What Are Your DM New Year's Resolutions?

[delericho]

Re-read the DMG. I recall being somewhat impressed with it when I first read the book, but since then it has become little more than a source of magic items and treasure tables (same as all the other DMGs). So I need to go back and remind myself on what else is in there.

I also hope to re-read the middle chapters of the PHB too, time permitting. But that's less important.

 

[Oofta]

1. Any resolutions on things you want to do?

Start a new campaign. We're building a new house and our temporary living arrangements don't have enough room.

2. What do you want to improve in your DMing?

Keep better notes. I do a fair amount of improv, but sometimes I forget hints I dropped at the spur of the moment.

3. Will you be trying out something new in 2019?

I'm thinking about doing a nautical campaign, using the play-test rules.

4. What are your DM weaknesses?

I would say my biggest weakness is that I'm just so awesome sometimes I feel bad for my players. In my dreams.

In actuality I think all DMs can improve so a quick list

• Better focus on player stories, not just my story.
• On a related note, spread the attention more evenly. Stories tend do focus on one or two players.
• Stop doing "world ending event" stories. How many times can PCs barely avert the apocalypse?
• I need to keep better notes so I can better tie together plot points.
• More variety and mix of combat scenarios.
• More exploration and "discovery" whether that's literally heading into the wilderness or discovering secrets about organizations.

That's what I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[generic]

1. Any resolutions on things you want to do?

I would love to publish my first DMsguild adventure. I've been discussing it with a few of the players, and it's going well.

2. What do you want to improve in your DMing?

My ability to adjudicate non-mechanical RP situations for which I have (in the past) done a mediocre job of resolving. This refers to in-game marriages, relationships, et cetera.

3. Will you be trying out something new in 2019?

I'll try to run a campaign that isn't gritty, serious, and dark. This is going to be pretty difficult for me.

4. What are your DM weaknesses?

Likely quite a few. In particular, I have difficulty with creating voices for characters, don't always know how a character/NPC would react to the random/wacky thing a PC said, and can't properly narrate romances between PCs and NPCs.

 

[Blue]

1. Any resolutions on things you want to do?

Start up the game I've been talking about for my kids and my niece & nephew.

Play more. Yeah, I know this is a DMing resolution but I just wrapped up a campaign of 4.5 years and I did a lot more DMing then playing during that time. So I want to sit on the other side of the table some more to remember what it's like, and also to experience how other DMs do things so I can expand my repertoire.

2. What do you want to improve in your DMing?

Laying more groundwork to signal things that come past. There are things that are big neon signs to me, who knows everything, that are merely color to players, quickly forgotten.

3. Will you be trying out something new in 2019?

Running 5e for a number of children 12-15 who have never done tabletop RPGs. They have very disparate ideas about gaming from different things they have been exposed to, from classic through very player-narrative oriented and I need to nudge them together in terms of a player style they all will enjoy together without driving any away because it's not what they expected.

4. What are your DM weaknesses?

I want to get better at episodic games. 4-6 hours for a complete story. I don't do that, I do very serial and partially sandboxy, and never fast enough to tell a whole story in that amount of time.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

1. Any resolutions on things you want to do?
Actually play the D&D5e books/adventures that I have. I buy them as they come out (both physical and Dnd Beyond) and then they just sit there. On my shelf. Mocking me. I hear them in my sleep.

2. What do you want to improve in your DMing?
Stop fighting the D&D-isms. Embrace them. I tend to want to bend and fold D&D to meet some weird vision of mine. And, while my players put up with it, they really would just like me to play/run D&D damn it and stop messing with it.

3. Will you be trying out something new in 2019?
I'm building physical terrain ala Black Magic Crafts, DM Scotty, Wyloch's Armory, and Crafting Muse. I dying to use them at the table.

4. What are your DM weaknesses?
As sort of stated above, I want to run things other than D&D so I tend to mutate D&D. That's a bad thing when the players are coming into my game to play D&D (damn it!).