Your first few games of Dungeons & Dragons can be daunting, and doubly so if you’ve chosen to play the role of Dungeon Master.
While at the table, the DM will need to fill multiple positions, including coach, referee, and narrator. The following three tips will make it easier for you to master the game and ensure that you and your players have an unforgettable experience playing the fifth edition of the world’s best RPG.
Start small. Many Dungeon Masters want to create their own worlds and narratives, but creating elaborate adventures and campaigns is a daunting task from the start, and a rudimentary understanding of the rules can hamper the momentum needed to push through a complex story and result in a daunting first experience.
Whether you’re running The Lost Mine of Phandelver introductory quest, found in the 5th Edition Starter Set, or a quest you’ve created yourself, it’s important to start small and allow yourself plenty of room to make mistakes.
Read the rules found in the Player’s Handbook, choose an environment, choose a stage, read about one or two types of monsters, and send your adventurers on a short quest that requires them to go through this environment to interact with these monsters in this game. setting. Give them some gold and one or two pieces of equipment if they successfully complete the quest.
Leave room for improvisation. It’s impossible to prepare for everything your players are going to think. The time spent developing intricate backstories for the good people of Daggerford is wasted when your adventurers decide they don’t want to go to Daggerford, but rather sleep in the woods outside of town. To avoid wasting hours, or even days, of preparation, you should avoid going into too much detail when creating non-player characters, locations, monsters, etc.
Give each non-player character you create a name and one or two defining characteristics (like a large scar on their right eye or six fingers on their left hand) so players can easily identify them, but leave the smaller details to come to light while you play. you are actually playing the game. Once a character, location, monster, etc. has appeared in your game, keep a tab with their name and key features, as well as what happened to them in the game, handy for later sessions.
Stop. Collaborate and Listen. New Dungeon Masters often confuse their role as a litigant with that of a tyrant, but Dungeons & Dragons is a collaborative storytelling experience, with both the DM and the players contributing to what happens in the narrative. Being responsible for creating the entire world your players inhabit is intimidating, but remember that everyone is here to play and have fun, yes, even the Dungeon Master.
Get into the habit of asking your players questions about their characters, like “Having been here before, what’s your impression of Baldur’s Gate?” and “Have you fought bugbears before? If so, how did it go?” This gets players in the mindset of thinking about the world from their character’s perspective and allows them to contribute to world building, taking some of the burden off of you.
If you feel really comfortable with your group, you can even answer questions like “What’s a good name for a nervous shop owner?” and work together at the table to get to the base of a non-player character. The more you include your players in your world, the more involved they will be.
There is no limit to the number of tools available for a DM to consider, but keeping these three tips in mind will help any new Dungeon Master feel right at home.
If you’re interested in learning more about being a better Dungeon Master, check out Matt Colville’s YouTube series Running the Game here.
