Hey guys. Just thought it might be an interesting thread to look at what everyone is working on in their journey to being the best DM they can be. It might be one thing, it might be a dozen. We're all a work in progress. Except Matt Mercer. He's the finished product.
Me, I'm working on consistently giving good description. When I'm on my game, I can paint a great picture with words, but sometimes when things get hectic and I'm juggling lots of balls, my narrative suffers.
I'm also working on better balancing combat, by using terrain, tactics, and a wider variety of monsters.
I'm with you on the description aspect of it. My first drafts of my novels always lack description and that's translating to my DMing. Hopefully improving my DMing (no do-overs on your descriptions, unlike revising a novel) will help improve my noveling and vice versa.
But really, I'm so new to both D&D and DMing that I really need to work on all of it.
I'm trying to improve on playing enemy spellcasters.
Also, I foreshadow the same thing too often, if the players miss multiple clues, at some point that's on them and the world goes on, albeit slightly differently, if they missed a major encounter.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Lately I've been working to improve personality of my NPC's. Worked out well since they enjoy interacting with a few of them and gave very positive feedback. Now I'm going to focus more on how to deliver information better through NPC dialogue. Building necessary tension, expectations and such like the movies of Tarantino manage to do. basically trying to captivate my players more with better dialogue. At the moment each NPC shows personality in their choice of words and behavior. But they still deliver the information to matter of factually for my taste.
And I need to organise a few things better. I can keep track of status effects, but it is a bit of a mess behind the screen at times. Need to fix this before it becomes an issue. I already had 1 enemy skipping 2 turns because of my bad administration. That said it was quite a hectic encounter with lots going on.
Being OK with playing to my strengths. I do well at making interesting NPC's, monster design and combat. I did try to start making whole new mechanics for exploration, but it fell flat. My players all enjoy the type of game I run, but I have perfectionism. So I would say I work on being, "good enough".
Note-taking! Gosh I am so bad at taking notes, and I always have been. I'm great in the moment, and if its something that continues on in the next few sessions my memory serves me well. But players are notorious for their surprising choices about where they go, and when they go back to places/NPCs they haven't been to in a while, and I improv'ed it, it's difficult for me to remember what in the world I was supposed to do. I really need to get better at notes.
Oh let's see... I'm trying to get better with my descriptions, I feel like my descriptions are rather shallow, I'd like to be more evocative with how I paint the mental images for my players. I want to get better with my NPC personalities, I feel like many of the lesser NPCs don't have quite enough to make them feel like they're part of the world instead of set pieces. I'm also working on my voices, I'm no Critical Role but, I'd like to get more miles out of my vocal chords.
From a different standpoint: I'm also working on becoming a better DM tutor. With the upsurge of interest in the hobby a number of people have come to me looking to learn the craft. I'd love to be able to understand and help each of them so they can run memorable, and enjoyable, games.
Not prepping everything! I'm naturally meticulous and want my list of NPC names to all be fully fleshed, the towns/cities/villages to be fully fleshed with names of NPCs and buildings...the list goes on. I don't have all the monarchs' family histories completed yet or all the settlements named and I don't know who all my BBEGs are going to be... I'm trying to get more used to winging it and doing more improv so when I have to I can. I'm personally using it to help with my anxiety about the unknown.
Aside from not over-planning I'm working on my voices, to try and give more character to NPCs that way. I feel I'm pretty descriptive until I start feeling overwhelmed and that's the first thing to suffer. I'm trying to take a deep breath when I feel overwhelmed, describe an aspect and then do the next thing without trying to do and think and describe everything at once and not doing any of it well.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hey guys. Just thought it might be an interesting thread to look at what everyone is working on in their journey to being the best DM they can be. It might be one thing, it might be a dozen. We're all a work in progress. Except Matt Mercer. He's the finished product.
Me, I'm working on consistently giving good description. When I'm on my game, I can paint a great picture with words, but sometimes when things get hectic and I'm juggling lots of balls, my narrative suffers.
I'm also working on better balancing combat, by using terrain, tactics, and a wider variety of monsters.
I’m working on trying to see things from my player’s point of view, and trying to use better tactics.
I stole my pfp from this person: https://mobile.twitter.com/xelart1/status/1177312449575432193
I'm with you on the description aspect of it. My first drafts of my novels always lack description and that's translating to my DMing. Hopefully improving my DMing (no do-overs on your descriptions, unlike revising a novel) will help improve my noveling and vice versa.
But really, I'm so new to both D&D and DMing that I really need to work on all of it.
My Homebrew Backgrounds | Feats | Magic Items | Monsters | Races | Subclasses
I'm trying to improve on playing enemy spellcasters.
Also, I foreshadow the same thing too often, if the players miss multiple clues, at some point that's on them and the world goes on, albeit slightly differently, if they missed a major encounter.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Lately I've been working to improve personality of my NPC's. Worked out well since they enjoy interacting with a few of them and gave very positive feedback. Now I'm going to focus more on how to deliver information better through NPC dialogue. Building necessary tension, expectations and such like the movies of Tarantino manage to do. basically trying to captivate my players more with better dialogue. At the moment each NPC shows personality in their choice of words and behavior. But they still deliver the information to matter of factually for my taste.
And I need to organise a few things better. I can keep track of status effects, but it is a bit of a mess behind the screen at times. Need to fix this before it becomes an issue. I already had 1 enemy skipping 2 turns because of my bad administration. That said it was quite a hectic encounter with lots going on.
Being OK with playing to my strengths. I do well at making interesting NPC's, monster design and combat. I did try to start making whole new mechanics for exploration, but it fell flat. My players all enjoy the type of game I run, but I have perfectionism. So I would say I work on being, "good enough".
Note-taking! Gosh I am so bad at taking notes, and I always have been. I'm great in the moment, and if its something that continues on in the next few sessions my memory serves me well. But players are notorious for their surprising choices about where they go, and when they go back to places/NPCs they haven't been to in a while, and I improv'ed it, it's difficult for me to remember what in the world I was supposed to do. I really need to get better at notes.
Oh let's see... I'm trying to get better with my descriptions, I feel like my descriptions are rather shallow, I'd like to be more evocative with how I paint the mental images for my players. I want to get better with my NPC personalities, I feel like many of the lesser NPCs don't have quite enough to make them feel like they're part of the world instead of set pieces. I'm also working on my voices, I'm no Critical Role but, I'd like to get more miles out of my vocal chords.
From a different standpoint: I'm also working on becoming a better DM tutor. With the upsurge of interest in the hobby a number of people have come to me looking to learn the craft. I'd love to be able to understand and help each of them so they can run memorable, and enjoyable, games.
Not prepping everything! I'm naturally meticulous and want my list of NPC names to all be fully fleshed, the towns/cities/villages to be fully fleshed with names of NPCs and buildings...the list goes on. I don't have all the monarchs' family histories completed yet or all the settlements named and I don't know who all my BBEGs are going to be... I'm trying to get more used to winging it and doing more improv so when I have to I can. I'm personally using it to help with my anxiety about the unknown.
Aside from not over-planning I'm working on my voices, to try and give more character to NPCs that way. I feel I'm pretty descriptive until I start feeling overwhelmed and that's the first thing to suffer. I'm trying to take a deep breath when I feel overwhelmed, describe an aspect and then do the next thing without trying to do and think and describe everything at once and not doing any of it well.