Initially, I was going to title this post “DM Playbook: How I Govern My Games”. Maybe govern is too a strong word, but then again maybe it isn’t. More appropriately I’ve changed it the title to “DM Playbook: Mantras & Guidelines” because really, that’s what the following list truly is.<\/p>\n
As any strong DM should know, you have a responsibility to your players to keep your game fun and interesting while keeping the players engaged and tending to their in game\u00a0needs. Dungeon Master = Game Manager = Mayor of the Session. It is quite the burden to bear, but those that seek the office of GM have to be a little bit of a masochist themselves. You have to dwell in chaos without letting it overwhelm you. How to do this and retain your sanity? HERE is how I manage.<\/p>\n
I have a set of personal rules that I use to keep me on track and focused. These are my pre-game mantras. These compiled make up my ever evolving DM Playbook. Here it is current state, it has gone through at least five\u00a0revisions to date.<\/p>\n
First the high level look:<\/p>\n
Now, the deep dive! Some of these are self explanatory, while others are not.<\/p>\n
This is a D&D 5e specific reminder<\/a>. It is top of the list because I find it is most easily forgotten. If you are playing to the rules strictly, this is a big one to remember. It gives the players a little extra incentive to stay in character. I find it becomes easiest to forget when you regularly get great performances and participation from the party in general.<\/p>\n Combat can drag on far too long in any RPG and typically becomes the biggest time sink. If your group loves combat, then embellish it and make it last. Most groups in my experience tend to get more excited by engaging narrative. Nothing slows and disrupts a great narrative like a two hours of taking turns rolling dice. Combat can also become part of the narrative. Keep NPCs vocal, have them move about the environment and try to escape or pull some ominous lever of doom. Then the battle’s focus is all\u00a0about taking turns to solve a puzzle rather than mundanely hacking and slashing. In most stories, mindless battles don’t typically happen. They become essential in D&D for gaining XP when you stick to the rules strictly. One way I have worked around this is to award XP on a milestone basis. This has allowed me to remove the “grind” from the game.<\/p>\n While cruising r\/Gametales on reddit<\/a>, I came across a fabulous story of a 16 HP dragon<\/a>. The principle here is to adopt The Hobbit approach to a big beastie versus the death by 1000 papercuts model used by Final Fantasy and WoW. In The Hobbit, Smaug has one critical flaw and that is a missing patch of scales<\/a>\u00a0that makes him vulnerable to a well placed arrow. Rather than having the party grind on a giant beast that requires them to be a crazy high level, allow them to be the heroes they are via\u00a0roleplaying. Make it ok for a level 2 Ranger to snipe down a dragon with a well placed shot to the eye. Keep the battles as part of the narrative, make the players sweat, make them feel the weight of the impending doom… but don’t make the fights impossible. (More on this in a future post regarding and impromptu battle\/puzzle where I pitted my party against a dragon turtle at level 5, and they won!)<\/p>\n2. Keeping Combat Short & To-The-Point<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
3. Make epic battles memorable, and terrifying. (16 HP Dragon)<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
4. Telegraph your monsters\u2019 attacks – give players more choice in reactions<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n