What No One Tells You About DMing D&D 

Tell me about the DnD drama that ended your campaign (for educational purposes, definitely not because I'm nosey)

being an introvert with a favorite hobby that requires a group of people is a cruel cosmic joke. 🤷

There's a flip-side to the "feedback" problem. That is GETTING the feedback. I have made projects for friends and have gotten ZERO real, actionable feedback before. Some people are so conflict averse that they will need to have a plank, pitcher of water, and a towel involved just to get ANY feedback out of them. Edit: I just shot that comment from the hip prior to the reveal that some questions were in the description. I'll empty the pitcher.

At my table, we follow the mantra "The DM is a player too". Before a campaign each player gets a role. One of us is the recorder, one is the scheduler, one is the rules lawyer, etc. this offloads some of the DM's work, and makes each player more committed to making it to the table. Been doing that and our group always finishes the campaigns we start, since it feels a lot more like a collaborative effort we all have a stake in and want to see through to the end.

8:43 "Not all your friends are D&D friends." Fucking seriously. Thank you SO much for saying this aloud. I've since figured it out myself, but I really needed this message outlined for me like five years ago. It'd of saved sooo much heartache and insecurity and maybe prevented me from believing I can "convert them" to "real roleplaying." God, I wish I could Like this video multiple times.

Usually my campaign dies cause i get bored and start a new one. If you have adhd try to run shorter stories. It will help you not wanna start a new game all the time.

One tip I want to share is: Intermission Campaigns. I was feeling a bit burnt out with my high effort homebrew campaign and couldn't keep up with the writing. So instead of taking a full break I told my players that we will run a pre-written that requires very little prep for a few weeks until I have the time and energy to continue with the main game. That pre-written ended up taking 6 months, but we just restarted with the main game and I am full of ideas and plans again. Would recommend.

In my table and many I've seen, we use a simple system called "Stars and Wishes" where we the players give me each a Star, something they liked on the session (be it something about the session itself or another player's interpretation) and a Wish, which is something they would like to happen in the following sessions, which can be a wish por the plot, a something they would wish to see changed, whatever there's on their mind. We take 5 minutes at the end of each game for this, and it helped MASSIVELY for my GMing.

The campaign I am currently running gas been killed, resurrected, killed again, animated as a zombie, slain, made into a flesh golem, slain AGAIN, and finally eaten by a corpse flower. I will never give up on it. It is my child.

My first D&D game was a lesson I shall never forget. I was in campaign ran by a friend of mine, an altogether great guy and a great DM - initially. Unfortunately he fell into the category of DMs who rather play computer games than prepare for D&D. And so after a first few great sessions, he opted for the lazy way out. 20 minutes before a session, he would download the first free map he could find (we played on Roll20) and he took the story there. ‘Story’ being a generous word because it made absolutely no sense. We went from a prison to a forest to a sewer to a temple to a dessert to a city street to the moon to… You get the point. He prepared ONE map with a combat encounter and nothing else. Railroad like you wouldn’t believe it. We couldn’t do anything and we couldn’t go anywhere apart from that one thing we could do. So the session consisted of lots of stonewalling and hampering our way until we ended up going in the direction he wanted us to. He never directly said no to anything - he would call for a roll, but the result was always a ‘nope’, doesn’t matter if you rolled a 1 or 20. You need information from the captain of the guard? He says he’ll give it to you, if you do him a favour. Go check on the old hermit living in the forest. He hasn’t been seen for 3 weeks. Can’t send my men to do it, lots of crime around lately, need them in town. Just do this welfare check for me and I’ll tell you everything I know (upon locating the cabin in the woods, the hermit turned out to be deleted by a bunch of undead). Suppose we want to make a persuasion check to convince the captain to tell us without needing this favour first - a thing of life and death, time is of the essence, blah blah blah. Give me a persuasion check. 1? The captain says ‘this is the deal, take it or get out of my face.’ 20? The captain says ‘really sorry but I need this done, I’m being chased by the mayor, if there was another way I would sob sob just do what I say’. Time wasting was his forte as he needed to fill a 3 hour session with something and he only had a 30 mins fight prepared. Are we in a rich quarter or the slums? Give me a perception check. Wait, what? Are the buildings around in good order or rotting wooden frames falling apart? Is the street cobbled or a dirt road covered in mud? Are the people we see distinguished ladies and gentlemen or rough looking folk in threadbare clothes? Why do I need a perception check for? If I look around, is there a chance I will miss any of the above? Just wasting time. And there was travel. Oh the travel. Every location was apparently 5 days away. Every night he would call 4 tines for a night watch perception roll, for all five days. 20 rolls for no reason, just to waste time. We knew he had no night encounter or ambush prepared, he was just playing for time. He would even roll a d20 and pretend there was something going on behind the scenes. Didn’t matter what we rolled,ever, it was just a distraction. Then every morning he would say ‘what would you like to do?’ How about getting to the fluffing destination? And of course constantly asking if there’s anything we would want to do. As in ‘role-play for half an hour, need to waste some more time before I throw you on the one map I got ready to go, we don’t want the session to end in one hour.’ Apart from that one time when he tried to railroad us into taking a wanted person to a location, and sensing it was a trap, we refused to go and started looking for alternate ways. He called for a break 30 mins into the session, then 20 mins later, as we were about to return, he just posted in Discord ‘Do you want to call it for the day as something has come up on my end’. Yes, something has come up on your end indeed, your railroad failed and the only thing you had prepared is useless now and you don’t know what to do for the next 2 hours. And of course, then there was the last minute cancellations as he ‘wrote’ 😂 himself into a corner. 20 minutes before session start we get a message - ‘there is no D&D today btw as I’m helping my sister move’. Because he didn’t know that yesterday. Or the day before. Or the whole entire week before. No time to reschedule, see you next week. Or telling us how ‘busy’ he is, but every time you look in Discord he’s online playing MMOs. After one session, we told him we were going to raid a pirate ship next time, as a heads-up. Next game didn’t happen until 3 weeks later, this time for IRL player reasons. He had whole 3 weeks to get something prepared and what did he do? Download a ship map and populate it with NPCs… The pirate captain, described previously as a ‘wizard-looking type in robes’, his first officer, described previously as ‘massive dude in full plate mail’… AC10, 4 hit points. So was the entire pirate crew. 3 weeks to produce this… Garbage. I left after that. He never asked why I’ve left or what the problem was. I became a DM after that and I swore I never do the things he did. Turns out being on the receiving end of a shit-show teaches you a lot about what to avoid if you don’t want to ruin your game. Thanks for the lesson Zach.

My ad experience: "And in this hellspace, I received a lot of a little type of torture called..." ad begins "Papa Johns!"

The fact that you illustrate and dramatically narrate sponsor transitions with the same effort as your other illustrated segments is incredible

I actually ask players for feedback (hell, I ask people for feedback in general), but the biggest issue I've always had ever since I was a kid is that no one EVER wants to give it when asked; they only want to 'give it' when they are annoyed, angry or otherwise in a bad mood & looking to take it out on someone. Could just be the people around me, but unless it was a teacher I'm just about never able to get anyone to give me any feedback whatsoever (positive or negative. At most just a vague 'I like it!' or 'I don't like it.', followed by the person's complete refusal or inability to explain why they feel that way to any extent); and pressuring people to any extent for more info has always just led them to being upset with me. Frustrating as hell, because is makes me feel like either my stuff is boring & I'm just being humored for the sake of my feelings, or I'm secretly a joke to them and just an excuse for people to hang out. An underlying tendency towards paranoia & assumptions on my part does not help matters.

Another important point about improving scheduling is the high expectations for sessions that are between 3 and 6 hours long. What helped our group keeping a regular schedule was doing "short" 2 hours sessions which are much easier to include in a busy schedule, sometimes even doing a couple a week when we can.

DM tip for custom monsters for those of you who want to have unique monsters, but don't have enough time to make every monster stat block by yourself: just reflavor an existing monster. Alter damage types, or give it a new trait, ability, or resistance/vulnerability, and bam! New monster. Got a bear? Give it a flying speed, the Firebolt cantrip with con as the castng skill, and resistance to fire damage and hey! It's the Lesser Fire Drake.

Great Video, I agree with almost everything. One problem that isn't mentioned though and that is often overlooked ist the asymmetrical amount of effort and expectations that are put on the dungeon master and the player. The typical gamester invests much more time and often money in the gaming session than the average player. The moment the session starts he has already invested a lot of resources and wants the session to be a success to get something out of this investment. The Player just needs to show up and is just investing the time for the session itself. And this investment of time is happening in the moment: If you do not get what you want out of it you can just go, do something else, mentally check out or start an off topic conversation with your friends. That is compounded by the fact that the gamemaster can not stop playing without the game coming to an end and game mastering can be very demanding. Individual gamers only control their character and can check out at any moment without the game stopping. That can very easily lead to gamemaster burnout, especially when you have a GM that wants to get better and wants constructive criticism, but doesn't see that it is not his responsibility alone to have a fun session. I see it as my responsibility as a player to make sure that everyone has fun. That means I support the GM by following its plot, I try to learn the rules, I make sure everyone gets the spotlight and I help the beginners. I had a funny conversation a few weeks ago with another player. He wanted to do a really cool thing, but there was a lot going on and the DM kind of forgot. And he talked to me after the session and said: "yeah well I was kind of tired and down and didn't really felt like reminding the DM. And than I told him that this kind of ruined the evening for me and he (the dm) took that very hard." And I was like: "Yeah he took it very hard, I mean you didn't remind him so that is kind of on you." "What? no its his job to run the session, he didn't do it." "No it is the job of everyone at the table to make sure we have a great session and that everyone has fun. He already prepped and run the game. What did you do?" tl,dr: a very often overlooked fact is that a lot of player behavior, especially not taking responsibility, can really negatively impact the GMs motivation and lead to campaigns ending.

We had this wonderful campaign, which was ripped apart because one of the players was revealed to have relations with the DM's spouse IRL. The couple had a child. Picking the wrong people can really mess your game, social circles in general and life. Good advice for everything.

Since I returned to DnD in 2020, I have completed 7 campaigns and only had 1 fizzle out. What is my secret? 1) shorter campaigns. Build them in ways that could continue if the players demand a “second season”, but satisfying if they don’t. 2) shorter sessions. With having kids and friends who have kids, I had to get used to shorter sessions. I’m talking 1.5-2 hours. But they great! They improved my description skills, only allow players to go so much off the rails before I can prep more stuff, and make a great date night for married with kids folks. 3) play with who shows up. I have a hard rule of “if I have ONE player available who wants to play, I play”. What that means is people who are invested in the game never face disappointment of not playing one evening (which prevents player burn out), and players who might not be as invested need to decide whether they are going to make it a priority or get left behind. Not for everyone, but these things have REALLY worked for me :) GREAT VIDEO!

On the criticism note, I read something a while back that really helped me, Criticism is easier to take (and understand) when framed based on what something does, not what it doesn’t do The example I was given was for books “this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". Becomes "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I’d add to the expectations part: -Tone -DMing style -If and how backstories relate to the game -If and which characters roles players should fill -what kinda challenges they’ll have to face -how players should expect to interact with the world or have stuff happen to them -how much seemingly random and sudden bs happens in the story -even the which “6 cultures of play” (basically the underling philosophy of the game) from that one article which the questing beast made a video about

Dude, it feels like you've been making so many videos lately! Don't burn yourself out hat man, but otherwise I love it!

Pointy hat is so underrated

Your hard-core scheduling of every week at the same time and place is enormously important. My Tuesday 6pm group has been playing for 5 years. Sometimes a player (including me) has to miss a week, but the game goes on. We take an occasional break for a holiday, but even that is discussed weeks in advance. When you know the game is going to happen with or without you it provides a lot of motivation to be there! This is the best scheduling advice I've ever heard and I attest that it works!

I have been playing D&D for 6 years with the same people. As far as the schedule goes, it has never been an issue. I said "Hey i am running a D&D game on Sunday night... you want to play?" Sometimes people said can we play another day, and I said "no". I then found 5 others that could play D&D on Sunday night. Done. There has never been a week where we say "When are we playing next?", because we all know that we play on Sunday night. May not work for others, but set the expectation and find others who have the same expectation. Great vid! Thanks Pointy!

Very important advice given out here. I ran a campaign for 7 years. Many players have come and gone in that time, mostly the same people. In our last game we were 8 around the table. It was epic and some of the best time I had so far. Its been two years now that I have not played any TTRPG. I burned out long before our last session, trying to keep the quality of our adventures high, and I did even up until our last adventure. I set the standard to DM so high, that nobody wanted to DM instead. So after I burned out, nobody wanted to take the torch. It revealed things for me, in regards to my friends, but thats not important. Keeping campaigns short and playgroups small is something I so highly recommend for anyone with passion for the game. It protects you from making the game a job. Thanks for the video, it was great!

The part about dm burnout is so real. I'm in my fourth year of the same campaign. This is the Waterdeep Heist campaign btw which is supposed to be a short campaign. I had already played through it with a different group and when we reached the end, I felt very dissatisfied. Mostly because there isn't really a heist in the Waterdeep Heist. I'm not gonna spoil it but while it is a fun campaign, I wanted an Ocean's Eleven, and didn't really get It. So for this campaign I've been making heists, whole cloth from the ground up which have elevated into a bigger and bigger adventure. Last sunday I spent 6 hours designing a no 'monster/ combat dungeon' which had scenic story telling just to get the right feel and the worst part about all of it is, my players won't even remember the correct name of the person's house they are going into... I do it for me and I have my expectations where they are, but it's really hard to stop when I get an idea. I don't want a video for this. I just appreciate what you said and wanted to share my own feels from it. Thank you sir for putting out amazing videos again and again. Your lich videos have inspired so many villains... You continue to crush it.

Player involvement is key to great table play. They need to care as much as the DM to make it great.

pointy hat is definitely my favourite dnd youtuber

Making D&D a priority is less about prioritizing the game and more about respecting the time of the people you play with. You're making a plan to meet up with a group of friends for a weekly game, you should be able to schedule around that game because that's the time your friends are expecting you. At my old job, I put in on my schedule availability that I couldn't work past 6pm on D&D night because our game started at 7. We played for three and a half years and with the exception of a death in the family, any disruptions to that schedule were made known multiple weeks in advance...because we respected each other's time. Had a player who didn't respect the time of the rest of the table and we just stopped playing with that guy.

I am sorry you've been having issues with RU-vid this past month. So glad your videos are back and I hope the rewards for all your hard work come back tenfold! Thank you for all you do!

Two things I am experience recently with DMing for a group of friends that are all new to D&D. 1. I had to essentially kick out one of the players as they didn't treat it as a commitment, and would bail a few days to a week before planned sessions constantly, for non-emergency reasons. It was clear it wasn't a priority to him and I had to talk to him about it. For reference we play this campaign once a month, though we have had scheduling issues that had 2-3 month gaps which is part of why I had to have the conversation, since all the other players and myself talked and wanted to play more consistently. 2. This is an active issue I am currently having at my table that one of the players, clearly doesn't want to play D&D, even though this individual says they want to, they don't pay attention at all at the table, have to be literally engaged by their name to get their attention, is constantly walking away, looking at their phone, watching videos or podcast with the sound on in the middie of the game, and when he is playing he is essentially doing his own thing and not on the same page as the other players because shocker he isn't paying attention to the story. I am currently trying to engage with the player and had recent conversations about it, but it doesn't seem to be getting better and now I am debating having to kick the player, especially as last session before we played and after, when he left EVERYONE essentially said they don't want to spend time with him at all, playing D&D and otherwise. Figured I would share since I did many of what Pointy Hat was saying in the video I gave my players an overview of how I run D&D, the themes, boundaries, and even differences that I know I take to my games to not blind side them, and I also asked them what sorts of gameplay interests them and what do they want to have nothing to do with.

I quite enjoy your channel. One of the awesome things is how you manage add reads. Other channels either have an abrupt stop to the content and its just an interruption or they have a very cringe transition to the add. I actually enjoy your story you tell to bring your add read into the video. It helps that most of the adds relate to D&D. Keep up the good videos hat man

I love how you sponsor things, it is an amazing style of promotion.

Ok, the advice about scheduling is right on. Everyone needs to respectful of each others times, so find a time that you can all play each week and make it a priority. It's very simple but so, so important.

I know an Austrian man who didn’t go to art school.

I'm not going to be able to stop thinking about this one for a while!!! Great advice and thoughts! I'm post burnout and not sure I'll ever get back in the saddle again, but you're re-framed it for me. Thank you!

I completely get the feeling of prep work starting to feel like a chore, and recently ended a campaign I was running because of that. I can't say I ever loved prep, but I was at least excited and eager to show off my work to the group and have them interact with it. Eventually, just the thought of spending those hours every week in prep wore me down, feeling less like fun and more like the obligatory work that needed done so we could do the fun part actually playing. I really felt bad when I let my players know I wanted to stop DMing, because I was (and am) still excited to play the story we were making, but at least we're all also still together in a different group. If you don't have a lot of time to or just don't like doing prep, you don't have to run a campaign full of original characters and story! There are lots of very good adventure books, and you're always free to add as much or as little of your own ideas to the stories they contain. 👍

The editing on Pointy Hat videos always makes me cackle but it’s also SO GOOD! I love how many little in jokes and references y’all fit in less than a minute

Great video, I always enjoy watching your content. Your tips help me improve and your other video's fill me with new ideas to mix up my dnd experience. Thank you

The feedback bit is so true, I ask my players every session afterwards how they enjoyed the session, and make sure to send messages if I notice a player not enjoying things as much so I can fix the problems they had in future sessions. I find asking generally after session, like if you are still in a VC or something makes it feel less demanding on players and you are more likely to get the feedback, but it has helped a TON

The first campaign death I had happened because I was not at all particular about what players came to my table. One player wanted to bring his significant other into the game, and I was very much in a "the more the merrier" mindset, so I welcomed them in. Only for that player to almost immediately begin bringing toxicity to our games. I remember a time when I took a break from DMing because player A, I'll call him Teddy to protect his real name, wanted to run his very first game. He boldly chose Mutants and Masterminds, and we all made superheroes. Teddy's S.O. made a super-secret-agent character, Hawkeye and Black Widow combined in one. First combat, S.O. goes first owed to just being very fast compared to the rest of us, and rather than using their very cool gizmos and gadgets, their weapons, tools, and gear specifically chosen to be badass in as many situations as possible, they duck into a sporting goods store and spend their turn rooting around for cricket sticks and baseball bats and whatnot. The rest of us take our turn, first combat like I said, so we clean house. We operate pretty well together, actually - I animated an army of mannequins and restrained a lot of the enemy, and the others blasted and nuked the place. S.O. comes out the store laden with useless gear to see that victory was already ours. Rather than maybe using this gear in the next fight, or joining in celebration, S.O screams at Teddy and blames Teddy for not 'letting me fight,' like it's Teddy's fault that S.O. purposefully didn't use their badass stats to *be* a badass, or that it's Teddy's fault that the rest of the party synergized really well in a fight full of paper-thin minions. Teddy couldn't run anymore after that, having already been suffering extreme anxiety. He had been building up the courage to ask me if he could run a game for months, and spent weeks after that prepping and hyping himself up just to be screamed at by someone he loved. He never GMed after that, and I believe after that group all disbanded (because that was NOT the last of S.O.'s shenanigans) Teddy stopped playing TTRPGs in general. I never spoke up about SO's behavior, and I never challenged it - I learned a lot about the price of absolute tolerance that day, and I'm much better about this sort of thing at my tables now.

So glad to hear you talking about scheduling. I say that all the time. Though I do run games every other week so people can have some weekends for themselves. But yeah, if you can't make a game, we're playing without you. Same time, same day, know when that is for the foreseeable future, make time for it. Consistency is the best way to keep a game going, regardless of if it excludes some people sometimes.

Man, I really needed that. You're making awesome content, thank you for all this. Keep it up!❤️

you have helped me so so much the last 3 weeks or so. Thank you so much! it feels like the creative parts of my brain have been waking back up

I wish I had this video last year... I wouldn't be the wreck I've been recently. This deserves way more attention than what most D&D content creators give.

What No One Tells You About DMing LancerRPG: LancerRPG exist, and it's great!

One curse of getting a design degree is that I now often critique things because it is so helpful. I forget that normal people take any critique personally even if they didn’t make the content I am critiquing. If its media they like they see it as a personal attack even if I point out many good things they harp on the negative. Listening to criticism is one of the hardest and most useful tools to acquire.

I'm gonna be DMing my first game soon and this video has been amazing! Especially because two of my players have been DM's for games I've played in and they've been so fun, that I feel PRESSURE!! But I'm excited and I'm really thankful for the feedback sheet you made!! Thank you!! : D I love your videos!

just communicate with each other honestly and in good faith, don't seek out drama, everyone is supposed to be there to have fun and help make fun for each other, so just focus on doing what you can to contribute and communicate questions often.

As an artist with alot of schooling i have gotten over the criticism line for a while. It took a bit. But now i love it.

I found your videos a week ago or so and I just LOVE them! They are so funny and cool and inspireing, it‘s simply the very best of dnd content, thank you sooo much!!!

I played in a campaign once where the DM asked us to fill out a small questionaire. It had things like: - Previous Characters you played - How long do you spend In Character during sessions? 40% of the time? 80%? - Favorite Movies - One NPC that is tied to your backstory It was a really cool experience to have someone milk you for what you expect to see in a campaign and then adjust accordingly.

Thank you for this amazing blessing, Sharp Cap

you genuenly came such a long way. from basically 0 coments to 18 coments within the first minute. truly amazing

To me, the biggest challenge in getting a campaign together is not getting friends who want the same things out of the game but getting people who LIKE EACH OTHER AT ALL. I have an easy time making friends with a lot of different kinds of people but those people RARELY get along with one another. Finding friends who can be friends with each other is harder than scheduling

I wholeheartedly agree with scheduling. I once tried the kind approach and we played session 0 and half of session 1 for AN ENTIRE SUMMER because of multiple issues, but one being not specific day/time. Ever since I stuck to a specific day and time (with few exceptions) I've been able to run weekly very consistently, bar specific life circumstances. Groups being on the same page - all wanting similar stuff, respecting boundaries, etc - is also an absolute must. Sometimes you just have random players you recruit, but once you have a pool of people you know, consider them first. You have a better shot at them synergizing than 3 applicants to an LFP game - no shame on those, that's how I met every single one of my reliable players, but once I knew we vibed, we carried on playing together.

It’s funny as I only tend to run campaigns that last six to eight sessions. I’ve found for me to approach the campaign more in an episodic nature and having the structure of the world support that. It’s tricky for sure, but it’s been the style for me that’s been most successful.

Have a wonderful day Antonio

I started watching you the day before yesterday, i've almost cleared all of your videos, good stuff

im starting my own campieng and this is really helping

Thank you so much Mr. Hat. We have a session zero tomorrow and I'm going to *insist* everyone agrees to prioritize the game. You're absolutely right, that has been the killer of all of our previous campaigns and I'm not gonna compromise this time. Either make time for us, like we make time for you, or leave.

Man, I've never watched one of your videos before and I have to say: I love your style. Quick, but not breakneck, paced narration that gets to the point AND has plenty of smart, wryly-done wordplay humor throughout ("Nuuummber C" XD ). I shall be back to this channel, for sure.

Loved this video! I've come to most of these same tools through blood sweat and tears from over a decade of TTRPGs. I would have loved a resource like this when starting out.

As someone who ran a multi year campaign, in a homebrew setting, with homebrew monsters, and a plot for the players that would make Hideo Kojima confused as my first DM campaign in over a decade I can confirm most of this video is painfully accurate. How i delt with this however was a very simple process that you nail here perfectly, only prepare what you NEED, not want. Need. If a battle map is REQUIRED is the only time it's actually used etc:. This saved me so much trouble and time and ended up making the campaign not only doable for me but better overall. Also "Consent Forms" essentially its the Veil / Line you mention here but with pretty much every thing i could think of that might be offensive to people. I had a few surprises on there but we ended up having a very clear consensus on what was and wasn't impacted by this. Also as for the Drama, oh boy, we've had a lot of that. But ironically never D&D related. Our typical playgroup ends up with what we've come to call "The Bi-Monthly Argument" and now it's just an understood feature of our table. It's also grown to encompass all issues relating to interpersonal stuff too or sometimes just a big vent for someone. This ends up keeping all of this out of the D&D game itself, but probably also works because the group was tight before doing D&D for the most part.

Calling all RPGs DnD is like calling all video games Nintendo

It’s wild how many people have scheduling being so loose and varying constantly. Because I can never handle those type of campaigns, it just makes each week all the more stressful and frustrating when nothing is able to happen that week. I absolutely admire and respect one of my closest friends as a dm. Because he is fairly strict with the fact that “we are playing on this day at this time, if you don’t show up, we’re playing without you. Even if it’s just me and one other person”. And if someone keeps skipping out, they’re asked to leave. It’s truthfully disrespectful to constantly miss a session when everyone else is trying their hardest to show up (Of course not in the situation of emergency or life changes). I’ve had people decide to just not show up because they wanna play a LoL instead for 2-3 sessions straight, which has caused stories to be derailed because their character was at the center of the storyline at that time. We’re all here to have fun, and of course it should be taken with varying levels of seriousness, but at least respect the idea that everyone else is taking time out of their week to be there. If it’s no longer fun for you, let your dm know so they could help find the problem, or perhaps discuss having your character removed from the game. Don’t prolong it for no reason.

Telepathic Guinness ad reference AND Sid Meier's Pirates! reference - you are truly spoiling us ❤

Ok, cool, let’s try it! 1: A combat heavy campaign with linear storytelling with deadly encounters and no way to revive dead characters. 2: The first four people who respond in Discord. And if a character dies in the campaign, the player is also kicked from the campaign as well. Then get another player from Discord. 3: Run big monsters with stolen maps online. 4: If I get drama at the table, I kill their character, easy. 5: If the player can’t make it for more than two sessions at my scheduled time, I kill their character, easy. 6: If a player questions my methods, I kill their character, easy.

My advice for new DMs, or any DMs period is: Embrace theft. Not physical things of course, no stealing books! I mean I have access to a digital repository of the books so maybe that if you're on a budget but I digress. Ideas! All stories have been told so if you want a heist, grab a copy of Oceans 11 and watch it. What works for you? What doesn't? Take those. You like a character from a book? A race from a book? Those are yours! You want a new monster? Crack open a monster manual, find the closest thing to what you want, give it a slight tweak, new monster! I came up with a poison trap monster by taking an air elemental, changed its attack to poison damage, had it release a puff of poison air with a roll of the die determining the turn it happens, and it became a new horror. As for art, I'm going to be a bit controversial: AI. Yes, I know, rage, feed me your hate! But when you're done, seriously consider it. What is so different between AI art that you're only using for that one campaign than using pictures you google for the same purpose? You're not profitting off of it, there's no real ethical concerns because no one is getting ripped off, and you get your own custom art. I know I can't draw so when I can't quite find what I need, I turn to AI. Ethical theft is something every gm and every player should have in their toolbox, it saves time, can make things more fun, and can shape entire campaign worlds.

Before I started playing DnD as a DM, I made sure it was very clear with my friends that I am brand new, have no clue what I am doing and am almost entirely focusing on learning. So thankfully they really leaned into their characters and how they interact with each other giving me room to improvise and plan future Sessions based around how they interact with the world. Our first session took place almost entirely in a Village as everyone met up and formed a group. It was almost entirely RP based and I think I have everyone ample time to interact with the world and each other. I’m excited for Session 2

Pointy hat vid right before my night shift? Just what I needed ❤️

I am actually upset about pronouns. But it's just because I married into a German family. Stuff's just so complicated.

When has common courtesy and respect to each other become offensive? Also, sorry, but "attack helicopter" is a timeless classic by now, imho.

Damn I can imagine how amazing it would be to play in a campaign run by you, just your voice alone is so engaging.

Re: Scheduling. Your idea for scheduling works great if you and your friends have set schedules. It does _not_ work so well when you don't. Lots of people do not have, for instance, regular work schedules. If you're one of those people or want to play with people in that situation, you really have no option but to organize your game around everyone's schedules werk-to-week.

Safety Tools : DnD's HR Yes, you are so useless as a human being that HR needed to get involved in your TTRPG 😆😉 Kindness, Understanding and Communication, yeah let's not do those 🤓

You lost me at safety tools.

Best "Top advices" video I'va watched on the Tube. And, not kidding, I think I've watched pretty much every major video on the topic. Thanks a lot, Pointy Hat !

My first campaign ended due to drama unfortunately. We were fighting a BBEG who had stolen a macguffin that would lead to the resurrection of the end game boss, and we were trying to stop him from escaping with the stone. We managed to stop him, but we couldn’t find the stone. We questioned him, but one of the players joked that it was up his butt. Another player took them literally and proceeded to fist the BBEG which traumatized much of the party. Personally, as a player I was ok with it, but I began to play my character like he was shaken to the core by the action. I figured that it would be a character building moment that would eventually bring the party closer. Unfortunately, it instead led to a shift in the campaign where players began to believe that other players were genuinely upset with them and folks weren’t having fun anymore. One player actually wanted to kill off their character because of the whole ordeal. As a DM, my solution to this issue has been a vote system. If I notice a few players are outright objecting to a controversial action, I’ll stop the game to ask the players if they would like to proceed with the action. If a majority say no, I’ll shut down the controversial action. Usually this will also stop a trolling player as they’ll realize that the action is affecting the players and not just the characters

Attack helicopter is still funny, and don't you assume my pronouns are not a joke anymore.

Lost me at the safety tool bullshit. Which is funny because up until that point, your entire video basically said this: Gatekeep Your Game.

Being a hard ass has actually been very helpful with the scheduling issue. I also did the planning thing where I got everyone’s availability and we play at the same time every week. What I’ve done is right at the beginning I told them “If you’re not available, we will be playing without you. And if you come late, we will start without you.” The only time I’m lenient is if a player has informed me at times notice of a hiccup and I’ll give them some extra leeway before we begin

I've DMed a singular campaign for the past 5 years now, and I've got to say, so much of this holds true with what, me and my players have found through the course of the last 5 years

This video is going to be so valuable. Thank you! 💛

I really appreciate this video. A lot I knew organically but there were a couple new things in here I'm definitely Houston implement in my next game. Thx!

Honestly, this is great! At my highschool, there is a teacher who does afterschool DnD (technically not dnd specifically, but games DnD adjacent) and we started a new campaign recently. At the start, the teacher was great about listing out what the expectations are as far as player behavior/jokes/etc. as well as has the campaign set up to make it really easy for players to be missing for a campaign and come back, apart from the storyline moving along.

setting expectations is basically one of the most important things to hash out before a game, along with player goals, safety tools, etc, but i want to give kudos for you mentioning being SPECIFIC and saying exactly how much combat/rp you use. thats something most people probably dont even realize is important but it is completely true, more even, just having such a plan gives you a ton of legitimacy for the player to trust

The most satisfying narrative I ran was with a party of 2 people. Smaller groups give you an opportunity to zone in on their character's backstories, which leads to better player engagement. Very fun!

Lines and veils: proper terminology for concepts D&D groups have struggled with for decades. This is a video worthy of multiple viewings. *tips hat*

I am unbelievably stoked for the Dungeon Dudes next Kickstarter 😁

This is my favourite channel, like ever. I don’t even play, watching your videos makes me want to have friend to play this with sooo much tho

This is such an amazing video. First, yes... choosing the right players and being honest about it is important because I've been on the other side of square pegs and round holes, and it's not pretty. AND YES ON EXU: CALAMITY!!! It's, honestly, the best live play I think I've ever watched, and it's only 4 sessions! Just overall great advice and great video. 👍

I am currently preparing a short campaign with 9 planned session. We are playing bi-weekly so it'll take about 5 months to go through it. I actually enjoy this preparation more than my last campaign of about 2 years. Because I have a better overview of the events I plan and how the whole story links together. There are no filler sessions and barely any side quest. I'm really looking forward to running it. 😊

Love the consistency ❤️

I've had some awesome games with a single player. I ran a Starship Troopers game for my best friend, we started it as a pickup game but it became a campaign that we both loved. His character went from a recruit to a high ranking officer before we ended the campaign. At first, I treated his fellow soldiers as backdrop, then they became squads in their own right, and then they became individual NPCs, and eventually I even made character sheets for specific NPCs. One of the characters named Harper, through pure random chance, had stayed alive from the bootcamp days and stayed with my friend's PC until they were both officers, and then died instantly to a very bad (or good?) [un]lucky roll of the dice. It was emotional, and like a roller coaster ride it was great.

Drama ending campaign on first session: The rogue> I want to steal from the tomb Dm>.... the ranger's father's tomb The rogue> Yeah. I see no problem with this. The ranger> I start aiming....

something that helped a group i was a part of, was to have a central hub that the characters return to. this has a number of benefits. -it allows for the group to swap out GMs. each GM can pitch a short mission/arc, and then return the party to the hub afterwards, where a new GM can take over. this helps spice things up with different perspectives and GM styles, and importantly, gives GMs breaks and opportunities to be players. -it allows players to have multiple characters, and switch them out between missions/arcs. often choosing a character that better suits the short mission/arc. -it gives regular opportunities for domestic role-play, and item management when in the hub. -it allows the GM to focus on short, low prep, missions/arcs, and not get too carried away. it also allows the GM to tailor those campaigns to players, and their actions.

This is all great advice. We just started our third major campaign (and with our group, each one lasts years), and even though it's mostly the same players, or people we've played one shots with before, I as the DM made sure to set clear expectations with everyone before we even started character creation. It was even easier since we had past campaigns to compare to. And with every one of us getting busier but still always prioritizing dnd night each week, once every month or two we take a week off and I message all the players for specific feedback on a couple questions: What did you enjoy the most and least, and what are you most looking forward to? That's a huge help in preparing and making sure we're all on the same page.

As someone who is about to complete a 2 year campaign in a few weeks its been great having everyone be mostly present

regarding feedback, I think it's a great insrument. Every "negative" feedback" helped me to improve the future games. One of the players told that it would be great if I would implement some conditions or puzzle mechanics during boss battles, while this is an additional challenge for preparation but still an enjoyable one, and the moment I've managed to add something like this to game, I've received a universal feedback that this was the best boss battle in the game. And I feel like it also made me a better DM.