 So you've got a character sheet all written out and a couple of friends who want to play D&D, but you're missing one vital component. The world, the characters, the laws of physics everyone's gonna break to make for cool moments. You'll commission artists on the internet to draw for you. But such a role requires leadership, initiative, a total willingness to have a bunch of children stomp on all your ideas in favor of doing funny memes and stupid scenarios. Despite all that, such a title has an extremely low barrier to entry and is probably the most important thing at your entire role-playing table. And without one the game will not exist. So anybody and everybody should perform the duty at least once for the sake of their fellow players begging for a chance to experience this wonderful pastime. So long as I don't have to be the one to do it. What? Welcome to a Crap Guide to Dungeons & Dragons! The Dungeon Master or Game Master if you like clay in your soup is the mind behind the magic and who decides just about everything that happens in the game besides the player's own choices. Your role as a DM is to control and describe literally every single little detail that happens during the game as you are the game. The game cannot exist without a Dungeon Master. As the DM you call the shots based on how the rules work or if you don't like the rules and say shoot that poot and come up with your own. Otherwise, how else are you supposed to know if your rules lawyering players giving you correct information and isn't just making an elaborate manipulative plot to trick you into giving them a pet displacer beast? Fortunately for you, if you aren't sure or don't remember how a certain rule works, you can always just look it up because being a good DM is about applying information, not memorizing it, unlike the American education system. Outside of the rules, though, you are the bridge between the players and the fantasy world they're playing in, describing everything that's going on in excruciating detail like a radio show but with a lot more awkward pauses. Everything they fuck, marry, or kill is through the context of how you describe it, which means you have to be incredibly deliberate with your vocabulary and respect the Oxford comma, or else you might make the wrong translation of what's going on in your brain to the players who may then think the innocent bystander in DC is actually a murderer because you accidentally stuttered when voicing them saying they were just doing their tasks. There are quite a few ways information can be put across to the players and it all comes down to the DM's preferred style of presentation. Many pop culture depictions of the nerd ritual often show an ornately carved and treated mahogany table. Players dressed in professional cosplay on par with 2000s Hollywood costumes, atmospheric mood lighting that'll make a hardcore dom blush, background music and ambience that's like a spa day for your ear canals, and detailed miniatures, maps and set pieces painted by angels using brushes made from the nose hairs of the gods. Now, do you need all these fancy, expensive, and superfluous amounts of presentation and stimulus in order to have a worthwhile Dungeons & Dragons experience for your players? Of course you do, fork it over bitch, your wallet could lose a few extra pounds. But even with all the fanciest of theatrics, every Dungeon Master has to rely on the ever-prevalent theater of the mind, where everyone has to use their imagination to visualize what's happening in your grand spankin' fantasy world. So a game of D&D doesn't have to cost hundreds of dollars and can be anything from a massive theatrical event to a hangout with the bros with cardboard cutout minis to even sitting in a restaurant with napkins for character sheets and the salt and pepper shakers are the evil queen of spice and her angry white steed. No matter what, you'll always eventually have to rely on the most useful creation of all mankind that can raise armies and fell nations. Words. Never underestimate the power of a good the source because inevitably there will be a situation where all your fancy props won't suffice and you will have to learn how to use old English vernacular. As the DM, you'll have to learn how to use old English vernacular. As the DM, you'll have to learn how to use old English vernacular. As the DM, you'll have to learn how to use old English vernacular. As the DM, you'll have to learn how to use old English vernacular and most of your responsibility all boils down to allowing the players to interact with your grand spankin' fantasy world. And how they do that can be summarized in one simple action, rolling dice. When a player wants to do something, anything, the DM is the one who decides if the player rolls dice, what dice they roll, and the outcome of the roll of the dice. Then, just about everything else is an extension of that one single responsibility, which is why nobody wants to do it, because one single responsibility is far too many. An extension of that, the DM's the encyclopedia of the D&D game. If there's history in the world, it's the DM's job to know it. When the players are fighting bad guys, it's the DM's job to keep track of the enemy's abilities, hit points, and sexual orientation. Just in case, you never know. If a player resurrects their long dead uncle, it's the DM's job to have read their backstory to know said uncle was a drunk rocketeer who eats horseshoe crabs. And when the players bring up how the plot and characters are oddly similar to Lord of the Rings, it's the DM's job to kick their ass. The scariest part about being a Dungeon Master, however, is the improv. Since you can't anticipate every single possible possibility the players can possibly make possible, you have to think on the fly and figure out how those possible things could be possible. If the player character tries to eavesdrop on somebody, you have to come up with what they hear. If somebody eats too many beans and farts, you gotta come up with how it smells. And if the party decides to run off some other direction rather than the main plot, you have to come up with what they run into. Like another town, or a dangerous hag, or even the main plot. Because you moved it over there, since the giant glowing breadcrumbs in the shape of story progress this way wasn't obvious enough. If you think you can prepare pre-written answers for every possible question the players could come up with, I'm gonna have to stop you right there because no the fuck you can't. Somebody at some point in time will do something that'll turn your no pants bad dreams into a reality and you gotta figure out then and there whether you're gonna get a new pair or just roll with it while the player see your metaphorical junk swaying in the breeze. So with all that easy to digest and totally not intimidating stack of expectations that doesn't even scratch the surface of what it takes to be a Dungeon Master out of the way, the question now becomes how does one even start being a Dungeon Master? Just do it! No matter what, you'll want a copy of the player handbook since it has a majority of the most common rules. As far as actual content goes though, the most baby friendly way is to purchase a pre-written adventure, one of these buggers, which will usually have a plot, characters, encounters, villains, and plenty of faffing about material for your players. However, if that's too much punishment on your wallet, the natural safe word is making a campaign of your own. The thing about safe words though is it often stops things in their tracks so it will require you to come up with most of the aforementioned plot, characters, encounters, villains, and faffing material yourself, which can take anywhere from a knight of binge writing to never because you only ever think about your ideas and never write it down. Either way you go with once you have the skeleton of your campaign ready, you gotta start filling it with internal organs. And as anyone who's taken biology can tell you, organs are gross and messy and can often go misplaced so you just have to substitute a kidney with a moldy sponge for a bit while you go find it. Until suddenly the blood cells start making friends with the sponge and it becomes more effective than an actual kidney and you start to question everything you've ever learned in school. So good fucking luck figuring out how to balance spending time preparing to run a campaign and spending time actually running a campaign. Do you spend entire weeks drawing maps, writing possible paths, and dialogue options for characters down to the description of their cousin's boyfriend's dog's favorite chew toy? Or do you just spend the week doing some faffing about of your own and then spend the final half hour leading up to the session time frantically writing down bits from a D&D random content generator. But hey, once you get a game going the rest should come naturally. Just take it all one step at a time and you can especially relax whenever the players start to role play and act on their own. Because then you can just sit back and relax and let them have their fun and you don't even have to do dialogue for any NPCs or lord dump on them. Or god fuck the rogue tried to steal the paladin's rosary beads. Yes, the dirty wails underbelly of being a dungeon master is dealing with the barnacle infestation that is being the de facto babysitter of the group and then you gotta bring out the scraper of social obligation. In some situations more than others the DM is expected to have a significant amount of say in organizing the playgroup since you have something of a larger leadership role for the game to exist than the players. You're who the players will look to when arguing over who gets the loot. You will be expected to have a bigger say on when the next session time will be and you are the one who's expected to kick out the guy who's overriding your descriptions of a pleasant smelling flower garden with a rankness of his workout stank. This means that you cannot take a passive role as a DM. You have control over the fan and if you see shit flying towards it you're gonna be expected to turn that fan off before the place really starts to smell like a medieval castle street. With all of that said I still could not possibly cover the grand mountain climb that is explaining what it takes to be a dungeon master. Not to mention what it takes to be a good dungeon master. And I've seduced enough tall folk to make Kanchenjunga horny for me. But I believe the best possible way to show you what it takes to be a dungeon master would be a demonstration of those undergarment, moistifying skills I possess. Lucky for your thirsty butts I've set up a DND session with a bunch of nerds and demonstrate I shall. Alright, unexpectedly, as you walk into a tavern a crowd is gathered and everyone seems to be having a good time. I'll accept the mysterious hooded figure in the center of the room that nobody except you all seem to notice. What do you do? I wanna smash the barkeeper! I want to smash the barkeeper. Nobody wants to have a chat with the hooded figure? Who knows? It may tie into one of your backstories. Oh yeah, that reminds me. DM, could you look over these notes I have about my backstory? It's only a few pages long, but I wanted to make sure to keep the authenticity of my homeland as the center point to my character development. What the hell? This is a fucking novel! I'm not reading all of this. Oh yeah, speaking of, I wanted to check in with you about this new homebrew I created from one of my backstories characters. I ran it by a couple of friends and they seemed to think it's pretty balanced, so no need to worry about looking over it too much. Oh no no no no no no no. I know what you're trying to do, you scruffy looking. Hey DM, are there any goliaths in the tavern? No particular reason, I just wanted to know. Dude, yeah, are there any? I've been looking for a surfing buddy for some time. We're at the beach, right? I wasn't really paying attention, could you set the scene again? Bah, whatever, I'll get back to you guys later. Dawnright, have you made up your minds about that ambush yet? That guy you've been targeting for the past three sessions is right there enjoying his dwarfish drink. Oh boy, I surely am enjoying my dwarfish drink. Look, whenever we take a single decision like going to the left or to the right, it goes wrong. We need to have a hundred percent flawless plan. Oh, maybe we can talk with him? But if things go wrong, I can use my gun. When the fuck did the blind dragonborn get a gun? I don't remember giving him a gun. Has he always had a gun? Just one guy. Why don't I just sneak up on him and poison his drink? I have a plus 10 to stealth, plus advantage with my cloak of invisibility, and add on another 10 if Ron's uses his pass without a trace. No one will ever see me, and we can avoid this whole encounter. Or I can use this gun. How many times must you terrify my sweet bottoms? You upright marsupial! I'll give you six minutes and 44 seconds. If you don't come to an agreement on a plan, I'm feeding your minis to the Wigglers. Group stupid, you follow into the tavern as well, and you see the mysteriously hooded figure, now eyeballing you down and casting a menacing visage. They gesture towards five open seats and say that you should go- So who's the most expensive looking dude here? I don't fucking know. There's a noble in the corner of the room, sure, but he's busy talking with somebody else right now, so maybe you should probably- I'm already there. I intimidated him to challenge me to an arm wrestling match for all his golden belongings. Hey, absurd. You could use Charmed Person. I mean, that would cause the Charmed Status, which would give you advantage on any social- I asked him to give us all of his money. Absurd. I rolled an 11. That's really more of a help action, which actually- What the fuck? I didn't even ask you to roll yet. But I did it already. Look, an 11 is good. We are friends now. Everyone likes Absurd. I intimidated him to challenge me to an arm wrestling match for all his golden belongings. Fucking fine. You start to arm wrestle him for some of his gold. Oh, I already stole it all. Also, he might be cursed, cause, you know, back story stuff. Alright, sure. In the meantime, the hooded figure in the middle of the room that everyone decided to totally ignore transforms into a massive towering titan and the roof of the tavern is blown off, revealing Evilous Maximus, the demon lord of darkness. Evilous Maximus? Now, my Latin's a little bit rusty, but that name seems a little bit on the nose. It sounds to me like he's actually ripping off the Pope's title of Pontifex Maximus, so maybe we should be on our guard for some vile bishops and dastardly cardinals. No, he's not. Shut up. He looks down upon you all, and with a snap of his fingers, everyone's magical items disappear. What? This is outrageous. This is unfair. I demands to roll an opposing skill check. Ooh, this is the classic weaken your opponent before the showdown strategy used by the really ego maniacal bad guys. He wants to demonstrate that we're over-reliant on our magic items as a sort of condescending attack on our self-worth. Watch, next he's gonna say, your puny trinkets won't save you now. Your puny trinkets won't save you now. He says, holding all your lute and a glowing orb in his grip. Ooh, textbook orb strategy. Stop making comparable analysis. Evilus then casts hold person on all patrons of the tavern. Everyone needs to roll a- Counterspell, counterspell, counterspell. Hey, did you see this new ad for an over-the-table dictionary? What's it called? Counterspell. Fucking how many counterspells do you even have? All of them. No way you really don't have that many. Of course I do. Bullshit, let me see your character sheet. No. Let me see it. No. Let me see it, Dabby. No. Get it to me, Dabby. I'm a fighter, sorcerer, multi-class. I'd like to use my beast movement to carry me to the enemy, then have them attack the enemy, then use my familiar's action to use the help action, then cast Haste on myself, cast Eldritch Blast as a quicken spell, use action search to put a light on my beast's nose, and attack with my hasted action. Oh, sweet. My shield guardian spell procs, because he targeted me with a spell, so that's gonna be a faithful hound right on Evilus' heels. Now that it's my turn, my sweet sweet pup is definitely gonna have a munch, and then I'll have the guardian run up and slap him, and then I'll use my ninth level spell slot to conjure... Wait, hold on. 32 enormous constrictor snakes. Hi. You're keeping track of all these initiatives, right? Uh... Fuck. Don't forget that I also have two horses, a mastiff, and six chickens. Oh, actually, I still have my movement. Can I dodge as a free action? The dog's name is Cheese Puff, by the way. Joel, can I play this? Um... Well, you two sort that out. I'm going to try to scam as many people as possible out of their coins. Hold up there, you oversized crow. You said you were lawful good. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I said I was a half-elven town guard turned hospice nurse and non-lethal hedge knight. But, you know, I can understand the confusion. Besides, I don't believe in alignment anyway. I'm trying to get my scam on, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, may you lend me your ears. I have here in my hand one of the finest crews in all... Okay, so as I stand up in a chair, everyone looks at me. I smile charmingly, and everyone starts cheering already. As I pull out a 12 chord ukulele. Excuse you, who's the DM here? Oh, you, of course. But in this scenario, I will have to roll persuasion or performance. And if I pass a DC check 15, I will charm everyone around me into following my every command. Doing this will allow my character to start its own company, creating profits through the selling of a very specific... No. Don't worry, everyone. Just think of all the friends we've helped through our journey and the ties between our hearts that will help us defeat Evilous Maximus. In the name of Saloon, I will punish you! Believe it! Can I stab her and take all her stuff later? Hey, DM, not that it actually happened, but hypothetically, if I lost a die set you let me borrow, would you happen to have another one? I swear, I just... Oh, I have the perfect theme music for this exact situation. Just hold on one second, I'll find it. Music! Good idea! My fur ball pulls out there ukulele and begins to sing to the villain. Hey, you with the villainous smile, why don't you come and stay and get to know me a while? We're two of a kind, two sides of the coin. Well, I got no tail, I could give you some... Alrighty, I think that's enough barting for now. I said that's enough. I feel as though we haven't really sussed out the emotional stakes here. I mean, who is Evilous to us, you know? He's the demon lord of darkness. He murders people and is awful and terrible and bad. Or is he perhaps a metaphor? A construct representing the lasting woe that persisted after the age of reason. Or maybe we are all Evilous. He's a reflection of our own inner... Nope, shut up! You know, we probably can't even take Evilous. According to the strategy guide, he commands four Krakens made of like pure gold, which are actually waffle neutral by the way. So they're technically not even evil and they just serve an evil lord, which is interesting because... Hey, stop reading the official campaign setting! What was he funding all this? I think I have a... I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay, shut up! I should make putting pretzels tonight. Evilous Maximus has you all completely surrounded and begins to speak. Foolish mortals, I've lived for a thousand lifetimes and once I'm done with you, I'll continue to live a thousand more. You are merely a blink of my existence. I fail in gods and consume the world. Worlds which you all have pales in its own inadequacy. For the darkness I've tamed is... We've got him now, guys. I cast Polymorph in the middle of his speech. Yeah, yeah, turn him into a T-Rex. No, wait, T-Rex is back. Okay, I'm gonna grab pretzels. I'm gonna do a magic spell. Go on, go on. Go on, go on. You can suck on this, always. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That is it! Shut up! Everyone shut the hell up! No, you can't talk to the barkeeper. They ignore you. I didn't read your backstory. Your homebrew's rejected. There are no goliaths, and pay the F**K attention next time and describe the goddamn scene. No, I'm not gonna describe it again for you. You all took too long so your ambush fails and you fall to the floor of the tavern. All's your target runs away. I never ask for a single one of you to roll, so all your dice go to waste. You don't get that gold. Your intimidation fails fails and you stop being a dongly-bongly rules lawyer for once. You two stop comparing my totally original campaign to popular and historical media. I will sick the light gray walkers on you. You don't counterspell, your seat is revoked, and no, you can't do any of whatever all that shit you were trying to do, you moldy min-max and munchkins. Nobody listens to you and the guards show up to arrest you for disturbing the peace. Hey, it's alright, JoeCrap. There's no need to get so hostile. If you just take a moment to talk to the players, I'm sure we can all- Nobody cares, Matt Mercer. No, no, no, and no to all of your plans. An evilist maximus doesn't get interrupted by your spell. He counters a giant mountain on top of the world, rocks fall, everybody dies, and that's the end of the session because nobody wanted to talk to the obviously mysterious hooded figure in the middle of the fucking room. Fine, whatever. Leave. I don't need you. I can find some other players who would be happy to play the game I meticulously plan for them. Go on and cry about it online, you dice-munchin' goblin breath weirdos. This is what you get for ruining the scene. It's all your fault, you know. You're welcome. Satisfied? What the hell else was I supposed to do? If they don't want to play the game I've set up for them, then they don't deserve to play at all. Maybe, but did you ever think about the game they do want to play? You know, the players are just as much a part of how the session goes as you are. Part of D&D is about how anything can happen. But I planned out this whole thing for them. I even got all the books and everything. It was gonna be a sweeping story with awesome NPCs and an epic conclusion, but they're not doing what I need them to do. That's true, and maybe they never will, but that might be okay. Sure, keep in mind where you want the game to go, but not everything has to be by the books. Everyone is playing their own version of D&D, and as the DM, you have to be able to adapt to that. Saying no to everything you don't want them doing isn't going to give them an amazing experience with infinite possibilities. It's just going to make them feel like the game's better off without them. But what if I do let them do whatever they want, and things go wrong, and it gets boring or imbalanced, or forget something important, or the game goes south somehow, and the players don't like the session anyway, and then you go again and do better next time. In this situation right here, it could be a good start. Yeah right, and what am I supposed to do? Talk to the players? You can certainly try. Guys wait, I'm sorry. I was worried that if you didn't play the way I wanted you to, that the game wouldn't be as cool or as fun as I thought it could be. I was too constricting on your agency and shouldn't have stopped you from at least attempting to do the things you wanted. And I should have talked with you and maybe come to some sort of compromise on some of the things I was really stubborn about. Being the dungeon master is just really, really scary. There's so much I have to keep track of. Coming up with things on the fly can be really hard, and I want to run the best game I can for everyone. And I'm terrified of messing things up. So sometimes I can get a bit vapid and mature and atomically confusing. Aggressive. But I'm willing to try again if you are. So how about it? Would you like to play some D&D? So, Krabby, you were saying you wanted to interrupt Evilus Maximus. Uh, yeah. I wanted to cast Polymorph on him in the middle of his speech. All right, what's your spell save DC? Um, 15. Against all odds, you successfully polymorph Evilus Maximus. He transforms into a meek little sheep and falls to the tavern floor. Seeing this happen, several of the tavern patrons throw up their hoods to reveal they are part of Evilus' cult. Everyone, roll for initiative.