Great advice, as usual! I'd argue that many seasoned DM's still make these and thank you for highlighting them :D

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

I still fall into some of these mistakes today! Especially the 10th one 😅

18:20 I completely agree, players can tell what's been done far more than many people think. They pick up on these things.

One good thing ive found for letting out that information is having another friend that dms. We used to play before but now we each have our own games and just chat to eachother about what we cant tell our players just to get it off our chests and its nice.

That was great advice! I really helps me not be as scared of DMing in my first homebrew world!

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

Homebrewing can be so much fun, glad you're diving into it! Really glad the video helped a bit 😁

Dude, your big-picture philosophy to Dming is bar-none the best approach I've ever heard of for running a successful D&D campaign that's memorable and fun for everyone.

Another good show reference about episodic is the early season of Supernatural. When it was a monster of the week with a over arching plot that didn't matter every episode

I'm writing my first adventure and I've barely ever played before so I'm definitely going to keep these in mind!

Wow. Aside from #9, I have made every single one of these mistakes, and more than once too. Ouch.

I think a great way to hide your villain's motives while keeping players interested is to make things personal between your players and the villain. You can do this a ton of different ways whether it's killing a close NPC, or dealing them a defeat that has consequences or showing some injustice that the main antagonist performs that hurts the players or close npc's. Another way is to just create some intrigue and mystery that gives the players motivation to investigate. Just think of the Joker in the Dark Knight Series. You don't quite know why he's doing what he's doing, but you're just dying to find out.

Yess love The Mentalist reference. As an aside, if you like the structure of The Mentalist, you should check out Person of Interest. My absolute favourite show ever and starts of very villain of the week but definitely has lots of over arching plot threads and awesome sci-fi (though grounded) elements! Awesome video as usual mate!

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

Ohhh I'll check it out! I love that kind of mystery-of-the-week style. And yeah, The Mentalist is so much fun, I got genuinely hooked on it a few years back 😅

@Bluejayhunt

Жыл бұрын

@@TalesArcane Same, I love villain of the week mystery stuff too even though it is less popular these days but Person of Interest and The Mentalist are both really great. If you check it out, let me know what you think. I think your advice about running D&D in that fashion is really good because you want each session, or at least every other session, to feel complete and satisfying.

Currently writing my first campaign and the first session is gonna be in a few days your videos have been really helpful in building not only confidence as a DM but confidence that my players are going to enjoy the story keep it up much love

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

Genuinely the best thing about starting this channel is hearing from people like yourself who are starting out as DMs and have found the videos useful. Really motivates me to keep going - thank you! Good luck with the campaign, I hope your players have an amazing time 👊

The advice about railroading is SO GOOD, I know that’s a pitfall several DM’s I know have fallen into

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

Yeah I've been there 😅 I know some people prefer that full sandbox experience, but I always notice how much more engaged my players are when they can clearly define their current goal.

@johnathanrhoades7751

Жыл бұрын

Sandbox doesn’t mean no direction. It means a bunch of different possible directions, none of which are “required”. So if they want to just march west and see what’s there, that’s fine, they’ll find interesting stuff. But they’ve also heard about the haunted crystal mine to the East full of wonder and wealth for those foolish enough to brave it, the Princess who has run away to the south who the queen will pay handsomely for any information about, and the strange purple light that appears at night to the north that chills the spines of passing travelers, but has yet to truly cause anyone harm.

Great advice, I’m about 9months into my first campaign and still learning. Thankfully my players are really helpful and understanding.

Thanks so much for putting this all together! Really appreciate it.

Great advice, some I knew but some were really innovative and made me think. As someone who goes back and forth between two countries and has a super great DnD group in the one that gets visited the least, overprepping has been the hardest issue but the most rewarding to sort out: I would think of three loose ideas with lots of potential, write in the online group chat the options, and then tell them which one they want to choose and why. This way, they know what's happening around them even though they don't directly engage with it and can choose at all times the direction. I would also say that a "procedural world-building" has been greatly beneficial to me. I ran a campaign with said super group with a great climactic ending and a following "write down what are your characters doing afterwards", and then started a new campaign with new characters with the same group and within the same universe as the previous campaign. The trick to get them engaged has been to reference events from the previous campaign that they experienced firsthand. For example, the paladin in the old campaign swore an oath to a religion which was actually a pyramid scheme trying to get as many followers as possible. In the new campaign an entire village (except the stubborn eldest) got charmed to follow a "handsome knight in righteous armour" who promised everyone gold in exchange for gold. And voilà, people already knew what was kinda going on but really wandered how I twisted it. Oh, and the mercenary cleric from the old campaign is now an adventurer's guild chieftain giving the new party missions and keeps trophies and references to the old campaign's fun stories.

Fantastic video!!

Fantastic as always! Ty ❤️

I absolutely make the mistake of pulling back the curtain when I do something awesome. I stopped. But man... it's tough

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

It's not easy, especially if you're playing with your mates - they're all talking about the session afterwards and you just have to smile and nod 😅 Worth it though.

The shorts are great, but I’m loving these longer videos 👍

These are great, listen to many DMs advuce videos, and a lot are 99% similar. Yours always have different things that I hadnt even thought about.

Thanks for the video man! Amazing video like you always do and keep up the good work!

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

Really appreciate the support, mate! It was a lot of fun doing a longer format video - many more to come 😁

I wish you did more long form videos. Excellent content, sir!

Wish I could binge his content but I impulsively watch them as they come out. Love your stuff my friend. 10/10

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

Seeing comments like this is amazing, thank you! I have this same dilemma with some of the creators I follow on here, so it's really cool for me to know that folk like yourself are enjoying some of my content in the same way. I'll keep it coming!

Thanks a lot my dude, I'm starting on as a DM and you probably hear it all the time, but your videos are amazing and a great deal of help, from the plot hooks to this longer style ones, keep it up, cuz you're amazing!

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

Mate I'm delighted to hear that! When I was starting out, I found a lot of great KZread creators who were really helpful, so I'm really pleased that I can do the same for other DMs like yourself. Good luck with all the games ahead 💪

Excellent video and it was fun to get to see you in a more free form less scripted way. Gives you a chance to use your charisma stat not just your intelligence.

I just started planning my first campagne and I'm so glad I watched this video first.

Thanks for the great advice! I'm a pretty new DM, but the very first mistake on your list is one I've already experienced myself. I recently ran a short campaign with one plot twist that worked really well, and another part of the plot where the postponing of information did a lot more damage than it did good. As the players completed the final showdown, they still didn't really know enough about it (like, why that curse was even happening in the first place). I found myself having to explain a bunch of stuff to them afterwards via an NPC, which felt kind of anticlimactic, while the player's confusion hurt the real climax before. All because I was too scared of giving them too much information too early. But I also had that other plot twist, a revelation of a secret identity of an NPC they thought they knew, which worked great. It's so easy to see the difference once you play it out - they were at the edge of their seats, hands clasped over their mouths, as it happened. And afterwards they kept talking about all the signs in that NPC's earlier behaviour that they could have noticed. While during the actual climax, they were more like "Idk, maybe do that again, I don't really know why that worked but I guess it did". And as you said, as a DM you learn from those mistakes. What kind of information would actually help their motivation and engagement if you give it to them, and where you can surprise them. And maybe this video will help me avoid some of those other mistakes in the future. Thanks a lot! :)

I found the mid video rant on game of thrones sooooo funny because it was clearly a sincere few minutes of monologue.

Mate, what a terrific piece. There a lot of great DnD dudes and dudettes on the internet, from jacobs xp to the shorts, even the great matt mercer and his crew, but to be honest whenever i watch your content it feels like a mate and fellow DM soul talks about exactly the things i need and want to hear. Maybe the inkarnate backgroundes help bonding here too, I use them myself and always feel like hey that could be mine😄 Anyway you are the one and only creator I watch every video from, and i shall continue to do so. Big cheeres and keep it up!

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

So when you commented this two weeks ago, I saw it right away and literally took a screenshot to show my friends because I was so touched that someone would put me in the same sentence as both one of the great DMs (Matt Mercer) and one of the awesome KZread creators who really inspired me to start (XP to Level 3). But in the process I forgot to actually reply 😅 Seriously, that means a lot! As one of the generation who grew up watching KZread and learning from the D&D creators on here, it's so cool to know my videos can help other DMs like yourself now.

@janbonkowski430

Жыл бұрын

Cant believe it. You are the first creator ever to answer my comment, in the nicest way possible and all of that on my birthday 😄 Mate have a good one, hope to see your next content soon ✌

When I think back on all the characters that have died, in all the stories I have read, by far the most impactful on me as a person was the Grand General of the Western Army in Feist's Rage of a Demon King. He died, after a battle, while talking to one of his subcommanders, due to a soldier fumbling unloading a crossbow with poor muzzle control. Historically, great events turn on the smallest of causes. Don't be afraid to embrace that. Don't be afraid to have your mid-level PC die to a "random" encounter.

I usually tell my players how I do things and I know I shouldn't, but I think they've also gotten really into the insight I bring them and I haven't had a complaint about how I pulled any of them out of the game or story. Maybe it's just my group cause a majority of my players are also GMs, so there is that synergy between us. Though just cause it works for me doesn't mean it'll work for everyone. So don't go by how it's happened with me. lol And for one of my games, I have something set up where the players can be led linearly from one part of a dungeon to another while also being allowed to freely explore most of it. The players know the goal is to find three locations and solve a puzzle to get from the first half of the dungeon to the second. This is what I call the Link to the Past structure where in that game, Link is allowed to explore a dungeon's first half relatively freely until he gets the big key. Then he is allowed into the second half where it is much more linear and dangerous. Back to my dungeon, the players may know to solve a puzzle, but have no idea what the puzzles are, so a trick I learned from Uncharted Lost Legacy is to always have the players take on the puzzles in greater and greater difficulty as they solve more of those said puzzles. (In this case, it's a simple spinning ring puzzle where the image in the rings gets more complicated.) This way, they won't accidentally run into the hardest puzzle first and/or the easiest puzzle last. Of course the puzzle in question can't have anything to do with the structure of the room itself (for example the basement room in the Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time since that would be changing the map itself), but its hazards can. Such as one room that begins to flood and mutant quippers start to swarm the players. And to handle the moves on the puzzle, the solver can make up to 6 moves rotating each ring 90 degrees on their turn, this would be 1 second for each move. I think that gives the player(s) in question plenty of moves before their next turn and gives them ample opportunity to make a ton of progress. I think it'd be an interesting idea, and I'm looking forward to really testing it out.

Very good advice!!

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

Appreciate you saying so mate! Glad you found the video useful 😁

Awesome!

Thanks!

Working on my first campaign using Mines of Phandelver as a starter, and Princes of the Apocalypse module as a skeleton for the longer portion, wish me luck!!!

I make some of these currently. I've been DMing my first campaign and it's really tough. But the point of this campaign was for me and my players to get used to our roles, make mistakes, and learn to play the game. I learn primarily by watching how other DMs run the game, and honestly I think that saves me from making some of the other mistakes some people make. Slowly working to shore up the walls and get better at DMing so that by next campaign I've got my feet under me in a way that will make the game more enjoyable for everyone.

Really great video! I’m a first time DM, 8 sessions in to a homebrew world. I’m trying to be open and honest with how I assess myself against this list. Totally am an overprepper, but I still use the same advice you gave on what to do. I have a big, epic storyline that draws on the lore and history, but that’s because the lore and history are some of the clues into the current conflict/conspiracy. Also, I’ve packed sessions with adventures that are also PC specific, so they get a more “episodic”session feel that usually has strong significance for individual PCs. So my question is, do you think those are still problems the way I’m running it?

I respect the GoT Speedby, but as an audio only watcher I thought I bumped the playback speed while walking and panicked 😂

Great advice. You’re point on “over correcting for railroading” is not heard much on KZread and in the community. My table of players have indicated that when given the “what do you want to do?” question: they look around and try to find an NPC who can give them advice (ie: they don’t have a plan and are looking for a hook to follow). I realized that the whole idea of a “sandbox game” is a bit of a myth or at least not something that should be considered “normal”.

@johnathanrhoades7751

Жыл бұрын

Sandbox doesn’t mean no hooks!! It actually means a lot of hooks, none of which are “required” to pursue. If you look at any pretty much any published sandbox adventure there is a large rumors table. Now, you also need to set an expectation with the players that their character need to be internally motivated and have their own goals to pursue in the world, but yeah. Sandboxes need even more “hooks” than a linear adventure.

Me and my players have been playing a little over a year, I've made every one of these mistakes.

best dnd channel

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

Thank you very much, mate! Means a lot, considering how many great creators are on this platform 🙏

@SirRagnildius

Жыл бұрын

@@TalesArcane I always look forward to your video drops, and you have solved countless problems happening in my games. I love your video type along with style. Thanks again!

Taking away the immersion is a big one. Great advice even for experienced GMs. GMing is best when its done like a magic trick. And you dont tell the audience like the trick worked after the show.

You have no idea how much future stress and therefore anxiety you spared me 🙇 Seriously, thank you

@Scarletraven87

Жыл бұрын

I know, maybe I shouldn't DM. But that would mean not partecipating my life.

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

@@Scarletraven87 Of course you should DM! It's just a fact that DMing can be stressful sometimes. I'm quite confident in my abilities and I still make mistakes, get stressed, and have to work on getting better. I'm glad the video helped a bit!

I've never heard the phrase "On the hoof" before.

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

I think it's not used too much outside of the UK - means making things up on the fly, on the move, as I'm sure you guessed. Although it CAN sometimes have a negative connotation, like you're doing something in too much of a rush, you can really use it for anything where you're doing something without extensive preparation.

Lol, right off the bat, I did number 1 alot

I wanted to hear your take on game of thrones season 8!

I'm just about to run the demons whitin from your patreon and I'm wondering if you have any tips for running it

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

That's so cool to hear! One of my favorite one-shots to run. The main tips I could give would be (1) keep an eye on the time, so you know whether to run the gnoll fight or not, because you want to give yourself plenty of time for the final graveyard confrontation, and (2) don't hold back on making it a really dark, gothic experience for the players - lots of creepy music, descriptions of the twisted trees and gloomy town, and a good sense of body-horror when the demon reveals itself. I hope it all goes well, good luck!

@mrbones8266

Жыл бұрын

I hope this isn't a too personal question but where are you from in Glasgow? Me and my group are from giffnock

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

@@mrbones8266 I won't get too specific on here, since it's a very public forum, but over in the West of the city. Love Giffnock though, that's such a nice area!

So I am being the DM for the first time, it's hard but not too bad! However I keep planning things and they go super fast, like I plan this small plot line for each session, but that ends up lasting a hour or so, which is fine but it feels bad, to me at least. Any suggestions? Something good I feel I did was adding old characters in from a game I was a player In. We never got to finish that campaign thanks to a friend who was the DM ending up not being our friend anymore. So now I am completing their stories 30 years in the future and so far they love it Side note, I'm glad I'm not the only person who remembers the mentalist

Your confession is accepted

Rather than say the minions run off and get away, say that they try to run off and get slaughtered or ask the players if they want to let them get away. Narrating combat that is inconsequential saves time and it has it's place. Preparing stuff for the players to encounter is not railroading. Railroading is when the DM doesn't let the players come up with alternative solutions to challenges (only the DM's solution will work). Sandbox games can be railroads, the path doesn't matter. Now I really want to hear your take on GOT S8, because I thought it was bad as well.

Release the Game of Thrones rant cut!

@TalesArcane

Жыл бұрын

Ask me about it when I've had a few beers and I'm doing a Live 😅 That last season haunts me.

got season 8 always deserves to be shit on leave it in

👍👍

Nice video, cute guy !

#2 was my mistake. #5 needs to be a constant reminder that the players care not for the lore, let alone remembering details from past sessions.

My group is really into plot and character over mechanics (we don’t even use real systems), but I like to evolve as a GM and I think I do pretty well to avoid some of these, though a couple of them I may be guilty of…