Somehow it is hard for me to have fun as a DM sometimes. I somehow prep a lot and am very into writing stuff etc.
But I simply don't when it is fleshed out enough to play with my group. I am not that good at improving right now, that's a skill I still have to learn. I need to prepare a lot and simply don't know when to stop because I should rather improv than "railroad" my story onto the players.
I also have the feeling to have to prepare a lot in order to "have enough" play-time for a session, also I need to create some maps beforehand... so somehow I need to railroad them in order to have a map and a kind of "idea" that I can apply to a battle that may happen.
Of course I always think of a problem or a quest that the players need to solve and then I think of some routes on how the players may solve the problem or quest... I don't know it just feels a little hard for me to keep things on track while also maintaining player freedom and thereby their fun.
Maybe some of you had these problems too as a starting DM and can help me out or give me some advice. It could also be that I just want "control" in order to have fun with my players. But I am just not sure when to stop prepping etc... I feel like I have to have very much things in my head in order to DM "succesfully"
1 Always have some random encounters to throw out. Combats are fun and take a long time so when your group decides to go off script to some place you accidentally described too much, you can stall getting there until you can prep it for next session. You can have some that tie in to the module so it don't seem random and use them to re-emphasize plot points they might have forgotten or didn't pay much attention to.
2 End sessions at points where you the group can discuss and plan where they want to go next. That way you know exactly what to prep instead of having to guess and prep a bunch of possible routes they might take.
Also, just be honest with the group, tell them that where they are planning isn't prepped, you can try to take 5 min to read up on it but you will be winging it and making it up as you go so it might be rough.
It can be hard. I’m a chronic over prepper. I collect a lot of resources that I can plug and play, mostly maps. A generic forest. A couple of generic villages. A couple of generic mountain paths. Then I can just throw them out as needed. But also... don’t rely on maps. A lot of the time you don’t really need them. Practice your descriptions and using theatre of the mind.
ive always found the key to linking your prep to your players freedom is your hook, or your “call to adventure”. Know what motivates your players, and use that to make your adventure appealing. My players love loot. LOVE it. They also love fighting the D&D iconic baddies. So hearing about a dragon with a treasure haul would make them move mountains. Even finding out that someone may have a map to said treasure haul. So there’s your hook. You want your players to go to a town and do a favour for a noble? He has the map. Get a good enough hook and you’ll never need to railroad.
I'm in a similar boat. I have a binder full of maps, notes, tables, charts, etc... and quickly discovered that after a certain point, attempting to reference the binder for every little detail was more of a disruption than making a mistake, that usually only I ever notice. Having a supportive, enthusiastic group goes a long way toward easing the burden.
From my experience, though I am still working on putting it into practice: Have an outline for your world, but don't worry so much about long term continuity.
Delegate. Let your players have a larger role in building the world, both overtly and covertly.
Overt: When a character is talking about their backstory, let them describe NPCs and locations from their past, and take notes.
Covert: Write up 3~4 interesting NPC Templates, but don't drop them into the world. Wait until your players visit a location, and drop them in there. Your mysterious ex-rogue might end up as a tavernkeeper, arms dealer, or a baker depending on what motivates the players. Don't bog yourself down with 100+ NPCs and locations that will probably never be interacted with.
Be Descriptive. The more time you spend breathing life into your world, the more interesting it will be and the less new content you'll need to generate per session.
Think Small. You only need to make it to the end of the session. As long as you have one time consuming encounter up your sleeve, then you can drop as many hooks as you want and then buy yourself time to figure out the consequences between sessions.
To Err is Human. People lie, cheat, steal, bargain, and are often simply wrong. If your party goes to a shop and wants to buy something, just toss out a number and see how they react. If it's too high, then the NPC is trying to haggle. If it's too low, then the product might be damaged, and you can reveal the consequences later. If the NPC says something that contradicts something you said later, then they may have been drunk or misinformed. Make notes and sort it out between sessions.
As for railroading, so that you can have a map.... tell your party that you want to try theater of the mind once in a while. Not every encounter needs a physical map. For the rest of the time, as with the "NPC templates", have some unassigned "Location Templates" on hand: Forest, Urban, Underwater, Fields, etc. If your party goes somewhere, your maps tells you what it looks like, rather than knowing the location ahead of time. Once used, grab a new battle map, and let that be your buffer for the next location they go.
TL;DR
The world only exists as far as the players can see, and just a little bit beyond for a buffer. If the party can't reach it within two sessions, don't render it.
Not everyone can enjoy the "no prep" playstyle. In fact, if you read the "no prep GMing" book, the author is actually not telling you not to prepare -- he's telling you to railroad. His example is this cool fight of party vs a troll guarding a bridge. But instead of going west to meet the troll, the party goes east and never meets the troll. All that prep work is wasted. So instead, just have them meet the troll whichever way they go. This is the definition of a railroad -- if X is going to happen no matter what the party does, that is a railroad. And even that is not bad, as long as the players are having fun, but it's not no-prep. It's just "avoiding wasted prep."
So there are a couple of issues here -- one is, how much do you need to prep? You need less if you railroad, more if you don't, and more the less you railroad and the more open-ended you leave it. You need more if you want to use four-color maps and less if you use theater of the mind. You can completely random-generate stories, plots, NPCs, and maps, if you want -- there are systems out there (Mythic GM Emulator, random dungeon generators, and the like) to help you. This can be fun, but it's not for everyone.
Some people are just better at improv than others. I suck at it. Openly admitted. I need to have everything written down, mapped out, etc. I can't just make up what the town is like on the spot... I need to have a map that at least I use, even if the players don't see it. I map out everything -- not necessarily in mapping software unless I need to show it to the players and want it to look nice -- because I am lost without a map. I need to take notes during play, write notes before play, review notes after play, and so forth. Not everyone needs to, but I do.
So to some degree it'll be hard for us to advise you, because what works well for me may not work well for you.
But I will say this: If you are not having fun, and you are dreading the upcoming sessions, stop DMing. At least for now. You should be having fun. If you are not, the campaign will suffer and ultimately crash.
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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.
How do I figure out what my players want? Up until now I always used the method with using a characters backstory and their motivation to get them inside an adventure.
You could ask them. Straight up ask, I mean... "What would you like to do with your character in the next couple of levels?"
I guess the question is, are you having fun? Do you find yourself looking forward to this week's session? For instance, I run a game every 2 weeks on Saturday. We just had our session... come Thursday/Friday, I will look at the calendar and be bummed that it is an off-week. Next week as we get to the end of the week I will be psyched... D&D in 2 days! This past Saturday, I was counting hours... "12:00 noon... yes, in 8 hours we will be playing D&D!" THAT is how you want to feel about D&D -- both as DM, and as player.
If you are thinking, "Oh darn, it's D&D night," then it's time to stop.
In terms of prep... I sometimes unwisely do some dungeon mapping or monster stat-block-making or magic item creation when I'm supposed to be working. Again, that is a good sign... it means you're having fun. If instead you are thinking, "Oh great, ANOTHER stupid magic item to create..." again, you probably want to stop.
So... ARE you having fun? If so, then we need to figure out how to make your DMing experience less labor-intensive. But if you're response to an upcoming session is "I wish we weren't playing tonight," you need to rethink DMing entirely.
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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.
Of course I always think of a problem or a quest that the players need to solve and then I think of some routes on how the players may solve the problem or quest... I don't know it just feels a little hard for me to keep things on track while also maintaining player freedom and thereby their fun.
Here’s one easy piece of advice for you:
Don’t bother figurout how the Party is going to solve the puzzles and dilemmas you present them. It isn’t your job to solve this stuff, it’s the player’s jobs. Don’t get me wrong, if you write a riddle, you have to write an answer. But if the players decide that instead of trying to solve the riddle they just stab the riddler in the face with a long pointy metal thing, that’s up to them. Your job is to invent the problems, it’s their job to invent the solutions. All you have to do is tell them what to roll, judge their results, and narrate whatever happens next because of their actions.
There is only one of you and you are busy all week creating maps and doing all of the other ridiculous piles of work that being a DM entails. By the time you get to game night you’re probably a bit tired, and understandably so. There’s how many of them? They haven’t done a thing for this campaign in a week, and they are guaranteed to not be as burnt out on the campaign as you are. That all means that they are practically guaranteed to think of things you didn’t. That’s a good thing. Finding out what they’re gonna think of as it happens is part of the fun of being a DM.
But I simply don't when it is fleshed out enough to play with my group. I am not that good at improving right now, that's a skill I still have to learn. I need to prepare a lot and simply don't know when to stop because I should rather improv than "railroad" my story onto the players.
Here’s another relatively easy one to try and help with:
Don’t write a story. If you want to wrote a story, that’s called being a writer. The DM’s job is not to write the story. Our job is to write the setting, and the villains and all f the whole supporting cast, and the narration and even the weather. But that’s not a story. The DM’s job is to figure out how the world works, who wants to change how the world works and why, by what method(s) are those people willing to change the world, and how everyone else in the world generally feels about those potential changes. Then, we put that world in front of our players, plop their characters into that world, let them get used to it a little, and then start implementing all of those changes we wrote. The players job is to write how their characters feel about those changes, and what if anything they choose to do about it. When the DM and the Players are all doing their jobs together, that’s when the story gets written. And writing the story together with your players is part of the fun of being a DM.
I also have the feeling to have to prepare a lot in order to "have enough" play-time for a session, also I need to create some maps beforehand... so somehow I need to railroad them in order to have a map and a kind of "idea" that I can apply to a battle that may happen.
Here’s another part I think I might be able to help with:
It will never matter how much you write, it’s a Schrödinger’s Cat. Whatever you write will always simultaneously be both too much and not enough. Always.
A little while ago the players told me they planned to wait until nighttime, around 9:00 pm, and then attempt to silently infiltrate the suspected BBE’s lair (a hospital) through the 3rd floor balcony. I spent all that week completing the plan and maps for 132,300+ sq ft of dungeons they could potentially navigate getting from the balcony to the target area on the opposite side of the building on the 1st floor, and about half the basement floor where the secret lair would lead them. That should have been at least a month of dungeon crawling if not more. I thought I would be able to divert attention elsewhere temporarily since I felt “stocked up” for a while.
Within the first 30 minutes of the next session, at approximately 10:30 am, they were assaulting the suspected BBE. They were doing it in the middle of broad daylight, in front of a hospital full of witnesses, and even blew a hole in the side of the building big enough to walk through. The explosion was after the party killed several potential civilians who may have just been defend their boss and the clinic since those NPCs were employed there as security guards. 😳
I spent the next week furiously planning wtf I was gonna do to keep them from a TPK because the cops had arrived and players hate when their PCs get arrested. They hate it so much they will frequently willingly TPK rather than submit. 🙄 (They were vouched for by one of the officers and have been released under his recognizance.) I then spent the week after completing the hospital sub basement, and the surrounding caverns, just enough for a solid session. They have been down there 3 weeks and are only half way through.
It will always be both too much and not enough. Always. So you just roll with it because you have no choice, and because honestly, that’s also part of the fun of being a DM.
I hope some of that has helped. And if not, then follow the link in my sigline below for the best advice I could ever give you.
Somehow it is hard for me to have fun as a DM sometimes. I somehow prep a lot and am very into writing stuff etc.
But I simply don't when it is fleshed out enough to play with my group. I am not that good at improving right now, that's a skill I still have to learn. I need to prepare a lot and simply don't know when to stop because I should rather improv than "railroad" my story onto the players.
I also have the feeling to have to prepare a lot in order to "have enough" play-time for a session, also I need to create some maps beforehand... so somehow I need to railroad them in order to have a map and a kind of "idea" that I can apply to a battle that may happen.
Of course I always think of a problem or a quest that the players need to solve and then I think of some routes on how the players may solve the problem or quest... I don't know it just feels a little hard for me to keep things on track while also maintaining player freedom and thereby their fun.
Maybe some of you had these problems too as a starting DM and can help me out or give me some advice. It could also be that I just want "control" in order to have fun with my players. But I am just not sure when to stop prepping etc... I feel like I have to have very much things in my head in order to DM "succesfully"
My suggestion: Keep writing. Keep creating. However, try to make a dungeon tie to another vaguely. Have general ideas about what creatures would go where, but develop some alternates to fit differing stories. Keep all of the content that you have and repurpose some of it for new things. As your portfolio increases, your world can feel like it's a giant sandbox while your preparation takes less time as you adjust. Then, if the players don't bite on some of your ideas, the work can still be used another time. Additionally, as you get better st preparing like this, you can simply retool a dungeon on the fly or change an encounter to fit what your group wants to do. In essence, you are railroading them from a preparation standpoint but they are controlling the story.
I am thinking of the campaign and the adventure while being on work to be precise. So it seems like I enjoy it. It is just the problem that I feel like many of the times the "oh god I don't know what my players could find interesting + connecting it to the story idea will be very hard". It is a little weird, I have to admit that. But up until now I have not been able to pinpoint exactly why sometimes I am not that into "prepping" a session.
I don't know what my players could find interesting + connecting it to the story idea will be very hard
This kind of thing will come with experience. You just have to feel your way through it to be honest and accept that sometimes you're going to make mistakes. We all do, even people who've done it for years. I did a couple last Saturday, coming up on my 1st anniversary as a 5e DM (and many more years than that as DM/GM of other editions/games). Coleville has been doing it non-stop for 40+ years and regularly admits to making mistakes.
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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.
Not everyone can enjoy the "no prep" playstyle. In fact, if you read the "no prep GMing" book, the author is actually not telling you not to prepare -- he's telling you to railroad. His example is this cool fight of party vs a troll guarding a bridge. But instead of going west to meet the troll, the party goes east and never meets the troll. All that prep work is wasted. So instead, just have them meet the troll whichever way they go. This is the definition of a railroad -- if X is going to happen no matter what the party does, that is a railroad. And even that is not bad, as long as the players are having fun, but it's not no-prep. It's just "avoiding wasted prep."
So there are a couple of issues here -- one is, how much do you need to prep? You need less if you railroad, more if you don't, and more the less you railroad and the more open-ended you leave it. You need more if you want to use four-color maps and less if you use theater of the mind. You can completely random-generate stories, plots, NPCs, and maps, if you want -- there are systems out there (Mythic GM Emulator, random dungeon generators, and the like) to help you. This can be fun, but it's not for everyone.
Some people are just better at improv than others. I suck at it. Openly admitted. I need to have everything written down, mapped out, etc. I can't just make up what the town is like on the spot... I need to have a map that at least I use, even if the players don't see it. I map out everything -- not necessarily in mapping software unless I need to show it to the players and want it to look nice -- because I am lost without a map. I need to take notes during play, write notes before play, review notes after play, and so forth. Not everyone needs to, but I do.
So to some degree it'll be hard for us to advise you, because what works well for me may not work well for you.
But I will say this: If you are not having fun, and you are dreading the upcoming sessions, stop DMing. At least for now. You should be having fun. If you are not, the campaign will suffer and ultimately crash.
I just had a quick comment "So instead, just have them meet the troll whichever way they go. This is the definition of a railroad."
This is not the definition of a railroad - if you think that is the case then you have never played in a game where you have been railroaded.
Here is the difference ... railroad is a PLAYER perception, not a DM one.
1) If the players KNOW that there is a bridge to the west with a troll and choose to go east KNOWing that there is no bridge with a troll but encounter one anyway - THAT is a railroad. The players realize that their choice makes no difference, the same events occur no matter what choices they make, they end up in the same locations and their decisions aren't relevant. THAT is a railroad and yes I have played with DMs who were so desperate to see their plot line come to fruition that it became obvious to the players that no matter what choices they made the events they would encounter would remain the same.
2) If the players arrive at a cross-roads with three exits and decide to go east and encounter a bridge with a troll that is NOT a railroad. From a player perspective the characters made a decision with certain consequences. If they go back to the cross roads and make a different choice to see what is there, the DM could decide that the other two roads are free of bridges and trolls or alternatively, the players may discover that each road has a bridge with a troll and that the trolls are members of the troll bridgekeeper and tolls union and actually go around building bridges to support their members. However, whether there was one troll bridge, two, three or more - none of this is a railroad because the players don't know that no matter which road they picked the first one would have a bridge with a troll. A good DM doesn't do this every time but honestly, a player has no way to tell when their decision affects the plot line or not and if the players are completely unaware and believe that their decisions matter then the game is not a railroad.
Railroads happen when player decisions become obviously disconnected from the plot progression from the perspective of the players, not the DM.
It is the same with the use of "random" encounters described as an alternate method of providing content if the party goes in an unexpected direction. As long as the players do NOT know where things are the DM is free to move them around as long as it remains consistent with whatever information has been provided to the players. That is not railroading, that is DMing :)
P.S. Just for reference, I tend to be one of those higher improv, lower prep type DMs (driven in part by real life requirements) who will have a variety of content available for the narrative along with several plot arcs going on simultaneously that the characters could become involved with. The key to this type of DMing is to make notes of whatever you create or information you tell the players so that you can keep future plot developments consistent with what the players know. Otherwise, the limits are what you can imagine and tie back to the world and the events occurring throughout it.
So guys, maybe i got this wrong BUT:
Somehow it is hard for me to have fun as a DM sometimes. I somehow prep a lot and am very into writing stuff etc.
But I simply don't when it is fleshed out enough to play with my group. I am not that good at improving right now, that's a skill I still have to learn. I need to prepare a lot and simply don't know when to stop because I should rather improv than "railroad" my story onto the players.
I also have the feeling to have to prepare a lot in order to "have enough" play-time for a session, also I need to create some maps beforehand... so somehow I need to railroad them in order to have a map and a kind of "idea" that I can apply to a battle that may happen.
Of course I always think of a problem or a quest that the players need to solve and then I think of some routes on how the players may solve the problem or quest... I don't know it just feels a little hard for me to keep things on track while also maintaining player freedom and thereby their fun.
Maybe some of you had these problems too as a starting DM and can help me out or give me some advice. It could also be that I just want "control" in order to have fun with my players. But I am just not sure when to stop prepping etc... I feel like I have to have very much things in my head in order to DM "succesfully"
1 Always have some random encounters to throw out.
Combats are fun and take a long time so when your group decides to go off script to some place you accidentally described too much, you can stall getting there until you can prep it for next session. You can have some that tie in to the module so it don't seem random and use them to re-emphasize plot points they might have forgotten or didn't pay much attention to.
2 End sessions at points where you the group can discuss and plan where they want to go next. That way you know exactly what to prep instead of having to guess and prep a bunch of possible routes they might take.
Also, just be honest with the group, tell them that where they are planning isn't prepped, you can try to take 5 min to read up on it but you will be winging it and making it up as you go so it might be rough.
It can be hard. I’m a chronic over prepper. I collect a lot of resources that I can plug and play, mostly maps. A generic forest. A couple of generic villages. A couple of generic mountain paths. Then I can just throw them out as needed. But also... don’t rely on maps. A lot of the time you don’t really need them. Practice your descriptions and using theatre of the mind.
ive always found the key to linking your prep to your players freedom is your hook, or your “call to adventure”. Know what motivates your players, and use that to make your adventure appealing. My players love loot. LOVE it. They also love fighting the D&D iconic baddies. So hearing about a dragon with a treasure haul would make them move mountains. Even finding out that someone may have a map to said treasure haul. So there’s your hook. You want your players to go to a town and do a favour for a noble? He has the map. Get a good enough hook and you’ll never need to railroad.
I'm in a similar boat. I have a binder full of maps, notes, tables, charts, etc... and quickly discovered that after a certain point, attempting to reference the binder for every little detail was more of a disruption than making a mistake, that usually only I ever notice. Having a supportive, enthusiastic group goes a long way toward easing the burden.
From my experience, though I am still working on putting it into practice: Have an outline for your world, but don't worry so much about long term continuity.
Delegate. Let your players have a larger role in building the world, both overtly and covertly.
Overt: When a character is talking about their backstory, let them describe NPCs and locations from their past, and take notes.
Covert: Write up 3~4 interesting NPC Templates, but don't drop them into the world. Wait until your players visit a location, and drop them in there. Your mysterious ex-rogue might end up as a tavernkeeper, arms dealer, or a baker depending on what motivates the players. Don't bog yourself down with 100+ NPCs and locations that will probably never be interacted with.
Be Descriptive. The more time you spend breathing life into your world, the more interesting it will be and the less new content you'll need to generate per session.
Think Small. You only need to make it to the end of the session. As long as you have one time consuming encounter up your sleeve, then you can drop as many hooks as you want and then buy yourself time to figure out the consequences between sessions.
To Err is Human. People lie, cheat, steal, bargain, and are often simply wrong. If your party goes to a shop and wants to buy something, just toss out a number and see how they react. If it's too high, then the NPC is trying to haggle. If it's too low, then the product might be damaged, and you can reveal the consequences later. If the NPC says something that contradicts something you said later, then they may have been drunk or misinformed. Make notes and sort it out between sessions.
As for railroading, so that you can have a map.... tell your party that you want to try theater of the mind once in a while. Not every encounter needs a physical map. For the rest of the time, as with the "NPC templates", have some unassigned "Location Templates" on hand: Forest, Urban, Underwater, Fields, etc. If your party goes somewhere, your maps tells you what it looks like, rather than knowing the location ahead of time. Once used, grab a new battle map, and let that be your buffer for the next location they go.
TL;DR
The world only exists as far as the players can see, and just a little bit beyond for a buffer. If the party can't reach it within two sessions, don't render it.
Not everyone can enjoy the "no prep" playstyle. In fact, if you read the "no prep GMing" book, the author is actually not telling you not to prepare -- he's telling you to railroad. His example is this cool fight of party vs a troll guarding a bridge. But instead of going west to meet the troll, the party goes east and never meets the troll. All that prep work is wasted. So instead, just have them meet the troll whichever way they go. This is the definition of a railroad -- if X is going to happen no matter what the party does, that is a railroad. And even that is not bad, as long as the players are having fun, but it's not no-prep. It's just "avoiding wasted prep."
So there are a couple of issues here -- one is, how much do you need to prep? You need less if you railroad, more if you don't, and more the less you railroad and the more open-ended you leave it. You need more if you want to use four-color maps and less if you use theater of the mind. You can completely random-generate stories, plots, NPCs, and maps, if you want -- there are systems out there (Mythic GM Emulator, random dungeon generators, and the like) to help you. This can be fun, but it's not for everyone.
Some people are just better at improv than others. I suck at it. Openly admitted. I need to have everything written down, mapped out, etc. I can't just make up what the town is like on the spot... I need to have a map that at least I use, even if the players don't see it. I map out everything -- not necessarily in mapping software unless I need to show it to the players and want it to look nice -- because I am lost without a map. I need to take notes during play, write notes before play, review notes after play, and so forth. Not everyone needs to, but I do.
So to some degree it'll be hard for us to advise you, because what works well for me may not work well for you.
But I will say this: If you are not having fun, and you are dreading the upcoming sessions, stop DMing. At least for now. You should be having fun. If you are not, the campaign will suffer and ultimately crash.
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.
That is indeed a very good point, thank you!
How do I figure out what my players want? Up until now I always used the method with using a characters backstory and their motivation to get them inside an adventure.
I guess time will tell, right?
You could ask them. Straight up ask, I mean... "What would you like to do with your character in the next couple of levels?"
I guess the question is, are you having fun? Do you find yourself looking forward to this week's session? For instance, I run a game every 2 weeks on Saturday. We just had our session... come Thursday/Friday, I will look at the calendar and be bummed that it is an off-week. Next week as we get to the end of the week I will be psyched... D&D in 2 days! This past Saturday, I was counting hours... "12:00 noon... yes, in 8 hours we will be playing D&D!" THAT is how you want to feel about D&D -- both as DM, and as player.
If you are thinking, "Oh darn, it's D&D night," then it's time to stop.
In terms of prep... I sometimes unwisely do some dungeon mapping or monster stat-block-making or magic item creation when I'm supposed to be working. Again, that is a good sign... it means you're having fun. If instead you are thinking, "Oh great, ANOTHER stupid magic item to create..." again, you probably want to stop.
So... ARE you having fun? If so, then we need to figure out how to make your DMing experience less labor-intensive. But if you're response to an upcoming session is "I wish we weren't playing tonight," you need to rethink DMing entirely.
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.
Here’s one easy piece of advice for you:
Don’t bother figurout how the Party is going to solve the puzzles and dilemmas you present them. It isn’t your job to solve this stuff, it’s the player’s jobs. Don’t get me wrong, if you write a riddle, you have to write an answer. But if the players decide that instead of trying to solve the riddle they just stab the riddler in the face with a long pointy metal thing, that’s up to them. Your job is to invent the problems, it’s their job to invent the solutions. All you have to do is tell them what to roll, judge their results, and narrate whatever happens next because of their actions.
There is only one of you and you are busy all week creating maps and doing all of the other ridiculous piles of work that being a DM entails. By the time you get to game night you’re probably a bit tired, and understandably so. There’s how many of them? They haven’t done a thing for this campaign in a week, and they are guaranteed to not be as burnt out on the campaign as you are. That all means that they are practically guaranteed to think of things you didn’t. That’s a good thing. Finding out what they’re gonna think of as it happens is part of the fun of being a DM.
Here’s another relatively easy one to try and help with:
Don’t write a story. If you want to wrote a story, that’s called being a writer. The DM’s job is not to write the story. Our job is to write the setting, and the villains and all f the whole supporting cast, and the narration and even the weather. But that’s not a story. The DM’s job is to figure out how the world works, who wants to change how the world works and why, by what method(s) are those people willing to change the world, and how everyone else in the world generally feels about those potential changes. Then, we put that world in front of our players, plop their characters into that world, let them get used to it a little, and then start implementing all of those changes we wrote. The players job is to write how their characters feel about those changes, and what if anything they choose to do about it. When the DM and the Players are all doing their jobs together, that’s when the story gets written. And writing the story together with your players is part of the fun of being a DM.
Here’s another part I think I might be able to help with:
It will never matter how much you write, it’s a Schrödinger’s Cat. Whatever you write will always simultaneously be both too much and not enough. Always.
A little while ago the players told me they planned to wait until nighttime, around 9:00 pm, and then attempt to silently infiltrate the suspected BBE’s lair (a hospital) through the 3rd floor balcony. I spent all that week completing the plan and maps for 132,300+ sq ft of dungeons they could potentially navigate getting from the balcony to the target area on the opposite side of the building on the 1st floor, and about half the basement floor where the secret lair would lead them. That should have been at least a month of dungeon crawling if not more. I thought I would be able to divert attention elsewhere temporarily since I felt “stocked up” for a while.
Within the first 30 minutes of the next session, at approximately 10:30 am, they were assaulting the suspected BBE. They were doing it in the middle of broad daylight, in front of a hospital full of witnesses, and even blew a hole in the side of the building big enough to walk through. The explosion was after the party killed several potential civilians who may have just been defend their boss and the clinic since those NPCs were employed there as security guards. 😳
I spent the next week furiously planning wtf I was gonna do to keep them from a TPK because the cops had arrived and players hate when their PCs get arrested. They hate it so much they will frequently willingly TPK rather than submit. 🙄 (They were vouched for by one of the officers and have been released under his recognizance.) I then spent the week after completing the hospital sub basement, and the surrounding caverns, just enough for a solid session. They have been down there 3 weeks and are only half way through.
It will always be both too much and not enough. Always. So you just roll with it because you have no choice, and because honestly, that’s also part of the fun of being a DM.
I hope some of that has helped. And if not, then follow the link in my sigline below for the best advice I could ever give you.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
My suggestion: Keep writing. Keep creating. However, try to make a dungeon tie to another vaguely. Have general ideas about what creatures would go where, but develop some alternates to fit differing stories. Keep all of the content that you have and repurpose some of it for new things. As your portfolio increases, your world can feel like it's a giant sandbox while your preparation takes less time as you adjust. Then, if the players don't bite on some of your ideas, the work can still be used another time. Additionally, as you get better st preparing like this, you can simply retool a dungeon on the fly or change an encounter to fit what your group wants to do. In essence, you are railroading them from a preparation standpoint but they are controlling the story.
I am thinking of the campaign and the adventure while being on work to be precise. So it seems like I enjoy it. It is just the problem that I feel like many of the times the "oh god I don't know what my players could find interesting + connecting it to the story idea will be very hard". It is a little weird, I have to admit that. But up until now I have not been able to pinpoint exactly why sometimes I am not that into "prepping" a session.
This kind of thing will come with experience. You just have to feel your way through it to be honest and accept that sometimes you're going to make mistakes. We all do, even people who've done it for years. I did a couple last Saturday, coming up on my 1st anniversary as a 5e DM (and many more years than that as DM/GM of other editions/games). Coleville has been doing it non-stop for 40+ years and regularly admits to making mistakes.
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.
I just had a quick comment "So instead, just have them meet the troll whichever way they go. This is the definition of a railroad."
This is not the definition of a railroad - if you think that is the case then you have never played in a game where you have been railroaded.
Here is the difference ... railroad is a PLAYER perception, not a DM one.
1) If the players KNOW that there is a bridge to the west with a troll and choose to go east KNOWing that there is no bridge with a troll but encounter one anyway - THAT is a railroad. The players realize that their choice makes no difference, the same events occur no matter what choices they make, they end up in the same locations and their decisions aren't relevant. THAT is a railroad and yes I have played with DMs who were so desperate to see their plot line come to fruition that it became obvious to the players that no matter what choices they made the events they would encounter would remain the same.
2) If the players arrive at a cross-roads with three exits and decide to go east and encounter a bridge with a troll that is NOT a railroad. From a player perspective the characters made a decision with certain consequences. If they go back to the cross roads and make a different choice to see what is there, the DM could decide that the other two roads are free of bridges and trolls or alternatively, the players may discover that each road has a bridge with a troll and that the trolls are members of the troll bridgekeeper and tolls union and actually go around building bridges to support their members. However, whether there was one troll bridge, two, three or more - none of this is a railroad because the players don't know that no matter which road they picked the first one would have a bridge with a troll. A good DM doesn't do this every time but honestly, a player has no way to tell when their decision affects the plot line or not and if the players are completely unaware and believe that their decisions matter then the game is not a railroad.
Railroads happen when player decisions become obviously disconnected from the plot progression from the perspective of the players, not the DM.
It is the same with the use of "random" encounters described as an alternate method of providing content if the party goes in an unexpected direction. As long as the players do NOT know where things are the DM is free to move them around as long as it remains consistent with whatever information has been provided to the players. That is not railroading, that is DMing :)
P.S. Just for reference, I tend to be one of those higher improv, lower prep type DMs (driven in part by real life requirements) who will have a variety of content available for the narrative along with several plot arcs going on simultaneously that the characters could become involved with. The key to this type of DMing is to make notes of whatever you create or information you tell the players so that you can keep future plot developments consistent with what the players know. Otherwise, the limits are what you can imagine and tie back to the world and the events occurring throughout it.