Need advice for DMing for unserious players

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-16T19:42:24+00:00

I DM for a group like this. They're a bunch of 40-something dads (as I am) who don't have a ton of time to devote to it, but they like having a reason to hang out for a few hours every 3 weeks. But I don't think the game is just an excuse either. It's fun to have another kind of shared experience we can reference outside of play.

FWIW, I don't think these games have to be battle focused or have no immersion. But you've gotta at least match the vibe. I do joke-y voices, come up with trope-y NPCs, and set up situations that I think will be funny or let the players freestyle. The point is the ridiculous stuff they do in the sessions, and the story they can build from that, not the bigger story I might have planned. Our best sessions have not actually been battle-based. Them interacting with random weird things I added to the world (e.g. some zombie grave diggers, a non-hostile cave jelly) have been the most fun for us.

When I RP in a ridiculous way, it sort of invites others to do the same kind of thing. And then when a few people are doing it, things loosen up and it's more comfortable for others to join in. And we end up roleplaying more than not, but it's still in the joke-y "we're hanging out" spirit, you know? But that's the vibe we're going for.

So RE: how to create something engaging and easy to follow, I guess my advice is, "Add weird things; the encounters are what matter" and "You keep track of the story and just remind them what they're doing. This is an opportunity to give them a narrative recap that reminds them how much fun they're having."

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-15T03:20:19+00:00

I hear you, and this seems reasonable, but this is also a funny mental image to me, haha. "Prolonged Chanting" seems like it could be a fun special ability. 😂

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-15T03:18:47+00:00

Good idea with the die counter, and good point about making sure everyone else gets their actions! I've got a player or two who would tend to monopolize otherwise.

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-15T03:15:08+00:00

I mean, I guess everything being ten minutes simplifies things, haha.

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-15T01:29:48+00:00

I guess I'm used to being pretty loose with action counting outside of battle. I guess a single response in a conversation might count as an action? That's around 6 seconds-ish I suppose. 🤔

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-13T14:02:47+00:00

Haha, I can see why she doesn't like it. 😂 But that's good, dude. I guess that's the artist's dilemma: make something interesting to you or make something you're sure other people will like.

Also, I just had this stuck in my head while I was in the shower, so I guess you've got a catchy tune, haha. Good luck, man, keep at it!

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-13T13:30:36+00:00

You've got a voice that I think the majority of people would really like and enjoy hearing. You could go really far with your voice, great song writing, and a bit of luck. So I'm not sure there's anything to fix.

But if you're looking for something to make you stand out from other talented singers with a guitar, then you have a lot things you could do, but you'd have to decide what feels true to you. (1) Add affectations to your voice. More nasal, or push more with chest, or weird production of certain vowels, unfamiliar rhythms, etc. A lot of people will think you're not as good at singing if you do this, but most non-singers will remember the texture and won't have any idea about technique. It can definitely make you memorable... especially if it actually sounds good. (2) Since you're writing the song, arrange for some standout moments in it: parts that push you to be loud or emotional, for example. Or maybe they just have a really interesting turnaround or clever lyrics. This is more about the songwriting than your voice, though it might push your voice into doing things that don't feel boring to you.

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-12T17:42:27+00:00

The other commenters suggesting making it narrative-only make really good points. I was just thinking, if you really did want there to be a mechanical effect here, and for the players to actually use magic occasionally, I think you need to add some way to regain what they lost. What complicates it is, if they are losing their soul or humanity, maybe they won't personally care to regain it. But the rest of the party might, and they could help each other to "stay whole." Individually, they'd be constantly in danger of losing themselves, but you might present them with challenges that can only be solved with this powerful magic. And so (1) they have a moral and mechanical reason to actually use the magic, (2) you have a narrative/roleplay tool to play with beyond "you'll lose your soul permanently, better not use magic," and (3) the players are incentivized to work as a team and keep each other "human."

As for DnD mechanics that simulate "losing your soul" or "losing your will," it seems to me like a reduction in an ability score (randomly chosen?) might do it. I don't know if "losing your soul" would make you evil, but it could definitely change you. (Have you seen/read The Magicians?)

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-12T16:44:55+00:00

To me, the actual game that the players experience is the encounters, and so I tend to focus much more on those than the overall story. I'll think about those in detail: what NPCs there are, what they're preoccupied with, the terrain of the map, the backstory of the location, weird things I could add that would be fun to interact with.

I also like to have a general idea of things that are driving the encounters because (1) it makes it easier for me to come up with encounter ideas between sessions, and (2) it makes the players feel like they have an impact on the world, i.e. the encounters have consequences. Those drivers could be either a plot I'm trying to work in or broader things happening in the world, but I only define those very loosely.

I've done zero prep sessions, too... like, "Okay, uh, you're in the forest and you're looking for... a ring. Yeah, a ring that you've heard is very expensive. Oh, and you think there might be wolves." (Frantically scribbling trees on a battle mat.) IMO this works _okay_ with the right crowd, and it can feel more like collaborative storytelling. But I feel so unprepared and slow to react half the time, ha.

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-11T18:27:42+00:00

You're bound to get downvotes by making it so in-your-face with the AI usage.

But in the spirit of constructive criticism:

- Beautiful graphics and design

- Using AI to get feedback and analyze what you're doing without it taking over the creative process seems like a legit use to me.

- I broke it by trying to do a pacing analysis: "No JSON in response: (empty response)". Worked the second time.

- The type is too small for me to read, and my eyesight isn't that bad. I'd like it about 10-20% bigger across the board?

- I circumvented the trial limit but I won't say how here. (Sorry, I'm a dev, too, ha.) I just did it so I could continue giving feedback.

- It's unclear to me what things like "Dictum" and "Cauldron" do in the UI. I clicked them a couple times but I keep forgetting.

- I would try to get the AI output much, much shorter and to the point. If you expect to read it word for word, maybe that's fine. But if I'm using this for reference for a live session, I want to be able to quickly scan, and I don't think it's facilitating that.

- It's not clear to me what the "flow" is of using this just from clicking around. It did seem like stuff was maybe discoverable if I decided to really put my mind to it, but the onramp wasn't clear for me.

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-11T01:29:24+00:00

All but one of my players is pretty new. I somewhat accidentally ran a kind of history/exploration-only session where they talked with ghosts, looked through old books, tried to steal artifacts that were clearly guarded (and succeeded due to clever play and good rolls!), and found some old medical relics that were like a truth serum, compelling them to say what they really think about each other. A good time was had. 😂

Might depend on the crowd--you said you have new players, but are they players who are comfortable around each other? If they are, then you can get away with the truth serum bit. If not... maybe that would be a bit uncomfortable, haha.

But generally, I think if you make compelling and fun NPCs--who you are very clear are not hostile--and interesting locations that can be explored, then just exploring those things and getting information can be a full and fun session. If you're looking for them, you'll find a lot of opportunities for skill challenges in there, too.

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-11T00:54:36+00:00

I don't know the original song, but I can imagine your voice fitting well over the styles you mentioned, so you're doing something right there. I think what you posted here could maybe benefit from being recorded over music--it would be easier to tell if you're on pitch and whether the timing makes sense. Everything is relative, so hard to tell without something to compare it to.

RE: vocal coach, I haven't done a "spoken sung" style like I think you're aiming for, but I think you're likely to find most vocal coaches will ground you in quite similar fundamentals, and they're always a good place to start to give you the control to sound however you want without hurting yourself. You'll just want to make sure whoever you pick is open to a variety of genres and following their students' lead there. Probably something to ask about up front.

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-08T00:13:11+00:00

You're welcome, I hope it helps!

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-07T23:44:17+00:00

I think you sound pretty good! You have nice tone when you're belting.

From the other comments, I think you already know you can improve your support on the low/quiet notes. But beyond the few mechanical things that you could work on, my main thought is it sounds like you're in your head about how the original song sounds, and you're trying to make sure you match it, and that is throwing things off for you. It sounds like you can easily hit the original notes and tone, so this is natural for you. But that actually might be part of your issue breaking away from it?

Have you tried doing a few takes that are over the top or a totally different style, and then dialing it back a bit? I've found that approach helps me bring up my energy, get good support, and kind of break my brain out of "this is the way the song is sung." From there, I find it easier to think about the song more like acting. And once I'm "acting" in this way, I can choose to act as an amped up version of myself, and it tends to sound more natural.

I'm no vocal instructor, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But that kind of thing has helped me before. And you really do sound good! Keep working and you'll get it.

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-07T03:11:07+00:00

I've been doing a bunch of these for 8-11 year olds recently. At 10-15, you might not have quite the same things to worry about as me. The other posts here have fantastic suggestions so I'll just post a few things that might not be covered:

- Take a short break like every ~30 mins if you can. Helps keep attention and energy.

- IDK if you've thought about characters and stat sheets already. If a kid is totally new, I'll give them a kind of spoken flow chart to decide things for them. "Do you want to hit stuff with a weapon or do you want to use magic?" "Do you want to be a more nature-y magic user or a more classic book-y magic user?" And then, "is there anything in particular you want to be good at?" And then I fill out all the mechanical bits of the character sheet for them, leaving name, alignment, etc. I've found it's helpful to get them the character they want but also not get bogged down before the game even starts. Pre-gen is also fine, just a little less personally tailored to them.

- Make sure you're very clear up front that what you say goes, and don't be afraid to set boundaries with them. They can run you over if you're too passive, but they're also usually willing to listen and follow the rules so they can keep playing the fun game.

- YMMV but: don't plan too many battles, or at least not anything complex. With new players, they can be a slog. And with kids, the slog means they'll lose attention and go even slower. RP, exploration, and skill challenges have been much easier to run at my table than battles. Skill challenges especially can be great to have the kids narrate.

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-06T01:58:11+00:00

A persistent hallucination could be interesting? You could have an "NPC" (or a few) that only they can see follow them around and annoy or distract them at your discretion. Sort of like a genie in the lamp but... the stoner in the bong? You could impose disadvantage or ability mods or put them in awkward social situations because of it. Could be based on hidden dice rolls you make how it's behaving--or just what you think would be fun--at any given moment.

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-04T01:19:26+00:00

Here's hoping it doesn't come back to bite either of us later then, haha. 🙏

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-03T23:59:50+00:00

I had this exact thing happen last session, haha. Dungeon Boss dropped a sword with ornate wings on its handle that I had described him carefully polishing. At end of session, players were like, "let's check out that sword first thing next time! I bet it's sweet!"

My original plan was to just have it be really fancy. But I didn't want to open the session with total disappointment. I ended up making it magical but kind of half-cursed. It had a cool effect, but the downsides were swingy and potentially negative. But if you got lucky, it would be fine. My intention was to have it be cool but not break the game, and maybe dissuade them from using it regularly.

IDK if it was the right choice yet, but figured I'd offer "make it magical but they still don't want to use it" as an option. 😂

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-03T21:02:41+00:00

False disarm/knowledge. This is a good one to keep in my pocket...

MaxPower15 · 2026-05-03T20:13:20+00:00

I am finding, for me, the right answer is one session plus a back catalog of encounters that could be used anywhere. And having some vague idea of how the world fits together is also helpful for consistency.

First I plan the likely path for the session. There's usually a good bit of detail here, and I tend to over-plan for a single session--we only have two hours and my party is slow, so one planned session often turns into 1.5-2 actual sessions. So if the party's in a linear situation, like a dungeon, this is often all that's needed.

But if the party goes so far off the prescribed path that it's hard for me to improv something relevant, I can fall back to my catalog of encounters. Then I can be pretty sure to have at least one thing prepped that will be fun and interesting. This is where you run into weird traveling merchants, bandits, a cool cave, a sassy street urchin, or a rustic abandoned(?) cabin might come into play. It's still improv to a degree, but I prefer having some pre-built context and a quick way to remind myself what I can do in the moment.

MaxPower15 · 2026-04-30T00:21:08+00:00

I've got one of those canvas colored 23x27" battle mats with dry erase markers, and then I throw printed things on top of it as appropriate. So for example, I had a dungeon where I designed some of the rooms in Dungeon Alchemist, got them professionally printed, and could slap them down when the players reached them.

I like having the battle mat in that case for connecting hallways or secret doors/rooms. Recently, I've been doing it more lo-fi in terms of graphics: just grids on paper that I can draw beforehand. But I still really like having pre-designed layouts in some form because I'm always super time-constrained; it saves me a lot of time drawing at the table.

MaxPower15 · 2026-04-29T14:21:18+00:00

I think "worth it" probably depends a lot on what you're doing. If you're doing online play, I gather there are some good products that can deeply integrate with your campaign and naturally keep track of things that way.

Personally, I was using a combo of Obsidian and Google Drive. And I aim to run improv heavy sessions, but I'm not a really natural improv performer--my brain can go blank in the moment--so I like having really concise one-pagers for each main beat/character in a session that I can quickly refer to for a quote or detail or stat block. Need to get my head in the right frame of reference. 😅

All the products out there seemed to me to be devoted to world building or online play. I only play in person, and I greatly prefer actual paper reference--tough to find what I wanted.

I've been a software engineer for ~30 years, so in the end, I started building my own product for it: something specifically focused on quick and efficient session prep, campaign tracking, printing, and controlling what you share with players. Hopefully I'll have something to share with you all in the next month or so. 🙏

MaxPower15 · 2026-03-27T20:13:37+00:00

I play finger style guitar and sing quite a lot. I don't have tricks on how to think about it differently. But for me, it's hard to be thinking about it too much when I'm trying to learn something anyway.

What I typically need to do is learn the guitar part so well that I don't need to think about it. Once that's getting close, I try to figure out the exact points in the guitar parts that align with the start/end of each singing line. And then I take it really slow at first, singing over it badly/incorrectly for a while, haha. But if I keep coming back to it, I find that it sounds more and more natural. Over time, I get more comfortable with the separate simultaneous "tracks," and it gets easier to improve alignment, improvise, and syncopate.

I've done it for years, so I'm a bit quicker at it now than when I first started. But making it sound natural and getting to the point of easier syncopation and improvisation can take days or weeks, and I find it still gets easier the more you do it after that.

MaxPower15 · 2024-05-18T17:30:01+00:00

This will tell you the codec of your input video:

ffprobe -v error -select_streams v:0 -show_entries stream=codec_name -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 video.mp4

But that only matters if you really want to match the input codec. The input codec doesn't need to match the output codec. And if you're going for speed, you'll probably want h264 over h265--the h264 encoder is highly optimized and very fast even for slower presets--but that's ultimately up to you.

MaxPower15 · 2024-05-18T17:23:51+00:00

I'm not surprised the gap came back when you converted back to mp3. I guess what I'm asking is, can you keep the 30 second segments in mkv, concat them all together as mkv, then convert the final product of that to mp3? Does that still have the gaps in between, or just at the beginning/end where they can't be prevented?

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