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Read good books and it will enrich your vocabulary. A quicker tip in the meantime is a trick of focusing on the five senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. When describing a scene or a situation, use at least two and try to push yourself for three.
Plot A: Higher stakes plot, the consequences matter on a scale larger than the players. Plot B: Smaller stakes than plot A, but not trivial. Plot C: Trivial in the grand scheme of things. Every plot should be connected to at least one of the other plots by either a person, event, or consequence.
The 3 base books are the Player Handbook (essential for everybody), the Dungeon Master Guide (needed for the DM) and the monster manuals (with a lot of monster block). The rest are basically expension with additionnal monster, subclass, spells.... or adventure book (and if you start as a DM, i think you should buy one adventure to follow).
- Tip 1: Know Your Inner DM
- Tip 2: Know Your Players
- Tip 3: Know Your Game, and Be Passionate About It
- Tip 4: Leave No Rules Ambiguous
- Tip 5: Set Boundaries For Your Game
- Tip 6: Have A Session Zero
- Tip 7: Keep A Rulebook Handy
- Tip 8: Keep Notes For Yourself
- Tip 9: Use Secret Modifiers
- Tip 10: Give Your Scenes Flavour
Sun Tzu has some solid wisdom, so I'll paraphrase from him: in war (as in all things), there are three things you need to know to win every time: yourself, your enemy, and the battlefield. My first three tips correspond to these three things. You as a DM are a crucial part of the game. You need to know what kind of DM you are and by extension what ...
Not that your players are enemies (nor should you treat them like ones; I'll get back to that), but they are the ones you're challenging. Having a group of players that doesn't mesh well with you, your campaign, or each other will almost always break a game, or at least make it pretty lame. When you set up a game, make sure the players well be well...
The DM and the players are important, but equally important is the campaign itself. It is the third leg of the stool; without one, the other two fall apart. You as a DM are the supreme master of the game world, and you should have the knowledge to back that up. It's important that you have a deep understanding of both the mechanics and lore you'll ...
It's a fairly common for rules to be debated during a game. Either someone doesn't like the way a certain thing works, or someone's actively abusing a linguistic loophole, or the rules are ambiguous or contradictory. As the DM it's your job to be the final word on these things. Whether you want to listen to a player's argument and bend the rules or...
Where my last tip was about boundaries in the rules, here I’m referring to boundaries in the sense of scope of the setting. Too often it can be easy to think “I'll just give my players a rich world and let them find their adventure”. It's a nice thought, and if you're really prepared for it a sandbox can work fairly well. But most campaigns have a ...
So much of what I've noted so far, and a lot of what will come for that matter, can be handled by simply having a session zero. A session zero is essentially a scheduled session in which the players build their characters together. It gives the players a chance to interact and come up with synergies and dynamics together. It's not called a “party” ...
In the event that you don't know your game’s rules and mechanics by heart (and even if you do), it pays immensely to have an easy to pick up reference for yourself and your players. If you're in person, keep at least one copy (but preferably multiple) of the rulebook on hand. If online, keep a tab or window with them at the ready. This little thing...
If the rulebook covers you for mechanics, your notes should cover the roleplay. Even if the campaign comes from a premade book, it's always good write things out yourself. Your notes should be naturally easier for you to read, and you can include details the source might not have. I keep dialogue scripts, scene descriptions, instructions on what so...
Often times, there are situations where the dice just don't do what you want them to do, and it messes up the game. Say you keep getting critical hits on one party member, and end up killing them early on without giving them a chance to fight back. Say the party keeps failing the check to open a door that's necessary to continue to the next area, w...
This one is perhaps a bit more subjective, since it applies more to narrative focused games, but nonetheless the application of narrative flavour can do wonders for a game's tone and feel. A well placed voice accent, dramatic reveal, or impromptu description of a scene will help to immerse your players in a way that raw dice rolls never will. You d...
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Mar 1, 2022 · Running published adventures is a great way to play D&D without having to spend countless hours worldbuilding and designing an adventure from scratch. What’s more, there are tons of great adventures (officially published or otherwise) out there.
May 13, 2016 · Your adventure notes serve two purposes: to give you an understanding of the structure of the adventure, and to trigger inspiration when running encounters. They’re likely going to evolve as you play the game.
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Aug 8, 2024 · These books are some of the best-written resources for advancing your DM talent that you'll find. They cover a variety of topics and offer tips to run a better, smoother, more engaging game. Whatever element of GMing you need to improve on, there's helpful advice for it somewhere on this list.
