Category Archives: Dungeon Master Tips

The Line separates what the GM narrates vs. what the player narrates. In D&D, the player narrates their backstory and their current activity; the DM narrates everything else. Of course, even some DMs in 5e shift the Line a little – “You killed it! Describe your final blow and its death throes!” On the other extreme, take One Shot World by Yochai Gal. The players and GMs collaboratively develop the world. “Set out a blank sheet of paper and ask the player who is the most well-traveled to draw a […]

Stars & Wishes is a tested method to get positive feedback and constructive criticism, helping you understand what your players thought of your TTRPG (tabletop roleplaying game) session. Here is my adaptation of the method. I use these as my last two prompts at the end of every session (integrated into my custom End of Session move), encouraging each player to contribute: “Award a star to someone for a great moment of gameplay.” “Make a wish for what you’d like to see in a future session.” I love these prompts […]

When preparing to run a PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse) TTRPG, keep in mind how experience is gained. Many PbtA games have an End of Session move that awards experience points. Make sure you’re giving players chances during the session that align with this move! Here is the End of Session move in Dungeon World: When you reach the end of a session, choose one of your bonds that you feel is resolved (completely explored, no longer relevant, or otherwise). Ask the player of the character you have the bond […]

You’re GMing an RPG game tonight, and you haven’t done any prep. Normally I use the Lazy DM checklist or the 7-3-1 technique or hexcrawl prep, but when I’m crushed for time I use what I call Monty Hall Prep: I read up on 3 different monsters, either from the Monster Manual, the bestiary of the system I’m playing, or these days from Keith Ammann’s book or blog. I write down 3 “doors” (locations) to choose from, foreshadowing but typically not naming which monster is “behind” each door. In play, […]

So I discovered Dungeon World originally through Sly Flourish’s blog, and he is open about adapting techniques from other systems in his 5e games. He recently blogged about zones in combat, lifted from Fate Condensed: Zone-based Combat in D&D. Prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, I had a lot of miniatures and terrain maps that would come out for battle.  In switching to online play for 5e, I found maps (and icons for opponents) to become a huge time sink. Because battles can look phenomenal in Roll 20, there’s an expectation that […]

My group played our first remote D&D 5e session last night. As it happened, my notes (written before I knew this would be online) called for them waking in the middle of a cavalry battle between centaurs and horsemen. It was certainly a lot easier to manage with a virtual tabletop! We had problems with the Roll 20 app’s audio and switched to JoinMe halfway through: that went much better. We will do that going forward. Unfortunately, virtual D&D brings all of the fun of conference calls to your gaming […]

Last night I got two hours of O5R play out of one sentence of my session notes! That sentence: A dead man, an arrow in his eye: you find no food or weapons but a saddle and shield. Reacting to my players’ actions, I ended up roleplaying the dead man (thanks to Speak with Dead), the grass (!) his body was found in (thanks to Speak with Plants), and his murderer. The key resource I used during play was a random name generator I had written at the start of the campaign, when the situations […]

The best book I’ve read on gamemastering so far is Matt Shea’s The Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. The key philosophy is to prep only those things that you find hard to improv. Session prep typically follows this template: Characters Strong Start Scenes Secrets and Clues Fantastic Locations Important NPCs Potential Monsters Potential Treasure While still following Matt Shea’s advice, instead of “Scenes”, I’ve relabeled that section in my notes “Situations”. Here’s a good example of why. Last night my PCs encountered a band of 19 orcs: I had […]

I ran a Session Zero on Friday for our new homebrew campaign. We had just wrapped up a 41-session, open-table campaign set in Melvaunt in Forgotten Realms, and this time we’re doing a homebrew, closed-table campaign. Every group’s Session Zero has different things to cover, but here’s what we found useful. The questions I asked to better tailor this campaign: What was your favorite moment from the last campaign? Least favorite? What did you like in general about the last campaign? What did you dislike? Do you want to play […]