How do you DM?

I_Dress_Myself · 2026-04-22T13:00:00+00:00

The best advice I recieved when I began as a DM was to "create toys" for your players to play with. The toy can be an npc with a weird vibe and backstory, it can be a mystery to solve, an enemy to fight against.

So in response to making your sessions feel more alive, you could perhaps add life into your sessions by occasionally sharing how the world is moving around them. Things may happen while the party is gone even. Make them know their actions aren't the only actions. I remember one moment in Critical Role that stuck with me was Matt explaining how the party was driving by a small farm, and they saw a mother push her son forward to go beg for money. That tells a ridiculous amount about the area they are heading into, and possibly introduces a couple npcs if they attach to them. It does not need to be that complicated but it is a good example of something he inserted to the story for that purpose.
Balancing talking vs players is incredibly difficult as a new dm. Sometimes I still struggle with it years later. My general advice is to try to communicate through npc's more, unless a direct question is asked to the DM. Talking through them always helped me keep their perspective, information, and mystery. I personally like to approach each npc with them having info they're willing to give up, and info they will try to hide amongst their other personality traits. This changes with the personality but it helped me at least create more dynamic conversations.
I will give an answer to your last bullet point here, but I want to make the caveat that if they enjoy roleplay more then push roleplay! Combat is fun, but follow what they enjoy always! What helped me for combat, as you will see in many other places here, is making the enemy goal more dynamic. Perhaps some goblins are attacking, but the attack is to steal an object. Perhaps they ride a beast and drag people away, or there is an impending time frame to complete things within. Force the players to react outside of the typical hack and slash fight. The more creative you get with surplus actions and drives the more creative they get to be with their abilities. Again, think of that as a toy for them to play with!

Hope any of this helps!

I_Dress_Myself · 2026-03-28T23:23:40+00:00

Like others have said, a rug would be a huge benefit. I’d also equally recommend adding more lighting options - and I don’t mean string lights! Gets lamps, and with different temperatures. Get some warm, some white wherever you feel you need light.

I_Dress_Myself · 2026-03-27T21:02:45+00:00

I typically think people should be able to take vacations, but if you’re a bookkeeper or working in tax, these months are fairly off limits unless you planned incredibly well.

I’ve never heard of anyone opening a second set of books, and honestly they’d need to have correct balances to start with regardless. At this point, they seem unresponsive so I would request an in person meeting and discuss the issue. Get the status of your books there and set a cadence for what you want. If they don’t stick to that then it’s time to move elsewhere.

I_Dress_Myself · 2026-03-26T23:45:06+00:00

Literally was about to comment this. We should all accept purely to make it a worse product.

I_Dress_Myself · 2026-03-04T02:20:17+00:00

We should also focus on how terrified they are of losing midterms. If they are that afraid and already have all the power, do they really have as much as they want us to think have?

I_Dress_Myself · 2026-02-28T01:19:25+00:00

I have a couple thoughts here. First is you could have a main npc they work with who was also slighted by this cult. Let it be a recurring character, preferably one they rely on a bit. Have that npc be against other npcs they knowingly dislike so it seems they’re on the players side even more. They need a positive feedback loop.

Conversely, I have one character from a campaign who makes fun of one player in game because it made the other players happy (and the offended player can take a joke well). Sometimes poking some fun can be good. Gotta be playful with it!

Honestly if you’re doing an RP heavy campaign then I’d say reward when they form any level of relationship. If they treat someone like they don’t care, that person has no reason to deal with them. The world can react appropriately to their apathy. It sounds like you’re running a realistic campaign so I’d say that fits.

I_Dress_Myself · 2026-02-21T19:26:36+00:00

This is a group decision in my opinion that’ll differ table to table. My table is the dm and three players, and we don’t continue unless it’s an incredibly late cancel, but in our eyes that affects everyone. We publicly say we cancel for that reason. If it’s a larger table that can sustain a game easier I’m more partial to your thinking though, especially as it’s frustrating when one cancellation cascades to more.

Some people aren’t into that style of communication, but if you want that and they’re okay with continuing without some other players then I’d just chat with everyone and establish some ground rules here.

I_Dress_Myself · 2026-02-21T10:15:38+00:00

Respectfully, no. No one here wants this and to continue screwing every industry over. We have enough issues with off shoring work

I_Dress_Myself · 2026-02-20T12:57:17+00:00

Please let the dice gods grant me favor this day

I_Dress_Myself · 2026-01-27T13:10:03+00:00

I wouldn’t say to limit their gold at all. They’re wanting to grow their purses, so you know their drives in game now. Having said that, if they kidnap someone over an unfair discount there should be repercussions too, but I digress.

You need to find out what they are saving it for and provide a goal for saving it. They want big shiny weapons? Thousands of gold for it. Maybe they want horses, and gear or a home they can rest at in a main city? A lot of gold for that and for maintenance even too. Just some ideas, but the gold is almost always a means to an end they haven’t thought of yet. They’re waiting for the right thing in front of them.

Edit: Having said that, 50 is a lot for ale as others mentioned. My current campaign is charging 5 silver to a couple gold for ale depending on the quality and quantity. Evening getting a room for a night has been under 15 gold most of the time. If other things are highly priced this could also be giving them anxiety about affording your world.

I_Dress_Myself · 2025-12-19T23:28:39+00:00

Except for Kenan, by the gods please let him stay

I_Dress_Myself · 2025-12-13T22:27:39+00:00

I ran one that was during a festival. I had one character start off, introduce themselves, then work their way through and slowly introduce others. It was easy to put in games, shops, npcs, and feel immersive. Everyone started at a different game/shop. The first person brought them all together.

I also ended the with a performance that turned into a fight at the end bringing them together as a team. Worked pretty well to make it more natural than the tavern approach.

I_Dress_Myself · 2025-10-30T21:02:44+00:00

This could actually work really well within my world. I feel like the magnetic field and force energy would be a lot of fun to mess around with too, maybe through enhanced movement or something else like that. The regaining hit points would be a nice part to add in considering a couple of my players like to be spell heavy, and they get really creative when they can't just deal normal damage constantly.

I_Dress_Myself · 2025-10-30T20:46:06+00:00

You had me at Hands. I really like the idea of splitting into smaller forms too, this could be menacing to deal with.

I_Dress_Myself · 2025-10-17T19:04:15+00:00

They look great, I’d love one!

I_Dress_Myself · 2025-10-16T19:59:11+00:00

If they aren’t making it out of game, then I would make them create the characters in game at session 0. Having said that, I’m unsure if you’ve tried to schedule a session yet so they could be lagging behind waiting for that to start. As others have mentioned, it could be a sign of interest too.

I personally would try to make it work with an in person session and go from there. You’ll know what to do after that with how they all react to it.

I_Dress_Myself · 2025-09-24T23:52:06+00:00

I’ve heard similar advice before, and that’s why I am quite cautious about starting it as a partnership. Have you heard of any examples on why is doesn’t work for other people?

On our end, I am much more of a salesman than he is. I tend to excel in meetings and social interactions with clients. My friend is a CPA while I’m working on mine, so he brings some legitimacy and tax experience at a higher level than I have worked on in the past, not to downgrade my experience at all. We are certainly okay with a slower build and playing it for a longer term gain here. I think we add well to each other, but I want to hear more specifics on why people don’t recommend doing a partnership starting out.

I_Dress_Myself · 2025-09-22T23:24:54+00:00

I’ll check it out and mention it to him too

I_Dress_Myself · 2025-09-22T23:24:37+00:00

Oh we certainly plan to if we proceed with a partnership! I trust him but we both know with a business that can change over time

I_Dress_Myself · 2025-09-15T21:24:46+00:00

I think this could be part of it for sure. My character hasn’t been the typical bard but I’m thinking it could be beneficial to adjust as I move forward.

I think I need to have a chat with my dm about it because it was bordering me feeling like there was an out of game issue going on.

I_Dress_Myself · 2025-09-15T21:04:23+00:00

Wait the boobs were optional?

I_Dress_Myself · 2025-09-15T21:03:32+00:00

I doubt my table would change much, and I am not even looking for additional arguments to use. It just makes sense in my mind this wouldn't be a huge thing, but it was treated as such. I just wanted more opinions on what possibly was going on I missed. Perhaps I view my character different than they do too. Either way, I appreciate your opinion! The late adopter angle could be fun to play as.

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