How to Stop Sucking and Kick Ass as a Dungeon Master

photo credit: Perfecto Insecto

I’ve written a lot about what it takes to be a successful DM.  I’ve identified 7 Habits of Highly Effective DMs, and I’ve told you what to avoid.  I’ve even built a new campaign from scratch, so you can observe the process.

I don’t pretend to know it all when it comes to DMing. Yeah, I’ve done it for the better part of two decades.  Yeah, I’ve been able to keep the same group of folks at my table since moving here, with rare exception.  In fact, I’ve got the opposite problem of many DMs: I’ve got more players than slots at the table.  Having Randy along for the ride helps in that regard, as we tend to make sure everyone has a spot, and I give him the lion’s share of the credit for our group’s cohesion. 

Still, while I’m not the best, I do kick ass as a Dungeon Master.  Why?

I give a damn about my players.

The folks I play with are friends, and have been nearly since the day I met them.  Some of them go way back, while some I’ve known just a little while.  But each and every one of them is a friend.  We stand in each others’ weddings.  We babysit each others’ kids.  We eat together, spend holidays together, camp together and will go to see Iron Man together.

It’s more than that, though. See, I want my players to have a good time. When I’m designing an adventure, I do it not only with their character in mind, but with them in mind. I put something in for each person. My hack-and-slasher gets to kill stuff.  My role-player gets to parlay.  My note-taking paladin… gets to take notes.  I customize the experience for my players, and it adds exponentially to the game.

I’m passionate about the story.

I’m a writer.  I write for a living.  I write things about the difference between “HD ready” and “HD compatible.”  I write about premature birth.  I write about whatever my conscience will allow and whatever someone will pay me for.  I even write solely for the purpose of helping other writers.

But when it comes to writing fiction, D&D is my outlet.  It lets me tell a story, one that’s deep down inside of me just bursting to get out.  It’s the story I’ll base a novel on, someday. It’s the story I’m thinking about when my wife says, “Whatcha thinking about” and I say, “How much I love you, of course.”

See, I need to tell this story.  The fact that my friends are willing to sit at the table and help me tell it, and indulge me as I tell my part of it, is in many ways their gift to me rather than the other way around.

I know when to quit.

Sometimes, you have to take a break. You have to step away from the table, let someone else DM for a while. You might even need to stop playing altogether for six or eight months waiting for a new edition.  Sometimes, you just need to quit.

It doesn’t end there, of course.  You’ve got to know when to restart.  I’m less than 30 days away from getting behind the screen for the first time in a good while, and I’m damned excited. I’m going to start with H1 and just sort of ride the wave from there with some one-shots until Gen Con.  it’s going to be a wild ride, because the wait has made me hungry for it again.

I can paint a picture like nobody’s business.

Like I said, I write for a living.  Hyperbole, onomatopoeia are my tools, and the thesaurus is my best friend.  Can you be a kick-ass DM without a great vocabulary?  Sure.  But why would you want to be?  Watch movies, read books and study the flipping thesaurus if you need to, but work on your flavor text.

Oh, and make no mistake, folks: it’s all flavor text.

I’m open to change.

I don’t DM the same way today that I did in 1996, because my players don’t play the same way they did in 1996.  Likewise, when one of my players says, “Dude, that session sucked!” I make a note of it. If the player was full of crap, I forget about it. If the complaint was legit, I figure out what not to do next time.

I try new things. In my time, I’ve played just about every type of RPG you can imagine, from Live Action Vampire to Toon.  Hell, I even enjoyed Everway.  I watch other DMs, locally and at conventions.  I read DM blogs and message boards and articles in Dragon and Dungeon, all so I can add something, anything, to make my game that much better.

I’ll very likey go 4th Edition for the same reason.

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I didn’t write this post to toot my own horn.  Like I said, I’m far from the best DM.  I wrote it to help motivate you guys and gals out there.  Get passionate.  Take a break if you need to.  Change things up.  Take your players out for dinner just to hang.  Whatever you’ve got to do, take action now.  You can be a kick-ass DM, you’ve just got to decide you’re going to do it and work toward that goal.