I am looking for new DMs (or people who want to become DMs) who'd like to get together on Discord or Zoom to practice "improvising responses when players do something unexpected".
3-5 people, 2 hours. It will probably be a one-time, non-recurring thing, but if enough people are interested I might schedule more than one of these so everyone can do it.
The purpose of the session is to practice improvising responses as a DM in a light-hearted, low-pressure environment - everyone at the session will be there because we need the practice, so don't worry if you're nervous about improvising, that's what this session is for!
This session is open to DMs and to people who want to become DMs but haven't actually run a session yet.
I will schedule based peoples' availability/timezones once there are enough interested people. You can reply in this thread or via direct message.
Here are details for how it would work:
Before the session we agree on a very vague general scenario (like "a village where people have been disappearing") to give everyone time to think about any details they might want to come up with in advance (like who/what is causing the disappearances in your version of this reality).
During the session, when it's your turn, you come up with something the players might do that would require a DM to improvise. Things like "The players think a sandwich is a clue and decide to question the village baker." or "The players have decided to break into the sheriff's office and search it at night."
One of your fellow DMs responds to your scenario - you act as "the players" for your scenario, while the responding DM improvises the scene as the DM. In some situations the person who proposed the scenario might invite the rest of the group to join them in being "the players", in others the person who proposed the scene may be the only "player".
This is not an actual D&D session - the scenes are not connected to each-other, and facts/characters/NPCs/locations/reality will change between scenes. No VTT, no character sheets, no specific party level, etc. If the person acting as DM calls for a check, the person being "the players" decides whether the players rolled low/medium/high (based on what they think will give a fellow DM useful improv practice).
If your brain draws a blank while DMing a scene, you can say "help" to get suggestions from others. No pressure - we're here to practice, not to judge.
My suggestion for being on the fast track to getting good at improvising is advertise for toxic players. You will learn much faster and they will force you to be quick with your responses, and they are usually going to be more honest with their criticism. There is very little you are going to learn from a bunch of people being nice and cooperating.
The only other advice I can give is read more books, watch more movies, and listen to more genres of music. Especially the original iliads, sagas, and classics. They are all you need to draw and use as inspiration in any given moment. Eventually you will realize the truth which is: there is nothing original and there hasn't been for decades. All the stories and movies are based on something that has already been done, sure they changed up the setting, but it is all just reiterations of much older stories. All the music is just repeated copies, as all the beats have been played with all the chords, and all the lyrics about every topic you can think of have all been sung over 1,000 times. Recognize these things, and see how they were changed, then when you can re-call them, you should be able to change them enough to fit your world too.
Thank you!! Those are good suggestions with the books and movies!
I’d add “DMing for kids age 12 and under” to that advice - they are guaranteed to do the unexpected, but also not harsh critics of whatever you improvise. It was running some games for kids that finally helped me start relaxing and get a little more comfortable with improvising. I think if I'd had toxic players before I had the confidence to deal with it it might have put me off DMing - but running games for kids was fantastic!
I've edited the post subject line to make it clearer who/what the session is meant for - I know experienced DMs probably wouldn't be interested in improv practice, but I’m hoping to get something together for new DMs and people who want to become DMs but have been afraid to try it (perhaps especially the latter).
Part a “pay it forward” to help new/aspiring DMs get some experience with improvising scenes, and part something I still want to practice more myself.
I am looking for new DMs (or people who want to become DMs) who'd like to get together on Discord or Zoom to practice "improvising responses when players do something unexpected".
3-5 people, 2 hours. It will probably be a one-time, non-recurring thing, but if enough people are interested I might schedule more than one of these so everyone can do it.
The purpose of the session is to practice improvising responses as a DM in a light-hearted, low-pressure environment - everyone at the session will be there because we need the practice, so don't worry if you're nervous about improvising, that's what this session is for!
This session is open to DMs and to people who want to become DMs but haven't actually run a session yet.
I will schedule based peoples' availability/timezones once there are enough interested people. You can reply in this thread or via direct message.
Here are details for how it would work:
My suggestion for being on the fast track to getting good at improvising is advertise for toxic players.
You will learn much faster and they will force you to be quick with your responses, and they are usually going to be more honest with their criticism.
There is very little you are going to learn from a bunch of people being nice and cooperating.
The only other advice I can give is read more books, watch more movies, and listen to more genres of music.
Especially the original iliads, sagas, and classics.
They are all you need to draw and use as inspiration in any given moment.
Eventually you will realize the truth which is: there is nothing original and there hasn't been for decades.
All the stories and movies are based on something that has already been done, sure they changed up the setting, but it is all just reiterations of much older stories.
All the music is just repeated copies, as all the beats have been played with all the chords, and all the lyrics about every topic you can think of have all been sung over 1,000 times.
Recognize these things, and see how they were changed, then when you can re-call them, you should be able to change them enough to fit your world too.
Thank you!! Those are good suggestions with the books and movies!
I’d add “DMing for kids age 12 and under” to that advice - they are guaranteed to do the unexpected, but also not harsh critics of whatever you improvise. It was running some games for kids that finally helped me start relaxing and get a little more comfortable with improvising. I think if I'd had toxic players before I had the confidence to deal with it it might have put me off DMing - but running games for kids was fantastic!
I've edited the post subject line to make it clearer who/what the session is meant for - I know experienced DMs probably wouldn't be interested in improv practice, but I’m hoping to get something together for new DMs and people who want to become DMs but have been afraid to try it (perhaps especially the latter).
Part a “pay it forward” to help new/aspiring DMs get some experience with improvising scenes, and part something I still want to practice more myself.