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

Welcome dungeon masters to How to Be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. Today, I’m your host, Justin Lewis and together let’s discover how to make every session the best session of Dungeons and Dragons with you as the dungeon master. Today, like so many other episodes, I’ll be discussing some tips for how to deal with a particular problem that faces many dungeon masters. Unlike other episodes though, today I offer my point of view with the full knowledge that I myself am new at facing this particular challenge, and I hesitate to say anything because I don’t want to offend, or give the impression that I even know half of what I am doing. Today, we are going to talk about how to be a dungeon master and play D&D regularly when you have kids.Big topic, I know.As some of you might know, my child was born back in August of 2023 and him coming into my life has really shaken things up for me, as parenthood has for many people. I firmly believe that parenthood changes a lot of for you, but it doesn’t have to delete your hobbies and passions, and in fact, one of the great challenges of parenthood is finding ways to continue doing all the things you love with the addition of your family. I think that is a great example to set for your kids and it leads to a lot less resentment later in life. Obviously, I’m not saying to forget about your kids and your family. There is a fine line to walk and sometimes you do have to pass up a particular session because your family needs you. But hopefully, with these tips, that won’t happen as often. DisclaimerBefore I get started into these tips, I need to give a brief disclaimer. You absolutely need to know and understand that I am in no way a parenting expert. I do not give any of this as direct parenting advice. Instead these are ideas that you can try out. I’ve only been a parent for a little more than a month now and am not the guru of parenting that I wish I was. So take my advice at your own peril… That said, these ideas aren’t that extreme. With some tweaking and changing, you should be able to make it work for your unique situation.So with that, let’s get into it.Get the Buy In of Your Significant OtherThe first thing you need to do is get the buy in of your significant other. This is crucial because as we all know, communication is key in any relationship. It’s also important for you and your partner to both communicate your wants and wishes. You want something, in this case you probably want to play D&D. Your partner wants something too. The only way to know what they want and to let your partner to know what you want is to start communication.This works the same way with partners where one partner is playing D&D or partners where both partners play in the same D&D group.If the partners are in the same D&D group, then the buy-in you each need to give and get is for a commitment from each of you to do whatever it takes to make the games happen and make them fun for each partner. This means that each of you will need to be willing to adapt and try new things that might feel weird or look strange.If only one partner is playing in a D&D group, then the buy-in changes a little bit. You both need to give your buy-in but in this case, the terms change. In the case of the non-player partner of the relationship, the buy-in needs to be such that they are willing to watch the child/children while you play D&D. They need to understand how long the games will be and the cadence of the games. They must not be surprised at the length or frequency of the games. On the player side the terms are a little different. You will likely need to show a willingness to make it so the non-player partner can have a similar opportunity to hang out with friends. Be willing to watch the child while they go out every once in a while. Or just be willing to be a little more present with the child while you are at home. Honestly, it’s very possible that you don’t even need to give anything for your partner to be ok with you going to play D&D every week. But, make sure their wants and wishes are heard otherwise, you’ll be headed for disaster. Get Table Buy InEven after you and your partner come to an agreement, you’re not done getting buy-in. Now, you’ve got to get your table’s buy-in. Because this podcast is for dungeon masters specifically, I’ll talk from that viewpoint, but that doesn’t mean that this advice doesn’t apply to everyone at the table.First, you need to help the adjust their expectations of you. You have a child, a family. That takes precedence. That means that sometimes, you won’t have as much time to prepare the sessions, or sometimes your D&D sessions will need to be cut a little short. It might even mean that you’ll have to DM with a baby on the hip. Your situation will look different and unique and your players need to understand and be given the chance to decide whether that’s something they want to deal with. It’s your child, not theirs. It wouldn’t hurt in this instance to also explain your commitment to the table as well. They would probably like to know that you care about the game and want it to be a success.Just as long as everyone at the table is fully aware (for the most part) of the experience they will have while playing, and they are all ok with it, including you, then you have set your table up for success.Enlist the Help of Relatives or FriendsThe next thing you can do is start compiling a list of people that you 100% trust that would be willing to watch your child while you play D&D. Often relatives are a good place to start. If there are Grandparents in the mix, then that is an excellent place to start, but brothers, sisters, cousins, and neighborhood babysitters work too. The type of babysitter will change depending on how many kids you have and what ages. Also, if you can find a relative or someone who is willing to watch your child for free, that is ideal. Paying for a babysitter every week can start to add up. You might also consider doing some sort of a babysitting trade, finding someone who needs it on days or nights when you are not playing.AdaptThe last general tip that I can give is that you need to be just as creative at finding a solution as you are when you play D&D. Life can be complicated and messy and when you can think outside the box to find uncommon solutions, things work all the better.Now, let’s talk about some more specific methods that might be just what you need to make playing D&D with a child or children at home that much more possible.D&D While Your Child is SleepingThe first method you might give a try is to play D&D when the kid/s go to bed. Most kids have an earlier bedtime so playing afterhours might be the solution you’ve been looking for. If your group has content that belongs after-hours anyways, then this might be a match made in heaven.If you do want to give this method a try, there are a few things that you should think about.How loud is my group? If your group happens to play loud and proud then you might consider trying a different method. Or you might think about soundproofing the room you play in. At the end of the day (pun intended) the last thing you want is for your child to not be able to sleep and to start crying or screaming or just having a bad time.Will we be playing at my house?If your group doesn’t play at your house, then having your child sleep may be somewhat strange depending on the circumstances. For example, if your group normally plays at the local game store, then having a child sleep while you play probably won’t work without a babysitter. On the other hand, if your group plays at a friend’s house and that friend is ok with you bringing a pack-n-play or a bassinet and setting it up in another room where the child can get some nice sleep, then that totally works. Will the child sleep in the same room that we will play D&D in?If you have a small infant like I do, then having them sleep in a different room would probably be a very unpleasant thought, at least in the newborn phase of your child’s growth. For me, I would need to have the baby in the same room in a bassinet or something. If the child is older, then having them in another room would likely be the ideal situation so that the child can get a good night’s sleep.Will the child need monitoring? If the child is young enough, monitoring might need to be set up to keep track of the child and to make sure that they do not fall victim to any danger that could harm them. If they are in the same room, then no worries. If they are in a different room, then you may want to bring all of your technological prowess to bear. Maybe the simplest and cheapest method of monitoring a child would be to set up a video call between two phones and position one to always be able to see the child.More expensive options include things like an Owlet camera or a simple baby monitor and more.D&D With Baby In ArmsIf you have an infant like myself, then another option opens up and that is to play D&D with the child in your arms. Obviously, this option is only available if your table is open to it, knowing that there is a major possibility that at random intervals, the person holding the baby will have to tap out of the game for a moment to take care of baby, and also there is the obvious risk of a crying baby mid-game.That said, if your baby is young enough then having them sit in your arms (or something like it) can be a great thing. For example, even as I wrote this episode, I had my son in a baby carrier strapped to my chest. I sat at my kitchen table writing while gently swaying back and forth to keep him calm and entertained. Whatever you have to do works.When pursuing this method, it may help to have various tools at your disposal. For exampl the baby carrier that I already mentioned or some handy swaddles to keep the baby wrapped up nice and snug.Having some clean binkies or toys might be what you need to do. If you are breastfeeding your baby, having one of those breastfeeding shawls or covers so you can feed while at the table would be helpful.In this case, I would say having your character sheet on some sort of computer or ipad would be preferable to having it on paper because an electronic device is a lot harder to get mixed up when you have a squirming baby in your arms. Of course, at the end of the day, what works for you is what works.Get a BabysitterHonestly, when it comes to getting a babysitter, I’ve said so much already that how can I possibly say more? Watch me!When it comes to finding a local babysitter you can try a few different things. First, I would ask family and friends, in that order. Family is usually more willing to help but friends can be just as awesome too. Whoever it is, make sure you trust them completely and that you leave crystal clear instructions on how to care for your child and what to do in an emergency.After that, you might try your neighbor kids if they are in that perfect babysitting age. 12-16 is generally a good range. Personally I would opt for a girl babysitter just because they would generally be more patient, kind and understanding of my child’s needs than a teenage boy would be but you do you.If you still can’t find a babysitter, you can ask at your local church if you attend to see if someone there might be able to help.After that, start asking people you know if they know someone. Always vet the baby sitter to hearts content when getting referrals because sometimes things aren’t as they appear.Finally, you can hire a professional baby sitter from professional service, though that will likely cost you much more.Involve Your ChildNow, if you are unlike myself and your kid/s are old enough to start to understand some of the game, then you might consider involving them a little in the game.Again, though it doesn’t need to be said, I’ll say it anyways, you can only do this if your D&D group is ok with it. You also need to realize that if your other players in the group have kids too they might want to involve their kids and the whole thing can spiral out of control real fast so be wise.But if your child is 5 - 10 you might have them sit at the table and play the game with you. If your DM is ok with it, the Child could become sort of an NPC, like a child in the game or some sort of familiar. You can ask them what to do and how to act in certain situations.If you play a paladin, cleric or a warlock, you might have your child play the part of your Diety or patron respectively, giving you guidance in moments of need. This will likely lead to some laughs along the way and you and your kid will bond over a very fun hobby, D&D.If the child is younger, you might have them sit on your lap and roll the d20 anytime you need one rolled. They can be around you and the game and start to enjoy rolling the dice, seeing the outcome and hearing everyone at the table cry is dismay or triumph.This all only works if your child cooperates obviously, so don’t press the point if kiddo isn’t impressed.Play Shorter SessionsOne of the simplest tactics to take if you have to balance being a parent and a Dungeon Master is to play shorter sessions. I know that we are all thinking that this is probably the least desirable method, but you have to admit that it is effective. Ask your players if they would be willing to play shorter sessions. Most will agree just to be able to keep playing.Doing shorter sessions is a good method to try for a couple reasons. For one, you don’t always have to play shorter sessions. Sometimes, you’ll get a good 4 hour game in and other times, you may have to cap it at one hour. Secondly, having shorter sessions means that you have to prepare less. You don’t have to come to the table with 4 hours prepared if you are planning on only playing for 2.Even though it might be a really great idea to do shorter sessions, you still need to keep some things in mind.With shorter sessions, you will need your table to understand that they really need to pay attention and be courteous when the spotlight is on someone else. It often happens that one character is doing something while everyone else waits. In those momen

In this podcast, they discuss the importance of the "Yes And" principle in D&D. They explore how this concept can enhance player interactions, creativity, and gameplay. They also provide examples and highlight the benefits of using "yes and" in storytelling

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent! 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 just have one big announcement about Justin: he had his baby! Congratulations, Justin!For today's topic, we are going back to the basics: Saving throws. Do you just see them as a slightly different type of roll, or do you see them as an opportunity to build suspense and prompt character struggle or change? Let's talk about it.Find out more about our podcast and also Monsters.Rent here: https://monsters.rent/podcast/Mentioned in this episode:Do You Want to Earn some Money?🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!Why Listen to Ads?Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!PatreonBrought to you by Session 0 StudiosVisit session0studios.com for more information.

Here's the transcript of today's episode:Tanner Weyland:to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. This is Tanner Weyland, and I'm here with Justin Lewis. Say hi!Justin:Bye.Tanner Weyland:Hi. Perfect. We're glad to be here with you guys. And today we're going to have a little, you know, just a little question episode, just a little episode where we're answering one question. How do you convince a non-playing person to play D&D? Justin, let's get your thoughts.Justin:Alright, for me, step one, ask what movies they like to watch, right? Because most people like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, you know, or any number of fantasy movie. And once you know, oh, you like Harry Potter, well, how is Harry Potter any different than Dungeons and Dragons, right? That would be my first tip. Ask what movies they like.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, one thing that I would throw in there is convince the people around them. Like, for example, my wife, she's never played D&D, never wants to. She's firmly in the camp that's like, oh, that's nerdy stuff, you know, and yet she has friends, friends that she thinks are cool. who liked D&D and they heard that, you know, I'm into D&D. They're like, oh my goodness, you should have read a D&D campaign or a session for us, right? And I was like, oh yeah, that sounds great. And then, you know, the thought was planted in my mind. I was like, I can get Kirstie to join. These are her work friends. Of course she would play. Why would she not? She tried to play a little bit of hard to get. It's like, oh, I don't know. I just want to watch you guys play, but. I was like, I think I can get her specifically because she has friends, people that she respects as normal people, not as nerds like me. And that's a good way to convince them. And I think pairing with that, even if she doesn't play, if she sits and sees how an actual game is played, right? Because I got into D&D, frankly, because I started listening to podcasts, you know, live play podcasts. And that was, I was like, oh, this is really fun. I can do this. This isn't too far of a leap. She's never going to do that. What she could do is get a in-person live play podcast, quote unquote, you know, where I'm playing with her friends. If I'm unable to convince her, of course. And that would totally open up the way for like, Hey, if they like it enough and they want to do it again, she'd probably be willing to do the next time. Right.Justin:Absolutely. In fact, my wife's aunt still sort of thinks D&D is related to devils and demons, right?Tanner Weyland:Oh, yeah, the satanic panic kind of thing.Justin:Yeah, exactly.Tanner Weyland:Yeah.Justin:And it's not so much that she like actively thinks that. She just had a bad experience essentially, but her daughter, right, is living with my wife's parents and because of that her daughter, her daughter my wife's cousin, is not allowed to play D&D, right? But she's come over while we're having our sessions and watched us play and we ask her and we say like, hey, do you think there's anything wrong with this? And she's like, no, it kind of sounds a little boring. Which I mean, you know, that's her opinion, but exactly what Tanner said, expose them a little bit to D&D, right? Have them watch the D&D movie. And everyone knows the D&D movie was funny because you have, you know, lots of kind of new up and coming actors as well as some pretty old and storied actors, you know, who Hugh Grant has been in countless movies, but you have themTanner Weyland:Mm-hmm.Justin:watch the D&D movie, they're going to laugh, they're going to see things that are pretty cool, and they're going to ask questions like, wait a second, is Thimbershod that giant fat dragon? Is he like a real character? And the answer is yes. He actually features in The Lost Minds of Vandelver, which is in fact basically like the first D&D anything that most people come in contact with, Would You Like to Play, right? That's an easy segue.Tanner Weyland:Mm-hmm. Exactly. And, you know, above all, just... I think if you bring a good positivity to D&D when you talk about it, you know, talk about how fun it was. Talk about, you know, things that you think that they would really find funny or interesting. You know, if you're a DM, which I mean, you're listening to this podcast, so hopefully you're trying to be, then just be like, hey, I was really stumped with this thing, but then I came up with this cool solution. And they really enjoyed it. You know, just be super positive, even if they think you're so nerdy and that it's not to them, they're not going to be intimidated by it, right? And that kind of opens up a pathway for them to be open in other ways, right?Justin:Yeah, and along those lines, don't push too hard because our natural inclination as human beings is when someone tells us, you know, you need to do this. Our natural inclination is to say, no, I don't, and I'm not going to because you told me to, right? So in trying to get them to play, make simple invitations, say, it means a lot to me, and I enjoy doing it with my friends. In fact, it keeps my relationships with certain friends. strong, you know, sometimes you don't have the ability to see them, but everyone can schedule something and make it happen. But anyways, don't push too hard.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, and I think something that I would just throw in as kind of a gateway drug to tabletop you know role-playing games is you know there are easy tabletop role-playing games and then there are also board games that include a little bit of role-playing right? I would say that that certain games like based off of mafia, like the, what is it? One Night WerewolfJustin:Yep.Tanner Weyland:game. Like to some extent that's a lot of like playing a role. And then there's other games where you're like working with someone to do like, it's kind of co-op, right? Like there's Pandemic, there's... Oh man, there's this firefighter board game. I'm blanking out the name. But anyway, there are these games where it's like, hey, you're embodying a role, you're role playing, and you know, you're working together with some people. Those are great gateways to doing something more serious. And then if you're trying to do a gateway role playing game, there's a lot of options, right? Like there's some games that... Like there's one game called Dread. It's kind of horror based, so I don't know if you, you know, do it with everyone who you're trying to get into D&D. But the whole idea is that you're playing Jenga. It's a role playing game based around Jenga.Justin:I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.Tanner Weyland:And each time, like you have, you can find pre-written scenarios, but every time that a player wants to do something, they pull a block, put it on top. And then they do the thing that they said their character would do, right? But the moment that tower falls down, oh my goodness, that person's dead. And the DM, you know, who can be you in this case, kind of takes over that character and they die or transform or who knows what, right? Something horror related. That's a very simple game that doesn't require a lot of rules. And it can be a nice segue, you know.Justin:Yeah, another game is Betrayal at Hill House. ThatTanner Weyland:Oh, exactly.Justin:one, it's basically an RPG in board game format. Kind of, you know, going the opposite way rather than using games. You know, if you know this person to be one who is very much into personal development, challenge them and say, have you ever wanted to try and see how quick you are at thinking? you know, using your wits, being creative. How creative are you at problem solving? How good are you at improvising? And how good are your performance and presentation skills? Well, Dungeon and Dragons is the best kind of mix of all of those because it's fun and it does challenge you to kind of think on your feet and improvise, take things as they come and try and craft new solutions that are unique and sometimes absurd.Tanner Weyland:Yeah, and kind of as a last point from me, I think that what you said about not pushing is important. Now, if you did wanna do kind of a last hurrah, if you will, I think that you could try and ask them. to do a favor for you, you know, to be like, hey, I wrote this thing, I really think it'd be fun and I have a couple of friends, you know, or mutual friends who want to play it, but we really could use another player. Would you be willing to sit in just one time, right? Or you could even be more direct and be like hey, I've always loved the idea of playing with you But I never thought that you'd be into it Even though I'm sure you'd be great. Would you try it once for me? You know, and if they're like hard no, don't push it too much But I think a lot of a lot of people if you're that direct and that honest about like hey I would really like to try it because if you did like it, it'd be really fun then that would be, you know, I think some people would be willing to try that. I think that'd be the right approach for certain, you know, individuals. And if you're able to do that, then you try it. And if they don't like it, they don't like it. You know, you tried your best, you can move on. You can do it knowing that you've put your best foot forward and that they've actually tried it and you can be grateful and thank them for that. And it can be a memory, you know, to look back on.Justin:Absolutely. The last thing I'd say is, even though you shouldn't push too hard, you shouldn't give up. I have a friend who I've been inviting to play D&D with me for the last three years plus, and I feel like I can feel him slowly slipping, right? Eventually I'll get him to say yes. But sometimes people just aren't in the right space. You might ask them one day and they'll say yes. So don't give up.Tanner Weyland:Exactly. And with that, you know, we invite you to go out there. Give it another try with your friend, with your family member, your significant other, to, you know, invite them into the rich, rich world of D&D. And, you know, even if it doesn't work now, keep trying. Try in different ways because we know that it's going to be a great experience for you. And until next time, let's roll initiative.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.Brought to you by Session 0 StudiosVisit session0studios.com for more information.Do You Want to Earn some Money?🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

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: