 Howdy how's it going? My name's Davy Chappy and today I'm going to take a break from my normal weekly schedule of reciting information from various source books to talk about something that people have been asking for quite a while actually. See I've been DMing for about five years now and I'm currently running nine games a week and along the way I've sort of discovered my core tricks of the trade to help me along as I introduce players week after week to the wonderful world of Faerun, Eberron or even other worlds like Star Wars and the ever-edgy world of darkness. With all this experience under my belt I felt like it would be a good time to share what I personally do to keep myself grounded and ready to DM that fifth game of Horde of the Dragon Queen in a row. Keep in mind, especially with this video, that all of this is literally just my opinion and that I am not going to be giving you the hard set rules like oh you gotta make sure you T-pose after every natural one to ensure that you assert your dominance. But I'm trying to give more basic if very anecdotal tips that I personally use to help me out. So if there is any rule here that you think is weird, stupid or just plain bad then feel free to run your games of D&D however you want. Always remember that since D&D is a team game, the circumstances will always be different based on the individual people in that team. So there really aren't any big important rules to always 100% follow 100% at the time. Just go with the flow and see what helps you out in your life. But first I'd like to give a shout out to my new Patreons this month. Lausiano Almeida. Acraloth. 2, 1, 6, 0. Jarrod Rizzer. Alex Russell. Cam Shat. Shadat. S-S-S-Shadadit. Cam! Thank you for your new patronage. May your days be ever happy and may your sleeves never fall down while you are doing the dishes. But without a way, let's begin. ROLL ZERO! Make sure that the players are having fun. Yeah, it's obvious, I know, but this is actually the most important rule by far, and it should supersede literally anything else that you're doing. It doesn't matter if you don't know the rules, your story sucks, if you can't make weird voices to play different NPCs, if your players are still having fun in spite of all that, then you're being a good DM. And you'll quickly realize that the more fun your players are having, the more fun you'll be having, and the more you can get yourself into it. You could be the best DM in the world, you could know everything about all the rules, you could know exactly how to run your modules, but if you managed to make it a bad time for your players, then congratulations, you suck. So make sure that at the root of your game, you're keeping an environment that'll make your players excited to come back. NUMBER ONE! Be a player. Like, not in your own games, mind you. I personally never use a DM PC in my games because I feel like it takes away from the other players' fun time, but I mean be a player in whatever game you plan to run first before you ever consider being a DM. This is for two big reasons. Firstly, and most obviously, it helps you get a handle on the rules that when you do DM, you'll have already absorbed a lot more of the common rules through osmosis. But also, being a player helps put into perspective the trials and tribulations that a player has to go through. It helps you empathize with the struggles your players will have, and it helps keep you from going into a vindictive rage whenever the players foil your evil plot, because you know how difficult it is from their point of view to do it. Being a player first isn't just about rules knowledge, it's about understanding what being a player means, so that you can look at them through a lens other than as the overseer. NUMBER TWO! Don't be afraid to not know the rules. You're a DM, yes, but that does not automatically make you infallible or omniscient, nor should you be held up as such. If I had to read the entire DM guide front to back until I had an encyclopedic knowledge of it, I still wouldn't be able to be a DM, and I probably never would. Hell, when I ran my first Pathfinder game, I barely knew ANY of the rules, and it showed! But since I was following rule zero and figuring things out as I went along, the players didn't mind and they still enjoyed the story, since that took precedence over the game mechanics. Now, this isn't to say never read the rules and just hope you get it right. You should still know the basics at minimum, but like any skill, running games takes time and practice. You can't expect yourself to know everything right out of the gate. Gamer Pro Tip, the DM screen that Wizards sells, has a huge cheat sheet on the other side to help you out in the pinch. NUMBER THREE! Be a performer. I know that this isn't something that people get right away, and don't feel bad if you leave this one to the wayside as you first learn to get comfortable with having all eyes on you, but being a DM is more than just outputting rules and mechanics as they happen. You are the intermediary between the players and the world that you're presenting to them, so being descriptive and helping the players craft the idea of the picture of the world into their own heads is a lot of what the DM is supposed to do. For instance, if a player hits a chandelier with an arrow and causes it to break and fall, you could say, the chandelier falls to the ground, or you could bust out the old thesaurus and use your expertise in the English language to say something along the lines of, you hear a creak and then a snap in front of you, and then as you look up, you see the chains holding the chandelier suddenly burst, flinging scraps of iron around the room as the chandelier comes plummeting to the ground with a mighty crash, or if you don't want to spend your time looking for five different ways to say down, you could totally cheat by using onomatopoeias, better known as noises, so you'd say, you hear a creak and then it tch, as the chandelier above you, back and forth. Suddenly, the chandelier pshh, and falls, down to the ground with the mighty pshh. Like I said, it takes a while and you have to get used to the absurdity of what is coming out of your mouth, but it really does help enhance the experience and actually makes it more fun for you when you get the chance to describe something. NUMBER FOUR! Don't throw the first punch in a fight. If one of your players is, for whatever reason, starting to get annoyed or aggravated over something involving the game, the best thing that you can do is try to divert course away from whatever is annoying them temporarily, and then when you get the chance, usually right after the session is over, hold them aside and talk to them about what's up. Try to work it out peacefully and understand that, as a DM, you have the ultimate power 100% of the time, no matter what, you're getting your way. That's just the reality of it. So there's no point in being anything but kind to your player when they feel that their game experience is being hampered by something. Hell, a lot of the time I found that something in their personal life was bothering them and they unwittingly brought it to the table. So taking the time to either go over my ruling step by step so that they can come to the same conclusion about it that I did, or hearing what they have to say and changing the problem based on their point of view, really helps me relate to players and helps them feel like they actually belong at the table. When in doubt, always remember rule zero, because D&D isn't about winning the game, it's about enjoying it. NUMBER FIVE! Use the Purple Baby. Okay, so this one owes a lot of explanation. Long ago, my OG Dungeon Master was having problems with players either disappearing and reappearing for sessions, or just dropping out altogether, leaving their party character in a constant state of flux where no one really knew what to do with it. So one day, one of his players created the idea of the greatest deity to ever grace the multiversal planes, the giant flying purple baby. Legend says that for reasons only its own mind can understand, the giant flying purple baby will swoop down into the world and whisk away people at random, leaving those around at the time with only the memory that the person was there, but they're not there right now, and they don't know where they've gone or how long it's been since they've left. Now if the baby is feeling generous, it will return the person when their time has come, and all of the people around will behave as if the person has always been with them, even if logical reasoning would suggest otherwise. Full details about the baby are provided in the link to its D&D homebrew page in the description below, but ever since I was introduced to this amazing idea by my good friend Dismald Urge, I've been hooked on it forever, and it serves as the easiest way to deal with players' characters when the player just happens to not show up that day. Give thanks to Urge, praise the baby, and may your life be ever purple. So I hope you've enjoyed these tips. I know they're a little out there, but I honestly put off doing an advice column type video for a long time because really, tips and references, they only go so far. The real best way to learn how to be a dungeon master is to just do it and hope that eventually you're molded into something halfway decent. Hell, not trying to flex or anything, but I started up a D&D club in my school during senior year and jumped headfirst into running my first Star Wars Zaga Edition game with absolutely no clue about what I was even doing, and my table had like 10 people in it. I just had to roll with it, and I worked it out the best I could, and then when the next campaign happened, I worked that out the best I could, and then the next game, and then the next game, and I just kept accumulating knowledge from every previous game until eventually I felt like I could start running games more halfway decent as opposed to just let's make shit up. Now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that to anybody for their first go around, but the point is that no matter how inexperienced you are, with the little improvisation and the willingness to adapt and change as you go along, there's nothing wrong with jumping into the deep end, headfirst, and flapping your arms around to learn how to swim. The worst you can do is drown. But that'll about do it. I hope you enjoyed this video, leave a like and comment if you did, subscribe if you want to be a cool dude, and maybe support me on Patreon so that I can slowly make my entire life revolve around D&D. Also, if you want to stay up to date on all of your avenues, I keep a link to my social media in the description below. But yeah, Dabby out.