How have you improved as a DM?

[Imaculata]

Another one that helped me was learning The players don’t care about my homebrew. That goes both for worldbuilding and house rules. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t run homebrewed settings or use house rules, but it does mean I should be economical about my use of both. If I have a good reason for tweaking a rule, I should let the players know what it is and why, and move on. If I have custom setting information to convey, I should tell players any such information that directly affects their character up front, and let the rest immerge through gameplay. My setting bible may be useful to me for understanding the world and portraying it well, but nobody else is going to want to read it, so I shouldn’t make them.

For me it is slightly different: Homebrew is a collaberative experience. My players like to be part of the process of establishing homebrew rules. Most of my players have also been a DM, and so they have really good ideas for resolving things that the rules as written may not properly cover. I like to involve them, and ask them for ideas.

 

[Charlaquin]

Oh, I thought of another one! A corollary to It’s ok for the PCs to fail is that The PCs need to win once in a while. I’ve run a few games where the players have just kind of gone along from one unfortunate event to another, like a damn Lemony Snicket book, and it gets old pretty fast. Allowing the players to fail is important, but so is allowing them victory when they earn it.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Oh, I thought of another one! A corollary to It’s ok for the PCs to fail is that The PCs need to win once in a while. I’ve run a few games where the players have just kind of gone along from one unfortunate event to another, like a damn Lemony Snicket book, and it gets old pretty fast. Allowing the players to fail is important, but so is allowing them victory when they earn it.

I think about this a lot in my Adventures in Middle-Earth game. Sure it's a dark and dreary world, and the Shadow is growing in Power, but sometimes the heroes charge out of Helms deep, or win the riddle contest, or cut the gem from the dark lords crown, and sometimes Eagles fly in and save the day, and sometimes a Wizard shows up just when you need him.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Oh that reminds me, another thing I "improved" is giving my players also some tasks to reduce my own workload. You might argue that's not improving but just being lazy, but I say a DM that doesn't overwork himself is a better DM.

 

[MNblockhead]

Oh, I thought of another one! A corollary to It’s ok for the PCs to fail is that The PCs need to win once in a while. I’ve run a few games where the players have just kind of gone along from one unfortunate event to another, like a damn Lemony Snicket book, and it gets old pretty fast. Allowing the players to fail is important, but so is allowing them victory when they earn it.

And sometimes, both. In my homebrew game, the players would usually succeed but in ways that would get them banished and make powerful enemies. They were not subtle, is what I'm saying.

This led to entire new plot lines and some fun encounters, challenges, and role play. But, man...they traveled ALL OVER the world map. I had planned to make a sandbox campaign and ended up with a beach. After a couple years of that, I decided I needed to take a nice long break and run some published adventures.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it would be grand!"


"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.


I understand dear Carpenter, I understand.

 

[robus]

Oh, I thought of another one! A corollary to It’s ok for the PCs to fail is that The PCs need to win once in a while. I’ve run a few games where the players have just kind of gone along from one unfortunate event to another, like a damn Lemony Snicket book, and it gets old pretty fast. Allowing the players to fail is important, but so is allowing them victory when they earn it.

And that's what makes this quite different from really any other game. The DM really manages the dramatic flow in order to produce the desired sense of challenges with their associated victories and defeats. If the PCs never win (or always easily win) then the result is a boring slog. Realizing when the party needs a boost from a victory or to be given a reality check of a brutal loss is all part of the art of DMing. Something I'm still trying to get a handle on...

 

[guachi]

This may seem minor but you guys have described most of the other ways we've all improved.

Describe the monsters last. Over the last few years I've run a lot of older modules. Invariably, when there's boxed text and a creature present, the creature is always the last thing described. Presumably, it's because the monster is the most important thing there so if you describe it last they'll remember its description. If you mentioned the creature first they'd probably skip listening to the rest of your description and possibly not even wait for the description to end before declaring they were attacking the monster.

 

[MNblockhead]

This may seem minor but you guys have described most of the other ways we've all improved.

Describe the monsters last.Over the last few years I've run a lot of older modules. Invariably, when there's boxed text and a creature present, the creature is always the last thing described. Presumably, it's because the monster is the most important thing there so if you describe it last they'll remember its description. If you mentioned the creature first they'd probably skip listening to the rest of your description and possibly not even wait for the description to end before declaring they were attacking the monster.

Interesting, in another recent thread about bad DMs someone was complaining about DM who read boxed text. One of the main complaints about boxed text is that they gave all this detail put the description of the important things, especially the monsters, at the end.

I think it depends on the encounter and feeling your are trying to create.

If there is a big, fearsome dragon, it makes sense to mention that first. The rest of the details in the room are not going to matter that much when you walk into a cavern to find a dragon staring you down.

But if the occupants are hanging back or hiding, or engaged in non-threatening activity, perhaps they are simply part of the room description.

 

[Imaculata]

Oh, I thought of another one! A corollary to It’s ok for the PCs to fail is that The PCs need to win once in a while. I’ve run a few games where the players have just kind of gone along from one unfortunate event to another, like a damn Lemony Snicket book, and it gets old pretty fast. Allowing the players to fail is important, but so is allowing them victory when they earn it.

A very good point. The players are the heroes of the story, and so they should have plenty of heroic moments. That includes winning every now and then. I have learned to make all of my villains expendable, so that I don't care when or if they die. I have established a rule for myself, that I have stuck to for years now: I do not introduce a villain, unless I'm prepared to let that villain die. This means I don't feel any need to shield my villains from harm until some prescripted end battle. If the players are resourceful and take out the villain early, I give them their victory.

I had one such battle in my pirate campaign. The players had strategically placed cannons to open fire on a shipyard, where my villainous wizard was hiding. Before he could teleport to safety, they opened fire. There wasn't much left of the evil wizard afterwards (or of his items), but he was most definitely dead. It never came to a climactic battle with this wizard, but that didn't matter. The players rejoiced in their victory, and rightly so. To this day my players often recall this particular battle, and relive the joy of just blasting that stupid evil wizard to pieces.

Every time they recall that moment from the campaign, is another reminder to me as a DM to let them have their victories.

 

[clearstream]

From the beginning, of course I am a much, much better DM. However, there was a point in my late 20s and early 30s I had so much more time to put into my campaign. It was a rich tapestry of homebrew goodness and I threw myself into every session. I just do not have the time to hit that level these days. I'm still a solid DM, but not as good as I was back then.

I have similar feelings.

What if anything improved?
Possibly that I work more from NPC motives than anything else these days. I'm running OOTA. What do the Demon Lords want? What do the creatures of the Underdark around them want? How do they feel? What threatens them?
Maybe humour. I'm more willing to let something silly happen these days and I'd say my campaign is better for it. Hopefully, my players agree!

What got worse?
My capacity for tracking a lot of things at once got worse. In the past, I could manage extremely complex situations, forgetting nothing and picking up every small detail. Now, I feel like its a struggle to keep on top of. Partly that's 5e: characters through the main adventuring tiers (1 and 2) have more options than in previous editions.
Probably fatigue. I can't run a ten hour session these days: I'm weary by the end of four! My weekly game is three hours a session and that feels sustainable.