User blog:Dragokar62/DM Tips and Tricks

DM Tips and Tricks

I’ve learned a thing or two along the journey from being a rookie DM to where I am now. Some of those lessons were hard ones and some were easy to figure out, but all of them were important lessons to learn about bringing a game world to life for my players. Now, not every DM is the same, and frankly, it should be that way. If it were the same way each time, it would get boring fast, but there are some tips and tricks for new DM’s to help overcome some of those pitfalls that players love to throw at you. Most of this is really just some sound and well used advice on how to run your game or even how to design your own game world from the bottom up. I hope you find something in here useful.

The first tip I can give to a new DM is to learn as much about the rules of the game as you possibly can before starting up your game. The DM is the referee of their game and players need to know right where your boundaries are. They will try to test them to see how far they can push them and knowing the basic rules of the games help you make rulings about those things. It’s not that the players are trying to go beyond what the book says they can do intentionally, but they see an opportunity to do something that goes outside of the basic rules and feel that their character should be able to do those things. If you’re familiar with the rules of the book, you can look at what they are trying to do and decide if that would over-balance your game or make it more enjoyable. Sometimes, breaking those rules can be fun for everyone without tipping the balance one way or another.

The key thing to remember is, the words written in the Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide are not rules, they are guidelines. You, as the DM, make the rules. Every edition of Dungeons & Dragons has stated that they are guidelines, not rules, and that Dungeon Masters should make their own determinations on how to interpret those guidelines. For example, a rogue in 5th Edition has only one attack for their entire career according to the book. When I saw that, I felt that this limited the rogue considerably in combat, so I changed that to give them a second attack at 5th level. This is my house rule only, not something I feel others should adopt. You have that right as the DM, to add or subtract guidelines from your game.

Making a ruling about a particular guideline requires that you understand the guideline as written and how the player wants to use this. It might require some questions being asked of the player, to determine if this is something they feel would enhance the moment or to bypass something you’ve set up during the adventure. Some players don’t like to lose. Some players don’t want their character to take damage! But if what you have designed enhances the game and is more to your liking, and what they propose is just a way for them to avoid a bad situation, then they aren’t doing it for the right reasons and you can rule against them for this very reason. Don’t let your players dictate to you along these lines. Now if what they propose would be considered a “heroic” moment and you feel it might make the session go better, and it won’t upset the balance of the adventure, by all means, allow them that moment in the sun. Sometimes, it’s about the “rule of cool” over the rules as written.

The next tip I’d like to give is, be prepared, at least enough to run a smooth game. If you come in with nothing in mind and you’re going to “wing it”, you might come off as unprepared and it’ll bog the game down. You don’t have to have pages of dialogue or cover every single possibility for your players, but at least make some notes on what you have planned. Have some handy NPC names ready, just in case they go to a town or meet someone on the road. Know where they are going and be ready for those encounters. Maybe even make up an encounter chart for when they travel. Just a few monsters that are common to that area so that you don’t have to fumble through the Monster Manual to find something that fits.

When I prepare for a session, I have a synopsis of what happened in the last session so that everyone knows where they were and where they’ve been and then I have my next session written out with some examples, some possible side quests and who they might interact with. I don’t try to cover every possibility they might throw at me, because, frankly, that never works. Players can kill your session with just one quick turn when you least expect it, so don’t try to plan for all of it, just the basics of your plot line. I make sure that NPCs are covered and what they can do for the PCs should that need arise. I keep all of the pages I work on from the start of the campaign to the end, so that I can reference those during the game, just in case they choose to backtrack. Inn names, tavern names, shop names, those things should be readily available during the session to avoid having to come up with it on the fly. Otherwise, you can wing the dialogue and even wing what they might encounter as they go.

Another tip is, don’t let what the players do ruin it for you. I can’t count how many times I agonized over a particular session, having everything laid out in a nice, tidy package, only to have the players blow it up within 30 minutes of the session starting. Rather than get bummed out by this total destruction of your session, roll with it. Find a way to guide them back to the main thrust of your session through some bread crumbs or a chance encounter with an NPC that will lead them right back to where you wanted them to go. But before you do that, find out where they’re going with this sharp right turn and see if maybe that might make for a really fun session. Make some fast notes on things they might run into, or NPCs they might meet. Find out what they intend to do with this change and see if it might even enhance what you had designed for the evening. Don’t be afraid to add some levity to it, as well. They might be doing it to mess with you, or they might have misinterpreted what you had in mind for them, but either way, don’t demand they return to start and go the way you want them to. Linear adventures aren’t too fun for the players.

Roleplay your important NPCs. I’m not saying you should give them a distinct voice (unless you want to), but give them a distinct personality that the players can either love or hate. If it’s a bad NPC that isn’t on their side, make them a jerk. Let the players hate them. You know you’re doing your job if your players have some strong feelings toward your NPCs. Think like the NPC, as well. If they don’t like the characters for some reason, find a way to drag useful information out of them during conversation. Insult the characters, belittle the characters, make the characters angry, but smile while doing it. Now, if the opposite is true and you have an NPC that likes them, play that side up as well. Give a little extra information to the characters, or try to help them in some small way. This can be used later, if this NPC is going to be a part of the plot of the campaign, as this connection to them can be used to pull the party into a situation they wouldn’t normally go into. Have the NPC be in danger and the players will rush to their aid. The key thing to do here is, roleplay the NPCs so that the players become invested in them, one way or another.

Combat. The hardest part of being a DM. You look at your character levels and you think, yeah, I can throw this at them. Then the monster wipes the floor with them and you’re left wondering what went wrong. Or, the opposite. The players blow through your big bad monster in two rounds and you feel cheated somehow. It happens to the best of us and you can’t really do much about it, but there are some tips you can use to fill in those gaps when they kick your monster’s butt quick. One of my favorite tricks is to have a few minions of the monster wander in after the fight, catching the party in loot mode, and attack. It might not be a huge danger to the party, but it keeps the flavor of the moment intact. Another trick is to beef up the monster in mid-fight. Add hit points to them so that they don’t die so fast. Give them an extra attack in there to keep it interesting. Add a special defense to them so that the party has to work a little harder to kill it. The monsters are there for the party to kill, that’s just how the game is played, but you can find ways to prolong it if you need to.

Now let’s look at the opposite, where the monster is too tough for them. One of the things you can do is shave some hit points off of them to make it a little easier. Lower their AC a point or two (or more, depending) so the players can hit them. Use the average damage listed in the Monster Manual rather than roll it so the players don’t take quite as much damage. Don’t use those nasty special abilities the monster has listed. It’s not required that you do, so if it looks bleak, don’t use them. Or, you could have the monster come to realize that they aren’t worthy of its time and just run off. Leave them wounded, but alive, but they also know that they just got lucky. That never hurts them, trust me. It shows their mortality and they’ll respect that monster later on.

The one thing I used to suggest, but I don’t anymore, is fudging dice rolls. You roll a 20 and you know that’s going to really hurt them, so you just say it was a regular hit. I don’t do this anymore because it creates this feeling of invulnerability in players, and at higher levels, they don’t fear death. Character death is always a possibility and they should know this. Having them experience that makes the game seem a bit more dangerous, which it should feel that way, so now, if I roll a 20 and you die, then that’s the way the game is played. Sometimes, that character death can lead to some very touching and very amazing roleplay opportunities. Sometimes, one of the characters might not accept the other character’s death and want to find a way to bring them back. Run with that. Give them an opportunity to do something heroic for a party member. Don’t make it easy by having a wandering 20th level cleric come by. Make them drag the body to a village where a guy knows a guy who might be able to help. Maybe turn it into a quest. Find all of these herbs, which are located locally, but in dangerous places. And when they come back with the herbs and the guy mixes them, you have your party member back. It can be fun. Or, if you feel this could be a good lesson in character death, allow them to die, but before you do that, speak to the player in question privately and find out how they see it. They might be ok with it and do the “death scene”, or they might really be attached to this character and want to see them come back somehow. Like I said, good roleplay opportunities.

Well, those are just a few of the tips and tricks I use and have used for many years as a DM. I’m sure I could write a book on some of the things I’ve done over the years and some of the things I shouldn’t have done over the years, but I’ll stop here for now with one more piece of advice. Being a DM is one of the hardest jobs, but also one of the most rewarding. To put together a campaign for a group of players and watching them having a good time going through it is one of the most rewarding moments I can think of, and having them looking forward to the next one is even better. Always work toward improving your game, be it through better preparation or better roleplay. Never feel that you can’t learn something new, and more importantly, try something new. That’s what I do.