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Covered in the video, in regards to having villains work through lieutenants. This is a specific subset of the DM's Gun Safety Rule: Never put anything in front of the players that you are not prepared to have them kill.
Currently running Curse of Strahd. It feels like Strahd should be interacting with players like Handsome Jack. Should I continue with this or should I send his brides to deal with the early interactions?
@@TheEctomancer I'm not familiar with the adventure, and it has been a while since I played Borderlands, but didn't Handsome Jack usually taunt the player remotely? If you put Strahd in front of the players, there is every chance they will try and fight him early, and the possibility they will win and prematurely end the adventure. This can be cool, if you're prepared to deal with the consequences. If you want to build him up by having him taunt the players though, maybe have him appear as an image in a mirror? Or maybe an animal speaks with his voice. Maybe his image appears in the smoke of a campfire, or they see him in their dreams. It's fantasy, and there is magic, so there are plenty of ways for Strahd to taunt the party without actually being in front of them.
Idk about never. I have in the past and it's worked out fine. The key is communicating effectively to the players, that the threat is beyond their current level. Not something I've done often, but when I have it's been fun. Once my players spent tons of gold on poisons and bombs, enlisted help from the local militia for climatic show down with a braxat at level 3. Their ambush was so well prepared the Braxat didn't stand a chance. Originally, I thought they'd run from the encounter. They proved me wrong.
@@TheEctomancer Strahd has a plethora of built in safe guards that keep the party from snuffing him early. A: he has his nightmare that can pull him into the ethereal plane B: he’s a 9th level wizard with access to things like dimension door C: he has the crystal heart always giving him a 50 HP shield D: he can turn into intangible mist at will E: and finally if he still somehow dies he just transforms into mist automatically and basically respawns in Ravenloft anyway. With no obscene changes to the module, killing Strahd requires that the party have a few of the artifacts plus access to his coffin to camp him on respawn. I say all this just to state: you should throw him at the party as often as you want just to kick them around/taunt them, especially pre level 5. There’s really nothing they can do to defeat him if you play him semi competently.
Not Everyone Will Be Equally Invested: Players have varying levels of commitment and engagement. Some may be deeply immersed in the story and their characters, while others may treat the game as a casual social activity. Accept that not all players will share your level of passion. You Can't Predict Everything: No matter how much you plan and prepare, players will surprise you with unexpected actions and decisions. Flexibility and improvisation are essential skills for a GM. You Will Make Mistakes: GMs are human, and you will make errors in rules, storytelling, or judgment. It's okay to admit these mistakes and correct them, but avoid dwelling on them during the game. Some Players Will Try to Break the Game: Certain players enjoy finding loopholes or breaking the game's rules. It's your responsibility to maintain balance and fairness while addressing their actions. Player Disputes Are Inevitable: Conflicts among players can and will arise, both in and out of character. Your role as a GM includes managing these conflicts to maintain a positive gaming atmosphere. Not Everyone Will Like Your Style: Different players have different preferences for game styles, themes, and settings. It's impossible to please everyone, so focus on creating an experience you're passionate about and finding players who share that passion. Burnout Is Real: Running a campaign can be exhausting, especially if you're juggling multiple responsibilities. It's crucial to recognize signs of burnout and take breaks when needed to prevent GM fatigue. Storylines May Fizzle Out: Not every plotline or story arc will resonate with players or reach a satisfying conclusion. Sometimes, you'll need to adapt and move on, even if you had grand plans for a particular storyline. Some Players May Not Respect Your Efforts: Despite your hard work and dedication, some players may not appreciate the effort you put into the game. It's essential to communicate your expectations and boundaries clearly. Real-Life Issues Can Impact the Game: Players may have personal problems, schedules, or commitments that disrupt the game. Be understanding and flexible when these issues arise. Balance Between Role-Playing and Combat Can Be Tricky: Striking the right balance between storytelling, role-playing, and combat encounters can be challenging. Finding what works best for your group may take time and experimentation. Not All Sessions Will Be Epic: Some sessions will be less exciting or eventful than others. It's okay to have quieter moments in your campaign; they can provide opportunities for character development and reflection. You May Not Always Get Player Feedback: Players may not always provide feedback on your GMing. Don't assume silence means everything is perfect; actively seek feedback to improve your skills. Player Characters Can Die: In many RPGs, characters can die as a result of their actions or decisions. While this can be emotionally charged, it's an integral part of the game's risk and reward system. You Will Learn and Evolve: GMing is a skill that improves with practice and experience. Don't be discouraged by early challenges or mistakes; embrace them as opportunities for growth.
very much agree. its not easy by any means but i feel very accomplished as a GM when i can have a group with a tactical player, a role play actor, and someone who doesn't even fully understand the rules or what their character can do and all players have fun.
As a bard, I completely misread this comment. In hindsight, "friendships" made more sense than "friend's ship." But now my PC is in a thruple with the rogue and the treant on our living ship spelljammer, so that's kinda cool I guess.
Prioritizing your friendships over the game doesn't necessarily mean that you stop gaming, but it does mean that you will probably game a bit less. I've found that to be a worthwhile trade-off. A decade of accumulated knowledge of each other and trust makes the games I have with my group extremely high-quality, even if we often have to cancel for work, health, and child related concerns.
@@petermartin6049 yeah that was the "truth" I disagree with the most and tbh one that makes me think I won't like this channel. Friendships are more important than the game, and with good communication and people who are actually friends you can generally work through anything.
This video went from "you may need to think and have a difficult conversion with some of your friends" to complex high-level military theory so fast and I love it
After months of trying to get my group to earnestly try and embrace Old-School Essentials, I eventually realized that they just weren't the right people for that kind of game. I'm still friends with them, but I've since had to look for people who are more interested in old-school play.
That's a shame. I recently started up OSE with family and they've been great. Half hadn't ever played and the others had limited experience. So nobody was entrenched in any edition or style. I explained OSR, my vision, and what they were in for and they were like rock on. Good luck in your search!
@@angryguy3000 From my experience they'd bounce off of either of those just as hard, if not more-so. If a player truly suffers from terminal 5e-Brain, then simple things like rolling for spellcasting might become a major problem to them. They'll see it less as "Unlike other OSR games, I get to cast this more than once!" and instead as "I could fail the first time I cast this, and then not have the spell available." While both are true, the latter is coming at it from a perspective that your magic should be A. Powerful, B. Versatile and C. Plentiful which is why magic is such a headache in 5e.
@@AkecheNot everyone is interested in playing filth covered peasants and grave robbers, and OSE will never feel engaging to them. Some people just want to play Big Damn Heroes and 5e is perfect for them. It's not a matter of one playstyle being superior to the other, but of personal preference.
@tuomasronnberg5244 while they are being a little inflammatory I feel, I do sympathize with their point here. I've tried introducing some people from my 5e group to shadowdark and even after explaining the rules, and more importantly, my intent with the campaign, it just didn't go well. There were players who said they agreed and understood the game but when we were actually at the table it was mostly just them complaining about every ruling and bringing the mood down. Obviously this isn't a problem with 5e, but rather the players. 5e being so monolithic though, and people being resistant to change generally, means that sometimes even when trying to set things up for success people just don't like change EDIT: to clarify, this was not nearly every player at the table. Not even the majority. But it was enough that I as the gm began to dread game night. So we stopped running sessions.
Nobody cares about your world more than you do, and thats fine. In a similar way, nobody cares about a characters role/story more than the player who runs it. Tie their backstory to the main plot/important world events and make them relevant, and you both will enjoy a shared emergent narrative. Edit: sry, bad grammar
Finally. Somebody who understands the complex relationship between planning and improv. Where DMs fail in regards to planning isn’t necessarily planning too much, but planning too inflexibly. You can plan a game months in advance and still be good since planning was done mindfully. While we can argue about which matters “more,” it doesn’t change the fact that both are consequential if used mindfully.
As a DM, you must say both yes and no. Say yes to your players: let them try crazy things, make decisions, and even have input into worldbuilding. But also say no: give them hard boundaries, don't sacrifice the tone/theme due to player wants, be consistent with your limitations. They will respect you for it.
Listening to Baron effortlessly roll through all the complicated names and places in the Improv vs Prep section is even more amazing considering sometimes I pronounce "oil" differently. :-)
Painful truth: Do not get too attached to specific ideas, unless they are loose enough to get repurposed. E.g you make an NPC you think is cool and the players will love that they either don't encounter, or simply meet and walk off never to interact with them again. If you really care that much about them, just make them important to the overall plot. Another truth: There is no such thing as "balanced" in DnD, stop trying to make every encounter the same difficulty. Some should be easy, some should be hard, some are allowed to be "You guys really need to run". Same goes for items, or whatever. This is more tangential but I know it's something some DMs struggle with: When designing puzzles, the answer should be extremely obvious. I say extremely obvious because anyone who has designed a puzzle will think the answer is obvious already. Your players will overthink the puzzle simply because it is a puzzle. Create skill checks that will help them towards the answer, but won't solve it for them. Make each step in solving it obvious that they have progressed to the next step, so they aren't taking one step forward and two steps back continuously. Give the puzzle to someone who's not playing, and have them try and figure it out, if they just can't, you need to go back and look at it again.
Your videos are always fabulously helpful. I recently had to improv an entire settlement with multiple social encounters. Luckily I had recently watched a video you made about the basics of what's needed for a town or settlement. I asked players how the session had gone. No one realized the entire session was made up on the spot. They thought they must have just done exactly what I'd planned.
Yeah, when you hear that from your players - and seeing their shocked expressions when you reveal the improv - it’s the best compliment, and the best feeling as a GM ;)
The biggest one I'd add is simple; stop trying to be Critical Role. Stop "planning" for a five-year long quest with a fantastic cast of characters. If your game/campaign becomes epic...let it, but you cannot plan to that level. Start with a 2-3 session game. Then add a session or two. Be willing to cut it dead when you or the players run out of steam or enthusiasm. Stop trying to write Tolkien's next work. Think of an RPG as a 1990's Saturday morning cartoon. Tight 23-25 minutes episodes without knowing if you're getting a second season. I would add that players should look hard at themselves too. Role-playing is a collaborative effort, despite what your local players or GMs might say or insist upon. While it sounds perhaps a bit weird in this context, you're looking for "hobby chemistry". I do a ton of geek hobbies, and non-geek hobbies. Every one of them is predicated on finding people with similar interests and a similar approach to the hobby. No hobby is worth doing if you're doing it with assholes - or simply people who have vastly different goals in that hobby.
For me the most uncomfortable truth that I had to accept to enjoy DM’ing is too not put a lot of effort into things, a la the sky flourish lazy DM. What’s the point of writing a complex history and personality of a villain if the party immediately just kills them? Worse yet, I found that when I put a lot of effort into a set piece encounter, I would feel obligated to force the players to experience it. Putting less effort into my prep means I’m not married to any concepts or characters until the actual session begins, and then I can adapt to the players decisions. I can still have cool villains or set pieces, but they arise naturally at the table, with a small bit of prep and a lot of improv. All that effort I used to put into prep, I know put into world building, which is mostly just for my own entertainment, not for my players.
The uncomfortable truth of unengaged players who are only there to hang out is a real one. It's always been the number one problem Ive had with running games.
First is a false dichotomy. If someone is being disrespectful of our time, autonomy, etc, D&D or not, a proper friendship means telling them it's not cool. No situation where you need to pick one or the other unless there's some serious immaturity afoot, in which case good riddance. Edit: To be clear, loved the video. I needed to hear the second one and the no plan survives one most.
Eh I don't really think that's true. Communication problems can lead to differing expectations. As a DM you do not have a right to someone else's time anymore than a player as a right to the DMs. Sometimes expectations are not properly communicated in a session 0 and can lead to those type of issues where you are friends, but you realize that you've been pulled into an activity you are not particularly interested in. Sometimes you muddle through it if its short, but if its a long term campaign its best to either step out as a player or disinvite the player or end the game (if its everyone in the group)
@@AndrewJHayfordI think you are basically saying the same thing as the OP. Have some maturity, talk to your friends and if necessary leave the game or tell your friend that they’re upsetting the rest of the group. The first point in the video is still a false dichotomy because if you actually have that maturity you can have a friend leave the group, preserve your game AND preserve the friendship. The video seems to be presenting conflict resolution at a high school level of maturity.
Good overall, but there are much better ways to ensure player buy-in. A session zero where you lay out the type of campaign you intend to run, with it's overall focus, and judge whether players are a good fit for this campaign prevents a lot of kicking players out later on. Secrecy is *vastly* overrated. Further, prepping is a lot easier when you note what a character's goals are, and their player's interests. Most great D&D scenes can easily be inspired by a character's arc, backstory, and core goals, saving you the time and energy of convincing players to commit. End the session with major decisions like which route to take allows you to prepare in reaction to a decision the players have already made, rather than prepping for all possible decisions. Instead of trying to keep players focused throughout a long session, break for a short time before major combat, with the rule that once the battle stops, nothing will pause.
At its core, I think it is about having fun. You came here to hang out and just roll some dice and kill a few monsters at the same time? Cool, but that's not fun for everyone and perhaps not for the DM who pour hours into prep and see a friend completely ignoring his work. Granted, there may be tables out there that this kind of behavior is normal and cool. That's great! But when you are about to embark on the journey that dnd is, first and foremost you must all agree on the destination. Epic high fantasy heroic combat no rp campaign? Chill monster slaying while we talk about our week? Intricate political intrigue? Whatever floats your boat! But if all want to go to Rome and one wants to visit London, you better be ready to part ways, and that's OK! Unless the DM wants to go to London of course. In that case, the DM better find players that want to go to London as well. Did that make sense? I hope it did. Love to you all!
Our group has been together for decades, we get along well at the gaming table and deal with personal issues away from the table. Yes the plan is the first casuality
An uncomfortable truth - as a DM, you are going to make mistakes! Everyone makes mistakes, and perfection is impossible. When you make a mistake, own it, and move on and try and avoid making it again in the future.
First time DM and genuinely had to kick a mate from the game. Was super inappropriate, also kept detailing things and after being told he just carried on and was rude to several people at the table.
How big of a nerd am I? I called out a pronunciation correction when Baron de Ropp said Damodor rather than Damodar. Literally said it to my screen, with only my cats for an audience.
Unfortunately tho, the moment I pick games over friends, I lose all my friends and there's nobody to play the games but me. The moment I pick friends over game, nobody plays the game because every circle of friend just gets stuck within the mindset of the circling of thought within the context of that friendship. But what are friends, and what are games, when all I have left is the feeling of being lost within delusions of grandeur and the conflict of self interest/worth?
@@DungeonMasterpiece in a way yes but it's not that simple. How does one manage an escapist reality when reality and escapism detract from each other over time? It feels like the moment I strive for escapism, reality pulls me back but then when I'm stuck in reality, I just deal with it until I lose my mind and feel the need to escape again. But an escapist reality is still reality, and even associating with other escapists can't help but grounded back into reality during the moments of mutual escape because it utilizes reality to relay. I either don't know enough or aren't maintaining my reality enough to sustain the escapism but when I finally feel the escapism, other escapists just try to bring me back to reality because I'm either going too far or don't know enough or proved myself enough in reality to be given the opportunity to escape. And then there's the convolution of time. Everything in reality feels like a waste of time unless it fuels my escapism, while striving for escapism due to having a compromised reality where I'm in constant contrarian dejection since middle school. I just get to know more solitude because I'm too far out of any loop to be considered welcome in any. Take any subject, game, or idea, and then realize it's all an ocean of context of its own. D&D for example is it's own whole reality of escapism vs the many other means. Because of this, commitment is hard to follow, as it's also hard to trust putting time into anyone or anything that isn't fueling my own escapism because if I'm not escaping, I'm realizing non stop that there is no escape. Escapism keeps me productive in reality too. But once in denial of reality, I can no longer escape, and once in denial of escapism because of that reality, I can no longer escape inevitability of the sun setting of a life I don't intend. All the potential striving for, only to be put into dreams constructed by more dreams from reality. Break it all down and I have nothing left of myself besides mundane living. But that's not living to me, that's settling for less. I'm stuck on the power fantasy because in order to escape with a power fantasy, I have to have power in reality. But the reason I wanted to escape to begin with is because I felt like I had no power...so I'm always at odds with myself, my thoughts, time, and people's conversations, as even as escapist means, you can't escape the reality of politics and morality and consumerism.
I think point 3 is interesting since every group has a different amount of agency they actually *want*. Some groups will basically shrug off most attempts to create a 'narrative' and others will practically beg for it. But the key point is in this video. The choices of the players still needs to matter, you can't override them, and you should be trying to give them opportunities to make choices when you can. It really all comes down to dialing it in with your group.
IDK, I get everything is a spectrum and some campaigns will be more "scripted" than others. However, if a group of players truly does not want to have agency or impact on the world they are roleplaying in, they must either be very unimaginative, boring, people or they aren't actually engaging with said world. Either way, I certainly wouldn't want to DM those players. There is nothing wrong with just hearing a guy telling a story and passively following along per se. But if I get a group of people together to play a role-playing game, I expect them to do so amount of... well, role-playing and gaming.
@@kotor610 I'll try to explain better since the word "role-playing" is very loaded and means different things to different people. You don't have to "embody a character" to leave an impact on the game and the imaginary world it takes place in. You can do so through whatever means you prefer (combat, exploration, socializing, etc.) while viewing your character as simply an avatar to perform those actions. To me any action that advances the fiction of the world and respects it as "real" in some sense, is role-playing. I feel like we already have a word for trying to embody and verbally realize a character and that's "acting". If you passively follow instructions and wait for the DM to say "Congratulations, you've saved the kingdom!" without making any attempt to impact the world, imo you haven't engaged in role-playing, but just listened to a story told in 2nd person. You are lying to yourself if you think otherwise. Nothing morally wrong with this or anything, but I have spent my time and energy prepping for a role-playing game and not story time.
@adamgalloy9371 I totally get where you are coming from, and I honestly think it's a matter of taste. I've played everything from super linear stories to sandboxes and my method as a GM is to be flexible to my group. MOST groups I've found sit in the middle, where they want some kind of narrative but they want to be able to influence it too. Some players just want to be able to decide *how* they achieve their goals. My original point was that even in a linear experience you should lean into your player's actions and be malleable. I don't think the outcome of the campaign should ever be truly 'pre-written' of course. Then yea, you're more or less writing a book.
@@adamgalloy9371My group LOVES being told what to do--infiltrate this base, steal this artifact, kill this bad guy. Give them a clear and obvious goal. Then, back off and let them execute it in whatever way they desire. They don't really want to decide WHAT to do, they want to decide HOW they do it.
Bro, I LOVE how the "Uncomfortable hard truth" for DM's is all about being too nice, caring, and considerate lmaooo. I thought it was going to be about ego maniacs
I had to come back to this video as the "Pleasing Everyone" section I found to be the most enlightening and helpful. Thank you the advice! We had a free game night from our regular campaign and everyone was wanting to play something, but not committing to anything. In the past I would have presented a list of choices of things I had available and let them pick, which either ended in no choice being made and we just play Jackbox, or a game I wasn't enthusiastic about. This last time though I specifically said which game we were playing and gave them the guidelines to roll up quick characters, the session was a blast and I felt so invigorated. Thanks Baron!
Some great thoughts to reflect on Baron! I’ve definitely learned a lot of lessons on prep vs improv when trying to put together different adventures. The ideas of mapping NPC motivations and terrain can really help build a framework that the players can run wild in. I recently read more about node based adventures as well. Thinking through what and who lives in each node and the reasons they could connect to other nodes has also helped prepare a loose idea of the world while providing the flexibility the players need to help create the rest of that world through their actions.
No one will ever care about your lore more than you, so know that if the thing you like most is the cool lore of your game… your players are likely to never bring it up or nerd out on it. Hard pill for me, but years of experience has shaped this hypothesis.
I disagree with the entire schema of friendship vs game. You can have a friend that it turns out you don’t want to play D&D with, and you don’t have to immediately ostracize them afterwards.
Man... this video came a little too late for me. I managed to get like 20 friends to play D&D during the pandemic. Now I play with just one of them who is compatible with my playstyle and has similar expectations of what a "fun" D&D game is. The few were incompatible, one was edgelord extremus, and the majority didn't had time nor interest to play the game. Anyway, to all beginner DMs. This is honestly one if not the best non-mechanics based DM advice videos that YOU need to hear. Especially for advice number 1 and advice number 2. Relating to the advice. One of the best advice/lines I've heard about inviting friends to play D&D is this: "You don't have to have every friend you have involved in every hobby you have" - Dungeon Craft (Let's Talk About THAT Guy, Ep.275). Sometimes, it's better to go solo and meet strangers to play the game. You'll know more people AND you can leave groups freely without the awkwardness/fear associated with telling friends that they're not a good fit in the group. Lastly, when your group becomes shit, remember the adage "No D&D is better than bad D&D".
This is probably one of the most important videos and articles on game mastering, especially, I'd say, the truths about friendships, player favouritism and relationships. The only thing I'd like to add is that it is important to remember that you don't need to exclude a friend from the group of friends if there is any issue with them, just hang out with them other times! This may be obvious, but the way you put it, it seems that the game is people's only past time together. I don't think you believe on that, just that the way you put it gives this impression. Also, I guess that some people, especially children and teens will feel that excluding a friend from a game will be same as ending a friendship, which is not true at all!
Yep, I think some younger people watching this will interpret it as permission to be shitty to their friends, as if being a GM gives them power over who does or doesn’t get to be part of the in-group.
I prefer talking to friends to resolve issues, ensuring similar play time among different people in the group, (no complaint about respecting player decisions, except for just telling players openly where my ideas need guidance and asking them whether that’s ok), and I usually don’t play D&D but other RPGs, so what you describe as to be prepared is not what I usually need ☺ But it was interesting to listen anyway - thank you 🙂
Power Gamers (players trying to optimize characters for their role in the party via system mastery) are fine. Munchkins (players who prioritize their own enjoyment at the expense of the rest of the group and seek every conceivable advantage they can bully and argue their way into) can go die in a fire.
I disagree with some of this. No game is more important than the people playing it. I might need a new group to play the game I want to play, or I might need to change the game to fit the style of the people I want to play with, but whatever I choose I should never value a thing above a person.
That was awesome! Nice to see Moltke being referenced; there's a habit in 5e (in particular) for DMs and players to ignore theory (dramatic and literary especially) then whinge with things go to hell... 😅
The art of improvisation is the greatest magic there is. Masters really do need to learn it, if they want to get even remotely good at the table. Its kinda sad the resources nowadays don't tend to foster that spirit. A video (or a few) on how to get your improv game up would surely be very useful.
You are very good at what you do and these videos are tremendously helpful. I am glad channels like yours exist and it is helping me improve as a Dungeon Master so thank you.
Feels like a good counter argument to How to be a great GM's "Don't be a dungeon Master if," Video. That seemed to prioritize the the player's enjoyment over the DM's at the Expense of the DM's good time. Guy's video felt like it boiled down to don't be a DM if you don't want to be a doormat.
It’s a collaboration between all the players, with the GM being just another player. There needs to be a degree of respect, maturity and creative compromise among all the players to make it work well. The first two points in this video are not great advice.
@@Pneumanon Isn't that the point of the first two points? It basically says if players are not being respectful of the game, then cut them out. You can certainly try to communicate with them and fix the issues, but that will not always work. Sometimes people just can't play along, and it takes maturity to recognize and respect that. The point about prioritizing yourself basically boils down to recognizing that you, as the GM who takes on basically all the responsibility, are first in line if, as inevitably will be the case, you must choose between satisfying certain players. That makes sense to me, since it's not always possible to satisfy everyone.
@@thearcanehunter2736 No, it's not the same point. The first point is a theoretical abstraction that comes across as logically sound but in practice is a terrible way to conceive of the social contract of a game. Honestly, it's a juvenile way to treat your so-called friends. The GM is not the boss of the friend group. Just because they have volunteered to run a game for their friends does not give them power and authority over their friends. All the players are collaborating- working together- to have fun together. It is up to everyone involved to play nicely with each other so that all the players can have fun together. I thought people learned that in kindergarten. The GM can be just as much out of line as any other player, and teaching people that it is a 'hard truth' that GMs have some authority to 'cut people out', encourages the very bad attitude that the GM has some special authority over their friends. There is no shortage of power-tripping GMs, especially among younger, less-experienced players who may be watching videos like this for advice. Social rejection can be genuinely damaging to people and should be handled carefully. Yes, when conflict arises, people should try to work it out. That's nothing like saying "you have to choose which relationship comes first, your relationship to your friends or your relationship to the game". There is no need to choose one or the other. In the case where you do decide- as a group- that one person is being too disruptive, then what people should be encouraged to do is actually learn how to communicate that to the person while _preserving_ the friendship as much as possible. The second point is also fairly bad advice- the GM (in the majority of cases) has volunteered to run a game for their friends. Nobody owes them _anything_ for that, other than some courtesy and gratitude for taking on the work & responsibility of running the game. The GM can choose to run the game primarily for their own enjoyment, under the justification that they are putting in the most work. Ok... but it's bad advice, because the GM has offered to run a game _for_ _other_ _people_ to play. If the GM doesn't cater to what other people are interested in, they shouldn't be surprised if their players (weirdly enough) aren't interested in playing. If they want a perfect little self indulgent fantasy session they can have that much more easily on their own. Everyone knows it's hard enough to get players to the table to begin with, presenting something they're not interested in is not going to help. Does that mean that "oh now you have to choose someone in the group specifically to cater to because you can't please everyone?" No, that's another false dichotomy and again, a rather juvenile way of thinking about it. The game is a _collaboration_ between all the players. It is partly the responsibility of the GM to present something interesting to the players, and partly the responsibility of the players to respect the GM's work and make the game interesting for themselves AND for the other non-GM players. It's a group activity and a group effort. No-one has the right to ruin everyone's fun, and no-one has the sole right to kick someone out of the group. Everyone works together to make something fun for each other. It's not complicated.
@@Pneumanon So I do think I misinterpreted the first point and that it is a false dichotomy, and in general bad advice. However I completely disagree with the idea that the GM has no right to kick players. As the GM, you have the most authority. This comes from the fact that the game simply could not run without a GM. Sure it's a collaborative game, but that does not mean everyone's role is the same. Everyone at the table needs to respect that, and understand they are not entitled to the GMs time. If the GM decides you are too much trouble for the time he puts in, that's it, you are done. You being friends with them does not make you suddenly special. Now I do agree with you that the GM should put players first - the GM is only given the authority to run the game for the players, so he needs to focus on the players (which if you are a good GM should make you happy anyways). I also agree that the GM should convene with the players on whether any perceived problem is a true problem or not. However, the GM has final say, and that is the rule that needs to be established.
@@thearcanehunter2736 And that is the issue I'm talking about- you apparently think it's ok for the GM to "kick" their friends out of a game. I didn't say that people can't be asked to leave a game. That's not the same as kicking someone out.
Reassessing, rethinking, revising between sessions is how i mostly prepare my games. A report/summary of what happened last session is the starting point of my prep for next session. "Players did A, what will happen now?" How will faction B and C respond? " It allows for great inner dynamics, and a easy way to make the world feel alive and reactive to what players do.
Uncomfortable Truth (to some, but still needs to be heard): If you, as a DM, are tired of losing all the time, you're playing the wrong game. As a DM, you must be a fan of the players and their characters. They are your actors AND audience. If you have the mindset that you're constantly losing, you should play a PVP board game instead.
You might consider this part of some other hard truths but I think the hardest part of choosing to prioritize friends or games is recognizing when your friends are going off the rails. I've had games where myself as a player and the DM both brainstormed ideas for a good month or two in an effort to work with or work around another friend who was not acting very friendly in game.
GMs should realise that sometimes _they_ are the ones going off the rails. This advice paints the GM is some kind of boss of the friendship group. Yes GMs put in a lot of work to prep a game. They also volunteer to do so. Players owe some courtesy and gratitude to the GM for hosting the game for sure, but GMs should be careful not to think they somehow have authority over players just because they are running a game of make believe. It’s not at all difficult to find GMs going off on a bizarre power trip, either creatively or socially. It’s also much easier for players to decide not to play the GMs game, and simply find some other form of entertainment out of the almost infinite other options, than it is for GMs to uninvite players while also maintaining a regular group. It is extremely easy for players to ghost, or to talk amongst themselves and decide they don’t want to play your game anymore, ending the group entirely. My point is, GMs can act entitled all they want, and be as selfish about who is invited to their game and what they play all they want. But unless they are offering an experience _other_ _people_ want to engage in, and have a little gratitude to the group they’re playing with for actually giving a shit about their precious little fantasy world, they are going to unwittingly create situations where their players are bored, disruptive, non committal, late, distracted, and ‘going off the rails’.
@@Pneumanon I think there's a very real difference between choosing who is in a game you're running and trying to resolve interpersonal issues. The focus here is on things specifically in the game but it also acknowledges that this can be more complex as sometimes people will allow game events to impact interpersonal relations. I didn't really describe the issues with the problem player in my earlier post. Both the GM and myself got along with him just fine out of game but within the game he kind of played it like you would play a computer RPG. The focus was almost always on him, what he wanted, and what he was doing. He tried to solo as much of the game as possible and was frankly disappointed at the result. For example he was a wizard style character with no stealth abilities but he insisted on sneaking off to try to solo end-of-campaign villains early in the campaign. Eventually he did realize that other PCs were competent at things he wasn't and that he really needed to rely on them but the process of him realizing that pretty much killed that campaign, which the rest of us were otherwise having fun with. And that's what I meant when I described him as not being very friendly in the game. The issue was entirely within the bounds of the game and eventually it was resolved through gameplay and discussion about games (and an awful lot of patience). Yes, DMs can be the source of the problems in your group but the advice in the video will actually tend to resolve a number of the more common problem DM issues. DM power trips are mostly around prioritizing your story over the players or undervaluing player input, both of which the video addresses. If you're slowly building a group that prioritizes the style of game you want to play, that also handles a lot of friction from player expectations not meshing with the game you want to run. And frankly it's not entitled to want to play with people who want the same style of game you do. Everyone wants that. There are a lot of ways to play RPGs and not all of them mesh very well at the same table.
@@lanir9543 I don't disagree with you. I think the video presents these ideas badly. The video presents the idea that one must make a choice between "the relationship to your friends or the relationship to the game". This is terrible framing. In your case, it sounds like you had discussions with your friend and resolved the issue in a mature fashion. That's great. You clearly have the maturity to separate the game from your friendship overall. Other people will not have the maturity or experience to discern the difference. When you have 'experts' on youtube telling people that it is a "hard truth" that the GM needs to choose one or the other, and that it is essentially necessary to choose the game over their friendships, it would be quite understandable for people to interpret that as if they as the GM have some extra form of authority over their friends and that kicking people out of their game is an acceptable way to behave. The GM does not have any special authority over their friends or their friend group, and they shouldn't be taught to think they do. Social rejection can cause real psychological harm to people and, at the least, is likely to be damaging to friendships if not skilfully handled. It's irresponsible advice. Great for clickbait 'content', but terrible for the hobby in general.
@@Pneumanon Got it, that makes sense. I think my take on it felt more like "Don't forget you're supposed to have fun as the DM too. If your friends get stuck in an intractable argument they won't give up then you have to decide whether to play a different game with them or ask them to leave so you can play more of what you're alerady playing." I think I felt as if it was advice for extreme situations and you read it as advice intended to be used more casually. I see how someone could walk away with either interpretation because it's a quick explanation on a topic everyone's bound to have thoughts about already. And the idea of potentially causing drama by dropping friends from games casually... yeah, that does sound like very bad advice. :) While I was thinking about it I realized this isn't unique to roleplaying games though. If you were really good at basketball for example you might start off by playing with friends. If you decide you want to push your skills more you might try prioritizing games with people who are also very skilled at basketball which might be a group that doesn't include your friends. While with RPGs it's a playstyle thing rather than a skills thing, I think it's otherwise rather similar. So we don't really need to reinvent the wheel when thinking about how to approach this kind of situation as long as you remember to be careful because your friends will put more of themselves into RPGs than they will when playing basketball.
@@lanir9543 Absolutely- I am an amateur/hobbyist musician and I have professional musicians as friends. They don't ask me to join their bands or record music with them because we have very different expectations of the activity. In other words, they know I suck at music! That's all good, and mature people can negotiate these things without too many issues. Lots of people here who already have that maturity can interpret the advice as it was probably intended. The problem is, TTRPGs are played by a wide range of people with very different levels of social skills, maturity and life experience. The people who would actually benefit from advice on this issue the most are the ones who are the most likely to misintrepret what is being said. Anyway, what I'm basically saying is that the advice _could_ be framed around how to tactfully uninvite problem players from our games but it's not, it's presented as "you have to choose and the game is more important". That's a problem in my opinion.
Just satisfyingly ended a good campaign with my friends. We are going to boot back up here soon and this is exactly what I needed to revamp our session 00 checklist!
Eisenhower said “Plans are nothing, but planning is everything.” That’s how I try and run my games. I have bits and pieces of prepped material and ways to string them together logically in response to player action.
I spend 2 to 5 hours in prepping for the next game session. Then i become flexable when the players seeming avoid everything i preped for. However, being flexable in a session with wasted prep time is strangly better than running the whole game from Improv which can be a disaster. Improv where you need it. being a little prepared goes a long way.
7:10 As someone who has gone many sessions where pretty much every little thing in that session was improv'd on the spot, I can vouch for the necessity of improv.
I like to have concrete items/terrain/buildings made as well as detailed plans, that being said, the plans are less my own for the story and more the plans of the various NPCs and factions, subject to modification. I find it helpful for the players to have somewhere between 2-4 identifiable choices at any point where they need to commit to a course of action. I ran a campaign that was very open-world with dozens of potential paths that players could follow and they actually became very frustrated because they kept getting distracted and starting quests without finishing others. But they might have all had pretty bad ADHD, come to think of it.
To be fair, this is all good advice in a possible context as a manager/ leader. In the same ballpark, learning workshop facilitation techniques is also a great tool for DMs.
Sometimes "I love you." is pronounced "No." You can say no to someone you care for exactly because you care for them. The opposite of love is indifference, and often, trying to avoid hurting someone's feelings at the expense of telling them the truth is the most unloving thing you can do.
1. Conflict of Interest (Which is more important - your game or your friends?) 2. Pleasing Everyone (You can't - run a game that you like to run) 3. Not Yours To Tell (The players are the main characters and you should allow their agency) 4. Improv vs Prep (Plans are useless; planning is essential)
I play solo mostly now and sometimes run one-shots if there's an interest but there was this one DM back in the mid 90's who had his GF join a game to learn how to play. It was Shadowrun. Our patron was a dragon. It was neat. Next thing we know, it's a few sessions of just his self-insert NPC (the patron who hired our group) and her obvious avatar mooning after each other. Not sure what happened to the game because I just stopped going. Come to think of it, this was around the time I really got into dungeon crawls and 40k.
On difficult truths: You aren't creating D&D for a faceless mass of players, you're doing it with and for these specific people at your table. If they walk away happy and engaged, if they remember the events of the campaign fondly, you've succeeded. All other victories in DMing are ephemeral in comparison to this: Did your players have a great time?
There is nothing more than friendship and a game with close friends. However it’s nice to play in a shop with strangers where you can play almost indifferent but still not being a dick. But I don’t really have that problem with my friends
Uncomfortable truth: You really don't need another dice set. (That kickstarter though...) That being said, great video, I learnt most of those the hard way. Either as a DM or a player.
Damedar is the ultimate evil henchman! he has his minions. he has his own motivation. and he has reasons to dislike and even hate the real villain, Propheon. he even has blue lips! what's not to love about this character?
One i've found especially with online discourse: Nobody will ever care about your world as much as you do. You do not need a comprehensive history of your setting and even worse - your players will *never* read it. Prep what's going to be interacted with. Players will engage with "history footnote A" as soon as it interacts with them and not a second before.
hard choices are not as such in DnD, most players make decisions based on "now" in game, & the 2nd most important indicator for understanding a players actions is they are not thinking about the logic of the world the same as the DM; logic for a player are effected by occupation of thinking about not just what's going on in game, but also how the character would react. Meaning just because the players is not going to always see the same consequences that you do, so you should ask for a explanation of the reason the character to plan to act that way: it might be intentional just acting in character, it may be the player is to deep in the thinking about character mindset, or it could be 700 other things, but knowing *why* they are acting can help inform the storyline going forward.
Its especially a conflict when the other dm bins his entire game to shift it to Exandria when thats not possible because someone is running a game there already and the actual premise is theyre entirely different worlds!
This seems too specific to your situation to be broadly helpful. I'm not even sure what it is you're saying here besides one of the DMs switched from one setting to Exandria.
Tabletop RPGs are social games and this means, there will be bullies. They may be just a single bad actor, but it can also be the majority of your group, that decides, that one of them doesn't belong at the table and will try to force that player out. As a GM, you are not obliged to enforce harmony in such case, but at least you should try to prevent as much emotional damage as possible for every side. Sometimes, it may be just a misunderstanding, that can be resolved. However, sometimes it will be bigotry. Never underestimate how even your best friends may be in the grip of some terrible prejudices.
GMs can also be bullies, cutting off friendships and excluding people from the group because the game is more important than they are. It’s the number 1 hard truth of being a GM apparently.
This feels like it’s only useful for DM’s who are planning a sandbox game, which is fine. I’ve been in a few they are fun. Not my style though I tend to have a fully functioning world where people in that world are active and are doing things and react to the player actions so having an enemy run away from the players isn’t taking their agency away. It is a direct result of their actions A.k.a. My players are the primary aspect of my campaign but they are one of many things in action so they’re very important but are not the center of the universe there is more than one clog in the machine And the whole friend dilemma thing is just weird. You could just talk to your players see how they’re feeling it’s not that hard in all reality it’s just a game. The whole problematic couple thing just gives you a reason to help the person that’s in the right. I have heard many stories of couples joining and the group realizing one of them is being abused and they work together to help that specific person get out of that situation
Your last point reminds me of Fronts and Grim Portents from Dungeon World, which may be a cool video (especially from you, since you tend to dig into geopolitics and the like)
random tables are more effective for generating immersion than anything you have carefully plotted. when events are random they feel organic, and the game world feels more real as a result.
You won’t make the next middle earth, or Westeros, or cosmere. Your homebrew works and lore will inevitably be significantly less developed than those of dedicated storytellers and experts of key aspects of their worlds, and that’s ok. The important thing isn’t to know every detail of a deeply complex and interwoven narrative in the history of your world but to make enough that your players can believe it and enjoy it. Realizing this made it much easier to world build personally, I don’t feel like I need to have my silmarillion finished by session 1, just the shire so to speak.
I don't like to post negative comments on videos. And Baron's content is usually very informative and sensible, even when offers advice I disagree with. But this video reeeally rubs me the wrong way. Sorry if I come off a bit harsh, it's late here (Germany) but I know that if I postpone the comment to tomorrow I will simply never do it. To me this video very problematic. It's a mix of any of the root elements that are toxic and unhealthy in D&D (and mainstream Trad rpg) culture 😨 The problems presented are reasonable enough. But the mindset with which they are examined? And the subsequent "solutions"? Gosh... 1. Having people at the table that behave problematically (be they more or less justified by personal circumstances) does NOT result in a choice between saving the game or the friendship. Nor is the GM the person responsible for addressing such a problem. If a person behaves like an a-hole, obviously abusing the group's SOCIAL CONTRACT (no matter what the game rules allow or not) then the solution is to COMMUNICATE with them. As EQUAL PEOPLE (and supposedly friends), certainly not as "Master and Player". The game has to stop. The only sane solution is within the realm of social and human interaction, NOT in an extremely skewed power dynamic that only exists for the purpose of the game. Same with people that bring out-game conflict on at game table. COMMUNICATE. The human relationship ALWAYS comes first. Are you in distress? Are you in a bad mood? Are you whatever? Then HERE AND NOW we support you. The game stops. We chat, have a beer, play crokenole. Any other response means you value a game session more than a real world "friendship". And this is just sad and unhealthy. THEN... in case of gross or repeated abusive behavior... then the GROUP should decide whether to GENTLY reorganize their play activity. So the problematic people will not participate (and disrupt) the game for the rest, and instead will be called in for meeting and games they actually enjoy and are capable of having with the others. Certainly no one is KICKED out of the group. Certainly this is NOT a game master exclusive prerogative, nor their personal responsibility. I can't believe this sh*t is still going around as "good advice" (worse, as "hard truths") in 2023. Especially from an otherwise very good source such as Baron 😞 2. The GM needs to have fun too. True. The GM puts way more effort in the game than anyone else. True. As before, the "problem" is real. But, as before, the perspective is so toxic I can't even... The idea that the GM has to "make players happy" is THE reason GM burnout exists in the first place. And diverting it towards a sort of "egoism" where the GM comes first because they "deserve" it in virtue of all the work they put in while the others don't. If this weighs on you... then the problem is THE GAME. It's good that Baron mentions how GMs should not play novelists with their RPG groups... but how can they NOT do it when every element of the game structure (and the cultural "common sense" surrounding it) pushes them toward being an unpaid entertainer for a more or less interactive audience? :( Instead, every person at the table should BUY IN into the idea that each of them is responsible for everyone else's fun. We are friends trying to have a good time together. And we specifically agreed to do it by playing an RPG. If someone does a lot more than the others... there's a problem. Maybe that someone doesn't mind, then ok (until they burn out). But if that someone DOES mind, then the solution is not to make them the Alpha person of the game. The solution is to play a different game that supports a more SANE and SUSTAINABLE play activity. OSR games require waaay less "work" from the GM. Most Modern games require even less, or balance it in other ways. Hell... there are even gmLess games! Why is the Traditional solution always to insist on a game that PROMOTES resentment among friends? Why is the solution to fix an unbalanced social dynamic, the one between GM and Players, always to unbalance it even more, suggesting to the GM to focus even more on their role of "owner" of the whole game? Will we ever mature out of the 90s ? 3. Finally something that makes sense. Until it doesn't 😓 Why do I hear in the same breath that the GM should respect Players' autonomy and only mind the handling of world and NPCs, and that at the same time it is OK for the GM to "want the story to go a certain way" ??? Where the practical advice is to negate the Players the OPPORTUNITY to perform impactful decisions and actions??? Really? Wouldn't be easier (and again, more honest and healthy) to have the GM be simply HONEST and GENUINE? Play their NPCs as the GM thinks they would. Have undefined events unfold as they think they might. This is already A TON of power over the unfolding events of the game. Probably things will go as they wish. And if not? Well, that's just how the game works. The Players act and react and have the rules mediate this all. And the GM should play by the same rules. This puts a lot less strain on the GM, and teaches them good habits rather than toxic ones. Even contemporary D&D allows for this play attitude without creating too many problems. Why insist on forcing on the GM the idea that it is OK for them to decide how the game should go? Because it is NOT ok. And it is also NOT EASY, to thread the fine line between gently weaving the invisible threads of fate and railroading (or illusionism). Why teach GMs that the road to burnout is the correct one? 😡 4. I have no qualm with this point. It sounds like an awful lot of work for what I am used to... but that's personal preference and depends on the game being used. If contemporary D&D is the baseline, than sure, this is actually a substantial improvement on over-planning everything.
This could have been three videos with clickbait titles and added examples. As it is I had to watch twice, the second time at 75% speed, to catch the majority of the points. Might need to watch yet again for the last few. And I'm in the middle of running a homebrewed scenario where prepping the right things to convey the feeling of a hardboiled mystery is very important. I could have used this four days ago while I was prepping the Thursday night game. Improv was fun and plenty of comedy ensued. But the improv story beats were confusing, and I forgot to amp up the tension with Chandler's Law: When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand. I can recover in the second session and for that I thank you.
Makes me wonder... How do YOU prepare for a game? How do you make sure that the "story" will still be interesting? I'd like to know if you got tips on heuristic/modular storytelling based on themes and concepts so to let the plot be player-driven while still be something "well written" in a sense. World building is obviously a big part of the answer. Thanks in advance :)
Getting together with a great group of friends and having a good time is the goal and playing D&D is just a means to the goal. The game itself should never be more important than your friends. I’ve been playing with my group of friends for 30+ years and role playing is what helps bring us together. Your idea of winnowing out certain players to get to the “perfect”, or close to, D&D game I think defeats the purpose of getting together to play. It’s through our imperfections that I’ve found the most enjoyable gaming secessions.
I really feel the need to heavily disagree with the first 'Truth' Dnd or Friend/s under escalated stress circumstances isn't a binary scenario and having to make that choice smacks of a lack of interpersonal, and conflict resolution skills. If you don't have these skills or have a disorder that makes resolving interpersonal conflict significantly more difficult, such as aspergers, then you MAY have to make that choice, (You can always ask others for help with resolving such issues on your behalf) but presenting it as a 'Truth' is wildly misleading and frankly.. a rather depressing outlook.
Agreed, and irresponsible to teach this when a lot of new TTRPG players are kids or teens that don’t have the life experience to realise how bad the advice is.
Never run a game including your boss. I was luckily able to dodge that one, but whoa boy talk about a what was I thinking moment. Bonus comment... Had a group destroyed when the GM learned his best friend was sleeping with his girlfriend. Ironically I never liked the guy and will confess a bit of less than shock, because our GM is a great guy.
Your first point really got under my skin as a disabled person. A lot of us get shamed so much we're afraid to even ask our friends to accommodate us. You need to start including caveats about this when you make abrasive videos. Cause atm, I just feel like you see disability as an inconvenience that gets in the way of your gaming.
For the most part, game systems are designed favorably for the players and not the GM, because you simply can’t rely on players to care enough about managing their characters, let alone help the GM run a fun session
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Covered in the video, in regards to having villains work through lieutenants. This is a specific subset of the DM's Gun Safety Rule: Never put anything in front of the players that you are not prepared to have them kill.
I learned it (almost) the hard way: the party wanted to attack the Adult Green Dragon Wizard who'd be their quest giver. They were Lv. 3.
Currently running Curse of Strahd. It feels like Strahd should be interacting with players like Handsome Jack. Should I continue with this or should I send his brides to deal with the early interactions?
@@TheEctomancer I'm not familiar with the adventure, and it has been a while since I played Borderlands, but didn't Handsome Jack usually taunt the player remotely?
If you put Strahd in front of the players, there is every chance they will try and fight him early, and the possibility they will win and prematurely end the adventure. This can be cool, if you're prepared to deal with the consequences.
If you want to build him up by having him taunt the players though, maybe have him appear as an image in a mirror? Or maybe an animal speaks with his voice. Maybe his image appears in the smoke of a campfire, or they see him in their dreams. It's fantasy, and there is magic, so there are plenty of ways for Strahd to taunt the party without actually being in front of them.
Idk about never. I have in the past and it's worked out fine. The key is communicating effectively to the players, that the threat is beyond their current level. Not something I've done often, but when I have it's been fun. Once my players spent tons of gold on poisons and bombs, enlisted help from the local militia for climatic show down with a braxat at level 3. Their ambush was so well prepared the Braxat didn't stand a chance. Originally, I thought they'd run from the encounter. They proved me wrong.
@@TheEctomancer
Strahd has a plethora of built in safe guards that keep the party from snuffing him early.
A: he has his nightmare that can pull him into the ethereal plane
B: he’s a 9th level wizard with access to things like dimension door
C: he has the crystal heart always giving him a 50 HP shield
D: he can turn into intangible mist at will
E: and finally if he still somehow dies he just transforms into mist automatically and basically respawns in Ravenloft anyway.
With no obscene changes to the module, killing Strahd requires that the party have a few of the artifacts plus access to his coffin to camp him on respawn.
I say all this just to state: you should throw him at the party as often as you want just to kick them around/taunt them, especially pre level 5. There’s really nothing they can do to defeat him if you play him semi competently.
As the GM you may build the past, and some of the present, but the future is built at the table.
This is an excellent way to describe it.
NOOOOOOOO, You cant force your players to stick to a linear narrative! You aren't offering them choices!
Welcome to the railroad, motherfucker.
Not entirely true. You set the benchmarks for the future. Everything else is up to the players
Not Everyone Will Be Equally Invested: Players have varying levels of commitment and engagement. Some may be deeply immersed in the story and their characters, while others may treat the game as a casual social activity. Accept that not all players will share your level of passion.
You Can't Predict Everything: No matter how much you plan and prepare, players will surprise you with unexpected actions and decisions. Flexibility and improvisation are essential skills for a GM.
You Will Make Mistakes: GMs are human, and you will make errors in rules, storytelling, or judgment. It's okay to admit these mistakes and correct them, but avoid dwelling on them during the game.
Some Players Will Try to Break the Game: Certain players enjoy finding loopholes or breaking the game's rules. It's your responsibility to maintain balance and fairness while addressing their actions.
Player Disputes Are Inevitable: Conflicts among players can and will arise, both in and out of character. Your role as a GM includes managing these conflicts to maintain a positive gaming atmosphere.
Not Everyone Will Like Your Style: Different players have different preferences for game styles, themes, and settings. It's impossible to please everyone, so focus on creating an experience you're passionate about and finding players who share that passion.
Burnout Is Real: Running a campaign can be exhausting, especially if you're juggling multiple responsibilities. It's crucial to recognize signs of burnout and take breaks when needed to prevent GM fatigue.
Storylines May Fizzle Out: Not every plotline or story arc will resonate with players or reach a satisfying conclusion. Sometimes, you'll need to adapt and move on, even if you had grand plans for a particular storyline.
Some Players May Not Respect Your Efforts: Despite your hard work and dedication, some players may not appreciate the effort you put into the game. It's essential to communicate your expectations and boundaries clearly.
Real-Life Issues Can Impact the Game: Players may have personal problems, schedules, or commitments that disrupt the game. Be understanding and flexible when these issues arise.
Balance Between Role-Playing and Combat Can Be Tricky: Striking the right balance between storytelling, role-playing, and combat encounters can be challenging. Finding what works best for your group may take time and experimentation.
Not All Sessions Will Be Epic: Some sessions will be less exciting or eventful than others. It's okay to have quieter moments in your campaign; they can provide opportunities for character development and reflection.
You May Not Always Get Player Feedback: Players may not always provide feedback on your GMing. Don't assume silence means everything is perfect; actively seek feedback to improve your skills.
Player Characters Can Die: In many RPGs, characters can die as a result of their actions or decisions. While this can be emotionally charged, it's an integral part of the game's risk and reward system.
You Will Learn and Evolve: GMing is a skill that improves with practice and experience. Don't be discouraged by early challenges or mistakes; embrace them as opportunities for growth.
very much agree. its not easy by any means but i feel very accomplished as a GM when i can have a group with a tactical player, a role play actor, and someone who doesn't even fully understand the rules or what their character can do and all players have fun.
"Fuck your friendships." - Baron de Ropp
As a bard, I completely misread this comment. In hindsight, "friendships" made more sense than "friend's ship." But now my PC is in a thruple with the rogue and the treant on our living ship spelljammer, so that's kinda cool I guess.
Or fuck the game. But I'm more inclined to preserve DND. Hahah.
Prioritizing your friendships over the game doesn't necessarily mean that you stop gaming, but it does mean that you will probably game a bit less. I've found that to be a worthwhile trade-off. A decade of accumulated knowledge of each other and trust makes the games I have with my group extremely high-quality, even if we often have to cancel for work, health, and child related concerns.
@@petermartin6049 yeah that was the "truth" I disagree with the most and tbh one that makes me think I won't like this channel.
Friendships are more important than the game, and with good communication and people who are actually friends you can generally work through anything.
This video went from "you may need to think and have a difficult conversion with some of your friends" to complex high-level military theory so fast and I love it
Considering DnD emerged from the Wargaming sphere of boardgames I think the military theory is very on point for this👌
After months of trying to get my group to earnestly try and embrace Old-School Essentials, I eventually realized that they just weren't the right people for that kind of game. I'm still friends with them, but I've since had to look for people who are more interested in old-school play.
That's a shame. I recently started up OSE with family and they've been great. Half hadn't ever played and the others had limited experience. So nobody was entrenched in any edition or style. I explained OSR, my vision, and what they were in for and they were like rock on.
Good luck in your search!
There are other games in the broader old school style that might appeal to people who aren’t into OSE. Shadowdark or DCC ?
@@angryguy3000 From my experience they'd bounce off of either of those just as hard, if not more-so. If a player truly suffers from terminal 5e-Brain, then simple things like rolling for spellcasting might become a major problem to them. They'll see it less as "Unlike other OSR games, I get to cast this more than once!" and instead as "I could fail the first time I cast this, and then not have the spell available." While both are true, the latter is coming at it from a perspective that your magic should be A. Powerful, B. Versatile and C. Plentiful which is why magic is such a headache in 5e.
@@AkecheNot everyone is interested in playing filth covered peasants and grave robbers, and OSE will never feel engaging to them. Some people just want to play Big Damn Heroes and 5e is perfect for them. It's not a matter of one playstyle being superior to the other, but of personal preference.
@tuomasronnberg5244 while they are being a little inflammatory I feel, I do sympathize with their point here. I've tried introducing some people from my 5e group to shadowdark and even after explaining the rules, and more importantly, my intent with the campaign, it just didn't go well. There were players who said they agreed and understood the game but when we were actually at the table it was mostly just them complaining about every ruling and bringing the mood down. Obviously this isn't a problem with 5e, but rather the players. 5e being so monolithic though, and people being resistant to change generally, means that sometimes even when trying to set things up for success people just don't like change
EDIT: to clarify, this was not nearly every player at the table. Not even the majority. But it was enough that I as the gm began to dread game night. So we stopped running sessions.
Nobody cares about your world more than you do, and thats fine. In a similar way, nobody cares about a characters role/story more than the player who runs it.
Tie their backstory to the main plot/important world events and make them relevant, and you both will enjoy a shared emergent narrative.
Edit: sry, bad grammar
The truth will set us free, but at what cost?
Amen 🙏
Having to improv the shit out of the campaign during the session
$3.99
@@danacoleman4007 before tax
Finally. Somebody who understands the complex relationship between planning and improv. Where DMs fail in regards to planning isn’t necessarily planning too much, but planning too inflexibly. You can plan a game months in advance and still be good since planning was done mindfully. While we can argue about which matters “more,” it doesn’t change the fact that both are consequential if used mindfully.
As a DM, you must say both yes and no. Say yes to your players: let them try crazy things, make decisions, and even have input into worldbuilding. But also say no: give them hard boundaries, don't sacrifice the tone/theme due to player wants, be consistent with your limitations. They will respect you for it.
Listening to Baron effortlessly roll through all the complicated names and places in the Improv vs Prep section is even more amazing considering sometimes I pronounce "oil" differently. :-)
Painful truth: Do not get too attached to specific ideas, unless they are loose enough to get repurposed. E.g you make an NPC you think is cool and the players will love that they either don't encounter, or simply meet and walk off never to interact with them again. If you really care that much about them, just make them important to the overall plot.
Another truth: There is no such thing as "balanced" in DnD, stop trying to make every encounter the same difficulty. Some should be easy, some should be hard, some are allowed to be "You guys really need to run". Same goes for items, or whatever.
This is more tangential but I know it's something some DMs struggle with: When designing puzzles, the answer should be extremely obvious. I say extremely obvious because anyone who has designed a puzzle will think the answer is obvious already. Your players will overthink the puzzle simply because it is a puzzle. Create skill checks that will help them towards the answer, but won't solve it for them. Make each step in solving it obvious that they have progressed to the next step, so they aren't taking one step forward and two steps back continuously. Give the puzzle to someone who's not playing, and have them try and figure it out, if they just can't, you need to go back and look at it again.
Your videos are always fabulously helpful. I recently had to improv an entire settlement with multiple social encounters. Luckily I had recently watched a video you made about the basics of what's needed for a town or settlement. I asked players how the session had gone. No one realized the entire session was made up on the spot. They thought they must have just done exactly what I'd planned.
Yeah, when you hear that from your players - and seeing their shocked expressions when you reveal the improv - it’s the best compliment, and the best feeling as a GM ;)
Perfect!
“Failing to favor yourself means you will inadvertently choose favorites” that’s deep
Once you are a DM, you are ALWAYS the DM. Forget about playing ever again.
The biggest one I'd add is simple; stop trying to be Critical Role. Stop "planning" for a five-year long quest with a fantastic cast of characters. If your game/campaign becomes epic...let it, but you cannot plan to that level. Start with a 2-3 session game. Then add a session or two. Be willing to cut it dead when you or the players run out of steam or enthusiasm. Stop trying to write Tolkien's next work. Think of an RPG as a 1990's Saturday morning cartoon. Tight 23-25 minutes episodes without knowing if you're getting a second season.
I would add that players should look hard at themselves too. Role-playing is a collaborative effort, despite what your local players or GMs might say or insist upon. While it sounds perhaps a bit weird in this context, you're looking for "hobby chemistry".
I do a ton of geek hobbies, and non-geek hobbies. Every one of them is predicated on finding people with similar interests and a similar approach to the hobby. No hobby is worth doing if you're doing it with assholes - or simply people who have vastly different goals in that hobby.
For me the most uncomfortable truth that I had to accept to enjoy DM’ing is too not put a lot of effort into things, a la the sky flourish lazy DM.
What’s the point of writing a complex history and personality of a villain if the party immediately just kills them? Worse yet, I found that when I put a lot of effort into a set piece encounter, I would feel obligated to force the players to experience it. Putting less effort into my prep means I’m not married to any concepts or characters until the actual session begins, and then I can adapt to the players decisions. I can still have cool villains or set pieces, but they arise naturally at the table, with a small bit of prep and a lot of improv.
All that effort I used to put into prep, I know put into world building, which is mostly just for my own entertainment, not for my players.
The uncomfortable truth of unengaged players who are only there to hang out is a real one. It's always been the number one problem Ive had with running games.
First is a false dichotomy. If someone is being disrespectful of our time, autonomy, etc, D&D or not, a proper friendship means telling them it's not cool. No situation where you need to pick one or the other unless there's some serious immaturity afoot, in which case good riddance.
Edit: To be clear, loved the video. I needed to hear the second one and the no plan survives one most.
Eh I don't really think that's true. Communication problems can lead to differing expectations. As a DM you do not have a right to someone else's time anymore than a player as a right to the DMs. Sometimes expectations are not properly communicated in a session 0 and can lead to those type of issues where you are friends, but you realize that you've been pulled into an activity you are not particularly interested in. Sometimes you muddle through it if its short, but if its a long term campaign its best to either step out as a player or disinvite the player or end the game (if its everyone in the group)
@@AndrewJHayfordI think you are basically saying the same thing as the OP. Have some maturity, talk to your friends and if necessary leave the game or tell your friend that they’re upsetting the rest of the group. The first point in the video is still a false dichotomy because if you actually have that maturity you can have a friend leave the group, preserve your game AND preserve the friendship.
The video seems to be presenting conflict resolution at a high school level of maturity.
Good overall, but there are much better ways to ensure player buy-in. A session zero where you lay out the type of campaign you intend to run, with it's overall focus, and judge whether players are a good fit for this campaign prevents a lot of kicking players out later on. Secrecy is *vastly* overrated. Further, prepping is a lot easier when you note what a character's goals are, and their player's interests. Most great D&D scenes can easily be inspired by a character's arc, backstory, and core goals, saving you the time and energy of convincing players to commit. End the session with major decisions like which route to take allows you to prepare in reaction to a decision the players have already made, rather than prepping for all possible decisions. Instead of trying to keep players focused throughout a long session, break for a short time before major combat, with the rule that once the battle stops, nothing will pause.
At its core, I think it is about having fun. You came here to hang out and just roll some dice and kill a few monsters at the same time? Cool, but that's not fun for everyone and perhaps not for the DM who pour hours into prep and see a friend completely ignoring his work. Granted, there may be tables out there that this kind of behavior is normal and cool. That's great! But when you are about to embark on the journey that dnd is, first and foremost you must all agree on the destination. Epic high fantasy heroic combat no rp campaign? Chill monster slaying while we talk about our week? Intricate political intrigue? Whatever floats your boat! But if all want to go to Rome and one wants to visit London, you better be ready to part ways, and that's OK!
Unless the DM wants to go to London of course. In that case, the DM better find players that want to go to London as well.
Did that make sense? I hope it did. Love to you all!
Our group has been together for decades, we get along well at the gaming table and deal with personal issues away from the table.
Yes the plan is the first casuality
An uncomfortable truth - as a DM, you are going to make mistakes! Everyone makes mistakes, and perfection is impossible. When you make a mistake, own it, and move on and try and avoid making it again in the future.
First time DM and genuinely had to kick a mate from the game. Was super inappropriate, also kept detailing things and after being told he just carried on and was rude to several people at the table.
How big of a nerd am I? I called out a pronunciation correction when Baron de Ropp said Damodor rather than Damodar. Literally said it to my screen, with only my cats for an audience.
Unfortunately tho, the moment I pick games over friends, I lose all my friends and there's nobody to play the games but me. The moment I pick friends over game, nobody plays the game because every circle of friend just gets stuck within the mindset of the circling of thought within the context of that friendship. But what are friends, and what are games, when all I have left is the feeling of being lost within delusions of grandeur and the conflict of self interest/worth?
A cynical nihilism that stops you from seeking new friends?
@@DungeonMasterpiece in a way yes but it's not that simple. How does one manage an escapist reality when reality and escapism detract from each other over time? It feels like the moment I strive for escapism, reality pulls me back but then when I'm stuck in reality, I just deal with it until I lose my mind and feel the need to escape again. But an escapist reality is still reality, and even associating with other escapists can't help but grounded back into reality during the moments of mutual escape because it utilizes reality to relay. I either don't know enough or aren't maintaining my reality enough to sustain the escapism but when I finally feel the escapism, other escapists just try to bring me back to reality because I'm either going too far or don't know enough or proved myself enough in reality to be given the opportunity to escape. And then there's the convolution of time. Everything in reality feels like a waste of time unless it fuels my escapism, while striving for escapism due to having a compromised reality where I'm in constant contrarian dejection since middle school. I just get to know more solitude because I'm too far out of any loop to be considered welcome in any. Take any subject, game, or idea, and then realize it's all an ocean of context of its own. D&D for example is it's own whole reality of escapism vs the many other means. Because of this, commitment is hard to follow, as it's also hard to trust putting time into anyone or anything that isn't fueling my own escapism because if I'm not escaping, I'm realizing non stop that there is no escape. Escapism keeps me productive in reality too. But once in denial of reality, I can no longer escape, and once in denial of escapism because of that reality, I can no longer escape inevitability of the sun setting of a life I don't intend. All the potential striving for, only to be put into dreams constructed by more dreams from reality. Break it all down and I have nothing left of myself besides mundane living. But that's not living to me, that's settling for less. I'm stuck on the power fantasy because in order to escape with a power fantasy, I have to have power in reality. But the reason I wanted to escape to begin with is because I felt like I had no power...so I'm always at odds with myself, my thoughts, time, and people's conversations, as even as escapist means, you can't escape the reality of politics and morality and consumerism.
Uncomfortable truth: You really don't need that many dice.
You just made every inner dice gobblin cry
Ow 😢 I didn't need to hear that one
I think point 3 is interesting since every group has a different amount of agency they actually *want*. Some groups will basically shrug off most attempts to create a 'narrative' and others will practically beg for it. But the key point is in this video. The choices of the players still needs to matter, you can't override them, and you should be trying to give them opportunities to make choices when you can. It really all comes down to dialing it in with your group.
IDK, I get everything is a spectrum and some campaigns will be more "scripted" than others. However, if a group of players truly does not want to have agency or impact on the world they are roleplaying in, they must either be very unimaginative, boring, people or they aren't actually engaging with said world. Either way, I certainly wouldn't want to DM those players.
There is nothing wrong with just hearing a guy telling a story and passively following along per se. But if I get a group of people together to play a role-playing game, I expect them to do so amount of... well, role-playing and gaming.
@@adamgalloy9371I think it's like video games. Some will fully embody the character. While others just want to move from one objective to the next.
@@kotor610 I'll try to explain better since the word "role-playing" is very loaded and means different things to different people. You don't have to "embody a character" to leave an impact on the game and the imaginary world it takes place in. You can do so through whatever means you prefer (combat, exploration, socializing, etc.) while viewing your character as simply an avatar to perform those actions. To me any action that advances the fiction of the world and respects it as "real" in some sense, is role-playing. I feel like we already have a word for trying to embody and verbally realize a character and that's "acting".
If you passively follow instructions and wait for the DM to say "Congratulations, you've saved the kingdom!" without making any attempt to impact the world, imo you haven't engaged in role-playing, but just listened to a story told in 2nd person. You are lying to yourself if you think otherwise.
Nothing morally wrong with this or anything, but I have spent my time and energy prepping for a role-playing game and not story time.
@adamgalloy9371 I totally get where you are coming from, and I honestly think it's a matter of taste. I've played everything from super linear stories to sandboxes and my method as a GM is to be flexible to my group. MOST groups I've found sit in the middle, where they want some kind of narrative but they want to be able to influence it too. Some players just want to be able to decide *how* they achieve their goals.
My original point was that even in a linear experience you should lean into your player's actions and be malleable. I don't think the outcome of the campaign should ever be truly 'pre-written' of course. Then yea, you're more or less writing a book.
@@adamgalloy9371My group LOVES being told what to do--infiltrate this base, steal this artifact, kill this bad guy. Give them a clear and obvious goal. Then, back off and let them execute it in whatever way they desire. They don't really want to decide WHAT to do, they want to decide HOW they do it.
Bro, I LOVE how the "Uncomfortable hard truth" for DM's is all about being too nice, caring, and considerate lmaooo. I thought it was going to be about ego maniacs
Where was this video back when I started GMing, would have saved me years of bad games.
Glad to see the insightful content!
I'd rather have a flat shot of your discussion than the AI art on the side
I had to come back to this video as the "Pleasing Everyone" section I found to be the most enlightening and helpful. Thank you the advice! We had a free game night from our regular campaign and everyone was wanting to play something, but not committing to anything. In the past I would have presented a list of choices of things I had available and let them pick, which either ended in no choice being made and we just play Jackbox, or a game I wasn't enthusiastic about. This last time though I specifically said which game we were playing and gave them the guidelines to roll up quick characters, the session was a blast and I felt so invigorated. Thanks Baron!
Such a tightly organized and smoothly delivered video!
Some great thoughts to reflect on Baron! I’ve definitely learned a lot of lessons on prep vs improv when trying to put together different adventures. The ideas of mapping NPC motivations and terrain can really help build a framework that the players can run wild in. I recently read more about node based adventures as well. Thinking through what and who lives in each node and the reasons they could connect to other nodes has also helped prepare a loose idea of the world while providing the flexibility the players need to help create the rest of that world through their actions.
No one will ever care about your lore more than you, so know that if the thing you like most is the cool lore of your game… your players are likely to never bring it up or nerd out on it. Hard pill for me, but years of experience has shaped this hypothesis.
Yes, hard lesson for a lot of creative people.
Compare this to How to Be a Great GM's "If you're doing these things..." video and this is pretty much why I love your channel.
I disagree with the entire schema of friendship vs game. You can have a friend that it turns out you don’t want to play D&D with, and you don’t have to immediately ostracize them afterwards.
So we agree? Do they like playing crockinole? Maybe ticket to ride?
Man... this video came a little too late for me. I managed to get like 20 friends to play D&D during the pandemic. Now I play with just one of them who is compatible with my playstyle and has similar expectations of what a "fun" D&D game is. The few were incompatible, one was edgelord extremus, and the majority didn't had time nor interest to play the game.
Anyway, to all beginner DMs. This is honestly one if not the best non-mechanics based DM advice videos that YOU need to hear. Especially for advice number 1 and advice number 2. Relating to the advice. One of the best advice/lines I've heard about inviting friends to play D&D is this: "You don't have to have every friend you have involved in every hobby you have" - Dungeon Craft (Let's Talk About THAT Guy, Ep.275). Sometimes, it's better to go solo and meet strangers to play the game. You'll know more people AND you can leave groups freely without the awkwardness/fear associated with telling friends that they're not a good fit in the group. Lastly, when your group becomes shit, remember the adage "No D&D is better than bad D&D".
This is probably one of the most important videos and articles on game mastering, especially, I'd say, the truths about friendships, player favouritism and relationships. The only thing I'd like to add is that it is important to remember that you don't need to exclude a friend from the group of friends if there is any issue with them, just hang out with them other times! This may be obvious, but the way you put it, it seems that the game is people's only past time together. I don't think you believe on that, just that the way you put it gives this impression. Also, I guess that some people, especially children and teens will feel that excluding a friend from a game will be same as ending a friendship, which is not true at all!
Yep, I think some younger people watching this will interpret it as permission to be shitty to their friends, as if being a GM gives them power over who does or doesn’t get to be part of the in-group.
I prefer talking to friends to resolve issues, ensuring similar play time among different people in the group, (no complaint about respecting player decisions, except for just telling players openly where my ideas need guidance and asking them whether that’s ok), and I usually don’t play D&D but other RPGs, so what you describe as to be prepared is not what I usually need ☺
But it was interesting to listen anyway - thank you 🙂
"Munchkins are good, actually"
Power Gamers (players trying to optimize characters for their role in the party via system mastery) are fine. Munchkins (players who prioritize their own enjoyment at the expense of the rest of the group and seek every conceivable advantage they can bully and argue their way into) can go die in a fire.
The first person I ever kicked from a game was my husband. So, in terms of whether I would choose friends or the game, I believe I've set my standard.
I would like to know the story behind this lol
I disagree with some of this. No game is more important than the people playing it. I might need a new group to play the game I want to play, or I might need to change the game to fit the style of the people I want to play with, but whatever I choose I should never value a thing above a person.
That was awesome! Nice to see Moltke being referenced; there's a habit in 5e (in particular) for DMs and players to ignore theory (dramatic and literary especially) then whinge with things go to hell... 😅
The art of improvisation is the greatest magic there is. Masters really do need to learn it, if they want to get even remotely good at the table. Its kinda sad the resources nowadays don't tend to foster that spirit. A video (or a few) on how to get your improv game up would surely be very useful.
You are very good at what you do and these videos are tremendously helpful. I am glad channels like yours exist and it is helping me improve as a Dungeon Master so thank you.
this video is brutal but effective
Feels like a good counter argument to How to be a great GM's "Don't be a dungeon Master if," Video.
That seemed to prioritize the the player's enjoyment over the DM's at the Expense of the DM's good time. Guy's video felt like it boiled down to don't be a DM if you don't want to be a doormat.
It’s a collaboration between all the players, with the GM being just another player. There needs to be a degree of respect, maturity and creative compromise among all the players to make it work well. The first two points in this video are not great advice.
@@Pneumanon Isn't that the point of the first two points? It basically says if players are not being respectful of the game, then cut them out. You can certainly try to communicate with them and fix the issues, but that will not always work. Sometimes people just can't play along, and it takes maturity to recognize and respect that.
The point about prioritizing yourself basically boils down to recognizing that you, as the GM who takes on basically all the responsibility, are first in line if, as inevitably will be the case, you must choose between satisfying certain players. That makes sense to me, since it's not always possible to satisfy everyone.
@@thearcanehunter2736 No, it's not the same point. The first point is a theoretical abstraction that comes across as logically sound but in practice is a terrible way to conceive of the social contract of a game. Honestly, it's a juvenile way to treat your so-called friends.
The GM is not the boss of the friend group. Just because they have volunteered to run a game for their friends does not give them power and authority over their friends. All the players are collaborating- working together- to have fun together. It is up to everyone involved to play nicely with each other so that all the players can have fun together. I thought people learned that in kindergarten.
The GM can be just as much out of line as any other player, and teaching people that it is a 'hard truth' that GMs have some authority to 'cut people out', encourages the very bad attitude that the GM has some special authority over their friends. There is no shortage of power-tripping GMs, especially among younger, less-experienced players who may be watching videos like this for advice.
Social rejection can be genuinely damaging to people and should be handled carefully.
Yes, when conflict arises, people should try to work it out. That's nothing like saying "you have to choose which relationship comes first, your relationship to your friends or your relationship to the game". There is no need to choose one or the other. In the case where you do decide- as a group- that one person is being too disruptive, then what people should be encouraged to do is actually learn how to communicate that to the person while _preserving_ the friendship as much as possible.
The second point is also fairly bad advice- the GM (in the majority of cases) has volunteered to run a game for their friends. Nobody owes them _anything_ for that, other than some courtesy and gratitude for taking on the work & responsibility of running the game.
The GM can choose to run the game primarily for their own enjoyment, under the justification that they are putting in the most work. Ok... but it's bad advice, because the GM has offered to run a game _for_ _other_ _people_ to play. If the GM doesn't cater to what other people are interested in, they shouldn't be surprised if their players (weirdly enough) aren't interested in playing. If they want a perfect little self indulgent fantasy session they can have that much more easily on their own.
Everyone knows it's hard enough to get players to the table to begin with, presenting something they're not interested in is not going to help.
Does that mean that "oh now you have to choose someone in the group specifically to cater to because you can't please everyone?" No, that's another false dichotomy and again, a rather juvenile way of thinking about it. The game is a _collaboration_ between all the players. It is partly the responsibility of the GM to present something interesting to the players, and partly the responsibility of the players to respect the GM's work and make the game interesting for themselves AND for the other non-GM players.
It's a group activity and a group effort. No-one has the right to ruin everyone's fun, and no-one has the sole right to kick someone out of the group. Everyone works together to make something fun for each other. It's not complicated.
@@Pneumanon So I do think I misinterpreted the first point and that it is a false dichotomy, and in general bad advice. However I completely disagree with the idea that the GM has no right to kick players.
As the GM, you have the most authority. This comes from the fact that the game simply could not run without a GM. Sure it's a collaborative game, but that does not mean everyone's role is the same. Everyone at the table needs to respect that, and understand they are not entitled to the GMs time. If the GM decides you are too much trouble for the time he puts in, that's it, you are done. You being friends with them does not make you suddenly special. Now I do agree with you that the GM should put players first - the GM is only given the authority to run the game for the players, so he needs to focus on the players (which if you are a good GM should make you happy anyways). I also agree that the GM should convene with the players on whether any perceived problem is a true problem or not. However, the GM has final say, and that is the rule that needs to be established.
@@thearcanehunter2736 And that is the issue I'm talking about- you apparently think it's ok for the GM to "kick" their friends out of a game.
I didn't say that people can't be asked to leave a game.
That's not the same as kicking someone out.
Damn. I wish I heard this before I started.
Reassessing, rethinking, revising between sessions is how i mostly prepare my games.
A report/summary of what happened last session is the starting point of my prep for next session.
"Players did A, what will happen now?" How will faction B and C respond? "
It allows for great inner dynamics, and a easy way to make the world feel alive and reactive to what players do.
Uncomfortable Truth (to some, but still needs to be heard): If you, as a DM, are tired of losing all the time, you're playing the wrong game. As a DM, you must be a fan of the players and their characters. They are your actors AND audience. If you have the mindset that you're constantly losing, you should play a PVP board game instead.
You might consider this part of some other hard truths but I think the hardest part of choosing to prioritize friends or games is recognizing when your friends are going off the rails. I've had games where myself as a player and the DM both brainstormed ideas for a good month or two in an effort to work with or work around another friend who was not acting very friendly in game.
GMs should realise that sometimes _they_ are the ones going off the rails. This advice paints the GM is some kind of boss of the friendship group. Yes GMs put in a lot of work to prep a game. They also volunteer to do so. Players owe some courtesy and gratitude to the GM for hosting the game for sure, but GMs should be careful not to think they somehow have authority over players just because they are running a game of make believe.
It’s not at all difficult to find GMs going off on a bizarre power trip, either creatively or socially. It’s also much easier for players to decide not to play the GMs game, and simply find some other form of entertainment out of the almost infinite other options, than it is for GMs to uninvite players while also maintaining a regular group. It is extremely easy for players to ghost, or to talk amongst themselves and decide they don’t want to play your game anymore, ending the group entirely.
My point is, GMs can act entitled all they want, and be as selfish about who is invited to their game and what they play all they want. But unless they are offering an experience _other_ _people_ want to engage in, and have a little gratitude to the group they’re playing with for actually giving a shit about their precious little fantasy world, they are going to unwittingly create situations where their players are bored, disruptive, non committal, late, distracted, and ‘going off the rails’.
@@Pneumanon I think there's a very real difference between choosing who is in a game you're running and trying to resolve interpersonal issues. The focus here is on things specifically in the game but it also acknowledges that this can be more complex as sometimes people will allow game events to impact interpersonal relations.
I didn't really describe the issues with the problem player in my earlier post. Both the GM and myself got along with him just fine out of game but within the game he kind of played it like you would play a computer RPG. The focus was almost always on him, what he wanted, and what he was doing. He tried to solo as much of the game as possible and was frankly disappointed at the result. For example he was a wizard style character with no stealth abilities but he insisted on sneaking off to try to solo end-of-campaign villains early in the campaign. Eventually he did realize that other PCs were competent at things he wasn't and that he really needed to rely on them but the process of him realizing that pretty much killed that campaign, which the rest of us were otherwise having fun with. And that's what I meant when I described him as not being very friendly in the game. The issue was entirely within the bounds of the game and eventually it was resolved through gameplay and discussion about games (and an awful lot of patience).
Yes, DMs can be the source of the problems in your group but the advice in the video will actually tend to resolve a number of the more common problem DM issues. DM power trips are mostly around prioritizing your story over the players or undervaluing player input, both of which the video addresses. If you're slowly building a group that prioritizes the style of game you want to play, that also handles a lot of friction from player expectations not meshing with the game you want to run. And frankly it's not entitled to want to play with people who want the same style of game you do. Everyone wants that. There are a lot of ways to play RPGs and not all of them mesh very well at the same table.
@@lanir9543 I don't disagree with you. I think the video presents these ideas badly. The video presents the idea that one must make a choice between "the relationship to your friends or the relationship to the game".
This is terrible framing.
In your case, it sounds like you had discussions with your friend and resolved the issue in a mature fashion. That's great. You clearly have the maturity to separate the game from your friendship overall.
Other people will not have the maturity or experience to discern the difference. When you have 'experts' on youtube telling people that it is a "hard truth" that the GM needs to choose one or the other, and that it is essentially necessary to choose the game over their friendships, it would be quite understandable for people to interpret that as if they as the GM have some extra form of authority over their friends and that kicking people out of their game is an acceptable way to behave.
The GM does not have any special authority over their friends or their friend group, and they shouldn't be taught to think they do.
Social rejection can cause real psychological harm to people and, at the least, is likely to be damaging to friendships if not skilfully handled.
It's irresponsible advice.
Great for clickbait 'content', but terrible for the hobby in general.
@@Pneumanon Got it, that makes sense. I think my take on it felt more like "Don't forget you're supposed to have fun as the DM too. If your friends get stuck in an intractable argument they won't give up then you have to decide whether to play a different game with them or ask them to leave so you can play more of what you're alerady playing." I think I felt as if it was advice for extreme situations and you read it as advice intended to be used more casually. I see how someone could walk away with either interpretation because it's a quick explanation on a topic everyone's bound to have thoughts about already. And the idea of potentially causing drama by dropping friends from games casually... yeah, that does sound like very bad advice. :)
While I was thinking about it I realized this isn't unique to roleplaying games though. If you were really good at basketball for example you might start off by playing with friends. If you decide you want to push your skills more you might try prioritizing games with people who are also very skilled at basketball which might be a group that doesn't include your friends. While with RPGs it's a playstyle thing rather than a skills thing, I think it's otherwise rather similar. So we don't really need to reinvent the wheel when thinking about how to approach this kind of situation as long as you remember to be careful because your friends will put more of themselves into RPGs than they will when playing basketball.
@@lanir9543 Absolutely- I am an amateur/hobbyist musician and I have professional musicians as friends. They don't ask me to join their bands or record music with them because we have very different expectations of the activity. In other words, they know I suck at music!
That's all good, and mature people can negotiate these things without too many issues. Lots of people here who already have that maturity can interpret the advice as it was probably intended.
The problem is, TTRPGs are played by a wide range of people with very different levels of social skills, maturity and life experience. The people who would actually benefit from advice on this issue the most are the ones who are the most likely to misintrepret what is being said.
Anyway, what I'm basically saying is that the advice _could_ be framed around how to tactfully uninvite problem players from our games but it's not, it's presented as "you have to choose and the game is more important".
That's a problem in my opinion.
The care and regard with which we treat another human being, and the value of that connection *always* takes precedence over a game.
Just satisfyingly ended a good campaign with my friends. We are going to boot back up here soon and this is exactly what I needed to revamp our session 00 checklist!
Eisenhower said “Plans are nothing, but planning is everything.” That’s how I try and run my games. I have bits and pieces of prepped material and ways to string them together logically in response to player action.
I spend 2 to 5 hours in prepping for the next game session. Then i become flexable when the players seeming avoid everything i preped for.
However, being flexable in a session with wasted prep time is strangly better than running the whole game from Improv which can be a disaster. Improv where you need it. being a little prepared goes a long way.
7:10 As someone who has gone many sessions where pretty much every little thing in that session was improv'd on the spot, I can vouch for the necessity of improv.
This is such a high value video. Thank you!
oh the old scry teleport hoodwink… timeless lol
I like to have concrete items/terrain/buildings made as well as detailed plans, that being said, the plans are less my own for the story and more the plans of the various NPCs and factions, subject to modification. I find it helpful for the players to have somewhere between 2-4 identifiable choices at any point where they need to commit to a course of action. I ran a campaign that was very open-world with dozens of potential paths that players could follow and they actually became very frustrated because they kept getting distracted and starting quests without finishing others. But they might have all had pretty bad ADHD, come to think of it.
To be fair, this is all good advice in a possible context as a manager/ leader. In the same ballpark, learning workshop facilitation techniques is also a great tool for DMs.
Sometimes "I love you." is pronounced "No." You can say no to someone you care for exactly because you care for them. The opposite of love is indifference, and often, trying to avoid hurting someone's feelings at the expense of telling them the truth is the most unloving thing you can do.
1. Conflict of Interest (Which is more important - your game or your friends?)
2. Pleasing Everyone (You can't - run a game that you like to run)
3. Not Yours To Tell (The players are the main characters and you should allow their agency)
4. Improv vs Prep (Plans are useless; planning is essential)
I play solo mostly now and sometimes run one-shots if there's an interest but there was this one DM back in the mid 90's who had his GF join a game to learn how to play. It was Shadowrun. Our patron was a dragon. It was neat. Next thing we know, it's a few sessions of just his self-insert NPC (the patron who hired our group) and her obvious avatar mooning after each other. Not sure what happened to the game because I just stopped going. Come to think of it, this was around the time I really got into dungeon crawls and 40k.
This is fascinating! Extremely valuable content!
Uncomfortable truths for players #1: if the DM isn't sharing their snacks, you pissed them off last game, or your playing a monk.
On difficult truths:
You aren't creating D&D for a faceless mass of players, you're doing it with and for these specific people at your table. If they walk away happy and engaged, if they remember the events of the campaign fondly, you've succeeded. All other victories in DMing are ephemeral in comparison to this: Did your players have a great time?
This is the smartest nine minutes of advice for GMs that Ive heard in 20 years.
There is nothing more than friendship and a game with close friends. However it’s nice to play in a shop with strangers where you can play almost indifferent but still not being a dick. But I don’t really have that problem with my friends
Uncomfortable truth: You really don't need another dice set. (That kickstarter though...)
That being said, great video, I learnt most of those the hard way. Either as a DM or a player.
Damedar is the ultimate evil henchman! he has his minions. he has his own motivation. and he has reasons to dislike and even hate the real villain, Propheon.
he even has blue lips! what's not to love about this character?
One i've found especially with online discourse: Nobody will ever care about your world as much as you do. You do not need a comprehensive history of your setting and even worse - your players will *never* read it.
Prep what's going to be interacted with. Players will engage with "history footnote A" as soon as it interacts with them and not a second before.
hard choices are not as such in DnD, most players make decisions based on "now" in game, & the 2nd most important indicator for understanding a players actions is they are not thinking about the logic of the world the same as the DM; logic for a player are effected by occupation of thinking about not just what's going on in game, but also how the character would react.
Meaning just because the players is not going to always see the same consequences that you do, so you should ask for a explanation of the reason the character to plan to act that way: it might be intentional just acting in character, it may be the player is to deep in the thinking about character mindset, or it could be 700 other things, but knowing *why* they are acting can help inform the storyline going forward.
Its especially a conflict when the other dm bins his entire game to shift it to Exandria when thats not possible because someone is running a game there already and the actual premise is theyre entirely different worlds!
This seems too specific to your situation to be broadly helpful. I'm not even sure what it is you're saying here besides one of the DMs switched from one setting to Exandria.
Tabletop RPGs are social games and this means, there will be bullies. They may be just a single bad actor, but it can also be the majority of your group, that decides, that one of them doesn't belong at the table and will try to force that player out. As a GM, you are not obliged to enforce harmony in such case, but at least you should try to prevent as much emotional damage as possible for every side. Sometimes, it may be just a misunderstanding, that can be resolved. However, sometimes it will be bigotry. Never underestimate how even your best friends may be in the grip of some terrible prejudices.
GMs can also be bullies, cutting off friendships and excluding people from the group because the game is more important than they are. It’s the number 1 hard truth of being a GM apparently.
That blazer easily adds +2 cha. Stylin
This feels like it’s only useful for DM’s who are planning a sandbox game, which is fine. I’ve been in a few they are fun.
Not my style though I tend to have a fully functioning world where people in that world are active and are doing things and react to the player actions so having an enemy run away from the players isn’t taking their agency away. It is a direct result of their actions
A.k.a. My players are the primary aspect of my campaign but they are one of many things in action so they’re very important but are not the center of the universe there is more than one clog in the machine
And the whole friend dilemma thing is just weird. You could just talk to your players see how they’re feeling it’s not that hard in all reality it’s just a game. The whole problematic couple thing just gives you a reason to help the person that’s in the right. I have heard many stories of couples joining and the group realizing one of them is being abused and they work together to help that specific person get out of that situation
I've always said that Moltke doesn't get enough time in the D&D vlogging sphere.
The second point hit home really hard just now woopsie
Great work Baron! To sum up the first 2 points, be a professional DM and give your actual friends discounts to join your roll20 paid games.
Baron is a gentleman scholar DM - a rare type of
Your last point reminds me of Fronts and Grim Portents from Dungeon World, which may be a cool video (especially from you, since you tend to dig into geopolitics and the like)
random tables are more effective for generating immersion than anything you have carefully plotted. when events are random they feel organic, and the game world feels more real as a result.
I enjoy your videos and find them helpful, but I find the AI art distracting.
You won’t make the next middle earth, or Westeros, or cosmere. Your homebrew works and lore will inevitably be significantly less developed than those of dedicated storytellers and experts of key aspects of their worlds, and that’s ok. The important thing isn’t to know every detail of a deeply complex and interwoven narrative in the history of your world but to make enough that your players can believe it and enjoy it. Realizing this made it much easier to world build personally, I don’t feel like I need to have my silmarillion finished by session 1, just the shire so to speak.
I don't like to post negative comments on videos. And Baron's content is usually very informative and sensible, even when offers advice I disagree with. But this video reeeally rubs me the wrong way. Sorry if I come off a bit harsh, it's late here (Germany) but I know that if I postpone the comment to tomorrow I will simply never do it.
To me this video very problematic. It's a mix of any of the root elements that are toxic and unhealthy in D&D (and mainstream Trad rpg) culture 😨
The problems presented are reasonable enough.
But the mindset with which they are examined?
And the subsequent "solutions"?
Gosh...
1.
Having people at the table that behave problematically (be they more or less justified by personal circumstances) does NOT result in a choice between saving the game or the friendship. Nor is the GM the person responsible for addressing such a problem.
If a person behaves like an a-hole, obviously abusing the group's SOCIAL CONTRACT (no matter what the game rules allow or not) then the solution is to COMMUNICATE with them. As EQUAL PEOPLE (and supposedly friends), certainly not as "Master and Player". The game has to stop. The only sane solution is within the realm of social and human interaction, NOT in an extremely skewed power dynamic that only exists for the purpose of the game.
Same with people that bring out-game conflict on at game table.
COMMUNICATE.
The human relationship ALWAYS comes first. Are you in distress? Are you in a bad mood? Are you whatever? Then HERE AND NOW we support you. The game stops. We chat, have a beer, play crokenole. Any other response means you value a game session more than a real world "friendship". And this is just sad and unhealthy.
THEN... in case of gross or repeated abusive behavior... then the GROUP should decide whether to GENTLY reorganize their play activity. So the problematic people will not participate (and disrupt) the game for the rest, and instead will be called in for meeting and games they actually enjoy and are capable of having with the others.
Certainly no one is KICKED out of the group. Certainly this is NOT a game master exclusive prerogative, nor their personal responsibility.
I can't believe this sh*t is still going around as "good advice" (worse, as "hard truths") in 2023. Especially from an otherwise very good source such as Baron 😞
2.
The GM needs to have fun too. True.
The GM puts way more effort in the game than anyone else. True.
As before, the "problem" is real.
But, as before, the perspective is so toxic I can't even...
The idea that the GM has to "make players happy" is THE reason GM burnout exists in the first place. And diverting it towards a sort of "egoism" where the GM comes first because they "deserve" it in virtue of all the work they put in while the others don't.
If this weighs on you... then the problem is THE GAME.
It's good that Baron mentions how GMs should not play novelists with their RPG groups... but how can they NOT do it when every element of the game structure (and the cultural "common sense" surrounding it) pushes them toward being an unpaid entertainer for a more or less interactive audience? :(
Instead, every person at the table should BUY IN into the idea that each of them is responsible for everyone else's fun. We are friends trying to have a good time together. And we specifically agreed to do it by playing an RPG. If someone does a lot more than the others... there's a problem.
Maybe that someone doesn't mind, then ok (until they burn out).
But if that someone DOES mind, then the solution is not to make them the Alpha person of the game. The solution is to play a different game that supports a more SANE and SUSTAINABLE play activity.
OSR games require waaay less "work" from the GM.
Most Modern games require even less, or balance it in other ways.
Hell... there are even gmLess games!
Why is the Traditional solution always to insist on a game that PROMOTES resentment among friends?
Why is the solution to fix an unbalanced social dynamic, the one between GM and Players, always to unbalance it even more, suggesting to the GM to focus even more on their role of "owner" of the whole game?
Will we ever mature out of the 90s ?
3.
Finally something that makes sense. Until it doesn't 😓
Why do I hear in the same breath that the GM should respect Players' autonomy and only mind the handling of world and NPCs, and that at the same time it is OK for the GM to "want the story to go a certain way" ???
Where the practical advice is to negate the Players the OPPORTUNITY to perform impactful decisions and actions???
Really?
Wouldn't be easier (and again, more honest and healthy) to have the GM be simply HONEST and GENUINE?
Play their NPCs as the GM thinks they would.
Have undefined events unfold as they think they might.
This is already A TON of power over the unfolding events of the game. Probably things will go as they wish. And if not? Well, that's just how the game works. The Players act and react and have the rules mediate this all.
And the GM should play by the same rules.
This puts a lot less strain on the GM, and teaches them good habits rather than toxic ones.
Even contemporary D&D allows for this play attitude without creating too many problems. Why insist on forcing on the GM the idea that it is OK for them to decide how the game should go? Because it is NOT ok.
And it is also NOT EASY, to thread the fine line between gently weaving the invisible threads of fate and railroading (or illusionism). Why teach GMs that the road to burnout is the correct one? 😡
4.
I have no qualm with this point. It sounds like an awful lot of work for what I am used to... but that's personal preference and depends on the game being used. If contemporary D&D is the baseline, than sure, this is actually a substantial improvement on over-planning everything.
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
Mike Tyson
This could have been three videos with clickbait titles and added examples. As it is I had to watch twice, the second time at 75% speed, to catch the majority of the points. Might need to watch yet again for the last few. And I'm in the middle of running a homebrewed scenario where prepping the right things to convey the feeling of a hardboiled mystery is very important. I could have used this four days ago while I was prepping the Thursday night game. Improv was fun and plenty of comedy ensued. But the improv story beats were confusing, and I forgot to amp up the tension with Chandler's Law: When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand. I can recover in the second session and for that I thank you.
I had more than one campaign end as I became miserable running it. GM looking out for their own best interest should be accepted as a necessity.
Wait which one trumps the other - #2 put yourself as DM first or #3 never impede player agency
Those aren't orthangonal. If you intrude on player agency you are being a novelist, not a dm
@@DungeonMasterpiece ah! Yes. Like the Scotsman
Makes me wonder...
How do YOU prepare for a game?
How do you make sure that the "story" will still be interesting?
I'd like to know if you got tips on heuristic/modular storytelling based on themes and concepts so to let the plot be player-driven while still be something "well written" in a sense.
World building is obviously a big part of the answer.
Thanks in advance :)
Getting together with a great group of friends and having a good time is the goal and playing D&D is just a means to the goal. The game itself should never be more important than your friends. I’ve been playing with my group of friends for 30+ years and role playing is what helps bring us together. Your idea of winnowing out certain players to get to the “perfect”, or close to, D&D game I think defeats the purpose of getting together to play. It’s through our imperfections that I’ve found the most enjoyable gaming secessions.
I really feel the need to heavily disagree with the first 'Truth'
Dnd or Friend/s under escalated stress circumstances isn't a binary scenario and having to make that choice smacks of a lack of interpersonal, and conflict resolution skills.
If you don't have these skills or have a disorder that makes resolving interpersonal conflict significantly more difficult, such as aspergers, then you MAY have to make that choice, (You can always ask others for help with resolving such issues on your behalf) but presenting it as a 'Truth' is wildly misleading and frankly.. a rather depressing outlook.
Agreed, and irresponsible to teach this when a lot of new TTRPG players are kids or teens that don’t have the life experience to realise how bad the advice is.
This is your best video to date. And that's saying something.
Hi, interesting video. Whose is the art that you use?
Never run a game including your boss. I was luckily able to dodge that one, but whoa boy talk about a what was I thinking moment.
Bonus comment... Had a group destroyed when the GM learned his best friend was sleeping with his girlfriend.
Ironically I never liked the guy and will confess a bit of less than shock, because our GM is a great guy.
Your first point really got under my skin as a disabled person. A lot of us get shamed so much we're afraid to even ask our friends to accommodate us. You need to start including caveats about this when you make abrasive videos. Cause atm, I just feel like you see disability as an inconvenience that gets in the way of your gaming.
Thanks for the video!
For the most part, game systems are designed favorably for the players and not the GM, because you simply can’t rely on players to care enough about managing their characters, let alone help the GM run a fun session