5 Things DM's Wish Players Knew 

In my campaign there is a Goddess who is the bbeg whose name I didn't write down, and the players didn't, but since she is the Goddess of New Beginnings we just went with her having a new name every time she's introduced

"Say what you imagine your character is doing" is the best advice I've heard for a new player

I like how most D&D videos are relationship advice.

About making failures into comedic elements: In one of our first sessions, my wizard rolled a 1 on Ray of Frost, so what I described happening was that instead of firing a beam, she actually conjured a ray, as in a manta ray or a stingray, made of ice, that fell directly to the ground and shattered.

To add onto this… LET ME FINISH DESCRIBING A ROOM. Holy cow, the amount of times players enter the boss room and immediately shout the 5 things they “do” to the boss expecting a surprise round is insane. They tried to get a surprise round when the boss opened the door for them and let them in, speaking to them the whole time. But back to room descriptions. Almost never are we fighting in a blank room. There are objects or different terrain or lava or something y’all gotta deal with. Let me talk. I have only 3 sentences written. Let me read them

I find that another game, Dungeon World, summarizes the DM role the best: Be a fan of the characters, Fill their life with adventures and everything is in danger

I like to think of the interaction between the DM & Player as a dance. Sometimes, one leads while the other follows and vice versa. It takes both to have a "successful dance".

I feel sooo lucky. Myself and my campaign members are all pretty new to DnD. Our DM I swear is an angel. He is beyond patient, informative, imaginative, and helpful. I'm so grateful for his attentiveness and creativity. Each of our sessions thus far have been absolutely riveting and magical, and none of us can get enough! It's been one of the greatest experiences of my entire life. Greg, if you see this, we love you & appreciate you endlessly! Your storytelling is unmatched and we all have such a wonderful time together. Thank you for being such a great sport & guiding us. Seriously, you're the bestest ever. 💓

Sir Ian McKellen teaches D&D: "I imagined what it would be like to be a wizard and then I pretended and acted in that way on the day" Simple as that

16:04 I played a dwarf Cleric who had a morning star he called "Bertha", and I kept rolling natural 1's all the time, getting Bertha stuck in anything and everything except the enemies XD Bertha is now a legendary weapon in my group, and when someone rolls a natural 1 on attack, Bertha is often commemorated :) Natural 1's can make the game so much fun, and create some of the most memorable situations.

Telling the DM your intentions instead of peppering them with questions is absolute GOLD. It doesn't just speed things up, it's also that the DM often can't possibly know the answer to all the small details ahead of time, but have enough of a grasp on the overall situation to decide whether your plan is doable without having to fill in al the details.

I love describing failures as the DM. Last week we had a scenario where a skeleton dragon was swopping down on the wizard, who was down to 24 HP. One bite was going to put him into death saves, I rolled a 1 and described the dragon completely missing and lodging his jaw into the dirt and flailing about trying to get free. We all had a good laugh and the wizard was able to counter and get the upper hand. He got into it and followed my lead, describing how angry the bumbling skeleton was as he force caged it and it bashed its head trying to get out.

Number 2 is a great point. So often I see players, especially newcomers, have this attitude of "I'm just going to sit back and let the story happen to my character" because they think they're being rude or they're going to mess things up if they take the narrative reigns. But as a DM, I almost always want my players to jump in and take control of the story.

The monologue on rolling a 1 and it being okay to fail was beautiful! Bravo, Kelly

9:57 "I'm portraying the bad guys and I want them to get absolutely destroyed by really cool stuff what the players do." essence of having good time DM'ing :)

We need a Dungeon Dudes Blooper Reel. Minimum 30 minutes long.

In our current campaign, my Tabaxi was hit with fear. Even though I could attack in my next turn, I had my character create a box, hide in it, and slowly raise his head to see what was going on with the rest of our group.

My advice for new players is to try to include your intent when trying something. especially when it comes to using spells for creative uses. Even if it seems simple to you, your dm may take it a different way. The other thing is to know that your dm isn't all knowing. If you want to do something crazy try to find a way to compromise with them. Their shooting the chandelier example is good to use. For some dm they may not know how to rule this, set DC, or results. This combines with adding intent to these actions. Stating that you're shooting it to hopefully knock someone down makes things much easier for the dm. Lastly, flavor is free. Players can narrate as well what they do. Instead of making 2 attack rolls and being done with it, describe how the attacks are made before you roll, and let the roll decide how you end your narration. These take a lot of pressure off of a dm and gives them time to think and react if they need it. It's a combined narrative, you can chime in! As a dm my most hated thing players do is search a room or something and just ask "what do I find" I've gotten to the point of just saying "nothing of interest" rather than describing whats in a random part of the room. State what you're looking for in your action, and results will change a lot. If you're looking for flour in a kitchen, or letters in a desk, to even tracks on the ground. It helps way more than you think!

About the GMs. Keep in mind there there is difference between "players having rough time" and "characters having rough time." I saw many times that players whined about the second and blaned the GM to be a bad guy.

My DM adviced me to give him regular updates on what my character wants to accomplish. I realised that this can make it easier for a DM to prepare sessions for their campaign but also guide you towards a fun storyline.

The tail end of your comments on Character Potential (cheering on other players, supporting other characters, giving up your action so another player can do something, etc.) is soooooo important!! It literally changes the game in ways that a DM cannot because when players do those things they breathe *life* into the game. The players elevate the experience and make the game so much more than just dice rolls and number crunching.

I wish my players knew how to show up prepared and on time. We only get to play for a 2 hr session due to scheduling, but that frequently ends up being more like 1hr by the time everyone's ready to go. So I end up frustrated, annoyed, and hurt. Like, I'm pouring my heart into making this game fun for you, the least you could do is show up when you say you will.

Being a DnD baby bird myself, having the DM review my character sheet with me has helped me immensely.

I sometimes wish players knew how much work DMs put into their campaigns/one shots

My group has a joke that any character that has wandering voices was raised by mind flayers because we (mostly me but some of the others have done it) have either forgotten a voice or started to lose the voice while we're talking.

This last week had a real laugh when while my PCs were traveling down a road they encountered the big bad's lieutenant and told him they're whole plan to stop his master 😅

As a new player on his first campaign, "the rules" was the most hilarious thing you could say😂 I'm trying DM, i really am 🤣

The forgetting things from one session to another is so true. I've forgotten names. Asked my players if they wrote it down, so we made up a new name for them. My players and I just laugh about it. Just recently in the last session, I got the blacksmith confused with a elvish blacksmith from the last campaign. So one of my players said "I say ____ to the blacksmith in dwarvish" I said " The blacksmith doesn't know dwarvish" They said that he did last time they talked to him. I admitted i had forgotten, and he does speak it. We just laughed. IMO D&D is not something to take too seriously. Ofc there are those campaigns like Critical roll and stuff that are more serious, but the rest of it, it's a bunch of people having fun. I explained to my players during session 0 that I may forget things from week to week. This group has been super great about it when I have forgotten something

I wish my players knew that the thing they're searching for is in the previous dungeon behind a feature they glanced at and walked passed.

I have to disagree with the GM not providing a service statement. The GM absolutely *is* providing a service for their players: you can have a session while missing a player, but not without the GM. The GM is like a host throwing a party. While it may be a lot of work, if the party is successful and everyone has good time, then they get the satisfaction for providing for their friends. The host can't make a good party happen on their own, but their work *enables* the possibility of a good party happening. We cannot ignore the fact that it's always the GM who sets the table and invites the players to enjoy themselves. It is inherently a servile role to take.

I'd want them you know that my favorite player is the one that's taking good notes. Guys I can only write so fast. I rely on at least one player to remember the exact details of that deal you made with the shopkeeper, where on the mountain you dropped some loot, how many days until you meet that NPC in the next town, etc. For my homebrew I do haven like 50 pages of notes, but it's all what I pre-planned. For the stuff that we clearly improvised, please write it down. :)

"Say what you imagine your character is doing." I love using spells in unexpected ways, like using Thorn Whip to catch a falling item, or Catapult to toss ropes across gaps. My GM has given me a lot of leeway on this, but sometimes throws unexpected but reasonable consequences in, which is a lot of fun for everybody involved.

"It's Ok to Fail." So true. At our table, our saying is "Nat 20's win battles. Nat 1's tell the story!" Letting the player tell the tale of what happened when they rolled the Nat 1 has given us years of stories we still tell when we get together.

On the character potential I think it really exemplifies why I’m starting to love smaller 3-4 person parties over the 5-6 person parties that I typically run. In one of my first games it had only 3 players and it was so easy for us to have individual moments in the spot light while also sharing the spotlight sometimes too.

What I would like my players to do: Know their spells and plan their next move/action after ending their turn.

I’ve just gotta say to new DM’s- watch Monty, and you’ll know what to do. Best I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been playing since the early 80’s. You’ll learn far more from this channel, and watching Monty DM, than you will ever learn from watching stuff like CR. Also, watch the rare times Kelly runs a game. I find him to be a master of improvising on the fly. I’m a LOT older than these guys (😢), been doing it far longer, and yet I’ve learned a ton from this channel the past few years.

The part about remembering names they mentioned at the start is something I usually struggle with a lot, not knowing how to spell it or not correctly assessing whether or not we will see the character again. One of the campaigns I participated in as player, the DM had done something amazing where they made a sort of 'wanted' poster of important NPCs, with an appearance reference if available, name, race, age, gender and other important 'at-first-glance' information. There was a binder on the table, and each time we met an important NPC the DM would add their character reference to the binder. Whenever players had trouble remembering an outlandish name, or just any name because (like me) some people are bad with those, we could look to the binder to quickly find their reference and remember their name. The images were also handy for me when provided, because I play a lot of different RPGs each of which might have some races look somewhat different (e.g. world of warcraft kobold versus D&D kobold is very different). If your party has trouble remembering the basics of NPCs, I highly recommend a system like this. Much less disruptive than someone constantly asking "what was their name again" or just saying "the questgiver" for the 50th time.

That's one of my favorite things to do/say as a dm. Give them a little smirk and say 'You could try!'

One of my favorite tools in the 5E toolbox is ability checks being freeform. You can pair any ability with any proficiency for the most part and that really helps when players start thinking big and outside of the box with their actions.

Something I like to remind myself is that Bot every action taken in combat needs to be combat-related. For example, trying to use some noble diplomacy on human npc’s, or something like awkwafina distracting her enemies by doing silly karaoke songs at them. These things can be a fun way to do a lot more with a lot less.

In the same vein as "that's the characters name now." I hadn't put names to cities other than the relevant ones to the story so far. So when a player asked I said, "well what do you want it to be?" We have now begun to collaboratively fill in our campaign map as its discovered.

The DM memory thing. Sometimes I get so caught up in the moment and improv and i have to come up with a name but I'm really focused on the interaction. I could tell you the whole interaction afterwards, but the npc's name? No way.

I like how you can substitute every time you guys say DnD with pretty much any other ttrpg. These tips and tricks are honestly so universal

Part of the reasons for wild expectations if a DM is because of RU-vidrs that say things like "this is a sign of a bad DM". I got interested in trpg games because of crpgs. "A good DM gives players tons of choices" meanwhile the games that got me started are linear with very little in the way of options.

😂 In our campaign we almost always describe how our character failed. We have a character that lost his dark vision so he often casts light onto an object he’s carrying. We got attacked while sleeping and on his turn he cast light on his dagger and attacked the enemy, bam! Nat 1. He described it as the light on the dagger was so sudden his eyes hadn’t adjusted yet and pretty much blinded himself. The whole party loved it. Personally I think epic failures on nat 1 is a lot more memorable and exciting than an epic success on a nat 20.

"Failures make the story valuable" That's the best line for D&D in 2022. That's a BAR! 🔥

I appreciate your last point. As the designated DM we sometimes “hold ourselves to a higher standard” and its good to know we’re all just some regular people playing silly games! It’s not a “job”!!! Thank you!

Do some campfire/tavern RPing between the PCs and have your PC ask the other's about their opinions, history and goals. Put the effort into RPing the growth of party camaraderie. Also RP developing party tactics. The number of tables I've been at where it's almost seen as metagaming having my PC want to understand what they party's capabilties are and how they might work together has surprised me.

For new players just try and know what the rules considering your character are. Some players try to learn the entire players handbook, but they really don't need to do that. It's enough to know the rules they need to worry about and make sure they know those well instead of knowing every rule a little bit.

Kelly's shirt is the definition of a cool dude shirt

The chandelier example: what you've described is a product of "bad dm trauma", because despite your celebrities experience with permissive dm's and AS permissive dm's, what most of us has experienced is bad dm's who's knee-jerk reaction is to say no. This is a real thing and VERY common.

One of the ways to explain the social contract to players might be like this: This is an challenge encounter. You can fail. If you succeed, you get to tell what happens from there for a while. If you fail, I get to say what happens. Essentially, encounter failures aren’t portrayed as character deaths and story endings, but as a loss of agency until the next encounter. Did the boss win or did the players win? The usual stakes are easy enough, but the encounters can be structured differently. For instance, the boss (let’s say a vampire) attacks. If he wins, he forwards his agenda. That could be tempting a character to vampirism, bestowing a curse, moving the characters somewhere else, or stealing an NPC off. If the players win, the boss is forced to flee and they get to see one of his get-out-of-jail free cards, plus hints on how to shut it down. In the final encounter, the PCs corner the boss and he’s out of cards to play. If they win, they get to decide his fate. How about a skill encounter? If the PCs win, they get to be clever and victorious, and surmount the challenge with style. This can involve winning contests, or navigating travel with ease. If the PCs lose the skill encounter, events happen beyond their control, and their movement is forced along a path they may not have planned (but which moves the adventure a certain way).

Communicating Interactions' chandelier example is players dealing with the antagonist DM: they are trying to paint the DM into a corner where they allow something to happen, when the DM has previously shot something down in a ruleslawyery way.

Even as a DM and a player both, I still end up doing the step-wise explain-to-me-if-these-things-are-here thing, although it's less because I want to trick anyone into agreeing with me, and more because I want to exactly what elements are in the combat puzzle I'm working with. I don't want the chandelier to exist just because I want to be able to shoot one down, I want it to exist because the DM thinks it's an important part of the scene that makes sense to be there. I don't wanna just be given things so I can be cool, I want to be cool by using the things that already exist, if that makes any sense? Less about "I'm gonna trick you into saying yes" and more "I want to make sure you have every opportunity to say no so that I'm not just making things up for you to go along with" Is that splitting hairs? I dunno. I guess having detailed descriptions of room layouts helps make this more of a non-issue, which I try to do myself.

I appreciated that you guys addressed the 'toxic DM" issue after talking about the likelihood of your DM being more enthusiastic and an ally to storytelling. While I and others I've known are just like you guys when the players think of something awesome, I have been in the presence of and heard stories about the bad ones. I think it goes a long way to help people understand that this is a wakeup call to anyone who *is* with a bad DM, that there's something off with how they run their games, and that there are better DM's out there! I think that's one of the biggest things I wish more players knew: that terrific DM's are out there and the difference between playing with one of them vs that other kind is so enormous.

The section on communicating intentions is really good and it can be very beneficial to the players. I had a situation once, where a player asked whether there were any insects in the room. I wasn't really sure where they were going with this, so I just said "no". I forgot that they had magic "staff of swarming insects" that they could have used. I would definitely said "yes" if I had remembered or they would have made their intention clear...

Love you guys. New dnd adventurer and have learned so much from y’all and excited to learn even more about 5e and Dnd One

Embracing failure as a fun and meaningful part of story development is one of the most important things a player can do to keep the have enjoyable for yourself and fellow players. One of my favorite moments ever in a campaign was (spoilers ahead!) towards the beginning of OotA when we were escaping the Drow prison. I was playing an arcane trickster rogue who had struggled with landing any melee attacks throughout the escape. My character was getting frustrated (I was laughing my ass off and apologizing to the rest of the party for my lack of contribution) so I climbed up to a stalactite and hid, waited for the priestess of Lloth to be right under me and dropped down to sneak attack her. My friend who was DMing gave me advantage since I was hidden and I rolled double Nat 1's. DM groaned and laughed and said sorry, you missed, and I was like oh, no, it's way worse than that. I described how I landed on my rapier, stabbing myself in the gut and dropping me to 0 hp. I was saved and decided my character hated trying to stab things. I worked with my DM and made a pact with the goddess of magic to trade out my rogue levels and go full wizard, but had a warlock style patron relationship with the goddess of magic. I loved it, DM and fellow players loved it, and it all hinged on rolling with failure and making it meaningful to the character, not letting it get you down as a player. Great advice, as always. Love you guys! Can't wait for my physical copy of Sebastian Crowe's Guide!

This is good stuff. The monsters are the enemy, not the DM. In the surf-down-the-stairs-on-a-shield thing, even on a failed acrobatics check, the DM might say that the shield slips out from under you with such force that it smacks into an orc, roll for damage! So the player still gets a cool moment.

I've been discussing some of these points with players in my campaign just recently. How joyful that you released exactly what I had in mind.

I have this 3rd party book which has a small table about player etiquette which I really wish PHB also had - and it tells a few good things. Apart from that, one important thing I wish all players knew (especially younger ones) was, try to figure out what other party members are trying to achieve and support them. That way they will be happy and will be grateful to you ingame/outside of game, and their success becomes your success as well - This applies to all sections of gameplay (combat as in pushing an enemy into someone's AOE effect, roleplaying as in distracting an NPC while the role performs sleight of hand, exploration like keeping an eye out for threats while your friend tries to solve a puzzle or unlock a door).

LET'S GO, now we need this to go viral! As a DM, I'm very happy about it.

All good tips, this would make a great video to show new players. That thing about trying to hide intentions from the DM was so me for the first few sessions.

I was so happy when my party discovered they could combine web and fire to create a massive explosion. It saved their assess after they charged into butterskull ranch and fought 20 orcs at once. I eased them in by introducing the orcs every turn since they had to group up, because 20 orcs at once woulda been a tpk, but after they discovered teamwork, i definitely upped the difficulty.

You guys are so freaking thoughtful! Been watching you for years. Rewatching this video now. You advice has made my game much better. Thanks!

My first session zero felt very much like I was being read my miranda rights. That really messed me up as a player for a long time. I would ask a thousand questions before declaring my action, because if I didn't make an air tight case for why it should work, it would be used against me. And I would be scared of making even a tiny mistake. I am not even sure if that was the actual intend of my dm, or if that was more of a miscommunication. Looking back communication was a big problem in that first group. And we never discussed what we enjoyed or hated about our games, so nothing ever improved. It was really important to me, that the players in my new group know that they can tell me if they don't enjoy aspects of our playstyle and that we will find ways to work it out. Even the new player's opinions matter. I am not going to assume that it's a lack of experience that has them frustraded with certain houserules.

Regarding failure, my first session with a new character and new team of players saw me missing every single attack roll with my Eldritch blast-centric warlock. We quickly rolled it into my character, who was basically all talk, and it became one of the funniest most enjoyable parts of the game when I would miss an Eldritch blast.

Thank you for these tips. I'm currently still burning through SoD right now, and currently crocheting dice bags for my new players. I got them all three sets of dice each, and I plan on making little loot chests for their other goodies as well. I want to say a huge "CONGRATS!" on your kickstarter campaign! From everything I've seen so far about Drakkenheim, it's a complex and brilliantly imagined world. Have a fantastic day!

hey guys. thansk for everything. my group has met probably 8 times total now. your videos have helped me realize being a DM isnt impossible or too difficult, but a whole lot of fun, despite the challenge!

I wish players knew how much they affect the environment and mood of the session and campaign. I think too many players are passively awaiting the DM’s tone and feel obligated to follow. A character can make a joke or do something silly or (attempt to) make a serious alliance whenever they want even if it isn’t exactly what the current setting is. As long as it doesn’t distract or derail progress, I think it is a welcome addition.

As a DM, almost since the beginning with the old Red box D&d, I've always allowed the npc's a reaction set, and a plan. That helps bring them to live, but it also allows them to react to what the players do by changing what they are doing.. Goblins might be brave until scared or someone pushes against their bluff,, so chances are that small team of heavy crossbow carriers might get of a shot before running off. An enemy mage, might use other of their spells if characters do certain things or they might flee in anger to try to take revenge later. Even the farmer selling vegetables from a cart at the market will have things he or she will do and how they will react, but wants too and a plan for the day. Doing stuff like that for every NPC makes them feel more alive. And if a player get's to big for their bridges, when nothing hurts quite as much as loosing to a group of crossbow carrying kobolts who more or less kills the character before they can react and wakes up naked wrapped up like a christmas steak besides a huge pot. If they don't find a way out of that they will be cocked and eaten. Do that and other things once or twice and the character learns that even the weakest being can be dangerous. Oh, and by the way, a knockout poison gas, is not a sleeping gass, that distinction will allow any DM lots of fun at the cost of the players. Being robbed blind by a teenaged robber girl who seemingly vanishes into smoke with all their best gear and all their money, tends to focus the players to go hunting or maybe seek the criminal behind it, only to find that they are the disposed noble who is fighting against the evil that has taken over the town in secret. Everyone has goal, needs, wants, in any given moment they have a plan, most of the time they have stuff to do too, so they are not hanging around for the players to stumble over, they have to go look or seek. But maybe outsiders are not well liked and that causes issues, or.... Make your roleplaying world so filled with life that it almost feels real. All it takes is a bit more imagination.

Realize that a bad joke is nearly always worth it. What I mean by that: read the group and the mood of the day. Sometimes derailing a session is the best choice for everyone als it'll get you a lot of fun for the next weeks.

I think that the other side of whole "players using a long line of questioning to get to what they want to do" thing is that there are definitely DMs out there that would say: "You want to light your arrow on fire and shoot down the chandelier? Okay, you light the arrow and shoot a straight shot up to the chandelier supports, but it was a metal chain so your arrow had no effect." And the player has now wasted their turn doing something that they 100% wouldn't have done if they were in place of the character and could see that the chandelier was help up by a chain rather than a rope. If they had gone through the line of questioning, they would know and not waste their turn.

Such a great Video. I, as a learning dm, was able to take so many great things from this video. Thank you guys!

Make a video on remove curse at mid level play! I'm dm for CoS and 3 players caught lycanthropy at party level 8. It was disappointing when the cleric waved his hand and they were healed.

Such a great video highlighting some very important aspects of table top games. Great job you two and great job to your patreons for having some great insight.

This was spectacularly well said and made thank you both for your hard work, I always love your videos and just want to let you know you are appreciated

the communicating intentions example is due to players having had DMs who were AGAINST the party. i have a friend who is that type of DM.

That long line of questions is likely due to a player trying to think out what they're doing, or an experienced player that's spent too much time with an antagonistic DM. One bad DM can teach a player they need to act that way. Then unlearning they play style of asking questions until the DM is backed into a corner becomes an uphill battle.

This is just a great video for me. I just started as a DM and I couldn't agree more with the sentiment of this video and comments. We are telling a story together about challenges and cool ways to overcome them. So if everyone pitches in by imagining what the characters intent to do and see what the roll says about the execution. It's far cooler when you have a clear goal for a roll. Just alone knowing that the monster had ill intent but Missed miserably has you more emotionally invested in the story. Which leads to a more passionate way of portraying our characters, both as DM as players.

I want my players to know that i often am just making stuff up as we go along, that i only have a generalized end goal and i will fit in the mcguffins where i see them fitting in with the story THEY are writing. So sometimes, i also need to take notes, cause god forbid in 5 sessions you finally return to a city and everyones forgotten what the promised reward was, or in 10 sessions you reference a character that you remember everything about but i dont remember one bit. I need just a little bit of time to shorthand some notes on whats going on. However, at the same time im making maps and dozens of character possibilities and creating the space for you to play around in and form your stories while balancing an often more than full time job and regular life on top of this. While i can make stuff up as i go, i cant just make up a characters personality and everything on the spot every time, i do need some preparation time so that you actually can see and visualize the places you visit, the people you see, and the things your characters can do and do in this theatre of the mind. I just need more than a day between some sessions, thats all. So yeah, please give me some prep time and ask things you want to do. Im here to make the game fun and fair while keeping it "on track." If you think thered realistically be barrels of alcohol nearby, you can ask and ill check what i know of the area, make the judgement call, and then you can burn the tavern down anyways.

thanks. your points are valid and helpful, even to a guy that has been playing for several decades. i have tried to run games, but am terrible at it, for many reasons. i am grateful for the guys in the group that are awesome at it, and i show that by only arguing with the DM when it provides fun for the table.

For a hot second, when I first watched Drakkenheim, I thought Monty was an antagonistic DM - or at least a sadistic one because of his penchant for laughing when PCs failed or had problems. It is clear that's not the case though - the players clearly took it in stride, plus Monty laughs when antagonists also fail spectacularly.

one of the main reasons that players try to figure out the entire scenario before they ask if they can do something is because a lot of game Masters have this tendency when a player comes up with something interesting to do to just try and find a way that they can't do it. not to be confused with players who try to do ridiculously outlandish things that don't make any sense

I actually came up with a fun use for inspiration at my table. I call it set the scene. The player is allowed to describe some part of the environment such as loose rocks, a chandelier, or a powder keg near some cannons to do cool things with

Very wholesome and positive content, y'all. I sent this to some nervous first timers and they seem very excited now for our upcoming session.

This video was incredibly insightful, and has really changed my perspective on how I should behave as a player once my DM stint finishes. Love the vid!

Great video! As a DM, I can relate to some of these things of what we wish players knew or did/didn't do. One of the other things to mention is, some DMs do it as a necessity to just be apart of DnD. I just had a decent length of time that I was DMing a few campaigns and not playing in any because I didn't know anyone else that could DM or wanted to. Also, I like many DMs out there, like to teach people how to play the game. We may not be the most experienced DM out there or even very good at it, but we just want to get others interested in what we love. Cut DMs some slack on the little things. Appreciate that they put their time into everything.

Kelly’s Shirt is awesome! Thanks for all the great content. I send all of my players your videos.

At first I didn't want to watch this as I thought this was exactly the video that you say at the very beginning that you are NOT going to do (take notes, know your character, creating the adventure takes a lot of effort, blabla...), but man was I wrong and I'm so happy I clicked on the video. This is great stuff! Most of us know all this, but putting all this in one, easily consumable video is a great tool! I'm gonna show this all my players! Many thanks Dudes! ;)

My DM really appreciated that I shared your video with him. He might share it with the party so they understand more about the game:)

My party is not super creative or RP heavy and mainly just likes rolling dice and smacking bad guys. But I've found running things as skills challenges instead of combat (stopping a ritual, escaping from a cave-in, etc) encourages them to be much more creative than just the usual "i smack twice"

"Players should try to DM at least once" Having experienced a player who is also a DM was amazing, They can see when you stumble and are quick to start RP among players to give you your moment to wright yourself, they own their failures, they aren't afraid of character death, And they are usually better at picking up the hints that the DM puts down. I would love it if all my players ran something, I don't even need to be there. As a bonus, if any of my players came to me asking me to teach them how to run a game, I would cry with happiness.

“I’m portraying the bad guys and I want them to get absolutely destroyed by really cool stuff that the players do” is perhaps the best description of my own DM style I’ve ever heard. Thank you for that, and for this video. Lots of good advice for players, which is honestly hard to find.

7:25 A caveat to the statement of intentions: Do not assume there will be a chandelier in the room just because you get the idea to shoot it down. It is crucial to ask questions about your surroundings to then understand what you can do. In this instance, as a player, I would have asked about shooting down the chandelier after the DM said there was one, still asking questions, but cutting back on them dramatically. 10:46 Correction: The DM SHOULD be on your side. I have played with a few DMs who's only concern seemed to be how they can cause the most damage to the party or kill the most characters as efficiently as they could. I would have DMs who would laugh manically and wring their hands if the party would split for any reason. These DMs usually only ran one session and I wouldn't go back to them. If your DM does this often, they won't be a DM for long. Do not tolerate this behavior. DMs don't like murder-hobos, players don't like party killers.

Communicating Intentions also goes to within the party. Way too many times when people decided on a new plan without communicating what they're doing until it's too late, whether it's battle or a split party RP.

My biggest wish is that my players had a real understanding of how much work goes into building a setting, running a long standing campaign, and preparing a session. Often times it takes a few days of work to put together something I feel I can be proud of, and I try to host games once a fortnight.

"Do the dumb" my character had to backtrack through a haunted house and he "forgot" to take a right turn, instead stumbling into a diner with a creepy doll in a seat in the back at the table. Simple but cool moment

Speaking with new players sometimes making the game, the best one that my players still talk about after more than 10 years was when the 1st level party came up against a flying giant mantis when on a cliff side. Everyone was scrambling trying to survive, this new player goes "Hey I have - I want to lasso the mantis". Several roles and minutes later the whole table is howling in laughter as the monk to being held by the fighters to the cliff side with a squished mantis hanging down below them.

Often times, the reason a player might have a line of questioning it to ensure the DM supports their idea, rather than shoot it down. You right that some DMs want to have fun and it's not necessary, but that's just some DMs.