Dungeons and Dragons

11123 readers

29 users here now

A community for discussion of all things Dungeons and Dragons! This is the catch all community for anything relating to Dungeons and Dragons, though we encourage you to see out our Networked Communities listed below!

/c/DnD Network Communities

Other DnD and related Communities to follow*

DnD/RPG Podcasts

*Please Follow the rules of these individual communities, not all of them are strictly DnD related, but may be of interest to DnD Fans

Rules (Subject to Change)

Be a Decent Human Being
Credit OC content (self or otherwise)
Posting news articles: include the source name and exact title from article

Format: [Source Name] Article Title

Posts must have something to do with Dungeons and Dragons
No Piracy, this includes links to torrent sites, hosted content, streaming content, etc. Please see this post for details
Zero tolerance for Racism/Sexism/Ableism/etc.
No NSFW content
Abide by the rules of lemmy.world

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Brunbrun6766

owenfromcanada

[OC] Values vs. Technique: What Makes a Great GM? (youtu.be)

submitted 4 months ago by agileadventurer to c/dnd

2 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hey folks! We often praise our DMing heroes for their many skills like improv, enhancing immersion, compelling roleplay of believable NPCs, and the like. There are resources aplenty for how to speak in accents, how to not use accents but still have distinct voices, how to plan campaigns, or speed up combat encounters. But are these skills really what make our favorite DMs great? I argue no. I believe great DMs begin with a foundation of values that guide how they use their skills, and I discuss my version of those values here.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] NickKnight 1 points 4 months ago

Let the players as a group have agency in your narrative. It sounds like a stupid joke about the pet goblin but it isn't. Our favorite campaign ever was a mage campaign where the players spent the whole campaign focus on one guy (Sir ben kingsley in Lucky number slevin) and they went after him with all they had. But on the side they made friends with some of the factions. Especially this one Sons of Ether, Lucy Monk. They confided in her and had her help them with plans. it was great.

Then the twist came.

Yeah, you figured it out.

But the look on their faces when they had to travel back in time to get the guy they thought was the BBEG and he turned around and showed them who it really was still makes the DM giggle to himself.

Any game you play matters if the players feel they are moving things along and making a difference, even a small one.

If you are the DM, be the rest of the world but let them move you.