D&D General What I learn from DM 600 sessions of Adventure League

[jasper]

Things I learn from being a DM for 600 Adventure League sessions.

1. The rules and guidance will always be adjusted, late, and location will change.

2. Players will be from all races, education levels, economy levels, skill levels, interest levels, and various backgrounds.

3. Some people will love your DM style and others will hate it. Both will talk about you.

4. Reputation for starting on time is important. Wish the players would be on time.

5. DMing for Autistic and other special needs players is interesting, a joy, and sometimes a pain.

6. Players will give you with snackage, dice, and other gifts. Thank them.

7. Run the adventures/modules you want to run.

8. Don’t run when not feeling well.

9. Say no to your players as needed. Talk about safety tools with them.

10. I will spend more than I should. But I will create a budget.

11. Breaks are important. Both physical and mental.

12. Listen to constructive feedback.

13. What the internet and forums think is a big deal will be dismissed and mocked by causal players.

14. Different groups have wildly different dynamics.

15. Don’t DM for people who don’t play well with others.

16. Play the game and other games as a player.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

"Play Well With Others" (Your #15) is to me (by far) the most important rule of TTRPGs.

Good list, BTW.

 

[DarkCrisis]

17. Kill their characters in the 1st battle so they know who's boss. J/K

Seriously though. Yeah some good stuff there and as a DM since 3E, yeah I agree.

 

[Distracted DM]

17. Kill their characters in the 1st battle so they know who's boss. J/K

Ugh. One of the few times that I regret not fudging dice was with a first-time player, we spent an hour making his lvl1 dragonborn sorcerer, he got crit insta-dead in the first round of the first encounter by the two goblins at the start of Phandelver.

On the other hand, as a seasoned DM, if my character gets bumped off in an OSR game where it takes 5 minutes to roll up a character? I'll happily toss it and look forward to seeing who the next character is.

 

[AlViking]

Ugh. One of the few times that I regret not fudging dice was with a first-time player, we spent an hour making his lvl1 dragonborn sorcerer, he got crit insta-dead in the first round of the first encounter by the two goblins at the start of Phandelver.

That's when his identical twin shows up to avenge his brothers death, isn't it?

On the other hand, as a seasoned DM, if my character gets bumped off in an OSR game where it takes 5 minutes to roll up a character? I'll happily toss it and look forward to seeing who the next character is.

You mean you don't just make more copies of your bard?

 

[Distracted DM]

That's when his identical twin shows up to avenge his brothers death, isn't it?



You mean you don't just make more copies of your bard?

Hide behind the pile of dead bards!

 

[MNblockhead]

Things I learn from being a DM for 600 Adventure League sessions.

15. Don’t DM for people who don’t play well with others.

All good advice. I'm curious how #15 works with AL games. Early in 5e I played some AL games. The typical arrangement in FLGS where I attended was that there were some established AL groups running through a campaign for whatever book was new that season. Maybe about a third of the people there. Most of the rest were regular AL players who would join whatever game was available, playing various AL one shots. Some would try to stick to their favorite GM(s) from week to week, but the groups would mix up quite a bit from session to session. And then GMs would rotate running introductory adventures for new players.

Putting aside obvious, over-the-top bad behavior, what would be your guidelines for "people who don't play well together" and how do you handle rejecting someone who wants to join your table as an AL event, unless you were running a campaign with a regular group? If and when you decided you didn't want to DM for someone was it just a personal decision and that player would go play with another DM, until they found a DM they played will with, or went from DM to DM until nobody wanted to play with them. I'm assuming it wouldn't be a total event ban by the organizers for any but the most egregious actions.