I solved DM burnout. (D&D 5E) 

Holy hell. You're literally the only other person I've ever encountered who understands that D&D story is a war story, a fish story, an anecdote of shared experience. I've been trying to explain this to people for years.

“Return of The Lazy Dungeon Master” is amazing for new DMs.

Ok 2 things. 1. This is really good advice. I'm glad I found it. I think if dnd planning was my 9-5 job that got me payed, my story telling skills would be fantastic, but since I have a normal job and dnd is just fun this avenue of prep will really aid me. 2. Your video making style is tremendous. You made me laugh. You made me feel entertained, but most importantly, you taught me something valuable while doing those other things as well.

We're World Players, not Storytellers. (Planning some big scene you're 1000% sure your players are gonna experience is fine)

I think those D&D youtubers are not playing MY version of D&D. They are actors, creating an entertainment product. They even have writers in the background! This is not D&D, this is an entertainment show losely based on a game I used to love. But as of now, everyone thinks they have to come up with fantasic character voices, interesting backstories, a good plot with a twist. I say: scratch all of that, pick the things you like from the DMs Guide or whatever, gather your frieds, put a huge ass map on the table, put some character minis somewhere and just have fun. Oh - and dont forget the snacks.

Ok, the cut-in with Justin saying "scen-ahh-rio" was really goddamn funny

This is how old-school D&D (and by extension, OSR games) operate. Before, they were called Referees before being called Dungeon Masters. Dungeon exploration was by 10 minute rounds, where monster encounters were rolled every 2 turns. Monsters would get reaction rolls to see how they treat the party on first contact. Morale, time tracking, and random encounters were how most games back in the 80s and 90s operated

Plan out 3 scenarios in the starting Position just for your players to create a 4th one 😂❤

This is solid advice 👍 My life as a DM got way better once I stopped prepping like my party was going to interact with every square inch of the world and spend a year talking to every NPC

Well said! "Story is what happens *after* the game!" One of my rules-of-thumb as a GM is that my job is to give the players the opportunity to do cool stuff. I set up the situation, they get to break it.

People seem to forget that the DM isn't the storyteller at the table. Dnd is a game about group storytelling not individual story telling.

When it says "storyteller" in the DMG, the description of that role is more that of a narator than a storyteller.

Thank you deficient. I'm currently stressing out about preparation for my next session and I got overinvested in worldbuilding, map making and all this stuff, which leeches the energy out of me. I should really try to discover and experience the story with the players I'm sitting with at the table. Thank you ❤

The 4th Edition DMG and DMG 2 are fantastic resources to this day.

Having a background in Vampire: the Masquerade, the Storyteller part does not scare me. It's the architect part that terrifies me.

Coming from Dungeon World and other Pbta games I fully agree with you. One of the principles in Dungeon World is "Play to find out", which is to say that the GM is not supposed to know exactly what will happen before the session is played, players will make choices, the dice will decide how well they achieve them and so no one truly knows what will happen in a session, and that is the fun of the game. Even if the GM could anticipate every single thing that will happen, wouldn't that be boring for them?

This is great advice. I fortunately learned it early just when prepping for my first ever homebrew adventure. I was trying to think of things my players would do, and I wrote a couple of pages of stuff. When I ran the adventure, most of that prep went to trash. Immediate lesson learned, just prep situations, and leave the rest to the players and your own improv.

That's good advice in general and I will not ever argue against it. But the issue goes so much deeper. Some games actually teach GMing that way. We're running Kids on Bikes and it actually requires the players to contribute to drafting up scenarios and character relations. As in, there are explicit rules for it. This is very much a D&D problem and not an RPG problem. While other rules-heavy games also require more prep, few I've tried are as bad as D&D. So let me add a second piece of advice for new GMs: Broaden your horizons. Try something new and try it in different ways.

Please don't stop, all your videos are not only entertaining but also demonstrate a deep understanding of the game. Such good advice.

Learning how to DM was quite the... challenge for me and my gaming group at the time. It was my first time DMing any ttrpg game, hosting for 5 (sometimes 6, if he ever bothered to show up) players, all never played any ttrpgs either, running the game every lunch period in high school (30 minutes everyday for a year). We had acquired the DMG, players guide, and monster manual through some sketchy free pdf sites, and decided to just go for it. The most I could understand was martial combat, so I asked everyone to play martial classes at first until I knew how spells worked, except for my best friend who insisted on being a sorcerer, and everytime he cast any spell we would have to pause the game for 10 minutes to read rules. I ripped off a game for the plot, and it was a cluster fuck. TPKs were common, and nobody got past level 3 (I had them restart at level 1 when they died). I had no clue how challenge rating worked, so I just through whatever I thought might be most interesting at them (Might have introduced them to a Tarrasque or two). Midway through I gave in to peer pressure and let my players play any class or race in the players handbook. We treated any spells like cantrips, where as long as you knew it you could cast it at will (I had no clue what a spell slot was, and was too busy trying to learn the rules through trial and error rather than read. The DMG was pretty large for a beginner, so it intimidated me to the point I only used if I needed to.) We went by a rule that of you rolled a 1, the worst possible event happens, and if you got a 20, you succeeded on whatever you where doing. They started wanting to do a little bit of tomfoolery- warping reality and creating nuclear bombs and such, so I started auto killing those players doing those activities if they rolled a natural 1. Stacks and stacks of character sheets later, and my story I had stolen was in ruins thanks to my players that had ascended into godhood. We all had a blast, and came to love what D&d had to offer. I still DM now, years later, but am much more versed on the rules and much stricter now. I miss those days though. Their first characters where so Chaotic Evil, I think the Demons in the Abyss could have learned a thing or two from them.

I recently took a break from my campaign to run a Call Of Cthulhu one shot where I only had the beginning prepared, instead of preparing every story beat like I usually do, and it's since turned into its own mini campaign that basically needs no prep and I just enjoy the priviledge of DMing! So yeah, really good advice!

This is an excellent condensation of the issue. It took me way too long to learn this. I basically had to leave the 5e space and encounter a game that encouraged this kind of GM approach.

Please don't burn yourself out making your videos, they are fantastic!!!

The really interesting and forgotten thing about the hero’s journey in particular, is that it was not conceptualized as a storytelling how-to. Joseph Campbell says the hero’s journey is a set of symbols that we understand intuitively. So if you let your players just make decisions for their characters, THEY will make a good story because those symbols are already living in their head!

Great vid! How come your channel is not bigger? This is QUALITY content my dude

I struggle with this in my current campaign. I’ve set up a pretty grand, expansive plot and have realized that it’s SO hard to “write” a story with fully autonomous characters. This video was awesome, and is some of the best advice I’ve ever received. Thanks, man!

I feel personally attacked by the limited edition book of many things part of this video. I literally went to my wife yesterday and said "hey do you want to just consider a thing I bought myself my birthday present?" That thing was the alt cover book of many things lol. As for the actual video, I am running a pre-published adventure so there is a little more rigidity to it. But I have found it makes my life a lot easier to pick out the scenarios and be flexible with where they encounter them. Sometimes they will come across it where it's "supposed" to be and other times I move things around to get them to the important thing they are looking for even if they don't know they are looking for it. This has helped a lot and this is good advice.

Immediate subscribe, hands down best burnout advice ive heard on RU-vid!

I have gone back to classic game styles with no plot or pre-planned BBEG to defeat. It makes my life both far less stressful and my game experience is both more enjoyable, and more creative. I also switched to C&C from DnD 5e. The monsters in that book don't have recommended HP, just their HD. So I even roll the HD for each creatures HPs and I never know either how weak or how strong it will be. Yet I have been told by current DnD DMs how "bad" I am and how much my players must secretly hate me because I don't do plotlines or create entire quest archs for each players backstory. My players beg to differ.

I love your editing and production. The amount of planning and work you put into this is impressive.

WHOA WAIT... The quality of your video is INSANE! Take the sub my guy, I'm sharing with all my players too. You deserve MUCH more love imo, have a great day.

Since you mentioned you read everything I thought I dropped by and leave a comment and thank you for your hilarious but very truthful content. I recognise myself in so many of your practices and solutions it feels good to get some kind of validation. Hence I thought I'd share my heartfelt thanks to a fellow forever DM/GM/ST... you get it. Keep going, I believe you are on track for greatness.

You just popped in my feed and I subbed almost immediately! Great advice, awesome edits, and all your videos have been interesting and helpful! Super hyped to see you get successful. Only a matter of time man. Keep it up!

holy cow! dude!!! you are amazing!!!!! i have the feeling that yoor channel will grow like crazy and you will b one of the biggest out there in no time!!!! best regards thanks for the great content!!

Hey man, I love your post-it notes diagrams, and storytelling! Your content inspired me to do the same for my presentations, and a little desire to DMing

Don't you just love finding new RU-vidrs that pump out perfectly edited videos every time? Nothing brings me more joy than seeing a new video come out that you KNOW will be good. Love your work Deficient, you'll be huge in no time

To be honest I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it when I clicked on the first video of yours I saw. But you’ve got some very refreshing advice. I’ve been doing next to no prep and going into each session with just about no plan for the players other than what they want to do for the session and I’ve been having more fun than ever

I am prepping for my first experience as DM. I certainly found your channel at the right time!

Great insights. I love how the captions put in "Son Mario" for one of the scenarios! Certainly looking forward to getting my group together to start back into gaming. Gonna start with Honey Heist.

Fantastic video. Well done. Very well done.

Im glad that I discover your channel you are the light in the end of the tunnel thx for your hard work and amazing tips from you

For real, I needed this advice. Thanks bro!

I keep getting reminded of how old I am. What you describe as 'from youtubers' occurred in my day as well, we called it the Oral Traditions. Okay, I am not so old that writing is younger then I, but the reality isn't so far off... no one read those books, we learned from each other. Watching over each others shoulders, listening to each others stories, and what not... much more fun then dry reading. Still, do you know how many errors this has bred into the hobby? A lot... Such fun when you learn your method of doing X never existed in writing.

Thank you for this video. Somebody who's been there forever DM since he was in seventh grade, I'm now in my late thirties, this video was not only hilarious but incredibly helpful. Thank you for this content. Please continue to make more sarcastic and helpful videos such as this.

You are a legend sir. Looking forward to the 100k special in 4 weeks.

Top notch quality from a top notch content creator, thank you!! 😎🙌

I love this! This video is seriously underrated! Its awesome!! This is the how to basic of dnd

You are quickly becoming my favorite channel.

I'm in my 40s and new to DMing. So far, the best advice I've found is from Dungeoncraft (professor DM), the XDM guide, and Return of the Lazy DM. This video is hilarious and pulls many of those concepts together in a neat short format. I'm currently running Shadowdark, and really enjoyed running "Clue" (aka Deathbringer). Rules light rules!

Amazing video, You have a very unique style that I love. Havent even finished the video yet and im subscribing.

These videos are incredible. Last time I saw a "new" youtuber with such quality and high production value it was "tasting history with max miller" and he went over a million subscribers in a year. I'm betting you're going over 100K before two months. In any case, I will like/share/subscribe to help!

I discovered you yesterday and I gotta say, I love your style. I've already seen most of your videos and working on the rest. Your editing style reminds me of Edgar Wright, and I do love me a quick, snappy, clean editing style. That bit with your wife at the beginning was hilarious and I immediately showed it off to my fiance..... she related 😅

I've been running games for 45 years. This advice is solid!

The DM's just one of the players. The gig's a bit more involved, sure, but you're all in it together, and what everybody does determines what the story will be. Like in Black Hack, where you gain experience by telling the common folk back in town about your latest adventures. After the fact. Just like you said. The times I had any real success DM'ing were when I quit worrying about what *I* wanted and responded to the players organically. Even if it wasn't always great, it was much more enjoyable, for everybody.

The man speaks the truth. I like your manic energy and explosion. Very Terminal Montage-esc. I appreciate this high brow humor

So, you are basically saying, that we should prepare for our games like Dungeon World says we should :) "Play to find out what happens". Amazing video btw, I was laughing all the way.

I love this video. I've been running a 5e game since 2019 and I've been burnt out since 2021. I've taken breaks, done other systems to refresh but I wish I had a video like this a few years ago.

This is great timing. Justin is coming out with a book soon!

For you, good sir. I shall ring the bell. Excellent channel, keep it coming

Our favorite goofy dm is back 🎉 Also looks like we adding "No Wizards of the coast Products were harmed in the Making of this shirt" Merch to the list of my last comment in the previous videos😂

I have to say thank you ,I'm rebuilding Night Below 1e with the 5e conversion using Chat GPT for the talking bits and I was thinking it was becoming to much story telling but your vid actually showed me I was creating scenarios because I wasn't caring about plot points or anything like that. So now I can continual on and not worry about any of all of that. Just do as I have been with making sure the players have the options to go where they want to.

Omg I always use cluedo as my reference for dming advice, basically make a cluedo , fill each room with an obstacle and a reward/clue then make their big bad guy have all the clues as obstacles during the final scene

*feeling awesome as I guessed correctly on the community post*

I’m glad I found this channel. Love the videos!

Mrs. Deficient Master is now my spirit animal.

Damn that DM burnout journey is so damn spot on like I went through it 6 time over the course of two years already.

Thanks! Now I'm totally stuck on the pronunciation of scenario 🤣 Another great video!

5:21 I had the exact same realization! Reminds me of what James Cameron said: "You make the movie twice. During filming, and again during editing. My strategy is to prep for every other session. I let the players' actions determine the setup, then I use my understanding of story structure to prep a satisfying payoff.

huh you found a way to perfectly describe my dming style lol I once ran a oneshot with no notes at all, because I forgot to take any. It was still pretty cool.

Honestly, as a new dm only a few months into the campaign I’ve started to prep this way, because I was writing multiple page session templates and all that, and it was fun! But exhausting. Especially when the party does what they want anyways lol. So I’ve gone for more of a scenario based session design. I know they’ll get to my scenarios eventually, but they’ll take their own path and fill in the blanks. And when we get to the fun narrative parts it always feels more special. Like they’re glued to a screen. Also it frees up some time for me to do thing like terrain and mini crafting/painting. Which is always fun!

I’m dying 😂 Upper lower class millennial!?! Haha! That’s me! I’m also a forever DM. Thank you for speaking to my soul!

DoIP was my first game I ran. It's been over 2 years. The dragons's on ice, and a while back they started dragging Harbin Wester around to various places against his better judgement.

I usually hate the over the top loud style youtuber. But you legit make me laugh. Thanks! The Alexandrian is the Boss!!

Excellent advice!!!!

Hilarious video, subscribed! 😂

I'm beginning to think this man cannot miss

Along with scenarios, I write down a short list of things the players can discover during the next session(s), doesn’t need details, they are simply leads, such as “There is a rumor coming from up river that the largest farm has stopped sending shipments into town” the trigger for this can be heard in a tavern, come out from an NPC exchange. I use these when the players are spinning. Based on what they bite on I can improve some scenarios to happen for the remainder of the session and now I know what scenarios to loosely prep for next session. Tie ins to prior scenarios is how you can create cohesion over time.

I was a plotwriter/referee for larp before I started dm-ing, and at larp I learned how writing/planning plot to the point just before the plot meets the players is good, any planning on what happens next is generally a waste of time, since you never know how the players will respond and you want the NPC's to not get stuck in a situation where they can not do what was in their briefing because the players are not at all responding as planned. You may have pointers (if A then B), motivation of the npc, etc but scripting any situation in-game just makes things complicated. So, when I started dm-ing, that was what I kept doing, and it has always worked for me. I use adventure modules, I really like those to start a campaign, get the thing going and have a view on what the problem in the world is. But by the time we reach chapter 3, I get to do the same thing we always did with the plot-book at larp during a weekend (usually saturday, right after luch): chuck it over my shoulder. That is why is is called 'plot', that is the sound it makes when it hits the floor behind you. And that is where the true fun begins, at least that is how I see it.

THANK. YOU. Gods know, I needed this advice.

My first thought was you need The Alexandrian.... and Lazy DM/Sly Flourish. Great video. I hope people are listening.

Absolutely true. I had a similar transformative experience with that JA article, it’s basically my Bible now. I’ve seen so many people asking for advice about some issue to do with GMing and my answer is so often “you wouldn’t have this problem if you prepped scenarios instead of plots”.

Can confirm this entire video. I used to run a sandbox 5e game with new players and absolutely loved it! At a certain point some of the players noted they wanted more railroading due to how overwhelming the choices are for the entire world Ive made. So I changed the whole structure of the campaign to have a very clear narrative and story, which I immediately noticed increased my prep time to a massive degree, since now I had to keep in mind every character’s character arc and how I can push them down a path to get there. Did the players enjoy the story? Absolutely! And it did feel rewarding but at the cost of being EXTREMELY burnt out. That party ended up almost unintentionally getting TPKed due to some horrible luck, and I was just so done with the game at that point that I just decided to end the game there. The next session was an epilogue and I haven’t touched DMing since except for a oneshot. Putting things simply, trying to build your players’ entire stories and character arcs is exhausting and extremely overwhelming for DMs.

This has put into words something I could feel but never could put my finger on. I've recently been running a Star Wars game with the FFG system and the way they prep adventures just feels terrible, forcing players from one set piece to another. I keep making comparisons to my players on how Blades in the Dark just *feels* better and now I know why. Scores (the "dungeons" of the game) are self contained scenarios that the players take on. What's even better is that they're player chosen, so *they* inject the narrative into the score by default as most scores are either in retaliation to a rival or in preparation to retaliate. Thank you *so* much for getting me to recognize this flaw in my prep and hopefully solve my burnout problem with 95% of TTRPGs!

This is great advice and just cut my prep time in half!

My enlarged monk once powerbombed a dragon, a favorite D&D memory forever.

Really enjoying your videos!

I generally try to build a background story that's always ongoing in my games. The players can choose to interact with it or not. If they do, they can have direct control over the outcome and the exactities based on their choices or how they act or how big they succeed/fail. Otherwise, I will just choose the most interesting result in said background conflict and have its consequences be a motivator for the players in some way. (Evil Lich wants to take over. Evil Lich succeeds. Players must now mount some sort of resistance if they want to keep living in the city or maybe the game is about them being relocated to a new city/trying to eke it out in the outdoors.) The idea basically being to provide a background scenario which can spur players on in a multitude of directions, rather than having pre-defined scenes.

This is definitely good advice, and the way I've been operating as a DM for awhile now. What's funny though, is that multiple players at my table over the years have told me that DM burn out doesn't exist

god i idied so fucking hard "Your players are showing up in an hour, And you haven't even sketched the inner planes yet?"

Funny video. Im one of those old players and your spot on - let the players tell the story of the games afterwards. Set up the situations and let the players and the dice sort it out. The 5e DMG needs more guidance for Dungeon Masters.

You are such an amazing youtuber. So glad I found your videos from the second they spawned into the universe

I actually did go deep into the rabbit hole of storytelling theory to be a better GM. It did enrich me as a person and funny enough after GMing for many years and reading all kinds of material on the subject I arrived at the same conclusion. However, there comes a point in storytelling where everything is cause-and- effect, action and reaction. In Screenplay by Syd Field he tells you in all caps KNOW YOUR SUBJECT as well as KNOW YOUR CHARACTER. If you do both of these things and you master how to begin a story you will have 80% of what you need to sustain a campaign from a storytelling perspective.

I see the role of DM as playing the World and the players play the characters. I indeed set up situations and then together we work out what happens. But I have played and DM'd since 1997. My biggest problem is how little support 5e gives DMs. You need to do a lot of work that other editions and games would assist you with. Simple things like Magic Item prices.

You're hilarious I love your content 😊

I love seeing the different articles, games, etc. that make it click for GMs or make them figure out how to GM smarter, not harder. It sounds like Justin's article/post was what did it for you. For me, it was Dungeon World. The only thing you need to do is figure out the rules, like when to call for a roll. Because when it comes to story/plot, it explicitly says not to plan anything for the first session (or very little if you do). And this is because your players will create characters and, through questions you ask, they'll tell you exactly what they're interested in exploring with those characters. That way they aren't playing in "my" story, they're playing in "our" story because it's being written in the moment!

Yup, you're exactly right. I do want to add that if you *do* want to feel the need to create a dynamic world, go for the Dungeon World method instead. Let the NPC factions have a plan with three-or-so steps GOAL: Summon The Red Cook and let them destroy the world! 1. Steal the magic crystal from the Cave of Lost Souls 2. Walk back to our encampment in the Forest of Illusions 3. Prepare the ritual with the crystal to summon The Red Cook and then advance the plan one step each time the players *don't* interact with the NPC's plan, or fail to succeed in stopping them at a given point. If the players don't show up at the cave, then the NPCs get the crystal and are now in the forest. If the PCs track them through the forest and find them, but fail to stop them, now the NPCs are preparing the ritual. And if the PCs do stop the NPCs, well, that was the quest, right? Return to the kingdom and finish the quest with the questgiver as normal. It gets fun when multiple factions advance their plans at the same time and the PCs can only interact with one of them at the same time. But don't overdo it. Two, maybe three factions is enough I'd say. Keep the rest for later.

Where did you get the meeples? Just watched a few of your videos. Great channel! Thanks for all the hard work!

Great video I’ll try out this advice so I can avoid dm burnout

Bingo! You nailed it! Campaign Masters aren't storytellers. You AND your players tell the story together, which is why as you've previously mentioned you want players who "Do Stuff!".

Get this man a thousand likes!