Had a campaign group for 2 years. Started as 6 players. Went fown to 5 after two of my players broke up. Down to 4 cos one moved away. Finished like the 2nd arc in thr campaign. Did modified curse of strahd into modified tomb of annhilation and i had a really really cool finale campaign set in Sigil. Annnddd 2 of my players decided that they'd rather not speak to me or one of my other players cos my player asked them out. And i said they could have just rekected them by saying no rather than going to the toilet and having a 30 minute bitch session about the person..... while they were in thr cubicle. My friend forgave them. I and the other player did not. Things were awkward. 3rd campaign never started. Rip. Was so good but cos there was so much set up i cant do the campaign with new players. I also now dont dm. I dont know enough people in person. And my job schedule is 10 days not 7. Making it hard to plan for others. One of my players has ADHD so they cant do online either Hope this satisfies your noseyness
A fundamental personality difference with a player who had become close with one of my core players. The final year of increasing difficulty combined with the experience of losing both players at the same time totally nuked my desire to continue telling stories in that 9 year old homebrew setting. But we grew a new setting from scratch and have enjoyed it for 3 years now; still going strong!
At my table, we follow the mantra "The DM is a player too". Before a campaign each player gets a role. One of us is the recorder, one is the scheduler, one is the rules lawyer, etc. this offloads some of the DM's work, and makes each player more committed to making it to the table. Been doing that and our group always finishes the campaigns we start, since it feels a lot more like a collaborative effort we all have a stake in and want to see through to the end.
In my table and many I've seen, we use a simple system called "Stars and Wishes" where we the players give me each a Star, something they liked on the session (be it something about the session itself or another player's interpretation) and a Wish, which is something they would like to happen in the following sessions, which can be a wish por the plot, a something they would wish to see changed, whatever there's on their mind. We take 5 minutes at the end of each game for this, and it helped MASSIVELY for my GMing.
One tip I want to share is: Intermission Campaigns. I was feeling a bit burnt out with my high effort homebrew campaign and couldn't keep up with the writing. So instead of taking a full break I told my players that we will run a pre-written that requires very little prep for a few weeks until I have the time and energy to continue with the main game. That pre-written ended up taking 6 months, but we just restarted with the main game and I am full of ideas and plans again. Would recommend.
It’s kinda weird to have a particularly long campaign. Changing games regularly is pretty normal. There isn’t a single group that doesn’t change projects or direction at least every few months.
when I'm too daunted by the prospect of DMing I like to run ttrpg escape rooms (I use escape this podcast's ones that are prewritten). it has the same opportunity for rp and for solving puzzles but I don't actually have to do any thinking).
You can also do this with a different GM. In my group we have 1 “main” DM and then other players might run different systems such as Blades in the Dark or Lancer
That's what we're doing in my group now. I'm the main DM and we just finished the first major arc of this campaign. One of my players also has GM experience and wanted to run a one shot of M&M so I get a few weeks off to just be a player. It's really nice and I feel like I'm going to be more energized starting the next arch of our main campaign.
The campaign I am currently running gas been killed, resurrected, killed again, animated as a zombie, slain, made into a flesh golem, slain AGAIN, and finally eaten by a corpse flower. I will never give up on it. It is my child.
yeah i feel ya, ive been doing that for 5 years with mine, even to the extent where the players of player-characters' who i've written around have been replaced multiple times and caught up to speed lol. humans and their drama istfg...
I remember a campaign I was in that died because the DM decided to not have any combat encounters, or even any adventuring for 5 whole sessions. BTW all that time was just spent on planning and hosting a f*cking ball...
@@alegendsock2581Bro the same thing happened to me around 2019, festival of magic we were being forced to participate inand help set up with the arcane academy. We had 2 casters and 3 martial classes (rogue monk and barb i think) so 3 of us just did menial labor for multiple sessions.
There's a flip-side to the "feedback" problem. That is GETTING the feedback. I have made projects for friends and have gotten ZERO real, actionable feedback before. Some people are so conflict averse that they will need to have a plank, pitcher of water, and a towel involved just to get ANY feedback out of them. Edit: I just shot that comment from the hip prior to the reveal that some questions were in the description. I'll empty the pitcher.
I’m all over asking and talking to my DM (now bf) how things work and things I like or talk about things that haven’t been working for me. I’m also helping him build terrain too now
god i hate when someone has a problem with smth happening on the table but they just wont say a thing Even worse when that person was a friend I rlly cared abt and one of the main reasons I was playing on the first place 😅 and they just leave us without any warning or any communication
i feel like this is an overarching problem of doing artistic thing as a hobby. You don't exactly get the most quality of feedback from random internet denizens in twitter and if you ask any of the people you know, you get 'oh wow that's cute' and that's it
I'm just starting a new campaign and I think this is a great idea. I have pinned a link to a google form in the discord server and stressed that I will not take any criticisms personally. The form doesn't record emails, so technically I won't know who the comments come from. You can also link the responses to a google sheet to keep a record of the responses. The people I play with are old friends (one who was the DM of the pencil stabbing incident I mentioned in a previous comment), plus my 2 sons, so I'm pretty sure I will get some responses.
8:43 "Not all your friends are D&D friends." Fucking seriously. Thank you SO much for saying this aloud. I've since figured it out myself, but I really needed this message outlined for me like five years ago. It'd of saved sooo much heartache and insecurity and maybe prevented me from believing I can "convert them" to "real roleplaying." God, I wish I could Like this video multiple times.
@@grinningbuck The statement wasn't about D&D friends, its that you can be friends and still be incompatible when it comes to what you're looking for out of D&D.
Another caveat: People that may be good DND friends may not actually be good friends. Don’t let yourself be abused because you want to play DND. It’s not worth it.
My friend's table of *8* was pretty much only comprised of problem players of disparate style preferences. They finally cut a bit of fat with one player that would insist on murder hobo-ing because he got sick of the nonstop committees and bullying the newer players over every single decision and would just go rogue to force the campaign to actually get anywhere, but the nitpickers and bullies are still around as well as the one who almost completely checks out if combat isn't happening. It's *painful* to watch them play. Pretty much none of them belong in the same game together, but Covid brought them all together and now they're hesitant to cut anyone out, even though they really need to. Trying to get a select couple of them into a Daggerheart game. Fingers crossed.
Ngl tho i legit thought it was gonna be a tip in video to use pre done monster manuals/make your own so that you can just flip to a page in a book and have it ready.
Usually my campaign dies cause i get bored and start a new one. If you have adhd try to run shorter stories. It will help you not wanna start a new game all the time.
I feel you there being a DM who is a introvert is I’m not entirely sure how I got here but if you’re ever looking for a group I gotcha we’ll burn out if every campaign probably because of me but we have a lot of fun along the way.
@@mal2ksc fortunately with our group we had a tradition that every player should at least have to host a game once a year to keep understanding between DM and players and give DM a break on occasion. That gave me to time to start working on my setting which I overhauled about 5 years back because that’s about to time I started my own games and the great game between the worlds factions needed to be added if not the setting would be far too stagnant for my tastes. I like an active world that changes and reacts which some of my players definitely have had some problems with mostly the compression that massacres usually consequences.
DM tip for custom monsters for those of you who want to have unique monsters, but don't have enough time to make every monster stat block by yourself: just reflavor an existing monster. Alter damage types, or give it a new trait, ability, or resistance/vulnerability, and bam! New monster. Got a bear? Give it a flying speed, the Firebolt cantrip with con as the castng skill, and resistance to fire damage and hey! It's the Lesser Fire Drake.
I like the old MM and its ideas about monster ecology and behaviour. A monster does not need dramatically different rules, I can give it another motivation and instinctual behaviour. A chaser predator is going to run after people who run, an ambush predator is going to attempt an attack from ambush and not stick around too long.
My advise for this is... Templates! Pathfinder does this well, just take a look at the set up there and how easy it is to just add one of these things to any monster. My favorite example, which I still am waiting for my players to encounter, is a "Skeleton, Multiplying, Hellfire T-Rex" and the surprises that has for them. With paralyzing beams from those undead eyes, flames from that lungless chest, and the ability to hurl chunks of burning semi-molten bone at the cowering spell casters, they should have fun fighting that for a few rounds it likely will take for them to defeat it. That it turns into two when they defeat it... that is when I have my fun!
@@lostbutfreesoulI can decide fairly easily that something like a slime splits into two smaller slimes with half the HD and a smaller attack. Pink/blue horrors do that in WFRP, it's not hard to track. WFRP had daemonic instability instead.
Another important point about improving scheduling is the high expectations for sessions that are between 3 and 6 hours long. What helped our group keeping a regular schedule was doing "short" 2 hours sessions which are much easier to include in a busy schedule, sometimes even doing a couple a week when we can.
@@Xplora213I would combine the two. I like the idea of turning a d&d session into a potluck or dinner party. Then again, that probably would be a bit much for a long run campaign.
What's worked for me a dozen times now: Weeknight games, online, 3 hour sessions, and the first thing I ask when finding players is "do you want to play DnD at 7 pm on Wednesdays?" We filter for time first, and then choose payers from whoever's available. There's enough people looking to play that you'll find enough. Live games need to be weekends, often take a lot longer (there almost 8 hours, maybe 5-6 of actual play) and happen about once a month. Very different vibe, very different goals.
@@erockandroll39I'm a little surprised this isn't the standard, really, that's how I always like to play. You get to the place, everyone sits down and eats, and that gives you a perfect chance to give the party that night's quest, answer any questions they have, and make sure nobody forgot anything important before a single dice has even come out. Plus I feel like it avoids a lot of the drama brought up in the video since it's a lot easier to bring up and deal with problems if you can follow it up with "have some pie."
Yeah, I played campaigns whose sessions would start at like 1am and finish at like 7, sometimes even 9 That was the first time I saw other players actively say they quit because of that, I could endure it but seeing the sun rise was depressing gotta agree
My first D&D game was a lesson I shall never forget. I was in campaign ran by a friend of mine, an altogether great guy and a great DM - initially. Unfortunately he fell into the category of DMs who rather play computer games than prepare for D&D. And so after a first few great sessions, he opted for the lazy way out. 20 minutes before a session, he would download the first free map he could find (we played on Roll20) and he took the story there. ‘Story’ being a generous word because it made absolutely no sense. We went from a prison to a forest to a sewer to a temple to a dessert to a city street to the moon to… You get the point. He prepared ONE map with a combat encounter and nothing else. Railroad like you wouldn’t believe it. We couldn’t do anything and we couldn’t go anywhere apart from that one thing we could do. So the session consisted of lots of stonewalling and hampering our way until we ended up going in the direction he wanted us to. He never directly said no to anything - he would call for a roll, but the result was always a ‘nope’, doesn’t matter if you rolled a 1 or 20. You need information from the captain of the guard? He says he’ll give it to you, if you do him a favour. Go check on the old hermit living in the forest. He hasn’t been seen for 3 weeks. Can’t send my men to do it, lots of crime around lately, need them in town. Just do this welfare check for me and I’ll tell you everything I know (upon locating the cabin in the woods, the hermit turned out to be deleted by a bunch of undead). Suppose we want to make a persuasion check to convince the captain to tell us without needing this favour first - a thing of life and death, time is of the essence, blah blah blah. Give me a persuasion check. 1? The captain says ‘this is the deal, take it or get out of my face.’ 20? The captain says ‘really sorry but I need this done, I’m being chased by the mayor, if there was another way I would sob sob just do what I say’. Time wasting was his forte as he needed to fill a 3 hour session with something and he only had a 30 mins fight prepared. Are we in a rich quarter or the slums? Give me a perception check. Wait, what? Are the buildings around in good order or rotting wooden frames falling apart? Is the street cobbled or a dirt road covered in mud? Are the people we see distinguished ladies and gentlemen or rough looking folk in threadbare clothes? Why do I need a perception check for? If I look around, is there a chance I will miss any of the above? Just wasting time. And there was travel. Oh the travel. Every location was apparently 5 days away. Every night he would call 4 tines for a night watch perception roll, for all five days. 20 rolls for no reason, just to waste time. We knew he had no night encounter or ambush prepared, he was just playing for time. He would even roll a d20 and pretend there was something going on behind the scenes. Didn’t matter what we rolled,ever, it was just a distraction. Then every morning he would say ‘what would you like to do?’ How about getting to the fluffing destination? And of course constantly asking if there’s anything we would want to do. As in ‘role-play for half an hour, need to waste some more time before I throw you on the one map I got ready to go, we don’t want the session to end in one hour.’ Apart from that one time when he tried to railroad us into taking a wanted person to a location, and sensing it was a trap, we refused to go and started looking for alternate ways. He called for a break 30 mins into the session, then 20 mins later, as we were about to return, he just posted in Discord ‘Do you want to call it for the day as something has come up on my end’. Yes, something has come up on your end indeed, your railroad failed and the only thing you had prepared is useless now and you don’t know what to do for the next 2 hours. And of course, then there was the last minute cancellations as he ‘wrote’ 😂 himself into a corner. 20 minutes before session start we get a message - ‘there is no D&D today btw as I’m helping my sister move’. Because he didn’t know that yesterday. Or the day before. Or the whole entire week before. No time to reschedule, see you next week. Or telling us how ‘busy’ he is, but every time you look in Discord he’s online playing MMOs. After one session, we told him we were going to raid a pirate ship next time, as a heads-up. Next game didn’t happen until 3 weeks later, this time for IRL player reasons. He had whole 3 weeks to get something prepared and what did he do? Download a ship map and populate it with NPCs… The pirate captain, described previously as a ‘wizard-looking type in robes’, his first officer, described previously as ‘massive dude in full plate mail’… AC10, 4 hit points. So was the entire pirate crew. 3 weeks to produce this… Garbage. I left after that. He never asked why I’ve left or what the problem was. I became a DM after that and I swore I never do the things he did. Turns out being on the receiving end of a shit-show teaches you a lot about what to avoid if you don’t want to ruin your game. Thanks for the lesson Zach.
That last part is probably why I always try to plan way too much. The first campaign I was in was clearly not even remotely planned past the basics of the world. Every few sessions, the party would be yeeted to a new area with a new boss, and another part of the plot forgotten. If the party had dynamics any less fun, it'd probably get exhausting really quickly.
Great Video, I agree with almost everything. One problem that isn't mentioned though and that is often overlooked ist the asymmetrical amount of effort and expectations that are put on the dungeon master and the player. The typical gamester invests much more time and often money in the gaming session than the average player. The moment the session starts he has already invested a lot of resources and wants the session to be a success to get something out of this investment. The Player just needs to show up and is just investing the time for the session itself. And this investment of time is happening in the moment: If you do not get what you want out of it you can just go, do something else, mentally check out or start an off topic conversation with your friends. That is compounded by the fact that the gamemaster can not stop playing without the game coming to an end and game mastering can be very demanding. Individual gamers only control their character and can check out at any moment without the game stopping. That can very easily lead to gamemaster burnout, especially when you have a GM that wants to get better and wants constructive criticism, but doesn't see that it is not his responsibility alone to have a fun session. I see it as my responsibility as a player to make sure that everyone has fun. That means I support the GM by following its plot, I try to learn the rules, I make sure everyone gets the spotlight and I help the beginners. I had a funny conversation a few weeks ago with another player. He wanted to do a really cool thing, but there was a lot going on and the DM kind of forgot. And he talked to me after the session and said: "yeah well I was kind of tired and down and didn't really felt like reminding the DM. And than I told him that this kind of ruined the evening for me and he (the dm) took that very hard." And I was like: "Yeah he took it very hard, I mean you didn't remind him so that is kind of on you." "What? no its his job to run the session, he didn't do it." "No it is the job of everyone at the table to make sure we have a great session and that everyone has fun. He already prepped and run the game. What did you do?" tl,dr: a very often overlooked fact is that a lot of player behavior, especially not taking responsibility, can really negatively impact the GMs motivation and lead to campaigns ending.
I’d add to the expectations part: -Tone -DMing style -If and how backstories relate to the game -If and which characters roles players should fill -what kinda challenges they’ll have to face -how players should expect to interact with the world or have stuff happen to them -how much seemingly random and sudden bs happens in the story -even the which “6 cultures of play” (basically the underling philosophy of the game) from that one article which the questing beast made a video about
On the criticism note, I read something a while back that really helped me, Criticism is easier to take (and understand) when framed based on what something does, not what it doesn’t do The example I was given was for books “this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". Becomes "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."
Very important advice given out here. I ran a campaign for 7 years. Many players have come and gone in that time, mostly the same people. In our last game we were 8 around the table. It was epic and some of the best time I had so far. Its been two years now that I have not played any TTRPG. I burned out long before our last session, trying to keep the quality of our adventures high, and I did even up until our last adventure. I set the standard to DM so high, that nobody wanted to DM instead. So after I burned out, nobody wanted to take the torch. It revealed things for me, in regards to my friends, but thats not important. Keeping campaigns short and playgroups small is something I so highly recommend for anyone with passion for the game. It protects you from making the game a job. Thanks for the video, it was great!
That's something people often forget, the anxiety of first starting to DM. When someone takes the role and does a fantastic job at it, the average player will be absolutely terrified of taking the torch. This often times compounds with the amount of time you're willing to invest, a player might be willing to put in an extra hour or two per week preparing the session, but if the previous DM was pouring in multiple hours per day for their campaign it's gonna make the next potential DM even more anxious.
Your hard-core scheduling of every week at the same time and place is enormously important. My Tuesday 6pm group has been playing for 5 years. Sometimes a player (including me) has to miss a week, but the game goes on. We take an occasional break for a holiday, but even that is discussed weeks in advance. When you know the game is going to happen with or without you it provides a lot of motivation to be there! This is the best scheduling advice I've ever heard and I attest that it works!
I agree on a solid schedule, same night every week, but in my groups the players can't always make sessions (due to business travel, holidays, childcare emergencies, whatever). The general rule is that people let the DM know as soon as they are aware they can't attend and that lets the DM work the story around that player's absence. If we know we're going to be down more than a couple of players we do a one shot instead. It's stuck together because it's respectful of people's time and in return the players know that if they can't make it the game will carry on without them.
I actually ask players for feedback (hell, I ask people for feedback in general), but the biggest issue I've always had ever since I was a kid is that no one EVER wants to give it when asked; they only want to 'give it' when they are annoyed, angry or otherwise in a bad mood & looking to take it out on someone. Could just be the people around me, but unless it was a teacher I'm just about never able to get anyone to give me any feedback whatsoever (positive or negative. At most just a vague 'I like it!' or 'I don't like it.', followed by the person's complete refusal or inability to explain why they feel that way to any extent); and pressuring people to any extent for more info has always just led them to being upset with me. Frustrating as hell, because is makes me feel like either my stuff is boring & I'm just being humored for the sake of my feelings, or I'm secretly a joke to them and just an excuse for people to hang out. An underlying tendency towards paranoia & assumptions on my part does not help matters.
This is literally exactly my position. The only time someone actually game me some proper feedback was when they got a bit annoyed at all my questions. And guess what? That was the most useful feedback I've gotten (to be fair that's because nobody fucking gives it) and it helped me improve a lot!
I feel you both, I struggled with this a lot when I was a younger Dm, and sometimes still do, I can offer some suggestions to help get more feedback and not just negative emotional feedback, 1. Post game hangout, the session is over but you stay and chat, not just about the session but you can prime thr feedback pump by volunteering your own during it, "wow I didn't expect you guys to.." "dirty about that puzzle", "what did you guys think of plot twist" 2. Prime the pump with specific questions, see above, but also in private conversions, get them chatting and once the conversion is flowing ask for it 3. In game rewards, give players two inspiration points at the start of the next session, one for a point of positive feedback and one for a constructive criticism, bribery works 4. Use comparisons, ask about what players have enjoyed more or less about other campaigns they are in, even if they are feedback shy about yours, it will emerge in what they choose to say about other games
Generally the best way to get feedback is to ask specific questions. Especially questions like “what do you want to do next”. You need your ask for what you want without being direct. Read the responses and see how they feel.
I FEEL this, I recently got one of my groups to agree to try Traveller since I’ll run it, I make sure I communicate with them that I want feedback and I’m open to criticism and if they want something let me know, so a few months have gone by me always asking for feedback after a session, one of the players is also in my CoC game so they know I always do this, that CoC group is mostly acquaintances besides that one player and that group ACTUALLY gives me feedback and asks for certain things to happen like having a combat or asking for time to shop but none of that was from that player who is one of my friends, so this player last session had a blowup during Traveller about us not having had a combat in a while and I try and ask them why they didn’t mention that to me and they just get all uncomfortable about it and mention they didn’t want to rock the boat since everyone else was getting happy about the investigation starting to pick up while they wanted combat
Since I returned to DnD in 2020, I have completed 7 campaigns and only had 1 fizzle out. What is my secret? 1) shorter campaigns. Build them in ways that could continue if the players demand a “second season”, but satisfying if they don’t. 2) shorter sessions. With having kids and friends who have kids, I had to get used to shorter sessions. I’m talking 1.5-2 hours. But they great! They improved my description skills, only allow players to go so much off the rails before I can prep more stuff, and make a great date night for married with kids folks. 3) play with who shows up. I have a hard rule of “if I have ONE player available who wants to play, I play”. What that means is people who are invested in the game never face disappointment of not playing one evening (which prevents player burn out), and players who might not be as invested need to decide whether they are going to make it a priority or get left behind. Not for everyone, but these things have REALLY worked for me :) GREAT VIDEO!
Goddamn I’m especially borrowing 1 and 3. Somehow I didn’t realise that there could be an ending to a homebrew chapter, that frees everyone up to be someone else, or for season 2 like you said. And number 3, I can’t lie, that’s a strong strategy to weed out who really wants to be there. Good advice!
Question, currently we've been running a campaign for about a year and a half with checking what days everyone is available, it's been working so far and I think it'll continue being fine with this group. But I was defo thinking that if I eventually end up DMing my own campaign I'll be a bit more strict, "These two days are available next week, choose which suits you more". But how do you handle the characters who don't show up, do they have less loot/experience than the ones who show up every time? To me it feels like a potential down-ward spiral if a player might wanna sit out one session to recover/do something else, but now they're behind the rest which might further enhance the sentiment. How has this played out for you?
@@faxer999 good question! I think it depends on what you want to encourage (Matt Colville talks a bit about this in one of his videos). If they lvl up with the rest of the party regardless of whether they are there or not, it prevents such a downward spiral, but also doesn’t encourage them to show up and play very often. If you do XP and say they get less of it, it does give the option to either commit, fall behind, or get out. For me personally, I prefer the path with the least potential drama, just let them lvl up with the rest of the party, run them as an NPC, if the PC dies while they are gone, sorry but that’s how it rolls.
This is what I've done for two grooups since the pandemic. We do generally not play if we're down more than two people but in that case we usually play a co-op game or a one shot. It's not really practical to always schedule around a DnD game. I travel for business a lot and it isn't practical for me to play during every trip (although I can do both of them). Being willing to progress the game without one or two players means that people always have a fun time to look forward to and the other players just fade into the background for a week. We also rotate our DM every few months or so to give people a break and a chance to play. The groups have stuck together for four years at this point so I'd say it works.
I have been playing D&D for 6 years with the same people. As far as the schedule goes, it has never been an issue. I said "Hey i am running a D&D game on Sunday night... you want to play?" Sometimes people said can we play another day, and I said "no". I then found 5 others that could play D&D on Sunday night. Done. There has never been a week where we say "When are we playing next?", because we all know that we play on Sunday night. May not work for others, but set the expectation and find others who have the same expectation. Great vid! Thanks Pointy!
I am sorry you've been having issues with TH-cam this past month. So glad your videos are back and I hope the rewards for all your hard work come back tenfold! Thank you for all you do!
Honestly yeah. It's kinda surprising that he hasn't reached 1 mil yet, the content is more than good enough to deserve it and it's in a style that is both unique and widely enjoyable.
If I get the feeling that my players are "not really there" for the campaigns I host, I would rather stop than continue. Did that once, got very unhappy and drama ensued. Won't repeat that again.
The editing on Pointy Hat videos always makes me cackle but it’s also SO GOOD! I love how many little in jokes and references y’all fit in less than a minute
My first campaign ended due to drama unfortunately. We were fighting a BBEG who had stolen a macguffin that would lead to the resurrection of the end game boss, and we were trying to stop him from escaping with the stone. We managed to stop him, but we couldn’t find the stone. We questioned him, but one of the players joked that it was up his butt. Another player took them literally and proceeded to fist the BBEG which traumatized much of the party. Personally, as a player I was ok with it, but I began to play my character like he was shaken to the core by the action. I figured that it would be a character building moment that would eventually bring the party closer. Unfortunately, it instead led to a shift in the campaign where players began to believe that other players were genuinely upset with them and folks weren’t having fun anymore. One player actually wanted to kill off their character because of the whole ordeal. As a DM, my solution to this issue has been a vote system. If I notice a few players are outright objecting to a controversial action, I’ll stop the game to ask the players if they would like to proceed with the action. If a majority say no, I’ll shut down the controversial action. Usually this will also stop a trolling player as they’ll realize that the action is affecting the players and not just the characters
I quite enjoy your channel. One of the awesome things is how you manage add reads. Other channels either have an abrupt stop to the content and its just an interruption or they have a very cringe transition to the add. I actually enjoy your story you tell to bring your add read into the video. It helps that most of the adds relate to D&D. Keep up the good videos hat man
The feedback bit is so true, I ask my players every session afterwards how they enjoyed the session, and make sure to send messages if I notice a player not enjoying things as much so I can fix the problems they had in future sessions. I find asking generally after session, like if you are still in a VC or something makes it feel less demanding on players and you are more likely to get the feedback, but it has helped a TON
So glad to hear you talking about scheduling. I say that all the time. Though I do run games every other week so people can have some weekends for themselves. But yeah, if you can't make a game, we're playing without you. Same time, same day, know when that is for the foreseeable future, make time for it. Consistency is the best way to keep a game going, regardless of if it excludes some people sometimes.
Man, I've never watched one of your videos before and I have to say: I love your style. Quick, but not breakneck, paced narration that gets to the point AND has plenty of smart, wryly-done wordplay humor throughout ("Nuuummber C" XD ). I shall be back to this channel, for sure.
just communicate with each other honestly and in good faith, don't seek out drama, everyone is supposed to be there to have fun and help make fun for each other, so just focus on doing what you can to contribute and communicate questions often.
setting expectations is basically one of the most important things to hash out before a game, along with player goals, safety tools, etc, but i want to give kudos for you mentioning being SPECIFIC and saying exactly how much combat/rp you use. thats something most people probably dont even realize is important but it is completely true, more even, just having such a plan gives you a ton of legitimacy for the player to trust
I completely get the feeling of prep work starting to feel like a chore, and recently ended a campaign I was running because of that. I can't say I ever loved prep, but I was at least excited and eager to show off my work to the group and have them interact with it. Eventually, just the thought of spending those hours every week in prep wore me down, feeling less like fun and more like the obligatory work that needed done so we could do the fun part actually playing. I really felt bad when I let my players know I wanted to stop DMing, because I was (and am) still excited to play the story we were making, but at least we're all also still together in a different group. If you don't have a lot of time to or just don't like doing prep, you don't have to run a campaign full of original characters and story! There are lots of very good adventure books, and you're always free to add as much or as little of your own ideas to the stories they contain. 👍
Pass the torch, start a new game. My hope is to have my next game start out in the mines and castle of their current campaign. Familiar but the possibility of wildly different outcomes.
@@Xplora213 We had a DM stop playing a campaign set in Waterdeep, and I wanted to take over with a new campaign, so we did a "1 shot" (aka 4 sessions) set in Skullport underneath Waterdeep for me to find my feet. All of that was because I'd chosen to play a Drow Eilistraeean cleric and all my prep had included reading about the temple underneath Waterdeep, so I had lots to work with. It made for a fun short campaign. Everyone had some knowledge of Waterdeep and the factions there to start with, while getting to explore a new place that was disconnected from the past plot. So basically wanted to say that it's a good idea what you're proposing and a definite nice way to pass the torch in a campaign!
I played in a campaign once where the DM asked us to fill out a small questionaire. It had things like: - Previous Characters you played - How long do you spend In Character during sessions? 40% of the time? 80%? - Favorite Movies - One NPC that is tied to your backstory It was a really cool experience to have someone milk you for what you expect to see in a campaign and then adjust accordingly.
I wish I had this video last year... I wouldn't be the wreck I've been recently. This deserves way more attention than what most D&D content creators give.
We had this wonderful campaign, which was ripped apart because one of the players was revealed to have relations with the DM's spouse IRL. The couple had a child. Picking the wrong people can really mess your game, social circles in general and life. Good advice for everything.
The most satisfying narrative I ran was with a party of 2 people. Smaller groups give you an opportunity to zone in on their character's backstories, which leads to better player engagement. Very fun!
I'm not going to be able to stop thinking about this one for a while!!! Great advice and thoughts! I'm post burnout and not sure I'll ever get back in the saddle again, but you're re-framed it for me. Thank you!
21:09 - It's not mean, it's called being disciplined. As you said about priorities before, this is something SOME people might consider mean or inhumane for whatever reason. I think the majority of the RPG playerbase are people who come from certain backgrounds, or certain generations, where they only heard the word Discipline when it means "Getting chastised". This is indeed a social education issue, and people getting more and more polarized, some behaviours are shunned into their bubbles. Like, discipline might be considered authoritarian for some reason? And showing emotions is considered snowflake behaviour? My brother in Christ, at this point i don't think even the word politics makes sense, people just justifying their lack of social skills with that lol
Smaller player groups can be great! It can make it way easier to ensure that everybody in the group is able to do interesting things within a session, and in some circumstances it can also help sessions from becoming really, really long. I personally have trouble getting into games because the people I know prefer to start & continue D&D sessions long after the wee hours of my very finicky bedtime.
I actually love a 3 player group if there's good group cohesions. Otherwise it can end up with a split party where one person is the odd man out. But when it works out it's just the best.
Two things I am experience recently with DMing for a group of friends that are all new to D&D. 1. I had to essentially kick out one of the players as they didn't treat it as a commitment, and would bail a few days to a week before planned sessions constantly, for non-emergency reasons. It was clear it wasn't a priority to him and I had to talk to him about it. For reference we play this campaign once a month, though we have had scheduling issues that had 2-3 month gaps which is part of why I had to have the conversation, since all the other players and myself talked and wanted to play more consistently. 2. This is an active issue I am currently having at my table that one of the players, clearly doesn't want to play D&D, even though this individual says they want to, they don't pay attention at all at the table, have to be literally engaged by their name to get their attention, is constantly walking away, looking at their phone, watching videos or podcast with the sound on in the middie of the game, and when he is playing he is essentially doing his own thing and not on the same page as the other players because shocker he isn't paying attention to the story. I am currently trying to engage with the player and had recent conversations about it, but it doesn't seem to be getting better and now I am debating having to kick the player, especially as last session before we played and after, when he left EVERYONE essentially said they don't want to spend time with him at all, playing D&D and otherwise. Figured I would share since I did many of what Pointy Hat was saying in the video I gave my players an overview of how I run D&D, the themes, boundaries, and even differences that I know I take to my games to not blind side them, and I also asked them what sorts of gameplay interests them and what do they want to have nothing to do with.
This is obviously entirely up to you, but I would 100% kick that player, especially as everyone else said they don't want to play with him. That behavior sounds extremely disrespectful to you and everyone else who set aside time to be there and it sounds like you've already done your best to resolve things.
I have a #2 in a couple of my campaigns rn and it’s so hard he literally only ever joins in when I mention combat otherwise he sits at the end of the table distracted by the world no input to the plot no roleplay nothing he also is playing an assassin like character so he will literally kill one enemy then abandon the rest of the party they all almost died and another player has to also leave combat to bring him back
regarding feedback, I think it's a great insrument. Every "negative" feedback" helped me to improve the future games. One of the players told that it would be great if I would implement some conditions or puzzle mechanics during boss battles, while this is an additional challenge for preparation but still an enjoyable one, and the moment I've managed to add something like this to game, I've received a universal feedback that this was the best boss battle in the game. And I feel like it also made me a better DM.
The first campaign death I had happened because I was not at all particular about what players came to my table. One player wanted to bring his significant other into the game, and I was very much in a "the more the merrier" mindset, so I welcomed them in. Only for that player to almost immediately begin bringing toxicity to our games. I remember a time when I took a break from DMing because player A, I'll call him Teddy to protect his real name, wanted to run his very first game. He boldly chose Mutants and Masterminds, and we all made superheroes. Teddy's S.O. made a super-secret-agent character, Hawkeye and Black Widow combined in one. First combat, S.O. goes first owed to just being very fast compared to the rest of us, and rather than using their very cool gizmos and gadgets, their weapons, tools, and gear specifically chosen to be badass in as many situations as possible, they duck into a sporting goods store and spend their turn rooting around for cricket sticks and baseball bats and whatnot. The rest of us take our turn, first combat like I said, so we clean house. We operate pretty well together, actually - I animated an army of mannequins and restrained a lot of the enemy, and the others blasted and nuked the place. S.O. comes out the store laden with useless gear to see that victory was already ours. Rather than maybe using this gear in the next fight, or joining in celebration, S.O screams at Teddy and blames Teddy for not 'letting me fight,' like it's Teddy's fault that S.O. purposefully didn't use their badass stats to *be* a badass, or that it's Teddy's fault that the rest of the party synergized really well in a fight full of paper-thin minions. Teddy couldn't run anymore after that, having already been suffering extreme anxiety. He had been building up the courage to ask me if he could run a game for months, and spent weeks after that prepping and hyping himself up just to be screamed at by someone he loved. He never GMed after that, and I believe after that group all disbanded (because that was NOT the last of S.O.'s shenanigans) Teddy stopped playing TTRPGs in general. I never spoke up about SO's behavior, and I never challenged it - I learned a lot about the price of absolute tolerance that day, and I'm much better about this sort of thing at my tables now.
I wholeheartedly agree with scheduling. I once tried the kind approach and we played session 0 and half of session 1 for AN ENTIRE SUMMER because of multiple issues, but one being not specific day/time. Ever since I stuck to a specific day and time (with few exceptions) I've been able to run weekly very consistently, bar specific life circumstances. Groups being on the same page - all wanting similar stuff, respecting boundaries, etc - is also an absolute must. Sometimes you just have random players you recruit, but once you have a pool of people you know, consider them first. You have a better shot at them synergizing than 3 applicants to an LFP game - no shame on those, that's how I met every single one of my reliable players, but once I knew we vibed, we carried on playing together.
I've DMed a singular campaign for the past 5 years now, and I've got to say, so much of this holds true with what, me and my players have found through the course of the last 5 years
This is such an amazing video. First, yes... choosing the right players and being honest about it is important because I've been on the other side of square pegs and round holes, and it's not pretty. AND YES ON EXU: CALAMITY!!! It's, honestly, the best live play I think I've ever watched, and it's only 4 sessions! Just overall great advice and great video. 👍
It’s funny as I only tend to run campaigns that last six to eight sessions. I’ve found for me to approach the campaign more in an episodic nature and having the structure of the world support that. It’s tricky for sure, but it’s been the style for me that’s been most successful.
Drama ending campaign on first session: The rogue> I want to steal from the tomb Dm>.... the ranger's father's tomb The rogue> Yeah. I see no problem with this. The ranger> I start aiming....
Making D&D a priority is less about prioritizing the game and more about respecting the time of the people you play with. You're making a plan to meet up with a group of friends for a weekly game, you should be able to schedule around that game because that's the time your friends are expecting you. At my old job, I put in on my schedule availability that I couldn't work past 6pm on D&D night because our game started at 7. We played for three and a half years and with the exception of a death in the family, any disruptions to that schedule were made known multiple weeks in advance...because we respected each other's time. Had a player who didn't respect the time of the rest of the table and we just stopped playing with that guy.
We had that "describe it to me" scenario happen inversed in one campaign. One our players (playing a male warlock) wanted to seduce a male barkeeper, he really wanted to rp it and describe it and it made the DM noticeably uncomfortable, he tried to "fade the scene to black" and focus on ANYTHING else as fast as he could. Even DMs can have boundaries, and just like you don't want yours crossed by them, it's not cool to force them to cross theirs.
Ok, the advice about scheduling is right on. Everyone needs to respectful of each others times, so find a time that you can all play each week and make it a priority. It's very simple but so, so important.
There's a reason I only have two players and they're brother and sister. It's easy to get them in the same place at the same time. Even though the brother moved out a long time ago, he still lives in the area. Since both he and I are running campaigns, he knows he can call me and say "hey, we've got a night free, wanna play?" Right now, the sister's sport (softball) is in season so lately we end up playing when it rains and they can't practice or have games.
My game is gonna be roleplay heavy with an ephasis on the player side to come up with compelling characters with backstories they’d have to communicate efficiently in game (they don’t have to say a word, but their first ever actions could imply their personality & background by mere demeanor) By that I mean that every session would have an opportunity to role play, & an opportunity to role for either combat, a puzzle, or some other scenario which will get the characters to bounce around each other & develop chemistry. Either every third, or every sixth will have a BIG roleplay section that will matter to the story at hand while the others before were more focused on characterization & fun factor. It will be set in a pre-existing world as to later on save the data for fanfic writing, & I will request you write down a summary of what you did in a txt document & send it to me by the end of the session, with an emphasis on the roleplay you did. Especially if we’re roleplaying in VC & or in person rather than via text messages or voice messages a la Instagram, watssapp, & more recently discord. Here’s an example for what I mean by characterize in the first scene. A rogue sits in the corner of an inn drinking tea, writing in a journal of some sorts, & looking kind of solemn or forlorn. Maybe have them mutter to themselves about names of people you don’t know or about events you don’t have a clue about or even have them quote someone maybe even reference a theatrical release! Then when they notice the party has arrive, they rush towards them in a flustered manner to quickly apologize for not noticing who they were right away. The thing is, they did notice them, they just weren’t sure if they were the party they commissioned as help for their quest (& also as editors/helpers for their upcoming novel which is the “journal” you saw them writing in.) Have them see the party & then ignore them, just a swift glance, assuming they’re like more fellow inn guests or diners. Perhaps you can have them hear them approaching from a little far away or otherwise notice something very quiet, establishing their great skill, but also their concealed paranoia. If conceal paranoia is your purgative, then have them glance around from time to time, & have them focus on windows, doors, vent ways, any means of escape; for that establishes that they have been through trauma in the past & are perhaps dealing with some agoraphobia. I could go on & on, but that would just turn this comment into a fucking fan fiction, & I don’t need to do that here now do I? Death would depend on what it is I’m adapting; so far I got 2 ideas for a campaign. Either way, I like it when dungeons are 1 to 2 sessions long cuz I tend to get exhausted & or bored after a while in the same situation or setting so I’d rather set short missions until the BBEG team shows up & then it’s like 2 sessions long aka a 2 parter! 1. In a world where instead of mammals there are semi avian dinosaurs that took the planet after a milder kpg mass extinction, death is permanent & you can’t come back, characters will often face injury, so I suggest you do have 1 back up character, but one of your characters already died then I won’t kill them again unless you ask me to off session cuz I don’t wanna be a prick. This one is a linear tale & will be used for my autistic gay dinosaur comic. 2. In a world where a templaric surveillance authoritarian oligarchy is overtly controlling the masses, death is only an option & you can be revived, but revival has a steep price, that often being robotized completely which is only possible of your soul has been backed up inside a cartridge or something like some sort of Creepypasta, & perhaps a drastic change in personality due to the event itself being traumatic for you’re not supposed to come back from death, yet you do due to sheer technological advancements & will power. You essentially have to re roll your character stats as a new race & roll or change 1 personality trait after the what transpired. If you seek to just start a new you can just roll another character. Also it’s just furry assassin’s creed…it’s that mid ass Netflix show, I wanna redeem it, reclaim it, recontextualize it. So…you gonna roleplay a better portrayal of Dolph Laserhawk for me or nah? This one will be semi linear or non linear; in the end of the day a certain ending or endings will happen, it’s up to you to decide how & why.
As someone who ran a multi year campaign, in a homebrew setting, with homebrew monsters, and a plot for the players that would make Hideo Kojima confused as my first DM campaign in over a decade I can confirm most of this video is painfully accurate. How i delt with this however was a very simple process that you nail here perfectly, only prepare what you NEED, not want. Need. If a battle map is REQUIRED is the only time it's actually used etc:. This saved me so much trouble and time and ended up making the campaign not only doable for me but better overall. Also "Consent Forms" essentially its the Veil / Line you mention here but with pretty much every thing i could think of that might be offensive to people. I had a few surprises on there but we ended up having a very clear consensus on what was and wasn't impacted by this. Also as for the Drama, oh boy, we've had a lot of that. But ironically never D&D related. Our typical playgroup ends up with what we've come to call "The Bi-Monthly Argument" and now it's just an understood feature of our table. It's also grown to encompass all issues relating to interpersonal stuff too or sometimes just a big vent for someone. This ends up keeping all of this out of the D&D game itself, but probably also works because the group was tight before doing D&D for the most part.
I found your videos a week ago or so and I just LOVE them! They are so funny and cool and inspireing, it‘s simply the very best of dnd content, thank you sooo much!!!
Thank you so much Mr. Hat. We have a session zero tomorrow and I'm going to *insist* everyone agrees to prioritize the game. You're absolutely right, that has been the killer of all of our previous campaigns and I'm not gonna compromise this time. Either make time for us, like we make time for you, or leave.
Ok, cool, let’s try it! 1: A combat heavy campaign with linear storytelling with deadly encounters and no way to revive dead characters. 2: The first four people who respond in Discord. And if a character dies in the campaign, the player is also kicked from the campaign as well. Then get another player from Discord. 3: Run big monsters with stolen maps online. 4: If I get drama at the table, I kill their character, easy. 5: If the player can’t make it for more than two sessions at my scheduled time, I kill their character, easy. 6: If a player questions my methods, I kill their character, easy.
God I had a DM that legitimately wanted to do the “if your character dies in game the player gets out of the campaign and we look for somebody else”. I had to very nicely explain to him why that was a terrible idea because this was overall a pretty good group where we all got along and met every week with NO SCHEDULING CONFLICT. This was his first campaign and he wanted to do it because he thought it was cool and it was like watching a child almost step on fairy.
It’s wild how many people have scheduling being so loose and varying constantly. Because I can never handle those type of campaigns, it just makes each week all the more stressful and frustrating when nothing is able to happen that week. I absolutely admire and respect one of my closest friends as a dm. Because he is fairly strict with the fact that “we are playing on this day at this time, if you don’t show up, we’re playing without you. Even if it’s just me and one other person”. And if someone keeps skipping out, they’re asked to leave. It’s truthfully disrespectful to constantly miss a session when everyone else is trying their hardest to show up (Of course not in the situation of emergency or life changes). I’ve had people decide to just not show up because they wanna play a LoL instead for 2-3 sessions straight, which has caused stories to be derailed because their character was at the center of the storyline at that time. We’re all here to have fun, and of course it should be taken with varying levels of seriousness, but at least respect the idea that everyone else is taking time out of their week to be there. If it’s no longer fun for you, let your dm know so they could help find the problem, or perhaps discuss having your character removed from the game. Don’t prolong it for no reason.
This is all great advice. We just started our third major campaign (and with our group, each one lasts years), and even though it's mostly the same players, or people we've played one shots with before, I as the DM made sure to set clear expectations with everyone before we even started character creation. It was even easier since we had past campaigns to compare to. And with every one of us getting busier but still always prioritizing dnd night each week, once every month or two we take a week off and I message all the players for specific feedback on a couple questions: What did you enjoy the most and least, and what are you most looking forward to? That's a huge help in preparing and making sure we're all on the same page.
I'm gonna be DMing my first game soon and this video has been amazing! Especially because two of my players have been DM's for games I've played in and they've been so fun, that I feel PRESSURE!! But I'm excited and I'm really thankful for the feedback sheet you made!! Thank you!! : D I love your videos!
Coming to this comment late: How did it go? :) When I started DMing a year ago, I was so nervous because I, too, have two DMs in my playgroup. But turns out it is the best for learning. They are the most supportive and excited players at the table simply because they can play themselves and enjoy instead of planning and DMing themselves. I hope your first time DMing was fun and you enjoyed it!
@@sinika2860 Thanks for asking! : D It went really well!!! I had planned to start with a one shot ( I chose the Price of Beauty adventure Candlekeep Mysteries ), but because they had to get to the library, then get in the library and then get to the Inner Ward of the library before they got to start the focus of that chapter, it wound up being much more than a one shot 😂 But it’s going really well!! I’m having a ton of fun, I got to hand out props (scrolls and library cards lol) and everyone is really enjoying it!!! It wound up working really well too since one of my DMs needed more time to prep for picking up their campaign. It sounds like you’re having a ton of fun too!! What adventure did you start with?
Loved this video! I've come to most of these same tools through blood sweat and tears from over a decade of TTRPGs. I would have loved a resource like this when starting out.
Best "Top advices" video I'va watched on the Tube. And, not kidding, I think I've watched pretty much every major video on the topic. Thanks a lot, Pointy Hat !
Safety Tools : DnD's HR Yes, you are so useless as a human being that HR needed to get involved in your TTRPG 😆😉 Kindness, Understanding and Communication, yeah let's not do those 🤓
One curse of getting a design degree is that I now often critique things because it is so helpful. I forget that normal people take any critique personally even if they didn’t make the content I am critiquing. If its media they like they see it as a personal attack even if I point out many good things they harp on the negative. Listening to criticism is one of the hardest and most useful tools to acquire.
My advice for new DMs, or any DMs period is: Embrace theft. Not physical things of course, no stealing books! I mean I have access to a digital repository of the books so maybe that if you're on a budget but I digress. Ideas! All stories have been told so if you want a heist, grab a copy of Oceans 11 and watch it. What works for you? What doesn't? Take those. You like a character from a book? A race from a book? Those are yours! You want a new monster? Crack open a monster manual, find the closest thing to what you want, give it a slight tweak, new monster! I came up with a poison trap monster by taking an air elemental, changed its attack to poison damage, had it release a puff of poison air with a roll of the die determining the turn it happens, and it became a new horror. As for art, I'm going to be a bit controversial: AI. Yes, I know, rage, feed me your hate! But when you're done, seriously consider it. What is so different between AI art that you're only using for that one campaign than using pictures you google for the same purpose? You're not profitting off of it, there's no real ethical concerns because no one is getting ripped off, and you get your own custom art. I know I can't draw so when I can't quite find what I need, I turn to AI. Ethical theft is something every gm and every player should have in their toolbox, it saves time, can make things more fun, and can shape entire campaign worlds.
When I had players that wanted to run an all-bard party, I set them up with the plot from "The Blues Brothers". Only one of them caught on, and it was obvious she had when she asked "Is it time to sing Rawhide?" But she was clearly enjoying it so I didn't mind at all that she got the joke.
@@mal2ksc Last time I played a bard I used TH-cam so much. I had a list of songs I wrote down that were my songs for different situations. Since I based my bard of Alice Cooper both in the Alice character and his real identity, (In battle and public situations he was Alice, putting on an act, and when dealing with his party and anyone that got close, he was a big goofy cinnamon roll of a guy), lots of my music was hard rock and metal, which everyone, including the GM, played into.
Excellent. I am also a longtime DM of multiple games across all time zones (in N America) who holds a BFA from an art school with a 12% graduation rate (at the time; very different now, I’m given to understand). Feedback creates blisters which will callous and allow you to work without pain. Great video.
@@usurpator123The point isn't to hate on trans people. It's to point out how there are limits on how people will treat you. We can all use whatever pronouns a person wants, that doesn't mean they'll fit into society in the way they want to. Just like a person is not an attack helicopter even if we all agree to call them one and act as if they are one, they cannot fly. That's not transphobic, it's reality.
i recently started a campaign with my friends because we wanted a campaign with just us (we're in another one with one of our other friends but can't play that one due to said friend being in a weird timezone) i think i like dming and so i said i would make a campaign for us. i got this idea i really liked and had some super cool ideas for it, so i became excited. a couple of my players were kind of pressuring me to hurry and make the campaign which, at first, was fine since it was in a joking manner. it kept going and i was generally fine, but that ended in me finishing the campaign in i wanna say maybe a week? less than a week? idk, but a really quick time. i was able to finish so quick because i wanted to try and practice my improv since i don't really do that (and because i didn't want my friends to keep pressuring me..) it started off great. first two sessions were fine since i had plans like i normally do for those parts. then they got to the big part where i needed to improv. it was.. okay.. not my best work as a dm. and- as context, we're doing this as a text roleplay in discord. we type out responses as characters and me as the narrator while we sit in a voice chat. one of my players in particular was wanting fast replies which would've been fine if i weren't trying to improv. i'm still a very new dm, i've run only two previous campaigns that have fizzled out. i'm very much nonconfrontational, but i feel like i either need to have a really big talk with my players about pressuring me (even in a joking manner) or just cancel the campaign since i'm struggling to keep it up :(
To me, the biggest challenge in getting a campaign together is not getting friends who want the same things out of the game but getting people who LIKE EACH OTHER AT ALL. I have an easy time making friends with a lot of different kinds of people but those people RARELY get along with one another. Finding friends who can be friends with each other is harder than scheduling
I've had players that didn't like each other and had nothing to do with each other when we weren't playing -- but when they were in character, the friction between them could be indulged as the characters interacting, and it was generally quite entertaining.
Safety Tools are still gatekeeping the game, you just don't like that they are mainly gatekeeping people with your attitude from PointyHat's preferred kind of game.
Safety Tools are what happens when people cant give each other basic respect and human dignity. Instead of having them in my game, I just dont have people who can't treat each other like people without rules telling them how to do it.
I ran a oneshot to test an online D&D app, and then my players really wanted to do more with the characters, so eventually they just had their spelljammer land on one of the realms from the other campaign I was running.
Top notch video. I agree, very few if any advice floating around touching these subjects. One of the biggest takeaways is that this is a game that can be more than a game - it can be an opportunity for people to grow in a multitude of life skills. Scheduling, planning, and social skills can be greatly improved through this hobby and that is why I will never consider it a mere “time waster” as some other hobbies like video games can sometimes be. On a lighter note, I’m in the military and one thing we end up having in excess is free time. I have been able to run a very fun and successful campaign with a large group of Soldiers because I have a captive audience. We’re literally stuck together in the same place and the same time. It’s the perfect environment to run a successful campaign - and we’re all getting paid 😂
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I just wanted to say that you are the most awesomest TTRPG TH-camr in the whole wide multiverse and I love you and what you do! Your videos are alway so creative, funny and most of all REALLY helpful and inspiring, it's incredibly refreshing! Hats off! ;)
Tell me about the DnD drama that ended your campaign (for educational purposes, definitely not because I'm nosey)
nothing, because i've only run one session
Last one a campaign failed was due to conflict between players. I spoke with both of the involved ask them to join a new game and it's all cloud nine!
Had a campaign group for 2 years. Started as 6 players. Went fown to 5 after two of my players broke up. Down to 4 cos one moved away.
Finished like the 2nd arc in thr campaign. Did modified curse of strahd into modified tomb of annhilation and i had a really really cool finale campaign set in Sigil.
Annnddd 2 of my players decided that they'd rather not speak to me or one of my other players cos my player asked them out. And i said they could have just rekected them by saying no rather than going to the toilet and having a 30 minute bitch session about the person..... while they were in thr cubicle.
My friend forgave them. I and the other player did not. Things were awkward. 3rd campaign never started.
Rip. Was so good but cos there was so much set up i cant do the campaign with new players.
I also now dont dm. I dont know enough people in person. And my job schedule is 10 days not 7. Making it hard to plan for others. One of my players has ADHD so they cant do online either
Hope this satisfies your noseyness
I killed one of my players uh... characters...
A fundamental personality difference with a player who had become close with one of my core players. The final year of increasing difficulty combined with the experience of losing both players at the same time totally nuked my desire to continue telling stories in that 9 year old homebrew setting. But we grew a new setting from scratch and have enjoyed it for 3 years now; still going strong!
At my table, we follow the mantra "The DM is a player too". Before a campaign each player gets a role. One of us is the recorder, one is the scheduler, one is the rules lawyer, etc. this offloads some of the DM's work, and makes each player more committed to making it to the table.
Been doing that and our group always finishes the campaigns we start, since it feels a lot more like a collaborative effort we all have a stake in and want to see through to the end.
If folks don’t have some skin in the game then they are less likely to value the time and effort it takes. I agree!!
I wish all players were like this! Hell, I wish all *people* were like this!
I like this idea ALot mind if I adopt it?
I really like this idea! What do you mean by “recorder”?
@@egzile1043they play the recorder (the instrument)
In my table and many I've seen, we use a simple system called "Stars and Wishes" where we the players give me each a Star, something they liked on the session (be it something about the session itself or another player's interpretation) and a Wish, which is something they would like to happen in the following sessions, which can be a wish por the plot, a something they would wish to see changed, whatever there's on their mind. We take 5 minutes at the end of each game for this, and it helped MASSIVELY for my GMing.
I'm gonna steal that!
I don't think I know enough mature people to try this out 😊
I like the framing of wishes, I imagine the answers you get would be very similar to constructive criticism but without feeling as critical
Good advice!
Oooo I love that
One tip I want to share is: Intermission Campaigns. I was feeling a bit burnt out with my high effort homebrew campaign and couldn't keep up with the writing. So instead of taking a full break I told my players that we will run a pre-written that requires very little prep for a few weeks until I have the time and energy to continue with the main game. That pre-written ended up taking 6 months, but we just restarted with the main game and I am full of ideas and plans again.
Would recommend.
It’s kinda weird to have a particularly long campaign. Changing games regularly is pretty normal. There isn’t a single group that doesn’t change projects or direction at least every few months.
I try using intermission campaigns... They then turn into full campaigns by accident xD
when I'm too daunted by the prospect of DMing I like to run ttrpg escape rooms (I use escape this podcast's ones that are prewritten). it has the same opportunity for rp and for solving puzzles but I don't actually have to do any thinking).
You can also do this with a different GM. In my group we have 1 “main” DM and then other players might run different systems such as Blades in the Dark or Lancer
That's what we're doing in my group now. I'm the main DM and we just finished the first major arc of this campaign. One of my players also has GM experience and wanted to run a one shot of M&M so I get a few weeks off to just be a player. It's really nice and I feel like I'm going to be more energized starting the next arch of our main campaign.
The campaign I am currently running gas been killed, resurrected, killed again, animated as a zombie, slain, made into a flesh golem, slain AGAIN, and finally eaten by a corpse flower. I will never give up on it. It is my child.
yeah i feel ya, ive been doing that for 5 years with mine, even to the extent where the players of player-characters' who i've written around have been replaced multiple times and caught up to speed lol.
humans and their drama istfg...
I remember a campaign I was in that died because the DM decided to not have any combat encounters, or even any adventuring for 5 whole sessions. BTW all that time was just spent on planning and hosting a f*cking ball...
@@alegendsock2581Bro the same thing happened to me around 2019, festival of magic we were being forced to participate inand help set up with the arcane academy. We had 2 casters and 3 martial classes (rogue monk and barb i think) so 3 of us just did menial labor for multiple sessions.
There's a flip-side to the "feedback" problem. That is GETTING the feedback. I have made projects for friends and have gotten ZERO real, actionable feedback before. Some people are so conflict averse that they will need to have a plank, pitcher of water, and a towel involved just to get ANY feedback out of them. Edit: I just shot that comment from the hip prior to the reveal that some questions were in the description. I'll empty the pitcher.
I’m all over asking and talking to my DM (now bf) how things work and things I like or talk about things that haven’t been working for me. I’m also helping him build terrain too now
Stars and wishes, it keeps it positive and doesn't feel like conflict
god i hate when someone has a problem with smth happening on the table but they just wont say a thing
Even worse when that person was a friend I rlly cared abt and one of the main reasons I was playing on the first place 😅 and they just leave us without any warning or any communication
i feel like this is an overarching problem of doing artistic thing as a hobby. You don't exactly get the most quality of feedback from random internet denizens in twitter and if you ask any of the people you know, you get 'oh wow that's cute' and that's it
I'm just starting a new campaign and I think this is a great idea. I have pinned a link to a google form in the discord server and stressed that I will not take any criticisms personally. The form doesn't record emails, so technically I won't know who the comments come from. You can also link the responses to a google sheet to keep a record of the responses. The people I play with are old friends (one who was the DM of the pencil stabbing incident I mentioned in a previous comment), plus my 2 sons, so I'm pretty sure I will get some responses.
8:43 "Not all your friends are D&D friends." Fucking seriously. Thank you SO much for saying this aloud. I've since figured it out myself, but I really needed this message outlined for me like five years ago. It'd of saved sooo much heartache and insecurity and maybe prevented me from believing I can "convert them" to "real roleplaying." God, I wish I could Like this video multiple times.
That said, I'm still friends with my D&D friends decades later.
@@grinningbuck The statement wasn't about D&D friends, its that you can be friends and still be incompatible when it comes to what you're looking for out of D&D.
Another caveat: People that may be good DND friends may not actually be good friends. Don’t let yourself be abused because you want to play DND. It’s not worth it.
My friend's table of *8* was pretty much only comprised of problem players of disparate style preferences. They finally cut a bit of fat with one player that would insist on murder hobo-ing because he got sick of the nonstop committees and bullying the newer players over every single decision and would just go rogue to force the campaign to actually get anywhere, but the nitpickers and bullies are still around as well as the one who almost completely checks out if combat isn't happening. It's *painful* to watch them play. Pretty much none of them belong in the same game together, but Covid brought them all together and now they're hesitant to cut anyone out, even though they really need to. Trying to get a select couple of them into a Daggerheart game. Fingers crossed.
@@mostlyghostey an abusive person is not a good dnd friend either🤨
The fact that you illustrate and dramatically narrate sponsor transitions with the same effort as your other illustrated segments is incredible
Huge facts!!
Listened to this without the video, didn’t actually notice a sponsor.
Ngl tho i legit thought it was gonna be a tip in video to use pre done monster manuals/make your own so that you can just flip to a page in a book and have it ready.
My ad experience:
"And in this hellspace, I received a lot of a little type of torture called..."
ad begins "Papa Johns!"
“A little type of torture called..”
“Cleaning your dog’s teeth can be really hard”
"And in this hell space, I received a lot of a little type of torture called.... CHICK - FIL - A"
I received a lot of a little type of torture called "chicken strips"
Usually my campaign dies cause i get bored and start a new one. If you have adhd try to run shorter stories. It will help you not wanna start a new game all the time.
I usually do arcs short arcs at that. i don't have adhd but 3 of my players do and it keeps them engaged.
Oh good it’s not just a me problem
What if my campaign is inspired by what I've been hyperfixating on for a year?
@@TrixterTheFemboydon’t worry you’ll find a new hyperfixation 4 sessions into the new campaign
@@Koopapersonfuck
being an introvert with a favorite hobby that requires a group of people is a cruel cosmic joke. 🤷
I feel you there being a DM who is a introvert is I’m not entirely sure how I got here but if you’re ever looking for a group I gotcha we’ll burn out if every campaign probably because of me but we have a lot of fun along the way.
@@adamh4468 I'm the forever DM in my group
@@sterlinggecko3269 I became after last DM burned out. Doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it.
@@mal2ksc fortunately with our group we had a tradition that every player should at least have to host a game once a year to keep understanding between DM and players and give DM a break on occasion. That gave me to time to start working on my setting which I overhauled about 5 years back because that’s about to time I started my own games and the great game between the worlds factions needed to be added if not the setting would be far too stagnant for my tastes. I like an active world that changes and reacts which some of my players definitely have had some problems with mostly the compression that massacres usually consequences.
I’m a DM with social anxiety disorder. I die a little inside every Monday and Wednesday night. 😅
DM tip for custom monsters for those of you who want to have unique monsters, but don't have enough time to make every monster stat block by yourself: just reflavor an existing monster. Alter damage types, or give it a new trait, ability, or resistance/vulnerability, and bam! New monster. Got a bear? Give it a flying speed, the Firebolt cantrip with con as the castng skill, and resistance to fire damage and hey! It's the Lesser Fire Drake.
I like the old MM and its ideas about monster ecology and behaviour. A monster does not need dramatically different rules, I can give it another motivation and instinctual behaviour. A chaser predator is going to run after people who run, an ambush predator is going to attempt an attack from ambush and not stick around too long.
My advise for this is... Templates!
Pathfinder does this well, just take a look at the set up there and how easy it is to just add one of these things to any monster. My favorite example, which I still am waiting for my players to encounter, is a "Skeleton, Multiplying, Hellfire T-Rex" and the surprises that has for them. With paralyzing beams from those undead eyes, flames from that lungless chest, and the ability to hurl chunks of burning semi-molten bone at the cowering spell casters, they should have fun fighting that for a few rounds it likely will take for them to defeat it.
That it turns into two when they defeat it... that is when I have my fun!
@@lostbutfreesoulI can decide fairly easily that something like a slime splits into two smaller slimes with half the HD and a smaller attack.
Pink/blue horrors do that in WFRP, it's not hard to track. WFRP had daemonic instability instead.
I just make new monster with GPT i want them fight Kaiju so i generet one until i like the stat and i have bunch new monster now
Another important point about improving scheduling is the high expectations for sessions that are between 3 and 6 hours long. What helped our group keeping a regular schedule was doing "short" 2 hours sessions which are much easier to include in a busy schedule, sometimes even doing a couple a week when we can.
Yeah, I understand that 6 hours is achievable but sustainable?! A party is four hours. D&D is not better than a dinner party.
@@Xplora213I would combine the two. I like the idea of turning a d&d session into a potluck or dinner party.
Then again, that probably would be a bit much for a long run campaign.
What's worked for me a dozen times now: Weeknight games, online, 3 hour sessions, and the first thing I ask when finding players is "do you want to play DnD at 7 pm on Wednesdays?" We filter for time first, and then choose payers from whoever's available. There's enough people looking to play that you'll find enough.
Live games need to be weekends, often take a lot longer (there almost 8 hours, maybe 5-6 of actual play) and happen about once a month. Very different vibe, very different goals.
@@erockandroll39I'm a little surprised this isn't the standard, really, that's how I always like to play. You get to the place, everyone sits down and eats, and that gives you a perfect chance to give the party that night's quest, answer any questions they have, and make sure nobody forgot anything important before a single dice has even come out. Plus I feel like it avoids a lot of the drama brought up in the video since it's a lot easier to bring up and deal with problems if you can follow it up with "have some pie."
Yeah, I played campaigns whose sessions would start at like 1am and finish at like 7, sometimes even 9
That was the first time I saw other players actively say they quit because of that, I could endure it but seeing the sun rise was depressing gotta agree
My first D&D game was a lesson I shall never forget.
I was in campaign ran by a friend of mine, an altogether great guy and a great DM - initially. Unfortunately he fell into the category of DMs who rather play computer games than prepare for D&D. And so after a first few great sessions, he opted for the lazy way out.
20 minutes before a session, he would download the first free map he could find (we played on Roll20) and he took the story there. ‘Story’ being a generous word because it made absolutely no sense. We went from a prison to a forest to a sewer to a temple to a dessert to a city street to the moon to… You get the point.
He prepared ONE map with a combat encounter and nothing else. Railroad like you wouldn’t believe it. We couldn’t do anything and we couldn’t go anywhere apart from that one thing we could do. So the session consisted of lots of stonewalling and hampering our way until we ended up going in the direction he wanted us to.
He never directly said no to anything - he would call for a roll, but the result was always a ‘nope’, doesn’t matter if you rolled a 1 or 20.
You need information from the captain of the guard? He says he’ll give it to you, if you do him a favour. Go check on the old hermit living in the forest. He hasn’t been seen for 3 weeks. Can’t send my men to do it, lots of crime around lately, need them in town. Just do this welfare check for me and I’ll tell you everything I know (upon locating the cabin in the woods, the hermit turned out to be deleted by a bunch of undead).
Suppose we want to make a persuasion check to convince the captain to tell us without needing this favour first - a thing of life and death, time is of the essence, blah blah blah. Give me a persuasion check. 1? The captain says ‘this is the deal, take it or get out of my face.’ 20? The captain says ‘really sorry but I need this done, I’m being chased by the mayor, if there was another way I would sob sob just do what I say’.
Time wasting was his forte as he needed to fill a 3 hour session with something and he only had a 30 mins fight prepared.
Are we in a rich quarter or the slums? Give me a perception check. Wait, what? Are the buildings around in good order or rotting wooden frames falling apart? Is the street cobbled or a dirt road covered in mud? Are the people we see distinguished ladies and gentlemen or rough looking folk in threadbare clothes? Why do I need a perception check for? If I look around, is there a chance I will miss any of the above? Just wasting time.
And there was travel. Oh the travel. Every location was apparently 5 days away. Every night he would call 4 tines for a night watch perception roll, for all five days. 20 rolls for no reason, just to waste time. We knew he had no night encounter or ambush prepared, he was just playing for time. He would even roll a d20 and pretend there was something going on behind the scenes. Didn’t matter what we rolled,ever, it was just a distraction. Then every morning he would say ‘what would you like to do?’ How about getting to the fluffing destination? And of course constantly asking if there’s anything we would want to do. As in ‘role-play for half an hour, need to waste some more time before I throw you on the one map I got ready to go, we don’t want the session to end in one hour.’
Apart from that one time when he tried to railroad us into taking a wanted person to a location, and sensing it was a trap, we refused to go and started looking for alternate ways. He called for a break 30 mins into the session, then 20 mins later, as we were about to return, he just posted in Discord ‘Do you want to call it for the day as something has come up on my end’. Yes, something has come up on your end indeed, your railroad failed and the only thing you had prepared is useless now and you don’t know what to do for the next 2 hours.
And of course, then there was the last minute cancellations as he ‘wrote’ 😂 himself into a corner. 20 minutes before session start we get a message - ‘there is no D&D today btw as I’m helping my sister move’. Because he didn’t know that yesterday. Or the day before. Or the whole entire week before. No time to reschedule, see you next week. Or telling us how ‘busy’ he is, but every time you look in Discord he’s online playing MMOs.
After one session, we told him we were going to raid a pirate ship next time, as a heads-up. Next game didn’t happen until 3 weeks later, this time for IRL player reasons. He had whole 3 weeks to get something prepared and what did he do? Download a ship map and populate it with NPCs… The pirate captain, described previously as a ‘wizard-looking type in robes’, his first officer, described previously as ‘massive dude in full plate mail’… AC10, 4 hit points. So was the entire pirate crew. 3 weeks to produce this… Garbage. I left after that. He never asked why I’ve left or what the problem was.
I became a DM after that and I swore I never do the things he did. Turns out being on the receiving end of a shit-show teaches you a lot about what to avoid if you don’t want to ruin your game. Thanks for the lesson Zach.
That last part is probably why I always try to plan way too much. The first campaign I was in was clearly not even remotely planned past the basics of the world.
Every few sessions, the party would be yeeted to a new area with a new boss, and another part of the plot forgotten.
If the party had dynamics any less fun, it'd probably get exhausting really quickly.
I feel you on a spiritual level my dude
Ironically you can run a better game with some generative tables and theater of mind. With no prep time; if you're not a poor sport.
Great Video, I agree with almost everything. One problem that isn't mentioned though and that is often overlooked ist the asymmetrical amount of effort and expectations that are put on the dungeon master and the player.
The typical gamester invests much more time and often money in the gaming session than the average player. The moment the session starts he has already invested a lot of resources and wants the session to be a success to get something out of this investment. The Player just needs to show up and is just investing the time for the session itself. And this investment of time is happening in the moment: If you do not get what you want out of it you can just go, do something else, mentally check out or start an off topic conversation with your friends.
That is compounded by the fact that the gamemaster can not stop playing without the game coming to an end and game mastering can be very demanding. Individual gamers only control their character and can check out at any moment without the game stopping.
That can very easily lead to gamemaster burnout, especially when you have a GM that wants to get better and wants constructive criticism, but doesn't see that it is not his responsibility alone to have a fun session.
I see it as my responsibility as a player to make sure that everyone has fun. That means I support the GM by following its plot, I try to learn the rules, I make sure everyone gets the spotlight and I help the beginners.
I had a funny conversation a few weeks ago with another player. He wanted to do a really cool thing, but there was a lot going on and the DM kind of forgot. And he talked to me after the session and said: "yeah well I was kind of tired and down and didn't really felt like reminding the DM. And than I told him that this kind of ruined the evening for me and he (the dm) took that very hard."
And I was like: "Yeah he took it very hard, I mean you didn't remind him so that is kind of on you." "What? no its his job to run the session, he didn't do it." "No it is the job of everyone at the table to make sure we have a great session and that everyone has fun. He already prepped and run the game. What did you do?"
tl,dr: a very often overlooked fact is that a lot of player behavior, especially not taking responsibility, can really negatively impact the GMs motivation and lead to campaigns ending.
yes, thats so true
I’d add to the expectations part:
-Tone
-DMing style
-If and how backstories relate to the game
-If and which characters roles players should fill
-what kinda challenges they’ll have to face
-how players should expect to interact with the world or have stuff happen to them
-how much seemingly random and sudden bs happens in the story
-even the which “6 cultures of play” (basically the underling philosophy of the game) from that one article which the questing beast made a video about
On the criticism note, I read something a while back that really helped me,
Criticism is easier to take (and understand) when framed based on what something does, not what it doesn’t do
The example I was given was for books
“this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals".
Becomes
"the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."
Very important advice given out here. I ran a campaign for 7 years. Many players have come and gone in that time, mostly the same people. In our last game we were 8 around the table. It was epic and some of the best time I had so far. Its been two years now that I have not played any TTRPG. I burned out long before our last session, trying to keep the quality of our adventures high, and I did even up until our last adventure. I set the standard to DM so high, that nobody wanted to DM instead. So after I burned out, nobody wanted to take the torch. It revealed things for me, in regards to my friends, but thats not important. Keeping campaigns short and playgroups small is something I so highly recommend for anyone with passion for the game. It protects you from making the game a job. Thanks for the video, it was great!
That's something people often forget, the anxiety of first starting to DM. When someone takes the role and does a fantastic job at it, the average player will be absolutely terrified of taking the torch. This often times compounds with the amount of time you're willing to invest, a player might be willing to put in an extra hour or two per week preparing the session, but if the previous DM was pouring in multiple hours per day for their campaign it's gonna make the next potential DM even more anxious.
Your hard-core scheduling of every week at the same time and place is enormously important. My Tuesday 6pm group has been playing for 5 years. Sometimes a player (including me) has to miss a week, but the game goes on. We take an occasional break for a holiday, but even that is discussed weeks in advance. When you know the game is going to happen with or without you it provides a lot of motivation to be there! This is the best scheduling advice I've ever heard and I attest that it works!
I agree on a solid schedule, same night every week, but in my groups the players can't always make sessions (due to business travel, holidays, childcare emergencies, whatever). The general rule is that people let the DM know as soon as they are aware they can't attend and that lets the DM work the story around that player's absence. If we know we're going to be down more than a couple of players we do a one shot instead. It's stuck together because it's respectful of people's time and in return the players know that if they can't make it the game will carry on without them.
I actually ask players for feedback (hell, I ask people for feedback in general), but the biggest issue I've always had ever since I was a kid is that no one EVER wants to give it when asked; they only want to 'give it' when they are annoyed, angry or otherwise in a bad mood & looking to take it out on someone.
Could just be the people around me, but unless it was a teacher I'm just about never able to get anyone to give me any feedback whatsoever (positive or negative. At most just a vague 'I like it!' or 'I don't like it.', followed by the person's complete refusal or inability to explain why they feel that way to any extent); and pressuring people to any extent for more info has always just led them to being upset with me.
Frustrating as hell, because is makes me feel like either my stuff is boring & I'm just being humored for the sake of my feelings, or I'm secretly a joke to them and just an excuse for people to hang out.
An underlying tendency towards paranoia & assumptions on my part does not help matters.
This is literally exactly my position. The only time someone actually game me some proper feedback was when they got a bit annoyed at all my questions. And guess what? That was the most useful feedback I've gotten (to be fair that's because nobody fucking gives it) and it helped me improve a lot!
I feel you both, I struggled with this a lot when I was a younger Dm, and sometimes still do, I can offer some suggestions to help get more feedback and not just negative emotional feedback,
1. Post game hangout, the session is over but you stay and chat, not just about the session but you can prime thr feedback pump by volunteering your own during it, "wow I didn't expect you guys to.." "dirty about that puzzle", "what did you guys think of plot twist"
2. Prime the pump with specific questions, see above, but also in private conversions, get them chatting and once the conversion is flowing ask for it
3. In game rewards, give players two inspiration points at the start of the next session, one for a point of positive feedback and one for a constructive criticism, bribery works
4. Use comparisons, ask about what players have enjoyed more or less about other campaigns they are in, even if they are feedback shy about yours, it will emerge in what they choose to say about other games
Not only you, people work like that. They're afraid of conflict or usually think they are the problem so they shouldn't complain.
Generally the best way to get feedback is to ask specific questions. Especially questions like “what do you want to do next”. You need your ask for what you want without being direct. Read the responses and see how they feel.
I FEEL this, I recently got one of my groups to agree to try Traveller since I’ll run it, I make sure I communicate with them that I want feedback and I’m open to criticism and if they want something let me know, so a few months have gone by me always asking for feedback after a session, one of the players is also in my CoC game so they know I always do this, that CoC group is mostly acquaintances besides that one player and that group ACTUALLY gives me feedback and asks for certain things to happen like having a combat or asking for time to shop but none of that was from that player who is one of my friends, so this player last session had a blowup during Traveller about us not having had a combat in a while and I try and ask them why they didn’t mention that to me and they just get all uncomfortable about it and mention they didn’t want to rock the boat since everyone else was getting happy about the investigation starting to pick up while they wanted combat
Dude, it feels like you've been making so many videos lately! Don't burn yourself out hat man, but otherwise I love it!
Lines and veils: proper terminology for concepts D&D groups have struggled with for decades.
This is a video worthy of multiple viewings. *tips hat*
Since I returned to DnD in 2020, I have completed 7 campaigns and only had 1 fizzle out. What is my secret?
1) shorter campaigns. Build them in ways that could continue if the players demand a “second season”, but satisfying if they don’t.
2) shorter sessions. With having kids and friends who have kids, I had to get used to shorter sessions. I’m talking 1.5-2 hours. But they great! They improved my description skills, only allow players to go so much off the rails before I can prep more stuff, and make a great date night for married with kids folks.
3) play with who shows up. I have a hard rule of “if I have ONE player available who wants to play, I play”. What that means is people who are invested in the game never face disappointment of not playing one evening (which prevents player burn out), and players who might not be as invested need to decide whether they are going to make it a priority or get left behind.
Not for everyone, but these things have REALLY worked for me :) GREAT VIDEO!
Goddamn I’m especially borrowing 1 and 3. Somehow I didn’t realise that there could be an ending to a homebrew chapter, that frees everyone up to be someone else, or for season 2 like you said. And number 3, I can’t lie, that’s a strong strategy to weed out who really wants to be there. Good advice!
@@R_J8 thanks! Honestly, some of my favorite sessions have been solo sessions.
Question, currently we've been running a campaign for about a year and a half with checking what days everyone is available, it's been working so far and I think it'll continue being fine with this group. But I was defo thinking that if I eventually end up DMing my own campaign I'll be a bit more strict, "These two days are available next week, choose which suits you more". But how do you handle the characters who don't show up, do they have less loot/experience than the ones who show up every time? To me it feels like a potential down-ward spiral if a player might wanna sit out one session to recover/do something else, but now they're behind the rest which might further enhance the sentiment.
How has this played out for you?
@@faxer999 good question!
I think it depends on what you want to encourage (Matt Colville talks a bit about this in one of his videos). If they lvl up with the rest of the party regardless of whether they are there or not, it prevents such a downward spiral, but also doesn’t encourage them to show up and play very often.
If you do XP and say they get less of it, it does give the option to either commit, fall behind, or get out.
For me personally, I prefer the path with the least potential drama, just let them lvl up with the rest of the party, run them as an NPC, if the PC dies while they are gone, sorry but that’s how it rolls.
This is what I've done for two grooups since the pandemic. We do generally not play if we're down more than two people but in that case we usually play a co-op game or a one shot. It's not really practical to always schedule around a DnD game. I travel for business a lot and it isn't practical for me to play during every trip (although I can do both of them). Being willing to progress the game without one or two players means that people always have a fun time to look forward to and the other players just fade into the background for a week. We also rotate our DM every few months or so to give people a break and a chance to play. The groups have stuck together for four years at this point so I'd say it works.
I have been playing D&D for 6 years with the same people. As far as the schedule goes, it has never been an issue. I said "Hey i am running a D&D game on Sunday night... you want to play?" Sometimes people said can we play another day, and I said "no". I then found 5 others that could play D&D on Sunday night. Done. There has never been a week where we say "When are we playing next?", because we all know that we play on Sunday night. May not work for others, but set the expectation and find others who have the same expectation. Great vid! Thanks Pointy!
I am sorry you've been having issues with TH-cam this past month. So glad your videos are back and I hope the rewards for all your hard work come back tenfold! Thank you for all you do!
Pointy hat is so underrated
Agreed. deserves 5 mil
@@lordfish5692it dropped less than 20 minutes ago
trueeeeee
Honestly yeah. It's kinda surprising that he hasn't reached 1 mil yet, the content is more than good enough to deserve it and it's in a style that is both unique and widely enjoyable.
@@mslabo102s2 fr
Player involvement is key to great table play. They need to care as much as the DM to make it great.
If I get the feeling that my players are "not really there" for the campaigns I host, I would rather stop than continue. Did that once, got very unhappy and drama ensued. Won't repeat that again.
The editing on Pointy Hat videos always makes me cackle but it’s also SO GOOD! I love how many little in jokes and references y’all fit in less than a minute
I love how you sponsor things, it is an amazing style of promotion.
My first campaign ended due to drama unfortunately.
We were fighting a BBEG who had stolen a macguffin that would lead to the resurrection of the end game boss, and we were trying to stop him from escaping with the stone. We managed to stop him, but we couldn’t find the stone. We questioned him, but one of the players joked that it was up his butt. Another player took them literally and proceeded to fist the BBEG which traumatized much of the party.
Personally, as a player I was ok with it, but I began to play my character like he was shaken to the core by the action. I figured that it would be a character building moment that would eventually bring the party closer.
Unfortunately, it instead led to a shift in the campaign where players began to believe that other players were genuinely upset with them and folks weren’t having fun anymore. One player actually wanted to kill off their character because of the whole ordeal.
As a DM, my solution to this issue has been a vote system. If I notice a few players are outright objecting to a controversial action, I’ll stop the game to ask the players if they would like to proceed with the action. If a majority say no, I’ll shut down the controversial action. Usually this will also stop a trolling player as they’ll realize that the action is affecting the players and not just the characters
pointy hat is definitely my favourite dnd youtuber
As he should! Or it? Does the hat have a gender? Asking for a friend.
Same
I quite enjoy your channel. One of the awesome things is how you manage add reads. Other channels either have an abrupt stop to the content and its just an interruption or they have a very cringe transition to the add. I actually enjoy your story you tell to bring your add read into the video. It helps that most of the adds relate to D&D. Keep up the good videos hat man
As an artist with alot of schooling i have gotten over the criticism line for a while. It took a bit. But now i love it.
The feedback bit is so true, I ask my players every session afterwards how they enjoyed the session, and make sure to send messages if I notice a player not enjoying things as much so I can fix the problems they had in future sessions. I find asking generally after session, like if you are still in a VC or something makes it feel less demanding on players and you are more likely to get the feedback, but it has helped a TON
So glad to hear you talking about scheduling. I say that all the time. Though I do run games every other week so people can have some weekends for themselves. But yeah, if you can't make a game, we're playing without you. Same time, same day, know when that is for the foreseeable future, make time for it. Consistency is the best way to keep a game going, regardless of if it excludes some people sometimes.
Man, I've never watched one of your videos before and I have to say: I love your style. Quick, but not breakneck, paced narration that gets to the point AND has plenty of smart, wryly-done wordplay humor throughout ("Nuuummber C" XD ).
I shall be back to this channel, for sure.
just communicate with each other honestly and in good faith, don't seek out drama, everyone is supposed to be there to have fun and help make fun for each other, so just focus on doing what you can to contribute and communicate questions often.
setting expectations is basically one of the most important things to hash out before a game, along with player goals, safety tools, etc, but i want to give kudos for you mentioning being SPECIFIC and saying exactly how much combat/rp you use. thats something most people probably dont even realize is important but it is completely true, more even, just having such a plan gives you a ton of legitimacy for the player to trust
I completely get the feeling of prep work starting to feel like a chore, and recently ended a campaign I was running because of that. I can't say I ever loved prep, but I was at least excited and eager to show off my work to the group and have them interact with it. Eventually, just the thought of spending those hours every week in prep wore me down, feeling less like fun and more like the obligatory work that needed done so we could do the fun part actually playing.
I really felt bad when I let my players know I wanted to stop DMing, because I was (and am) still excited to play the story we were making, but at least we're all also still together in a different group.
If you don't have a lot of time to or just don't like doing prep, you don't have to run a campaign full of original characters and story! There are lots of very good adventure books, and you're always free to add as much or as little of your own ideas to the stories they contain. 👍
Pass the torch, start a new game. My hope is to have my next game start out in the mines and castle of their current campaign. Familiar but the possibility of wildly different outcomes.
@@Xplora213 We had a DM stop playing a campaign set in Waterdeep, and I wanted to take over with a new campaign, so we did a "1 shot" (aka 4 sessions) set in Skullport underneath Waterdeep for me to find my feet. All of that was because I'd chosen to play a Drow Eilistraeean cleric and all my prep had included reading about the temple underneath Waterdeep, so I had lots to work with.
It made for a fun short campaign. Everyone had some knowledge of Waterdeep and the factions there to start with, while getting to explore a new place that was disconnected from the past plot. So basically wanted to say that it's a good idea what you're proposing and a definite nice way to pass the torch in a campaign!
I played in a campaign once where the DM asked us to fill out a small questionaire. It had things like:
- Previous Characters you played
- How long do you spend In Character during sessions? 40% of the time? 80%?
- Favorite Movies
- One NPC that is tied to your backstory
It was a really cool experience to have someone milk you for what you expect to see in a campaign and then adjust accordingly.
I wish I had this video last year... I wouldn't be the wreck I've been recently. This deserves way more attention than what most D&D content creators give.
Agree: Players "This is not as cool as Ron Mercer's"
DM: "well, you aren't paid actors either"
We had this wonderful campaign, which was ripped apart because one of the players was revealed to have relations with the DM's spouse IRL. The couple had a child.
Picking the wrong people can really mess your game, social circles in general and life. Good advice for everything.
The most satisfying narrative I ran was with a party of 2 people. Smaller groups give you an opportunity to zone in on their character's backstories, which leads to better player engagement. Very fun!
What No One Tells You About DMing LancerRPG:
LancerRPG exist, and it's great!
I've only played that game once and I loved it.
Been wanting to run it but half of my d&d group wants nothing to do with it which sucks cause lancer's universe is amazing.
I'm not going to be able to stop thinking about this one for a while!!! Great advice and thoughts! I'm post burnout and not sure I'll ever get back in the saddle again, but you're re-framed it for me. Thank you!
21:09 - It's not mean, it's called being disciplined. As you said about priorities before, this is something SOME people might consider mean or inhumane for whatever reason. I think the majority of the RPG playerbase are people who come from certain backgrounds, or certain generations, where they only heard the word Discipline when it means "Getting chastised". This is indeed a social education issue, and people getting more and more polarized, some behaviours are shunned into their bubbles. Like, discipline might be considered authoritarian for some reason? And showing emotions is considered snowflake behaviour? My brother in Christ, at this point i don't think even the word politics makes sense, people just justifying their lack of social skills with that lol
Smaller player groups can be great! It can make it way easier to ensure that everybody in the group is able to do interesting things within a session, and in some circumstances it can also help sessions from becoming really, really long. I personally have trouble getting into games because the people I know prefer to start & continue D&D sessions long after the wee hours of my very finicky bedtime.
I actually love a 3 player group if there's good group cohesions. Otherwise it can end up with a split party where one person is the odd man out. But when it works out it's just the best.
Two things I am experience recently with DMing for a group of friends that are all new to D&D.
1. I had to essentially kick out one of the players as they didn't treat it as a commitment, and would bail a few days to a week before planned sessions constantly, for non-emergency reasons. It was clear it wasn't a priority to him and I had to talk to him about it. For reference we play this campaign once a month, though we have had scheduling issues that had 2-3 month gaps which is part of why I had to have the conversation, since all the other players and myself talked and wanted to play more consistently.
2. This is an active issue I am currently having at my table that one of the players, clearly doesn't want to play D&D, even though this individual says they want to, they don't pay attention at all at the table, have to be literally engaged by their name to get their attention, is constantly walking away, looking at their phone, watching videos or podcast with the sound on in the middie of the game, and when he is playing he is essentially doing his own thing and not on the same page as the other players because shocker he isn't paying attention to the story. I am currently trying to engage with the player and had recent conversations about it, but it doesn't seem to be getting better and now I am debating having to kick the player, especially as last session before we played and after, when he left EVERYONE essentially said they don't want to spend time with him at all, playing D&D and otherwise.
Figured I would share since I did many of what Pointy Hat was saying in the video I gave my players an overview of how I run D&D, the themes, boundaries, and even differences that I know I take to my games to not blind side them, and I also asked them what sorts of gameplay interests them and what do they want to have nothing to do with.
This is obviously entirely up to you, but I would 100% kick that player, especially as everyone else said they don't want to play with him. That behavior sounds extremely disrespectful to you and everyone else who set aside time to be there and it sounds like you've already done your best to resolve things.
Why are you even debating this? Just kick that player jeez.
I have a #2 in a couple of my campaigns rn and it’s so hard he literally only ever joins in when I mention combat otherwise he sits at the end of the table distracted by the world no input to the plot no roleplay nothing he also is playing an assassin like character so he will literally kill one enemy then abandon the rest of the party they all almost died and another player has to also leave combat to bring him back
regarding feedback, I think it's a great insrument. Every "negative" feedback" helped me to improve the future games. One of the players told that it would be great if I would implement some conditions or puzzle mechanics during boss battles, while this is an additional challenge for preparation but still an enjoyable one, and the moment I've managed to add something like this to game, I've received a universal feedback that this was the best boss battle in the game. And I feel like it also made me a better DM.
The first campaign death I had happened because I was not at all particular about what players came to my table. One player wanted to bring his significant other into the game, and I was very much in a "the more the merrier" mindset, so I welcomed them in. Only for that player to almost immediately begin bringing toxicity to our games. I remember a time when I took a break from DMing because player A, I'll call him Teddy to protect his real name, wanted to run his very first game. He boldly chose Mutants and Masterminds, and we all made superheroes. Teddy's S.O. made a super-secret-agent character, Hawkeye and Black Widow combined in one. First combat, S.O. goes first owed to just being very fast compared to the rest of us, and rather than using their very cool gizmos and gadgets, their weapons, tools, and gear specifically chosen to be badass in as many situations as possible, they duck into a sporting goods store and spend their turn rooting around for cricket sticks and baseball bats and whatnot. The rest of us take our turn, first combat like I said, so we clean house. We operate pretty well together, actually - I animated an army of mannequins and restrained a lot of the enemy, and the others blasted and nuked the place. S.O. comes out the store laden with useless gear to see that victory was already ours. Rather than maybe using this gear in the next fight, or joining in celebration, S.O screams at Teddy and blames Teddy for not 'letting me fight,' like it's Teddy's fault that S.O. purposefully didn't use their badass stats to *be* a badass, or that it's Teddy's fault that the rest of the party synergized really well in a fight full of paper-thin minions. Teddy couldn't run anymore after that, having already been suffering extreme anxiety. He had been building up the courage to ask me if he could run a game for months, and spent weeks after that prepping and hyping himself up just to be screamed at by someone he loved. He never GMed after that, and I believe after that group all disbanded (because that was NOT the last of S.O.'s shenanigans) Teddy stopped playing TTRPGs in general. I never spoke up about SO's behavior, and I never challenged it - I learned a lot about the price of absolute tolerance that day, and I'm much better about this sort of thing at my tables now.
I wholeheartedly agree with scheduling. I once tried the kind approach and we played session 0 and half of session 1 for AN ENTIRE SUMMER because of multiple issues, but one being not specific day/time. Ever since I stuck to a specific day and time (with few exceptions) I've been able to run weekly very consistently, bar specific life circumstances.
Groups being on the same page - all wanting similar stuff, respecting boundaries, etc - is also an absolute must. Sometimes you just have random players you recruit, but once you have a pool of people you know, consider them first. You have a better shot at them synergizing than 3 applicants to an LFP game - no shame on those, that's how I met every single one of my reliable players, but once I knew we vibed, we carried on playing together.
It's wild how many people don't seem to think they need decent social skills to play a social game.
I've DMed a singular campaign for the past 5 years now, and I've got to say, so much of this holds true with what, me and my players have found through the course of the last 5 years
you genuenly came such a long way. from basically 0 coments to 18 coments within the first minute.
truly amazing
I've seen multiple comments like this
Is this some new bot thing? What's to gain from it
@@ZenFr0gno, i just like that dude
@@rogelioandre7206 Oh. Well, that's good. I am glad
This is such an amazing video. First, yes... choosing the right players and being honest about it is important because I've been on the other side of square pegs and round holes, and it's not pretty. AND YES ON EXU: CALAMITY!!! It's, honestly, the best live play I think I've ever watched, and it's only 4 sessions! Just overall great advice and great video. 👍
Thank you for this amazing blessing, Sharp Cap
He sure is Acute Headpiece
Damn I can imagine how amazing it would be to play in a campaign run by you, just your voice alone is so engaging.
It’s funny as I only tend to run campaigns that last six to eight sessions. I’ve found for me to approach the campaign more in an episodic nature and having the structure of the world support that. It’s tricky for sure, but it’s been the style for me that’s been most successful.
Telepathic Guinness ad reference AND Sid Meier's Pirates! reference - you are truly spoiling us ❤
Have a wonderful day Antonio
Drama ending campaign on first session:
The rogue> I want to steal from the tomb
Dm>.... the ranger's father's tomb
The rogue> Yeah. I see no problem with this.
The ranger> I start aiming....
Making D&D a priority is less about prioritizing the game and more about respecting the time of the people you play with. You're making a plan to meet up with a group of friends for a weekly game, you should be able to schedule around that game because that's the time your friends are expecting you. At my old job, I put in on my schedule availability that I couldn't work past 6pm on D&D night because our game started at 7. We played for three and a half years and with the exception of a death in the family, any disruptions to that schedule were made known multiple weeks in advance...because we respected each other's time. Had a player who didn't respect the time of the rest of the table and we just stopped playing with that guy.
We had that "describe it to me" scenario happen inversed in one campaign. One our players (playing a male warlock) wanted to seduce a male barkeeper, he really wanted to rp it and describe it and it made the DM noticeably uncomfortable, he tried to "fade the scene to black" and focus on ANYTHING else as fast as he could. Even DMs can have boundaries, and just like you don't want yours crossed by them, it's not cool to force them to cross theirs.
Ok, the advice about scheduling is right on. Everyone needs to respectful of each others times, so find a time that you can all play each week and make it a priority. It's very simple but so, so important.
There's a reason I only have two players and they're brother and sister. It's easy to get them in the same place at the same time. Even though the brother moved out a long time ago, he still lives in the area. Since both he and I are running campaigns, he knows he can call me and say "hey, we've got a night free, wanna play?" Right now, the sister's sport (softball) is in season so lately we end up playing when it rains and they can't practice or have games.
Pointy hat vid right before my night shift? Just what I needed ❤️
im starting my own campieng and this is really helping
My game is gonna be roleplay heavy with an ephasis on the player side to come up with compelling characters with backstories they’d have to communicate efficiently in game (they don’t have to say a word, but their first ever actions could imply their personality & background by mere demeanor)
By that I mean that every session would have an opportunity to role play, & an opportunity to role for either combat, a puzzle, or some other scenario which will get the characters to bounce around each other & develop chemistry. Either every third, or every sixth will have a BIG roleplay section that will matter to the story at hand while the others before were more focused on characterization & fun factor.
It will be set in a pre-existing world as to later on save the data for fanfic writing, & I will request you write down a summary of what you did in a txt document & send it to me by the end of the session, with an emphasis on the roleplay you did. Especially if we’re roleplaying in VC & or in person rather than via text messages or voice messages a la Instagram, watssapp, & more recently discord.
Here’s an example for what I mean by characterize in the first scene.
A rogue sits in the corner of an inn drinking tea, writing in a journal of some sorts, & looking kind of solemn or forlorn. Maybe have them mutter to themselves about names of people you don’t know or about events you don’t have a clue about or even have them quote someone maybe even reference a theatrical release! Then when they notice the party has arrive, they rush towards them in a flustered manner to quickly apologize for not noticing who they were right away. The thing is, they did notice them, they just weren’t sure if they were the party they commissioned as help for their quest (& also as editors/helpers for their upcoming novel which is the “journal” you saw them writing in.) Have them see the party & then ignore them, just a swift glance, assuming they’re like more fellow inn guests or diners. Perhaps you can have them hear them approaching from a little far away or otherwise notice something very quiet, establishing their great skill, but also their concealed paranoia.
If conceal paranoia is your purgative, then have them glance around from time to time, & have them focus on windows, doors, vent ways, any means of escape; for that establishes that they have been through trauma in the past & are perhaps dealing with some agoraphobia.
I could go on & on, but that would just turn this comment into a fucking fan fiction, & I don’t need to do that here now do I?
Death would depend on what it is I’m adapting; so far I got 2 ideas for a campaign.
Either way, I like it when dungeons are 1 to 2 sessions long cuz I tend to get exhausted & or bored after a while in the same situation or setting so I’d rather set short missions until the BBEG team shows up & then it’s like 2 sessions long aka a 2 parter!
1. In a world where instead of mammals there are semi avian dinosaurs that took the planet after a milder kpg mass extinction, death is permanent & you can’t come back, characters will often face injury, so I suggest you do have 1 back up character, but one of your characters already died then I won’t kill them again unless you ask me to off session cuz I don’t wanna be a prick. This one is a linear tale & will be used for my autistic gay dinosaur comic.
2. In a world where a templaric surveillance authoritarian oligarchy is overtly controlling the masses, death is only an option & you can be revived, but revival has a steep price, that often being robotized completely which is only possible of your soul has been backed up inside a cartridge or something like some sort of Creepypasta, & perhaps a drastic change in personality due to the event itself being traumatic for you’re not supposed to come back from death, yet you do due to sheer technological advancements & will power. You essentially have to re roll your character stats as a new race & roll or change 1 personality trait after the what transpired. If you seek to just start a new you can just roll another character.
Also it’s just furry assassin’s creed…it’s that mid ass Netflix show, I wanna redeem it, reclaim it, recontextualize it. So…you gonna roleplay a better portrayal of Dolph Laserhawk for me or nah? This one will be semi linear or non linear; in the end of the day a certain ending or endings will happen, it’s up to you to decide how & why.
As someone who ran a multi year campaign, in a homebrew setting, with homebrew monsters, and a plot for the players that would make Hideo Kojima confused as my first DM campaign in over a decade I can confirm most of this video is painfully accurate. How i delt with this however was a very simple process that you nail here perfectly, only prepare what you NEED, not want. Need. If a battle map is REQUIRED is the only time it's actually used etc:. This saved me so much trouble and time and ended up making the campaign not only doable for me but better overall. Also "Consent Forms" essentially its the Veil / Line you mention here but with pretty much every thing i could think of that might be offensive to people. I had a few surprises on there but we ended up having a very clear consensus on what was and wasn't impacted by this. Also as for the Drama, oh boy, we've had a lot of that. But ironically never D&D related. Our typical playgroup ends up with what we've come to call "The Bi-Monthly Argument" and now it's just an understood feature of our table. It's also grown to encompass all issues relating to interpersonal stuff too or sometimes just a big vent for someone. This ends up keeping all of this out of the D&D game itself, but probably also works because the group was tight before doing D&D for the most part.
I found your videos a week ago or so and I just LOVE them! They are so funny and cool and inspireing, it‘s simply the very best of dnd content, thank you sooo much!!!
Thank you so much Mr. Hat. We have a session zero tomorrow and I'm going to *insist* everyone agrees to prioritize the game. You're absolutely right, that has been the killer of all of our previous campaigns and I'm not gonna compromise this time. Either make time for us, like we make time for you, or leave.
This is my favourite channel, like ever. I don’t even play, watching your videos makes me want to have friend to play this with sooo much tho
Ok, cool, let’s try it!
1: A combat heavy campaign with linear storytelling with deadly encounters and no way to revive dead characters.
2: The first four people who respond in Discord. And if a character dies in the campaign, the player is also kicked from the campaign as well. Then get another player from Discord.
3: Run big monsters with stolen maps online.
4: If I get drama at the table, I kill their character, easy.
5: If the player can’t make it for more than two sessions at my scheduled time, I kill their character, easy.
6: If a player questions my methods, I kill their character, easy.
God I had a DM that legitimately wanted to do the “if your character dies in game the player gets out of the campaign and we look for somebody else”.
I had to very nicely explain to him why that was a terrible idea because this was overall a pretty good group where we all got along and met every week with NO SCHEDULING CONFLICT.
This was his first campaign and he wanted to do it because he thought it was cool and it was like watching a child almost step on fairy.
It’s wild how many people have scheduling being so loose and varying constantly. Because I can never handle those type of campaigns, it just makes each week all the more stressful and frustrating when nothing is able to happen that week.
I absolutely admire and respect one of my closest friends as a dm. Because he is fairly strict with the fact that “we are playing on this day at this time, if you don’t show up, we’re playing without you. Even if it’s just me and one other person”. And if someone keeps skipping out, they’re asked to leave. It’s truthfully disrespectful to constantly miss a session when everyone else is trying their hardest to show up (Of course not in the situation of emergency or life changes). I’ve had people decide to just not show up because they wanna play a LoL instead for 2-3 sessions straight, which has caused stories to be derailed because their character was at the center of the storyline at that time.
We’re all here to have fun, and of course it should be taken with varying levels of seriousness, but at least respect the idea that everyone else is taking time out of their week to be there. If it’s no longer fun for you, let your dm know so they could help find the problem, or perhaps discuss having your character removed from the game. Don’t prolong it for no reason.
I am actually upset about pronouns. But it's just because I married into a German family. Stuff's just so complicated.
I started watching you the day before yesterday, i've almost cleared all of your videos, good stuff
When has common courtesy and respect to each other become offensive?
Also, sorry, but "attack helicopter" is a timeless classic by now, imho.
I mean, these people need rules to treat each other with human decency.
This is all great advice. We just started our third major campaign (and with our group, each one lasts years), and even though it's mostly the same players, or people we've played one shots with before, I as the DM made sure to set clear expectations with everyone before we even started character creation. It was even easier since we had past campaigns to compare to.
And with every one of us getting busier but still always prioritizing dnd night each week, once every month or two we take a week off and I message all the players for specific feedback on a couple questions: What did you enjoy the most and least, and what are you most looking forward to? That's a huge help in preparing and making sure we're all on the same page.
Video starts at 4:54
I'm gonna be DMing my first game soon and this video has been amazing! Especially because two of my players have been DM's for games I've played in and they've been so fun, that I feel PRESSURE!! But I'm excited and I'm really thankful for the feedback sheet you made!! Thank you!! : D I love your videos!
Coming to this comment late: How did it go? :) When I started DMing a year ago, I was so nervous because I, too, have two DMs in my playgroup. But turns out it is the best for learning. They are the most supportive and excited players at the table simply because they can play themselves and enjoy instead of planning and DMing themselves. I hope your first time DMing was fun and you enjoyed it!
@@sinika2860 Thanks for asking! : D It went really well!!! I had planned to start with a one shot ( I chose the Price of Beauty adventure Candlekeep Mysteries ), but because they had to get to the library, then get in the library and then get to the Inner Ward of the library before they got to start the focus of that chapter, it wound up being much more than a one shot 😂 But it’s going really well!! I’m having a ton of fun, I got to hand out props (scrolls and library cards lol) and everyone is really enjoying it!!! It wound up working really well too since one of my DMs needed more time to prep for picking up their campaign. It sounds like you’re having a ton of fun too!! What adventure did you start with?
You scrolled too far for the homework.
Calling all RPGs DnD is like calling all video games Nintendo
Or all Sodas Coke
While definitely true, it's unfortunately the easiest way to explain what I do to most boomers/my parents 😂😂
Loved this video!
I've come to most of these same tools through blood sweat and tears from over a decade of TTRPGs. I would have loved a resource like this when starting out.
I know an Austrian man who didn’t go to art school.
The one who got teabagged by the Seminary dropout?
Best "Top advices" video I'va watched on the Tube.
And, not kidding, I think I've watched pretty much every major video on the topic.
Thanks a lot, Pointy Hat !
Safety Tools : DnD's HR
Yes, you are so useless as a human being that HR needed to get involved in your TTRPG
😆😉
Kindness, Understanding and Communication, yeah let's not do those 🤓
This, since when did we need rules to treat others like human beings while partaking in a leisure activity?
Touch grass
One curse of getting a design degree is that I now often critique things because it is so helpful. I forget that normal people take any critique personally even if they didn’t make the content I am critiquing. If its media they like they see it as a personal attack even if I point out many good things they harp on the negative. Listening to criticism is one of the hardest and most useful tools to acquire.
My advice for new DMs, or any DMs period is: Embrace theft. Not physical things of course, no stealing books! I mean I have access to a digital repository of the books so maybe that if you're on a budget but I digress. Ideas! All stories have been told so if you want a heist, grab a copy of Oceans 11 and watch it. What works for you? What doesn't? Take those. You like a character from a book? A race from a book? Those are yours! You want a new monster? Crack open a monster manual, find the closest thing to what you want, give it a slight tweak, new monster! I came up with a poison trap monster by taking an air elemental, changed its attack to poison damage, had it release a puff of poison air with a roll of the die determining the turn it happens, and it became a new horror.
As for art, I'm going to be a bit controversial: AI. Yes, I know, rage, feed me your hate! But when you're done, seriously consider it. What is so different between AI art that you're only using for that one campaign than using pictures you google for the same purpose? You're not profitting off of it, there's no real ethical concerns because no one is getting ripped off, and you get your own custom art. I know I can't draw so when I can't quite find what I need, I turn to AI.
Ethical theft is something every gm and every player should have in their toolbox, it saves time, can make things more fun, and can shape entire campaign worlds.
When I had players that wanted to run an all-bard party, I set them up with the plot from "The Blues Brothers". Only one of them caught on, and it was obvious she had when she asked "Is it time to sing Rawhide?" But she was clearly enjoying it so I didn't mind at all that she got the joke.
@@mal2ksc Last time I played a bard I used TH-cam so much. I had a list of songs I wrote down that were my songs for different situations. Since I based my bard of Alice Cooper both in the Alice character and his real identity, (In battle and public situations he was Alice, putting on an act, and when dealing with his party and anyone that got close, he was a big goofy cinnamon roll of a guy), lots of my music was hard rock and metal, which everyone, including the GM, played into.
Excellent. I am also a longtime DM of multiple games across all time zones (in N America) who holds a BFA from an art school with a 12% graduation rate (at the time; very different now, I’m given to understand). Feedback creates blisters which will callous and allow you to work without pain. Great video.
Attack helicopter is still funny, and don't you assume my pronouns are not a joke anymore.
Hahaha look at me I am a transphobe hahaha
@@usurpator123The point isn't to hate on trans people. It's to point out how there are limits on how people will treat you. We can all use whatever pronouns a person wants, that doesn't mean they'll fit into society in the way they want to. Just like a person is not an attack helicopter even if we all agree to call them one and act as if they are one, they cannot fly.
That's not transphobic, it's reality.
i recently started a campaign with my friends because we wanted a campaign with just us (we're in another one with one of our other friends but can't play that one due to said friend being in a weird timezone) i think i like dming and so i said i would make a campaign for us. i got this idea i really liked and had some super cool ideas for it, so i became excited. a couple of my players were kind of pressuring me to hurry and make the campaign which, at first, was fine since it was in a joking manner. it kept going and i was generally fine, but that ended in me finishing the campaign in i wanna say maybe a week? less than a week? idk, but a really quick time. i was able to finish so quick because i wanted to try and practice my improv since i don't really do that (and because i didn't want my friends to keep pressuring me..)
it started off great. first two sessions were fine since i had plans like i normally do for those parts. then they got to the big part where i needed to improv. it was.. okay.. not my best work as a dm. and- as context, we're doing this as a text roleplay in discord. we type out responses as characters and me as the narrator while we sit in a voice chat. one of my players in particular was wanting fast replies which would've been fine if i weren't trying to improv. i'm still a very new dm, i've run only two previous campaigns that have fizzled out. i'm very much nonconfrontational, but i feel like i either need to have a really big talk with my players about pressuring me (even in a joking manner) or just cancel the campaign since i'm struggling to keep it up :(
You lost me at safety tools.
Take a shower
To me, the biggest challenge in getting a campaign together is not getting friends who want the same things out of the game but getting people who LIKE EACH OTHER AT ALL. I have an easy time making friends with a lot of different kinds of people but those people RARELY get along with one another. Finding friends who can be friends with each other is harder than scheduling
I've had players that didn't like each other and had nothing to do with each other when we weren't playing -- but when they were in character, the friction between them could be indulged as the characters interacting, and it was generally quite entertaining.
Lost me at the safety tool bullshit. Which is funny because up until that point, your entire video basically said this: Gatekeep Your Game.
Take a shower.
Safety Tools are still gatekeeping the game, you just don't like that they are mainly gatekeeping people with your attitude from PointyHat's preferred kind of game.
Safety tools are largely an invitation for certain players to dictate your game that they put minimal effort into.
Safety Tools are what happens when people cant give each other basic respect and human dignity. Instead of having them in my game, I just dont have people who can't treat each other like people without rules telling them how to do it.
I ran a oneshot to test an online D&D app, and then my players really wanted to do more with the characters, so eventually they just had their spelljammer land on one of the realms from the other campaign I was running.
Top notch video. I agree, very few if any advice floating around touching these subjects.
One of the biggest takeaways is that this is a game that can be more than a game - it can be an opportunity for people to grow in a multitude of life skills. Scheduling, planning, and social skills can be greatly improved through this hobby and that is why I will never consider it a mere “time waster” as some other hobbies like video games can sometimes be.
On a lighter note, I’m in the military and one thing we end up having in excess is free time. I have been able to run a very fun and successful campaign with a large group of Soldiers because I have a captive audience. We’re literally stuck together in the same place and the same time. It’s the perfect environment to run a successful campaign - and we’re all getting paid 😂
I just wanted to say that you are the most awesomest TTRPG TH-camr in the whole wide multiverse and I love you and what you do! Your videos are alway so creative, funny and most of all REALLY helpful and inspiring, it's incredibly refreshing! Hats off! ;)
Man, I really needed that. You're making awesome content, thank you for all this. Keep it up!❤️
Pointy Hat is single handedly my favorite dnd channel! keep it up!
Probably a more accurate title for this video: "Things to address in session 0".
Also I love the Narnia joke.