15 improv mistakes EVERYONE makes

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These are the 15 improvisation mistakes every dungeon master or player has made in D&D at least a few times, AND what to do instead.
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#dungeonsanddragons #dungeonmaster #improvisation

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10 июл 2023

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Комментарии : 210

@theDMLair 10 месяцев назад

💖 Support us on Patreon and get Lair Magazine (5e and PF2 GM resources) and other rewards! www.patreon.com/thedmlair 🧙 The Secret Art of Game Mastery! Get decades of GM experience in one book! - www.kickstarter.com/projects/thedmlair/the-secret-art-of-game-mastery?ref=77qgbg

@techstorezombie9316 10 месяцев назад

As a newer DM who is worried more about fumbling improv than anything else, this video has perfect timing.

@bridgeburner6859 10 месяцев назад

100 percent with you on this one.

@yogapantsyogurtpants3365 10 месяцев назад

I learn the game blades in the dark to get over that hump. I leveled up as a GM with that game. I highly recommend the playthrough on Third Floor Wars.

@matthall2465 9 месяцев назад

Yes, especially the part about bacon.

@Cinetiste 9 месяцев назад

May I give you a special trick ? In need of improvisation, or even to plan an adventure quickly, refer to something you know and like, familiar to you, as a background canvas. You have seen a circus, a show, a comedian ? There is one in this village arriving... You like looking at "Formula 1 " ? In their region an annual chariot race is organised... You know well the mall of your town ? The adventure lead them to a crowded market... You are a secret fan of Sailor Moon or Lady Bug ? Suddenly some enigmatic women mages seem to confront an unknown enemy... Of course, you do not precise your references, you describe and build around them... 😉 You may be a fan of castles, or course, but also of a science fiction film and adapt it... All may be useful, becoming original from you... Good luck !

@Dudeman715 8 месяцев назад

I heard of a dude that has a bucket of npcs that he writes down a name, profession, race, a problem that character is looking to fix, and three random sentences about that character and drops them into a bucket. Every time he gets a neat idea he does a new one.

@DrArchipelago 10 месяцев назад

#1 0:23 - Not knowing your World #2 2:44 - Not understanding your players' characters #3 6:42 - Not building modular game elements #4 9:44 - Not creating pool of ideas #5 15:51 - Not having backup plan #6 22:23 - Not using "Yes, and..." #7 27:12 - Overusing "Yes, and..." #8 29:40 - Trying to do everything yourself #9 31:19 - Expecting to improve without practice #10 33:08 - Not redirecting your players #11 36:30 - Not reskinning #12 39:13 - Not buying time #13 41:38 - Not delegating #14 44:51 - Ignoring clues from your players #15 47:43 - Not eating enough bacon

@Scorpious187 10 месяцев назад

This man's the real MVP right here.

@ninjanoafa8636 10 месяцев назад

You the man/woman!

@MrYouTubeAndWatch 10 месяцев назад

Thank-you! It pisses me off when RU-vidrs make these long list videos and don't give us chapters. I tend to leave them as I cba watching most of the ones I already know. You deserve a medal!

@wombatjedi101 3 месяца назад

You are a saint

@famminak852 2 месяца назад

Thank you so much omg! Very helpful!

@GeraldKatz 10 месяцев назад

If any time PCs show mercy the bad guy/kobolds/whatever come back later to do more havoc, the PCs will never show mercy again and just kill everything. They'll kill every mook they capture for questioning. They will hunt down any monster trying to retreat from battle. Consequences do matter, but they also matter when the PCs show kindness. If the PCs are punished for being kind they will never be kind again.

@BugginKing 10 месяцев назад

I agree. I have had npcs betray the pcs, but I’ve also had some die for them

@loomash1273 9 месяцев назад

I once did a reverse of that. My party cleared a goblin camp and they let two last gobs live, but make them promise they do good. Sometime later they fought a necromancer, a zombie giant and couple zombies at lvl 1 (this was my 3rd time DMing, 1st self made one-shot, and I had 4 DMs as players who wanted it hard) and things looked grim. Suddenly two goblins rode into the cave on a wolf, tangled rope around giants legs, and barbarian pushed it, toppling it into a ritual acid pool crushing the giant, necromancers plans, and creating one of the most memorable moments for me and them both in our TTRPG experience.

@GreyfauxxGaming 3 месяца назад

I agree, you shouldnt punish non-murder hobo behavior unless you want that to be the whole game. Instead have the Kobolds use the money you gave them to create a start up. Have them come to the aid of the players. This will give them far more agency than just punishing them. This is why you DONT just spam yes/and to everything because everything will be half baked crap.

@noskillkill4215 20 дней назад

You can also mix it up. Let them spare a couple villains, have one go back to evil, and they deal with them. Later, they find another that has completely turned their life around, or approach the group for help so they don't turn back to their villainous ways

@Mercadian 10 месяцев назад

Welp, I was like "I do pretty much all of these", though my favourite method of stalling is "You stop for the evening; did X want to discuss their issue with Y in the last encounter?" and my (admittedly extremely wonderful) group starts RPing in character, I get some time to prep things, AND also listen to their chatter to make long term plans. Then you added tip 15, and... I'm allergic to bacon/pork/ham etc. So that's a mistake I can't rectify!

@vapypr 10 месяцев назад

Your teacher was correct. Practice makes permanent. If you practice something incorrectly it solidifies that behavior. Perfect practice means deliberate, constructive, methodical repeated attempts. You have to know the goal and the steps to achieve it. For instance learning an instrument. Playing each movement slow and deliberately, making sure you hit each note correctly and in time.

@DMKarinZeeland 10 месяцев назад

Perfect practise also includes preparation before practise and choosing the right things to practise. Like voice exercises and listening to recorded practise sessions.

@nickgaidin 10 месяцев назад

That's right - Vince Lombardi is credited with the quote: "Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect". The point isn't that you have to be perfect to practice, it's that you have to practice doing it pefectly or you'll never be perfect at it. If you practice something wrong, it doesn't matter how many times you do it, you'll never be perfect at it.

@202cardline 4 месяца назад

I think there's some relativity to this theory. Something like playing an instrument follows this idea perfectly, with more precise instruments being even more appropriate. Poor form for the violin or piano is terrible, but less so for non-classical guitar. Ballet is not necessarily baseball. And then when it comes to something with more subjectivity, like visual art or heaven forbid - improv (yikes) sometimes doing it poorly is an incredible learning opportunity. As long as you can determine what people responded to or not. Make bad art is also a common mantra. I think it's two sides of the same coin.

@Dudeman715 10 месяцев назад

I do mostly improv for my story as my players like sandbox play, but I meticulously plan out towns and dungeons that happen to be on the path of the players and I just need to do a little re-theming to make them work.

@G-and-J-Chapel-Artworks 5 месяцев назад

39:25 I had to put a bridge into a region that didn't have one. "Let's check out the bridge." Caused an oh crap moment. Now, all of the sudden, there is a bridge guarded by half orc thieves. I planned a fight, the players decided to put smart them.

@rowdyparks6770 10 месяцев назад

Sometimes when i listen to my players, they come up with something that they think is happening that is in my mind better than what i came up with. When they get to the thing, i like to reward that player, or players an inspiration.

@user-uo9qh2wm3i 3 месяца назад

In my recent game my players came to a hermit wizard after hearing in some tavern that he's offering some well paid job. After being asked "what's the job and how good is payment" I came up with some nonsense like "oh, well, no need for dungeon crawling, it's just some odd-job around the house, piece-work pay, you'll get 1 gold coin every day [that's a good payment in my games for such work], also you can do unilateral termination of the contract at the moment's motice" And then my players went whispering "the hell?? So IS IT piece-work pay OR 1 gc a day? And if the payment is so good, where are the others workers? Seems like the wizard doesn't even now how to bullshit about payment, seems like he had never paid ONCE. He's totally a vampire or some demonologist. Hey wizard, where are the other workers?" -"Ehhmmm, some died because of accident, some earned good money and walked out, some was stupid alcoholics and I fired them myself" And I was sitting and thinking like "Oh crap... nevermind, looks like fun!" In the end I gave wizard a daughter, long dissapeared wife, odd-jobs included some esoteric stuff (to drive away the fairies who stole magus wife and want to steal his daughter now) and that deceased workers just didn't do the job EXACTLY as were asked and because of that fairie did tricks on them causing stupid deaths like falling from roof. And my players now coming to Feywild through mushroom faerie circle on the backyard, trying to find long dissapeared magus wife

@zacharymichener4687 10 месяцев назад

I have one player who likes to uniquely investigate areas, which leads to great opportunities for me. After a fairly basic forest encounter he wanted to climb a tree to see if there were any unusual structures he could spot from a higher vantage point. I had nothing else planned in that area, but i said "sure, you see a bizarre outcrop from the mountain side which is vaguely tower shaped". I turned this into a broken down, abandoned lookout tower of a drawven tribe who no longer inhabited the mountain. It gave me a location to reintroduce a pair of NPCs who were using the spot as a campsite, and built in another layer of history and plot devices to the campaign.

@TheNewRidore 12 дней назад

Knowing when to use "yes, and" and "No, but" is the hardest skill set I've learned as a DM. I still sometimes get it wrong sometimes but when it does go right my lord is it a fun session

@RobKinneySouthpaw 10 месяцев назад

I wouldn't go so far as to say perfect practice makes perfect. Mindful practice is what you need. Not just doing it, but paying attention to how you're doing it and the results.

@Brandonjones1313 6 месяцев назад

That statement is originally speaking to how if you’re practicing the wrong thing or information then that’s exactly what you are mastering (instead of what you intended to) Which is fine for developing something new But if you were trying to make a cake and practiced by using inedible ingredients; you won’t having something you can eat (which is what you set out to do) Sort of like reinventing the wheel; if you’re not practicing in the correct way, you’re gonna be way off.

@G-and-J-Chapel-Artworks 5 месяцев назад

42:42 I do this a lot with mundane tasks. I put them in a camp setting. "You prepare a celebration for ...." Then I let them take over. It usually has positive benefits that I could choose to reward. Maybe they are on a short rest but, morale gets a boost. Maybe I restore a little extra HP or reward XP for the morale boost. "I want to go fishing." Okay. "You cast out your fishing pole. After a few casts, you pull in a shellfish trap." I award a trap of some sort. Now they can both fish and hunt shellfish if they so desire.

@valorousflame9889 5 месяцев назад

A great resource for drag-and-drop dungeons are the 1 page dungeons. There are tons of those out there designed for different enviroments, player levels, etc. And they can be 2-3 hour adventures that you dont need to write or improv, just pull out the page and run it.

@satansbarman 3 месяца назад

Even with one page dungeons and one-shots, players can still throw you curveballs 😅 I've only been DMing since November and only ran one-shots (dnd night at a games cafe) and still had to majorly improvise some things, couple of times I've been completely flabbergasted by what my players were doing and needed a few minutes to work out how the hell to deal with the situation😅 great fun all round though

@DFAnton 10 месяцев назад

"Perfect practice makes perfect" is a result of people trying to make catchy sayings instead of useful ones. "Bad practice reinforces bad behaviors" is what they really mean. Or what they should mean. I dunno, some people buy into sayings way too much.

@theDMLair 10 месяцев назад

Good point!

@thomasallan1196 10 месяцев назад

"Practice Makes Permanent" is what my high school English teacher would say.

@doom4627 Месяц назад

I like to say practice makes better

@PhoenixM13 8 месяцев назад

One of my favorite times of not going with "Yes, and" was a player becoming convinced that he was going after a green dragon. The signs coincidentally added up, such as heavy fog, a deep forest and nobody wanting to go near the island. It turned out to be a hag coven which made for a great twist!

@ArcaneSpells 10 месяцев назад

On the topic of #15… kinda… don’t forget to eat. On days I DM I get so engrossed in the game (and nervous!) that I forget to eat or don’t feel like eating. Eat before the game.

@eva9996 10 месяцев назад

We have a system where each week one player brings a dish to eat before the game. So far its worked out well! I am doing a lamb ragu and gnocchi for our game tomorrow 😊

@ArcaneSpells 10 месяцев назад

@@eva9996 similar! I usually get out of cooking though lol. Sounds delicious!!

@Eternal_Satyr 2 месяца назад

This is kind of an improvisational event that has happened to me a few times. Here's a recent example: There was an assassination attempt made by a group of Dark Elf thieves that my party witnessed. Since the party was there to see what happened, the thieves made a hasty retreat by teleporting away. When our heroes rescued the victim, they searched him and found an eye agate among his belongings. Now, I had rolled this randomly and it was intended to be just a mundane gem; however, when they discovered it, the female druid of the group blurted out, "This could be a magical gem that might be used to spy on us!" I took note of this and worked it into the storyline. The moral is: Always be open to allowing your players to contribute to the creation process of the details of your stories; just don't let them know you're doing this. This randomly rolled item has become a crucial plot device and it was all based on a spontaneous thought blurted out by one of my players. Thanks for reading.

@jonathanschmitt5762 10 месяцев назад

29:05 You've heard of Yes, but; Yes, and and No, but; now get ready for: No, and. "I think the villain's in the forest". "No, and you get ambushed by a Displacer beast while you investigate".

@lorcandruid 10 месяцев назад

An excellent video Luke and some of these points I make good use of myself, especially playing for time/stalling. It's particularly useful when it comes close to when I'd decided to end the session and say something like "guys that's a great point to end the session on and we'll pick it up next time". That gives me plenty of time to plan and have something good to bring next session. Also, sometimes a good/lucky improv leads to all sorts of fun you didn't expect. In my recent Slavelords campaign, the party unexpectedly freed & healed up some humanoid prisoners that were close to death in an evil temple. I didn't have names for them but the party took an interest in them so I just cobbled some names together and said they belonged to local tribes in the region. The party gave them some weapons and helped them escape the temple so they could go back to their tribes. Well, when the party was travelling through the region to get to the next location they had to go through these same humanoid areas but got a free pass cos of what they did to free those hostages. Worked out neat all round!

@monkeymox2544 4 месяца назад

I find the best way of improvising in a premade setting like Forgotten Realms is to remember that it's actually your world. I've run a few pre-written campaigns that were set in the Forgotten Realms, but I've never bothered immersing myself in the lore of those settings, beyond what the campaign requires. If I don't know something, I make it up, which is frankly more fun. Some of my players are really into the novels, so if anything it's a boon to me to do my own thing. I don't want my players to know more about the world than the DM. I always point out at the start of the campaign: some things may be familiar, but don't take anything for granted. Just because you read something in a book, doesn't mean it happened in this world.

@Scorpious187 10 месяцев назад

"They told me 'practice makes perfect'. Then they told me 'Nobody's perfect' so I stopped practicing." - Steven Wright

@Skeleton_Dork 10 месяцев назад

My 1st grade teacher always used to tell me "practice makes progress"

@samhhaincat2703 10 месяцев назад

haha i love him

@b0therme 2 месяца назад

'nother great vid, Luke! At the denouement of the current adventure, take several (3-5) ideas from your pool and turn them into rumors. Your ideas should have 6 elements, who, what, when, where, why, and how. Roll d3+2 to create an incomplete rumor, maybe roll % to determine how truthful the rumor or each element of the rumor is. Salt your characters ears with these rumors as they rest, shop, level up, or whatever. Take notes as they discuss or argue over the rumors and what they might mean. They may come up with much better ideas than yours! Also, you get to choose which of the Players gets to shout, "I knew it, I was right!!" We all want to do that. You need a couple of introductory encounters or NPCs for each rumor to finish out the play session, then you'll have a week or 2 to complete a new adventure you know they'll use because they chose it (and helped create it) themselves! Hope that helps!

@mattslater167 10 месяцев назад

Toastmasters is a really good tool for getting better at improvising. Also, progression board or strategy games are a great way to build the same kind of "stiff upper lip" that it takes to kill (or rethink) your darlings. Blood Bowl is my favorite, but there are others.

@DMKarinZeeland 10 месяцев назад

Agreed. The only downside is that after years of Toastmasters and professional competitive public speaking I started courses in (voice) acting and hear all the time that I deliver speeches more than talk/act natural. It's hard to unlearn.

@mattslater167 10 месяцев назад

@@DMKarinZeeland tell me about it. I grew up on D&D books and premodern through early 20th century fantasy, so as a kid I just naturally talked in Old High Gygaxian. Everyone wanted to play in my game but otherwise pretend they didn't know me lol.

@robertnett9793 10 месяцев назад

As my chaotic ass is pretty much hit and miss with improv - I absolutely love this list of tips. Really, really thank you :D And one little bonus: Have a list of names. It's the easiest thing to set up just names. 10 Names - 5 male 5 female fitting the region your adventure is set. Players love to question exactly that one NPC you just made up on the spot. And if they ask, you an go like: "Oh let me just check my notes real quick" and answer with the first name on the list. This helps with immersion, as it feels as if the people weren't just made up on the spot - and it helps you to disguise which NPCs are important and which aren't. You can go haywire and have names for every species, culture and stuff prepared, and a few for businisses, dungeons or taverns also.

@AndrewJHayford 10 месяцев назад

on GameSetting knowledge: Its the same reason jotting down the goals, wants and general opinions of NPCs makes it easier to run them. Your brain has good general guidelines for how to run a thing and doesn't have to do as much heavy lifting around generating a place or person from the void.

@theDMLair 10 месяцев назад

Yes, exactly!

@beckybequette8212 7 месяцев назад

The backstory one is great. I'm in a game now where I was told by the DM "we don't have time to get into anyone's backstory. It tiring, uninspiring, and anything we think of that is "out of the box" gets shot down

@mikevides4494 8 месяцев назад

You're constantly displaying a masterful balance of advice (like "use 'Yes And'... but don't overuse it!) and that's why I love this channel. It forces me to consider suggestions I don't agree with, but tempers that with advice that balances perfectly, making me see the needle you're threading in stark resolution.

@theDMLair 8 месяцев назад

Thank you! Glad to be able to help!

@Ilandria. 9 месяцев назад

When I need to stall for time I like to act as if there's some kind of important event that's about to happen or be revealed, and then to build suspense I tell the group to take a 10-15 minute break. Generally by the time we come back everyone has been thinking and/or talking about it long enough that in addition to what I came up with during the break I can steal my player's ideas on the fly. It's pretty great.

@tedcoop4392 8 месяцев назад

Funny thing, you nailed "omnipotent" on the first try. For future attempts with "verisimilitude," keep in mind that it has six syllables, with stress on the first and fourth.

@GameMasterDude230 10 месяцев назад

Excellent video on improvising and also on keeping things fresh and to have finished stuff you have already planned out waiting to be used. I’m super excited to see the secret art of game mastery come out as I’m sure many of the ideas presented in your video will be put into written form that a GM can use to his or her advantage. Great video Luke. Thank you!

@RIVERSRPGChannel 10 месяцев назад

OneNote is good for keeping ideas in and notes on the campaign. Some good ideas

@ciarajeanr 10 месяцев назад

I'm going to watch this video on repeat continously until my game next Tuesday.

@CanisiaThe3rd 10 месяцев назад

before my first ever game I was so incredibly anxious to have to improvise. Turns out I'm pretty damn good at improvising, but I'm always looking to improve so this video was great. To other new and nervous GMs, once the game gets going you'll do absolutely fine.

@chazzitz-wh4ly 2 месяца назад

The secret to improvising is using familiar things whether it be locations, experiences, or events, and you can draw that from history, movies, books, your own old ideas or something your players mentioned. Players are great for inspiration and shooting from the hip. A lot of my improv comes from my laundry list of ideas in my saved notes on my phone or from unused preparations from previous experiences.

@weebmo 5 месяцев назад

47:44 As meme as the not enough bacon sounds, getting comfortable is a good thing to do to help improvise. Putting yourself in a good mood is probably what helps me best to improv

@Griffin256 10 месяцев назад

Luke, I love your videos. They are incredibly structured and you have an amazing way of communicating information. I also like to dive into the live streams from time to time because your ability to speak off the cuff is phenomenal. Just wanted to let you know that I would love love love love love a DM Lair podcast. Not sure if this exist already or has ever been a consideration, but I feel a mixture of the scheduled videos and the live streams in a podcast format would be absolutely incredible. Thanks for the amazing content!

@Pouilleux 7 месяцев назад

I just started DMing this week. Did two sessions in two days, 90% improv. I realized my first idea wouldn't work as I wasn't experienced enough as a dm to take advantage of it, and a dungeon where almost all they would do was fight fight fight wouldn't be the best introduction for first time player, so I had to restart my prep 3h before starting the session. It went well, but what you said near the end resonated with me. The more improv I can avoid the better 😅

@jonathanbaker5037 10 месяцев назад

Great video! It was worth the extra length. It inspired me to try a couple new things in my next session prep!

@fredericleclerc9037 9 дней назад

I love your Yes and technique. Being a big improv. GM I really do that but didn't realise it until you kinda put it in word. That's why I often say I don't really make the Story the players do... because I'll build upon what they throw at me. I normaly have no idea where stuff will go... the story surprise me has much as them :)

@willmena96 10 месяцев назад

Hey, Luke. Have you considered making another video about creating a campaign? Maybe it could be a stream, so people could suggest random stuff when they donate to Stack-Up or something

@theDMLair 10 месяцев назад

A fresh campaign creation video is probably in order!

@willmena96 10 месяцев назад

@@theDMLair oh, wow. That's great :D

@morrigankasa570 10 месяцев назад

Unfortunately I don't have a group to play with:( However, I have created 6 different lvl 1 characters. 1 of which is a Female Astral Elf Paladin (planning Oath of Conquest) with Anthropologist background. Part of her plan/desire is to conquer part of the Mortal Plane and establish a new Queendom with a new Pantheon. Part of the new Pantheon idea is restoring Garagos to full Deity Status destroying Tempus' & Red Knight's power. Also other parts of the Pantheon will be other Lost/Dead/Weakened Deities and only a few current existing Deities will be included/saved.

@fhuber7507 10 месяцев назад

30:22 "There must be something unnatural for these facts to all be true at once...."

@realrea777 10 месяцев назад

This has got to be the single greatest video for a new DM! I’ve been running games for years and this was the most enjoyable, and informative presentation I could have asked for. Thank you

@TroyKnoell 10 месяцев назад

As always, this is very helpful advice. I'm not super good at improv, but our last session I had to improv some stuff because I added a social random encounter and then my players interacted with it in the way they usually do. They are bullies so they bullied this NPC. It turned out really well, IMO. And now they are banned from Neverwinter for a year.

@G-and-J-Chapel-Artworks 5 месяцев назад

22:11 I am actually working on a plot twist that's based on a plot point. My players have a character who brought up a rival clan. They are currently tracking down the rivals. On their way to the rival village something will happen (I'm now considering the "help us" idea) that leads them to finding out that the rivals don't actually have a grudge against my party member's clan. Instead they are being controlled by a Giant Overlord. Now , rather than vanquishing the rivals, they must help them by defeating the Overlord.

@b0therme 2 месяца назад

If you know your campaign setting fairly well, use Tarot cards to "tell the future" of an area, a village, a mountain, or the adventuring party. If you know your campaign, you know who the Empress is. You know who the inverse Empress is, or the Knave of Staves, or what the 3 of Cups refers to as it pertains to your setting. Each card in a "lay" or "throw" is an element of an adventure. And so you fill your pool with ideas.

@ResidentEvilFan686 10 месяцев назад

as a newer DM, i was surprised how good i was at improv turns out i was better than i thought. I also don't plan out the towns the PCs are from, I get them to do that, and tell them if the town's wealth is unreasonable [if to high or low]. Saves Quite a bit of prep

@hughneil7212 3 месяца назад

One thing i do is, if I have a puzzle I want to use but the players are just not getting it, or I have an idea for something, but I just can't come up with a way to finish it to my satisfaction, don't. Just let the players play around with it, until they hit on something that I can accept and then let them flesh it out. No hints, no outside intervention. Occasionally you can have them make a roll, for some skill or other, that slows them down or speeds them up or whatever, but just let them run it down.

@simontmn 4 месяца назад

Have a random encounter table/wandering monster table at hand, and you never need to worry.

@zaodacrusher7498 2 месяца назад

Years ago, when I was in my teens. I started out running one shots. I'd draw up a dungeon in my free time, then everybody would roll characters straight up, 3d6 str to chr. Build off you're stats, then I'd improv the entire one shot. Ad&d 1st edition. But idk why the concept couldn't work for 5e. It's practice and you just make a night of it, just keep the dungeon kinda small.

@JeremyMacePlus 9 месяцев назад

Great practical advice man - thanks for the recap and the reminders!

@mbg4681 9 месяцев назад

31:49 Your teacher was right; practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent. This is why even experts continue to practice. As you get better at your skill, you also get better at practicing it.

@kasiako355 10 месяцев назад

Wow, I loved those tips, thank you do much!❤️

@daviddaspit4166 2 месяца назад

So as a player what I have started doing is fleshing out some connections for my characters and then if things come up, pass those along to my GM as possible NPCs or my GM will give me a bit of "free reign" to come up with some things for a place we are going to that my character has been at before. I didn't do this initially because the game has changed quite a bit since I had last played (back in the 1e / 2e days) when it was a bit more "hack and slash" / "dungeon crawl".

@Alresu 7 месяцев назад

41:13 - That's the one big advantage the really short sessions I have with my players (2-3 hours each week) have. If they decide to go some ridiculous path that needs prep work, I'll just throw a fight or an exploration site in front of them and wait it out.

@goingleft3863 9 месяцев назад

My channel is literally called going left. It's a reference to an old-school system of exploring where we always went right so we knew how to get out if we got lost. Going Left was to shirk that plan and go off script.

@muffinmonster3526 9 месяцев назад

I'm running a campaign with 4 newbie players and one veteran. I've known them for years outside of gameplay, so I assumed I knew what they would do. But this is also only my second time running for a group, so I'm a new GM. They were tracking down a kidnapped princess and I had this whole mini dungeon for the sewers planned, assuming they would enter. I added traps, giant rats and exploding skeletons. But then they decided that the sewers were gross. They refused to go into the sewers even after skeletons started pouring out of them. I knew that the boss was a necromancer, so I just plopped the dungeon into a mazalium and said it looked more recently dug out. Added more undead and poof. All my hard work didn't have to go down the drain after all... Except that I forgot they had leveled up and I had to increase the encounter challenge on the spot 😅 But it turned out to be a pretty good challenge anyway. And most importantly, we all got to have fun and the players were satisfied.

@Clem68W 10 месяцев назад

I steal random info from Warhammer and this is working.

@zionich 10 месяцев назад

Lots of great information here. Thank you!

@kapnkerf2532 10 месяцев назад

Here's a fun tip that I heard about on Reddit to improv names of book titles in a book store. Think of song titles and make them into books. Like make Megadeth's Number of the Beast a book about Demonic Numerology filled with mathematical formula's for wizards that deal with the chaos nature of demons and creating demon circles to trap them. Lady Gaga's Poker Face can be about a bard that travels from town to town gambling and getting into trysts along the way. Taylor Swift's You Belong with Me is about a angel in Mount Celestia that is jealous of a mortal woman and man's love.

@RadeFoxxy 10 месяцев назад

Outstanding advice video, thank you so much!

@domihase8148 10 месяцев назад

I don't get the DMs who zone out while the players are talking or roleplaying among themselves. For me as an DM the interaction between the players is half of the fun. :D

@buttmunchmcnugget328 10 месяцев назад

Whoa, thats a long vid!! Here for it!

@theDMLair 10 месяцев назад

Yeah... 😁

@GameMasterDude230 10 месяцев назад

I thought the length was totally needed to explain everything. I was in for the long haul as I was hooked

@edvingjervaldsaeter3659 10 месяцев назад

25:40 And, it you could also just say that the NPC that the players are talking to may not have the full info either, or may have been lied to, memory altered, is themselves lying, the info used to be correct but is no longer true, due to some unforeseen events, among other things

@linkatronic 10 месяцев назад

I've heard perfect practice makes perfect explained as don't practice until you can do it right, practice until you can't do it wrong. That was for music class, countless moons ago.

@inowar7981 4 месяца назад

when people say "perfect practice" they mean "real practice" where you pay attention to what you're doing, and actively work to improve. as opposed to "not actual practices at all" where you simply do the same thing over and over exactly the same way without paying attention or attempting to improve at all

@blackhorse-wm6oc 10 месяцев назад

Gotta love the Yes, and. It isn't useful for just improve but also for unremorsefully swiping the player's theories and running with them because you think it sounds cooler than something you had in mind. After all, the dm is also a player too and we love it when the cool shit happens just as much.

@backonlazer791 10 месяцев назад

After you said not to buy crap at MacDonald's I got an ad for it, lol. I already used many of these tips myself. I guess one thing you could add is a bunch of interesting NPCs that you can sprinkle in. Merchants, farmers, city folk, nobles, some unsavory folk, bards, all kinds that you can drag and drop in when the players pull something unexpected.

@MumboJ 10 месяцев назад

Number 15 explains so much. Who knew all my problems could stem from this one issue.

@nottheonlyjustin 10 месяцев назад

What is it like having players that would actually spare the Kobalds?

@paulsusac4839 7 месяцев назад

I have to say man, your stuff just keeps getting better and better.

@badgerchillsky535 9 месяцев назад

I’m imagining the party pays off the kobolds, then one of them gets the idea that they can get paid to NOT eat goats. So they end up going from village to village threatening the village unless they pay them. Then, some shady human figures out what they’re doing so they go into business with them. The kobolds terrorize a village and the ‘hero’ just happens to fine along and ‘drives off’ the kobolds. For a few of course 😂

@MissMeganBeckett 10 месяцев назад

15:39 the straw in the barn starts catching fire, “ quickly rescue the goats, open the doors of the pens, and form a bucket line from the well!” Getting rid of the kobald infestation won’t matter if the farmer loses everything to the bank because he lost all his goats goat feed and all of the farm equipment in the barn.

@josephtaylor4405 10 месяцев назад

Like you said, always listen to your players. We have one home brew world, but different DMs for each region. Gods allow some variance, but some me things are beyond even the gods . BLT for the win.

@chasingepiphanies7993 5 дней назад

Would recommend doing more than just making things come back to bite the players. At some point, the lesson the players will take from it - both IC and OOC - is that mercy never works. That's a recipe for creating murder hobos who kill everything in their path, since they expect the DM to turn any act of mercy into a monkey's paw.

@Dexplodeer 8 месяцев назад

When I preped my first every game as a dm i took a lot of time, planning out the first 4 to 5 sessions perfectly. I had a whole load worth of encounters, npcs, backstories and riddles mapped out. All my players had to do, was to follow a map and go into the cave that it leads to, to start it all up. Unfortunately, when the players arrived at the cave, they decided, that they didn't want to get themselves endangered and that the cave was to dark and creepy looking, so they simply wandered of, making all my work obsolete. So instead of doing the stuff i planned, I had to improvise a whole ruined city. I planned on the characters going there eventually, but since I had fleshed out these beforementioned 5 sessions, in which they would explore the cave and what lies beyond, i thought I had enough time, to do the city later... Well, the game turned out pretty fun still and noone ever knew, that I made the whole stuff up on a spot. :3 Since that faithful day, I began to prepare worlds, agendas and events instead of set sessions, since you can never foresee players decisions anyways.

@G-and-J-Chapel-Artworks 5 месяцев назад

32:48 I struggled with improv at first. Now I can almost improv the entire campaign. I try not to but, I could.

@stevenphilpott4294 6 месяцев назад

The party are about to be killed by a group of Trolls... suddenly a band of Kobolds charge in and aid the party!

@Frederic_S 10 месяцев назад

#14 will blow your mind Again, this is not a video, this is a masterclass. I hope this video does well. Maybe it is too long for most viewers, but the ones that stay till the end can get a lot of excellent advice out of it. Thanks a lot for the effort.

@fitz8923 10 месяцев назад

I created my own world/setting from scratch. In some ways, it's easy to know/improv things, but if it's something I haven't thought of yet, I am lost and always stall for a minute while I come up with stuff 😅 I've been creating this world for about 10 months, and I've been getting caught off guard less and less as I build, but I agree that knowledge of the world is pretty key

@Lioneldehetre 10 месяцев назад

These are some of my favorite Luke videos!

@floydputnam1999 4 месяца назад

You can MAKE terrain too. You don't have to buy it. Also a sheet of clear vinyl from a fabric store is cheaper than a battle matt and works with both dry and wet erase markers.

@TheGreatJinx 10 месяцев назад

24:16 A tip from somebody who has fairly recently gotten comfortable with DM'ing for his group: Don't do this if you struggle with improv. This is the number 1 way to trip yourself up. I remember doing this when I was still very new and I just kept putting myself into situations with no outs, because I was still shit at improvising. Do this when you're more experienced, not when you're new. Making your players wonder as to why something doesn't make sense can be a very effective storytelling tool, but ONLY if you know the actual reason. If you don't know the reason and keep making stuff up without thinking about it, it'll often just anticlimactically fall flat or become frustrating/meandering.

@theDMLair 10 месяцев назад

The trick is to figure out WHY while the players are wondering about it.

@TheGreatJinx 10 месяцев назад

@@theDMLair Understandable, but again, that can be very difficult for newer dungeon masters. Furthermore, it's also table-dependant. Some players might spend the next 30 minutes theorising together, while another table will just want to press on and find out about this thing you're setting up at the end of the tunnel; which makes it really awkward when, in actuality, there's nothing there. Blurting out poorly thought out stuff thus leads to the DM having to unravel his own web, because he knows as little as his players do. So therefore, be careful with this, or avoid it if you're new. Mind you, there are a lot of other very helpful tips in this video! It's just this one that made me perk up and say to myself: "Oh, that's a bad idea."

@donuteh2461 9 месяцев назад

I remember playing a game once and the DM tried to redirect us, the same way you described, an NPC was being attacked by goblins or something. Instead of rushing to help, we decided it was too dangerous, because pain hurts, so we just watched for a while then walked away. The DM even tried tempting us with a cool sword. There was a reason we decided to purposely make things difficult, I just don't remember what it was, we were always dicks toward each other.

@hopeandpiece Месяц назад

them modular elements sound dangerously easy to accidentally turn into a quantum ogre

@gmanbo 3 месяца назад

27:58 This is when you use no but. As in no that didn't happen but. This is what is going on with that instead and it links out to something else or back to the target. So no the bandit isn't in the rivine. But their is a watch post for the bandit group he is attached to from it. Tree house. Their was a recent storm and the dc visibility of the sentury point is below one of the players.... Passive perception. Allowing the story to move forward.

@santiagogandolfo3801 10 месяцев назад

Great video!

@emoharalampiev1590 6 месяцев назад

Oh yeah reskining I struggle with. I mean when I create the world with something in my head, and it's really hard for me to say that isn't true. Like it happens with tokens as well, others will have like tokens (we play o line for context) and they'd be like "yeah sure that's how the character looks" but I have something in my head, and I'm like "well no, there isn't a picture online for how the character actually looks, but that's the best I could find"

@Kyeto13X 10 месяцев назад

There is the idea of "don't be afraid of the ridiculousness." as in, if you or your players have an off the wall zany idea, maybe you should run with it becuase it is cool. But, you shouldn't be afraid of the obvious either. Sometimes running with a trope is fine. it is trope for a reason, it works.

@JamesJoy-yc8vs Месяц назад

Watching this has reminded me that I've been neglecting an NPC that I'd attached a couple of plot hooks to. His name? Gussie the Goat-Boy (a shepherd, not some weird goat/boy hybrid)

@billmartovich9009 10 месяцев назад

I really enjoy your videos even if they're geared towards newer players and nit seasoned vets. I've been improving for DECADES and I know my strengths but I'm still going to implement some of your suggestions. Always grow, right?

@michaelthomas1916 7 месяцев назад

The big bad boss is totally going to recruit those kobolds to make a new army.

@EdS-du2wu 5 месяцев назад

I think they meant practicing with proper form or direction makes makes perfect. If you practice with no direction sometimes you'll never get there. Practicing 2+2=5 for 8 hours a day will never lead you to learn 2+2=4.

@johngillan4475 10 месяцев назад

Thank you for your information video

@danakospanova52 10 месяцев назад

Awesome video 🤩

@princesskanuta3495 10 месяцев назад

I love Bacon!

@wearegreco 27 дней назад

Great stuff!

@TheFischsalat 10 месяцев назад

About the Pool of Idea thing: i think you presented this point to negatively. not everything has to bite the players in the ass. this gives the players long term the feeling of, they shouldnt leave any loose ends. and this could prevet them from doing good deeds. i mean yes we DMs draw from possible drama but we also shouldnt make things bleak and hopeless. so instead of letting the kobolds taking over a farm, maybe they could start to build one on their own. holding on to the oath they swore to the players, then the big bad from three months ago could show try to recruit them but they dont want to. so they contact the players saying "hey here is this big dude, comanding us, we dont want that, can you help" so the players fight the big baddy again this time with the helb of the kobolds and in the end the kobolds thank them by gifting them one of their own goats they now have on their own farm in the middle of nowhere. boom still pool of ideas but not everything turns out to be bad i am certain you do something like this already but i thought it was worth mentioning in the context of this video

@Mark-vr7pt 10 месяцев назад

In a situation with cobolds I would make it so they took "shinies" and using them as starting investment opened a profitable business, and now they are a big intercity corporation that bribed its way into becoming a monopoly on farming tools and livestock. Heroes could do something about it, but now cobolds inc have noble backing and strong security detail. Oh and big bad is their financial adviser. And who knows what he plans on doing