One of the most useful things you can have your players provide you with is a motivation. What’s their character’s number one goal? For that matter, what’s your player’s motivation? One player might love puzzles and loves feeling smart at the table, while their character wants to avenge the murder of their mentor, for example. […]

​Player: “I want to pick the lock!” DM: “Okay, go ahead and make a thieves’ tools check.” Player: This’ll be easy … I have a +13 to thieves’ tools! I eat locks for BREAKFAST! DM: Decent lock, so maybe DC 15. Player’s super good at lock picking though so shouldn’t be an issue. Easy for […]

Going unconscious is one of the most stressful situations to be in as PC. You’re sitting there, waiting for your turn and a roll of the dice to determine your fate. And yet as DMs I’ve noticed that we gloss over that roll so easily. “Alright Alice, make a death save.” “9” “Oof that’s one […]

I’m not sure if you’ve seen it, but there’s a video going around of country star Thomas Rhett having a stadium sing happy birthday to a concert-goer. Do that for your players. No, not sing happy birthday. I mean maybe. You do you. But make your players feel special. For your next session, think ahead […]

I have a few of my students that want to play D&D. They’ve never played in their lives and know very little about it. So we sat and made characters after school one day. “What race should I be? What class is best? What should I pick for xyz thing?” My answer almost every single […]

If your players are anything like mine, they’ll discuss and argue for half a session, debating a particular course of action. Eventually, of course, they need to make a decision, and we as DMs have two ways of looking at this. The first is to say “you have five minutes to decide what to do […]

I’m sure by now you’ve seen Wendy’s Feast of Heroes. It’s ridiculous. But at the same time, it’s hilarious and purely silly. And y’know what? If your table wants to play, you totally should. Remember that the vast majority of groups are in it for the long term. With no “end” in sight to your […]

​We started a new campaign at my table recently, and as ideas were getting tossed around, someone mentioned wanting to do an evil campaign. “Here’s the thing,” said one of my friends, a player & fellow DM (half of the group DMs to one extent or another). “Every campaign is just one bad decision away […]

A bit. Real life has been kicking my butt lately, and most of the non-essentials dropped off the map for a little bit. I still made time to play, but no DMing for a few months there. It was bad. Pretty sure I was manifesting symptoms of withdrawal. Things are settling down now, though, and […]

In case you haven’t heard of it, the Dunning-Kruger effect is basically when you think you’re smarter than you actually are. Especially if you’re not smart to begin with. As DMs, we often fall into giving our players a sense that they’re stronger than they are, that they’re unbeatable. They win almost every fight. And […]