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I'm a "Low prep DM" 40 years+ of hiding how much I prep. Every fantasy adventure book I read. Every movie I watch, Every discussion of the game... is prep. I practice taking 3 bits of inspiration and turning it into a short adventure. I just don't write most of this stuff down.
I am NOW- I used to be that guy that drew out all the maps, copied the stats and adjusted monsters and tied in everything with a multi-page plot line... Now I write up a two- or three-page outline about two hours before our session. It often appears that the less I plan, the more fun that evening.
I know what you mean, mate. Every piece of media, book, video game, even real life stories (especially true crimes and sordid news stories) and a tiny bit of meme are my every day life inspiration when plotting a One shot/an intrigue when I'm DMing. Even when I'm a player, I can't help but seeing reference in games to stuff in media/IRL. For instance I just came back from a horror Call of Cthulhu DND one shot tonight. Everything in the story was like a mix of Alien Isolation with the concept behind the Saw movie franchise to me. And I couldn't help but tell the DM about it and he hadn't considered that angle and was quite surprised at the link I made. I like that way of working (from several inspirational sources) as a DM because you can work it well into a new game for people to discover. And if you wanna make a parody non serious one shot, that can definitely get very memey.
I started by prepping to omuch and my players hated it. This game, I built the world as a sand box. I left multiple quest hooks, but my players ignored them all and went on their own way, so every sessions is by the seat of my pants, BUT the world, countries, major npcs are prebuilt, and my players are begging me to run again.. .which is an AMAZING feeling
@@sleepinggiant4062 Too much prep can be restrictive. "chapter 1: the players meet at an inn. chapter 2: the players accept the quest from the bartender. and so on. "Prep", the term itself, has a very broad application - from worldbuilding, to encounter creation, and others that Luke mentioned in the video. If I prep A, but the players really want B, then it will suck for everyone.
@@orokusaki1243 - If a DM preps A and lets the players do B, that's not being restrictive. It has nothing to do with prep, and is all on how the DM runs the game.
@@sleepinggiant4062 When A is the only prepped option, is when it can be restrictive. Agreed, that's the heart of it: how the GM runs and how the Players play - the table dynamic - plays a big part. The OP apparently changed their running style, with all that prep kept intact. My point was in agreement with what was said in the video, about essentially not prepping beyond the Character's range/reach. Apocalypse World has a system to help determine what is important now, what might be important soon, and anything outside the "circle" just doesn't matter so much. Thus my later prepping analogy about bright and dim light.
@@sleepinggiant4062 Minor add: Painting oneself into a corner is a thing, so the GM could be restricting themselves - reducing flexibility. They may feel compelled to keep it as prepped and the Players may notice things not really making sense, as a result.
My advice is to get buy in from the group for the adventure you want to run right at the start. Dropping them into a tavern and just giving some plot hooks opens yourself up to the party just not being interested in any of them. It also saves you a lot of time on prepping for things that the party just isn't interested in.
“What do they call them? They don’t call them Thieves anymore, they are Rogues now” 😆 I started with 2nd addition as well and still catch myself calling the class Thieves.
Thank you for this video! I'm taking the plunger and learning to DM (without ever playing the game) and this is exactly what I needed. Especially when you held up Eberron because it's exactly the setting I decided to use :D
I have a reputation among my group for running no-prep games. They've literally told me my improvised sessions are far more fun than my prepped sessions. So I *think* that counts me as a no-prep GM by Luke's reasoning? However, I actually do have prep: I have the world setting, the major factions (I don't normally prep NPCs in those factions, not even the head of a cult, for example, but leave that to players [and myself] to find out during play), the limitations in the world (low/corruptive magic; no extraplanar entities/gods [no clerics/warlocks]; etc), and the rule set and house rules for the game. I have a vague outline of how I want to start, and how to tie PCs' backgrounds into the world, and what sort of vibe I want the world to evoke. Most of that prep is done before session 0, the PC-specific stuff before session 1. After that, my "prep" is reviewing what went on in the previous sessions and coming up things I think might be cool for players to come across should they continue going the way they are, and also considering what the major factions' responses will be to the PCs' actions. I don't know any truly "no-prep" GMs. I know a few "no-adventure-prep" GMs though. I've played in a game with a GM who thought they could wing EVERYTHING (world setting, adventure, factions etc.) and yeah, it WAS truly crap.
I prep my games one to two sessions ahead of time, once I have an idea where they want to go. Just NPC's, 1 or 2 locations, rumors, with a dash of monsters to get in the way. Then I will fit in my overall narrative into the story.
I’m currently prepping a campaign set in Wildemount and it’s my first time DMing in over 8 years so all these new DM videos are super helpful. Thank you for giving specific advice and support!
Thank you for pointing out that the DM is not a storyteller nor are they an entertainer. They are a story maker, like everyone at the table along with the dice and they are there to have fun like everyone else. The worst advice I see repeated is “if the players are having fun then you are having fun as the DM.” Finally, I appreciate the acknowledgment that the game doesn’t have to be “fun” 100% of the time. It can be frustrating and that is ok. Great video.
I'm a first-time DM and I wish I'd seen this video sooner! I'm making my own world and it's a bit empty at the moment since I'm building it up as the characters go places in my attempt at a sandbox game. Thanks for sharing this wisdom with the internet! 😊
I’ve never played but I’ve always wanted to however I got tired of waiting for someone to include me so I decided to just start my own campaign and now I’m a DM (Starting with a preset story) this was very helpful THANK YOU
I do everything in the theater of the mind with the help of a whiteboard to outline the area map as the PCs see it. It works great, fast, flexible, and cheap too. And Castles & Crusades is our now go-to main game. It is actually rules-light (unlike 5e) and very flexible to play the game style and type that you want without breaking the system because it isn't bloated full of rules.
I am a newer GM, usually homebrew stuff for my game, but the first rule I learned is to improvise cause nothing I planned happened, don't get me wrong what did happen was AMAZING, better than what I had planned! I love the players creativity and will always let them do something as long as it will fit and as long as they give me a very good reason why I can or if it is just plain amazing and funny. Thank you for these tips friend!
I always have a few hooks for players to grab onto at a time, but I wait to flesh them out completely until the players take a bite. Always keep the things you improv and the things you prepare a mystery to your players. Make sure you can adjust how you planned things when players hit you with the unexpected.
5:31 there are gamemasterless systems out there that manage to do good games with prep at the game table, such as "microscope" or "Magician: the language learning game". However, in my experience, such improvise everything games only make good obne-shots, rarely good campaigns.
I have a dm exactly like in your experience. They make really fun improv everything one shots. But at some point they didn't have time to prep for the main game due to life stuff, instead of cancelling they thought they could run a fun improv everything session. It was, in fact, not fun.
New to dming here, on my first ever campain zero i was a little unprepared. But what was worse is that one of my players found an amulet that would solve the puzzle eventually. The amulet had the text, “do not wear” on it so he ate it and his stomach was glowing for the majority of the session. Needless to say i was not ready for that
I've been using your videos recently, and I am very excited to run my campaign. I'm homebrewing my location. The first adventure's setting is gonna be a fall themed town named Allspice Valley
Starting my first campaign as a DM this evening and im equal parts nervous and excited. One thing i can say is that this channel has been an invaluable resource!
I made my own game board from cardboard and printed graph paper and I covered it in clear shelf liner so I can use dry erase markers on it. And I use Lego pieces for enemies and player characters.
Re: prepping and not prepping... I usually have a world built and a narrative I hope the players will follow, but I rely on improv a lot to keep the players' goals at the center of it. I've had sessions that are 100% improv that are both great and terrible, but I would say on average, my no-prep games are less engaging to the players than the ones I've planned out. My strategy is to build key elements and then let the players guide the story and insert them ahead when i know how to guide the players to something that will match thematically with the intended item/npc/etc
My group of friends are getting into tabletop RPG games and our GM is really only one because in the last group he was in, the GM left so he stepped up to run it, but he loves being a player too. So to let him be a player sometimes, I want to try being a GM as well, and your videos are helping me figure out how to do that, so thank you!
To show little you need to start an RPG, I started a story based campaign on the fly in a groups chat and took out dice, stats and the combat system to just replace it with descriptive back and forward between players and DM. We essentially play the entire campaign in our mind. We run on player interactions and descriptive writing from both me and the players. This way of playing you can do anywhere, at any time, on text, VC or IRL, which is why I did it as 1 of my friends was on vacation. (I do have to note it takes a party that heavily favors lore, story, immersion and RP over combat, finding cool class or ability combinations or min maxing systems. And 3 of us are DM’s and writers.)
Tip 4 just relieved so much tension for me. I’ve never had a DnD group but have been watching DnD and been so interested in it for YEARS and I finally convinced my friends to play. All but one of us have 0 experience in it and I offered to DM and I am so nervous to start! PHEW glad I’m not alone 😅😅
I've managed to run one session at a time out of prep but my players could 100% tell because the story becomes absolutely absurd. Fun but I wouldn't want to run an entire campaign like that.
Some people may create their own science fantasy world with 12 planets and a number of factions and classes for no reason at all, And then find out completely separately that you can play DnD in that world
1. you ALWAYS need more dice. 2. thank you for the amazing tips! i've only played in 1 campeign, but i have friends that have never played before, so i wanted to give dming a shot. It seems like a bit much when you start out, but you gave a lot of good advise^^
I have never run a game myself. However, I reently had the thought "I wonder if this would be a good job for Google Bard A.I.? Turns out, yup. you look up any rule you need on the fly and have it explained to you right then and there. a GM's wet dream as far as not having to take 10 minutes out of a game to look up and then consider a deep-cut rule.
Thanks for those videos. They're giving me courage for my first game, 'cause I'm suffering from severe brain fog when preparing everything and was thinking it might not be worth it. Now I want to continue nonetheless and see how it goes. And whether or not it's good, I just want to spend some quality-time with my friends.
All your points about worldbuilding also apply for drawing maps. Most of the times the players would want to visit certain key locations of your world, so focus on detailing those instead of trying to draw a complete world map or a detailed map of the entire city. Plus - if you for some reason still want or need a detailed city map google city maps of medieval cities, copy them, add your key locations and give the streets the names you deem fit.
I don't really prep a lot because I have several ideas about my next adventure in my mind before I even put it on paper, and once it's on paper it's really deep in my memory because I sat in front of a computer typing everything down for a while.
Thank you for this video! My husband has always wanted to play d&d but none of his friends wanted to, so I'm trying to learn how to be a dm for him so we can do solo campaigns until we can convince our friends 😂
I’ve been playing for a month and a half we play every two weeks so I’ve only got to play four times but my friend has been wanting to play his daughters willing to play and my daughter let herself be talked into playing and we’re playing on Saturday. Obviously it’s my first time in a DM and I am doing everything I can to prepare a good game. I chose tomb of the serpent king, because it seemed short and pretty easy. I know this is like a 4 month old video, but wish me luck. Lol
im dming for the first time in a couple days and ive been dong some last minute cramming and i found this guy and i love it so much. i love the game and this guy is so fun the way he explains things
"That's neither here nor now"! I love that. I laughed so hard. Great video Luke. These points have been made in other videos of yours, but they need repeating. We don't have enough DM's out there.
So, you have said this before, and I disagreed then, as I do now. You do not ONLY prep the immediate area. You don't need to build a full world... but you need an OUTLINE of the world(or at least the world that is going to be around the party and might feasibly be interacted with via rumors or lore). You can limit what is prepped at what points based entirely on scope. If the game is likely to be only in a single country... then you need to know the surrounding counties, the surrounding countries, and the surrounding governments well enough to adlib history that the players might ask. I can wing the whole damned thing, if need be, but a new GM might not know how to do that and keep it coherent. Draw a crude map of the country and surrounding countries, and then just throw some names to the different cardinal direction. You don't need the specifics, but you do need a reference for if questions are asked you don't know. You can keep this handy, and when players ask something that isn't on there... add it. Now you have references for notes that stay accurate. That said, this isn't something you need for session 0.0 or 1.0 ... but you want to have it relatively soon.
That chicken couldn't have laid the egg but he did come from one (thats a rooster) I never got to play before GMing And the desire to end up with more dice is a real thing I did not expect haha
I am a medium prep. First thing, I write a best as I remember summary of last session. Review the campaign notes/ modules. Finally I write campaign note.
After months of me and my friends and I realized that D&D seems like a fun game to play, but too complex, I decided to do some research. Two out of the three of us have played Baldurs Gate, so we're using our knowledge of that game to guide us in our campaign game. The second issue we ran into was that none of us figured we were skilled enough to be a DM, so we weren't even going to play. Yet again, after seeing some videos, I decided to step up to the challenge, thinking it would be fun. I've been doing lots of research and am hoping to keep things as simple as possible for our first game, and this video really helped! Wish us luck!!!
@hang2125 we've only had one session so far, but it was soooo fun!! My friends are really impressed by how I've DM'd. We're all looking forward to the next session, and I'm excited to improve how we play, considering the first session was a bit messy.
I straight up did a session with 15 min notice and ran. I won't say it was amazing but it wasn't awful. It also have about 20 ppl so. I blame waiting too long for turns. Average prep time is about 30 min. And last sesh they went off the rails so hardly any prep came up - it was on of our best sessions.
I've been DMing Shadowrun regularly for over 20 years. I've only actually played in a handful of games. Also as a Shadowrun DM yes I DO need that many dice...
We swapped from Sr5 to DnD 5E. My group just couldn't figure the world of shadowrun out. No matter what i described, no matter what arts and graphics i prevented, they all had difficulty to imagine themselves in this world. That's my tip: don't stick to things that just won't work in a specific group
I have never played dnd, but always wanted to. I’m in a sci-fi student association at my school which has dnd meetings and I’m considering suggesting to dm for a group there (they need more dms since the association is a lot bigger this year than it previously has been). I feel like I would enjoy dming more than I would playing since I adore world building and creatively working behind the scenes, while at the same time liking to be be in control. That being said, I’m not a control freak, and I know for sure that it’s gonna get chaotic and disorderly real fast. But hey, I do thrive in chaos! Especially organised chaos. The only thing intimidating me is the fact that I haven’t actually played the game myself yet, and even though I have followed along some campaigns briefly there is a LOT that I don’t know about it and wasn’t planning to learn from the dms pov. But eh, we’ll see
The story and events in my game can be all thrown out the window because of what the main concept is which is who do you kill and who do you not. This determines the NPCs you meet, the quests you have, and final boss you fight.
Agreed with being GM first! When the blue box set came out in late 1979, or so,The nobody I knew had ever heard of D&D. Mom got me the box for Christmas and I spent the next several days reading the rules, trying to understand them and then conning my family into creating PCs. The first session was AWFUL. With no real clue of how to play, I laid the entire adventure map out on the kitchen table, and everyone said, "Hey, I wonder what that S on the map means. Lets go check it out. Oops! But I was enthralled. So I got better.
Writing my first adventure with rules, that are extremly easy to play (at least i hope so) for my fiance, i am hoping that i can learn from him, so i can try to run this system with friends. It is less combat orientated and more interaction based. I never had so much fun writing and researching. Never played a game, only whatched people play on youtube and being impressed by the dms. (Please excuse spelling mistakes, english is not my first language)
5:38 - I like to prep modularly; not too much that if my players don't go this direction it's all ruined, but enough that I can drop things I've planned out infront of them regardless of the direction they choose. If they need to find an item or meet an NPC, I make that item or npc viable to move around as needed. So I never say, 'Find the Blacksmith in Icewind Dale;' just for my players to go to Baldur's Gate instead. Or the macguffin, like a key or letter, that I can drop on any npc or corpse they might come across on the road, on a city street, or have couriered to them. Also, never underestimate magic; it's entirely possible a wizard's tower appears in the middle of the road for the players, only to be gone entirely when they turn around. Magic does weird stuff as much as magic users do weird stuff with magic. I run my games based on logic; so what would NPCs around my players be doing at that time, and as time passes.. 9:12 - To be fair; not all rogues are thieves, not all thieves are rogues; but thief is a rogue subclass. 😛 Also saw a guy got offended being called a thief; said he was a robber. So it's touchy even in the in crowd. (for anyone reading this he described it as, 'Thieves sneak around and take s***; I'll kick down your door and put a gun to your head and just take whatever I want; I'm a robber. I rob people.' so... yeah...)
I unfortunately don't have a group to play with:( Nor do I have a computer to try and play online. But, I did create 6 different lvl 1 characters in case I found a group! Anyhow, last year I was potentially going to be a GM for D&D at my local library. But no one signed up:( Finally, yes "FUN IS RELATIVE" so to me what I would find fun I know many others wouldn't. I personally would prefer (if I could find a group) a D&D Game/Campaign that is 60% Lore/Exploration/Roleplay/History & 40% Combat!
The issue with prep: It can really come down to the individuals on what they want/expect/do. Some Players just want to react to the GM in a nearly predetermined story. Others, want to forge the story/world with the GM. With that said - one person's trash is another person's treasure. If I want A, but instead get B, then of course I'll consider it to be inferior and bad and otherwise negatively criticize it. Spectra exist, one must find/forge the best table to GM/play at, for them. So, while this advice presented may be suitable for Luke and those who expect what/how Luke preps, it may not encompass the whole gamut of ways to prep. This kind of tunnel vision may cause anxiety for those who don't prep in the same way. The seat of the pants prepper person in the example might be rather common, and is more likely just bad at GMing in general. Developing GM skills takes a lot of time and effort, which is essentially "prepping" to be a good GM. Mistakes will be made, from which one will learn to improve, or they will not realize that it was a mistake - causing them to continue in that play-style rut. I like to know what the players want to do, their characters' goals. And then, I facilitate, reactive/supportive GMing. I'm the snippet at the bottom of a choose your own adventure book "turn to page 39 if you go left, or 58 if you go right", and then improv based on what they do in relation to the objective and opposition. If they have an objective, I'll put up the barriers and twists (the challenges, the situations). I'm fine with them skipping out on any GM presented plots, because those can just fester in the background and hit/stack-on as a barrier or twist later on. Essentially, emergent gameplay, every action/interaction has consequences (positive or negative or both). Theater of the mind doesn't really need maps. The premise is character-centric/dependent, the "BBEG" is going to be the major obstacle to the characters' success. Know the underlying world lore, it gives you options, and those options are power to deliver a great improv'd game.
I think the no-prep thing can depend on the system, too. I can run a pretty decent Monster of the Week session with very little prep. I cannot do that with D&D as effectively because the degree of complexity of the system. Monster of the Week has very little for stat blocks and doesn't use dungeons etc. and is all theater of the mind. Trying to put together a D&D adventure on the fly is much harder since it has a higher threshold of things needed to play effectively. (Presuming you don't theater of the mind D&D -- which I don't.)
I keep hearing people say the DM isn't telling a story. I don't think that's always true. If you use a prewritten module, you're telling the module's story. In my campaign I wrote a story outline about what's happening in my game world, and then put the players in the world in a situation that involves the story. Where they go from there determines what part of the story they encounter, if any. The situation they started in gave them a reason to continue pursuing the story, and I added bits to each of their back stories that give them sub plots that also involve the story. So I am telling a story, it's just up to the players to determine how much of my story they interact with. It seems to be working. I think that without a story to tell, the players are just looking for random odd jobs. That's fine if you just want a dungeon hack-n-slash, but it lacks what an epic story brings to the game. If there is a big bad evil guy to defeat at the end of the campaign after defeating his minions for weeks, you're telling a story.
Every time luke brings this up i feel like the "actual" message isn't properly communicated. The way i understand him, what he means is "The DM isnt the only storyteller", which is far more accurate - the DM only tells and organizes one part of the story, with the rest being told by the players and the dice, making dnd (on any TTRPG with a DM equivalent) a game of collaborative storytelling, with the players the other storytellers.
@@Malachi_Marx I don't either, and haven't since AD&D in the 80's. But if no module, then unless you're running a hex crawl or your game is just rumors heard in a tavern for the payers to go after, you're telling a story. I don't understand the whole "there's no story" mentality. Of course there's a story. It's why the PC's are doing what they're doing.
Agreed. The DM makes all the content and the players just say what they try to do. The DM then says what happens. So the DM is certainly a story teller. And that is different than writing a book. Luke's point (I think) is that you don't force the players to follow a set narrative, and let them decide how to handle things.
I was a player first and really took a liking to the game but SUCKED at my dice rolls. Solution? Be the enemies, where my crappy rolls play out to the benefit of the party versus being the half-orc barbarian that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. But it's getting into it all and still have yet to complete a full campaign, it's all about the willingness of the DM to learn but know they cannot know everything. I find the best amount of prep is to set up the situation, have the encounters good to go (I do a digital tabletop, so some work is needed for that to be ready when the time comes), and have an overall concept of what could happen loosely mapped out. Stilling giving a ton of room to the players to decide where things go can help a railroad feel not like one while the DM can feel in control no matter what. But biggest tip is to use a module for your first full campaign. I made the mistake of trying to homebrew a campaign and why I've had it fail all three times I've tried to run it. But going through actual modules this time I am seeing why my homebrew failed when it didn't have anything really engaging and the environment came off as plain when none of the players really found a desire to investigate why things were the way they were (I thought just having zero dragons of any kind would spark the curiosity, nope).
What do you all consider no prep games? I have run sessions that I prep pages of notes beforehand, and some that I have an idea of what the party will do but improvise 95% as the players and I go along.After running both types(no prep and prep), I feel my players enjoy my improved style games better than my prepared ones. I feel this could just be a skill a person has or not. What do you guys think?
"No prep" unfortunately has a wide spectrum of meaning. My friends call me "no prep" because I don't write adventures, and I improvise most of what happens during play, but they also don't count the world-building, choosing a rule system, house rules, and PC-backstory tie-ins as prep, even though I absolutely think it *is* prep. The things most players think count as "prep" are things like maps, dungeons, NPCs, pre-written adventures, overarching adventure story with BBEG etc, which are things I almost never do.
For me the stuff I absolutely must prep are the longer-term stuff (what happens in the world, and how the players can and likely will influence it), the adventures and the locations (like the town they are in). So the more detailed stuff, where consistency is much harder to have when improvised. But I usually prep the encounters, maps, NPCs and other stuff as well. (Yes, I'm a quite new, unexperienced, maximalist and often nervous GM.) I think you should ask your players about this, what they like, and decide what is the best for you all based on that.
This could just be me, but I think D&D and Pathfinder have waaay too much crunch to be able to run without planning. And even "no-prep" games have some level of prep if encounters are involved (which, it's a game, they should be). So if you are looking for that "no prep" experience, I'd recommend a system that makes setting up encounters easy.
I'm 40 and my 2 sons want to get into dnd. I got myself the 5th edition players handbook. And the starter set box with the blue dragon on the box lol. I love the idea of creating a story for my boys to go through. But I can't get my head around how to hit a target and save and what not. Correct me if I have this wrong please. Do I roll to hit using a d20 then add that to say strength + proficiency. Double I then roll to save? And how And how do I determine how much damage say a zombie takes. Any decent links to a step by step video would be awesome lol
Number 9 seems to be contentious in the online community... Lots of people say it's a RED FLAG if DMs don't allow all player races and subclasses and spells from every published book. Personally, if players want to use that particular thing, then the have to buy me a copy of the book that it's in. So far, all my players have been content to limit themselves to PHB and Xanathar's, the two books I actually own, instead of buying me new books.
I go by a mostly similar principle, reading through books to find if there are glaring issues with classes, races, etc. that I simply can't permit. Outside of the latest few core books, I've been more than okay with what my players have wanted. I certainly wouldn't ask them to buy me new books though, yo ho diddly dee-ing them is an option to access what they have wanted and I feel as though ensuring that the campaign is balanced is good, but the fun of the players is a bigger concern. The difficulty of the whole campaign is something that should be discussed regardless, as if someone goes outside the realms of 'balanced', and you've been told to make the game challenging, then you get a chance to go a little bit nuts.
@@xDynamiteDogx I'm not so worried about balance. I just hate being caught off-guard by stuff I've never even heard of. i.e. "I cast Tasha's Mind Whip!" ... What the hell is that? Or "My character is an owl-lady!" ... Never heard of owl-people, sorry. If you want to play an owl-person, buy me the book so I can read up on whatever it is they are.
I want to presage this by saying I thoroughly enjoy these moments where our attitudes diverge, because I think at the core, I have a lot of the same feelings you do about TTRPGs! So I find it strange that people get so worked up about the term "Storyteller" - as if the implication is that this excludes players from active participation. It seems like such a silly thing to get hung up on. As if calling someone the "Game Master" implies that any player at the table is necessarily a thrall or servant of the person running the game. It's the worst kind of literalism - the kind you see in religious dogma. Look, the term "Storyteller" arose because back in the 90's, games like Vampire: The Masquerade were shifting away from "the rules must be followed to the letter" to the more cooperative notion that "We're telling a story together." We wouldn't have these great collaborative storytelling games today if it wasn't for this shift in tone and mood within the industry. Remember, this was a time when the big RPG developers were still pushing very antagonistic attitudes toward player/GM relationships. GMs were cautioned to watch their players carefully to ensure they weren't taking advantage of rules loopholes. They were also cautioned against deviating too far from the rules. VtM and its sister games weren't the only ones to take a Story-first approach, but they were some of the most successful games to do so. So "Storyteller" didn't come about to solidify GM control over the narrative. It came about to give the GM a different perspective on what their role was. Not a referee, so much as a narrator - but moreso, the kind of active storytelling that encourages audience participation. Asking questions, riffing off of reactions and comments, drawing the audience INTO the story. Because the players aren't an audience. They're participants. Yeah, I get it, we're all storytellers to some extent. And while I'm a big proponent of carefully vetting the language we use (since it informs the way we think about the games we play), I'm also kind of tired of hearing people's hang-ups about a term that was meant to be transformative - moving away from the GM's Iron Grip approach to game running - as if it were a poster-child for that sort of hostile game design. Basically, I get where you're coming from here, but at the same time, I think it's making a mountain out of a molehill, and it's not a molehill worth dying on. One more note: I do think there's a misconception about collaborative storytelling games: people like to say all roleplaying games are collaborative storytelling - but that's a term for a specific subgenre of TTRPG that blurs the lines of the GM/Player power dynamic (either by giving more power to the Player or putting less emphasis on the game runner). So the truth is, not all TTRPGs are Collaborative Storytelling Games, though all of them do include elements of collaborative storytelling (just like not all martial arts are sports, though all include elements of fitness and athleticism).
Thank you for your Ted Talk:) Really, thank you for letting us know your opinion. I only got into TTRPGs last year, so I didn't know most of this "history".
I'm in a 5e party right now made up of dudes I've known for years and some of our friends and family. The newest guy in the group is an old friend of our linch-pin friend, he's younger and a bit spastic, but not a bad kid. Except for one of us, we're all first timers and just trying to run a fun game. It was between myself, our most experienced player, and the guy we ended up choosing. He's not awful, and he lets us do a lot of fun stuff/ bend the more arbitrary rules to make the game more fluid and less homework(a lifesaver for my wizard lol) but we keep to the rules in a general enough sense. The problem is that we've been going once a week for just about 2 months now, and the DM has cancelled on us last minute 4 times now. It's to the point that the boys are all looking at me and I've told them I don't mind taking over if DM is falling off(there are reasons and some of them are just bs) but I don't want to go in blind, so I'm looking into some tips as a very compulsive person and trying to not go overboard and bite off more than I can chew.
I running a little game with my son and cousin, I have 0 DM experience, I've only every played a tutorial, and I watch VLDL's D&D. We have no minis and all I had was 2 monopoly dice. We don't even have proper characters, health, modifiers, none of that. Just imagination, rolls, and me basically guiding the story. Edit: My son is 5, I'm very proud he even wanted to do something like this. 😂
I took the plunge and have decided to be a first-time DM, even though I'm new to D&D. Do you have any books or any suggestions for those who are dming for only one or two players?
Bacon is in fact delicious. Anyone can answer this btw! First, id like to ask if you have any advice for a first time GM who is currently running a homebrew (i have previous world building experience from making video games and books) with only one olayer (my partner). Hes a goblin, which is quite challenging as they are very very weak and normally require a pack to survive. Any tips?
issue with little to no prep is that you have great games, ok games and meh games. And unless your brain is wired very differently than others it's hard. I usually go with 5-10 bullet points. below it's hard, above my brain freeze :P
Your point about not needing all the fancy stuff is also true for online games. I'm perfectly happy with Roll20. I know Foundry has all the doodads and fancy spell effects, but Roll20 functions well enough for me. I only recently started using dynamic lighting after using their basic fog of war.
I run games that "tell a story" but I allow the players to progress through that story. I dislike that 1 piece of advice, because it is like saying that Dragon Quest isn't "good" because you gotta play a story and only Skyrim is "good" because it is sandbox. No, you shouldn't tell players they can't do that because that's not how the Story goes, but there's nothing wrong with running a game that on rails as opposed to completely open world. I've had more open world games fail because players want something they NEED to do as opposed to whatever they feel like. You need a Threat, or a BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) and the players want to go have thrilling fetch quests to stop that. I would honestly advise new DMs to run something more on rails that tells a story as opposed to letting their (probably new) players free reign to do whatever. They'll end up just being bored in a tavern or trying to make their own town at level 2. Not good stuff.
Yeah I agree. I put plot lines that they will hit in the story and have outcomes that happen if they aren't involved with it. They have complete control over what they want to do however a story is playing out based on their decisions and the main conflicts that I create for them.
Great video! I'm going to DM for the first time hopefully soon. It's a couple's campaign for my husband and me, but I'm still a little nervous and a bit overwhelmed. 😅
The people who make good games without prepping i would bet just don't count their prep as work. They probably think about D&D shit all the time--at work, grocery shopping, driving, playing games--but its fun for them so it doesn't count as work to them. That and they must ahve practiced their improv skills a lot, which would again, not be labeled "prep time" in their brains. Either they're bullshitting and are bad or they prep constantly and just don't realize it's what their doing.
I've ran games over a decade too. Little to their knowledge every player made character exists in the same world.. some of my NPCs are just PCs from past campaigns. These players mold the world around them and that's how I evolve my worlds lore 😂 It currently exists where a polytheistic church is the major power across the world...and like...weirdly stops some evil as the evil gods are equally revered soo taboo is gone mostly... But yeah I never would have thought of it 😂
Hi Luke, Love your content, and lately I've looked at a lot of your videos as I have started out as a DM. So sorry, but I have to ask is this not the same video you put out some time ago. I specifically remember the Grandma Story, the praise of the eberron setting and the old box set as a campaing setting and couple of the tips
He repeats himself a lot. There are videos that are about the same topic, and there are stories that he mentions A LOT. Like him getting his first book and getting to know the game.
My 13year old just watched the Honor Among Thieves movie over the weekend, and as we were talking about the movie, he was like, "Wait, this is a game?!?" So, I am getting ready to start a game with (for now at least) just me and him. Good side is I am already into miniature gaming (Warhammer and the like) so I have a bunch of minis and terrain we can use. Never DMed D&D before though, so it should be interesting. I will probably make a PC for me to run alongside him, just so he has a "buddy" in game. lol Any tips/ ideas/ resources would be great...
As someone who has only dmed about 10 sessions I can't really give you much advice but I would recommend dnd beyond, it is a really nice community and you can ask very experienced dms for tips. It also has lots of nice resources for character creation and more stuff.
im currently workshopping my first campaign while one of the upcoming party members dm’s for our other campaign. ive planned out at least 10 NPC’s and locations, and they havent even thought about making characters yet am i cooked?
As a brand new dm, I totally screwed up the pacing. I had to railroad my players into one encounter, but somehow my players keep pointing back at that session as one of the best. As a DM who tries really hard to prep NPCs and encounters ahead, it's aggravating that they keep telling me that encounter was the most memorable 😂 halfway through, I introduced an OP bad guy because my players were mercilessly mercing my opponents. Maybe mid-combat developments are the way to go 🤔🙄
I'm thinking of DM'ing a couple episodes for my sister and my best friend. None of us has ever played. I have the most knowledge out of the three of us. Does anyone have any module recommendations for a smaller party?
I'm DMing for the first time tomorrow and I'm so nervous. I'm good at Making Sht Up On The Spot in general but sometimes I freeze up/my kind goes blank and I'm scared I'll make it awkward for the players 😭 What advice do you have for the moments when you don't know what to do?
![A Crap Guide to D&D [5th Edition] - Dungeon Master](/img/1.gif)
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I can stop buying dice, anytime I want. (Just ordered new dice)
You are not alone. I swear if dice were healthy candy... I would be gonzo! A😂
I’m not addicted. I can stop whenever I want. I just don’t want to
Look for your local meetings my friend. DAA can help! (Dice Addicts Anonymous) 😅
I only have 2 sets of dice...
It's like making new characters, I can stop whene... Are those coin shaped dice for a gambling rogue I just thought up?
I'm a "Low prep DM"
40 years+ of hiding how much I prep.
Every fantasy adventure book I read. Every movie I watch, Every discussion of the game... is prep. I practice taking 3 bits of inspiration and turning it into a short adventure.
I just don't write most of this stuff down.
Only dmed for About 2 years but i feel you every thing you see is inspiration and prep
I am NOW- I used to be that guy that drew out all the maps, copied the stats and adjusted monsters and tied in everything with a multi-page plot line...
Now I write up a two- or three-page outline about two hours before our session. It often appears that the less I plan, the more fun that evening.
I know what you mean, mate. Every piece of media, book, video game, even real life stories (especially true crimes and sordid news stories) and a tiny bit of meme are my every day life inspiration when plotting a One shot/an intrigue when I'm DMing.
Even when I'm a player, I can't help but seeing reference in games to stuff in media/IRL. For instance I just came back from a horror Call of Cthulhu DND one shot tonight. Everything in the story was like a mix of Alien Isolation with the concept behind the Saw movie franchise to me. And I couldn't help but tell the DM about it and he hadn't considered that angle and was quite surprised at the link I made.
I like that way of working (from several inspirational sources) as a DM because you can work it well into a new game for people to discover. And if you wanna make a parody non serious one shot, that can definitely get very memey.
Good artists invent, Great artists steal. Same goes for DMing.
I started by prepping to omuch and my players hated it. This game, I built the world as a sand box. I left multiple quest hooks, but my players ignored them all and went on their own way, so every sessions is by the seat of my pants, BUT the world, countries, major npcs are prebuilt, and my players are begging me to run again.. .which is an AMAZING feeling
How did they hate over prep? It sounds more like they enjoyed your game.
@@sleepinggiant4062 Too much prep can be restrictive. "chapter 1: the players meet at an inn. chapter 2: the players accept the quest from the bartender. and so on.
"Prep", the term itself, has a very broad application - from worldbuilding, to encounter creation, and others that Luke mentioned in the video. If I prep A, but the players really want B, then it will suck for everyone.
@@orokusaki1243 - If a DM preps A and lets the players do B, that's not being restrictive. It has nothing to do with prep, and is all on how the DM runs the game.
@@sleepinggiant4062 When A is the only prepped option, is when it can be restrictive.
Agreed, that's the heart of it: how the GM runs and how the Players play - the table dynamic - plays a big part.
The OP apparently changed their running style, with all that prep kept intact.
My point was in agreement with what was said in the video, about essentially not prepping beyond the Character's range/reach.
Apocalypse World has a system to help determine what is important now, what might be important soon, and anything outside the "circle" just doesn't matter so much. Thus my later prepping analogy about bright and dim light.
@@sleepinggiant4062 Minor add: Painting oneself into a corner is a thing, so the GM could be restricting themselves - reducing flexibility. They may feel compelled to keep it as prepped and the Players may notice things not really making sense, as a result.
My advice is to get buy in from the group for the adventure you want to run right at the start. Dropping them into a tavern and just giving some plot hooks opens yourself up to the party just not being interested in any of them. It also saves you a lot of time on prepping for things that the party just isn't interested in.
this is really helpful because my friends are having me run a one shot as the dm for my first time next week and im nervous as hell
How did it go?
buddy same
It's been 7 months; how did it go?
@@nephicus339 I’m DMing a one shot for the first time for my friends in a few weeks. I’ll let you know how it goes
@@colereszel7273 Well ... How did it go?
“What do they call them? They don’t call them Thieves anymore, they are Rogues now” 😆
I started with 2nd addition as well and still catch myself calling the class Thieves.
footpads
Burglars XD
Thank you for this video! I'm taking the plunger and learning to DM (without ever playing the game) and this is exactly what I needed. Especially when you held up Eberron because it's exactly the setting I decided to use :D
Sweet, happy to help! Best of luck! :D
I have a reputation among my group for running no-prep games. They've literally told me my improvised sessions are far more fun than my prepped sessions. So I *think* that counts me as a no-prep GM by Luke's reasoning?
However, I actually do have prep: I have the world setting, the major factions (I don't normally prep NPCs in those factions, not even the head of a cult, for example, but leave that to players [and myself] to find out during play), the limitations in the world (low/corruptive magic; no extraplanar entities/gods [no clerics/warlocks]; etc), and the rule set and house rules for the game. I have a vague outline of how I want to start, and how to tie PCs' backgrounds into the world, and what sort of vibe I want the world to evoke.
Most of that prep is done before session 0, the PC-specific stuff before session 1. After that, my "prep" is reviewing what went on in the previous sessions and coming up things I think might be cool for players to come across should they continue going the way they are, and also considering what the major factions' responses will be to the PCs' actions.
I don't know any truly "no-prep" GMs. I know a few "no-adventure-prep" GMs though. I've played in a game with a GM who thought they could wing EVERYTHING (world setting, adventure, factions etc.) and yeah, it WAS truly crap.
I prep my games one to two sessions ahead of time, once I have an idea where they want to go. Just NPC's, 1 or 2 locations, rumors, with a dash of monsters to get in the way. Then I will fit in my overall narrative into the story.
I'm the DM. I decide if its a mistake. Often in hindsight. And quite often. I don't make mistakes. I make happy accidents. ;)
I’ve been DMing 3.5 since it came out but still don’t know all the rules.
I prep one session ahead that’s all.
Yes the players will surprise you.
I’m currently prepping a campaign set in Wildemount and it’s my first time DMing in over 8 years so all these new DM videos are super helpful. Thank you for giving specific advice and support!
I'm also running my first ever campaign in Wildemount! First time DM with a brand new party of players. Best of luck to your party!
Thank you for pointing out that the DM is not a storyteller nor are they an entertainer.
They are a story maker, like everyone at the table along with the dice and they are there to have fun like everyone else. The worst advice I see repeated is “if the players are having fun then you are having fun as the DM.”
Finally, I appreciate the acknowledgment that the game doesn’t have to be “fun” 100% of the time. It can be frustrating and that is ok.
Great video.
I'm a first-time DM and I wish I'd seen this video sooner! I'm making my own world and it's a bit empty at the moment since I'm building it up as the characters go places in my attempt at a sandbox game. Thanks for sharing this wisdom with the internet! 😊
I’ve never played but I’ve always wanted to however I got tired of waiting for someone to include me so I decided to just start my own campaign and now I’m a DM (Starting with a preset story) this was very helpful THANK YOU
I do everything in the theater of the mind with the help of a whiteboard to outline the area map as the PCs see it. It works great, fast, flexible, and cheap too. And Castles & Crusades is our now go-to main game. It is actually rules-light (unlike 5e) and very flexible to play the game style and type that you want without breaking the system because it isn't bloated full of rules.
I am a newer GM, usually homebrew stuff for my game, but the first rule I learned is to improvise cause nothing I planned happened, don't get me wrong what did happen was AMAZING, better than what I had planned! I love the players creativity and will always let them do something as long as it will fit and as long as they give me a very good reason why I can or if it is just plain amazing and funny. Thank you for these tips friend!
I always have a few hooks for players to grab onto at a time, but I wait to flesh them out completely until the players take a bite.
Always keep the things you improv and the things you prepare a mystery to your players.
Make sure you can adjust how you planned things when players hit you with the unexpected.
5:31 there are gamemasterless systems out there that manage to do good games with prep at the game table, such as "microscope" or "Magician: the language learning game". However, in my experience, such improvise everything games only make good obne-shots, rarely good campaigns.
I have a dm exactly like in your experience. They make really fun improv everything one shots. But at some point they didn't have time to prep for the main game due to life stuff, instead of cancelling they thought they could run a fun improv everything session. It was, in fact, not fun.
The first two minutes of this video already made me feel better! I m a new dm and my brain is smashed from trying to remember everything 😢
New to dming here, on my first ever campain zero i was a little unprepared. But what was worse is that one of my players found an amulet that would solve the puzzle eventually. The amulet had the text, “do not wear” on it so he ate it and his stomach was glowing for the majority of the session. Needless to say i was not ready for that
I've been using your videos recently, and I am very excited to run my campaign. I'm homebrewing my location. The first adventure's setting is gonna be a fall themed town named Allspice Valley
Starting my first campaign as a DM this evening and im equal parts nervous and excited. One thing i can say is that this channel has been an invaluable resource!
I made my own game board from cardboard and printed graph paper and I covered it in clear shelf liner so I can use dry erase markers on it. And I use Lego pieces for enemies and player characters.
Re: prepping and not prepping... I usually have a world built and a narrative I hope the players will follow, but I rely on improv a lot to keep the players' goals at the center of it.
I've had sessions that are 100% improv that are both great and terrible, but I would say on average, my no-prep games are less engaging to the players than the ones I've planned out.
My strategy is to build key elements and then let the players guide the story and insert them ahead when i know how to guide the players to something that will match thematically with the intended item/npc/etc
My group of friends are getting into tabletop RPG games and our GM is really only one because in the last group he was in, the GM left so he stepped up to run it, but he loves being a player too. So to let him be a player sometimes, I want to try being a GM as well, and your videos are helping me figure out how to do that, so thank you!
To show little you need to start an RPG, I started a story based campaign on the fly in a groups chat and took out dice, stats and the combat system to just replace it with descriptive back and forward between players and DM. We essentially play the entire campaign in our mind. We run on player interactions and descriptive writing from both me and the players. This way of playing you can do anywhere, at any time, on text, VC or IRL, which is why I did it as 1 of my friends was on vacation.
(I do have to note it takes a party that heavily favors lore, story, immersion and RP over combat, finding cool class or ability combinations or min maxing systems. And 3 of us are DM’s and writers.)
Tip 4 just relieved so much tension for me. I’ve never had a DnD group but have been watching DnD and been so interested in it for YEARS and I finally convinced my friends to play. All but one of us have 0 experience in it and I offered to DM and I am so nervous to start! PHEW glad I’m not alone 😅😅
I've managed to run one session at a time out of prep but my players could 100% tell because the story becomes absolutely absurd. Fun but I wouldn't want to run an entire campaign like that.
Some people may create their own science fantasy world with 12 planets and a number of factions and classes for no reason at all, And then find out completely separately that you can play DnD in that world
Dice addiction is real, haha, but I love the advice! Hearing some things I already do makes me feel like a better baby dm. Thank you!
Don't tell me that I only should buy a low two digit number of dozens of dice!
They... are... so... beautiful! We... need... them!
1. you ALWAYS need more dice.
2. thank you for the amazing tips! i've only played in 1 campeign, but i have friends that have never played before, so i wanted to give dming a shot. It seems like a bit much when you start out, but you gave a lot of good advise^^
I have never run a game myself. However, I reently had the thought "I wonder if this would be a good job for Google Bard A.I.? Turns out, yup. you look up any rule you need on the fly and have it explained to you right then and there. a GM's wet dream as far as not having to take 10 minutes out of a game to look up and then consider a deep-cut rule.
Thanks for those videos. They're giving me courage for my first game, 'cause I'm suffering from severe brain fog when preparing everything and was thinking it might not be worth it.
Now I want to continue nonetheless and see how it goes. And whether or not it's good, I just want to spend some quality-time with my friends.
All your points about worldbuilding also apply for drawing maps. Most of the times the players would want to visit certain key locations of your world, so focus on detailing those instead of trying to draw a complete world map or a detailed map of the entire city.
Plus - if you for some reason still want or need a detailed city map google city maps of medieval cities, copy them, add your key locations and give the streets the names you deem fit.
I don't really prep a lot because I have several ideas about my next adventure in my mind before I even put it on paper, and once it's on paper it's really deep in my memory because I sat in front of a computer typing everything down for a while.
Thank you for this video! My husband has always wanted to play d&d but none of his friends wanted to, so I'm trying to learn how to be a dm for him so we can do solo campaigns until we can convince our friends 😂
I’ve been playing for a month and a half we play every two weeks so I’ve only got to play four times but my friend has been wanting to play his daughters willing to play and my daughter let herself be talked into playing and we’re playing on Saturday. Obviously it’s my first time in a DM and I am doing everything I can to prepare a good game. I chose tomb of the serpent king, because it seemed short and pretty easy. I know this is like a 4 month old video, but wish me luck. Lol
im dming for the first time in a couple days and ive been dong some last minute cramming and i found this guy and i love it so much. i love the game and this guy is so fun the way he explains things
Awesome, happy to help! Best of luck with your game! :D
"That's neither here nor now"! I love that. I laughed so hard. Great video Luke. These points have been made in other videos of yours, but they need repeating. We don't have enough DM's out there.
So, you have said this before, and I disagreed then, as I do now. You do not ONLY prep the immediate area. You don't need to build a full world... but you need an OUTLINE of the world(or at least the world that is going to be around the party and might feasibly be interacted with via rumors or lore).
You can limit what is prepped at what points based entirely on scope. If the game is likely to be only in a single country... then you need to know the surrounding counties, the surrounding countries, and the surrounding governments well enough to adlib history that the players might ask. I can wing the whole damned thing, if need be, but a new GM might not know how to do that and keep it coherent.
Draw a crude map of the country and surrounding countries, and then just throw some names to the different cardinal direction. You don't need the specifics, but you do need a reference for if questions are asked you don't know. You can keep this handy, and when players ask something that isn't on there... add it. Now you have references for notes that stay accurate.
That said, this isn't something you need for session 0.0 or 1.0
... but you want to have it relatively soon.
That chicken couldn't have laid the egg but he did come from one (thats a rooster)
I never got to play before GMing
And the desire to end up with more dice is a real thing I did not expect haha
I am a medium prep. First thing, I write a best as I remember summary of last session. Review the campaign notes/ modules. Finally I write campaign note.
Very informative, thank you for the insights as someone who is starting a campaign for the first time with all new friends!
After months of me and my friends and I realized that D&D seems like a fun game to play, but too complex, I decided to do some research. Two out of the three of us have played Baldurs Gate, so we're using our knowledge of that game to guide us in our campaign game. The second issue we ran into was that none of us figured we were skilled enough to be a DM, so we weren't even going to play. Yet again, after seeing some videos, I decided to step up to the challenge, thinking it would be fun. I've been doing lots of research and am hoping to keep things as simple as possible for our first game, and this video really helped! Wish us luck!!!
@@skyowl498 EZD6
How is it going?
@hang2125 we've only had one session so far, but it was soooo fun!! My friends are really impressed by how I've DM'd. We're all looking forward to the next session, and I'm excited to improve how we play, considering the first session was a bit messy.
@@skyowl498 good to hear you did it! and good luck forward
@@skyowl498 Awesome , hope you keep enjoying.
I straight up did a session with 15 min notice and ran. I won't say it was amazing but it wasn't awful. It also have about 20 ppl so. I blame waiting too long for turns. Average prep time is about 30 min. And last sesh they went off the rails so hardly any prep came up - it was on of our best sessions.
I suggest using just pencil and paper to replace the minis and retain. Just get a bird's eye view map and 4 first person maps.
I've been DMing Shadowrun regularly for over 20 years. I've only actually played in a handful of games.
Also as a Shadowrun DM yes I DO need that many dice...
We swapped from Sr5 to DnD 5E. My group just couldn't figure the world of shadowrun out. No matter what i described, no matter what arts and graphics i prevented, they all had difficulty to imagine themselves in this world.
That's my tip: don't stick to things that just won't work in a specific group
My first season is later today so this is right on time. Ty for your advice as always
Just remember to have fun
I have never played dnd, but always wanted to. I’m in a sci-fi student association at my school which has dnd meetings and I’m considering suggesting to dm for a group there (they need more dms since the association is a lot bigger this year than it previously has been). I feel like I would enjoy dming more than I would playing since I adore world building and creatively working behind the scenes, while at the same time liking to be be in control. That being said, I’m not a control freak, and I know for sure that it’s gonna get chaotic and disorderly real fast. But hey, I do thrive in chaos! Especially organised chaos. The only thing intimidating me is the fact that I haven’t actually played the game myself yet, and even though I have followed along some campaigns briefly there is a LOT that I don’t know about it and wasn’t planning to learn from the dms pov. But eh, we’ll see
The story and events in my game can be all thrown out the window because of what the main concept is which is who do you kill and who do you not. This determines the NPCs you meet, the quests you have, and final boss you fight.
Hey im a brand new dm and im having my first game in the tal'dorei reborn setting and this video was very informative
Agreed with being GM first! When the blue box set came out in late 1979, or so,The nobody I knew had ever heard of D&D. Mom got me the box for Christmas and I spent the next several days reading the rules, trying to understand them and then conning my family into creating PCs. The first session was AWFUL. With no real clue of how to play, I laid the entire adventure map out on the kitchen table, and everyone said, "Hey, I wonder what that S on the map means. Lets go check it out. Oops!
But I was enthralled. So I got better.
Writing my first adventure with rules, that are extremly easy to play (at least i hope so) for my fiance, i am hoping that i can learn from him, so i can try to run this system with friends. It is less combat orientated and more interaction based. I never had so much fun writing and researching. Never played a game, only whatched people play on youtube and being impressed by the dms. (Please excuse spelling mistakes, english is not my first language)
This makes me feel alot better about never being a PC about to run the mines as a first time GM.
5:38 - I like to prep modularly; not too much that if my players don't go this direction it's all ruined, but enough that I can drop things I've planned out infront of them regardless of the direction they choose.
If they need to find an item or meet an NPC, I make that item or npc viable to move around as needed. So I never say, 'Find the Blacksmith in Icewind Dale;' just for my players to go to Baldur's Gate instead.
Or the macguffin, like a key or letter, that I can drop on any npc or corpse they might come across on the road, on a city street, or have couriered to them. Also, never underestimate magic; it's entirely possible a wizard's tower appears in the middle of the road for the players, only to be gone entirely when they turn around. Magic does weird stuff as much as magic users do weird stuff with magic.
I run my games based on logic; so what would NPCs around my players be doing at that time, and as time passes..
9:12 - To be fair; not all rogues are thieves, not all thieves are rogues; but thief is a rogue subclass. 😛
Also saw a guy got offended being called a thief; said he was a robber. So it's touchy even in the in crowd.
(for anyone reading this he described it as, 'Thieves sneak around and take s***; I'll kick down your door and put a gun to your head and just take whatever I want; I'm a robber. I rob people.' so... yeah...)
I unfortunately don't have a group to play with:(
Nor do I have a computer to try and play online.
But, I did create 6 different lvl 1 characters in case I found a group!
Anyhow, last year I was potentially going to be a GM for D&D at my local library. But no one signed up:(
Finally, yes "FUN IS RELATIVE" so to me what I would find fun I know many others wouldn't. I personally would prefer (if I could find a group) a D&D Game/Campaign that is 60% Lore/Exploration/Roleplay/History & 40% Combat!
I only buy the dice I need. I apparently need a lot of fancy dice.
The issue with prep: It can really come down to the individuals on what they want/expect/do.
Some Players just want to react to the GM in a nearly predetermined story. Others, want to forge the story/world with the GM. With that said - one person's trash is another person's treasure. If I want A, but instead get B, then of course I'll consider it to be inferior and bad and otherwise negatively criticize it. Spectra exist, one must find/forge the best table to GM/play at, for them.
So, while this advice presented may be suitable for Luke and those who expect what/how Luke preps, it may not encompass the whole gamut of ways to prep. This kind of tunnel vision may cause anxiety for those who don't prep in the same way.
The seat of the pants prepper person in the example might be rather common, and is more likely just bad at GMing in general. Developing GM skills takes a lot of time and effort, which is essentially "prepping" to be a good GM. Mistakes will be made, from which one will learn to improve, or they will not realize that it was a mistake - causing them to continue in that play-style rut.
I like to know what the players want to do, their characters' goals. And then, I facilitate, reactive/supportive GMing. I'm the snippet at the bottom of a choose your own adventure book "turn to page 39 if you go left, or 58 if you go right", and then improv based on what they do in relation to the objective and opposition. If they have an objective, I'll put up the barriers and twists (the challenges, the situations). I'm fine with them skipping out on any GM presented plots, because those can just fester in the background and hit/stack-on as a barrier or twist later on. Essentially, emergent gameplay, every action/interaction has consequences (positive or negative or both). Theater of the mind doesn't really need maps. The premise is character-centric/dependent, the "BBEG" is going to be the major obstacle to the characters' success.
Know the underlying world lore, it gives you options, and those options are power to deliver a great improv'd game.
I think the no-prep thing can depend on the system, too. I can run a pretty decent Monster of the Week session with very little prep. I cannot do that with D&D as effectively because the degree of complexity of the system. Monster of the Week has very little for stat blocks and doesn't use dungeons etc. and is all theater of the mind. Trying to put together a D&D adventure on the fly is much harder since it has a higher threshold of things needed to play effectively. (Presuming you don't theater of the mind D&D -- which I don't.)
I keep hearing people say the DM isn't telling a story. I don't think that's always true. If you use a prewritten module, you're telling the module's story. In my campaign I wrote a story outline about what's happening in my game world, and then put the players in the world in a situation that involves the story. Where they go from there determines what part of the story they encounter, if any. The situation they started in gave them a reason to continue pursuing the story, and I added bits to each of their back stories that give them sub plots that also involve the story. So I am telling a story, it's just up to the players to determine how much of my story they interact with. It seems to be working. I think that without a story to tell, the players are just looking for random odd jobs. That's fine if you just want a dungeon hack-n-slash, but it lacks what an epic story brings to the game. If there is a big bad evil guy to defeat at the end of the campaign after defeating his minions for weeks, you're telling a story.
But... no one really USES prewritten modules....
Every time luke brings this up i feel like the "actual" message isn't properly communicated. The way i understand him, what he means is "The DM isnt the only storyteller", which is far more accurate - the DM only tells and organizes one part of the story, with the rest being told by the players and the dice, making dnd (on any TTRPG with a DM equivalent) a game of collaborative storytelling, with the players the other storytellers.
@@Malachi_Marx I don't either, and haven't since AD&D in the 80's. But if no module, then unless you're running a hex crawl or your game is just rumors heard in a tavern for the payers to go after, you're telling a story. I don't understand the whole "there's no story" mentality. Of course there's a story. It's why the PC's are doing what they're doing.
Agreed. The DM makes all the content and the players just say what they try to do. The DM then says what happens. So the DM is certainly a story teller. And that is different than writing a book. Luke's point (I think) is that you don't force the players to follow a set narrative, and let them decide how to handle things.
Makin paper minis while wathing this video to prepare for my first game ever. had to become an DM to even play this game.
I was a player first and really took a liking to the game but SUCKED at my dice rolls. Solution? Be the enemies, where my crappy rolls play out to the benefit of the party versus being the half-orc barbarian that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. But it's getting into it all and still have yet to complete a full campaign, it's all about the willingness of the DM to learn but know they cannot know everything. I find the best amount of prep is to set up the situation, have the encounters good to go (I do a digital tabletop, so some work is needed for that to be ready when the time comes), and have an overall concept of what could happen loosely mapped out. Stilling giving a ton of room to the players to decide where things go can help a railroad feel not like one while the DM can feel in control no matter what.
But biggest tip is to use a module for your first full campaign. I made the mistake of trying to homebrew a campaign and why I've had it fail all three times I've tried to run it. But going through actual modules this time I am seeing why my homebrew failed when it didn't have anything really engaging and the environment came off as plain when none of the players really found a desire to investigate why things were the way they were (I thought just having zero dragons of any kind would spark the curiosity, nope).
What do you all consider no prep games?
I have run sessions that I prep pages of notes beforehand, and some that I have an idea of what the party will do but improvise 95% as the players and I go along.After running both types(no prep and prep), I feel my players enjoy my improved style games better than my prepared ones. I feel this could just be a skill a person has or not.
What do you guys think?
"No prep" unfortunately has a wide spectrum of meaning. My friends call me "no prep" because I don't write adventures, and I improvise most of what happens during play, but they also don't count the world-building, choosing a rule system, house rules, and PC-backstory tie-ins as prep, even though I absolutely think it *is* prep. The things most players think count as "prep" are things like maps, dungeons, NPCs, pre-written adventures, overarching adventure story with BBEG etc, which are things I almost never do.
For me the stuff I absolutely must prep are the longer-term stuff (what happens in the world, and how the players can and likely will influence it), the adventures and the locations (like the town they are in). So the more detailed stuff, where consistency is much harder to have when improvised. But I usually prep the encounters, maps, NPCs and other stuff as well. (Yes, I'm a quite new, unexperienced, maximalist and often nervous GM.)
I think you should ask your players about this, what they like, and decide what is the best for you all based on that.
New GMs/DMs, you will feel overwhelmed, but please jump in! And with good PCs and/or friends, your love and skill as a GMDM will flourish!!❤
This could just be me, but I think D&D and Pathfinder have waaay too much crunch to be able to run without planning. And even "no-prep" games have some level of prep if encounters are involved (which, it's a game, they should be). So if you are looking for that "no prep" experience, I'd recommend a system that makes setting up encounters easy.
Yeah you're right, I don't need to match the streamers setups... I need to beat them
Number 3 is sooo true. Just when you think you've planned for everything, the paladin steps in front of the monster and gets himself eaten. 😵💫
I'm 40 and my 2 sons want to get into dnd. I got myself the 5th edition players handbook. And the starter set box with the blue dragon on the box lol. I love the idea of creating a story for my boys to go through. But I can't get my head around how to hit a target and save and what not. Correct me if I have this wrong please.
Do I roll to hit using a d20 then add that to say strength + proficiency.
Double I then roll to save? And how
And how do I determine how much damage say a zombie takes.
Any decent links to a step by step video would be awesome lol
Number 9 seems to be contentious in the online community... Lots of people say it's a RED FLAG if DMs don't allow all player races and subclasses and spells from every published book. Personally, if players want to use that particular thing, then the have to buy me a copy of the book that it's in. So far, all my players have been content to limit themselves to PHB and Xanathar's, the two books I actually own, instead of buying me new books.
I go by a mostly similar principle, reading through books to find if there are glaring issues with classes, races, etc. that I simply can't permit. Outside of the latest few core books, I've been more than okay with what my players have wanted. I certainly wouldn't ask them to buy me new books though, yo ho diddly dee-ing them is an option to access what they have wanted and I feel as though ensuring that the campaign is balanced is good, but the fun of the players is a bigger concern. The difficulty of the whole campaign is something that should be discussed regardless, as if someone goes outside the realms of 'balanced', and you've been told to make the game challenging, then you get a chance to go a little bit nuts.
@@xDynamiteDogx I'm not so worried about balance. I just hate being caught off-guard by stuff I've never even heard of. i.e. "I cast Tasha's Mind Whip!" ... What the hell is that? Or "My character is an owl-lady!" ... Never heard of owl-people, sorry. If you want to play an owl-person, buy me the book so I can read up on whatever it is they are.
I want to presage this by saying I thoroughly enjoy these moments where our attitudes diverge, because I think at the core, I have a lot of the same feelings you do about TTRPGs!
So I find it strange that people get so worked up about the term "Storyteller" - as if the implication is that this excludes players from active participation.
It seems like such a silly thing to get hung up on. As if calling someone the "Game Master" implies that any player at the table is necessarily a thrall or servant of the person running the game. It's the worst kind of literalism - the kind you see in religious dogma.
Look, the term "Storyteller" arose because back in the 90's, games like Vampire: The Masquerade were shifting away from "the rules must be followed to the letter" to the more cooperative notion that "We're telling a story together."
We wouldn't have these great collaborative storytelling games today if it wasn't for this shift in tone and mood within the industry.
Remember, this was a time when the big RPG developers were still pushing very antagonistic attitudes toward player/GM relationships. GMs were cautioned to watch their players carefully to ensure they weren't taking advantage of rules loopholes. They were also cautioned against deviating too far from the rules.
VtM and its sister games weren't the only ones to take a Story-first approach, but they were some of the most successful games to do so.
So "Storyteller" didn't come about to solidify GM control over the narrative. It came about to give the GM a different perspective on what their role was. Not a referee, so much as a narrator - but moreso, the kind of active storytelling that encourages audience participation. Asking questions, riffing off of reactions and comments, drawing the audience INTO the story.
Because the players aren't an audience. They're participants.
Yeah, I get it, we're all storytellers to some extent. And while I'm a big proponent of carefully vetting the language we use (since it informs the way we think about the games we play), I'm also kind of tired of hearing people's hang-ups about a term that was meant to be transformative - moving away from the GM's Iron Grip approach to game running - as if it were a poster-child for that sort of hostile game design.
Basically, I get where you're coming from here, but at the same time, I think it's making a mountain out of a molehill, and it's not a molehill worth dying on.
One more note: I do think there's a misconception about collaborative storytelling games: people like to say all roleplaying games are collaborative storytelling - but that's a term for a specific subgenre of TTRPG that blurs the lines of the GM/Player power dynamic (either by giving more power to the Player or putting less emphasis on the game runner).
So the truth is, not all TTRPGs are Collaborative Storytelling Games, though all of them do include elements of collaborative storytelling (just like not all martial arts are sports, though all include elements of fitness and athleticism).
Thank you for your Ted Talk:)
Really, thank you for letting us know your opinion. I only got into TTRPGs last year, so I didn't know most of this "history".
I'm in a 5e party right now made up of dudes I've known for years and some of our friends and family.
The newest guy in the group is an old friend of our linch-pin friend, he's younger and a bit spastic, but not a bad kid.
Except for one of us, we're all first timers and just trying to run a fun game.
It was between myself, our most experienced player, and the guy we ended up choosing.
He's not awful, and he lets us do a lot of fun stuff/ bend the more arbitrary rules to make the game more fluid and less homework(a lifesaver for my wizard lol) but we keep to the rules in a general enough sense.
The problem is that we've been going once a week for just about 2 months now, and the DM has cancelled on us last minute 4 times now.
It's to the point that the boys are all looking at me and I've told them I don't mind taking over if DM is falling off(there are reasons and some of them are just bs) but I don't want to go in blind, so I'm looking into some tips as a very compulsive person and trying to not go overboard and bite off more than I can chew.
I running a little game with my son and cousin, I have 0 DM experience, I've only every played a tutorial, and I watch VLDL's D&D.
We have no minis and all I had was 2 monopoly dice.
We don't even have proper characters, health, modifiers, none of that.
Just imagination, rolls, and me basically guiding the story.
Edit: My son is 5, I'm very proud he even wanted to do something like this. 😂
I took the plunge and have decided to be a first-time DM, even though I'm new to D&D. Do you have any books or any suggestions for those who are dming for only one or two players?
Bacon is in fact delicious.
Anyone can answer this btw!
First, id like to ask if you have any advice for a first time GM who is currently running a homebrew (i have previous world building experience from making video games and books) with only one olayer (my partner). Hes a goblin, which is quite challenging as they are very very weak and normally require a pack to survive. Any tips?
issue with little to no prep is that you have great games, ok games and meh games. And unless your brain is wired very differently than others it's hard.
I usually go with 5-10 bullet points. below it's hard, above my brain freeze :P
Your point about not needing all the fancy stuff is also true for online games. I'm perfectly happy with Roll20. I know Foundry has all the doodads and fancy spell effects, but Roll20 functions well enough for me. I only recently started using dynamic lighting after using their basic fog of war.
At least in PF2E, Foundry does the basics (no modules needed) waaaaay better than anything r20 does. I hope you can give it a try some day!
I run games that "tell a story" but I allow the players to progress through that story. I dislike that 1 piece of advice, because it is like saying that Dragon Quest isn't "good" because you gotta play a story and only Skyrim is "good" because it is sandbox. No, you shouldn't tell players they can't do that because that's not how the Story goes, but there's nothing wrong with running a game that on rails as opposed to completely open world. I've had more open world games fail because players want something they NEED to do as opposed to whatever they feel like. You need a Threat, or a BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) and the players want to go have thrilling fetch quests to stop that. I would honestly advise new DMs to run something more on rails that tells a story as opposed to letting their (probably new) players free reign to do whatever. They'll end up just being bored in a tavern or trying to make their own town at level 2. Not good stuff.
Yeah I agree. I put plot lines that they will hit in the story and have outcomes that happen if they aren't involved with it. They have complete control over what they want to do however a story is playing out based on their decisions and the main conflicts that I create for them.
earned another subscriber ! enjoying your vids of info and advise really appreciate it.
Great video! I'm going to DM for the first time hopefully soon. It's a couple's campaign for my husband and me, but I'm still a little nervous and a bit overwhelmed. 😅
The people who make good games without prepping i would bet just don't count their prep as work. They probably think about D&D shit all the time--at work, grocery shopping, driving, playing games--but its fun for them so it doesn't count as work to them. That and they must ahve practiced their improv skills a lot, which would again, not be labeled "prep time" in their brains.
Either they're bullshitting and are bad or they prep constantly and just don't realize it's what their doing.
Great video, thank you!!
I got my campaign as a first time ever DM this weekend, already shitting myself 🤣
You had my interest, then i saw WoT on your shelf, now you have my undivided attention.
The hobby is basically free. And everybody can play it. Best hobby in the world.
I've ran games over a decade too.
Little to their knowledge every player made character exists in the same world.. some of my NPCs are just PCs from past campaigns.
These players mold the world around them and that's how I evolve my worlds lore 😂
It currently exists where a polytheistic church is the major power across the world...and like...weirdly stops some evil as the evil gods are equally revered soo taboo is gone mostly... But yeah I never would have thought of it 😂
Hi Luke,
Love your content, and lately I've looked at a lot of your videos as I have started out as a DM.
So sorry, but I have to ask is this not the same video you put out some time ago. I specifically remember the Grandma Story, the praise of the eberron setting and the old box set as a campaing setting and couple of the tips
He repeats himself a lot. There are videos that are about the same topic, and there are stories that he mentions A LOT. Like him getting his first book and getting to know the game.
My 13year old just watched the Honor Among Thieves movie over the weekend, and as we were talking about the movie, he was like, "Wait, this is a game?!?"
So, I am getting ready to start a game with (for now at least) just me and him. Good side is I am already into miniature gaming (Warhammer and the like) so I have a bunch of minis and terrain we can use. Never DMed D&D before though, so it should be interesting.
I will probably make a PC for me to run alongside him, just so he has a "buddy" in game. lol
Any tips/ ideas/ resources would be great...
As someone who has only dmed about 10 sessions I can't really give you much advice but I would recommend dnd beyond, it is a really nice community and you can ask very experienced dms for tips. It also has lots of nice resources for character creation and more stuff.
im currently workshopping my first campaign while one of the upcoming party members dm’s for our other campaign.
ive planned out at least 10 NPC’s and locations, and they havent even thought about making characters yet
am i cooked?
As a brand new dm, I totally screwed up the pacing. I had to railroad my players into one encounter, but somehow my players keep pointing back at that session as one of the best. As a DM who tries really hard to prep NPCs and encounters ahead, it's aggravating that they keep telling me that encounter was the most memorable 😂 halfway through, I introduced an OP bad guy because my players were mercilessly mercing my opponents. Maybe mid-combat developments are the way to go 🤔🙄
Great video! (Made me buy dice)
I'm thinking of DM'ing a couple episodes for my sister and my best friend. None of us has ever played. I have the most knowledge out of the three of us. Does anyone have any module recommendations for a smaller party?
Oh, yeah, buying dice is the only drug I've taken so far, and it's very addictive...
Thanks for this!!!
11:58 by god i was stressing over how i was going to make a campaing from scratch by 5 days
Can you post a link to get Oberon (Aberon? Sorry don’t know the spelling, would love to see the “standard” so that I can make my campaign better)
I am wanting to run a homebrew I've been working on for a month
Im nervous im not going to be a good dm or will forget stuff
I'm DMing for the first time tomorrow and I'm so nervous. I'm good at Making Sht Up On The Spot in general but sometimes I freeze up/my kind goes blank and I'm scared I'll make it awkward for the players 😭 What advice do you have for the moments when you don't know what to do?