D&D General How to Reduce Your Own Chatter

[Shiroiken]

Watch your players. If they're interested, you're doing fine.

1.) Eye contact - Practice getting your eyes off the paper so that you're looking at players more often than at your notes.

Great for IRL, but VTT require more finesse. I've found gauging feedback to be a great tool. I try to keep at least 2 players engaged after my descriptions; otherwise I've likely lost them in my droning. I use 2 as the ideal, because only 1 could mean that player has a particular interest in something, not the whole.. More than 2 is hard to determine with a VTT, since only 1 person can talk at a time.

 

[Voadam]

Consciously use questions to give yourself a description stopping point and turn the spotlight from you onto the players.

"So the overflowing acid is rushing down the corridor towards you. What do you do?"

"It snarls menacingly and bares its fangs as it slowly stalks forward towards X, the fur on its back rising. X, what do you do?"

 

[Voadam]

I suspect my own anxiety about DMing for the first time and my enthusiasm about this world I've spent so much time on got the better of me

Cheers on taking up the DM reigns for the first time!