Become a Better DM Through Exposure

Behind every DM is a writer with a vision—a writer with a story that begs to be told. When I began DMing the Edge of Evil, I envisioned a campaign filled with murder and crime. I expected the player characters to slaughter people left and right.

But that didn’t happen. We had one lawful good paladin, two neutral characters, and four evil characters—though the evil characters sometimes waffled into neutral territory. I expected our chaotic evil sorcerer to wreak havoc, but he only killed bad people. I expected the chaotic evil assassin of Shar to actively pursue assassinations, but she spent most of her time not killing anyone. I expected the chaotic evil wizard tinkerer to have some sort of human experimentation fetish dealio, but he mostly just looked out for himself.

I had expectations for my players—but those expectations were grounded in my idea of an epic fantasy novel, not in what players actually like to do. This is a roleplaying adventure, not a book. Players want freedom and agency, and the only way to truly understand their needs is to be a player.

Resist perma-DMing.

You’ll loose touch with the needs of your players if you never are a player. Find a balance in your life where you have time to both DM a campaign and play in another one.

As a player, I like it when the DM is flexible—willing to let me try whatever crazy shenanigans I come up. I like it when the DM is willing to repeat things that I missed (I have so much ADHD). I like it when the DM doesn’t just kill my beloved character in a stupid way. I like it when the DM is patient with me when I’m not sure about things that my character should definitely know. Because I’ve been a player, I know that players like these things, so I strive to be the DM I’d want as a player.

Of course, there’s still the challenge of actually doing a good job at being this ideal DM—but at least you know what you’re aiming for.

Being a player isn’t the only way to temper yourself.

A plethora of shows and podcasts swirl around on this here internet, just waiting for your consumership. When I first got into D&D, my friends raved about Critical Role, so I decided to give it a go.

And damn. Matthew Mercer. Is such. A good. DM. He keeps the game flowing like a brilliant session of improv; seldom does he pause the action to look up rules or stats. I’m not sure if he has everything memorized or just makes it up (probably a combination of the two), but damn does he know how to keep a game going. His players constantly do random crap that he had no possible way to prepare for, but he just keeps the game rolling in whatever direction the players want.

Matthew Mercer (and the rest of Critical Role) has made it fun to watch other people play D&D. It’s almost better than playing D&D myself. Matt Mercer is my first and biggest inspiration.

Another popular D&D show is the Adventure Zone. I continue to be amazed at how first-time DM Griffin McElroy was able to do such a fantastic job. The Adventure Zone has more of a comedic touch, so it tempered my experiences with Critical Role’s realism. Seeing two completely different game styles really helped me build my arsenal of DMing tricks and helped me develop a style.

My campaign, the Edge of Evil, takes a bit more after the Adventure Zone; the players get tons of legendary magic items and are swept up in an interdimensional quest. But they’re also evil. Half the player characters recently died, yet we continued their adventures in the afterlife (until one character finally got an Infallible Interdimensional Existence Transistance Gauntlet that could restore them to life and send them anywhere).

My other campaign, Colourful Morons, isn’t like that. It’s a dungeon crawl about the really tragic lives of three colourful idiots who watch everyone around them die and suffer. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Same DM; completely different styles.

Watching and listening to D&D (or even other TTRPG) shows is one of the best ways to really see how good DMing looks and how it varies.

Good DMs experience other DMs.

Ultimately, the best way to improve your DMing is to watch other DMs, whether they’re your own DM in a game you play, or the DM of a webseries or podcast, like Matthew Mercer.

Do you have any thoughts on ways to improve your DMing? Please leave a comment!