You'd Make A Great Dungeon Master

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This is great, but I think it’s even easier to DM than you make it out to be.

It’s a collaborative storytelling game (at least if we set aside the Tomb of Horrors era adversarial vibes), and if you are interested enough to not only want to play D&D, but to want to be the DM you will be fine.

Using a published adventure to start can sometimes make things way harder because then your flow is all tied up in knowing a document. And while there are tons of great adventures available, they are still mostly tropes you already know.

Come up with a hook, some tropey characters, and set your party loose. Pick up the D&D monster deck of cards, sort out a pile of them that are level approripate, and you can mostly just wing it. Players will ALWAYS go off the tracks and if you are using a published adventure it’s actually much harder to pull them back rather than to let them go off as they will. Railroading well is a much harder skill to master than linking encounters with a vague story arc.

You are absolutely right. It's really a matter of figuring out what makes you the most comfortable. If that's a published adventure, awesome. If it's your method of mostly just sticking with connected encounters, that's great too. There are those who spend hours coming up with content, and bully for them.

In general I think it's easy to come away from most D&D related material and think it's a much bigger job than it really is. It's easy to be intimidated.

I know that I'm a good DM, but my biggest hangup is my own self-expectations. Plus I feel like I have to be "on stage," which is exhausting. Lately I just want to have some beers and play games with friends and not think too hard.

Funny story: The actor in the photo from Freak and Geeks, is Stephen Lea Sheppard, who is a longtime moderator over at RPG.net. Although apparently he hasn't acted in years, and doesn't even play RPGs anymore.

Great article.

DMing is so intimidating. It's one of those things that's hard to start because the view from the bottom, before you start doing any creative prep, is scary.

I also think people underestimate just how creative an activity DMing is. From my perspective, it can easily be more creative and demanding than writing, visual arts, etc.

Great topic. Running an rpg is a broad challenge because there are so many aspects to the task that it seems impossible to master them all. But it becomes manageable when you identify your strengths and then lean on published products to fill in the gaps.

I got into role-playing in 1978 without anybody showing me the ropes. I bought the 1st edition Gamma World box at a comic book convention, and the D&D blue box from a local hobby store, and read through the rules repeatedly. B1 In Search of the Unknown helped me understand how to make a dungeon, and early issues of Dragon Magazine helped me become a better DM. I also asked for feedback from my group, and gradually adapted my DM style based on what my players enjoyed. I also went to my first GenCon at age 16, so I learned a lot from playing in one-shot adventures run by industry pros like Jim Ward, Bill Willingham, and Steve Perrin.

There are certain aspects of DMing that I have never mastered. I'm okay at role-playing NPCs, but I recognize my limits when it comes to doing funny voices or accents. I don't have time for world-building or writing adventures, so I purchase and adapt what I need. I can improv to some extent, but I am no longer afraid to cut short an unpromising tangent like a long conversation with an NPC shopkeeper, by just summarizing and moving on. I try to keep the focus on entertaining the players, and things tend to work out.

I’d just like to put in a quick shout out to Happy Jack’s RPG Podcast. It's funny, and full of great advice for new GMs. I’ve been listening to it for years.

Just listening to people talk about the craft of GMing can do a lot in terms of boosting one’s confidence.

Your experience as a DM is very group dependent, though I've found it to be more enjoyable than I ever thought I would.... as soon as I understood the rules.

DMs do put a lot of unnecessary pressure on themselves often because they forget that the reason everyone is getting together to hang out. There's a lot of "shared storytelling," and all that talk, but D&D and RPGs in general are basically an excuse to sit down with some friends and goof off.

Seriously, don't get hung up on all the bullshit, it's a game, make some characters, make a dungeon, have a blast.

And if you want inspiration and like podcasts, Dungeon Master of None is the GOAT. followed by Fear the Boot and Happy Jacks. Matt Colville's YouTube is also a must. Critical Roll is not my jam.

I like Colville, but I sometimes feel like he approaches the experience much more as a novelist. He clearly places a lot of importance on internal consistency within the game world, which takes a lot of work for someone like me. I think the moment-to-moment narrative is what players take with them more often.

My favorite person to get advice from is Sly Flourish, author of the Lazy Dungeon Master. A lot of the best practices I have originally came from him. His stuff is all about presenting with an eye toward improvisation at the table, which I think is just right.