Being A Dungeon Master

Mar 24, 2022

I can remember with extreme precision the first time I ever tried my hand at being a Dungeon Master. For those that don’t know, a Dungeon Master is an individual that organizes and oversees a session of playing the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, particularly when it comes to things like story, non-playable characters, and enemies.

When it comes to playing the game itself, I had played the game hundreds of times before. I have been a barbarian, sorcerer, rogue, and cleric, many times as well, but actually managing the game itself was only something I have ever attempted once, and it was… an experience.

Dungeons & Dragons has a lot of things involved in its mechanism, and I don’t just mean the math, I mean everything, from monsters, the players, the non-playable characters, the environment. So when I became a dungeon master for one session to entertain my group, all I did was come up with a logline, a brief synopsis of what this short adventure was going to be like, it was something along the lines of “You were contacted by a rich man to find pieces of a magical candy rock.” It was weird and very nebulous, but at least the plot had some direction.

Now, what was it like? To have the storytellers dice for the first time? It was a total mess, at least on my part. I had some good moments, like when this ooze monster poured down the hall of this abandoned mineshaft and I made them constantly roll constitution and dexterity saving throws to outrun it, all the while Bloodbourne music played in the background.

There was also another moment in which they found themselves in this maze with a small pool of crystalline water in the middle, as they were exhausted and most of them lost their waterskins at the time, most of them drank from the pool, and fell right into my trap. The pool’s water was laced with a hallucinogenic chemical, causing them to view all the innocent people also stuck in the maze as monsters, and since the innocent people had also drank from there to stay alive, they also saw the party as monsters. I carefully laid all the clues, and the reveal was glorious, it also really helped that the water healed some of their injuries too.

But that was about it. In the end, the plotline was never all wrapped up by the end of our 2-hour session, I also made many mistakes throughout all of this. I separated the party way too much, the reason that this is a problem is that when all your player characters are in one group and together in the same space, they all witness the same things, face the same problems and get to work together to solve it, which is always pretty fun.

But separating them makes it harder to manage and puts unnecessary strain on the DM, which isn’t always an issue. Separating the party can make things fun and interesting every once in a while if done well, but if done too much, it can get tedious and irritating to manage. Never mind the fact that you have to make a unique problem for each and every one of your players and jump back and forth from each of them.

The other mistake I made was, funnily enough, not planning anything. Yep, I didn’t plan anything, everything I have told you I just made up on the spot when I was DMing. Because of the fact that I didn’t plan anything, my story often dragged just as much as my combat, and some of the solutions my players reached made so much sense, that I just abandoned whatever answer I had come up with.

I honestly believe that is the hardest thing about being a Dungeon Master, you have to be clear, not just in what you want to do with your players, but you must also have knowledge on what your player’s characters have the ability to do, winging it just tends to make things drag out, at least when it came to how I ran the game.

Fortunately, though, we all had some fun! Even if the session wasn’t as good as I had hoped it would be, it did teach just how hard being a Dungeon Master is, and how grateful I should be for all the adventures our regular Dungeon Master did for us. Honestly, you should give being a Dungeon Master a try, it could do wonderful things not just for a regular player such as yourself, but also your fellow players, as someone who botched their first session, here is what I recommend:

-Read the Player’s Handbook & Dungeon Master’s Handbook.

-Don’t plan too much. No plan survives first contact with the players.

-Communicate clearly with your players.

-Take notes on what’s important to keep in mind.

-Break and bend the rules so long as it is fun for both yourself and your players.

-Know what’s too big for you as a DM to handle, there is no shame in not pursuing a huge idea if you don’t believe to have the skill to do so.

And now that we are at it, what were your experiences when you first tried being a Dungeon Master? How did things go for you?

Thank you all for reading and have a wonderful day.

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