D&D General What DM-skills are you bad at?

[Morrus]

For me my biggest weakness is accents. I'm SO bad at them, that I don't even try.

What's the DMing thing you're worst at?

 

[Stormonu]

Tracking time. I’ve never been very good at tracking the number of days passed in a campaign, and lately that’s been a problem for my Saltmarsh campaign where there’s been a ticking clock of a goblinoid invasion in a fortnight’s time, and the doomclock for a sahaugin invasion.

 

[Stalker0]

Remembering names for NPCs. Probably note taking in general, if my players don’t record something it’s often forgotten in a few sessions

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I am afear'd of the dice. I have profound zariphobia. Which, combined with my innumeracy and illiteracy, makes DMing an experience of sublime terror.

 

[payn]

Using VTTs. Roll20 is just a lot of work for me. For Traveller, I made my own excel spreadsheets. They work, but are not aesthetically pleasing. Im a slow learner in this space too.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Mapping. I can't draw for crap anyway, but always have over-grandiose set pieces, which always ends in crudely drawn garbage.

 

[iserith]

I don't take notes. And I drink when I play. So if it's been two weeks since last game, some details will not be remembered, and my group covers a LOT of content per session. Luckily, the players remember just fine, so I outsource that to them.

Just this week I wanted to write a quick recap and I was like uhhhhhh something about hunting a legendary alligator and like 2 of you got married to the moonshiner's daughters? The players filled in the rest thankfully.

 

[Bedrockgames]

For me my biggest weakness is accents. I'm SO bad at them, that I don't even try.

Same. I don't even attempt them anymore. My players once confused my Italian priest for an Irish Priest in a mafia game. And I really should have an ear for both at this point.

I am also pretty terrible at acting in general. So I tend to speak pretty dry as a GM. And if I do act things up, it is very hammy

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Talking in character! I cant do voices, and doing many characters speaking all at once is a chore and confusing when players try to interject. So for a while I've been doing a 3rd person kind of storytelling, same for my players. We narrate the actions instead of acting it. Works pretty well so far.

 

[Steampunkette]

Filler Words and Stuttering.

Unless I've scripted out specific phrases in advance, I often have breaks in my speech like "Uh" or "Um". I also have trouble letting go of a mispronounced word, which causes stuttering as I repeat the word, again, to try and pronounce it correctly. This is especially important for complex names and setting-based terminology.