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Message: <blockquote data-quote="weem" data-source="post: 5152751" data-attributes="member: 9470">One example of something I am doing (beyond what has been mentioned above already) is that I am changing the way I interact with my players. I am responding to them more from a point of view of perhaps another player, as opposed to the neutral, boring DM who is not here to take sides (something I think I fall into at times).Players gauge their successes and failures on the DM's reaction. I mean, obviously they don't know if they succeed or fail until the DM makes a ruling, but it goes beyond that.For example, if a player decides to do something they think is really cool, you COULD respond with..."Ok, roll X vs Y"...but if instead, your response were..."Oh that's cool! Wow... I mean, if it works that is! Roll X vs Y"...NOW your player is excited. You can see their anticipation for the roll - looking around the table as other players are saying "c'mon!" etc.That's something I am doing more of. I did it before, but it was only in the most rare circumstances where the players were surprising me, which is hard when you have DM'd so long, as I am sure many of you know. It's about recognizing cool ideas, even if they aren't new or unique to your DM-ing you need to let the players know when what they are doing is awesome, or risky, or even dangerous. If you just say "roll X vs Y" there is no excitement. To them, this must not be a big deal and so who cares really - low risk low reward apparently.I was thinking of when I was young, playing with a basketball just shootin' around for fun... how I would say, just before shooting, "4th quarter, 5 seconds to go, game tied... 4... 3... 2... 1, AND HE MAKES IT!" It kind of set up that moment and made making the shot seem like this awesome thing. I could stand there and shoot free throws forever making some, missing some, etc, but what is exciting is when there are stakes involved.In this case, the stakes are achieving something really cool, or getting away unscathed from something very very dangerous, etc. If you are just passing them the ball over and over again, it's not that exciting. Raise the stakes, let them know that what they are doing is cool, or fun, or crazy - now they have something to shoot for.</blockquote>

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