D&D General What DM-skills are you bad at?

J-H · Apr 28, 2021

Giving evocative descriptions for people and places.
"You climb the tree"
instead of
"You work your way up from branch to branch as emerald fronds wave and rattle at your passing."

"You see a yuan-ti wizard"
instead of
"You see a yuan-ti woman with greenish skin, scales on her cheeks, and long black hair. Her white-less eyes assess you coolly while she idly twirls an arcane focus between the fingers of her right hand."

pogre · Apr 28, 2021

I have realized over the years I am not good at giving space for PC to PC interaction and development. Pauses in the game lead me to pushing the action instead of allowing players to explore their characters. The good news is that what my table of players are mostly interested in and they make me feel like an awesome DM.

However, after watching a lot of streams recently I have figured out my style would actually frustrate a lot of players.

The Green Hermit · Apr 28, 2021

ECMO3 said:
So when I DM I always do accents, women's voices etc and I am not great at it, but honestly I think the fact that I am not makes my players laugh harder.

When I am a PC I never feel comfortable doing voices in character though. I don't know why.

As for things I struggle with as a DM - player conflict and evil players. One of my regular players wants to play an evil character all the time. Evil as in I will steal from other players while they are sleeping and I am on watch or I have no problem with murdering someone for 2 gold if I can get away with it or rescue the slaves and the first thing he wants to do is figure out who he can sell them to. That is no fun for me and honestly it is no fun for the other players who are pretty "good". I have talked about it with him and he has agreed to play a more neutral character and operate with some boundaries, but he mopes around like it would be a lot more fun if he just do the things he wants that from my point of view literally break the game. Does this equal taking away player agency?

It does take away player agency, but only because it upholds the social contract of the group. Sometimes the many are more important than the few.

loverdrive · Apr 28, 2021

I suck ass at scheduling. Gathering a party is such damn nightmare I ended up paying another dude so he would do it for me.

I'm also bad at accents, but I speak Netflix English and there are no accents in Russian anyway.

Imaculata · Apr 28, 2021

Killing my players. I'm just not very good at it. They keep surviving any encounter I throw at them, despite my best efforts.

S'mon · Apr 28, 2021

robus said:
Not setting the scene/describing monsters well. I found I would race to the action a bit too quick. I’m trying to slow down and paint a clearer picture.

I think I have this problem too. A little goes a long way, but the players need a few words of evocative description for their imagination to build from. I struggle not to just point at the battlemap or VTT and go 'there it is'.

S'mon · Apr 28, 2021

The Green Hermit said:
It does take away player agency, but only because it upholds the social contract of the group. Sometimes the many are more important than the few.

If the metagame social contract is that the PCs have to accept each other's PCs into the group, it's really unfair to bring in a character who will kill other PCs, steal from them etc, or whose behaviour is abhorrent to the other PCs. And standards change over time - in 1970s Doctor Who or Blake's 7 you could have nice guys and ruthless murderers in the same party, but I don't think that works in D&D or most modern games.

DammitVictor · Apr 28, 2021

I have a terrible problem with my memory, which leads to all sorts of continuity errors in my games. I run my games in a very improv-heavy style because I pretty much have to, which means that if I come up with something on the fly early in the session, I will probably come up with it again-- entirely on the fly-- if it comes back up later in the session.

Also, yes... I am terrible with anything visual, whether drawn on paper or drawn on screen. I can't do maps.

Lanefan · Apr 28, 2021

Imaculata said:
Killing my players. I'm just not very good at it. They keep surviving any encounter I throw at them, despite my best efforts.

Good thing you're not very good at it - I'd hate to think of you getting thrown in jail.

Killing characters, on the other hand......

Oofta · Apr 28, 2021

Imaculata said:
Killing my players. I'm just not very good at it. They keep surviving any encounter I throw at them, despite my best efforts.

I really hope you meant killing your players PCs. I guess not being able to kill your players comes in as second best, but I can only imagine it might be difficult to maintain a group the third time the gun misfires.

EDIT: darn Lanefan ninjas!

D&D General What DM-skills are you bad at?

J-H

Hero

pogre

Legend

The Green Hermit

Hero

loverdrive

Prophet of the profane (She/Her)

Imaculata

Hero

S'mon

Legend

S'mon

Legend

DammitVictor

Trust the Fungus

Lanefan

Victoria Rules

Oofta

Legend

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