D&D General What makes a good DM good?

[Prakriti]

What are the qualities that make for a good DM? How do you know you're in the presence of a good DM when you're playing with one?

A few things that come to mind...

• Always prepared. A good DM comes into each game with enough material to fill a whole session.
• Good at improvising. Because sometimes the players do unexpected things.
• Able to move seamlessly between prepared material and improvised material. Ideally, the players shouldn't even be able to tell the difference between the parts of a game that were rehearsed/prepared and the parts that were improvised.
• Good with description. Because the world comes to life through description.

What else?

 

[iserith]

Adequately describes the environment in a way that the players can begin acting without playing 20 questions, building on these actions with more description of the environment as the scene builds.

Knows when to call for an ability check and when to just say the task succeeds or fails without a roll.

Knows how to set stakes appropriate to the campaign, adventure, and group so that fudging rolls is completely unnecessary.

Doesn't tell the players what their characters think, do, or say, including when narrating the effect of their actions.

Knows how to manage real time so as to start strong, end strong, and manage the pace with the players' input to keep player engagement and energy high for the whole session.

 

[prabe]

I'd be inclined to say familiarity with the rules of the game you're going to be running. I dunno if you need to have the books memorized, but you should at least know where to look if there's a question you don't have an immediate answer to.

Having a sense of narrative pacing seems like a plus, something of a complement to the real-time pacing @iserith mentions, but I'm thinking more about keeping players engaged between the sessions. This is probably more relevant if you're running homebrew adventures.

 

[Sacrosanct]

A good DM will very based on the playstyle of those they play with. So some things are tricky to quantify

but I’d also add: incorporates the players how they want to be incorporated into the game. That means being cognizant and take actions if a player is trying to steal the spotlight all the time and other players don’t get to shine. But don’t force players to act out if they aren’t comfortable doing so.

 

[Charlaquin]

A skill that a good DM should have but hopefully doesn’t need to use is conflict resolution. Should conflicts arise within the group, a good DM addresses the issue calmly and directly, like an adult.

 

[ccs]

A skill that a good DM should have but hopefully doesn’t need to use is conflict resolution. Should conflicts arise within the group, a good DM addresses the issue calmly and directly, like an adult.

Presuming of course that they're adults.... Remember, these games are also played by children.
And while they'll learn, it's not fair to say that they aren't good DMs because they won't handle things like we adults.

 

[ccs]

Learning to listen to & play with your players.

 

[Charlaquin]

Presuming of course that they're adults.... Remember, these games are also played by children.
And while they'll learn, it's not fair to say that they aren't good DMs because they won't handle things like we adults.

I don’t know, I think it’s pretty fair. Sports are also played by children, and I don’t think it’s unfair to say that they aren’t good quarterbacks or whatever because they can’t run as fast as adult players with their longer legs. Conflict resolution is an important skill for a good DM to have. Granted, most kids are not going to be as adept at conflict resolution as some adults are, but most kids aren’t going to be as adept at any of the skills being talked about here as some adults are.

And frankly, I don’t think your premise that children are inherently worse at conflict resolution than adults is at all fair. I’ve known a lot of children who handle conflict excellently and a lot of adults who handle it terribly.

 

[Krachek]

Having fun making the PC shine.

 

[akr71]

The players had fun.