BookTenTiger
He / Him
Quick Note: I tagged this as D&D General because I specifically want to talk about running D&D games. I know that other systems have really different ways of sharing the narrative burden. Feel free to bring those other games into this discussion, but let's overall focus on running D&D.
I'm an elementary school teacher, and I find a lot of my teaching practice bleeds into my DM'ing. One of the things I've tried to do in my classroom is reduce the amount of time that I, as a teacher, am talking. If I can have a student revoice something, I will. If I can have a student take attendance, pass out snacks, give appreciations, read the directions, etc etc etc, I will.
This is part of a larger trend of moving teaching (especially in elementary school) away from lecture-based lessons. The general idea is that teachers used to speak 70% of the time, and the goal now is that teachers speak 30% of the time, and students speak 70% of the time. Generally.
Anyways, I've started to think about this in my D&D games.
I've started to feel uncomfortable with how much my voice as a DM dominates the table during D&D. I'm often the one explaining the rules, describing scenes, and filling the session with talk, talk, talk. However, I feel like this is the base expectation of D&D: that the DM should speak 70% of the time. After all, it is my job to describe what the characters are seeing, then describe what happens when they try different things.
I do, however, want to try speaking less. I want to try to pass that burden over to the players. I want to try to speak 30% of the time.
Here are some ideas for ways I could pass the narrative burden over to players:
Do you think there's any benefit to a DM speaking only 30% of the time?
I'm an elementary school teacher, and I find a lot of my teaching practice bleeds into my DM'ing. One of the things I've tried to do in my classroom is reduce the amount of time that I, as a teacher, am talking. If I can have a student revoice something, I will. If I can have a student take attendance, pass out snacks, give appreciations, read the directions, etc etc etc, I will.
This is part of a larger trend of moving teaching (especially in elementary school) away from lecture-based lessons. The general idea is that teachers used to speak 70% of the time, and the goal now is that teachers speak 30% of the time, and students speak 70% of the time. Generally.
Anyways, I've started to think about this in my D&D games.
I've started to feel uncomfortable with how much my voice as a DM dominates the table during D&D. I'm often the one explaining the rules, describing scenes, and filling the session with talk, talk, talk. However, I feel like this is the base expectation of D&D: that the DM should speak 70% of the time. After all, it is my job to describe what the characters are seeing, then describe what happens when they try different things.
I do, however, want to try speaking less. I want to try to pass that burden over to the players. I want to try to speak 30% of the time.
Here are some ideas for ways I could pass the narrative burden over to players:
- Have players describe the consequences of their actions in detail (for example, I say "you hit, describe the blow").
- Ask players to describe inconsequential features of dungeons and towns ("Bob, tell us about this cultist statue...").
- Allow players to play as NPCs in scenes their characters aren't present in ("Kathy, why don't you play as the blacksmith...")
- Ask players to design important NPCs, and play as those NPCs.
- Ask players to design towns, then run portions of the session when characters are in town.
- Ask players to create interesting descriptions for dungeons, then run the mechanics while the player describes what the dungeon looks / sounds / smells like...
- Have players design random encounters, then describe those encounters when they occur...
- Ask players to contribute design ideas to settings during battles, and then have their descriptions be narrative truths...
Do you think there's any benefit to a DM speaking only 30% of the time?