campaigns, kind of take the form of an expedition or they can, but I think that there are specific things that you can do that can kind of set it apart and offer a new type of experience. to players. But you know, I think that our greatest teacher of what makes an expedition different from a normal campaign is Dora the Explorer, if we're being honest.

Justin:

Yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

I just I was thinking about it earlier and I was like actually she's like the kind of format of her thing of like, oh we need something we're going to go through this dark tunnel around the mountain, you know, for anyone who isn't from the US, Door of the Explorer is this cartoon that, you know, was supposed to teach, you know, English speaking. Children about how to speak Spanish, right? It was mostly in English But you know she'd have teach some Spanish phrases and the kind of the whole thing was like, oh she needed an object In order to get the object she would find the map in her backpack Look at it. It'd be like oh you do these go past these three places with their own challenges And then you reach the thing that you're trying to get and that's kind of I think that can really be a good benchmark for what makes an expedition different.

Justin:

Yeah, it's kind of the idea of... Well, and I guess we need to be careful when talking about expedition because it could be easy to think, oh, well, that's just the hero's journey, right? Because the hero is supposed to, you know, theoretically go on this quest. But generally expeditions have sort of a different feel, right? With the hero's journey... there's the quest, but I feel like the expedition, one of the biggest parts of the expedition is the travel. Right? It's the idea that we, like the quest is to travel, you know, to go there, to get there. And I think you're right exactly in that Dora the Explorer, every episode, well I haven't watched it in a while, so

Tanner Weyland:

Hahaha.

Justin:

I don't know exactly every episode, but you know, she's always calling for the map, right? Which... tells you kind of the steps to get there, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, exactly. Like I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. An expedition is different in the way that the journey is kind of the main thing you're focusing on. And we're not saying this in a, you know, philosophical like, oh, find joy in the journey thing that we're

Justin:

Friendship

Tanner Weyland:

saying that literally.

Justin:

was the treasure all along.

Tanner Weyland:

Exactly. You know, I think that that's I don't want you to think well, duh, Tanner, everything's about the journey. No, I'm saying the X and expedition type campaign should be about the journey. It's about getting there. And it's about the things that you kind of carry through throughout the journey, right? Like to hop into it about like some specifics. I think that I think another thing that we could look at that's honestly analogous to Dory the Explorer is Indiana Jones. And if you kind of compare these two examples, you find out a few things that really, I've seen in a lot of D&D expedition campaigns that really work. Now first, I would say that it's very important that in an expedition, that in an expedition campaign, you emphasize time and resources. Now, by this I mean like usually and I do this too. DMs, we will kind of retcon or hand wave using rations from day to day or food or anything like that, right? And even like, oh man, it's really cold outside because it's winter. You know, we'll do flavor snow or flavor sun, if that makes sense, where we're like, oh, the sun's in the sky and it's hot. But then you just go into the inn and you're fine or oh, man, it's just it's pouring rain out there. Luckily, you're near your house or you go back inside with an expedition. You actually take these mundane elements and you're like, hey, roll skill checks, it's freezing outside. or man the rain has gotten really hard and there's a mudslide on the road that you're on you know and you kind of make the journey have traps you make the journey have enemies you make the journey have items in a way that usually you might reserve for just like a dungeon you know

Justin:

Absolutely. And in bringing that up, I think it's important to talk about two things. One is you can make an expedition, sorry, my kid's crying in the other room, but you can make an expedition campaign, not be an expedition campaign, right? So what do I mean by that? In my current campaign, right? The party entered the Astral Sea to get to, well, in my campaign, the Astral Sea is basically treasure planet rules, right? Where every

Tanner Weyland:

classic.

Justin:

plane is, yeah, super fun, every plane is a different planet and you can get there on basically, you know, spaceships. And they are trying to get to this far off planet to rescue some friends of one of the party members who have become slaves, right? So theoretically, that could be an expedition, right? Somehow, I made it not an expedition, right? And I think part of it was, I definitely forgot that you have very cool touristy spots, like we kinda talked about, it's this journey. But I think I also fell into the main trap of expedition-type stories in that I made it a slog. right? There's one side where you have to keep track of rations and you know you keep track of the days you're traveling and there's the other side where you're essentially playing you know Oregon Trail where every day is very similar right? Like you sort of run out of things to do every day and I think it might be good for us to talk about ways to make it so it isn't so much of a slog but you still incorporate some of those really interesting mechanics like, hey, it's been snowing every day, are you gonna get a point of exhaustion today, right? Or what can you do around that? So I think that might be something we should talk about too.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, I totally agree. Cause cause I've noticed that too, where it's like, hey, you might get excited as a DM about this concept of like, oh my goodness, I'm going to have him roll for survival in a real way, you know, uh,

Justin:

I'm gonna go.

Tanner Weyland:

the ranger is going to just hit his peak in this campaign because you know, we're going to be out in nature, but that can get really boring because it's one thing to be like, oh my goodness, a monster like breathes ice breath on you. You know, uh, roll this kind of check, right? Um, that's very different from like, oh, hey, you've been a cold for the past few days, roll a check to see if you get, uh, hypothermia or something, right? Uh, that if, cause like a monster is very exciting and it's very immediate. Uh, weather is not. And so I think that a few ways that you can do this is, you know, having limits and stating those kind of like. Limits to the players in a way that they can understand like being like, oh my goodness You see that the map you are halfway through this region. That's very snowy You still have another half What's your plan, you know and giving them specific things? consequences, but maybe even more specifically giving them like Explicit goals like being like if you do not find shelter you're going to have, I'm going to roll a thing and if you fit and if it passes, you lose a finger. Right? If you give certain things like that, that it's like time barred, it's not just a consistent thing. It's like, it's one event that you're being explicit about, but it has a consequence and it has a specific goal that you are giving them. I think that can add some good direction that will kind of make it less of a slog. If that makes sense.

Justin:

Oh yeah, I think you're exactly right. And another thing that you were, you were saying that really kind of triggered on me, maybe one of like the biggest keys of the expedition is the map, right? And normally it's, it's a multi-staged map, right? It's a, it's a treasure map where, you know, take 15 paces to this landmark and then do something else rather than go into the astral seat and then go to this planet, right? Like my, my case. uh, and with those sort of maps where it's like, uh, and then the map doesn't always necessarily need to be clear, right? But it does take you from point A to B to C to D to E to F, which is where you actually want to go all along the way. Those points are points of interest. And at that point, it becomes a lot easier to do every single day or do like what a lot of movies do and do sort of montages, right? where, you

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

know, for the next two or three days, you guys are walking through the snowstorm and, you know, behind the scenes, you can roll whatever you want and decide, oh, a storm hit. And guess what? Like Tanner said, you guys have to find shelter in the next half hour, or each of you are losing something that's attached to your body. And I think, you know, that makes it a little bit more manageable, even for the DM, because you know, all you have to worry about is this stretch. and then this stretch and then this stretch, right? And it's, I know we talk a lot about railroading a lot on the show.

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

It's railroading, except you're not railroading because they're railroading themselves, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah. And that's the thing. In Expedition, I think you have a little bit more license to Railroad because you're kind of being like, hey, I'm taking you on a literal journey. Come along with me. You know, so that kind of. brings us to another part of this that it's like, hey, if you're going to do an expedition type campaign, you're going to want some interesting spots along the way, right? Yeah, you want the journey to be interesting, but you want some specific spots that fulfill a couple of things. One, they show a change of pace, right? So it's not always going to be a city, you know, and it's not always going to be a dungeon. It's going to be a little peppering of each, right? And sometimes it's just going to be a little oasis, right? an oasis where it's like, oh. monster attacks them or You know or a trap or they find a little tunnel like at the bottom At the very center of the oasis of the pool that if they dive down into there's a treasure chest or something You know you want highlights along the way almost like tourist spots That stand out right much like you would in your if you were to go on an expedition I say in quote marks because like The most the closest anyone gets to an expedition now nowadays is going on vacation. But you have, like the travel is interesting, but it's less interesting if you're not going between interesting spots, you know?

Justin:

Absolutely. And even on that note, I would say the very last place has to be like the most interesting or the most desirable or something like that, right? Like, you know, it's the Holy Grail, you know, that you have to get at the end of the challenges, right? Or it's treasure planet, right? Which could theoretically be considered an expedition.

Tanner Weyland:

Oh yeah,

Justin:

So.

Tanner Weyland:

totally.

Justin:

You definitely want to bake that into the story. Whether you tell your party members everything, it's up to you, but they need to have some sort of large motivation to get there. And because of that, because there's often this large motivation to get there, there will often be reasons for others to try and get there as well. And

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

you know... in expeditions, I think one constant has to be danger, right? And the

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

unknown, right? You know, thinking about Jumanji, like the latest Jumanji movies where they're in a video game, right? That's sort of an expedition because they're going from point to point to point trying to do certain things and the goal

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

is to get out of the game. There's always this nemesis that kind of wants the opposite of what they want, but there's also like sort of environmental danger. And so You never know if when you get to point B, you're gonna see the nemesis or it's just gonna be like a sandstorm, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Exactly, you know, because you kind of need... that consistent sense of danger, but sometimes you want it to be a specific type of danger that's following, right? Because I mean, isn't that more interesting storytelling, right? If at the start of your quest, like the town mayor or a dying scholar is like, oh my goodness, you have to get the book of such and such before they do. And then suddenly you have someone that you're chasing or who's chasing you or that you're goal right and that's just great storytelling and it and it allows for interesting run ins along the way going back to door of the Explorer it's exactly like swiper you know Swiper

Justin:

Absolutely.

Tanner Weyland:

no swiping. Once again, for people who don't know about Dora the Explorer, every episode she ran into a specific fox with a thieves bandana, something like that, but over its eyes. And it would try and steal something from Dora. And you see that in Indiana Jones, where it's like, oh, the Nazi that he runs into at the very start that follows and chases him throughout the whole thing, right?

Justin:

callbacks.

Tanner Weyland:

And I think that that's not accidental. It's not because they're like, oh, what do we do? I guess we do this. It's like, no, that adds tension and it adds conflict and also makes a reason for your players to hurry, which can't be overstated because with an expedition, players could be slow about it and you want to have a sense of urgency to be like, hey, the other people are on their way too. They might be ahead of you. Can you really afford to rest?

Justin:

Yeah, yeah. And we're coming down to the end of today's episode. I think it would be really cool if we gave sort of like an off the hip, off the cuff, I guess, example of like some sort of expedition you could do in a D&D setting, right? Like we just make it up on the spot. I can go first if you want.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, go ahead.

Justin:

You know, let's say in this world, one of the gods has just decided to retire, right? And so he's literally... giving his godhood up to the first, you know, whoever can get to his house. His house happens to be inside a pocket dimension, and he's placed portals all over the world, right? And he's told

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

you if you can get to this portal, and then he probably says some riddles, so once you get to the portal, you enter the pocket dimension, have to travel through his realm, get to his house. The twist at the end would probably be that he's not actually looking to... um, like give up his godhood. He's probably trying to root out his biggest competitors. So he, you know, he kills people who probably could kill him or something like that. Or, you know, he does give it up. Anyways, that's one quick example because in that you and your party would probably make it to a portal, come out the other side and see a rival party doing the same thing and realize, okay, this is a race for time. But then you also realize that you're not exactly there yet and so forth. So that was just when I came up.

Tanner Weyland:

Okay, I've got one and it's kind of, I would say that it would start with the players going to an old abandoned church. So also religious, but in

Justin:

I

Tanner Weyland:

a

Justin:

love

Tanner Weyland:

different

Justin:

it.

Tanner Weyland:

way. And within that church, they find a group of, you know, common bandits who have come to get an ancient relic that was hidden in the kind of basement beneath the basement. The one that people didn't know about. and the players fight them off because they're like, oh, we were asked by the local clergymen to check out who's defiling this old church, you know, this abandoned church. And they do that. And then they find that the bandits had found this ancient, like, withered looking like staff that was made of wood, but it had like interesting carvings on it. And then they hear like from the bandits, like the bandits saying that they were had to deliver it to, you know, so and so. Right. And then they find clues on the staff and they go back to the clergy who signed them and they were like, oh, this is the staff of, you know, Yggdrasil or something. Right. That, you know, the world tree and it has writing that can actually lead you there. And then that goes on the journey, you know, where they take the staff. They have to go to the druids forest. To get some you know knowledge there and then the druids are like oh we could help you But this kind of info was in our library at So and so and then you go there and then the library actually has the info and then you go to...

Allowing Creative Solutions: How to Relinquish Creative Control for D&D Obstacles and Puzzles

21 september 2023 | 26 min

Are your D&D Conversations too Linear? How to Roleplay D&D with More Options

14 september 2023 | 26 min

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy. I was sick last week, so Justin was able to make time from his paternal duties with the baby, and I am truly appreciative. I’m glad to be talking with you all today again, and I wanted to talk about an important topic that is under appreciated in TTRPGs, but extremely focused on in video games: multiple-option dialogue options.

Are your conversations too linear or single-purposed with the players? Do NPCs only have one purpose in your games? Well, let's talk about how to learn from video games and give more options.

Mentioned in this episode:

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How to Play D&D while Being a Parent

7 september 2023 | 28 min

Welcome dungeon masters to How to Be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. Today, I’m your host, Justin Lewis and together let’s discover how to make every session the best session of Dungeons and Dragons with you as the dungeon master.

Today, like so many other episodes, I’ll be discussing some tips for how to deal with a particular problem that faces many dungeon masters.

Unlike other episodes though, today I offer my point of view with the full knowledge that I myself am new at facing this particular challenge, and I hesitate to say anything because I don’t want to offend, or give the impression that I even know half of what I am doing. Today, we are going to talk about how to be a dungeon master and play D&D regularly when you have kids.

Big topic, I know.

As some of you might know, my child was born back in August of 2023 and him coming into my life has really shaken things up for me, as parenthood has for many people. I firmly believe that parenthood changes a lot of for you, but it doesn’t have to delete your hobbies and passions, and in fact, one of the great challenges of parenthood is finding ways to continue doing all the things you love with the addition of your family. I think that is a great example to set for your kids and it leads to a lot less resentment later in life. Obviously, I’m not saying to forget about your kids and your family. There is a fine line to walk and sometimes you do have to pass up a particular session because your family needs you. But hopefully, with these tips, that won’t happen as often.

Disclaimer

Before I get started into these tips, I need to give a brief disclaimer.

You absolutely need to know and understand that I am in no way a parenting expert. I do not give any of this as direct parenting advice. Instead these are ideas that you can try out. I’ve only been a parent for a little more than a month now and am not the guru of parenting that I wish I was. So take my advice at your own peril…

That said, these ideas aren’t that extreme. With some tweaking and changing, you should be able to make it work for your unique situation.

So with that, let’s get into it.

Get the Buy In of Your Significant Other

The first thing you need to do is get the buy in of your significant other. This is crucial because as we all know, communication is key in any relationship. It’s also important for you and your partner to both communicate your wants and wishes. You want something, in this case you probably want to play D&D. Your partner wants something too. The only way to know what they want and to let your partner to know what you want is to start communication.

This works the same way with partners where one partner is playing D&D or partners where both partners play in the same D&D group.

If the partners are in the same D&D group, then the buy-in you each need to give and get is for a commitment from each of you to do whatever it takes to make the games happen and make them fun for each partner. This means that each of you will need to be willing to adapt and try new things that might feel weird or look strange.

If only one partner is playing in a D&D group, then the buy-in changes a little bit. You both need to give your buy-in but in this case, the terms change. In the case of the non-player partner of the relationship, the buy-in needs to be such that they are willing to watch the child/children while you play D&D. They need to understand how long the games will be and the cadence of the games. They must not be surprised at the length or frequency of the games.

On the player side the terms are a little different. You will likely need to show a willingness to make it so the non-player partner can have a similar opportunity to hang out with friends. Be willing to watch the child while they go out every once in a while. Or just be willing to be a little more present with the child while you are at home. Honestly, it’s very possible that you don’t even need to give anything for your partner to be ok with you going to play D&D every week. But, make sure their wants and wishes are heard otherwise, you’ll be headed for disaster.

Get Table Buy In

Even after you and your partner come to an agreement, you’re not done getting buy-in. Now, you’ve got to get your table’s buy-in. Because this podcast is for dungeon masters specifically, I’ll talk from that viewpoint, but that doesn’t mean that this advice doesn’t apply to everyone at the table.

First, you need to help the adjust their expectations of you. You have a child, a family. That takes precedence. That means that sometimes, you won’t have as much time to prepare the sessions, or sometimes your D&D sessions will need to be cut a little short. It might even mean that you’ll have to DM with a baby on the hip. Your situation will look different and unique and your players need to understand and be given the chance to decide whether that’s something they want to deal with. It’s your child, not theirs. It wouldn’t hurt in this instance to also explain your commitment to the table as well. They would probably like to know that you care about the game and want it to be a success.

Just as long as everyone at the table is fully aware (for the most part) of the experience they will have while playing, and they are all ok with it, including you, then you have set your table up for success.

Enlist the Help of Relatives or Friends

The next thing you can do is start compiling a list of people that you 100% trust that would be willing to watch your child while you play D&D. Often relatives are a good place to start. If there are Grandparents in the mix, then that is an excellent place to start, but brothers, sisters, cousins, and neighborhood babysitters work too. The type of babysitter will change depending on how many kids you have and what ages. Also, if you can find a relative or someone who is willing to watch your child for free, that is ideal. Paying for a babysitter every week can start to add up. You might also consider doing some sort of a babysitting trade, finding someone who needs it on days or nights when you are not playing.

Adapt

The last general tip that I can give is that you need to be just as creative at finding a solution as you are when you play D&D. Life can be complicated and messy and when you can think outside the box to find uncommon solutions, things work all the better.

Now, let’s talk about some more specific methods that might be just what you need to make playing D&D with a child or children at home that much more possible.

D&D While Your Child is Sleeping

The first method you might give a try is to play D&D when the kid/s go to bed. Most kids have an earlier bedtime so playing afterhours might be the solution you’ve been looking for. If your group has content that belongs after-hours anyways, then this might be a match made in heaven.

If you do want to give this method a try, there are a few things that you should think about.

How loud is my group?

If your group happens to play loud and proud then you might consider trying a different method. Or you might think about soundproofing the room you play in. At the end of the day (pun intended) the last thing you want is for your child to not be able to sleep and to start crying or screaming or just having a bad time.

Will we be playing at my house?

If your group doesn’t play at your house, then having your child sleep may be somewhat strange depending on the circumstances. For example, if your group normally plays at the local game store, then having a child sleep while you play probably won’t work without a babysitter. On the other hand, if your group plays at a friend’s house and that friend is ok with you bringing a pack-n-play or a bassinet and setting it up in another room where the child can get some nice sleep, then that totally works.

Will the child sleep in the same room that we will play D&D in?

If you have a small infant like I do, then having them sleep in a different room would probably be a very unpleasant thought, at least in the newborn phase of your child’s growth. For me, I would need to have the baby in the same room in a bassinet or something. If the child is older, then having them in another room would likely be the ideal situation so that the child can get a good night’s sleep.

Will the child need monitoring?

If the child is young enough, monitoring might need to be set up to keep track of the child and to make sure that they do not fall victim to any danger that could harm them. If they are in the same room, then no worries. If they are in a different room, then you may want to bring all of your technological prowess to bear. Maybe the simplest and cheapest method of monitoring a child would be to set up a video call between two phones and position one to always be able to see the child.

More expensive options include things like an Owlet camera or a simple baby monitor and more.

D&D With Baby In Arms

If you have an infant like myself, then another option opens up and that is to play D&D with the child in your arms. Obviously, this option is only available if your table is open to it, knowing that there is a major possibility that at random intervals, the person holding the baby will have to tap out of the game for a moment to take care of baby, and also there is the obvious risk of a crying baby mid-game.

That said, if your baby is young enough then having them sit in your arms (or something like it) can be a great thing. For example, even as I wrote this episode, I had my son in a baby carrier strapped to my chest. I sat at my kitchen table writing while gently swaying back and forth to keep him calm and entertained. Whatever you have to do works.

When pursuing this method, it may help to have various tools at your disposal. For exampl the baby carrier that I already mentioned or some handy swaddles to keep the baby wrapped up nice and snug.

Having some clean binkies or toys might be what you need to do. If you are breastfeeding your baby, having one of those breastfeeding shawls or covers so you can feed while at the table would be helpful.

In this case, I would say having your character sheet on some sort of computer or ipad would be preferable to having it on paper because an electronic device is a lot harder to get mixed up when you have a squirming baby in your arms.

Of course, at the end of the day, what works for you is what works.

Get a Babysitter

Honestly, when it comes to getting a babysitter, I’ve said so much already that how can I possibly say more? Watch me!

When it comes to finding a local babysitter you can try a few different things. First, I would ask family and friends, in that order. Family is usually more willing to help but friends can be just as awesome too. Whoever it is, make sure you trust them completely and that you leave crystal clear instructions on how to care for your child and what to do in an emergency.

After that, you might try your neighbor kids if they are in that perfect babysitting age. 12-16 is generally a good range. Personally I would opt for a girl babysitter just because they would generally be more patient, kind and understanding of my child’s needs than a teenage boy would be but you do you.

If you still can’t find a babysitter, you can ask at your local church if you attend to see if someone there might be able to help.

After that, start asking people you know if they know someone. Always vet the baby sitter to hearts content when getting referrals because sometimes things aren’t as they appear.

Finally, you can hire a professional baby sitter from professional service, though that will likely cost you much more.

Involve Your Child

Now, if you are unlike myself and your kid/s are old enough to start to understand some of the game, then you might consider involving them a little in the game.

Again, though it doesn’t need to be said, I’ll say it anyways, you can only do this if your D&D group is ok with it.

You also need to realize that if your other players in the group have kids too they might want to involve their kids and the whole thing can spiral out of control real fast so be wise.

But if your child is 5 - 10 you might have them sit at the table and play the game with you. If your DM is ok with it, the Child could become sort of an NPC, like a child in the game or some sort of familiar. You can ask them what to do and how to act in certain situations.

If you play a paladin, cleric or a warlock, you might have your child play the part of your Diety or patron respectively, giving you guidance in moments of need. This will likely lead to some laughs along the way and you and your kid will bond over a very fun hobby, D&D.

If the child is younger, you might have them sit on your lap and roll the d20 anytime you need one rolled. They can be around you and the game and start to enjoy rolling the dice, seeing the outcome and hearing everyone at the table cry is dismay or triumph.

This all only works if your child cooperates obviously, so don’t press the point if kiddo isn’t impressed.

Play Shorter Sessions

One of the simplest tactics to take if you have to balance being a parent and a Dungeon Master is to play shorter sessions. I know that we are all thinking that this is probably the least desirable method, but you have to admit that it is effective. Ask your players if they would be willing to play shorter sessions. Most will agree just to be able to keep playing.

Doing shorter sessions is a good method to try for a couple reasons. For one, you don’t always have to play shorter sessions. Sometimes, you’ll get a good 4 hour game in and other times, you may have to cap it at one hour.

Secondly, having shorter sessions means that you have to prepare less. You don’t have to come to the table with 4 hours prepared if you are planning on only playing for 2.

Even though it might be a really great idea to do shorter sessions, you still need to keep some things in mind.

With shorter sessions, you will need your table to understand that they really need to pay attention and be courteous when the spotlight is on someone else. It often happens that one character is doing something while everyone else waits. In those moments, everyone needs to be adults and wait patiently for their turn. Doing so will allow a reciprocal exchange of respect for everyone at the table and it will make it so each person can do their thing uninterrupted, and therefore faster, making it easier to get to everyone.

I find this consideration to be one that people seem to miss a little. Even though we are playing a make believe game, we can still act like adults, so let your player’s know.

Play Online

If you can’t find a babysitter, then consider playing online. I know for some people it’s a bit of a leap, but drastic circumstances call for drastic measures. Being able to play online would allow you to take breaks every so often to do the necessary things with your kid. If you have a wireless headset and are a master at multi tasking, you might even consider doing both at the same time, though I wouldn’t recommend it. Dividing yourself between two things means that two things get only fractions of your whole self. You don’t want to do that to your kid or your D&D group.

That said, it is a lot easier to keep an eye on your kid as they play with toys in the same room that you are DMing in. You might need to ask for some patience from your group because you’ll likely need to give direction to your kid every once in a while, but it might just be the fit that you need to make sure you keep playing.

Become a Scheduling Wizard

Finally, the last tip that I would suggest is to make sure you become really good at maintaining a schedule. This is for a few reasons. As a parent, any time you get to yourself is precious, just as any time you have with your little one is precious. You want to make the most of both. Being able to alot the right amount of time for the things that are important to you will make sure that they don’t fall by the wayside.

You’ll also be able to fulfill any promises you made to your significant other about watching the kid so they can go do something fun too. Time is our most precious resource because it really is the only thing we have. Being able to spend the right amounts of time doing the things that matter will make all the difference.

Now, there is a big chance that a lot of you don’t have kids. That’s ok. You’ll likely play with someone who does and these tips will allow you to help them and be in their corner. It should also give you a little more sympathy for parents trying to play D&D and parent at the same time.

At the end of the day, I hope these tips have given you some good ideas and hopefully sparked some creative ideas that I didn’t even think of. D&D is fun and so is being a parent and by golly, I truly believe that we can do both.

Thanks for joining me on today’s episode. We’ll be back next week with another amazing episode. Until then, let’s roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

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The Key to DM and Player Interactions in D&D: "Yes And"

24 augusti 2023 | 17 min

Are you throwing away your Saving Throws? - Back to Basics

17 augusti 2023 | 21 min

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent! My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy. Today, we just have one big announcement about Justin: he had his baby! Congratulations, Justin!

For today's topic, we are going back to the basics: Saving throws. Do you just see them as a slightly different type of roll, or do you see them as an opportunity to build suspense and prompt character struggle or change? Let's talk about it.

Find out more about our podcast and also Monsters.Rent here: https://monsters.rent/podcast/

Mentioned in this episode:

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How to Get Someone to Play D&D

10 augusti 2023 | 14 min

Here's the transcript of today's episode:

Tanner Weyland:

to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. This is Tanner Weyland, and I'm here with Justin Lewis. Say hi!

Justin:

Bye.

Tanner Weyland:

Hi. Perfect. We're glad to be here with you guys. And today we're going to have a little, you know, just a little question episode, just a little episode where we're answering one question. How do you convince a non-playing person to play D&D? Justin, let's get your thoughts.

Justin:

Alright, for me, step one, ask what movies they like to watch, right? Because most people like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, you know, or any number of fantasy movie. And once you know, oh, you like Harry Potter, well, how is Harry Potter any different than Dungeons and Dragons, right? That would be my first tip. Ask what movies they like.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, one thing that I would throw in there is convince the people around them. Like, for example, my wife, she's never played D&D, never wants to. She's firmly in the camp that's like, oh, that's nerdy stuff, you know, and yet she has friends, friends that she thinks are cool. who liked D&D and they heard that, you know, I'm into D&D. They're like, oh my goodness, you should have read a D&D campaign or a session for us, right? And I was like, oh yeah, that sounds great. And then, you know, the thought was planted in my mind. I was like, I can get Kirstie to join. These are her work friends. Of course she would play. Why would she not? She tried to play a little bit of hard to get. It's like, oh, I don't know. I just want to watch you guys play, but. I was like, I think I can get her specifically because she has friends, people that she respects as normal people, not as nerds like me. And that's a good way to convince them. And I think pairing with that, even if she doesn't play, if she sits and sees how an actual game is played, right? Because I got into D&D, frankly, because I started listening to podcasts, you know, live play podcasts. And that was, I was like, oh, this is really fun. I can do this. This isn't too far of a leap. She's never going to do that. What she could do is get a in-person live play podcast, quote unquote, you know, where I'm playing with her friends. If I'm unable to convince her, of course. And that would totally open up the way for like, Hey, if they like it enough and they want to do it again, she'd probably be willing to do the next time. Right.

Justin:

Absolutely. In fact, my wife's aunt still sort of thinks D&D is related to devils and demons, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Oh, yeah, the satanic panic kind of thing.

Justin:

Yeah, exactly.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

And it's not so much that she like actively thinks that. She just had a bad experience essentially, but her daughter, right, is living with my wife's parents and because of that her daughter, her daughter my wife's cousin, is not allowed to play D&D, right? But she's come over while we're having our sessions and watched us play and we ask her and we say like, hey, do you think there's anything wrong with this? And she's like, no, it kind of sounds a little boring. Which I mean, you know, that's her opinion, but exactly what Tanner said, expose them a little bit to D&D, right? Have them watch the D&D movie. And everyone knows the D&D movie was funny because you have, you know, lots of kind of new up and coming actors as well as some pretty old and storied actors, you know, who Hugh Grant has been in countless movies, but you have them

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

watch the D&D movie, they're going to laugh, they're going to see things that are pretty cool, and they're going to ask questions like, wait a second, is Thimbershod that giant fat dragon? Is he like a real character? And the answer is yes. He actually features in The Lost Minds of Vandelver, which is in fact basically like the first D&D anything that most people come in contact with, Would You Like to Play, right? That's an easy segue.

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm. Exactly. And, you know, above all, just... I think if you bring a good positivity to D&D when you talk about it, you know, talk about how fun it was. Talk about, you know, things that you think that they would really find funny or interesting. You know, if you're a DM, which I mean, you're listening to this podcast, so hopefully you're trying to be, then just be like, hey, I was really stumped with this thing, but then I came up with this cool solution. And they really enjoyed it. You know, just be super positive, even if they think you're so nerdy and that it's not to them, they're not going to be intimidated by it, right? And that kind of opens up a pathway for them to be open in other ways, right?

Justin:

Yeah, and along those lines, don't push too hard because our natural inclination as human beings is when someone tells us, you know, you need to do this. Our natural inclination is to say, no, I don't, and I'm not going to because you told me to, right? So in trying to get them to play, make simple invitations, say, it means a lot to me, and I enjoy doing it with my friends. In fact, it keeps my relationships with certain friends. strong, you know, sometimes you don't have the ability to see them, but everyone can schedule something and make it happen. But anyways, don't push too hard.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, and I think something that I would just throw in as kind of a gateway drug to tabletop you know role-playing games is you know there are easy tabletop role-playing games and then there are also board games that include a little bit of role-playing right? I would say that that certain games like based off of mafia, like the, what is it? One Night Werewolf

Justin:

Yep.

Tanner Weyland:

game. Like to some extent that's a lot of like playing a role. And then there's other games where you're like working with someone to do like, it's kind of co-op, right? Like there's Pandemic, there's... Oh man, there's this firefighter board game. I'm blanking out the name. But anyway, there are these games where it's like, hey, you're embodying a role, you're role playing, and you know, you're working together with some people. Those are great gateways to doing something more serious. And then if you're trying to do a gateway role playing game, there's a lot of options, right? Like there's some games that... Like there's one game called Dread. It's kind of horror based, so I don't know if you, you know, do it with everyone who you're trying to get into D&D. But the whole idea is that you're playing Jenga. It's a role playing game based around Jenga.

Justin:

I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

Tanner Weyland:

And each time, like you have, you can find pre-written scenarios, but every time that a player wants to do something, they pull a block, put it on top. And then they do the thing that they said their character would do, right? But the moment that tower falls down, oh my goodness, that person's dead. And the DM, you know, who can be you in this case, kind of takes over that character and they die or transform or who knows what, right? Something horror related. That's a very simple game that doesn't require a lot of rules. And it can be a nice segue, you know.

Justin:

Yeah, another game is Betrayal at Hill House. That

Tanner Weyland:

Oh, exactly.

Justin:

one, it's basically an RPG in board game format. Kind of, you know, going the opposite way rather than using games. You know, if you know this person to be one who is very much into personal development, challenge them and say, have you ever wanted to try and see how quick you are at thinking? you know, using your wits, being creative. How creative are you at problem solving? How good are you at improvising? And how good are your performance and presentation skills? Well, Dungeon and Dragons is the best kind of mix of all of those because it's fun and it does challenge you to kind of think on your feet and improvise, take things as they come and try and craft new solutions that are unique and sometimes absurd.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, and kind of as a last point from me, I think that what you said about not pushing is important. Now, if you did wanna do kind of a last hurrah, if you will, I think that you could try and ask them. to do a favor for you, you know, to be like, hey, I wrote this thing, I really think it'd be fun and I have a couple of friends, you know, or mutual friends who want to play it, but we really could use another player. Would you be willing to sit in just one time, right? Or you could even be more direct and be like hey, I've always loved the idea of playing with you But I never thought that you'd be into it Even though I'm sure you'd be great. Would you try it once for me? You know, and if they're like hard no, don't push it too much But I think a lot of a lot of people if you're that direct and that honest about like hey I would really like to try it because if you did like it, it'd be really fun then that would be, you know, I think some people would be willing to try that. I think that'd be the right approach for certain, you know, individuals. And if you're able to do that, then you try it. And if they don't like it, they don't like it. You know, you tried your best, you can move on. You can do it knowing that you've put your best foot forward and that they've actually tried it and you can be grateful and thank them for that. And it can be a memory, you know, to look back on.

Justin:

Absolutely. The last thing I'd say is, even though you shouldn't push too hard, you shouldn't give up. I have a friend who I've been inviting to play D&D with me for the last three years plus, and I feel like I can feel him slowly slipping, right? Eventually I'll get him to say yes. But sometimes people just aren't in the right space. You might ask them one day and they'll say yes. So don't give up.

Tanner Weyland:

Exactly. And with that, you know, we invite you to go out there. Give it another try with your friend, with your family member, your significant other, to, you know, invite them into the rich, rich world of D&D. And, you know, even if it doesn't work now, keep trying. Try in different ways because we know that it's going to be a great experience for you. And until next time, let's roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Death in Dungeons and Dragons

3 augusti 2023 | 24 min

D&D and Death: How to Handle the Death of a Character in D&D

Suddenly, time seems to slow down. The arrows rain down like slow pebbles skipping across a lake rather than the hail of death they’d been seconds before. Lightning crawls across the sky, achingly slow, reaching for that next empty space. These demonlings rush about, and all the while, your eyes remain fixed on Eloin. You see her grip at her stomach, feeling around the blade that runs right through her abdomen. The demon facing her lifts his impaled sword so that Eloin is at his eye level. The demon laughs and then callously pulls her off his sword with one massive hand. He smiles a pointed grin and then tosses her behind him into the swarm of demonlings…

Dungeons and dragons is very fun game with very dynamic emotions and experiences. We all come to the table eager to experience things that we’ve never experienced. Sometimes we do experience things that we’ve been through before, and when that happens, there’s a 50/50 chance that the experience is nostalgic, or traumatizing.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. Today, I’m your host, Justin Lewis, and I want to talk about a pretty hard subject; death.

In the real world, people generally avoid the topic of death. For most people it causes a lot of discomfort. In the world of D&D, our characters provide death for many an NPC, yet when faced with their own demise, our players plead and beg the DM to make it not so.

That can be pretty hard as the DM. Should you cave to your players’ desires and let them live on? Or should you let things play out. If they die they die. Still, other DMs decide to play the part of the villain and rain down death as those demons I was talking about did.

It’s all a complicated discussion so, without further ado, let’s get into it.

The Basic Rules of Death

In the Player’s Handbook, the rules for death state that when a character falls to 0 hit points, they fall unconscious, and begin death saving throws.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with how Death Saves work here’s a refresher.

The unconscious character maintains their spot in initiative, or an initiative is created.

Whenever their turn comes around they roll a d20. If their result is an 11 or higher, then that is considered a success. 3 success stabilizes their character, and they remain unconscious but are no longer dying.

If their result is a 10 or less, then that is considered a failure. 3 failures, and their character dies.

If their results is a natural 20, then the character immediately stabilizes, gains 1 hit point is conscious and can proceed with their turn (although there are many differing rules surrounding this particular part).

If their result is a natural 1 then that counts as 2 failures.

Obviously, there is a lot of room here for the addition of homebrew rules that can make death saves very fun.

One of my favorite homebrew rules is that the death saves have to be rolled privately between the player and the DM and that player cannot make the results known to the other players. They cannot speak in fact, because, they are dying. I heard this rule from an interview on Dimension 20.

But regardless of what you decide to do, there is an even more important question that you need to answer first.

Is Death allowed at your table?

Before your players even come close to dying, you need to decide whether or not character death will be allowed at the table.

You might scoff as you listen to this, thinking, “Well, of course my characters can die. There are no true stakes if they can’t die.”

Maybe, maybe not.

Death is a very powerful plot point. The Fellowship of the Ring would not have had half as much emotion if we all didn’t think that Gandalf had died halfway through. Anakin Skywalker might have had a harder time transitioning into Darth Vader had Padme survived. Death is a very powerful tool for the storyteller.

But with great power comes great responsibility.

One of the biggest responsibilities you have as a dungeon master is making sure that your players are generally happy.

Triggering Event

Because D&D can sometimes be a mirror in which we can see reflections of our normal lives, we sometimes must be careful as to what we put into the mirror (bad analogy). For example, if a loved one of one of your players has passed away recently, then having someone die in their D&D session might not be the right thing.

Before you make any sort of decision, ask your players what sort of things they want to have in their D&D game. They get to choose what happens just as much, if not more than, you do.

You can ask them about all sorts of topics and themes to include in the D&D campaign, but definitely make sure death in there.

Preventing Death

Assuming your players have opted to avoid the inevitability of death, you now have to do some fancy footwork to make the story believable and worthwhile.

On one hand, having a table that can’t die is fun because the players know that they have some pretty powerful plot armor. But that can quickly make the game boring. It’s not a big deal to fight a lich if you know that your player will not die.

So to make the stakes still high even though the mortality rate is low, here are a few things you can do:

Collateral Damage: Assuming your player characters are developed and have been able to form important relationships with other NPCs, those NPC can become the targets of your Villains malicious attempts. This is also known as “The Lois Lane” tactic. Superman is impervious, so Lois Lane, his lady love, often comes under the gun of Lex Luthor. Likewise with your heroes, they can save the NPC in distress who really is just an innocent bystander… or are they…
Unintended Consequences: Another method you can try is to add tangential consequences anytime a hero “dies”. For example. Let’s say a particular Diety has decided to favor the party. This deity essentially prevents any party member from full dying. The death saves are still rolled, but if the character would die, the Patron God would step in and prevent them from dying miraculously. The God, however, gives this boon with some strings attached. Now the party has to do some sort of quest for the God in return for being preserved. Another consequence could madness. The more often a character should be dead but isn’t, the more insane the character becomes. You can spice this up with some fun voices that they can only hear and other things. Really your options for random consequences are endless.
Loss of limb or ability: You could require that everytime a player would normally have died, they simply roll on a permanent injury table, losing a hand, leg, eye or just suffering some minor wound. This particular method only works for a short period of time because if it really was “long term” then after they lose a limb, combat would become harder, making the chances that they fall unconscious and do deaths saves again go up, which in turn would make them lose another faculty. It’s a vicious cycle.

Of course, there is nothing written down that you have to even do any of these methods. You could simply just decide that none of your player characters die. I think for very young groups, like maybe below 10, this would be an ok situation.

If you do decide that none of your PCs die, then you might also need to consider whether the enemies die as well. Will your game be one of all non-lethal damage?

I think for most tables, that just isn’t a situation that would please people. But it can be done.

So, now that we’ve talked about preventing Player Character death from happening at your table, we need to talk about letting it happen.

Allowing Death to Happen

After your table has decided that they do want to let nature be nature and those things that die will simply pass on to the next existence, you need to consider a few questions.

What type of Experience will it be?

You don’t really need to consult your players but if you want some of their input that’s fine. You need to decide what sort of gaming experience a character death will be. In video games, when you die, you usually revert to the last save or the start of the level. D&D usually isn’t like that (though, I suppose you could make an interesting game mechanic that reverts certain things if a character dies). Usually, the character dies, then in the next session, the Player introduces their new character in a fun and interesting way.

In some D&D groups, the player might just create a carbon copy of their previous character and call them a different name. Viva La Dirt League has a whole comedic sketch on this in their D&D Logic videos. Really, it’s up to the DM whether that sort of shenanigan will be allowed. For some players, it’s really more just about loving a specific class-race combo and playstyle that they want to emulate. For the most part though, players will create a new character when they die without problems.

You, as the DM, though, need to understand the mood of the table and the playstyle of the group, to correctly portray any individual death scene. For example, if your table is generally a table that laughs much more than they are serious, then making a death scene funny, might not be a bad thing. Even on a particular day, if the party seems to want to just goof off, then go ahead and goof off with them.

But….

If your party is of the more serious types, then you absolutely need to treat the character death with all the gravity that you can muster. We play these characters week in and week out. We know that they are not real and that they are just make believe, but surprisingly, when we play them, they start to feel a little real. We find ourselves doing things that “the character would do” that we would never do. So when a character dies, you need to be careful not to make light of the situation in case one of your players is not yet ready to let go of them.

Honestly, because it is a touchy subject, I would err on the side of being too serious rather than making light of a situation that could be difficult for one of your players. They could resent you, even subconsciously, and decide that they don’t want to play with you any more, which is a loss in my book.

Will I, the DM, actively cause Death

Another consideration that you need to make as the Dungeon master is whether or not to actively seek the destruction of your players. Obviously, whenever combat comes up, every DM does “their best” to kill the players, but this consideration is a deeper decision. There are times when one player goes down, and the DM needs to think about whether the enemy would continue attacking the downed player to finish the job or if they would divert their attention to other targets. In some instances, the downed player becomes a bigger target because they are downed.

When a DM acts like this, players will naturally be angry. As a DM, you will need to understand the decision you make and be able to defend it. In my opinion. Only do this if you know your players would still play with you after. You don’t want to have to find another D&D group just because you thought a particular enemy would not hesitate to kill.

Resurrection

Now that we have killed your Player Character, you need to also decide whether or not that player can return to the game. In many games, the group can pursue resurrection of the downed individual. You need to decide if that is an option at all, and if it is how easy or difficult it is to make it happen, and how one might go about resurrecting a fallen friend.

For some campaigns, the only thing that is needed it the spell Resurrection, and the 1000 GP diamond that the spell requires. Once your players have access to this spell, can decide that this is all that is needed to revive a character that has died.

Or you can make things a lot more difficult.

For example, if you desire, you can choose the ban the Resurrection spell from any player character’s spell list. You may decide that NPCs can still cast the spell, so now the PCs need to find an NPC that likes them enough to resurrect one of them.

Or perhaps, you decide that only high ranking Clerical NPCs can cast resurrect. This would make the quest of finding someone who can perform the spell and is also willing to do so for the party, much more difficult.

Still, other DMs might choose to make resurrection the object of larger quests. You may decide to have your party seek after the Fountain of Youth, or seek divine favor with a hard-to-please deity. Or you can have your party try to find a magic item that restores life, much like the latest D&D movie.

However you do it, if you do decide to make bring a character back to life more difficult or engaged, I would encourage you to make a story arc or a quest out of it. In D&D resurrection should be a very theatrical and earned event, meaning that if you just give it to your players they won’t appreciate it.

Make it an adventure, that way, when the player does come back, there will be many opportunities for roleplaying, both on their side and on the side of the other players.

New Character Creation and Introduction

Now, assuming that one of your player characters have died, and that they aren’t going to be resurrected anytime soon, you obviously need to help the player who lost their character make a new one.

Here again, you need to make some decisions.

Are they the same level as the other players?

How will they enter the game?

How do you help them establish relationships with the other players?

Let’s talk about all of these and more.

First, Character Creation

For the most part, character creation after a character death is just like making any other character. Have the player try and think of something original. They may want to do the same class, and maybe even the same race, but encourage them to give their new character some different personality traits. You don’t want a carbon copy of the old character because that just makes things weird.

If your party has been adventuring for some time, then they may have accumulated some magical items. You’ll need to decide whether or not this new character will meet the party while already possessing some magical items of their own.

Lastly, you’ll need to help your player come up with proper motivations for their character that will lead that character to intersect with the rest of the party, and hopefully, stay with them.

Introduction

As I’ve said before, one of the hardest parts of D&D is getting player characters to meet and then decide to travel together, and hopefully become friends. I’ve also said that an easy way to mitigate this is to give the new character a connection or a tie to an existing character. Maybe they are cousins, or they grew up in the same town. The connection doesn’t need to be big, unless you want it to be. I would opt for a smaller connection that still allows the characters to have their own adventures and storylines, while making a sort of introduction to the rest of the party.

If nothing else, you can always opt for a galvanizing event. Soon after the new character joins the party, have them all face some sort of danger together where their goals become the same by default. Facing down a large and dangerous monster qualifies perfectly. This should theoretically help the party become a team, if only to destroy a threat. However you do it, make sure that everyone feel included. An experience like this should align a lot of their motives and incentives so that they spend some amount of time together.

After that, you simply need to keep things rolling until friendships form between characters.

Other Outcomes that are Like Death

If you aren’t interested in death in your game, or even if you are interested, there are a few other outcomes that you can introduce into your game that will be similar to death in their scope and effect, but won’t necessarily be actual death.

For example, in my campaign I am running, my players faced a creature that could petrify them. I chose to make the process of becoming un-petrified a much more involved process rather than just allowed them to find someone who could cast greater restoration.

In similar ways you could have an enemy who casts sleep on players that forces them into a deep sleep, or you could use banishment in a similar way. These are fun ways to have a “deathlike” experience with a character, while still allowing the player to reclaim the character in a way that is earned and fun for everyone at the table. When considering using methods like these, make sure your players are open to it, and that it’s either randomly directed, or if it is targeted to a specific character, then there is narrative reasoning behind it.

Well, we’ve certainly talked a lot about death, but as they say, Memento mori. As you go back to your D&D campaigns or start new ones, consider the consequences of death and what it would mean to your players. Make sure everyone is on board and having fun and remember to do everything for the purpose of a better story. Hopefully these tips have helped you.

Thanks for joining me here on How to Be a Better DM, the official Podcast of Monsters.Rent.

Let’s meet back here next week for another amazing episode.

Until then, let’s roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Familes In Your D&D Campaign: Why It's Uncommon and How to Make It Work

27 juli 2023 | 26 min

Tanner Weyland:

Hello, this is Tanner Weyland. Welcome back to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. I'm here with Justin Lewis. Say hi, Justin.

Justin:

Justin.

Tanner Weyland:

Hey, hey, no, don't do that. Just kidding, I'm joking.

Justin:

I'm sorry.

Tanner Weyland:

It's great to have you. Ha ha ha.

Justin:

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Tanner Weyland:

Perfect. So if anyone's new to the podcast, we are going to learn a bit about how to bring our DMing and storytelling to the next level. And today's podcast is kind of a thought experiment. Why don't we see more marriage and families happening, you know, with your players characters? Like, why aren't they starting their own little families and having little kids that they name and train and everything else, right? That's kind of the thought experiment, and finding out if, as DMs, we can do this and make it an enriching and enhancing part of an adventure. First off, Justin, what do you think about this topic?

Justin:

I think it is an amazing topic. First of all, for those of you who don't know, I'm actually expecting my first child as this podcast releases. My wife's due date is August 4th, so it's like two, a week and a half away. So thinking about families is definitely the top of mind. And so I've been thinking of different book ideas that can involve having a baby or just all sorts of. fun ideas and I think and actually on a different side note my own campaign my players have gotten pretty good like they're pretty high level and it's hard for me to throw a balanced challenge at them without killing them and so I was thinking you know what maybe I'll just give them like a baby and they'll just have to deal with that you know

Tanner Weyland:

Just do a little bit of just giving them responsibility, a cold

Justin:

Mm-hmm.

Tanner Weyland:

hard slice of responsibility and see how they deal with it.

Justin:

Exactly. I mean, the unfortunate part of doing that would be is how they treat NPCs thus far is not generally good. So I'm kind of

Tanner Weyland:

No.

Justin:

afraid, you know.

Tanner Weyland:

Well, that's perfect. I mean, in a way that kind of speaks to one of the opportunities of, uh, of making, you know, player relationships actually lead to kind of emotional attachment that speaks to it, right? Cause it's like, you can tell different stories if the players feel emotionally connected, because I think a lot of really great characters, players will try and do that naturally, you know, they'll try and be like, oh, let's find the emotional connection. that would make my character actually want to go save this town or save this little girl who got kidnapped or something, right? But not all players are like that, right? And so kind of giving them that natural connection of like, hey, it's your wife, it's your fiancee, it's the girl in the town who you've been spending more time with or your child. I think that that's just a very natural way to get player buy-in. if that makes sense.

Justin:

Yeah, and I think that can also be a reason why Dungeon Masters might avoid the family just because it might not feel earned, you know?

Tanner Weyland:

Mmm.

Justin:

Or you're trying to establish some sort of family relationship with a character, or sorry, not a character, with a player that generally doesn't do much role playing. And I mean, if you do that, there's a big chance that they'll be like, oh hey brother, okay bye, right. not a big payoff.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that kind of leads naturally into what I want to talk about next, which is like, why don't we see this more often? You know? Uh, and, and I think it's worth talking about from the player perspective and the DM perspective. Uh, for DMs, I think there's a few reasons, you know, frankly, I think that sometimes the subject matter might be awkward, you know, because in order to create a relationship, you have to have flirting. and or dating and you know and some people are just uh maybe don't want to touch that because that's not something they're super confident with uh personally or they don't want to role play flirting as an npc with a player because that can be a little uncomfortable too right especially if that player or the dm you know because it's dm's gonna be like this too especially if they want to like talk about like some of the nitty gritty with like sex or anything like that then it's like oh you're gonna you know makes quite a few people at the table uh uncomfortable honestly you know

Justin:

Absolutely. Honestly, this kind of goes a little bit into... Well, it touches on a topic that is connected to an episode I'm writing currently for later that deals with death, right? And allowing

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

death in your game. And really as a DM, you need to understand and to understand you have to ask your players what they're okay with, right? You know... my personal group and to be honest myself, I tend to shy away from some of the more PG-13 R rated aspects of playing D&D that could be in there, right? Just that's my natural personality, but even if it wasn't, I know that my group, that's generally how they would trend as well, right? We would prefer to stay away from some of the more scandalous types of encounters you could have in D&D. But. if you don't ask your players you won't know right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, exactly. And I think that I think communication with players is key because kind of jumping over to their perspective, I think that some players don't feel like they've got the metaphorical nod from the DM to be like, hey, you can pursue like some type of more relationship, a deeper relationship with this PC, because you're trying to flesh out your character, you can pursue that and I'm actually going to yes and what you're doing. You know, instead of being like, oh, I'm going to have this NPC not really show that much interest or there's always going to be like an invisible wall of like, hey, what are you wasting your time here with? Let's get back to adventuring. You know? And I think that if you have that kind of. understanding and you also do a little bit of push and pull with them role playing wise, then they'll feel more comfortable actually trying that and that might be a hurdle that they're willing to get over.

Justin:

Absolutely, and honestly I think that should actually be some sort of a you know an exercise that we as dungeon masters Kind of take upon ourselves because I know for me personally when a Character tries to flirt with another NPC or something like that I might get uncomfortable or I might make it kind of comical and pretty quick, right? but like you just said taking it as a yes-and moment and Using it to spice up the plot, right? And actually one of the other points we were gonna bring up was, you know, when that happens, it could be a form of splitting the party, maybe spending too much time on one person. But you know, using it as an exercise, you might be able to think of ways to kind of incorporate this NPC a little bit more. Maybe

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

they decide to flirt with someone else, kind of creating a love triangle in the party, or they're doing it on purpose, trying to split the party, right? And they become kind of a more deviant aspect. uh... or you just find ways to incorporate other people in their own kind of side quests for love i guess you can say or relationships is a better way to say it

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, totally. You know, and I like that idea of making it a multi character thing because I feel like that's another issue here is that if one person is like, not obsessing, but like really focused on like, hey, I saw this barmaid and I'm gonna you know, every evening, gonna go talk with her. Then that's a time sink, you know, and it's almost like You know, I think DMs already worry about one player kind of hogging the spotlight, you know, and if one player has this kind of side relationship that's solely about them. where they want these long conversations back and forth, then it's gonna get boring for the other players. It's gonna feel like it's not worth it for them and they're gonna get annoyed, you're gonna get annoyed that you're spending that time. And so I think that that's something that DMs and you'd be very cognizant of, right?

Justin:

Yeah. And I think, you know, we'll, we'll talk about a little bit of kind of some things you should and shouldn't do. And we'll definitely need to talk on this aspect of, uh, you know, if it is going to be a time sync, what are some things you can do to maybe mitigate that? But before we move on to, to some of our other points, one

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

last reason why I think, you know, we don't often see this and, um, both from a player. perspective and a DM perspective, I think is because, at least in the US, we're conditioned to, you know, they get married and they live happily ever after, end of story, right? Like that's the end

Tanner Weyland:

Yep.

Justin:

of story, which if you've ever been married or started a relationship, right, marriage is the beginning of like a big adventure, right? And

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

I think we need to recognize that we have that condition, right, in our brains. and recognize also that it's kind of hampering some of our creativity, because we're naturally prone to thinking you get a family and you settle down, right? But even in this modern day and age, we should get used to the fact that, you know, a lot of people work remote, so you can technically have your family on the road, and why should D&D be any different, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Absolutely, you know, because I think that some people worry that, oh hey, my type of adventure doesn't fit. And it's true for some of them, right? If you have a campaign or a mini campaign that's a dungeon crawl, it's like, yeah, having, you know, maybe your players could be related to each other, but, well, the player characters, but you're not likely going to have, you know, NPCs in that position. But if it was an expedition or like, or one where you have like a town hub where you're doing adventures from, that's such a perfect opportunity. right especially and we're going to talk about we're going to have an episode soon about you know how to do an expedition campaign, but in a setting like that, it's perfect because it's like, hey, you can have multiple NPCs on that, you know, in the wagon train, on the boat, whatever it is. And that's a great opportunity also for, you know, interacting with the same NPCs over and over again, and them really building a bond there. And I think you shouldn't shy away from that. I know it's easy to just focus on building the bond between, you know, players, characters. that's wonderful. We all want a metaphorical fellowship of the ring, right? Where everyone's like, oh, they're so tight, right? But

Justin:

Yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

it's like, hey, but you can also have other kinds of relationships to just kind of flesh out the relationship meter, if you will, with your player characters. And that's just going to make the story better in general.

Justin:

Absolutely. You know, I think when we say having a Dungeons and Dragons family, right, a family in your D&D campaign, we all too often, and we've even been talking like this, we all too often think about lover, right, wife, husband, child. But I think it'd be interesting to, you know, throw in some dynamics like uncle, grandma, godfather, you know,

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah,

Justin:

some of those

Tanner Weyland:

brother, sister,

Justin:

brother, right,

Tanner Weyland:

right? Mm-hmm.

Justin:

cousin, you know, because those... those bring sort of a small distance with them, but they can also bring somewhat of a familiarity, right? And I think that would be

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

a very interesting aspect to add to your story.

Tanner Weyland:

Totally, right? And I think that it's worth talking about, how can you actually implement this well? Because I think it's something that we should all try. It gets us out of our comfort zone, but I think it adds so much more reality to the stakes in the world and also the connection. So first off, what I wouldn't recommend that you do when you're trying to get your players to have these kind of family ties. let's keep in mind that you can have a lot of relationships, like Justin was saying, like in family, but then you can also have friend relationships, right? Like when was the time that the paladin in your party met? another paladin in the city and they went out for drinks and then they also you know went out uh to go you know sword like practice sword fighting together you know things like that can also add depth and an emotional connection that if that you know friend npc got like taken away or hurt suddenly you have like reason you know you have an M.O. to like pursue the bad guy who

Justin:

Absolutely and a couple words of warning with this You won't always plan correctly like sometimes your players will just randomly develop Relationships with NPCs you never planned and ones you did plan they won't care but also as the DM You will likely need to be vulnerable yourself, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

And what do I mean by that? I mean, when you're out having drinks with the paladin, right? The player is going to role play, or ideally they are, right? It's going to be somewhat

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

hard for them to kind of develop those positive emotions that they don't, but they're going to role play, and so will you. And because of that, you will likely need to sort of immerse yourself in these emotions, right? And it's possible that you will have to kind of be vulnerable as the character, which will make you vulnerable as a person, right? It's kind of hard to explain, but you're acting essentially, but in order to act, you sort of have to replicate those emotions in yourself.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, exactly. And as a DM, you know, we have, we're the ones that like the players have to do that for themselves. We have to do everyone else. And that's a big responsibility. But I think it's possible if you just let the character be interested in the in the player. like whatever that means, whether it's romantic or friendship or just interest in general, that kind of it becomes a bridge that can then lead to something else. Because oftentimes I've seen this where, you know, you do kind of develop a little bit of like, oh, a little tryst or something, or a friendship, and then it doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't affect the adventure. It doesn't, you know, become a decision point. Or something that the player actually feels like they need to spend real time on and then that becomes essentially a trophy relationship one that you just set on the you know on the mantle and you don't really look at and that kind of leads to players not feeling like they've Like the DMs willing to tango with them in terms of actually developing real relationships, you know

Justin:

Yeah, I 100% agree. I think one way, well, one way to avoid that maybe, and kind of going on the lines of things you shouldn't do, don't make the NPCs that they're trying to have relationships with one-sided or static characters. Make them dynamic with their own desires, right? So maybe they do the Paladins have drinks together. at some point they find something that they disagree over and that's going to provide an interesting point in the story because hopefully they've built up a friendship, they have this disagreement and they kind of have to learn how to navigate it, right? Or you know, this paladin has desires and he calls upon the player character for help, you know? Just, just, they should feel somewhat real, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Exactly, you know, and I think that that's such an important point there because that as a DM that could be a wonderful Catalyst for like showing a play that like hey you can develop Kind of like a video game how, you know, some RPGs will have like specific partner characters, either for friendship or romance. And you can kind of tell because they'll have different kinds of options. One thing that you could do in terms of like making up is, you know, have an NPC who has a similarity. And then after they've had some time to kind of develop that relationship, then have, like you said, that opposing view that maybe there's a little bit of a falling out or an argument. And then the next time that they see each other, you know... which you should encourage, then if the player doesn't come up to them and do something, then your NPC, you should make them go up to the player and be like, hey, I'm sorry about that, I got heated, you know, then they can share some about themselves. And then it can be a great opportunity to be like, hey, do you want to take this relationship like kind of further or be friends still or and so it's almost like a one to punch where it's like introduce them as a friend who shares interests. have a conflict, make up, and then that's almost like a good indicator to the player, hey, this can be more than just an NPC who gives you directions for the cave down the road, right?

Justin:

Yeah, exactly. I think what you're talking about is, it could be termed as like reciprocity. And that's

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

not a great term for it, but like, oftentimes I think, at least in my own campaigns thinking back, the problems that I've had when I've tried to create these relationships for my characters, but they've turned out to be trophy relationships is because I haven't showed interest from my characters, from my NPCs to the PCs. Right? Or interest or like I said, reciprocity. So to the PCs, it's like, oh, I wanted to talk to this person. They didn't seem like they wanted to talk to me or we did talk, but then they haven't reached back out. They're not worth my time because it was one sided, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, exactly. And I think if you are able to give that back and forth with the player, then they're gonna they're gonna pick up on it, hopefully. And if they don't teach them, you know, with time.

Justin:

Exactly.

Tanner Weyland:

I think but like kind of what's the what's the end goal? For me, I feel like the end goal of any kind of relationship that the players build in world. The end goal is that it's supposed to enrich the story. And so I would, and this is the kind of evil DM in me speaking. I would totally take advantage of these relationships, you know, build them up. And then suddenly, oh my goodness, your baby just got kidnapped. Well,...

9 D&D and Dungeon Master Expectations That You Need to Change

20 juli 2023 | 21 min

Why We Create Expectations about Ourselves

This episode is about D&D and it’s about life in some small way. Playing dungeons and dragons is something we do just like everything else we do, and because of that, we can often create expectations around the way we do things.

I think it stems from our ability to think about how we think about things. Maybe subconsciously, we need some sort of purpose or we need to feel like we are achieving something.

Either way, having certain unchecked expectations can be pretty damaging and counterproductive. For the most part, D&D is just a game. For some people it’s a game that is part of their livelihood. Hopefully, for no one is it life or death. Because of that, I think we need to all relax a little bit, breathe and readjust some of our personal expectations that might be making things less than fun.

I can’t take breaks

Believe me, I know that you have had your campaign going for years now and you don’t want to risk it’s fading away by taking a week or two off. I’m in the same boat. My group has been playing for a little over 3 years and to be honest, everytime I think about taking a week or so off, it gives me a little anxiety.

But guess what?

That anxiety is all in my head.

If we took a week off, we would be back the next week. This expectation is false because everyone in my group is committed to the game.

I know that because we’ve been doing it for 3 years.

So if you have thought that maybe you could use a break as the DM, don’t let yourself stop you from getting a probably well-deserved break.

Either take a week off, or have one of your players DM for a session. In my campaign, I invited each of my players to take on the DMing of storiella within the campaign. Two have taken me up on my invite and we enjoyed their one-shots tremendously.

The best part for me was being able to relax for a week span here and there and let myself recharge a little bit. It also clued me into the fact that things might have gotten a bit stale. For example, I haven’t been doing as many combat encounters as I used to. I’ve also let the story sort of wander away from me, rather than directing it like a stagecoach driver.

I can’t change things up

As I mentioned before, I’ve recently noticed that I’ve been doing things the same way and things have gotten somewhat stale. I noticed this during my last session with my players in which is was pretty apparent that everyone was somewhat bored. I decided to end the session early and move onto the next story element, rather than making them slug away at the boring parts.

Too often, we slip into routine. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Routine helps us maximize effort and optimize brain power. It’s exhausting to think of everything, that’s why when you have new experiences it seems that time slows down or more fits into a period of time. When you do routine things instead, you find that time passed more quickly, and frankly, sometimes time passes without you realizing what is going on. You find yourself somewhere without knowing how you got there.

When it comes to D&D, routine can be both good and bad. The key is to key off your players. If they seem like they are enjoying every single session, then bully for you. If not, then you should change things up. As they say, “If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you always got.”

I have to do it THIS way

Youtube is an amazing invention. It has probably educated more people than the public education system ever has, simply because now if you have wifi, you have access to hundreds of millions of videos on all sorts of subjects.

In the world of Dungeons and Dragons, there are Youtube Dungeon Masters a plenty. For the most part, these Online DMs are talented, practiced and have spent many hours and lots of money creating a great D&D production.

Sometimes though, you and I might fall into the trap of watching their shows, loving every minute of it, and then slipping into the thought that everything we do has to mirror or resemble their methods. I know that I often stop myself from doing things just because, “Well, on Critical Role they do this…”

It’s wonderful to have role models and people to try to emulate. Becoming great often involves some form of imitation. The problem arises though when we shackle ourselves to an idea that holds us back and prohibits us from actually having fun. In my last session, as I’ve already mentioned, things had gotten stale. Let me explain a little more about the situation.

My party has entered the astral sea, which in my campaign, functions a lot more like the universe of Disney’s Treasure Planet, with astral ships and so forth. The party is on a voyage to a distant planet that will take them 25 days to get there. At first, I started with a random table so that everyday had the possibility of generating some strange event. Then two of my players hosted one shots, each one filling up one of the days of the voyage.

After a while, I realized that the traveling bit of it, was rather boring. So contrary to what I believed about how Critical Role functions, I decided to do something radical. I finished the session, and told my party that I’m going to time jump the travel time from now on. I needed to know their plans.

Whenever you watch the online Dungeon Masters play, they don’t seem to ever have informal planning sessions with their players. Instead, they seem to have everything planned out.

First, they might have those sorts of planning sessions behind the scenes, we just don’t know.

But second, it doesn’t matter what they do. What matters is what I do and whether or not it improves the gameplay for myself and my friends.

Whenever you find yourself falling into the trap of thinking, “I have to do it this specific way,” catch yourself and fling yourself out of the trap. You’ll be happy you did.

I have to do the funny voices

“Welcome to Bolgren’s Inn!”

“Penny for your thoughts…”

“At last, my master plan has come to fruition…”

These funny voices are very… well, fun! Everyone likes the funny voices and everyone wishes they could perfect their accent.

But guess what.

You don’t actually have to do any voices.

That’s right. Your best bet might just be making sure the session happens at all. For many DM’s getting players to show up is much more important than whether this character has a South Carolina Accent or an Alabama accent.

In fact, our recent podcast episode with Audiobook Voice Actor, Victor Bevine, sheds a little more light on this topic. Victor said that the main character of any audiobook should be the closest to the actors natural voice. This is because that’s the voice that will be use the most. So even in the big leagues, having a funny voice isn’t near as important as the inflection, the tone, and the emotion behind the voice. Victor voiced Drizzt Do’Urden in R.A. Salvatores fantastic book series set in the Forgotten Realms. If you’ve ever heard the audiobooks, then you know that even though Drizzt’s voice is Victor’s voice, the emotion and tone are perfectly performed. So if nothing else, keep your same voice, but change the inflections and the tone and the emotion and no one will be bothered about the fact that you don’t do accents. They’ll be captivated by your performance just like Victor’s portrayal of Drizzt captivates.

I have to use minis

Now, you’re probably wondering why something like this would come from me, one of the founders of Monsters.Rent, a D&D mini subscription rental service…

Well, it’s because I truly believe that you don’t actually have to use minis. There are good reasons to use minis, but to be frank, if it is causing you headaches, then don’t bother with them.

I constantly say that at its heart, D&D is nothing more than a collaborative story. For that story you only need people, something to write, a story and an agreed-upon set of rules. Everything else is just extra layers. Sometimes in the world of being a dungeon master, you don’t have time to add the “extra layers” so don’t. Just do what you can and enjoy every second you can.

My players have to love every session

Obviously, we all want our players to love every single session. Honestly, it stings a little when you realize mid-session that your players are not having a fun time. There have been a few times when one player or another just hates what’s happening during the session. Because I’m a big softy, whenever this happens, I tend to lighten up things for that player and make it a little better.

But I don’t need to do that.

What I need to do is make sure the story is the best story they’ve ever heard.

In life, there are times that we really don’t like. But without fail, those times always teach us something and give us a different perspective. We may not like those difficult times, but we need the perspective. The same thing is true in a D&D session. Sometimes characters need the hard times to make their character more dynamic and to help them grow. If everything is easy, then the character’s life will be boring. Often, when things get difficult for the character, the player will not be happy, unless they are a masichist.

So rather than ensuring your players love every session, focus on helping your players love the campaign and the story. It’s not a perfect line to walk, but you can do it.

I can’t ask for help

Asking for help is a very difficult thing for some people. Most people I know who Dungeon Master, have become dungeon masters for one of a few reasons:

No One Else will do it.

This reason is very common. Not many people want to dive into being a dungeon master so there are a select few who bite the bullet and step up to the plate.

They want to tell a story

Others become DM’s because they want to learn how to tell good stories and they believe they are the ones that can do it. There is a certain amount of pride in these people. They feel that they are good storytellers and that they can make an amazing experience.

They Love Performing

Still others relish the thought of performing in front of others and being the actor at centerstage. Here too, there is a fair amount of pride.

With the last two reasons, pride is at the heart of why a person becomes a DM. That means for a lot of people, asking for help is a very hard thing to do. But take it from me. Just ask for help.

I’ve already mentioned before how I asked my cohost Tanner Weyland for some help with a one-shot I was planning. It was a prison break type one-shot, and he completely removed one of the barriers I was having in creating the one-shot just by asking a simple question.

Even in my current campaign, I asked my players to help me by hosting one-shots themselves so I could have a small break. There is nothing wrong with asking for a little help.

I’m not good enough to be a DM

I don’t want to spend too much time on this one because frankly, it’s completely erroneous. Let me just tell you something. Either you are good enough to be a DM, or no one is.

It’s a game for goodness sake. You may not do it as good as some of the more practice DMs, but that’s ok. It requires skills that need practice.

Honestly, I myself have dealt with some feelings of inadequacy. I’ve been DMing for a while now, I recently have played a couple one-shots with my buddy Jake Packham of the Dungeon Mastermind podcast. He is amazing! I asked him how many times he’s DMd and he said a handful… But he is still so much better than I am.

Guess what?

That is awesome!

That in no way makes me a worse DM. It just makes me want to play at Jake’s table that much more.

Instead of thinking how good everyone else is compared to you, spend time enjoying being a dungeon master. We tend to ruin ourselves by overthinking things.

Stop.

Just stop.

Enjoy the moment and you’ll realize that you are good enough and getting better everyday.

I have to be perfectly prepared

This last one might be controversial, but you don’t need to be perfectly prepared. There is such a thing as improvisation. Maybe you don’t have all the names of your NPCs perfectly picked out. No problem. Make them up.

You’ll probably make up some pretty silly names but once you get better, no one will think twice about the names you make up.

Maybe your players decide to follow an adventure hook that is really only half baked.

Great.

If you need to, put a pause on the session for 15 minutes to give you some time to prepare what comes next. That’s ok too.

No one has everything completely mapped out. No one needs to.

Instead, we need to roll with the punches, plan as much as we can and enjoy the game as it’s going along because we are a player in the game too.

Don’t forget that.

Often times, our expectations are what set us up for failure. Because D&D is a game, we should really lower our expectations of ourselves and our players. Simply enjoying the experience can make it much more enjoyable. Then again, expectations are what eventually make us great. Who’s to say that you shouldn’t hold yourself to the highest D&D standard. You could after all, become the world’s greatest DM who ever lived. If you do, I just ask that you invite me to your table once or twice. Thanks for listening to today’s show. We’ll be back next week for another amazing episode. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

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For Whom the Bell Tolls: Homebrew Collaboration Part 3

13 juli 2023 | 62 min

justin:

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I'm your co-host today, Justin Lewis, here with Tanner Wayland and Rob Van Auken. Go ahead and say hello, guys.

tanner_weyland:

Hey.

rob:

Good evening, everyone.

justin:

And you are joining How to be a Better DM in our mini-series on collaborating for homebrewing a adventure one-shot. And today, we wanted this to be raw and unfiltered, really, just to show you kind of the ins and outs of how to work with other people, the ebb and flow of ideas, and in our case, starting with one idea, refining it and kind of changing trajectory. Today we are going to be... going through our document that we've worked on together and kind of simplifying things, clarifying things, and we actually should be coming close to the end after I think we have everything figured out today. We should be able to send out some assignments to each of us, have things written up, and then probably the next time we'll have our final polishing session, but that might be wrong, so we'll see. And

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin:

we are

tanner_weyland:

sounds

justin:

just

tanner_weyland:

great.

justin:

starting at the top of the document. And then one, one. word of advice to all of us, if we can just try and describe whenever we're like that part there, try and describe for the audio listeners, because I know this, we're doing it in a visual way, but the audio listener might not be. So.

tanner_weyland:

Okay, perfect. Um, and, uh, just for the listeners, uh, we've honestly been working on this for a sec with Rob, but he is just, I just have to say he's wonderful to work with. And I appreciate that. Just had to throw that out there at the start.

rob:

Aw, thanks fellas.

justin:

Agreed.

rob:

I feel the same way about you guys. You guys are consummate professionals. I appreciate the willingness to work with a newcomer and I'm enjoying myself. And you know, this is hard. This is hard. We're in two different time zones. Our lives are doing things in different times. So writing is hard to begin with and to collaborate across time zones. At least we have the tools now to do that. But it's been a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to polishing this thing up.

justin:

Excellent, excellent.

tanner_weyland:

Love it.

justin:

So I figure we would start at the, well, so we have kind of a page that's above like the actual one shot. Do we need to work on any of that? And that's kind of some of our thoughts or do we need to just kind of forget about that?

tanner_weyland:

Honestly, I think this is old. Go

justin:

Okay.

tanner_weyland:

ahead Rob.

rob:

So

justin:

Alright.

rob:

this page just outlined our original ideas, our locations, and a couple of reminders for ourselves to do the three pillars and things like that. But yeah, I think this stuff is all. We can next this.

justin:

Sounds good. So then

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, um...

justin:

for the listener, there's a portion that says theme, setting, three pillars, location, timeline, and then assignments and reminder. I'm going to delete everything above assignments to theme because that is no longer useful. I'll leave the assignments one there unless we feel like we do need to delete that.

tanner_weyland:

Um, I th-

rob:

We can...

tanner_weyland:

go ahead. Uh,

rob:

After you, Dad.

tanner_weyland:

yeah, I just think- I think we could leave that section. I don't think- we're going, I think that we're going to have to probably modify the assignments as they stand. Cause right now we're like, Oh, each of us is making two NPC mentors right now. They would be trial givers probably.

justin:

Right.

tanner_weyland:

Um, and then a random NPC just to flesh out the world a little bit more. Um, I don't know if that's what we're going to be doing like next. Cause

justin:

Okay.

tanner_weyland:

cause this time just for the listener, since our last, uh, kind of meeting with Rob, we've come up with a lot of ideas. and really solidified the direction of the adventure. And because of that, I think there's just a lot of fat that we need to trim on the document in general.

justin:

For sure.

rob:

I'm all in favor of keeping the assignments heading but deleting the current assignments so that when we leave here tonight

justin:

Okay.

rob:

we at least can put something up there.

justin:

Yeah, I actually think we can delete the assignments

rob:

Thank you.

justin:

as well now that I think about it. So if you guys want. There's also on the right, I believe in that section, there were comments on the right, yeah. There's a comment saying, replacing the mentors, and this is talking about the assignments we'd given ourselves, replacing the mentors with trials or events. I think this entire section we could probably mark resolved because I think this is like, down the line where we start talking about using bells and doing the trials of bells. I think that's definitely what we're going for. Yeah. Excellent. Then, under that assignment section, there's a section that says reminder and then two bullet points for representation and beginner DM suggestions. I believe the beginner DM suggestions were for me and Tanner to create suggestions throughout the doc for new DMs. You can feel free to do the same thing, Rob. I'll just put that under each of us as an assignment.

rob:

for me.

justin:

Or I guess, sorry, I didn't mean to take your job, Rob.

rob:

No, no, no. I'm comfortable. Ha ha ha.

justin:

I'm kind of an idiot because I'm like, hey, can someone be the scribe? And then immediately I'm like,

rob:

Yeah.

justin:

oh, all rights. Anyways, sorry.

rob:

Not alone,

justin:

Yeah,

rob:

not

justin:

but

rob:

alone.

justin:

for the representation bullet, I don't remember what that was for. Do either of you remember what that was for?

rob:

So yeah, I actually added that because for new DM creators, and just for the listeners, where this is coming from is that I've taken a couple of courses with professional writing companies to kind of flesh this sort of game style out. And one of the things that... you know, they stress is to reminder for representation. So that just means having a diversity of characters, whether it be racial backgrounds or just backgrounds in general, you know, able-bodied characters and things of that nature and just having a widespread of different NPCs to populate your, you know, your adventure or your game. So I just want to make a mental note for us to kind of just keep that sort of thing in our focus, right? So that, you know, kind of like, you know. wash over everything.

justin:

Very well.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, especially since we still, I spent some time working on some NPCs, but I didn't really flesh out like them in depth. More like, oh, these were some of the trial givers. And like, I came up with a name, and obviously they didn't be related to that trial. But, you know, it's a great reminder that when you are fleshing out and making more dimensional. three-dimensional characters, you know, don't just make them all like yourself. It gets

rob:

Yeah, exactly,

tanner_weyland:

boring that

rob:

and

tanner_weyland:

way.

rob:

that's all that was supposed to be. It was just a visual reminder to do that.

justin:

Sounds good. Cool, so then moving on. The next block of text is the title of the one-shot. Rob, you had put down how to be a better DM presents for whom the bell tolls. And then over to the right, there's the comment of just an idea. So Tanner, do you think that's a good thing? Do you have any comments? Or same Rob, do you have any comments?

rob:

I didn't want to feel like you guys need to oblige you to attach your name to this, but I just thought because I wanted to give you guys the due credit.

justin:

Hahaha

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, it's not a bad idea. I think with our revised title idea, namely, For Whom the Belt Holes colon, the Chime Fall Ceremony, for that, if we attacked on how to be a better DM, then it does feel a little bit long, but like that's fine, if necessary, right? I don't know.

justin:

To be honest,

rob:

again, as it.

justin:

I would... Go ahead, Rob.

rob:

Visually, if that's a concern, I can, of course, put a catty corner of that. The big

tanner_weyland:

I like to kind of have

rob:

cover

tanner_weyland:

to sit.

rob:

text will say, for whom the bell tolls, the chime falls.

justin:

Right. I actually think we should do title, for whom the bell tolls, colon, the Chime Fall Ceremony, gosh. And then kind of as it is on one of the cover arts that you presented to us, at the bottom how it says, authored by Justin, Rob and Tanner, I think we should have like underneath that say, you know, produced by How to Be a Better DM or something like that. You know.

rob:

I love it. Yeah, that works for

justin:

Rather,

rob:

me. Yeah.

justin:

you know, like let the title be the title. But that's my personal opinion.

rob:

I

tanner_weyland:

Perfect.

rob:

dig that, I dig that. Things like that, the cosmetic things about where to put, we'll do a whole round of that before

justin:

for sure.

rob:

we send this off, and we'll all sign off on the things like that. Speaking

justin:

Exactly.

rob:

of which, I hope you guys like those covers, because I was digging

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

them. Ha ha ha.

justin:

Yeah, they're sweet.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, honestly, at some point, I don't know if we want to do this now or at the end or something, we should pull those up and kind of just vote on which

justin:

Yeah,

tanner_weyland:

style

justin:

yeah,

tanner_weyland:

we like.

justin:

we can...

rob:

Yeah, we'll

justin:

What

rob:

do

justin:

do you

rob:

that.

justin:

guys

rob:

We'll

justin:

prefer?

rob:

do that. We'll re- We

justin:

Gotcha.

rob:

can do that at the end. Yeah, we'll wrap it up.

justin:

Yeah, sounds good. Tanner, do you want to lead us through like the next two sections, so tips for DMing and setting?

tanner_weyland:

Yeah. Um, so the tips for DMing, uh, basically it was just the idea that since we are about a podcast about how to be a better DM, uh, then we would actually have like. So a lot of adventures will have some general tips about like, oh, for this part, do this and this, but it's more just what to flesh out what the writer had in mind. What we want to do is have some tips for how they could do it better as a DM, like just in general, like just period, right? And so as far as echoes, I think this section, not a whole lot. to say other than I picture like the tips kind of like being off to the side of each

justin:

Mm-hmm.

tanner_weyland:

section you know. Like an example would be oh it's a it's a social encounter and giving some advice about like how to embody a character and how to draw out quieter characters like things like that right. That's

rob:

Yeah,

tanner_weyland:

a great

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

that's

tanner_weyland:

example.

rob:

a perfect example.

justin:

One

tanner_weyland:

Yeah

justin:

thing

tanner_weyland:

go ahead.

justin:

kind of came to mind just as you were saying that is some of these tips might come to our minds as we actually DM this for a live table, you know, so that might be part of kind of our beta testing. You know, we put together different one shots each of us or something and we see how it goes and we kind of take notes. But that's something we can decide later as you know, just kind of. Think about that if that's something you want to do.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

I think that works for the whole idea of this is how to be a better DM. I think those DM tips are clutch for newcomers too because we're making this very beginner friendly. It's our hope, I would think, that when we finish this, somebody who's never played the game of Dungeon & Dragons before or any RPG could pick this up and plop this into a home brew campaign or just say, you know what, I just want to test the waters with this and it's a one shot, it's non-committal, it's built for three, four hours. Let me try this out. But I really don't know where to start. Like you said, Tanner, it's a perfect example of the social encounters or maybe a tip on how to manage combat or we're gonna have these trials that are set up for characters' ability levels. And originally we were gonna have, I think it was six, and now because of what we've been discussing, we might have just an appendix of these different events that we would recommend. Pick three,

justin:

Yeah.

rob:

if you have three characters, or double up on the events. to the number of

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

rob:

players that you have. And pick ones that are catered to their ability scores, right? So you're not sending out a barbarian to do a bard's work with a bunch of Charisma checks. You know?

justin:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

Exactly. Yeah. And so I think for now, as we talk about this, you too, let's, let's make sure that along with, you know, especially as we make more of an outline of the actual adventure, like step by step, that we'd be thinking about that, about these DM tips, and

justin:

Mm-hmm.

tanner_weyland:

just like kind of make a little like side bullet point for like, oh, DM tip. And then

justin:

now.

tanner_weyland:

for now, before we flesh it out, we can just do like, you know, like a sentence, just kind of getting the gist of it. And then once we're like really fleshing this out, we can present each of those tips in a, in a more specific or more instructive way. Okay.

justin:

Agreed. You guys wanna read through the setting blurb and see if there's anything we need to change?

tanner_weyland:

Okay,

rob:

there

tanner_weyland:

I'll read

rob:

is.

tanner_weyland:

this.

justin:

Hahaha

rob:

This needs to

tanner_weyland:

So,

rob:

be updated.

tanner_weyland:

setting, this encounter can be set in any village or city. In this encounter, the PCs encounter an event hosted by the Regional Adventuring Guild. The Guild is in search of new adventurers, and they have designed a series of trials to test new applicants. This adventure is designed for... four to six level one characters. Players will develop to level two after this encounter. The difficulty can be adjusted at the DM's discretion. So this was the original thing that we came up with. I think that... We've kind of decided it's not, yeah, it could be in any village or city. You know, we kind of pictured this as a ceremony. Or do we want to make the village or city like Chime Fall? I thought it was just going to be like the Academy name, essentially.

justin:

Yeah. I- Go ahead Rob.

rob:

Well, I was thinking, so location setting, I think, well, I'm really partial to both the two names that you came up with, Jinglefell and Chimefall. Chimefall sounds like a really cool name for the ceremony in Jinglefell, which by the way, I think it's perfect timing for the holidays. But to have this located in the city of Jinglefell and this be the Chimefall ceremony, I think makes some sense. Now what that would entail is now our task, right? Like how do we fit these trials into the Chime Fall Ceremony? And like right off the bat, what is the Chime Fall Ceremony? Why are they having it? What does it do? Is this a once a year thing? Is this a once in a decade thing? I'm intrigued. I wanna know more. There's a little bit of lore building to this, I think, but I don't wanna go too crazy down that rabbit hole cause I will. Right? But I think for the setting, if we say this can be set in any village or city, this encounter is... uh... posted by this the city of jinglesville with the event of the child also said by the city of jinglesville i think is enough to kind of just kept our the planted

justin:

Yeah, I would

rob:

are

justin:

add,

rob:

you guys

justin:

go ahead, in the wording I would say this encounter can be set in any region in the city of Jinglefell. So basically if you're a DM, you can add this city anywhere, you know, and kind of flavor it to the region. Or, well, maybe we could put in a note like as a DM tip like hey, if you don't want to, you don't have to call it Jinglefell. You could just make it any city. Like this could happen in Waterdeep in like one of the neighborhoods or something.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, one thing I like about this, so I noticed one of you highlighted this, I think it was Rob, but the regional adventurer in Guild. So there's that option. there's also the option that we go a little bit more high level or I don't know if high level is the word for it but we basically make it a little bit more specific and have it be like hey this academy in the city or maybe just this city like has a tradition of like creating or choosing through trials like certain people who become like a like a...

Political D&D Campaigns: Let's Roll for Political Office

6 juli 2023 | 22 min

The Chimefall Ceremony: Homebrew Project Building with Rob Van Auken Part 2

29 juni 2023 | 44 min

justin_lewis:

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I'm Justin Lewis and I'm here with Rob Van Auchen. I said that right, right?

rob:

Yes, you did.

justin_lewis:

Awesome. And today we are continuing our mini series on a specific homebrew project that we are making with Rob. And today's gonna be a little bit different kind of an episode. For those of you who are new to the show, this is the show where we help you learn how to craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions. of D&D 5e and soon to be 1D&D. That is the

rob:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

huge thing. Yeah. So today, usually we talk about different tips, techniques, practices. Today we're actually kind of going to get into the making of the sausage, as you will. I'm not huge on that phrase, but that's what we're doing, in showing you how to work on a homebrew project such as a one-shot or a mini adventure or an encounter. but also how to collaborate with someone. So that way as a DM, you're not just doing it by yourself. You can reach out to other DMS or even players and take some load off of your shoulders and make it more fun and connect with other people. So to catch you up, last time we started work on essentially a festival slash recruiting event from a guild slash Academy of Adventurers. Because in this organization's past, recent past, they've lost a fair number of their members and they are trying to replenish. So the adventure slash one-shot will take place in really any city we want to make this agnostic towards any particular setting. And really the point is to introduce your characters to this academy slash guild and have them do trials, tests to see if they get in. And then we'll see what else happens. Uh, so let's go away with it. And actually on that note, uh, Rob, I was thinking, why do we have to limit it to a guild or an academy? We could just in it, just say guild slash Academy, uh, up to the DM's discretion. Cause really there's not that much of a difference, you know, like

rob:

Absolutely. I love that. I think that's a great idea to kind of, or even give them a randomized table to kind of have that decision.

justin_lewis:

Yeah,

rob:

But yeah,

justin_lewis:

exactly.

rob:

we want to leave the DM some room to wiggle, right?

justin_lewis:

Yeah, yeah. And it'll be awesome to, although I am particularly partial to Robric's Academy of Adventuring the Name, what maybe we'll put that as, you know, in one of those appendix tables of names for your academy slash guild. But I think going that route will probably be a lot better than making us choose, we'll just let them choose.

rob:

I'm a, as I've gained some years under my belt as a DM, I have learned to lean into, I've learned to embrace uncertainty. And some of my best moments were when I had no idea what I was going to do. And in those moments, I may have leaned on a random table of something like the affiliates, a table of names or a table of weird things that take place. And so I love providing random tables, anything from D4s to D100s to just, You know, you need something, roll the die, and you're off and running. And I try and make those tables as provocative as possible so that the DM has some wiggle room to kind of insert and do what they want to do.

justin_lewis:

I love that, I love that. So let's go over some of the comments that we'd both made starting at the top. Let's,

rob:

Sure. I also

justin_lewis:

sorry.

rob:

just for your listeners who can't see what we're looking at right now, and then first of all, this is a lot of fun, right? So this is my first collaboration with another DM of any sort outside of like my homebrew groups and whatnot. And for those who are listening, like our tools, like what we're using to collaborate currently has been, we've been using Google Docs, which is really simple and straightforward and free for everybody. And some of the templates that we've. have borrowed from are from the DMs Guild, where they have a whole section on creator resources. So if you're a young DM or you're a young game designer and you're looking to get started and writing stuff is part and parcel for your happiness in life, by all means head on over to the DMs Guild and check out some of their creator templates. And my other really great resource has been an organization called Storytellers Collective or Stoko. as you'll hear me refer to them as, and they have these great sort of learn at your own pace workshops where they provide some templates, but they also provide you really good advice. And so that's kind of been my growth as a writer. And so for those of you who are listening, it's all me, check it out. But anyway,

justin_lewis:

So that

rob:

back

justin_lewis:

was

rob:

to you.

justin_lewis:

Storytellers Collective, you said?

rob:

Yeah, Storytellers Collective has been, it's cool because they're relatively inexpensive for their courses and a lot of the ones that they offer are free. But it's kind of like here's a writing workshop in 30 days and they give you these sort of projects to do at your own pace over that course and they attach a Discord to each of them so that as you're working through them, even if they offered a course, you know, three years ago, you could still hop on a Discord and get some somebody who's manning the ship over there to kind of give you some feedback. And they have everything from like creating treasure, to creating loot, to creating puzzles, to how to write your first adventure, how to write your first encounter. And one of the first things I published was with them, and it got published in their anthology, which is nice, because they do these things every summer and every spring, and it's a nice way to get your name out there that's attached to sort of a bigger entity to kind of help you into the process.

justin_lewis:

Wow, that's awesome. I'm actually gonna have to check that out for myself.

rob:

I'm looking forward to that. I think they do one in the fall too. I've always contributed to the spring encounter and the spring one is challenging because it's like a one-page encounter and it's a lot harder than it sounds. You think one page? That's easy. You wind up chopping out so much of what you want just to get it onto the page. But I digress. Back to our one-shot.

justin_lewis:

Yeah. So, um, as, as I mentioned before, the kind of the, the way that the, the story goes in this, in this one shot adventure, uh, is the party members go to this city or they find themselves in this city. It doesn't really matter how they get there. They just, they're there and they discover this festival for joining this, uh, guild or academy. And originally we thought that there would be like mentors. that would be offering trials, kind of like an internship or apprenticeship. Rob made the suggestion that, uh, instead we switch it to doing six ability score kind of trials and things like that. Um, one thought that I had on that is we definitely need to be very careful in doing that. So that way the, the trials and feats aren't, aren't just dice rolls. Like, I get worried that, you know, the person goes and does a constitution trial and all they can do is just a dice roll over and over again. So I guess I want to think of how we can make it so there can be other ways they can like think through certain problems as a player to supplement, you know,

rob:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

their

rob:

and that's

justin_lewis:

dice rolls.

rob:

a wise decision, actually. Sometimes I get so caught up in the mechanism that I sometimes sacrifice the gameplay for half a second, but that's why this collaboration's cool, because you're there to check me on those things.

justin_lewis:

For sure. No, and I feel the same way.

rob:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

Like,

rob:

so

justin_lewis:

reverse.

rob:

if in my mind's eye, I picture any one of our six events structured around any particular ability score, and so... What that would look like is there's like a feat of strength trial or there's a trial of constitution and trial of dexterity. And the players decide they want to head over there and test their metal. One of the complications. I can think of a few actually We can kind of go back to our original idea with not necessarily a mentor, but let's make a really interesting NPC as the host of that particular trial and maybe that NPC is really accommodating or maybe that NPC is really antagonistic and sort of, you know, criticizes the players and thinks that they'll fail. And I'm thinking of like the old fashioned guy at the dunk tank, right? Who, you know, he sits there and you can't, you know, dunk me and maybe before they throw their dexterity role to knock the jester into the dunk tank, they have to roll a constitution or charisma save. And if they fail it, there's some kind of, they have to roll with disadvantage, right? So there is some kind of. push and pull there. It is a series of dice rolls, but it's also like this role playing opportunity to how does your character respond to the jester at the

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

dunk tank. Another complication that we could do is we could have opponents or other people that are applying or attempting the same trial and thus it's not just simply a matter of do I get the highest dice roll and defeat this particular trial, do I defeat the other characters dice rolls, right? You can also add an easy, medium, hard opponent. So there's one character who is going to roll a DC5. There's

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

another character who's got your DC10, but maybe the top character is a DC15. And so as you're trying to best these other opponents, that is the case. And then my third choice would be it's not just a dice roll, but it's more like a dice roll tree. so that depending on your role, there are various outcomes that sort of fork off and any one particular dice roll can steer you into a series of different mishaps or benefits. So I think those are probably three ways to spice this up that excite

justin_lewis:

for sure.

rob:

me when I think about them.

justin_lewis:

particularly

rob:

Back to you.

justin_lewis:

like number two and three, I think we could, and I see what you mean with kind of your comment, excuse me, your comment going back to the one page competition that you entered in. I see how this can easily blossom into something a little bit too expansive, you know, cause I'm like, yeah, we could just make this giant table of all these NPCs and. And I'm totally up for it, but I'm worried about, you know, like the

rob:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

poor sap on the other end of the paper. But I do like the opponent's idea, because like you said, it's a very good role-playing opportunity where you can point out and say, hey, this one particular guy seems to have your number, you know.

rob:

Yeah, and I think of course the opponent, I guess, sits better for certain trials, right? So the trial by strength, if we were to say, and we've spit fired a couple, but if we produce a randomized table, a D4 table, and one of them is a cart lift and one of them is a fight pit, the fight pit is a perfect example of how to incorporate the opponents, right? It is a little combat heavy, but the idea that, you know, there's four guys in a ring doing all sort of like little mini battle Royale. And one of them is the DC five strength and one of the DC 10, one of the, you could kind of see, but also like, um, you know, adding opponents, you could watch them interact with each other too. So like the heavy hitter can knock out the lightweight and then you're stuck with the middle guy and then. You know, what happens

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

again at the DM's

justin_lewis:

I really

rob:

discretion.

justin_lewis:

liked that. I really liked that. Speaking of the fight pit, the way, the way just how you described it, have you ever heard of Florentine football?

rob:

If not, tell me more.

justin_lewis:

So you'll have to look it up. It's like one of the craziest sports that for some reason is still around. It's, it's an Italian thing. And I think it's only like one city. There's like 10 teams or something. Um, but essentially it's football with, uh, and you know, football, like American football has different roles and stuff. Um, there are running backs, there are grapplers, there are strikers, meaning like pugilists, like punchers. Um, and you watch it and you see people trying to run a ball and then over in the corner you see two people just punching each other and then next to them there are two people grappling on the ground. It's like the weirdest mix of just every sport. They're like, let's throw in punchers to football

rob:

boxing

justin_lewis:

or whatever.

rob:

with...

justin_lewis:

Yeah, no, it's insane. But...

rob:

I feel like I feel a grand finale in my head now.

justin_lewis:

Yeah,

rob:

You know, like a looking at sounding a

justin_lewis:

honestly,

rob:

lot like for learning football.

justin_lewis:

that might be like the good, like the big incursion. Like, you know, they're

rob:

Yeah, yeah.

justin_lewis:

at a certain point, they're just like, ah, we don't have time. So we're just going to throw everyone in this pit and everyone do get out,

rob:

Right,

justin_lewis:

which

rob:

right.

justin_lewis:

would

rob:

Or

justin_lewis:

be

rob:

even like

justin_lewis:

kind

rob:

a

justin_lewis:

of funny.

rob:

good old-fashioned royal rumble, you know. Oh

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

man, that's great. That's great. But again, I thank you for admitting that you see the scope of this kind of like potentially getting too large because

justin_lewis:

for sure.

rob:

I have suffered many a dropped project by continuing to build and build and build. And actually it was the, I go back to Storytellers trained my brain to, it's better to produce something small than never not to produce it all. And rather than continue to build and get discouraged for young writers out there and young DMs, you know, keep it keep it simple. Right. My most complex adventures started from something small, right.

justin_lewis:

Love that.

rob:

Better to really flesh out something narrow, I think, that you cast too wide a net and get lost.

justin_lewis:

Yeah. To that note then, I think with your kind of Bell's idea, maybe we might be better with just sticking with like the trials named Trial of Constitution and so on, especially if this is geared towards newer DMS. We're trying to kind of bring them in. And again, to your earlier point, I should probably with some of the tables that I've made, like simplify them down and then put them as like appendices or something like that. So that way

rob:

deeper

justin_lewis:

it

rob:

options.

justin_lewis:

is

rob:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

a lot more

rob:

again,

justin_lewis:

simple.

rob:

I don't see anything too wrong with a random table of D8, even D12. I just keeping in mind the rookie DM who, like myself,

justin_lewis:

Yeah,

rob:

once upon

justin_lewis:

no yeah.

rob:

a time, wanted to do everything and

justin_lewis:

100%

rob:

thus

justin_lewis:

Yeah

rob:

decided, I'm going to have eight trials of constitution. in my fair and make them go through every single one of them.

justin_lewis:

So I think then what we might do is I'll simplify the table down. I'll keep the table in the appendix. I'll simplify it down to just four, and then say everyone does two events no matter what, no matter how many players you have. And then if they want to do more, they can see the appendix.

rob:

Actually, you just sparked something that I remembered or forgot, I guess. You just reminded me to circle back to this. On our cover page or on our insert page, it's always nice to provide would-be consumers with the levels for the anticipated party and the amount of time. So, for example, this might be a four to six hour event or game. with level one to five players, something like that. So our trial should reflect the difficulty of the anticipated player party. And

justin_lewis:

For sure.

rob:

anything above or below that would be at the DM's discretion to enhance the difficulty checks and things of that nature. But I guess in my head, I'm picturing this as a level four adventure or encounter, we should say, for a party of four to six. That sound right to you.

justin_lewis:

Level 4. When you say level 4, what do you mean? Like,

rob:

I'm

justin_lewis:

the

rob:

sorry,

justin_lewis:

party's at level 4?

rob:

I misspoke, a four hour adventure for levels one through four,

justin_lewis:

Ah,

rob:

levels

justin_lewis:

gotcha.

rob:

one through five. Sorry.

justin_lewis:

No, yeah, that makes sense. I would definitely say, um, three to four hour is what I would put it as, especially

rob:

Perfect.

justin_lewis:

for the newer DMs, just so that way they're not like, Oh gosh, I have to do this for four hours instead. We can be like, nah, you can stop it. You can stop it too. If you guys are having fun and you know, that box is checked. Um, you know, I think that's

rob:

And

justin_lewis:

a good idea.

rob:

what I really love about this idea is that it's really a collection of encounters, right? And for those of you listening, we started as we're gonna write an encounter. And then we were like, well, maybe we'll write an adventure. And we've kind of done something in the middle. And this is really episodic. So if you...

D&D and Self-Improvement: How to Improve Your DMing Skills

22 juni 2023 | 16 min

Tanner Weyland:

Hello and welcome to How to be a Better DM. My name is Tanner Wayland and together we're all gonna learn how to make wonderful adventures for our players. I'm here with Justin Lewis. Justin, how you doing?

Justin:

A little sick, but I'm alive and well, so that's good.

Tanner Weyland:

I know, I know. Justin and I were gonna have a barbecue with some friends and that's right around the time that my wife started feeling sick. Justin was like, hey, I'm sick. And then the weather got bad. So, you know, the gods above were like, no, you're not having that barbecue. But we're just happy that you're feeling better.

Justin:

Thank you.

Tanner Weyland:

Um, so today we're going to actually talk about kind of a general topic and it's something that you could honestly apply elsewhere, but, uh, we're talking about improving as a DM and how you can plan for that. Uh, what do I mean? So if any of you have heard the, uh, the, of the book, seven habits of highly effective people, uh, on the seventh habit, so to speak is, uh, sharpening the saw. At least I believe that's how they phrase it, right?

Justin:

Mm-hmm.

Tanner Weyland:

And with that habit, it's all about like, hey, you're not going to improve bit by bit if you're not planning for it and setting plans that will make you successful in the end, right? And now we put out a lot of episodes about like, hey, you can get better in this way or this way or how you speak with your players or communicate or plan. All of that is good and it's fine and dandy, but You know, I think some people and I'm included with this sometimes when I'm trying to get better. I I kind of take the marination approach where I'm like, oh i'll just listen i'll read a bunch of books I'll listen to some podcasts things like that and then I don't actually end up I don't know justin if this happens with you, but like I just kind of hope that i'll through Photosynthesis

Justin:

Osmosis. Yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

osmosis. Yeah, then i'll just get better instead of actually planning. Does that happen with you?

Justin:

Yeah, 100%. Especially, and it's kind of hard with this type of thing because it's a hobby for most people. And that's where things, especially for hobbies for me, where I tend to be more reactive with my growth and less decisive and intentional. And for more clarification, I believe the term sharpen your saw for this habit. in the book comes from a famous saying, I don't want to misattribute it, but I think it comes from Abraham Lincoln who said something like, if you give me four hours to chop a tree down, I'll spend the first three sharpening my saw. And it's really that idea that by spending dedicated time improving, it should simplify and streamline the actual activity and task itself. So I think this is a great topic to do today.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, I absolutely agree. And so we're going to jump right in about how you can kind of set yourself up for success, uh, so that you aren't stagnating as a DM, but every time your players are like, wow, they've improved, you know, which, and once again, improvement isn't a negative thing. All of us could improve, uh, in different ways. And in the end, it's going to mean that you have a more fun time and you're going to be less stressed as a DM just straight up. So, Justin, how about you? How would you recommend people improve?

Justin:

So the very first thing I would say to do, and I would probably recommend this to people even outside of Dungeons and Dragons, just as a life skill, practice writing daily. And the reason why I say that is because successful people produce and everyone else consumes. You can spend lots of time reading, but if you spend even a quarter of that writing, you've created something new theoretically that the world didn't have before and maybe this is just top of mind for me because I've been trying to get my dad to adopt like a daily writing goal but ever since I adopted one and I use a tool called Write Track I believe it's called it's not sophisticated or anything but I love it you can set monthly goals or you can set daily goals and I've talked about this before but I set a monthly goal right which breaks down into a daily goal, but if I get ahead today, it affects how much I actually have to write tomorrow because I'm much more motivated to get done early. I don't know why, that's just how I work. And even when I do get done early, I just start the next month. But daily writing for me has really pushed me because there are those days where you have writer's block, which is just a fancy way of saying you don't know what to write. because you want to write everything well and you feel like what you write will not be good. But having a daily limit, or not limit, but goal. So right now my goal is essentially 500 words per day. And I split that up between a couple different projects, but doing that pushes me out of my comfort zone. It's comfortable to write when you have a great idea. It's uncomfortable to write when you have nothing. right? But it's also helped me start to learn some tricks so that way I don't have moments when I don't have ideas, right? And I'm talking about note taking during your sessions. And I think that might also be a whole other topic but I can't hammer down enough writing every day.

Tanner Weyland:

Okay, yeah, I agree with that because you know, DMs, we as DMs are inherently creative, right? We're always trying to come up with new ideas and everything. And, and if you're making that practice of writing, it could be writing about your next session. It could be writing about the story. It could be writing even about like how you felt you did, right? Like that kind of journaling, self-reflection, all of that can really help. Um,

Justin:

And one thing

Tanner Weyland:

yeah.

Justin:

I'd like to add is by writing every day, it splits the session prep and makes it a lot more manageable, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

Because really, writing 500 words, it takes me, and again, I'm not saying these words are perfect, but it takes me 10 to 15 minutes, okay? Now, obviously, session prep deals with some reading and stuff, so that's not accounted for, but. Words on paper, that's still something, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, absolutely. And on top of that, you know, if you're doing that kind of personal work, then I also think that's a great time to introduce some. some skill learning, some external work, so to speak. That could be, you know, if you're worried about your improv, which is a lot of DMing, right, it's kind of just being on the fly, it's worrying about, you know, how to react to what your players are doing in a way that isn't always defensive, but even just, you know, it's playful with what they're doing. You can train that, right? There are improv classes. Beyond that, there are also great books, like when we were talking with Victor last week, Victor Bevin, He recommended this book, Improvisation for the Theatre by Viola Spolin. And that's something you can read, but he was like, yeah, it was really helpful for me. And so honestly, it's worth looking up opportunities to kind of get yourself even out of your DM comfort zone so that you can, like once you're in the DM seat, you have a little bit more flexibility.

Justin:

100% agree to that. My brother-in-law, last time, so he's in my D&D campaign, he's one of the players, last week, he wasn't actually able to attend because he was attending a voice acting class that was offered as a continuing education class at our local university, UVU, Utah Valley University. I don't think it cost him more than 50 to 100 bucks for the class. And classes like that are very valuable because they're not tied to a grade or some arbitrary degree. I don't really like degrees, but that's my opinion. And you're paying for it. The level of involvement is a little bit higher. It's a little bit more worth it to you because you're taking time out of your day, you're taking money out of your pocket for something that is not going to bring you some sort of tangential, no not tangential, but tangible, excuse me, result. So I think experimenting with those types of classes would be a really good idea.

Tanner Weyland:

Yep, totally agree. Otherwise, I would say, aside from finding out those kinds of classes, doing improv, also, just a little plug here, if you ever wanted to kind of create your own like D&D maps or draw or anything like that, if there's any area that you're just kind of self-conscious about, work on it. That's one of the biggest things about improvement personally. But as a DM, there's so many different talents that like you deal with often, right? If you're constantly like, man, I wish this map just existed, but it's so hard to find the specific map I want, then take a drawing class, you know? I know as the person in my family that is literally the worst at art personally. I'm it's something I've always been self conscious about and like there are times and honestly with justin saying this i'm like You know, I should take an art class or you know something right? Um, just to get over that self-consciousness But this is kind of the end point None of this is going to happen if you don't plan for it that means that uh honestly during that time when you're when you're writing or right after, when you're doing your daily or weekly planning, put into that your goals and be like, okay, for this next session, I'm going to focus on, Tanner and Justin were talking about the, about improv, I'm going to really focus on. yes anding people. You know, if they have an idea, I'm going to try and roll with it instead of trying to show them how it's nonsensical, right? And then you like, while you're writing daily, leading up to it, you're having ideas about that goal. And also if you need a class, then you actually like daily You know, you plan that goal for like, hey, in two weeks I'm gonna go to class. And you spend that time researching the class, signing up. And then once you're signed up, you go to the class and you're great. You know, you just have to be cognizant of these goals and put them into your schedule, you know?

Justin:

100%. And I would... Excuse me. I would even say don't forget about the soft skills that are a little bit harder to identify and quantify. One such example, as Tanner said, when you go into a session, you can say, I'm going to work on this. There's been numerous times when I've realized during sessions I've been a little bit tense. I could feel the tenseness in my back. And I... was rushing things in the campaign and, you know, it was just not as relaxed and fluid. So in certain sessions, I've literally told myself, today I'm gonna practice taking a breath, like literally breathing, relaxing, and pausing even. And those types of things are important because your players, they take their cues off of you, right? But that just goes to show you that these skills that we're building, aren't just writing fantasy or painting minis, right? They're applicable all across lots of areas of life and vice versa, you know? So maybe you want to work on cooking, right? Find some Dungeons and Dragons recipes that you can actually incorporate into your game. Bring your players to... bring your characters to a tavern and tell them, hey, this is what you can order. And then when they order it, bring it out on a platter, that builds the immersion and it builds your cooking skills and vice versa. So definitely look for skills that you wouldn't normally think of and find some way to integrate them and build goals around them as well.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, and that's one of the things I love about DMing. A lot of people think, you know, you see the Matt Mercer's of the world and you think, oh, that's what being a great DM is. But here's what actually being a great DM is. It's being the kind of DM that creates a very fun and interesting environment for your players, right? And yes, that is storytelling. Yes, that's, you know, how creative you are, you know, the minis and stuff you use, sure. But beyond that, like when you're having a game Or with some people that you know, you would like to be closer with the soft skills like cooking or you know having fun time That's gonna do nearly as much or even more good than just planning an epic campaign and stuff like that, right? And so I guess that's just kind of where we want to end off We know that you can get better as a DM. That's what we're trying to do And it's little by little so long as we're planning for it And, um, yeah, just any final thoughts.

Justin:

I think probably the biggest thing that will help you improve, that we didn't mention here, is to get feedback. This could be from people one time, or you could set up some sort of accountability partner or battle buddy. I don't know, you can call it whatever you want, but get someone who's willing to tell you things as they really are and accept that. feedback and grow from it. Honestly thinking, you know what, this feedback is a gift because now I have an idea of what I can do to move forward.

Tanner Weyland:

Great, I love that. Ending on peer review. Peer review works.

Justin:

I love it.

Tanner Weyland:

Okay, everybody, get out there. Go make a wonderful next session by planning for it and planning how you wanna improve. Go have some fun, learn some new skills. Sharpen your other ones. And until next time, let's roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

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How to Make Impactful D&D One-Shots

15 juni 2023 | 21 min

What The Future Holds for How to Be a Better DM

8 juni 2023 | 18 min

Justin: Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I am Justin Lewis here with Tanner Wayland. Go ahead and say hello, Tanner.

Tanner Weyland:

Hey Justin, hey everybody.

Justin:

And today we are celebrating our 100th episode. It is mind-boggling to think that we've been doing this for 100 episodes and thinking you know one episode a week that's almost that's a little over no that's just under two years of doing this show and the amount of growth we've seen has been just phenomenal. First thing before we do anything else on today's show, we just wanted to give a big thank you to all of you listeners out there, you in particular, and

Tanner Weyland:

Hahaha

Justin:

make you aware of our deep gratitude for allowing us to do this. And when I say allow, I mean podcasting is somewhat lonely, right? But we've had certain experiences of... listeners reaching out and helping us remember that we're not alone and we're not just speaking into a you know a windstorm but What we're putting out is actually being received and you know you guys like it which is which is even more gratifying So a big thank you to you guys

Tanner Weyland:

Absolutely. It's been, you know, kind of shocking how much you guys care about what we have to say. And you know, we put work into this, but a lot of people put a lot of work into things, and it doesn't get reciprocated at all. And we just, we really appreciate, you know, knowing that you guys are listening, and that there's a big community out there who's trying to improve, you know, they're DMing right alongside us, you know?

Justin:

Absolutely, absolutely. So today's show, it's not going to be like normal shows to be honest. We're going to be a little bit more loose, a little bit more just random, I guess. But we wanted to talk about some of our thoughts for what we see moving forward and our goals and desires and wishes for how to be a better DM and betterdungeonmaster.com and kind of what we want to build moving forward. You know, as we get started, just wanted to ask Tanner, is there anything specific that you personally would just think would be the coolest thing to do or anything like that?

Tanner Weyland:

Um, something that I've really liked the idea of because, you know, in one of our recent podcasts, we were talking about peer reviewing and, and I think it's such a powerful tool for improving, uh, is just having that kind of critical look at specific moment to moments of DMing. Uh, something we really want to do is, uh, you know, provide some content where we're actually reviewing, uh, you know, some of our one shots and some that maybe other people send us. Uh, we, uh, I really like that idea. Cause I think seeing someone DM in action, it's a very different experience from talking about it in the theoretical, you know? Uh, so that's something that I'm really excited about. We've, uh, we've discussed, you know, uh, we're, you know, this is a little bit of a, Jump ahead, but we're doing a membership on our site and you know, we're gonna be posting some of the Recordings of our one shots, but we also thought it would be great to alongside that maybe at the same tier or a different tier of membership, do commentary on that, where we're like, hey, let's take this moment by moment, pause during the one shot and just talk about like, hey, here's what I loved about what they're doing or what we're doing if we're the ones podcasting or hey, here's maybe, they did okay here, here's how it could have been improved. And that kind of idea excites me a lot.

Justin:

I really like that too. Just the fact of, and I think we did this once before and we put it out as an episode,

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

but looking at your dungeon mastering skills, not in a you're a terrible person kind of way, but in a man this would be so cool if you just did it this way, right? And thinking back to the episode that we did, I was the one being critiqued. and it was my Trouble in Autumn's Grace one-shot. And going through that critique, we only went through like the first 20 minutes, but even that really helped me improve the intro of that one-shot, specifically with regards to an NPC, the mayor of the town, and where he comes in and where you find him and meet him. Going through that critique really helped me kind of- streamline that and improve that a lot. So that is definitely something I'm looking forward to. As far as the membership goes, that's something that's kind of been a long time coming. We just released it. It's pretty new. It's in its infant state. The way I see it right now, right now, we... It's $1.33 a month. The 33 cents covers the cost for our payment gateway. So it's really just And the way I see that is our basic membership will always be $1.33. As we grow and we provide more content, we'll probably create higher levels. And at the time when we create any higher level, I think we will upgrade everyone in the previous levels, kind of one up, right? And grandfather them into that. So anyone who has signed up for the basic subscription now. When we create future levels, they'll just get moved up, pay the same price as they were always paying, but have access to the new stuff. That's the way I see it.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

And as far as that membership, right now we are creating VTT maps, so virtual tabletop maps on Dungeon Alchemist, putting those up, you can download those and use those in your campaigns online. Any of our one-shot videos we're going to put up there as well, we're going to stop Streaming those, I think, is what we said, Tanner.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah, so we're going to stop streaming the one shots, but we're going to put those up on the membership so anyone can see those on the membership. And then we're also creating a course. Right now we're in the midst of creating a beginner Dungeon Master course and putting that up on the membership so anyone who has a membership can access that course. And obviously we're going to do more courses like that in the future. Is there anything else that I'm forgetting that we were going to add to the membership? Oh, the Discord, so anyone who signs

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

up for the membership can join our Discord and, you know, come party with me and Tanner.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, yeah, we had a member join just the other day. And we were talking all about maps. I was amazed at how many maps he just had just sketched out in his notebook. I was

Justin:

Right?

Tanner Weyland:

like, gosh, I love this.

Justin:

So cool,

Tanner Weyland:

And

Justin:

so cool.

Tanner Weyland:

we were just talking about like, he had this idea of doing a campaign in like essentially a Costco, a fantasy Costco or, or a real one. I, you know, and I was like, I love this. What could you do with the samples? Could the samples be buffs? Could some of them

Justin:

Ha ha

Tanner Weyland:

be

Justin:

ha

Tanner Weyland:

a

Justin:

ha.

Tanner Weyland:

trap? Um, and anyway, loved it. Uh, sorry, sorry to distract.

Justin:

No, no, no, I think that's so great. And that's just one of the benefits of coming in the Discord and just being able to shoot the breeze with anyone who really likes being a Dungeon Master. I think those are our plans for the membership right now. The next thing we're going to really focus on is one-shots. We're going to make a big push to have our one-shot scheduled up on our website so... You know, like, it's just easier to plan, easier to kind of work through that

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

and stuff like that.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, it's great. And honestly, probably one of the big things that I'm excited for is Justin's having a baby.

Justin:

Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, my wife is pregnant and she is due... Hold on. Sorry, I just got a text. Yeah, just give me one second.

Tanner Weyland:

You're fine.

Justin:

Sorry, someone just needed something and they're about to go somewhere, so I needed to tell them. Anyways,

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, you're fine.

Justin:

yeah, so our baby is due in August and they will be the newest member of the Better Dungeon Master team. And just super excited to be a dad, interested to see how it's gonna change my life and change this. Hopefully it shouldn't change the podcast too much, but time will tell. And then,

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah,

Justin:

go ahead.

Tanner Weyland:

oh go ahead. Anyway, I was just gonna say that we will definitely give Justin a break there, probably

Justin:

Yeah

Tanner Weyland:

record a lot beforehand so that he has that time to spend with the baby.

Justin:

One other thing as far as the one shots go is I do want to make a bigger push to get some of our podcast guests to play in the one shot. So, you know, if you sign up for a one shot, there's a possibility you could be playing with, you know, our last podcast interviewee or, you know, someone who we've had on the show before. Just to make it a little bit more interesting and a little bit more sizzle for you. Anything else as far as one shots go?

Tanner Weyland:

No, I'm just excited for you know laying it out and hopefully you guys are able to join one

Justin:

Exactly. Next up, we are going to be, we're gonna be working on more merch. Right now we just have hoodies, and the hoodies were designed, or at least the design on the hoodies were designed by one of our listeners. And we wanna give you this. offer as well. Anyone who designs a logo for us, we put it up on our website and it gets purchases, we will share the profit with you 50-50. So that includes t-shirts, stickers, whatever, right? But that means we will also be working on our own designs and we keep the profits. So if you want to steal from us, just go ahead and submit some of your designs to us and we'll get that up on our site. And you know, hoodies, t-shirts, t-shirts, sorry, stickers, you know, the whole stuff, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, yeah, I'm excited for those, especially, we're gonna have some nice stickers, I feel like. And I'm a sucker for stickers.

Justin:

I am a sucker for stickers too, except I don't put them on anything, I just collect them. You know?

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, same. There's part of me that's like, oh, I love people use water bottles

Justin:

I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Tanner Weyland:

I have a bunch of stickers or their laptops, but I'm always such a pansy. I'm like, yeah, but what if I don't like it later?

Justin:

Mm-hmm.

Tanner Weyland:

But I really like Collecting stickers and who knows maybe after we get some awesome Designs created then you know that may change. I might start might start putting stickers You know on the things I care about who

Justin:

Agreed.

Tanner Weyland:

knows

Justin:

And then one day when we have our own location, our brick and mortar studio, we can have a sticker wall where that's the designated place for all the stickers we ever find. And that'll be it.

Tanner Weyland:

It'll be perfect. It'll be perfect. And we'll have a sticker car where we just, no, I'm just kidding. Yeah.

Justin:

Actually, having a sticker wall sounds like something like those SaaS companies out of like Silicon Valley or

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

Utah, Silicon Slopes. It sounds like something they would do. So I definitely

Tanner Weyland:

It

Justin:

want

Tanner Weyland:

absolutely

Justin:

to do that actually.

Tanner Weyland:

does.

Justin:

Next, we've toyed around with the idea of making like a custom DM screen. The ideas for that are pretty long out. So that's something we'll definitely have to think about. just kind of what we want it to look like, what it would be made out of, how we would create it, and what would be most useful. So stay tuned on that.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, that one's gonna be great, because you guys know how a lot of DM screens will have the numbers, like the stat blocks, the different rolling charts, right? This one though, we would try and make it about how you can be a better DM, kind of those softer skills, those reminders. So we're very excited about that one.

Justin:

Next, we're also slowly working on the ultimate dungeon master's guide. So essentially, like the go-to book for everything on being a better dungeon master. It'll essentially be a distillation of all the good juices that come from this podcast and everything about it. It might take some time, but... slowly we're gonna get there very slowly and we'll publish that and then get that created

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, that one, we just, you know, we realized that a weekly podcast is great. Certainly is, but you know, some of the ideas that we have and some of the recommendations get lost in the shuffle. What's a better way to do that? You put it in a book

Justin:

Ha ha.

Tanner Weyland:

or a course or whatever, you know,

Justin:

Sure.

Tanner Weyland:

so that it's cataloged. So yeah, very excited about that.

Justin:

Exactly. One other thing that I've been thinking about is maybe some meetups or something like that. Some live events that people, if they're in the area, can come join and, you know, I don't know, maybe we just go see a movie or something. I'm really bad at playing events, but, you know, maybe we do like a D&D tournament versus, you know, one table versus another. Who knows, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, and honestly, Justin and I, we're going to most likely be at FanX,

Justin:

Yeah,

Tanner Weyland:

I believe. I think, yeah.

Justin:

I definitely think we can make it happen. So yeah, we'll definitely be there. The reason why we'd be there is because of our other business, Monsters.Rent, which is the sister business to How to Be a Better DM. Monsters.Rent is your go-to place for renting Dungeons and Dragons minis on a subscription basis. Pretty novel idea. But we're gonna be at FanX, so come look for our booth. FanX is the Comic-Con of Salt Lake City. And come look for our booth, and if you see us and you listen to the show, we'd be happy to get your information and maybe get an autograph from you or something, because seeing fans is novel to us.

Tanner Weyland:

I know it's always great when that happens. But yeah, we look forward to seeing you if you come. So you have to come if you want to be cool. I mean

Justin:

Yep.

Tanner Weyland:

you want to be cool right? Right? I'm just kidding. Hopefully

Justin:

100%,

Tanner Weyland:

we see ya.

Justin:

100%. I think those are all of our kind of long-term, you know, pie in the sky dream type things. Is there anything else that we're missing?

Tanner Weyland:

Um, honestly, we're just hoping to really provide some excellent content as well. You know, we, we talk a lot about different topics, but As you know, we've covered a lot of topics and in the future, you know, we have some fun ideas about new, new series of topics and, you know, we're going to have new guests as always returning guests, which is going to be fun. And, uh, yeah, we're just very excited for, uh, what the future holds.

Justin:

100%. So I think that's everything. Thank you guys again for joining us on this 100 episode journey. And here's to 10,000 more episodes. And thank you Tanner for joining me as a co-host. Since you've joined, I've really seen a big uptick in quality. And I appreciate you joining me on this journey as well.

Tanner Weyland:

Honestly, I'm just grateful that you invited me to join you. Uh, I, I sometimes feel like the, uh, very junior member of the podcast, but that's just cause you're such a great DM. And, but honestly, I really enjoy, uh, just talking with you and, you know, talking with people and discussing something that we both care about. It's meant a lot to me.

Justin:

Well I'm glad. And here's to 10,000 more episodes with you Tanner. But listener, we'll be back next week for another episode. Until then let's go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

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Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

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How to Use and Think about Alignment in D&D

1 juni 2023 | 15 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your Host today, Justin Lewis and today, I want to talk about an aspect of D&D that is one-part storytelling prompt, one-part game mechanic, and overall an interesting facet of the game, namely alignment.

We’ve all heard the famous phrase of, “It’s what my character would do.”

Naturally, when someone says that, they are usually trying to justify something stupid, evil, weird, or just wrong that they’ve done. Sometimes they’ll cite their alignment as the main driver of their choice making process. For some reason that never really sat well with me. So today, I want to talk about a couple ways to think about alignment, and hopefully help you determine that you need to choose the way you’re going to look at alignment in your game, because it can radically change how your characters act and how you act towards your characters.

What is Alignment

Before we get into how to use alignment in your games, let’s first figure out what alignment is. Even defining it is going to be difficult because how you define it will also impact how you play with it. So i’m going to try to define it and explain it in a way that is agnostic of the way you choose to play with it.

Let me first start by saying that alignment is an optional mechanic of the game. Nowhere does it say in any rulebook or game module that you need to have alignment. Only certain items have requirements about alignment, and that’s simply for the purpose of attunement. As a DM, you can simply choose to disregard all of that, so if you feel that alignment just gums up the system and makes things harder to play, then great. Alignment is not necessary, though in my opinion, it does make things much more fun.

So in its most basic form, alignment describes your characters position relative to Order and Chaos and relative to Good and Evil. I won’t go too much more in dept quite yet, because I don’t want to affect how you think about alignment before I explain the two ways you can use it in game.

In the first edition of D&D, or really when it was just an add-on to the game Chainmail, there was only the choice between Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic. It was much simpler, but then as things progressed, D&D evolved to have the Chaotic and Lawful spectrum and the Evil and Good Spectrum.

What Purpose does Alignment Serve?

In reality, alignment, just like everything else in the game, only helps move the story along. You can take any mechanic out and still move the story along. So really Alignment is just a plot device in the sense that it’s supposed to theoretically impact how your character develops and the choices they make. In practice though, that becomes very messy. You start asking questions about morality, right and wrong, and to be honest the whole discussion becomes very philosophical.

So let me introduce you to my quandary and how I came to think about alignment.

My Quandary

In my current campaign, my wife’s character found himself stuck in his own mindscape. He had essentially been banned there by a being called Dreamtaker, who I’ve talked about on this podcast before. While in the mindscape, the character, Ransom, encountered an evil little character that inhabits part of his mind named Mtiq. Mtiq is supposed to symbolize the potential every being has to do evil. It’s the potential to become the worst version of ourselves. Well, Ransom had become very lost because the mindscape is a maze, naturally. So this evil Mtiq, offered Ransom a map to the mindscape in exchange for his “Innocence”.

Frustrated with the maze and wanting to get out, Ransom took the deal and escaped the mind-maze, but naturally lost his innocence. As soon as Ransom left the maze, I informed my wife that his alignment was now chaotic-evil.

She was not happy about that.

Since then she’s been asking me about ways she can get her innocence back, but really her question is about whether or not she can change her alignment.

Fast forward a few weeks and my brother-in-law, Drew is in town. He and his wife want to join us for one of our sessions. As chance would have it, my other brother-in-law, Ethan, who has a character in our campaign couldn’t make it that night, so Drew played Ethan’s Character Necro, while Drew’s wife played an NPC.

While playing, Drew decided to split Necro from the party and investigate a dockyard. At the dockyard, Drew had Necro pick a fight with and murder a dockworker. Ethan came back just at that moment and with despair saw what was happening with his character. Now this isn’t the first time Necro has murdered someone, but this time was different in that there weren’t any extenuating circumstances. Necro had just murdered this dockhand in cold blood. I told Ethan, that his alignment had shifted towards evil. He was upset naturally, as his character had been trying to make strides toward being good.

With both of these stories in mind, and the desire for these two players to have their characters to be good, I had an interesting thought cross my mind.

I wondered, “Is alignment prescriptive or descriptive?”

Does your alignment tell you how your character should act, or how they have acted in the past?

I’ve come to the conclusion, that you need to make that decisions because when you explain this to your players, you can then let them make choices moving forward with that in mind. So let’s look at the 3 options that this opens up to you (yes there is a secret 3rd option).

Descriptive

If you choose to let the alignment be descriptive, then it is more of a description of all their past deeds. It has little bearing on what they will do in the future and instead is more of a reputational aspect.

If you choose to play with this method, then I would adopt certain measures that somewhat in the old game Knights of the Old Republic. In that game when you pause the game, you’d see your character standing there with a spectrum and a guage showing how far they are into the light or dark sides. When they are in the light side, they stand tall and are surrounded by light and have an aura of good about them. If they are deep in the dark side, then their eyes have darkened and their face is covered by a permanent scowl. They are surrounded by darkness.

If you use the descriptive method of Alignment, then I would adopt similar attributes and if they make their way to being Chaotic Evil, then people start to perceive and mistrust them. Any persuasion checks that rely on trust or good will will receive disadvantage. On the other hand, any checks involving deception or intimidation should probably get some sort of advantage.

On the flip side, if your character is lawful good, then they should likely be naturally trusted.

Of course, this is simplifying things but you get the general idea. The alignment becomes a list of all the bad things they done or the good things. Over time, people would naturally get a sense of those things just by being around them.

In this method, if someone wants to change their alignment, then they have to consciously do actions over a long period of time to slowly change their alignment.

Prescriptive

The prescriptive method of Alignment is less about what you’ve done and more about what you aspire to be. The distinction is slight, but the big difference is that a character can choose to change their alignment in an instant. Changing alignment would likely require some large emotional experience but it could happen. From that moment, despite shortcomings, the character would try to live up to a certain ideal lifestyle.

From a DM’s perspective, you could reward strenuous attempts with advantage or inspiration and give de-inspiration for actions that go against the alignment.

The Combo

As you’ve no doubt guessed by now, the 3rd option is the combination of the 2. Really, this is closer to how we live in our real lives. We are partly our past and partly our aspirations for the future. If you can handle it, try and combine both of these methods to create a current alignment that correctly reflects the cumulative effect of all the decisions of the past and at the same time allows the character to aspire for different ways of life and try to make their way to that point.

I suppose you could also cut it down into “if you want to change your alignment you have to essentially get a certain number alignment points in this or that direction.” I might implement that as a test with my players, but it is going to be difficult. And why shouldn’t it be. We’re only talking about the concept of good and evil and how to act rightly in a difficult world.

As you go out and play your sessions with your players, I’d encourage you to bring in more and more moral quandaries and questions. Thinking of right and wrong and best and worst decisions is at the very nature of human existence. Your players will enjoy being pushed to think about what they really should do and what effect it will have on their characters. They will also enjoy the opportunity to try and do that in their own life. In that way, D&D becomes much more than a game.

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. It was a little different and a lot more philosophical. I’m confident though that thinking about alignment will make your games more interesting. We’ll be back next week for another great episode. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Food in D&D: Gaming for the Gourmand

25 maj 2023 | 20 min

Committing to Characters with Victor Bevine (AKA Drizzt Do'Urden)

18 maj 2023 | 37 min

Justin:

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. Today, I am Justin Lewis. I actually am always Justin Lewis, but today I'm joined with Tanner Whelan. Go ahead and say hi, Tanner.

Tanner Weyland:

Hey guys.

Justin:

And we have today with us a very special guest, Victor Baveen. And for me, he's kind of, he has a special place in my heart because I first got introduced to really anything to do with Dungeons and Dragons by listening to the R.A. Salvatore books about Dredd Stoerden. I listened to them on audiobook and the voice actor who really personified, in my opinion, Drizztorodin was Victor Bavine. So having him here with us is a real treat for me personally because, like I said, I have fond memories of long road trips, listening to Drizzt battle the monsters of the Underdark and then make his way to the surface and kind of go through a, you know, a similar trek I think a lot of us go through when we're trying to find out who we are and where we fit in life. Thank you for being here, Victor. And if you want to, you can add to that introduction however you want. But thank you for being here.

Victor:

Sure, my pleasure. I'm thrilled that I've been doing the Driz books for about 10 years now. And I think I'm up to 40 plus. I've done all but I think three of them. And those were done before I got involved. And yeah, I've been an actor my whole life and I'm also a writer and entrepreneur. started doing audiobooks about 17 years ago and this was one of the first really big projects that I got. So, you know, I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled the fans like it. I get a lot of really fun emails. In fact, the best one I've ever, one of the best ones I've ever gotten, I don't want to choose best, but this guy wrote me and said how... he was going blind actually, and he was unable to read to his children anymore. And so they would listen to the DRISD books as bedtime stories together. And it really brought a tear to my eye. So I'm thrilled

Tanner Weyland:

Wow.

Victor:

to be here, but I love the books, I'm thrilled to be here.

Justin:

Awesome. Yeah. Having experiences like that has to be life changing because in, you know, in accounting, you don't have the opportunity to change someone's life like that. Right. So, uh, well, let's get into some of our questions. Uh, and, you know, I thought one reason having you on the podcast would be so great is because as people play Dungeons and Dragons, uh, one thing that a lot of people kind of are drawn towards naturally is just kind of the the attempts at voice acting. And I think it's a really great way to help your players become immersed. And so I thought it would be a great, a great thing to have you on and kind of talk about that. But you also mentioned that you're also a writer. So tell us a little bit kind of how you got into voice acting and writing and kind of how those two interweave and things like that.

Victor:

Well, I pretty much always wanted to be an actor. I decided when I was five that I wanted to be an actor because I saw this TV show. I wasn't allowed to have a dog. I really wanted a dog and my mom wouldn't let me get a dog. And I saw this TV show about vaudeville and there was this one dog act and I got into my head that as an actor, I could have a dog.

Tanner Weyland:

Ha

Victor:

And

Tanner Weyland:

ha.

Victor:

so anyway, so I decided I always wanted to be an actor and then I always thought it was, I love to read and I, you know, I just... Classically trained as an actor, so I've done a lot of Shakespeare. So I think it really sets you up well for reading large blocks of text and making it understandable, cuz that's the trick of being a narrator is knowing how to use language, what we would call heightened language to. to tell the story, but at the same time, keep it personal and human without getting too involved in technique. So anyway, so I had been acting for years and I was living in LA and toward the end of my time in LA, my manager asked me, how would you like to read the Bible? And I said, okay. I was hired by this company to do, there were like eight of us, and I read six books of the Old Testament, six books of the New. And it was pretty cool, pretty cool way to make a living. And then I moved back to New York and I actually bought this house in New Jersey, in Newark, for God knows why I did it. Because I wanted

Tanner Weyland:

Hahaha

Victor:

a project to renovate this, renovate this old historic home. And so I... I was in the midst of doing that and it was right when Audible was moving to Newark, moving their headquarters to Newark. And I happened to see an interview with the CEO and the in the local paper and I got on the company website and I emailed him. I figured out his email address. It was dcatz at audible.com.

Tanner Weyland:

Ha

Victor:

And

Tanner Weyland:

ha.

Victor:

so I just emailed. Thanks for taking a chance on Newark. I said I did the same thing. I bought this house and my friend said I was crazy to move from Santa Monica to Newark, but here I am and here's my voiceover demo. And I'd love to come in for an audition. The CEO emailed me two days later and said, yeah, come in for an audition. So that's how I got started to really do an audiobooks. And that was, gosh, 2007 or eight

Tanner Weyland:

Okay.

Victor:

and I've done probably 350 books at this point and I'd always wanted to be a writer. I'd been writing screenplays when I was in LA and almost got a couple of movies off the ground and then I had a project that almost was super close. We had the money and I'm almost in the bank and then the financial crisis hit and the money disappeared. I was supposed to direct it and I'd written the screenplay and So it all fell apart and I said, well, I've always wanted to write a novel, now's the time. So I wrote the first draft of the novel and it was awful. It was basically the screenplay without formatting and because I didn't know how to write fiction, it was right around that time that I started narrating at Audible. And then two years later, I picked up the novel again after having probably. narrated 40 books and I suddenly started writing again. I said, oh I know how to write prose fiction now Because it was that was like my 10,000 hours. It was all it was all there so that so it all did kind of meld really nicely together and So that's sort of how I got to do all of it

Tanner Weyland:

Wow, I love that so much. That's man, what a roller coaster. Hot

Victor:

Yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

dang. So

Victor:

Yeah, it's the life of an artist.

Tanner Weyland:

did you find that you kind of naturally gravitated to narrating the fictional books or was that purely coincidental that they were like, hey, you're great for this?

Victor:

It was just coincidental. I've done a lot of, like I just, my most recent book I just finished last week was about the Russo-Ukrainian War. Very intense, deeply historical. really dense. Normally, the process is generally a book called takes about four or five days to record and then you come in for like an hour or two of pickups, stuff that you got wrong and you have to go in and fix. And normally the most I generally, I have anywhere between 20 and 50 pickups in a project when I can knock that out in an hour. This we had 350 pickups. because the names, the Ukrainian and Russian names, you know, they wanted them so specific and really perfect. So, and then the longest book I've ever done, single book was a book called Gotham, which is a Pulitzer Prize winning history of New York City. And it's two volumes and it's 4,000 pages. And that took four months.

Tanner Weyland:

Wait,

Victor:

And

Tanner Weyland:

so

Victor:

that...

Tanner Weyland:

4,000, that many pages, how many hours is that? Like, it's gotta

Victor:

It's

Tanner Weyland:

be

Victor:

a

Tanner Weyland:

a lot.

Victor:

60 hours, about 60 hours. Yeah,

Tanner Weyland:

Hot day.

Victor:

yeah, it's a commitment. It's a great, it's a great book. I mean, it's a fantastic, I mean, you know, and I love New York, I'm a native New Yorker and I love delving into the history. And so it was fun. But then I loved doing the fantasy too. I loved doing fiction and I mean, I've done some, you know, classic fiction like Vonnegut. But... I'd done a couple of other fantasy series before I got the Drift. And the Drift thing was, you know, it was interesting how it came to me. Cause they had recorded a couple of the books, not starting from book one. And they had two different narrators and everybody hated the narrators apparently. And so they, Wizards of the Coast, came to Audible and they said, we need to find a new narrator. So they did a contest where they recorded, they had three of us that Ari Salvador approved, and then they put it on the fan website and the fans chose me.

Tanner Weyland:

Well, that's

Victor:

53%

Tanner Weyland:

awesome.

Victor:

of the fans chose me. So there was already like a lot of buy-in, you know? And I still get, when people come to those other books, I get all these like Twitter messages saying, what happened, where'd you go? Did they fire you?

Justin:

Ha ha ha!

Victor:

No, no, just be patient, I'll be back. But the

Tanner Weyland:

I'm

Victor:

fun

Tanner Weyland:

sorry.

Victor:

thing with the, so many of you were saying about character stuff, character voices, the fun thing about... about fantasy is that you really can take liberties with the voices. In general, they want you to be really subtle with characters and like obviously in you know non-fiction stuff but even in fiction they want you to be fairly subtle but you know you can just go crazy with the um I love some of the voices that I've managed to create and it's fun funny because I won't tell you. I will never reveal this, but Jarlaxle is one of my favorite voices that I created and a lot of people love that voice. And one of the ways sometimes I'll create voices is I'm so bad at celebrity impersonations that I'll

Tanner Weyland:

Hahaha

Victor:

do a celebrity impersonation and it'll come out as a voice but nobody recognizes it.

Tanner Weyland:

I'm

Victor:

And that's

Tanner Weyland:

sorry.

Victor:

how Jarlaxle started. So he's based on a celebrity, but I will never tell you who it is.

Justin:

I'm gonna have to go back and listen and kind of play Celebrity Bingo and see, you know, like process

Victor:

Yeah,

Justin:

of elimination.

Victor:

I would love it if you guessed it, but I don't think you will. It's so bad.

Tanner Weyland:

That's amazing.

Justin:

Yeah, and I do have to say Jarlaxle is, he's one of my favorite characters too. He's complex, but he's also mysterious and kind of cheeky. And I think a lot of people idealize that and wish they were like that in real life, right?

Victor:

I think that the genius of Bob's books is that they're simple enough for young people to understand, but as opposed to so much fantasy or comic book fiction, I really think all great stories, truly great stories are about moral ambiguity. And that's the heart of the story, is moral ambiguity. It's like, how do you be a good person in an impure world? And I love I don't know if you last summer I got to do a compendium of all drizzed diary entries.

Justin:

Yeah, I heard that.

Victor:

Yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

Oh wow.

Justin:

I haven't listened to it, but I wanted

Victor:

Yeah.

Justin:

to.

Victor:

Yeah, it was really fun. It was really, really cool. And at the same time, I did right around the same time I did the meditations of Marcus Aurelius. And it was similar.

Justin:

I was

Victor:

I mean,

Justin:

gonna say...

Victor:

it was very similar. Yeah.

Justin:

That's

Victor:

So

Justin:

so cool.

Victor:

So I love that people are getting, you know, like you say, Gerald Axel is such a great character because he's morally ambiguous.

Justin:

Yeah. And honestly, that is actually something I wanted to talk about because one of the things that really struck me about your voice acting style, specifically in the Drift books is in those diary entries, because it's one thing to just read a diary entry, but it's one thing to also kind of hear someone read it and, and really get, or feel like you get the emotion behind the entry, right? So, so how. And you mentioned this before with like heightened language and making it human. W what tips would you give to someone who is trying to really convey the deep emotion behind just the words they're saying, right?

Victor:

Good question. Well, let me go back to, so I do sometimes, I've done classes, audiobook classes for actors. And what I always start people out with is Shakespeare's sonnets. And, you know, there's a, there's a, this is sort of my motto as a writer is, Mark Twain said, the difference between the perfect word and the almost perfect word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. And so if you're reading really good fiction, you're really imbuing finding that. It's just, you know, you're, I mean, okay, let me back up. So one of the reasons I choose Shakespeare for people to work, start with, I do a sonnet and then we get into the books, is that the great fear that actors have with Shakespeare and with American actors is that it's gonna be boring. And the only way it's boring, because it's not boring material, the only way it's boring is to shy away from committing to the emotion of the moment. So it's if you commit to specifically what you're saying, this is not a general sort of wash of emotion. You've got to be specifically following the, so again, that's why classical training is so important for audio books, because what you're doing when you're narrating is you're helping the listener follow the thought. So you've got to really follow that thought. And these, again, like classical characters, they're passionate about their thoughts, these people. What they're thinking is passionate, whereas so often, and I think it's less true now, but for so often it's been we hide what we feel with our language, with the things we say. So you've got to be capable, you've got to be willing to look for what's the specific thing that's being conveyed with each word, and it becomes very natural, but just commit to a specific meaning word rather than a general and really just follow the thought moment to moment. Does that make sense?

Justin:

Yeah, so go

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

ahead Tanner.

Tanner Weyland:

No, I just I love it because I've had the same experience. I saw some clips of what's the show called? It's in the actor's studio. What's that one

Victor:

Oh

Tanner Weyland:

called?

Victor:

yeah, yeah,

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah. Yeah,

Victor:

in the studio I think, yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

yeah, yeah. Thank you. And, you know, they have some actors who read Shakespeare. And I'm like, these guys are amazing, you know, and they do it so differently depending on who's portraying it. And it kind of does go to show what you were saying. It's like, hey, you have to commit to something, you know, and there's no necessarily right way to do it in at least

Victor:

Right.

Tanner Weyland:

in certain, you know, stories. Right. I think especially going to D&D and other kinds of places where we get the freedom to act, you know, so many players wait until the moment. is quote unquote worthy of having like emotion or like being passionate about. But it's like, Hey, before that during mundane things, you can choose to have. Emotions as well. Right. Even when you're buying an egg from the market or whatever else. Right.

Victor:

Yeah, because what's the, you know, sometimes you start as an actor, you start a scene. By asking yourself, what's the preceding moment? What happened before it started? Where is the character coming from? We're always bringing something into every moment. We're not, we very rarely arrive, unless you just came from a meditation, you very rarely arrive totally clean. You've brought something with you. And how does that affect what you're about to do? And again, I've never played D&D. Actually, I did do a book. about playing D&D two years ago, which is kind of fun.

Tanner Weyland:

That's fun.

Victor:

But it, you know, how much do people really explore? What's the point of view? What is the life experience of this character? And what's the point of view they're bringing with them? And that's what, and again, it's so much easier when you're working with good material, because that's what, you know, Bob's books, they're in... in a way they're formulaic, but still you know that ultimately these characters are going to survive, but he still puts you on the edge of your seat. Every time you're still worried when these characters are in jeopardy. That's just a fantastic skill and talent. And again, like I said, certain materials better for certain people. I love the questions that Drizzt

Tanner Weyland:

Thanks

Victor:

asks

Tanner Weyland:

for watching!

Victor:

himself. I mean, there are questions that I ask myself. Sometimes I just really can put myself in the moment and think that I'm Drizzt. So. But that's the key. And again, audio books are so much fun because you get to play all the characters. So you get

Justin:

Thanks

Victor:

to keep

Justin:

for watching!

Victor:

switching points of view. And nobody thinks they're a bad guy. Everybody thinks they're doing the best they can in the way that they understand the world. Even like Loaf or Matron Mets Barris or whoever. They all think they're doing the best they can. in the world that was given to them. And then you have the heroic characters like Drizzt who are willing to push out of the boundaries of the world they were given, question that. Maybe this is not the way it should be. And that's the hero's journey.

Justin:

Um, so if I've understood it's, it's not so much like acting as it is like...

Homebrew Collaboration with Rob Van Auken Part 1

11 maj 2023 | 54 min

justin_lewis:

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I'm one of your hosts today, Justin Lewis, and I'm here with Rob and Tanner Wayland. And I'll let Rob introduce himself in a second, but let me first tell you, the listener, about today's episode. So if you're new here, we are here to help you craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons. And today, we're actually gonna dive into the world of homebrew creations. Specifically, we're going to show you kind of the start to finish, hopefully start to finish. We might split this episode up into two episodes, but the start to finish process of creating something, but also the start to finish process of collaborating with someone else in creating something, because being a DM can be somewhat lonely and it's very taxing if it is lonely. So when you team up with other people like Rob, you can make it easier for everyone. But also, it's just fun to connect and be cool with people. So. Rob, if you want to introduce yourself and then we can hop into what we're doing today. Oh, you're

rob:

Hello

justin_lewis:

muted.

rob:

there, hi, sorry

justin_lewis:

There

rob:

about

justin_lewis:

you

rob:

that.

justin_lewis:

are.

tanner_weyland:

You're good.

rob:

My name is Rob Van Auchen, and I write and publish a lot of stuff under DM Robrick. I'm just happy to be here with you guys. I've played with both of you in your one shots, and I'm a frequent listener, and I'm looking forward to this. Should be a lot of fun.

justin_lewis:

Yeah, yeah. And listener, if you wanna catch one of Rob's published encounters, you can go to betterdungeonmaster.com slash Robrick and purchase it, it's an awesome encounter called the Lorecraft Collection, did I get that right?

rob:

That's

justin_lewis:

The Lorecraft,

rob:

correct.

justin_lewis:

yes, yeah. So go ahead and publish that, all the proceeds go right to Rob, cause he's an awesome DM. But today, like I said, we're going to work on home brewing and We haven't prepared anything specifically to show you, you know, the ups and downs, the ins and outs and the exciting and boring parts of homebrew creation. So I have shared a document with all three of us. First of all, did either of you have any specific ideas on anything you wanted to create together?

rob:

I'm game for just about anything, but I thought I would put that question right back to you folks. I don't know the scale and scope of what you guys were thinking, but we can go anywhere from, you know, a fun random table to a one-page encounter to a several-page, you know, one-shot kind of adventure in a box kind of thing, if that's what you guys are looking for.

justin_lewis:

Sure. Tanner, any specific way you're leaning?

tanner_weyland:

Ooh, man, I've been thinking about this as well, because I think, I mean, it'd be cool to do a one-shot, but that is, you know, it takes a good amount of planning.

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

So. I think we'd come up

rob:

Nope.

tanner_weyland:

with... Oh, go ahead.

rob:

No, no pressure.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

rob:

No

tanner_weyland:

I

rob:

pressure.

tanner_weyland:

know, right? I'm thinking that maybe we just figure out, like just how, huh, like how long

rob:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

we want it to last, and then essentially just go work backwards from there, come up with a

justin_lewis:

Sure.

tanner_weyland:

cool premise, move

justin_lewis:

Sure.

tanner_weyland:

from, I don't know,

rob:

So,

tanner_weyland:

that sound good? ["Spring Day"]

rob:

absolutely, to date, I don't wanna call it my area of expertise, because I'm still fledgling in the field here,

justin_lewis:

I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

rob:

but I have created encounters that are circled around the three pillars, right? Exploration, combat, and social. And my goal with each of these encounters is to kind of put a little randomized table that could possibly lead crafty DMs down other avenues to kind of expand the encounter itself. So it's kind of like an encounter in a box with these sort of like little tendrils that allow DMs and players to kind of pick up things and maybe decide, oh, you know what? That was kind of an interesting little tidbit. Maybe I'll follow that idea and

justin_lewis:

Excellent.

rob:

let it grow. I don't wanna keep anybody, any DMs in a cage here.

justin_lewis:

Yeah, I love that. Let's do an encounter then. What were

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

you saying, Tanner?

tanner_weyland:

maybe an encounter. What if we just had like, we created like a kind of a little mini one shot with just one of each of those three pillars, you know,

justin_lewis:

Got

tanner_weyland:

some

justin_lewis:

it.

tanner_weyland:

exploration, some combat and some social, and then go from there.

rob:

love it

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

love it

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

love it

justin_lewis:

Um, and listener, we probably won't get all to all of this today because creating a one shot can be rather long. So we're probably going to split this episode up. Uh, so, uh, yeah, stay tuned. But first, um, let me just write down, I'll be the, I'll be the notes keeper, I guess, unless one of you is better at it because I'm not super great at giving

rob:

I'm

justin_lewis:

notes.

rob:

happy to

justin_lewis:

Okay.

rob:

help.

tanner_weyland:

Nope.

rob:

Happy to help however I can. Ha ha.

justin_lewis:

All right. So homebrew. I wish I could spell home brew creation. shot.

rob:

While you're typing, I'll put this idea to you both here. What is the flavor that you would like to capture? Are we going epic fantasy? Are we going squash buckling pirates? Are we going sort of for frivolous? I had the opportunity, I believe Tanner, you were the dungeon master for, it's kind of like a Halloween, almost like a Halloween theme. We, when we played, we had entered that kind of sort of creepy haunted pumpkin patch.

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

and there was a pumpkin headed villain. So, you know, October is coming up. So something like that might be kind of cool, like a campy kind of holiday themed.

justin_lewis:

I like

rob:

We

justin_lewis:

that.

rob:

can go, I know Spelljammer just came out. We can go, you know, D&D in outer space,

tanner_weyland:

No.

rob:

home rune outer space.

justin_lewis:

No, yeah. I like those ideas. I think we should definitely either do Halloween-themed one, Christmas-themed one, because Christmas is also coming up, and or Thanksgiving or a mix of the three. One other thought I did have is because I specifically want this one-shot to be very useful for anyone to play, specifically the introductory DMs. So if we could create a one-shot that And, you know, like Tanner said, it touches on the adventure, the exploration, sorry, not adventure, so the exploration, the combat and the social, and kind of introduces the DM to doing that. I think that would be extremely helpful to our listener. Um, so yeah, that's what that, those are my thoughts.

rob:

and.

tanner_weyland:

As far as the actual theme, let's say. I mean, space does sound cool, but I'm gonna,

justin_lewis:

Hehehe

tanner_weyland:

I'm gonna say maybe later. That might be a later one. I haven't even thought

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

about space and I would wanna put more time into that. What do you guys think about an academy setting?

justin_lewis:

I like that. I think it's very

rob:

Okay,

justin_lewis:

reminiscent

rob:

I'm on board.

justin_lewis:

of Harry Potter, so that would be easy for a lot of people to relate to, in a sense.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, I also think that it provides a lot of opportunities for both social and exploration, and

justin_lewis:

for sure.

tanner_weyland:

then of course combat, whether you have it as part of a lesson that goes awry or they're exploring in the middle of the night or who knows what, right? I think it's a very approachable kind of setting.

justin_lewis:

Agreed. Cool.

rob:

Yeah, absolutely.

justin_lewis:

So theme,

rob:

I'm totally on board. Now,

justin_lewis:

or

rob:

I know.

justin_lewis:

I guess that's the setting.

rob:

Well, I know that you have a homebrew kind of world build that you've been working on, Justin. Is there a location or a place where this academy might be set?

justin_lewis:

Yeah, so there is one academy that is currently created. I'm still working on the world itself, but it's called the Brazen Academy. Um, I don't know if it would exactly fit this. So it is essentially an academy specifically created for teaching people how to smelt and mine this material called deep iron, which is, um, it's, it's harder than adamantine. In this world, everything that every magical item that is like plus three is made of this stuff. And this this academy belongs to this nation called the Kula Uwea Confederacy, and they guard it very highly. So once you get in, you can't get out. Like, there's no escape. Like, they'd kill you before they let you out because the secrets of smelting this type of iron is so closely guarded. I don't know if that would be a good location. But if you guys want we could also create a different Academy in the world that is a little bit less intense

rob:

Well, I'm just thinking if, and this is just me shooting the breeze here, an academy, and you want this to be useful for beginner DMs. So what if the academy was for a school of, I guess, it could be children, it could be anybody who's interested, but a school for would-be adventurers. And like each of the houses is led by your traditional. class types, right? So you've got like the barbarian

justin_lewis:

I like

rob:

house,

justin_lewis:

that.

rob:

you've got like the clerk house, you've got the wizard house, you know? And so the PCs could join a house with their desire and the purpose of this particular encounter would be to maybe pass the test, whatever the test may be. This way it's replayable, right? So PCs and players could play it over and over again as a different class. It's something that's kind of easy to jump into, that the purpose is kind of... I don't want to like railroad anybody or streamline,

justin_lewis:

Exactly.

rob:

but yeah, the tests would be things that we could make randomized tables for, or we could certainly

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

just insert something. And again, people could play this over and over again. This could be something really cool. A nice, almost like I teach for a living, so I'm always thinking of like, you know, how to bring kids and

justin_lewis:

Exactly.

rob:

young people into the

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

game.

justin_lewis:

No,

rob:

It sounds

justin_lewis:

that's

rob:

like

justin_lewis:

exactly...

rob:

this might be a good way to do that.

justin_lewis:

Yeah, I love that

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

idea.

rob:

All right,

justin_lewis:

I love that idea,

rob:

I like

justin_lewis:

especially

rob:

this.

justin_lewis:

because also, it's kind of meta. It's like, here's the test becoming an adventurer, and if this is played by new players, then it kind of actually is like, now you're an adventurer kind of thing. It's pretty funny. So...

rob:

Yeah. All right, so then I guess, well, go ahead, please.

justin_lewis:

No, I was just gonna say, so the theme then would be like school test type idea, not necessarily Halloween or Christmas, but I guess you could flavor it that specific way depending on when you play it.

rob:

It is back to school. So it

justin_lewis:

That,

rob:

does kind of

justin_lewis:

yeah,

rob:

fit

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

that, that makes

rob:

the

justin_lewis:

sense.

rob:

back to school and summers

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

out back to school.

justin_lewis:

Well.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, you know, I think there's a couple ways we could do this. Either one allows a lot of randomization or tables, depending on what, you know, DM wants. We could do a, we could do a test. Like you were saying, we could do a club fair, you know, where it's like, Oh, each club kind of tries to throw you through the ringer to like,

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

see if you got

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

the stuff.

justin_lewis:

Like you're getting in a club or like rush week, like in, uh,

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

what's it called? Uh, sororities and fraternities and crap.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, or even in a lot of like, you know, a lot of manga, a lot of anime, they have like these fair things, you know, events, like school fairs where each class has like their own, they like turn their classroom into their own kind of like thing that's usually themed or whatever, you know,

justin_lewis:

I like that.

tanner_weyland:

like a haunted house or like food related or something, you know. Either way, I think any of them kind of allow good randomization, you know.

justin_lewis:

Cool. So

rob:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

I think...

rob:

that would be an interesting way to begin the school fair arrives in the town and the would be heroes. I guess that you know I don't want to again i'm not trying to streamline anybody railroads and they can create their own back door as to why they would show up here, you know that maybe they're you know the poor kid in town and they want to. show up and then make a better life for themselves to provide for their family or maybe they're just simply you know interested in the schools and they you know everybody's doing it and they want to they want to join get into particular. particular school.

justin_lewis:

for sure.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, and then they go to the school fair just thinking they'll have fun or whatever, and then they pass some tests and then they get accepted and that would be a cool ending for it.

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

They get their first

justin_lewis:

I think,

rob:

assignment.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

I think we're set on the school setting. So maybe it might be more beneficial for us to flesh out the setting, like specifically kind of make some, some, you know, get the lay of the land and then we can create the plot around it. You know, like the school does this or doesn't do this and it would make a little bit more sense for why people would go there or things like that.

rob:

Works for me. So we have the location as the sort of school setting, right? And we're worried about things like synopsis and title for this stuff later.

justin_lewis:

Sure. Does

rob:

So

justin_lewis:

anyone have a name

rob:

I

justin_lewis:

for the academy?

rob:

just working title House of Heroes.

justin_lewis:

Also here's.

rob:

Home for the, House of Heroes, something sort of blase like that, just to.

justin_lewis:

What about Rob Ricks Academy for the adventurally gifted or something like that?

rob:

That works.

tanner_weyland:

I don't hate Rob Rick that's for sure

rob:

How to be better adventurers.

justin_lewis:

Yeah. Rob ricks. It keeps changing

tanner_weyland:

Rubrics.

justin_lewis:

to

rob:

So

justin_lewis:

rubric.

tanner_weyland:

Keep switching to rubrics.

rob:

my one rule, and I was going to kind of do this reveal later, but my one rule is after I've kind of plotted my beats and I've plotted out what I think I want to say, my one rule is make it weird. Right? So there's got to be something about it that is unique or different, right? Having a magic sword is really cool, but having a magic sword that is made from the bone of a dead giant. that talks to you is even more interesting. You know,

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

a school is interesting. A school for heroes is very interesting, but a school for heroes that if you flunk out, there's a real ramification or, you know, there's some kind of real motivation to not flunk out, right, or not cheat on the test. You know, a school for heroes is cool, but a school for heroes that sends you on an adventure and where you might perish, you know, now there's this impetus to...

How to Prepare for an Online Session of D&D

4 maj 2023 | 19 min

Justin:

Ulf woke up. He was in a cave, but he saw a face above his. It was Herlia. Ulf, we thought you were dead. Ulf sat up and saw Hepom sitting not too far off now, sporting a few more days' growth of beard. Ulf looked around. He could see the exit from the cave a few yards away. It was snowing outside. About a week. We still don't know what happened, Ulf, but we are sure glad to see you up and walking. We... we didn't know what to do." Hylia said as her voice trailed off. of breathed deeply. I'm sorry." Ulf looked into Herlia's eyes. I've failed you these past few weeks. I should have been more, but I thought just about myself. Herlia was taken aback. Ulf, we didn't blame you for what happened to Hüde and Kujari. Ulf began to stand up and walked towards the snowy cave entrance. He turned and looked back at Herlia. I was not asleep or in a coma. Instead, I was taken back to the home of my ancestors. There, I lived for weeks in a tribe, and I had to perform some sort of test. Actually, I still have to perform the test, the trial. Early, I stood up and rubbed her temples. Ulf, you're not making any sense. Ulf turned and looked at her once again. We have to go north. and conquer the tribes of the North. Silence. Then Hipon piped up and said, well, when do we leave? What would you like to do? Welcome back to today's show. I'm your host today, Justin Lewis, and in the world of being a dungeon master there are now essentially two types of dungeon masters. There are those that prefer playing in person and those that prefer playing online. And actually I guess there's probably a third group that likes either one. But today I want to give a small guide to preparing to preparing for an online session for those people who feel like the online format may be limited or they've just never done it before. Sorry about my voice cracking there. But hopefully this guide helps you feel ready and prepared for a nice game with your friends online. And this is generally what I do when I prepare for my one shots, which you can sign up for by going to betterdungeonmaster.com slash one dash shot. It is free and you can see this firsthand. So first step. find your players. As always, the first step to any session of D&D is to find players. And with an online game, your pool of players has both narrowed and expanded. Because now you can play with anyone all over the world, but you do need to find people who are willing to play online. Me, I can't even get my wife to play online, so I resort to asking people I've never met in person over my podcast. Namely, people like you. So second thing you need to do is send out a player brief. Second thing you need to do is prepare the story. You need to write a full story and the nice thing about playing D&D online is you don't necessarily need to change the story to fit the online format. For the most part, you can do everything online that you can do in person. Naturally, whispering in people's ears is a bit hard. However, it's still possible. You can, there are tools that allow you to send discrete messages, and if need be, you can just email each individual person because theoretically you will have each of their emails. So prepare the story, write it down, and we have tons of podcast episodes that should help you with that and get you where you need to be. So the second thing is you need to choose theater of the mind or virtual tabletop or a VTT. So the difference is with a theater of the mind, and this is more of a tech choice than anything, with theater of the mind, you don't need more than one software. Well, I guess, let me explain. So a virtual tabletop is essentially a platform that allows you to connect audio visual for seeing your face and hearing your voice, but it also allows you to play music over the connection. It also allows you to display a map whenever you are in combat or a similar situation. That's a VTT. A theater of the mind is where you simply use an audio visual connection like Zoom or Google Meet, whatever have you. I use Riverside just because I actually record my one shots online. But you have this visual and audio connection and that's it. And if you need to, I suppose you could share your screen and show anything you needed to. You rely mostly on your descriptive words to tell people where they are, even in combat. And even in Theater of the Mind, or just using, sorry. And even just using Zoom or Google Meet, you can still share your screen to show visual aspects of your campaign. And with that, you can include audio aspects as well. VTTs are just a little bit more native, so they're a little bit more set up for things like that. For example, when you share a map in combat, you can create tokens and assign each of those tokens to each of your players. and that allows them to move the player in the combat rather than you having to ask them where to go and things like that. And you need to choose this, and I guess number three is a little bit more than this, you need to choose your whole tech stack. So are you planning on streaming the encounter or the session? Are you planning on recording it like I am? In both cases, you need to make sure you understand exactly what your tech stack will be. So in my case, dabbled around using a few things. I'm actually recording this on the 29th of April, which is the day of our last one-shot. And I'm planning on using Riverside, which is a podcasting platform, so it allows you to podcast with guests online. I'm planning on using that as the audio visual portion of the session, which will record the show. And then I will use Roll20, which is a virtual tabletop. to actually play the game. And if that doesn't work, then I will actually probably switch to just using Roll20 and then using a, I believe it's called Streamlabs, which is a desktop streaming where you can capture what's going on on your screen and then stream it out to either YouTube or whatever. And that's kind of my backup. And then if that doesn't work, I'll probably resort to Discord and things like that. But as you see, you need to choose your tech stack and also, Be very aware of the fact that things might not work out. People might not have microphones, headphones, their internet might not work. Playing online, there's a lot more technical snafus that can go wrong, so you need to be aware of that and plan ahead. Number four, probably one of the most important ones you can do is send out the player brief, okay? And you would do this just like you would do it in any in-person session or things like that, especially if you're in one shot, but a player brief has it's like a packet of information or or Segments of information. It's not necessarily packet. I guess you can send an email or send multiple emails, but It has very important information for the player to get ready for the session and that starts with character creation. So Information about hey, you can have these types of characters. You can't have these types of characters so forth and so on. So in the one shot that I'm running today, and obviously, you know, no spoilers because this will be out after the one shot, but I told the characters or the players, they can make any character they'd like. The world is in, the session will be set in my homebrew world of integrity, which has its own pantheon of nine gods, and that's it. So if they are connected to a deity, they should let me know and I'd give them further information. But. As far as characters and classes, feel free to go forth and do what they want. Generally with Oneshots, I'm pretty flexible. Now in hindsight, I would tell my characters, or tell my players not to do any character that can breathe underwater. And the reason why that's important is because the Oneshot takes place on a cruise ship, and spoiler alert, but the cruise ship goes down, right? Naturally, that's what happens in Oneshots. And actually that brings me to the next point that you should include in your player brief, which is information about the situation. So in this case, the players will find themselves on this cruise ship, and mind you, integrity is set in a high fantasy world. So this cruise ship is really kind of top of the line. There are a few countries that have banded together to create this marvel, essentially, and it's fueled by the resources of one... country called the Bastion of the Crown. It's fueled by the ingenuity and the technical know-how of the Kula Uwea Confederacy and then it's fueled by the technology of the Sivarish, sorry, it's fueled by the technology of the Sivarish Protectorate. So it's kind of this joint creation of a few countries. So with that, the players, I told them you have to make sure that your character is from one of these countries because the ship is actually going from the Kula Uwea Confederacy to the Sivirish Protectorate and then finally to the Bastion of the Crown. So all of your characters need to have a reason to be on the ship and to go there, right? And with that I also explained a little bit of the situation around the world. Okay, so this ship is first of its kind, like nothing else like it. And it's also coming around in a time of disunity. So the world as a whole has become very unorganized and disintegrated, okay? So allies have severed and are now kind of looking at each other as enemies. And the whole world is in a commotion. So that's why the ship is so very important. It's kind of a symbol of the world kind of knitting itself back together. So that's the situation, that's the information I gave my characters about the situation. Now, the next thing you need to include is any information about the world. So for example, like what I said about the... the gods, the deities. So in integrity there are nine gods and each god has kind of their own domain. And one important thing about the gods is that their alignment constantly shifts, okay? So every year, and this is kind of how they gauge their zodiac, every year there is a lawful good god and then there is a chaotic evil god, all right? And during those years, those two forces are directly opposed. Okay, and every year it changes up randomly. And a lot of effort and time in other areas of the world is spent in figuring out which god is good because that determines some of the major events that will happen and things like that as far as political events or natural disasters things like that. So that might be something I would include in my brief, but in this case I didn't because none of my characters decided to be a cleric or a paladin. But I did extend the invitation to them saying, hey, if you would like more information, reach out to me. Another bit you need to know about this is that a lot of this information can be exposed or you can display through exposition in the game. So for example, the cruise ship is technologically powered by a substance called Spark, which is a, it's actually a magical drug that was first designed. kind of in other parts of the world, and then it came to the Sivirish Protectorate, and the government actually didn't regulate it or whatever, and many engineers and scientists found that you could use this drug to create a powerful energetic substance, right? So the entire ship is powered by this drug, this very volatile drug called Spark. That's something that the players will figure out in game because exposition and things like that, right? So again, you definitely need to include information about the world, but don't give too much, right? Make sure that it's salient to what the player needs and relevant. Lastly, you need to include links. So you need to include links to the online campaign. So if you're using D&D Beyond, which I neglected to mention, that's another tool that I'm using in my tech stack. That's essentially where all the players are making their characters in a place where I can see it. and I can actually use it to make encounters and things like that, which will come in very handy. You need links to the audio and visual, so I sent out links to Riverside for my players, and then links to the virtual tabletop if you use it. So I sent out links to Roll20. And that's essentially what you need to send in the player brief. Again, it doesn't need to be one single email or whatever. You can just make sure the information gets to your players and they feel ready. Number five. You need to... plan any encounters that you need. And what I mean by this is, you need to prepare the stats and the situations so that way when the time comes, you don't have to spend precious time doing that, but instead you can give your full attention to your players. Breaking the flow is not a very good thing in D&D unless it's intentional, in which case have at it, right? So what I did was I looked at the chain of events and on a cruise ship it's very nice. I suppose maybe it's railroading, but it is what it is. That's kind of the situation. They have limited choices as far as what the major events affecting the cruise ship are going to be. And then next you need to prepare any maps you need if you're using a virtual tabletop. So in my case, I use Dungeon Alchemist, which is an awesome tool. It's actually a 3D tool on Steam that you can purchase. And what it does is it allows you to create very in-depth maps for different situations. And I can actually, well, if you sign up for our Dungeon Master Guild Level 1, you can get access to a lot of the maps that we create and download them for free. So you can upload them to your VTT or whatnot. But essentially, Dungeon Alchemist allows you to drag and drop different elements into a map. So you can... click a specific room you want to create, you draw the shape and then you click the check mark and it auto-populates using AI that room and then you can go ahead and customize it using different objects, different floor tiles and things like that. And let me tell you, when I first backed it as a Kickstarter, it was very, it was pretty sparse, but now it has so many options, including Gingerbread House as one, Ice House. You can actually make caves now, which is a pretty cool feature. It's just becoming way more. Developed and in depth so now it's the time to get on it because it's just gonna get more in depth Last thing you need to do is follow up with your players The common bane of the dungeon master is not getting players to come to the sessions or having players bail things like that Even on one shots that happen because someone listened to a podcast and signed up with me people bail You know all the time And when I say bail, I don't necessarily mean that they just decide not to come. Oftentimes, it's like family issues or emergencies or things like that, but it does happen a lot. And so you do need to be flexible and follow up with your players the day of or the day before just to make sure that they have the right time, the right links, and there's no issues, right? Especially if you're new to being an online DM or if you're trying to do it in a professional sense, you wanna make sure that all your ducks in a row so that way people come back and play with you again. So there you have it, there's my guide to preparing for an online session of D&D. It's not hard, honestly. It's basically just like planning for an in-person session. You just need to add the technical aspect and do a little bit more communication and follow-up because if people don't hop on, you can always reach out to someone else and get them on the link and have fun anyways. So if I missed anything, go ahead and let me know. Reach out to Instagram at the... Reach out to Instagram at howtobetterdm. Again, this episode is hopefully helpful to you for preparing for online sessions. If you do want to test out your online sessions, reach out to me or sign up for one of our one shots coming up and you can do that at betterdungeonmaster.com slash one dash shot. We'll be back next week for another amazing episode, but until then, let's go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

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How to Get Your Players to Play Together as an Adventuring Party

27 april 2023 | 23 min

Justin:

Hi there listener, this is Justin Lewis and I have here Tanner Wayland with me today. Say hi, Tanner.

Tanner Weyland:

Hi.

Justin:

And today on how to be a better DM we are going to talk about Sort of a niche topic One that I think a lot of people struggle with without knowing they struggle with so let me paint a picture for you It's session zero right and you've finally gotten all your PCs in the same room We'll say it's a tavern right there sitting at the same table a few of them know each other So you have two over here that know each other two over there and two over there with most groups, your players start saying, oh well my character's mysterious and untrusting of other people and you have to prove yourself to me. Except every player in your party is acting like that. So the question that we're gonna answer today is how do you get your players, or at least your PCs, to start treating each other like friends and to start wanting to travel together and to view themselves as a party? difficult things to do in session zero or in a one-shot, especially if you as the DM don't outright say, you guys have been traveling for a while, you are already friends. So naturally, let's get that one out of the way. The simplest way to do that specifically in one-shots is just to say, you guys are already friends. You have a long history, you don't need to worry about that. That method doesn't really work when it comes to long-term campaigns because the whole point of the campaign your party integrates and becomes solidified and galvanized, right? So

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

we'll get that one out of the way, but Tanner, any initial thoughts?

Tanner Weyland:

Uh, my initial thought is that like you were saying, it's not as clean of a process as, as you'd like, it's not as clear cut because not everyone has a fellowship of the ring type situation where they're all sitting, they all gathered for one reason and then they all, everyone who joined it volunteers and it's like, Oh, you have my acts, you know, that kind of thing. Most of the time it's like, Oh, they just happen to be in the same town together. And then this event happens, you know, but a party of orcs attacks the town. believe, you know, we like to skirt over the fact that like, oh, obviously these people band together to go fight the orcs. It's like, not everyone does that. Some people, when they see trouble, they just, you know, they, they get out of town, you know, but, but so that's why the inciting incident is so important. And also you have to have kind of external factors that tie them together. For example, you know, if they are in a town, like let's say that they're there festival, right? And you know, I'll keep with my example and an orc attack happens. You know, instead of just assuming the players are going to fight together, what you could do is have an initial fight in the plaza, you know, or in the town square. And of course, everyone's fighting there because all the players just happen to be there and stuff. But then after that, you could have it be like, Oh, everyone else that wasn't a town like specifically puts you guys together, right? Like inciting incidents like that, you kind of need that initial moment of obligation or obligated partying in order to then later build on that and hopefully make some more connection, if that makes sense. So, I'm gonna go ahead and start with the first one. So, I'm gonna start with the first one.

Justin:

Yeah, that makes total sense. And actually let's, let's kind of put this into an example. So let's use the example of our homebrew one-shot that we're working on with Rob from

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

New York, Rob Van Auken or, or no, wait, is that his DM name or his real? I think that's his real

Tanner Weyland:

That's

Justin:

name,

Tanner Weyland:

his

Justin:

right?

Tanner Weyland:

real name. Yeah.

Justin:

Yes. Roderick Van Helm, Rob

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

Rick Van Helm is his DM. Anyways. it's called For Whom the Bell Tolls, the Chime Fell Ceremony, right? And

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

thinking about this inciting event, the way the, gosh, I don't want to give too many spoilers away, but essentially your party comes to a town, participates in festivals and trials to win awards to kind of become a new ceremonial figure that protects the town in a sense, but also protects reality in a sense from And at one point a leader of the monastery hosting the event turns and basically summons the big bad that everyone was trying to keep out, right? So I think in this case, to kind of give an example to what Tanner just said, an inciting incident could be this session. Like this could be your session zero. All the players come from different places to participate in the Chime Fell ceremony and possibly gain the award, right? figure

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

and I feel like naturally as your players win because they naturally will they'll win those trials they'll come together to meet the chief monastery officer or whatever the name is that the abbot and that you know they'll meet each other and then the inciting event will be that large monster gets summoned and suddenly they have to work together to fix the problem right

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

I think that that we should hang out more, kind of an idea, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, I think that when you have a galvanizing like event, then that can cause a lot of connection. Otherwise, like I think it's a little bit harder with like longer journeys, you know? Because if you do have an inciting event that all happens in one town, like what happens in our, you know, the Chime fell ceremony, then that's like very easy because all the players are in one town, there's a festival, they're all there for the same purpose, in the same trials and you know that you that's certainly a way to make it happen and then just you as the DM as they're playing you're having little moments that you create of them like being like oh this person's not half bad you know this other character and things like that can kind of help them become more of a party how about if you were on like a longer journey style like campaign things along the way create connection there.

Justin:

When you say longer journey style campaign, can you give a little bit,

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

Like where they're going to multiple locations, you know, they go from a town to a dungeon, to a seaside port, to, you know, and they're like camping along the way, they run into bandits here and there. It's just like, it's a lot of traveling and

Justin:

Okay.

Tanner Weyland:

there's more, a bunch of small events versus one big event.

Justin:

Yeah, see even that I think is pretty easy. So I think deep down, and this is honestly, this is kind of a topic of social encounters anyways, there's a book called The Like Switch. And it's funny, these last few duo episodes where you and me have both been on, have been both about D&D, but also about life in general. So

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

this is more about life in general, but this book is called The Like Switch. an FBI agent writing a book about how to influence people and kind of gain relationships and things like that and he lays out what's called or what he calls the relationship formula right and he says your relationship is a formula derived from in proximity frequency intensity and duration so essentially

Tanner Weyland:

Hmm.

Justin:

you can boil down relationships to how close are you physically and like how intense are the emotions you feel and how long are you close together. See that's why in my opinion, when you go and work at a new place, at first you don't really make friends with the people sitting at your desk. You may or may not introduce yourself, but if you don't, after a month, you're gonna know each other's names and you're gonna start talking to each other just because you sit next to each other every single day. So in this case, with forcing your players to be together, have to get that formula in action, right? In the case of the galvanizing event, they are having such intense emotion that it's kind of like the foxhole friends, right? Shared trauma leads to strong emotional or at least somewhat strong relationships. But in the case of a long-term campaign, you're having them together for often, those natural occurrences are going to happen naturally. they would naturally relax and feel more comfortable around each other because kind of from a primal sense that person that unknown is becoming more known right. So I think just force the key to getting your PCs to want to travel together is to have them kind of fulfill that formula you know and there are obviously

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

other things to do but I think that's a good place to start.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, I like that too because it made me realize kind of an issue with a lot of DMs and characters, you know, because it's we're talking about parties here. But if you don't give like one, if you don't give your players the incentive to create good backstories. And then second, and this is where I realized with your comments, if you don't allow the where they can share parts about their character that they've created and parts of their character's personality then even if they have shared trauma like you were saying and even if they spend time together what are they going to know? It's like you're with someone at work who only ever talks about work, right? Are you going to actually ever know that person? Probably not. You know, you're only going to know them in work capacity because they never talk about their personal life and so if you ever saw them outside of work they'd be practically you. You know, it's like a teacher in school, right? Since kids never find out about what their teacher did, when they see them at the supermarket, they're like, what the heck, aren't you supposed to be at school? It's kind of like that where if your players are only having their characters talk about the event in front of them, the next goal, the next thing, and they never talk about their character backstory or, you know, or get opportunities, character do, then they won't have any latching on points for each other, right? I think that's an important thing.

Justin:

Yeah, I agree. And actually to that note, I think getting your party to gel together starts long before session zero and it begins with character creation. And naturally you're probably thinking like, oh, well, duh, you'd want, you know, a melee combat person in the same party as someone who casts spells or is ranged. Sure. But what I mean more is I think that relationship formula that I talked about, it might be a little bit... but incomplete, you probably need to add in the individual efforts of each person as well as the individual moral codes of each person. So, for example, in my current campaign, I have a character named Saban. He is a lizard folk artificer, and he's from the swamp, you know, he has a southern accent, and he's generally a very polite, caring individual, you know, I'd say he's neutral good tending towards lawful good. He's the kind of guy that like, if he sees someone struggling, he'll go help for no reason. He's just a good guy, right? And I

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

put him in there just for me to have a character that I can play around with. But sometimes, other of the players in the group, they are neutral or evil, depending on their situation. And so they'll do things that are questionable for Saban. And to be honest, it has made Saban think, do I really want to continue with this group when they're doing certain acts, right? you need to make sure that your character creation will not spawn characters that act in ways that are diametrically opposite of one another. If you have two characters that spend lots of time together in incredibly intense emotions, but they disagree with each other about the basic standards of life, they will probably come to hate each other, and that's how you get villains, to be honest.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, exactly. You have to have during character creation, you have to create characters who would in any world be willing to like spend some time around each other, right? If it's like, oh, this is just such a big event that they have to spend time together that I mean, that's okay, but you're not going to have as much of a gelled party as you need. One thing I realized is that you have to have opportunity like Incidents are a great way even better than I think bigger incidents for your characters to gel, right? let's say that you're in a town and your characters are at a tavern and You know, everyone's giving them the stink eye and the innkeeper is actually overcharging them and they see it because everyone else is like when the innkeeper is like gives them the like the tab essentially Like the players tab is like three times higher, right? such a small thing and you don't think that would like help the party gel but guess what that's a perfect incident to really reveal people's like characters because unlike a big bad where it's like oh everyone just hates these you know like what do you do about the local innkeeper who you can't just well you could just massacre but like most people are gonna try and find other solutions and that's where you're gonna see each individual characters

Justin:

you

Tanner Weyland:

personality but then they'll have to work together and be like hey what do we do because you I want to just steal from him and then the priest over there just wants to you know, turn the other cheek and leave, you know If you don't have small events like that Where people feel cheated people feel like their trust was betrayed People feel disappointed then they can't flesh out their character and they also can't make moral Decisions between characters, which is where a lot of that kind of connection comes from, you know

Justin:

Agreed. I think when it comes down to it, in some way, either physically, or emotionally, or spiritually, I guess, you have to separate your characters and kind of have them secluded together. And another example I want to use is, in the one shot I'm doing on April 29th for listeners of this podcast, and it's actually gonna be the starting session for the next campaign I do with my group in my homebrew world of integrity, will essentially be on a cruise ship. And all the characters will be in the same hallway, and they're gonna be the only people in there, aside from maybe one or two other NPCs that are salient to the story. And by doing so, they'll essentially be forced to sit at the same dinner table, because that's what you do at a cruise ship, you have an assigned dinner table essentially.

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

And like, they're gonna be assigned to sit next to each other, they have to talk to each other, you know, and they'll get to know each other that way. Something I've noticed though, and this is thinking of Critical Role, this is thinking of High Rollers, their Arois campaign, usually they'll have a couple Session Zeros with just a few of the players. So for example, in Critical Role, their most recent campaign, Sam Riegel and I believe Taliesin Jaffe, their characters were kind of grouped together. I don't remember their names. those two had already formed their relationship and chosen to kind of travel together. So

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

when you have that, you have smaller groups, smaller parties, it's a bit easier to kind of galvanize them together because instead of having to make ties between seven players, you're only having to make like four ties, right, between smaller groups. And I think that's a very powerful way to also do this, though it does take a little bit more time and a few more sessions.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, agreed. I think that that starting grouping mechanic, whether it's like, oh, they all wake up in a prison cell and they're all in one. Or like you said, I love the cruise idea. I think that's going to be very fun. I think there's multiple ways that you can do that. And then that gives you the time. It's natural, but it also gives you time later to build those deeper connections as the journey goes on. I also think that something that is to provide incentives for good character sharing and interaction, right? Like everyone knows about, you know, a common practice is if players are traveling and they do a campfire every night, you know, a classic thing for DMs is to touch base with the players at the campfire, you know, be like, okay, what do you do? Oh, you're sharpening your sword? Cool. And then when players decide to talk with someone, maybe about the events of the day, maybe about their past, then a great way to incentivize people is to be like, oh, that's wonderful. You know, here's a point of inspiration for you, you know, that you can use later. I love that role play. And, you know, I think that there's that I think there's also other more material ways where you can, you know, give them a bonus on the help action. Right. 24 hours or something, right? By having good role play. Yeah, I think that, I think honestly, when it comes to having players gel together, if you have a good start, like a good inciting incident that groups them together, and then later if you're able to give them that frequency, that openness and incentivized sharing, then I think you're gonna have a great time and your players are gonna feel like they have a much deeper party connection, which is the goal, right?

Justin:

Yeah, yeah. Sorry before, I think either I froze or you froze, so like I didn't hear part of it and then it just stopped. So

Tanner Weyland:

You're good

Justin:

if I acted weird, that's why.

Tanner Weyland:

I was like I'll

Justin:

But

Tanner Weyland:

keep going

Justin:

no, sorry Tanner. The last thing I'll share is, along with incentives, you can incentivize them even within the story. So every player, every character should have goals and a drive, a motivation to do something. align some of those goals and motivations so that way, you know, a few of the players want to do the same thing. Well, I'm not going to give any spoilers about the cruise ship, but suffice it to say at the end, all the players motivations will align because their choices will be significantly decreased. And I'm excited to see what people think about that. But anyways, any last words Tanner that you'd like to share before we sign off?

Tanner Weyland:

I guess my last thing would just be an encouragement to make sure that your party gets meshed because it's easy to just you know Just play without you without really...

How to Use Animal and NPC Companions Correctly in D&D

20 april 2023 | 20 min

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better DM. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy. Today, we are going to jump right into the announcements!

Other than that, Justin and I are going to be at an event this Saturday, the 22nd of April! In Provo Utah, in the Provo Towne Center Mall, there is a D&D world record happening. The store “We Geek Together” is hosting an event called “Dead Wars” where they will have over 1,000 players playing the same game together—thus beating the world record. Justin and I will be there with the people from Monsters.Rent to talk about the minis and everything—we are also providing over 200 minis for the event to use, so we are so excited! If you are curious about the event info, look up wegeektogether.org to find more info. We hope to see some of you there!

Today's Topic: animal companions, and NPC party companions

Mentioned in this episode:

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How to Dungeon Master When You're Super Busy

13 april 2023 | 27 min

Tanner Weyland:

Hello, my name is Tanner Wayland and I, along with my co-host Justin Lewis, are here on How to be a Better DM. How you doing, Justin?

Justin:

I am good. I'm good. How are you, Tenor?

Tanner Weyland:

Oh, doing well, doing well. It's a lovely day outside, you

Justin:

It

Tanner Weyland:

know?

Justin:

is.

Tanner Weyland:

It's great. Here in Utah, it's been winter for 20 years, it feels like. And

Justin:

It really does.

Tanner Weyland:

it's finally clearing up, and we're just gonna get so much flooding, but everyone's happy it's sunny. Ha ha.

Justin:

That's the truth.

Tanner Weyland:

Well, anyway, to get going with this, uh, with this topic today, we'll just hop right in. Um, the topic is how to be a DM when you're just busy, busy as all get out. Like how do you make time for it? Um, first off, Justin, has this ever happened to you where you just feel too busy to even meet or prepare or anything like that?

Justin:

Yeah, yes. I would say most recently it's been that I felt too busy that I wanted a break and I didn't want to actually have my players come over and have the game. I just kind of wanted a break. But I like what you said there, having to make time for it. Because I feel like DMing when busy, the art to DMing when you're busy, that you can do it and one of those is just making more time for it. You know, simple enough, you make it a bigger priority in your life, you get rid of other things. The unfortunate aspect with that is that it's a game. Like it's a hobby,

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

you know. So if you are attempting to push out family matters or work or you know, religious obligations or social obligations, I don't know, I would maybe reconsider and try some of our other methods we'll talk about rather than stop working.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah. No. Yeah. I totally hear you because if there was something on the chopping block, I think for a lot of people, it would be, you know, running dungeons and dragons, frankly. And, and,

Justin:

Yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

you know, I think just as an initial disclaimer on this episode, if you feel overburdened by your DMing, like you are absolutely entitled to stop, you know, to take a break, a longer term break. the kind of person who's like, Hey, I think I can if I could keep it going. And I really like it. If I change some things, that's kind of what this is for. Um, now like, I'll be honest, like there have been times like, uh, in the same campaign, I had to both, uh, at one point stop it, but then before then, uh, when I was in school, I had to learn how to deal with it during the school year versus summer, right? this was when I was in college and And you know, I think that it was actually an enlightening experience And I think this is what you'll learn too Is that you know, we all wish we had plenty of time to prepare for our sessions We all wish we could do like three four-hour sessions every week, you know but the fact is you know, sometimes you don't and it makes you actually kind of fall back on what's the core of Right? Like for me, and this was kind of my first tip, I guess, we were doing pretty long sessions. We were doing like three, sometimes four hour sessions. And my wife was just like, hey, Dan, you got a lot of other stuff you're trying to do. And then you always, she pointed out that I often complained about being short on time. And

Justin:

Hehe.

Tanner Weyland:

she's like, maybe don't do it as long. And initially I was like, oh, but what will they think? these stupid reasonings in my mind. But then I just did it. I was like, you know what, fine. We'll just plan for like an hour and a half. And then, you know, it usually ended up being like two hours sessions. But even that little change meant that I didn't have to prepare as much. It meant that I had more time. It also meant that the sessions felt punchier. And I really appreciated that change.

Justin:

Yeah, I would say with doing something like that, it definitely is like a good challenge for yourself because everyone wants to make every session impactful and fun and memorable.

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

And when you only have an hour and a half, you start to think of, okay, well, what is like most important? You know, like we can't

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

deal with the fluff, you know, and you probably could, So I really like that And you know what like Tanner said if you ever have problems with being super busy Talk to your players see if they can help out or give advice or just make changes like they did in Tanner's case You know communicate communication is very important right Tanner

Tanner Weyland:

Oh, you know what? I couldn't have said it better myself, Justin. Um, yeah, honestly, communication is huge because if you're feeling overwhelmed, then the worst thing you can do is keep that bottled up. Uh, so talk to, you know, in the case you will do have a significant other, like I can say that probably one of the reasons you feel so busy is because you have obligations there and that's not bad, you know, that's part of being in a relationship. Uh, but if you just hold it in, then there's going to be that tension. So talk about it, be like, hey, Deming's really important to me, but you're even more important to me. How can we make this both work? You know, and then once you discuss that, then talk with your players and be like, hey, here's some thoughts I had. Uh, have you guys had any thoughts? You know, maybe they'll be down to be like, Hey, yeah, we can, we can do once a month or,

Justin:

Mm-hmm.

Tanner Weyland:

you know, every two weeks instead of every week or something. Right. Um, I think people are

Justin:

I feel

Tanner Weyland:

more understanding.

Justin:

like, yeah, I

Tanner Weyland:

Go

Justin:

was just

Tanner Weyland:

ahead.

Justin:

gonna add, I feel like that is just good life advice in general. Over the last few weeks, I myself have been incredibly busy with Monsters.Rent, which if you guys haven't heard, that's our new company and Tanner's actually a part of it now.

Tanner Weyland:

I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

Justin:

But I've been super busy with that myself. So my wife has had conversations with me of like, well, something's gotta give and doing exactly what Tanner said saying here are some of my priorities, what are your priorities, and then how can we make both of these work together and you have to have an open mind. You know, like Tanner said, your DMing might have to go from once a week to once a month. And again, it's a simple fact of the matter that most of us, it's not our money making stream. Like, it doesn't make us money. So we can't always justify sacrificing other things for it. should but

Tanner Weyland:

Mm.

Justin:

I think you do definitely need to keep an open mind with what you might need to give up.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, absolutely. And so I think with communication, with the willingness to be flexible, uh, there's also, uh, this is maybe a simple tip. Some of you are very creative and you write all of your campaigns and all of your sessions and that's wonderful. Uh, I would argue that, that you could benefit though, during a very busy part of your life, um, you could benefit to switch to a pre-written material. that the others have done, whether that's free or you purchase it or whatever else. Um, that can help save you a lot of time in prep work because I mean, I think you'd agree, Justin, like the actual session, like the time you spend in the session, that's not all the time you're spending. You're spending like you're spending hours beforehand, like preparing for every little possibility, right? Uh, it's like, oh, if they're in a town, suddenly you have to do a bunch of prep they could have. And if you have to come up with all of that, that's all time you're spending. Unless you're getting a pre-written adventure. It doesn't save as much time as you'd like, because the fact is I've done a lot of pre-written adventures where you just you're very interested in the world and you're like oh I got to remember what happens here. But it does streamline the process and it takes a couple steps out. So I would suggest that honestly.

Justin:

Yeah. And to that point, there's nothing wrong with inserting this or that encounter from your favorite, uh, D and D DM, YouTuber or podcaster or whatever. Um, I know that, you know, I'm, I'm a fan of the high rollers in the UK with their Eros campaign. I really liked that campaign. And, you know, I used to watch that while working because my job, it just me to basically listen to podcasts or watch YouTube videos basically all day while working. So I'd watch that. And thinking back, if I really needed to, I could insert a few of the minor story arcs into my campaign. You know, adding in twists and flavors here and there. And that might save some time in the prep. And this one might be a little bit controversial, but pull back on the stats and the rolling. You know

Tanner Weyland:

Mm.

Justin:

D&D, I've said before at its core, it is just a story with agreed rules and a system for how you interact, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

And if you need to, without your player's permission even, you can kind of dial back how many times you use the dice to interactions. You know, I'm not saying get rid of it all the way unless you want to, but really, you know, if you're having trouble coming up with this next session, don't prepare any combat encounters and make it a much quicker roll of the dice, you know, when it does happen. Obviously, if it's a big bad, you have to play it out, but if it's like, you know, a street urchin comes and fights you or something, I don't know, just one or two rolls and that should be fine. That way, fudge those numbers on the spot. And this method I think really works well, like Tanner said, in city environments where if they don't spend a ton of time in this one encounter with these street thugs, it's fine because there's thousands of other things to do in the city. And they probably have other things that they want to do as well. Uh, the only thing I'd, the only cautionary thing I'd add is make sure that you focus on the story when you do this. very plain and very boring like if you're not giving everything you can to the to the segments of role-playing and Actually kind of getting into character your players will start to realize like hey, we didn't really do much this session, you know

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, and I think that that idea has at the core of its flexibility, right? It's, uh, it's being flexible with like, Hey, what, what is core to the thing? And having big old battles with a bunch of stat blocks. Uh, that's, I mean, sometimes that's fun, but like other times it's like the players just want to feel, you know, the concept of their players moving around the map, hitting, they don't, they don't need anything too complicated, right? And I was thinking about being flexible with your DMing style. I think that roles and map prep, all of that can be not fudged, but kind of loosened up a little, you know? Like with your roles, maybe you aren't being so harsh on like, oh, let me look up online. What's the challenge level to cross a wall in the winter? know, you don't have to be as like strict on that. Um, you can be like, Oh, it's a, it's a 15, you know, roll that and, and just be more flexible that way. Uh, further, I was thinking about it a lot of times in my DM prep and this, this took time, especially if you're using like an online, like a roll 20 and you have to find maps, you have to have, find a character's tokens. Uh, sometimes that takes time because you're like, Oh man, this idea for this enemy but I can't find the exact token and then you spend an hour you know stressing over this one thing because you want it to feel realistic you don't have to do that like if you're stressing about it guess what you could find a little token of Barney or the Teletubbies

Justin:

Hehehehehehehehe

Tanner Weyland:

and plop that in and your players would get a kick out of it and

Justin:

Yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

it would save you an hour of stress obviously spend the time because I'm sure enemies, you're going to be able to find an easy token, you know, without too much effort. But if it's taking you too much time, just find the parts, the sticking areas in your prep and just be like, Hey, do I need to go as hard as I am here? Or can I, can I loosen up, you know?

Justin:

Yeah, and actually to that point I'd like to cite two examples of guests we've had on our show who have hosted one shots for us and they did it completely theater of the mind because that's what they do. That's what they love

Tanner Weyland:

Yep.

Justin:

and gauging the players experiences they enjoyed it, you know, if you remember Bone Daddy Rob and Thorn from This Dungeon is Occupied of the mind. And

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

that's a quick way if you're stressed out and busy as a DM. That's a quick way to shave off a bunch of prep time because you don't have to worry about getting minis, you don't have to worry about getting maps. I mean you can for reference but it might even be

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

easier to just kind of create it as you go along. And I think that naturally lends and things like that just because it has to fit what everyone can imagine.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, and that's honestly a theater of the mind. That's a great way to, I think your players, it might take a little bit of getting used to, but if you just still provide some key descriptions, then people can get into that, right? And you're still gonna have roles, you're still gonna have a lot going on, and your players are still spending time together. That's key, right? Otherwise, I mean, so I was thinking about, one more tip. I was just... oh go ahead please.

Justin:

Well, I was gonna say, while you're thinking about that, there's a couple things I'd like to share. A couple tools that I would recommend. So I know you mentioned dungeon map preparation. As

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

always, we'd recommend Dungeon Alchemist. They're a great, great company. I love using them. But

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

also, you know, most of the time when I need a map and I'm in a hurry, I just type in, on Google, I say city sewer dungeon map, right? that comes up and there's tons of results on Pinterest and then I pick the one I want, copy and paste it into the doc I'm using and I'm good to go. And then usually from there I'll take it to Canva and label each room and then write a description for each room but that might be overkill. If you're in a bind, even in the moment, someone goes somewhere you could just type in on Google you know, Windmill Map D&D and something will pop up just as long as it's not a commercial you're okay to use it and you know that's that's a nice and easy dungeon or map that you can use usually when I when I do that I populate the rooms based on what the image the map looks like so if if it looks like there's a fire in there that'll usually spark in my mind oh for some reason there's a goblin camp down in the sewers for I don't know I don't know why it doesn't matter but they're there um that's one tool there's also a couple tools that you can get on your phone for one uh toolkit it's on iPhone and it allows

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

you to randomly generate all sorts of things including NPCs, cities, even quests so like you know stuff you find on a quest board, traps, dungeons, monsters, enemies, magic items, treasure. The one thing I don't like about this app is that it does not tell you how much the magic items are worth because I'll often use that when my players go into a store And that gets me in trouble because I don't know the street value of, I don't know, wand of spell storing. I, you

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

know, and my players have gotten wealthy because of it. But

Tanner Weyland:

Hahaha

Justin:

this tool is very useful because even in prep, I can quickly create names and not have to spend the time thinking about it and just move on.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, I love that. Honestly, if you find labor saving tools and prep, like you're gonna be happy. It's gonna make, and here's the thing. You should honestly, even if you don't feel busy, you should take some of these tips because it'll save you time and that'll help you make a better campaign period, right? Did

Justin:

So

Tanner Weyland:

you have something else,

Justin:

this might,

Tanner Weyland:

Justin?

Justin:

yes,

Tanner Weyland:

Oh, go

Justin:

this

Tanner Weyland:

ahead.

Justin:

might be a topic for a future one, a future episode, but I think we should breach the idea of chat GPT for dungeon prep.

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

I think you might be able to create some pretty awesome things with chat GPT, and a lot of people might be thinking, oh, that's not the spirit of the thing, but let's talk about that another day.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, yeah, it's worth talking about because if one of your issues is coming up with general story arcs or a description of an area and you're just stressed out of your gourd, why not get some help? It's not always perfect and we'll talk about that later, but yeah, I'm interested in that topic.

Justin:

for sure.

Tanner Weyland:

Last thing for me before we end here, how do you keep up the excitement when you're I was thinking about it and I was like, you know what, even though all of these things Are like, oh, let's save time and everything You know, sometimes if you're spending a long time like a long period of time multiple months like a year In this kind of like oh i'm really busy. I gotta make time for dm for dm-ing It's very easy to let the excitement uh, just kind of Peter out I guess is a good word for it like how do you keep that up? You know How do you make it so that there's still that excitement? constantly pressured.

Justin:

Yeah, well one thing I'll say is, that's how everything in life is. You're gonna have ups and downs, and for me, I constantly remind myself that what I feel has no impact on what I actually choose to do....

How to Use Mob Combat Effectively In D&D

6 april 2023 | 18 min

Ulv’s Story continued

“Mother?” Ulv whispered as he moved towards the visage of his long-dead mother.

“It is I little snowhare,” Ulv’s mother said, using Ulv’s childhood pet name. When he was younger, his hair was so blonde it was almost white. His mother had taken to calling him snowhare when he was a baby. Even though he’d hated the nickname as a teenager, she’d still used it. Now, hearing that nickname pricked his heart and tears slowly formed at the corner of his eyes.

“Yes, young one. We have come to oversee your trial.” Said a much more masculine voice. Ulv watched as the visage of his father appeared next to his mother, his arm resting lightly on her shoulder. “Honestly son, we are disappointed.”

Ulv stared dumbfounded. He’d expected them to say something comforting, but instead, they were here to judge him?

“We expected more from the youth who downed a frost cat in his 11th winter. Truly, what have you been doing?” Ulv’s father continued.

Ulv’s mouth went dry. “I..I..”

“Son, you cannot sit in dreams forever. Herlia and Hipam both need your help.” Ulv’s mother admonished.

“Cojari needs your help son. The Kingdom of the Golden Deer needs your help.” Ulv’s father added.

“But aren’t you here for the trials?” Ulv asked, confused.

“We are,” Ulv’s father said as he looked at Ulv’s mother. “But this vision, it is only a part of your trial. It is the initiation. You aren’t supposed to complete the trial here. Your trial is set to take place with the help of your friends.” Ulv’s father paused. “Son, you can’t just keep wasting away your time. I know it’s hard. You failed. Judir is dead. Nothing you can do can change that.”

Tears began falling slowly down Ulv’s face.

“I’m so untouchable,” Ulv said, bitterness punctuating his comment. “Everyone around me dies or is lost to me. Why is it me that has to survive? Why can’t I pass on to the realm of the gods? Why did you have to leave me?” Ulv said as his knees buckled and he slumped down to all fours.

“Son, Judir made his own choice. As did we all. You’ve been saved for something else. It doesn’t matter who lives and who dies. What matters now is the present. What matters is that you have 3 friends who desperately need you. Save those that can still be saved.” Ulv’s mother whispered into his ear.

What would you like to do?

Intro

Welcome back, dungeon masters. Today, you’re with me, Justin Lewis as we discuss mob combat. We all love to watch movies with amazing battle scenes at the end. I’m talking about Lord of the Rings when Aragon charges Mordor with the armies of all men behind him. I’m talking about basically every Star Wars movie ever that ends with one side fighting another. I’m talking about Avengers End Game where all of the snapped people come back to fight the final battle scene.

In each of these scenes, we have the main characters who fight their adversaries. We also see nameless foes occasionally jump into the mix to fight the main characters. On an individual basis, these nameless enemies are no match for our heroes, but in the sheer volume in which they are usually present, they present a formidable obstacle.

So, today, let’s talk about using Mob combat effectively.

What is Mob Combat?

In simple terms, mob combat is using many low-level adversaries in an encounter to pose a much larger threat when all combined. This is the idea of throwing numerous baddies at your adventurers that, when encountered alone, would be just one swipe of an axe, but together, are endless axe swings. This is the concept of numbers over skill.

You can use mob combat in many different situations. It doesn’t need to be an enormous battle scene like any I’ve mentioned before. One example is a swarm of ravenous ants. Sure the players can swipe at each of them individually, but an area of effect would work a lot better, as would just running away.

Because you’re not fighting just one foe but instead are trying to keep your head above a “rising tide” so to speak, mob combat functions like a mix between a skill challenge and a combat encounter. In fact, in my opinion, there are 3 ways to actually do mob combat.

1: Combined Method: In the combined method of mob combat, you essentially think of the actual numbers of adversaries. For example, in my campaign, I used mob combat when my players were fighting these small automaton drones. Each drone was a very paltry fight, but together they were formidable. I calculated that my group would face 4 “masses” of drones. Rather than having them fight individual drones, I decided that they would fight 4 mobs. Each mob contained 20 drones. The way I did it was the AC of each mob was equal to the number of drones left alive. Each drone technically had 3 hitpoints so each 3 hit points killed a drone. The mob’s attack was equal to 10 plus the number of drones left alive. So starting out the mob would hit for 30 and do 30 damage, but fairly quickly in the engagement, the damage would decrease because the number of drones would die very quickly.

The reason why this method is called the combined method is that you actually do the math to put together all the baddies. This means you can scale the fight to whatever your group can handle. If they are level 20 and fighting orcs just isn’t what it used to be, have them fight mobs of 20 orcs and see how that works.

2. Simple method: In this method, you forget the math. You essentially just create a monster that is a mob of other creatures. Think of a swarm of rats as an example. They function as one creature, but in reality, they are multiple. There are already some creatures like this out there, but you could easily create your own if you wanted. To start with, I would pick the creature you want to work with. Then the easiest place to start would be to increase its heath substantially. You’re going for more of a gut feel for what would be good rather than using math to calculate it all. Next if that isn’t doing it for you, you can raise their AC. I would only raise it a few points because you still want your heroes to kill lots of the members of the mob. Lastly, maybe think about raising the attack bonus and maybe the damage. There are a lot of monsters within the mob, so theoretically they should be able to swarm the heroes and do damage.

3. Skill challenge: In this method, you do away with a lot of the math and you only roll initiative to see who goes first. Instead of rolling damage and attack bonuses, you essentially just roll a check to see if the hero makes it through the combat without damage. For each round I would assign a DC and a relevant skill to use, or you could just use your players attack bonus. Then assign the mob a specific DC. if the player fails the DC then they do not kill any adversaries within the mob. I would probably split it into a tier. So if the player rolls at least 10 below the DC then the mob scores a critical hit and the damage is doubled. If the player rolls 5 below the DC then the mob scores a hit and deals damage. If the player rolls just under the DC then nothing happens. If the player rolls above the DC then some damage is dealt to the mob (as an entity) if the player rolls 5 above the DC then it’s considered a critical hit and double damage is dealt. With this last method, you can simplify combat a lot. You could even turn the adventurers into a mob and take turns having different players roll for the DC to see what happens.

Why Use Mob Combat

One of the most common reasons to use mob combat is to give variety to combat encounters. You don’t always want to have your heroes fighting someone of equal or greater skill proficiency. Sometimes, you just want to give your players a chance to lay waste to an entire army, much like the Avengers do. These mob rules could also theoretically be used for war combat in which so much is going on that you can’t really focus on one individual foe because you’re being harried this way and that.

The real reason to use mob combat is to shake things up for yourself. We’ve recently talked about losing your excitement as a DM and honestly, the best way to avoid that is to do cool new things that make your players stop and pay attention. You need to break their state of constancy, and honestly, you need to break yours sometimes too.

When should I use mob combat?

Mob combat can be placed in lots of scenarios. A rule of thumb is whenever a one-to-one fight isn’t satisfying enough. For example, you might consider adding some mob fighting to the big boss battle. Having your heroes harried by smaller adversaries while they are trying to focus on a bigger adversary. Or you might add mob fights when your characters are part of a larger engagement, like an alien invasion for example. Lastly, you could add mob combat when you want the stakes to be a little higher, or at least feel that way, without actually having to make the situation that much worse. It’s one thing to say you are now fighting a monster, and it’s another thing to say that you are now fighting a horde of monsters. Really, there are not too many bad places to put mob combat. If it can work in your story, then put it in.

How do I balance mob combat encounters in Dungeons and Dragons?

Naturally, with mob encounters, it helps to play test certain things out. Or, you just let things fall where they may in game (for better or worse) and then adapt next time. If it helps, you can pick a monster or group of monsters whose challenge ratings would create a good enough challenge for the heroes you are playing with. Then from there, just change their “skins” and maybe a few of their abilities and you should have a pretty well-balanced encounter. Of course, if you go the skill-challenge route, you need to think less about balancing the encounter and more about creating an encounter that is fun and interesting.

How do I create interesting and engaging mob combat encounters?

For me, the most engaging mob encounters are one that are 2 things: 1) they intensely story driven and 2) they feel real and scary. Let me give you a great example. The Famous Youtubers High Rollers from the UK did this in their Aerois campaign. Spoiler alert. They had the heroes go to a lost city of insane Warforged and had them fight a fallen angel type warforged all while being attacked by masses of these crazed robots. The masses were in mob form but the Fallen Angel warforged was a standalone monster. Because the entire campaign had show the dangers of a warforged going crazy you knew full well how many there were as well as how tragic it is that they had gone crazy. You also could understand that in an enormous city, there would be 10’s of thousands of them. They also did it very well in their encounter because they brought them in in intervals which likely allowed the DM to balance the combat by bringing in a new mob whenever things got too easy.

How do I make sure mob combat encounters are not too overwhelming or frustrating for players?

I like the method of bringing in mobs, and slowly adding more or taking away extra when you need to. Plus, as a DM, you can always fudge the numbers. If the encounter is going way too fast, either let it finish and move on, or you can make it harder. On the flip side, if your players are getting frustrated with the mobs more than they ought to, then have the mobs die a lot faster than you’d originally anticipated. Having that DM screen is nice because you can change things up at the moment without having to let your players know. It’s not their job to worry about the stats of all of the monsters. It’s their job to be the best player-character possible.

That said, playtesting things is always a good idea. Generally, it does take much more time though so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just putting it in the campaign and making switches on the fly.

What are some common mistakes to avoid when running mob combat encounters in Dungeons and Dragons?

I think one big mistake that people might make is accidentally making the mob way too powerful. The mob should be a group of individuals that are easily taken down by themselves. So that means you should be able to narrate that with each swing, your PCs kill one or two at least. The whole point of a mob is to allow your PCs to feel like they are mowing down the enemies but there are so many enemies that it almost doesn’t matter.

Another mistake I think you could make is not making the stakes high enough. Yes the party is supposed to be able to mow down the mob members, but they should still feel like their character is in danger.

How do I scale mob combat encounters for different party sizes and levels?

You can scale mob combate easily using 1 of 2 methods. The first method is to add more mobs as the encounter goes on. This means that you need to start slow and only throw in mobs when you are sure it’s time. You’ll also need to prepare this narratively. It won’t seem naturally for another mob of gnolls to show up out of nowhere in the middle of the desert when you described that they were only 4.

The second method is to tweak the stats of the mob mid-combat. Just like the other method, you want to do this one slowly but at least you don’t have to set this one up narratively. Both of these methods can be done in combat or while you are playtesting. Otherwise, I’d just say to use the encounter builder at DnDBeyond.

How do I use terrain and environmental factors in mob combat encounters?

You can use terrain and the environment in many ways. This honestly could be its own entire podcast episode, but specifically with mob combat you want the terrain and the environment to highlight the feeling that fighting a mob brings. If you were to fight a mob in real life, you’d likely feel overwhelm, perhaps inevitability, maybe a hopeless at the sheer volume of creatures coming towards you.

I would recommend using terrain to amplify or highlight these same feelings. So perhaps the adventurers are running out of safe places to stand and fight because the space they are in is filling up with baddies. Or maybe, you create some sort of shut-off valve mechanic, like the orcs can keep coming to the top of the city wall until the siege towers are destroyed. Something like that.

What are some examples of memorable mob combat encounters in Dungeons and Dragons?

I already mentioned one that comes from the High Rollers’ Aerois campaign with the crazed warforge. Of course, there’s the classic encounter that everyone has when they are in the sewers fighting swarms of rats. Also, a quick sidebar, even when a creature is made of a swarm of other things (swarm of bats, swarm of bees) that’s still technically mob combat.

So there you have it. I hope I answered a few questions about mob combat and I hope that you put it into your games. If you do, take a picture of it and post it on social media, tagging howtobeabetterdm. I’d love to see what you get up to.

Also, make sure to send me any ideas on things I missed or even feedback about the show. If there’s one thing I’ve learned talking to listeners of the show is that at least half of you have much more experience than I do. We could learn something from you. Even if you want to record a small blurb and send it to me, there’s a good chance it will make it to the show :).

Thanks for listening to today’s episode. We’ll be back next week for another amazing show, but until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

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Driving Character Development and Conflict as a DM with Rob Wells

30 mars 2023 | 38 min

What to Do About Dungeon Master Boredom

23 mars 2023 | 30 min

Why You Need to Start Borrowing Story Ideas in D&D

16 mars 2023 | 19 min

How to Avoid DM Burnout Continued

9 mars 2023 | 26 min

Intro

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, I’m Justin Lewis, here with my compatriot Tanner Weyland, and together we’re here to help you learn how to craft better stories while you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons.

Burnout: Main Topics

Brief description of cause: the causes of DM burnout (doing too much, to frequently, with not change)
Get help:
Ask others to DM
Stop writing your own content, or doing huge campaigns. Just look for content online. DMs guild and other sources exist to make your time easier!
Have online communities to ask advice from. An outside viewpoint can do a lot (Reddit examples of people in sticky situations)
Simplify:
Look at what you enjoy in DMing, and JUST do that for a bit (i.e. role playing with light combat, or just combat with light role playing)
Shorten sessions.
Consider switching up how you meet (if online, do in person; if in person, consider doing online)
Ask the players what they like and want, and just do that. Their enjoyment will fuel you.
Take a break:
As a subset of the other two tips, it is always okay to quit. Genuinely. Take a break. And then come back. If the other tips don’t work for you, playing longer will only create negative feelings between you and your players. The sooner you listen to yourself, the sooner you can begin a well deserved break without creating unnecessary ill will.

Conclusion

Mentioned in this episode:

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Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

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How to Create a Compelling Villain for Your D&D Campaign

2 mars 2023 | 12 min

“Who goes there?” Ulv yells into the darkness. He’d found his way into this larger cave and had ultimately gotten lost. This cave was enormous. It honestly reminded of him when he and his old friends had delved into the Underdark looking for a lost library. To think that he had risked his life so Rowan could find a silly children’s book. He chuckled to himself. He’d do it again though. He loved his friends and would die for them.

“Even me?” asked a familiar voice.

Ulv Spun around, thrusting his torch into the enveloping darkness. “Racooni? Is that you?” The cave responded with silence and stillness. Truly this cave was enormous. How had he not found a wall yet?

“What are memories, but illusions.” The drifting voice of Judir echoed around from no direction in particular.

“Judir, my friend, I’m so sorry.” Ulv bellowed as he turned around. He’d briefly seen the visage of Judir right before it faded into the darkness of the cave.

“And apologies are just smoke from a dying fire.” This time the voice was that of Ulv’s adopted father. Ulv turned and saw the broken body of a dying man just before it faded into the black of shadow.

“You left us.” This time it was Rue’s voice and Ulv saw her, taller and thinner than usual with deep shadows ringing her eyes and a darkness behind. Then that too faded into darkness.

Ulv, kept spinning and spinning from voice to shadow to voice to shadow, until he stopped.

There standing in front of Ulv was a woman.

“Ulv, who are you?” It was Ulv’s birth mother.

What would you like to do?

Introduction

Hello there. It’s me, Justin and today we'll be discussing one of the most important elements of any D&D campaign - the villain.

Why is it so important to have a good villain?

A great villain can be the driving force behind your campaign. It can provide motivation for your players to continue the quest, and give them a tangible enemy to fight. A poorly-written villain, on the other hand, can make the campaign feel lackluster. You know that feeling you get when Thanos kills Loki, or when Saruman sends the horde of Urukhai to destroy Rohan, or when the Joker blows up a hospital? That is all only possible because of a well-written villain. So, let's dive in and discuss how to create a villain that your players will love to hate!

Part 1: What Makes a Good Villain?

Let's first explore what makes a good villain. A great villain is one that is complex, has clear motivations, and is relatable in some way. Players should be able to understand the villain's perspective, even if they don't completely agree with it.

Another key aspect of a good villain is that they pose a real threat to the players, either directly or indirectly. They should be challenging to defeat, and their actions should have consequences that impact the world around them. A villain that is too easy to defeat or doesn't pose a significant threat can leave players feeling unsatisfied.

So, when creating your villain, keep these factors in mind. Ask yourself questions like:

What motivates this character to act this way?

How can I make this villain a real threat to my players?

Would a normal person at least consider their arguments in a reasonable conversation?

Part 2: Different Types of Villains

As you create your villain, consider the different types of villains that you can use to add variety and depth to your campaign.

One type of villain is the classic "big bad" - this is the ultimate enemy that the players will face at the end of the campaign. They're often powerful, dangerous, and have a grand plan that the players must stop.

Another type of villain is the mastermind. This villain operates by pulling strings and manipulating events to achieve their goals. They may not be directly involved in combat, but players feel their influence throughout the campaign.

A third type of villain is the antihero - this is a character who is not necessarily evil, but whose goals conflict with those of the players. They may be motivated by a desire to protect their own interests or seek revenge against someone who wronged them.

Finally, consider the tragic villain. This is a character who is sympathetic in some way, perhaps because of a past trauma or a belief that their actions are justified. These villains can add a lot of depth to your campaign and make players question their own beliefs and motivations.

To be sure, your Villain might end up being each of these types at one point in their life. Anakin Skywalker moved from being an Antihero to a tragic villain and finally becoming Darth Vader and taking his role as Big Bad. Maybe your villain has a similar trajectory.

Part 3: How to Create a Good Villain

Now that we've discussed what makes a good villain, let's dive into how to create one.

The first step is to determine your villain's backstory. What events led them to become the person they are today? What traumas or life experiences shaped their worldview? A fleshed-out backstory can add depth and complexity to your villain.

Next, consider your villain's motivations. What do they hope to achieve? Are they seeking power, revenge, or something else ? Your villain's motivations should be clear and understandable to the players.

When designing your villain's personality, think about how they interact with the world around them. Are they charismatic and manipulative, or ruthless and brutal? How do they view their enemies and allies?

Finally, give your villain some unique traits or abilities that set them apart from other villains in your campaign. Maybe they have a special magical ability or are particularly skilled at combat. Whatever it is, make sure it adds to their characterization and makes them a more compelling foe.

Often villains have good motives but take the wrong approach. Other times, the villains are self-interested and purely want to watch the world burn. Make sure to flesh out these intersections of motivations and backstory to really make your villain stand out.

Part 4: Examples of Compelling D&D Villains

I also wanted to give some examples of great D&D villains that you can draw inspiration from.

One example of a compelling D&D villain is Strahd von Zarovich, the main antagonist of the "Curse of Strahd" campaign setting. Strahd is a vampire lord with a tragic backstory. He was once a nobleman who fell in love with a woman he couldn't have, and in his despair, he made a pact with dark powers that turned him into a vampire. He now rules over the land of Barovia with an iron fist, seeking to reclaim his lost love and exact revenge on those who wronged him.

Another example is Xanathar, the beholder crime lord who appears in the "Waterdeep" campaign setting. Xanathar is a ruthless and cunning villain. He commands a vast criminal empire, using his intelligence and magical powers to stay one step ahead of players. Despite his monstrous appearance, Xanathar is a complex character with a rich backstory.

A third example is the archdevil Asmodeus, who appears in various D&D settings as the ruler of the Nine Hells. Asmodeus is a powerful and cunning villain who seeks to expand his influence over the multiverse. He uses his mastery of magic and deception to achieve his goals. His status as a godlike figure and the ruler of a demonic realm makes him a formidable enemy for any party of adventurers.

Part 5: Live Example of Writing a Villain

To illustrate this point, let’s briefly discuss a villain I have in the campaign I am currently running. Before I go on, let just say if anyone is listening that plays at my table, turn this episode off. There are serious spoilers here. For everyone else, let’s talk about Dreamtaker.

Dreamtaker is an ancient Fey Being who looked upon the material plane with pity. He saw the immense suffering there and wanted to do something about it. He set out to turn the material plane into the Realm of Dreams. He was, of course, thwarted in his attempt and banished to the realm of nightmares he had accidentally created. While there, he found a convergence with the Shadowfell and was able to escape. He has now returned to the material plane to seek revenge and fulfill his plans of stopping reality and turning it into a dream.

Even as I wrote this episode and thought about Dreamtaker, I thought of ways to improve him as a villain. For one, I know he is a threat to my players and they know it too. He has a lot of power so that one was easy.

His motivations are clear, he wants to gain followers and, through their belief in him, transfer the material plane to the dream world.

As far as I can tell he is not as dynamic as he could be be. That’s where I need to work on him next.

So there you have it, a live example of a Villain in progress and a framework you can follow. I would say when you work on your own villains, write out everything you know first. Then summarize into those points mentioned above and then from there just edit. I’d love to see what kinds of villains you come up with. Make sure to post them on Instagram and tag @howtobeabetterdm to let us know what you made!

Thanks for listening to another episode. We’ll be back next week for another amazing episode. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

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5 Tips to Spice Up Your Dungeons and Dragons Combat Encounter

23 februari 2023 | 20 min

How to Stay Excited About Being a Dungeon Master (Avoiding DM Burnout)

16 februari 2023 | 22 min

Intro

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, I’m Justin Lewis, here with my compatriot Tanner Weyland, and together we’re here to help you learn how to craft better stories while you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons.

Suffice it to say, as hobbies go, this one requires a lot of dedication and stick-to-it-I've-ness. Sometimes you just don’t feel like prepping or running a session. Sometimes you just aren’t excited to be a DM. So, in that regard, Tanner and I are going to talk about how to stay excited and avoid DM burnout.

Main Topics

What Causes You To Lose Excitement

What is the Hardest Part of DMing

What Are You Excited About Right Now

What Resources Should I use?

How to Schedule Correctly

One-Shots

Switch back and forth between prewritten and self-written content.

Play Other Games

Have Players DM once in a While

Conclusion

Intro

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, I’m Justin Lewis, here with my compatriot Tanner Weyland, and together we’re here to help you learn how to craft better stories while you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons.

Suffice it to say, as hobbies go, this one requires a lot of dedication and stick-to-it-I've-ness. Sometimes you just don’t feel like prepping or running a session. Sometimes you just aren’t excited to be a DM. So, in that regard, Tanner and I are going to talk about how to stay excited and avoid DM burnout.

Main Topics

What Causes You To Lose Excitement

What is the Hardest Part of DMing

What Are You Excited About Right Now

What Resources Should I use?

How to Schedule Correctly

One-Shots

Switch back and forth between prewritten and self-written content.

Play Other Games

Have Players DM once in a While

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

8 Tips for Player Management in Dungeons and Dragons

9 februari 2023 | 12 min

Ulv had been living in the cave for 2 weeks. He’d managed to down an elk he had tracked. The elk seemed to have been separated from its herd because it was all alone. He’d fashioned a spear out of rock that he’d found in the cave. So far he felt pretty good about himself. He’d been at this trial for a couple weeks and hadn’t died.

“Of course, you still haven’t made any progress towards the actual trial,” Ulv said to himself out loud. Ulv had always been comfortable being alone, but for some reason he found himself missing people. He missed Herlia and Hipam. He missed Cojari and he missed Judir.

Ulv had always had a strange relationship with family. Being adopted meant that got to choose your family. Despite his gruff and stoic exterior, Ulv had always been quick to welcome people into his family. That’s probably why he felt to mourn the death of Judir so deeply.

“Nope. Not going to think about that,” Ulv said to himself as he stood up and started pacing around the cave. No reason to start blubbering about the dead all over again.

“What about your parents?”

Ulv froze. That voice had come from deeper in the cave. He looked into the darkness past the flickering light of his meager campfire.

“Who goes there?” Ulv cried.

Drums began playing and briefly Ulv’s vision blurred. When he could see clearly again, he stared into the darkness, hearing the constant beat of distant drums.

What would you like to do?

Intro

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis, and I’m here to help you learn how to tell amazing stories as you DM sessions of D&D.

Sometimes getting a handful of people with different schedules, wants, hopes, interests and experiences together to play a seamless session can seem just about as easy as herding a bunch of cats. Truly, managing players is one of the hardest parts of being a dungeon master. Luckily, it is a skill that you can master. To that point, here are some of my tips on exactly how to manage your players as you dungeon master.

Honest Communication

In order to corral 3-7 people together to create a shared positive roleplaying experience, direct and honest communication is 100% necessary. You can’t hope to be able to manage your players if you can’t pull any single individual aside to talk about ways the gameplay can improve. Foster the ability to tell people about issues to their face. This is one part strength of the relationship, one part strength of your character and one part social acumen. You need to learn how to do it in an adroit way. What I find works best is only have as many people there as need to be there when you are delivering direct communication that may not be fun to hear. If you are making an announcement for the whole table, let everyone hear it. If you are giving correction to a player who is constantly distracting the other players at the table, only they need to be present.

Routine

You have to treat your players is if they were children. Children need routine, and so do players. Naturally, schedules are ever changing. That’s why having your game at the same time every week, or on the same day every week, helps a lot. Not everyone can do this. My own group doesn’t even do this. So instead, we’ve routinized other things. We always have it at my house. That lowers the work anyone needs to do to figure out where we are playing. They already know. It’s happening at my house. There are other things that you can routinize. Like when we play, I always start off by giving away tokens of advantage if someone in the group did something cool during the week that correlates with a D&D skill. This is a homebrew rule I made up, but I like doing it because it also starts to get us into the mood of playing D&D.

Responsiveness

One huge part of managing players is finding players who are responsive. At some point, it needs to be understood that everyone in the group needs to communicate and respond to communications. This rings especially true for communications about when the gameplay is actually going to happen. If a certain player or two only respond the night of the session to say, “Hey, I can’t make it,” then something needs to change.

In those instances, sit down with that player and explain to them that in order to make the game happen, you need everyone’s cooperation. We live in a day and age now where communication really does not take that much effort. All it takes is a little response to an instant text and you’re done. In some cases, the players will have to talk with their significant others to make sure there aren’t any conflicting plans. That might be where you can coach the player a little more about how to bring up the topic and how to talk with the significant other to make sure everything is kosher.

Give Players Jobs

The whole idea behind player management is to make it so you and the players are vibing on the same frequency. It’s to reduce distractions that are unwanted and increase player participation and cooperation. To do that, giving individual players duties and responsibilities is a very great way to make sure everyone is invested. You could have one player be in charge of keeping and tracking initiative during combat. You could give one player the duty of managing the battle map during combat. You could also give one player the duty to write down just the names of all the NPCs that are mentioned during the session. Whatever job you give any individual player, make sure that it is somewhat small and it doesn’t detract from that player enjoying the game and having fun. Giving players jobs also has the added benefit of making your life as a DM easier. A win win.

Understanding of Expectations

Simply put, your players need to understand and be willing to abide by your rules. You also need to understand and be willing to abide by their rules. Obviously, I use the term “rules” a little loosely here, but that’s essentially what they are. If you have a player that is uncomfortable with certain themes or experiences they might find in D&D, well you need to be aware of that and make sure to help them stay comfortable. Obviously, you can push the envelope with simple fears and such. I’m talking about true discomfort.

On the flip side, your players should be well aware of what they can and can’t do. In my book, watching videos on your phone while we are playing is a big no-no. I’m a little bit of a pushover when it comes to this type of thing, but it’s something I’m actively working on. The problem I see is that half the table is interested in what I’m saying and the other half of the table wants to see the video. I want all my players to know what I expect and I want to know what they expect of me. This goes for expectations around responsiveness in communication as well as no-shows, and everything else that could come up.

Manage Them Individually

Just as I am an individual, my players are too. I have a married couple that plays in my group and I should still treat each of them as individuals. Honestly, neither of them causes me any trouble, but when it comes to making sure they get info about the next session, reaching out about backstories, and more, I need to do it individually. Sometimes, we think of managing players as managing a group. Really it’s managing 4 to 7 individuals who all have their own ideas, wants, wishes, fears, boredom, etc. This doesn’t mean that you won’t make table-wide announcements or have a group text message thread that reaches all of them. You will and should definitely do those things. When it comes to managing difficulties or making things even better, I find it works better on an individual level.

Firing Players

Sometimes, you gotta be tough. When everything else you’ve tried has failed, it may be time to “fire” one of your players. Pull them aside one day. Ask them if they’ve been enjoying playing. Look at their demeanor. If they say no, then simply explain that they don’t have to keep playing if they don’t enjoy it. If they do enjoy it, make it clear to them that they are making things much more difficult for you as a dungeon master. Explain that you need them to change their behavior. If they persist without little change, then pull them aside again and kindly let them know that they will need to find another gaming table. In my experience, after trying everything else, the player will likely respond and either quit coming on their own or change their behavior. Very few people want to be an annoyance on purpose.

Feedback Protocol

In my opinion, one of the most important aspects of player management is setting up some sort of system to get feedback. Whether you go so far as to create a formal survey you hand out after every session, or you casually ask your players what they like and didn’t like, it doesn’t matter. You gotta know what makes your players happy and engaged in the game. If you are having problem players, it might be because they aren’t being stimulated enough by the experience. In this day and age, ADD and other challenges have become much more prevalent. If you can figure out that Player A is having a hard time focusing, but Player A also really loves the mythology of ancient China, well, it’s time to introduce a few Oni into the story. Adding more of what your players love is, in my opinion, the best way to make sure that the players are attentive and cooperative.

Conclusion

Not every table will be filled with players who are completely engaged and hang on to your every word. In fact, in my experience, the more players sit at the table, the harder it gets to control them all. Your job as a DM isn’t to control them though. You just need to make sure that everyone at the table has a fun time. To do that, you might employ any of these methods of some you make up. Either way, get your players to buy in and give you their attention so they can have fun.

Thanks for listening to today’s show.

Send any feedback to [email protected]

We’ll be back next week for another amazing episode.

Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

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10 Reasons to Do One-Shots as a Dungeon Master

2 februari 2023 | 13 min

You and your companions make your way down the trail. You’d left the other companions a day or so ago. Now you’ve been traveling with Hipam and Cojari and frankly, these have been some of the calmest days in the previous months. Your other companions had made some very questionable decisions. Assassinations, lycanthropy, starting fights that were unwarranted, yes they were your friends, however, your conscience has never felt so good.

“So what can you tell us about your uncle Judir?” Cojari asks in his deep and soulful accent.

“I’ll be honest, I don’t know the man very well. My father never mentioned Judir.”

“Well how do you suppose we can convince him to join us?” asked Cojari, ever the practical one.

“Good question. We’ll have the next few days to figure it out. He’s stubborn. I know that. So we better have a good argument when we get there.”

So what would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. You’re here because you want to become a High-Class Dungeon master, crafting unforgettable stories for yourselves and your players as you guide them through games of Dungeons and Dragons 5e. I’m here, to help you do that. Whether you’re a noobie or a veteran, I can help. My name is Justin Lewis and today I’ll be your dungeon master on this journey of story crafting. If you’ve been around the game for a while, you’ve no doubt heard the term one-shot. You’ve also undoubtedly heard some controversy around one-shots, namely, are they worthwhile? Can you create fun one-shots? Are they just a waste of time? Why does gas cost so much? Oh, wait, no that last one was just my inner thoughts escaping. Anyways, today, I’m going to give you 10 reasons why I think you should give one-shots a try. I love doing one-shots and if you’ve been listening to this show for a while, you know that you can actually have an opportunity to play a one-shot with me or my counterpart, Tanner Weyland as your DM. Regardless of whether you sign up for that or not, I highly encourage you to try one-shots yourself. Here’s why:

Explore new environments

One of my favorite reasons for doing one-shots is the ability to explore new settings. Sometimes I see cool ideas on TV or in movies and it makes me want to try it out. For example, I’m a fan of the Netflix series based on League of Legends called Arcane. The series is in an arcane-punk setting that is similar to steam-punk. This would be an amazing setting to explore and in a one-shot, you can without too much commitment. I’m also a fan of StarCraft and think that would be another cool setting to explore.

Explore new rules

Doing one-shots is also a great way to pick specific rule sets you aren’t comfortable with and then put your story in. For example, I am not extremely familiar with the rules associated with being underwater or being on a different plane. A one-shot is a great place to make yourself learn those rules. Or have you ever had someone with lycanthropy? Or vampirism? One-shots are great places to figure out how to do that. It’s a low-commitment way to get it all figured out.

Explore new challenges

It’s also a great way to force yourself to do new challenges. Maybe you don’t necessarily do puzzle? Maybe you don’t force your group to split the party? One-shots are perfect opportunities to make yourself learn how to deal with those challenges. Or maybe, you’ve never done a group bigger than 4 or smaller than 4. Try a new experience and force yourself to learn and grow in those challenges.

The last few days of travel were uneventful. There was a small troop of goblins that you encountered, but Hipam cast a large spell and was able to scare the troop off. Perhaps you’ve misjudged that little one. When you first met him, he seemed naive and perhaps a little unprepared for the wide world around him. Living all your days in a monastery will do that to you… Well, you suppose he didn’t live his whole life in Summit Hall. There were the days before his parents were murdered by the Fire Cult. Hipam seems a little more serious now. You don’t whether that’s due to the mission you’re on or the days spent in the Drow prison. Regardless, you better keep an eye on that one.

Your thoughts are interrupted as you finally enter a small clearing with a large log cabin. Gentle smoke rises lazily up from the chimney. The cabin seems to have undergone some major repairs and renovations.

“I thought it would be longer before I saw you again little bear.” a deep and rhythmic voice says. You think about how similar Judir’s voice is to Cojari’s, or at least Cojari’s new voice.

“We’ve come back Judir, to come get you.”

“I told you boy, this isn’t my fight.”

What would you like to say?

Work on succinct storytelling

Stories are when something specific happens. Note how I said something and not something or even everything. Storytelling naturally highlights the best and most salient parts of a series of events and presents those events to the consumer in a pleasing way. In order to do that effectively, you do need to work on telling stories succinctly. What better way to Practice that than to force yourself to tell An interesting story within the confines of a single session Of D&D. One-shots help you get a better sense for session planning and short but effective storytelling. In my last one shot, I dialed what I normally plan back and I ended up being a little short of my target length, but it was still fun and better than going over or having to cut it short. One shots force brevity and pithiness.

Work on Pithy Roleplaying

Speaking of being Pithy, one-shots force you to get your role-playing right on the first time. Either you get it right or it takes up valuable time from other integral parts of the story. This assumes of course that you have some sort of time constraint. Most DM’s do have that time constraint and to be frank, it’s called the short attention span of players. Because of this, your roleplaying has to convey the important plot information as well as give the players a glimpse of the NPC you are trying to portray. Honestly, One-shot roleplaying can be much easier than other roleplaying opportunities because you don’t have to worry about repeating NPC’s too much. You can go crazy with an NPC with the knowledge that the players won’t see them again.

Breaks from your campaign

I don’t know about you, but sometimes the campaign I am running can be somewhat stale. Or maybe it’s me that gets stale. Either way, stepping away and doing something else helps me to come back to the campaign with fresh eyes. I get the fact that once the session is done you’re doing something else, but I’ve also noticed that doing other stories helps me come back to my original story and see it in a new light and have fresh energy for it.

Play-test HomeBrew content

Home-brew content can be pretty hard to dial in. Sometimes you make items that are way too powerful and other times, the stuff you give your players isn’t where you want it to be. For example, in my campaign I had my players do a side quest where they go into a haunted mansion. I set up the mansion to almost exist in a pocket dimension and in order to ascend or descend the stairs to the next levels, the characters had to drink a potion that “faded” them. After they were “faded” they had to drink “revivification” potions to become normal again. I hadn’t playtested the “revivification” potions so when the players got more than they need to be normal and had a surplus I had to come up with some features of the potion on the fly. Suffice it to say, the potions were way overpowered and I was happy when the last extra potion was drunk.

Work on spotting and fixing plot flaws

I’m a big fan of the Youtube Channel, Pitch Meetings. I think the concept is brilliant. If you’re unfamiliar with it, here’s the premise. A man pitches movies to an executive who spots flaws in the story of the movies and the writer then just glosses over the flaws without fixing them. It’s hilarious.

Well, you and I need to learn how to do something similar. We need practice spotting and not laughing at but fixing plot flaws. In a way, you and i should treat ourselves as both the producer and the writer of our D&D stories. We need to ask the hard questions and poke holes in our stories so we can find the solutions to those problems. In my last one-shot, I was constructing the scenario and for some reason, it wasn’t quite working. I was stumped. Then I asked Tanner for some help and he helped me see a plot flaw and overcome it easily. Whether you use someone else or yourself, you gotta develop this ability to look critically at your stories. Because one-shots are a little more contained than other stories you can do that a little easier. That’s why you should do one-shots.

Allow your players to work on character ideas

Thus far, all of these reasons for why you should play one-shots have all been for you the DM. But what about your players? How do one-shots affect your players? Positively.

Most D&D players can create a new character very easily because they have so many creative ideas swimming around in the think-tank of their brain. In a way, they are the DM of their character, trying to write an interesting story and help add to the collective cognitive experience that is Dungeons and Dragons.

By engaging in one-shots you’re allowing your players the opportunity to work on writing better characters. Creating a backstory is fun because you get to essentially explain why any given D&D character is insane, cooky, bold, angry, fat, sloppy, scarred, or almost any other adjective. By playing one-shots, you give your players this chance to hone their creative abilities.

Allow your players to work on role-playing

Similar to number 9, your players need opportunities to practice their role-playing capabilities. Not every one of us is born as thespians or performers. In fact, in my own case, role-playing might be one of my weaker areas. The only way to actually improve is to practice. Players also get into a routine and it’s much easier to reassess and reactivate those roleplaying muscles when you break their state, put them in an unfamiliar situation, and force them to start asking themselves questions like, “What would this character do?”

Try one-shots as a way of encouraging players to act out characters that are different than their normal campaign characters. You’ll be surprised at the growth you see in your players.

“The blood of our fathers and of our children.”

Those were the words you said. Somehow, those were the words that changed a stubborn man’s mind. Judir is a child of the north as much as you are. Perhaps more. His blood runs wild with the strength of generations gone before him. His stubbornness runs almost as strong. Yet, somehow those words overcame that. Those words that you weren’t supposed to know changed him. How did you know those words? It doesn’t matter. He’s with you now and now you need to figure out the next step. As you trudge forward on the path, you ask, “So what is the plan now?”

Hipam responds, “Well mate, I suppose we need to assess how strong your brother’s hold is on the Kingdom.”

“We also need to create an army from nothing…. Maybe your relatives up north can help.” Cojari adds

“Without dying first…” Judir grumbles as he pets his enormous Bear’s head.

All good points. Well, it’s time to figure it out.

Thank you for listening to today’s episode. We could not do this without you. We are so grateful for you and your support of us. We want to support you too. If you get an opportunity, reach out to us on Instagram and let us know how we can support you and your quest to become the world’s greatest DM!

We’ll be back next week but until then, let’s go ahead and roll the initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

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So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

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Family: Isn't it about... D&D? Family Relationships in D&D

26 januari 2023 | 17 min

Wizards of the Coast's OGL 1.1 (Or at Least Our Thoughts On What We Think We Know So Far)

19 januari 2023 | 23 min

Improve Your Roleplaying Game Immersion with Alex Aries

12 januari 2023 | 35 min

6 NPC Questions to Help Stimulate Roleplaying at Your Table

5 januari 2023 | 10 min

Ulv stumbled through the snow covered trees. He’d been stripped of his weapons and shirt and was given a pouch of herbs to crush and smoke when he felt the time was right. Apparently, they were supposed to give him some sort of vision about what his test was.

“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done,” Ulv grumbled to himself amid strides through the knee deep snow. He needed to find shelter soon. There was no way he’d survive if he didn’t get out of the blowing wind and snow.

As if in answer to his mental request, he spotted a cave up the slope of the hill he was climbing. The cave was almost covered with snow, but had an opening large enough for Ulv to enter.

The interior was cold, but less so than the freezing forest outside. It was dark, but some light reflected in from the outside snow. Ulv made his way as deep in as he dared without a torch. The cave was much deeper than he’d anticipated. That meant more warmth but less light.

So what would you like to do?

Intro

One important thing you’ll want to remember is that for the most part, these questions work when asked to specific individuals. Singling them out can help to get a better response from some of the more unresponsive players. Just make sure that the question is set up the right way. In fact, before we begin with the actual questions, let’s talk about a few requirements for a good NPC roleplaying-prompt question.

Purposeful

You can’t just ask random questions and expect that every question results in better or more roleplaying. For each question, you need to have a specific purpose. Maybe you ask an open ended question to allow the player more freedom and creativity. Or maybe you ask a very specific question designed to get the player to actually respond.

Player directed

The best questions are focused on specific players. If you ask questions directed at the party, it is very likely that the person who is most used to roleplaying will respond. Getting a player to respond who rarely roleplays requires direct questions. That’s not to say that every single question needs to be focused on stimulating roleplaying. Some questions are just for the sake of the story.

Now with those two question requirements in mind, let’s get to the actual questions of today’s show.

What do You Think?

When directed at a specific player, “What do you think?” can be a very powerful tool to help re-engage a player who may have lost focus, or just help jumpstart the party into helping everything collaborate. I’ve used this with ally NPCs or even some NPCs that are slightly adversarial, though I haven’t ever used this question from the standpoint of a complete villain. I haven’t really found a scenario where that makes sense. Simply ask this question using the character’s name and voila! They have to respond with at least something. Even if they say, I have no idea, they’ve at least said something! That is a win in my book.

What’s Your Story?

I find this question works the best when it’s an NPC that is somewhat neutral to the party, like a shopkeeper or something. Naturally, the party will look different compared to the normal customers (usually), so a shopkeeper could take interest in the party, if only to hear a new story. You can also use this question from the point of view of an NPC traveling with the party. The only drawback with that is once the question has been answered, that’s it. If it didn’t lead to more roleplaying, you can’t really ask it again from the same NPC.

That’s a nice piece of equipment, where’d you get it?

This question is very similar to the previous question. From the point of view of NPCs, most of the equipment that our adventurers have is really nice and shiny. Normal folk rarely have opportunities to encounter the types of magical items that adventurers carry. I also like this question, because it has an obvious answer. Any roleplay shy character can give an easy answer as to how they acquired a particular item because rather than having to make up some answer on the spot, they can just respond by recounting the history of the game. Anyone can do that.

How’d you all meet?

Remembering that these questions work best when directed at a specific character, this question works well because like the previous question, it’s simply a matter of recounting history. It’s also a good question if the campaign has been going on for a long time. It’s nice to remind your players where you all began the adventure and how far you’ve come.

Why’d You Become Adventurers?

This question works best in one-on-one settings, like two people keeping watch, or a player walking the town alone during a shopping session of D&D. You might have to warm up the player to get the optimum roleplay experience. Thinking of a deep question from their backstory like this one might be too much right out of the gate. I would maybe warm it up by commenting on how difficult the road has been thus far and pointing out some of the foes that have been faced. Then the question can be breached about why the particular character became an adventurer in the first place.

What are Your Goals?

This question is hugely helpful for the Dungeon Master looking to add in story arcs that deal with a particular character’s backstory. Like the previous question, if the table is generally dominated by one or two roleplaying geniuses, then it’s better uses in a one-on-one scenario. This question will give you, the DM, a lot of ammo for preparing future twists and turns in the story. It can also help you fulfill on promises to each player. Each player will want a specific experience, even if they don’t know it. By asking what the characters want, you’ll be better able to fulfill on those promises.

Become a Roleplaying Master

Using these questions can help, but the best thing to help your players roleplay more is to work on your own roleplaying. By leading them with the example of a Dungeon master who isn’t afraid to be the tavern keeper, the villain, or the strange drunk on the side of the road, your players will feel more comfortable themselves getting into character. So loosen up and start practicing. Take every session as an opportunity to improve. Your players might not react right away, but soon enough, they’ll realize just how much fun it is and they’ll join in the roleplaying.

If you think I missed any questions, let me know by going to Instagram at Betterdungeonmaster.

We’ll be back next week with another amazing episode. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

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End of 2022 & What 2023 Holds for How to Be a Better DM

29 december 2022 | 8 min

5 Tips to Make Your Dungeons and Dragons Game Christmas Themed

22 december 2022 | 13 min

The entire tribe sat around the feast. They’d managed to down a mammoth and this was cause for celebration. The shaman claims the downing of the beast coincides with the yearly Midwinter celebration Hogash. All the children have been making gifts for each other and the adults have been creating altars for their ancestors. Now the tribe is sat all around the fire pit, feasting on delicious meat.

Ulv stands up. The entire tribe hushes and the shaman waves for Ulv to speak.

“I wish to attempt the trials. I will lead this tribe.”

Suddenly the men of the tribe start beating the ground with their weapons and chanting.

The shaman stands up. “Dnuk has accepted the call to the trial. Truly this is a celebration!”

We being the preparations at dawn!”

Intro

Warrick’s Problem.

Main Topic: Tips on How to Make D&D Christmas Themed

Justin

Add in a Random Celebration in the setting where your players are.
This will give the feeling of the holidays even if the celebration is set in the middle of a desert.
Change the “skins” of NPC’s
Your players don’t actually have to fight Santa Clause. They could fight a giant that looks like Santa Clause but has all the same stats as a giant. D&D is half narrative and half mechanics. Instead of homebrewing your own Santa, just take the mechanics of something else and say it looks like Santa.
Give your Players a Gift
Every player loves getting new loot. Have a random patron show up and gift the adventurers some sort of interesting item. If you don't want to break your game have them give some sort of consumable item that is interesting. If you don’t know what sort of consumable, just choose the form (potion, food or other time) and then pick your favorite ability and give it a one-time use.
Change the weather.
For most people, Christmas is synonymous with winter. Make it obvious that the weather is changing. Make it snow and give them consequences for the snow. Either have someone open up their home during a snowstorm (spread Christmas cheer) or have the characters have to avoid getting stuck in a blizzard.
Go all out with Christmas Homebrew Monsters

You can subscribe to people like GamingBrew from Episode 63. He for example has loads of themed monsters that are custom created for the right feeling and setting. Subscribing to him saves time because you don’t have to do anything other than plug and play.

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Listen to Our New Podcast

As a listener of this show, you obviously love story. Now that you’ve learned how to craft your own story on this show, wouldn’t it be nice to have some inspiration? Or maybe just a moment of immersion and escape? Then come join us in our new Actual Play D&D 5e show, Pact and Boon. Enter the World of Calignos where our characters, Jolly, Wolfgang and Alon will meet each other in Hell. Enjoy our troublemaking and near-death experiences wherever great podcasts are heard. Just go to session0studios.com/pactnboon and start listening today.

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Catching Up With Your Players Between Sessions

15 december 2022 | 20 min

Tips to Improve Your Writing Part 2

8 december 2022 | 11 min

“For the last time, my name is Ulv and I’m not supposed to be here!”

“Whatever you say D’nuk, whatever you say.”

Ulv was busy working a leather hide that he and T’Sichk had obtained from downing a large caribou. It was a good find. Ulv had been here for weeks. He didn’t know how he’d gotten here but for some reason, he was now in the far north. Ulv had a sinking suspicion that this was a vision, but it felt much more real than that.

Everyone in the village called him D’nuk and since Ulv had no way of getting back to Herlia and Hipam, he just lived life in the village. To be honest, Ulv wasn’t sure he wanted to go back.

Judir was dead. Cojari, imprisoned. The Kingdom, still under the rule of his stepbrother. Ulv had no idea what to do, so he continued working on the leather hide.

“You know, you can’t run from it or hide forever.” T’sichk said.

Ulv froze. “What did you say?”

T’sichk looked at Ulv and said, “I know you’ve been thinking about the Elder’s challenge. The village needs you D’nuk. You have to join the council. You have to attempt the trial.”

This was the first Ulv had ever heard of that.

D’nuk walked over to Ulv and put his arm on his shoulder. “Look, brother, you are wise and strong like the bear. The trial is difficult, yes, but you can overcome it. You should not think of the task in front of you, but the people behind the task waiting for you to stand up and be a bonfire to all who sit in the cold darkness. We need you brother.”

What would you like to do?

Intro

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you create better stories as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons.

Main Topic

In one of my previous episodes, I talked about tips on improving your writing skills. As a Dungeon Master, you are one part writer, one part performer, and all parts crazy. You’ll need to know how to craft a story correctly and that means writing. So today, I’m continuing my discussion of how to improve your writing skills with these tips:

Join a Writing Group

My cohost, Tanner Weyland, and I joined a writing group in college. While we had both met working at Papa Murphey’s when we were younger, we really developed our relationship by going to this writing group together. At the time, I didn’t have any particular project I was working on, but being in the group forced me to write something. That exercised both my ability to just put pen to paper as well as my ability to think up creative things. You too should look at forming or joining a writing group. The culture of writing groups is generally one of constructive criticism that looks at how the story is written. It is immensely helpful for those who have never shown their work to others before. It allows you to see how people perceive and accept your writing, thus giving you an understanding of what is or isn’t clear.

The simplest way to join one is by starting one, but to join or start a writing group, you need to know people who like writing, so ask your friends and family. If that doesn’t work, you can try apps like Meetup or try posting it on social media.

Kill Your Darlings

Originally coined by Arthur Quiller-Couch, the term “murder your darlings” means sometimes you need to kill your favorite part, character, scene or aspect of your story. I once worked with a colleague who loved to draw. His love for animation ignited in me a desire to try and draw. So I started, and when I thought I had something spectacular I’d show him. He ended up saying, “Try changing this or that.” I wouldn’t because I was too afraid of messing it up. He eventually told me to not be afraid of messing something up, because my best work will always be in the future, and I could always draw something better. Well, with my pitiful drawing career behind me, the same rings true for writing. You need to sacrifice your favorite parts of your story so you can write the best parts of the story. It may be a cool idea, but does it fit? Is it what your players really need right now? Take your writing and then as an exercise, imagine what you would write if you took your favorite thing out.

Write Outlines

This tip has helped me in writing podcast episodes, Instagram reels, and D&D sessions. You can think of it like the building of a house. First is the foundation and the framing (or the concept and the outlining of the concept) then all the important details are filled in (full disclosure, I’ve never built a house and may not know what I’m talking about). The point is being able to think on a macro scale and then slowly fill in what you need allows you to make sure the timing works and you’re hitting all the parts of the story that you want to. You don’t necessarily need to think up every single detail but having an outline can really help. One simple outline is the 3 act play outline. As defined in Writing Excuses, a podcast all about writing better, Act 1: Put your characters in a tree, Act 2: Throw rocks at them, Act 3: Get them down. This is a great way to think about story arcs both in and out of D&D. You can even simplify it down to 3 part sessions. Each part in your D&D session will either be an exploration part, combat part, puzzle part, or roleplaying part. There’s really not to much else that D&D can be. It can also be more fluid and less structured, but using this can help get you started.

Write More than you Think You Should when it comes to character development

A good writer generally creates much more for a specific story than what they publish. The audience might only see a quarter of all the content the writer has prepared whether in their mind or on paper. I believe that this is because that’s what is necessary for something to feel real. You have to feel like the shopkeeper on the edge of town has a fully fleshed-out backstory because in real life that’s how it would be.

So with your main NPCs, make sure you prepare a whole lot more about their character than you think you should. This means filling in their memories, adding in character quirks, and answering silly questions about them like what’s their favorite color. That last question might not be exactly pertinent but you get the point. Fill out more info about the character because if you’re player ever asks, you need to have an answer that makes sense and rounds out the character in a complete way.

Take a Writing Course

There are thousands of writing courses online and therefore thousands of options. You could even find free Youtube videos online that might do the trick. If you’re considering this option I would encourage you to consider a paid writing course because then you’ve actually committed. You will likely get far more out of it than if you didn’t pay.

I will also mention that not every writing course or writing instructor is the same. You may like some more than you like others. That’s ok. Try and vet them before you pay that way there is less buyer’s remorse. Also, taking writing courses with friends can help you to stay committed.

Take an Improv Class

As a Writing course can help you write better, an improv class can help you become more creative. There are generally improv classes as comedy venues but sometimes you might have to find a local group that hosts it.

This will also push you out of your comfort zone and help you get comfortable showing your creative work to other people. As humans, we are naturally scared of what people might think of what we’ve created. It’s almost like showing a baby to someone who doesn’t care. Taking an improv class can help you get comfortable with that and become more self-assured so you don’t care as much about what people think.

Conclusion

In the end, there are countless ways to improve your writing. I only mentioned a few more on this list but I bet you could think up way more. I’d love to hear your suggestions so email them to me at [email protected].

The important thing is that you keep working at it and you keep getting better. Because then you will be the world’s greatest DM. We’ll be back next week for another great episode. Until then, let’s roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Introducing Wolfgang

Meet Wolfgang. This is who Tanner will be playing in our upcoming Actual Play Show, Pact and Boon. Go to Session0studios.com/pactnboon to learn more information.

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Dungeon Master Critique: Dissecting Justin's September One-Shot Part 2

1 december 2022 | 36 min

Giving Thanks to your D&D Players

24 november 2022 | 6 min

What is the Ruling on House Rules in D&D?

17 november 2022 | 26 min

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better DM. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy. Today, we are going to jump right into the announcements!

First, Rob from Dungeons, Dragons and Psychology will be running a one-shot for some of our listeners this Saturday the 19th at 7 PM. We will be streaming the one-shot live to YouTube, so check us out there at the link in the show notes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDjN4ICKUuW7HSNI_Nsv6Wg

If you would like to sign up for future one-shot podcasts, sign up at this link: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shot. We always love playing with you!

Other than that, we have a favor to ask you: We are always trying to be better dms, for sure, but we also want to become better podcast hosts so we can be more helpful and interesting to you. As part of that, we need your feedback. We set up a super quick survey at https://betterdungeonmaster.com/feedback. If you could take a few minutes out of your day to help us, we would be so appreciative!

Today’s topic is House Rules: What makes a good house rule, and what are some good and bad examples?

Mentioned in this episode:

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Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

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Dungeon Master Critique: Dissecting Justin's September One-Shot

10 november 2022 | 38 min

Christmas Gifts for the Dungeon Master In Your Life (or for You)

3 november 2022 | 24 min

“Hipam, can’t you do anything? Herlia asks with an exasperated tone.

“Well, Miss Herlia, I’m not exactly suited for..”

“What about you you dumb bear?” Herlia yells at the large brown bear at the back of the cave. You’d all found this cave a few weeks ago while looking for shelter.

“Herlia. I’m not exactly sure something can be done. He’s just lost his uncle. That’s not exactly something you get over in a matter of minutes. Have a little heart.”

Herlia walks up to Hipam who’s sat propped up against the large brown bear. She crouches down in front of him.

“Let me tell you something little halfling. I’ve had my fair share of losses. After all of it, I found my way into the city guard where I could at least do some good. I was able to stop beatings and prevent murder. Now, I’ve been pulled away from that to do what? This?” Herlia gestures to the front of the cave where Ulv sits motionless as snow covers his face. Herlia gets up and walks over to Ulv and spins him around and cries, “Your uncle died but Cojari is still alive and he needs our help. The entire kingdom needs our help. You haven’t said a word in weeks. What are you waiting for?”

No response from Ulv.

So Herlia punches him in the mouth.

Suddenly, Ulv finds himself on a warm rug. Surprised by the change of scenery, he sits up. He’s in a large teepee made of animal skins.

What would you like to do?

Intro

Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat! And we’re getting ready for it with this list of Dungeon Master Gift Ideas. Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of D&D.

The first announcement today is who won the giveaway!

The winner is …… twisted.toga !!!!! I’ll reach out to you today to get you your download key!

We’ll also have some more announcements at the end of today’s show so stick around for that.

Main Topic

With the holiday season fast approaching, I thought it would be a good idea to create a sort of Christmas wishlist for gifts to give to the aspiring Dungeon Master. This list can serve as ideas for you to give a gift to someone else, or you can hand this list over to your significant other to help them with their shopping for you.

I’ll be honest, this list is pretty long, but that is because there are many things that you can buy for a Dungeon Master. Let me also just say that almost all of these things are “luxury” items. That means you don’t actually need them to play D&D, they’re just really nice to have. I also need to mention that I have no stake in mentioning any of these products. I have not been paid or compensated in any way. I just like them. That said, let’s get into the list and see what I have in my Santa Sleigh of holding….

Player’s Handbook

Number one on the list is really the only thing that you should get for your DM if they don’t already have it. It has the rules of how to play the game as well as the rules on how to create characters. To be honest, though, Wizards of the Coast is releasing Unearthed arcana in parts for free, meaning if you wait long enough, you’ll probably have enough to use to play the game for free anyways. If you want to know about unearthed arcana go back and listen to Episode 68 and Episode 66. But there are two options for buying the player’s handbook. You can get the digital copy (which is being sold on DNDBeyond for $29.99 as of me writing this episode) and the physical copy (which is being sold on Amazon for $22.95 at the time of me writing this episode, though it does look like that is a sale, and usually it sells for $49.95). Obviously there are pros and cons to both having the book digitally or physically. I would pay attention to what your Dungeon Master uses normally and then get them that. You can always get them the other one next year.

Dungeon Master’s Guide

Next to the Player’s Handbook the Dungeon Master’s Guide makes the perfect gift for the DM or aspiring DM who does not have it. This one is nice to have both online and in person, so gift-givers, feel free to give either one because they both have their benefits. Right now the Dungeon Master’s Guide is selling for $27.95 on Amazon (though that seems to be a sales price with the original price being $49.95) and the digital copy is being sold for $29.99 on DnDBeyond. This gift is a nice-to-have gift as it is more focused on being a Dungeon Master while having less content that you actually need. Naturally, there are case by case situations where you might need one thing within the DMG but overall, I’d say this book is a luxury.

Monster Manual

Last of all, there is the Monster Manual. This book is exactly what it claims to be, a manual of monsters. Compared to the DMG I would say this is a little bit more of a need for dungeon masters simply because every story needs conflic, and there are a lot of conflicts that happen between two living entities. This manual inspires you with those entities. It makes it really easy to fill up your games with baddies. Right now you can buy the physical copy on Amazon for $26.90 though the original price is $49.95 and you can get the digital copy for $29.99 on DnDBeyond. Now if you want to get the Monster Manual, Dungeon Master’s Guide and Player’s Handbook, you can get a bundle which might save some money. Right now the physical bundle is available on amazon for $85.99 and comes with a DM screen and the lost mines of Phandelver adventure.

A Resin 3D Printer

Usually, I stick with the cheaper things when giving tips on this podcast however, I know there is someone out there looking to give their dungeon master a high ticket gift so these next two are more expensive. Number 4 on the list is a resin 3d printer. A resin printer would allo your DM to print their own minis and even tabletop terrain in extremely high detail. A quick nitro resin printing. Your DM will need to have a computer so if they don’t have that this might not be the best gift. Also, the resin can be toxic so your DM will need a space where the resin printer can be kept away from children and pets. Also extreme hot or cold does not produce great prints so an insulated place is very important too. So let’s look at some prices. Now, this episode is not looking at which printer to buy. Instead these prices are just to set your expectations. Right now on Amazon I found a Creality Official Halot One for $199. Your DM will likely need a washing and curing machine as well in order to make sure the prints actually cure correctly. If you’re looking to do that I found a full bundle with all three from Elegoo for $378.99. Remember you’ll also need to buy that actual resin which I found for about $19.99. I would also recommend having paper towels and rubber gloves and a mask on hand too.

A Tablet

Again, among the expensive items of this list is a tablet. It would allow the DM of your life to access DnDBeyond without having to lug around their laptop. It’s simply a much more convenient tool than a computer. It can also be used in conjunction with computers. So there are lots of tablets out there but I found an Apple IPad mini on Amazon for $468 to set your expectations.

A Dice Tray

Having a dice tray is just really nice. It so allows you to set your style as a DM and I think it helps your players get in the mood too. There are millions of dice tray creators out there. Find one you like and get it! I love what @sterlingmakes does on Instagram. These are beautiful dice trays made out of wood, often with resin details added. They are quite beautiful to look at. Dice trays come in all shapes and sizes and therefore, all price ranges so find one that fits your DM and get it for them.

A Subscription to DNDBeyond

DnDBeyond offers Dungeon Masters the ability to craft encounters and campaigns with characters uploaded online so you can play anywhere. Their free account allows you a select number of these encounters and characters. For Christmas, gift your DM a yearlong subscription to DnDBeyond so they can have unlimited encounters and characters. The Hero Subscrition is about $40 for the year and the Master Subscription is about $70 for the year. The Master just allows you to share downloaded content with your players which is nice for DM’s who heavily use DNDBeyond for their character creation process.

A DM Screen

I particularly love the Dungeon Master Screen because it hides what you’re doing, and it gives you some authority and credibility at the table. It also has some really nice references as far as conditions and other things go. Here you can also find a screen as expensive as you want. From a quick Google Search I saw a range of screens going from $40 to $240 so you can really find one that fits you and your table. The nice thing about buying special or custom screens is that they are taller which is nice because the screen that comes in the normal D&D kit is somewhat short. It’s the one that I use though so don’t let the shortness of it stop you.

A Nice but Simple Sound System

Ambience can be a great tool for the burgeoning dungeon master. Giving them the opportunity to add ambience in full surround sound is a great gift! Some things to note here. Before getting the DM surround sound you might want to check with them about hooking things up to walls or what their plans are in this area. Usually people hook up Surround sound on walls and such. You don’t want to get them a gift they are unwilling to use. Next, often, surround sound systems require cabling. Make sure you get that as well. It’s annoying to get a gift that you can’t use. That said, surround sound systems are not as expensive as you might think. Just looking on amazon I found one that is $49.97 and it comes with one large subwoofer with 5 smaller speakers and it is Bluetooth capable. You can then get speaker cable for $12.99 and you have a passable speaker system in your D&D room.

A Microphone

This gift is for the online DM or the intrepid streamer, or the prospective podcaster. Microphones are pivotal for excellent gameplay over the airwaves. Here you want to think of a few things. There are two types of mics. There is a dynamic microphone which is designed to pick up everything. This sort of mic is best used in a very controlled environment like a recording booth. It will give great audio but may need some engineering on the backend. The other type of microphone is a compressed microphone which is designed only to pick up the voice of the speaker. You can use this microphone in a lot more of a noisy location (though you still want to get your audio as clean as you can as you record). For most people, I would recommend a compressed mic because it’s just easier. Bar-none I recommend the Samsun Q2U Microphone (you can get the recording and Podcasting pack for $70 on Amazon). It has excellent sound quality and USB and XLR connection and you can hook up your headphones to the mic to hear how you sound as you use it. It is the best in plug and play mics.

A Very Fancy Notebook

Depending on your DM, a fancy notebook might be just the thing for them. You’ll definitely want to pay attention to them to make sure that it’s something they would use though. I have an amazing notebook made from listener of the podcast, Anna. I use it everyday to record thoughts and insights. There are some really cool options on Amazon right now that are around $25 and would make a perfect gift.

A Fancy Medieval Mug

It’s a small touch, but supplying interesting mugs for players can help them to immerse themselves into the game. It can do the same thing for your DM. As you DM you are talking a lot so you naturally want to drink to keep your throat moiste. What can be cooler than drinking from your very own D&D styled mug. There are a lot of options on Amazon. You can even get a Viking horn mug for around $50. There are endless options.

A Gift Card to Hero Forge

If you haven’t heard of Hero Forge, it is an online site that allows you to create custom miniatures to match the character you are playing right now. They have a lot of options and you can buy the mini, buy the STL file to print the mini or buy the mini and have them paint it. You can also create a character and then import them into software like Dungeon Alchemist to play online in a 3D fashion, pretty cool. Naturally a gift card is the best choice because you don’t know what your DM would like to use it for. For example, last year, my older brother got me a $25 gift card to hero forge and just recently, I used some of it to create a mini that looks like me and then buy the STL. I printed it out and now I’m using it to make reels on Instagram.

Dungeon Alchemist

If you’ve been paying attention to the podcast these last couple weeks you’d know that I am a huge fan of Dungeon Alchemist. They are a software you can download on Steam that allows you to quickly make maps of dungeons. You can simply select the type of room you want, draw the shape and click the check mark and the software will design the room complete with furniture and treasure in a 3d Fashion. You can export the map to use on online platforms like Foundry or Roll20. It’s incredible and like I just mentioned, you can import minis from Hero Forge and use them as 3D avatars for your players. If you want to know more about Dungeon Alchemist go to betterdungeonmaster.com/dungeon-alchemist. And here again I have to say that I am not being paid to say that, however I do have that link so then I can hopefully go to Dungeon Alchemist and show them that our listeners love their product so then they will sponsor us. Just being transparent. Anyways, I really love their software and I use it all the time.

A Subscription to World Anvil

World Anvil is a tool that anyone can use to world build their homebrew project or even just use it for their current campaign. You can create Dungeon Master specific pages or let everyone see everything. You can even keep notes on your current campaign as you run it. There is a free account that allows you to get started, but that doesn’t offer nearly any of the really cool features like Secrets or Word Count Goals. The Cheapest account is for $54 a year and may well be worth it for that Dungeon Master itching to create their very own world….

Tabletop Terrain

We’ve all seen excellent examples of tabletop terrain on Shows like Critical role or High Rollers, so why not get your DM something similar. I’ve preferred my own tabletop terrain that I’ve spliced together from things I’ve found online and my own design that I 3D print. It’s cheaper, but it takes more time to get everything together. I also have to paint it which I’m not very good at. If your DM doesn’t like anything that I’ve just mentioned then you can opt for sites like Dwarven Forge. They have awesome options for Tabletop Terrain sets that are fully fleshed out and painted. Or if your DM loves to craft and make things themselves, maybe look at getting them XPS foam and super glue and paint. Either way, make sure it’s what the DM wants and will use.

Naturally there are infinite combinations for gifts you can get the Dungeon Master in Your life. Simply pick one and get it for them. The sad truth about gifts is that we rarely get it right. Getting someone a great gift is really hard. That’s why I’d like to challenge you to really think about your Dungeon Master and think about what they would like. The more you think about them, the close you will get to a perfect gift.

Now let’s get to today’s announcements.

Announcements

Thank you to everyone who participated in our giveaway! We had an amazing turnout and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for supporting the podcast and helping us reach new listeners. We want to give you ever better content. That’s why we want to ask you for feedback. Lend your hand in shaping the show and helping us help you to be a better DM. Go to betterdungeonmaster.com/feedback and answer a couple questions on what we can do to improve the show. Your opinion would be incredibly valuable.

I’d also like to extend another invite to join our One-Shot for this November. It will be on November 19th and we still have spots open. If you’d like a chance to play D&D with guest host Rob from Dungeons, Dragons and Psychology, sign up for free! Even if you’ve played before, the spots are first come first serve. Go to betterdungeonmaster.com/one-shot.

Conclusion

As always, I want to say thank you for all the support you give us on a weekly basis. We’ll keep doing what we do and come back next week with another great episode. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Unearthed Arcana Part 2: Expert Classes

27 oktober 2022 | 38 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM! I’m Your host, Justin Lewis here with my cohort Tanner Weyland and together we’ll learn how to craft better stories for you and your players as you DM sessions of D&D.

We all know that OneD&D is getting ever closer and the newest installment of Unearthed Arcana material has been released by Wizards of the Coast for us to playtest, so today we are going to give you the facts of what was released and then some of our opinions about those facts.

Before we dive in, let me mention to you to stick around because at the end of today’s show we’re going to tell you how to enter the Giveaway that just started today! You won’t want to miss it, so stick around.

Main Topic

What is on the Unearthed Arcana:

Some sneak peeks in what’s to come:
New tips for creating a home base for your characters
Class Groups
Experts, Mages, Priests and Warriors
Bardic Class
Bardic Inspiration has changed a lot.
You now can use it to affect a D20 roll as a reaction and you can also use it to heal as a reaction. This is huge because Bards can now literally be the only thing standing between a character and death.
Prepared Healing Spells
Bards now have levels of healing spells that they always have. It seems that WOC wants Bards to be more supportive and healing.
Magical Secrets
At various levels, Bards get to expand their list of spells from just Arcane to Divine or Primal.
First Subclass: College of Lore
Cutting words, you can use your bardic inspiration to impact negatively the roll of adversaries.
Ranger Class
Rangers no longer have to concentrate on Hunter’s Mark
Rangers also can cast cure wounds
Rogue Class
The Thief Subclass Sounds a little bit more like Indiana Jones (but only a little)

Announcements

Before we close up today’s episode, we have an awesome announcement. As I said at the beginning of today’s show, we are doing a giveaway and the giveaway starts today!

We’ve been lucky enough to join with Dungeon Alchemist in this giveaway to give away a free download key to their map making software on Steam. I use it for my campaigns and one-shots and it makes dungeon map making really easy and fun. We have one download key and one winner. The giveaway will go until next Podcast episode where we will announce the winner!

So here are the rules of the giveaway. There are multiple ways to enter.

Follow HowtobeabetterDMPodcast on Instagram for one entry (yes if you already follow that counts too)
For two entries into the giveaway Subscribe to the podcast and DM us a screenshot showing that you are subscribed.
For 5 entries into the giveaway Subscribe to Dungeon Alchemist on Youtube and DM us a screenshot showing that you are subscribed.
For one entry tag a friend on any of our Giveaway related Instagram posts this week (You can tag multiple friends and get multiple entries)

Let me repeat all of that.

I’d highly encourage all of you to check out Dungeon Alchemist because they are really awesome so go to betterdungeonmaster.com/dungeon-alchemist and see what they’re all about.

We’re super happy to be able to do this giveaway and it never would have happened without your support. So we just want to say thanks for joining the podcast, our one-shots and everything else. You are the magic of How to Be a Better DM.

We’ll be back next week with another awesome show and the winner of the giveaway, but until then, let’s go ahead and roll Initiative.

Conclusion

Mentioned in this episode:

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Level Up Your D&D Game with a Soundboard

20 oktober 2022 | 18 min

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better DM. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy. Today will be a bit of a shorter episode, so buckle in! We will be talking about soundboards!

A couple quick announcements: First, we are doing a giveaway on our Instagram starting soon! Follow us @howtobeabetterdmpodcast on Instagram for more info. Here’s a hint: it has to do with map creation.

Also, we have a couple one-shots coming up in the final quarter of this year: Robbie, or Bone Daddy, as he is affectionately known on the podcast “This Dungeon is Occupied,” will be running a horror-themed adventure in October for some of our listeners. If you’d like to hang out with us once a month, you can. We are filling up rapidly for that one-shot, but all you gotta do is sign up. It’s first come first serve so sign up quick. I will be running the one-shot the following month. The sign up link is: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shot

Next, make sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter. You’ll get even more content, behind-the-scenes looks, homebrew creations made by us and more. It’s free and it comes out once a month so it won’t be a bother to you. Sign up at: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/subscribe

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Unearthed Arcana Part 1: Character Origins

13 oktober 2022 | 29 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Tanner Weyland, here with my cohort Justin Lewis. We’re here to help you tell better stories as you DM sessions of D&D.

As you might have heard, Wizards of the Coast has announced that they will be releasing the next non-edition edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Rather than being a specific edition, this will instead be a constantly changing iteration of D&D called One D&D. We’ve talked about this on Episode 61 of the show if you want more in depth-information and opinion on the release. As part of OneD&D, Wizards of the Coast has decided that they will release bits and pieces of the new system from time to time, allowing us all to playtest and give feedback on the material. Well, a month or so ago they released the first grouping of this new content and today, we’re going to talk about it.

Main Topic: Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins

So today we’re going to talk about the first installment of OneD&D Playtest materials. You can get this by going to DNDBeyond. You’ll have to login and enable OneD&D playtest material but that’s free so no worries there. We’re going to mention certain points and then give our opinions about them after each point.

Choose Class First
Choose Your Origin
Origin is broken down into your race, background.
Racial Traits:
Size
Speed
Creature Type
Life Span Special Traits
Background Traits:
Ability Score Bonus
Skill Proficiencies
Tool Proficiencies
Language
Feat
Equipment
Considered Starting Races
Human
Ardling
Dragonborn
Dwarf
Elf
Gnome
Halfling
Orc
Tiefling
New Racial Legacy Trait
Applies currently to Tieflings and Ardlings
Rules for Creating a Background
“Background Features Ability Scores. When you determine your character’s ability scores, choose two of them, and increase one by 2 and the other one by 1. Alternatively, choose three ability scores, and increase each of them by 1.
Skill Proficiencies. Choose two Skills. Your character gains Proficiency in them.
Tool Proficiency. Choose one tool. Your character gains Tool Proficiency* with it.
Language. Choose one language from the Standard Languages and Rare Languages tables (these appear later in the document). Your character knows that language.
Feat. Choose one 1st-level Feat. Your character gains that Feat.
Equipment. Your character gains 50 GP to spend on starting equipment. The character keeps any unspent GP as spare coin.
Current Sample Backgrounds:
Acolyte
Artisan
Charlatan
Criminal
Cultist
Entertainer
Farmer*
Gladiator
Guard*
Guide*
Hermit
Laborer*
Noble
Pilgrim*
Sage
Sailor
Soldier
Urchin
Feats
Feats have levels, prerequisites and repeatable tags on their descriptions

Conclusion

Announcements:

To finish today’s show off, we just want to share a few housekeeping items.

First is that if you want to watch the upcoming October One-shot being hosted by none other than Bone Daddy Rob from This Dungeon is Occupied, then make sure to get on our email list. We’re going to send out a calendar invite with the date and time for that. I’ve gotten a glimpse of the storyline and let me tell you that Bone Daddy knows his stuff. Sign up for our email list by going to https://betterdungeonmaster.com/email and input your email and Name.

Next thing is that we are looking for feedback on the show. You can help us get you even more resources for creating amazing stories by going to https://betterdungeonmaster.com/feedback and telling us what you think. It’s completely anonymous and you can answer as many or as few questions as you like.

betterdungeonmaster.com/discord

Thanks for listening to today’s show. We are deeply grateful for your support and for the opportunity to support your love of Dungeons and Dragons. If the small sample of those of you who’ve joined our one-shots is a good indicator of the type of people you are, we are the luckiest podcasters in the world because you are awesome and fun. We look forward to building an even deeper relationship with you.

We’ll be back next thursday with another episode of How to Be a Better DM.

Thanks for joining us in the tavern today. Until next time, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

5 Tips to Improve your Writing

6 oktober 2022 | 16 min

You run frantically through the streets. The cold winter air bites at your face, though the stinging in your eyes comes not from the frigid wind but from the tears streaming down your face. You and your companions manage to climb the ladder onto the wall and then quickly let down a rope on the otherside. Before you know it, you’re running aimlessly through the woods.

“Ulv, what happened back there?” Hipam asks.

In your mind you see you, Judir and Cojari talking to the rebel leader in his jail cell. Suddenly, you were surrounded by guards, and then your brother appeared from behind them. He mocked you and instructed the guards to take you all into custody. Then you heard a faint drum beat. Judir rushed forward and began fighting like a mad man. Utter chaos ensued. Judir fought with your brother and then the sound of a knife running through a man’s belly. Judir fell. Then it was just you and Cojari. As the guards turn on you and Cojari, you remember hearing a drum beat and then one final chant. You saw a flash of light as Judir became an orb of fiery red light. Suddenly, you were flung to the ground.

You came to and everything around you was dust and smoke and fire. Cojari was unconscious and being put in chains by a group of guards. Judir was completely gone. Your brother rose to his feet unsteadly staring daggers at you. To your left you saw a hole in the wall that hadn’t been there before. You saw a hole that lead to freedom. You jumped.

“We failed.” Was all you replied. “We failed”

Those words seem to chase you deep into the wintry night filled with smoke, snow, and tears.

What would you like to do now?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better Dungeon Master. I’m your host, Justin Lewis and together you and I are going to learn how to craft better stories for yourselves and your players as you DM sessions of D&D 5e and soon-to-be One DND.

No matter how you slice it, you have to prepare for your D&D sessions and campaigns and that means writing in some way shape or form. Well, to become a better dungeon master then, that means you’ll have to become a better writer. But how exactly does one do that? Don’t worry, today I’ll give you 5 simple tips to do just that.

But before we do that, I have some housekeeping items to go over.

Announcements

First let me give an enormous thank you to Rob, Tony, Jeff, Chaz, and Mark who joined me last Saturday for a very fun one-shot. They were excellent players, and if you’re listening to this, I want to let you know you actually discovered the secret ending to the one-shot so congratulations on that!

Remember, if you want to watch the upcoming one-shot with Bone Daddy Rob completely for free, just go to betterdungeonmaster.com/watch at the appointed time. I’ll let you know when that is via the podcast and our Instagram.

Now, let’s get to today’s topic!

Before I go on, I need to say that I am not a professional writer. I do not have an English degree. Instead, I’m like you, a dungeon master who loves the hobby and wants to improve any way I can. These are some things that have helped me over the years. There are probably a few tips out there that I’m missing. Maybe you can help fill out this list. I also want to note that I’m purposefully keeping this episode short. I have a list of tips and I’m only doing a portion of them in an effort to make the episode more digestible. I’ll come out with an extension to this list in a future episode.

Write a Lot

The first thing you need to do to become a better writer is to write, a lot. Just like any other thing in life, the only way to improve is by practicing. Having these weekly episodes to write has been an amazing exercise for me. Not only do I have to write in a way that sounds natural when speaking but I also have to think about the words I use. I also have to prepare for my D&D sessions and have the opportunity to work on one-shots for the podcast. Suffice it say, I have made a lot of progress (even though to you it might not seem like it), for me I’ve seen a lot of improvement.

Show your Writing To Others

Not only do you have to write a lot, but you should show your writing to a lot of people whose opinions you value. This isn’t an ego trip. Instead, this is a fact-finding mission. Your goal is to genuinely find information on the quality of your content. Pick two or three people that you really trust. Ask them to read through your content and then give you some advice on what could make it better. Before you send over your writing (whether for D&D or otherwise) make sure you explain to them the stakes of the situation. Make it extremely clear that this is a life-or-death situation! Well, the life of your writing skills or the death of them. Tell them that if they aren’t brutally honest they are killing your chances of improving your writing and making an impact with your words. You have to convince them to tell you how they really feel. Help them understand that their role is crucial to you becoming the best Dungeon master the world has ever seen!

Read a Lot

Aside from writing a lot, you need to read a lot. I don’t just mean reading fiction either. We’ve had several guests on the show who have touted the benefit of studying history and using real moments to inspire fictional ones. When you read you can do it for a multitude of reasons. You might read to learn about the style of one of your favorite writers, or you might read to consume content and learn the material. Still, you might just read for the fun of it. I wouldn’t neglect this last reason either because if you forget the joy of reading, that may be step 1 in forgetting the joy of writing.

Revise and Edit (Even Other People’s Work)

If you’ve listened to the show before, you know that I love the youtube channel called Pitch Meeting. The owner of the channel pokes fun at massive plot holes in movies and TV shows in a very comical way. You also should practice spotting these plot flaws and even simple ways your work can be better. You should even do it for other peoples’ work too. Though, a small pro tip, don’t give them “advice” unless they ask for it. No one wants that. Instead, do mental exercises of what you’d do to improve other people’s work and why.

More importantly, though, you should be going over your own work multiple times. Admittedly, this is where I most often fall short. It’s been a failure my entire life. I’m a discovery writer which is OK, but I tend not to revise and edit, which is not OK. If nothing else, read what you write out loud and you’ll spot a lot more errors than you would otherwise.

Learn the Basics of Writing

When I was 19, I went to Italy on a mission for my church. My friend’s dad gave me a book on English grammar to prepare for learning the language. He explained that to learn another language, I’d need to understand how English and language in general work. He was right. You too need to do the same thing. To be able to speak the language of good writing and therefore good DMing, you’ll need to learn a little more about the basics of the English language (or whatever language you DM in I suppose). You’ll also need to learn the basics of writing as a whole. Dive into conflict, setting, character, voice, and other aspects of good story writing. You probably already know this, but my go-to is the podcast Writing Excuses because honestly, it is so good. I’m not an English major as I’ve already said and Writing Excuses cuts story writing down into manageable chunks.

Conclusion

No one is going to randomly become the greatest writer ever tomorrow. In fact, there’s a good chance you and I won’t even be decent writers tomorrow, but I promise you this: by practicing these tips, we will become better writers, and that means better Dungeon Masters. That’s all we need.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode. If you have any thoughts you’d like to add, send them over to us on our Instagram at @howtobeabetterdm.

Most importantly, start practicing. If you haven’t been a dungeon master quite yet, what the heck are you waiting for?

We’ll be back next week for another amazing episode of How to Be a Better DM. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll the initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

How to Engage Unengaged D&D Players

29 september 2022 | 31 min

Warmup:

Your D&D Group of 5 is suddenly and permanently moving to a D&D group of 4. Your players love having 5 characters. You get to now create a character that is actually your character.

Intro:

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis, here with my cohort, Tanner Weyland. Together, we’re here to help you learn how to craft better stories for your players as you play D&D. Today, we’re going to talk about a big challenge today: how to engage players in D&D who don’t seem to be engaged.

Before we get to today’s topic let’s go through some housekeeping items.

Main topic:

Justin

Reality check.

At some point (whether before or after trying any of these tips), you will have to come to grips with the fact that maybe your player doesn’t actually want to play D&D. They might be playing just to make you happy or they are giving it a try and they don’t really grasp it yet (or it isn’t their thing). So when you get to a point when you don’t know how to engage an unengaged player, ask them if they really want to play. Chances are, D&D isn’t for them.

Flank your players

Your unengaged player is not just an unengaged person. No matter what you think, there is something in life that does engage them. So with this step, examine your player. Think about what they like to do in their free time. Think about what you might find them doing when they don’t have any responsibility and can do whatever they want. If you can’t think of anything, then ask them. Learn about your players. Something in what they choose to spend their free time on will trigger an idea. Let’s think of a few possibilities.

T.V.: Most people, when asked what they do in their spare time, will say they watch a handful of shows. This is golden material for you. Ask them what shows they like to watch and then go research those shows. Try and dissect what those shows bring to the table.

Video Games: A lot of people will also say video games. This is also golden material because not all games are the same. You get different things from playing Halo Infinite than you do Elden Ring. So ask them what games they play mostly. Then try and incorporate some of that game into the campaign.

Social Media: Many people might say they spend a lot of time scrolling the feeds of social media. Excellent. Ask them about that or even follow them and do some research.

You might be noticing a pattern. You see, everyone has things that they like. Your job is to figure out what your players like and then add that to the game.

Bonus: After you get good at that, you can then start to anticipate what they *probably* will like. That is when the game gets even more exciting.

Shorter Sessions

Tanner

Side Arc: If your players are having a hard time connecting, do a side arc! Kind of like a bottle episode, but longer. Using what you learned about their favorite shows/games//genres, create a side arc that puts their character into an interesting situation. Just remember that you want them to have high control of the new arc—otherwise, they will be disconnected from the experience. The real joy of a side arc is that the players can have a real effect on the world. When it is the main campaign, DMs have to be careful with how much creative control. With side arcs, you can be more free with player control. Examples:
Have them create a store, restaurant, or other business, and have them participate in a business rivalry.
Have them wake up in a Squid Game style death game run by some noble.
Make a boat journey where they run the boat.

Intermission:

Now that player came back. You have to get rid of your character that love. How do you do it?

Main Topic Cont:

Justin

Secrets

One way to help your unengaged player re-engage is to involve them in a conspiracy. Well, it’s not actually that insidious, but you get the idea. Everyone loves a juicy secret. While you are at the table try incorporating whispers to a singular player or having everyone but one player leave the room for some time. Even if your unengaged player isn’t the player involved in the secret, they will still wonder and speculate as to what might be happening. This will involve their mind and hopefully spark their curiosity which will trigger interest.

If you can’t find a way to do that at the table, then try it in between D&D sessions. You’ll have to use the unengaged player as your accomplice otherwise they’ll likely never know of the secret. Make sure to use phrases like, “Pretend like you don’t know,” or “Don’t tell anyone else”. This will give them a prompt for their role play. Everyone has lied so they’ll know how to do it which should make roleplaying slightly easier.

Lighten up on the long-winded stuff
Travel time.

Tanner

Player Controlled NPCs

this is always fun to me: players come up with the most fun NPCs. Give them some guidelines. If you are really wanting them to get involved, let them control a villain!

Conclusion

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Starting a Homebrew D&D Project with Gaming Brew

22 september 2022 | 38 min

Warmup: From Tanner to Gaming Brew

Intro

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis here with my cohort Tanner Weyland to bring you the best resources for you to become the world’s best DM. We want to help you craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of D&D. Today we have an awesome guest with us today but before we get into that let’s talk about a few announcements.

The first announcement is that we had to move the September one-shot to October first at 4:00 PM Mountain time. If you want to watch that, head over to betterdungeonmaster.com/watch. Due to a number of unforeseen circumstances, we had to move it.

Next, we will be doing a giveaway soon on our Instagram so head over to at how to be a better dm on Instagram and make sure to follow us. If you’ve ever heard of the software Dungeon Alchemist, they’ve given us a download key to giveaway and all that will happen over on our Instagram :).

We also still have one slot open as of this recording for the October one-shot so if you want it to come and claim it. After that fills up, we’ll start prepping for November’s one-shot so come and bask in the glory!

I think that is enough announcements for today. So let’s get into today’s main topic: homebrewing. Today I have a veteran of homebrewing here with us and he can introduce himself as he so chooses but let’s dive in with the first question.

Main Topic: Homebrew Content

How did you first think up the “Erenel Fiction Universe,” and what is its premise?

How do you make a homebrew class

How do you make a Homebrew Race

How do you make a homebrew monster

How much time does it take to make a Homebrew project.

Do you make homebrew items for campaigns specifically or do you make things and then find campaigns to fit them in?

What are the biggest mistakes you’ve made when making your homebrew projects?

What tools have you used in making Erenel?

What type of non-D&D research (politics, military tactics, economics) have you done for Erenel?

Would you describe your playtest methods?

How much have you revised in Erenel and changed?

What is your favorite homebrew creation and why?

What was the hardest homebrew creation for you?

How do you determine time periods (does your World contain different eras with different technological advances)?

Intermission

Main Topic Continued

Do you think DMs are daunted by the idea of homebrew? Why or why not?

Is home brewing hard, in your opinion?

How should beginners approach their first project?

How to Reach out to GamingBrew:

Twitch: Gaming Brew

Gamingbrew.com

Conclusion

Mentioned in this episode:

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

D&D Etiquette To Make Your Mother Proud

15 september 2022 | 34 min

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better DM. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy.

This week, we were supposed to have a one-shot run by me, but my wife’s Grandma died this past week. The funeral was overlapping, so Justin offered to take over this month–stay tuned, as we are still rescheduling that.

Otherwise, if you’d like to sign up for future one-shots, we have a couple coming up in the final quarter of this year: Robbie, or Bone Daddy, as he is affectionately known on the podcast “This Dungeon is Occupied,” will be running a horror-themed adventure in October for some of our listeners. If you’d like to hang out with us once a month, you can. We are filling up rapidly for that one-shot, but all you gotta do is sign up. It’s first come first serve so sign up quick. I will be running the one-shot the following month.

With no further ado, let’s dive into today’s topic: D&D Etiquette.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Wizards Presents & OneD&D: Updates in the World of D&D

8 september 2022 | 45 min

Warmup: Tanner to Justin

Intro

Dungeons and Dragons is evolving. Wizards of the Coast has come out with some major announcements in the last few weeks and today, we’re going to talk about them.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Tanner Weyland, here with my cohort Justin Lewis. Together, we are going to learn how to craft better stories for you and your players as you DM sessions of D&D 5e and soon-to-be OneD&D (more on that later). Before we get to the meat of our conversation, let’s go through some housekeeping items.

First of all, our next one-shot is coming up on September 17th at 2:00 Mountain Time. All the spots are taken up, but you can still watch by going to betterdungeonmaster.com/watch to enjoy a good game of D&D.

Our next one-shot will be on October 22nd, and we are still nailing down the exact time for the one-shot, and we’ll let you know when we know. The important bit of information is that there is, at the time of this recording, only one open slot left in that one-shot. After that, we’ll be opening up our November singup. If you want to explore “The Web of Waking Dreams”, an original horror one-shot created by friend of the show and guest host Bone Daddy Rob from This Dungeon Is Occupied, go to betterdungeonmaster.com/one-shot and sign up today.

Last thing I want to mention is that we need your help, desperately. Justin and I are committed to giving you amazing content, but sometimes we’re a little too close to the work. We need outside eyes and ears to tell us what is actually helping you become the very best dungeon masters possible. So to do that, go to betterdungeonmaster.com/feedback and fill as much or as little of that survey as you want. All of it is useful to us to make better content that tears down your barriers to ultimate DMhood.

Main Content: Wizards of the Coast Presents - The Facts

Wizards will be releasing OneD&D in 2024.
OneD&D will be created on the foundation of 5e but with input from the players
OneD&D will have a virtual engine created from the Unreal Engine to help facilitate online play
OneD&D Playtest material will be available periodically on DnDBeyond.
Now and beyond will be releasing digital/physical bundles
Races changed to “backgrounds,” and the feats differentiate them.
New race added, kind of the opposite of teaflings.
Spelljammer is now released which are sourcebook for D&D in space.
New resources for DragonLance will be released including a new companion board game that can be used to play through war scenarios.
Initial Rule changes:
Nat 20 automatically succeeds.
No Monster/DM crit attacks.
Magic attacks don’t crit, but physical attacks do.

Intermission: Warmup Cont.

Main Content Cont: Wizards of the Coast Presents - The Opinions

Justin:

Tanner:

Questions for discussion

Is the Virtual TableTop a good thing?
Price concerns
Constraint on creativity
Push the envelope
What is the purpose of Crits?

Conclusion

Mentioned in this episode:

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

5 Questions to Write a Better Backstory for Your D&D Character

1 september 2022 | 22 min

“This is it?” Ulv asked in a hushed whisper.

“You wanted rebels. These are the only ones I know of. They’ve come here to talk to you, now say something.” Herlia responds tersely.

You sigh and step forward. You look around the basement of the tavern. Only a few candles hang around giving the room a gloomy cast. You meet the eyes of each of the 5 people sitting on barrels in this dank cellar.

“Thank you for meeting me. My companion here told me that you’ve had certain misgivings about the current regime?” Ulv pauses to let the listeners absorb his words.

“Ay, and we’ve come here to see that justice is done upon his cursed head. Are you gonna’ lead us to march against the king? Are we goin ta fight?” says one burly woman loudly. The others nod their heads and crack their knuckles.

“Your courage is to be admired, but we’re here just to observe and strategize. We don’t want to take any undue risks. Now, who is your leader?” Ulv asks.

“Oh, you mean Burto? He’s a tactical genius he is.”

“Great, where is this Burto?” Ulv asks.

“Oh, he’s in prison.”

What would you like to do?

[caption id="attachment_2380" align="aligncenter" width="800"]

Photo by Stephen Hardy on Pexels.com[/caption]

Every dungeons and dragons game starts with character creation and if you don’t help your characters flesh our a good backstory, your players will have a stale character they won’t much like. Today, let’s fix that.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m Justin Lewis and I’ll be your host and DM today as you and I learn how to craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons.

Today we will be talking about writing backstories, but first some housekeeping items.

As I said before, we have our one-shot in September coming up on September 17th. All the slots for that are already filled but if you want to watch that show you can go to https://betterdungeonmaster.com/watch to watch the whole One-Shot at the time of the game. Otherwise sign up for October’s one-shot with guest host Bone Daddy from This Dungeon is Occupied.

Now, let’s talk about writing backstories.

As we’ve said before, having your players flesh out their character at the beginning can help set them up for an incredible time playing D&D with you as their Dungeon Master. One big part of fleshing out their character is writing their back story. If there’s one thing that any Dungeon Master is aware of it’s that their players rarely write their backstories and if they do, they don’t do it to the level we need. Well, no longer. You see, you, as their DM, will be able to ask them these questions and help them generate the back story they need. If you want, you can even write what they say down. Just make sure to form it in these terms.

One last thing that I’d like to add before we get started. Help your players write backstories that are equal to their level. A level 1 character has only ever done level 1 things and lower. That doesn’t mean that they can’t have an interesting backstory. Instead, what it does mean is that the impact of what they’ve done is generally very small and localized, affecting mostly themselves and their family. They’ve never saved the world. In most cases, they may never have slain anything. For many level 1 characters, causing death is something they learn to do after they start adventuring. If a character is the exception then that should be a huge part of their backstory. What they’ve done is small but the emotional impact is huge.

Parents

One of the best ways to start your backstory is by asking “What were my character’s parents like before the character was born?” See, this question will inform your character's story and help flesh out some of the later questions I’ll have you ask. Many of our lives as people are determined by who our parents were before we were born. Where they decided to settle down if they did.

Were your parent's warriors? Were they scoundrels? Were they simple farmers?

Why did they have a child? How do they regard you? When they found out they were having a child, what changes did they make? Did they shift their life away from what they were previously doing? Are they still doing what they were doing? If not, why did they stop?

Let’s do an example:

My character's parents used to run a library in a very small town. They were seen as the knowledge center of the town because the population was so small. They also did some secret jobs for various adventurers that came into town such as acquiring special spell components or herbs. One a few occasions they put their lives at risk for these components but mostly it was mundane items. When they found out they became pregnant, they reasoned a small town could not pay them enough money to allow a family of three to subsist. They then decided to move their library and book store to a much bigger city. This caused a tremendous culture shock for the parents and eventually pushed them to seeking out powerful friends who could help offer protection, for a price.

You see how this simple question has led to a pretty awesome backstory and we don’t even know who my character is yet?

Childhood

Now you need to delve into your character’s childhood. There has long been a debate in the world of psychology of whether it is your nature (innate genes from your parents) or your nurture (what affected you after you were born) that determines how you develop. They are now attributing your development on both. We’ve already discussed your nature (some of your parents’ heritage) so talking about your childhood is moving into your nurture aspect.

You need to ask questions like:

What was their childhood demeanor?
Did they have siblings?
Who were their best friends?
How did they treat authority figures and why?
What did they think about their parents?
What did they think about their environment?
When (if at all) was their innocence taken from them?
When did they learn about death?
Did they have a favorite pet?

These questions will actually set the stage for the rest of your backstory. The backstory is really just a compendium of all the coolest stories of your character’s life. In reality, we all have interesting back stories in real life. We just need to dig deeper and think about those interesting stories that might not be really long but would instead be useful for instructing the player on how to actually play the character they create.

Let’s continue with my previous character. For simplicity, let’s call this character John.

John’s parents always provided for him and his younger brother, though there were times when John’s parents would hide things from their children. John would be inside and his parents would tell him to take his brother out to play outside and not come back until sundown. John remembers a specific time when he came home because his little brother got a scrape and he walked into his house and saw a group of people with Strange white masks. John’s parents immediately got very angry and yelled at him to leave. From that time on, John did everything he could to discover what his parents were up to. He was convinced that it was because his parents were struggling financially, so he also started looking for ways to make some extra money. Because of that, he took jobs very early on and seemed to lose a lot of his innocence and childhood. Meanwhile, John’s little brother became somewhat neglected because John focused more on discovering secrets and making money. As they grew, the two brothers developed a challenging relationship. John loved his little brother but his little brother seemed to fall in with the wrong crowd. Not knowing what else to do, John started inventing in hopes of creating an invention that he could sell that would allow him to spend more time at home with his brother and parents. All the while it seemed his family life fell apart somewhat.

Why’d They Leave Home

Let’s think back to Joseph Campbell's hero’s journey. In every mythic hero’s journey tale, the hero is forced to leave their place of comfort. They are invited, or forced out into a world beyond their comprehension and shown things they do not understand. They also start to explore and adventure more and see the world for what it is. This is when their innocence truly leaves them because they have to leave their old self behind and really forge themselves anew.

Here you’ll be answering questions like:

How’d they gain their abilities (We’ll actually answer that next)
Did they have a mentor, and if so who?
What forced them out into the wide world?
Why haven’t they returned home yet?
What discomforts were the most difficult for them to come to terms with?
What are they afraid of now?
Who or what did they leave behind and how if at all do they keep that relationship strong?
What are they running from or running to?
How do they feel about their home?
What questions do they have that need answering?

You see with all these questions, you’re really starting to fill out your character and help yourself understand their decisions and how in the world they’ve landed where they are currently (session 0 or session 1). To be honest, a good DM will help you write these and also give an opportunity to actually play through them a little.

The biggest point of this section of questions is to start to explain why the adventurer’s life started changing from “normal” to a life of adventuring.

Let’s go back to my example with John.

During his adolescent years, John spent lots of time creating inventions. Then he started noticing that some of his inventions began disappearing. One day, he came home from a short walk to find his parents and the people in the strange white masks taking his inventions. He tried to stop them and amidst the struggle, one of his inventions exploded. The blast nearly killed John but set the rest of the house ablaze. John searched the wreckage for his parents and found his mother, dead among the rubble. He also found three of the strange people with the white masks dead as well. Feeling intense grief and shame for the death of his mother, John decided he could not face his brother or father. He decided to flee.

John disappeared into the city and did what he could to survive. He begged for food and even petitioned local machinists for some work. He finally found a Gnome Ironworker from the Kula Uwea Confederacy who took John in because he saw the prowess of the young inventor. John learned various skills there and even got a glimpse of his mentor’s process for smithing Deep Iron. But unfortunately, his past caught up to him. One night, the workshop where John stayed was assaulted by people in mysterious white masks. John’s Gnome mentor was killed, but not before giving John time to escape. Now John runs from the mysterious society with the white masks. Though John has spent years trying to understand who they are, he has found little evidence.

Unbeknownst to John, his brother has joined the White Masked society and now seeks revenge upon John for the death of their mother.

Intermission:

“I never thought I’d miss Rue,” Ulv whispers to Hipam.

“Yeah, I supposed she was good for something…” Hipam whispers back in a very unconvincing tone.

“It’s lucky Judir has such a high tolerance for alcohol,” Ulv mutters.

“I think he actually cast protection from poison before starting this drinking game,” Herlia whispers.

The group sits at a table in one of the seediest taverns in the city. Across the room sits Judir, bellowing loudly and drinking with another man. That man is one of the captains of the city’s prison. He is one of the captains with a key to the city’s prison. Judir’s job is to get the man blind drunk and then to have one of the group steal his key. None of the group were particularly suited to thieving, not like Rue was. You’ll just have to make do.

“Either way, just keep an eye out for anything suspicious. We don’t need to…” Ulv whispers and then cut off as he notices the captain of the city Prison throw a right hook right into Judir’s jaw. Immediately that table erupts into a brawl.

“Guess we’ll have to do this the not sneaky way,” Cojari sighs as he gets up from the table and joins the fight.

Gaining Abilities

One of the more important singular questions in writing a backstory is “How did they start to gain their abilities or discover their abilities?”

Each adventurer in Dungeons and Dragons is on the path to becoming something special. Even level 1 heroes have started something amazing. The question to answer is how did they begin? Let’s look into this for each class.

Barbarians: You need to explain where and how your character started learning to fight. You also need to explain the source from which they draw their rage.

Bard: You need to explain how they started to learn how to use music to access magic.

Cleric: You need to explain how your character is connected with divinity.

Artificer: You need to explain how your character started to learn to tinker.

Sorcerer: You need to explain how your character discovered their latent magical abilities.

Wizard: You need to explain how your character first interacted with magic and what drove them to learn it.

Warlock: You need to explain how your character first connected with their patron.

Rogue: You need to explain how your character fell into the underworld of crime.

Ranger: You need to explain how your character learned the arts of survival and how you learned certain aspects of magic.

Monk: You need to describe how your character started practicing the art of ki and self-discipline.

Paladin: You need to explain how your character both learned the art of weaponry and how they connected with divinity.

Druid: You need to explain how your character first connected with the magic of nature and why that impacted your character.

Obviously these aren’t all the questions you need to answer about your character’s abilities but they will get you started.

Let’s go back to our example with John.

John met his gnome inventor mentor while walking the streets trying to sell knick knacks here and there The gnome saw that John had created various trinkets and thought to teach the boy something new. John became intensely interested in the gnome’s teachings and the gnome found a willing pupil. He brought John into his home and made him his apprentice. A year went by, during which John learned the beginning’s of artificing. He witnessed various miracles wrought by his gnome master’s mechanical skills. Over the year, the two became great friends and the gnome finally gave John his own tinker’s tools as a gift. Unfortunately, the apprenticeship came to an end when the mysterious group with the white masks attacked the gnome’s home and killed his mentor. John escaped with his life, the tools given to him from his mentor, and his mentor’s journal of schematics.

Current Quest

You can’t finish your backstory writing session without figuring out what your character cares about right now. As you start playing with your character, you have to pull all of their emotional baggage and past into the present by having it have residual effects on what they do right now. So answer the following questions:

What is your character’s goal right now?
What are they trying to accomplish?
Why do they care about that thing?
What are the main obstacles stopping them from doing that?
What resources do they need to accomplish that goal?
What will they do once they achieve their accomplishment?

This is crucial information. So stepping back into the Justin role where I’m talking to you the DM instead of being the DM talking to the player. You need your players to fill out this particular question. This informs on some of the character’s main motivation right now and it can help you align their desires with some of the other members of the party to hopefully gel the group together. That is, of course, assuming that you are starting with the characters not knowing each other. Let’s go back to our example with John the Artificer.

John has now left the town where he grew up. He spent a year or so on the road just trying to survive. He realized that his mentor’s journal was an arcane creation and each page was sealed by an arcane cipher. On each page, he had to solve a certain riddle in order to access that schematic. John also realized that the strange society was still following him. He’s been moving from town to town trying to evade him but they always seem to find him. He assumes that his brother still wants revenge on him for the death of their parents. Unknown to John, the society actually wants the journal for a very specific schematic they’d actually hired the gnome to create. The gnome created the schematic but then realized that the specific invention was too dangerous. John’s brother volunteered for the mission, not for revenge, but to convince John to join the mysterious society.

John’s goals now are to unlock the journal and learn about the white-masked society and avoid his brother and the society.

As always, this episode...

D&D Session Prep with This Dungeon Is Occupied

25 augusti 2022 | 63 min

Reach out to This Dungeon is Occupied at https://linktr.ee/thisdungeonisoccupiedpod

Warmup: Justin to This Dungeon is Occupied

Prompt: Think of the last group you DM’d for. Now describe the character that you would like to have played in that group if you could add a new character for yourself.

Intro:

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m Justin Lewis, and together with my cohost Tanner Weyland, we help you craft better stories for yourselves and your players as you DM sessions of D&D 5d regardless of how much time or money you have.

Today we are joined by some awesome guests, the voices behind the This Dungeon is Occupied Podcast. We have Illideen, Thorn and Bone Daddy. I’ll let them share their real names with you if they want in a second, but first, let’s go through a couple of housekeeping items.

First of all, remember that we have the next one-shot coming up in September. Tanner is that game's Dungeon Master, and we have all the spots filled. If you’re interested in watching that one-shot as a spectator you can go to https://betterdungeonmaster.com/audience at the time of the one-shot and enjoy an excellent show for a few hours.

If you’re interested in signing up for the next one shot, it will be in October and will actually be hosted by one of our guests here, Bone Daddy. He is a big fan of the horror genre so we thought it was appropriate to have him host a horror-themed Halloween one-shot. You can go to betterdungeonmaster.com/one-shot to sign up for that.

Lastly, we just want to thank you for all your support. We really appreciate everything you do for us. With every episode we strive to give you even better content, so please tell us if we do something wrong or right.

Now, let’s get into today’s show.

So let’s get into our discussion topics. Feel free and introduce yourselves amidst our questions, but don’t feel that you have to.

Main Topic: Preparing for Sessions

What’s your main process for session prep?
What tools do you use for session prep?
How do you balance the main plot line and Individual Backstory plot lines?

Break: Continuation of Warmup Prompt

Prompt: Now describe the moment when the character you described at the beginning of today’s show betrays the other characters in the party.

Main Topic Continued: Preparing for Sessions Cont.

How do you know you’ve prepared enough?
Do you go back and revise any preparation (like editing a paper?)

How much do you write out word for word versus simple prompts?

Close:

linktr.ee/thisdungeonisoccupiedpod

Mentioned in this episode:

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Level Up Guide

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

An Argument For Handouts in D&D

18 augusti 2022 | 21 min

D&D Tips for New Players and DM's

11 augusti 2022 | 43 min

Warmup from Tanner to Justin:

If you could make a character for an uninterested player, what would it be?

Intro:

Welcome back, adventurer! We’re excited for another episode of How to Be a Better DM!

Together, you and I will learn how to craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons 5e, no matter your level of experience. Today I’m your host Tanner Weyland, with my compatriot, Justin Lewis.

With the references to D&D in popular shows like Stranger Things and even a Dungeons and Dragons movie coming out, the hobby has seen a large growth in new players and will likely see even more newbies join the game. This means that there will be both new DM’s and new players who need help and need to be shepherded into the world of D&D. It’s our job to make sure that happens in a way that encourages them to stay and today we’re going to talk about just that!

Before we get into today’s main topic though, let’s go through some housekeeping items!

We’ve finally finalized the date of the next one-shot. It will be held online on Saturday, September 17th around 2 PM Mountain Time. So far we have all 5 players signed up. For those four players, we’ll be sending out a calendar invite to make sure they have the date settled. Next, just another shoutout to our show listener Robric Vanhelm. If you want to get his professionally made encounter in The League of Libraries: The Lorecroft Collection then go to betterdungeonmaster.com/robric and purchase it. All proceeds go to Robric who’s made some amazing stuff.

Well, I think that is enough jibber jabber so let’s get to the meat of today’s conversation. D&D tips for beginners.

Main Topic: D&D Tips for Beginners

Justin

Talk with your players/DM

This tip goes both ways for new DM’s and new players. For the new DM: You need to ask your players lots of questions about what they would add to your game or what hasn’t really worked for them as well as tell them that they can freely talk to you and ask you questions. If you need info about a player’s backstory, ask them without delay. If you want your players offering you info about their backstory, tell them nothing would make you happier. Ironically, for such a “nerdy” game this game teaches a lot about relationships. In order to have a successful campaign, you absolutely need constant and consistent communication from all parties involved. If nothing else, you need that just to keep the game consistently scheduled.

Encourage players to unlimit themselves

Sometimes new players might look to the DM and think, “What is it they want me to do here?” If that is how you play as a DM, I suggest you rethink your style. I know my wife has said that to me in the recent past during our game and I took that as a personal failure. You want your players to think outside the box and treat the scenarios as real world scenarios where there are infinite options. The mechanics of the game are there to be just that, mechanics, processes that explain how consequences come about. If they want to try something, they can. It’s my job as the DM to think about how logically difficult (or perhaps impossible) that thing is and then let them try anyway.

So tell your players to let themselves imagine grand things and then try them out.

You get out what you put in

Tanner

Take ownership of the lore and content.

As a new player, it may be easy to just arrive at the sessions and “tag along.” Instead, take ownership. Get some materials, whether you download or buy them. Also, know your own character’s backstory in a deep way. Study a little bit of your class’ mechanics every week. You might even want to study some of the deeper lore–that is when you can feel like a contributor, not a sidekick.

Embrace Collaboration with both the players and DM

This is in a similar vein to my other tip, but it is a practical tip for creativity: your best ideas will come when you try to create them in collaboration with the DM or other players.

Break (From Tanner to Justin)

Main Topic Continued:

Tanner

Try DMing.

Justin

It’s ok to stop

This is a tip to relay to your new players. You need to let them know that this is a new thing they are trying. If they don’t like it they don’t have to keep playing just to make you happy. In fact, you should go one step further and tell them how exactly you want them to pull you aside when no one else is around and simply explain that you had some fun but D&D just isn’t their vibe, or their kids need more attention, or they have different priorities or anything else. What’s not ok is for players to constantly lead everyone on or force everyone to change their schedule because they don’t have the spine to say, “No thanks.” D&D is not for everyone. We welcome everyone and invite everyone, however who stays is entirely up to them. I’ll tell you this though, we will make some amazing memories with whoever stays.

Describe Your Own Combat

Mentioned in this episode:

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

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Level Up Guide

8 D&D Soundboard Tools DM’s Can Use While DMIng

4 augusti 2022 | 19 min

You crest a hill and finally see it. Moedinar, your 2nd childhood home. A flood of mixed memories enters your mind. You stop and your companions follow suit. You look over the large city. You see tall but sturdy stone buildings. You see precise streets and roads laid out in a grid pattern. You see a very large wall all the way around the city. What catches your attention most of all though is the lack of livery. You don’t see the traditional flag featuring a golden deer with enormous antlers, each one tipped with a candle, all on a field of deep green. You don’t see any of that. Instead, you see white flags blowing silently on a chill breeze. Instead of a golden deer with candles, you see the head of a deer with antlers of fire and in the fire the symbol of the elemental cult of fire. Yes, it looks like the cults has been here the whole time. Light snow begins to fall. You look at your companions and ask, “Anyone got any ideas on how to get past the wall guard?”

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m Justin Lewis and I’m your DM today and together you and I will learn how to craft better stories for you and your friends as you dungeon master sessions of D&D 5e. We’ll help the noob DM, the Master DM, and everyone in between.

As a DM, your highest goal will naturally be to achieve full immersion into the world you create. You want your players to feel like they are in the scenes you describe. There are many tools out there to help you do this, but to really achieve full immersion you need to engage all of the senses, including hearing. Therefore, many DM’s have turned towards music and ambiance to help achieve this. Today I’ll be sharing some D&D soundboard tools that you can use to help enhance your experience.

Before I get to the tools, however, let me go through a few housekeeping items.

First, a big thank you to everyone who has supported the show thus far. We really can’t keep going on without your help and support. It’s you that make this show possible.

Second, I want to give a shoutout to show supporter Robric Vanhelm (Though that is his DM Name). He has given me and Tanner access to an encounter he authored on http://www.dmsguild.com/. It’s an awesome encounter called The League of Libraries: The Lorecroft Collection. He has generously offered up the Promo Version of this encounter to any of our listeners. We’ll make that available through our newsletter so if you want the promo version of the encounter go to betterdungeonmaster.com/newsletter. But after you get a taste for this encounter make sure to go to https://betterdungeonmaster.com/robric. All proceeds go straight to Robtic the DM who is a fantastic supporter of our show so you should be a fantastic supporter of him.

Lastly, if you haven’t noticed, we’ve updated our website domain, so now going to betterdungeonmaster.com will be the home of the podcast. This means that moving forward the one-shot is at betterdungeonmaster.com/one-shot in case you want to sign up and you should! Spots are filling for our September one-shot. We have 3 so far and the target is 5 do get in before they fill up.

I think that is way too many announcements so before I say anything else, let’s actually get to the meat of the show.

Intro

Before I get to my list, let me first give a few caveats.

Caveat #1: I have only compiled tools that are free to use in some capacity. I want you to be able to be a better DM without breaking the bank. I know and understand what it’s like to have a limited amount of time and resources to put toward this hobby. These are free so you can spend money on other things (like rent in some cases).

Caveat #2: Your ambience/music situation will largely depend on your available equipment. If you have a cinematic surround sound system, great. If you have only a phone, great. It all works. How you use it is what matters. For the purposes of this episode, my system has access to:

An Alexa speaker
My Computer
My Phone
Bluetooth handheld speaker.

In the case of the two speakers, it’s an either or scenario where I can’t hook them both up. Maybe in the future, I will set up a better sound system, but that will probably be down the line when I have a dedicated gaming room rather than my dining room.

Youtube

Now, I don’t even know if I have to mention this one. Youtube is an obvious choice because it is so widely used, no only for music but for videos. There are so many choices out there that it is inexcusable if you want to add music to your game but have been to lazy or haven’t found the right method. Start with Youtube and work to everything else. This is assuming of course that you have some method for playing the music.

One note: When I’ve used Youtube, I’ve found that it’s easy to forget about the music and then suddenly an add comes up or it moves from one song to another that it totally wrong for the mood. Just be aware of this and know that it can have the opposite effect. Rather than immersing your players it can be somewhat Jarring.

Spotify

Ok, so I kinda lied a little bit. Spotify is free, however you get ads just about every other song. Luckily for me, my wife makes me pay for Spotify so we have it without ads. Regardless, Spotify is a great option for making those playlists for excellent D&D playing. It has a lot of options and you can even use soundtracks from your favorite video games or movies. A caveat here. If you are in some way monetizing your D&D sessions or your DMing you have to be very careful with which music you use and how. Copyright is a thing and you can get in trouble if you don’t abide by it. That said, if you’re playing with your friends then you can basically use anything.

When I tried Spotify, I found it very difficult to create a playlist that fit general moods that I wanted. That’s because I don’t create general music playlists to listen for myself anyways. If you are good at making playlists then Spotify is a great choice for you.

RPG Fantasy App

This is the one that I’m currently using right now. It is like a basic soundboard that allows you to play both ambiance noise and music at the same time. I can even throw in sound effects though I never do because that seems a bit corny or overproduced. This app has a free version and a paid one. The free version doesn’t allow you to close your phone and have the music play so if you use this for free then you’ll need a charging cord nearby. I haven’t figured out a way to upload music to it as well which is kind of a drawback. It would be much nicer to be able to add music to it that I pull from other places.

Roll20

We obviously can’t talk about DMing in almost any context without mentioning Roll20. There are other platforms out there, but I’ve used Roll20 the most. It also has a feature that allows you to upload and play music so your players can listen to it. I’m not a huge fan of the UI but what are you gonna do. Roll20 also comes with some preloaded songs so if you plan on using Roll20 during a session and you specifically want to use the roleplaying soundboard capabilities make sure to spend some time testing out exactly which songs you want to use so you know what to use before the game starts.

Syrinscape Fantasy Player

Syrinscape on a mobile device is a bit heavy and takes a lot of memory. It has a lot of situation specific options though which does make for a great playing experience. It has other paid options that you can get if you create an account with Syrinscape. I think I would maybe use this tool in conjunction with other tools as it’s not my go-to. One thing in particular that I don’t like is that you have to download the packs for each scenario you want to try. Syrinscape is a little more sound effect heavy though it does have background music that works great for any D&D scene.

You and your companions walk through the gates. You’d had to leave Judir’s bear outside. You don’t know how he’ll find the bear again but Judir doesn’t seem concerned. After making it past the wall and the guards you all immediately look for a side alleyway where you won’t draw attention. You find it and immediately start pulling off your disguises.

“It worked, but I won’t ever do that again. Dressing up as women? How in the world did you come up with that idea Cojari?” You ask.

Cojari shrugs as he undoes a corset and starts to wipe makeup off of his face. “Infiltration makes you think up all sorts of crazy ideas. Believe me, this ain’t the worst way of getting in somewhere, not by a long shot.”

Hipam snickers and points at a grumpy Judir. “Yeah, but at least this way we got to see Judir look like a lady hehe. That’s a memory I’ll be keeping for a long time.” Judir throws a bonnet at Hipam. Those two were becoming fast friends.

You’re in the city now. Next step is to look for dissidents.

What would you like to do?

Tabletopy

One of the things I like most about Tabletopy is the simplicity. You can use it in Browser form and it’s not complicated. There are icons demonstrating what the sounds/music is and you can click more than one and use multiple at the same time. There are icons with infinity symbols that mean they play on a loop and others with a number 1 meaning that they play a single sound and you have to click again to play it again. There is also a software version of the soundboard that I haven’t yet downloaded. The browser version is simple and useful enough that anyone can open it up and start using it right away.

Tabletop Audio

While Tabletopy is beautiful in its simplicity, Tabletop Audio is rugged in its complexity. There are a lot of options on Tabletop Audio for both paid and free users. The Paid users support the creators via their Patreon but there are enough free resources to whet your whistle. I particularly like the Sound Pad feature where you can click on a Motif such as “dark forest” or dungeon and then there are a handful of resources from sounds effect to background music and ambiance. There is even a broadcast feature within the sound pad that you can send to your players if you aren’t playing in the same locale. That allows them to digitally hear what music you are playing and stay tuned in that way.

Ambient Mixer

Ambient Mixer, as its name suggests, is a tool primarily for creating ambience. You can find the right mix of natural and unnatural sounds that would be occurring within the scene you are creating in D&D. As a D&D soundboard, it’s useful only as much as you want to create those scenes. It doesn’t help with music as far as I can tell, though more often than not, ambiance does the trick just fine. With this tool, you do need to look for the moods you want beforehand. Searching the whole site can get fairly difficult and complicated if you are attempting to do it during the game. Overall though, it’s a great free option for the Dungeon Master looking to help their players hear the game as well as play it.

“Ulv, you’re alive? I thought you were dead!”

You stand silently facing Herlia. She was a friend of yours when you were younger. You and she had both gone to the academy together. Because you weren’t slated for the throne, you’d entertained thoughts of courting her. But that was before. Things were so different now. Now, you have responsibilities and bigger problems.

“Herlia, I know it’s been a while, but we’re here for a reason. Hobart, my brother, he’s destroying the kingdom. We’re here to stop that. I saw you and knew you’d help us. Do you know of any dissidence in the city or anyone unhappy with the king’s rule?”

Thank you so much for listening to today’s show. We here at How to Be a Better DM are constantly surprised and appreciative of the messages of support we get and the fact that people even listen. We truly want to be the very best support for Dungeon Masters who want to take their craft and make it something special, and you are helping us do it. We couldn’t do it without you, so I’m gonna end this episode with a massive thank you. We’ll be back next week, but until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Bonus Resource: Monument Studios

There is also a bonus resource for you call Monument Studios, and they are actually a supporter of the podcast. Go to www.fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off your first month and then the rest of the months are only $4.99 with the code BETTERDM at check out.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Level Up Guide

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Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

The D&D Character Creation Process Explained Simply + Some Tools

28 juli 2022 | 44 min

Warmup: Justin

I want you to pick the bond, flaw, personality trait, and ideal for a Tiefling artificer named Troaxiaus.

Intro:

Main Topic: Character Creation Explained Simply + Useful Tools

In explaining the character creation we aren’t just reiterating the process as defined in the player’s handbook, though we are doing that to some degree. In doing this, we are attempting to help you think of simple ways to explain the process to novice players. You see this episode is about you dear listener-adventurer. Oh no… it’s about your players. We will work through this process to help you work through it with the noobiest of noobs to D&D. So let’s begin. We will first describe the different processes simply and then maybe give some tips or tools for helping players. As you’ll notice, the order we describe these is the same order described in DNDBeyond though we might recommend different ways of doing things.

Let me stress something as well. Making the character creation easy and fun is important because if your players never get past this part they will never play.

Race - Tanner

Race can be a complicated or simple factor in your campaign, and you should plan out your stance (and your NPCs stances) before you recommend anything to your players.
Will you have racist NPCs, or will stereotypes be accepted from the get go (Tolkien-esque /typical fantasy)?
If you are making your own world and campaign, are you reframing the races, and should that affect your player’s decision? Like, if orcs in your world are typically nerds, should you discourage your player who wants to be a warrior from playing them?
In terms of stats, let them do whatever they find interesting. But, then encourage their racial choice to actually affect aspects of their role playing
But, once again, people are not just walking stereotypes—don’t make your player be a copy and paste version. Also, encourage them during character creation to branch out (if they aren’t), or to consider their race’s environment.

Class - Justin

Aside from choosing your race, your class may have the most impact on your character. It will help you define how your character interacts in combat and in non-combat situations as well as how others will interact with you. That said, choosing a class can be very confusing. As a DM, I like to ask my players questions like:

How do you like to fight enemies?
What do you want your character to be good at in and out of combat?
Do you want to use magic?
If so, how complex do you want your magic to be?
Are you ok with only getting one opportunity to attack during a combat round?
What video games do you like to play if any?
How does your character regard deity?

I have found that certain questions actually are a waste of time. These questions make it harder such as:

What do you want your character to be able to do?
What contributions do you see your character making?
What weapon do you want to use?

In general, the more specific the question, the better. I would even go so far as to ask binary questions to force one answer or another.

Obviously, this is somewhat superfluous for a player who’s had the opportunity to play D&D for a second.

Abilities - Justin

The abilities portion is determining your natural abilities as well as how your race and class choices affect those. This is part of assessing your genetics and upbringing and how they affect your character. Simply put, if everything you do were split into 6 categories how good would your character be in those 6 categories. Consequently, that’s exactly how it works in D&D.

So there are 6 categories: Strength, Dexterity, Charisma, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Constitution. You’re going to help your players determine the scores for those categories. There are 3 methods: point-buy system, manual roll, or standard array. Each has its pros and cons depending on the type of game you want to play. Most people end up picking the roll method so that’s what I’ll detail here.

You get 4d6 and then roll them. Take the highest 3 numbers and add them together, write that down. Then repeat that 6 times. Lastly, you can assign those scores to the individual categories. Then you’ll adjust those scores based on advantages given to the character from their background, class, or race. You then take your score and calculate your modifier which is just a number that actually gets added to your rolls.

Now personally, I prefer to do this before choosing a class or race. I like it because I want to be able to strategize my choices with my race and my class. It really only matters if your race allows you to choose specific bonuses to abilities. Otherwise, do it the normal way.

I find that having a lot of paper nearby is really handy for this portion. You will be writing a lot if you aren’t using DNDBeyond.

Break

I want you to describe a situation in which the ideal of the character created in the very beginning is challenged by their flaw, bond, or personality trait.

Description - Justin

More than any other step in the character creation process of D&D, choosing your description informs your narrative storytelling more than anything else. I would highly encourage your players to really flesh out this section as much as possible.

Here again, the need for specific questions arises. Don’t just ask what your face looks like.

Ask questions like:

What color are your eyes?
How much do you smile?
How big is your nose?
How thick are your eyebrows?
Do you have wrinkles in your face or smooth skin?
Do you have any piercings of scars?
Any facial hair?
How severe are your cheekbones?
Describe the shape of your jaw.

You could honestly go on and on. It can get fairly tedious, so pick the most prominent features. Imagine you are describing your character to a suspect sketch artist from the police. You need to be able to identify them from a crowd.

Apart from the simple physical description, you want to describe their nature and their history.

You’re going to help your player describe their character's ideals, bonds, flaws, and personality traits. This is how I would describe each to a player:

Personality Trait: If you were to hang out with your character for a week, what one thing would you say would stick out to you while just hanging out and chilling in your house with them?

Flaw: If you were your character’s roommate, what would annoy you the very most about them?

Ideal: If you had to summarize this character, what basic life guiding principle would you ascribe to them?

Bond: If this character were wanting to settle down anywhere, what force would pull them or stop them from doing that?

Those questions aren’t perfect but they help you narrow down to get in the right ballpark. Having those are incredibly important. More than anything, I would say the bond and ideal are the most important to have down in a concrete way. Why? Because I am definitely going to have their bond come knocking on the door and their ideal will definitely be challenged in a very specific way. Honestly, their bond might be the thing challenging their ideal, or it might be their flaw or their personality trait.

Here you can also help your player pick any allies they want to have. I don’t usually do that because I want that part to be in the story we write together but to each their own.

Equipment - Tanner

don’t let them be overpowered. Nuff said. They will want to, but then everything afterward will come off lame.
Now, if it is a one-shot, then you can give them more freedom.
You will probably need to help your players choose their equipment based on their specialties.
Question:

Conclusion:

Mentioned in this episode:

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Planning a D&D Campaign

21 juli 2022 | 21 min

Dungeon Master Essentials: 7 Tools Every DM Should have in their Dungeon

14 juli 2022 | 24 min

Warmup:

Tanner: What would be the simple premise of a one-hour session you would plan for friends who hadn’t played D&D?

Intro:

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Tanner Weyland, here with my counterpart Justin Lewis. Together we are going to learn how to weave better stories for you and your players while you dungeon master sections of D&D 5e. We will walk you through the steps from someone who’s never played D&D to High-Level Dungeon Master.

Before we get to today’s main topic, we have a couple of housekeeping items to go over.

First of all we want to send a huge thank you out into the digital waves of the internet to Anna Craven. Anna has played in our one-shots a couple of times and she has also sent Justin and myself an amazing gift! She’s hand-crafted notebook covers with the design of a dungeon on the front and back and created a very awesome Dungeon Journal. So far, Justin and I love these notebooks and want to say thank you so very very much! We’ll be posting a picture of them on our Instagram at how to be a better DM so you can see the fine craftsmanship. Thanks again Anna, we really appreciate it!

Next, another reminder that we are moving to a once-a-quarter schedule for our One-shots. The next one-shot will be held in September by myself. If you want to get in on it, sign up now. So far we have 2 slots with a tentative yes that will be confirmed soon. It’s first come first serve so make sure you come first.

Main Topic: Dungeon Master Essentials

Justin

Water

Sitting at the DM table can get very tiring especially if you aren’t properly hydrated. You spend the entire session talking so naturally, you’ll need some water. I’ve found that water is the best choice. While other beverages can have better taste, water allows you to keep your head and not get too antsy.

The DM Screen

When I first started playing D&D, I saw the screens of the dungeon master and thought that it was unnecessary. Indeed, when I started DMing, I didn’t use a DM screen. Then I started and I found that it made a huge difference. I saw two primary differences:

My players regarded me more as the DM. I had more authority. Whether this was perceived or not, it doesn’t matter. I like to think of the DM Screen as almost a part of the uniform of the Dungeon Master.
I didn’t have to worry about hiding my notes from my players. When you sit next to your wife while you play as I do, you have to guard the secrets you put on paper. A DM screen takes the temptation away from her.
Music

Now, I’m generally not a heavy-handed person. Having music is a nice way to both set the mood and also remind your players that it’s Dungeons and Dragons time. It’s really nice to be able to turn the music up when players get distracted or start having side conversations. Rather than cutting the immersion when you ask your players to stop, you simply amplify the music volume and they get the hint. It’s also great for just setting the mood in general. A must-have.

Tabletop Minis

I like D&D because it transitions from hyper-regulated combat to very fluid roleplaying. Having minis takes a lot of the guesswork out of combat and can make it a lot more visual. That said, it can be used as a crutch and should be used judiciously. You should also explore options for trying it in other ways.

Tanner

A Great Seat/Proper Height Table:
You will be at the table for a while. You will want to enjoy the whole time. Nothing can ruin your experience like a bad seat that does not have a back, or one that does not encourage proper posture. Further, if you like to stand up and walk around the table, you don’t want a table that is so low that you are bending below the waste to reach it (picture coffee table).
Dice, and Extra Dice
You are supposed to be the fastest of all the people there. While dice rolling software is nice, you need one that is either user-friendly (read: tablet) or you need a lot of actual dice that are organized and close at hand.

Bonus:

Close:

Thanks again for being with us on this awesome journey. Justin and I have learned so much and we are continually learning. We’re going to put out ever better content and help you tell the greatest stories the world has ever known. We’ll be back next week to help you do just that, but until then, let’s go ahead and roll the initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

How to Make D&D More Fun

7 juli 2022 | 13 min

You slash down the last of orcs that had ambushed you. This group had appeared out of nowhere apparently. You look around the shadowy thicket where you’d been attacked. Suddenly, Amris, falls down, a silvery dagger embedded in her chest. You’d only just met her in the town but she’d been more than helpful to you and your companions. You all rush over to help her. Blood slowly leaks from her mouth. Already dead. You inspect the dagger. Not orcish at all. It was sleek and silvery, definitely not orcish. You get up and look around but see no other figure aside from you and your companions.

So who killed Amris ?

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your dungeon master today and together you and I will learn how to weave better stories for you and your players as you play D&D 5e.

First thing I gotta say today is a big thank you to those who played the one-shot with me last week. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. Having your support as players and listeners of the show even makes doing this so much more worthwhile. I can’t begin to say thank you.

If you want to sign up for the next one shot, that will be happening in September. So get ready :)

Next, make sure you follow the show wherever good podcasts are heard. We’re going to come up with some goals so that if we hit a certain number of followers, we’ll do a giveaway so follow us and make that happen!

Now, everyone has been in a D&D session that seemed to just be boring. As a DM, this is heartbreaking because all you want is for your players to have fun! We’ll, here are 8 ideas to make you D&D game more fun!

More Flavors

Why do we like going to ice cream parlors? It’s because we have a seemingly infinite array of flavors. It’s the same reason buffets are so popular. You get to taste a large variety of savors or sweets and even allow yourself to try something new. If your D&D game has become boring, it’s possible that you have allowed yourself to become complacent in the flavors you are presenting to your players. Now, the flavor is a metaphor for game themes, genres, and so forth. So if your game is a hack and slash adventure, then maybe look for a way to do something different. Maybe a puzzling conundrum instead. Perhaps you should add a flavor of romance? The trick won’t be with adding in the flavors. The trick is presenting tastes of the flavors, gauging your players’ interest, and then incorporating flavors that they liked.

More Realistic Characters

I have become severely jaded with movies these days. Movies and shows in fact. I hate the fact that movies and shows employ flashy effects and cheap nostalgia to pull in viewers without crafting interesting and realistic characters. That’s a travesty because interesting stories are moved by interesting characters, not interesting effects. Therefore, if you want to make your D&D game more fun and interesting, you should work on the characters in your story. I’ve been working on this more and more in my campaign. I have an NPC who is a halfling cleric who the group makes fun of more or less, but slowly they are starting to see that he’s not just a loveable little halfling and instead he has conflicting desires and flaws and weaknesses. If you ask my opinion, those are a few things you can do to really flesh out characters. Look at their weaknesses and strengths and investigate their inner conflicts.

More preparation

Dungeons and Dragons are just a game. You aren’t preparing a Master’s Level Thesis or a PHD defense. However, this is a pick-up game of basketball either. Tabletop roleplaying games might be one of the few hobbies where you actually have to do a little bit of homework for it to function. I’ve found that if I want to have more fun playing D&D then I need to prepare more as a DM. I’m not even saying you need to double the time you spend on preparing for your campaign. What I am saying is that giving even a little bit more thought to your game will help you and your group have more fun playing D&D. Maybe you think of a fun twist to add or maybe you think of a small prop you can make or maybe you think about the voice of an NPC. All of it helps.

Devil’s in the Details

Speaking of small props or twists, it’s the small details that really delight your players. You can’t neglect the foundational parts of your story or gameplay, but adding in small details will help you and your players have much more fun while playing D&D. I used this tactic just yesterday as my group and I spent one entire session on just one combat encounter. It felt like it was dragging on at times so I started embellishing some spells a little bit. One character who worships a sun-deity cast spirit guardians which manifested as a Solar system with planets and solar flares reaching out to strike the opponents. It’s not a big detail, however, it underscores the idea that this character worships a sun-deity.

Ask your players

You should use this tactic even when not focused on making D&D more fun. Asking your players what they thought about the previous session or even specific encounters in the session is the absolute best way to make D&D more fun. When they talk about things they didn’t like, note to do less of that in the future. When they talk about what they liked, do more of that in the future. It’s all about catering to your players.

More challenge (not necessarily combat)

One of my failings as a somewhat novice DM is gravitating toward combat encounters. It’s easy for me to plan sessions around combat encounters, which doesn’t necessarily mean more fun in the game. Honestly, sometimes I think I use combat as a crutch and I’m trying to wean myself off of it and actually give my players more chances to use their brains rather than just throwing them into combat. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and a place for combat, but the time is not always and the place is not everywhere.

Slow Down

A secret hack I’ve discovered recently is more of a mental hack than anything, but it’s to slow down. So often, I find myself in a somewhat manic state trying to give a story and do everything at once and that does not make for a very fun game. Instead, I’ve found when I slow down it allows me to really focus and give a better D&D experience.

Add more theatrics

We go to the theatre for the theatrics. We want the special effects in addition to the story. So when you have a good story nailed down, then it’s time to add in the the special effects and the wow factor. I recently added some LED lights to our gaming area that helps to make the mood what I want it to be.

Thanks for listening to today’s show! As always, you are the best. I look forward to hearing about your successes. We’ll see you next time. Until then, let’s roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

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5 Common Annoying D&D Player Types and How to Deal with Them

30 juni 2022 | 28 min

Common annoying d&d players and how to deal with them

Warmup

Intro

Upcoming One-shot on the 25th

Meat

Justin

The Player DM:
This is me when I play.
Deal with this player by sitting them down and saying that they are a really great DM. Stress that you are the DM and that you’d like to challenge them to be an even better player which means good give and take with the other players.
The Distracted Distraction
I hate these. These are the players that enjoy the game but they also seem to get distracted a lot and either end up sharing videos with other players during the game and or have side conversations. So annoying. I think the best thing to do with these players is to help everyone understand the rules of the table.
The Waffler
These are the players that say, “I walk through the door,” and then you say, “Right as you do,” they interrupt and say I don’t walk through the door. They might be afraid of the consequences and might not feel ready. With this player, I think you have to be firm and say that you said you walked through the door so you do. If they argue then you might need to have another conversation with them outside of normal playing hours.

*** All of these can be prevented by establishing the rules of the relationship before you start playing. After playing, I believe that having a conversation with the individual in question can help improve. If it doesn’t, steps might have to be taken to make sure the group is having fun.

Tanner

The Protagonist
They think their character is a two-dimensional hero who should always make the main decisions. They are the serious character, while everyone else is a joke who should follow along.
To deal with them, try to encourage team play. Encourage them to be the hero who helps them. Also, make a campaign or one-shot with a distinctly silly setting and premise. They need to be taught that it is okay to be silly from time to time.
The Tryhard
They aren’t here to fail rolls, or to lose at all. They are rules lawyers when it benefits them, and rule slobs when it doesn’t. They mostly care about succeeding and being awesome and getting their way through any means necessary.
Hold them accountable for rules. Also, when they do fail a roll, have the outcome being humorous, or not distinctly negative. Teach them that losing is not a bad thing.

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

How to Make Life-Like NPC's with Robert from Dungeons, Dragons & Psychology

23 juni 2022 | 36 min

Homemade D&D Props

16 juni 2022 | 27 min

This is "How To Be A Better DM." Thanks for listening to today’s show! This is Tanner, and I am excited to talk about how we can all prepare to be the best DMs we possible. Today, I am discussing homemade props and how to use them, as well as which props are worth making.

We really appreciate all the support you guys give us. If you’d like to hang out with us once a month, you can. All you gotta do is sign up for our monthly one-shot D&D sessions which are DM’d by one of us. It’s first come first serve so sign up quick. This month I am running the session, and I am very excited for it! The sign up link is: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shot

Next, make sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter. You’ll get even more content, behind-the-scenes looks, homebrew creations made by us and more. It’s free and it comes out once a month so it won’t be a bother to you. Sign up at: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/subscribe

Mentioned in this episode:

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Essential Sections of the D&D Dungeon Master's Guide

9 juni 2022 | 31 min

How to Make D&D More Immersive

2 juni 2022 | 16 min

You sit down at the fire. You’ve traveled a long distance to reach these particular nomads. You’ve heard tell that these nomads have mystical powers and can guide you on finding unknowable secrets. You look around. Their long arms show a fierce exterior, but they’ve let you sit in their circle. They’ve shared their meat with you. Their hair hides their faces though you can see pinpricks of light reflect off of their eyes and hidden behind their hair. They seem to look at you expectantly.

“Um… what am I…”

It’s at that moment that one of their numbers starts beating a drum produced from somewhere within the folds of their outer garments. More drums are produced and the rhythm continues and amplifies. Soon the sound of beating drums is all you hear. It echoes the beating of a heart. Not your heart but the communal heart of this tribe.

You let yourself fall into the rhythm. After a moment, you notice an elder stand up and walk towards the central fire. He chants some things and then throws some dust into the fire. There’s a puff of green smoke and you smell a distinct earthy smell. Soon, your senses become slurred and you seem to drift from reality.

Your eyes open and instead of at a ritual fire, you’re standing waist-deep in the ocean. You look over and see another tribal member standing with you. You both wield spears and look for fish. You throw your spear.

Flash.

Instead of being near a ritual fire, you’re crouching low in a snowy copse of trees. You peer out from behind some bushes and see an auroch munching on greenery. The rest of your hunting party has snuck around to flank the beast. You hear the double hoot of an owl. That’s the signal. You jump up and charge to attack the beast.

Flash.

Instead of at a ritual fire, you’re in a grotto. You see a large stone monolith. Inscribed on the giant stone are ancient runes. They glow softly blue in the dim light. At the base of the monolith is a pool of water that seems pure and as you approach it starts to glow light blue. This is what you’ve come for.

So what would you like to do?

Welcome back to another episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and together you and I will learn how to tell better stories as we DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

First of all, I’ve got to say thank you so much. Since we started the show, we’ve seen amazing growth that I never could have predicted. It’s all because of you guys. You guys have allowed us to create cool content and spread it to some awesome people.

Next don’t forget to listen to the end of today’s episode to hear how you can support the show.

Today, let’s talk about immersion.

Now, I’m not going to be talking about Virtual Reality, though we can all expect that within our lifetimes we’ll see all sorts of leaps in bounds in that area.

No, I’m talking about learning to help your players feel like they are in your world. You have to help your players slip the bonds of our time and space and instead drift through the planes to the material plane on which you play D&D.

Better descriptions

No amount of cool voice-changing software or LED lights will cover up bad storytelling. Storytelling is character, plot, voice, and conflict. It’s also scene. You need to be able to paint pictures with your words.

Work on your descriptions of all points of your gameplay. There’s a fine balancing act here though. You can’t take forever describing something but you also shouldn’t do it in just one word. You need to be concise and evocative.

It’s helpful to describe things using your senses. Don’t forget that sixth sense we all get. You know like when there’s tension in the air and no one is saying anything but you can feel that something is wrong.

One thing I’d recommend steering away from that is somewhat a crutch is using analogies from our world. I struggle with this because it’s so helpful and easy but I think it pulls your players out of the world you’re describing when you compare something to a thing that exists in the real world.

Know the Lore

I know you thought you were done studying after you graduated high school or college but it makes things feel real when your player asks an NPC a question and the NPC can respond almost immediately. There’s something magical when you as the dungeon master know the names and major players in the plot and you don’t have to immediately reference the guidebook to remember that the villain's henchman’s name is Botheg and that Botheg loves to eat silver spotted mushrooms that allow him to have very special dreams at night. If you’re an advanced dungeon master, you can do better than that.

Seamless Experiences

Know what you’re going to do every session. I completely understand having to take a minute to make up an entire encounter that you didn’t plan on. We’ve all been there. But you can at least put in the effort to make sure the encounters you did plan on are seamless. Part of it is making sure you’ve understood the sequence of events. Another part is making sure you have the NPCs lined up. A final part is going through all of this in your head so you aren’t constantly checking notes and stammering, “One second.” It takes practice of course, but this is the standard you want to set for yourself.

Voice Changing

While being one of the most common things most of us do while driving to work in the morning… No… just me? Anyways, changing your voice to fit your NPCs can go a long way to helping your players immerse themselves into the game. A quick Youtube search will give you many results for tips and tutorials on how to actually make your voice change in a convincing way. Another option is acting lessons. Most of us wrote off acting when we were younger. Now we spend a lot of time watching professional actors on TV and think, “maybe it wasn’t good to brush that off.”

Better Roleplaying

I know that most of us feel awkward roleplaying. We grew up playing make-believe and then for some reason we stepped away from it. It felt childish to pretend to be someone we’re not. So we stopped. We hid it. We found that we do funny voices and accents while we’re alone in our car driving to or from work, but we never do that in front of someone else. Or if we do, it’s never in a structured way, it’s just fun.

Let me tell you, roleplaying can make or break the immersion. There have been times when I’ve paused and said, “What would they say?” because I didn’t know what a particular NPC would say. The momentum halted and the mood broke. There have been other times when I’ve thrown caution to the wind and said something somewhat ridiculous but I committed and I felt that the table enjoyed the risk. So when you sit at your table, try and step into the role of the character you are playing. Try being an actor for a second. It’s ok. You won’t be perfect and no one will judge you. If they do, just add 10 hitpoints to their next encounter.

Mood Lighting

This one is admittedly low on the list of things you should do to make your game more immersive. Mood lighting can be an awesome way to, well, get your players in the mood. It also can become a distraction if you make it really complicated. I would say keep it simple stupid and set something up and leave it for a while to see how it works before changing it over and over and over.

Remove Distractions

This is a tough one specifically for those of us who like to use our phones for managing our character. You need to make a rule at the table that everyone’s main focus will be on the game. There are always extenuating circumstances but for the most part, removing distractions is an easy and in my opinion necessary step to achieving the nirvana of a gameplay experience. It gets very old looking up from my DM screen and seeing certain players scrolling on their phones rather than engaging in the game. I also do appreciate the fact that my wife uses a paper character sheet. She says she prefers it, but I think it has something to do with her knowing that being on her phone would be distracting.

The Occasional Real LIfe Prop

While a most costly method of immersion, popping out the occasional prop can help your players transcend their natural bonds and reach an elevated space of gameplay. When your characters buy a map it can drastically change the way they play when you hand them a real-life map to be sure. Again, this is more costly in terms of time and money, but it could be just the juice you need to spice things up.

Practice

Nothing beats practice. Period. No amount of cool props or amazing voices will cover for the fact that your story is garbage. If you can’t tell a story, you can’t make up for it. At least not in the long run. So first things first are if nothing else, start playing D&D. You need to at least get in the habit of role-playing. The next step after that is to start DMing. Find a group where you can experiment and try things out. What you are looking for is iteration and repetition rather than one-and-done experiences.

True Mastery of Plot Crafting

Almost nothing can cover up a bad plot. Your players will never enjoy a bad or boring story, no matter how many cool doodads you have. So spend time working on the main tenets of a plot. Improve the conflicts, twists and tension, and resolution. You can’t expect your players to enjoy or immerse themselves in a story that you truly aren’t immersed in or crazy about.

There you have it, 10 ways to make your DND Campaign more immersive.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Make sure to stick around after to hear some announcements but until next time,

Let’s roll initiative.

Music from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCBCLYvWGwI

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

How to Make a Dynamic Campaign with Garrett from Two25 Games

26 maj 2022 | 35 min

Ideas for Campaign First Sessions

19 maj 2022 | 19 min

This is How To Be A Better DM. Today we will discussing the Why and What of campaign first sessions.

Thanks for listening to today’s show! My name is Tanner Weyland, and I am excited to talk about how we can all prepare to be the best DMs we possible. We really appreciate all the support you guys give us. If you’d like to hang out with us once a month, you can. All you gotta do is sign up for our monthly one-shot D&D sessions which are DM’d by one of us. It’s first come first serve so sign up quick. This month I am running the session, and I am very excited for it! The sign up link is: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shot

Next, make sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter. You’ll get even more content, behind-the-scenes looks, homebrew creations made by us and more. It’s free and it comes out once a month so it won’t be a bother to you. Sign up at: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/subscribe

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Preparing for Your First D&D Session

12 maj 2022 | 27 min

Warmup: From Justin

Intro

Welcome
Thanks for the One-Shot with Dan, Jordan and Anna. We really appreciate your support.
We will be having our next one-shot at the end of this month.
Make sure to sign up for the newsletter as well.
As well if you’re interested in us livestreaming this particular segment of our show, then let us know, reach out to us on our Instagram or email. We can even do an ask me anything. If that’s something you’re interested in, let us know.

Topic: Preparing for your First D&D Session

Justin

Run Through

Before I do my session, I find it’s incredibly helpful just to quickly run through the session or at least what I’ve written about it and my timeline. More than anything this just help refresh in my mind the basic timeline of things. I feel it makes a difference to my players when I know that C happens after B and D happens after C and A is how it all starts.

Prepare the Space

GM Setup
Player Character Sheets
Minis
Snacks

Specific Text Write Ups

Beginning of the Game
Very Specific Parts of the game that will give maximum impact

Look Up or Create Helpful Tables

Helpful loot tables
Random encounter tables

Read the Lore

You want to make sure you know at least a brief idea of some things that happen next.

Tanner

Be Simple: plan something straightforward and simple. Exploring, simple dungeon or house exploration can be a wonderful way to start an adventure since it is low on mechanics, has the excitement of discovery, and does not require intense role playing by you.
Have a Dry Run (for online): if it is your first time running D&D, have one of your players come early to run through technical difficulties (if they are friends, this should not be too hard).
Plan One NPC as a warm-up: role-playing well on your first session is very nerve-wracking, and it can make you shy away from doing serious role-playing, like voices and the whole shebang. So, I would suggest planning a throwaway NPC to help you transition into it. And make them exaggerated: super old, or super gruff, or super British-orphan, or whatever! Just something you can be silly with, but also something you have to put yourself out there for.

Closing

Background noise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCSJwAHKV4Q

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

How to Find Your D&D Group

5 maj 2022 | 9 min

You walk into the tavern. Your sword and shield clinking together as you walk makes everyone in the tavern turn and look at you. Being somewhat new to this you try and act tough and scowl at everyone. It doesn’t come off well and you look sort of foolish. You walk over to the bar and wait patiently for the bartender to come talk to you and ask you what you want to drink. He doesn’t. Instead he serves all the other patrons who keep shouting at him.

“It seems the squeaky wheel does get the grease,” you mutter under your breath. You raise your hand and shout at the bartender and finally he comes over. He’s a large half-orc fellow who looks like he’s no stranger to a brawl.

“Heyo, what’ll it be?” He asks with a quizzical eye at your armor and clothing.

You brush it off and say, “A simple ale please, and I was wondering if you could give me some direction?” The bartender stops and gives you more of his full attention.

“Yeah? What did you need?”

“Well, I’m looking for sort of a group of companions. Do you know any mercenary groups that are open to a new member?”

The half-orc smiles and says, “you must be new to this whole adventuring thing. Well these groups don’t just accept complete strangers in. You’ll have to prove yourself and they don’t really go about looking for new compatriots. Now, with that in mind,” and he turns you to look at the rest of the tavern, “over in that corner, yeah those dark elves, they are the Right Harvesters. They’re a group of crow come up from the Underdark seeking the quell those who follow any demon or devil. Bunch of rightoues pricks you ask me. Over there with the ogre, they’re the Blade Speakers. Mostly just ruffians and vagabonda really. Lastly, the group to your left here are the Whisper Wraiths. They’re tied up with the Zhentarim pretty tight. So adventurer, here’s your drink and I’m mighty curious what you’re going to do.”

So what would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you create better stories as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Today, let’s talk about one of the first things that you’ll do as a DM- finding your D&D group.

This is going to be my hypothetical list for what I’d do if I wanted to find players for my D&D campaign. You might try different things, but this is what I would do first.

Ask friends and family

The first thing I do when starting a D&D campaign is ask my friends and family. For me personally, I try to start with my family just to build that relationship better but that’s just me. I also don’t just ask friends who I know would be interested. I ask any friend because D&D is a great way to build friendships. I’ve also been highly surprised at the people who’ve said yes and have even been extremely excited to try D&D. You just gotta ask.

I think this is the best place to start because D&D can turn an acquaintance into a friend and a good relationship into a great one. Often D&D sessions turn into much more.

Ask Friends and Family for Referrals

Every single one of your friends has friends who are not your friends. What better way to meet someone who might like the same types of things you like than by asking someone who likes the same types of things that you like?

“But I don’t really want to meet new people…”

I get it. We’re all introverts and we’re all extroverts and we all like staying home and binging Netflix and we all like going out and partying. Sometimes you don’t want to meet new people, but sometimes you don’t want to be lonely. The fact of the matter is that you do have to put yourself out there, especially as a DM. You have to give so many invitations and most of them will naturally be no’s. That’s ok. Just ask your friends and family who say no who they might know who would say yes or even be interested in hearing what D&D is all about.

Trawl the Socials

The next thing I do is head over to the social media Lords and bow down before them begging for the gift of friendship. Just kidding, but seriously, the social media palaces are great places to find new adventurers. There are basically two methods of approach.

The Craigslist Method

This method isn’t as productive as the next method I think. Virtually, you go online and you post essentially a want-ad. In fact here’s a quick template that you can use:

Hi, I’m looking for anyone interested in trying something new.

There’s a game that I’ve been wanting to play for a while (called Dungeons and Dragons). I’d love to try it out with you. If you’re interested, send me a quick DM.

The parentheses are optional but you just put out your desires to the universe and let the universe get back to you. I’ve done this and it’s worked pretty well, but not as well as I would have hoped.

The Spy Method

Instead of sending out an advertisement on a feed that most people won’t see or will disregard, there’s a better way. Naturally, this way will take a lot more work and intelligence, but you’ll get better results.

Start with the list of people you follow or who follow you on the social media platform of your choice. Now go down the list one by one. Look through their photos and posts and look for something that would indicate that they’d be open to playing D&D with you. Next, send them a simple direct message about what you noticed on their profile and then ask if they’d be interested in playing. You’re looking for signals that they’d be receptive to the invitation.

Hit Up Local Comic Book Stores

Next, you can try frequenting places where the type of person you’re looking for frequents. Go to your local game store or comic book store. I know here in Utah county we have Dragon’s Keep, the Game Grid, the Gamer’s Inn, and a few more. Go there and hang around for a while. You can try sparking up a conversation with anyone perusing the D&D section of the store. If you’re too afraid of doing that you can ask the person at the front counter if they know of anyone looking for a D&D group. They’ll likely have some sort of resource available or just know someone who’s asked them the same question. They’ll be able to put you in touch.

Browse Online

Next, you can look through sites like Roll20 for a group. You can also put yourself up on sites like startplaying.games where you can list games that you’d like to host as a DM. This option really works the best when you have a lot of experience and lots of compelling images that catch people’s attention and draw them in. The other way is to play as a player in one of these settings and then ask the other players if they’d be up for playing again but with you in the DM seat. Make sure not to steal the group away from the original DM or there may be bad blood.

Craigslist Ad

When everything else fails you can just post a free ad on Craigslist or wherever there are classifieds and hope for a response. To be honest, I would not even try this method because you will likely get responses from a lot of creepy people. Instead, reach out to us on Instagram @howtobeabetterdm and we’d be happy to try and set you up in a group with anyone we know. We don’t have a huge community of friends and peers but we’d be happy to open it up to you so you don’t have to keep looking through Craigslist.

Thanks for listening to today’s show. Stay tuned after to hear some announcements but until next time my friend, let’s roll initiative.

Music from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgLjYsVP4H0&t=36s

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Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

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Our Favorite Dungeon Master Enemies (For Now)

28 april 2022 | 22 min

How To Deal With "That One Player"

21 april 2022 | 17 min

Our Preferred Dungeon Master Setup

14 april 2022 | 26 min

Tips on Describing Combat in D&D

7 april 2022 | 8 min

You fall to one knee. The large orc in front of you grips his battle ax firmly in his hands and lets out a mocking grunt. Blood drips down the blade and onto the ground. Your blood.

You look around at your companions. They are all lying on the ground bloody and unconscious. Julian might be dead. Things could not look worse.

“Puny wizard. Drinking your blood will be a great pleasure.” The orc says through his tusked maw.

You slowly raise yourself to your feet and point at the orc with a shaking finger. “Blood for blood. This death was brought to pass by your actions feral one.” The orc begins to laugh. Then he charges you. You reach inside your tunic and pull out a simple wand of cherry wood. You point it at the orc and whisper, “Infiern”. Immediately a brilliant ball of fire is launched from the wands’ tip expanding to engulfing the entire orc. Unfortunately, you are also a bit to close to the fire and find yourself flung off your feet as the ball of flames explodes on impact with the goblinoid.

You open your eyes to see everything on fire, even you, but you can’t seem to move.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and together, you and I will learn how to craft better stories as we DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

As always, I’m very grateful that you’ve allowed me to dig into the hobby for 8 months now and we don’t plan on stopping. You guys have been stellar in showing us what you like and what you don’t like and we will do everything we can to gratify your desires.

If there’s one thing that a lot of people struggle with, it’s describing combat. Honestly, it can be hard for any DM to make round after round after round of combat interesting. There’s a spectrum. It goes from very boring combat to perhaps too graphic and violent. So how do you describe D&D combat in the best way? This is how.

Highlights

D&D is not a movie. As much as we treat it like a movie, even going to the point of using Screen Wipes as happens in tabletop games like Star Wars, it’s not a movie. In movies, you can show every single moment of action, because in reality it only takes a couple seconds. When you use words to describe every single action in combat it takes much longer. That’s because two things can happen simultaneously in real life but you can only say one word at a time.

So with your combat, describe the highlights. Briefly describe the effect of an attack that does damage. Don’t go deep into, “You swing and miss and they swing and miss and back and forth and finally someone scores a hit.” That’s too much. You can even just give the damage and save the juicy descriptions for large amounts of damage or the end.

Realistic combat

If you’re fighting someone who is proficient with a weapon and you don’t kill them in the first hit, then that means that most of your hits do not sever limbs or slash deep gouges. Sometimes you need to be realistic in the way that you describe things. Just because you do damage mechanically doesn’t mean that you have to necessarily do damage in your narrative. Say a barbarian does 12 points of slashing damage with their battle ax. You could describe that as the ax cutting deep into the enemy’s armor, slowly deteriorating its integrity, allowing for an opening that becomes pivotal when a crucial opportunity presents itself. You don’t have to be lopping off people’s arms with every swing.

Describe the Bigger Baddies

Often in D&D, your villains will have minions. If in the same combat encounter you have a multitude of minions, then don’t waste too much extra breath on the mini baddies when you can describe the big baddies in much better detail. You don’t have to explain that the skeleton chopped when you can spend much more time describing what the Lich did. No one cares about the skeletons (for the most part).

Follow the Flow of Combat

Combat is a story just like any other part of D&D. It has crescendos and decrescendos. The more combat seems to be difficult, the more you should indulge in describing the combat to enhance the tension. If a player is sustaining many serious wounds, then you should describe that. If the characters are decimating foes left and right, you don’t need to go into too much detail.

Narrate evenly for everyone

Though it might be more fun to describe how the wizard pulls out his wand of fireball and unleashes hell than it is to say that the rogue takes a shot on their crossbow, you should look for ways to spice it up evenly between both players. Give everyone a chance to feel awesome.

Learn specific verbs, adverbs and adjectives

Verbs are what someone does, adverbs is how they do it and adjectives describe the effect on the subject of their verb. Here’s a small table with some words every DM should be able to use

Verb

Adverb

Adjective

slash

noiselessly

bloody

smash

quickly

bruised

slice

loudly

cold

parry

painfully

tired

stab

wearily

exhausted

cut

strongly

shaking

bludgeon

confidently

sweaty

char

weakly

tousled

blacken

deathly

disheveled

impale

hopefully

grim

It’s not a full list of words to use but it should get your brain thinking.

The Simple Formula

It’s ok to use a one sentence formula as well. Try this

You [adverb] [verb] your [enemy] with your [adjective] [weapon].

This could look like:

You weakly char your orcish foe with your fiery Wand of Fireballs.

Simple.

Now that’s not an exhaustive course on describing D&D combat. I don’t have an english degree by the way, but that should get you far enough to be able to help you players feel more immersed and really make a big difference in your narration.

Make sure to stick around after to hear some announcements and the show’s sponsors, but until next time, let’s roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

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What I Learned from a One-Shot Online and Technical Difficulties

31 mars 2022 | 7 min

What is a Session 0

17 mars 2022 | 10 min

What is a Session 0

Suddenly, you hear a muffled grunt. You risk a glance away from your dark elf opponent and see Geriman go down. Enraged you yell, “Nooooooo!” and you rush the dark elf in front of you, he feints left but you don’t fall for it, choosing to rush him and lift him up, smashing him to the ground. You take advantage of the brief moment he lies stunned on the ground by sending a quick 1-2 punch to his head with your spiked gauntlets. After a moment he lies still. You get up to run towards Geriman. You have a healing potion so you should be able to save him. As you turn to look at your fallen companion so stop in your tracks, the battle raging around you. Standing above Geriman’s unconscious form is the drow elf who downed him. He looks at you and smiles, and then rams a sword into Geriman’s chest. Geriman’s eyes open briefly and a sharp grunt escapes his lips, followed by a slow sigh that slowly fades into nothing.

You don’t remember what happened next. Instead you come back to consciousness with a dead drow at your feet, torn into two parts. Next to the elf is the body of your slain friend, a slight trickle of blood escape his unmoving mouth and his eyes staring up into nothing.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and together you and I will learn how to tell great stories as we DM sessions of D&D 5e.

When getting a campaign started, you might have heard the benefits of starting with a session 0.

But what is a session 0?

Well, I’ll tell what you it is not.

A session 0 is definitely not the session where you and all your friends get together to create your characters. Some people define session 0 as the character creation session, but it specifically is not because you haven’t played your characters yet. If you haven’t played your characters yet then you haven’t played D&D yet, you’ve just had fun making characters. That’s totally fine, but it’s not a session. It might be just semantics but I stand with my definition.

A Session 0 is essentially play-testing those characters that you made. You can choose to include the entire party or just a few people here and there. Generally the story isn’t heavy or at least it’s introductory to the heavy. Some people combine the session 0 with their character creation. They’ll take an hour or so getting their characters set up and then dive right into a scenario with their characters to see if they life what they chose. Often, session 0 can be playing out a part of the backstory of one or more of the characters. A session 0 is also a nice way for the DM to playtest their players. Maybe one of the players isn’t gonna mesh well with the table. Session 0 is a nice way to identify that and then nip it in the bud early on.

A session 0 can really be seen as a warm-up for the entire campaign. It’s a wonderful option for people who aren’t sure about what they want for their character. I suppose you could even play the level 15 or 20 version of your character so that each player knows what they’re getting into rather than just picking a class they think would be fun and hoping for the best. After I would then dumb each character down to the level that you’re starting the campaign at and then go from there.

A couple things you’ll want to keep in mind for you session 0:

You don’t want to overcomplicate things.

Your players are just getting used to their characters and really seeing if this is the character they want to be with for the next 6 months to 22 years (overexaggeration). They don’t want to have to worry about extremely difficult plots right at first.

Be patient

As I already said, your players are just learning their new characters. Some players will have an easier time than others. Your job is to help all of them.

Help the characters meet each other or get into their relationship roles

One of the hardest parts of starting a new campaign is having your characters know or already trust each other or helping them build that trust. Every adventuring party has to trust each other. If they don’t then there’s no reason for their characters to travel together. So I suggest having the characters know at least one other character in the group. That way there is inherent trust between a few of the characters and the rest can be worked on later.

Emphasize the fun

The session 0 is also your players’ way of testing you. They want to see what kind of DM you will be. Go all out. A session 0 may be your most important session because if it’s not fun enough to make your players come back, they won’t.

I hope these few suggestions helped you start to understand how to set up your session 0 and also what it is.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions about the show send us a message at @howtobeabetterdm on Instagram and we’d love to have a conversation with you.

Lastly, if you want to play D&D with me or one of the other podcast hosts as your DM then sign up for our monthly one-shot at this link. Spots are limited and it’s first come first serve. For this month, I’m your DM. Here’s a Sneak peak into what you’ll be playing:

The grand city of Tornlock boasts a population of 100,000 citizens. From the port district to the affluent Crown district, many call this city their home. In a city like this though, many find themselves in less than fortunate circumstances.

You and your companions find yourselves in an Inn, sleeping when a loud knocking on your doors awakens you. It’s a member of the guard. He informs you that Lawmaster Sotan requires your immediate presence. After you and your companions prepare yourselves for the day, you follow the guard out the inn and into a slightly overcast day.

The guard leads you down main streets, side roads, and eventually leads you to an alleyway in a darker part of town. He leads you toward a small huddle of guardsmen in the center of the alley way. As you approach, a head raises from the group and signals to you all a basic, if not taciturn greeting. It’s Lawmaster Sotan. You and your companions had worked with the Aasimar on a few occasions and your dealings had always been cordial and productive.

“Good morning adventurers. I apologize for the inconvenience at having to wake you at such an early hour, but it could not be helped. Please inspect the grisly scene before us and tell me what insights you can glean. We will talk more after you’ve had a chance to examine the corpse,” Sotan says as he beckons you and your companions forward.

The group of guards part and you encounter one of the most grisly scenes of your life. A pastel purple tiefling lies on the ground, eyes wide open starting silently into the gray sky. The body lies with arms and legs akimbo, tied to four posts stuck in the ground. A look of deep fear and consternation adorns the face, frozen in time forever. You also notice the tieflings chest and

belly are flayed open revealing the internal organs of the once living tiefling. Blood has splattered all over the alley way and footprints of blood leave down the opposite side of the alley.

You turn to talk to Lawmaster Sotan, but not before he says, “This is the third victim exactly like this in 15 days. We need your help.”

If you want to sign up, hurry before spots run out.

Thanks for listening to today’s show.

Until next time, let’s roll initiative.

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Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

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Why Authors Should Play D&D

10 mars 2022 | 23 min

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. One of the hosts, Tanner Weyland, shares how D&D can help prospective authors improve their storytelling.

You may have noticed that the intro changed to a "what if" scenario. If you would like to weigh in on how you would respond to that situation, connect with us on our new instagram and let us know!

Would you like to play D&D with us? If so, then sign up for the newsletter and get access to monthly sign ups for a session with me or one of the other hosts. Sign up at https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/subscribe

Roll initiative!

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Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

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Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

The Best and Worst Things about Being a Dungeon Master

3 mars 2022 | 9 min

Being a dungeon master: The Best and Worst Things

“Where are they?” You ask as you shepherded into this enormous cavern.

“Wait. Soon, you will see.” Gavrat responds. You’ve never liked dealing with the ratlike shifter. Even though most of his features are human, the ratlike features on his face are unsettling. Particularly the teeth that stick out under his rat-like nose. He guides you through the rocky outcroppings until you all see tremendous mushrooms start to fill the back end of the cavern.

“We don’t have time for this Gavrat. Where is the patron and what kind of job is this?” You ask impatiently.

“Don’t worry. Just ahead.

You continue walking with Gavrat and walk deep into this grove of giant mushrooms.

Suddenly, Gavrat stops. “We are here.” he says with a smile.

You only hear silence.

“Gavrat, if you’ve led us here on a wild goose chase, I will skin you alive.”

“Do not trouble the rat man. I am here.” a strange voice says. “I am the one you seek.” You look around but you see no speaker. Suddenly you see the large mushroom in front of you start to turn and move towards you. You notice arms, a mouth and eyes.

The myconid emanates a cloud of spores that hits you and suddenly you hear, “I am Hymotobor. I have a job for you.”

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis, and together you and I will learn how to tell better stories as we DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

As you may have noticed, lots of things are changing on the podcast. I hope you like the changes but if not please let me know. Go to our new Instagram @howtobeabetterdm and let us know!

Now being a DM isn’t all fun and games… we’ll technically it is, cuz this is just a game.

Sometimes being a DM can be downright difficult, fortunately, othertimes, being a DM is the greatest thing in the world! So let’s get down to real talk. What are the best and worst things about being a DM?

The best thing about being a DM

Not having to rely on someone else to initiate D&D

In my experience, finding a DM that can keep up the campaign every single week can be difficult. Sometimes people just lose steam. The sucky part is that you still want to play D&D. Being a DM means that you can always at least control having something prepared to play. The hard part is finding people to play with you.

Seeing the wonder in your player’s eyes

There’s something magical about creating a story and shepherding people through it. I can remember a few moments specifically. When my players in my current campaign were going through a haunted mansion and some undead guards were about to fight my group. One of my players recognized the sigil of the guards and the nation where they came from. He started reciting the national oath of that country. Because it was such a cool moment, I had the undead guards join in, and instead of fighting the group, the guards passed by them. My players all looked like those anime characters with their big shiny eyes when something amazing happens. It was awesome. Being able to help create that is something special.

Walking through my ideas

As a DM, when you come up with a cool idea, you can actually play through it. I remember as a Player I would think of all sorts of cool things that I would love to see. As a DM, I can actually put that stuff in. More often than not, that means my stories are too chock full of stuff and perhaps a little too bloated, but that’s something I’m working on. At least, I don’t have to have a little black book of all my cool ideas that I will never ever use.

Knowing the Story

One of the best (and worst) parts of being a DM is knowing how the story ends. I get to know what’s coming up and what my characters will face. Sometimes, I have a terrible poker face and this is just really hard, but other times, I get to hide behind an impassive face as something really cool, or really terrible is about to happen. One of my characters was just bitten by a werewolf and I got to watch as my players slowly came to understand that the curse of lycanthropy was transferred to this player.

Lots of Talking

As a player, I often worry that I might be talking to much or hogging all of the playing spotlights. Surprising, I know right. As a DM, I don’t have to worry about this. The game doesn’t function unless I say stuff. It also doesn’t function unless the players say stuff. So it helps to create a natural balance of talking a lot and then shutting up and letting the players talk.

Worst things about being a DM.

Not everything is milk and cookie though. Sometimes, being a DM is downright hard.

Knowing everything

I think the absolute worst thing about being a DM is that you do have to know everything. Or at least you have to know where to find it in the fastest way possible. If you don’t, it’s not a big deal, but you have to think on your feet and give an answer that satisfies the group. If you don’t then the group probably won’t play with you for very long.

Dealing with that one player

I also hate having to deal with that one player. That one player can take many forms. Sometimes, it’s a couple players who are just too talkative and not serious. Sometimes it’s dealing with that beligerent player who wants everything their way. Sometimes it’s dealing with your wife who wants you to let her apply sneak attack even though she didn’t hide on her previous turn… Not naming names Mikayla, but if you’re listening to this, I’m talking about you. I’m just kidding, I love my wife. But seriously, you have to know how to deal with an uncooperative group. That is hard

Being the energizer bunny

Often times, we play D&D at night. As the DM you are the metronome for the group. If you are low energy, then the group will likely be low energy. That gets tiring and at the end of a long day can be really hard. If your group isn’t helping with the energy then it can feel like an uphill battle.

Doing the Homework

Though it can be fun, you do have to do the homework and prepare the story. That can get difficult when you’ve got an otherwise full schedule.

Despite the worst things, being a DM is still worth it. I challenge you to try and see what you think.

Thank you so much for listening to today’s show. Stay tuned after to hear some announcements but we’ll be back next week for another episode.

Until then, let’s roll initiative.

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What Makes a Good D&D Session

24 februari 2022 | 7 min

You all reach the bottom of the ladder after climbing down it for an hour and a half. Halfway down, your wizard cast light to give you all the ability to see. You find yourselves in a roughcut chamber with a ladder that ascendes up towards where you came from. You also see a solitary door. After a few minutes, Herath is able to unlock the door and open it creakily. Beyond your group sees a sloping tunnel that dives deeper into the earth at a gentle decline. You group presses on and walks the path for another half hour.

You and your group are used to the constant noises of the upper world. Down here you hear silence and the constant vibrations of the moving earth.

Silently your group reaches the point where the tunnel branches. It diverges into 3 separate tunnels. Each tunnel looks natural. Your sight penetrates 30 feet into the darkness but you see no signs to indicate which tunnel to take.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 35th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis and together we will learn how to tell better stories as dungeon master a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

We’ve all been a DM, we’ve all had good sessions and bad sessions. But how do you know what makes a good D&D session?

It’s not always easy making a good D&D session, but it is always fulfilling.

So here are some telltale signs of a good D&D session.

Players have fun

The most important thing for a D&D session is that your players have fun. That includes you since you are a player as well. So do whatever you need to make the game fun. If halfway through, you aren’t having fun, then you gotta change things up. Some ways try and make it more fun:

Simplify: make things easier to comprehend
Energize: just add more energy to what you are doing
Take a break
Do something funny
Add in a twist
Skip over boring stuff.

Players are interested

Obviously this is an aspect of the the players having fun, but the story needs to be interesting. That’s why we play D&D rather than other table top or video games. It’s the stories. So are there moments where your players are interested in what happens next. Two of the best ways to do this are first, adding a cliffhanger, but more importantly, conflict. The best part of any story is its conflicts. If a story has no conflicts, it is not a story. So add conflicts. Conflicts between the characters and NPC’s and between the characters and time and all sort of conflict. That’s how you draw in your players.

Something memorable happened

A session is great when you can look back with your friends and say, “You remember when…. That was so cool or crazy or weird.” A good example is in one of my one-shots, one of my players killed an enemy that ended up blowing up cause two of the other players’ characters to die. It was funny and unexpected. It’s something we’ll all remember for a long time. Good D&D session.

The session fits the mood of the players

Sometimes the players don’t want a rootin tootin shootem up session. Sometimes the players just want a shopping session. So dangle different flavors in front of your players and the ones that your players interact with the most is the one you should give them more of. Be aware that what they want during the session will likely change from hour to hour and being a good DM means that you understand what your players want.

The perfect D&D session is an illusive thing. A ghost, a phantom, a shadow, yet made of pure crystal, platinum and gold, it’s worth more than all the loot in the universe. Creating the perfect D&D session is impossible, yet the goal of every DM. I wish you luck on your quest to create the most amazing D&D session. But until you become the ultimate master of the universe, at least these tips can help you create good sessions that your players love.

Thanks for listening to today’s show. What do you think? Am I wrong? Did I miss anything? If so, then send me a message on Instagram. You can also share the show with someone else and talk about it with them.

Would you like to play D&D with me? If so, then sign up for the newsletter and get access to monthly sign ups for a session with me or one of the other hosts. Sign up at https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/subscribe

Thanks again for listening to today’s show. We’ll be back next week for another episode but until then, let’s roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

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Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Are You Ready to Try Being a DM

17 februari 2022 | 10 min

The party walks out into a clearing. Traveling through the jungle had taken longer than expected. You’d followed the young girl’s tracks but that didn’t make traveling through the brush any easier, especially for Medic.

In the clearing you see a clean cut wood house on stilts high above the jungle floor. It was as if a home had been built on a watch tower. Smoke rises lazily from the chimney. That’s when you realize how quiet it is. As you traveled through the jungle, you’d heard every sort of creature imaginable. Now you hear nothing.

Suddenly the door opens up and a man steps out onto the deck of the house. He has a brown vest on with a black beard, no mustache and flowing black hair. He holds his hands on his hips with a crooked smile on his face.

“I suppose you’ve come for my girl.” The man says in a rough deep voice. His tone is somewhat mocking.

Brennor steps forward and say, “There’s more of us than of you so it would be wise to hand her over lad.”

“I can count master dwarf.” The man says wryly. “I don’t think the odds stack up in your favor though.” And with that the man begins chanting something and waving his hands as his eyes light up with a strange white light.

You look to Malfius who has already begun a Counterspell. Malfius finishes but nothing happens. Malfius tries again, but nothing.

The man on the deck smiles and says, “Oh that won’t work with me. I’m a different breed altogether.” and then thrusts his hand forward and opens it and you and your companions are assaulted with shards of thick ice.

After the barrage, you all stand up and look at each other.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis and together you and I will learn how to tell better stories as we DM sessions of Dungeons & Dragons 5e.

As I’m been making this show and putting out this content, I’ve realized that it’s very possible that you the listener, not you, no the other one, yes you! The one who is pointing their finger at themselves and mouthing, “me?” Yes. I’m talking to you. You might not be a DM yet, but you’re interested in becoming one. You have one questions on your mind, “Am I ready to try being a DM.?’

Well Mister! I’m here to tell you yes!

Well, mostly yes.

I guess the answer is it depends.

You have a desire to try.

The first and most important thing you need in order to be ready to try being a dungeon master is simply the desire, nay the interest. Everything else can be developed and acquired. If you don’t want to be a DM, then doing it for more than a one shot will be very difficult, nay impossible. If you’re listening to this episode and your friend is pressuring you to try being a DM but you have no real curiosity or interest in doing it, then don’t do it. I mean it’s alright to try it, but you don’t need to prepare to become a DM. Becoming a DM requires a lot of commitment and a shifu.

You can explain the basic rules to someone who’s never played.

Go find someone who’s never played D&D but is open to the idea. If they aren’t open, they’ll likely not care about you explaining the rules, therefore they won’t pay attention. So find this neophyte to the D&D ways and sit them down and explain how you play. Don’t go too in depth, but just enough to whet their whistle. If the very idea of that scares the living daylight out of you, then you gotta do some reading my friend.

You Have an Idea

Every great campaign needs twists and surprises. Even if you use a premade campaign, you’ll still want to add your own flavor to the game. That means you’ll want to be able to create story lines that are interesting. Now, obviously doing that well takes practice. To start off make sure you have some sort of idea. What I mean is most DM’s at one point of another have been doing dishes, or laundry or showering and then randomly will have a bizarre, strange interesting idea of some sort of campaign to do or a one-shot or something to make a story more interesting. Have one of those. The best part is you can make yourself come up with something. So if you’re struggling, then do this. 1. Grab piece of paper. 2. Grab a writing utensil. 3. Write down your favorite fantasy setting (for example, Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, etc.) 4. Write down your favorite thing about that setting (is it the giant war balloons, or the code of honor of one of the order of nights, or is it the snarky attitude of most of the characters). 5. Add that idea to an encounter you might come up with.

I chose the Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson and what I liked most (aside from the variety of characters) was the magic system. So maybe I could have my players face someone whose magic system is completely different. One of my players might cast dispel magic, but it doesn’t work because in a way, it’s not magic. See. Simple idea that makes a side quest interesting.

You’re comfortable performing

This one is a gut check. As a DM, you are a storyteller, a writer, and a performer, an actor. You’ll act out the various characters that your players will come in contact with. That said, if you are uncomfortable describing things or being somewhat whacky in front of other people, you may not have as much fun at being a DM.

HUGE CAVEAT! One of the reasons I love Dungeons and Dragons is that it does push some of us out of our comfort zones. I myself am a somewhat more reserved person, but D&D has helped me be more expressive in front of my friends and be ok performing and putting on a show. I also think being a DM is great if you have trouble public speaking. It’s a wonderful way to push yourself past your limits and have fun with friends at the same time. So if you aren’t perfectly comfortable performing in front of others, that’s ok, just practice until you get that way.

The most important thing to remember is that yes, you are ready to try being a DM. No DM is perfect at the get go. I distinctly remember one week where I was frustrated with myself because the session didn’t go as well as I had hoped and I felt like I sucked and then the next week I felt much better because the session was way more fun. There’s a learning curve. Hopefully, this show helps you get over it faster, but it’s still there.

Thanks for listening to today’s show. If you have any feedback I’d love to hear. Just send me a direct message on Instagram @geronimolevis and I’ll be sure to respond. Or if you just love the show, give us a rating or review wherever you are listening to this.

If you’re interested in getting even more content like this and maybe even an opportunity to play D&D with me or one of the other hosts, sign up for our newsletter. It’ simple and free and best of all you get extra stuff. Who doesn’t like that. Just go to :https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/subscribe and subscribe.

We’ll be back next week for another fun show.

Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

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How Much to Plan for One D&D Session

10 februari 2022 | 10 min

You and your companions get off the boat and onto the dock of New Tuyen. You look around letting the sights and sounds greet you. You walk towards the city and allow yourself to acclimate to this new city.

You first notice all the green. The buildings and roads are all made with a green material. After talking to a local citizen, you learn that the material is actually a moss that is particularly dense and sturdy. You also take in the smells of local street vendors who season their meats with intoxicating spices. Your stomach rumbles and mouth salivates as you pass one particular stall.

The thing that strikes you the most are the people. You’ve heard about genassi but you weren’t prepared for this. Every person you has the form and shape of humanoids but instead of skin you simply see and element. One man made of fire walks past you without burning you and immediately after a woman made of shifting sand walks by without leaving any sand behind. Each person wears clothing like normal and their bodies are shaped like yours, but they seem so foreign. Especially alien to you are the space genassi. Their bodies looks like fields of stars and hair look like nebula. You’ve never seen anything so beautiful yet strange.

Welcome to New Tuyen.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 33rd episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis. Together, you and I will explore how to tell better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

We all know that planning D&D sessions is tough. Most of us do it only so we can play the session. There are those few of us who are masichists at heart and enjoy the torture, but I’m not talking to those freaks today.

Instead, I’m talking to the other freaks who don’t necessarily love preparing for D&D sessions, but still love playing the game and being a DM anyways.

You’re probably asking the question, “How much should I plan for my D&D session?”

You’ve got lots of things to worry about in your life. You probably have a job, kids, a spouse, other hobbies, your physical fitness, dog, parents, friends, and everything else that’s going on in your life.

You can’t plan every move your players would ever make.

Well, I’m gonna give you a simple answer and a more complex answer.

The simple answer is you should plan more than you think you should but less than your players think you have.

Simple right.

Well, let’s unravel that just a little bit.

Plan to finish what you’ve started.

I’ve covered this before, but you need to plan to finish what has been started in the last campaign. This is the minimum requirement. Right now in the campaign I’m leading with my players, I have two characters who just started two separate combat encounters while the rest of the party is back at camp trying to long rest. So naturally, I have to prepare these two separate encounters. For me that looks like reading into the capabilities of the adversaries that will be fighting my players and making sure I know what they can do and what they will most likely do. This also means thinking of the motives behind my players and their enemies to try and guess the most likely way things will go. But, knowing my players, it’s likely that I can’t predict what they will do and that’s ok.

2 -3 Paths.

After finishing these two encounters, I’ll likely have an opportunity to ask, “What do you want to do now?” That means the players will have to think about all the many options they have to do stuff and pick something. Again, there’s no possible way I can predict everything they are going to do. So I pick three possible paths that the players can choose. I’m not really at liberty to discuss the paths I’m preparing for my group now because one of the players is now a host on the this show (aka Cayden Ottley).

Random Encounter Fodder

It also helps to have some tables for random encounters in your back pocket. If you are playing a premade campaign, they’ll likely have some made for you. I think it’s also fun to add in IF - Then situations. For example. One of my players has a certain homebrew item that I gave to her many sessions ago. Since she attuned to it, I’ve had her keep track of how many monsters she’s killed with it. She finally reached 10 kills. Because of that, it’s triggered something new that will happen in the next session when she falls asleep. You can create all sorts of If - Then situations to help you plan what happens. If Player So and So does This and That then the Unexpected happens.

Finish the next path stepping Stone.

I say a good rule of thumb is to plan past at least one next major stepping stone. There’s a chance you won’t finish it, but on the off chance you do, at least you’re ready. This means that at a minimum you have a general idea of everything that happens in the dungeon for example. You know where the rooms are and you know how it’s all gonna go down (more or less, usually a lot less).

Remember it’s a skill.

Planning D&D sessions is above all else a skill and therefore requires practice. There will be sessions where halfway through you realize you have nothing else prepared. That’s ok. There will also be sessions where you finish the night and realize you didn’t get to half of what you had prepared. That’s an awesome feeling. As you go through playing D&D you’ll learn instinctually how much to plan for each session.

It all has to relate to the players

In listening to Writing Excuses this week (that’s a podcast about writing books), the hosts talked about world building. They said that everything you build for the world is only interesting in as much as it relates to the characters who are infinitely more interesting. I say prepare as much as you want to, but always make sure it relates back to the characters and the players. Get the essentials down (what’s going to happen next session) and then prepare some fun stuff for your players.

Some people say if it stops being fun then stop prepping, but at the same time, prepping has to get done, so I say, use your best judgement and just try your hardest with it.

I hoped you liked today’s episode. If you would like more of today’s content, then sign up for our newsletter. https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/subscribe You can even sign up to play D&D with me!

Thanks again for listening to today’s episode. Come back next week for another amazing show.

Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

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Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

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Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

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So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

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What do You Need for a D&D Session Online

3 februari 2022 | 9 min

You all enter the doorway at the back of the chamber. This dungeon had given you and your companions many challenges. You’d almost lost McGregor in the first room and as you descended lower, each level became harder.

In this last chamber, you’d expended all your magical energy just trying to put this pit fiend down. You look back at the demon, already its body is starting to turn to sludgy black ichor. You turn and follow your friends.

You all walk down a long stone hallway and enter a very small room. In the room there is a single stone dais on which rests a very strange object. There’s what looks like a box with a round pane of glass on one side on a stand inches above a slab of something grey with square pellets on it. As you get closer, you see the pellets all have a single character on them. They’re arranged in some sort of grid pattern. You reach out and touch one. You hear a click. Instantly, the glass pane on the box lights up and you see moving particles of black and white and you hear a faint buzzing. You reach your hands toward the glass pain and you feel energy dancing on the surface. You touch the screen and flash!

You open your eyes and find yourself surrounded by numbers and lines of light. You are in a very strange place that seems all angles and lines. There is nothing organic here. Instead of dirt, you stand on what feels like a mix between glass and metal and off in the distance you see the large gathered lights of a city at night.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and together you and I are going to explore how to tell better stories while you DM a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Have you ever wanted to play D&D with people but you were separated by time and space….?

Well as far as the time thing goes, can’t really help you. I’m fresh out of Tardis’ and Delorians.

But the nice thing about living in the technological age is that distance is relative.

You can now play D&D online with your friends or family, or complete strangers.

But what do you need to play a session online? What a great question. Let’s dig in.

Video conferencing tool

Aside from the basic essentials of needing a story and players, you need a medium through which you can all communicate. Obviously you can use free options like Zoom, Skype, or Google Hangout. Honestly, you could play just over the phone (but your minutes will probably go way over your monthly budget). I wouldn’t recommend playing over the phone because having that visual component is so easy, affordable and just really nice! If you are looking for just a video connection tool, I would say Zoom or Google Hangout, but the drawbacks are that you can’t do them for really long sessions. So my next recommendation would be a platform.

Platform

After a video conferencing tool, the next thing to have would be a platform that syncs together all the players and everything that’s going on. I prefer Roll20. It allows you to use Video as you play and it also syncs the rolls of all the players and adds a lot of cool features that the DM can use. I am not affiliated with them but I really like what they do.

Visuals

The next thing I would say you need is visuals. When I say need here, I more mean “it’s really easy to add and it’s free so you’d be really stupid and lazy not to add it.” The point is there are so many free options out there that taking the time to make your sessions better takes just that time. For visuals again you can literally google cool maps and stuff and then slap that into a word doc or paint and have your players tell you where to move shapes that represent them. Obviously you can always use theater of the mind, but I personally love to look for tools to help immerse my players.

Music

After visuals, the next thing to think about is audio. Because everyone is already in front a screen, adding cool audio effects is nice and honestly a lot easier than doing it at the table because you as the DM are already on the computer. If you get really into it you can look for voice changing softwares to help make each of your NPC’s unique. I really like how Mark Hulmes did this on High Roller’s Aeirois because it really made you get the feeling of the NPC’s.

A strong internet connection.

The biggest drawback to playing online is that you are at the mercy of your internet speeds. Said another way, you never have to wait for the other players at the table to buffer when you are playing in person. So, to get the best experience while playing D&D online, you gotta look for ways to improve your internet speeds. You also need to help your players when they have troubles. Sometimes your players just can’t make it happen and you have to be ready as a DM for that.

Those are all the things I think you absolutely need or are at least free for the most part so there’s really no excuse for not doing them. Obviously you can look into getting a microphone or a webcam if you want to do this more often, but that’s going to cost you some money. I realize that you are spending tons of money as it is on this hobby so hopefully we can give you some great tips that don’t break the bank.

If you do want tips and insights into some of the higher tiered Dungeon Master tools, sign up for our newsletter. You can go to https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/subscribe and subscribe for monthly updates, new content, homebrew items and even opportunities to play D&D with me and our other hosts. With those games, it’s first come first serve so better sign up quickly.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions or suggestions for the show on Instagram @geronimolevis and we’ll chat there.

Come back next week for another amazing show.

Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

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How to Help Your Players During Character Creation

1 februari 2022 | 39 min

How to Prepare Your Players for a D&D Session

28 januari 2022 | 9 min

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By subscribing, you'll get access to behind the scenes content, bonus content, home-brew content and more.

In today's episode, we talk about how to prepare your players for a D&D session. We discuss things like useful materials for players, Rules and mechanics of gameplay, and giving players feedback on how to enhance their gameplay experience.

Please leave a review if you enjoy the episode, and feel free to reach out to us with questions or topics you'd like to see in the future!

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A Simple D&D Session Structure to Help Prepare Your Sessions

20 januari 2022 | 11 min

You all finish your long-rest and you wake up to a bright, if not bitter cold winter morning. The view from the mountaintop lookout on which you slept is breathtaking, as is the chilling wind that blows. You all slept comfortably thanks to the warmth of the fire.

As you all wake up you prepare for the day, memorizing your spells, stretching your sore limbs and generally preparing yourselves for whatever may come next, except one of you.

Roen the druid, as you wake up you are met with the sight of a small brown squirrel sitting before you, patiently waiting for you to awaken. Tied around the squirrels neck is a tiny scroll of parchment.

Naturally, you reach down and untie the scroll and unroll it. As you do, the squirrel scampers off into the trees.

The scroll is very small yet is crammed with writing. The writing is clumsy as if it was written with charcoal rather than a quill and ink.

On the parchment is a line of text that turns your heart to ice.

“Help. Captured by Xyxyx in Waterdeep. Cynthia.”

And that is where we will end today’s session.

Welcome back to the 29th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Before we get to the show let’s go through a couple of announcements.

First, I hope you all enjoyed our last episode where you all met our new team member, Tanner Weyland. If you have any comments or questions for him or me, send us a direct message at @geronimolevis through Instagram.

Next, today’s show is brought to you by our monthly newsletter.You can sign up using the link in the show notes and get access to extra tips on being a DM, behind the scenes content and extra homebrew pieces that you can use in your campaigns. You can also sign up to play a one-shot with myself as your DM. This is first come first serve so sign up for the newsletter and let’s play a session together.

Now, to the show.

Planning your sessions can often be the most difficult part of playing D&D. Sometimes it helps to have a general structure to your sessions. Well let’s look at this simple D&D structure.

What happened last time

One of the most important things you can do to start off a good session is a recap of the session before. This gives your players a chance to get into character and into the game. It also serves as a nice way to transition out of friendly chatter and into playing a game where you have to be quiet while the DM talks. Lastly, it’s great to remind your players what happened last because they’ve probably forgotten.

Resolve what happened last time

Finish what you started last time. If you had just started an encounter, then run the encounter. If you left off on a cliff hanger then run through what implied the cliff hanger. Sometimes though, it makes for a nice twist to not resolve what you started but that is an advanced technique.

Ask about Character’s Backstories

At this point, ask if every person’s back story has been featured lately. If not, add in something that relates to the backstory of someone. It doesn’t need to be in depth but it can be.

Add the next main plot point

Think about the next logical plot point and prepare that. Pretty simple. Just beware, you will not be able to plan for everything. I like to ask myself the question, “What would I logically do next?” And then I prepare for that. Then I ask myself, “If I didn’t do that, what would I logically do?” Then I prepare for that. Then we end up doing neither of those things and doing something completely random that my players came up with at the moment. Se la vie.

Prepare at least one encounter

Most often your players expect to fight something So I find it helpful to have at least one combat encounter in my back pocket. The best way to do this is using D&D Beyond’s encounter builder. It’s a great way to save an encounter and then go in and tweak it a bit when things have changed but you still need an encounter.

Plan for the cliffhanger

The last thing you want to do is plan for a probable cliffhanger. I say probable because there’s no way of knowing exactly where the session will end. You’ll have a lot of input but so will the players. For me good cliffhangers are right before big encounters, or right after a reveal of something, or when there’s a twist. You’ll want to be thinking about your cliffhanger during the session so that you can prepare for it and possibly even change it.

There you go, a simple session structure that should help you figure out what your players will be doing next session.

Was this helpful? If it was please leave a rating and review so others can bask in the glory of Dungeons and Dragons!

I’d also love to know what you think about the show. So send me any comments or questions in a direct message through Instagram @geronimolevis and I’ll be sure to respond.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter to get even more D&D secrets and shortcuts as well as the opportunity to play a one-shot with me as your DM.

Come back next week for an amazing episode but until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

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Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

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What Makes a Perfect DM

18 januari 2022 | 25 min

The Benefits of a Session 0

13 januari 2022 | 11 min

You face your aggressors stoically. They scoff at you and you feel the presence of one as he edges around to flank you from behind.

“Leave me alone. I’ve never done anything to you guys,” you say.

The older boy looks at you and then looks at his thug-like friends. “You’re a freak, an orcish freak. You always will be.” He then nods to his friends.

You feel a rock hit you in your shoulder. It stings and you turn to look at the thrower. At the same time you feel a stick hit the back of your leg. You feel your knee buckle. You start to feel tears flow to your eyes.

You throw one punch and land it on someone’s face. You immediately feel one then two then three fits hit you in differently places, You instinctually fall to the ground and ball yourself up. Despite your efforts, you still feel flashes of pain in your head, your gut, your spine.

As the beating goes on, you realize they aren’t going to stop. You weakly whimper out a pathetic, “please..”

Your eyes fade to black.

You hear, “I can save you.”

You don’t even question it. You respond, “please save me.”

When you open your eyes, there are four bodies on the ground. Four young boys lie at your feet. Your hands are smoking and for once, you feel no fear.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 27th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and today you and I are going on a journey. That’s right. We are going to explore what it takes to create amazing experiences for yourself and your players as you DM a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e. It’s going to be a back and forth and hopefully we each learn something.

Before we go on, I’d like to invite you sign up for my monthly newsletter in which you’ll get access to behind the scenes content, bonus content, homebrew content and more. Sign up for this newsletter here: https://mailchi.mp/05e568274671/subscription-page

In the January issue of the newsletter you’ll get a special opportunity. There will be a link to sign up to play in a one-shot with me as your DM. It’s first come first serve so make sure to sign up fast. It’ll be a one-shot online and it should be a lot of fun… I hope. So sign up for that newsletter and let’s get to know each other.

I also want to take a moment and share my gratitude with you. You’ve made this podcast possible and I just want to say thank you.

Now why would you plan a session 0? What a great question.

First, you should probably know what a session 0 is if you’ve never heard about it. I won’t go into too much detail here but a session 0 is a first session of a campaign where things aren’t completely set in stone. You get to play the characters before having to commit to them.

So why would you plan a session 0?

Well there are a few benefits.

You can spend more time with each individual player

One of the nice things about session 0’s is that you can split them up. For example, if you are having a campaign of 5 players, you can have a session 0 with 2 of them, 3 of them or even one of them. I don’t really recommend doing it with just one, but you could. You can have a session 0 with just 2 of your players which makes it more intimate and helps your player feel like you care about them and their character because you do.

You can have your players play test their character

We’ve all had players who’ve played a character that they weren’t really into that much. Playtesting during a session 0 allows your players to see what the features, spells, actions and abilities actually do in a live session. This changes it from, “That sounds really cool,” to “that was really useful and really cool.” I truly hate it later in the campaign when I start to wonder if a player is having fun. A session 0 can help them find the character they love and will have lots of fun playing.

You can have your characters meet each other

One of the biggest thorns in my side is figuring out a way to get the characters to meet each other without completely distrusting each other and somehow finally forming into an adventuring band. I don’t know why but it’s really hard for me. With a session 0 you can actually play the moment when 2 characters meet and become friends. This makes it easier when in session 1 you have all the characters meet and a few of them already know each other. Critical Role does this really well in their 2nd Campaign on Youtube.

You can help set expectations before getting too far

As a DM you might have to train your players. This means you’ll probably have to help them understand that your campaign will likely take months and that it will be a commitment and that you expect them to give time and energy just as you will (though as the DM you will give way more). Obviously things change and people have to constantly be shifting their priorities which is ok. What isn’t ok is someone starting to be a flake on session 2. That’s not ok. You need to let them know that and any other expectations you have (such as no phones at the table or other rules you like to have).

You can ask your players what sort of things they want from the campaign

It’s one thing to ask, “Do you want more combat, role-play or a mix of both?” and it’s another thing to have your players do a big role-play scene and then find out they don’t really like that. You can ask them real-time what sort of things they like and what they didn’t. This lets you tweak your campaign to fit what your players want.

You can teach each player how to play their character

Each character will generally have a lot of bells and whistles. It will take some time learning how to play your character. Most players generally like to try new classes so if they had a barbarian last campaign they might try a spellcaster this campaign. That means they’ll have to learn a whole new set of rules. A session 0 is a nice way to gently introduce them to those new rules and help them learn how to play their character correctly. I’ve mentioned before the sorcerer who wanted to walk first into the dungeon. A session 0 is a great way to teach them sorcerer squishy get dead quick. That way, they don’t die in session 1.

You can play out backstory

Maybe one of the coolest benefits of a session 0 is that you can actually play through part of the character’s back story. That way when your character tells the rest of the group that they met their warlock patron at a cookout for a local bardic group, the player actually knows the details. Using the session 0 to help the characters flesh out their backstory works the best when it features the reason the characters started adventuring. That way their motives are fresh in the players’ minds.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Like always, I’m super appreciative of your patronage. I’m very grateful that you listen week in and week out.

If you get a second, please leave a rating and review so that others can find this show.

We’ll be back next week for another episode. Until then, let’s roll initiative.

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Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

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Who SHOULD Play as a Barbarian

6 januari 2022 | 10 min

You look around you. You see the circle of stones surrounding you. You see Judir watching you with his arms folded surrounded by your closest friends and companions.

You take a deep breath and walk forward.

“The winds whisper still,”

Runic symbols appear on the stones of the circle.

“The voices of the ancients.”

You stand above the bowl with it’s red liquid.

“And the mountains remember their steps.

You bend over and pick up the bowl.

“Their hearts beat still with the rhythm of our drums.”

You raise the bowl to your lips.

“And we dance to the rhythm of theirs.”

You drink the liquid.

“The storm carries the embrace of our elders as through us their memory lives on.”

You open your eyes. You don’t remember closing them. You also don’t remember being so cold. You look around you. You are on the slope of a mountain. It’s snowing. You see the mountain peak. You see the dancing lights of the northern sky surrounding the mountain. You hear a faint drum beat and distant voices singing an ancient song.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 26th episode of How to Be a Better DM. As always, I’m your host, Justin Lewis and together you and I will learn how to craft ever better stories for yourself and your friends as you DM a session of D&D 5e.

Before I get to today’s show, let me make a few announcements.

First of all, welcome to a brand spanking new year! I hope 2022 is everything you hope it will be for you and more. This year you will have amazing adventures that you can’t even fathom yet. You’ll have struggles and triumphs and I’m excited for you.

Next I’d like to invite you to join us on those adventures. The best way to do that right now is to sign up for our monthly newsletter. You can do so on this link: https://mailchi.mp/05e568274671/subscription-page

When you sign up you’ll get access to behind-the-scenes content, special event links (like the one-shot I will be hosting, more on that in a second), and even access to homebrew content I make that you can test out and give me feedback on. As more and more people join the newsletter we’ll put more and more stuff in it. So go to the link here in the show notes and subscribe.

As I mentioned, I’m going to DM a one-shot online for a handful of people. If you’re interested make sure to sign up for the newsletter and then look for the link to sign up for the one-shot there. It’ll be a fun experience and you’ll even get to give me feedback and be my critic :)

I think that’s all the announcements … for now… so without further ado, let’s talk about barbarians.

As I said last week, any person can play any class and still have fun. Your job as a DM though is to help shepherd your players to find the class that offers the experience any given player is looking for. That means you should know what each class is good for and what each class does not offer. Last week we talked about who should not play as a barbarian.

This week, let’s look at who would have the most fun playing a barbarian.

Someone who wants to be strong

If someone wants to be strong, then a barbarian class is a great fit. You get a natural bonus to strength and while you are raging you get advantage on strength checks. So if your player is looking to be the beefy fella at the gym that everyone stares at, then a barbarian is the way to go.

Someone who wants to be up-close-and-personal

Barbarians, while being able to throw javelins and use ranged weapons, are not known for being ranges combatants. In fact their rage only gives them a bonus if they are using melee weapons. Most barbarians therefore tend to stay close to their enemies in order to get in there and whack em real good.

Someone looking for simple combat turns

Most barbarian turns are comprised of movement, rage, attack. As you level up, that attack action allows you to attack more than once. You may find magical items that allow you to do more on your turn, however talking just about the class itself, a barbarian’s combat turn is relatively simple compared to other classes. This makes it a great option for someone who doesn’t want to have to write their whole turn down just to remember it.

Someone who enjoys describing combat

Obviously any class can do this, but because a barbarian’s combat turn is very simple it allows for more time to craft intricate embellishments of attack options. Even as a DM you can do this for your player if they are somewhat shy or un-descriptive. For example. Your player might say, “I attack the gnoll.” They then roll and roll a 18 which is a hit. You ask them to roll damage. They roll 7 points of damage. You can then narrate it like, “Yolanda pulls back her great club in her right hand and with her left shoves the gnolls shield out of the way so she can get a good crack right under its ribs forcing it to send out a hyena like yip yip yip as Yolanda growls in triumph”. Now let me assure I am not that eloquent in my actual games but you get the idea. Feel free to encourage embellishments like that at the table, especially for players whose turns seem really short compared to other players.

Someone who is naturally bold

Barbarians are somewhat known for rushing into situations without thinking them out completely. If you have a player who tends to play like this no matter what type of character they are, then maybe lead them toward choosing a barbarian so that their character doesn’t seem so out of character sometimes.

Someone who wants to be able to take a hit

With rage, and especially the totem warrior whose chosen one of the bear options and gets resistant to almost all types of damage, you get to reduce the amount of damage you take from most weapons by half. Add to that the fact that barbarians generally have much more health than other classes and you get a pretty tanky character. Other classes might have higher armor class, but a barbarian can take a ridiculous amount of damage and still keep fighting.

Someone who isn’t yet aware of the consequences of actions

Because a barbarian can take a punch and still keep going it’s a great choice for a newer player who hasn’t yet realized you can’t just go in guns-a-blazin everywhere you go. If you have a sorcerer who thinks they can be the first one walking into a dungeon, they will probably die. That exact thing happened in my group when we started and now that sorcerer is in the back and the barbarian goes first. There’s a lot more room for error.

Now you know who to help choose a barbarian. As I’ve said probably 3 or 4 times before, any player can play any character. We are just trying to give each player the highest chance of having as much fun as possible.

But what do you think?

Are there other players that should play a barbarian?

Tell your thoughts and experiences DMing by sending me a direct message on Instagram @geronimolevis and let’s get talking.

Thank you so much for listening to another episode. Seriously if you have any feedback please let me know what you think or any other topics you’d like to hear. Please leave a rating and review wherever you listen to this, on Spotify, Apple Podcast or Google Podcasts. That would go super far in helping other DM’s find this resource.

We’ll be back next week for another awesome episode, but until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Today’s music:

Viking God Wisdom - Ean Grimm

Viking music (Epic battle music) - EPIC MUSIC NO COPYRIGHT - Medieval music 1 hour mix

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Who Should NOT Play as a Barbarian

30 december 2021 | 10 min

You and your companions finally crest the hill. Judir said it wouldn’t be far and it wasn’t.

He leads you all through a small copse of trees to an overlook with large stones in a circle.

“Ulv, you stand in the center of the ring. The rest of you, sit down and witness.” Judir says with a tone of finality.

You give each of your party members a meaningful glance and then move to the center of the ring as your friends sit down on the ground outside the ring of stone.

Judir walks up to you and pulls your pack off of your back. He then beckons for you to remove your shirt. He take is all out of the ring.

He comes back and now has a small bowl in his hand. He dips his finger in the bowl and then begins moving the finger along your face, neck and arms. He’s painting something.

“You will be completely alone. Your friends won’t be able to help you and neither will I. Once you start the ritual, you have to finish it… or it will kill you. Now is your last chance to change your mind. After this there is no going back.” Judir turns his back on you without letting you answer. He moves a few feet away and places a bowl on the ground, uncorks a cask and pours a liquid into the bowl and then sprinkles some powder into it. He then walks to outside of the circle and says, “Drink the liquid and say the words to begin.”

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 25th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you craft more compelling stories for yourself and your friends as you DM a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas with you and your family. See, that’s what it’s all about, family. I hope you and your family had an amazing Christmas and maybe even had some fun playing games like D&D.

Next, I’d like to remind you to sign up for my monthly newsletter starting in January. You’ll get access to behind the scenes content, access to homebrew items, game hooks and one-shots and even the ability to sign up to play a one shot with me and some other cool cats! If you want to sign up for this awesome newsletter, sign up here: https://mailchi.mp/05e568274671/subscription-page

Now, a few weeks ago we talked about who should and shouldn’t play a rogue. Well, we’re continuing our discussion today with who shouldn’t play a barbarian!

Aside from the wizard and the fighter, a barbarian might be the quintessential D&D class. When people think D&D, they think wizard, fighter and barbarian.

But not everyone is cut out to enjoy a barbarian.

Like I’ve said before, anyone can play any class. Period.

But each class offers different experiences and if you’re looking for the following experiences, you won’t want to play a barbarian.

You want to avoid getting hit

Barbarians have the ability to halve a lot of damage types when they are raging. This means they are ideal to be up front and center in most fights. Being a barbarian generally means you are the spearhead in most fights. So if you are shy around getting hit by weapons, you might not want to play a barbarian.

You enjoy complicated combat turns

In D&D the only true limitation is your imagination! That said, unlike monks who can punch like 15 times a turn or sorcerer’s who can cast like 15 spells, as a barbarian, you generally whack. When you get higher levels, you can whack whack, and later even whack whack whack. Oh and don’t forget to RAGE!! Yeah that’s generally how your turns will go: Rage, move, attack. Sometimes you’ll do a strength check or stuff like that but compared to the other classes, a barbarian has a relatively simple action economy.

You Want to Be a Ranged Combatant

As a barbarian, you will naturally get a bonus to your strength. As well you get a bonus because of rage to your melee attacks. Put these two together and choosing to fight with mostly ranged weapons is seriously foregoing a large part of the class.

Being the Absolute Smartest

Unlike the other more academic classes (your wizard or your bard), the barbarian is not known for their powers of intellect. I’m not saying you can’t have a tremendously intelligent barbarian, but I am saying in character creation we each make choices. There are tradeoffs. As a barbarian, you will likely prioritize strength and other physical characteristics. So get used to showing off your muscles and not your brains… usually.

Don’t like to be High Energy

If you want to play a character that is generally calm and smooth and relaxed, then a barbarian might not be for you. One of the central pillars of being a barbarian is the rage. So naturally, your character will often be enraged. This means that your character will probably have lots of energy and get angry, at least part of the time.

So there you have it. If you want these experiences, don’t be a barbarian. Now one thing to remember is that these are the general principles of being a barbarian. It may be a really cool character to buck the trope and instead do something opposite. For example, you have a mild mannered person who gets incredibly angry. Or maybe you have a very high energy character who when they rage get very calm, serious and deliberate. All of these could be fun ways to twist the trope. But it has to make sense.

Thank you guys for listening to today’s show. I really appreciate all the support you shown me. Don’t forget, if you want to play a one-shot with me as you DM sign up for the newsletter and then sign up for the one shot in January’s Newsletter.

If you have any suggestions or comments about the show, send me a direct message on Instagram @geronimolevis I look forward to starting up the conversation with you.

We’ll be back next week for another great episode. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Also, if you liked the music at the beginning of today's show, then head on over to Instagram and send a thank you to @caydmusic and tell him you loved his music!

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Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

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2 Christmas Themed One-Shots

23 december 2021 | 12 min

You finish pouring the elf’s blood in a circle in the prescribed way. “Hey Bolgir, are you sure we’re supposed to do it this way? Doesn’t this seem uh…. Somewhat uh… hellish to you?”

Your dwarven wizard pauses and looks at you and says, “Well, honestly yes, but this is what that cooky wizard, Kamere, said when we were at that council meeting. It’s even here on his shopping list he gave us.”

You smile. That parchment did indeed look like a shopping list.

Bolgir steps to the center of the bloody circle and looks toward the arch of uncut stones. He mutters a few words and smacks his hands together. The space under the arch splits as if reality itself were torn. The rift widens and soon you see a large figure step through. They had dark blood red garb trimmed with stark white fur. You hear a tremendous laugh, deep and imposing. You feel a gravity that accompanies those of great power. It’s then that you notice the scenery through the right behind the figure. You expected to see the bright colors of the Feywilds. Instead you see the dark hues of Shadowfell. You then notice the figures eyes glowing blood read.

“Bolgir, I think we’ve made a mistak….”

Instantly you are blasted with a wave of power as the red-clad figure blasts you and your companions and then bounds off towards the village.

You and your companions raise yourselves to your feet.

What would you like to do now?

Welcome back to the 24th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you craft better stories for yourself and your friends as you DM a session of D&D 5e.

First of all, Merry Christmas! I sincerely hope that this holiday season sees you surrounded by loved ones and filled with joy.

Second, I’d like to invite you sign up for a monthly newsletter I am going be publishing starting in January. The newsletter will include updates from the H2BBDM team as well as bonus content, behind the scenes looks and access to Homebrew content created by me! A little teaser of what you might get this January is access to a new item I created called the Gym Bag. If you want to know what it does, sign up for the newsletter at :https://mailchi.mp/05e568274671/subscription-page

Thirdly, would you like to join a session of D&D with me? I’ll be your DM for a one-shot online. I’ll be looking for five people to sign up for a fun one-shot on a first-come-first-serve basis. How do you sign up you ask? Well sign up for the newsletter and then in January you’ll get the sign up link right to your inbox. I’ll tell you right now, I got a few interested people already so be quick or you lose your chance :)

Now, in honor of this festive season, here are 2 Christmas themed one-shot or side quest ideas for you to celebrate the season.

The Search for the Prophesied Child

This one shot starts with your adventurers arriving in a foreign port after having been charged by a benevolent mage-king to find and bring special gifts to, a prophesied child of great power. The whole side-quest will take place in a kingdom that is at war with the Kingdom to which the benevolent mage-king belongs, therefore he needs adventurers to go incognito to find the child.

At the foreign port, along with any other tasks the adventurers want to handle, they must first find a guide to take them through the desert to the region that is prophesied as the site of the child’s birth. I would give them a couple options, each with consequences, for example. One group might find a desert guide name Yosran who is a large Dragonborne, but is secretly a spy for the malevolent kingdom. If the group travels with Yosran, there is a large chance that they will be stopped by enemy legionnaires.

The next challenge is for the group to travel through the desert. This will encompass survival checks, random encounters if you want, and possibly even some planned encounters such as fighting a cloud giant.

Finally the group will find the child, and in a true Christmas-3-kings-vibe, will present the gifts to the child and their parents.

The last challenge will be to help the child escape when it is found out that a large army of soldiers has been sent to kill the child. If it’s a one-shot, it might be cool to have the heroes give their lives fighting the army 300-Style so the babe and it’s parents can escape. I would plan another method for escape though because your players may not like that option. Having a diversion and a secret escape where the group only needs to content with a handful of soldiers is a great option too.

The end of the one-shot may feature the heroes returning to the mage-king brining the prophesied child and it’s parents to explore a bright new future, or something like that.

Full of Christmas Fear

This Christmas one-shot is all about spreading Christmas cheer, until things go really wrong.

The group will start out being summoned by the council of one of the big cities. They appear and the council makes the case that things have been very dreary lately. The council has decided that they need to brighten the city’s spirit. To do this, they have decided to hire the adventuring group to summon a great fey spirit of immense power to bring cheer and joy to the city.

A wizard then gets up and explains how to summon the spirit. The wizard is incredibly old and misremembers many things. He eventually gives the group a list of things and says this is what you need. You also need to travel to a specific place (probably Christmas related) and perform a special ceremony. He then gives the group everything they need except for 2 things on the list. Each item can be harvested by enemies (for example, Hags hair from a hag, Ice Giant’s white hair, etc.). These become the encounters.

The group then makes their way to the ritual location where the enact the ritual. A red rift opens up letting in flurries of whimsical snow. Out steps a large red-clad individual who laughs a deep laugh. The group thinks it’s Santa Claus, that is until they peer past the individual into the realm behind him and see not the Feywild but Shadowfel. The Creature then sends blast of power at the party and then runs.

The group then can reexamine the note and realize that they misread the handwriting for one of the items. They’ve summoned a Shadow Claus instead of Santa Claus.

Now they just find him and destroy him before he possesses the children of a neighboring village.

Well there you have it, 2 Christmas themed one-shots of side-quests.

I hope they help make your season bright and life your spirits.

I want to say thank you for your support this year. Next year I look forward to helping you create ever better stories for you and your D&D sessions.

Don’t forget, if you want to play a one-shot with me, sign up for the newsletter and then use the link in the January Newsletter to sign up to play a one-shot with me.

I look forward to next week but until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

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Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Can You Play D&D with 2 Players

16 december 2021 | 9 min

Can You Play D&D with 2 Players

Welcome back to the 23rd episode How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you craft more immersive stories for yourself and your players as you DM a session of D&D 5e.

Thanks for coming back week in and week out to listen to this show. I am extremely grateful to you for your support.

I’d like to invite you to sign up for a monthly newsletter I’ll send out with updates and behind the scenes content as well as free home brew content that you can try in your campaigns. If you would like to sign up for that, click this link: https://mailchi.mp/05e568274671/subscription-page

So, you are wondering, can you play D&D with 2 players?

Simple answer: Yes.

But how do you make it incredibly fun?

Here’s how.

Make sure you create a character as the DM

Playing with just one player is a great opportunity to make your own character as the DM. You’ll have fun being a player and it will give you a great chance to focus on your role-playing skills as well. You just need to make sure that your player is the star and has just as much fun as you do.

Make the sessions much looser.

Having one player makes it much easier to follow every single side quest of your player. This means that you can follow every rabbit hole and improvise without worrying about making sure each player gets fair time.

Dive deep into the back story

With one player you can work deeply on their backstory. You can spend much more time working with your player on hashing out their character’s quirks and really generating a backstory with twists and turns that your player will enjoy.

Don’t focus on long sessions

With just one other player you won’t want to expect extremely long sessions. If you do your job and make the sessions really fun then you’ll have no problem doing long sessions but with two people it might get stale. Be prepared to be flexible with how long you and your player play.

Make sure you and your player get along

Because there will be just one other person at the table, you have to make sure that you and that person can get along for hours and hours and hours. Because theoretically, that’s how long you and your player will be playing. So take some time and get to know your player. If it’s an acquaintance, don’t give the expectation of a long campaign. You should also hang out with that individual for some period of time, just to make sure you get along.

Spend extra time learning lore

As a DM of only one player, you have the opportunity to delve deeper into the lore of your campaign. This allows you to offer more immersive experiences whenever your player asks you interesting questions about the lore. When you give your player a deeper answer to a question about the lore it will help immerse the player and give them an experience they won’t forget.

Make every NPC A Real Character

Because there are only a few real people sitting at the table, every NPC will have to feel like a real person. You’ll have to spend extra effort and energy in making each NPC a true character with quirks, traits, and funny characteristics that are memorable. Spend time giving the NPC’s layers. Doing so will help you and your player feel like you are surrounded by more people.

There you have it. You can play with just two players and here’s how you do it.

Thanks for listening to today’s show. I really appreciate your support and would like to invite you to reach out to me with any ideas you have for the show or just to tell me how your DMing is going. Reach out to me @geronimolevis on Instagram and let’s get the conversation started.

We’ll be back next week for another great episode. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

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Questions to Ask Before Creating an NPC

9 december 2021 | 10 min

“Well what do you think?” Geva asks you. You steeple your fingers and think for a moment.

“They’re all a very interesting lot aren’t they?” you ask.

“Yes but who would you want be stuck on a ship with for months at a time?” responds the ever wise Geva.

“Well, there is Imora. I think having a tabaxi on the ship would be useful, though we’ll have to do something about her antipathy towards tieflings if we’re going to have her work with Heresiel. I was also impressed with Rudruguk. His strength will come in handy should we come in contact with pirates. He might be a discipline problem though. I’ve asked around and that half-orc loves his strong drink. Lastly, there’s Wupreha. Having a priest on board would be very useful, even though he is a primal priest of Ossus.”

“What about System?”

“The war forged? I don’t know how well he’ll fare on a voyage in the open sea. From what I heard, he’s somewhat unstable, even though he is a genius when it comes to woodworking, metalworking and engineering.”

Geva smiles and says, “Looks like you’ve got a choice to make captain.”

So what would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 22nd episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and I am happy to be back with you guys this week. As always you and I are going on a journey to craft more engaging stories for yourself and your players while you DM a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

First thing I want to say is that there are cool things in the works! I know that’s super vague, but I don’t want to spill the beans before it’s a sure thing. Let me just say, I’m working on getting great people on my team and that’s all I’m gonna say :)

Now second thing, I’d like to invite you to sign up for a monthly newsletter I’ll send out with updates and behind the scenes content as well as free home brew content that you can try in your campaigns. If you would like to sign up for that, click this link: https://mailchi.mp/05e568274671/subscription-page

Now that I have done all my selfish self-serving announcing (wink wink) let’s talk about making NPC’s.

Every game is filled with hundreds of NPC’s. From the poor shopkeeper to the ruthless arch villain ruining the universe, you will have to create NPC’s to move your story along and to give your players what their characters need.

So how exactly do you create a good NPC?

We’ll here are some questions to ask yourself to help you do just that?

What is the purpose of this NPC?

I found myself falling into the trap recently with my own campaign of thinking, “I need to put in an NPC at this castle that they’ll meet and Journey with for sometime.” I never asked myself the question of this NPC’s purpose. So after I did, I realized their purpose was threefold: 1. To give vital information about the plot and help solidify the players’ desire to defeat the bad guys 2. To be a light hearted little-brother type character and give the group some comedy relief 3. Eventually die and make the group all sad that he died (oops, spoiler alert!). Answering this question has already helped me identify a lot about how the character will act. When you answer this question you won’t have those useless NPC’s that seem random. Instead, everything will feel necessary.

How impactful is this NPC supposed to be on the story?

The answer to this question will help you determine how in depth the answers to the rest of the questions need to be. In the case of a small shopkeeper the party meets when they are level one, the answer will likely be that they are of little impact. That means you mostly need to just make the one encounter the party has with them fun and sensical. On the other hand if the answer is the NPC will be very impactful, then you need to understand that NPC! A little word of warning though, your players also get a vote on who is impactful and who isn’t. Just be prepared to make things up on the fly if your players start asking about the back story of the one hobo in the village.

What emotion should this NPC cause?

This question goes hand in hand with the first question. I believe every NPC should make the players feel some emotion. Sometimes that emotion is comedy, and other times it’s a deep loathing that lasts long after the session is over. Heck, the emotion could even be boredom if you’re wanted to players to move on with the story (though I wouldn’t recommend that most of the time). Whenever we meet people in real life they act and we react, often with emotions. Our NPC’s should mirror that experience.

Who will be interacting with this NPC?

NPC’s don’t stand alone in the story. They exist specifically to interact, whether directly or indirectly, with your players’ characters. Therefore, who the NPC’s interact with is important. It’s important because it will determine how they act, what the NPC must know and do and what the NPC wants. If one of your player’s characters is a rogue who has an assassin mentor that no one else in the group will ever meet, that NPC can act very differently toward the rogue than if they were to interact with the whole group.

What does this NPC care about?

If you are making things up on the fly about NPC’s, then this is the first question you need to answer. Just as with murder, no one does anything without a motive. So why does the shopkeeper want the highest price for their health potions? Are they greedy? Do they have a family to feed? Do they enjoy the back and forth of negotiations? Are they concerned about making rent? Do they love the thrill of enterprise? All of these questions paint the NPC in a different color and tell you how to play them. It also makes them much more interesting.

There you have it. 5 questions to ask when you are making an NPC. There are only 5 questions here so if you think of any more reach out to me on Instagram @geronimolevis and tell me your thoughts!

Again, I thank you all for your support and ratings and reviews and I wish you happy holidays. I’ll talk to you next week but until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

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Non-D&D DM Resources For Creating Better Stories

2 december 2021 | 12 min

“What is happening to you Gardo Yic Hama?” you ask in your steady voice.

The old svirfneblin looks up at you and a single tear slides down his face.

“I’m dying.” He pauses to cough a little. You hold a handkerchief to his mouth and dab a little blood that had escaped. “Soon I will be gone.”

You look at his chest where a blade had impaled the deep gnome. You look at the two Drow warriors who had ambushed you both. You were able to dispatch them but Gardo Yic Haima was mortally wounded.

“But I have so much to learn from you Gardo Yic Haima.”

The gnome smiles and says, “As I told you, call me father.”

“Father Gardo Yic Haima, I do not know what to do without you.”

The Svirfneblin points up and says, “Follow your prime directive [cough cough]. Relieve suffering. Go to the surface. There you will find more people who need relief. Learn what you can and find out how to relieve as much suffering as possible. I am so proud of you. Though you are not flesh and blood… I still consider you my family. Good luck… Prophet….” And with that the eyes of the old gnomish face unfocus and a last breath escapes from his lips.

You sit there cradling the head of the gnome in silence.

Moments pass and then you stand and look at your hands. They are purplish metal.

“I am to relieve suffering.” you say.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 21st episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you craft more memorable stories as you dungeon master a nice session of Dungeons & Dragons 5e.

First thing I want to do is give a quick shoutout to Reid Cardwell who reached out to me on Instagram just to say hi! Reid, if you’re listening, thanks for reaching out and I wish you luck on your next campaign.

If you, like Reid want to reach out and say, “What’s up?” then send me a message on instagram @geronimolevis . I look forward to hearing from you.

Next, I want to remind that I am coming out with a Patreon pretty soon. We’ll give you the opportunity to get shoutouts on the show, get access to bonus content and early access to these episodes, and even access to beta test homebrew content that I create! If you have any other ideas of stuff you want from the Patreon, send me your ideas on Instagram @geronimolevis .

Alright, that’s enough announcements for one day right.

Let’s talk about making your stories better. Because that’s what they are. Stories. D&D is just the continuation of one of the longest forms of entertainment in history, so luckily there are many resources that help us craft better stories that aren’t D&D related. If we could only use D&D stuff, I think the game would get pretty stale pretty fast. Instead, you can find inspiration from all sorts of place and so here are my top Non-D&D DM Resources

Podcasts

For the busy man or woman on the go, almost nothing is easier than consuming a podcast or audiobook through your earbuds or car stereo system. Even while washing the dishes you can listen to great podcasts about how to craft amazing stories. I even like to listen to a lot of my favorite tabletop play-through campaigns in podcast format because I’m not always in front of Youtube.

Writing Excuses

Specifically I would encourage you to listen to a show called Writing Excuses. It features a handful of authors all talking about how to write better stories. If you want to be a great DM, then learn to write great stories. I like Writing Excuses in part because it features one of my favorite authors of all time, Brandon Sanderson. I also like Writing Excuses because it demystifies the writing process. We read stories like Mistborn or Harry Potter and feel the magic of the story and mistakenly believe that the story just happened. Not so. Instead it’s the great result of a long process. The same goes for your Dungeons and Dragons stories. You’ll need to grow skills and workshop many things before you are a legendary DM.

Audible / Library

As I’ve already said, listening to books or podcasts is a very powerful tool. You already know this because you are listening to me right now.

But I specifically like apps like Overdrive and Audible because it gives you access to so many types of books. Audible is great because you and own the books you buy. Overdrive, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it might be even better because you can listen to so many books despite your budget. Overdrive is an app that connects with your local library system to allow you access to audiobooks most times at no cost to you. You just need a library card. So get these apps and start consuming many different types of stories. At first you’ll be able to emulate what you listen to in your D&D stories. Then after a while you’ll create new and imaginative stories.

Instagram

I love Instagram a lot because there is so much free inspiring content on there. I find a lot of profiles that put out homebrew items, supplemental races and classes and even Game Hook Inspiration. One profile that I like is @criticaldice because they put out awesome Game Hooks which can inspire amazing one-shots. If you ever need an idea for your next session just check them out and you’re bound to find something crazy and entertaining.

Youtube

We all know that Youtube is basically the University of Learning Whatever. In fact, they should make that their tagline and sell T-Shirts with that on it because it’s so true. That means you can find other great creators putting out great content about how to be a great DM (just like my show) on Youtube.

Black Magic Craft

I specifically would like to make mention of Black Magic Craft here because for me personally, he gave me a lot of inspiration in building the terrain that I use (and no my terrain is not perfect) and really helped me get excited about my sessions during times when I wasn’t. Go check him out if you’re into the DIY Tabletop terrain space.

Now there are so many resources out there that I obviously can’t cover them in one podcast episode. So maybe we’ll do another one in the future. At any rate, make sure you reach out to me with any ideas you have for that future episode. Send your ideas to @geronimolevis and let’s have a great time chatting.

Next, I’d like to ask for a very special favor. Please leave a rating and review on the show wherever you are listening. I would appreciate it so much and want to be able to put out even more content and a review would help that happen.

That’s it from me my friends. As always, we’ll talk next week.

Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

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Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

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Follow us on Instagram

Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Who Should Play As a Rogue

25 november 2021 | 11 min

The moon hangs high in the sky, full in its brilliance. A bank of clouds slides lazily across the sky and obscures part of the moon shining down on you as you scale the side of the building. You love how the moon illuminates the world at night. In fact, for most of your life, you’ve considered the moon your closest companion. For a job like this, you would’ve preferred a new moon and utter darkness, but time won’t allow it. That’s fine with you. The moon gives you comfort.

“As it should,” whispers a small silky voice into your ear. You smile. It’s not the first time your protector has whispered in your ear on a job. You don’t really know when the voice started, but it’s always helped you out. At first you were distrustful of it, but it never asked for anything so you’ve learned to trust it over the years.

Finally you reach the zenith of the Serpent’s Dome. This Museum houses precious artifacts from across Integrity. But you and your companions only need one artifact. You pull out your tools and pry open one of the windows. You set up the pulley system and start to lower yourself down.

“Use the dust,” whispers the voice. You stop your descent and smile. You reach into your pack and pull out a handful of dust and toss if below you. A small spark flashes and then you see a field of magic appear and then fade. That dust was definitely worth the cost. You begin your descent again.

Finally you reach the glass case and use your tools to extract the artifact. Easier than you thought it would be.

You begin to pull yourself back up but halfway to your exit you hear the whisper, “It’s a trap. They know you’re here, drop it and leave.”

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 20th episode of How to Be a Better DM. As always, I’m your host, Justin Lewis, and I’m here to help you create more engaging stories for you and your players as you DM a nice session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I am incredibly grateful for you all who listen in every week. Thank you to all of you who support the show and thanks for your continued backing.

Second, I’m happy to announce that we are working on our Patreon and that should be done pretty soon. Stay tuned for that and get ready for the goodies that come with it.

Now, last week I talked about who shouldn’t play as a rogue. This week, let’s talk about who should be steered toward playing a rogue.

Sneaky Sneaky

If you have a player who wants to sneak places, then the obvious choice is a rogue. Every character will probably be forced to stealth at some point, but generally rogues are the ones who excel the most at stealth.

Stealy Stealy

Similarly, if you are interested in pick pocketing and stealing stuff then the rogue is for you. It’s basically the job description for a rogue. Their natural dexterity allows them to get in and out quickly.

Assassinations

Any character can assassinate enemies. With sneak attack damage making a secret kill becomes much easier. Add the stealth and the dexterity to it and it becomes almost a cinch.

The Underworld of Crime

As a Rogue, you gain the ability to speak Thieve’s Cant which is only really spoken in the seedy underbelly of society. This naturally connects rogues with Crime syndicates, gangs and the like. If you have a player who is interested in that, encourage them to choose a rogue.

Stay Away from Spells

Even if your player wants to choose arcane trickster, a rogue is a perfect character for someone who doesn’t want the complexity of spells. Rogues get to do awesome stuff that doesn’t deal with spell components, concentration, or ritual spells.

Avoiding Damage

Rogues get to use their bonus action to disengage, hide, or dash. This allows Rogues to be very mobile and or stealthy even during combat. When you pair this ability with sneak attack, a rogue becomes the perfect role for someone who wants to cause specific damage with minimal damage taken.

While not an exhaustive list, this should help you direct newbies to the character class that they will love!

Thanks again everyone for listening to today’s show. As always you rock. And have a very happy thanksgiving everyone.

We’ll see you next week.

Until then, let’s roll initiative…

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So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

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Who Shouldn't Play As a Rogue

18 november 2021 | 9 min

You find yourself creeping through a dark hallway. You’ve left your companions outside so you could come in and do the dirty work. Your friends always let you take care of the “unsavory” elements of your work. You’re ok with that. You’ve been ok with that all your life.

You creep through the dark hallway. You stop. You slink into the shadow of a large pillar. You see a guard walk-by. He continues on his way. You let him pass and then continue. Finally you find the door.

You open it up slowly and slink in. You’ve been creeping around for most of your life. Sneaking into forbidden places always seemed too easy for you. You approach the bed to finish the job.

You then notice something wrong. The body on the bed lay lifeless. It’s then that you notice the green spittal leaking out of the man’s mouth. Dead. That’s a problem. Who killed him?

That’s when you hear the guards shouting. “Intruder! Intruder! The King’s been murdered!”

The king? You came to murder the king’s adviser. The king was also murdered?

That’s when you realize, you need to get out of there, fast.

So what would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 19th episode of How to Be a Better DM. As always, I’m your host, Justin Lewis, and I’m here to help you create better stories as you and your friends play D&D 5e.

As a DM, the hardest part of getting a campaign going is finding a group of people that have time and are willing to play on a reasonably periodic schedule. After that, there’s another challenge that isn’t talked about enough: guiding your players to choosing the right character.

Not every player will like every class. It’s a simple fact. So your job as a DM is to help them find the right choice for themselves. So let’s talk about who shouldn’t choose to play a rogue.

If you want to play Lawful Good

Now I’m not saying that you can’t be a lawful good rogue. What I am saying is that most rogues aren’t. Add to that the fact that most skills that a rogue gets are of the underhanded and secretive nature. Generally, a rogue fits naturally into the chaotic alignment (good, neutral, or evil) and avoids the lawful disposition. I suppose that could make for a very interesting story, but generally for newbies, if they generally try to follow all the rules and laws, then a rogue might not be the best choice.

If you Love Armor.

Rogues don’t generally get heavy armor. I suppose you could use the feats to allow yourself to be fully armored, but unless you have some sort of magic ability to avoid having disadvantage on stealth rolls. Now I know armor is a somewhat small consideration but in case that’s a dealbreaker for you, you shouldn’t pick a rogue.

If You want to be the Star of Combat

The rogue either does a huge amount of damage in combat or a moderate amount or none. Rarely will you bear the brunt of the damage or deal the lion’s share of the damage. Instead, as a rogue you’ll enjoy darting in and out over and over again doing sneak attack damage when you can.

Casting Spells

If you want to cast all the spells, a rogue is not for you. There is a Roguish Archetype that allows you to cast certain spells, but that is limited compared to some of the other spellcasters. If you are excited mostly about the prospect of casting fireball or Wish, choose a different class.

If you don’t like sneaking

Generally, the rogue is the person the group turns to first when stealth is a necessity. If someone needs to sneak into somewhere, usually it’s the rogue. I’m not saying that’s how you have to play, but I am saying people will probably expect that of your character. Don’t like stealthing? Maybe choose a paladin or barbarian.

Well there are 5 guidelines that might help you steer your player away from a rogue character they won’t like that much and towards another character they’ll enjoy much more. But make sure, you let your players do what they want. They can be any character they like, and that’s one of the best things about D&D. Just be their guide and shepherd them to a fun character choice.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Next week, we’ll talk about who should play a rogue so come back next time. Don’t forget to follow the show and leave a rating and review. Just a heads up, I’m getting a Patreon ready with goodies and such, so get ready for that.

As always, thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.

Until then, let’s roll initiative.

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Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

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7 Campaign Ideas for Beginners

11 november 2021 | 10 min

d&d campaign ideas for beginners

“Sir, you and your companions are the only guests who are here completely by chance. That is why you four must be in charge of the investigation. Even I myself, as a servant of the house, must be placed under suspicion. Since you showed up as the murder was supposedly taking place, it can be assumed that none of you were responsible. Add to that the fact that you all arrived in town not but 2 hours ago, never having journeyed here nor making the acquaintance of Sir Merrimont. I feel therefore reasonably comfortable trusting this investigation to you.”

The old gnome butler bows gracefully and excuses himself to see to other duties. It is then that you and your companions return to the dining hall to see the other dinner guests. You’d come here seeking a favor from Sir Merrimont to help in another quest you were engaged in. When you arrived at the manor you were invited in and were waiting for about 30 minutes before screams were heard and the bloody body of Sir Merrimont discovered.

The great hall is a resplendent room with beautiful tiled floors and amazing reliefs on the walls. The room is taken up by a beautiful table set for 8 guests. All the chairs are filled but one, that of Sir Merrimont. The guests look at each other nervously. You look at your companions and shrug.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 18th episode of the How to Be a Better DM Show. I’m your host Justin Lewis and we’re here to help you create better, more immersive stories for yourself and your friends as you DM a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

As we all know, creating a new campaign is hard. It gets much easier when you have a great idea that is simple enough to start with relatively little worry or complication. So here are a few D&D campaign ideas for beginners.

Rescue a damsel in distress

This is a classic trope. A specific damsel has been stolen and a specific group has stolen her. You get to choose who the damsel is (and even the form of the damsel) and the group that stole her (or if she was stolen by one nemesis). You can draw this campaign idea out as long as you want or make it a single session storyline. Makes it real simple for a novice DM.

Recover an artifact

It’s the classic Indiana Jones switching a bag of rocks for an artifact story. General idea of the story is this: a powerful magical (or non-magical) artifact is somewhere and needs to be brought somewhere else. Whether the artifact was originally stolen is up to you. Whether the artifact is guarded by enemies is up to you. How far away the artifact is is up to you. You can make this as complicated or simple as you want. You can also connect this storyline with others within your campaign or leave it as a standalone storyline.

Carry a message

Get your adventurers to take a message from one place to another. You can add in as many difficulties as you’d like. Maybe the message needs to be taken behind enemy lines during a major war engagement. Perhaps the message needs to get to and convince a leader who is malignant towards the adventurers. You can spice this up easily by connecting the message to one of your adventurers’ backstories.

Beast Hunter

This one is simple. There is a beast. There are people who want the beast to be no more. There is a reason the adventurers would be ok getting rid of the beast. In most situations there will either need to be a reward or intense moral connection for the adventurers to have a reason to care about whether or not the beast exists. Again, this scenario works for all levels and can be made more complicated as desired.

On the Hunt for Lore

Rather than hunting a beast, this scenario sends the adventurers to hunt for information. You can make the task easier by identifying the place the knowledge must be acquired. Add in adversaries who want the knowledge to remain hidden to make it more difficult.

Interception

A nice simple start to a campaign is sending your players to intercept something that is traveling somewhere for some reason. They could intercept a messenger, hunting party, dragon or whatever else. You can make the intercept location basically anywhere that makes your story more interesting. You could even make the intercept location a place where the plot complicates much more and turns your story on its head.

Survive the Waves

Another simple story start is having your players start somewhere that is under threat, and the characters will have to survive waves of enemies. This could be in a war situation, or maybe a village is under attack from a tribe of raiders. Whatever it is, the players will have to use their wits to keep themselves alive. Help may or may not be coming, depending on your story, but survival seems doubtful.

The formula.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, a simple formula you can use for a lot of story campaign ideas is the player characters need to travel to point B to do some specific action (kill, protect, convince, intercept, find) that affects a third party who is contrary to the desire of the group. Here’s the simple formula.

The group must go to Blank to Do Blank so Opposing Group Blank can’t do Blank.

You can use that formula to start many many stories and weave incredible tales for yourself and your friends.

As always, it’s been a pleasure to hang out with you guys. If you liked today’s show or have suggestions about it or other episodes, reach out to me on Instagram @geronimolevis where we can continue the conversation.

Make sure you follow the show and leave a rating and review. That would be very awesome of you. Last, of all, come back next week for another great show.

Until then, let’s roll initiative.

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6 Tips to Make Better Non-Player Characters

4 november 2021 | 11 min

“How many of your crops are like this?” the Constable asks.

Rosdan, the local farmer who asked for this meeting, looks right into Constable Yerip’s eyes and says, “All of them sir. There’s not a single grain that isn’t tainted.”

Yerip steeples his hands and sits back in his chair. He sits for a moment thinking. “What happened to the few people who ate the grain?”

Rosdan paused and then said, “they turned into monsters. There’s something evil in that grain and I don’t know what it is. It might have something to do with that star that fell not one month ago. I tell ya sir, twas a bad omen to be sure.”

Yelp holds the tainted stalk of grain up to you and your companions. “What do you make of this adventurers?”

You hold it up to your nose. The stalk which would normally have the familiar scent of summer and the harvest bears a sickly sweet stench that seems to hide something more bitter. The stalk that was once golden is now turned a purplish color. Very faint blue lights can almost be seen within the veins of the plant. You hand it to Bophregar whose eyes glow for the briefest of seconds.

“The tainted stalk of grain leaks faint magical energies. This fact does not bode well for the people of this village. I recommend the rest of the tainted crops be burned immediately and not consumed. Other foods must be procured.”

Constable Yerip stands and says, “Well that’s the problem. We have no other food stores. We must find the source of the taint and destroy it. Actually, that is why I called you adventurers here. Can you please rid us of our taint?”

So what would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 17th episode of How to Be a Better DM.

It’s me again, your host Justin Lewis (yes I do have a name). I’m here to help you craft ever better stories for yourself and your players as you dungeon master sessions of D&D 5e.

I want to thank you all for coming back week after week. Lately, I’ve gone through some personal struggles and I’m very grateful for those who enjoy the show even when I don’t feel like myself while doing it. You guys are awesome and are the real stars of this show.

Now let’s talk about characters, specifically Non-player characters. For those of you who are the newest of the new at this, a non-player character is simply any character in the story that will be played by you. In that, it’s kind of a misnomer because even though you are the DM, you are still playing a game with your friends, a fact that by definition makes you a player, but I digress.

These are the characters your players will interact with and will use to help immerse themselves into your world. So they gotta be good right.

But making characters that come alive can be really hard. So here are a few tips to help make better Non-Player characters.

Think about their purpose

All of your NPC’s need a purpose. Sometimes that purpose is just to make your players laugh and add in some comedic relief. Sometimes the NPC is just there to buy and sell items or to move the plot along. Sometimes the NPC is the plot. Most of the time, your NPC’s will have a mix of multiple purposes. Knowing the NPC’s purpose will help with everything else in the story. Just be prepared when the players decided to take the purpose you’ve designed for your NPC and twist it and generally muck things up. You might have a simple merchant that the players decide they really like so they spend way more time getting to know their back story than should’ve ever happened. Oh well.

Give them something memorable

With each NPC that you want your players to remember, give them something memorable. This might mean making the NPC funny, or rude so the players remember the interaction with the NPC. Or maybe you give them a defining feature that you constantly bring up in describing the interaction because the players’ characters keep noticing it. Maybe it comes out in the voice you use for the NPC. The best way to do this is probably to think, “What do I want my players’ characters to feel about this NPC or after they’ve interacted with them.” That generally helps create the mix of memorable traits. For NPC’s that are supposed to be very memorable, make their traits that much more memorable.

Know what the NPC Wants

With NPC’s you either need to understand what they want or be able to answer that question quickly while improvising during your session. This will help the players know where they stand as well as whether or not incentives align for the NPC and the party. For most NPC’s you probably won’t need to know the answer to this question (and its accompanying questions) but for those that you do, it often helps to write down this info.

Don’t overwrite your NPC’s

I think a mistake I myself might fall into is either fleshing out the NPC completely or not enough. I’m usually either not using content I’ve created for my NPC or making stuff up on the spot during the session. Therefore you need to cultivate the skill of understanding how much is enough for your NPC. I think a good rule of thumb is building out your NPC based on how much “screen time” they’ll have. If your NPC is a bit player, don’t worry about fleshing out whether they like beer, mead, wine or whiskey for their drink. If the NPC is set to reappear over and over, you might want to make sure you know what the NPC is doing off screen, and why they do what they do.

Make the NPC’s Changeable

Speaking of what the NPC does off screen, you want to make sure that both the actions of your players and the world wide events around you affect your NPC’s. In fact you want your NPC’s to make their own choices as well. It talks about this in the Dungeon Master’s Guide but as time passes NPC’s shouldn’t be static. Things should happen in their lives and the passing of time should be noted. Maybe they’ve decided to farm a different crop rather than farming the same crop they’ve been doing for years. Maybe their child has grown and left to join the army. Perhaps they’ve decided to close their store. Whatever happens, make sure it doesn’t affect your story plot or if it does, make sure there’s a reason why. You can’t just close an NPC’s store down just because (though you might be tempted to if you’ve given the storekeeper an annoying voice).

Copying Cool Characters is an Ok place to start

This is my personal opinion, but adding cool characters to your story that you’ve pulled from other stories is totally fine. Most characters are based on archetypes and tropes anyways so adding in a Yoda-like character is totally ok. You’ll never get it exactly like the original character and your players will probably feel the familiarity of the NPC and enjoy having them in the story. Now after you start with those transplanted characters start experimenting and trying new things. Maybe instead of just adding Yoda to your campaign, you make him a combination of Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street and Yoda. When you copy someone else, take the copy and add a twist to make it your own. But remember, don’t plagiarize or steal commercial copyrighted property when doing this for money. For home games, feel free to play a campaign that features Darth Vader, Harry Potter and Gandalf.

Well hopefully these 6 tips help you make some awesome characters. I know they’ve helped me. Keep making great characters and telling great stories.

I’d love to keep the conversation going so feel free to reach out to me on Instagram. Just send a message to @geronimolevis to let me know what you think about these tips, or to share any tips you have from your campaign. I’d love to get your opinion.

Thanks for listening. We’ll be back next week. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

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5 Places to Get D&D Resources Other Than Sourcebooks

28 oktober 2021 | 9 min

The grand city of Tornlock boasts a population of 100,000 citizens. From the port district to the affluent Crown district, many call this city their home. In a city like this though, many find themselves in less than fortunate circumstances.

You and your companions find yourselves in an Inn, sleeping when a loud knocking on your doors awakens you. It’s a member of the guard. He informs you that Lawmaster Sotan requires your immediate presence. After you and your companions prepare yourselves for the day, you follow the guard out the inn and into a slightly overcast day.

The guard leads you down main streets, side roads, and eventually leads you to an alleyway in a darker part of town. He leads you toward a small huddle of guardsmen in the center of the alley way. As you approach, a head raises from the group and signals to you all a basic, if not taciturn greeting. It’s Lawmaster Sotan. You and your companions had worked with the Aasimar on a few occasions and your dealings had always been cordial and productive.

“Good morning adventurers. I apologize for the inconvenience at having to wake you at such an early hour, but it could not be helped. Please inspect the grisly scene before us and tell me what insights you can glean. We will talk more after you’ve had a chance to examine the corpse,” Sotan says as he beckons you and your companions forward.

The group of guards part and you encounter one of the most grisly scenes of your life. A pastel purple tiefling lies on the ground, eyes wide open starting silently into the gray sky. The body lies with arms and legs akimbo, tied to four posts stuck in the ground. A look of deep fear and consternation adorns the face, frozen in time forever. You also notice the tieflings chest and

belly are flayed open revealing the internal organs of the once living tiefling. Blood has splattered all over the alley way and footprints of blood leave down the opposite side of the alley.

You turn to talk to Lawmaster Sotan, but not before he says, “This is the third victim exactly like this in 15 days. We need your help.”

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 16th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m here to help you create better stories for yourself and your friends while you play Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Thanks for coming back for yet another episode. I really appreciate your patronage and your support.

So let’s get into today’s episode.

As you build out your stories, one-shots and campaigns, you’ll indubitably need resources. Whether you need maps, monsters, or motivation there are many places to find what you need. Here are my top places I go for resources.

Google search

Almost without exception, a simple search on the internet will give me a quick path to what I need. Now, obviously this will take you to the place you need to go, but never underestimate the power of a Google search. For example, I built out a one-shot recently and I needed a very specific type of monster. So I just searched on Google and it took me to what I need. The only caveat here is that if you are streaming or putting your content out commercially, you need to make sure that whatever stuff you pull from the internet is ok to use in that way.

Instagram

This is more of passive method for finding cool things, but as I scroll and I find cool things, I just save them in different saved collections. I have a collection for Monsters, Items, simple hacks, Story Hooks and more. Specifically with monsters, items and story hooks there are many Instagram profiles out there that constantly put out new monsters, items and story hooks. I would share them but I have not gotten the ok to so if you want to check them out go to my Instagram @geronimolevis and go to the list of profiles I follow and give it a look.

D&D Beyond

I know I talk a lot about D&D Beyond but specifically for monsters, it’s very useful (specifically the encounter builder) but finding monsters, spells or items is really easy because you can just search (just like on Google) and generally it comes up. You can also find other peoples’ homebrew content which is nice when you want to supplement what you already got.

Pinterest

With my earlier Google Search my internet safari eventually took me to the wilds of Pinterest where I indeed found the monsters that I was looking for. I simply copied and pasted the images of the monsters and their stats into the doc in which I was preparing my one-shot and boom, I was good to go. Again, here you have to get the go ahead before you use the content in a commercial way but for home games, Pinterest is great.

Other People

A great resource that many people never tap into is other people. I know in a personal way, I recently had a few moments of collaboration with a friend creating a murder mystery dinner party. Now obviously that’s not D&D but the principle still applies. If you need help, just reach out to a fellow Dungeon Master and ask a simple question of, “What would you do if you were planning this type of session?” Works wonders and you become better friends.

There you have it. 5 non-sourcebook places to go to get the content you need to Dungeon Master an epic session of D&D.

I’d love to continue the conversation so reach out to me on Instagram @geronimolevis and let’s continue the fun.

We’ll be back next week for another fun episode.

Until then, let’s roll initiative.

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Which D&D Books to Buy

21 oktober 2021 | 11 min

You awake in the log cabin in which you’d taken shelter the night before. You look around at the warm crackling fire in the giant hearth. The large white bear that led you to the cabin lies at the foot of the fire. You and your companions slowly awake. You look around and notice one figure not of your company sitting at the large oak table in the corner. His feet are up and he sits smoking a slender pipe. You stand and draw your sword. “Who are you?” you ask.

“Well that’s a fine hello to someone who was gracious enough not to kill you in your sleep while you sleep in his bed,” the man retorts.

You pause, then stow your blade.

“That’s more like it.” The man says as he snuffs his pipe. He stands. “Welcome to my cabin. I am Lord Gelick Grayson of The Kingdom of the Golden Deer, but you may call me Judir Fiendirsen. I am your adopted uncle.”

What do you do?

Welcome back to the 15th episode of How to Be a Better DM. Together we will discuss tips for how to create more immersive stories for you and your friends as you dungeon master a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

As always, I’m excited to hop into today’s show, but first off one announcement. I am working on getting new team members on the show. It’s looking pretty good, but if you want more people on the show, make sure you share the show with your cool DM friends to make sure we have enough support for the show.

Anyways, to today’s show.

With all the many books produced by Wizards ofthe Coast, it can be somewhat difficult knowing which books to read and which to buy and in what order. So here is my take on things. As a bonus, I’ll tell you whether to buy the book in print, or through DnDBeyond. Obviously, you’d want them both in physical format and in digital format, but my recommendations are assuming you will only buy one format (like most normal people).

First there is one caveat. If you are never planning on playing using DnDBeyond or having your players use DNDBeyond then obviously your buying choices will skew towards the physical format.

With that said, here are book recommendations.

Players Handbook

Every Dungeons and Dragons player should have access to a Player’s Handbook. It will teach you the basic rules as well as give you the basic gamut of character options. This is the first book any DM should buy. If you have this book you never need to have to depend on others in order to play D&D (aside from the fact you need others to be players in your world). This is also the first book you should read. This will help you know the rules and be able to guide your players through the game. As far as whether you should buy this in physical or digital format, I would say digital format all the way. This allows you the search the book for rules as well as give you the opportunity as a DM to have your players to use DND Beyond to make their their characters. It makes things way easier as a DM. Plus it is slightly cheaper.

The Monster Manual

This book is extremely helpful for knowing new and exciting monsters to pitch your players up against. Throwing your players in encounters of the same type of monsters over and over will get very boring. You’ll also be very bored as a DM unless you can find cool baddies to fit into the dastardly plans you make. Honestly, I am torn between whether you should buy the book digitally or physically. On one hand, i love looking at the pictures and reading the book. On the other hand having it digitally makes it so much easier to use the DNDBeyond Encounter builder because the stats for the monsters are provided in the encounters when you have the digital version of The Monster Manual. So really it depends on what you value. I think this one might be a both scenario.

The Dungeon’s Master Guide

Every DM should read this manual. There are many topics I’ve thought about covering on this show that I’ve held myself back simply because you can get the same content from the Dungeon’s Master Guide. You’ll learn how to really craft great stories and all the extra rules that will make it more fun. You also get access to tens of magical items that will make your campaign. I don’t see the tremendous need to have this book in digital format other than being able to use the magical items in conjunction with D&D Beyond (which you can add the items to your homebrew collection anyways) and the ability to search through rules and such. I don’t see it as particularly necessary to have it digitally.

Other Sourcebooks

This is the other category. Here basically spend your money buying books because you’ve gotten the previous 3. The exact books you get will depend on what types of campaigns you want to run as well as what character options/items you are looking for. For example, I was very interested in the artificer class and the Warforged race option so I bought Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Since I wanted those character options, I bought the book digitally so my players could use them too. This is where you’ll really build out your collection of dungeons and dragons sourcebooks.

There you have it. Let me also take this moment to say that I have no affiliate to D&DBeyond, it’s just a great tool. There are other tools out there, but this is the tool that I use right now.

Do you have any thoughts on which books to buy? Let me know your thoughts by sending a direct message on instagram to @geronimolevis .

Remember, keep supporting and sharing the show so we can add more people to the show and get you ever better content so you can create better stories while playing D&D.

We’ll be back next week, until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

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4 Tips to Help improve Narrative Skills

14 oktober 2021 | 7 min

You and your companions walk slowly through the town. The sky is mottled gray and a slight breeze chills your skin. You see the townsfolk walking by as if nothing had happened. You stop a young lady to ask her what happened. She looks at you with a smile too big for her face. “Nothing happened good sir. We all love living here in Teel’s Hollow.” Her response didn’t feel natural, and her eyes seemed different. You’d all seen this girl before. You let her go. You and your companions stand in the street, discussing, when suddenly, you notice a figure across the way. They stop. Your eyes meet theirs, their cold mechanical eyes. The machine man suddenly bolts.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 14th episode of How to Be a Better DM. This is the show designed to help you tell better stories as you dungeon master a nice session of D&D 5e with your friends.

Let me first start off with a big apology. There wasn’t an episode released last week and I am so sorry for that. I got sick and was totally unprepared for it. In fact, I’m still sick, so hopefully this week's episode doesn’t suck.

Before we get to today’s show, let me tease out something really cool that might happen. If we’re able to get enough listeners to this show, we’ll be able to add a couple team members to the show. That’s all I’ll say for now, so make sure you share the show so we can bring on new guys !

Now, we’ve all tried telling an amazing story. We’ve tried to weave the beginning, introducing important plot points and seamlessly transitioning to breathtaking moments of conflict.

We’ve all been there. Most of us though still struggle with that. Maybe we struggle using our words to effectively paint the scene.

So here are a few tips to better narrate your game.

Slow down

One of my biggest problems is that I tend to talk really fast. Most people who talk fast do so unconsciously as a way to hide their insecurity. Subconsciously we feel that talking fast masks the fact that we might not have much value to say. Instead, slow down. Breathe. Be very deliberate with what you say. If it takes a long time to get there, that’s ok.

Narrate with your senses

As you narrate your game, make sure you use words that call forth each of the senses. “The springtime scents of alfalfa assail you as you walk through the fields,” sounds much better than, “You walk through a field”. Immerse yourself and your players by giving them words that evoke their senses.

Refine your written text

In D&D you’ll definitely ad lib at least once per session, but that doesn’t mean you can’t prepare some sort of text block as well. Whether you’re in a dungeon or about to fight a big boss, you can create a descriptive block of text that perfectly sets the scene. When you do, use this time to really practice your narration. What you say while improvising and what you say when you’ve prepared yourself are both linked. When one improves, the other improves.

Give seemingly insignificant details

You gotta be careful with this tip, but when describing a foe, add in something that the players will remember. Rather than fighting a banshee, explain that the group sees a young maiden in a shroud of shimmering white garments, and that she holds something in her right hand, something that looks to be a star carved out of wood. Notice how I didn’t describe the whole monster, but it was still interesting.

There you have it, 4 simple tips to help improve your narrative skills. I’d love to hear your thoughts on these tips, or any other tips you may have. Send me a direct message on instagram @geronimolevis and I’ll be happy to start up a conversation.

We’ll see you next week. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.

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6 Signs of a Bad Dungeon Master

30 september 2021 | 10 min

You and your friends walk into the deepest catacomb of the crypt. The summons you’d received were cryptic and specific. It said to descend to the lowest portion of the crypt in order to receive a special mission. You’ve passed ancient bones and less ancient bones, and now you find yourself in a large room completely made out of stone. Bluish light seems to emanate from the corners of the room but you see no movement. Suddenly, mist fills the floor of the room, bubbling up as if from some great beast’s maw.In the corner you see an object rise off of a shelf. It floats towards you. As it enters the light, you see a single floating skull with jewels for eyes and teeth. A Demilich. You and your companions draw your weapons when you hear a voice.

“Wait.”

The voice is small and childlike. It emanates from the skull.

“I called you here. I am Isaac. I don’t know how, but I’ve somehow been trapped as a demilich. I’ve been here for so long and have only recently heard of your exploits. I know I look like a demilich, but I’m really just a child. This form has imbued with its knowledge but I just want to go home. Please, there is an artifact that has great power. Retrieve it and bring it back to return me to life as small boy. I’ll give you whatever I have. Please just help me.”

You stare in disbelief. You look at your companions, all equally bewildered.

You open your mouth to speak.

What do you do?

Welcome back to the 13th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m here to help you create better stories for you and your players as you dungeon master games of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Again, thanks for listening to today’s show and without further ado, let’s dive right in.

Here are 5 Signs of a Bad Dungeon Master

Obviously, right off the bat, you should know that the purpose of this episode is to help you not be a bad dungeon master. So don’t do or be these things.

Forcing storylines.

It’s one thing to create obvious plot paths. It’s another thing to make players turn their characters around to go the way you want them to when they were presented a choice and they chose the other way. D&D is all about role-playing and immersing yourself in the story. If you feel your character can’t choose anything they want to do, they won’t have as much fun. Relax. Your players will choose to do something completely different than what you want. That’s ok. In fact, in my campaign (Princes of the Apocalypse by Wizards of the Coast) our group was supposed to go into this riverside keep. Instead, the group went in for a second and then left and hasn’t returned. Big deal. The story’s been fun so far so who cares.

Afraid of looking dumb

As a DM you will make mistakes. In fact, one of your players will probably call you out on your mistake. A bad DM will puff up their chest and stick out their chin, flare their nostrils and claim that the player is wrong and that King Kong DM rule world and everyone bow down. That’s not the way to play. Your players will think you’re ridiculous and no one will have fun. Instead, just laugh at yourself and chuckle and then say anyways, and move on.

Favorite Players

This one is tough for me because I DM a group that includes my wife… But actually, I think I might have the opposite problem in that I might be too hard on my wife and her character. Don’t do that either. Be generous with your attention to each player and each character. If you realize you haven’t worked on the arc of one particular player, put that in the next session. Look critically at who gets the most loot. Try and make it more even.

No Substance

A bad DM will spend thousands of dollars on all the coolest Mini’s, have the perfect gaming table, all sorts of props, a billion dice, but won’t spend any time on the story. I’d take a great story teller with no cool widget over one who’s bought everything but can’t tell a story to save their life. Focus on your storytelling abilities, improvisation skills and campaign preparation. The rest will come in time.

No Patience for the Players

A bad DM will have 0 patience for their players. They won’t explain rules or will do it in a rushed fashion. A bad DM might even shame players for doing things a certain way while playing. Don’t be that way. You are the shepherd of your players. Guide them lovingly through the story you’ve created. The players are as much a part of your world as you are. If you don’t have players, you don’t have a game. So be patient and enjoy the nascient tendencies of a novice murder-hobo group just learning how to play.

Stop Having Fun

Lastly, a bad DM will let their preparation get in the way of having fun at the table. If being a DM becomes too much of a headache for you, switch things up. Try things a new way. Maybe spend a little less time on the preparation. Or listen to more episodes of this show (shameless plug) to get inspiration for how to make things easier for yourself. You can find all sorts of cool stuff online to help make your process easier. Or maybe, DMing isn’t for you and you should really just play the game while someone else is the dungeon master. That’s ok too. Just make sure everyone is having fun.

That’s it for today.

But first a quick question.

What is your biggest struggle in being a DM? Honestly? I need to know. Send me a private message on Instagram @geronimolevis to tell me what you need and I’ll get that prepped and put up on a podcast episode.

Until then, let’s roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

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Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

2 Simple One-Shots to Try

23 september 2021 | 11 min

The dinosaurs had been one thing, but this was ridiculous.

You stand there facing down a humanoid who looked to be wearing armor of some type that completely covered their head. It was black, but it seemed to have a glass faceplate that allowed the person to look out. The glass seemed to be glowing though as if lit with some strange magic. The person had a pack on that was metallic and sleek. They were holding a blade that seemed to be made of energy and pointing some sort of crossbow at you though it had no wood or bolts. In stead it fit in the person’s hand and had numbers blinking on the side. The person was gesturing at you and saying something you didn’t understand.

Before, you’d been walking in a meadow and dinosaurs had appeared out of these portals. Now, in this forest, more portals had opened. A group of people who looked like your opponent had all appeared and immediately started fighting you. They’re weapons seemed sophisticated. They’d already downed on of your friends. Then it hit you. Maybe these people were from the future?

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 12th episode of How to Be a Better DM. Here, we’ll learn how to weave better stories for you and your friends as you play Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Usually, I like to give you tools to create awesome stories rather than giving you awesome stories to just use. Kind of the idea of teach a man to fish rather than giving him a fish.

Today, I’m gonna just give you some fish. You’ll still have to prepare them for consumption however you like, but at least this should get you started. So let’s talk about a ideas for one shots.

Hopefully, these ideas do 2 things for you.

It should jump-start your creative juices and really get you moving on your campaign or next session.
It should give a starting point from which to make these one-shots your own. I’m not going to give you everything, but you’ll have enough to get going.

I also want you to know that I’m purposefully not giving you a lot. I want you to be able to come up with some on your own and make them happen. I’ll probably come up with more down the road, but for now, here are 2 to get you started.

1.Grimstock Manor

This is the haunted mansion that I just finished up with my group. Admittedly, it wasn’t a one shot, but you can modify it to be that way. Just a heads up, I’m going to give you a spoiler so if you want to play this yourself, you might want to close your ears.

The group will be tasked to clear out a mansion of ghosts in order to repurpose it as an orphanage. The mansion has always been haunted, or as long as the people in the nearby town can remember.

The group will encounter only undead creatures in the mansion. You can fill the mansion with puzzles (like I did) as well as many encounters, but the story of the mansion is that a suitor named Mitro Zelx came and courted Anandra, daughter of Lord and Lady Grimstock. She fell in love with Mitro, and Mitro used her pure love to turn the mansion into a demi-plane of undead necromancy. He gave her three gifts in order to cement his control over the house. You can modify it for time to be one gift or two. I would recommend for sure a ring and either a golden rose or a music box. You can have as many encounters as you want, but I would at least have the group fight Anandra (an undead bride with the stats of either a banshee or a wraith) and Mitro (a Death Tyrant with stats that are modified to fit your groups level). I would have these be two separate encounters. Once the group defeats Mitro, Anandra reappears to thank the group for setting her free (even if the group had killed her before fighting Mitro). Simple but a nice and easy one-shot.

2. The Fountain of Armolenos

Legend tells of a fountain that will grant the answer to one question of anyone who is worthy and enters into its pool. Lately, reports have emerged of the fountain having become tainted. It seems a local cult is trying to siphon the pool’s magics and bend them to their will.

This is another side-quest I’m taking my group on. It’ll be about 1 and a half sessions but I’ll probably find a way to string it along.

You’ll have the group make their way into the wilderness. At one point they’ll come to a clearing in that they have to cross. As they do cross, portals open up and actual dinosaurs walk out. The dinosaurs will be confused, but once they spot the adventurers they’ll attack them. After the group defeats the dinosaurs they will move on towards the fountain.

The next encounter will happen with the group finds themselves walking through a copse of trees. Suddenly, portals will open up and strange people will walk out, again acting confused. They will attack the adventurers. These people will have stats the adventurers can handle, but they will look like they are from the future, shooting laser weapons and force rifles. It give the players a puzzle in their minds to think through.

Once the group gets to the pool, they see priests trying to steal the magic from the fountain. Obviously they’ll have to defeat the priests (and any beasts or elementals the priests summon). After that the group will have to surmise a way to cleanse the pool. You can think of a fun way to do this. Then the group gets to have a question answered and you can leave the session on a cool cliff hanger. Viola.

There you go. Two one-shots, ready to go.

Let me know what you think and how these go for you.

If you have any suggestions, send them in a private message to @geronimolevis on Instagram. I can’t wait to hear from you.

Thanks for listening and until next time, roll initiative.

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Mistakes I've Made As a Dungeon Master

16 september 2021 | 8 min

You and your companions wake up on a sandy beach. You rub your eyes to try. Your head is aching and you feel as if you’ve filled with water and strung out to dry. You stand up, looking around. You see flotsam littering the shore as well as rocky crags a few meters into the ocean. That’s right. You and your companions shipwrecked. You were sailing until a storm hit. Next thing you knew, some creature had taken hold of your ship and drew you towards this island. Last thing you remembered was the ship being pulled under the waves.

You look up. The island seems to be home to a large jungle.

It’s quiet, but you hear the lapping of the waves and almost the sound of distant drums. Curious.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 11th episode of How to Be a Better DM. Together we are going to discover how to tell better stories as you dungeon masters sessions of D&D 5e.

As always, let me shout out Cowchy Audio who helps out with our audio on the show. Reach out to them for your audio needs by sending a direct message on Instagram to @ kahootaz and he’ll help you out too.

Now, let me tell you a few mistakes I’ve made while being a Dungeon Master (and more importantly how to fix or avoid them)

Not limiting players

Most of these mistakes are because I’m too nice of a person. When you decide you want to start a campaign set a number of players in your mind and stick to it. If you’re like me, you should set it two or three people lower than what you think because you’ll still somehow acquire a few extra players. Having lots of people is fun, but tough to manage. Stick with more manageable groups for better gameplay.

Giving too many magic items

I’m constantly tempted to give players awesome items way too fast. That just looks weird. You end up having level 2 characters with Legendary items. It’s just weird. I’d suggest giving no more than 2 magic items to your group in any particular dungeon. If you’re giving more than 2 items to the group in a session, that’s too many. Now the group can buy or make however many they have the resources for, but finding items is totally different.

Making Dungeons too long

This is a mistake I made while trying to make the dungeon cool. If your group likes it, it’s not as big of an issue. Still, you shouldn’t make dungeons last longer than other plot points unless they are central plot points. If they are a side-quest, maybe 2-3 sessions. If they’re a major side-quest then maybe 5 max. It shouldn’t be any more than that. You don’t want your players forgetting what the goal of the campaign is.

Making Friendly NPC’s too strong

I made this mistake by making an NPC I knew would be traveling with the players. I didn’t want this guy to die so I made him a bit too strong. He deals way too much damage. As soon as we get out of this really long dungeon (eye roll) he is going away. No more helpful NPC that does a lot of damage and doesn’t die.

Shielding my Players

Sometimes I’m more lax on my players than I should be. I forget enemy resistances until it’s too late, or I give them enough healing potions or things like that. The best way to fix this is to grow a spine (talking to myself here). Their characters are going to fall, and possibly die. That’s just a fact of the game. I gotta get used to it (and you do too).

What mistakes have you made while DMing? What have you learned from it. Send your answers to @geronimolevis on Instagram and next episode I’ll shout you out and read your responses on the show.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Hopefully, you’ve learned from my mistakes and are becoming a better DM than I am.

Until next time,

Let’s roll initiative.

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What to Do if You’re a Nervous First Time DM

9 september 2021 | 9 min

You stand in the central chamber of this strange cavern. You and your companions look at each other warily. Suddenly a spectral form emerges from the rock wall. It faces you and then starts drifting slowly in a wide circle around your band. Suddenly more emerge. They too begin floating lazily around you in a wide circle. As every second passes, more and more ghosts surround you and your companion. Within minutes there are thousands of them. Some float slower, others faster. Soon you find yourself completely surrounded by countless ghosts all whirling and twirling. Right in front of you though, it seems as if some sort of pattern emerges. Though all the ghosts are moving, it seems as if a ghostly face is before you, always changing, but somehow still the same.

“What is your question?” A loud voice says.

You and your companions have done it. You’ve found the Oracle of Alondras. She will answer any question you ask. You have an important one. How can you stop the coming war? She’ll answer the question, you know this for certain.

But then she’ll try to kill you.

So what would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 10th episode of how to be a better DM. In simple terms, this show is all about helping you tell better stories as you DM a session of DND 5e.

Before we hop into today’s show, let me shout out the master of audio of this show, namely, Cowchy Audio. If you ever need help with audio tasks, reach out to Cowchy Audio on Instagram. Direct message @ kahootaz and he’ll get you set up.

Now let’s hop into today’s show.

Here’ s What to Do if You’re a Nervous First Time DM!

First of all, you need to know that every DM is nervous the first time they run a session. It’s ok to be nervous. More importantly, it’s ok to make mistakes and do things wrong. No matter what happens, you need to promise you’ll do another session. The 2nd session is always more fun than the first.

So here are a few tips.

Let your players know you are nervous.

If this is your first time, you can tell your players. People love to be empathetic so they will work with you and be more patient. Just let them know that you’re nervous and they will make up some of the gaps.

Keep the session simple

You can do the crazy things in the next sessions. In this first session, just keep the plot simple. A to B to C to D. Think about it like that. If you’re using a campaign book, follow that and you can add in more flavor to later sessions. By keeping it simple, you won’t get flustered when something complicated comes up (because it probably won’t).

Make sure you understand combat rules (at least generally)

Make sure you understand the general idea that first you roll initiative, and then each person goes. If you know how combat works, you’ve basically mastered half of the session. So before the session make sure you read up on the rules of combat.

Listen to other DnD Dungeon Master’s

One thing that has helped me is listening to other DM’s on Youtube. They go through the rules often so it’s great for a periodic refresher. I would recommend High Rollers on Youtube. They are from the UK (awesome group). There’s obviously also Critical Role with Matt Mercer. I also love Viva La Dirt League’s NPC Man DND. All great options.

Role Play the Role Play

If you want, you can even do a dry run through the session in the mirror (sped up of course) or you can do it with another person. This helps to get some of the kinks out and more importantly helps you practice those parts that you’ve already prepared to sound even better. Obviously, there are part you’ll have to do on the fly, but going through it helps you keep the order of events in your mind for during the session.

Choose awesome players

It’s easier to DM when your players are awesome. It’s better if they have had experience playing DND, but choosing players that you know you get along with is a must. Don’t DM a group of people you don’t think you’ll enjoy playing with if it’s your first time. You’ll regret it. Honestly, I’m not even sure you should DM for a group of people you don’t like period, but who knows.

Intentionally Make a Mistake

If you’re nervous about your first session, then this is a simple fix. You’re probably nervous because you want it to be perfect. Or you at least want to do a good job. Sometimes, we as humans forget that we can make mistakes and still do well. So within the first five minutes of your session, intentionally make a mistake. Then correct yourself and say, “oops, my mistake.”

9 times out of 10, your players won’t care and this will help you calm down because you’ll realize that you can make mistakes and it doesn’t really matter.

Again, the important thing is to make sure to do your next session. The 2nd session is always better than the first. You’ll have more fun and you’ll love this hobby much more.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode. As always, send me a direct message on Instagram to @geronimolevis with any questions, comments, suggestions or even just to tell how your campaign is going.

I appreciate you listening and you appreciate this show, give it a rating and review. Until next time. Let’s roll initiative.

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Level Up Guide

The Pros and Cons of Using Minis in Your Dungeons and Dragons Games

2 september 2021 | 13 min

You look down from the walls of the Keep. This castle was constructed as an outpost of the kingdom. No one travels this far north, certainly not invading armies. The people of this land were more accustomed to marauders rather than martial campaigns. Your eyes took in the scene. You can see a numberless horde of nightmarish creatures. You recognize creatures here and there, but most seem literally drawn from some sort of nightmare realm. They seem unintelligent monsters, though they stand arrayed as if in battle formation. Among the throng, you spot dozens of larger monsters that could bite a man in half with little effort expended. Horns issue haunting moans echoing across the landscape of twisted monsters. You’ve never seen an army this large in all your years of fighting in the army.

Trappers and explorers started bringing back reports of these large numbers of monsters coming from the north. You weren’t aware of any settlements north of here. All that was left was ice, tundra, and frozen waste that made up the Crown of the World. Where had all these beasts come from? Maybe more importantly, why were they here. As if to answer your question, a final horn blared its mournful tone. The sound lasted for seconds before it abruptly cut off and the monsters charged as one. It seems the battle of the Grey North had begun.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 9th episode of How to Be a Better DM. We’re going to learn how to tell better, more engaging stories while you dungeon master a session of D&D 5e.

I’m excited to give you today’s show, but before we do, let me give a quick shoutout to Couchy Audio. They do the audio work for this show and if you need any help with audio work, they are the ones to talk to. Reach out to them on Instagram by sending a message to @kahootaz

Now let’s talk about the Pros and Cons of Using Minis During your Dungeons and Dragons Sessions.

Pros:

Easier to imagine Combat

When you DM you can either use minis to represent the relative distances of characters and adversaries or you can use the Theatre of the Mind. With the Theatre of the mind, things are a lot more loosey goosey. I always seems to struggle with questions like, “how far away am I?” And stuff like that. With minis, it’s all on the board or table and it’s a lot easier to manage. Often when I listen to you tubers live playing DND, I lose track of combat positions during encounters of the mind. Having it on the board is much easier.

More Immersive

There’s no denying it. When you see the combat happening, it’s easier to immerse yourself in the encounter. It’s much easier to relax and just have fun because you’re not having to keep track distance and position. Plus when the DM adds in cool effects or scenery, it really feels like you’re there.

You can create that WOW factor!

I’ve seen it on my players. When you make that scene you’ve described and present it to the players, even in a shoddy way, there’s a definite WOW factor. It’s like the icing on the cake of playing DND.

Builds Authority in your players’ eyes

In a way, you as the DM are the group’s true leader. As such, they will look to you to lead them. This happens naturally because you are the main storyteller, but your players also want to know that you are the best DM in the world. Like the placebo effect, it makes the game more interesting, even if it’s not.

Having links adds to your authority as the best DM in the world, even if you’re new. I know it’s kind of a shortcut for them, because having minis doesn’t mean squat, but it gives the perception of preparation, especially if your minis are matched to the encounter.

Cons

Costs extra

Having minis costs extra. Even if you use a banana and you draw a face on it, you have to put in extra time and extra money to have them and have enough of them. That’s why in my episode where I talked about all you really need to play DND, minus we’re not a necessity. You can play without them, and you can have lots of fun. Being able to play without minis means that, in this digital age, you can play anywhere with barely a moment’s notice. Not having to worry about minis can save a lot of time and money. Not to mention the fact that a lot of players might not want to buy their own mini, so you’ll probably have to provide one for them.

More things to manage

As the DM, you are the one lugging all the things to wherever you and your group plays. If you’re fortunate enough to play at your own house, then you still have to find the right minis and set them up and then put them away after the session. It’s a lot to manage. Even during the session you have to make sure the minis are in the right spots whereas your players only have to manage their one mini.

Gateway Drug

Minis can get out of hand really fast. There are so many minis. If you now you have low self control when it comes to buying $4-$10 then stay away from them. There’s always a cooler mini. There’s even custom minis. You know why? Thanks here are thousands of different monsters to fight. You will probsbly never have all the minis, not to mention perfect battle scenes or scenery items. You can spend a lot of money on this hobby if you’re not careful.

You Don’t Practice your Narrative Skills

Using a mini is a crutch. Plain and simple. By using minis you rely more on visuals than on your skills of narration. That means you aren’t flexing a very important skill that will enhance your sessions and make your stories come alive. If you can’t get people to feel you are there with just your words, then you’ve got a long way to go to benign a master Dungeon Master.

There you have it guys. The pros and cons of using minis in your DND sessions. Do you agree? Disagree? Have other suggestions? Send your thoughts to me on Instagram in a private message to @geronimolevis.

Also, I am looking for a new piece of cover art for the podcast. If you have any ideas, send them to @geronimolevis on Instagram.

Thanks for listening guys. Make sure to give us a rating and review but until next time, let’s roll initiative.

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Thanks again for listening to our show. If you like our content and would like to engage with more of our content, head over to our Instagram account, @howtobeabetterdm, and give us a follow. Make sure to watch some of our helpful Dungeon Master Rules videos to give yourself some structure and procedure as a Dungeon Master. Don’t forget to reach out with a DM and we can talk shop. https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast/

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

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7 Tips to Help Keep Your Energy Up as a DM

26 augusti 2021 | 11 min

Suddenly a scream erupts from somewhere outside the tavern. You look at your hand and then up at your opponent. “It looks like we’ll have to finish our game another day,” you say as you lay down the cards and follow your companions out the door. The half-orc you were playing throws his cards on the table in disgust. It seems he had a winning hand.

You and your companions burst out of the tavern door only to met by a scene of utter chaos. Townspeople ran in all directions except toward the eastern part of town. As you look in that direction you see multiple pillars of smoke indicating houses on fire. As you continue looking around you start to see pillars of smoke from the west, north and south. You stop a nearby townsperson to ask what was going on. Goblins! Legions of them. They’ve surrounded the city. You let them go and they go off to run to nowhere in particular.

“Belgren!”

You look to find whoever might be calling your name. You spot one of the city guard running towards you. He reaches you and shouts, “The Goblin Chief has surrounded the city. He has captured the mayor and wants to see you. He says he has a quest for you.”

What do you do?

Welcome back to the 8th episode of How to Be a Better DM. This is the show to help you tell better stories as a dungeon master while playing Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Like always before we get to today’s show, let me give you a quick announcement. I’d like to give a shoutout to Cowchy Audio who does the audio work for this show. If you need help as far as Audio goes, reach out to Cowcy on instagram via @kahootaz

Now onto today’s show.

As a DM, you are generally a large part of the energy of each session.This is natural as you provide 99.99% of the game. So here are my tips for keeping your energy high every session. 1st of all, you do have to realize that this is a skill and you will have to work on it. Think of it as if you are improving your own personal Charisma score.

So here we go.

Take a break right before your session

If you’re like me, you go from work right into your D&D session. That can be really tough and I find that if I don’t take a break in between anything else and D&D, my energy for the session is very low.

Try taking a break in the session

Most of the D&D groups I watch on Youtube or podcasts take some sort of break in the middle of their session. I’ve found that for me personally this is a hit or miss. It is nice to be able to take a pee break without pausing the game in an unexpected way.

Slow things down

You don’t have to go through the session at a break-neck speed. You’re working through combat encounters, plot points and anything else your group is trying to do. Take it nice and easy so you can give lots of energy to every endeavor in the session.

Let some things go

Sometimes getting every rule right is just not worth it. If it keeps your energy high and allows you and your players to keep having fun, just nix whatever is holding you back or down. Be careful, though because this can quickly lead to reducing some very important game structures.

Get a good night’s sleep beforehand

This one might seem like a big “duh!” but if you aren’t getting enough sleep then there’s no way you’ll be able to give your players a fun filled evening of twists and turns with interesting plot points and fun characters.

I think this might be a great point to mention that I believe drinking energy drinks or alcohol is not a great tip for making sure you keep your energy high. It’s unhealthy. You can do what you want, but I don’t see it as a sustainable way, especially if you are playing once a week for months, or even years.

Play what and how you and your players want to play

If there are parts of your campaign that get dull or boring, switch things up so you are all excited again. If you are following an adventure book, add some things that the book doesn’t have. This haunted mansion that my players are going through is something I made up just to have some fun while we do play Princes of the Apocalypse, a 5e Adventure. I wanted something else so I added in a spooky mansion. My players are loving it and so am I. I will say that I do feel we’ve been at this mansion a long time (like 4 or 5 sessions) so I’m somewhat expediting the rest of the mansion.

Learn to feed off the energy of your players.

Chances are someone in your group will come to the table with a lot of excitement and energy. Learn to recognize that and then throw cool things their way to build that energy. You’ll find that that energy will be contagious around the table and pretty soon, the cares and woes of our daily lives will fall away only to be replaced by the feeling of a group of friends having a great time playing a tabletop RPG.

Remember, this is a skill. It takes time to develop, but the more energy you can bring to the table, the better your sessions will be.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode.

Please follow the show wherever you are listening to podcasts so you never miss an episode.

Also, reach out to me on Instagram @geronimolevis with any questions, suggestions or even just to let me know how your campaign is going. I’d love to connect.

Come back next week for another awesome show. Until then, let’s roll initiative.

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My Method for Planning the Next Session of Dungeons and Dragons

19 augusti 2021 | 11 min

Last time our adventurers found themselves fighting a rug of smothering which had completely smothered Ulv. Luckily the group was able to dispatch the rug rather quickly and were able to continue on their journey. The group then entered what appeared to be a library. This library seemed completely empty which caused minor consternation for the whole group. The group then entered what seemed like a small plush office that had 3 books of interest. Two of the books were about necromancy and curses. The last book turned out to be the first journal of Anandra. Contemplating this turn of events, the group re-entered the library, only to find it was now filled with books. The group decided to investigate various books but as soon as they did, the books seemed to animate and started attacking the party. The group discovered the doors were locked and after trying to light the books on fire, they realized the books weren’t going away. After taking a brief break in the den, the group set out with a new plan that turned out to be the right one. The group ended up finding the second journal of Anandra which triggered all the animated books to stop.

At this point, the group had explored all the first level of the manor. The group decided to finish exploring the first level before going to Gamaileil and asking their question. This led the group to experiment with the grey potion. This potion turned everyone in the group into a faded, a being who is neither dead, alive, nore undead, but something in between. As soon as this happened, group was able to take the stairs down into the basement. Who knows what the group will uncover down there.

As the group walks down the stairs they notice their surroundings in muted towns. You reach the bottom and find yourself in a long room with a second set of stairs on the far side of the room that lead up. The room is empty aside from pillars interspersed throughout the room holding it up. There are doors on your right and left. You also notice writing along the walls of this room, similar to the great hall directly above you. What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 7th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, and we are going to help you tell better stories while you DM a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

In this show, I share somethings that have helped me as a DM so you can enjoy this wonderful game.

Before we get to today’s show, another shoutout to Cowchy Audio who does the audio work for this show. If you need audio help, reach out to @kahootaz on Instagram and he’ll hook you up.

Today let’s get simple and quick and talk about my method for planning in between sessions. This isn’t a perfect method, but it’s certainly helped me.

Write a recap.

Some might rif on this at the beginning of the session, but I find it more helpful to write this beforehand. Doing so does two things for me. First, it helps remind me what happened in the last session. Rarely do I start preparing for the next session right after the previous one. It’s also great to let the players know what happened last time. The second thing it does for me is help get the brain juices flowing. It’s a lot easier to think of new things after I’ve had the simple exercise of summarizing what happened last time. If you need an example of what this looks like go back and listen to the first snippet of today’s episode because that is the actual recap of my last session that I played with my friends.

Figure out Generally What Happens Next

If the party is currently in a dungeon or going through some sort of fortress or something like that, this gets pretty easy. You can look at the map of wherever the players are and think about where they will go next logically.

If you are using an adventure guidebook, this means reading ahead to understand what should probably happen. I also like to ask the players what they think their characters will want to do next.

After that, and if I’m not using a guide book, I like to think about all the possible places the characters might go. I then jot down logical sequences of events should the players go to those locations. Be prepared. Sometimes players will just choose never to go to places you’ve prepared. It’s ok. You can get over it.

If you feel like this might be too much like 4D chess and you can’t really anticipate your player’s moves, then don’t. Just give them constraints. Say for example, they’ve been tasked to find an ancient artifact and there are really no clues so their journey could take them anywhere. One thing you might do is say, “After an investigation check in this town, you’ve discovered that talk of this artifact originated in this specific area. There are 4 towns in that area and each have extensive libraries” or some such nonsense. Give them choices, but slightly constrain them.

The extras

This is where I remember to look up rules I’d forgotten, or create items that I’d given to the party without really knowing what they do. I use this extra time to fill in the odds and ends that really flesh out a campaign. Step 2 was creating a framework. In this step I add in the cool details.

This is where you go find the maps that make the game cool but aren’t necessary, or work on your collection of minis, or craft a new NPC that isn’t essential.

Here you can also bring up interests that characters have mentioned. In my campaign, the Rogue expressed an interest in traveling to Neverwinter (which is really far from where they are). This little bit allows you to have extra prepared in case the group does decide to go down any particular rabbit hole. Believe me, having something prepared is much easier than improvising.

So that’s my method. Now, I’d love to hear yours. How do you go about planning your sessions? Message me on Instagram @geronimolevis. I’d love to hear from you.

Well that does it for today’s episode. Come back next week for another show and if you get the chance, please leave a rating and review to help the show be discovered by even more people.

Until next time. Let’s roll initiative.

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5 Tips to Help You Plan Your First Dungeon

12 augusti 2021 | 10 min

“I don’t like the look of this.” Sefereth whispers.

You look back at the slender elven woman. She wears plate armor as if it weighed nothing, a great sword in her hand.

You smile. “You are wise as you are lovely my dear.” Your hands grasp each others, a brief moment of affection between man and wife. It was only a tenday since you and your beloved were wed. Others might decide to honeymoon in large cities surrounded by luxury. For your band of adventurers, emergency necessitated other arrangements.

You turn your attention back to the entrance to the dungeon. You’ve never seen anything like it. Where other caves might have moss and lichen growing on the rock face, crystal the color of pearly moonlight adorns the walls. It appears as if grown there rather than placed. It has a strange feeling of life.

Your party was brought here by rumors of an elixir that can cure any disease along with huge swaths of the kingdom falling ill to an unknown disease. Rather than rendering the sick feeble and weak, it swells their muscles and drives their minds mad. They become mutated monsters, wreaking havoc on all they come in contact with. The kingdom is made up of more monsters than man now and it’s up to you and your friends to save it. As usual.

A soft music drifts from the cave's entrance, almost as if to invite you in. You look at the rest of your party. Each looks at you with undying loyalty. You grip your staff harder, and place a hand around the necklace of beads left to you from your mother. She left it to you as a legacy to remember her by. You use it as a magical focus to channel your arcane energies and to bend reality to your will.

“We go forth to save those who cannot save themselves,” you say and you step into the cave.

Welcome back to the 6th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m here to help you tell better stories as you dungeon master a nice game of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Before we get into today’s show, another quick shout out to @kahootaz on Instagram who does audio work for the show. He is awesome and if you need any audio work done, he’s the guy.

Now, to the show.

Today we are talking about crafting dungeons. This is a staple of playing D&D and definitely a go-to for DM’s everywhere. Whether you’re playing from a adventure book, or are crafting your own story, adding in a dungeon here and there is always a great way to break up all the quests your characters are on and give them something concrete and tangible to do. So let’s get to 5 tips for crafting dungeons.

Start with the purpose of the dungeon.

Said another way, figure out what your players’ purpose will be in the dungeon. In the example at the beginning of the episode, the purpose is clear: find the healing elixir. In my current campaign with my friends, they were sent to clear out a haunted mansion so the mansion could be set up as an orphanage. Basically set up the rules of engagement. Answer the questions of why are the players here and what are the general rules for how they will engage with the environment.

Set a Big Boss

Dungeons get much easier to make if you model them after most video games. For every level there is a boss. Sometimes this could be in the form of puzzles or the form of an adversary. In my current campaign (spoiler alert if you are my friend and are playing my campaign which I don’t think anyone here is), the big boss in the haunted mansion is an undead beholder who’s fooled a woman to marry him and is using her love for him to fuel the haunted mansion. I personally like it when the Boss is an adversary, but a difficult puzzle that also causes damage can be just as fun.

Pick a theme

Often this will come with either the purpose of the dungeon or the big boss. This makes the puzzles and the smaller enemies easier to pick. It’s not hard finding what to fill your dungeon with. It’s just hard choosing what not to fill it with. Let’s take the scenario at the beginning of the episode. The cave the group would be going into would probably have some sort of crazy archfey at the end, so most of the baddies they fight would probably be fey or dreamlike in nature. That doesn’t mean you can’t stray, it just helps you narrow down what most of the enemies will be like.

Record the map

You can either use a map someone else created, draw one yourself beforehand or draw one on the spot while you are playing (though I don’t recommend this one), but you have to have a map. Why? Because your players will get lost, and you will get lost, and the story will get lost. Seriously. Your players may want to go back to check things out, they may want to try multiple paths, and it will make the game feel way more immersive. I pulled the map for my haunted mansion off of Patreon. There’s a lot of content out there so just go find it.

Pick your Puzzles

Believe me when I say that having your players face encounter after encounter after encounter can get very tedious, both for you and for your players. In encounters, helping them get into the story is really hard. That usually comes in between combat encounters. That’s not to say it’s impossible. It’s just a lot easier for the players to actually sit and think about the story when a particular puzzle is forcing them to do just that. You don’t have to have lots of puzzles, just enough to break up the monotony of encounters after encounters. And don’t worry. I am not good at thinking up puzzles either. I just looked some up online and tweaked them to fit my campaign and voila. It’s an interesting puzzle without making me become Einstein.

So remember, if you’re new to crafting dungeons, have fun with it, and you can look most things up online. Everything, just BS on the fly.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode.

Please follow the show so you never miss an episode and so I can give you better content.

If you’re enjoying the show leave a rating and review or share with a new DM to help them along the way.

Lastly, reach out to on Instagram @geronimolevis to ask questions, give suggestions, or tell how your campaign is going because I would love to know. Thanks for listening guys and until next time, let’s roll initiative.

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How to Deal with Shy Players

4 augusti 2021 | 11 min

The mechanical man cries out in pain. You and your party walk in the baron’s great hall and you see the mechanical man bound by chains. He hangs from a nearby wall. A large thug stands near the automaton with a cudgel, beating him leisurely. You and your party walk forward past the courtiers, and the sycophants to address the baron. He sits on a large chair near a great hearth tearing hunks of meat of a leg of lamb and stuffing it into his fat face. You surreptitiously glance around the room. 10 guards.

You and your friends stand before the baron. He chews, swallows and then smiles.

“Ah, the adventuring party from Gildhaven. We finally meet, face to face. Please sit, eat. I’m pleased that you grace my court with your presence,” he says and he gestures to tables filled with food.

You glance at your party members and clear your throat. “I don’t think we have time for festivities.”

The baron steeples his hands. “You’re here for the reward then. Capture of this monstrosity would not have been possible without your very capable help. I believe it was 2,000 gold?” He tosses a large sack of gold onto the ground in front of him. Some of the coins spill out on the marble floor.

You eye the gold.

“Baron, my friends and I have spent a great deal of time with this ‘monstrosity’ as you call him. He saved our lives. We did not mean for him to be captured. We believe you keep him here illegally. We demand you set him free.” Your voice echoes around the great hall as every pair of eyes turns towards you. Your eyes dart towards the metal man. Though inhuman, his eyes look at you, almost as if to say, “Thank you but your efforts are in vain.”

You turn your attention to the baron.

The baron stands up. “You dare come into my domain and make demands of me? You’ve served me well in the past. For that, I give you one chance to walk away and leave.”

You stand there, gripping your sword hilt. The entire room feels the tension.

What do you do?

Welcome back to the 5th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m here to help you tell better stories for yourself and your friends as you Dungeon Master a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Before we get into it, another shoutout to the guy who makes this audio sound so cool. I’m talking about @kahootaz from Instagram. He’s done an excellent job and if you need any audio help, reach out to him and he’ll get you taken care of.

Now, let's talk about doing something every DM has to deal with: shy or reserved players. That’s right, let’s talk about getting people out of their shells. Let’s get into it.

Ask them questions.

During your session, if one player generally doesn’t say much as far a role-playing goes, then the simplest way to get them to say something is to ask them. Say for example the group decides to do something, but the quiet player hasn’t given their input. Simply ask, “What does Lilyleaf Twinkle Toes do?” Obviously, the name was made up, but you get the idea.

Ask them back story questions in between sessions

These players might just be afraid of letting loose. So just help them along by getting them to think up really cool things about their characters. I’ve found when you do this, you might only get one little tidbit back, but even that can start the process of helping the player feel more comfortable to get into the game.

Make a section of the game about them

You gotta be careful about this one, but if you add the tidbit your quiet player came up with into the game (either in a small or a big way) it can go a long way to help the player immerse themselves in the game. I’ve found when I do this, the player gets excited and they don’t feel so self-conscious.

Understand it takes little steps

Your player isn’t going to go from reserved initiate to role-playing master in one game, maybe not even one whole campaign. Just know that it’s going to take time and that every session they may come out of their shell a little bit more.

Make the table a safe space

At my table, no one makes fun of anyone else. No one gets to critique the playing of any other player. Everyone gets to feel safe. I don’t stand for anyone making the game less fun for anyone else.

Come out of your shell

All the players look to you to set the tone of the game. If you are doing crazy things like funny voices, or interesting role-playing choices, then your players will feel more comfortable doing the same thing. Sometimes this means you also let your vulnerability show with making things up. Maybe you don’t have the whole campaign planned. Sometimes it’s nice to let them know that because the sooner everyone realizes that we’re all just making crap up, the better.

Reward your players

When your players attempt something really cool that is kind of a stretch for them, reward them. This happened in my campaign where the party was about to fight some undead soldiers when one of my players decided to recite the ancient credo of an ancient kingdom. Because it was really cool, I decided to let the soldiers treat the players as fellow soldiers and salute rather than fight. It was one of my favorite moments in the campaign.

So remember, your players look to you to help them feel comfortable. Believe me, when all the players are really into the game, the game is way more fun.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Make sure you follow the show to never miss an episode. If you have any questions, suggestions for the show, or want to share your DMing experiences, reach out to me on Instagram @geronimolevis. We’ll see you next time. Until then, let’s roll initiative.

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All You Truly Need to Play D&D

28 juli 2021 | 8 min

You look at the case of glass bottles. Cobwebs cover most of them. On a whim, you grab one of the bottles and look at its reflection in the fragment of the mirror you shattered in the great hall. Your whim paid off. In the reflection, the bottle is filled with an inky black substance. You remember the great hall with all the writing on the walls that could only be seen through the mirror’s reflection. This truly is a haunted place. You look at the rest of the bottles. Each one houses a liquid of a different color or shade. The room you are in is dusty and full of cobwebs. You uncork the bottle and, while looking in the mirror, poor some of it out on the floor. As the black liquid hits the floor, you feel a deep pain within yourself and feel some of your life force sucked out of your body. Your adventuring party attempts the same experiment with other colors of liquids. The same result happens. As one of your party pour one drop of a dark blue liquid, you all hear echoing laughter surrounding you. The laughter is gleeful and higher pitched.

“Come find me, ha ha ha ha….” The voice trails off. You all look at each other in apprehension.

“MMMMlet’s play a game ha ha ha and then haha I will tell you a tale….” You move to replace the bottles.

“Tell you the tale of Anandra…. Ha ha ha ha.” The echoing voice fades just as your wizard’s driftglobe exstinguishes and the only light in the room is your rogue’s dagger giving off a faint green glow.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 4th episode of How to Be a Better DM. This is the show that helps you tell better stories as you and your friends play 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. You’re the DM and I’m going to help prepare you to craft amazing tales to both the delight and horror of your players.

A quick announcement: Special thanks goes out to @kahootaz for working on the audio for this show. He did amazing work and if you need audio help, reach out to him.

Now, let’s get to DMing.

As a new DM, you have so many options of things to buy, research or create that it can be somewhat difficult deciphering what you need to get started. Well this is the list of what you need.

Understanding of the rules.

Simply put, you need to understand the rules by which you and your players will play. In its simplest form, you all can just say whatever the DM goes and then you just make stuff up. As this is hard to do, and it is rarely consistent, this is not what I would do. Instead, you should probably get your hands on a copy of The Player’s Handbook, or at least get a good understanding of it by watching Youtube videos and such. You can buy it or borrow it, it doesn’t matter. Just know some rules and be able to explain them to your players.

Players

Obviously you need players. We talked about this last week, so if you need refresh yourself with episode 3.

A story.

In its simplest form, DND is just a story that someone put rules to. In order to play, you can make up a story, adapt a story, or use a story someone else made. It doesn’t matter. So go buy an adventure sourcebook, or have your characters reenact The Lord of the Rings, or have your characters reenact your first day of kindergarten (hopefully with some major twists). Whatever you do, make a story and tell it well.

Tools of the Rules

Otherwise known as dice, the tools of the rules are the methods by which the mechanics of the game will be satisfied. In DND 5e this means a set of dice. If your rules are much more loose you may not need these tools. Since you can download an app for free with dice on it, I’d recommend at least doing that and using those for more consistency and because, well, it is free.

A place

Generally the game is played at a table (hence the name tabletop game), but you can play anywhere, even online. Just get all your players to some place together.

Time

Playing the game takes time. I found that at least 3 hours is generally long enough for a good session, unless you have very few players, in which case, two hours should be good. You can choose what works for you.

That’s it.

Seriously.

That’s it.

That’s all you need to Play DND. I know I’ve oversimplified it, but that’s the point. All the add-ons are just that, add-ons. As long as you and your friends have fun it doesn’t matter.

I’m saying all this specifically to help you ease your fears of not being able to craft the perfect campaign. Keep trying, but don’t get confused about what really matters. If the basics are covered, then you’re doing it right.

Thanks for listening to today’s show. Reach out to me @geronimolevis on Instagram with any suggestions for future shows. We’ll see you next week. Until then, let’s roll initiative...

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🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

How to Find Players for your Sessions

21 juli 2021 | 9 min

You crawl forward slowly, every inch causing you pain. The last thing you remember is investigating a cabin in the woods with your friend before he stabbed you in the back and left you for dead. After falling down a ridge you crawled yourself to this cave seeking shelter. You can feel yourself bleeding out. You look forward into the darkness of the cave. It’s hopeless. Desperate, you cry out, “Help! Please, anyone.” More blood comes out of your mouth than sound. You hear silence. Then, you see two pinpricks of light in the darkness. Small points of maroon light emanate from within the darkness. You crawl towards them only to discover a small statue, featureless except for two ruby eyes. You touch it. It is then that you hear a voice.

“You…. are…. Dying…..” The voice is timeless and deep. It fills you with dread.

“Please help me.” You manage to whisper. The red eyes pulse.

“A…. trade…”, the voice says.

“What…. Do you want?”

Silence.

“I… Desire… Service….”

“Who… ugh...are you?”

“Nameless… I...can...save...you…”

You think for a moment. You remember the betrayal of your best friend. “Can… you grant ugh...me… power?”

Silence.

“What….do...you...desire….?”

“Ugh….. REVENGE!”

The red eyes pulse. “I...will...grant...you...revenge!”

You come back to yourself. It was just a memory. You face the half-elf druid you just met. She repeats her question, “What’s your story?”

You smile. “I’m just a simple man from a small town. Not much to tell.”

Welcome back to the 3rd episode of How to Be a Better DM. We’re here to help you create better stories for you and your players while you dungeon master a nice session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Today let’s talk about one of the first steps in playing DND: finding players. Here are a few tips to finding players for your group.

Start with your family

A family that plays together stays together. If you can get your significant other to play with you, it can make for some great experiences. Nowadays, spending time with family can be so hard. A nice 4 hour session is a great way to get everyone involved in each other’s lives. Just make sure you do other things as a family too.

Share your interests with other people

When people ask you what you like to do, don’t be afraid of actually sharing your interests. Own it. You’ll be surprised who will tell you, “I’ve wanted to try that for some time.”

Your local game shop

There are lots of comic book stores or game shops that have free games that you can join. That’s a great way to find people who also want to play and are even willing to go to public places to meet complete strangers to play. Win-win.

Social media

Pay attention to the things other people post about. That should clue you into some of their interests. Just reach out and see if they’d be interested. If you really want you can just post yourself and see if anyone responds.

Ask for referrals

You can ask your friends to see if they know anyone who’d want to play. If you don’t know someone, they definitely do.

Be ok with few players

Let me tell you from experience, once you start with a few people adding people gets pretty easy. People just seem to come out of the woodwork. So maybe you just start with 2 players. Eventually, more players will come around. Just find a few willing participants and get to adventuring.

Thanks for listening to today’s show. I hope you find it enjoyable and useful. Tell me about your DMing adventures as well as any ideas you have for the show. Reach out to me @geronimolevis on Instagram. Also make sure you follow the show so you never miss an episode. We’ll see you next week. Until then, let’s roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

5 Things Every Dungeon Master Should Remember

15 juli 2021 | 7 min

You find yourself walking through a forest. Your arms and hands are cold. It’s then that you notice the terrible blizzard obscuring most of what you see. You try and wade your way forward, looking for a clear path to shelter. That’s when you see the bear. This is one of the biggest bears you’ve ever seen. It stands there facing you on the path amidst a raging blizzard. It then turns and walks away. You stand frozen, watching it go. It waits, and looks at you as if to beckon that you follow. You do. It leads you through the blizzard to a cabin, hidden behind rocks and trees. As you move toward it, you feel a hand on your arm. You turn and see your father. He’s been dead for years. He smiles and then jerks your arm pulling you to the side. It’s at that moment that you awake from the mysterious dream only to find yourself facing a black clad assassin who’s blade has sliced deep into the bed on which you sleep in the same spot your head had been occupying moments before. What do you do?

Welcome back to the 2nd episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m happy to have you here with me as we talk about different ways to create a present a better story to your players as you Dungeon Master a beautiful session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

That excerpt was from the session I had in my campaign just this last week. That’s just to show you that I do this too. I try every week to make better stories and to write better tales. So let’s get right into the meat of today’s show.

Let’s talk about 5 things every DM should remember. These are things that have helped me to remember and I know they should make your game easier too.

It should be fun

You’re playing a game. It should be fun. If you as the Dungeon Master aren’t having fun, then you should switch some things up. Don’t be afraid to experiment. If it’s easier use stuff that other people have made. Look for simple improvements and focus on what you and your players find the most fun. If you guys like doing campaigns that are wacky and fun and rarely serious, then do that. If you like dark campaigns then do that. If you find that planning sessions is too stressful, maybe try spacing them out more so it’s less of a burden. If you can’t think of anything then ask your players or outside parties to give you suggestions. It’s supposed to be fun, so if it’s not, then you need to figure out why and change that.

Your players can improvise too

You’re not the only one at the table who’s responsible for making the game fun. You have a large responsibility because you theoretically occupy 99.999% of the mythical world you and your players play in, but your players can definitely play a big part in making stuff up. Sometimes it’s nice to ask your players the name of NPC’s they meet or towns they visit or Inn’s they sleep in. You don’t have to come up with everything. Outsourcing is a great idea for things that you really don’t care about.

You don’t need to know the ending of every story

Sometimes the funnest things happen when introduce a plot hook that you haven’t really thought through yet. I did this in my campaign where I introduced four groves of power that the druid in our group must save from some evil cultists. Did I know where these groves were? No. Did I know how she’d find them? No. Did I think it was still a cool idea? Heck yeah. So now, the druid and the rest of the party are looking for an ancient underground library that will have an ancient tome describing how to find the powerful groves. Boom.

You won’t know every rule

The player’s handbook is a big book. I’d be astounded if you had it memorized. You don’t need to know every rule so just cool it. You’ll learn as you go and probably do somethings wrong. It won’t dramatically change the outcome and if it does, that’s fine too.

Make the story your own

This is specifically for DM’s who are using sourcebooks for adventures. Make sure to add things in there that are 100% yours. That way your players and you will all feel that you are getting a unique adventure that will be unforgettable.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode. I hope you are having fun with your games. If you liked today’s show or have ideas for future shows reach out to me on instagram @geronimolevis.

Until next time. Go ahead and roll initiative...

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

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Level Up Guide

8 Tips for Dungeon Mastering Amazing One-Shots

7 juli 2021 | 12 min

Are you interested in trying out being a dungeon master, but are not sure where to start? Maybe you’re a veteran DM and things have gotten a little stale. Regardless of where you are, one of the best ways to start D&D or spice up your current Dungeon Mastering is with a one-shot. But how do you make a one-shot lively, timely, and fun? In today’s show, I’ll give you 8 tips to make your one-shots better, more fun and easier to plan.

Welcome to How to Be a Better DM. I am your host Justin Lewis and this is the show for Dungeon Masters old and new who just want every session to be better than the last. I’m here to help you plan better, and faster with less time, hassle and without spending anything (unless you want to).

This is the first episode of the show and as such, I want to extend my deep gratitude to you for giving it a chance. As you listen to these episodes, you’ll hear tips and techniques that will shorten your DMing learning curve, but these tips only work if you put them into practice. I know you’re likely listening as you’re driving to work, workout out, doing dishes or walking the dogs, but when the time comes to put these tips into practice, make sure that you do. That’s how you’ll grow.

Episodes will come out weekly every Thursday morning. For the most part you can expect these episodes to be presented by myself, but I will also have cohosts and guest shows as well.

At the end of today’s show, I’ll give a brief introduction to myself but I don’t want to waste any more time and I want to jump into today’s topic.

ONE SHOTS!

For the uninitiated, a one-shot is a D&D story that takes place throughout a single session. It’s a great opportunity for Dungeon Masters to experiment with the hobby, try new settings or rules, and let the players try new characters. Overall, it’s an amazing way to spice up your gameplay and introduce something novel.

When it comes to any session in D&D, you can either use a pre-written module or write your own, and the same rings true for one-shots.

Now for the rest of this episode, we’ll assume that you are choosing to write your own one-shot. These are some helpful tips to get it done in an easier way and to greater effect.

Tip #1: Talk with Your Players

I’ve done quite a few one-shots and I’ve done them different ways. I think you can choose to write the story and let your players make their characters to suit it, or you can let your players make their characters and then make the one shot to suit the players.

Both have their pros and cons, but what you should do first is talk with your players. Find out what they would prefer and what sort of one-shot you think they would like.

This also changes by context. Some of the one-shots I’ve done, I’ve made the one-shot specifically to work on making one-shots. It wouldn’t make sense for me to ask my players what they wanted.

So before you start planning anything, talk to your players. See what they want out of the one-shot.

Tip #2: Flesh out the Big Baddie

Each one-shot should feature some sort of conflict, most often against some creature. You can do one-shots that aren’t necessarily against an actual creature. In those cases, you’d be fighting a force of nature (think a natural disaster) or the creation of some sort of creature (think a cursed dungeon full of traps), but most of the time you will pitt your players up against some sort of creature.

In order to have a really good one-shot, you should flesh out the Big Baddie a lot. This is primarily for the narrative aspect of the game. You want your players to feel that the villain is real. So dive into their back story. Make them have true motivations.

Anime does this really well where almost every NPC has some sort of history and wants and wishes. You’ll never find a minor character in an Anime series that isn’t apparently willing to be the main character if given enough screen time.

When working on your villain, ask yourself the following questions:

What is it this creature truly wants?
Why wouldn’t they take an easier path?
How have they changed over time?
What would stop them from wanting to achieve their specific goal?

These questions should help you formulate the baddie in a way that feels real and helps you roleplay them.

Tip #3: Location Location Location

Another tip to improve immersion is to focus on the Location. In real estate, they say Location, Location, Location. In part, they say that because you can’t normally pick up buildings and move them, but it also rings true because where you are determines a lot about your life and experiences. You will meet the people you meet and do some of the activities you do because of your proximity to them.

In D&D, the setting is as much a character as the actual characters. Flesh out the location to be able to make your players feel like it is a real place. Don’t forget to involve the five sense, focusing on pleasant and unpleasant sensations. If your party is walking through the desert, they should feel the heat of the sun overhead. If it is windy, they should be able to smell the scent of deeply fresh air.

Don’t forget to flesh out the history of the location as well. The village where the party stays has been around for a few hundred years, so there were naturally be history and legends within the town. Let the natural signs of life help develop the realism of your story.

Also, don’t let the setting be a vanilla one. Let the setting be another character in your story and your players will enjoy it much more.

Tip #4: Help Each Player Character Be Special

Every person wants to be the hero of their own story. One-shots are shorter so often people may make more outrageous characters. Don’t stile this creativity. If you have someone make a Kobold professor who invented the Pita Pocket, make that an advantage to that character. Wade into the craziness that your players will introduce. It gets more fun that way.

It also rewards your players for being creative. You always want to incentivize things that you want to be repeated. When players are creative, you should reward them so that they keep being creative.

Lastly, you want to make sure that for new players who are trying out a one-shot as their first taste of RPGs or D&D, you want to make their experience fun so they come back.

Tip #5: Do a Quick Run Through

For most things in life, being overprepared is never a bad thing. When it comes to one-shots, you can easily just have a quick run-through before the session.

This means you test out all of the technology and equipment you’ll be using so that when the time comes to use it, it works.

Having a cool piece of equipment or technology can be a nice moment of surprise for your players, delighting them and captivating them. But if you attempt one of these moments, and it doesn’t pan out, it can be worse than if you never introduced the magical moment in the first place. Be careful when using new tech.

Running through will also help cement the flow of things in your mind as well. It’s a better experience when you don’t need to check your notes to know the next major encounter. People want a polished experience that looks effortless and natural. The closer you can get to that, the better.

Tip #6: Bring the Energy

As the Head of the Table, the entire table is going to be keying off of you as they play. They will naturally mimic your energy if you have energy. Otherwise, if you give off a very low energy, the entire game will grind to a halt.

This means that you maybe plan a break or two in the game so that you can keep y our energy up. It also means you should be excited to play. If you aren’t excited, rethink whether or not doing the one-shot is for you.

Let me also say that bringing the energy isn’t just being loud, emotional, or extra. It means that you give 110% percent of everything you have to the game. Bringing the energy means investing in the game. You can invest financially, but more importantly, you need to invest emotionally, and maybe even physically.

Tip #7: Remove Distractions

Along with investing in the game, you should make sure the game can be as good as it can be. As a parent, I know how difficult it can be to give the very best to the game if you have kids around that also need your attention. Consider either getting a babysitter or shortening the game.

Multitasking is a myth, especially when it comes to good storytelling. Remove all the distractions so you can have a much better game.

This also means that some of your players may need to revert to pen-and-paper character sheets so that they aren’t tempted to waste time and attention on their phones.

Tip#8: Invest and Commit

The last tip I want to share with you is that you have to commit and you have to invest. This is really the test of a great DM regardless of their experience and their resources.

How much are you willing to put into your game?

You’ll hear me say this often, but committing can make up for a lack of planning, a lack of experience and a lack of cool fancy gizmos.

When I say invest, I mean the same thing. What are you willing to do for your game? How does your game take up space in your mind when you haven’t devoted hours and hours to it?

When you look at the great DMs, you know they are 100% committed and that thinking of the game happens naturally throughout their day just because it’s important to them. With that much thought-time, they naturally think up cool story twists and new ways to add flavor tot he game.

Investing your mind and heart into the game and fully committing yourself are the true tests of dungeon master mastery.

Make the choice and invest.

You might be on the precipice of your first game or you may have already DMd about five thousand. No matter who you are, these tips will help you and push you on to being a better DM.

As I promised, let me tell you who I am. I have been dungeon mastering for about five years now. I’ve always been a fan of fantasy and nerd of science fiction. I love story, as most people do. This podcast is my way of digging into the magic of storytelling and helping those of you out there, who like me, want to be a better DM. We’ll learn together and you’ll teach me as much, if not more than I will teach you.

More than anything, these episodes will open your eyes and mind to new ways of doing things. You won’t be stuck anymore and that will make being a DM that much more fun.

I can’t wait to see how you and I grow. As I said, we’ll have episodes every Thursday morning, so my friend, thank you for listening to How to Be a Better DM. Until next time…. Let’s go ahead and roll the initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

How to Be a Better DM: Dungeon Master Tips for the DM Newbie, the Hobbyist and the Forever DM

Learn how to be a better DM (Dungeon Master) so you can tell better stories for yourself and your friends.

Om podden

Avsnitt

Why Your Villain Falls Flat (And How to Fix It with Show, Don’t Tell) | Part 1 of the Show Don't Tell Mini Series

Diving Deep into Theme, Fate, and Storytelling with Jay Foster from Swole Initiative

GMing 101: Top DM Tips from Dragon Steel Nexus

How to Help Players Fit Into Your D&D Party

Why Your D&D Party Won’t Stay Together (And How to Fix It)

Alignment in D&D: Outdated Relic or Roleplay Goldmine?

The Lost Episode? Lessons from Ashley May King on Mastering the Art of DMing in Horror and Mystery

Long Vs Short D&D Campaigns: Which is best for you?

The Dos and Don'ts of the Early Campaign

Intro

Do Plan out the Story Arcs

Don’t Overplan

Do Allow Room for Player Added Story Arcs or Sessions

Don’t Forget the Sizzle

Do Settle on a General Theme for the Campaign

Don’t Force that Theme Every Session

Do Figure Out What Motivates Each Player and Each Character

Don’t Go Nuts with the Sprinkles (Magic Items)

Do Homebrew Monsters

Don’t Flesh out the Entire World

Do Be Willing to Go Off Script

Do ForeShadow

Writing a Homebrew One-Shot: Part 5

DND for Kids? Much Easier and More Rewarding than you Thought with The Kids Table DND

Frustration with D&D: Resolving D&D and DM concerns

Writing a Homebrew One-Shot: Part 4

DM Coaching: Timelines and Weather with Samantha Fortune

DM Goals and Resolutions for 2025

2024 in Review and What Lies In 2025

A Simple Session 0 Checklist

Get the First Session Scheduled

Set Expectations

2a. Your Expectations

2b. The party’s Expectations and Wants

Table Rules

The Premise of the Story

Playtesting

Party Connections

Tools

Challenging Yourself With Challenge Rating in D&D

Important Lessons Learned in 2024 about being a Dungeon master

Let Go

What If Questions

Sizzle It Up

Lean into Your Strengths

Have Fun

Simplify and Supercharge your World Building with Worldsmith.io

The Art of Foreshadowing: Planting Seeds for Big Reveals

To Randomize or Personalize Loot: That Is The Question

How to Start an Actual Play D&D Podcast With Brennon from the Afterlife Pod

DM Coaching: DMing for Kids and Tying Up Loose Ends with Aaron Singh

Oh No! Your party is in trouble! Deus Ex Machina, I guess??

How to Flesh Out Your Afterlife - Questions to Ask to Help Develop the Concepts of Afterlife in your Homebrew World

When Your D&D Group Loses Momentum

8 Tips for Begginner Dungeon Masters

Swole Initiative: Player Check-ins and Campaign Themes with Jay Foster

What to Spend $50 on For Your D&D Hobby

The Skills of the Dungeon Master

RAW: Voice Acting Tips from a Non-Voice Actor

Focusing on Your Strengths: What Makes You a Great DM?

RAW: How to Move DND Along

Dan Wells: What are You Good at As a GM?

How to Give Just a Little More to Your Roleplaying as a Dungeon Master

How do Bounce Back after a Bad Session | Dungeon Master Coaching with Al

Linguistic Tactics for More Realistic Characters with Ethan Myers from Lyres for Hire

How to upgrade your games with Monument Studios

In the Footsteps of Giants: Part 1

3 Questions To Determine a Combat Encounter’s Length

11 More Things Every Dungeon Master Should Remember Part 2

Things Every Dungeon Master Should Remember

It’s Not Your Sole Responsibility to Make the Game Amazing

You Get What You Give

It’s All a Skill

You Are Not Matt Mercer or Brenden Lee Mulligan

You Don’t Have to Be Completely Original

Show Don’t Tell