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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Birmy" data-source="post: 8730744" data-attributes="member: 50221">I don't DM online as I find the format far less enjoyable, but I do DM at conventions (including Gamehole Con; I've probably run into Bill D., above). I'm happy to just be a player in my home campaigns, so I use conventions as my ongoing "DM Academy"--to get more confident and hopefully better at DMing, a role I haven't regularly played since the '90s (and in grade school at that). The cons are a good environment for this: You get to see how you handle a wide swath of different kinds of players, and if you (or they) suck, you take the lesson and move on in 2-4 hours without having to worry about alienating friends or derailing a campaign. Since I mostly do organized play (Adventurers League), I know I can stick to a couple of short modules all weekend and, by the nth time running it, feel like I have a better understanding of both the rules and what makes a module tick. Also, it's not that big of a community, so it helps you get to know a lot of the frequent players.So, for me, it's a kind of boot camp, where I can gain confidence and improve in my DMing, get a better grasp on storytelling in this format, and maybe meet some people on the way. Also: There's often free admission, PDFs, and swag.</blockquote>