SOOOO I'm currently running the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure and I want to make my adventure fun and not boring. I've kind of been getting anxiety from it because I'm afraid I'm doing a bad job. I think most of my players are warrior types but I kind of want to insinuate more of the roleplay aspects out of the players and to be better at describing stuff etc. Any tips for being a better DM and with the questions above? I want the new DM anxiety to stop!
I'm a new DM, so I've only heard about not experienced this. It seems that maybe they're not the right group for your DMing style? People just want different things, and maybe all these people want is to beat up goblins or something. None of it means your doing a poor job, just that you haven't found the right people yet.
1. practice/repetition - that’s basically all it takes to get better at literally everything.
2. Preparing for the beginning of the session:. The beginning of every session is, most of the time, the only thing you can predict with absolute certainty what might happen next. If you ended your previous session entering a tavern, you know 100% your next session is going to start in a tavern. This allows you to be able to write out nice descriptions without having to make it up on the fly.
SOOOO I'm currently running the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure and I want to make my adventure fun and not boring. I've kind of been getting anxiety from it because I'm afraid I'm doing a bad job. I think most of my players are warrior types but I kind of want to insinuate more of the roleplay aspects out of the players and to be better at describing stuff etc. Any tips for being a better DM and with the questions above? I want the new DM anxiety to stop!
Sly Flourish has a breakdown of when he ran Icespire including several modifications he made to it, but most importantly, he talks about what it was he liked and what he changed about it. I find his perspectives to be logical and informative toward running the game. Mike is an experienced DM. Maybe reading his thoughts might help you take on some new perspective yourself.
Have a session 0. Even if you've already started your campaign, stop for 1 session and do a Session 0. In Session 0, we talk with the players about what kind of game they want to play, and what elements of D&D they want to emphasize. Instead of guessing what they want, let them explicitly tell you what they want. And then, if you are willing to run the sort of game they want to play, then you run that for them. Some groups want to hack-and-loot. Some want dramatic RP. Some, like my group, want to kind of do a little of everything. Find out what they want and try to give it to them.
The main issue here comes when the DM wants to run one kind of game, but the players want to play in another. For example, you want to run a city adventure full of intrigue and faction politics and very little combat, and they want to go out into the wilds and investigate ruins and kill monsters. If you don't like what each other wants to do, then you may have to realize that someone else should DM for this group. Not necessarily a pleasant thing to realize, but better than going weeks or months with either you or the players being miserable (this will inevitably end up killing the campaign anyway).
The other thing I'll recommend, as I always do, is to give a watch to Matt Colville's Running the Game series on YouTube. He's been working on it for about 4 years, and there are almost 100 episodes, all of them with many pearls of wisdom for new and experienced DMs alike. You won't really find better advice on the internet than his.
SOOOO I'm currently running the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure and I want to make my adventure fun and not boring. I've kind of been getting anxiety from it because I'm afraid I'm doing a bad job. I think most of my players are warrior types but I kind of want to insinuate more of the roleplay aspects out of the players and to be better at describing stuff etc. Any tips for being a better DM and with the questions above? I want the new DM anxiety to stop!
I accidentally exploded a PC's heart one time...
I'm a new DM, so I've only heard about not experienced this. It seems that maybe they're not the right group for your DMing style? People just want different things, and maybe all these people want is to beat up goblins or something. None of it means your doing a poor job, just that you haven't found the right people yet.
1. practice/repetition - that’s basically all it takes to get better at literally everything.
2. Preparing for the beginning of the session:. The beginning of every session is, most of the time, the only thing you can predict with absolute certainty what might happen next. If you ended your previous session entering a tavern, you know 100% your next session is going to start in a tavern. This allows you to be able to write out nice descriptions without having to make it up on the fly.
3 Read fantasy novels.
Sly Flourish has a breakdown of when he ran Icespire including several modifications he made to it, but most importantly, he talks about what it was he liked and what he changed about it. I find his perspectives to be logical and informative toward running the game. Mike is an experienced DM. Maybe reading his thoughts might help you take on some new perspective yourself.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Have a session 0. Even if you've already started your campaign, stop for 1 session and do a Session 0. In Session 0, we talk with the players about what kind of game they want to play, and what elements of D&D they want to emphasize. Instead of guessing what they want, let them explicitly tell you what they want. And then, if you are willing to run the sort of game they want to play, then you run that for them. Some groups want to hack-and-loot. Some want dramatic RP. Some, like my group, want to kind of do a little of everything. Find out what they want and try to give it to them.
The main issue here comes when the DM wants to run one kind of game, but the players want to play in another. For example, you want to run a city adventure full of intrigue and faction politics and very little combat, and they want to go out into the wilds and investigate ruins and kill monsters. If you don't like what each other wants to do, then you may have to realize that someone else should DM for this group. Not necessarily a pleasant thing to realize, but better than going weeks or months with either you or the players being miserable (this will inevitably end up killing the campaign anyway).
The other thing I'll recommend, as I always do, is to give a watch to Matt Colville's Running the Game series on YouTube. He's been working on it for about 4 years, and there are almost 100 episodes, all of them with many pearls of wisdom for new and experienced DMs alike. You won't really find better advice on the internet than his.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.