Ten Principles for Dungeon Masters in Dungeons and Dragons

all Dungeon Master's new and old have developed their own philosophies for how to run the Dungeons & Dragons game today we're going to talk about the top 10 principles that we use to help guide our game we hope you find them useful and inspiring - greetings Dungeon Master's my name is Monty Martin and I'm Kelley mcLaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes today we're taking a look at the top 10 principles that we use to help run our D&D games these are more than just our top 10 tips' they're more like a guiding principle their philosophies that we keep in mind that help us run fun rewarding and memorable experiences at the Dungeons & Dragons game table and any role-playing game we play yeah they're really the heart of what makes these role-playing games memorable and fun for everyone and that's why we talk about our principle 0 our absolute rule 0 as being how to have fun and yet having fun I would say is is not even part of this list because it is the reason you play this game in the first place it's not a principle it's a priority having fun isn't a tip that you can say that gives you any action to make the game better but it's something that you have to keep in mind whenever things are tense whenever you're not on the right track remember you're here to have fun and that's why you're playing this game and if you're using that as your guiding light it's really hard to go wrong if everyone at the table is laughing and smiling having a good time you ran a good game as a Dungeon Master you are doing a great job because that's all you need to do and if people are not having fun then really what's the point of playing the game in the first place exactly and so more than just having fun and having a great time our principles our philosophy for running great games because Dungeons & Dragons can be so much more than just entertainment and there's a lot of great strategies in our principles that you can use to make sure or that everyone is having a good time and is fully engaged with the game so with that let's get it rolling so as we get into our principles I just want to take a moment to say this is by no means an exhaustive list there are so many tips and principles that you can use as a dungeon master to make your game even better and there's more principles and ideas out there than we have time for in this video that's where you come in because if you feel there's anything we missed or any of these that you disagree with or sure about Alice about it in the comments below also we're not going to list these in any particular order they all kind of work cohesively together to make a really great gaming experience now our first principle principle one is know your players principle two is be consistent and fair and principle three is foster a positive environment principle four is use the rules as a tool principle five is no one to roll the dice and principle six is keep track of time principle seven is be prepared to improvise principle eight is be forthcoming with information and principle nine is embrace your players creativity we also have a principle acts but you're gonna hear about that one a little bit later on in the episode it's our secret weapon that you can use to make any game way more awesome right in the moment principle one is know your players and I have to say that if you know your players and you know yourself you need not ever fear running a bad game yeah knowing your players helps you set expectations understand what everybody around the table expects out of the game what their favorite play styles is and what their favorite aspects of D&D in general are when you incorporate things into the game such as characters scenarios and places and worlds that a-site your players passions and interests they get really engaged and engaged players will drive the action of the game all by themselves some people love the rules of D&D they love exploiting and understanding those rules so that they can use them to you've overcome all the situations yeah for players like that changing the rules of the game or ignoring them makes the game less fun for them there's other players that they love immersing themselves in a world they like feeling like it's a real place that they can get to know and they like to take the game seriously and taking it seriously makes it fun for them so when there's pop-culture references or zany antics or things that are just super unrealistic it actually makes the game less fun for them even though those are the things that get everybody laughing that actually might impair their fun and some players might look at that aspect and kind of get bored or burdened by it yeah and instead they're the kind of player that is just waiting for the next opportunity to smash some bad guys the best way to get to know your players whether they're new players that you've been playing with for only one day or people that you've been playing with for years is to have it get together talk about your expectations and what everyone expects from the game and what they want from it we often call this a session zero which is an opportunity for everybody to gather around and and set the right expectations to understand the tone of the game that you're about to run yeah it's important to do this before you decide on your characters before you decide on your campaign setting even maybe your campaigns premise maybe even before you decide to play Dungeons and Dragons versus any of the hundreds of other role-playing games that are out there and one of the things to keep in mind a crazy experience that I've had is I've run a session zero and at the end of session zero everyone looked at each other like we can't play D&D with each other this is not going to work it was a surreal experience but sometimes people are so different and they want such different things out of the experience of Dungeons & Dragons that they might not actually work well together in the same campaign yeah and the important note on that is you yourself as a DM you need to keep your expectations and your wants in insight as well yeah you don't want to set up this game and like to everybody else but then set yourself up to not have fun in your own game so by talking about this by getting to know each other you're gonna line up your expectations and be able to run a game that everyone's gonna find something to enjoy in principle to is be consistent and fair and this really pertains to making rulings and narrating the outcomes of your players actions because as the dungeon master you're gonna have to exercise your judgment many times over the course of a game session when you are consistent and fair in your judgments your players will trust you to make the right call and we cannot stress enough how important Trust is at the gaming table players need to trust you that you'll follow through with the expectations that you set together when they do this they're able to deeply engage with the world and that trust allows their creativity and imaginations to really flourish yeah and as as a DM you have so much power over the way your table is going to operate and one of my favorite quotes with great power comes great responsibility yeah if you are inconsistent with how you manage the rules of the game or how you interact with your players at the table if things aren't consistent your players get frustrated because they feel like they're just playing guessing game to your wins and that really works against that environment of trust it's so important to real playing games another thing that you need to make sure you're consistent with is treating everybody equally as people as well when we play in a world that is consistent with rules that we feel are fair and we are treated equally with respect this creates an environment of trust where people can feel free this feeling of freedom an agency that our choices and actions actually matter this is the heart of what makes one playing games so magical and so much fun principle three is foster a positive environment this has to do with your actual game table being a very positive place in a safe place for people to come and explore the game anger hostility aggression these kind of feelings break trust immediate and when players feel hostile towards each other or even worse when there's hostility between you as a dungeon master and one of the players it is impossible for the game to run smoothly or even at all when you're at your game table you need to treat everybody there with respect it's it's a place where you and your friends or new friends are coming and gathering around to experience something together and there's no reason that anybody should feel bad at the end of a game session there there's no way that you should have fun at the expense of someone else's dignity absolutely if someone's actions in-game or their conduct and etiquette at the table or making other players feel frustrated upset distracted or even threatened or attacked you are the leader as the dungeon master and it is your responsibility to put a stop to it immediately as a DM you're also responsible for your own conduct at the table you do expect a lot from your players and you want them to all maintain a very positive environment but you are kind of the referee of all of this and you need to be there to maintain that positive environment for everyone you're very much the leader of the dungeon master and while we like to make jokes about the DeeAnn being adversarial with the players the reality of it is is that playing mind games with people or making people feel like you as a dungeon master is are out to get them really creates an uncomfortable environment at the table now having this positive environment doesn't mean that you can't play a game that deals with a very very serious and dark subject matter but that's all ok as long as those themes and ideas are kept to the fiction of the fantasy world that you and your friends are trying to create together and they are not something that is present and real in the social situation at your table I think this all boils down to don't be a dick those are dragons has a bunch of rules and it's important that you use those rules as tools to make a better game yeah the the rules are there to make D&D into a game and not just improvise storytelling yeah the rules are something that as the dungeon master you always had the final authority about how they work in play but the rules are also part of the expectations and that that feed into that environment of trust yeah one of the things that I'm always very careful with in my game is I don't want to be flipping through a rulebook in the middle of a session yeah it takes away from the entire atmosphere of what's going on in the table so rules disputes are a huge way to just disrupt the entire float I mean I love to take this piece of advice from wargaming that whenever you don't agree on a rule roll a d6 and on a four or more goes the DMS away and on a three or less goes the players way and then after the game make a commitment to talking about it and working out how it's gonna work in the future when you make rules and rulings you're always gonna set a precedent for the next time that thing comes up so it's important that you wield the rules like a tool something that you're using to build a world rather than something that's just a guideline that you can ignore as a DM you want to use your logic to trump rules when you're when there is a dispute at the table whatever makes the most sense to you as a DM is usually what I go for yeah if I'm not a hundred percent sure I'll even tell my players you know what it's it's gonna work like this this time and then after the game we can determine if if that's the way it actually works yeah so principle 5 is no one to roll the dice and this has to do a lot with rolling the dice at the right moments and not having your players roll the dice whenever they want and you know not trying to take away from the storytelling off the game with needless dice rolls the dice represent the forces of uncertainty fate and luck and you want to use the dice to find out what happens when the outcomes are uncertain um if you know what's gonna happen if you've already decided in your mind this is gonna work or this isn't gonna work there's really no point in rolling DICE yeah if if the players doing an action though that you're not sure if it's gonna work or not that's the perfect time to ask them to roll the dice yeah and dice rolls are exciting we love doing them players love rolling high we love the thrill of a crit or the bitter disappointment of rolling a natural one yeah but at the same time meaningless dice rolls don't engage the game I also think of scenarios where a lot of people love perception checks all the time yeah I think we overuse perception Jeff yeah if somebody walks into a room and it's like I'm gonna look under the table for a clue and the clue that you've placed in the room is under the table if they've been that specific they don't need to roll the dice for it you can just say here's what you find that kind of specificity to is really what you want to get from players with perception checks you want them to get underneath things and look for things rather than feel like I perception the room yeah whenever we should never work if they're perceiving the room you can give them the general layout but like yeah if you want specifics and if they are being super specific and they've kind of hinted at what your answer is anyway or they're able to explain something in a way that you say that makes a lot of sense you could do that then you can ignore the dice rolls if you have something that if the players miss that information because they don't make the dye roll and that's gonna make this situation come to a dead stop you might want to rethink that you don't want to present them the option to roll the die on something that is impossible and if you do like let's say they want to jump to the moon yeah you can't do that but if they die 4:20 you can't jump to the moon no but if they do roll that natural 20 though maybe it's just them avoiding the worst-case scenario yeah I like to say like some players will be like I want a persuasion and try to seduce the horrible soulless villain and then they roll the dice and they get a natural 20 and it might be that their success is not that they seduced the villain it's that the villain doesn't just outright disintegrate them for even trying I don't feel for myself as at the end that a screen is necessary because in their sin look if there's ever a situation where I feel I might want to fudge the styrol depending on how it turns out I usually try to narrate the situation and get it to the point where I'm okay with the uncertain resolution rather than it just being like hmm you got a critical hit there and they got killed so I better change it no if I were rolling the dice I'm gonna take what they say and let that be a thing in the open principle six is keep track of time and what it's drama but life with all the boring bits kind of Alfred Hitchcock said it best but this is something that movies books and television shows do all the time they skip the boring parts and get to the exciting scenes the places in the story that really matter where the characters choices and the things that they do their actions are highlighted sometimes the best way to resolve a travel sequence or a period of extended downtime is to summarize it with a single sentence so that you can get to the dungeon so that you can get to the next awesome moment in the campaign if there's something valuable that can happen during that then by all means presented you always want to ask yourself is the journey more important or is the destination this is because the pacing of your campaign of the way that you run a game session can make all the difference between a heart pumping exciting dramatic game session and one that's a complete snooze fest you also want to balance the spotlight between all the players at the table give everybody a chance to participate and engage with the game I some players do like to hog the spotlight and yeah you want it you want to give everybody a chance to be a hero in in their own way you got to keep things moving you balance that attention between the players you find the right amount of time to invest in each scene sometimes like if you're in the middle of a combat encounter and it's a foregone conclusion that the players are going to win have the enemy's morale great they surrender and run away and wrap it up you don't need to run every single combat down to the last hit point same with social scenes once it becomes apparent what the outcome is going to be that's the time when you and the dungeon master can take control of time itself narrate what happens and then put the players back into the next interesting choice or decision that they have to make with pacing and time within a game session it's really important that you wrap the session up at a moment where the players feel like they've accomplished something so they can get excited for coming back next week seventh principle is be prepared to improvise now as the dungeon master your players expect one really important thing from you that you are going to arrive to each game session prepared to run the game that you've got all your materials and ideas to act on but at the same time that's really daunting there's a lot that you need to prepare for this game yeah when I was a brand-new DM I remember showing up to my games with entire novels and essays written about preparation notes and it was stressful for me the best skill that you can work on to help your preparation is learning what it takes to be a good improviser I think that skill as at improv is the x-factor that makes a great dungeon master this is actually an incredible lesson that I've been learning every time I DM and if we go from when I started DMing and having my novels written those novels accounted for every scenario and then of course every single game my players would do something that wasn't in my book yeah and I would say oh god I didn't prepare for this what you want to prepare our prompts prepare things like monster stack blocks prepare things like locations and maps prepare motivations for your NPCs think about plans think about the things and scenarios that might happen rather than the predefined sequences of events that way when your players get into contact with it you'll have all these different things that you're ready for that you can drop in the way that I always like to to do this now is I'll make point notes that have nothing to do with the characters actions it's point form notes that essentially sum up what would happen in this game session if the characters never interacted with anything here's what the enemies are doing here's what their plans are here's what's going on in the town then the players come in and they'll mess all of that up and you kind of have to roll with those punches don't be afraid to rip stuff off like whole cloth in some cases because that gives you a structure that you can latch on to for your improvisation if you look at the great improv comedians and artists they work really hard at improv they practice constantly because they're always using these little bits of ideas and inspiration from moment to moment that they can then use when they're on stage in front of an audience yeah some of my favorite DMS that I've listened to or read about I read like are here about a chapter that they've run and then afterwards find out that they were they just say yeah I was watching the Alien franchise and decided that I wanted to turn that into a D&D setting and I'm like oh I didn't even see that there but now I am ripping stuff off ripping off your favorite themes your favorite movies your favorite books even just like scenarios characters but then kind of your brain will meld it into its own thing because you're already being creative and the players add this uncertainty to that that change it anyway so there's nothing original Under the Sun but you don't need to worry about being original with the indie because the fact that you're doing it in a role-playing game is what makes it original the exercise of creation of world-building is another great way to give yourself the ammunition that you can use for improv and you'll learn this over time what works well and what doesn't our eighth principle is to be forthcoming with information which can be a little bit challenging when you're trying to improv in the moment and this is why preparation improvisation all of these things work together because you as the dungeon master are your players Aizen here nothing exists in the world until you say it does yeah that's that's one of the hardest parts of being a DM I would say is sometimes you have a visual in your head and you relay it in a few quick sentences and if your players look at you and say sorry what what exactly does this room look like or what's going on here it means that you need to give them more information the players can't make a choice until there's something that gives them a visual idea in their heads to understand that there are choices I like to say you want to hit all the senses in your descriptions whenever you possibly can what does the room smell like what does it feel like in the air what might baby even be able to taste or hear um give the players that information like if they have to choose between door a and door B there's nothing to choose there that's just a random decision between two doors but if one door is burning metal and the other door is covered in frost now at least they have something to act on if you say you've entered a bog and it's hot and stinky that's one way to say it but you could say I've entered you've entered this like misty bog where you can't see more than 10 feet in front of you the ground is squishing under your feet there's skeletal hands popping up it smells of rotting flesh they might be a lot more careful wandering into that bog than they would have been if you had just said it's a stinky bog the other thing that's really key here is that as the dungeon master everything that comes out of your mouth is imbued with significance to the players so when you describe a room the first things that you say are automatically going to be associated with your players as having importance there there's been scenarios that I've seen before where it's like you're walking down a path there's some shrubs off to the side and the player goes well I'm gonna go investigate those shrubs since you mention them yeah and it's like well yeah if you if you just are saying you're on a road there's shrubs right there obviously but if you're describing I would say it's better to over disc than ever to under describe if you're just saying one or two things the players gonna be like hmm but if you if you go over the top with an explanation then everything kind of gets turned into this visual setting that the players that need to be like what was mentioned what seems important and they need to make those choices sometimes though it's so much fun once in a while like once you get good at this you can actually make an interesting situation where you give so little information just to generate the roleplay my favorite example of this is the players coming down a set of stairs and there is a room with three exits and in the middle of the room is an empty charred boot there's no truck there's nothing else in this room but there's an empty charred boot they will just go wild with just that and you can improvise right off that and there's no trap there's there's nothing else it's just a boot that has been left there for years and years and years another one of my favorite things is sometimes as a Dungeon Master I'll actually get ideas from my players I'll have like a room that's a closet and they'll be talking about the door and they'll be like what if there's a ghost in there and I'm sitting there's a DM being like what if there is a ghost in there and this actually brings us to our next principle principle 9 which is embracing player creativity as dungeon master once you get really good at improv you can take the lead from the players creativity and their own inventiveness about the situation and you can just roll with it and if you're putting just a few prompts because you know your players that's principle one you know your players you put a few things in front of them and they're immediately going to be engaging they're gonna say what if what if there's a demon what if there's a ghost and you just decide in the moment what it is yeah because the players don't know anything that exists outside of what you said so if there's a door that's not open yet technically you may have an exact idea on what's on the other side but to them it's it's shrouded Schrodinger's cat on the other side of that could be anything so if they start guessing what it might be they might say something that's way cooler than what you as a DM had in your head and you go yeah and this feeds back into our previous principles because when you're embracing play or creativity in your preparation if you're preparing problems but not the solutions to that problem you can embrace whatever the players might do even if it sounds like something that could be great out of Murphy's laws it's completely implausible if you own that and let that work you know you could throw complications in the way but the players will feel so much more awesome and that's why as a Dungeon Master I really try to avoid thinking about what the solutions to the problems that I put in front of my players are that's their problem to figure out I just have to wind up this crazy messed up situation and let them deal with it and their creativity in the moment is gonna give me everything I need to say okay well we'll ignore that I didn't introduce that element and make that solution work if you present something to your players and they end up using it in a way that kind of ruins your big plans you need to just roll with it yeah I set up this idea of a dragon lair that my players were gonna go into I had the idea that they were gonna fight the dragon in the lair the dragon was gonna retreat they would go back to the surface get on there flying castle and there would be a big aerial battle I had this all planned out but I also presented them with a trophy room of the dragons trophies I had already stated that whenever they touched one of the treasures the ground would start to rumble because the dragon could sense them messing with his stuff the players then said well why do we need to go to his lair like deeper in the ground let's just mess up his trophy room and bring him out here where we're gonna be able to ambush him so of course the dragon exploded up through the roof or through the floor and they ambushed him I swept the floor with the dragon and that's why as DN you need to be prepared for your players typically demolish your Lan's you're gonna lose right it's part of the game and in fact it's so important that I believe it's better to embrace players creative solutions to problems even at the expense of a climax moment to me that was one of the biggest learning experiences I was sad at first when they did this because I said this whole epic plan that was gonna be the moment that the players would remember forever what ended up happening when they killed that dragon they all got on their feet they were hugging each other they were high-fiving and I stopped in that moment and said wow they they enjoyed this moment more than I ever thought possible I also like to say in this that it's really good that you make sure the players are engaging with the world when they're trying to make a plan if they start asking you things like if I do this will it work the best answer is there's only one way to find out and if they start asking you well I want to do this thing or I want to have this plan ask them well there's a whole bunch of different people that you can ask for their opinion hey chief engineer graybeard will this work and then the engineer is the one that's saying well in my opinion it will work and then you have the creative license as the DM to make it go horrific ly wrong because that NPC was giving their opinion and their opinion was wrong so this brings us to principle X when in doubt add an explosion this may sound ridiculous but it is exactly what the table needs sometimes yeah if if you're having a moment at the table where the players look maybe the combats gotten stale maybe it's been like three or four rounds of just like people hitting each other but then suddenly the wall next time explodes and like another creature dragon appears yeah that's gonna make everybody go oh my god I did not see this coming and suddenly everybody's attention is back in the game they're back into how do we solve this new problem always be looking for ways to escalate the situation and then find those moments where you can let it breathe back down again when things are going badly for the players it works too because you add chaos to the situation if they're trapped in a terrible situation like the whole thing on fire and make that a bigger problem for the bad guys and the players yeah the feeling of the unexpected makes the whole world come alive to quote Robin D laws the author of Robins laws two good games mastering you can get out of any dungeon mastering trap by asking yourself what is the most exciting thing that could happen right now in this moment everything else you do is just details so this has been our top ten principles that we use to help us run our D&D games we hope that you feel inspired and they help you out too you can run some great games if you take these to heart but of course there's so many more ways to run a great Dungeons & Dragons game we would love to hear about your principles and philosophies and your tips for Dungeon Master's in the comments below now if you're looking for other DM tips that we have we have a whole playlist of them right up over here now we really place an emphasis on mastering the rules as an important trait for DMS you can check out our playlist on the rules explained right over here please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 330,463

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book, best advice ever, running the game, campaign, dm, table rules, session zero

Id: 6tKFv0NolHw

Length: 32min 1sec (1921 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 12 2018