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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 storyteller. The following three tips will make the game easier for you 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 crafting elaborate adventures and campaigns is a daunting task from the start, and a rudimentary understanding of the rules can hinder the momentum needed to push a complex story forward and result in a daunting first experience.
Whether you’re running the introductory adventure The Lost Mine of Phandelver, found in the 5th Edition Starter Set, or an adventure you’ve created yourself, it’s important to start small and allow yourself plenty of room for mistakes.
Read the rules found in the Player’s Handbook, choose an environment, choose a setting, read about one or two types of monsters, and send your adventurers on a short quest that requires them to traverse this environment to interact with these monsters in this setting. Give them some gold and a piece or two of equipment if they successfully complete the quest.
Leave room for improvisation. It is impossible to prepare for everything your players are going to think about. Time spent developing intricate backgrounds for the good folk of Daggerford is wasted when your adventurers decide they don’t want to go to Daggerford, preferring to sleep in the woods on the outskirts of town instead. 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 (such as a large scar over the right eye or six fingers on the left hand) so that players can easily identify them, but leave the smaller details to them. 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 token with their name and key characteristics, as well as what happened to them in the game, handy for later sessions.
Arrest. Collaborate and Listen. New Dungeon Masters often mistake their role as a litigator for 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 in the habit of asking your players questions about their characters, such as “Having been here before, what is your impression of Baldur’s Gate?” and “Have you fought bugbears before? If so, how did it go?” This puts 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’re 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 become.
There’s no limit to the number of tools available for a DM to consider, but keeping these three tips in mind will help make any new Dungeon Master feel right at home.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to be a better Dungeon Master, check out Matt Colville’s Running the Game YouTube series here.