D&D General Which Aspect of DMing Do you Struggle Most With?

[Lakesidefantasy]

2) predicting how much progress/content the players will get through in any given session.
I constantly overestimate this.

It's funny we have this problem in our home games, but at a convention we can make it happen. I guess people at a conventions are more willing to allow the Dungeon Master to 'hand-waive' things in order to maintain the pacing.

 

[Reynard]

It's funny we have this problem in our home games, but at a convention we can make it happen. I guess people at a conventions are more willing to allow the Dungeon Master to 'hand-waive' things in order to maintain the pacing.

Most players in con games actively want a satisfying 4 hour experience and are happy to let the GM "drive" most of the time, where as in home games, especially when you play reguarly and a lot, there's more room to let players stretch their legs with NPCs or whatever.

 

[Shiroiken]

Making likable NPCs. I've excellent at making villains and rivals; the kind of people you love to hate. While I'll occasionally make an NPC the players like (and the party becomes very attached to them), most of the "friendly" NPCs are given a mild disdain. A few are even viewed with outright hostility; I've had friendly NPCs turned into enemies because of their treatment by the PC, which just reinforces their opinion of most NPCs...

2) predicting how much progress/content the players will get through in any given session.
I constantly overestimate this. Always have, regardless of the edition.
So it's not really a problem per-se as I've always got more content.

I think it's better to overestimate than underestimate. I try to be prepared enough to two sessions, just in case the party either skips a section or is much more productive than usual. When I ran Murder in Baulder's Gate during an Encounters season, we spent 2 sessions before we even started the first official "encounter," since the party really wanted to meet the NPCs.

Coming up with a campaign concept.

I have the opposite problem, in that I currently have about 7-8 ideas, but I just can't run enough. I just finished my 3rd campaign about a month ago, taking my first hiatus in about 6 years or so. Even still I'm putting together a Megadungeon to be runs as one shots for the weeks the DM can't run. I'm a bit of an addict

 

[Minigiant]

This subject comes up regularly and for me it is always the same answer: remembering and recording all the random stuff I make up in any given session, since I do A LOT of improv during play.

That's me.

I' great at improv, pacing, hitting player needs, and worldbuilding.

But I keep it all in my head and by the time the session is over,my brain is fried. So the short term memories never stick.

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Another thing I am bad at is descriptions. I can't talk all bookish and describe all the detials of anything. I cheat and roll on tables with adjective on them.

"How does the orc leader look."
"He's bigger and has a roll red hat and a roll eyepatch"

This makes the other problem worse as everything is on the fly.

 

[el-remmen]

That's me.

I' great at improv, pacing, hitting player needs, and worldbuilding.

But I keep it all in my head and by the time the session is over,my brain is fried. So the short term memories never stick.

I keep a campaign wiki and usually spend an hour or so after the session updated/creating pages for things like NPCs and places. This has become esp. important now that my groups play every 3 to 5 weeks and we're all a little (um. . or a lot) older and pulled in a million directions and memories are shot.

For those who are interested, here is one of them: Revenants of Saltmarsh - Revenants of Saltmarsh

 

[Reynard]

I keep a campaign wiki and usually spend an hour or so after the session updated/creating pages for things like NPCs and places. This has become esp. important now that my groups play every 3 to 5 weeks and we're all a little (um. . or a lot) older and pulled in a million directions and memories are shot.

Yeah, with my new "PlaneJammer" campaign I am going to schedule for a half hour post-session notes period.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Keeping record

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Great thread.

I am terrible at funny voices and, related to that, not the best at giving NPCs distinct personalities.

Recently I realized that I've done a mediocre job at creating memorable villains. Villains are notorious for not surviving first contact with the PCs, so I got into the unfortunate habit of putting very little effort into them. I'm now trying to correct that.

I know this sounds like I'm a bit of a bad DM. But I'm not. I just need to work a bit harder to bring to life the supporting characters in my campaign.

 

[Voadam]

I am barely competent at the online tech parts of our online group using FG. We each bought subscriptions and others are more proficient so it works well enough to use and it is our system as we are scattered across the country, but it is really frustrating as DM to be limited to some basic existing element stuff and not to be able to modify things as I'd like while knowing it can be done.

Multiple times I have spent half an hour before the game adding walls to a dungeon map only to have them show up only for me. I know how to modify creature names and numbers like attack bonuses and hp, but not to add abilities or do a creature from scratch.

The limited pallete of tools adds some good use of those tools, but it is frustrating.

 

[robus]

Having the patience to properly set the scene.