In every game of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), at every table, and at the pen of every adventure, sits the Dungeon Master (DM). The DM’s job, as stated in the introduction of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, is broken down into three responsibilities. To be the Master of Worlds, the Master of Adventures, and the Master of Rules. These sections can be summed up as follows.
As Master of Worlds, it is the DM’s job to be the living world of D&D. Whether that’s in an official setting, one modified for your campaign, or a completely original creation, your world is a part of the Dungeons and Dragons multiverse.
As Master of Adventures, the direct environment of the game is your responsibility. You are the creator or facilitator of every quest, journey, and pilgrimage. The guide notes again that these adventures can be from official D&D adventure books, or any other sort of your choosing. The goal, however, remains the same. Keeping your players interested.
Finally, as Master of Rules, the guide begins to use very specific nomenclature. The words referee and mediator are the direct definitions of the role. It then leads the reader on how to best act in those roles, which includes the flexibility of rules and limitations. A knowledge of the rules are necessary, but you do also have the ability to bend, break, or make new rules to fit any given situation.
If one were to finish reading these sections, close the book, and begin running a campaign, they would miss the most important piece of D&D knowledge one can receive:
The success of a D&D game hinges on your ability to entertain the other players at the game table. Whereas their role is to create characters (the protagonists of the campaign), breathe life into them, and help steer the campaign through their character’s actions, your role is to keep the players (and yourself) interested and immersed in the world you’ve created, and to let their characters do awesome things.
Knowing what your players enjoy most about the D&D game helps you create and run adventures that they will enjoy and remember. Once you know which of the following activities each player in your group enjoys the most, you can tailor adventures that satisfy your players’ preferences as much as possible, thus keeping them engaged.
—Dungeon Master’s Guide, Introduction
To summarize, the DM’s role is to create the world being played in, run the adventures played, refer to the rules and mediate their use as needed, and cater the experience of the game to the desires of everyone at the table. To “let their characters do awesome things.”
If you’re a new player of D&D, you may have picked up this knowledge naturally, just by watching livestreams or listening to podcasts. That’s an excellent place to begin! However, there’s more to DMing than just watching. Actually sitting down and reading the Dungeon Master’s Guide is a vital first step for any new DM. But also, you have no foundation in knowing if the DMs you’ve experienced from afar are fifth edition DMs until you read and play for yourself. We don’t currently have a defined language surrounding the different DM rules between editions. Without that language, how is anyone expected to communicate how they DM to another person? We mostly define DMing as “easy” and “hard.” An “easy” DM being someone who is more fluid with the rules and is more focused on the game moving smoothly, and a “hard” DM being one who expects the rules to be followed without question (spontaneous house rules included) and to expect no mercy for the sake of a player’s desires. But the culture and rules of Dungeons and Dragons have changed so much over five editions that these aren’t nearly as helpful descriptions as they may seem. Let’s take a look at the first edition in comparison to the fifth.
Long Ago, At a Table Far Far Away
If a player opened the Dungeon Master’s Guide in 1983, you’d find a preface by the co-creator of D&D, Gary Gygax. He spends a page explaining the very basics of being a DM, which describes as having to know an expansive amount of rules, measuring a campaign’s interest by being challenging, yet surmountable, and keeping all of your campaign within the limits of what’s provided in D&D so that characters could easily be moved from one DM’s table to another.
This is all fairly standard, nearly forty years later. From there, however, begins the first difference in the rules between then and now. At the top of page 9, Gygax states, “As this book is the exclusive precinct of the DM, you must view any non-DM player possessing it as something less than worthy of honorable death.” The tone follows the sage-like passing down of wisdom, and intends no harm. But it does begin to separate the knowledge and control of the DM and the players. For the time, this design choice made sense. D&D had a microscopic amount of content available in comparison to our present treasure trove of modules and adventures. Gygax continues on to say that the more a player knows about the contents of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, the less mystery there will be for the group as a whole. And at the time, that mystery was a major cornerstone of the game.
And so, after presenting us with 200 pages of fantasy to master, Gygax leaves us with an afterword. It begins with stating that the spirit of the game is more important than rules, as long as it still holds some uniformity with D&D as a whole. He encourages DMs to not be pushed around by “room lawyers,” a type of player which we now call “rules lawyers,” and who use their knowledge of the rules text to backseat adjudicate against the DM’s own rulings. But then Gygax states the following with finality and confidence, “...also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters given in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons volumes, you are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a whole first, your campaign next, and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons as it was meant to be.”
Contextually, this aligns with how the game was meant to function, and supports the design that allows players to move from table to table, or even to an official D&D tournament. However, there is a dark side to this directive. A DM who follows this advice to a T leaves players in a place where they are completely at their DM’s mercy, and have no concept of what rules to expect or avoid. Because one party has all of the information, a role where they can legally bend the contents of that information, and a penalty on players for having any of that information, a throne forms with ease.
For those who are unfamiliar, D&D did and still does have a problem with DMs who use their privileges to control and limit players. They’re small in number and don’t represent the efforts of D&D’s present-day creators or the D&D community as a whole, but their behavior has dominated the stereotype of D&D players in popular media (such as The Gamers, The Simpsons, Community) for more than forty years. This antagonistic behavior was encouraged more in previous editions of D&D, where the style of play was somewhat different than it was today. This doesn’t mean that DMs who play other editions are wrong or bad, or even that they’re antagonistic themselves, but there are elements of fifth edition DMing that are healthy to adopt while playing any RPG.
So now that we know how and why many different DMing rules exist, as each edition provided different levels of specifics, clarity, and design support, let’s get into what makes an official master of dungeons in the present edition.
Communication, Knowledge, Communication, Judgement
When people say that there’s no right or wrong way to play D&D, they’re referencing the fact that the rules allow you to bend the game to however the group intends on playing. What isn’t being stated is that being unable to do so is the act of playing D&D incorrectly. Here’s why.
The game as a whole only functions successfully if everyone wants to play. To mirror both Gygax and the text of fifth edition D&D, the players must be provided enough of a challenge to be interested. As time passed over the many editions, fifth edition has pushed the rules of the DM into the realm of specific action: catering the experience of the game to the desires of everyone at the table.
What do your players want? What do you want? If your table desires compelling combat, it’s common for a DM to work on making unique, varied, and challenging tests of deadly might. If your players instead desire interpersonal drama laced with passion and romance, it’s also common for a DM to provide more opportunities for the players to indulge in melodrama. Think dramatic lighting, the now-is-forever and forever-is-now mysticality of the Feywild, a kiss for luck, and a drink or two for courage! The action of catering to the players’ interests, while still being the facilitator of challenging quests, provider of magical items, and puppeteer of various villains to voice violently, or even voraciously, is your job. To ignore the players’ interests is to be a bad DM. That’s the bad news. The good news, however, is that being a good DM isn’t hard if you follow the rules and guidance of the DM’s guide.
This of course includes making sure that you, the DM, are having the kind of fun you’ve signed up for as well. This can lead to some conflicting desires at the table! Any sort of requests have that potential, which is why communication and agreeing are important in a healthy group relationship. Don’t let the features of the game that make things fun for you go second to what they players want. You are, technically, a player. What comes first is what you all agree on.
The first way that the Dungeon Master’s Guide offers assistance is to find out what kind of, and what parts of, the adventures you and your players enjoy. What better way to do so than with communication? It’s common in the world of tabletop roleplaying games to, before beginning the first official session of the campaign, run a “Session Zero.” In it, many things are available to be done. Many use this time to collaborate on their character builds, bring forward their backstories, and set some expectations for each other as people. A Session Zero is the perfect place to ask questions that will help you keep the game interesting for the players.
“Do you enjoy political drama? Long-form storytelling or something more upfront? Are you fonder of money, feats, or magic items as rewards?” And most importantly: “How can we all make this game safe and fun for each other?” Knowing that each session is going to be one where the players are safe and comfortable with the people around them, as well as the world they’re inside, is an extremely valuable method of keeping players interested and coming back each session. As the DM, you’ve opened up a space for dialogue where players can let you know what they like and don’t like. Which is exactly what the Dungeon Master’s Guide asks of you.
Another function as the role of DM is to have a great deal of knowledge about the game. Obtaining it assists with the fluidity of each session to great success, but the Dungeon Master’s Guide proposes in its Introduction, “You can also lean on the other players to help you with rules mastery and world-building.” Knowledge is shared widely in modern D&D. Letting your players manage micro elements of the game lets you focus on the macro elements, which is the story being told and the judgements being made.
At this point, there’s a machine being built at your table. Your role and what you manage under it are clear. Players know that they’re getting to build the kind of stories they set out to, while also being challenged by what you present for them. Knowing what your players want gives you a map of their intentions. It’s in this place where you, equipped with the lay of the narrative land, can begin judging where their desires fit into your narrative goals, and your fun! It is in this space of measuring and bending and manipulating the world where DMs gain much of their personal style. If you’re a player or viewer of long-form D&D games, those dramatic moments that have been weaved together from dozens of sessions ago come from exploring the connection between your players desires and your creative ability.
The beginning of your mastery.
Yes, there is a right way and a wrong way to be a Dungeon Master in fifth edition. The right way keeps people coming back. It makes fans of the game, of the universe, and oftentimes, even you as a DM. Whatever works best for your table is the right way. The easiest way to reach your “right” is through the rules, so sayeth the texts.
Do you have a favorite DMing tip you've learned from experience, your fellow players, or other DMs? Tell us about it in the comments!
DC is an independent game designer, and the creator and author of plot ARMOR, as well as a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast. You can find them assisting the tabletop roleplaying game community’s growth on Twitter @DungeonCommandr.
It can also mean new abilities to reward good roleplaying. Im about to give my party the Lucky feat as part of a macguffin that could end the world, both because it's narratively appropriate and offers them a good reason to keep the item throughout the campaign even if they might choose to destroy it later.
That's OK!
All this means is that your players are engaging with the greater story you're weaving. The players engaging with your story will give you more opportunities to find new stories ti tell within it.
Start considering the ramifications of their actions on your story. Sometimes, this means skipping a moment of the plot, but before long you'll find then engaging something new where you can reintroduce it at an appropriate moment. Instead of demanding players go to a given place, consider adventures that can be placed anywhere so that a good idea doesn't need to wait for everyone to be in Waterdeep.
Not everyone likes Acquisitions Incorporated: The C Team. But DM Jerry Holkins once offered some great advice: if you write the first half of an engaging story for your players, they'll write the second half for you and you can get all the credit.
I agree with all your points expect for number 3. From my understanding of old school D&D, it was definitely a game of hack and slash adventurers finding gold and getting stronger, it was made by war gamers and took a lot of elements from those games. And there's nothing wrong with that, if that's what people want to do than let them do it, I personally love the story and character aspects of D&D but I also love leveling up and getting magic items.
Great read, thank you!
No mention of the source material being stolen, but you do you.
That is not the point of this article. It is about how to DM, not a discussion of the history of the creation of the game. And, there are plenty of articles on the web for people interested in the controversy about the early beginnings of the game. Anyway, back to what this article was actually about, I thought it gave some great food for thought as to how to draw the players in and make them co-collaborators in creating a fun game experience.
It was, for the most part. It was usually played essentially like a video game before video games were anything other than beeping dots on a black background. People thought I was crazy for playing the way DC suggests back in AD&D2e times, and even into the earlier half of the 3.X era but less so. The people who liked it loved it and kept coming back, though.
Ummm... ummm.. can I have more please? As a new DM who is about to start this is really helpful. I would love more articles like this. Thank you very much for the words of wisdom contained in this article. It is much appreciated!
Yes, but don't blame yourself. It's very easy to miss. On page 231 of the DMG, player characters can receive special training as a reward. Examples include a new skill proficiency or a feat. Personally, I think it's a little off considering there's a feat for granting three skill proficiencies. But that's a minor quibble, and easy enough for the DM to adjudicate. There are also rules on page 131 for spending gold and "training days" to go up a level. And it's relatively cheap to do so. I like it for multiclassing and retraining class features, but not for general advancement.
You can also train up new languages and tool proficiencies, which is FAR more expensive, but it's front-and-center for the players. You can find the rules for that on page 187 of the PHB. It also gets an optional variant, found in Xanathar's on page 134, which makes it cheaper and less time consuming for more intelligent characters.
There are some games which allow some very specific feats to be taken for narrative reasons. Say the martial adept or weapon mastery feat may be taken if one were given training by the finest Knight of the land after aiding him in his quest. Or you had been exposed to a certain Elemental plane giving you the elemental Adept feat that is appropriate for the plane.
What I'm getting is: Derailments happen. How a DM handles a derailment separates from the chaff from the wheat (which sounds quite harsh but the chaff can kill a person's interest in D&D for many years if not completely). A "no" here or there may be necessary, but not encouraged. A torrent of "no's" and the placement of killboxes is the sign of people who risk killing a person's potential love for the genre just so they can tell their own story, not everyone's story. (Seriously if you're reading this and think it's all about your story, just write a novel and be done with it.)
When a player presents an insane idea, a DM should be ready to let them try it, even if they're fairly certain this will lead the PCs to their doom.
I have a player who has been itching to find, befriend, and pet <i>a Beholder</i>. Despite me explaining what would all that entail.
So I named a Beholder, had it obsess over plants (as one of the few things that literaly can't betray you), made it a nice lair, filled it to the brim with acid pits, Indy-styled falling boulders and spikes, and now I'm just waiting for the players to lower their guard so I can put this encounter down on the board.
Sometimes, your best bet is to say "Yes."
And don't be afraid to use your player's ideas. If they take the time theorising, acknowledge it by either changing the plot so the theory is now true, or very throughly disprove it. Give them a reason to do it again.
You right, Demo_N. My point with #3 was that I don't think it works well for the players to think of D&D as a game they are playing against one another. The old-school games were very combat oriented, and I have to admit that mine still are. (That seems to be what my players enjoy so long as there are narrative hooks to justify the action.) That didn't mean we didn't have narrative adventures too. My first DM modeled his campaigns on the Sword and Sorcery novels of Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber.
DC, thou great saint cleric of Gygax! Channel the Divine Word of Gygax and lay down truth!
In all seriousness, this is great content, and exactly the stuff I come to DnD Beyond to read. Rule of Cool is equal to, if not greater than, Rule of Law. When RAW gets in the way of fun, everybody loses.
However, I've discovered another breed of DM: The Yes Man. I've seen it frequently with first time DMs, particularly those who are less familiar with their players. They allow nearly anything and everything their players ask of them. This leads to the player's decisions in character creation and story to be worth much, much less. Sure I could go Hexblade and use Eldritch Smite to guarantee the enemy gets knocked down when you hit them, but does it really matter when the DM rules they get knocked over half (or more) of the time I ask him too? I guess I'll just go Paladin. Oh I don't have burning hands, But! I do have control flames and a torch! And if I ask hard enough, I can get away with it. Oh dear, I have no idea where I am! Can I jump 40 feet into the air and get a vantage? Roll for it? OK! 17 will do it!
This kind of DMing can be fun and amusing, but the lack of consequences and hard rulings/difficult challenges means the campaign lacks any sort of draw to return and continue. I fear the constant (and justified) hatred of rules lawyers has led some players-turned-DMs to tread too far in the opposite direction.
This was good. Thanks!
Anything on how to help keep cohesion in a game when the IC/OOC (in character and out of characters) lines get blurred would be helpful, if you're willing to tackle that part of play. I feel very awkward when IC animosity gets carried into OOC territory. In addition to being a DM, I'm also playing host, and I have a hard time balancing ratcheting up the tension ICly while helping to ensure that the stakes are not so high once folks have left the table. It would be really nice to hear wisdom on how to keep the lines un-blurred at the table between when players are discussing plans or getting into an argument vs. when their characters are doing so.
"You may certainly try."
I have used this phrase time, and time again in every campaign I have ever run and I have never been met with disappointment. My players always come up with far more creative and inventive ways of overcoming obstacles, lore for why a region looks the way it does, and have even taken something as simple as a 5 intelligence henchman into the lofty heights of a well thought and fleshed recurring NPC.
Yes, at the end of the day we as DM"S have to be the world, but its important not to forget to let our players give it scope.
Thanks DC! awesome article, been a DM for a long time and this really struck a chord!
Thanks for the great article!
Nice article. Rules lawyers can suck the fun out of a game.....but the DM needs to be consistent and willing to make the final say. I've learned as a DM to just keep the game moving...that means looking up rules later. The DM has got to know the rules in order to maintain credibility.