How being a Teacher made me a better Game Master - D&D / TTRPG 

color coding the teacher perspective and the gm perspective with different color lights is mesmerizing

I am a college professor in game design and I’ve found a lot of cross over between teaching and GMing! I think that “magician mode” is something I’ve got to read more about too!! Wonderful video!! Cheers!!

I've heard said that the Venn diagram of teachers and tabletop gamers in nearly an eclipse 😌 Also THAT NOTE ON "THEY PULL YOUR NOSE BECAUSE THEY'RE BORED" IS TIMELESS.

I love when people make crossovers of... anything really, this is a *Hobby × Profession* crossover

I am also a teacher and a GM. During the pandemic, I convinced a group of teachers to try D&D. They became instantly obsessed and we have been playing every week for 4 years now :) I used to be the "forever DM" - but no longer :D

This is such a fantastic video - great points approached in a new way, paired with really clean production and fantastic storytelling! I can't wait to see where your channel goes, if this is what you're accomplishing within your first ten uploads 🙌

Are you KIDDING ME? I JUST came across your video and I have been a teacher for 18 years and one of the few things I have been going for longer than the classroom is Dungeons and Dragons. And I love both. And I have ALWAYS thought there's a huge connection between doing one well and that improving the other! Masterful approach!

a warmup i use at my table is asking everyone who was the most badass and the bigger loser npc/pc moment from the last session. they always start describing every single detail about hilarious stuff and how cool it was. i also prepare a top 3 "things" and reveal them one by one letting the players guess what's in the first position

I will be using the "what are you thinking as you wake up?" open with my session tonight! I have done in the past a "what are you doing to prepare for the day?" open, but I really love the thoughts/feelings angle...better to get them into RP mode. Thank you!

"Don't comment me, I'm a beginner teacher. Just... pray for my students." That was fantastic! And thanks for the excellent video!

I'm not a GM, but the "kids pulling on your nose because they're bored" concept really resonated with me. It feels analogous to focusing on tasks when you have an attention disorder. So, thank you!

I'm a High School teacher in the USA and I run the Tabletop Gaming Club, with a focus on DnD. As far as warm-ups go, having players introduce their characters/what they did last session, take notes about their party mates/their actions, and share out a connection or feeling the characters have about at least 2 of their party mates is a good way to get them into the roleplaying mindset while having them focus on the table in the middle of a loud room. It also leads people to "defending" their character or explaining their actions better, which leads to better characterization.

So many youtubers seem to be teachers. Must be a natural connection 😊

THIS! IS! EPIC! I used to teach. When I got into DMing, it quickly dawned on me how running a table wasn’t much different from teaching! You are absolutely spot on in every aspect of this video. I’ve been out of the classroom for a couple years now, and I would miss it if it weren’t for DMing. This time, there isn’t the pressure of managing a classroom and I get to work and teach (because D&D has many educational benefits, especially social skills) to children and adults alike!

Hi! I find that people who are professional teachers, have advantage since they know how to prep, and discuss the subject to a classroom of students. You also learned to communicate and explain things better. I find the RU-vid people, that are teachers, are the ones I listen and learn from. Some RU-vidrs are selling, and entertaining, but I don't need that. Would you be open to have people, like me, to watch one of your game sections? I would pay for it. I learn from watching and taking notes. I don't need to be a player character. I think you are in France, I would watch it on your schedule. No pressure. Thank you for doing this episode. 😀

If you master your subject (or your gameworld!), improvisation is key, too. It is vital for a GM, but it also serves me well as a teacher! Makes lessons more lively and students more involved (you're adapting to them). Cheers!

I'm a teacher myself and have been playing dnd for 30 years and I love your point of view! It's so easy to join the to concepts! Bravo!

The greatest boon to me as GM, was when I became a flight instructor. Those fundamentals of instruction and how people learn and engage made everything fall into place so I know exactly what you mean and you are exactly correct (in my experience at least)! Literally every beat you touched on here I learned as an instructor and applied in my games to great effect. I also have "the class" open up with a player-led session recap and it sucks us all in every time. I'm loving your videos after just discovering your channel and can't wait to see what you've got coming up. Keep up the great work! P.S. If you ever figure out how to make lesson plans that aren't absolute chaos or absolute inane bullet points please share with the class. Send help.

From a writer's perspective, you get the Narrator premise: "Show, don't tell...". If you actually show it properly, you don't need to spoil anything in anticipatìon (unless you want to purposely build anticipation, most commonly to avoid the expected effect in the end... The former is surprise, the later builds suspense...). So, skip the "telling" part right into the "show" one, and your formula simplifies to "Show (don't tell) - Do - Apply". I like your video. Pretty cool content. Keep going!

I'm also a teacher and a GM! One of my first thoughts when I was being introduced into teaching theory and general lesson structure was "Wait... this is just D&D with less dragons". I love this video - thank you!

From a didactical standpoint, I think we need more inventive Teachers just as yourself, integrating more luddism into teaching.Your students are just in the right hands.

As a fellow teacher and GM; this was helpful on both sides of the coin! Thank you for this! 😄👍💯

feel like I've stumbled upon most of these things you talk about through happenstance. When I GM, I'm constantly throwing mysteries and whatnot at the party- usually because they see something weird, or something weird happens to the players they can't quite understand yet. Dangle a question in front of your players and watch them tear your world apart trying to find the answer. Very satisfying!

If only we were taught pedagogy like that!!! I learnt more useful things in 20 minutes than in a semester at Uni! I am one of those crazy ones who dared to combine DnD and teaching (English), so it was crazy helpful, thank you, will follow you

Fellow teacher and GM here! I love this video! Both the warm up and cold open are great for classroom and table engagement, and I often find myself comparing notes between what I see at the table vs the classroom. I’ve found that both players and students will often default to socializing with their friends unless I take the reigns. It’s the same in kids and adults! Of course it’s less stressful at the game table where the stakes are lower lol. I loved what you said about Doing! Giving your players a more unforgettable experience and I feel silly I didn’t make that connection myself sooner haha. I guess sometimes I’m just too much in my own head. Excellent video with excellent info!

I've been GMing since 1977. And I freakin' LOVE: "What is the first thought upon waking" as a question for the players/pc. I am swiping that. Also, not a teacher... (I've dabbled in teaching illustration classes... but that is so much about demonstration and almost going directly to the "Apply stage")... so I had not heard these techniques in these terms. Very cool. I AM going to share this with 2 of my players, one of which, IS a teacher in NYC. I subscribed after this one video and I look forward to sifting through your back catalog and any new videos you end up doing.

Teacher/GM here, and this is a brilliant video. I learned a little about teaching AND running games! Great video

I cannot thank you enough for this addition to my Kit. Incredible!

Secret? "Keys to player engagement" is on the thumbnail! :) Great advice!

As a fellow teacher (teaching assistant, to be exact) and D&D noob, this video couldn't be more perfect

Beginner teacher and GM here, thanks for compiling all this insight to a short video! Also love your hair 😊

I don’t know whether my students are going to ace their upcoming test, but you’ve aced this video. Super-well explained and super-interesting, as ever. Thanks, Val!

As a new DM and new teacher myself, I found this video very intriguing on both fronts!

@QuestingBeast is also a teacher, and has mentioned that there are a lot of people running games who teach. Your video makes it clear why that would be such an asset. Love your videos!

This video is underrated. Amazing new perspective about GMing I've never heard in all my years of enjoying the hobby! Thank you!

this is a perfect channel to binge watch at 4AM

Succinct, quirky and humorous, and insightful and informative! Thank you. Please continue making more content!

Oh wow, the quality of both the content and the editing is incredible!

With you as my teacher, I think I would continue to have a love for learning.

Ah! You were looking for becoming a better teacher and found something to become a better GM and now I'm going to use that to become a better game designer. It will be fun re-adapting all these concepts to videogames :)

High School Game Development Teacher chiming in, 10 years in (7 as a DM). A lot of this is good advice, but in both mentoring new teachers and new GMs. I find the focus on "engagement" to be a bit unhealthy at times. Young teachers really put a lot of pressure on themselves to be the driving force of energy and engagement in a classroom and unfortunately this can lead to a lot of burn out, as you point out, DMs (especially new DMs) feel similar pressure. The hard fought wisdom that is learned over time is that yes, you have an important role to play in engagement, but over the long haul, the teachers/DMs that make it over the long haul are the ones that understand that they cannot be a constant font of learning. As one of my mentors put it "There are classrooms where the math teacher does a lot of math and there are classrooms where the students do a lot of math. Guess which teacher makes it to year 5."

English Lit teacherling of 1 month and GM of 18 months. There’s a good bit of crossover for sure. I’ve been thinking about this idea for a while!!

Man I love the fresh perspective she gives for the gm. Keep up the awesome work ✌🏾

AAAAAAAAAAA, this actually helps me so much. I feel like this is info that more DMs should know, cause I wish I knew about this when I started. This channel really is helpful, thank youuuuuu.

A warm up technique I recently used that yielded good results was getting the player's to share a fun fact about their characters. This video had a ton of good information, surprised i have just happened upon this channel.

I love every video I’ve seen of yours so far. If I might provide some feedback, I’d love to see the graphics onscreen at least twice as long so I can read them as you’re talking. They look neat and I often pause so I can take them in. Thanks for making unique connections and making well-thought-out content! 🎉

As both a GM and beginning university professor myself, I appreciated your thoughts. I certainly know the importance of maintaining engagement in both realms, and am far from mastering it in either, but I happened to be working on implementing a lot of these same strategies in the classroom just prior to watching this video. Good luck with your teaching efforts; my command of my students' (or players') attention is tentative at best, but based on how this video held mine, you're already likely to do well in both arenas.

Brings me back to the time I was a teacher, Great video as always!! I found there are strong similarities in prepping.

I really like the idea of the video and the execution of it! I agree the most with the magician. Be it as a student, player or GM, this is how you can get my attention. Though as a GM I really like to start my campaigns or one-shots seemingly simple, so the group can assemble and get comfortable with each other enabling also usually some roleplay. Then as soon as they are on their mission, they find more and more hints leading to different background knowledge growing their curiosity into what has been and how this correlates to what or who is still around here awaiting them. With the "Tell, Show, Do, Apply"-method I'd personally narrow it down to things have consequences, be it the things players did or the ones your world does. Also as a student, I had problems with this method, since I didn't learn much of it. Yes, I used it myself a couple of times, but basically I just copied a template and if it didn't work, I still didn't understand how it should work. Finding your own way to the solution is always how I learned the things that works best, especially (returning to GM view) since every single table plays different and has different interests and develop individual dynamics with the flow of the adventure. Thus it's nothing unusual for me to adapt mid-campaign new systems into our rulesets and it be it just for a single character, who wanted to dig in a specialty of theirs more. The warm ups/cold opens are a nice idea to which I can't say not too much, as I'm (no matter the group) always the main notetaker and thus always run around thinking about our campaigns and give most of the time the recap of last session xD And with the warm ups: The first thoughts after a rest is a nice little thing, which again has the potential to create chaos discussions among the players (speaking from experience), but it's still a nice thing to activate the players, if they are fine with revealing their characters true thougths and don't want to keep them a mystery for a later reveal. With the level up at the beginning of a session, I'd actually advice against. This breaks immersion, since everyone speaks out of character and there could be a lot of rule questions coming up and especially spellcasters can potentially need quite a while to do a full level up. Also the mechanical process takes time away from the actual game time, which is a reason, why players could be torn between making it quick and giving things an actual thought, they'll be satisfied with. But what you could do, after you ended last session with a level up, is to give each character a chance to tell how things felt different now with more power or how they reflect things or gained their level up in the first place. For a warlock player of mine always talked with his patron, when leveling up, which we actually played out. These are my personal experiences and thoughts about this. I can't really say in what regard my points are an individual or actually general thing. Either way I thank you for your video and that you decided to share your findings and thoughts. It was especially interesting for me to see, what theory is lying behind the education I went through and what similarities the two POVs actually have!

I find your channel to be one of the most interesting and captivating I've seen in many years. The way you think outside the box and connect different content in an entirely new perspective is really something unique. And learning you're a teacher makes perfect sense. I may be a little biased, seeing I'm finishing my master's in education, but I see a lot of bell hooks' and Paulo Freire's teaching as a practice of freedom in what you teach. And seeing you want to keep growing... You seriously inspire me. Thank you so much ❤

I'm an amateur rules writer for tabletop wargames and finding ways to increase player engagement is something I'm always looking to keep at the top of my list. You've got a load of great stuff in here that I think will be super applicable outside teaching and TTRPGs alone. Thanks!

That was very helpfull and delightfull, thank you very much! I was blessed by the algorythm with another rpg channel I can bingewatch insted of preparing my campain, yes...

What you said in the beginning made me want to give you a hug.

doing a level up at the start of a session is genius. They're going to be excited to use new abilities and whatnot, immediately pulling them into the game.

New C&C video about D&D, gonna get myself some E&E (education & entertainment)!

This is so neat and a concept I never would've thought of before!

I just wanted to chime in and say that you have an amazing channel and a unique perspective to what goes in to being a DM that I have not seen on other channels. I am so excited for where this channel will go in the future and wish you all the best!

Excellent video with great content in a very short space. I'd love to hear your teacher's take on helping the quiet players to engage and teaching the loud ones to take a back seat sometimes.

You are an absolute treasure! Please keep making videos. You're doing great.

Yeah, this is great!! Pedagogy fits perfectly with storytelling. I'm not a dm (I might try some day), but as a player, I will still keep these tips and methods in mind. We are all writing the story, after all!

That was the singular most helpful video for me as a dm out of every video I have ever watched, thank you. I have dmed for about 3 months now and something was missing the whole time, I see my sessions looking up now.

I am trying to revamp a group that has recently experienced some pretty heavy burnout from our first campaign. Thanks for all these ideas, this makes me excited to try again. I am also a new teacher so I actually loved the connections for these two worlds.

As a GM one thing I really like to do and received good feedbacks from my players is having a small music like the opening credit of a show. It's a small time during which everyone turn off their mics and at the end of it we directly engage on the game. It gives them a bit of time to put their feet in their character and being a recurring thing help it a lot.

As one who uses games to help kids reach their full potential in a safe space, this advices are gold. Thank you for the beautiful ideas and input!

I became a DM last year, and am a teacher and I have said for the past year that teaching SO set me up for success as a DM. I also play in a game where the DM was a professor, and he's far and away the best DM I've played under. They're directly correlated.

I'm yet another teacher and long time DM. Honestly, I'm probably better as a DM, but it is good to see that crossover highlighted so clearly. Time for me to bring more DMing magic into the classroom.

Your videos are always great! The juxtaposition in how you framed this was excellent. Plus, I loved the invocation of the Magician Tarot card here.

Im currently writing a paper on how being a gamemaster can make people better teachers through the abilities they learn dm-ing so seeing this video is super funny

Love it. I run a lot of convention games and I’m always terrified of being a “bad teacher” leading to new players having a bad time in my sessions. Thank you for the tips! They inspired a few ideas im going to try out at Adepticon! 😁

Great approach!!! I am just starting my teaching journey and have been GMing for a while now. Going through my classes I've noticed some connections between how I run my tables and how I'd run my classrooms. I love how you've set up the video and how you've validated this connection. Applying these concepts to my tables immediately!!!!

Beginner DM and working on my education degree. This was a really insightful look into both worlds and their overlap. I adore this video, thank you for sharing!

You have a great talent and i really appreciate the kind of roleplaying you are putting forward. I subscribed because your view is what we need for the future of roleplay. Keep it up!!!

It is so easy to gloss over those obvious patterns you mentioned, the way teachers try to get the students engagements. Thank you for the reminder. While I'm quite seldom in experiencing Tell Show Do Apply in class, it is a basic in video games. Thus, that is also one more thing to be aware of. Though I find the magician part is quite overlapping with this one. Time to apply these. Thanks, teach!

This is awesome! You gave a lot of great advice that I can start using in my games. Thank you😃

I think you're off to a great start as a teacher! I sure learned a lot. Thank-you :)

Your students are very lucky. Great video!

I just discovered you with this video and I wanted to thank you! You give clear guidelines I'll definitively keep in mind. Plus, I love your tone and your humour

I really enjoy your videos and your perspective. You explain GMing from a point of view that I don't get from other RU-vidrs. Thanks for your great content.

before seeing this video i always thought there had to be a crossover between gming and teaching, its cool to finally hear someone talk about it

Well, I didn't want to pull on your nose once during this video, so you must be doing something right. More seriously, as a beginner GM, I really appreciate this perspective. It's helping me crystalize and put focus on some stuff I was already instinctively doing. And your presentation is excellent!

This is so cool! I was a TA in college for 2 years before I was a GM. Used to have a brainstorm session with them to give them ideas of what they'd like to go on & major in. Honestly, my students were as chaotic as my table. Their research ideas were nuts!

Great video as a teacher and also as DM I find combat helps in both the classroom and DnD : )

As an English teacher, something being a DND player/DM helped me with is setting the context of roleplays in speaking tasks. It made students more engaged and visualized the situation more clearly. Another teaching technique I want to utilize in DND is student-centeredness. That is students/players doing most of the work with facilitation from the teacher/DM.

Great video, excellent channel! (here, have a sub!) I love your passionate and clear delivery, and that you're delivering really interesting insights. Your students are fortunate to have you in their lives, and we are too. Thank you. I'm a huge fan of cross-disciplinary pollenation - unique wisdom and viewpoints are really super-charged by transferring the lessons and approaches from one discipline to another. Long live the polymath and the generalist!

I'm a teacher & aspiring DM. This is a really interesting crossover & perspective. Most RU-vidrs (or people in general) struggle to create something new, say something worth saying, or make an impression. In my opinion, you've done all of that in this video. I don't think I've ever considered tapping into me teacher-self to keep my players' attention, but the realization hit me so hard, I don't think I'll ever be able to unsee it! Thank you for the insight.

this was fascinating, i felt as though I had hit an echo chamber with gming content on yt but this was a way of looking at gming I had not considered, and will now adapt into my way of play

I semi-recently became a Pre-school teacher. It is amazing how much crossover there is in teaching smol kinders and running a table are. Even in how you narrate a story, increasing pace, changing voices, the volume of your voice can all work wonders for building excitement, or undercut it terribly if you don't do it or do it badly. So I really appreciated this video from the parallels of my own experience, as well as the additional ideas you've given me. Thanks!

Lovely video. Love the concept of warmup activities, involving players in recap and checking in with PCs what they are doing/thinking as the game starts. And your voice is Devine.

I love your videos so much! They help me be a better storyteller, DM, teacher, and friend in my group!

Subscribed! Looking forward to watching this channel explode in popularity. Fantastic stuff :)

I think this is the most understandably structured, actionable video of player engagement advice I think I've ever seen on youtube. Thank you so much for this!

Table culture is very DM dependent and it's almost like a dance - keeping people engaged. For a popular example there was a thread with people complaining that the CR players are getting more and more rowdy during the game - and it's true due to not having their attention kept.

As a teacher I always felt like DMing felt very natural but I couldn't tell you why. Now the connections are obvious. 👍

DAAAMN! I'm starting my first campaign and this was SO instructive! Thank you so much!

I just found your channel this morning. Thank you so much for your fun and informative content.

Both this video and Ginny Di's one DM have been very informative, and I will definitely refer back to them if I decide to DM in the future.

Loved it! Your delivery and video production, Fabulous!!

Super well-made! Keep it up! Edit: I also appreciate the subtitles!

My mom is a teacher and we have conversations about teaching/DnD all the time. It was so cool when we discovered we could relate to each other over our passions!

I never take notes but this video had me engaged, breaking out the google doc and constantly pausing and rewinding to make sure I got everything down. this is wonderfully done and one of if not the most helpful guide I've seen for helping with player engagement. thank you so much!