How to Be a Better DM: Dungeon Master Tips for the DM Newbie, the Hobbyist and the Forever DM

D&D and Death: How to Handle the Death of a Character in D&DSuddenly, time seems to slow down. The arrows rain down like slow pebbles skipping across a lake rather than the hail of death they’d been seconds before. Lightning crawls across the sky, achingly slow, reaching for that next empty space. These demonlings rush about, and all the while, your eyes remain fixed on Eloin. You see her grip at her stomach, feeling around the blade that runs right through her abdomen. The demon facing her lifts his impaled sword so that Eloin is at his eye level. The demon laughs and then callously pulls her off his sword with one massive hand. He smiles a pointed grin and then tosses her behind him into the swarm of demonlings…Dungeons and dragons is very fun game with very dynamic emotions and experiences. We all come to the table eager to experience things that we’ve never experienced. Sometimes we do experience things that we’ve been through before, and when that happens, there’s a 50/50 chance that the experience is nostalgic, or traumatizing.Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. Today, I’m your host, Justin Lewis, and I want to talk about a pretty hard subject; death.In the real world, people generally avoid the topic of death. For most people it causes a lot of discomfort. In the world of D&D, our characters provide death for many an NPC, yet when faced with their own demise, our players plead and beg the DM to make it not so.That can be pretty hard as the DM. Should you cave to your players’ desires and let them live on? Or should you let things play out. If they die they die. Still, other DMs decide to play the part of the villain and rain down death as those demons I was talking about did.It’s all a complicated discussion so, without further ado, let’s get into it.The Basic Rules of DeathIn the Player’s Handbook, the rules for death state that when a character falls to 0 hit points, they fall unconscious, and begin death saving throws.For those of you who aren’t familiar with how Death Saves work here’s a refresher.The unconscious character maintains their spot in initiative, or an initiative is created.Whenever their turn comes around they roll a d20. If their result is an 11 or higher, then that is considered a success. 3 success stabilizes their character, and they remain unconscious but are no longer dying.If their result is a 10 or less, then that is considered a failure. 3 failures, and their character dies.If their results is a natural 20, then the character immediately stabilizes, gains 1 hit point is conscious and can proceed with their turn (although there are many differing rules surrounding this particular part).If their result is a natural 1 then that counts as 2 failures.Obviously, there is a lot of room here for the addition of homebrew rules that can make death saves very fun.One of my favorite homebrew rules is that the death saves have to be rolled privately between the player and the DM and that player cannot make the results known to the other players. They cannot speak in fact, because, they are dying. I heard this rule from an interview on Dimension 20.But regardless of what you decide to do, there is an even more important question that you need to answer first.Is Death allowed at your table?Before your players even come close to dying, you need to decide whether or not character death will be allowed at the table.You might scoff as you listen to this, thinking, “Well, of course my characters can die. There are no true stakes if they can’t die.”Maybe, maybe not.Death is a very powerful plot point. The Fellowship of the Ring would not have had half as much emotion if we all didn’t think that Gandalf had died halfway through. Anakin Skywalker might have had a harder time transitioning into Darth Vader had Padme survived. Death is a very powerful tool for the storyteller.But with great power comes great responsibility.One of the biggest responsibilities you have as a dungeon master is making sure that your players are generally happy.Triggering EventBecause D&D can sometimes be a mirror in which we can see reflections of our normal lives, we sometimes must be careful as to what we put into the mirror (bad analogy). For example, if a loved one of one of your players has passed away recently, then having someone die in their D&D session might not be the right thing.Before you make any sort of decision, ask your players what sort of things they want to have in their D&D game. They get to choose what happens just as much, if not more than, you do.You can ask them about all sorts of topics and themes to include in the D&D campaign, but definitely make sure death in there.Preventing DeathAssuming your players have opted to avoid the inevitability of death, you now have to do some fancy footwork to make the story believable and worthwhile.On one hand, having a table that can’t die is fun because the players know that they have some pretty powerful plot armor. But that can quickly make the game boring. It’s not a big deal to fight a lich if you know that your player will not die.So to make the stakes still high even though the mortality rate is low, here are a few things you can do:Collateral Damage: Assuming your player characters are developed and have been able to form important relationships with other NPCs, those NPC can become the targets of your Villains malicious attempts. This is also known as “The Lois Lane” tactic. Superman is impervious, so Lois Lane, his lady love, often comes under the gun of Lex Luthor. Likewise with your  heroes, they can save the NPC in distress who really is just an innocent bystander… or are they…Unintended Consequences: Another method you can try is to add tangential consequences anytime a hero “dies”. For example. Let’s say a particular Diety has decided to favor the party. This deity essentially prevents any party member from full dying. The death saves are still rolled, but if the character would die, the Patron God would step in and prevent them from dying miraculously. The God, however, gives this boon with some strings attached. Now the party has to do some sort of quest for the God in return for being preserved. Another consequence could madness. The more often a character should be dead but isn’t, the more insane the character becomes. You can spice this up with some fun voices that they can only hear and other things. Really your options for random consequences are endless.Loss of limb or ability:  You could require that everytime a player would normally have died, they simply roll on a permanent injury table, losing a hand, leg, eye or just suffering some minor wound. This particular method only works for a short period of time because if it really was “long term” then after they lose a limb, combat would become harder, making the chances that they fall unconscious and do deaths saves again go up, which in turn would make them lose another faculty. It’s a vicious cycle.Of course, there is nothing written down that you have to even do any of these methods. You could simply just decide that none of your player characters die. I think for very young groups, like maybe below 10, this would be an ok situation.If you do decide that none of your PCs die, then you might also need to consider whether the enemies die as well. Will your game be one of all non-lethal damage?I think for most tables, that just isn’t a situation that would please people. But it can be done.So, now that we’ve talked about preventing Player Character death from happening at your table, we need to talk about letting it happen.Allowing Death to HappenAfter your table has decided that they do want to let nature be nature and those things that die will simply pass on to the next existence, you need to consider a few questions.What type of Experience will it be?You don’t really need to consult your players but if you want some of their input that’s fine. You need to decide what sort of gaming experience a character death will be. In video games, when you die, you usually revert to the last save or the start of the level. D&D usually isn’t like that (though, I suppose you could make an interesting game mechanic that reverts certain things if a character dies). Usually, the character dies, then in the next session, the Player introduces their new character in a fun and interesting way.In some D&D groups, the player might just create a carbon copy of their previous character and call them a different name. Viva La Dirt League has a whole comedic sketch on this in their D&D Logic videos. Really, it’s up to the DM whether that sort of shenanigan will be allowed. For some players, it’s really more just about loving a specific class-race combo and playstyle that they want to emulate. For the most part though, players will create a new character when they die without problems.You, as the DM, though, need to understand the mood of the table and the playstyle of the group, to correctly portray any individual death scene. For example, if your table is generally a table that laughs much more than they are serious, then making a death scene funny, might not be a bad thing. Even on a particular day, if the party seems to want to just goof off, then go ahead and goof off with them.But….If your party is of the more serious types, then you absolutely need to treat the character death with all the gravity that you can muster. We play these characters week in and week out. We know that they are not real and that they are just make believe, but surprisingly, when we play them, they start to feel a little real. We find ourselves doing things that “the character would do” that we would never do. So when a character dies, you need to be careful not to make light of the situation in case one of your players is not yet ready to let go of them.Honestly, because it is a touchy subject, I would err on the side of being too serious rather than making light of a situation that could be difficult for one of your players. They could resent you, even subconsciously, and decide that they don’t want to play with you any more, which is a loss in my book.Will I, the DM, actively cause DeathAnother consideration that you need to make as the Dungeon master is whether or not to actively seek the destruction of your players. Obviously, whenever combat comes up, every DM does “their best” to kill the players, but this consideration is a deeper decision. There are times when one player goes down, and the DM needs to think about whether the enemy would continue attacking the downed player to finish the job or if they would divert their attention to other targets. In some instances, the downed player becomes a bigger target because they are downed. When a DM acts like this, players will naturally be angry. As a DM, you will need to understand the decision you make and be able to defend it. In my opinion. Only do this if you know your players would still play with you after. You don’t want to have to find another D&D group just because you thought a particular enemy would not hesitate to kill.ResurrectionNow that we have killed your Player Character, you need to also decide whether or not that player can return to the game. In many games, the group can pursue resurrection of the downed individual. You need to decide if that is an option at all, and if it is how easy or difficult it is to make it happen, and how one might go about resurrecting a fallen friend.For some campaigns, the only thing that is needed it the spell Resurrection, and the 1000 GP diamond that the spell requires. Once your players have access to this spell, can decide that this is all that is needed to revive a character that has died. Or you can make things a lot more difficult.For example, if you desire, you can choose the ban the Resurrection spell from any player character’s spell list. You may decide that NPCs can still cast the spell, so now the PCs need to find an NPC that likes them enough to resurrect one of them. Or perhaps, you decide that only high ranking Clerical NPCs can cast resurrect. This would make the quest of finding someone who can perform the spell and is also willing to do so for the party, much more difficult.Still, other DMs might choose to make resurrection the object of larger quests. You may decide to have your party seek after the Fountain of Youth, or seek divine favor with a hard-to-please deity. Or you can have your party try to find a magic item that restores life, much like the latest D&D movie.However you do it, if you do decide to make bring a character back to life more difficult or engaged, I would encourage you to make a story arc or a quest out of it. In D&D resurrection should be a very theatrical and earned event, meaning that if you just give it to your players they won’t appreciate it. Make it an adventure, that way, when the player does come back, there will be many opportunities for roleplaying, both on their side and on the side of the other players.New Character Creation and IntroductionNow, assuming that one of your player characters have died, and that they aren’t going to be resurrected anytime soon, you obviously need to help the player who lost their character make a new one.Here again, you need to make some decisions. Are they the same level as the other players?How will they enter the game?How do you help them establish relationships with the other players?Let’s talk about all of these and more.First, Character CreationFor the most part, character creation after a character death is just like making any other character. Have the player try and think of something original. They may want to do the same class, and maybe even the same race, but encourage them to give their new character some different personality traits. You don’t want a carbon copy of the old character because that j

Tanner Weyland:Hello, this is Tanner Weyland. Welcome back to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. I'm here with Justin Lewis. Say hi, Justin.Justin:Justin.Tanner Weyland:Hey, hey, no, don't do that. Just kidding, I'm joking.Justin:I'm sorry.Tanner Weyland:It's great to have you. Ha ha ha.Justin:Thank you. It's great to be here.Tanner Weyland:Perfect. So if anyone's new to the podcast, we are going to learn a bit about how to bring our DMing and storytelling to the next level. And today's podcast is kind of a thought experiment. Why don't we see more marriage and families happening, you know, with your players characters? Like, why aren't they starting their own little families and having little kids that they name and train and everything else, right? That's kind of the thought experiment, and finding out if, as DMs, we can do this and make it an enriching and enhancing part of an adventure. First off, Justin, what do you think about this topic?Justin:I think it is an amazing topic. First of all, for those of you who don't know, I'm actually expecting my first child as this podcast releases. My wife's due date is August 4th, so it's like two, a week and a half away. So thinking about families is definitely the top of mind. And so I've been thinking of different book ideas that can involve having a baby or just all sorts of. fun ideas and I think and actually on a different side note my own campaign my players have gotten pretty good like they're pretty high level and it's hard for me to throw a balanced challenge at them without killing them and so I was thinking you know what maybe I'll just give them like a baby and they'll just have to deal with that you knowTanner Weyland:Just do a little bit of just giving them responsibility, a coldJustin:Mm-hmm.Tanner Weyland:hard slice of responsibility and see how they deal with it.Justin:Exactly. I mean, the unfortunate part of doing that would be is how they treat NPCs thus far is not generally good. So I'm kind ofTanner Weyland:No.Justin:afraid, you know.Tanner Weyland:Well, that's perfect. I mean, in a way that kind of speaks to one of the opportunities of, uh, of making, you know, player relationships actually lead to kind of emotional attachment that speaks to it, right? Cause it's like, you can tell different stories if the players feel emotionally connected, because I think a lot of really great characters, players will try and do that naturally, you know, they'll try and be like, oh, let's find the emotional connection. that would make my character actually want to go save this town or save this little girl who got kidnapped or something, right? But not all players are like that, right? And so kind of giving them that natural connection of like, hey, it's your wife, it's your fiancee, it's the girl in the town who you've been spending more time with or your child. I think that that's just a very natural way to get player buy-in. if that makes sense.Justin:Yeah, and I think that can also be a reason why Dungeon Masters might avoid the family just because it might not feel earned, you know?Tanner Weyland:Mmm.Justin:Or you're trying to establish some sort of family relationship with a character, or sorry, not a character, with a player that generally doesn't do much role playing. And I mean, if you do that, there's a big chance that they'll be like, oh hey brother, okay bye, right. not a big payoff.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, absolutely. And I think that kind of leads naturally into what I want to talk about next, which is like, why don't we see this more often? You know? Uh, and, and I think it's worth talking about from the player perspective and the DM perspective. Uh, for DMs, I think there's a few reasons, you know, frankly, I think that sometimes the subject matter might be awkward, you know, because in order to create a relationship, you have to have flirting. and or dating and you know and some people are just uh maybe don't want to touch that because that's not something they're super confident with uh personally or they don't want to role play flirting as an npc with a player because that can be a little uncomfortable too right especially if that player or the dm you know because it's dm's gonna be like this too especially if they want to like talk about like some of the nitty gritty with like sex or anything like that then it's like oh you're gonna you know makes quite a few people at the table uh uncomfortable honestly you knowJustin:Absolutely. Honestly, this kind of goes a little bit into... Well, it touches on a topic that is connected to an episode I'm writing currently for later that deals with death, right? And allowingTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:death in your game. And really as a DM, you need to understand and to understand you have to ask your players what they're okay with, right? You know... my personal group and to be honest myself, I tend to shy away from some of the more PG-13 R rated aspects of playing D&D that could be in there, right? Just that's my natural personality, but even if it wasn't, I know that my group, that's generally how they would trend as well, right? We would prefer to stay away from some of the more scandalous types of encounters you could have in D&D. But. if you don't ask your players you won't know right?Tanner Weyland:Yeah, exactly. And I think that I think communication with players is key because kind of jumping over to their perspective, I think that some players don't feel like they've got the metaphorical nod from the DM to be like, hey, you can pursue like some type of more relationship, a deeper relationship with this PC, because you're trying to flesh out your character, you can pursue that and I'm actually going to yes and what you're doing. You know, instead of being like, oh, I'm going to have this NPC not really show that much interest or there's always going to be like an invisible wall of like, hey, what are you wasting your time here with? Let's get back to adventuring. You know? And I think that if you have that kind of. understanding and you also do a little bit of push and pull with them role playing wise, then they'll feel more comfortable actually trying that and that might be a hurdle that they're willing to get over.Justin:Absolutely, and honestly I think that should actually be some sort of a you know an exercise that we as dungeon masters Kind of take upon ourselves because I know for me personally when a Character tries to flirt with another NPC or something like that I might get uncomfortable or I might make it kind of comical and pretty quick, right? but like you just said taking it as a yes-and moment and Using it to spice up the plot, right? And actually one of the other points we were gonna bring up was, you know, when that happens, it could be a form of splitting the party, maybe spending too much time on one person. But you know, using it as an exercise, you might be able to think of ways to kind of incorporate this NPC a little bit more. MaybeTanner Weyland:Yeah.Justin:they decide to flirt with someone else, kind of creating a love triangle in the party, or they're doing it on purpose, trying to split the party, right? And they become kind of a more deviant aspect. uh... or you just find ways to incorporate other people in their own kind of side quests for love i guess you can say or relationships is a better way to say itTanner Weyland:Yeah, totally. You know, and I like that idea of making it a multi character thing because I feel like that's another issue here is that if one person is like, not obsessing, but like really focused on like, hey, I saw this barmaid and I'm gonna you know, every evening, gonna go talk with her. Then that's a time sink, you know, and it's almost like You know, I think DMs already worry about one player kind of hogging the spotlight, you know, and if one player has this kind of side relationship that's solely about them. where they want these long conversations back and forth, then it's gonna get boring for the other players. It's gonna feel like it's not worth it for them and they're gonna get annoyed, you're gonna get annoyed that you're spending that time. And so I think that that's something that DMs and you'd be very cognizant of, right?Justin:Yeah. And I think, you know, we'll, we'll talk about a little bit of kind of some things you should and shouldn't do. And we'll definitely need to talk on this aspect of, uh, you know, if it is going to be a time sync, what are some things you can do to maybe mitigate that? But before we move on to, to some of our other points, oneTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:last reason why I think, you know, we don't often see this and, um, both from a player. perspective and a DM perspective, I think is because, at least in the US, we're conditioned to, you know, they get married and they live happily ever after, end of story, right? Like that's the endTanner Weyland:Yep.Justin:of story, which if you've ever been married or started a relationship, right, marriage is the beginning of like a big adventure, right? AndTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:I think we need to recognize that we have that condition, right, in our brains. and recognize also that it's kind of hampering some of our creativity, because we're naturally prone to thinking you get a family and you settle down, right? But even in this modern day and age, we should get used to the fact that, you know, a lot of people work remote, so you can technically have your family on the road, and why should D&D be any different, right?Tanner Weyland:Absolutely, you know, because I think that some people worry that, oh hey, my type of adventure doesn't fit. And it's true for some of them, right? If you have a campaign or a mini campaign that's a dungeon crawl, it's like, yeah, having, you know, maybe your players could be related to each other, but, well, the player characters, but you're not likely going to have, you know, NPCs in that position. But if it was an expedition or like, or one where you have like a town hub where you're doing adventures from, that's such a perfect opportunity. right especially and we're going to talk about we're going to have an episode soon about you know how to do an expedition campaign, but in a setting like that, it's perfect because it's like, hey, you can have multiple NPCs on that, you know, in the wagon train, on the boat, whatever it is. And that's a great opportunity also for, you know, interacting with the same NPCs over and over again, and them really building a bond there. And I think you shouldn't shy away from that. I know it's easy to just focus on building the bond between, you know, players, characters. that's wonderful. We all want a metaphorical fellowship of the ring, right? Where everyone's like, oh, they're so tight, right? ButJustin:Yeah.Tanner Weyland:it's like, hey, but you can also have other kinds of relationships to just kind of flesh out the relationship meter, if you will, with your player characters. And that's just going to make the story better in general.Justin:Absolutely. You know, I think when we say having a Dungeons and Dragons family, right, a family in your D&D campaign, we all too often, and we've even been talking like this, we all too often think about lover, right, wife, husband, child. But I think it'd be interesting to, you know, throw in some dynamics like uncle, grandma, godfather, you know,Tanner Weyland:Yeah,Justin:some of thoseTanner Weyland:brother, sister,Justin:brother, right,Tanner Weyland:right? Mm-hmm.Justin:cousin, you know, because those... those bring sort of a small distance with them, but they can also bring somewhat of a familiarity, right? And I think that would beTanner Weyland:Yeah.Justin:a very interesting aspect to add to your story.Tanner Weyland:Totally, right? And I think that it's worth talking about, how can you actually implement this well? Because I think it's something that we should all try. It gets us out of our comfort zone, but I think it adds so much more reality to the stakes in the world and also the connection. So first off, what I wouldn't recommend that you do when you're trying to get your players to have these kind of family ties. let's keep in mind that you can have a lot of relationships, like Justin was saying, like in family, but then you can also have friend relationships, right? Like when was the time that the paladin in your party met? another paladin in the city and they went out for drinks and then they also you know went out uh to go you know sword like practice sword fighting together you know things like that can also add depth and an emotional connection that if that you know friend npc got like taken away or hurt suddenly you have like reason you know you have an M.O. to like pursue the bad guy whoJustin:Absolutely and a couple words of warning with this You won't always plan correctly like sometimes your players will just randomly develop Relationships with NPCs you never planned and ones you did plan they won't care but also as the DM You will likely need to be vulnerable yourself, right?Tanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:And what do I mean by that? I mean, when you're out having drinks with the paladin, right? The player is going to role play, or ideally they are, right? It's going to be somewhatTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:hard for them to kind of develop those positive emotions that they don't, but they're going to role play, and so will you. And because of that, you will likely need to sort of immerse yourself in these emotions, right? And it's possible that you will have to kind of be vulnerable as the character, which will make you vulnerable as a person, right? It's kind of hard

The podcast discusses the damaging expectations in Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), such as the fear of taking breaks, the impact of routine on player engagement, and the importance of changing common dungeon master expectations for better gameplay. It also emphasizes the significance of seeking assistance as a DM and encourages DMs to overcome pride and ask for help.

justin:Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I'm your co-host today, Justin Lewis, here with Tanner Wayland and Rob Van Auken. Go ahead and say hello, guys.tanner_weyland:Hey.rob:Good evening, everyone.justin:And you are joining How to be a Better DM in our mini-series on collaborating for homebrewing a adventure one-shot. And today, we wanted this to be raw and unfiltered, really, just to show you kind of the ins and outs of how to work with other people, the ebb and flow of ideas, and in our case, starting with one idea, refining it and kind of changing trajectory. Today we are going to be... going through our document that we've worked on together and kind of simplifying things, clarifying things, and we actually should be coming close to the end after I think we have everything figured out today. We should be able to send out some assignments to each of us, have things written up, and then probably the next time we'll have our final polishing session, but that might be wrong, so we'll see. Andtanner_weyland:Yeah,justin:we aretanner_weyland:soundsjustin:justtanner_weyland:great.justin:starting at the top of the document. And then one, one. word of advice to all of us, if we can just try and describe whenever we're like that part there, try and describe for the audio listeners, because I know this, we're doing it in a visual way, but the audio listener might not be. So.tanner_weyland:Okay, perfect. Um, and, uh, just for the listeners, uh, we've honestly been working on this for a sec with Rob, but he is just, I just have to say he's wonderful to work with. And I appreciate that. Just had to throw that out there at the start.rob:Aw, thanks fellas.justin:Agreed.rob:I feel the same way about you guys. You guys are consummate professionals. I appreciate the willingness to work with a newcomer and I'm enjoying myself. And you know, this is hard. This is hard. We're in two different time zones. Our lives are doing things in different times. So writing is hard to begin with and to collaborate across time zones. At least we have the tools now to do that. But it's been a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to polishing this thing up.justin:Excellent, excellent.tanner_weyland:Love it.justin:So I figure we would start at the, well, so we have kind of a page that's above like the actual one shot. Do we need to work on any of that? And that's kind of some of our thoughts or do we need to just kind of forget about that?tanner_weyland:Honestly, I think this is old. Gojustin:Okay.tanner_weyland:ahead Rob.rob:Sojustin:Alright.rob:this page just outlined our original ideas, our locations, and a couple of reminders for ourselves to do the three pillars and things like that. But yeah, I think this stuff is all. We can next this.justin:Sounds good. So thentanner_weyland:Yeah, um...justin:for the listener, there's a portion that says theme, setting, three pillars, location, timeline, and then assignments and reminder. I'm going to delete everything above assignments to theme because that is no longer useful. I'll leave the assignments one there unless we feel like we do need to delete that.tanner_weyland:Um, I th-rob:We can...tanner_weyland:go ahead. Uh,rob:After you, Dad.tanner_weyland:yeah, I just think- I think we could leave that section. I don't think- we're going, I think that we're going to have to probably modify the assignments as they stand. Cause right now we're like, Oh, each of us is making two NPC mentors right now. They would be trial givers probably.justin:Right.tanner_weyland:Um, and then a random NPC just to flesh out the world a little bit more. Um, I don't know if that's what we're going to be doing like next. Causejustin:Okay.tanner_weyland:cause this time just for the listener, since our last, uh, kind of meeting with Rob, we've come up with a lot of ideas. and really solidified the direction of the adventure. And because of that, I think there's just a lot of fat that we need to trim on the document in general.justin:For sure.rob:I'm all in favor of keeping the assignments heading but deleting the current assignments so that when we leave here tonightjustin:Okay.rob:we at least can put something up there.justin:Yeah, I actually think we can delete the assignmentsrob:Thank you.justin:as well now that I think about it. So if you guys want. There's also on the right, I believe in that section, there were comments on the right, yeah. There's a comment saying, replacing the mentors, and this is talking about the assignments we'd given ourselves, replacing the mentors with trials or events. I think this entire section we could probably mark resolved because I think this is like, down the line where we start talking about using bells and doing the trials of bells. I think that's definitely what we're going for. Yeah. Excellent. Then, under that assignment section, there's a section that says reminder and then two bullet points for representation and beginner DM suggestions. I believe the beginner DM suggestions were for me and Tanner to create suggestions throughout the doc for new DMs. You can feel free to do the same thing, Rob. I'll just put that under each of us as an assignment.rob:for me.justin:Or I guess, sorry, I didn't mean to take your job, Rob.rob:No, no, no. I'm comfortable. Ha ha ha.justin:I'm kind of an idiot because I'm like, hey, can someone be the scribe? And then immediately I'm like,rob:Yeah.justin:oh, all rights. Anyways, sorry.rob:Not alone,justin:Yeah,rob:notjustin:butrob:alone.justin:for the representation bullet, I don't remember what that was for. Do either of you remember what that was for?rob:So yeah, I actually added that because for new DM creators, and just for the listeners, where this is coming from is that I've taken a couple of courses with professional writing companies to kind of flesh this sort of game style out. And one of the things that... you know, they stress is to reminder for representation. So that just means having a diversity of characters, whether it be racial backgrounds or just backgrounds in general, you know, able-bodied characters and things of that nature and just having a widespread of different NPCs to populate your, you know, your adventure or your game. So I just want to make a mental note for us to kind of just keep that sort of thing in our focus, right? So that, you know, kind of like, you know. wash over everything.justin:Very well.tanner_weyland:Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, especially since we still, I spent some time working on some NPCs, but I didn't really flesh out like them in depth. More like, oh, these were some of the trial givers. And like, I came up with a name, and obviously they didn't be related to that trial. But, you know, it's a great reminder that when you are fleshing out and making more dimensional. three-dimensional characters, you know, don't just make them all like yourself. It getsrob:Yeah, exactly,tanner_weyland:boring thatrob:andtanner_weyland:way.rob:that's all that was supposed to be. It was just a visual reminder to do that.justin:Sounds good. Cool, so then moving on. The next block of text is the title of the one-shot. Rob, you had put down how to be a better DM presents for whom the bell tolls. And then over to the right, there's the comment of just an idea. So Tanner, do you think that's a good thing? Do you have any comments? Or same Rob, do you have any comments?rob:I didn't want to feel like you guys need to oblige you to attach your name to this, but I just thought because I wanted to give you guys the due credit.justin:Hahahatanner_weyland:Yeah, it's not a bad idea. I think with our revised title idea, namely, For Whom the Belt Holes colon, the Chime Fall Ceremony, for that, if we attacked on how to be a better DM, then it does feel a little bit long, but like that's fine, if necessary, right? I don't know.justin:To be honest,rob:again, as it.justin:I would... Go ahead, Rob.rob:Visually, if that's a concern, I can, of course, put a catty corner of that. The bigtanner_weyland:I like to kind of haverob:covertanner_weyland:to sit.rob:text will say, for whom the bell tolls, the chime falls.justin:Right. I actually think we should do title, for whom the bell tolls, colon, the Chime Fall Ceremony, gosh. And then kind of as it is on one of the cover arts that you presented to us, at the bottom how it says, authored by Justin, Rob and Tanner, I think we should have like underneath that say, you know, produced by How to Be a Better DM or something like that. You know.rob:I love it. Yeah, that works forjustin:Rather,rob:me. Yeah.justin:you know, like let the title be the title. But that's my personal opinion.rob:Itanner_weyland:Perfect.rob:dig that, I dig that. Things like that, the cosmetic things about where to put, we'll do a whole round of that beforejustin:for sure.rob:we send this off, and we'll all sign off on the things like that. Speakingjustin:Exactly.rob:of which, I hope you guys like those covers, because I was diggingjustin:Yeah.rob:them. Ha ha ha.justin:Yeah, they're sweet.tanner_weyland:Yeah, honestly, at some point, I don't know if we want to do this now or at the end or something, we should pull those up and kind of just vote on whichjustin:Yeah,tanner_weyland:stylejustin:yeah,tanner_weyland:we like.justin:we can...rob:Yeah, we'lljustin:Whatrob:dojustin:do yourob:that.justin:guysrob:We'lljustin:prefer?rob:do that. We'll re- Wejustin:Gotcha.rob:can do that at the end. Yeah, we'll wrap it up.justin:Yeah, sounds good. Tanner, do you want to lead us through like the next two sections, so tips for DMing and setting?tanner_weyland:Yeah. Um, so the tips for DMing, uh, basically it was just the idea that since we are about a podcast about how to be a better DM, uh, then we would actually have like. So a lot of adventures will have some general tips about like, oh, for this part, do this and this, but it's more just what to flesh out what the writer had in mind. What we want to do is have some tips for how they could do it better as a DM, like just in general, like just period, right? And so as far as echoes, I think this section, not a whole lot. to say other than I picture like the tips kind of like being off to the side of eachjustin:Mm-hmm.tanner_weyland:section you know. Like an example would be oh it's a it's a social encounter and giving some advice about like how to embody a character and how to draw out quieter characters like things like that right. That'srob:Yeah,tanner_weyland:a greatjustin:Yeah.rob:that'stanner_weyland:example.rob:a perfect example.justin:Onetanner_weyland:Yeahjustin:thingtanner_weyland:go ahead.justin:kind of came to mind just as you were saying that is some of these tips might come to our minds as we actually DM this for a live table, you know, so that might be part of kind of our beta testing. You know, we put together different one shots each of us or something and we see how it goes and we kind of take notes. But that's something we can decide later as you know, just kind of. Think about that if that's something you want to do.tanner_weyland:Yeah.rob:I think that works for the whole idea of this is how to be a better DM. I think those DM tips are clutch for newcomers too because we're making this very beginner friendly. It's our hope, I would think, that when we finish this, somebody who's never played the game of Dungeon & Dragons before or any RPG could pick this up and plop this into a home brew campaign or just say, you know what, I just want to test the waters with this and it's a one shot, it's non-committal, it's built for three, four hours. Let me try this out. But I really don't know where to start. Like you said, Tanner, it's a perfect example of the social encounters or maybe a tip on how to manage combat or we're gonna have these trials that are set up for characters' ability levels. And originally we were gonna have, I think it was six, and now because of what we've been discussing, we might h

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!If you would like to sign up for future one-shot podcasts, sign up at this link: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shot. We always love playing with you!With July 4th just behind us, here is our super-relevant topic for the day: Political D&D Campaigns.Have you ever thought that roleplaying with nobility or the local government in your campaign falls flat? Well, have you considered welcoming your party into the political aspect of roleplaying? This could mean that you create a political D&D campaign with all sorts of intrigue, schmoozing, and rallies, and it could be a really good time for your players if you approach it correctly!Mentioned in this episode:Brought to you by Session 0 StudiosVisit session0studios.com for more information.I Made a CR 100 MonsterI made a Monster with a Challenge Rating of 100 Why? Because I could—and it only took me 5 minutes using Worldsmith. And the best part? You can do this and much more. Get a free 7-day trial at session0studios.com/worldsmith and unlock their full suite of TTRPG generators from monsters to mythic magic items and everything in between. Yep, that’s a full 7-day trial—completely free. That’s a whole week of monsters, magic items, and more—whatever you need, zero burnout. Try it now at session0studios.com/worldsmith. Save time and make unlimited creations with Worldsmith. 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 Guide

justin_lewis:Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I'm Justin Lewis and I'm here with Rob Van Auchen. I said that right, right?rob:Yes, you did.justin_lewis:Awesome. And today we are continuing our mini series on a specific homebrew project that we are making with Rob. And today's gonna be a little bit different kind of an episode. For those of you who are new to the show, this is the show where we help you learn how to craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions. of D&D 5e and soon to be 1D&D. That is therob:Yeah.justin_lewis:huge thing. Yeah. So today, usually we talk about different tips, techniques, practices. Today we're actually kind of going to get into the making of the sausage, as you will. I'm not huge on that phrase, but that's what we're doing, in showing you how to work on a homebrew project such as a one-shot or a mini adventure or an encounter. but also how to collaborate with someone. So that way as a DM, you're not just doing it by yourself. You can reach out to other DMS or even players and take some load off of your shoulders and make it more fun and connect with other people. So to catch you up, last time we started work on essentially a festival slash recruiting event from a guild slash Academy of Adventurers. Because in this organization's past, recent past, they've lost a fair number of their members and they are trying to replenish. So the adventure slash one-shot will take place in really any city we want to make this agnostic towards any particular setting. And really the point is to introduce your characters to this academy slash guild and have them do trials, tests to see if they get in. And then we'll see what else happens. Uh, so let's go away with it. And actually on that note, uh, Rob, I was thinking, why do we have to limit it to a guild or an academy? We could just in it, just say guild slash Academy, uh, up to the DM's discretion. Cause really there's not that much of a difference, you know, likerob:Absolutely. I love that. I think that's a great idea to kind of, or even give them a randomized table to kind of have that decision.justin_lewis:Yeah,rob:But yeah,justin_lewis:exactly.rob:we want to leave the DM some room to wiggle, right?justin_lewis:Yeah, yeah. And it'll be awesome to, although I am particularly partial to Robric's Academy of Adventuring the Name, what maybe we'll put that as, you know, in one of those appendix tables of names for your academy slash guild. But I think going that route will probably be a lot better than making us choose, we'll just let them choose.rob:I'm a, as I've gained some years under my belt as a DM, I have learned to lean into, I've learned to embrace uncertainty. And some of my best moments were when I had no idea what I was going to do. And in those moments, I may have leaned on a random table of something like the affiliates, a table of names or a table of weird things that take place. And so I love providing random tables, anything from D4s to D100s to just, You know, you need something, roll the die, and you're off and running. And I try and make those tables as provocative as possible so that the DM has some wiggle room to kind of insert and do what they want to do.justin_lewis:I love that, I love that. So let's go over some of the comments that we'd both made starting at the top. Let's,rob:Sure. I alsojustin_lewis:sorry.rob:just for your listeners who can't see what we're looking at right now, and then first of all, this is a lot of fun, right? So this is my first collaboration with another DM of any sort outside of like my homebrew groups and whatnot. And for those who are listening, like our tools, like what we're using to collaborate currently has been, we've been using Google Docs, which is really simple and straightforward and free for everybody. And some of the templates that we've. have borrowed from are from the DMs Guild, where they have a whole section on creator resources. So if you're a young DM or you're a young game designer and you're looking to get started and writing stuff is part and parcel for your happiness in life, by all means head on over to the DMs Guild and check out some of their creator templates. And my other really great resource has been an organization called Storytellers Collective or Stoko. as you'll hear me refer to them as, and they have these great sort of learn at your own pace workshops where they provide some templates, but they also provide you really good advice. And so that's kind of been my growth as a writer. And so for those of you who are listening, it's all me, check it out. But anyway,justin_lewis:So thatrob:backjustin_lewis:wasrob:to you.justin_lewis:Storytellers Collective, you said?rob:Yeah, Storytellers Collective has been, it's cool because they're relatively inexpensive for their courses and a lot of the ones that they offer are free. But it's kind of like here's a writing workshop in 30 days and they give you these sort of projects to do at your own pace over that course and they attach a Discord to each of them so that as you're working through them, even if they offered a course, you know, three years ago, you could still hop on a Discord and get some somebody who's manning the ship over there to kind of give you some feedback. And they have everything from like creating treasure, to creating loot, to creating puzzles, to how to write your first adventure, how to write your first encounter. And one of the first things I published was with them, and it got published in their anthology, which is nice, because they do these things every summer and every spring, and it's a nice way to get your name out there that's attached to sort of a bigger entity to kind of help you into the process.justin_lewis:Wow, that's awesome. I'm actually gonna have to check that out for myself.rob:I'm looking forward to that. I think they do one in the fall too. I've always contributed to the spring encounter and the spring one is challenging because it's like a one-page encounter and it's a lot harder than it sounds. You think one page? That's easy. You wind up chopping out so much of what you want just to get it onto the page. But I digress. Back to our one-shot.justin_lewis:Yeah. So, um, as, as I mentioned before, the kind of the, the way that the, the story goes in this, in this one shot adventure, uh, is the party members go to this city or they find themselves in this city. It doesn't really matter how they get there. They just, they're there and they discover this festival for joining this, uh, guild or academy. And originally we thought that there would be like mentors. that would be offering trials, kind of like an internship or apprenticeship. Rob made the suggestion that, uh, instead we switch it to doing six ability score kind of trials and things like that. Um, one thought that I had on that is we definitely need to be very careful in doing that. So that way the, the trials and feats aren't, aren't just dice rolls. Like, I get worried that, you know, the person goes and does a constitution trial and all they can do is just a dice roll over and over again. So I guess I want to think of how we can make it so there can be other ways they can like think through certain problems as a player to supplement, you know,rob:Yeah,justin_lewis:theirrob:and that'sjustin_lewis:dice rolls.rob:a wise decision, actually. Sometimes I get so caught up in the mechanism that I sometimes sacrifice the gameplay for half a second, but that's why this collaboration's cool, because you're there to check me on those things.justin_lewis:For sure. No, and I feel the same way.rob:Yeah,justin_lewis:Like,rob:sojustin_lewis:reverse.rob:if in my mind's eye, I picture any one of our six events structured around any particular ability score, and so... What that would look like is there's like a feat of strength trial or there's a trial of constitution and trial of dexterity. And the players decide they want to head over there and test their metal. One of the complications. I can think of a few actually We can kind of go back to our original idea with not necessarily a mentor, but let's make a really interesting NPC as the host of that particular trial and maybe that NPC is really accommodating or maybe that NPC is really antagonistic and sort of, you know, criticizes the players and thinks that they'll fail. And I'm thinking of like the old fashioned guy at the dunk tank, right? Who, you know, he sits there and you can't, you know, dunk me and maybe before they throw their dexterity role to knock the jester into the dunk tank, they have to roll a constitution or charisma save. And if they fail it, there's some kind of, they have to roll with disadvantage, right? So there is some kind of. push and pull there. It is a series of dice rolls, but it's also like this role playing opportunity to how does your character respond to the jester at thejustin_lewis:Mm-hmm.rob:dunk tank. Another complication that we could do is we could have opponents or other people that are applying or attempting the same trial and thus it's not just simply a matter of do I get the highest dice roll and defeat this particular trial, do I defeat the other characters dice rolls, right? You can also add an easy, medium, hard opponent. So there's one character who is going to roll a DC5. There'sjustin_lewis:Mm-hmm.rob:another character who's got your DC10, but maybe the top character is a DC15. And so as you're trying to best these other opponents, that is the case. And then my third choice would be it's not just a dice roll, but it's more like a dice roll tree. so that depending on your role, there are various outcomes that sort of fork off and any one particular dice roll can steer you into a series of different mishaps or benefits. So I think those are probably three ways to spice this up that excitejustin_lewis:for sure.rob:me when I think about them.justin_lewis:particularlyrob:Back to you.justin_lewis:like number two and three, I think we could, and I see what you mean with kind of your comment, excuse me, your comment going back to the one page competition that you entered in. I see how this can easily blossom into something a little bit too expansive, you know, cause I'm like, yeah, we could just make this giant table of all these NPCs and. And I'm totally up for it, but I'm worried about, you know, like therob:Yeah.justin_lewis:poor sap on the other end of the paper. But I do like the opponent's idea, because like you said, it's a very good role-playing opportunity where you can point out and say, hey, this one particular guy seems to have your number, you know.rob:Yeah, and I think of course the opponent, I guess, sits better for certain trials, right? So the trial by strength, if we were to say, and we've spit fired a couple, but if we produce a randomized table, a D4 table, and one of them is a cart lift and one of them is a fight pit, the fight pit is a perfect example of how to incorporate the opponents, right? It is a little combat heavy, but the idea that, you know, there's four guys in a ring doing all sort of like little mini battle Royale. And one of them is the DC five strength and one of the DC 10, one of the, you could kind of see, but also like, um, you know, adding opponents, you could watch them interact with each other too. So like the heavy hitter can knock out the lightweight and then you're stuck with the middle guy and then. You know, what happensjustin_lewis:Yeah.rob:again at the DM'sjustin_lewis:I reallyrob:discretion.justin_lewis:liked that. I really liked that. Speaking of the fight pit, the way, the way just how you described it, have you ever heard of Florentine football?rob:If not, tell me more.justin_lewis:So you'll have to look it up. It's like one of the craziest sports that for some reason is still around. It's, it's an Italian thing. And I think it's only like one city. There's like 10 teams or something. Um, but essentially it's football with, uh, and you know, football, like American football has different roles and stuff. Um, there are running backs, there are grapplers, there are strikers, meaning like pugilists, like punchers. Um, and you watch it and you see people trying to run a ball and then over in the corner you see two people just punching each other and then next to them there are two people grappling on the ground. It's like the weirdest mix of just every sport. They're like, let's throw in punchers to footballrob:boxingjustin_lewis:or whatever.rob:with...justin_lewis:Yeah, no, it's insane. But...rob:I feel like I feel a grand finale in my head now.justin_lewis:Yeah,rob:You know, like a looking at sounding ajustin_lewis:honestly,rob:lot like for learning football.justin_lewis:that might be like the good, like the big incursion. Like, you know, they'rerob:Yeah, yeah.justin_lewis:at a certain point, they're just like, ah, we don't have time. So we're just going to throw everyone in this pit and everyone do get out,rob:Right,justin_lewis:whichrob:right.justin_lewis:wouldrob:Orjustin_lewis:berob:even likejustin_lewis:kindrob:ajustin_lewis:

Tanner Wayland and Justin Lewis discuss the importance of planning and intentional improvement as a Dungeon Master (DM). They draw parallels to the 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People' and emphasize the need for intentional planning to grow as a DM. They also explore ways to enhance DM skills, qualities of a great DM, and the importance of soft skills in creating a fun and engaging environment for players.

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, I am talking about how to make D&D one-shots impactful for our players (hint: it's not about doing just combat).If you would like to sign up for future one-shot podcasts, sign up at this link: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shot. We always love playing with you!Mentioned in this episode:Save time with Roll and Play PressSave yourself some precious time with Roll and Play Press. Go to https://session0studios.com/rollandplay and use code BETTERDM10 at checkout.Get The Swampberry Moonshine Jamboree For FreeTake a trip down to the bayou in The Swampberry Moonshine Jamboree. We teamed up with Studio Fantasms to bring you a raucous one-shot adventure full of gatorfolk, catfishing, and a whole lotta moonshine. We wrote the adventure, they designed the minis—it’s a sweet little bundle, and it’s totally free for the month of May. Just head to https://session0studios.com/fantasms and sign up to grab it. Don’t wait—May’s free, and once it’s gone, it’s gone.Brought to you by Session 0 StudiosVisit session0studios.com for more information.

Justin: Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I am Justin Lewis here with Tanner Wayland. Go ahead and say hello, Tanner.Tanner Weyland:Hey Justin, hey everybody.Justin:And today we are celebrating our 100th episode. It is mind-boggling to think that we've been doing this for 100 episodes and thinking you know one episode a week that's almost that's a little over no that's just under two years of doing this show and the amount of growth we've seen has been just phenomenal. First thing before we do anything else on today's show, we just wanted to give a big thank you to all of you listeners out there, you in particular, andTanner Weyland:HahahaJustin:make you aware of our deep gratitude for allowing us to do this. And when I say allow, I mean podcasting is somewhat lonely, right? But we've had certain experiences of... listeners reaching out and helping us remember that we're not alone and we're not just speaking into a you know a windstorm but What we're putting out is actually being received and you know you guys like it which is which is even more gratifying So a big thank you to you guysTanner Weyland:Absolutely. It's been, you know, kind of shocking how much you guys care about what we have to say. And you know, we put work into this, but a lot of people put a lot of work into things, and it doesn't get reciprocated at all. And we just, we really appreciate, you know, knowing that you guys are listening, and that there's a big community out there who's trying to improve, you know, they're DMing right alongside us, you know?Justin:Absolutely, absolutely. So today's show, it's not going to be like normal shows to be honest. We're going to be a little bit more loose, a little bit more just random, I guess. But we wanted to talk about some of our thoughts for what we see moving forward and our goals and desires and wishes for how to be a better DM and betterdungeonmaster.com and kind of what we want to build moving forward. You know, as we get started, just wanted to ask Tanner, is there anything specific that you personally would just think would be the coolest thing to do or anything like that?Tanner Weyland:Um, something that I've really liked the idea of because, you know, in one of our recent podcasts, we were talking about peer reviewing and, and I think it's such a powerful tool for improving, uh, is just having that kind of critical look at specific moment to moments of DMing. Uh, something we really want to do is, uh, you know, provide some content where we're actually reviewing, uh, you know, some of our one shots and some that maybe other people send us. Uh, we, uh, I really like that idea. Cause I think seeing someone DM in action, it's a very different experience from talking about it in the theoretical, you know? Uh, so that's something that I'm really excited about. We've, uh, we've discussed, you know, uh, we're, you know, this is a little bit of a, Jump ahead, but we're doing a membership on our site and you know, we're gonna be posting some of the Recordings of our one shots, but we also thought it would be great to alongside that maybe at the same tier or a different tier of membership, do commentary on that, where we're like, hey, let's take this moment by moment, pause during the one shot and just talk about like, hey, here's what I loved about what they're doing or what we're doing if we're the ones podcasting or hey, here's maybe, they did okay here, here's how it could have been improved. And that kind of idea excites me a lot.Justin:I really like that too. Just the fact of, and I think we did this once before and we put it out as an episode,Tanner Weyland:Yeah.Justin:but looking at your dungeon mastering skills, not in a you're a terrible person kind of way, but in a man this would be so cool if you just did it this way, right? And thinking back to the episode that we did, I was the one being critiqued. and it was my Trouble in Autumn's Grace one-shot. And going through that critique, we only went through like the first 20 minutes, but even that really helped me improve the intro of that one-shot, specifically with regards to an NPC, the mayor of the town, and where he comes in and where you find him and meet him. Going through that critique really helped me kind of- streamline that and improve that a lot. So that is definitely something I'm looking forward to. As far as the membership goes, that's something that's kind of been a long time coming. We just released it. It's pretty new. It's in its infant state. The way I see it right now, right now, we... It's $1.33 a month. The 33 cents covers the cost for our payment gateway. So it's really just And the way I see that is our basic membership will always be $1.33. As we grow and we provide more content, we'll probably create higher levels. And at the time when we create any higher level, I think we will upgrade everyone in the previous levels, kind of one up, right? And grandfather them into that. So anyone who has signed up for the basic subscription now. When we create future levels, they'll just get moved up, pay the same price as they were always paying, but have access to the new stuff. That's the way I see it.Tanner Weyland:Yeah.Justin:And as far as that membership, right now we are creating VTT maps, so virtual tabletop maps on Dungeon Alchemist, putting those up, you can download those and use those in your campaigns online. Any of our one-shot videos we're going to put up there as well, we're going to stop Streaming those, I think, is what we said, Tanner.Tanner Weyland:Yeah.Justin:Yeah, so we're going to stop streaming the one shots, but we're going to put those up on the membership so anyone can see those on the membership. And then we're also creating a course. Right now we're in the midst of creating a beginner Dungeon Master course and putting that up on the membership so anyone who has a membership can access that course. And obviously we're going to do more courses like that in the future. Is there anything else that I'm forgetting that we were going to add to the membership? Oh, the Discord, so anyone who signsTanner Weyland:Yes.Justin:up for the membership can join our Discord and, you know, come party with me and Tanner.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, yeah, we had a member join just the other day. And we were talking all about maps. I was amazed at how many maps he just had just sketched out in his notebook. I wasJustin:Right?Tanner Weyland:like, gosh, I love this.Justin:So cool,Tanner Weyland:AndJustin:so cool.Tanner Weyland:we were just talking about like, he had this idea of doing a campaign in like essentially a Costco, a fantasy Costco or, or a real one. I, you know, and I was like, I love this. What could you do with the samples? Could the samples be buffs? Could some of themJustin:Ha haTanner Weyland:beJustin:haTanner Weyland:aJustin:ha.Tanner Weyland:trap? Um, and anyway, loved it. Uh, sorry, sorry to distract.Justin:No, no, no, I think that's so great. And that's just one of the benefits of coming in the Discord and just being able to shoot the breeze with anyone who really likes being a Dungeon Master. I think those are our plans for the membership right now. The next thing we're going to really focus on is one-shots. We're going to make a big push to have our one-shot scheduled up on our website so... You know, like, it's just easier to plan, easier to kind of work through thatTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:and stuff like that.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, it's great. And honestly, probably one of the big things that I'm excited for is Justin's having a baby.Justin:Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, my wife is pregnant and she is due... Hold on. Sorry, I just got a text. Yeah, just give me one second.Tanner Weyland:You're fine.Justin:Sorry, someone just needed something and they're about to go somewhere, so I needed to tell them. Anyways,Tanner Weyland:Yeah, you're fine.Justin:yeah, so our baby is due in August and they will be the newest member of the Better Dungeon Master team. And just super excited to be a dad, interested to see how it's gonna change my life and change this. Hopefully it shouldn't change the podcast too much, but time will tell. And then,Tanner Weyland:Yeah,Justin:go ahead.Tanner Weyland:oh go ahead. Anyway, I was just gonna say that we will definitely give Justin a break there, probablyJustin:YeahTanner Weyland:record a lot beforehand so that he has that time to spend with the baby.Justin:One other thing as far as the one shots go is I do want to make a bigger push to get some of our podcast guests to play in the one shot. So, you know, if you sign up for a one shot, there's a possibility you could be playing with, you know, our last podcast interviewee or, you know, someone who we've had on the show before. Just to make it a little bit more interesting and a little bit more sizzle for you. Anything else as far as one shots go?Tanner Weyland:No, I'm just excited for you know laying it out and hopefully you guys are able to join oneJustin:Exactly. Next up, we are going to be, we're gonna be working on more merch. Right now we just have hoodies, and the hoodies were designed, or at least the design on the hoodies were designed by one of our listeners. And we wanna give you this. offer as well. Anyone who designs a logo for us, we put it up on our website and it gets purchases, we will share the profit with you 50-50. So that includes t-shirts, stickers, whatever, right? But that means we will also be working on our own designs and we keep the profits. So if you want to steal from us, just go ahead and submit some of your designs to us and we'll get that up on our site. And you know, hoodies, t-shirts, t-shirts, sorry, stickers, you know, the whole stuff, right?Tanner Weyland:Yeah, yeah, I'm excited for those, especially, we're gonna have some nice stickers, I feel like. And I'm a sucker for stickers.Justin:I am a sucker for stickers too, except I don't put them on anything, I just collect them. You know?Tanner Weyland:Yeah, same. There's part of me that's like, oh, I love people use water bottlesJustin:I'm going to go ahead and close the video.Tanner Weyland:I have a bunch of stickers or their laptops, but I'm always such a pansy. I'm like, yeah, but what if I don't like it later?Justin:Mm-hmm.Tanner Weyland:But I really like Collecting stickers and who knows maybe after we get some awesome Designs created then you know that may change. I might start might start putting stickers You know on the things I care about whoJustin:Agreed.Tanner Weyland:knowsJustin:And then one day when we have our own location, our brick and mortar studio, we can have a sticker wall where that's the designated place for all the stickers we ever find. And that'll be it.Tanner Weyland:It'll be perfect. It'll be perfect. And we'll have a sticker car where we just, no, I'm just kidding. Yeah.Justin:Actually, having a sticker wall sounds like something like those SaaS companies out of like Silicon Valley orTanner Weyland:Yes.Justin:Utah, Silicon Slopes. It sounds like something they would do. So I definitelyTanner Weyland:ItJustin:wantTanner Weyland:absolutelyJustin:to do that actually.Tanner Weyland:does.Justin:Next, we've toyed around with the idea of making like a custom DM screen. The ideas for that are pretty long out. So that's something we'll definitely have to think about. just kind of what we want it to look like, what it would be made out of, how we would create it, and what would be most useful. So stay tuned on that.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, that one's gonna be great, because you guys know how a lot of DM screens will have the numbers, like the stat blocks, the different rolling charts, right? This one though, we would try and make it about how you can be a better DM, kind of those softer skills, those reminders. So we're very excited about that one.Justin:Next, we're also slowly working on the ultimate dungeon master's guide. So essentially, like the go-to book for everything on being a better dungeon master. It'll essentially be a distillation of all the good juices that come from this podcast and everything about it. It might take some time, but... slowly we're gonna get there very slowly and we'll publish that and then get that createdTanner Weyland:Yeah, that one, we just, you know, we realized that a weekly podcast is great. Certainly is, but you know, some of the ideas that we have and some of the recommendations get lost in the shuffle. What's a better way to do that? You put it in a bookJustin:Ha ha.Tanner Weyland:or a course or whatever, you know,Justin:Sure.Tanner Weyland:so that it's cataloged. So yeah, very excited about that.Justin:Exactly. One other thing that I've been thinking about is maybe some meetups or something like that. Some live events that people, if they're in the area, can come join and, you know, I don't know, maybe we just go see a movie or something. I'm really bad at playing events, but, you know, maybe we do like a D&D tournament versus, you know, one table versus another. Who knows, right?Tanner Weyland:Yeah, and honestly, Justin and I, we're going to most likely be at FanX,

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your Host today, Justin Lewis and today, I want to talk about an aspect of D&D that is one-part storytelling prompt, one-part game mechanic, and overall an interesting facet of the game, namely alignment.We’ve all heard the famous phrase of, “It’s what my character would do.”Naturally, when someone says that, they are usually trying to justify something stupid, evil, weird, or just wrong that they’ve done. Sometimes they’ll cite their alignment as the main driver of their choice making process. For some reason that never really sat well with me. So today, I want to talk about a couple ways to think about alignment, and hopefully help you determine that you need to choose the way you’re going to look at alignment in your game, because it can radically change how your characters act and how you act towards your characters.What is AlignmentBefore we get into how to use alignment in your games, let’s first figure out what alignment is. Even defining it is going to be difficult because how you define it will also impact how you play with it. So i’m going to try to define it and explain it in a way that is agnostic of the way you choose to play with it.Let me first start by saying that alignment is an optional mechanic of the game. Nowhere does it say in any rulebook or game module that you need to have alignment. Only certain items have requirements about alignment, and that’s simply for the purpose of attunement. As a DM, you can simply choose to disregard all of that, so if you feel that alignment just gums up the system and makes things harder to play, then great. Alignment is not necessary, though in my opinion, it does make things much more fun.So in its most basic form, alignment describes your characters position relative to Order and Chaos and relative to Good and Evil. I won’t go too much more in dept quite yet, because I don’t want to affect how you think about alignment before I explain the two ways you can use it in game.In the first edition of D&D, or really when it was just an add-on to the game Chainmail, there was only the choice between Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic. It was much simpler, but then as things progressed, D&D evolved to have the Chaotic and Lawful spectrum and the Evil and Good Spectrum.What Purpose does Alignment Serve?In reality, alignment, just like everything else in the game, only helps move the story along. You can take any mechanic out and still move the story along. So really Alignment is just a plot device in the sense that it’s supposed to theoretically impact how your character develops and the choices they make. In practice though, that becomes very messy. You start asking questions about morality, right and wrong, and to be honest the whole discussion becomes very philosophical.So let me introduce you to my quandary and how I came to think about alignment.My QuandaryIn my current campaign, my wife’s character found himself stuck in his own mindscape. He had essentially been banned there by a being called Dreamtaker, who I’ve talked about on this podcast before. While in the mindscape, the character, Ransom, encountered an evil little character that inhabits part of his mind named Mtiq. Mtiq is supposed to symbolize the potential every being has to do evil. It’s the potential to become the worst version of ourselves. Well, Ransom had become very lost because the mindscape is a maze, naturally. So this evil Mtiq, offered Ransom a map to the mindscape in exchange for his “Innocence”.Frustrated with the maze and wanting to get out, Ransom took the deal and escaped the mind-maze, but naturally lost his innocence. As soon as Ransom left the maze, I informed my wife that his alignment was now chaotic-evil. She was not happy about that. Since then she’s been asking me about ways she can get her innocence back, but really her question is about whether or not she can change her alignment.Fast forward a few weeks and my brother-in-law, Drew is in town. He and his wife want to join us for one of our sessions. As chance would have it, my other brother-in-law, Ethan, who has a character in our campaign couldn’t make it that night, so Drew played Ethan’s Character Necro, while Drew’s wife played an NPC. While playing, Drew decided to split Necro from the party and investigate a dockyard. At the dockyard, Drew had Necro pick a fight with and murder a dockworker. Ethan came back just at that moment and with despair saw what was happening with his character. Now this isn’t the first time Necro has murdered someone, but this time was different in that there weren’t any extenuating circumstances. Necro had just murdered this dockhand in cold blood. I told Ethan, that his alignment had shifted towards evil. He was upset naturally, as his character had been trying to make strides toward being good.With both of these stories in mind, and the desire for these two players to have their characters to be good, I had an interesting thought cross my mind.I wondered, “Is alignment prescriptive or descriptive?”Does your alignment tell you how your character should act, or how they have acted in the past?I’ve come to the conclusion, that you need to make that decisions because when you explain this to your players, you can then let them make choices moving forward with that in mind. So let’s look at the 3 options that this opens up to you (yes there is a secret 3rd option).Descriptive If you choose to let the alignment be descriptive, then it is more of a description of all their past deeds. It has little bearing on what they will do in the future and instead is more of a reputational aspect.If you choose to play with this method, then I would adopt certain measures that somewhat in the old game Knights of the Old Republic. In that game when you pause the game, you’d see your character standing there with a spectrum and a guage showing how far they are into the light or dark sides. When they are in the light side, they stand tall and are surrounded by light and have an aura of good about them. If they are deep in the dark side, then their eyes have darkened and their face is covered by a permanent scowl. They are surrounded by darkness.If you use the descriptive method of Alignment, then I would adopt similar attributes and if they make their way to being Chaotic Evil, then people start to perceive and mistrust them. Any persuasion checks that rely on trust or good will will receive disadvantage. On the other hand, any checks involving deception or intimidation should probably get some sort of advantage.On the flip side, if your character is lawful good, then they should likely be naturally trusted.Of course, this is simplifying things but you get the general idea. The alignment becomes a list of all the bad things they done or the good things. Over time, people would naturally get a sense of those things just by being around them.In this method, if someone wants to change their alignment, then they have to consciously do actions over a long period of time to slowly change their alignment.PrescriptiveThe prescriptive method of Alignment is less about what you’ve done and more about what you aspire to be. The distinction is slight, but the big difference is that a character can choose to change their alignment in an instant. Changing alignment would likely require some large emotional experience but it could happen. From that moment, despite shortcomings, the character would try to live up to a certain ideal lifestyle.From a DM’s perspective, you could reward strenuous attempts with advantage or inspiration and give de-inspiration for actions that go against the alignment.The ComboAs you’ve no doubt guessed by now, the 3rd option is the combination of the 2. Really, this is closer to how we live in our real lives. We are partly our past and partly our aspirations for the future. If you can handle it, try and combine both of these methods to create a current alignment that correctly reflects the cumulative effect of all the decisions of the past and at the same time allows the character to aspire for different ways of life and try to make their way to that point.I suppose you could also cut it down into “if you want to change your alignment you have to essentially get a certain number alignment points in this or that direction.” I might implement that as a test with my players, but it is going to be difficult. And why shouldn’t it be. We’re only talking about the concept of good and evil and how to act rightly in a difficult world.As you go out and play your sessions with your players, I’d encourage you to bring in more and more moral quandaries and questions. Thinking of right and wrong and best and worst decisions is at the very nature of human existence. Your players will enjoy being pushed to think about what they really should do and what effect it will have on their characters. They will also enjoy the opportunity to try and do that in their own life. In that way, D&D becomes much more than a game.I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. It was a little different and a lot more philosophical. I’m confident though that thinking about alignment will make your games more interesting. We’ll be back next week for another great episode. Until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.Mentioned in this episode: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. DiscordBrought to you by Session 0 StudiosVisit session0studios.com for more information.Add 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