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

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

Welcome to How to Be a Better DM! Tanner talks about how you can take immersion to the next level through the snacks that you prepare as well as the food you introduce to your players' characters.Also, if you'd like to sign up for one of our One-shots, do so here: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shotMentioned in this episode:Brought to you by Session 0 StudiosVisit session0studios.com for more information.Join Our DiscordSo a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today. DiscordWhy 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!Patreon

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

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

Justin:Ulf woke up. He was in a cave, but he saw a face above his. It was Herlia. Ulf, we thought you were dead. Ulf sat up and saw Hepom sitting not too far off now, sporting a few more days' growth of beard. Ulf looked around. He could see the exit from the cave a few yards away. It was snowing outside. About a week. We still don't know what happened, Ulf, but we are sure glad to see you up and walking. We... we didn't know what to do." Hylia said as her voice trailed off. of breathed deeply. I'm sorry." Ulf looked into Herlia's eyes. I've failed you these past few weeks. I should have been more, but I thought just about myself. Herlia was taken aback. Ulf, we didn't blame you for what happened to Hüde and Kujari. Ulf began to stand up and walked towards the snowy cave entrance. He turned and looked back at Herlia. I was not asleep or in a coma. Instead, I was taken back to the home of my ancestors. There, I lived for weeks in a tribe, and I had to perform some sort of test. Actually, I still have to perform the test, the trial. Early, I stood up and rubbed her temples. Ulf, you're not making any sense. Ulf turned and looked at her once again. We have to go north. and conquer the tribes of the North. Silence. Then Hipon piped up and said, well, when do we leave? What would you like to do? Welcome back to today's show. I'm your host today, Justin Lewis, and in the world of being a dungeon master there are now essentially two types of dungeon masters. There are those that prefer playing in person and those that prefer playing online. And actually I guess there's probably a third group that likes either one. But today I want to give a small guide to preparing to preparing for an online session for those people who feel like the online format may be limited or they've just never done it before. Sorry about my voice cracking there. But hopefully this guide helps you feel ready and prepared for a nice game with your friends online. And this is generally what I do when I prepare for my one shots, which you can sign up for by going to betterdungeonmaster.com slash one dash shot. It is free and you can see this firsthand. So first step. find your players. As always, the first step to any session of D&D is to find players. And with an online game, your pool of players has both narrowed and expanded. Because now you can play with anyone all over the world, but you do need to find people who are willing to play online. Me, I can't even get my wife to play online, so I resort to asking people I've never met in person over my podcast. Namely, people like you. So second thing you need to do is send out a player brief. Second thing you need to do is prepare the story. You need to write a full story and the nice thing about playing D&D online is you don't necessarily need to change the story to fit the online format. For the most part, you can do everything online that you can do in person. Naturally, whispering in people's ears is a bit hard. However, it's still possible. You can, there are tools that allow you to send discrete messages, and if need be, you can just email each individual person because theoretically you will have each of their emails. So prepare the story, write it down, and we have tons of podcast episodes that should help you with that and get you where you need to be. So the second thing is you need to choose theater of the mind or virtual tabletop or a VTT. So the difference is with a theater of the mind, and this is more of a tech choice than anything, with theater of the mind, you don't need more than one software. Well, I guess, let me explain. So a virtual tabletop is essentially a platform that allows you to connect audio visual for seeing your face and hearing your voice, but it also allows you to play music over the connection. It also allows you to display a map whenever you are in combat or a similar situation. That's a VTT. A theater of the mind is where you simply use an audio visual connection like Zoom or Google Meet, whatever have you. I use Riverside just because I actually record my one shots online. But you have this visual and audio connection and that's it. And if you need to, I suppose you could share your screen and show anything you needed to. You rely mostly on your descriptive words to tell people where they are, even in combat. And even in Theater of the Mind, or just using, sorry. And even just using Zoom or Google Meet, you can still share your screen to show visual aspects of your campaign. And with that, you can include audio aspects as well. VTTs are just a little bit more native, so they're a little bit more set up for things like that. For example, when you share a map in combat, you can create tokens and assign each of those tokens to each of your players. and that allows them to move the player in the combat rather than you having to ask them where to go and things like that. And you need to choose this, and I guess number three is a little bit more than this, you need to choose your whole tech stack. So are you planning on streaming the encounter or the session? Are you planning on recording it like I am? In both cases, you need to make sure you understand exactly what your tech stack will be. So in my case, dabbled around using a few things. I'm actually recording this on the 29th of April, which is the day of our last one-shot. And I'm planning on using Riverside, which is a podcasting platform, so it allows you to podcast with guests online. I'm planning on using that as the audio visual portion of the session, which will record the show. And then I will use Roll20, which is a virtual tabletop. to actually play the game. And if that doesn't work, then I will actually probably switch to just using Roll20 and then using a, I believe it's called Streamlabs, which is a desktop streaming where you can capture what's going on on your screen and then stream it out to either YouTube or whatever. And that's kind of my backup. And then if that doesn't work, I'll probably resort to Discord and things like that. But as you see, you need to choose your tech stack and also, Be very aware of the fact that things might not work out. People might not have microphones, headphones, their internet might not work. Playing online, there's a lot more technical snafus that can go wrong, so you need to be aware of that and plan ahead. Number four, probably one of the most important ones you can do is send out the player brief, okay? And you would do this just like you would do it in any in-person session or things like that, especially if you're in one shot, but a player brief has it's like a packet of information or or Segments of information. It's not necessarily packet. I guess you can send an email or send multiple emails, but It has very important information for the player to get ready for the session and that starts with character creation. So Information about hey, you can have these types of characters. You can't have these types of characters so forth and so on. So in the one shot that I'm running today, and obviously, you know, no spoilers because this will be out after the one shot, but I told the characters or the players, they can make any character they'd like. The world is in, the session will be set in my homebrew world of integrity, which has its own pantheon of nine gods, and that's it. So if they are connected to a deity, they should let me know and I'd give them further information. But. As far as characters and classes, feel free to go forth and do what they want. Generally with Oneshots, I'm pretty flexible. Now in hindsight, I would tell my characters, or tell my players not to do any character that can breathe underwater. And the reason why that's important is because the Oneshot takes place on a cruise ship, and spoiler alert, but the cruise ship goes down, right? Naturally, that's what happens in Oneshots. And actually that brings me to the next point that you should include in your player brief, which is information about the situation. So in this case, the players will find themselves on this cruise ship, and mind you, integrity is set in a high fantasy world. So this cruise ship is really kind of top of the line. There are a few countries that have banded together to create this marvel, essentially, and it's fueled by the resources of one... country called the Bastion of the Crown. It's fueled by the ingenuity and the technical know-how of the Kula Uwea Confederacy and then it's fueled by the technology of the Sivarish, sorry, it's fueled by the technology of the Sivarish Protectorate. So it's kind of this joint creation of a few countries. So with that, the players, I told them you have to make sure that your character is from one of these countries because the ship is actually going from the Kula Uwea Confederacy to the Sivirish Protectorate and then finally to the Bastion of the Crown. So all of your characters need to have a reason to be on the ship and to go there, right? And with that I also explained a little bit of the situation around the world. Okay, so this ship is first of its kind, like nothing else like it. And it's also coming around in a time of disunity. So the world as a whole has become very unorganized and disintegrated, okay? So allies have severed and are now kind of looking at each other as enemies. And the whole world is in a commotion. So that's why the ship is so very important. It's kind of a symbol of the world kind of knitting itself back together. So that's the situation, that's the information I gave my characters about the situation. Now, the next thing you need to include is any information about the world. So for example, like what I said about the... the gods, the deities. So in integrity there are nine gods and each god has kind of their own domain. And one important thing about the gods is that their alignment constantly shifts, okay? So every year, and this is kind of how they gauge their zodiac, every year there is a lawful good god and then there is a chaotic evil god, all right? And during those years, those two forces are directly opposed. Okay, and every year it changes up randomly. And a lot of effort and time in other areas of the world is spent in figuring out which god is good because that determines some of the major events that will happen and things like that as far as political events or natural disasters things like that. So that might be something I would include in my brief, but in this case I didn't because none of my characters decided to be a cleric or a paladin. But I did extend the invitation to them saying, hey, if you would like more information, reach out to me. Another bit you need to know about this is that a lot of this information can be exposed or you can display through exposition in the game. So for example, the cruise ship is technologically powered by a substance called Spark, which is a, it's actually a magical drug that was first designed. kind of in other parts of the world, and then it came to the Sivirish Protectorate, and the government actually didn't regulate it or whatever, and many engineers and scientists found that you could use this drug to create a powerful energetic substance, right? So the entire ship is powered by this drug, this very volatile drug called Spark. That's something that the players will figure out in game because exposition and things like that, right? So again, you definitely need to include information about the world, but don't give too much, right? Make sure that it's salient to what the player needs and relevant. Lastly, you need to include links. So you need to include links to the online campaign. So if you're using D&D Beyond, which I neglected to mention, that's another tool that I'm using in my tech stack. That's essentially where all the players are making their characters in a place where I can see it. and I can actually use it to make encounters and things like that, which will come in very handy. You need links to the audio and visual, so I sent out links to Riverside for my players, and then links to the virtual tabletop if you use it. So I sent out links to Roll20. And that's essentially what you need to send in the player brief. Again, it doesn't need to be one single email or whatever. You can just make sure the information gets to your players and they feel ready. Number five. You need to... plan any encounters that you need. And what I mean by this is, you need to prepare the stats and the situations so that way when the time comes, you don't have to spend precious time doing that, but instead you can give your full attention to your players. Breaking the flow is not a very good thing in D&D unless it's intentional, in which case have at it, right? So what I did was I looked at the chain of events and on a cruise ship it's very nice. I suppose maybe it's railroading, but it is what it is. That's kind of the situation. They have limited choices as far as what the major events affecting the cruise ship are going to be. And then next you need to prepare any maps you need if you're using a virtual tabletop. So in my case, I use Dungeon Alchemist, which is an awesome tool. It's actually a 3D tool on Steam that you can purchase. And what it does is it allows you to create very in-depth maps for different situations. And I can actually, well, if you sign up for our Dungeon Master Guild Level 1, you can get access to a lot of the maps that we create and download them for free. So you can upload them to your VTT or whatnot. But essentially, Dungeon Alchemist allows you to drag and drop different elements into a map. So you can... click a specific room you want to create, you draw the shape and then you click the check mark and it auto-populates using AI that room and then you can go ahead and customize it using different objects, different floor tiles and things like that. And let me tell you, when I first backed it as a Kickstarter, it was very, it was pretty sparse, but now it has so many options, including Gingerbread House as one, Ice House. You can actually make caves now, which is a pretty cool feature. It's just becoming way more. Developed and in depth so now it's the time to get on it because it's just gonna get more in depth Last thing you need to do is follow up with your players The common bane of the dungeon master is not getting players to come to the sessions or having players bail things like that Even on one shots that happen because someone listened to a podcast and signed up with me people bail You know all the time And when I say bail, I don't necessarily mean that they just decide not to come. Oftentimes, it's like family issues or emergencies or things like that, but it does happen a lot. And so you do need to be flexible and follow up with your players the day of or the day before just to make sure that they have the right time, the right links, and there's no issues, right? Especially if you're new to