20 Tips for First Time DMs

Do you dream of trying out being a dungeon master, but are unsure of yourself or your abilities? Do currently DM but wish some parts of it weren’t as hard or complicated? Today’s episode is filled with 20 tips to help you skip some of the mistakes that we’ve made in our DMing journey. With these tips, you can gain the confidence to DM like you never have before. More importantly, with these tips, you’ll know that you are a good DM right now and that with some practice you can get even better.

TLDR:

The tips can be boiled down into a couple of META tips:

• Relax and Play the Game (It’s just a Game)
• Everything you Do can be improved even just 1%
• Practice is what will improve your game.

Feel free to read the tips below, or read the full episode transcript if you want to dig in deeper.

The tips:

1. Intro
2. Go Slow and Deliberate
3. Follow the Fun
4. Let your Players Do Some of the Work
5. Do Homebrew Early and Often
6. Read Everything You Can
7. Spend Some Time Everyday Writing
8. Foundation First
9. Details Make It Incredible
10. Always Be Meeting People
11. Make Your Player Characters the Stars
12. Know What You Are Good At
13. Don’t Try to Have Your Best Session Ever
14. Steal Ideas (Except When Making Money)
15. It’s Ok to Look Things Up
16. Success Is Measured by People’s Enjoyment
17. You Will Get Better
18. You Make the Rules
19. Commit
20. Listen to Podcasts and Watch Youtube Videos

Mentioned in this episode:

We Like You

Hey Bud… How’s it going? Just wanted to say… we like you. We’re think you’re pretty cool. We hope you like us too. If you do like us and what we’re doing, you can support us on our Patreon. Just $1 a month is enough. Just go to https://session0studios.com/patreon and show your support. But even if you don’t… we still like you. See ya around bud.

Patreon

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.