This Recent Revelation About DMing My Dungeons and Dragons is CRAZY!!!!!! (DM Tips)

[@danjones1710]

Great job man. A very cool idea to pull skills from one of your hobbies to another. So well spoken.

[@tinaprice4948]

Great idea :) i love letting the players think of descriptions for things like a hallway or secret door

[@jamesramsay7459]

Wow! Thank you! This is going to help me out immensely. I DM a lot of pickup games at my local shop that usually means I have never read the adventure before. I can't wait to implement this strategy.

[@samuelpeterson9485]

Nice hat! I would be lost without my harp, warship and sword. ⚔️

[@rockgheba]

GM and guitar soloist here: I think you are spot on! The mental skills and thought processes to "gain time to think" are very similar. I wonder if my approach to GM-ing influenced my playing, or if it's just me built this way, because even in professional matters my opinion is that being able to adapt and improvise are essential. Good work!

[@pez5767]

Always love your content. The examples were really helpful, perhaps a follow up video just of examples would be a good companion piece? You could format the video for various applications such as checking the map, looking at a table, looking up a spell, referencing notes in town, pondering a random encounter, or bbeg dialog.

[@dranuwir]

As an old time gm, i always tell new gm : Keep all your notes, resume and use it later...if your playes go 180 degree keep your prep and use a diffrent one. I also really like to improvise on the fly. A chase in a city, some parkour and city guard running around. Re-use your stuff/ twist it and have fun with it!

[@rogerbensonmn]

Super sweet idea to keep the ball rolling....simple yet effective.... Never thought of practicing describing things...I like it One could simple describe things they see in their daily travels, building their craft and vocab!

[@artistpoet5253]

Dude, yeah! I do something similarly with encounter tables and prompts/oracles. I got the idea after playing a few solo games of Ironsworn and I had gotten stuck on what happens next. It sounds silly, but it can happen especially in a solo game. So now any time my group goes off on a weird tangent or just decides to push the map, I roll up a few prompts and drop an encounter on them. Most times, this encounter will fill out the session and give me time to read up on the next section of the module., Really, though, the best way to avoid a possible stall, is to just familiarize yourself with the complete module. Of course, nothing is going to stop players from pushing the map.

[@metajock]

LOL You are right, years of DM'ing helps you do this. I've been doing this forever and never put any thought into it. It keeps the flow and the attention of everyone.

[@ryansullivan5854]

That eating idea is a great one. I rarely get a chance to eat when I'm running a session, so working that in to an NPC means that I won't be starving by the end, which is usually the case.

[@IWFarrar2]

This might be one of the best and most useful tips for beginner DMs!

[@gabehugh343]

For sure man I totally agree. I play some guitar (should get back into it too). Improve is so key.... maybe even like have a couple lists ready to go in just the occasion where you have to Improve something just some.ideas dialog, descriptions, funny comedic NPC moments etc. Not really the shame thing but this week I used an oldr choose your own adventure 40.k space hulk book to sorta inspire me to run a sort of short fun space hulk type.adventite for 2 or.3 people and I started doing some really fun and cool.terrain with it too and printed off a ton of paper minis to use. Now it's not your quality Garment but I'm happy with it and the guys and people at work love it

[@homersheineken]

Was that shirt "improv'd" too? Lol Seriously though as a fellow guitarist, good tip. I've done this before too running games, never connected to jamming like this though.

[@MissRoseTrucker]

My dm had the Great Gazoo (the little green alien from the Flintstones) randomly pop in and help us when we got too deep in the weeds, and he was unprepared. I think it was the same kind of thing 😂❤

[@locuteus]

Dungeons is misspelled in the title. Not nitpicking, just noting. I would want to know if it were me.

[@jaytyler6203]

hello a question about crafting. if using real wood ( balsa, bass wood, popsicle sticks) why paint coats of black then degrees of brown and yellows? it already has grain in it so just stain it once and be done with it since real wood looks like wood? thx

[@sleepinggiant4062]

Prep is key. You should always have a couple random encounters ready to go (my guitar licks). If the party can go left or right, you better have read both. In fact, I think you should read everything on the level, and the first part of the next. Depending on the size of the dungeon, of course. Each hallway does not need a description unless it is more than getting from point A to point B. Describe the walls only once, and again when they change. Otherwise just describe the dimensions. Encounters and magic item shops should never be done on the fly. This wastes a ton of game time, and I won't play with DMs that do this frequently. Using online tools, like those available on Donjon, can greatly reduce prep time. I highly recommend them.

[@jacobhope6164]

BARS!

[@michaelreeves6565]

Another time filler in addition to this is to have them roll for perception or insight or something...at least for my high schoolers, it takes them time to do that while we can be scanning and thinking as well...