How to Tell If You're a Bad DM (and How to Improve) 

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Don't ask if they had fun, ask how they would want me to improve things. It makes them think your looking for constructive criticism and they are likely to respond

"Give quiet players time to give feedback too." Holy shit thank you so so much for this. I am actually tired of being talked over in not only rp.. but also when giving feedback that at most points i just shut up ahd shrug. Extroverted players need to calm thier jets a bit and let the rest of us rp or talk.. and im not talking about when there is nothing left to talk/rp about.

I found my players talking about the campaign and what they wanted to do next. They even ask questions about places and history of the world. When they are doing this you know they are really in to it.

I know roughly where my strengths and shortcomings are as a DM. I'm bad at describing areas my players find themselves in, which I alleviate by making very detailed maps. I'm horrible at prepping for a specific session, but I'm a master at improvising, so I've added a lot of rollable tables, lore, mechanics and other systems before I started the campaign, to facilitate that style of DM'ing so I have the tools for most situations.

For the DM who is about to tpk their party, you might also consider throwing in a big red flag for them that they will die if they continue. Have them find a skeleton at the entrance with a note telling the horrors of the bbeg and how he barely escaped but is too injured to leave or something like that.

One thing I always do at the end of a session is High, Low, Hope. So they can tell me what was the best thing about the session, what was the worst thing and what they would like to see going forward. I borrowed that from theater :D

I find that asking my players for a thing they enjoyed and a thing they didn't from the session has helped me alot with learning how I'm doing.

My current group is v conscious. They're like children determined to emotionally support the baby sitter so even if I as a new DM can't fully organize and focus on the quite people they will which is a nice group to have as a new DM. 😊

I occasionally ask for a wisdom check from a paladin or cleric in the scenario of low health and time sensitive and then - the god of the cleric can indicate to the player character what is important

Thank you got touching on the self doubt, Luke. I feel like with how popular D&D has become, it’s hard not to compare oneself to streams, RU-vidrs, etc. Or feel like you’re “copying” them if you have a similar encounter or use a same monster. It’s like no I just like Sphinxs I don’t care if Critical role or so and so used it. 😫

I pride myself in being a fair DM who trys to facilitate fun at the table, but I'm also lazy with prep, and am not great at belivable improvised roleplay for NPCs.

Luke: Observe your players Me, staring at the faceless Zoom IDs of my camera shy players: 👁️👄👁️ I'm the best

Something that helps: be calm upfront and fair as often as you can. You can be very open and fair or tough on your players and even explain why. This creates a judicial and non-judgmental attitude will make them much more honest and open if you ask if there were things they didn't like. So try to bring a good calm attitude to each session

to avoid anchoring bias and groupthink, the best and fastest way to collect feedback is with post-it notes where people write their feedback individually without hearing what others are saying and then put it on the wall

My players are laughing and engaging, but when its not their turn and someone else does RP 2 out of 4 still look at their phones and sometimes need to be clued in to what happened. The last two read rulebooks instead. No avoiding that. Banning phones just takes more fun away because it feels oppressive and forced. I'm a introvert and not really filling the room as a DM. I just play the world responding to players and rarely impose turbulence on them. That's the most i can do without burnout. I'm not feeling bad since it is just as much the players job to fuel the game. When im already doing better than them at putting energy into the game, i don't have much reason to do even more to pull them in. It is important to have fun yourself, so you should put more thought into that instead of catering more.

Difficult encounters make great stories. If the players make the situation more difficult with bad decisions it's win win for you really. If they fall, it's on them and there will be a good talk regarding about things that may be done differently, and if they prevail then they've had a fantastic experience with no extra effort on your end other than allowing the dice to fall where they may.

Well, the most encouraging thing about this is -- you CAN improve! It applies to life too.

Casting Calm Emotions on a Dominated party member was something I did quite often in the Badurs Gate video games. It did not dispel the Dominate, just suppress it, so if the duration of Calm Emotions was shorter the Dominate would kick back in. So you had to kill the person who cast Dominate before that happened. Legit tactic.

I feel like that cat in the background has his stealth maxed out .

I feel like the more I've obsessed over what the Internet said makes a good DM, the worse I became. The only things I feel that matters is was it fun? If not that's what you have to fix.

Things that I can do better - remembering setting lore. Names and dates are not a strong suite - CR and pacing. First two sessions, because I was bad at assessing CR and with exp, the party leveled up. Twice. So now I'm trying to figure out how to make effective combat encounters. Unfortunately, we can't meet up with the restrictions that aren't likely to end any time soon, so the observations are not going to be easy to do.

My prediction of the first thing he would say based on the setup "dammit Jim I'm a DM advisor not a therapist"

This would have been a great video even if it had only been the first five minutes. And it's nearly six times that length! A true treat. I will be sharing this with my less than confident DM in the future.

One tip is to record your sessions and then listen back to bits of it that you feel doubtful about, it will really clear up the ambiguity.

Remember that your players are not GMs: their criticism might not even be appropriate or true in most cases. What you should go for is the emotion they were feeling at certain key moments. Knowing how they felt might help you better than suggestions.

When I started playing 5e, I never really DMed before despite playing may versions of D&D. In my first campaign as a DM (LMoP). The players were very active in saying things like. I don't get it, why are we doing this etc. I realized I was focused on combat and die roll, mechanics and not story or game play. I dumped the campaign there and then. I asked the party for another shot as a DM with a new campaign (OotA). Took a couple of weeks off. Watched a lot of videos like DM Lair, Great GM etc. Went into the new campaign with a fresh strategy. I still have most of the same group. DMing is now fun, players seem more engaged.

It's amazing how Luke can turn video about how to tell if you'ra bad dm into rant about how it's not dm but players that are actually bad 😊

Thanks so much for these suggestions, these are very useful questions! I'm coming to the end of a campaign now and want to check in with them to see what they would change and also see whether they want to continue with some of the ideas I have, play a different campaign or do something different altogether. They keep showing up, but I have to admit that I am terrified that they are all just humouring me!

I ran a holiday themed oneshot for a group I'm a player in and who I had never DMed for before. After the game a player asked me where I got the module from and I told him I made it myself and he was surprised because he thought I had gotten it from a professional and wanted to know where he could get ones like it. Best compliment I have ever received in DnD

Luke, you really are a very good speaker and there is always a refreshing earnestness to your intelligence

I very much empathize with first guy. I have a lot of self doubt and only recently really started digging in to DMing. Homebrewed the skeleton of a world, towns, etc. but I get flustered SO easily in the moment with role play encounters. It’s incredibly frustrating. tonight i had horse blinders on a fumbled through several antagonistic RP encounters. After the session wrapped up, and I was able to see straight and calm down, I saw obvious alternative avenues that made perfect sense as opposed to the nonsense I grasped at in the moment. I don’t have amazing social skills and improving people who are supposed to doesn’t always go great. I fall into that ‘did y’all have fun’ all the damn time. Can’t help myself. Seems like a panic response. And I definitely feel, on the regular, that I’m getting pity responses of “yeah.”

That opening question is how I feel in a nutshell. Perfect video for me.

In regards to the wasp dungeon, one option in game that could make things interesting is to offer healing through "magic wasp honey," but with a cost. The stuff could potentially highly addictive (so there are now saves involved to avoid spending turns compulsively eating more), or could cause lethargy because it's super dense (think like the effects of the Slow spell). This way, you can offer a form of healing that stays in-world, but isn't just a handout because there is a risk element to it. Just my thoughts

First thing I would recommend when you are doubting yourself is asking the party for improvement suggestions. If they say only minor improvements you're probably pretty solid, but if they say something about a thing you do often there's a big indication that you need to improve. Them coming every session is already an important indicator, if you try to improve yourself the party will definately appreciate the effort.

Along with being careful of changing to much, remember that sometimes people think they want you to change something, but will have regrets after the change. This is like if you give them too much loot rewards and it kills the motivation. Little changes will also help you know what helped instead of trying to figure out which of thew 12 changes you made hurt the game.

For the BM not wanting to kill his party if it makes sense given the villain, and if they are cocky enough, you can give exactly one mulligan. Do not heal them, but if the villain is very sure of themselves and have them say that it’s not worth fighting the party when the cards are back so far against them and have him send them to the nearest town (or just walk away himself). It can only really work once per campaign, and only if the villain is cocky. And also really only works whenever the party is in the single digits of level.

I've had two groups TPK. The first started with the party splitting up. The second started with them letting them two low-level enemies escape to warn basically the entire dungeon floor they were there, turning what should have been three or four separate and manageable encounters into one big one. The thing with that one was that a similar thing had happened to a smaller extent in a previous dungeon, and they did nothing to prevent or mitigate it the second time.

Good vid. DM. Thanks for your input!

Great Video - jotting down your three questions and waiting til session 4 to toss them at the party (we've done 2 so far in the campaign). I've heard it said that the GM is the department of problems and consequences (In service if making a fun and interesting game). So, you want to rest in the middle of a hostile dungeon? 'hope you have a guard with a plan . . . or a Rope Trick Spell!

I love videos likes this since the advice is not specific to D&D.

One of the hardest thing for me as a DM is knowing if I’m being unreasonable or the players are just gaslighting me. An example was when most of the players had accepted a ruling that anyone could make an unarmed strike as a bonus action (not just Monk). I told them only Monk could do that and some complained over me “nerfing” the players. They also believed that you could cast more than one leveled spell per turn, but I told them they could only cast one leveled spell per turn. Again, more complaining. One player even left when he thought I nerfed rogue by making a ruling on hiding in combat, specifically you don’t get advantage on an enemy who is alert to you by hiding behind cover and then jumping back out of cover to attack them.

What makes me a good DM? If I were a bad DM, you wouldn't keep coming to me week by week, now would you?

Other option: you may not be great, but your good enough for them :)

Well, I have been a DM for quite few years now. (11) I really didn't want the job. Yet, I am actually enjoying the "custodial" role. My worst XP as a PC: 3rd level party.. made a tumble check on top of a tower. A rope check to get around the ogre's neck, and a rope check around the pillars to strangle the ogre and tied it off. Well, turned out, the DM didn't have much lined up. Didn't really want to play and my party members were tearing up the monsters . He asked me to make another check. 🤷 Dude, it's tied off. What ✅ check? (So we didn't play again after that.) I learned from that and everything I do is a constant learning process including RPG. 🤣 "3rd level elf rogue whacked your heavy hitter with a rope. Now you're mad!" (I would be proud of my players. Not like I have a shortage of monsters.)

The "Keep doing, Stop doing, Start doing" is a technique we use with customers to help drive innovation and improvement

If they are in bad shape and it's a ticking time clock just throw an encounter at them that you are fairly sure they can handle and make a staff of healing the loot

The secret is that all roads lead to the same destination

I would say if something wild is happening while they long rest they should get some hint to it while they rest. Like footsteps on the other side of the door or footprints in the morning or maybe a scream/howl/noise in the distance or eerie fog/cold This way they wake up knowing something happened and that their rest let more stuff happen, if there's no hint then they might think the encounter was always going to be as it was

SAAAAME feeling and question before I start the video!

Post session I always ask my players for constructive criticism to better curate the game to their play styles. Nothing feels better than before even asking, hearing them say "that was a great session!"

"Who made the decision to go into the dungeon severely injured?" "Dawn powerwash dish-spray!" (Because of placement of commercials)

This has worked for me: I ask my players every once in a while after a session or in between "questions? comments? Concerns?" And I'll ask them individually usually.

Getting ready to passive aggressively send this to all my dungeon masters

I run two campaigns and everyone keeps coming back for more. I still am always trying to improve and be a better DM.

I thought I was ugly in my youth. It didn't even begin to dawn on me that that might not be true until around the age of 18 when I discovered that women were receptive to my approaches and that I was being constantly hit on by my gay friends.

To the person asking the first question: the fact you're worried about it at all shows you're probably doing a good job. Bad GMs tend to be selfish, unconcerned about what their players want. Odds are you're experiencing something called _imposter syndrome._ The solution is usually to demand less of yourself - don't worry about perfection, just do what you can to be your best self. This is extremely counterintuitive: if someone demands perfection, it's a sign they expect you to fail.

Here's a little trick I use to see how engaged my players are, If I question whether or not a player is engaged, I give them, in game, a lore dump mcGuffin, like they find a scroll, or a book, that has a lot of relevant information. and I tell the player, I will send them the detailed information out of game before the next game session so as to not waste game time on it, and since they are the only ones who are privy to the information,. I then wait four or five days, to see if that player reaches out to me. 9 times out of 10 if the player is engaged, and therefore to me, having fun, I'll get a text or a DM, asking "Hey don't forget to send me that info." Regardless I send them the info the day before the next session. I just find this gives me a little insight as to where the player is at.

I think I may be part cat. That light or w/e in the background is super distracting. XD

For me a good example of a bad DM is a DM who sees basic questions as an attack and changing your class features without talking to the player beforehand and being called rude when you call them out this is what I had to deal with I ended up quitting that group because it was not fun anymore to be in that group which was a pity because the players was super cool

One I like is to ask them to "collectively come up with something that would make the game better." Kind of like giving someone the blank in a firing line, everyone has deniability. Additionally it's more ambiguous than something like "what could I do to make the game better?" So it encourages more honest. I don't do "what's good" and/or "bad" because that's too subjective, some people like constant battles, some would rather not even fight at all. All the important points will come out, for the party as a whole rather than specifically catering to a single player.

I recently lost my first player after years of dming and It really was a blow to my confidence. I was having a hard time keeping things fun for them when they'd split from the party for long periods of time. My other players have been showing up for months on this most recent campaign though so I have to assume people are having fun.

i'm a novice dm that started on the pandemic and because of the same pandemic and some responsibilities of mine i couldn't dm too much,i think i had 7 sessions in 3 years as a dm.i didn't have time at all to plan so it all went wrong and linear.i started asking for doubts opinions feedback etc and my players told me that i should make the game more flexible,then two days ago when i asked to rotate dms between ourselves so we all try the dm position as they themselves wanted to give it a try and i want to try again after failling and try to improve. two of my players,who suggested more freeroaming but liked my campaign,agreed to the idea but other one said "i'm just gonna tell you,as i am a bad surgeon,so i don't practice surgery" just when i want to plan things to allow them to have that,he goes and throws this at my face. i've been thinking how to improve and i get this thrown at me

I would like to add that just because your players don't have fun does not mean you are a bad GM. Maybe it is just a bad player/GM combination.

We are our own harshest critic.

Honestly this makes me understand all those crazy DMs who do crazy sessions online that often end up in horror stories. If you are expected to have a deep social understanding to somehow figure out someone's emotional state over the course of 4 hours based just on tone of voice and attentiveness (when tabbing and multitasking is a thing), while juggling 3-5 other people AND rolling background tables, enemy encounters + their rolls, looking up statblocks and notes about the adventure and dungeon, I definitely know I'm not fit for that sort of thing. The whole thing makes me want to outright give up on being a "good DM" and just insert whatever makes me happy in my games and let the players deal with it or leave if they want. As much crap as we give DMs who magic realm their players I think they are happier than a DM that needs to stress over so much book keeping.

At the end of the session I state. Questions, comments, things which seem off. This gives them the chance to question some my calls. Etc.

This video is my constant anxiety while running 😆. I know I'm not perfect, but I do know that they are having fun at least because for the most part the ones who are more active players are engaged. The more passive players are doing what they always do, but they still laugh along with the jokes and funny stuff that happens throughout the sessions and at least seem to be following the situation for the most part. 😁

At the end of my short campaign, the players that were on 5th level fought a young white dragon, and two of them were reduced to 0 HP from its cold breath. One player got 3 successes on the death saves, and the other got 3 failures. A few minutes after the battle ended, healers got there and took care of them. It was in a small town (specifically in Fandalin), so I think it made scense. Was that a good way to heal them?

I was running dungeon of the mad mage and the layers took a long rest in the middle of the marsh level where there are two spirit naga's and a bone naga that they had already previously killed so i had them set up an ambush after they cam back at full strength, they bottle necked and this is already after one of their side kicks had died. My party are now suffering still major consequences because one of them touched a shrine from yuan-ti god of nightmares and s sitting at two levels of exhaustion after not being able to get proper sleep. Some party members are suffering diseases also. The cleric cannot swap out their spells until they find some fish to sacrifice to their evil deity it is all going well. Now all of this i had given them all the knowledge they needed to avoid nearly all of this unnecessary pain but low and behold they ignored it.

Great stuff friend 👏 👍

On the topic of the group that was about to go into the dungeon really messed up. The other thing you can do is let them heal up, get better prepared, etc... then let them go back through the dungeon. Don't tell them they were too late, let them DISCOVER that they were too late.

In my experience, if you think your not a good dm yet you seek self improvment to become a better dm; then your a good dm already. A bad dm lives under the assumption that they are a good dm and does nothing to improve as they think they are doing fine as is.

my group have this bad habit of begging to be allowed a long rest in a dungeon lol but for this first game i hosted, i didn't allow them the long rest. we're all players playing in a different game and have become good friends and i volunteered to DM for them for a bit while our main DM was still preparing the rest of our campaign. I ran a oneshot game i found on DMsguild. it's called Rise of the Necromancer and (spoiler alert) there was a room there that had a lot of jars of souls there. The players begged me to allow them to play as level 8 characters, which i allowed (i did buff and scale up the enemies tho) and this player had one idea where they should just try to talk to the owners of the souls in all of those jars. they opened one jar and the soul went in a skeleton and attacked them. so they changed their plan to go outside of the cavern to open a jar and then catch the soul. however, that player can only use it once per day and they were planning to take a long rest outside the cavern. the vanilla of the module has an indestructible skeleton guard (that doesn't attack) later in the dungeon but you need to find the spell that can make them move. what i did as they went on to go out of the cavern, i had those indestructible skeletons block the exit. so they went on with the normal pace of the oneshot, and since im a newbie DM, i wasn't able to properly scale the monsters up a bit, they even defeated the minor BBEG without a scratch on them. i realize now, i should have let them take that long rest and just made things worse for them if they took that long rest lol i realize now that if they took that long rest, they would be swarmed by skeletons, both indestructible and the normal ones, the smaller but quicker skeletons that will try to grapple them, some more ghouls, the minor BBEG of the oneshot, and (if i feel a bit more sadistic) the main BBEG of the series after the oneshot, for finishing the task given to the minor BBEG because the players were sleeping hahahaha that would have been a lot more fun for me in scaring them because of what they did.

A couple sessions ago, one of my players made a bad decision that resulted in the whole party beside themself basically getting TPK'd. Since those players were just starting to get comfortable with their characters (and this is one player's first RPG), I felt it fitting to let them keep their characters but with a twist. One became a robot, the other got transformed. The entire party did lose like all their money, relations, and almost of their gear. Now theyve made a few other bad decisions and when they get back into the material world, they'll get to experience those consequences. And who knows. Die? At least it was by their collective hand lol

the wizard just sabotaged his whole defence, by ordering the naga to wait till the players restore their powers. the naga should've killed them while they were asleep

When players are about to do something stupid I just suspend the game for a minute and tell players that they are about to do something stupid, but if they want to it's fine. Usually there is miscommunication somewhere and they just didn't realize it was as dangerous as it is or tought they were just supose to push forward and didn't want to slow the game down by retreating.

The biggest determining factor, for me, to know if my players are enjoying my game is when the session is over and they talk to me about new things they want to do with their character in the next few sessions. If they're not enjoying the game, they're not going to talk to you about ideas for their character.

This sort of observational feedback is *very* difficult when running an online game especially when not using video-conferencing. Regular 1:1 chats, and the occassional "What if?" questionnaire are key to making sure people are OK... and making sure that you (as a DM) don't "leak" privately imparted information to other players, otherwise trust is blown.

My last session, the players chose not to go find a safe place to even short rest after a mini boss fight. They then triggered a trap that knocked one of them unconscious and animated a trio of animated armor and their flying Swords. After using very bad tactics, they barely made it out of the fight, and still chose not to go find somewhere to rest. They triggered the next trap as well, which knocked the same player unconscious again. STILL they chose to push on without resting, despite knowing they were about to confront the big bad of the adventure. Ultimately they all fled, abandoning the barbarian as a sacrifice to cover their escape.

In my case, I'm pretty good at improvising encounters or even entire quests in a way that they appear prepared, and in describing envirements players find themselves in, but I'm absolutely awful at preparing anything for the session- so over 60% of session ends up being improvised, there are no handouts and no maps. Also, I'm not very good at playing roles of npcs.

There is an alternative to facing the BBEG when they are too beat up to handle him. I am assuming that they don't realize that the BBEG is just beyond the next doorway. You can add a room with less significant minions that are the "guards" of the boss. Their resources will be even more depleted and they might realize that they need to back off before they go farther into the dungeon.

To give healing randomly i go with bodies with healing potions and other buff potions. This emphasizes the danger of the dungeon, it isn't that much healing normally, and you give them some chance of lessening TPK. But if they step into a dungeon or a fight low health then they deserve it.

The guy I liked told me my games were boring, but he had absolutely no constructive feedback. Wrecked me from DMing for years 😂 I run every other week now, but even now I tend to get panic attack and postpone my game because I felt like I was gonna die. Tldr : If you're not having fun in someone's game, it's understandable. But try to be aware of what it is you don't enjoy and how it can be better for you.

That intro... GET OUT OF MY SKULL, LUKE! I know it wasn't my question because I haven't had time to visit streams yet... but... ouch.

Another good way to receive (more) honest feedback is not to ask questions that have a straight "yes/no"-answer or to ask to be "rated out of 10" but instead to ask about an area that you did well in - and an area that could still use some improvement. You can even phrase it in a way that coaxes honest answers out of your players by saying something like "nobody's perfect and I'd really like to improve my craft as a DM, so please be honest and give me an area where I could still improve and a short reasoning as to why". Most people will - even if they want to sugarcoat - at least be honest to the extend of telling you that "your descriptions of rooms that we explore could still be slightly more descriptive" or something alike, after praising what you did well for a paragraph or two.

I have one player who hates the spot light. They're just there for.... being part of the group. Otherwise I can usually get everyone a chance at the spotlight.

I once thought 5 Cr 5 monsters as dungeon guards would be deteriorating to 5 level 5 players. ... .. . 3 Fighters 1 sorcerer 1 cleric They cleaned it up in 2 turns and walked into my dungeon. Which i created for a level 9-10 adventure. 3 level 5 fighters can pull over 150 points of damage from their asses, in a turn, without any features. A Cr 15 monster was half a turn of inconvenience for them. Fighter is Strait up overpowered.

Are people always honest? Well no, not entirely. For instance I DID enjoy our last session. The fight was awesome. But just once I'd love to have ONE SINGLE GAME that was all about rhetoric and where NOT every single challenge devolved into combat. Did I stay awake...well mostly...except I might have snoozed off...just for a moment...cause of the late hour we're playing; I'm not bored, I'm just...freaking tired. I get up a lot earlier than most of you. Do I keep coming back? Hell yes! ATM this is the only game I know of. Plus I like all of the other players and I like the DM too. Even if he won't let encounters resolve in anything other than combat. (GRR!) Also, observation over the internet is challenging if you're not using a medium that can let you see their faces. Your three questions are excellent. No you probably don't suck as a DM. But we can all improve.

I really like the three questions: What would you like to see more of? What would you like less of? What would you like to see specifically happen with your character? I also told my players that I’m using our D&D games as “Public speaking and problem solving sessions with an adult peer group” to improve my public speaking for work and I need feedback that I can report. So I passed out a survey where they ranked 1-10 Preparation, Presentation Flow, Speaker Confidence, Enjoyment of the Presentation. Spontaneous healing is bad, if choices don’t have consequences then what’s the point of the game. D&D isn’t a video game there should be no respawn. That said you could have a corpse of a previous adventuring party inside the BBEG room with one or two healing potions they didn’t get to use because they weren’t quick enough. Maybe a corpse of a cleric has an arrow through their throat while their hand is in their backpack grasping a Mass Healing Word wand with one charge left or other single use item. BUT make the player make Perception checks to notice the cleric corpse, and Investigation / Arcana check to use the item.

I have that Eeyore cup too!

Dude, you offer such good perspective. What is in your background besides DMing?

in certain levels of playing D&D, no one cares about being railroaded or having their background tweaked. actually, some people who play just for the fun of rolling dice & spending time with friends don't care about it. they are there to play D&D, but they don't take it that seriously. so, if your players are having fun at the table & are eager for the next session, have fun at your table, don't try to rise to the level of someone on the internet.

It is impossible to be 100% honest always, for better or for worse.

The way I deal with players going into tough battles without being ready is through something called intervention. The deities in my setting stake claim on souls, even if they don't, something like an arch-fey or an archfiend will. The more powerful the being is before they die, the more valuable the soul. Each character gets a single intervention, but the intervention is a conversation between them and this higher being that will cause story complications down the line. This means you can remove a little bit of lethality (it's like a single extra life in a video game) but you allow the players to keep their agency by allowing them to make the choice as to whether or not their character would want to come back. And because this system is inherent in my setting and is even taught about in some churches, it doesn't take the players out of my setting at all.

It would be nice to have things like advice for online gaming. Body language isn't a factor when on discord, for example.

2:40 well, I have a group or 5-6 players. One of them get up during session to do other stuff, mostly childish. Another go out for a smoke as I am explaining something important, some talk to eachother about anime and only 2 of the 6 players actually listen, ask questions and take notes. The other 3-4 player either interrupt me or do other stuff randomly. I don't know what to do, they make me feel like they are bored and that is the reason they do what they do. Also 2 of the players randomly say they have to go or make plans for other things, its like they just fit our session as a hang out expiriment and they just say stuff like "my character goes to the inn to sleep for the day" when they just left a few hours ago ( they think like every session is a full day when i already told them that time stops when we finish the session)

I give too much then Wonder 😝 thing get out of control but then a play put something out of nowhere 🤠 that pulls Everything back in ... Good player and rule of cool. Can fix most as any thing 💪

A little bit of railroading when it's really necessary is not a bad thing if used sparingly. It is BETTER to design the adventure so you don't HAVE to railroad at all, but sometimes your players are going to go waaaay off into the ether, and that can be fine, but it can distract and detract from the adventure as well. Sure your players should be allowed to basically do whatever they want (within the rules of the game that you The DM are allowing, using, and following of course) but sometimes they might go SO far off into left field that may have to gently and surreptitiously guide, or even manipulate their path to bring them back to the actual adventure. If that doesn't work, you might have to just look at them and say, "hey ya'll, the adventure is over this way. Ya'll are having fun, and if you want to keep going that way you're headed I'll run the game in that direction, I just want you to know the adventure I'm using is back the other way. Give me your decision which way ya'll want to go with this."

My group recently had a TPK because of a combination of making a poor decision and rolling poorly on their dice. The party went to a rival guild's formal party because they needed to kill an enemy from another guild who was invited to the party. He teleported away, but the party killed two members of the rival guild, which caused the guild's order of assassins to start tracking them down. A few days later, the assassins (3) found the party (6) and surprise attacked them while they were sleeping at their house, starting a combat. While they kept missing their attack rolls, the assassins rolled almost 10 natural 20s throughout the fight (one of them had the assassin stat block, the other two were weaker). It didn't take long for the combat to progress to the point of no return, and the session ended when the last player died. It was the party's first TPK, but they all agreed that the TPK was still fun.