D&D 5E 9 Things "Pro" DMs Do That You shouldn't

[Seramus]

Unfortunately, in my younger days I did this to a player once. I promise I will never do it again, though.

Yeah. To be fair, I'm only a decent DM these days after being garbage for many years. I really struggled with improv, pacing, made NPCs to counter my players, pushed my players to be more optimized and strategic, created an arms race, used cool and edgy NPCs from pop culture, and everything else under the sun. It's been a long road of self reflection and self improvement.

 

[Mort]

Yeah. To be fair, I'm only a decent DM these days after being garbage for many years. I really struggled with improv, pacing, made NPCs to counter my players, pushed my players to be more optimized and strategic, created an arms race, used cool and edgy NPCs from pop culture, and everything else under the sun. It's been a long road of self reflection and self improvement.

All those sound pretty good to me!

One of the hallmarks of a great DM is realizing where you could use some work and working on it (and the truth is we could ALL use improvement, it's the way life works)!

IME it's those people who declare themselves GREAT DMs and don't actively work to get better - they're usually not!

 

[Synthil]

6. Have temporary characters that are planned to be killed off;

I did this once. The only problem was that the bloody character would not die to the monster. I had to inflate the monster HP to keep it alive long enough to achieve the character's death. It was after a long string of sessions with unintentional character deaths too, for added irony.

But I don't think that colluding with a player on some things is bad, as long as it doesn't hamper the agency of the other players.

 

[Mort]

But I don't think that colluding with a player on some things is bad, as long as it doesn't hamper the agency of the other players.

It's one of those things that could "in theory" be done well but, in practice, I just don't see it! Players are a perceptive and finicky bunch.

 

[Seramus]

IME it's those people who declare themselves GREAT DMs and don't actively work to get better - they're usually not!

An interesting one I run into somewhat frequently are DMs who feel that there should be "challenge and hardship" so you feel like you earned your victories and rewards, but the amount of hardship is (in my opinion) really extreme. Or the infamous low magic setting that is full of high fantasy elements and extremely magical NPCs. Just not you.

 

[CleverNickName]

Most of this advice is going to be very subjective depending on you and the rest of the people around your table. Points #1 and #2 sound like bad advice to me, for example, because I for one actually like having long narratives and monologues from my DM. It helps me feel immersed in the scene, helps me stay in character. And we play D&D more as an interactive storytelling game than a combat simulator, so Points #4 and #5 are completely, utterly, absolutely terrible advice for us.

The best advice I can give is to just play the game the way you and your friends want to play it. Remember that Matt Mercer, Brennan Lee Mulligan, and Satine Phoenix aren't trying to "teach us" how things are supposed to be; they are just running their tables the way that they (and their audiences) want to run it. You should do the same.

 

[cbwjm]

1. Long Monologues/narrative descriptions/cut scenes;
2. Focus too much on NPC talks;
3. Wait for the "perfect" moment to introduce a new/replacement PC;
4. Plan for Three hour long fights;
5. Putting the story before the game;
6. Have temporary characters that are planned to be killed off;
7. Allowing PVP or truly high tension Player moments;
8. Letting characters talk endlessly;
9. Setting expectations too high.

I'd say I agree most of these. I normally just drop in a replacement and then we don't talk about it, much easier than waiting for the best moment.

I have planned and run a 3 hour combat though, it worked really well. Admittedly I didn't plan for the combat to be all session, but I knew it would take up most of it. In this case it was a siege of a walled town and the players were bouncing between targets of opportunity until they reached the final boss and the army of good broke the siege. It was a lot of fun.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I think reasonable tables will vary on the degree they appreciate or tolerate of all these things and that saying anyone shouldn't do any of them is mistake. I would, however, classify these as things one should not feel obligated to do on account of seeing some "pro DM" on the internet do them, and that it's important to understand that, even beyond the DMing, a group trying to put a show together for people on the internet to watch are playing a different game than makes sense for most players not in that situation.

 

[robus]

It’s funny, because for me watching these “actual plays” really demystified the game and how things should go at the table. I don’t understand this constant fear of exposure to pro DMs and players. No one thinks that after watching a pro ball game they’ll be able to replicate it. But they have fun trying to up their own game.

Sure, there are reports of players wanting Mercer level DMing skills, but that can be easily turned around by asking them to role-play at his players level.

”I’ve upped my game, up yours!” so to speak

 

[Charlaquin]

I had this discussion with my kid recently - it's all about audience. They're a huge fan of The Adventure Zone and we were talking about how the McElroys' games aren't like the games I run or the games my kid runs. But it's because the audiences for these games are completely different. The McElroys are performing to a wide audience, the players are all acting towards that audience, and the game that they're running has to have a narrative throughline to it to be a satisfying podcast and keep listeners. And the game itself is often more of a tool for guided improvisation than it is a game. The DM and the players truly are there to entertain a large audience, and so there are a lot of things that make sense in that environment - like having the DM talk as multiple NPCs in different voices, or letting one PC monologue for a substantial length of time, or many of the other things on that list above - because those things are entertaining to listen to when professional entertainers are doing them.

In contrast when you're running a game for friends the audience is the folks at the table and that's it. There's no concern about how it's going to play for an audience and you're not trying to keep subscribers enthralled by your performances. The narrative only really needs to make as much sense to the extent that the folks at the table care that it makes sense (which may be a lot, or may be not at all, or may be anywhere in between). And the DM and players probably aren't professional entertainers, so listening to folks go on for long monologues isn't going to be nearly as much entertaining as it is when you're a passive consumer of entertainment.

In short, Actual Plays are great for evangelizing the game and teaching some of the basics to players who don't have a group to teach them, but aren't so great for showing what a "typical" game is going to be like or even what it should be like.

The Adventure Zone is also edited, as are most actual plays that aren’t live. What we watch or listen to is typically a highly curated version of the actual game that was played.