How to Be a Better DM: Dungeon Master Tips for the DM Newbie, the Hobbyist and the Forever DM Who SHOULD Play as a Barbarian
You look around you. You see the circle of stones surrounding you. You see Judir watching you with his arms folded surrounded by your closest friends and companions.
You take a deep breath and walk forward.
“The winds whisper still,”
Runic symbols appear on the stones of the circle.
“The voices of the ancients.”
You stand above the bowl with it’s red liquid.
“And the mountains remember their steps.
You bend over and pick up the bowl.
“Their hearts beat still with the rhythm of our drums.”
You raise the bowl to your lips.
“And we dance to the rhythm of theirs.”
You drink the liquid.
“The storm carries the embrace of our elders as through us their memory lives on.”
You open your eyes. You don’t remember closing them. You also don’t remember being so cold. You look around you. You are on the slope of a mountain. It’s snowing. You see the mountain peak. You see the dancing lights of the northern sky surrounding the mountain. You hear a faint drum beat and distant voices singing an ancient song.
What would you like to do?
Welcome back to the 26th episode of How to Be a Better DM. As always, I’m your host, Justin Lewis and together you and I will learn how to craft ever better stories for yourself and your friends as you DM a session of D&D 5e.
Before I get to today’s show, let me make a few announcements.
First of all, welcome to a brand spanking new year! I hope 2022 is everything you hope it will be for you and more. This year you will have amazing adventures that you can’t even fathom yet. You’ll have struggles and triumphs and I’m excited for you.
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I think that’s all the announcements … for now… so without further ado, let’s talk about barbarians.
As I said last week, any person can play any class and still have fun. Your job as a DM though is to help shepherd your players to find the class that offers the experience any given player is looking for. That means you should know what each class is good for and what each class does not offer. Last week we talked about who should not play as a barbarian.
This week, let’s look at who would have the most fun playing a barbarian.
- Someone who wants to be strong
If someone wants to be strong, then a barbarian class is a great fit. You get a natural bonus to strength and while you are raging you get advantage on strength checks. So if your player is looking to be the beefy fella at the gym that everyone stares at, then a barbarian is the way to go.
- Someone who wants to be up-close-and-personal
Barbarians, while being able to throw javelins and use ranged weapons, are not known for being ranges combatants. In fact their rage only gives them a bonus if they are using melee weapons. Most barbarians therefore tend to stay close to their enemies in order to get in there and whack em real good.
- Someone looking for simple combat turns
Most barbarian turns are comprised of movement, rage, attack. As you level up, that attack action allows you to attack more than once. You may find magical items that allow you to do more on your turn, however talking just about the class itself, a barbarian’s combat turn is relatively simple compared to other classes. This makes it a great option for someone who doesn’t want to have to write their whole turn down just to remember it.
- Someone who enjoys describing combat
Obviously any class can do this, but because a barbarian’s combat turn is very simple it allows for more time to craft intricate embellishments of attack options. Even as a DM you can do this for your player if they are somewhat shy or un-descriptive. For example. Your player might say, “I attack the gnoll.” They then roll and roll a 18 which is a hit. You ask them to roll damage. They roll 7 points of damage. You can then narrate it like, “Yolanda pulls back her great club in her right hand and with her left shoves the gnolls shield out of the way so she can get a good crack right under its ribs forcing it to send out a hyena like yip yip yip as Yolanda growls in triumph”. Now let me assure I am not that eloquent in my actual games but you get the idea. Feel free to encourage embellishments like that at the table, especially for players whose turns seem really short compared to other players.
- Someone who is naturally bold
Barbarians are somewhat known for rushing into situations without thinking them out completely. If you have a player who tends to play like this no matter what type of character they are, then maybe lead them toward choosing a barbarian so that their character doesn’t seem so out of character sometimes.
- Someone who wants to be able to take a hit
With rage, and especially the totem warrior whose chosen one of the bear options and gets resistant to almost all types of damage, you get to reduce the amount of damage you take from most weapons by half. Add to that the fact that barbarians generally have much more health than other classes and you get a pretty tanky character. Other classes might have higher armor class, but a barbarian can take a ridiculous amount of damage and still keep fighting.
- Someone who isn’t yet aware of the consequences of actions
Because a barbarian can take a punch and still keep going it’s a great choice for a newer player who hasn’t yet realized you can’t just go in guns-a-blazin everywhere you go. If you have a sorcerer who thinks they can be the first one walking into a dungeon, they will probably die. That exact thing happened in my group when we started and now that sorcerer is in the back and the barbarian goes first. There’s a lot more room for error.
Now you know who to help choose a barbarian. As I’ve said probably 3 or 4 times before, any player can play any character. We are just trying to give each player the highest chance of having as much fun as possible.
But what do you think?
Are there other players that should play a barbarian?
Tell your thoughts and experiences DMing by sending me a direct message on Instagram @geronimolevis and let’s get talking.
Thank you so much for listening to another episode. Seriously if you have any feedback please let me know what you think or any other topics you’d like to hear. Please leave a rating and review wherever you listen to this, on Spotify, Apple Podcast or Google Podcasts. That would go super far in helping other DM’s find this resource.
We’ll be back next week for another awesome episode, but until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.
Today’s music:
Viking God Wisdom - Ean Grimm
Viking music (Epic battle music) - EPIC MUSIC NO COPYRIGHT - Medieval music 1 hour mix
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