How Pro DnD DMs Bring Their Players Together 

Thanks for watching! If you'd like to support the channel, consider becoming a member by hitting the JOIN button above! Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/BonusActionDnD Join my Discord: discord.gg/BS6YxxfMP6

You know what works best? Just a discussion out of game. Session 0 is a great time to do it, but it doesn’t have to be so formal. Just a “Hey, this is my idea for the game, do you think you can make a character to go on this adventure?” Could work wonders. Communication is the key to every RPG.

If one of your players wants to start a farm instead of trying to save the world, you just say "Okay your character does that, now make a new character that does care about saving the world".

When you make the BBEG a family member of a PC it's best to drop that in as an epic reveal, especially if the player left hat door open for you as a GM. My best Dad move was I had a PC who sought to claim the lost finger bone of his father that turned out to be a magic wand. It was weird story but we went with it. Then I had his Dad show up the Lich with 4 fingers on one hand that worked for the evil organization the players where against. However the twist was, Dad was supper supportive, expecting his sorcerer son to eventually come over to lichdom immortality in his own time, encouraged his association with the party and saw everything as a game of cat and mouse. Hilarity ensued.

One of the biggest helps I've had in my games is in Session 0, having characters define pre-existing links to at least one other character, more if possible. There is nothing more destructive, imho, to a game is having a group of characters made in a vacuum and then trying to find reasons to keep them together. Having that set up before the game even starts makes it so much easier to just get into the game.

Love these concise and focused videos! Keep them coming, so many dnd prep videos are insufferably long.

Literally all those DMs have some sort of session zero with their players to ask the questions to pull off the magic trick. Session zero is the most important thing you can do because it tells you so much more than just what people's characters are going to be and what they want in the game vs what you can offer given the setting. It shows you who will speak up and who won't. Who will just say yes but clearly wants to say no. It gives you an opportunity to set up communication rules so that everyone can be heard. That's the big thing with any successful group. People need to be able to communicate and be heard. Literally the second people can't communicate and be respectful, the game starts to fall apart. You can every possible hook and set piece that everyone would love but the second people don't want to play nice, everything falls apart. You can be the best DM, but if your players can't play nice, there is no game. My advice would be, get rid of problem players ASAP! They are poison that will ruin everything including the other players' desire to ever play again. (Also, never experienced the paladin vs the rogue thing ever. In my group, the paladin and rogue were best buds. Paladin wanted to stop the Big Bad because Big Bad was bad and rogue wanted to stop the Big Bad because Big Bad clearly upset best bud paladin. Literally the only hooks they needed to go through the campaign.)

Asking players how their character is feeling at the beginning of a session is crucial - I've made it a habit and players have started telegraphing and role-playing a lot more as if their characters were empathetic real people Great tips that genuinely improve the gameplay experience, though not easy these tips can likely be the difference between players showing up to your sessions or not. Keep them engaged!

In my opinion, money and treasure are the worst hooks. But I don't like hooks at all and work more with kickers, which are basically in session zero established aspirations of the characters and thus they kick their character on their own into the direction of that goal. That might sound similar to the emotional hook or what Brennon is doing, but I do usually less than they do. I just talk about the theme of my campaign with the players, and ask them to have their kickers tie into that theme, and then I have not to tie their backstory to the villain, that is something the players do then on their own. But I admit that this works best with players who are used to play in GMless games and thus can deal with the responsibility of bringing themselves into the fiction.

Happy you brought up 0 session! I was waiting for it the entire video. It is seriously a game changer.

Great video! That back and forth, the exchange of information is so crucial to turning some paper, dice, and people into a living, breathing world.

You should look at Gangy Green from Mice and Murder. He's a character that was made to be curmudgeon loner type character. But Katie, his player chose to make an important pivot during the game. He didn't care about anyone except one NPC, Matilda Molesly, who is the only one who showed him any kind of love. And that's what softened him up to the rest of the party.

The part about the contract . I'm rewatching crit role s2 and Caleb flat-out does not trust his party and with RP comes together with them really well. I find this can be really hard for some people but he does it quite well in my opinion

i love the way my fallout2d20 sessions have been going and how engaged everyone is. every player had their own questline and goals based on their background and i used those as leads for different larger questlines. the stories all intertwine in a cool way and ill even include player characters from one-shots we've run when we had too few players as either villains or allies and it makes the world seem really alive.

There's a displacer beast in your house.

First time DM here, I'm having a lot of fun with my campaign currently. I'm currently trying to focus my campaign more on trying to have the players roleplay with eachother more than having me roleplay with the players, I notice a lot of the times the players have fun conversing with my characters but have a difficult time trying to find a way to conversate with eachother, I was wondering if you by any chance had some advice/examples in order for me to maybe put them in situations where they conversate with eachother or when to just move on with the session?

That timer in the corner makes me have to look away from the screen to listen to this. Otherwise all I can think about is how much time is left

You seem like a person that's really fun to play with, player/DM. Really liking the content.

it should be noted that emotional hooks don't only have to target the characters. targetting something the player is emotional about works well too. obviously you don't necessarily want to get too specific to the player. but like general things. 'kids are being tortured' for example.

As for the "what truths come out", that's something I will never experience, or anything that you mentioned in the "team building part". I attended at over 20 campaigns, always with different people. But, they always revealed too much of their character before the first session even started. Which takes away many role-playing opportunities. I basically know everything of their character. Personality, backstory, everything. And whenever I said that they shouldn't spoil me because I wanted to learn about their characters mid-campaign, they couldn't relate to me, and everyone said, they like to know things about each other's characters before we even start. They still continued to talk or chat about it... Or, the characters they make are so flat, that there is nothing you can learn about them besides being an old paladin who is an oath fanatic it's never the story or the DM that destroyed the fun of a campaign for me, but the players.

I've been experiencing this dillema the past few sessions. So i changed the location they needed to go for a very important artifact, threw in lore and history and a mystery, and a deliberate, obvious trap. Now they have 3 weeks in this city until the annual masquerade ball, of which they are invited, to figure out a plan and execute it. I decided to slow burn this as the end mission is no longer time sensitive and several forks have been discovered along the road that they can choose to take. 3 weeks in Drakemoor will take roughly 3 sessions in real world time. And it is giving the ONLY party member, of which there are 7, an opportunity to begin their dream of opening a buisness and doing downtime shenanegains they have been derailing the campaign with.

Cat at 5:17

Wow! Didn't know the actors for Karen or Daredevil played Dnd! Neat tips from them too, thanks!

I simply do not make stories for my players to protagonize. I make a living world, an ecosystem if you will, that reacts to their every action and move. And that's it, they have to live in it. I make a _history_ that moves independently of them. If they are willing to make a change in it, that's their call to make efforts in order to achieve that.

I love this content!

It could be time for one PC to retire a character, similar to a death. One way to get things back on track for a party is to LET this PC go be a farmer, but first, go with them and try to convince them to stay with the party, that they need them. They help the PC do regular duties while going on Flashback Quests of their own, ask themselves why even they are doing this. In the end, the player can choose to retire that character or come along for the ride.

I have a new campaign coming up with quite a few new players in it. In order to get the campaign started and the players excited, I was thinking of starting the adventure with a “vampire banquet”. Basically the band of adventurers are hired by a wealthy lord for a classic quest, and they are invited to dine at the lord’s castle so the employer can meet and kind of interview his new employees. I think this could be a chill way to help me lead new players into the sorta vibe of role playing (testing the waters in a way). The twist? Well the lord is a vampire in disguise trying to bind them to his service. As the interview goes on, I’ll drop hints that all may not be what it seems to the players. They’ll eventually piece it together and boom, first team exercise starts as the players figure out how to raise awareness and escape (or maybe even defeat) the vampire lord.

If someone wants to become a farmer, that's fine by me. I'm not running a game about farmers, though, I'm running a game about adventurers. They are welcome to retire and write up a more interesting adventurer to play.

When i introduced my bard months (or more than a year, cant remember) into a campaign, my DM took an npc that was kind of a joke antagonist, made him my bards brother, and pulled out the dramatic irony of having them fight each other. Since both always had mask of many faces to hide (eldritch adepts), none knew who the other was, until my bard gave her brothers face (and therefore soul) to a devil so the devil would leave her alone. Ever since then, my bard has had suicidal tendencies, and took a liking to using Modify Memory on herself to forget moments of depression or panic. We finally saved the brother (and the family, and a town too) and destroyed the devil 2 sessions ago. Still, my bard has to fight the guilt of what happened, and her mental state is a complete wreck, having to face a lot of situations that honestly just make her want to jump off a cliff. All of that because of turning a joke villian into a part of my backstory. Thats what brennans method does bois

Manipulate trauma to get your PCs to work together lmao Also "The Contract" part is gold. It's on players to make characters that want to work together or collaboratively don't work together, not the DM to make them.

Wait was nobody going to tell me Karen Page and Matt Murdock play DnD together?!?!

That team-building video was made pre-covid, I know it

I love The Contract segment. This is on my list of home rules that I give my players before we start the game: you are responsible for making your character want to be on this adventure. No edgelord, lone wolves... unless your arc is going to include found family and caring about someone other than yourself. Seriously, I've played at a table with another person who constantly talked about why they wouldn't do such and such, or they wouldn't go where we are going.... Seriously, then why are they adventuring?! Go home to your damn forge, Bathiel! Come back with someone who WANTS to be here!

3:05: Basically, set up fanfic scenarios for the characters. Understood. And There Was Only One Bed. 😂 *nodding along enthusiastically to your points * The player buy-in aspect of the game is SO important. Unless your DM is someone who feels like spending 6 hours pre-session, every session, planning out every possible scenario so that everything makes perfect logical sense, like it might in a novel, you WILL get some "convenient" coincidences that help move things along. Things that no, wouldn't happen in real life, but are shorthand that keeps the pace moving. You meet in a tavern. You do decide to travel together even though you just met. You bump into exactly the NPC you need to talk to. Why YES, the general store in this tiny farming village DOES sell climbing gear for the whole party. The wizard's Great Uncle Filberton! Fancy meeting you here! And with news of his tragically missing twin brother! (Okay that last one is a stretch, maybe.) A player who refuses to accept the (not "unspoken" exactly, but often not as spoken as it should be) DnD social contract that includes things like "my character will, for the most part, try and work with these other characters, and will accept at least some of the hooks, paths, or enticements placed along the way by the DM", and who instead points out these "plot holes" every session, quickly becomes exhausting for everyone at the table. Um... all this to say, yes, agreed, everyone needs to be on the same page, and session zero (and just talking to eachother out of game) can solve 90% of this. I was delighted to see Deborah Ann Woll featured here! She's SO good, and truly doesn't get enough of a spotlight. If you haven't checked it out already, and want to see more of her DMing, I HIGHLY recommend the (currently running) "Children of Earte" series. (I would link, but youtube likes to eat links sometimes, it's on the "Demiplane" channel.) I've never seen another setting quite like it, though it draws in a wonderful mix of familiar feeling elements from all kinds of places, and sometimes it approaches Pratchett-esque in the sense of feeling like a well-established world we're just catching little glimpses of. It's DnD, but a unique setting, and honestly the mechanics are so well woven into the storytelling that people in chat often ask what system they're using. It has a wonderful table of players, with endearing characters, a brilliant story, and SO much love poured into the game from both sides of the table. Deborah has a very deft touch with the lore, revealing the world gradually in intriguing (but not frustrating) pieces, so the players (and the audience) want to find out more, and (to return to the point of this video) the players are all 100% on board from the first episode, those multi-pronged hooks caught fast and dug deep. Episodes are (comparatively) short for TTRPG shows, between 1.5-2 hours, and are all available on RU-vid, along with the Q&A shows which do deeper dives into the world and characters, also well worth watching, Deborah often talks about her worldbuilding in these, and the players all have great insights into playing as well.) [/waffling] POINT IS, you see all of your examples in that game :D Great video! Oops, lots of text, apparently I have THOUGHTS on player buy-in, lol, (and Children of Earte, which again, DO watch if you can!) but tl:dr: your points are good and well made, I'm just waffling in agreement!

Or have the BBEG's minion decide to pick off one of the solo character's head as a gift for the other PCs "Oh you're all alone... excellent."

If a pc wants to become a farmer, then they've chosen the npc life. Roll a new one.

Omg Debra is from tru blood :o

5:50 "It's not on the DM at all to keep the party together". Wrong. Here is why: Of course the player should "yes, and.." and connect the characters together and to the setting, and create an intrinsic motivation to stick and quest together. If this happens it's easy. Any DM does the job in this situation. The real question is: What do you do if the players aren't good? Suddenly you discover that you have a choice: A) Simply blame players and let things as they are. ("if it's meant to be.." approach, good luck with that. (Literally relying on luck)). B) Take responsibility and find a solution, EVEN IF IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT. Why? Because this is what great DMs do. Ultimately, YOU accepted those players, YOU are the one who gauges player expectations, YOU are the one who shows the path of improvement to players, and only YOU have the the power, the right and the duty to find a solution. It's inappropriate to ask players to do this, some will, and that's great, but other will expect you to solve situations, even if they can, because it's not a correct dynamic for a player to step up against another as if he was a DM (again, some players will accept this, but that's the "easy" case). Make things works (despite circumstances!) IS LITERALLY THE ROLE OF THE DM, and also what separates good DM from great ones.

EVERY one of those corp building idea's came from 70's-90's gaming, make no mistake about it. They are useful to REMIND people, sure, but we are gamers. We see your hook and raise you the impossible foil to your hook!!

at my table if you want to platy a farmer you can go play a farm sim and leave my table. this is a group of willing adventurers, not a game of citysim or some other thing that doesnt advance a story or involve normal dnd adventuring stuff. if it cant be handled in a brief rp, i dont want it.

As bad as the spelljammer pack is.. the start to LoX has the the players as equals trying to escape the planet so they can save it. They still get to make thier own choices, but the universe doesn't give them many options, so they gotta get creative

wait so rogues and paladin do not interact well ? Well i was a rogue and am a paladin now. Should I let my character develop some self hatred ?

When dealing with my party, I know exactly what will keep them on track - money. My players are greedy af and always want some form of money as a reward

"Luckily for you, you don't have to do anything as cringy." *Plays D&D*

It’s also perfectly fine to write a character out mid-story. Maybe it’s taken a while to figure out that this particular character just doesn’t fit the group or story, or maybe their goal is complete and it just fits for them to retire. This is a great opportunity for some dramatic role playing; the characters say tearful goodbyes and bid farewell to their dear friend as he chooses, for whatever reason, to take himself out of the picture. It’s also an opportunity for the player to bring a new character to the table, one which can mechanically shore up the party’s deficiencies and whose backstory can be tied to events and characters that have already appeared in the game.

Eait wasnt devra in daredevil

Explain goal to win THE END

Conflict

Jessica is a DnD nerd?!

1:34 I'ma stop here real quick. I think it's perfectly acceptable for a character (not a player) to no longer have hooks. If a player deems it necessary that a character has a path that strays from the rest of the party, and that character can move on, It is totally fine for that character to do something else in the world. Characters can find drive and direction in a path the other players may not want in the long run. Example, if say a paladin just helped save a village after it had been under the control of a dark necromancer, and the entirety of the town is in shambles, it's perfectly acceptable for that character to want to settle here for the time being, and help restore the city. What is important, is taking that player aside, ask if this is a character they plan on returning playing in the future, and finding out how to get their next character in with the group, and finding those hooks for the next character. I think one of the best things a player can do is find purpose for those characters within your world, and let them find ways to place them into the rest of your world even before your story is over. Players don't have to just switch characters only when they die.

BBEG being the dad or the lost family member can feel like a cop out as well and not feel as rewarding.

...are you Dan Bull's twin brother?

"Players may want to save an NPC that they like". Wait, players actually like NPCs? That's a thing that happens at other tables?

Oh, nice farm here. Here's a copper piece, it's now ours. Get off of our land.

hate, the answer is hate

Good advice. Less electrojazz next time please.

Why is this even an issue? I swear 99% of DMS just make massive issues that are just so easy i don't even think about them as a problem.

Nice vid, but the music is to hectic. Hard to concentrate.

Brennan doesn't GM. He tell's stories. Very frequently he drags the players from scene to scene with at most, maybe 30 to 45 minutes of interaction, followed by staggering one hour to one and half hour scene descriptors, NPC narration. I get it. Progress and pacing is important, but Brennan is not as good as you make him out to be. He's a better scene writer, than a DM. Frankly, he needs to step back, quite a bit and let his players engage MORE. Not be directed to engage by dragging them to the scene and say "Go." That's not to say, what he weaves isn't amazing, only that he needs to loosen his control. Mercer is better, but he's been playing with the same folks for decades. He's got a better grasp on when to take the lead and when to not. Aabria uses the rule of cool too liberally and derails her narrative, which ruins the pacing by extension. As for Deborah, well... I'm not overly familiar with her style, so I can't comment to it.

Can you get rid of the zany music in the background? It is really annoying and distracting, and doesn’t really match what you’re talking about in the slightest.