D&D General Practicing DMing

[pming]

Hiya!

So, does anyone out there have suggestions or resources that instruct us how to practice Dungeon Master skills between sessions?

EDIT to add: deliberate practice is kinda the concept I'm going for here. What can we, as DMs, do outside of playing our weekly/bi-weekly/monthly sessions to practice?

Talk to yourself...out loud.

Seriously. It's one thing to come up with a cool description on-the-fly in your head or typing it out...but it's quite different when you are trying to SAY it out loud as you think it up.

Practice changing the tone and pacing of your words to elicit some sort of "feeling"... humour, anticipation, dread, fear, excitement, etc.

Take a sentence and try saying it in different ways to get different results.

For example, "The door is old, made of oak or walnut maybe. Bands of rusted black iron, three of them, hold the door together, with three large hinges. A single, brass ring for a simple pull-handle is in the very center".

Now try saying it in a manner that tries to elicit: Dread. Excitement. Happiness.
You'll have to use pacing, tone and different words maybe.

E.g., (Excitement) "The old oaken door has THREE black iron bands around it. Sturdy and solid. Three iron hinges grasp the wall to hold it in place. A SINGLE, polished brass ring is it's handle, set in the center".

(Humour) "The old oak door is bound by three dark iron bands. Not four. Five is right out. Three is the number of the bands, and the number of the band is... three. Hinges, as well, are three. Neither do thou count 2, nor 4. Three is the number of the counting, and the number of the counting shall be... three. Oh...and there's a brass ring to open it...straight up the middle. That's where all the action is".

The trick is to be able to do that simply on-the-fly, speaking it. I can write it down like this no problem...speaking it off the cuff? That takes practice. And the only way to get better is to do it...so... go talk to yourself. Give yourself a picture, then describe it to yourself out loud as if you would to your Players.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Shiroiken]

After our last session, I came away feeling that I didn't carry out my role as DM in as crisp a manner as possible. Setting aside that we can be our own worst critics from time to time, it did get me thinking: Are there resources out there for someone to practice Dungeon Mastering away from the table?

It really depends on what you're trying to improve. I have a suggestion that would rely on setup help from your players, or random gamers (like here). Have them make a bunch of "flash cards" of actions they'd take or questions they'd ask during a session. Obviously they'd have to be somewhat generic, but I'm sure they can come up with quite a few. You probably want several dozen, although some of them probably overlap to an extent ("what does x look like" vs "what color is x" or "what is x made of").

Take the cards and an adventure, roll to determine a spot in the adventure, then draw a card. Try to resolve the action/question as quickly and smoothly as possible within the context of the chosen scene (draw again if not applicable). Speak the resolution out loud to see how it sounds; recording it might not be a bad idea. Then consider how you might do it better. This can check your improv, adventure design, or rules knowledge with this, depending on the card, adventure, and goal.


Oh, and another simple idea for session prep is to constantly review important scenes when mentally unoccupied. I do this while driving back and forth to work, giving me about 4-5 hours a week of review. I consider how NPCs might react, tactics for important battles, how to resolve particularly tricky traps or exploration encounters. By going over it again and again, I mentally ready myself for how to do it during the game.

 

[Umbran]

It's like any performance, the only way to practice is to do it.

Yes, but most performance has a concept of rehearsal, and also separate practice of skills related to performance. Musicians have exercises, and run over the difficult bits of a particular piece without actually doing the whole thing, or doing it in front of an audience.

Heck, even improv comedy gets rehearsal.

For the GM, if you want to practice coming up with narration of stuff that you didn't really think about beforehand, you might want to pick up Once Upon a Time, from Atlas Games. It calls for adding to a narration based on cards you've drawn.

Once Upon a Time

A collaborative storytelling game based on classic fairy tales.

www.atlas-games.com

 

[loverdrive]

I'm running an Apocalypse World game for AI Dungeon and having a blast. Otherwise, I don't think there are ways to practice running games without running games.

 

[Mezuka]

Be a player in other DM's games and watch what they do and how they do it.

 

[prabe]

For the GM, if you want to practice coming up with narration of stuff that you didn't really think about beforehand, you might want to pick up Once Upon a Time, from Atlas Games. It calls for adding to a narration based on cards you've drawn.

An alternative is maybe something like Rory's Story Cubes. Just roll a set and see what comes to mind.

They also do decent work if you're working out an adventure and get stuck.

 

[MGibster]

Yes, but most performance has a concept of rehearsal, and also separate practice of skills related to performance. Musicians have exercises, and run over the difficult bits of a particular piece without actually doing the whole thing, or doing it in front of an audience.

Rehearsal is "doing it." If I'm rehearsing Aaron Copeland's "Hoe Down" I'm actually playing my part. The thing with DMing is that you really can't do it solo. You can prepare in all sorts of different ways, but it's tough to rehearse when you have 5-6 players making their own decisions about what their characters are going to do, how you're going to interpret the rules, etc., etc.

 

[Umbran]

You can prepare in all sorts of different ways, but it's tough to rehearse when you have 5-6 players making their own decisions about what their characters are going to do, how you're going to interpret the rules, etc., etc.

So, you seem to have completely skipped the part of skills practice that isn't rehearsal.

And also, rehearsal is often done in bits. Most rehearsals for stage, for example, are of one scene. Full run-throughs are not how you spend most of your practice time.

And, you say it is hard, but... is that perhaps because you haven't tried breaking it down into bits? You can practice with your soundtrack setup separately from play, for example. For large combat encounters, you can get a friend who isn't in the campaign to help you playtest them. And we've also mentioned ways that you can practice improv skills.

 

[MGibster]

And also, rehearsal is often done in bits. Most rehearsals for stage, for example, are of one scene. Full run-throughs are not how you spend most of your practice time.

Dude, I know. I think we just have a different idea of what rehearsal is and I'm just not interested in nitpicking this any more. You guys win.

 

[guachi]

I think running a session where you've told the players beforehand that you want them to critique your DMing would be helpful. That might help your at-table DMing.

Generally, I've found lots of prep work makes the game run better. I've read the upcoming parts of the adventure. I have my combat encounter notes ready separate from the adventure. Maps and creature minis (tokens, in my case) ready for each encounter to speed things up. Any handouts are in the gaming folder. I have written and mental notes on how I will play the NPCs the PCs might interact with so their personalities and motivations are consistent and the players don't think they are insane or mind-controlled (seriously, it happens a lot. Players will pick up on a tonal shift in NPCs and think it means something when it's really just me messing up). Oh, I should add I also have a cheat sheet of names since I'm terrible with them.