Welcome to How to Be a Better DM! Tanner talks about how you can take immersion to the next level through the snacks that you prepare as well as the food you introduce to your players' characters.Also, if you'd like to sign up for one of our One-shots, do so here: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shotMentioned in this episode:Brought to you by Session 0 StudiosVisit session0studios.com for more information.Join Our DiscordSo a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today. DiscordAdd the Magic of Sound to Your GameplayWhen you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout. Monument Studios

Voice actor Victor Bevine, known for his portrayal of Drizzt Do'Urden in the R.A. Salvatore books, discusses his career and narrating the Drizzt series for over 10 years. They also talk about the interconnection between voice acting and writing, the challenges of narrating fictional books, the selection process for narrators, and the importance of conveying deep emotion in voice acting.

justin_lewis:Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I'm one of your hosts today, Justin Lewis, and I'm here with Rob and Tanner Wayland. And I'll let Rob introduce himself in a second, but let me first tell you, the listener, about today's episode. So if you're new here, we are here to help you craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons. And today, we're actually gonna dive into the world of homebrew creations. Specifically, we're going to show you kind of the start to finish, hopefully start to finish. We might split this episode up into two episodes, but the start to finish process of creating something, but also the start to finish process of collaborating with someone else in creating something, because being a DM can be somewhat lonely and it's very taxing if it is lonely. So when you team up with other people like Rob, you can make it easier for everyone. But also, it's just fun to connect and be cool with people. So. Rob, if you want to introduce yourself and then we can hop into what we're doing today. Oh, you'rerob:Hellojustin_lewis:muted.rob:there, hi, sorryjustin_lewis:Thererob:aboutjustin_lewis:yourob:that.justin_lewis:are.tanner_weyland:You're good.rob:My name is Rob Van Auchen, and I write and publish a lot of stuff under DM Robrick. I'm just happy to be here with you guys. I've played with both of you in your one shots, and I'm a frequent listener, and I'm looking forward to this. Should be a lot of fun.justin_lewis:Yeah, yeah. And listener, if you wanna catch one of Rob's published encounters, you can go to betterdungeonmaster.com slash Robrick and purchase it, it's an awesome encounter called the Lorecraft Collection, did I get that right?rob:That'sjustin_lewis:The Lorecraft,rob:correct.justin_lewis:yes, yeah. So go ahead and publish that, all the proceeds go right to Rob, cause he's an awesome DM. But today, like I said, we're going to work on home brewing and We haven't prepared anything specifically to show you, you know, the ups and downs, the ins and outs and the exciting and boring parts of homebrew creation. So I have shared a document with all three of us. First of all, did either of you have any specific ideas on anything you wanted to create together?rob:I'm game for just about anything, but I thought I would put that question right back to you folks. I don't know the scale and scope of what you guys were thinking, but we can go anywhere from, you know, a fun random table to a one-page encounter to a several-page, you know, one-shot kind of adventure in a box kind of thing, if that's what you guys are looking for.justin_lewis:Sure. Tanner, any specific way you're leaning?tanner_weyland:Ooh, man, I've been thinking about this as well, because I think, I mean, it'd be cool to do a one-shot, but that is, you know, it takes a good amount of planning.justin_lewis:Yeah.tanner_weyland:So. I think we'd come uprob:Nope.tanner_weyland:with... Oh, go ahead.rob:No, no pressure.tanner_weyland:Yeah,rob:Notanner_weyland:Irob:pressure.tanner_weyland:know, right? I'm thinking that maybe we just figure out, like just how, huh, like how longrob:Yeah.tanner_weyland:we want it to last, and then essentially just go work backwards from there, come up with ajustin_lewis:Sure.tanner_weyland:cool premise, movejustin_lewis:Sure.tanner_weyland:from, I don't know,rob:So,tanner_weyland:that sound good? ["Spring Day"]rob:absolutely, to date, I don't wanna call it my area of expertise, because I'm still fledgling in the field here,justin_lewis:I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.rob:but I have created encounters that are circled around the three pillars, right? Exploration, combat, and social. And my goal with each of these encounters is to kind of put a little randomized table that could possibly lead crafty DMs down other avenues to kind of expand the encounter itself. So it's kind of like an encounter in a box with these sort of like little tendrils that allow DMs and players to kind of pick up things and maybe decide, oh, you know what? That was kind of an interesting little tidbit. Maybe I'll follow that idea andjustin_lewis:Excellent.rob:let it grow. I don't wanna keep anybody, any DMs in a cage here.justin_lewis:Yeah, I love that. Let's do an encounter then. What weretanner_weyland:Yeah,justin_lewis:you saying, Tanner?tanner_weyland:maybe an encounter. What if we just had like, we created like a kind of a little mini one shot with just one of each of those three pillars, you know,justin_lewis:Gottanner_weyland:somejustin_lewis:it.tanner_weyland:exploration, some combat and some social, and then go from there.rob:love itjustin_lewis:Yeah.rob:love itjustin_lewis:Yeah.rob:love itjustin_lewis:Um, and listener, we probably won't get all to all of this today because creating a one shot can be rather long. So we're probably going to split this episode up. Uh, so, uh, yeah, stay tuned. But first, um, let me just write down, I'll be the, I'll be the notes keeper, I guess, unless one of you is better at it because I'm not super great at givingrob:I'mjustin_lewis:notes.rob:happy tojustin_lewis:Okay.rob:help.tanner_weyland:Nope.rob:Happy to help however I can. Ha ha.justin_lewis:All right. So homebrew. I wish I could spell home brew creation. shot.rob:While you're typing, I'll put this idea to you both here. What is the flavor that you would like to capture? Are we going epic fantasy? Are we going squash buckling pirates? Are we going sort of for frivolous? I had the opportunity, I believe Tanner, you were the dungeon master for, it's kind of like a Halloween, almost like a Halloween theme. We, when we played, we had entered that kind of sort of creepy haunted pumpkin patch.justin_lewis:Mm-hmm.tanner_weyland:Mm-hmm.rob:and there was a pumpkin headed villain. So, you know, October is coming up. So something like that might be kind of cool, like a campy kind of holiday themed.justin_lewis:I likerob:Wejustin_lewis:that.rob:can go, I know Spelljammer just came out. We can go, you know, D&D in outer space,tanner_weyland:No.rob:home rune outer space.justin_lewis:No, yeah. I like those ideas. I think we should definitely either do Halloween-themed one, Christmas-themed one, because Christmas is also coming up, and or Thanksgiving or a mix of the three. One other thought I did have is because I specifically want this one-shot to be very useful for anyone to play, specifically the introductory DMs. So if we could create a one-shot that And, you know, like Tanner said, it touches on the adventure, the exploration, sorry, not adventure, so the exploration, the combat and the social, and kind of introduces the DM to doing that. I think that would be extremely helpful to our listener. Um, so yeah, that's what that, those are my thoughts.rob:and.tanner_weyland:As far as the actual theme, let's say. I mean, space does sound cool, but I'm gonna,justin_lewis:Hehehetanner_weyland:I'm gonna say maybe later. That might be a later one. I haven't even thoughtjustin_lewis:Yeah.tanner_weyland:about space and I would wanna put more time into that. What do you guys think about an academy setting?justin_lewis:I like that. I think it's veryrob:Okay,justin_lewis:reminiscentrob:I'm on board.justin_lewis:of Harry Potter, so that would be easy for a lot of people to relate to, in a sense.tanner_weyland:Yeah, I also think that it provides a lot of opportunities for both social and exploration, andjustin_lewis:for sure.tanner_weyland:then of course combat, whether you have it as part of a lesson that goes awry or they're exploring in the middle of the night or who knows what, right? I think it's a very approachable kind of setting.justin_lewis:Agreed. Cool.rob:Yeah, absolutely.justin_lewis:So theme,rob:I'm totally on board. Now,justin_lewis:orrob:I know.justin_lewis:I guess that's the setting.rob:Well, I know that you have a homebrew kind of world build that you've been working on, Justin. Is there a location or a place where this academy might be set?justin_lewis:Yeah, so there is one academy that is currently created. I'm still working on the world itself, but it's called the Brazen Academy. Um, I don't know if it would exactly fit this. So it is essentially an academy specifically created for teaching people how to smelt and mine this material called deep iron, which is, um, it's, it's harder than adamantine. In this world, everything that every magical item that is like plus three is made of this stuff. And this this academy belongs to this nation called the Kula Uwea Confederacy, and they guard it very highly. So once you get in, you can't get out. Like, there's no escape. Like, they'd kill you before they let you out because the secrets of smelting this type of iron is so closely guarded. I don't know if that would be a good location. But if you guys want we could also create a different Academy in the world that is a little bit less intenserob:Well, I'm just thinking if, and this is just me shooting the breeze here, an academy, and you want this to be useful for beginner DMs. So what if the academy was for a school of, I guess, it could be children, it could be anybody who's interested, but a school for would-be adventurers. And like each of the houses is led by your traditional. class types, right? So you've got like the barbarianjustin_lewis:I likerob:house,justin_lewis:that.rob:you've got like the clerk house, you've got the wizard house, you know? And so the PCs could join a house with their desire and the purpose of this particular encounter would be to maybe pass the test, whatever the test may be. This way it's replayable, right? So PCs and players could play it over and over again as a different class. It's something that's kind of easy to jump into, that the purpose is kind of... I don't want to like railroad anybody or streamline,justin_lewis:Exactly.rob:but yeah, the tests would be things that we could make randomized tables for, or we could certainlytanner_weyland:Mm-hmm.rob:just insert something. And again, people could play this over and over again. This could be something really cool. A nice, almost like I teach for a living, so I'm always thinking of like, you know, how to bring kids andjustin_lewis:Exactly.rob:young people into thetanner_weyland:Mm-hmm.rob:game.justin_lewis:No,rob:It soundsjustin_lewis:that'srob:likejustin_lewis:exactly...rob:this might be a good way to do that.justin_lewis:Yeah, I love thattanner_weyland:Yeah.justin_lewis:idea.rob:All right,justin_lewis:I love that idea,rob:I likejustin_lewis:especiallyrob:this.justin_lewis:because also, it's kind of meta. It's like, here's the test becoming an adventurer, and if this is played by new players, then it kind of actually is like, now you're an adventurer kind of thing. It's pretty funny. So...rob:Yeah. All right, so then I guess, well, go ahead, please.justin_lewis:No, I was just gonna say, so the theme then would be like school test type idea, not necessarily Halloween or Christmas, but I guess you could flavor it that specific way depending on when you play it.rob:It is back to school. So itjustin_lewis:That,rob:does kind ofjustin_lewis:yeah,rob:fittanner_weyland:Yeah.justin_lewis:that, that makesrob:thejustin_lewis:sense.rob:back to school and summersjustin_lewis:Yeah.rob:out back to school.justin_lewis:Well.tanner_weyland:Yeah, you know, I think there's a couple ways we could do this. Either one allows a lot of randomization or tables, depending on what, you know, DM wants. We could do a, we could do a test. Like you were saying, we could do a club fair, you know, where it's like, Oh, each club kind of tries to throw you through the ringer to like,justin_lewis:Yeah.tanner_weyland:see if you gotjustin_lewis:Yeah.tanner_weyland:the stuff.justin_lewis:Like you're getting in a club or like rush week, like in, uh,tanner_weyland:Yeah.justin_lewis:what's it called? Uh, sororities and fraternities and crap.tanner_weyland:Yeah, or even in a lot of like, you know, a lot of manga, a lot of anime, they have like these fair things, you know, events, like school fairs where each class has like their own, they like turn their classroom into their own kind of like thing that's usually themed or whatever, you know,justin_lewis:I like that.tanner_weyland:like a haunted house or like food related or something, you know. Either way, I think any of them kind of allow good randomization, you know.justin_lewis:Cool. Sorob:Yeah,justin_lewis:I think...rob:that would be an interesting way to begin the school fair arrives in the town and the would be heroes. I guess that you know I don't want to again i'm not trying to streamline anybody railroads and they can create their own back door as to why they would show up here, you know that maybe they're you know the poor kid in town and they want to. show up and then make a better life for themselves to provide for their family or maybe they're just simply you know interested in the schools and they you know everybody's doing it and they want to they want to join get into particular. particular school.justin_lewis:for sure.tanner_weyland:Yeah, and then they go to the school fair just thinking they'll have fun or whatever, and then they pass some tests and then they get accepted and that would be a cool ending for it.justin_lewis:Yeah.rob:They get their firstjustin_lewis:I think,rob:assignment.tanner_weyland:Yeah.justin_lewis:I think we're set on the school setting. So maybe it might be more beneficial for us to flesh out the setting, like specifically kind of make some, some, you know, get the lay of the land and then we can create the plot around it. You know, like the school does this or doesn't do this and it would make a little bit more sense for why people would go there or things like that.rob:Works for me. So we have the location as the sort of school setting, right? And we're worried about things like synopsis and title for this stuff later.justin_lewis:Sure. Doesrob:Sojustin_lewis:anyone have a namerob:Ijustin_lewis:for the academy?rob:just working title House of Heroes.justin_lewis:Also here's.rob:Home for the, House of Heroes, something sort of blase like that, just to.justin_lewis:What about Rob Ricks Academy for the adventurally gifted or something like that?rob:That works.tanner_weyland:I don't hate Rob Rick that's for surerob:How to be better adventurers.justin_lewis:Yeah. Rob ricks. It keeps changingtanner_weyland:Rubrics.justin_lewis:torob:Sojustin_lewis:rubric.tanner_weyland:Keep switching to rubrics.rob:my one rule, and I was going to kind of do this reveal later, but my one rule is after I've kind of plotted my beats and I've plotted out what I think I want to say, my one rule is make it weird. Right? So there's got to be something about it that is unique or different, right? Having a magic sword is really cool, but having a magic sword that is made from the bone of a dead giant. that talks to you is even more interesting. You know,tanner_weyland:Mm-hmm.rob:a school is interesting. A school for heroes is very interesting, but a school for heroes that if you flunk out, there's a real ramification or, you know, there's some kind of real motivation to not flunk out, right, or not cheat on the test. You know, a school for heroes is cool, but a school for heroes that sends you on an adventure and where you might perish, you know, now there's this impetus to...

Justin:Ulf woke up. He was in a cave, but he saw a face above his. It was Herlia. Ulf, we thought you were dead. Ulf sat up and saw Hepom sitting not too far off now, sporting a few more days' growth of beard. Ulf looked around. He could see the exit from the cave a few yards away. It was snowing outside. About a week. We still don't know what happened, Ulf, but we are sure glad to see you up and walking. We... we didn't know what to do." Hylia said as her voice trailed off. of breathed deeply. I'm sorry." Ulf looked into Herlia's eyes. I've failed you these past few weeks. I should have been more, but I thought just about myself. Herlia was taken aback. Ulf, we didn't blame you for what happened to Hüde and Kujari. Ulf began to stand up and walked towards the snowy cave entrance. He turned and looked back at Herlia. I was not asleep or in a coma. Instead, I was taken back to the home of my ancestors. There, I lived for weeks in a tribe, and I had to perform some sort of test. Actually, I still have to perform the test, the trial. Early, I stood up and rubbed her temples. Ulf, you're not making any sense. Ulf turned and looked at her once again. We have to go north. and conquer the tribes of the North. Silence. Then Hipon piped up and said, well, when do we leave? What would you like to do? Welcome back to today's show. I'm your host today, Justin Lewis, and in the world of being a dungeon master there are now essentially two types of dungeon masters. There are those that prefer playing in person and those that prefer playing online. And actually I guess there's probably a third group that likes either one. But today I want to give a small guide to preparing to preparing for an online session for those people who feel like the online format may be limited or they've just never done it before. Sorry about my voice cracking there. But hopefully this guide helps you feel ready and prepared for a nice game with your friends online. And this is generally what I do when I prepare for my one shots, which you can sign up for by going to betterdungeonmaster.com slash one dash shot. It is free and you can see this firsthand. So first step. find your players. As always, the first step to any session of D&D is to find players. And with an online game, your pool of players has both narrowed and expanded. Because now you can play with anyone all over the world, but you do need to find people who are willing to play online. Me, I can't even get my wife to play online, so I resort to asking people I've never met in person over my podcast. Namely, people like you. So second thing you need to do is send out a player brief. Second thing you need to do is prepare the story. You need to write a full story and the nice thing about playing D&D online is you don't necessarily need to change the story to fit the online format. For the most part, you can do everything online that you can do in person. Naturally, whispering in people's ears is a bit hard. However, it's still possible. You can, there are tools that allow you to send discrete messages, and if need be, you can just email each individual person because theoretically you will have each of their emails. So prepare the story, write it down, and we have tons of podcast episodes that should help you with that and get you where you need to be. So the second thing is you need to choose theater of the mind or virtual tabletop or a VTT. So the difference is with a theater of the mind, and this is more of a tech choice than anything, with theater of the mind, you don't need more than one software. Well, I guess, let me explain. So a virtual tabletop is essentially a platform that allows you to connect audio visual for seeing your face and hearing your voice, but it also allows you to play music over the connection. It also allows you to display a map whenever you are in combat or a similar situation. That's a VTT. A theater of the mind is where you simply use an audio visual connection like Zoom or Google Meet, whatever have you. I use Riverside just because I actually record my one shots online. But you have this visual and audio connection and that's it. And if you need to, I suppose you could share your screen and show anything you needed to. You rely mostly on your descriptive words to tell people where they are, even in combat. And even in Theater of the Mind, or just using, sorry. And even just using Zoom or Google Meet, you can still share your screen to show visual aspects of your campaign. And with that, you can include audio aspects as well. VTTs are just a little bit more native, so they're a little bit more set up for things like that. For example, when you share a map in combat, you can create tokens and assign each of those tokens to each of your players. and that allows them to move the player in the combat rather than you having to ask them where to go and things like that. And you need to choose this, and I guess number three is a little bit more than this, you need to choose your whole tech stack. So are you planning on streaming the encounter or the session? Are you planning on recording it like I am? In both cases, you need to make sure you understand exactly what your tech stack will be. So in my case, dabbled around using a few things. I'm actually recording this on the 29th of April, which is the day of our last one-shot. And I'm planning on using Riverside, which is a podcasting platform, so it allows you to podcast with guests online. I'm planning on using that as the audio visual portion of the session, which will record the show. And then I will use Roll20, which is a virtual tabletop. to actually play the game. And if that doesn't work, then I will actually probably switch to just using Roll20 and then using a, I believe it's called Streamlabs, which is a desktop streaming where you can capture what's going on on your screen and then stream it out to either YouTube or whatever. And that's kind of my backup. And then if that doesn't work, I'll probably resort to Discord and things like that. But as you see, you need to choose your tech stack and also, Be very aware of the fact that things might not work out. People might not have microphones, headphones, their internet might not work. Playing online, there's a lot more technical snafus that can go wrong, so you need to be aware of that and plan ahead. Number four, probably one of the most important ones you can do is send out the player brief, okay? And you would do this just like you would do it in any in-person session or things like that, especially if you're in one shot, but a player brief has it's like a packet of information or or Segments of information. It's not necessarily packet. I guess you can send an email or send multiple emails, but It has very important information for the player to get ready for the session and that starts with character creation. So Information about hey, you can have these types of characters. You can't have these types of characters so forth and so on. So in the one shot that I'm running today, and obviously, you know, no spoilers because this will be out after the one shot, but I told the characters or the players, they can make any character they'd like. The world is in, the session will be set in my homebrew world of integrity, which has its own pantheon of nine gods, and that's it. So if they are connected to a deity, they should let me know and I'd give them further information. But. As far as characters and classes, feel free to go forth and do what they want. Generally with Oneshots, I'm pretty flexible. Now in hindsight, I would tell my characters, or tell my players not to do any character that can breathe underwater. And the reason why that's important is because the Oneshot takes place on a cruise ship, and spoiler alert, but the cruise ship goes down, right? Naturally, that's what happens in Oneshots. And actually that brings me to the next point that you should include in your player brief, which is information about the situation. So in this case, the players will find themselves on this cruise ship, and mind you, integrity is set in a high fantasy world. So this cruise ship is really kind of top of the line. There are a few countries that have banded together to create this marvel, essentially, and it's fueled by the resources of one... country called the Bastion of the Crown. It's fueled by the ingenuity and the technical know-how of the Kula Uwea Confederacy and then it's fueled by the technology of the Sivarish, sorry, it's fueled by the technology of the Sivarish Protectorate. So it's kind of this joint creation of a few countries. So with that, the players, I told them you have to make sure that your character is from one of these countries because the ship is actually going from the Kula Uwea Confederacy to the Sivirish Protectorate and then finally to the Bastion of the Crown. So all of your characters need to have a reason to be on the ship and to go there, right? And with that I also explained a little bit of the situation around the world. Okay, so this ship is first of its kind, like nothing else like it. And it's also coming around in a time of disunity. So the world as a whole has become very unorganized and disintegrated, okay? So allies have severed and are now kind of looking at each other as enemies. And the whole world is in a commotion. So that's why the ship is so very important. It's kind of a symbol of the world kind of knitting itself back together. So that's the situation, that's the information I gave my characters about the situation. Now, the next thing you need to include is any information about the world. So for example, like what I said about the... the gods, the deities. So in integrity there are nine gods and each god has kind of their own domain. And one important thing about the gods is that their alignment constantly shifts, okay? So every year, and this is kind of how they gauge their zodiac, every year there is a lawful good god and then there is a chaotic evil god, all right? And during those years, those two forces are directly opposed. Okay, and every year it changes up randomly. And a lot of effort and time in other areas of the world is spent in figuring out which god is good because that determines some of the major events that will happen and things like that as far as political events or natural disasters things like that. So that might be something I would include in my brief, but in this case I didn't because none of my characters decided to be a cleric or a paladin. But I did extend the invitation to them saying, hey, if you would like more information, reach out to me. Another bit you need to know about this is that a lot of this information can be exposed or you can display through exposition in the game. So for example, the cruise ship is technologically powered by a substance called Spark, which is a, it's actually a magical drug that was first designed. kind of in other parts of the world, and then it came to the Sivirish Protectorate, and the government actually didn't regulate it or whatever, and many engineers and scientists found that you could use this drug to create a powerful energetic substance, right? So the entire ship is powered by this drug, this very volatile drug called Spark. That's something that the players will figure out in game because exposition and things like that, right? So again, you definitely need to include information about the world, but don't give too much, right? Make sure that it's salient to what the player needs and relevant. Lastly, you need to include links. So you need to include links to the online campaign. So if you're using D&D Beyond, which I neglected to mention, that's another tool that I'm using in my tech stack. That's essentially where all the players are making their characters in a place where I can see it. and I can actually use it to make encounters and things like that, which will come in very handy. You need links to the audio and visual, so I sent out links to Riverside for my players, and then links to the virtual tabletop if you use it. So I sent out links to Roll20. And that's essentially what you need to send in the player brief. Again, it doesn't need to be one single email or whatever. You can just make sure the information gets to your players and they feel ready. Number five. You need to... plan any encounters that you need. And what I mean by this is, you need to prepare the stats and the situations so that way when the time comes, you don't have to spend precious time doing that, but instead you can give your full attention to your players. Breaking the flow is not a very good thing in D&D unless it's intentional, in which case have at it, right? So what I did was I looked at the chain of events and on a cruise ship it's very nice. I suppose maybe it's railroading, but it is what it is. That's kind of the situation. They have limited choices as far as what the major events affecting the cruise ship are going to be. And then next you need to prepare any maps you need if you're using a virtual tabletop. So in my case, I use Dungeon Alchemist, which is an awesome tool. It's actually a 3D tool on Steam that you can purchase. And what it does is it allows you to create very in-depth maps for different situations. And I can actually, well, if you sign up for our Dungeon Master Guild Level 1, you can get access to a lot of the maps that we create and download them for free. So you can upload them to your VTT or whatnot. But essentially, Dungeon Alchemist allows you to drag and drop different elements into a map. So you can... click a specific room you want to create, you draw the shape and then you click the check mark and it auto-populates using AI that room and then you can go ahead and customize it using different objects, different floor tiles and things like that. And let me tell you, when I first backed it as a Kickstarter, it was very, it was pretty sparse, but now it has so many options, including Gingerbread House as one, Ice House. You can actually make caves now, which is a pretty cool feature. It's just becoming way more. Developed and in depth so now it's the time to get on it because it's just gonna get more in depth Last thing you need to do is follow up with your players The common bane of the dungeon master is not getting players to come to the sessions or having players bail things like that Even on one shots that happen because someone listened to a podcast and signed up with me people bail You know all the time And when I say bail, I don't necessarily mean that they just decide not to come. Oftentimes, it's like family issues or emergencies or things like that, but it does happen a lot. And so you do need to be flexible and follow up with your players the day of or the day before just to make sure that they have the right time, the right links, and there's no issues, right? Especially if you're new to being an online DM or if you're trying to do it in a professional sense, you wanna make sure that all your ducks in a row so that way people come back and play with you again. So there you have it, there's my guide to preparing for an online session of D&D. It's not hard, honestly. It's basically just like planning for an in-person session. You just need to add the technical aspect and do a little bit more communication and follow-up because if people don't hop on, you can always reach out to someone else and get them on the link and have fun anyways. So if I missed anything, go ahead and let me know. Reach out to Instagram at the... Reach out to Instagram at howtobetterdm. Again, this episode is hopefully helpful to you for preparing for online sessions. If you do want to test out your online sessions, reach out to me or sign up for one of our one shots coming up and you can do that at betterdungeonmaster.com slash one dash shot. We'll be back next week for another amazing episode, but until then, let's go ahead and roll initiative.Mentioned in this episode:We Like YouHey Bud… How’s it going? Just wanted to say… we like you. We’re think you’re pretty cool. We hope you like us too. If you do like us and what we’re doing, you can support us on our Patreon. Just $1 a month is enough. Just go to https://session0studios.com/patreon and show your support. But even if you don’t… we still like you. See ya around bud. PatreonAlways Have Your Sessions Prepared!You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? 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Justin:Hi there listener, this is Justin Lewis and I have here Tanner Wayland with me today. Say hi, Tanner.Tanner Weyland:Hi.Justin:And today on how to be a better DM we are going to talk about Sort of a niche topic One that I think a lot of people struggle with without knowing they struggle with so let me paint a picture for you It's session zero right and you've finally gotten all your PCs in the same room We'll say it's a tavern right there sitting at the same table a few of them know each other So you have two over here that know each other two over there and two over there with most groups, your players start saying, oh well my character's mysterious and untrusting of other people and you have to prove yourself to me. Except every player in your party is acting like that. So the question that we're gonna answer today is how do you get your players, or at least your PCs, to start treating each other like friends and to start wanting to travel together and to view themselves as a party? difficult things to do in session zero or in a one-shot, especially if you as the DM don't outright say, you guys have been traveling for a while, you are already friends. So naturally, let's get that one out of the way. The simplest way to do that specifically in one-shots is just to say, you guys are already friends. You have a long history, you don't need to worry about that. That method doesn't really work when it comes to long-term campaigns because the whole point of the campaign your party integrates and becomes solidified and galvanized, right? SoTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:we'll get that one out of the way, but Tanner, any initial thoughts?Tanner Weyland:Uh, my initial thought is that like you were saying, it's not as clean of a process as, as you'd like, it's not as clear cut because not everyone has a fellowship of the ring type situation where they're all sitting, they all gathered for one reason and then they all, everyone who joined it volunteers and it's like, Oh, you have my acts, you know, that kind of thing. Most of the time it's like, Oh, they just happen to be in the same town together. And then this event happens, you know, but a party of orcs attacks the town. believe, you know, we like to skirt over the fact that like, oh, obviously these people band together to go fight the orcs. It's like, not everyone does that. Some people, when they see trouble, they just, you know, they, they get out of town, you know, but, but so that's why the inciting incident is so important. And also you have to have kind of external factors that tie them together. For example, you know, if they are in a town, like let's say that they're there festival, right? And you know, I'll keep with my example and an orc attack happens. You know, instead of just assuming the players are going to fight together, what you could do is have an initial fight in the plaza, you know, or in the town square. And of course, everyone's fighting there because all the players just happen to be there and stuff. But then after that, you could have it be like, Oh, everyone else that wasn't a town like specifically puts you guys together, right? Like inciting incidents like that, you kind of need that initial moment of obligation or obligated partying in order to then later build on that and hopefully make some more connection, if that makes sense. So, I'm gonna go ahead and start with the first one. So, I'm gonna start with the first one.Justin:Yeah, that makes total sense. And actually let's, let's kind of put this into an example. So let's use the example of our homebrew one-shot that we're working on with Rob fromTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:New York, Rob Van Auken or, or no, wait, is that his DM name or his real? I think that's his realTanner Weyland:That'sJustin:name,Tanner Weyland:hisJustin:right?Tanner Weyland:real name. Yeah.Justin:Yes. Roderick Van Helm, RobTanner Weyland:Yes.Justin:Rick Van Helm is his DM. Anyways. it's called For Whom the Bell Tolls, the Chime Fell Ceremony, right? AndTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:thinking about this inciting event, the way the, gosh, I don't want to give too many spoilers away, but essentially your party comes to a town, participates in festivals and trials to win awards to kind of become a new ceremonial figure that protects the town in a sense, but also protects reality in a sense from And at one point a leader of the monastery hosting the event turns and basically summons the big bad that everyone was trying to keep out, right? So I think in this case, to kind of give an example to what Tanner just said, an inciting incident could be this session. Like this could be your session zero. All the players come from different places to participate in the Chime Fell ceremony and possibly gain the award, right? figureTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:and I feel like naturally as your players win because they naturally will they'll win those trials they'll come together to meet the chief monastery officer or whatever the name is that the abbot and that you know they'll meet each other and then the inciting event will be that large monster gets summoned and suddenly they have to work together to fix the problem rightTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:I think that that we should hang out more, kind of an idea, right?Tanner Weyland:Yeah, I think that when you have a galvanizing like event, then that can cause a lot of connection. Otherwise, like I think it's a little bit harder with like longer journeys, you know? Because if you do have an inciting event that all happens in one town, like what happens in our, you know, the Chime fell ceremony, then that's like very easy because all the players are in one town, there's a festival, they're all there for the same purpose, in the same trials and you know that you that's certainly a way to make it happen and then just you as the DM as they're playing you're having little moments that you create of them like being like oh this person's not half bad you know this other character and things like that can kind of help them become more of a party how about if you were on like a longer journey style like campaign things along the way create connection there.Justin:When you say longer journey style campaign, can you give a little bit,Tanner Weyland:Yes.Justin:yeah.Tanner Weyland:Like where they're going to multiple locations, you know, they go from a town to a dungeon, to a seaside port, to, you know, and they're like camping along the way, they run into bandits here and there. It's just like, it's a lot of traveling andJustin:Okay.Tanner Weyland:there's more, a bunch of small events versus one big event.Justin:Yeah, see even that I think is pretty easy. So I think deep down, and this is honestly, this is kind of a topic of social encounters anyways, there's a book called The Like Switch. And it's funny, these last few duo episodes where you and me have both been on, have been both about D&D, but also about life in general. SoTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:this is more about life in general, but this book is called The Like Switch. an FBI agent writing a book about how to influence people and kind of gain relationships and things like that and he lays out what's called or what he calls the relationship formula right and he says your relationship is a formula derived from in proximity frequency intensity and duration so essentiallyTanner Weyland:Hmm.Justin:you can boil down relationships to how close are you physically and like how intense are the emotions you feel and how long are you close together. See that's why in my opinion, when you go and work at a new place, at first you don't really make friends with the people sitting at your desk. You may or may not introduce yourself, but if you don't, after a month, you're gonna know each other's names and you're gonna start talking to each other just because you sit next to each other every single day. So in this case, with forcing your players to be together, have to get that formula in action, right? In the case of the galvanizing event, they are having such intense emotion that it's kind of like the foxhole friends, right? Shared trauma leads to strong emotional or at least somewhat strong relationships. But in the case of a long-term campaign, you're having them together for often, those natural occurrences are going to happen naturally. they would naturally relax and feel more comfortable around each other because kind of from a primal sense that person that unknown is becoming more known right. So I think just force the key to getting your PCs to want to travel together is to have them kind of fulfill that formula you know and there are obviouslyTanner Weyland:Yeah.Justin:other things to do but I think that's a good place to start.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, I like that too because it made me realize kind of an issue with a lot of DMs and characters, you know, because it's we're talking about parties here. But if you don't give like one, if you don't give your players the incentive to create good backstories. And then second, and this is where I realized with your comments, if you don't allow the where they can share parts about their character that they've created and parts of their character's personality then even if they have shared trauma like you were saying and even if they spend time together what are they going to know? It's like you're with someone at work who only ever talks about work, right? Are you going to actually ever know that person? Probably not. You know, you're only going to know them in work capacity because they never talk about their personal life and so if you ever saw them outside of work they'd be practically you. You know, it's like a teacher in school, right? Since kids never find out about what their teacher did, when they see them at the supermarket, they're like, what the heck, aren't you supposed to be at school? It's kind of like that where if your players are only having their characters talk about the event in front of them, the next goal, the next thing, and they never talk about their character backstory or, you know, or get opportunities, character do, then they won't have any latching on points for each other, right? I think that's an important thing.Justin:Yeah, I agree. And actually to that note, I think getting your party to gel together starts long before session zero and it begins with character creation. And naturally you're probably thinking like, oh, well, duh, you'd want, you know, a melee combat person in the same party as someone who casts spells or is ranged. Sure. But what I mean more is I think that relationship formula that I talked about, it might be a little bit... but incomplete, you probably need to add in the individual efforts of each person as well as the individual moral codes of each person. So, for example, in my current campaign, I have a character named Saban. He is a lizard folk artificer, and he's from the swamp, you know, he has a southern accent, and he's generally a very polite, caring individual, you know, I'd say he's neutral good tending towards lawful good. He's the kind of guy that like, if he sees someone struggling, he'll go help for no reason. He's just a good guy, right? And ITanner Weyland:Yeah.Justin:put him in there just for me to have a character that I can play around with. But sometimes, other of the players in the group, they are neutral or evil, depending on their situation. And so they'll do things that are questionable for Saban. And to be honest, it has made Saban think, do I really want to continue with this group when they're doing certain acts, right? you need to make sure that your character creation will not spawn characters that act in ways that are diametrically opposite of one another. If you have two characters that spend lots of time together in incredibly intense emotions, but they disagree with each other about the basic standards of life, they will probably come to hate each other, and that's how you get villains, to be honest.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, exactly. You have to have during character creation, you have to create characters who would in any world be willing to like spend some time around each other, right? If it's like, oh, this is just such a big event that they have to spend time together that I mean, that's okay, but you're not going to have as much of a gelled party as you need. One thing I realized is that you have to have opportunity like Incidents are a great way even better than I think bigger incidents for your characters to gel, right? let's say that you're in a town and your characters are at a tavern and You know, everyone's giving them the stink eye and the innkeeper is actually overcharging them and they see it because everyone else is like when the innkeeper is like gives them the like the tab essentially Like the players tab is like three times higher, right? such a small thing and you don't think that would like help the party gel but guess what that's a perfect incident to really reveal people's like characters because unlike a big bad where it's like oh everyone just hates these you know like what do you do about the local innkeeper who you can't just well you could just massacre but like most people are gonna try and find other solutions and that's where you're gonna see each individual charactersJustin:youTanner Weyland:personality but then they'll have to work together and be like hey what do we do because you I want to just steal from him and then the priest over there just wants to you know, turn the other cheek and leave, you know If you don't have small events like that Where people feel cheated people feel like their trust was betrayed People feel disappointed then they can't flesh out their character and they also can't make moral Decisions between characters, which is where a lot of that kind of connection comes from, you knowJustin:Agreed. I think when it comes down to it, in some way, either physically, or emotionally, or spiritually, I guess, you have to separate your characters and kind of have them secluded together. And another example I want to use is, in the one shot I'm doing on April 29th for listeners of this podcast, and it's actually gonna be the starting session for the next campaign I do with my group in my homebrew world of integrity, will essentially be on a cruise ship. And all the characters will be in the same hallway, and they're gonna be the only people in there, aside from maybe one or two other NPCs that are salient to the story. And by doing so, they'll essentially be forced to sit at the same dinner table, because that's what you do at a cruise ship, you have an assigned dinner table essentially.Tanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:And like, they're gonna be assigned to sit next to each other, they have to talk to each other, you know, and they'll get to know each other that way. Something I've noticed though, and this is thinking of Critical Role, this is thinking of High Rollers, their Arois campaign, usually they'll have a couple Session Zeros with just a few of the players. So for example, in Critical Role, their most recent campaign, Sam Riegel and I believe Taliesin Jaffe, their characters were kind of grouped together. I don't remember their names. those two had already formed their relationship and chosen to kind of travel together. SoTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:when you have that, you have smaller groups, smaller parties, it's a bit easier to kind of galvanize them together because instead of having to make ties between seven players, you're only having to make like four ties, right, between smaller groups. And I think that's a very powerful way to also do this, though it does take a little bit more time and a few more sessions.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, agreed. I think that that starting grouping mechanic, whether it's like, oh, they all wake up in a prison cell and they're all in one. Or like you said, I love the cruise idea. I think that's going to be very fun. I think there's multiple ways that you can do that. And then that gives you the time. It's natural, but it also gives you time later to build those deeper connections as the journey goes on. I also think that something that is to provide incentives for good character sharing and interaction, right? Like everyone knows about, you know, a common practice is if players are traveling and they do a campfire every night, you know, a classic thing for DMs is to touch base with the players at the campfire, you know, be like, okay, what do you do? Oh, you're sharpening your sword? Cool. And then when players decide to talk with someone, maybe about the events of the day, maybe about their past, then a great way to incentivize people is to be like, oh, that's wonderful. You know, here's a point of inspiration for you, you know, that you can use later. I love that role play. And, you know, I think that there's that I think there's also other more material ways where you can, you know, give them a bonus on the help action. Right. 24 hours or something, right? By having good role play. Yeah, I think that, I think honestly, when it comes to having players gel together, if you have a good start, like a good inciting incident that groups them together, and then later if you're able to give them that frequency, that openness and incentivized sharing, then I think you're gonna have a great time and your players are gonna feel like they have a much deeper party connection, which is the goal, right?Justin:Yeah, yeah. Sorry before, I think either I froze or you froze, so like I didn't hear part of it and then it just stopped. SoTanner Weyland:You're goodJustin:if I acted weird, that's why.Tanner Weyland:I was like I'llJustin:ButTanner Weyland:keep goingJustin:no, sorry Tanner. The last thing I'll share is, along with incentives, you can incentivize them even within the story. So every player, every character should have goals and a drive, a motivation to do something. align some of those goals and motivations so that way, you know, a few of the players want to do the same thing. Well, I'm not going to give any spoilers about the cruise ship, but suffice it to say at the end, all the players motivations will align because their choices will be significantly decreased. And I'm excited to see what people think about that. But anyways, any last words Tanner that you'd like to share before we sign off?Tanner Weyland:I guess my last thing would just be an encouragement to make sure that your party gets meshed because it's easy to just you know Just play without you without really...

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better DM. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy. Today, we are going to jump right into the announcements!Other than that, Justin and I are going to be at an event this Saturday, the 22nd of April! In Provo Utah, in the Provo Towne Center Mall, there is a D&D world record happening. The store “We Geek Together” is hosting an event called “Dead Wars” where they will have over 1,000 players playing the same game together—thus beating the world record. Justin and I will be there with the people from Monsters.Rent to talk about the minis and everything—we are also providing over 200 minis for the event to use, so we are so excited! If you are curious about the event info, look up wegeektogether.org to find more info. We hope to see some of you there!Today's Topic: animal companions, and NPC party companionsMentioned in this episode:Listen to Our New PodcastAs a listener of this show, you obviously love story. Now that you’ve learned how to craft your own story on this show, wouldn’t it be nice to have some inspiration? Or maybe just a moment of immersion and escape? Then come join us in our new Actual Play D&D 5e show, Pact and Boon. Enter the World of Calignos where our characters, Jolly, Wolfgang and Alon will meet each other in Hell. Enjoy our troublemaking and near-death experiences wherever great podcasts are heard. Just go to session0studios.com/pactnboon and start listening today. Brought to you by Session 0 StudiosVisit session0studios.com for more information.We Like YouHey Bud… How’s it going? Just wanted to say… we like you. We’re think you’re pretty cool. We hope you like us too. If you do like us and what we’re doing, you can support us on our Patreon. Just $1 a month is enough. Just go to https://session0studios.com/patreon and show your support. But even if you don’t… we still like you. See ya around bud. Patreon

Tanner Weyland:Hello, my name is Tanner Wayland and I, along with my co-host Justin Lewis, are here on How to be a Better DM. How you doing, Justin?Justin:I am good. I'm good. How are you, Tenor?Tanner Weyland:Oh, doing well, doing well. It's a lovely day outside, youJustin:ItTanner Weyland:know?Justin:is.Tanner Weyland:It's great. Here in Utah, it's been winter for 20 years, it feels like. AndJustin:It really does.Tanner Weyland:it's finally clearing up, and we're just gonna get so much flooding, but everyone's happy it's sunny. Ha ha.Justin:That's the truth.Tanner Weyland:Well, anyway, to get going with this, uh, with this topic today, we'll just hop right in. Um, the topic is how to be a DM when you're just busy, busy as all get out. Like how do you make time for it? Um, first off, Justin, has this ever happened to you where you just feel too busy to even meet or prepare or anything like that?Justin:Yeah, yes. I would say most recently it's been that I felt too busy that I wanted a break and I didn't want to actually have my players come over and have the game. I just kind of wanted a break. But I like what you said there, having to make time for it. Because I feel like DMing when busy, the art to DMing when you're busy, that you can do it and one of those is just making more time for it. You know, simple enough, you make it a bigger priority in your life, you get rid of other things. The unfortunate aspect with that is that it's a game. Like it's a hobby,Tanner Weyland:Yeah.Justin:you know. So if you are attempting to push out family matters or work or you know, religious obligations or social obligations, I don't know, I would maybe reconsider and try some of our other methods we'll talk about rather than stop working.Tanner Weyland:Yeah. No. Yeah. I totally hear you because if there was something on the chopping block, I think for a lot of people, it would be, you know, running dungeons and dragons, frankly. And, and,Justin:Yeah.Tanner Weyland:you know, I think just as an initial disclaimer on this episode, if you feel overburdened by your DMing, like you are absolutely entitled to stop, you know, to take a break, a longer term break. the kind of person who's like, Hey, I think I can if I could keep it going. And I really like it. If I change some things, that's kind of what this is for. Um, now like, I'll be honest, like there have been times like, uh, in the same campaign, I had to both, uh, at one point stop it, but then before then, uh, when I was in school, I had to learn how to deal with it during the school year versus summer, right? this was when I was in college and And you know, I think that it was actually an enlightening experience And I think this is what you'll learn too Is that you know, we all wish we had plenty of time to prepare for our sessions We all wish we could do like three four-hour sessions every week, you know but the fact is you know, sometimes you don't and it makes you actually kind of fall back on what's the core of Right? Like for me, and this was kind of my first tip, I guess, we were doing pretty long sessions. We were doing like three, sometimes four hour sessions. And my wife was just like, hey, Dan, you got a lot of other stuff you're trying to do. And then you always, she pointed out that I often complained about being short on time. AndJustin:Hehe.Tanner Weyland:she's like, maybe don't do it as long. And initially I was like, oh, but what will they think? these stupid reasonings in my mind. But then I just did it. I was like, you know what, fine. We'll just plan for like an hour and a half. And then, you know, it usually ended up being like two hours sessions. But even that little change meant that I didn't have to prepare as much. It meant that I had more time. It also meant that the sessions felt punchier. And I really appreciated that change.Justin:Yeah, I would say with doing something like that, it definitely is like a good challenge for yourself because everyone wants to make every session impactful and fun and memorable.Tanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:And when you only have an hour and a half, you start to think of, okay, well, what is like most important? You know, like we can'tTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:deal with the fluff, you know, and you probably could, So I really like that And you know what like Tanner said if you ever have problems with being super busy Talk to your players see if they can help out or give advice or just make changes like they did in Tanner's case You know communicate communication is very important right TannerTanner Weyland:Oh, you know what? I couldn't have said it better myself, Justin. Um, yeah, honestly, communication is huge because if you're feeling overwhelmed, then the worst thing you can do is keep that bottled up. Uh, so talk to, you know, in the case you will do have a significant other, like I can say that probably one of the reasons you feel so busy is because you have obligations there and that's not bad, you know, that's part of being in a relationship. Uh, but if you just hold it in, then there's going to be that tension. So talk about it, be like, hey, Deming's really important to me, but you're even more important to me. How can we make this both work? You know, and then once you discuss that, then talk with your players and be like, hey, here's some thoughts I had. Uh, have you guys had any thoughts? You know, maybe they'll be down to be like, Hey, yeah, we can, we can do once a month or,Justin:Mm-hmm.Tanner Weyland:you know, every two weeks instead of every week or something. Right. Um, I think people areJustin:I feelTanner Weyland:more understanding.Justin:like, yeah, ITanner Weyland:GoJustin:was justTanner Weyland:ahead.Justin:gonna add, I feel like that is just good life advice in general. Over the last few weeks, I myself have been incredibly busy with Monsters.Rent, which if you guys haven't heard, that's our new company and Tanner's actually a part of it now.Tanner Weyland:I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.Justin:But I've been super busy with that myself. So my wife has had conversations with me of like, well, something's gotta give and doing exactly what Tanner said saying here are some of my priorities, what are your priorities, and then how can we make both of these work together and you have to have an open mind. You know, like Tanner said, your DMing might have to go from once a week to once a month. And again, it's a simple fact of the matter that most of us, it's not our money making stream. Like, it doesn't make us money. So we can't always justify sacrificing other things for it. should butTanner Weyland:Mm.Justin:I think you do definitely need to keep an open mind with what you might need to give up.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, absolutely. And so I think with communication, with the willingness to be flexible, uh, there's also, uh, this is maybe a simple tip. Some of you are very creative and you write all of your campaigns and all of your sessions and that's wonderful. Uh, I would argue that, that you could benefit though, during a very busy part of your life, um, you could benefit to switch to a pre-written material. that the others have done, whether that's free or you purchase it or whatever else. Um, that can help save you a lot of time in prep work because I mean, I think you'd agree, Justin, like the actual session, like the time you spend in the session, that's not all the time you're spending. You're spending like you're spending hours beforehand, like preparing for every little possibility, right? Uh, it's like, oh, if they're in a town, suddenly you have to do a bunch of prep they could have. And if you have to come up with all of that, that's all time you're spending. Unless you're getting a pre-written adventure. It doesn't save as much time as you'd like, because the fact is I've done a lot of pre-written adventures where you just you're very interested in the world and you're like oh I got to remember what happens here. But it does streamline the process and it takes a couple steps out. So I would suggest that honestly.Justin:Yeah. And to that point, there's nothing wrong with inserting this or that encounter from your favorite, uh, D and D DM, YouTuber or podcaster or whatever. Um, I know that, you know, I'm, I'm a fan of the high rollers in the UK with their Eros campaign. I really liked that campaign. And, you know, I used to watch that while working because my job, it just me to basically listen to podcasts or watch YouTube videos basically all day while working. So I'd watch that. And thinking back, if I really needed to, I could insert a few of the minor story arcs into my campaign. You know, adding in twists and flavors here and there. And that might save some time in the prep. And this one might be a little bit controversial, but pull back on the stats and the rolling. You knowTanner Weyland:Mm.Justin:D&D, I've said before at its core, it is just a story with agreed rules and a system for how you interact, right?Tanner Weyland:Yeah.Justin:And if you need to, without your player's permission even, you can kind of dial back how many times you use the dice to interactions. You know, I'm not saying get rid of it all the way unless you want to, but really, you know, if you're having trouble coming up with this next session, don't prepare any combat encounters and make it a much quicker roll of the dice, you know, when it does happen. Obviously, if it's a big bad, you have to play it out, but if it's like, you know, a street urchin comes and fights you or something, I don't know, just one or two rolls and that should be fine. That way, fudge those numbers on the spot. And this method I think really works well, like Tanner said, in city environments where if they don't spend a ton of time in this one encounter with these street thugs, it's fine because there's thousands of other things to do in the city. And they probably have other things that they want to do as well. Uh, the only thing I'd, the only cautionary thing I'd add is make sure that you focus on the story when you do this. very plain and very boring like if you're not giving everything you can to the to the segments of role-playing and Actually kind of getting into character your players will start to realize like hey, we didn't really do much this session, you knowTanner Weyland:Yeah, and I think that that idea has at the core of its flexibility, right? It's, uh, it's being flexible with like, Hey, what, what is core to the thing? And having big old battles with a bunch of stat blocks. Uh, that's, I mean, sometimes that's fun, but like other times it's like the players just want to feel, you know, the concept of their players moving around the map, hitting, they don't, they don't need anything too complicated, right? And I was thinking about being flexible with your DMing style. I think that roles and map prep, all of that can be not fudged, but kind of loosened up a little, you know? Like with your roles, maybe you aren't being so harsh on like, oh, let me look up online. What's the challenge level to cross a wall in the winter? know, you don't have to be as like strict on that. Um, you can be like, Oh, it's a, it's a 15, you know, roll that and, and just be more flexible that way. Uh, further, I was thinking about it a lot of times in my DM prep and this, this took time, especially if you're using like an online, like a roll 20 and you have to find maps, you have to have, find a character's tokens. Uh, sometimes that takes time because you're like, Oh man, this idea for this enemy but I can't find the exact token and then you spend an hour you know stressing over this one thing because you want it to feel realistic you don't have to do that like if you're stressing about it guess what you could find a little token of Barney or the TeletubbiesJustin:HeheheheheheheheTanner Weyland:and plop that in and your players would get a kick out of it andJustin:Yeah.Tanner Weyland:it would save you an hour of stress obviously spend the time because I'm sure enemies, you're going to be able to find an easy token, you know, without too much effort. But if it's taking you too much time, just find the parts, the sticking areas in your prep and just be like, Hey, do I need to go as hard as I am here? Or can I, can I loosen up, you know?Justin:Yeah, and actually to that point I'd like to cite two examples of guests we've had on our show who have hosted one shots for us and they did it completely theater of the mind because that's what they do. That's what they loveTanner Weyland:Yep.Justin:and gauging the players experiences they enjoyed it, you know, if you remember Bone Daddy Rob and Thorn from This Dungeon is Occupied of the mind. AndTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:that's a quick way if you're stressed out and busy as a DM. That's a quick way to shave off a bunch of prep time because you don't have to worry about getting minis, you don't have to worry about getting maps. I mean you can for reference but it might even beTanner Weyland:Yeah.Justin:easier to just kind of create it as you go along. And I think that naturally lends and things like that just because it has to fit what everyone can imagine.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, and that's honestly a theater of the mind. That's a great way to, I think your players, it might take a little bit of getting used to, but if you just still provide some key descriptions, then people can get into that, right? And you're still gonna have roles, you're still gonna have a lot going on, and your players are still spending time together. That's key, right? Otherwise, I mean, so I was thinking about, one more tip. I was just... oh go ahead please.Justin:Well, I was gonna say, while you're thinking about that, there's a couple things I'd like to share. A couple tools that I would recommend. So I know you mentioned dungeon map preparation. AsTanner Weyland:Yes.Justin:always, we'd recommend Dungeon Alchemist. They're a great, great company. I love using them. ButTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:also, you know, most of the time when I need a map and I'm in a hurry, I just type in, on Google, I say city sewer dungeon map, right? that comes up and there's tons of results on Pinterest and then I pick the one I want, copy and paste it into the doc I'm using and I'm good to go. And then usually from there I'll take it to Canva and label each room and then write a description for each room but that might be overkill. If you're in a bind, even in the moment, someone goes somewhere you could just type in on Google you know, Windmill Map D&D and something will pop up just as long as it's not a commercial you're okay to use it and you know that's that's a nice and easy dungeon or map that you can use usually when I when I do that I populate the rooms based on what the image the map looks like so if if it looks like there's a fire in there that'll usually spark in my mind oh for some reason there's a goblin camp down in the sewers for I don't know I don't know why it doesn't matter but they're there um that's one tool there's also a couple tools that you can get on your phone for one uh toolkit it's on iPhone and it allowsTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:you to randomly generate all sorts of things including NPCs, cities, even quests so like you know stuff you find on a quest board, traps, dungeons, monsters, enemies, magic items, treasure. The one thing I don't like about this app is that it does not tell you how much the magic items are worth because I'll often use that when my players go into a store And that gets me in trouble because I don't know the street value of, I don't know, wand of spell storing. I, youTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:know, and my players have gotten wealthy because of it. ButTanner Weyland:HahahaJustin:this tool is very useful because even in prep, I can quickly create names and not have to spend the time thinking about it and just move on.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, I love that. Honestly, if you find labor saving tools and prep, like you're gonna be happy. It's gonna make, and here's the thing. You should honestly, even if you don't feel busy, you should take some of these tips because it'll save you time and that'll help you make a better campaign period, right? DidJustin:SoTanner Weyland:you have something else,Justin:this might,Tanner Weyland:Justin?Justin:yes,Tanner Weyland:Oh, goJustin:thisTanner Weyland:ahead.Justin:might be a topic for a future one, a future episode, but I think we should breach the idea of chat GPT for dungeon prep.Tanner Weyland:Yes.Justin:I think you might be able to create some pretty awesome things with chat GPT, and a lot of people might be thinking, oh, that's not the spirit of the thing, but let's talk about that another day.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, yeah, it's worth talking about because if one of your issues is coming up with general story arcs or a description of an area and you're just stressed out of your gourd, why not get some help? It's not always perfect and we'll talk about that later, but yeah, I'm interested in that topic.Justin:for sure.Tanner Weyland:Last thing for me before we end here, how do you keep up the excitement when you're I was thinking about it and I was like, you know what, even though all of these things Are like, oh, let's save time and everything You know, sometimes if you're spending a long time like a long period of time multiple months like a year In this kind of like oh i'm really busy. I gotta make time for dm for dm-ing It's very easy to let the excitement uh, just kind of Peter out I guess is a good word for it like how do you keep that up? You know How do you make it so that there's still that excitement? constantly pressured.Justin:Yeah, well one thing I'll say is, that's how everything in life is. You're gonna have ups and downs, and for me, I constantly remind myself that what I feel has no impact on what I actually choose to do....

Ulv’s Story continued“Mother?” Ulv whispered as he moved towards the visage of his long-dead mother.“It is I little snowhare,” Ulv’s mother said, using Ulv’s childhood pet name. When he was younger, his hair was so blonde it was almost white. His mother had taken to calling him snowhare when he was a baby. Even though he’d hated the nickname as a teenager, she’d still used it. Now, hearing that nickname pricked his heart and tears slowly formed at the corner of his eyes.“Yes, young one. We have come to oversee your trial.” Said a much more masculine voice. Ulv watched as the visage of his father appeared next to his mother, his arm resting lightly on her shoulder. “Honestly son, we are disappointed.”Ulv stared dumbfounded. He’d expected them to say something comforting, but instead, they were here to judge him?“We expected more from the youth who downed a frost cat in his 11th winter. Truly, what have you been doing?” Ulv’s father continued.Ulv’s mouth went dry. “I..I..”“Son, you cannot sit in dreams forever. Herlia and Hipam both need your help.” Ulv’s mother admonished.“Cojari needs your help son. The Kingdom of the Golden Deer needs your help.” Ulv’s father added.“But aren’t you here for the trials?” Ulv asked, confused.“We are,” Ulv’s father said as he looked at Ulv’s mother. “But this vision, it is only a part of your trial. It is the initiation. You aren’t supposed to complete the trial here. Your trial is set to take place with the help of your friends.” Ulv’s father paused. “Son, you can’t just keep wasting away your time. I know it’s hard. You failed. Judir is dead. Nothing you can do can change that.”Tears began falling slowly down Ulv’s face.“I’m so untouchable,” Ulv said, bitterness punctuating his comment. “Everyone around me dies or is lost to me. Why is it me that has to survive? Why can’t I pass on to the realm of the gods? Why did you have to leave me?” Ulv said as his knees buckled and he slumped down to all fours.“Son, Judir made his own choice. As did we all. You’ve been saved for something else. It doesn’t matter who lives and who dies. What matters now is the present. What matters is that you have 3 friends who desperately need you. Save those that can still be saved.” Ulv’s mother whispered into his ear.What would you like to do?IntroWelcome back, dungeon masters. Today, you’re with me, Justin Lewis as we discuss mob combat. We all love to watch movies with amazing battle scenes at the end. I’m talking about Lord of the Rings when Aragon charges Mordor with the armies of all men behind him. I’m talking about basically every Star Wars movie ever that ends with one side fighting another. I’m talking about Avengers End Game where all of the snapped people come back to fight the final battle scene.In each of these scenes, we have the main characters who fight their adversaries. We also see nameless foes occasionally jump into the mix to fight the main characters. On an individual basis, these nameless enemies are no match for our heroes, but in the sheer volume in which they are usually present, they present a formidable obstacle. So, today, let’s talk about using Mob combat effectively.What is Mob Combat?In simple terms, mob combat is using many low-level adversaries in an encounter to pose a much larger threat when all combined. This is the idea of throwing numerous baddies at your adventurers that, when encountered alone, would be just one swipe of an axe, but together, are endless axe swings. This is the concept of numbers over skill. You can use mob combat in many different situations. It doesn’t need to be an enormous battle scene like any I’ve mentioned before. One example is a swarm of ravenous ants. Sure the players can swipe at each of them individually, but an area of effect would work a lot better, as would just running away.Because you’re not fighting just one foe but instead are trying to keep your head above a “rising tide” so to speak, mob combat functions like a mix between a skill challenge and a combat encounter. In fact, in my opinion, there are 3 ways to actually do mob combat.1: Combined Method: In the combined method of mob combat, you essentially think of the actual numbers of adversaries. For example, in my campaign, I used mob combat when my players were fighting these small automaton drones. Each drone was a very paltry fight, but together they were formidable. I calculated that my group would face 4 “masses” of drones. Rather than having them fight individual drones, I decided that they would fight 4 mobs. Each mob contained 20 drones. The way I did it was the AC of each mob was equal to the number of drones left alive. Each drone technically had 3 hitpoints so each 3 hit points killed a drone. The mob’s attack was equal to 10 plus the number of drones left alive. So starting out the mob would hit for 30 and do 30 damage, but fairly quickly in the engagement, the damage would decrease because the number of drones would die very quickly. The reason why this method is called the combined method is that you actually do the math to put together all the baddies. This means you can scale the fight to whatever your group can handle. If they are level 20 and fighting orcs just isn’t what it used to be, have them fight mobs of 20 orcs and see how that works.2. Simple method: In this method, you forget the math. You essentially just create a monster that is a mob of other creatures. Think of a swarm of rats as an example. They function as one creature, but in reality, they are multiple. There are already some creatures like this out there, but you could easily create your own if you wanted. To start with, I would pick the creature you want to work with. Then the easiest place to start would be to increase its heath substantially. You’re going for more of a gut feel for what would be good rather than using math to calculate it all. Next if that isn’t doing it for you, you can raise their AC. I would only raise it a few points because you still want your heroes to kill lots of the members of the mob. Lastly, maybe think about raising the attack bonus and maybe the damage. There are a lot of monsters within the mob, so theoretically they should be able to swarm the heroes and do damage.3. Skill challenge: In this method, you do away with a lot of the math and you only roll initiative to see who goes first. Instead of rolling damage and attack bonuses, you essentially just roll a check to see if the hero makes it through the combat without damage. For each round I would assign a DC and a relevant skill to use, or you could just use your players attack bonus. Then assign the mob a specific DC. if the player fails the DC then they do not kill any adversaries within the mob. I would probably split it into a tier. So if the player rolls at least 10 below the DC then the mob scores a critical hit and the damage is doubled. If the player rolls 5 below the DC then the mob scores a hit and deals damage. If the player rolls just under the DC then nothing happens. If the player rolls above the DC then some damage is dealt to the mob (as an entity) if the player rolls 5 above the DC then it’s considered a critical hit and double damage is dealt. With this last method, you can simplify combat a lot. You could even turn the adventurers into a mob and take turns having different players roll for the DC to see what happens.Why Use Mob CombatOne of the most common reasons to use mob combat is to give variety to combat encounters. You don’t always want to have your heroes fighting someone of equal or greater skill proficiency. Sometimes, you just want to give your players a chance to lay waste to an entire army, much like the Avengers do. These mob rules could also theoretically be used for war combat in which so much is going on that you can’t really focus on one individual foe because you’re being harried this way and that.The real reason to use mob combat is to shake things up for yourself. We’ve recently talked about losing your excitement as a DM and honestly, the best way to avoid that is to do cool new things that make your players stop and pay attention. You need to break their state of constancy, and honestly, you need to break yours sometimes too.When should I use mob combat?Mob combat can be placed in lots of scenarios. A rule of thumb is whenever a one-to-one fight isn’t satisfying enough. For example, you might consider adding some mob fighting to the big boss battle. Having your heroes harried by smaller adversaries while they are trying to focus on a bigger adversary. Or you might add mob fights when your characters are part of a larger engagement, like an alien invasion for example. Lastly, you could add mob combat when you want the stakes to be a little higher, or at least feel that way, without actually having to make the situation that much worse. It’s one thing to say you are now fighting a monster, and it’s another thing to say that you are now fighting a horde of monsters. Really, there are not too many bad places to put mob combat. If it can work in your story, then put it in.How do I balance mob combat encounters in Dungeons and Dragons?Naturally, with mob encounters, it helps to play test certain things out. Or, you just let things fall where they may in game (for better or worse) and then adapt next time. If it helps, you can pick a monster or group of monsters whose challenge ratings would create a good enough challenge for the heroes you are playing with. Then from there, just change their “skins” and maybe a few of their abilities and you should have a pretty well-balanced encounter. Of course, if you go the skill-challenge route, you need to think less about balancing the encounter and more about creating an encounter that is fun and interesting.How do I create interesting and engaging mob combat encounters?For me, the most engaging mob encounters are one that are 2 things: 1) they intensely story driven and 2) they feel real and scary. Let me give you a great example. The Famous Youtubers High Rollers from the UK did this in their Aerois campaign. Spoiler alert. They had the heroes go to a lost city of insane Warforged and had them fight a fallen angel type warforged all while being attacked by masses of these crazed robots. The masses were in mob form but the Fallen Angel warforged was a standalone monster. Because the entire campaign had show the dangers of a warforged going crazy you knew full well how many there were as well as how tragic it is that they had gone crazy. You also could understand that in an enormous city, there would be 10’s of thousands of them. They also did it very well in their encounter because they brought them in in intervals which likely allowed the DM to balance the combat by bringing in a new mob whenever things got too easy.How do I make sure mob combat encounters are not too overwhelming or frustrating for players?I like the method of bringing in mobs, and slowly adding more or taking away extra when you need to. Plus, as a DM, you can always fudge the numbers. If the encounter is going way too fast, either let it finish and move on, or you can make it harder. On the flip side, if your players are getting frustrated with the mobs more than they ought to, then have the mobs die a lot faster than you’d originally anticipated. Having that DM screen is nice because you can change things up at the moment without having to let your players know. It’s not their job to worry about the stats of all of the monsters. It’s their job to be the best player-character possible.That said, playtesting things is always a good idea. Generally, it does take much more time though so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just putting it in the campaign and making switches on the fly.What are some common mistakes to avoid when running mob combat encounters in Dungeons and Dragons?I think one big mistake that people might make is accidentally making the mob way too powerful. The mob should be a group of individuals that are easily taken down by themselves. So that means you should be able to narrate that with each swing, your PCs kill one or two at least. The whole point of a mob is to allow your PCs to feel like they are mowing down the enemies but there are so many enemies that it almost doesn’t matter. Another mistake I think you could make is not making the stakes high enough. Yes the party is supposed to be able to mow down the mob members, but they should still feel like their character is in danger.How do I scale mob combat encounters for different party sizes and levels?You can scale mob combate easily using 1 of 2 methods. The first method is to add more mobs as the encounter goes on. This means that you need to start slow and only throw in mobs when you are sure it’s time. You’ll also need to prepare this narratively. It won’t seem naturally for another mob of gnolls to show up out of nowhere in the middle of the desert when you described that they were only 4. The second method is to tweak the stats of the mob mid-combat. Just like the other method, you want to do this one slowly but at least you don’t have to set this one up narratively. Both of these methods can be done in combat or while you are playtesting. Otherwise, I’d just say to use the encounter builder at DnDBeyond.How do I use terrain and environmental factors in mob combat encounters?You can use terrain and the environment in many ways. This honestly could be its own entire podcast episode, but specifically with mob combat you want the terrain and the environment to highlight the feeling that fighting a mob brings. If you were to fight a mob in real life, you’d likely feel overwhelm, perhaps inevitability, maybe a hopeless at the sheer volume of creatures coming towards you. I would recommend using terrain to amplify or highlight these same feelings. So perhaps the adventurers are running out of safe places to stand and fight because the space they are in is filling up with baddies. Or maybe, you create some sort of shut-off valve mechanic, like the orcs can keep coming to the top of the city wall until the siege towers are destroyed. Something like that.What are some examples of memorable mob combat encounters in Dungeons and Dragons?I already mentioned one that comes from the High Rollers’ Aerois campaign with the crazed warforge. Of course, there’s the classic encounter that everyone has when they are in the sewers fighting swarms of rats. Also, a quick sidebar, even when a creature is made of a swarm of other things (swarm of bats, swarm of bees) that’s still technically mob combat. So there you have it. I hope I answered a few questions about mob combat and I hope that you put it into your games. If you do, take a picture of it and post it on social media, tagging howtobeabetterdm. I’d love to see what you get up to.Also, make sure to send me any ideas on things I missed or even feedback about the show. If there’s one thing I’ve learned talking to listeners of the show is that at least half of you have much more experience than I do. We could learn something from you. Even if you want to record a small blurb and send it to me, there’s a good chance it will make it to the show :).Thanks for listening to today’s episode. We’ll be back next week for another amazing show, but until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.Mentioned in this episode:Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10. Roll and Play PressSignup for Our Email NewsletterDo you love the show but can't always listen to it? Do you prefer written content? Go to session0studios.com/newsletter/ and sign up to get weekly tips and tricks sent to your inbox so you can become the greatest DM the world has ever seen.Level Up GuideBrought to you by Session 0 StudiosVisit session0studios.com for more information.

This episode of How to Be a Better DM is a special one! Justin and Tanner talk with Rob Wells (New York Times best selling author and avid wargame enthusiast) about how to write compelling characters as a DM, and how to help players develop their characters to the fullest.To read more about Rob's books, visit here: https://robisonwells.com/Or, if you want to see his amazing wargame blog, visit here: https://wargameexplorer.com/Mentioned in this episode:Signup for Our Email NewsletterDo you love the show but can't always listen to it? Do you prefer written content? Go to session0studios.com/newsletter/ and sign up to get weekly tips and tricks sent to your inbox so you can become the greatest DM the world has ever seen.Level Up GuideAdd the Magic of Sound to Your GameplayWhen you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout. Monument StudiosBrought to you by Session 0 StudiosVisit session0studios.com for more information.

QuestionsWhat causes DM boredom?Doing the Same thing Over and Over AgainNot Trying Anything NewPlayers stop tryingDM’s “know everything”D&D just isn't a priority in their life right now.Why Do DM’s Stop Trying New Things?Afraid of FailureNot Sure of the RulesFeel stuck in a campaignThey Get ComfortableWhy Would Your Players Stop Trying?How Do You Get Your Players to Give More Effort?What does Dungeon Master Boredom Look like?Mentioned in this episode:Brought to you by Session 0 StudiosVisit session0studios.com for more information.Signup for Our Email NewsletterDo you love the show but can't always listen to it? Do you prefer written content? Go to session0studios.com/newsletter/ and sign up to get weekly tips and tricks sent to your inbox so you can become the greatest DM the world has ever seen.Level Up GuideListen to Our New PodcastAs a listener of this show, you obviously love story. Now that you’ve learned how to craft your own story on this show, wouldn’t it be nice to have some inspiration? Or maybe just a moment of immersion and escape? Then come join us in our new Actual Play D&D 5e show, Pact and Boon. Enter the World of Calignos where our characters, Jolly, Wolfgang and Alon will meet each other in Hell. Enjoy our troublemaking and near-death experiences wherever great podcasts are heard. Just go to session0studios.com/pactnboon and start listening today.