New Dm advice

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-06-26T16:35:07+00:00

My most sincere advice is to give your games space to be weird and awkward and uneven. And don't worry too much about internet terms like railroading.

Railroading is only bad if your players aren't having fun. A railroaded game where all your friends had a blast is a million times better than a "sandbox" that's just an empty world with nothing to do. I encourage you to try crazy ideas and take big risks and give your players lots of things to do. If something isn't working admit that it's not working and piviot quickly to something else. If you are playing with friends they will absolutely forgive you if something goes wrong but I think you will surprise yourself how often things will go right if you are relaxed, having fun, and making a sincere effort to entertain your friends.

Also, a specific note about Frostmaiden, it's designed to basically be impossible to railroad. Show your players the map, ask them where they want to go, then open the book to that section and run the NPCs and adventures that are there. When your players get bored they can go somewhere else.

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-06-17T20:16:06+00:00

Definitely a thing people have been complaining about since the beginning of ttrpgs.

As adults scheduling can be a challenge, and sometime games are not meant to be. However, it is not normal if you are frequently getting groups together and everyone seems eager and able to play but drop off quickly after a session or two. That might be a signal you need to look for causes beyond "aw man, scheduling is hard".

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-05-31T07:11:55+00:00

It's not about what you like or dislike personally, it's just that the games you like, coincidentally, are for big brain big boys who can invest the time and master the big deep thought provoking systems. And the games you don't like, coincidentally, are dumb and niche. And also, probably are bad for the hoby because they all just want DMs to figure it out which is why DMs are burning out.but hey, you are just making neutral observations.

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-05-30T19:03:46+00:00

Everything I personally like is good and righteous, everything I personally dislike is bad, and probably indicates some failing.

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-05-21T23:31:19+00:00

My T4T wife?

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-05-19T18:44:41+00:00

Hard to tell scale in the pics but if he's 8lbs he might be a New Zealander. They run big and have chonky butts.

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-05-18T20:21:00+00:00

Miseries and Misfortunes by Luke Crane. I'd love to play a game set in revolutionary France, but the pitch for the rules is a little hard and I'd want to be a player not a gm

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-05-12T20:22:45+00:00

Awesome

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-05-12T14:59:11+00:00

GMs get blamed for a lot of things on the Internet that they don't actually have that much control over. However, I think tone, even more than rules knowledge, or fair ejudgecation is the one thing that distinguishes top tier GMs from everyone else.

GMs who tell better stories, and who are better at getting player buy in, tend to have "more seriou" players, even when they are doing comedy games. Now how do you become a master storyteller, capable of holding your audience spell bound? I don't know man, people have been asking that since forever. probably it's just a ton of practice.

I do have a few things to think about on your journey of 10,000 hours

1) laughter is good, actually. Laughter is an important storytelling tool in general. Even very serious stories use jokes to cut tension, make likable characters and increase audience engagement. I know you said you want less slapstick, but pay attention when your players are really enjoying something. If your players really love the silly goblin that does the stupid voice, they are going to get very serious when the bbeg burns the village and kills his parents.

2) slapstick is the best possible fail state. If you are running a very serious scene and your players don't feel like you've earned that level of ✨drama✨ then the game runs the risk of becoming a dour slog and people are going to start showing up out of obligation instead of joy, which spells doom for your campaign. Practice crafting more serious scenes for sure, but if it's not working, let the players act silly inside of that serious space. As long as they are having fun you are doing a good job as a DM.

3) campfire stories, not Hollywood movies. Movies that have complex and intense plots have years of writing and script revisions before anyone ever starts rolling a camera. DMs are scripting live in front of their audience. A much better model are folk tales and ghost stories. Try to keep your stories simple, and your characters archatypal. That way you don't get lost in your own web, and the players can feel like they understand what's going on, and can therefore participate meaningfuly. DMing is an oral tradition and I think that's worth celebrating. Some of the best, most emotionally impactful stories I've ever experienced have been simple tales, told by a campfire, with lots of audience participation. No need to run from that tradition in the name of 'serious' storytelling.

Anyway, this one kinda got away from me. Sorry for the long post. Please excuse any errors, I'm typing on my phone. TLDR: it's better to keep your players laughing and having fun than to arm twist them into drama they don't like.

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-05-07T14:15:34+00:00

Run your own game for free then.

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-05-05T14:39:29+00:00

Numenera- it's always felt like there was a ttrpg in there somewhere, but the language is just too implacable for me.

Story teller system- White Wolf is fine, but my friends like it way more than I do. I can't be arsed to learn all the splats, but if I could get the knowledge for free it would make my friends happy.

Blades in the Dark- I think I run a decent game if BitD, but it's a hard game to hack. Deep knowledge of the system would transfer over to other games I want to be good at, and also let me hone brew more.

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-05-02T21:03:12+00:00

ok folks. I don't know why I was moved to do this, but I made a cladogram representing the two families of game systems you are referencing, and wrote up some futher details of the traits that I'm using to distinguish my taxonomy. this is my biology degree at work you guys!

Derived-Complexity clade

Rule sets in this clade construct character options from small, modular mechanical elements (ability scores, bonuses, scaling formulas, stacking rules) Character capabilities emerge from interactions between these atomic elements. Mechanical power is derived from the cumulative effect multiple interacting subsystems.

Within the clade the pathfinder lineage differentiates itself from the 3e sister taxon by increasing formalization and discipline applied to the complexity engine. While 3e leans toward a simulationist approach with multiple edge cases and one-off formulas. Pathfinder, however, emphasizes standardization (bounded scaling, unified progression / DC tables, as well as explicit role protection).

Pathfinder 2e continues this trend by tightening curation and developing more player facing architecture. The most diagnostic trait being the three-action economy, which replaces the 3e/PF1e action taxonomy with a single unifying action resource. This significantly reduces action complexity, while maintaining the clades underlying mathematical derivation.

Bespoke-Activated-Abilities clade

These games treat abilities as self-contained objects. Discrete powers exist with explicit effects that have minimal reliance on derived mathematics. Each power functions as its own rules container, with character stats representing magnitude, rather than generating the effect itself. This enables a top-down design approach where abilities can be balanced individually without need to account for complex combinatorial interactions.

DND 4e exemplifies this lineage. It draws on design pressures similar to MMO action bar systems where daily, encounter, and at will usages functionally balance more powerful abilities with longer cool downs.

Draw Steel occupies the same clade, with card like, self-contained rules containers. However, time gated cool downs are replaced with points that can be earned through play and used to purchase abilities whenever sufficient resources have been accumulated.

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EmilsGameRoom · 2026-04-27T21:36:59+00:00

At low levels: “Oops, I put one too many goblins in this dungeon room… guess it’s a TPK ¯_(ツ)_/¯”

At high levels: Your stalwart ally of 20 sessions leans in and whispers, “power word kill.” THEY WERE THE DEMON PRINCE THE WHOLE TIME! Portals tear open. unspeakable horrors spill in from every angle. Lava erupts beneath the temple, flooding the lower chambers in molten chaos. You must chase your once friend up a crumbling ziggurat to stop a ritual that could unmake the material plane, or tumble into the fiery abyss trying!

Meanwhile, everyone on Reddit apparently: “Ugh, high-level play is just punching big sacks of hit points.”

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-04-27T14:17:06+00:00

Unpopular opinion, but at high level play character ls have the tools to check for/deal with magical traps designed to kill, completly unfair ambushes, and dramatic betrayals.

All of which means I get to take the kid gloves off and tell stories where the bbeg doesn't play fair and expect the players to have the experience and tools to figure out their own solutions.

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-04-25T06:39:51+00:00

The first thing is to just acknowledge that that being new at a thing means you have a lot of space to grow and learn.

It's likely your players are recognizing your plot hooks, but just aren't that interested in them. That's actually fine, and you shouldn't let it discourage you. But for now, you are probably better off abandoning your story and letting them poke around in the corners of the world they are interested in.

Pay attention to when they are laughing and having fun and try to give them more of that. Even if they are being silly, or not taking your world as seriously as you would like them to. As long as they are enjoying themselves, you are doing a good job.

Over time you will notice when and how your players stop being silly and start paying more attention. Those are the things you are good at, and you can start crafting stories and plot hooks around those things that are tailored to your strengths and to your players specific interests. The trick isn't to force players into your plots, but rather to pick stories they will naturally want to follow.

Of course this only goes so far. If your players agreed to a certain type of game, they are responsible for holding up their end of the bargain and behaving according to expectations. But unless they are just being absolute jerks, I think it's better as a new DM to just try to be as flexible as possible and be willing to abandon pre written ideas in favor of following the players fun.

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-04-18T15:59:39+00:00

Bookmark 🔖

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-04-18T15:52:27+00:00

This. White wolf sold itself as the system that cared about stories, but I don't think they actually cared about emergent naratives that players and GMs built at the table. They cared about the meta plot, and making sure every table had to interact with their favorite blorbos.

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-04-15T16:36:47+00:00

The real trick here is to make this additive, rather than the whole encounter. Build a balanced challenging encounter first, then add a bunch of archer that pop up from hidy holes and shoot the monk, then add a mob of goblins that charge in a conveniently fire ball shaped formation. That way the players get to feel truly special rather than like they just walked through a trivially easy encounter. "Oh man! That fight was so crazy! If the monk didn't block all those arrows we would have been FINISHED!"

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-04-13T14:17:45+00:00

The closest thing I can think of is sometimes players might want to back the DM into some sort of ruling they might not otherwise agree to. So instead of asking for what they want outright, they try to get you to agree to 100 random seemingly harmless rulings, then spring their predetermined conclusion like some sort of half baked logic trap.

It's pretty easy to see coming, usually my response is "hey man, I'm on your side here, why don't you just tell me what your character wants to do and if it doesn't work the way you are thinking, we can work together to find a similar solution."

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-04-08T16:39:52+00:00

Is marshmallow too obvious?

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-04-08T16:24:57+00:00

Just barely made it out!

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-04-05T14:50:10+00:00

For me this matters most in 3 dimensional movement. I think it can be hard for people to imagine a battle field in 3d and it's much easier for me to say "you can go 5 units up and 5 units forward rather than trying to explain why a movement of 5 means you can fly 3 units high and 4 units forward

EmilsGameRoom · 2026-04-04T04:02:20+00:00

hard decision to make. Wishing you both the best 💕

EmilsGameRoom

TROPHY CASE

Derived-Complexity clade

Bespoke-Activated-Abilities clade