New DM Tips: Session 0, First Adventure, Burnout & Focusing on Fun Web DM Dungeons & Dragons

hey there youtubers it's Wednesday I'm Pruitt that guy's dead that guy's dead and that guy's still Jim Davis and today we're gonna talk about getting into that campaign new diems you prepped it all it's time to roll the dice and see where they fall let's get to it so our new dm's they got their books they got their friends read the dmg read the dmg hopefully they've started to prepare for their first adventure they've got their initial location down some NPCs some organizations some potential adventure ideas so we're basically its session zero robbery deficit right zero and so maybe you've seen the idea of this session zero concept and and it is it is the idea that before any characters are created and before the game formally starts that everybody who's going to play in the campaign gets together yeah they sit down at the same table and this is your opportunity as a new DM to formally introduce the setting perhaps I highly recommend in those initial communications that you're doing when you're finding new players that you at least give them a taste of the setting see if you can like parse it down to like an elevator pitch right now is your time to introduce it this is this this is the location that you're gonna be in here some notable features of the environment and what you want to do is you want to present setting information in such a way that the players then have some guidance when they start creating their characters so this might be where you say yeah I think this campaign is really gonna feature undead a lot that might direct the players to create maybe characters that are specifically good against undead whether or not you discuss that you know that much detail is up to you up to individual teams and so for me I like to be upfront and honest about what type of campaign that I'm running so that the players can make appropriate characters if I'm running a you know a campaign in which undead feature heavily then I'm going to be honest to be like hey undead are gonna feature heavily here let that factor into your considerations if I'm gonna be you know if I'm gonna run a campaign which takes place in an urban environment maybe lots of intrigue lists less combat in action that needs to be telegraphed because I don't want for fighters to show up for fighters in a barbarian showing up right with a combined charisma of like 20 yeah when we really needed some bards and rogues and and you know that kind of thing in there some diems don't like doing that they like to have the players make the characters sort of in the dark and in the campaign is sort of independent of that but I'm really am four and almost all things clarity and communication are gonna be better than lack of communication and lack of clarity so in this respect because this is a social game telegraphing and being honest about what you're gonna do with the campaign means that you avoid players feeling like you pull the bait and switch on them yeah time to be honest about what kind of campaign you're really yeah they make they make a completely social character and you're gonna do a dungeon diving hack-and-slash it's like right you know there's that now that all of that said there is a place for a totally social character in a dungeon delve hack and slash game and it's true there is a place for a no-holds-barred badass barbarian in a game of courtly intrigue but they are they require players who are willing to be flexible DMS who are willing to let those players think outside the box and be creative and everybody just with understanding that like yeah these characters aren't perfectly suited for this campaign but we're gonna try to make it work now is a good time to kind of kind of reiterate sort of my four sort of hierarchy of gaming needs is the relationships to the people that you play with is number one whether they are strangers that you don't otherwise interact with outside of the game or whether they are longtime friends that you've been gaming with for years your relationship with the people at the table is the most important thing before it comes before rules it comes before setting it comes before anything else don't be a dick listen to what the players are having to say try to engage everyone equally it's social gathering there may be some good snacks that's sort of my second priority there but maybe you're not playing in a setting that's conducive to do that and then and then after that it's setting and then rules and that's a good thing to sort of lay out in a session zero to just tell everybody hey in case it wasn't clear from our communication this is my style of deeming and if you don't know what your style of deeming it is because you haven't run that many games or maybe any games yet then just kind of say like well you know in reading the rules I kind of think this or we're gonna run a kind of game that's as it here's as closely to the rules as written as possible or we're gonna use these sort of options it's the time one last time for clarity sake make sure everybody's on the same page because even though you haven't d-end you've probably played video games you probably watch certain types of movies more than others you probably know just from your own experience of what you like what kind of game you're gonna run and it's also the time to get everybody fired up for the game like I get them pumped up for it and and you can do that by being really excited and animated but you also remember that they're gonna be making their characters in this world now and so the minute session zero starts it is no longer just your world right and they're gonna need to have space to make characters that they find interesting compelling that doesn't mean it needs to be a free-for-all with every conceivable option and combination thrown in there right it's possible to say well that character concept doesn't seem like it's gonna work for the game is there a way that we can compromise on something or is there an alternative that a player can think of it's helpful for the players to approach a session zero with an attitude of flexibility and not already come to the table with the character let's say like yeah I got a couple of ideas you know I'm interested in playing a fighter but I'm kind of thinking cleric might be fun and then you've got a couple of ideas for both that way when the DM pitches the the campaign sitting formally to you in session zero you can go like well you know I you know I was really really gonna do that you know that eldritch night that I thought would be fun but you know we got a barbarian we got a paladin maybe I am gonna go cleric this time around because we've already got frontline fighters covered it's not like clerics or a slouch in combat you know I play too many just fine it's fun and so a session zero gives you time to work all that out and I would say in a session zero don't feel the pressure to like let the session zero progress you're gonna want to give a couple of hours for for character creation first off maybe not everybody has a book and so someone has to share a book maybe somebody did show up with a premade character and they're sitting there twiddling their thumbs I would really encourage that person to say like hey I know you brought a character already but after hearing what I have to say about the setting is this character gonna fit sometimes the player brings a character that's perfect and it's perfectly fine and meshes with the rest of them another advantage of doing a session zero and group character creation is that the characters or the players can talk to each other hey well I'm thinking of doing this well I'm thinking doing this well we don't have an archanis covered yet so it allows them to sort of talk it out and to pick classes and race combos that complement each other as well as their own play styles and to I would encourage them at this point to start thinking like how do your characters know each other and have every character have at least one connection to another character they all have to know each other but it makes everything easier if you don't add on the added pressure of having to make sure that for random yahoos the PCs not the players come together and and and now they have to form a super team you know and you don't want to have to do you know each one of them get their own season before they get the team-up you want to jump directly to the team-up and the session zero is a great way to do that this is also as they're making their characters a chance for you to impart any information that their class might know about them change to the world and to tie their backgrounds into the setting that's what those backgrounds are for so by the end of character creation make sure that everybody's background ties and its correspond somewhere to the location that you have prepared for that first adventure okay so session zero is over everybody everybody's all full of character creation they got their Doritos and they're ready to roll some dice they are ready to roll some dice so we're sitting down for our very first adventure yeah this may or may not happen immediately after character creation it might happen time later I if possible try to run something after character freeze yeah who didn't that even if it's just an encounter because I'll say this for that the the Monday game uh-huh I was at least glad that after cuz we were there for like two and a half almost three hours cuz seven to ten and it was like 9:45 when our DM came over I'm just kind of sitting there he's an I hate y'all want to run something I want to do something and we were all like yeah yeah because you spent all this time you've been thinking maybe you've been thinking about it all week your characters your players have talking about their characters or whatever who knows yeah but they get there and they make their characters alright we'll see you all next week it's all next week right and like you said you want to get them excited give them excited yeah so maybe just a quick encounter in order so that we doesn't seem like we're giving contradictory advice you shouldn't feel pressure to rush through character creation but you should also budget in time to make sure that there is time for some group role playing everybody kind of feeling out where their characters at what sort of role they're going to take on in the group combats can be fun for that everybody gets to see sort of what they're capable of particularly if the combats consequence-free or relatively consequence-free and it's just gonna be like alright let's see what you guys got an ambush on the road as you're traveling to the location might be what you're accosted by bandits who want to take all your belongings and have to fight them off you come across a group of low-level humanoids roughing up a traveler and now is your opportunity to kind of step in and see what see what you're made of so you can take it back to the end and get all stereotypical with it but you're in the end and maybe there's some some some ruffians about town run there in there and maybe they're being inappropriate with a barmaid and the bartender's frustrated and that that is as a way to let's see what your how much your players are willing to get up in the business no one is directly like can anyone help us it's just you know this bartender is just like ah you know these guys every week whatever but at least you can gauge like woah hey hey buddy hey buddy need to pick somebody else on your own side you know right and see if they resolve it without without fighting yeah maybe even you know just see how see how they resolve it and it's a it's a good time to sort of mention that like not every antagonist needs to be fought and not every fight needs to be to the death you know the tendency is for like okay well there's a bar fight well swords come out and fireballs start being thrown around and that's like maybe just fisticuffs yeah this time around maybe a sleep spell or charm spell and it's your opportunity to set expectations that way right that's why I like the bar idea you have because it's like well it could be a fight it could be bloody it could be not you could create rivals afterwards you could impress some of the locals maybe your characters on the way to the the settlement where we are stumble across a monster lair and they do battle with a kind of a low-level beastie and have an opportunity to then claim bragging rights when they get to the summit like oh yeah we took care of that dire wolf that was out there here's its head or you know we we tussled with you know this particular enemy or you know we fought that ogre you know it might be a tough fight for first level characters you're gonna want to be generous with letting them recover from that fight but if they're at full capacity and that's the only fight they're gonna have that day then they'll probably be okay some of them might get roughed up some of them might fall to 0 but maybe you just say hey for this fight even if you get knocked to 0 you get back you know you'll be you'll be back up in a couple minutes and if you have in a freak accident and your first combat of a session it results in everyone being knocked to 0 there are ways to recover from that enemies don't have to be as ruthless as the PCs they don't have to kill the party they might save them for a snack for later now the players have an opportunity to escape yeah in the ogres lair right well he's over there with his back to Oh making a stew yes he's an ogre he's got big clumsy fingers he didn't tie those those bonds very well you know or if it's like a tribe of goblins and it goes south for the players there's just like well then they're robbed of some of their gear but goblins don't know how much things are worth so most of the valuable stuff is still there just like lost all your gold something like that those are ways that you can recover I have never had that happen yeah although I have been a player that suffered a TPK here in the first session and you know we made new characters then and just kind of rolled with it first adventure yeah maybe you've looked in the dmg you've you know you've seen some of those adventure ideas that they have there you've supplemented that with some media that you're really into that you're drawing inspiration from talking to your character players maybe something they've said has helped spur your imagination and you're ready to run there's some first things that you want to make sure sort of happen in your first adventure this is a good time to introduce whatever conflicts are going on in your setting or that you want to highlight in in your game so let's say faction a in faction be are enemies in your campaigning you know that you want to involve them somehow now is a good time to either hear a rumor about it witness the scuffle between these two factions and allow the players to get involved not get involved observe talk to the people afterwards something like that but by the end of that first adventure you want to have some kind of conflict that the players can get involved in you want them to feel like that they have a better idea about the game world that they know what they can and can't get involved in yet and so introducing a conflict and the first adventure can be helpful in that regard thinking about encounters when you really think about them there's like five different things that need to be included in in in and encounter an antagonist to be fought or not but some kind of threat right a potential ally that you could over maybe it takes some clever role-playing or doing the right thing to get them to be on your side maybe you could screw it up and then ally could become an enemy it's possible for an enemy to become an ally there's a reward that you gain there's some sort of puzzle or trick trap that needs to be overcome figured out interacted with or and this is the weird one nothing could happen nothing is a perfectly legitimate outcome for an encounter it worked for Seinfeld it could work in detail you have a group of your players that want to go to the tavern to buy drinks they don't get involved in a fight they don't really ask for any rumors and nothing really happens but it is your chance to introduce an element of the setting what's the tavern like what's the Lord of the locals like are they friendly are they standoffish was there someone there who seemed like they were particularly interested in what you were doing so even if no action happens no dice are rolled yeah it's possible to have an empty room in the dungeon that's perfectly fine it's possible to have an encounter in town that is empty empty encounter calories well it's just our peak and it's character development because that happened a lot during my spell jammer campaign for the VAR longtime viewers they've heard us talk about this many times but there are many times where I just sat back and you know we're just on the ship talking or you went to a bar and you're talking and it's occasionally you talk to the bartender or someone else there but y'all were just kind of like talking about what you wanted to do it was fine because when you get characters that are players that are invested in their characters enough and they want to push that development forward right well then I don't have to as the DM you don't have to go people into role-playing right they want to do players have shown up to play right they are seeking adventure and they should not make it difficult to do that they should pick up on hooks they might not pick up on the hooks that you want them to but they should pick up on some kind of hook and if their response is to just sit there and cross their arms and not do anything and that's kind of like a hey man do you really want to play they might not be interested it might not be what they expected now is their chance to get it out to go do something rather than disrupt your game later this sort of formula for an ally an enemy a reward a puzzle nothing it applies to every encounter you will ever have whether that's a dungeon encounter that takes place in a room underground and this carefully prepared dungeon that you have whether it's a wilderness encounter that takes place on the road that you rolled up hit'em leak that you prepped and planned for so the players visit the high priest of whatever muckety-muck cult or religion you have that's a potential ally which could lead to a potential reward and at the end of that encounter they should have a player should have enough information to make a decision about what to do next if they're in a dungeon and they fought the orcs that are guarding the pie and the tin foot room and they've collected the reward from the treasure then there should be information about where to go next it's there don't worry about the pie wait there's pie there's a meat pie it's haffley so there should be at the end of every encounter there should be enough information that the players can decide what to do next right sometimes you have encounters that are designed to deplete the party's resources and that's their sole purpose but for encounters that are meant to propel the party in a certain direction or are you know that the players went to the high priest they you know maybe they saw notice that the high priest posted maybe they heard a rumor about it maybe one of the players was just like hey I'm a part of this religion maybe they've got something for me to do I see the Pope I'm gonna go see the Pope that there's something that allows them to move forward make a decision I would offer at least three possible outcomes for that that they've met with the high priest and they've known they know that there are a bunch of hobgoblins who are building a temple to a rival God in the region and it's your job now to just go see what they're up to so now we have some decisions that need to be made do we gear up do we go and try to find you know do we need to hit up a shop and get you're gonna restock for anything buy something that you didn't get during character creation maybe the high priest has you know something special for you that he's gonna give you to assist you in this and you've got to go talk to sister so-and-so and she's gonna give you the healing potions and whatever the scrolls that you need you decide do we get help in this do we find allies to assist us or are we ready to do this on our own do we know where they are are we ready to go there immediately and start forming reconnaissance so all of those are decisions that need to be made and it should be obvious after the end of that encounter what they're supposed to do if it's not obvious then as the DM somewhere along the line you didn't give enough information and it's the dm's job to dispense information in such a way that the players can make meaningful choices about the game if you are not being upfront and clear everybody's different some players some DMS don't if the players know the monster stats some players and some teams don't care if the if the players know more about the game than they maybe should because they want the players to have an idea of what's gonna happen and the consequences of their actions I like a little mystery and some it really gets under my skin if I if it seems like the players are aimless they don't know what to do that is a fault of the DM because there's not enough information now if after you've given that information you've been explicit and clear hey these are the stakes the high priest wants you to check out this temple seems like you guys not really clear what to do and they're still coming we don't really know what to do that could be another issue maybe they're not invested they don't care they're just kind of playing along and that's unfortunate if that happens don't let it discourage you just kind of talk it out hey this is the adventure I have planned you know if you guys aren't really into it it doesn't have to last more than a couple of hours you know that kind of thing and give me a chance is a perfectly legitimate thing as a new DM to say at the end of an encounter we've learned something that propelled that propels us to the next encounter leads to follow up on new information about the setting new information about the conflict new information about the organization and that's really kind of it prepare five or six of these encounters and mix them up maybe some of them are combat Orion maybe some of them are role-playing oriented maybe some of them involve the players using their skills that they have to uh know to get information I would be careful to not lock the leads that the part that the party will use to go to the next thing behind a die roll so an example of this would be what you didn't get your perception check to notice the clue that leads you to the next thing right because you only included one clue and you put it behind a skill you skill locked it so if you want to make sure that doesn't happen you leave more than one clue and you make sure that at least one of them is automatic that they will find this as long as they show up they found it we cover this a bit more in our show on mysteries which will go really in depth on that and so that's your first adventure right like they've had five or six encounters they've learned something about the world maybe they fought something maybe they uncovered a treasure they did something made an a like made some good impressions man put food of themselves who knows right when should a DM or should a DM set campaign goals I think that they should work with the players to set campaign goals I think it's the players job to set campaign goals with the input of the DM so the players might say you know on a first level thief right now I want to work my way up in the guild until I'm like the head cut purse but at the same time I want a massive big enough fortune that I can you know do XYZ Ford to buy my mom that house she deserves just like happy going on right so that's now you have some goals okay and then what I would start doing is make sure that you've got every players input on goals and then see where you can start matching them up right and see where you can start making the goals sort of a line with themselves all right so so Enzo wants to be the the finest cut person in the city and earn a bunch of money he's gonna give to his mom's that's gonna line up with the wizard who really needs to go explore some of these ancient tombs because looking for a lost spell scroll hmm and you know those are the kinds that's sort of the way and then the fighter wants to make a name for himself because you know that's how he's gonna get in good with the local Lord gonna Mattei Shahnaz a fierce warrior and a skilled swordsman and so that you know there's there's you know all three of these goals can be accomplished at this convenient dungeon that I provided for you exactly that you found out about using your your you know listening for rumors or searching for rumors are just kind of talking role-playing but you you just kind of let that campaign evolve you want to be in communication with your players over what they want to do that's going to help you prep you should end the session in that first session with like okay this is what you guys are going to do next session here's here's the things that you learned and you know here are the rewards that you got for learning that so that you've ended that first session with everything clear you know what they're gonna do but eventually you're gonna get two sessions where you're not quite sure what's gonna happen next so you want to be careful in talking to the players and say like well what do you guys what do you think your next move is you have maybe remind them you have this information what are you gonna do with it and trying to get a feel for what they'd like to do and where they want to go now if they tell you they want to do one thing and they get to the session and do something completely different you are well within your rights to be like hey guys you told me you're gonna do this thing yeah I prepped for it if you wanted to do the other thing we can do that next week there's a way to sort of compromise on that then hopefully you're don't have players that spring that kind of stuff on you yeah I mean yeah it's kind of that's kind of shady right if you're 18 of a session like hey guys what do I want to do next time I think we should go to the lines and take out those those those drag are whatever yeah let's do it alright guys so you're going to month actually you know what let's go to the temple and can that temple you know take an hour and then you can go to the mines is it something you can do you know you can have after the mines you know try to try to figure out a way to you know not completely say no you are not doing that but it is a legit thing to say hey this is what I prepped I am NOT ready to run this thing you want to do if you want to do this thing then you're either gonna need to give me time and we can't play this week or we can do this thing I've prepped for in the next week we can do this other thing thinking about a campaign over all scenes and encounters form to make a session and individual sessions form to make a campaign there's really no trick to it as long as those things are present you will have a campaign whether it makes sense whether there's a clear line from point A to point B to the end is another matter entirely I am a big proponent of the emergent campaign there is no plot there is no anything don't prep a plot don't don't have an end goal in mind just create an environment offer things in it organizations locations magic items conflicts NPCs things that the players want things that the players might not realize they want that you're gonna offer instead and having those things in the campaign and introducing them when it seems appropriate or when the players you know discover them or if it's a logical consequence of events and allowing that to unfold into a campaign is sort of what it means to not try to direct the course of events or to have a preset goal in mind so some examples of how this looks is like alright we've we've done three sessions now with this for this high priest we figured out what's going on with these hobgoblins yes they're building a temple to some dark and malign deity we're ready by fourth level or third level to go lead some kind of attack on it to try to stop them you know and then we've completed that that session is done well did they impress anyone in in town while while while doing this who might want to approach them for another job did they make any enemies that might want revenge or to follow up on it or is there information that's unclear to them that they need to seek out a sage or or something like that to get clarity on usually I find by about five to six sessions in there's been enough stuff that's been presented to the party that players will start picking up something right and as long as they're clear with you what that something is you know how the course of the campaign is gonna go yeah because once they start picking up on those plot threads and actually pulling on them right well normally if a player if the players getting engaged and start pulling the plot threads they're gonna fall I mean you don't have to worry about that right and I'm just going to tangent all the sudden world's coming to an end guys you know what we haven't taken a vacation we haven't taken a vacation off although there are times when a vacation session is really fun ember island man yes less than airbender absolutely so you know after maybe once per tier there just needs to be a completely free forum what do you guys want to do you want to go party you want to go hit up these people that they can be really fun to have something like that so now it's a good time to say something that I think is it hopefully will be a relief to new DMS you're not responsible for the players fun right you are not there to ensure they have a good time they're big boys and girls yeah they have come to play a game unless there's some kind of like real-life troll / performance artist that's really just there to make everybody's lives difficult there should be they have a responsibility to themselves into the players that they are playing with to approach the game with an attitude of flexibility fun and of not creating a disturbance and so if you find you have a player that's just not fitting in not gelling now it's the it's time to sort of take them aside me like what's going on are you not having a good time and it might be it might be you you can't take it personally it might be the DM or it might be another player and that part that player that's causing a disturbance needs to be given it out hey no harm no foul let's just call it right now and then they're on their way but DM has put a lot of pressure on themselves when they're like man my players have to have fun and it's my responsibility it's like hold on there's four other people at that table not just you everyone there has a responsibility to everyone else to make sure the game goes smoothly to make sure that they understand the rules as best they can it will be a learning process for everyone and so that's kind of don't put that pressure on yourself as a new DM yeah you know your campaign might run for a long time it might run for you know ten levels to twenty levels however long I find that there'll be a natural ending point in terms of people's interest and your own enthusiasm for the campaign and it's best to be kind of honest about that yeah if you're if you're getting burned out then it's best to just tell apart hey kinda getting burned out we can either do something different or start up something new or someone else can take over DM e that's a big don't for for deems don't put that on yourself right what are some other do's and don'ts for for new Dean's to handle so number one do always do is validate or acknowledge the imaginations of other people if and so so for instance try to remember the characters names try to remember have have their bonds ideals and flaws written down somewhere us that you can award inspiration from that and encourage the other players at the table to validate and acknowledge what other players are doing this is sort of like an improv thing of yes you know I mean like build it up yes and you know not have it be that the players feel like well the DM doesn't really know what's going on with my character or they don't seem interested in it you don't have to love the player characters no you don't have to but you should make sure that the players at the table feel like everyone is buying in to this shared imagination space yeah that's that's the word I'm going for and so that involves a bit of validation a bit of yes anding and that's where improv can yeah everybody needs to buy a ticket to the theater of the mind I mean come on right exactly there's more don'ts than there are dues I'm afraid try to resist fudging yeah no that's true try to resist fudging if you find that you roll the die and it's like and like that outcome then chances are a couple of things happened either you asked asked for a die roll or rolled a diamond there didn't need to be one or you know you're not fully prepared for sort of the consequences of that die roll so the game runs better when you let the die fall where they may that's why I roll in the open as a DM and I let my players see my die rolls and everybody else sees them and that's just what it is so try to resist fudging if you fudge don't beat yourself up over it it's not the end of the world we're you know we're not fanatics here on web DM you know there are time there's a time in the place for fudging and sometimes it is appropriate but I would resist it and and just let the dice fall where they may yeah the only time I ever know knew that you fudge cuz you actually told me was when I was playing avid on a pre gen care for the plains and I failed the out of - Tek save on a lightning bolt and got hit and you rolled like you just remember you just rolled it you look down I saw the look on your face and when the DM goes doesn't tell you how much damage you towed but goes how many hit points do that yeah I got like 45 yeah you take 44 no no you know I know you said you take 45 and I was like okay I was like are you drop okay okay and then after I was like how much did you run he's like I rolled like 66 it was like you know you were you would have been dead like you know whatever I'm like why didn't you know like I really liked that character yeah sometimes it happens but the thing is it took me out of combat it was still a harrowing fight after that because I was the main one of the main fighters right in there you go but so I mean there's a time and a place for fudging but I in general I would say try to resist it the next to don'ts are Biggie's and they are things that as both a player and a DM drive me up a wall and they are do not do not capital D do not dictate the thoughts actions or feelings of the PCs that is the realm of the players yeah there is magic that can influence those things calm emotion spell it comes to mind their previous some monsters or other different spells that this gave me at the moment that can magically impose thoughts and conditions and actions on the players control you should be clear when those things are happening and make it clear if the source of that magic is unknown that the that the PC feels like yes you feel a force coming over you causing you to feel anger or whatever but one of the things that I see with with a lot of DMS is they want to say like well you feel like this like hold up hey just really drives me wall and related to that is try very hard it will happen occasionally but try very hard not to undermine the choices of the players and this is a very controversial subject and there's a ton of advice out there on DMing dealing with meaningful choices for players how you present choices to the players and ways that you can structure your campaigns I find a lot of that advice while useful is also extraneous listen to your players try to understand why they're doing what they're doing what's going on and don't once you understand that understood that don't then go yeah that doesn't matter I'm gonna do this other thing anyway that that leads to the most heinous of railroading and that's where Rayleigh they are on or rail it doesn't matter what they do the train is going all you can do is jump off the train at that point like well yeah and that we really usually where there's a that's usually where campaign in ins period full stop so try not to undermine the choices of your players if you feel the need to undermine their choices seriously examine like why am I doing this is this my precious syndrome my precious setting syndrome coming into play because you're like man I really love this thing about my setting I'm just gonna tweak it so that no no they didn't want to do it whatever it was they didn't want to and so being able to resist those urges to fudge to try to tell the players well I think you should probably do it like this or this is how it should go like if you're able to resist those impulses you'll find that the game flows much more smoothly that the players are engaged and if they're not it's no problem no big deal I you know a couple of other do's and don'ts are if they don't bite let it slide right that that you whatever you prepped put it in a folder save it for later keep all of that recycle it if you don't lose it but the the worst thing is to try to keep throwing the same plot hook out there and the players every time yeah we're not interested let it slide yeah there's always another day for that plot keep pushing those fire goblins Jim but we just don't care we just don't care and yes hopefully this series was was interesting and useful for new DMS or starting DMS we will have a companion sort of series later on in the summer focusing on players how to be a good player out of how to find inspiration for role-playing things like that but I think for DMS there's a lot of pressure and hopefully this video series has given you some ideas thank you for sticking it out with us and check out the rest of the video [Music] there's the fact that there's not an RPG that simulates cold warrior a dog fighting is a tragedy epic proportions there's no I mean I don't know I feel like that there would like the dog fight the dog fighting rules in star in Weston Star Wars I don't quite remember them that well but I remember them being kind of complicated and like X x-wing is the closest thing that I've come to a game that simulates dog fighting yeah there you go play the slower setting up our x-wing game yeah you have my I've played four or five games of it with the Wemo yeah yeah with the dice oh yeah with you and Josh play yeah we played several with different kinds of setups and it seemed like it was kind of fun but not it lasts about three hours too long yeah what seems like it's kind of fun and then it just gets old we did one where like it's usually here's how every we played four games in every game of them went like this the first clash usually ends up with two or three ships being destroyed and then it's just a you're never gonna hit me like it's just twisting and winding and it's three hours of just like my interceptor can never get a good shot off on us hey know any good

Channel: Web DM

Views: 370,345

Rating: 4.9501147 out of 5

Keywords: Dungeons, Dragons, Role, Playing, Tabletop, Game, 5th, Edition, D&D, dnd, webdm, web dm, rpg, dm tips, new dm, dungeon master, dungeons and dragons, new player, dungeon masters guide, dm, gm, gm tips, geek and sundry, dungeons & dragons, d&D, how to play dungeons & dragons, how to play dungeons and dragons 5e, how to play dnd, how to dm, how to gm, 5e, new dm tips, how to run a dungeons and dragons game, run, adventure, campaign, leader, problem players, problem players d&d, running the game

Id: 2JhBOeVVWKU

Length: 38min 51sec (2331 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Oops_sorryy]

Favorite DnD YouTube channel currently. You can really tell they put a lot of effort into each video.

[u/PacThePhoenix]

I look forward to Wednesdays for Web DM. Right now, I'm browsing Reddit and listening to your videos in the background, and it's great. Thanks for the quality content!

[u/VaranusNiloticus]

great episode! I hoped they would dwell on advise to avoid or recover from burnout a bit more.