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Physicists have theorized the existence of aDungeons & DragonsDungeon Master who never has an off day, but they have not yet produced one in a laboratory environment. In the meantime, we need to deal with the imperfections of an improvised game format that allows for things to go wrong and the fallible nature of us as mortal participants.
Even with the knowledge it happens to everyone, a poor session can feel like a slug to the gut and can shake our confidence in running future sessions. Here are a few different ways of looking over your performance critically without letting the doubt ruin your game.
Dungeon Masters need to juggle a lot of spinning plates in the process of running a game. Working out which one fell first tells you where to shore things up for next time. Identifying what went wrong is sometimes simple, but other times, you’ll want to carefully think over the events of the session and possibly use a recording.
It isn’t uncommon for a DM to walk away from a session questioning the things they could have done better while the players are all entirely happy with the way the session went. The players don’t have a full picture, but if they walk away having enjoyed the session, then that is a strong point for it not being as bad as you might fear.If you’re overly critical of yourself in front of your players, they might take you at your word and start finding reasons not to have fun.
Consider The Player’s Experience
Your first port of call when trying to improve as a DM is to get feedback from your players after the session. They might want specific changes in how you run the game.
Experienced players and newcomers might havedifferent ideas for how they want the game to be run. One might have home-rule suggestions to streamline the process, while the other may have points of confusion that you can take time to explain away from the table.
People will often give feedback differently when asked in a group setting or privately.In a group setting, you may expect them to elaborate on each other’s points and offer suggestions for improvement.Privately, you can often get deeper feedback on specific points that people feel ‘went wrong’and can be improved.
Consider the feedback you get and what changes you’re able to make to incorporate it.
Examine The Balance Of Gameplay Types In The Session
One of the most common issues that DMs find is a misbalance of the different types of gameplay for the group they’re running for. It can also mean that thesession relied heavily on a pillar of gameplay that they’re less skilled at running.
A Dungeon Master specializing in social encounters and worldbuilding will struggle more in a session where the primary mechanic is combat. Alternatively, there might be a social encounter or puzzle thatstumps the group for longer than you intended.
Some sessions are going to have unavoidable skews one way or the other, especially if running a module. you’re able to manuallyadjust the balance of gameplay by taking out excess encounters or adding new ones in.It can also be worth reconsidering the difficulty of these encounters if they frequently act as stumbling blocks.
Find Stumbling Points In Your DMing
Sometimes, a session spirals out of control because something happens that you didn’t see coming. This often meansyou have to improvise quickly.
When something like this happens, often the best approach is to ask your players for a few minutes break while youlook up rules and plan out the responses of NPCs and the world around them. Often, you’ll still be able to use the material you originally prepared with some modifications.
Resolve And Avoid Interpersonal Conflict
Sometimes, a D&D game devolves into an argument not because of something you threw at the players but because of something you allowed them to do to each other. The classic example isallowing a rogue player to steal from their party membersor set up plans offscreen that work against the group’s best interests.
The biggest tip to avoid fighting between players is to ban fighting between their characters. Unless everyone is explicitly and enthusiastically on board for Player vs Player conflict, don’t allow them to initiate it. This includes moresubtle methods of undermining or working against each other.
Manage The Spotlight
One sign that you’re losing your players’ interest is that they are acting more distracted than usual. Most people won’t check their phones while engaged with the game, but if your focus is split between multiple scenes happening at once,it’s easy for them to tune out the parts their characters aren’t present for.
Some groups may even see this as a way to avoid metagaming with the unfortunate consequence of making the players bored when they can’t see what’s going on.
The most common cause of spotlight issues is that the party got split up.If half the players are exploring and the other half are in combat, the exploring group are going to have a slow gamebecause six seconds of exploration is an entire round of combat.
Drawbacks
No Splitting
Do not allow your players to split up. Explain that forout-of-character reasons, they can’t wanderoff by themselves.
Takes no effort to implement.
Limits player agency and the types of stories you can tell.
Co-DM
A co-DM can givespotlight to players in a different sceneto the one you’re running.
Need to plan and work together with the second DM.
Side Activities
Create ways for players to keep busy when the spotlight isn’t on them. An online game might have an RP channel for players to stay in character when they aren’t the focus of the scene.
Can expand the story and world.
Requires a group who are good roleplayers.
Sometimes a session goes poorly for reasons entirely outside your control.Don’t assume you are at fault. That said, a tutorial on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a bit outside the scope of a D&D guide.
How To Make Your Next Game Better
Recovering from a bad session doesn’t just mean fixing the things that went wrong previously. Those might have been one-off events that won’t be relevant going forward.
Reclaiming the momentum lost by a bad sessioncan often mean wanting to come out swinging and give a strong performance to make up for lost time. Here are a few ways you can achieve that:
Description
Quickly Move To A New Location
Youdon’t want to linger on the gameplay area that holds negative memories for you and the players.If the last session was spent in a single location, either for combat or roleplay, you’ll want to quickly move the narrative to a different location.
Pivot The Gameplay Styles
If your last session was combat-focused, a good way of defusing tension is to use some slower skills and roleplaying challenges. If your bad session spent too long on a skill check or dialogue, you’ll want to do the opposite and inject some extra encounters. The goal here is toshake up the formula and foster engagement from the players who had less to do last time.
Put In Extra Prep Time
If the previous session threatened to go off the rails, you’ll want to think further ahead than usual. Similarly, you canuse extra prep time to do something above your normal level of prep, such as making new battle maps, locations or NPCs.
Each of these methods is going to be somewhat contextual. Sometimes you won’t be able to quickly move on from an area, insert or remove extra combats or find time for bonus prep.The main goal is to produce a different feeling from the previous session.You can achieve this in any number of ways.
