“Hipam, can’t you do anything? Herlia asks with an exasperated tone.

“Well, Miss Herlia, I’m not exactly suited for..”

“What about you you dumb bear?” Herlia yells at the large brown bear at the back of the cave. You’d all found this cave a few weeks ago while looking for shelter. 

“Herlia. I’m not exactly sure something can be done. He’s just lost his uncle. That’s not exactly something you get over in a matter of minutes. Have a little heart.”

Herlia walks up to Hipam who’s sat propped up against the large brown bear. She crouches down in front of him.

“Let me tell you something little halfling. I’ve had my fair share of losses. After all of it, I found my way into the city guard where I could at least do some good. I was able to stop beatings and prevent murder. Now, I’ve been pulled away from that to do what? This?” Herlia gestures to the front of the cave where Ulv sits motionless as snow covers his face. Herlia gets up and walks over to Ulv and spins him around and cries, “Your uncle died but Cojari is still alive and he needs our help. The entire kingdom needs our help. You haven’t said a word in weeks. What are you waiting for?”

No response from Ulv. 

So Herlia punches him in the mouth.

Suddenly, Ulv finds himself on a warm rug. Surprised by the change of scenery, he sits up. He’s in a large teepee made of animal skins. 

What would you like to do?

Intro

Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat! And we’re getting ready for it with this list of Dungeon Master Gift Ideas. Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of D&D.

The first announcement today is who won the giveaway! 

The winner is …… twisted.toga !!!!! I’ll reach out to you today to get you your download key!

We’ll also have some more announcements at the end of today’s show so stick around for that.

Main Topic

With the holiday season fast approaching, I thought it would be a good idea to create a sort of Christmas wishlist for gifts to give to the aspiring Dungeon Master. This list can serve as ideas for you to give a gift to someone else, or you can hand this list over to your significant other to help them with their shopping for you. 

I’ll be honest, this list is pretty long, but that is because there are many things that you can buy for a Dungeon Master. Let me also just say that almost all of these things are “luxury” items. That means you don’t actually need them to play D&D, they’re just really nice to have. I also need to mention that I have no stake in mentioning any of these products. I have not been paid or compensated in any way. I just like them. That said, let’s get into the list and see what I have in my Santa Sleigh of holding….

Player’s Handbook

Number one on the list is really the only thing that you should get for your DM if they don’t already have it. It has the rules of how to play the game as well as the rules on how to create characters. To be honest, though, Wizards of the Coast is releasing Unearthed arcana in parts for free, meaning if you wait long enough, you’ll probably have enough to use to play the game for free anyways. If you want to know about unearthed arcana go back and listen to Episode 68 and Episode 66. But there are two options for buying the player’s handbook. You can get the digital copy (which is being sold on DNDBeyond for $29.99 as of me writing this episode) and the physical copy (which is being sold on Amazon for $22.95 at the time

Want to step up your crafting game in D&D? Think of implementing 3 aspects into your crafting: Skills/Proficiencies, Materials, and Place. These will help you make crafting attainable, story driven, and worth it for your players.

Mentioned in this episode:

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Justin:

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. Today, I am Justin Lewis. I actually am always Justin Lewis, but today I'm joined with Tanner Whelan. Go ahead and say hi, Tanner.

Tanner Weyland:

Hey guys.

Justin:

And we have today with us a very special guest, Victor Baveen. And for me, he's kind of, he has a special place in my heart because I first got introduced to really anything to do with Dungeons and Dragons by listening to the R.A. Salvatore books about Dredd Stoerden. I listened to them on audiobook and the voice actor who really personified, in my opinion, Drizztorodin was Victor Bavine. So having him here with us is a real treat for me personally because, like I said, I have fond memories of long road trips, listening to Drizzt battle the monsters of the Underdark and then make his way to the surface and kind of go through a, you know, a similar trek I think a lot of us go through when we're trying to find out who we are and where we fit in life. Thank you for being here, Victor. And if you want to, you can add to that introduction however you want. But thank you for being here.

Victor:

Sure, my pleasure. I'm thrilled that I've been doing the Driz books for about 10 years now. And I think I'm up to 40 plus. I've done all but I think three of them. And those were done before I got involved. And yeah, I've been an actor my whole life and I'm also a writer and entrepreneur. started doing audiobooks about 17 years ago and this was one of the first really big projects that I got. So, you know, I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled the fans like it. I get a lot of really fun emails. In fact, the best one I've ever, one of the best ones I've ever gotten, I don't want to choose best, but this guy wrote me and said how... he was going blind actually, and he was unable to read to his children anymore. And so they would listen to the DRISD books as bedtime stories together. And it really brought a tear to my eye. So I'm thrilled

Tanner Weyland:

Wow.

Victor:

to be here, but I love the books, I'm thrilled to be here.

Justin:

Awesome. Yeah. Having experiences like that has to be life changing because in, you know, in accounting, you don't have the opportunity to change someone's life like that. Right. So, uh, well, let's get into some of our questions. Uh, and, you know, I thought one reason having you on the podcast would be so great is because as people play Dungeons and Dragons, uh, one thing that a lot of people kind of are drawn towards naturally is just kind of the the attempts at voice acting. And I think it's a really great way to help your players become immersed. And so I thought it would be a great, a great thing to have you on and kind of talk about that. But you also mentioned that you're also a writer. So tell us a little bit kind of how you got into voice acting and writing and kind of how those two interweave and things like that.

Victor:

Well, I pretty much always wanted to be an actor. I decided when I was five that I wanted to be an actor because I saw this TV show. I wasn't allowed to have a dog. I really wanted a dog and my mom wouldn't let me get a dog. And I saw this TV show about vaudeville and there was this one dog act and I got into my head that as an actor, I could have a dog.

Tanner Weyland:

Ha

Victor:

And

Tanner Weyland:

ha.

Victor:

so anyway, so I decided I always wanted to be an actor and then I always thought it was, I love to read and I, you know, I just... Classically trained as an actor, so I've done a lot of Shakespeare. So I think it really sets you up well for reading large blocks of text and making it understandable, cuz that's the trick of being a narrator is knowing how to use language, what we would call heightened language to. to tell the story, but at the same time,...

In this episode, we learn how to focus... not in general, but rather how to focus on a short list of problem areas rather than a multitude so you can see some real growth as a DM.

We also share some announcements for what's happening with us, the podcast, and the closure of Monsters.Rent... But the rise of something you'll enjoy much more. Stay tuned.

Session0Studios.com

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

This is a special bonus episode.

In today's episode we give you Episode 2 of the Pact and Boon actual play D&D show.

If you want to subscribe to the show, check out session0studios.com/pactnboon

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

You sit down at the fire. You’ve traveled a long distance to reach these particular nomads. You’ve heard tell that these nomads have mystical powers and can guide you on finding unknowable secrets. You look around. Their long arms show a fierce exterior, but they’ve let you sit in their circle. They’ve shared their meat with you. Their hair hides their faces though you can see pinpricks of light reflect off of their eyes and hidden behind their hair. They seem to look at you expectantly.

“Um… what am I…”

It’s at that moment that one of their numbers starts beating a drum produced from somewhere within the folds of their outer garments. More drums are produced and the rhythm continues and amplifies. Soon the sound of beating drums is all you hear. It echoes the beating of a heart. Not your heart but the communal heart of this tribe.

You let yourself fall into the rhythm. After a moment, you notice an elder stand up and walk towards the central fire. He chants some things and then throws some dust into the fire. There’s a puff of green smoke and you smell a distinct earthy smell. Soon, your senses become slurred and you seem to drift from reality.

Your eyes open and instead of at a ritual fire, you’re standing waist-deep in the ocean. You look over and see another tribal member standing with you. You both wield spears and look for fish. You throw your spear. 

Flash.

Instead of being near a ritual fire, you’re crouching low in a snowy copse of trees. You peer out from behind some bushes and see an auroch munching on greenery. The rest of your hunting party has snuck around to flank the beast. You hear the double hoot of an owl. That’s the signal. You jump up and charge to attack the beast.

Flash.

Instead of at a ritual fire, you’re in a grotto. You see a large stone monolith. Inscribed on the giant stone are ancient runes. They glow softly blue in the dim light. At the base of the monolith is a pool of water that seems pure and as you approach it starts to glow light blue. This is what you’ve come for.

So what would you like to do?

Welcome back to another episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and together you and I will learn how to tell better stories as we DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons 5e. 

First of all, I’ve got to say thank you so much. Since we started the show, we’ve seen amazing growth that I never could have predicted. It’s all because of you guys. You guys have allowed us to create cool content and spread it to some awesome people.

Next don’t forget to listen to the end of today’s episode to hear how you can support the show.

Today, let’s talk about immersion. 

Now, I’m not going to be talking about Virtual Reality, though we can all expect that within our lifetimes we’ll see all sorts of leaps in bounds in that area.

No, I’m talking about learning to help your players feel like they are in your world. You have to help your players slip the bonds of our time and space and instead drift through the planes to the material plane on which you play D&D.

Better descriptions

No amount of cool voice-changing software or LED lights will cover up bad storytelling. Storytelling is character, plot, voice, and conflict. It’s also scene. You need to be able to paint pictures with your words. 

Work on your descriptions of all points of your gameplay. There’s a fine balancing act here though. You can’t take forever describing something but you also shouldn’t do it in just one word. You need to be concise and evocative. 

It’s helpful to describe things using your senses. Don’t forget that sixth sense we all get. You know like when there’s tension in the air and no one is saying anything but you can feel that something is wrong.

One thing I’d recommend...

Tanner Weyland:

Hello, this is Tanner Weyland. Welcome back to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. I'm here with Justin Lewis. Say hi, Justin.

Justin:

Justin.

Tanner Weyland:

Hey, hey, no, don't do that. Just kidding, I'm joking.

Justin:

I'm sorry.

Tanner Weyland:

It's great to have you. Ha ha ha.

Justin:

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Tanner Weyland:

Perfect. So if anyone's new to the podcast, we are going to learn a bit about how to bring our DMing and storytelling to the next level. And today's podcast is kind of a thought experiment. Why don't we see more marriage and families happening, you know, with your players characters? Like, why aren't they starting their own little families and having little kids that they name and train and everything else, right? That's kind of the thought experiment, and finding out if, as DMs, we can do this and make it an enriching and enhancing part of an adventure. First off, Justin, what do you think about this topic?

Justin:

I think it is an amazing topic. First of all, for those of you who don't know, I'm actually expecting my first child as this podcast releases. My wife's due date is August 4th, so it's like two, a week and a half away. So thinking about families is definitely the top of mind. And so I've been thinking of different book ideas that can involve having a baby or just all sorts of. fun ideas and I think and actually on a different side note my own campaign my players have gotten pretty good like they're pretty high level and it's hard for me to throw a balanced challenge at them without killing them and so I was thinking you know what maybe I'll just give them like a baby and they'll just have to deal with that you know

Tanner Weyland:

Just do a little bit of just giving them responsibility, a cold

Justin:

Mm-hmm.

Tanner Weyland:

hard slice of responsibility and see how they deal with it.

Justin:

Exactly. I mean, the unfortunate part of doing that would be is how they treat NPCs thus far is not generally good. So I'm kind of

Tanner Weyland:

No.

Justin:

afraid, you know.

Tanner Weyland:

Well, that's perfect. I mean, in a way that kind of speaks to one of the opportunities of, uh, of making, you know, player relationships actually lead to kind of emotional attachment that speaks to it, right? Cause it's like, you can tell different stories if the players feel emotionally connected, because I think a lot of really great characters, players will try and do that naturally, you know, they'll try and be like, oh, let's find the emotional connection. that would make my character actually want to go save this town or save this little girl who got kidnapped or something, right? But not all players are like that, right? And so kind of giving them that natural connection of like, hey, it's your wife, it's your fiancee, it's the girl in the town who you've been spending more time with or your child. I think that that's just a very natural way to get player buy-in. if that makes sense.

Justin:

Yeah, and I think that can also be a reason why Dungeon Masters might avoid the family just because it might not feel earned, you know?

Tanner Weyland:

Mmm.

Justin:

Or you're trying to establish some sort of family relationship with a character, or sorry, not a character, with a player that generally doesn't do much role playing. And I mean, if you do that, there's a big chance that they'll be like, oh hey brother, okay bye, right. not a big payoff.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that kind of leads naturally into what I want to talk about next, which is like, why don't

Last time our adventurers found themselves fighting a rug of smothering which had completely smothered Ulv. Luckily the group was able to dispatch the rug rather quickly and were able to continue on their journey. The group then entered what appeared to be a library. This library seemed completely empty which caused minor consternation for the whole group. The group then entered what seemed like a small plush office that had 3 books of interest. Two of the books were about necromancy and curses. The last book turned out to be the first journal of Anandra. Contemplating this turn of events, the group re-entered the library, only to find it was now filled with books. The group decided to investigate various books but as soon as they did, the books seemed to animate and started attacking the party. The group discovered the doors were locked and after trying to light the books on fire, they realized the books weren’t going away. After taking a brief break in the den, the group set out with a new plan that turned out to be the right one. The group ended up finding the second journal of Anandra which triggered all the animated books to stop. 

At this point, the group had explored all the first level of the manor. The group decided to finish exploring the first level before going to Gamaileil and asking their question. This led the group to experiment with the grey potion. This potion turned everyone in the group into a faded, a being who is neither dead, alive, nore undead, but something in between. As soon as this happened, group was able to take the stairs down into the basement. Who knows what the group will uncover down there. 

As the group walks down the stairs they notice their surroundings in muted towns. You reach the bottom and find yourself in a long room with a second set of stairs on the far side of the room that lead up. The room is empty aside from pillars interspersed throughout the room holding it up. There are doors on your right and left. You also notice writing along the walls of this room, similar to the great hall directly above you. What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 7th episode  of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, and we are going to help you tell better stories while you DM a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

In this show, I share somethings that have helped me as a DM so you can enjoy this wonderful game. 

Before we get to today’s show, another shoutout to Cowchy Audio who does the audio work for this show. If you need audio help, reach out to @kahootaz on Instagram and he’ll hook you up. 

Today let’s get simple and quick and talk about my method for planning in between sessions. This isn’t a perfect method, but it’s certainly helped me. 

1. Write a recap. 

Some might rif on this at the beginning of the session, but I find it more helpful to write this beforehand. Doing so does two things for me. First, it helps remind me what happened in the last session. Rarely do I start preparing for the next session right after the previous one. It’s also great to let the players know what happened last time. The second thing it does for me is help get the brain juices flowing. It’s a lot easier to think of new things after I’ve had the simple exercise of summarizing what happened last time. If you need an example of what this looks like go back and listen to the first snippet of today’s episode because that is the actual recap of my last session that I played with my friends.

1. Figure out Generally What Happens Next

If the party is currently in a dungeon or going through some sort of fortress or something like that, this gets pretty easy. You can look at the map of wherever the players are and think about where they will go next logically. 

If you are using an adventure guidebook, this means reading ahead to understand what should probably...

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent

We have an awesome podcast today for you. We were able to sit down and chat with Andrew Ashby, owner of We Geek Together. We Geek Together is a store focused on Tabletop Gaming but themed after a tavern, and it's located in Provo Utah. Last April, Andrew hosted the Dead Wars, which was a 1000+ Player D&D game that broke a world record. Today we talk a lot about Dead Wars but also about some important tips for DMs of all experience levels. Below are a list of questions we had prepared for Andrew, but the conversation was so much better than these questions.

Andrew also started his own podcast as well which you can find on his website.

Show Notes:

Warm up question: what have you been geeking out about recently?

Section 1: Dead Wars

Summary- Talking about orchestrating Dead Wars

Questions:

Where did the idea first begin for you to beat the world record?

What was the session prep like?

What were the biggest hurdles you had to overcome and how did you get past them?

How was finding players and DMs for the event similar to finding players for a normal game? Different?

Would you recommend this style of group D&D play to DMs wanting to get a big group together?

What tips would you give to any DM who wants to put on a multiple group session or event?

Section 2: Running the Tavern

Summary - Talking about setting up a D&D business that is very welcoming of DMs

Questions:

What made you want to start this kind of business?

How did you test and prove your business idea?

What specific goals or values are the focus of WGT?

What would you say is the best part of WGT for DMs, specifically?

How did you figure out what to put in the tavern?

Section 3: Patterns of the Most Successful DMs

Summary - talking about what sets the best DM’s apart

Questions:

What positive patterns do you see in the groups that play the most often?

How do your regular DMs do effective session prep? And how do they create immersion?

What sorts of tools or equipment do your regular DMs use?

What are the most noticeable differences between an engaged table of players, and one that is stalled?

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be...

Welcome to How to Be a Better DM.

Today we talk about how to start an actual play podcast, how to keep going with a creative idea and how to make it happen with Brennon from the Afterlife Pod.

Today is part 1 of a special 2-part series. The 2nd part of this show is over on the Afterlife Pod. You can find out more about the Afterlife Pod at https://www.patreon.com/AfterlifePod/

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

“This is it?” Ulv asked in a hushed whisper.

“You wanted rebels. These are the only ones I know of. They’ve come here to talk to you, now say something.” Herlia responds tersely.

You sigh and step forward. You look around the basement of the tavern. Only a few candles hang around giving the room a gloomy cast. You meet the eyes of each of the 5 people sitting on barrels in this dank cellar.

“Thank you for meeting me. My companion here told me that you’ve had certain misgivings about the current regime?” Ulv pauses to let the listeners absorb his words.

“Ay, and we’ve come here to see that justice is done upon his cursed head. Are you gonna’ lead us to march against the king? Are we goin ta fight?” says one burly woman loudly. The others nod their heads and crack their knuckles.

“Your courage is to be admired, but we’re here just to observe and strategize. We don’t want to take any undue risks. Now, who is your leader?” Ulv asks.

“Oh, you mean Burto? He’s a tactical genius he is.”

“Great, where is this Burto?” Ulv asks.

“Oh, he’s in prison.”

What would you like to do?

[caption id="attachment_2380" align="aligncenter" width="800"]

Photo by Stephen Hardy on Pexels.com[/caption]

Every dungeons and dragons game starts with character creation and if you don’t help your characters flesh our a good backstory, your players will have a stale character they won’t much like. Today, let’s fix that.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m Justin Lewis and I’ll be your host and DM today as you and I learn how to craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons.

Today we will be talking about writing backstories, but first some housekeeping items.

As I said before, we have our one-shot in September coming up on September 17th. All the slots for that are already filled but if you want to watch that show you can go to https://betterdungeonmaster.com/watch to watch the whole One-Shot at the time of the game. Otherwise sign up for October’s one-shot with guest host Bone Daddy from This Dungeon is Occupied.

Now, let’s talk about writing backstories.

As we’ve said before, having your players flesh out their character at the beginning can help set them up for an incredible time playing D&D with you as their Dungeon Master. One big part of fleshing out their character is writing their back story. If there’s one thing that any Dungeon Master is aware of it’s that their players rarely write their backstories and if they do, they don’t do it to the level we need. Well, no longer. You see, you, as their DM, will be able to ask them these questions and help them generate the back story they need. If you want, you can even write what they say down. Just make sure to form it in these terms.

One last thing that I’d like to add before we get started. Help your players write backstories that are equal to their level. A level 1 character has only ever done level 1 things and lower. That doesn’t mean that they can’t have an interesting backstory. Instead, what it does mean is that the impact of what they’ve done is generally very small and localized, affecting mostly themselves and their family. They’ve never saved the world. In most cases, they may never have slain anything. For many level 1 characters, causing death is something they learn to do after they start adventuring. If a character is the exception then that should be a huge part of their backstory. What they’ve done is small but the...

Here are some things Tanner and Justin want to work on for 2023.

End of the year

1. DM Tips and Techniques Book
2. Dungeon Master Kit
3. Adding new team members to the show
4. Liveplay Show
5. More Dungeon Master Critique Episodes
6. A Discord

Mentioned in this episode:

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Ulv’s Story continued

“Mother?” Ulv whispered as he moved towards the visage of his long-dead mother.

“It is I little snowhare,” Ulv’s mother said, using Ulv’s childhood pet name. When he was younger, his hair was so blonde it was almost white. His mother had taken to calling him snowhare when he was a baby. Even though he’d hated the nickname as a teenager, she’d still used it. Now, hearing that nickname pricked his heart and tears slowly formed at the corner of his eyes.

“Yes, young one. We have come to oversee your trial.” Said a much more masculine voice. Ulv watched as the visage of his father appeared next to his mother, his arm resting lightly on her shoulder. “Honestly son, we are disappointed.”

Ulv stared dumbfounded. He’d expected them to say something comforting, but instead, they were here to judge him?

“We expected more from the youth who downed a frost cat in his 11th winter. Truly, what have you been doing?” Ulv’s father continued.

Ulv’s mouth went dry. “I..I..”

“Son, you cannot sit in dreams forever. Herlia and Hipam both need your help.” Ulv’s mother admonished.

“Cojari needs your help son. The Kingdom of the Golden Deer needs your help.” Ulv’s father added.

“But aren’t you here for the trials?” Ulv asked, confused.

“We are,” Ulv’s father said as he looked at Ulv’s mother. “But this vision, it is only a part of your trial. It is the initiation. You aren’t supposed to complete the trial here. Your trial is set to take place with the help of your friends.” Ulv’s father paused. “Son, you can’t just keep wasting away your time. I know it’s hard. You failed. Judir is dead. Nothing you can do can change that.”

Tears began falling slowly down Ulv’s face.

“I’m so untouchable,” Ulv said, bitterness punctuating his comment. “Everyone around me dies or is lost to me. Why is it me that has to survive? Why can’t I pass on to the realm of the gods? Why did you have to leave me?” Ulv said as his knees buckled and he slumped down to all fours.

“Son, Judir made his own choice. As did we all. You’ve been saved for something else. It doesn’t matter who lives and who dies. What matters now is the present. What matters is that you have 3 friends who desperately need you. Save those that can still be saved.” Ulv’s mother whispered into his ear.

What would you like to do?

Intro

Welcome back, dungeon masters. Today, you’re with me, Justin Lewis as we discuss mob combat. We all love to watch movies with amazing battle scenes at the end. I’m talking about Lord of the Rings when Aragon charges Mordor with the armies of all men behind him. I’m talking about basically every Star Wars movie ever that ends with one side fighting another. I’m talking about Avengers End Game where all of the snapped people come back to fight the final battle scene.

In each of these scenes, we have the main characters who fight their adversaries. We also see nameless foes occasionally jump into the mix to fight the main characters. On an individual basis, these nameless enemies are no match for our heroes, but in the sheer volume in which they are usually present, they present a formidable obstacle. 

So, today, let’s talk about using Mob combat effectively.

What is Mob Combat?

In simple terms, mob combat is using many low-level adversaries in an encounter to pose a much larger threat when all combined. This is the idea of throwing numerous baddies at your adventurers that, when encountered alone, would be just one swipe of an axe, but together, are endless axe swings. This is the concept of numbers over skill. 

You can use mob combat in many different situations. It doesn’t need to be an enormous battle scene like any I’ve mentioned before. One example is a swarm of ravenous ants. Sure the players can swipe at each of them individually, but an area of effect would work a lot better, as would just running...

Welcome to How to Be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. I’m your host today, Justin Lewis, and together we are going to talk about how to improve your gameplay both from a mechanical and storytelling point of view.

Today, I’m excited to talk about an aspect of the game that for me holds a lot of interest and for a lot of people can be a rich source of story elements and intrigue. At the same time, for other people it can be completely boring, and possibly offputting. I’m talking about Gods, faith and religion.

Before I get into the rest of today’s episode, I want to take a moment to talk about The Guild. For those of you who don’t know, the Guild is our unique membership for dungeon masters. It allows you to connect with other DMs like yourself and get access to a library of video courses and downloadable resources for your gameplay. Oh and it’s 100% free. I hope you’ll join us there, so go to monsters.rent/get-started and scroll all the way to the bottom.

Table Comfort

Now, the very first thing you need to do is assess your table’s comfort level with the topics of God, Religion, and Faith. In some cases, you’ll have a natural understanding. In my case, a few members of my table are also members of my faith, so I knew that they would be ok having some of those topics in the game. 

In other circumstances, it would be a smart idea to ask if the table is alright with those themes and topics being in the game. In most D&D settings, having a mystical god or gods is all part and parcel to the game, but depending on how your players feel about it, then you might want to tread lightly. Some games might be focused on the path of divinity, others might have gods as simply an afterthought. No matter what you do, you want to avoid these two mistakes.

Avoid Pushing Religion

Saying this as a religious person, you absolutely do not want to turn your D&D sessions into sermons. I know you’re probably thinking that that would kind of be funny, and it might, but honestly, you don’t want to force players into roleplaying something they don’t want to roleplay. A person’s faith is a very personal thing, and if someone is not a person of faith, religion or Diety, then they don’t have to be even in a make-believe world.

Avoid Making A Farce of Religion

On the other side of the coin, you definitely don’t want to make fun of religion and make it appear as something that is farcical. Even though your players may be ok with it, it’s best not to form bad habits because there will come a time when you sit down to play at a table with someone who cares, and then you’ll make the slip up of a lifetime. Best to avoid those big mistakes. Extend the same consideration and courtesy you would to any other sort of way of life.

Now, with your players on board for having Gods be an active part of the game, let’s talk about some other questions you need to ask. These questions apply to both homebrew settings and settings that are prewritten, but the questions will apply a little differently to each. 

How Involved Will Your Gods Be

The first question that you need to ask is how involved will Godhood (god or gods) be in your setting or game. This is important because if they won’t even matter, then you likely don’t need anything else in this episode. I’d still recommend listening to the end because you never know when a player might ask you a question or make a choice that will make the gods much more involved.

In different settings, Gods behave differently. In some games, Gods are active members of the universe, granting divine boons with ease. In other settings, Gods are basically hidden from sight, deigning not to intervene with their followers’ lives. 

It’s important that you know which type of setting yours is and how the Gods will interact with players and NPCs alike....

Tanner Weyland:

Hello and welcome to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. My name is Tanner Weyland and I'm here with Justin Lewis. Say hi.

Justin:

Hi there.

Tanner Weyland:

Well, everyone, we are so happy to be together. As you know, Justin with his new baby, we haven't had as much of a chance to record. How's it been, Justin?

Justin:

Honestly, having a baby is easier and harder, much harder than I thought, right? It's just, it's crazy. The effect. Honestly, if that doesn't tell you what you need

Tanner Weyland:

I'm

Justin:

to know about

Tanner Weyland:

sorry.

Justin:

having a baby, then I don't know what would.

Tanner Weyland:

Exactly. I love that though that Jan was timed perfectly.

Justin:

Seriously.

Tanner Weyland:

Either way, we're super happy to have you back and just to be recording again. Let's let's hop into a fun little topic, kind of a creativity focused topic about how to make a campaign that is focused on going on an expedition. namely what makes an expedition-based campaign different from a normal campaign. Now, Justin, have you ever seen any movies that come to mind of an expedition or a journey or something like that?

Justin:

Absolutely. There are many, many out there. And just to give you kind of an idea of sort of the breadth that you can go when you think of Expedition, there's Atlantis, the Disney animated movie, which is a hidden treasure, I'd say. I would love to play a D&D campaign in that world. That would be so fun. And on the other hand, there's Alien versus Predator. Both of those are expeditions right but obviously there's twists and turns along the way

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, exactly. You know, I think. I think it's such an important story format for movies especially, but for D&D there's so many great things that you can do with it. Many D&D campaigns, like longer running campaigns, kind of take the form of an expedition or they can, but I think that there are specific things that you can do that can kind of set it apart and offer a new type of experience. to players. But you know, I think that our greatest teacher of what makes an expedition different from a normal campaign is Dora the Explorer, if we're being honest.

Justin:

Yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

I just I was thinking about it earlier and I was like actually she's like the kind of format of her thing of like, oh we need something we're going to go through this dark tunnel around the mountain, you know, for anyone who isn't from the US, Door of the Explorer is this cartoon that, you know, was supposed to teach, you know, English speaking. Children about how to speak Spanish, right? It was mostly in English But you know she'd have teach some Spanish phrases and the kind of the whole thing was like, oh she needed an object In order to get the object she would find the map in her backpack Look at it. It'd be like oh you do these go past these three places with their own challenges And then you reach the thing that you're trying to get and that's kind of I think that can really be a good benchmark for what makes an expedition different.

Justin:

Yeah, it's kind of the idea of... Well, and I guess we need to be careful when talking about expedition because it could be easy to think, oh, well, that's just the hero's journey, right? Because the hero is supposed to, you know, theoretically go on this quest. But generally expeditions have sort of a different feel, right? With the hero's journey... there's the quest, but I feel like the expedition, one of the biggest parts of the expedition is the travel. Right? It's the idea that we, like the quest is to travel, you know, to go there, to get there. And...

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today we talk about how to bounce back after a bad session. Today is also a very special episode as it is our first published Dungeon Master Coaching episode.

If you want to sign up for some dungeon master coaching, go to https://session0studios.com/coaching/

If you let us record the first session, the first session is free.

Mentioned in this episode:

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Sorry I'm a day late uploading! Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://mailchi.mp/05e568274671/subscription-page

By subscribing, you'll get access to behind the scenes content, bonus content, home-brew content and more.

In today's episode, we talk about how to prepare your players for a D&D session. We discuss things like useful materials for players, Rules and mechanics of gameplay, and giving players feedback on how to enhance their gameplay experience.

Please leave a review if you enjoy the episode, and feel free to reach out to us with questions or topics you'd like to see in the future!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

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Patreon

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

The grand city of Tornlock boasts a population of 100,000 citizens. From the port district to the affluent Crown district, many call this city their home. In a city like this though, many find themselves in less than fortunate circumstances.

You and your companions find yourselves in an Inn, sleeping when a loud knocking on your doors awakens you. It’s a member of the guard. He informs you that Lawmaster Sotan requires your immediate presence. After you and your companions prepare yourselves for the day, you follow the guard out the inn and into a slightly overcast day. 

The guard leads you down main streets, side roads, and eventually leads you to an alleyway in a darker part of town. He leads you toward a small huddle of guardsmen in the center of the alley way. As you approach, a head raises from the group and signals to you all a basic, if not taciturn greeting. It’s Lawmaster Sotan. You and your companions had worked with the Aasimar on a few occasions and your dealings had always been cordial and productive.

“Good morning adventurers. I apologize for the inconvenience at having to wake you at such an early hour, but it could not be helped. Please inspect the grisly scene before us and tell me what insights you can glean. We will talk more after you’ve had a chance to examine the corpse,” Sotan says as he beckons you and your companions forward.

The group of guards part and you encounter one of the most grisly scenes of your life. A pastel purple tiefling lies on the ground, eyes wide open starting silently into the gray sky. The body lies with arms and legs akimbo, tied to four posts stuck in the ground. A look of deep fear and consternation adorns the face, frozen in time forever. You also notice the tieflings chest and

belly are flayed open revealing the internal organs of the once living tiefling. Blood has splattered all over the alley way and footprints of blood leave down the opposite side of the alley.

You turn to talk to Lawmaster Sotan, but not before he says, “This is the third victim exactly like this in 15 days. We need your help.”

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 16th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m here to help you create better stories for yourself and your friends while you play Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Thanks for coming back for yet another episode. I really appreciate your patronage and your support. 

So let’s get into today’s episode.

As you build out your stories, one-shots and campaigns, you’ll indubitably need resources. Whether you need maps, monsters, or motivation there are many places to find what you need. Here are my top places I go for resources.

1. Google search

Almost without exception, a simple search on the internet will give me a quick path to what I need. Now, obviously this will take you to the place you need to go, but never underestimate the power of a Google search. For example, I built out a one-shot recently and I needed a very specific type of monster. So I just searched on Google and it took me to what I need. The only caveat here is that if you are streaming or putting your content out commercially, you need to make sure that whatever stuff you pull from the internet is ok to use in that way. 

1. Instagram

This is more of passive method for finding cool things, but as I scroll and I find cool things, I just save them in different saved collections. I have a collection for Monsters, Items, simple hacks, Story Hooks and more. Specifically with monsters, items and story hooks there are many Instagram profiles out there that constantly put out new monsters, items and story hooks. I would share them but I have not gotten the ok to so if you want to check them out go to my Instagram @geronimolevis and go to the list of profiles I follow and give it a look.

1. D&D...

You’ve probably wondered if you could do or give more. Specifically with your roleplaying, you may have finished a session and thought that you could do better. I’ve been there too. I’ve had many sessions where I’ve wished that I was a much better roleplayer.

Luckily today, we’re going to share 7 tips to help you give more to your roleplaying.

Welcome to How to Be a Better DM.

This is the show that helps you speed up the learning curve of being a DM without spending extra time, and extra hassle.

I’m Justin Lewis, and I’ve been helping dungeon masters now for over 150 episodes. I’ve spoken with Voice Actors, writers and even real life experts, all to help you be a Better DM.

Why Give more to your Roleplaying:

• We’ve all had those experiences after a really good roleplay where there’s almost this stunned silence
• Part of why we got into D&D was to reach that full immersion
• Your players want you to give everything you have

How to Give more to your Roleplaying:

• Be vulnerable
• Try things that may not work out
• Think about your players altruistically
• Forget yourself
• Try some real life Improv Classes
• Practice your Acting/Public Speaking
• Use the White Space of DMing

Mentioned in this episode:

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Being a dungeon master: The Best and Worst Things

“Where are they?” You ask as you shepherded into this enormous cavern.

“Wait. Soon, you will see.” Gavrat responds. You’ve never liked dealing with the ratlike shifter. Even though most of his features are human, the ratlike features on his face are unsettling. Particularly the teeth that stick out under his rat-like nose. He guides you through the rocky outcroppings until you all see tremendous mushrooms start to fill the back end of the cavern.

“We don’t have time for this Gavrat. Where is the patron and what kind of job is this?” You ask impatiently.

“Don’t worry. Just ahead.

You continue walking with Gavrat and walk deep into this grove of giant mushrooms. 

Suddenly, Gavrat stops. “We are here.” he says with a smile.

You only hear silence.

“Gavrat, if you’ve led us here on a wild goose chase, I will skin you alive.”

“Do not trouble the rat man. I am here.” a strange voice says. “I am the one you seek.” You look around but you see no speaker. Suddenly you see the large mushroom in front of you start to turn and move towards you. You notice arms, a mouth and eyes. 

The myconid emanates a cloud of spores that hits you and suddenly you hear, “I am Hymotobor. I have a job for you.”

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis, and together you and I will learn how to tell better stories as we DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

As you may have noticed, lots of things are changing on the podcast. I hope you like the changes but if not please let me know. Go to our new Instagram @howtobeabetterdm and let us know!

Now being a DM isn’t all fun and games… we’ll technically it is, cuz this is just a game.

Sometimes being a DM can be downright difficult, fortunately, othertimes, being a DM is the greatest thing in the world! So let’s get down to real talk. What are the best and worst things about being a DM?

The best thing about being a DM

1. Not having to rely on someone else to initiate D&D

In my experience, finding a DM that can keep up the campaign every single week can be difficult. Sometimes people just lose steam. The sucky part is that you still want to play D&D. Being a DM means that you can always at least control having something prepared to play. The hard part is finding people to play with you.

1. Seeing the wonder in your player’s eyes

There’s something magical about creating a story and shepherding people through it. I can remember a few moments specifically. When my players in my current campaign were going through a haunted mansion and some undead guards were about to fight my group. One of my players recognized the sigil of the guards and the nation where they came from. He started reciting the national oath of that country. Because it was such a cool moment, I had the undead guards join in, and instead of fighting the group, the guards passed by them. My players all looked like those anime characters with their big shiny eyes when something amazing happens. It was awesome. Being able to help create that is something special.

1. Walking through my ideas

As a DM, when you come up with a cool idea, you can actually play through it. I remember as a Player I would think of all sorts of cool things that I would love to see. As a DM, I can actually put that stuff in. More often than not, that means my stories are too chock full of stuff and perhaps a little too bloated, but that’s something I’m working on. At least, I don’t have to have a little black book of all my cool ideas that I will never ever use.

1. Knowing the Story

One of the best (and worst) parts of being a DM is knowing how the story ends. I get

It's another beautiful day to learn about How to Be a Better DM! Tanner shares how you can spice up a lackluster combat encounter as a DM, which should be a key part of your preparations for each session. Let's roll initiative!

Other than that, we have a favor to ask you: We are always trying to be better DMs, but we also want to become better podcast hosts so we can be more helpful and interesting to you. As part of that, we need your feedback. We set up a super quick survey at: https://betterdungeonmaster.com/feedback.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today we talk about the afterlife. Listen to episode 109 of our show to learn about death in D&D if you want more on this topic.

Here are some questions to help you flesh out the topic of the afterlife in you

1. Is there an afterlife?
2. How many types are there? With many different gods who rule over many different domains, you need to know how many afterlifes are there?
3. Are there any negative ones?
4. What is it like in any of those afterlifes? You need some sort of description of the experience a soul would have in that afterlife.
5. What interactions do souls have with their deity and with other souls?
6. What determines whether they end up in one afterlife versus another? Is it a pick and choose, or do actions determine the eternal resting place of a soul.
7. Is there a chance you end up where you don’t want to be?
8. Is it permanent? Once you’re in one type of afterlife, can you change to a different afterlife, even if you don’t want to?
9. Has anyone returned to life from the afterlife? If so, what do they remember?
10. Do people know or understand the afterlife?

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Things Every Dungeon Master Should Remember

As a Dungeon Master you have so much to remember, it’s a wonder you can even remember your own name. Yet, what if, by remembering a few more things, you were able to not only make your game better, but feel better yourself, and make everything you do as a Dungeon Master better?

I know what it’s like to deal with all the disappointment of a dungeon master. You deal with so much and rarely get thanked for it. Yet that’s ok, because you didn’t get into this game to be thanked. You got into the game to be the best Dungeon Mater you could ever be.

To become the best, here are 11 things that you need to remember.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. This is the show for the Dungeon Master who has other things going on in their life and doesn’t have any extra time to work on their craft. We’ve been crafting episodes just for you for the last 3 years or so, and today are bringing you another personally crafted episode to help you amplify your dungeon master skills.

This will be part 1 of this episode with part 2 coming out tomorrow.

Today I'm going to continue on a topic that hearkens back to episode 2!

Here are 11 things every dungeon master should remember.

It’s Not Your Sole Responsibility to Make the Game Amazing

You Get What You Give

It’s All a Skill

You Are Not Matt Mercer or Brenden Lee Mulligan

You Don’t Have to Be Completely Original

Show Don’t Tell

Make It Corny Until It’s Not

It’s Just a Game

Be In the Moment

Your Best Is Yet to Come

It’s Not the Accent but the Actor

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Play D&D with Us

Did you know that you can have one of our hosts here at How to Be a Better DM be your dungeon master? That’s right. All of our podcast hosts are professional dungeon masters that you can hire for your private or corporate dungeons and dragons game. We can do one-shots or long-term campaigns. If you want to schedule your first session with us, go to https://session0studios.com/dungeon-master-for-hire/ and get started.

Dungeon Master for Hire

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

You and your friends walk into the deepest catacomb of the crypt. The summons you’d received were cryptic and specific. It said to descend to the lowest portion of the crypt in order to receive a special mission. You’ve passed ancient bones and less ancient bones, and now you find yourself in a large room completely made out of stone. Bluish light seems to emanate from the corners of the room but you see no movement. Suddenly, mist fills the floor of the room, bubbling up as if from some great beast’s maw.In the corner you see an object rise off of a shelf. It floats towards you. As it enters the light, you see a single floating skull with jewels for eyes and teeth. A Demilich. You and your companions draw your weapons when you hear a voice.

“Wait.”

The voice is small and childlike. It emanates from the skull.

“I called you here. I am Isaac. I don’t know how, but I’ve somehow been trapped as a demilich. I’ve been here for so long and have only recently heard of your exploits. I know I look like a demilich, but I’m really just a child. This form has imbued with its knowledge but I just want to go home. Please, there is an artifact that has great power. Retrieve it and bring it back to return me to life as small boy. I’ll give you whatever I have. Please just help me.”

You stare in disbelief. You look at your companions, all equally bewildered.

You open your mouth to speak.

What do you do?

Welcome back to the 13th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m here to help you create better stories for you and your players as you dungeon master games of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Again, thanks for listening to today’s show and without further ado, let’s dive right in.

Here are 5 Signs of a Bad Dungeon Master

Obviously, right off the bat, you should know that the purpose of this episode is to help you not be a bad dungeon master. So don’t do or be these things.

1. Forcing storylines.

It’s one thing to create obvious plot paths. It’s another thing to make players turn their characters around to go the way you want them to when they were presented a choice and they chose the other way. D&D is all about role-playing and immersing yourself in the story. If you feel your character can’t choose anything they want to do, they won’t have as much fun. Relax. Your players will choose to do something completely different than what you want. That’s ok. In fact, in my campaign (Princes of the Apocalypse by Wizards of the Coast) our group was supposed to go into this riverside keep. Instead, the group went in for a second and then left and hasn’t returned. Big deal. The story’s been fun so far so who cares.

1. Afraid of looking dumb

As a DM you will make mistakes. In fact, one of your players will probably call you out on your mistake. A bad DM will puff up their chest and stick out their chin, flare their nostrils and claim that the player is wrong and that King Kong DM rule world and everyone bow down. That’s not the way to play. Your players will think you’re ridiculous and no one will have fun. Instead, just laugh at yourself and chuckle and then say anyways, and move on.

1. Favorite Players

This one is tough for me because I DM a group that includes my wife… But actually, I think I might have the opposite problem in that I might be too hard on my wife and her character. Don’t do that either. Be generous with your attention to each player and each character. If you realize you haven’t worked on the arc of one particular player, put that in the next session. Look critically at who gets the most loot. Try and make it more even.

1. No Substance

A bad DM will spend thousands of dollars on all the coolest Mini’s, have the perfect gaming table, all sorts of props, a billion dice, but won’t spend any time on the story. I’d take a great story teller with no cool widget over one...

“I don’t like the look of this.” Sefereth whispers.

You look back at the slender elven woman. She wears plate armor as if it weighed nothing, a great sword in her hand.

You smile. “You are wise as you are lovely my dear.” Your hands grasp each others, a brief moment of affection between man and wife. It was only a tenday since you and your beloved were wed. Others might decide to honeymoon in large cities surrounded by luxury. For your band of adventurers, emergency necessitated other arrangements.

You turn your attention back to the entrance to the dungeon. You’ve never seen anything like it. Where other caves might have moss and lichen growing on the rock face, crystal the color of pearly moonlight adorns the walls. It appears as if grown there rather than placed. It has a strange feeling of life.

Your party was brought here by rumors of an elixir that can cure any disease along with huge swaths of the kingdom falling ill to an unknown disease. Rather than rendering the sick feeble and weak, it swells their muscles and drives their minds mad. They become mutated monsters, wreaking havoc on all they come in contact with. The kingdom is made up of more monsters than man now and it’s up to you and your friends to save it. As usual.

A soft music drifts from the cave's entrance, almost as if to invite you in. You look at the rest of your party. Each looks at you with undying loyalty. You grip your staff harder, and place a hand around the necklace of beads left to you from your mother. She left it to you as a legacy to remember her by. You use it as a magical focus to channel your arcane energies and to bend reality to your will.

“We go forth to save those who cannot save themselves,” you say and you step into the cave.

Welcome back to the 6th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m here to help you tell better stories as you dungeon master a nice game of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Before we get into today’s show, another quick shout out to @kahootaz on Instagram who does audio work for the show. He is awesome and if you need any audio work done, he’s the guy.

Now, to the show.

Today we are talking about crafting dungeons. This is a staple of playing D&D and definitely a go-to for DM’s everywhere. Whether you’re playing from a adventure book, or are crafting your own story, adding in a dungeon here and there is always a great way to break up all the quests your characters are on and give them something concrete and tangible to do. So let’s get to 5 tips for crafting dungeons.

Start with the purpose of the dungeon.

Said another way, figure out what your players’ purpose will be in the dungeon. In the example at the beginning of the episode, the purpose is clear: find the healing elixir. In my current campaign with my friends, they were sent to clear out a haunted mansion so the mansion could be set up as an orphanage. Basically set up the rules of engagement. Answer the questions of why are the players here and what are the general rules for how they will engage with the environment.

Set a Big Boss

Dungeons get much easier to make if you model them after most video games. For every level there is a boss. Sometimes this could be in the form of puzzles or the form of an adversary. In my current campaign (spoiler alert if you are my friend and are playing my campaign which I don’t think anyone here is), the big boss in the haunted mansion is an undead beholder who’s fooled a woman to marry him and is using her love for him to fuel the haunted mansion. I personally like it when the Boss is an adversary, but a difficult puzzle that also causes damage can be just as fun.

Pick a theme

Often this will come with either the purpose of the dungeon or the big boss. This makes the puzzles and the smaller enemies easier to pick. It’s not hard finding what to fill your dungeon with. It’s just hard choosing what not to fill it with. Let’s take

We had some technical difficulties today so if you'd like to help us have less technical difficulties become a patron.

Patreon

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

“What is happening to you Gardo Yic Hama?” you ask in your steady voice.

The old svirfneblin looks up at you and a single tear slides down his face.

“I’m dying.” He pauses to cough a little. You hold a handkerchief to his mouth and dab a little blood that had escaped. “Soon I will be gone.”

You look at his chest where a blade had impaled the deep gnome. You look at the two Drow warriors who had ambushed you both. You were able to dispatch them but Gardo Yic Haima was mortally wounded.

“But I have so much to learn from you Gardo Yic Haima.”

The gnome smiles and says, “As I told you, call me father.”

“Father Gardo Yic Haima, I do not know what to do without you.”

The Svirfneblin points up and says, “Follow your prime directive [cough cough]. Relieve suffering. Go to the surface. There you will find more people who need relief. Learn what you can and find out how to relieve as much suffering as possible. I am so proud of you. Though you are not flesh and blood… I still consider you my family. Good luck… Prophet….” And with that the eyes of the old gnomish face unfocus and a last breath escapes from his lips. 

You sit there cradling the head of the gnome in silence.

Moments pass and then you stand and look at your hands. They are purplish metal. 

“I am to relieve suffering.” you say. 

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 21st episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you craft more memorable stories as you dungeon master a nice session of Dungeons & Dragons 5e.

First thing I want to do is give a quick shoutout to Reid Cardwell who reached out to me on Instagram just to say hi! Reid, if you’re listening, thanks for reaching out and I wish you luck on your next campaign.

If you, like Reid want to reach out and say, “What’s up?” then send me a message on instagram @geronimolevis . I look forward to hearing from you.

Next, I want to remind that I am coming out with a Patreon pretty soon. We’ll give you the opportunity to get shoutouts on the show, get access to bonus content and early access to these episodes, and even access to beta test homebrew content that I create! If you have any other ideas of stuff you want from the Patreon, send me your ideas on Instagram @geronimolevis .

Alright, that’s enough announcements for one day right.

Let’s talk about making your stories better. Because that’s what they are. Stories. D&D is just the continuation of one of the longest forms of entertainment in history, so luckily there are many resources  that help us craft better stories that aren’t D&D related. If we could only use D&D stuff, I think the game would get pretty stale pretty fast. Instead, you can find inspiration from all sorts of place and so here are my top Non-D&D DM Resources

1. Podcasts

For the busy man or woman on the go, almost nothing is easier than consuming a podcast or audiobook through your earbuds or car stereo system. Even while washing the dishes you can listen to great podcasts about how to craft amazing stories. I even like to listen to a lot of my favorite tabletop play-through campaigns in podcast format because I’m not always in front of Youtube. 

1. Writing Excuses

Specifically I would encourage you to listen to a show called Writing Excuses. It features a handful of authors all talking about how to write better stories. If you want to be a great DM, then learn to write great stories. I like Writing Excuses in part because it features one of my favorite...

Welcome back to today's Show.

Today, we talk about 8 tips for beginner dungeon masters.

1. Stop Waiting - For Finding Players listen to this episode: https://session0studios.com/captivate-podcast/how-to-find-your-dd-group/
2. Push Past the Learning Curve
3. Start where you are.
4. Focus on your Strengths or on Finding your Strengths
5. Don’t Stop - Be Consistent
6. Focus on Player Engagement
7. Do what feels fun and cool
8. Be Real with Your Players

Thanks for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

You face your aggressors stoically. They scoff at you and you feel the presence of one as he edges around to flank you from behind.

“Leave me alone. I’ve never done anything to you guys,” you say.

The older boy looks at you and then looks at his thug-like friends. “You’re a freak, an orcish freak. You always will be.” He then nods to his friends.

You feel a rock hit you in your shoulder. It stings and you turn to look at the thrower. At the same time you feel a stick hit the back of your leg. You feel your knee buckle. You start to feel tears flow to your eyes. 

You throw one punch and land it on someone’s face. You immediately feel one then two then three fits hit you in differently places, You instinctually fall to the ground and ball yourself up. Despite your efforts, you still feel flashes of pain in your head, your gut, your spine. 

As the beating goes on, you realize they aren’t going to stop. You weakly whimper out a pathetic, “please..”

Your eyes fade to black. 

You hear, “I can save you.”

You don’t even question it. You respond, “please save me.”

When you open your eyes, there are four bodies on the ground. Four young boys lie at your feet. Your hands are smoking and for once, you feel no fear.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 27th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and today you and I are going on a journey. That’s right. We are going to explore what it takes to create amazing experiences for yourself and your players as you DM a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.  It’s going to be a back and forth and hopefully we each learn something.

Before we go on, I’d like to invite you sign up for my monthly newsletter in which you’ll get access to behind the scenes content, bonus content, homebrew content and more. Sign up for this newsletter here: https://mailchi.mp/05e568274671/subscription-page

In the January issue of the newsletter you’ll get a special opportunity. There will be a link to sign up to play in a one-shot with me as your DM. It’s first come first serve so make sure to sign up fast. It’ll be a one-shot online and it should be a lot of fun… I hope. So sign up for that newsletter and let’s get to know each other.

I also want to take a moment and share my gratitude with you. You’ve made this podcast possible and I just want to say thank you.

Now why would you plan a session 0? What a great question.

First, you should probably know what a session 0 is if you’ve never heard about it. I won’t go into too much detail here but a session 0 is a first session of a campaign where things aren’t completely set in stone. You get to play the characters before having to commit to them.

So why would you plan a session 0?

Well there are a few benefits.

1. You can spend more time with each individual player

One of the nice things about session 0’s is that you can split them up. For example, if you are having a campaign of 5 players, you can have a session 0 with 2 of them, 3 of them or even one of them. I don’t really recommend doing it with just one, but you could. You can have a session 0 with just 2 of your players which makes it more intimate and helps your player feel like you care about them and their character because you do.

1. You can have your players play test their character

We’ve all had players who’ve played a character that they weren’t really into that much. Playtesting during a session 0 allows your players to see what the features, spells, actions and abilities actually do in a live session. This changes it from, “That...

Here's a bonus episode for you about how to World Build with Your players and Characters in mind.

Here are some helpful tips:

• When you world build for players, you leave open spaces that players can help fill
• It gives your worldbuilding direction, which makes the story that much better.
• It saves time and effort because you only build about 20% more than what the players will interact with. Think about rendering in Minecraft.
• Your players get to help build the world 
• You can add cool things as you progress through the story

Hope you enjoyed this Instagram Live episode.

Happy DMing

Mentioned in this episode:

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Welcome back to another episode of How to Be a Better DM.

Today Tanner and Justin talk about their favorite enemies!

Today's music was provided by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roABNwbjZf4

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Signup for Our Email Newsletter

Do you love the show but can't always listen to it? Do you prefer written content? Go to session0studios.com/newsletter/ and sign up to get weekly tips and tricks sent to your inbox so you can become the greatest DM the world has ever seen.

Level Up Guide

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM

Today Cayden and Justin sit down with the creators of worldsmith.io to talk about worldbuilding and how to do it more effectively with less time and hassle.

Give Worldsmith a try with a free week trial: https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Warmup: From Tanner to Gaming Brew

Intro

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis here with my cohort Tanner Weyland to bring you the best resources for you to become the world’s best DM. We want to help you craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of D&D. Today we have an awesome guest with us today but before we get into that let’s talk about a few announcements.

The first announcement is that we had to move the September one-shot to October first at 4:00 PM Mountain time. If you want to watch that, head over to betterdungeonmaster.com/watch. Due to a number of unforeseen circumstances, we had to move it.

Next, we will be doing a giveaway soon on our Instagram so head over to at how to be a better dm on Instagram and make sure to follow us. If you’ve ever heard of the software Dungeon Alchemist, they’ve given us a download key to giveaway and all that will happen over on our Instagram :).

We also still have one slot open as of this recording for the October one-shot so if you want it to come and claim it. After that fills up, we’ll start prepping for November’s one-shot so come and bask in the glory!

I think that is enough announcements for today. So let’s get into today’s main topic: homebrewing. Today I have a veteran of homebrewing here with us and he can introduce himself as he so chooses but let’s dive in with the first question.

Main Topic: Homebrew Content

How did you first think up the “Erenel Fiction Universe,” and what is its premise?

How do you make a homebrew class

How do you make a Homebrew Race

How do you make a homebrew monster

How much time does it take to make a Homebrew project.

Do you make homebrew items for campaigns specifically or do you make things and then find campaigns to fit them in?

What are the biggest mistakes you’ve made when making your homebrew projects?

What tools have you used in making Erenel?

What type of non-D&D research (politics, military tactics, economics) have you done for Erenel?

Would you describe your playtest methods?

How much have you revised in Erenel and changed?

What is your favorite homebrew creation and why?

What was the hardest homebrew creation for you?

How do you determine time periods (does your World contain different eras with different technological advances)?

Intermission

Main Topic Continued

Do you think DMs are daunted by the idea of homebrew? Why or why not?

Is home brewing hard, in your opinion?

How should beginners approach their first project?

How to Reach out to GamingBrew:

Twitch: Gaming Brew

Gamingbrew.com

Conclusion

Mentioned in this episode:

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument...

Suddenly a scream erupts from somewhere outside the tavern. You look at your hand and then up at your opponent. “It looks like we’ll have to finish our game another day,” you say as you lay down the cards and follow your companions out the door. The half-orc you were playing throws his cards on the table in disgust. It seems he had a winning hand.

You and your companions burst out of the tavern door only to met by a scene of utter chaos. Townspeople ran in all directions except toward the eastern part of town. As you look in that direction you see multiple pillars of smoke indicating houses on fire. As you continue looking around you start to see pillars of smoke from the west, north and south. You stop a nearby townsperson to ask what was going on. Goblins! Legions of them. They’ve surrounded the city. You let them go and they go off to run to nowhere in particular.

“Belgren!”

You look to find whoever might be calling your name. You spot one of the city guard running towards you. He reaches you and shouts, “The Goblin Chief has surrounded the city. He has captured the mayor and wants to see you. He says he has a quest for you.”

What do you do?

Welcome back to the 8th episode of How to Be a Better DM. This is the show to help you tell better stories as a dungeon master while playing Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Like always before we get to today’s show, let me give you a quick announcement. I’d like to give a shoutout to Cowchy Audio who does the audio work for this show. If you need help as far as Audio goes, reach out to Cowcy on instagram via @kahootaz

Now onto today’s show.

As a DM, you are generally a large part of the energy of each session.This is natural as you provide 99.99% of the game. So here are my tips for keeping your energy high every session. 1st of all, you do have to realize that this is a skill and you will have to work on it. Think of it as if you are improving your own personal Charisma score.

So here we go.

Take a break right before your session

If you’re like me, you go from work right into your D&D session. That can be really tough and I find that if I don’t take a break in between anything else and D&D, my energy for the session is very low.

Try taking a break in the session

Most of the D&D groups I watch on Youtube or podcasts take some sort of break in the middle of their session. I’ve found that for me personally this is a hit or miss. It is nice to be able to take a pee break without pausing the game in an unexpected way.

Slow things down

You don’t have to go through the session at a break-neck speed. You’re working through combat encounters, plot points and anything else your group is trying to do. Take it nice and easy so you can give lots of energy to every endeavor in the session.

Let some things go

Sometimes getting every rule right is just not worth it. If it keeps your energy high and allows you and your players to keep having fun, just nix whatever is holding you back or down. Be careful, though because this can quickly lead to reducing some very important game structures.

Get a good night’s sleep beforehand

This one might seem like a big “duh!” but if you aren’t getting enough sleep then there’s no way you’ll be able to give your players a fun filled evening of twists and turns with interesting plot points and fun characters.

I think this might be a great point to mention that I believe drinking energy drinks or alcohol is not a great tip for making sure you keep your energy high. It’s unhealthy. You can do what you want, but I don’t see it as a sustainable way, especially if you are playing once a week for months, or even years.

Play what and how you and your players want to play

If there are parts of your campaign that get dull or boring, switch things up so you are all excited again. If you are following an adventure book, add some things...

On today's episode, Cayden talks about his experience in creating home-brew worlds and mechanics without knowing much about DND in the first place. For those of you who want to play but may not have a great basis in the game, this episode is for you! But Seasoned players, don't turn away just yet. You may learn a thing or two about getting creative and improvisation.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Common annoying d&d players and how to deal with them

Warmup

Intro

• Upcoming One-shot on the 25th

Meat

Justin 

• The Player DM:
• This is me when I play.
• Deal with this player by sitting them down and saying that they are a really great DM. Stress that you are the DM and that you’d like to challenge them to be an even better player which means good give and take with the other players.
• The Distracted Distraction
• I hate these. These are the players that enjoy the game but they also seem to get distracted a lot and either end up sharing videos with other players during the game and or have side conversations. So annoying. I think the best thing to do with these players is to help everyone understand the rules of the table.
• The Waffler
• These are the players that say, “I walk through the door,” and then you say, “Right as you do,” they interrupt and say I don’t walk through the door. They might be afraid of the consequences and might not feel ready. With this player, I think you have to be firm and say that you said you walked through the door so you do. If they argue then you might need to have another conversation with them outside of normal playing hours.

*** All of these can be prevented by establishing the rules of the relationship before you start playing. After playing, I believe that having a conversation with the individual in question can help improve. If it doesn’t, steps might have to be taken to make sure the group is having fun.

Tanner

• The Protagonist
• They think their character is a two-dimensional hero who should always make the main decisions. They are the serious character, while everyone else is a joke who should follow along.
• To deal with them, try to encourage team play. Encourage them to be the hero who helps them. Also, make a campaign or one-shot with a distinctly silly setting and premise. They need to be taught that it is okay to be silly from time to time.
• The Tryhard
• They aren’t here to fail rolls, or to lose at all. They are rules lawyers when it benefits them, and rule slobs when it doesn’t. They mostly care about succeeding and being awesome and getting their way through any means necessary.
• Hold them accountable for rules. Also, when they do fail a roll, have the outcome being humorous, or not distinctly negative. Teach them that losing is not a bad thing.

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

“For the last time, my name is Ulv and I’m not supposed to be here!”

“Whatever you say D’nuk, whatever you say.”

Ulv was busy working a leather hide that he and T’Sichk had obtained from downing a large caribou. It was a good find. Ulv had been here for weeks. He didn’t know how he’d gotten here but for some reason, he was now in the far north. Ulv had a sinking suspicion that this was a vision, but it felt much more real than that. 

Everyone in the village called him D’nuk and since Ulv had no way of getting back to Herlia and Hipam, he just lived life in the village. To be honest, Ulv wasn’t sure he wanted to go back. 

Judir was dead. Cojari, imprisoned. The Kingdom, still under the rule of his stepbrother. Ulv had no idea what to do, so he continued working on the leather hide. 

“You know, you can’t run from it or hide forever.” T’sichk said.

Ulv froze. “What did you say?”

T’sichk looked at Ulv and said, “I know you’ve been thinking about the Elder’s challenge. The village needs you D’nuk. You have to join the council. You have to attempt the trial.”

This was the first Ulv had ever heard of that.

D’nuk walked over to Ulv and put his arm on his shoulder. “Look, brother, you are wise and strong like the bear. The trial is difficult, yes, but you can overcome it. You should not think of the task in front of you, but the people behind the task waiting for you to stand up and be a bonfire to all who sit in the cold darkness. We need you brother.”

What would you like to do?

Intro

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you create better stories as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons.

Main Topic

In one of my previous episodes, I talked about tips on improving your writing skills. As a Dungeon Master, you are one part writer, one part performer, and all parts crazy. You’ll need to know how to craft a story correctly and that means writing. So today, I’m continuing my discussion of how to improve your writing skills with these tips:

Join a Writing Group

My cohost, Tanner Weyland, and I joined a writing group in college. While we had both met working at Papa Murphey’s when we were younger, we really developed our relationship by going to this writing group together. At the time, I didn’t have any particular project I was working on, but being in the group forced me to write something. That exercised both my ability to just put pen to paper as well as my ability to think up creative things. You too should look at forming or joining a writing group. The culture of writing groups is generally one of constructive criticism that looks at how the story is written. It is immensely helpful for those who have never shown their work to others before. It allows you to see how people perceive and accept your writing, thus giving you an understanding of what is or isn’t clear.

The simplest way to join one is by starting one, but to join or start a writing group, you need to know people who like writing, so ask your friends and family. If that doesn’t work, you can try apps like Meetup or try posting it on social media.

Kill Your Darlings

Originally coined by Arthur Quiller-Couch, the term “murder your darlings” means sometimes you need to kill your favorite part, character, scene or aspect of your story. I once worked with a colleague who loved to draw. His love for animation ignited in me a desire to try and draw. So I started, and when I thought I had something spectacular I’d show him. He ended up saying, “Try changing this or that.” I wouldn’t because I was too afraid of messing it up. He eventually told me to not be afraid of messing something up, because my best work will always be in the future, and I could always draw something better. Well, with my...

You find yourself walking through a forest. Your arms and hands are cold. It’s then that you notice the terrible blizzard obscuring most of what you see. You try and wade your way forward, looking for a clear path to shelter. That’s when you see the bear. This is one of the biggest bears you’ve ever seen. It stands there facing you on the path amidst a raging blizzard. It then turns and walks away. You stand frozen, watching it go. It waits, and looks at you as if to beckon that you follow. You do. It leads you through the blizzard to a cabin, hidden behind rocks and trees. As you move toward it, you feel a hand on your arm. You turn and see your father. He’s been dead for years. He smiles and then jerks your arm pulling you to the side. It’s at that moment that you awake from the mysterious dream only to find yourself facing a black clad assassin who’s blade has sliced deep into the bed on which you sleep in the same spot your head had been occupying moments before. What do you do?

Welcome back to the 2nd episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m happy to have you here with me as we talk about different ways to create a present a better story to your players as you Dungeon Master a beautiful session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

That excerpt was from the session I had in my campaign just this last week. That’s just to show you that I do this too. I try every week to make better stories and to write better tales. So let’s get right into the meat of today’s show.

Let’s talk about 5 things every DM should remember. These are things that have helped me to remember and I know they should make your game easier too.

It should be fun

You’re playing a game. It should be fun. If you as the Dungeon Master aren’t having fun, then you should switch some things up. Don’t be afraid to experiment. If it’s easier use stuff that other people have made. Look for simple improvements and focus on what you and your players find the most fun. If you guys like doing campaigns that are wacky and fun and rarely serious, then do that. If you like dark campaigns then do that. If you find that planning sessions is too stressful, maybe try spacing them out more so it’s less of a burden. If you can’t think of anything then ask your players or outside parties to give you suggestions. It’s supposed to be fun, so if it’s not, then you need to figure out why and change that.

Your players can improvise too

You’re not the only one at the table who’s responsible for making the game fun. You have a large responsibility because you theoretically occupy 99.999% of the mythical world you and your players play in, but your players can definitely play a big part in making stuff up. Sometimes it’s nice to ask your players the name of NPC’s they meet or towns they visit or Inn’s they sleep in. You don’t have to come up with everything. Outsourcing is a great idea for things that you really don’t care about.

You don’t need to know the ending of every story

Sometimes the funnest things happen when introduce a plot hook that you haven’t really thought through yet. I did this in my campaign where I introduced four groves of power that the druid in our group must save from some evil cultists. Did I know where these groves were? No. Did I know how she’d find them? No. Did I think it was still a cool idea? Heck yeah. So now, the druid and the rest of the party are looking for an ancient underground library that will have an ancient tome describing how to find the powerful groves. Boom.

You won’t know every rule

The player’s handbook is a big book. I’d be astounded if you had it memorized. You don’t need to know every rule so just cool it. You’ll learn as you go and probably do somethings wrong. It won’t dramatically change the outcome and if it does, that’s fine too.

Make the story your own

This is specifically for DM’s who are using sourcebooks for adventures. Make sure to add things in there that...

This is "How To Be A Better DM." Thanks for listening to today’s show! This is Tanner, and I am excited to talk about how we can all prepare to be the best DMs we possible. Today, I am discussing how to plan D&D campaigns.

We really appreciate all the support you guys give us. If you’d like to hang out with us once a month, you can. All you gotta do is sign up for our quarterly one-shot D&D sessions which are DM’d by one of us. Our next one-shot session. It’s first come first serve so sign up quick. The sign up link is: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shot

Next, make sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter. You’ll get even more content, behind-the-scenes looks, homebrew creations made by us and more. It’s free and it comes out once a month so it won’t be a bother to you. Sign up at: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/subscribe

Mentioned in this episode:

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Hi everyone,

Today is a short episode since it is Thanksgiving here in the U.S., but we just wanted to take a moment and express our appreciation for all of you who support and listen to us. You have made our experience with this podcast just amazing, and we will never forget that. Thank you.

As I mention in the episode, please take some time and express your thanks and appreciation to your players, whether that is today or the next time you meet. It can mean a lot to them, and it can make a significant improvement in the atmosphere at your gaming table. Until next time, enjoy your week!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Signup for Our Email Newsletter

Do you love the show but can't always listen to it? Do you prefer written content? Go to session0studios.com/newsletter/ and sign up to get weekly tips and tricks sent to your inbox so you can become the greatest DM the world has ever seen.

Level Up Guide

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Have you ever wanted to go to that cool game store down the road and play a fun game of D&D but are maybe somewhat shy and nervous about being a DM in a public place?

Wouldn't you like the ability to DM in any place at any time?

Today we are going to walk you through some tips on how to manage yourself in those public places and how to make sure it's fun for you and your players every single time!

This is How to Be a Better DM. Today, Justin, Tanner and Cayden sit down with Tavern Keeper Andrew Ashby from https://www.wegeektogether.org/.

Here's what we talked about:

• Always make sure everyone at the table is having fun and feels safe
• If your party is shy about being in public, make something exciting happen to get them out of their own heads
• Talk to the owners of game stores to find out what tools they have for you
• Find the locale that fits what you need
• Find ways to mitigate distractions even while out in public
• The best thing to do is to commit to doing the DM thing and everything else will be much better.

We enjoyed today's episode so much and want you to check out We Geek Together.

Make sure to get your seat for the upcoming Dead Wars event (the world record breaking D&D game that's coming up, yeah you should be there!). Go to https://www.thedeadwars.com/ and get your seat!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Finding players can be difficult. Having lycanthropes in your party can be difficult. Using the Longstrider spell can be difficult.

Lucky for you, we talk about all of that.

On today's BONUS episode, Tanner and Justin are invited onto the Next Session Podcast with Alyssa and Adam.

They have a great conversation sharing tips for always finding players, tips on how make lycanthropy work, a cute cow/bumblebee mashup, and finally the Longstrider spell.

Check out the Next Session Podcast at https://www.nextsessionpodcast.com/

They really do offer amazing content.

Mentioned in this episode:

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

You all finish your long-rest and you wake up to a bright, if not bitter cold winter morning. The view from the mountaintop lookout on which you slept is breathtaking, as is the chilling wind that blows. You all slept comfortably thanks to the warmth of the fire.

As you all wake up you prepare for the day, memorizing your spells, stretching your sore limbs and generally preparing yourselves for whatever may come next, except one of you.

Roen the druid, as you wake up you are met with the sight of a small brown squirrel sitting before you, patiently waiting for you to awaken. Tied around the squirrels neck is a tiny scroll of parchment.

Naturally, you reach down and untie the scroll and unroll it. As you do, the squirrel scampers off into the trees.

The scroll is very small yet is crammed with writing. The writing is clumsy as if it was written with charcoal rather than a quill and ink. 

On the parchment is a line of text that turns your heart to ice.

“Help. Captured by Xyxyx in Waterdeep. Cynthia.”

And that is where we will end today’s session.

Welcome back to the 29th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Before we get to the show let’s go through a couple of announcements. 

First, I hope you all enjoyed our last episode where you all met our new team member, Tanner Weyland. If you have any comments or questions for him or me, send us a direct message at @geronimolevis through Instagram.

Next, today’s show is brought to you by our monthly newsletter.You can sign up using the link in the show notes and get access to extra tips on being a DM, behind the scenes content and extra homebrew pieces that you can use in your campaigns. You can also sign up to play a one-shot with myself as your DM. This is first come first serve so sign up for the newsletter and let’s play a session together.

Now, to the show.

Planning your sessions can often be the most difficult part of playing D&D. Sometimes it helps to have a general structure to your sessions. Well let’s look at this simple D&D structure.

1. What happened last time

One of the most important things you can do to start off a good session is a recap of the session before. This gives your players a chance to get into character and into the game. It also serves as a nice way to transition out of friendly chatter and into playing a game where you have to be quiet while the DM talks. Lastly, it’s great to remind your players what happened last because they’ve probably forgotten. 

1. Resolve what happened last time

Finish what you started last time. If you had just started an encounter, then run the encounter. If you left off on a cliff hanger then run through what implied the cliff hanger. Sometimes though, it makes for a nice twist to not resolve what you started but that is an advanced technique.

1. Ask about Character’s Backstories

At this point, ask if every person’s back story has been featured lately. If not, add in something that relates to the backstory of someone. It doesn’t need to be in depth but it can be. 

1. Add the next main plot point

Think about the next logical plot point and prepare that. Pretty simple. Just beware, you will not be able to plan for everything. I like to ask myself the question, “What would I logically do next?” And then I prepare for that. Then I ask myself, “If I didn’t do that, what would I logically do?” Then I prepare for that. Then we end up doing neither of those things and doing something completely random that my players came up with at the moment. Se la vie.

1. Prepare at least one encounter

Most often your...

Thanks for tuning in today! Today's show was hosted by Cayden Ottley, and focuses on (in our opinion) the best online resources to help create a more immersive experience for your players. Here are the links to all of the websites mentioned in the episode:

1. https://www.fantasy-plus.com/ - (Monument Studios) Use code: BETTERDM for 10% off! (it's only $4.99/ month and totally worth it.)
2. https://www.dndspeak.com - Look for their Magical Mushroom d100 among a variety of other lists.
3. https://www.thievesguild.cc/shops/ - Amazing list of shops and prices for a better marketplace experience for your players.
4. https://chartopia.d12dev.com/chart/561/ - D1000 of totally random magical effects for whatever you want to use them for!
5. https://watabou.itch.io/ - An amazing map generator that allows you to create a world or dungeon for your PC's to experience in seconds.

All of these resources except Monument Studios are free. And let's be honest, $4.99 is a steal for what monument studios is offering. I hope you can put these to good use!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

In today's episode of How to Be a Better DM, we are continuing our exploration of downtime activities, and we are focusing on the mother of all "timewasters," carousing! But, is it a waste of time? Or is carousing in D&D one of the best opportunities to enrich your story, introduce characters, and build memories through the craziest experiences!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide

Welcome to How To Be A Better DM. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy. Today, I am talking about how to make D&D one-shots impactful for our players (hint: it's not about doing just combat).

If you would like to sign up for future one-shot podcasts, sign up at this link: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shot. We always love playing with you!

Mentioned in this episode:

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

justin:

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I'm your co-host today, Justin Lewis, here with Tanner Wayland and Rob Van Auken. Go ahead and say hello, guys.

tanner_weyland:

Hey.

rob:

Good evening, everyone.

justin:

And you are joining How to be a Better DM in our mini-series on collaborating for homebrewing a adventure one-shot. And today, we wanted this to be raw and unfiltered, really, just to show you kind of the ins and outs of how to work with other people, the ebb and flow of ideas, and in our case, starting with one idea, refining it and kind of changing trajectory. Today we are going to be... going through our document that we've worked on together and kind of simplifying things, clarifying things, and we actually should be coming close to the end after I think we have everything figured out today. We should be able to send out some assignments to each of us, have things written up, and then probably the next time we'll have our final polishing session, but that might be wrong, so we'll see. And

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin:

we are

tanner_weyland:

sounds

justin:

just

tanner_weyland:

great.

justin:

starting at the top of the document. And then one, one. word of advice to all of us, if we can just try and describe whenever we're like that part there, try and describe for the audio listeners, because I know this, we're doing it in a visual way, but the audio listener might not be. So.

tanner_weyland:

Okay, perfect. Um, and, uh, just for the listeners, uh, we've honestly been working on this for a sec with Rob, but he is just, I just have to say he's wonderful to work with. And I appreciate that. Just had to throw that out there at the start.

rob:

Aw, thanks fellas.

justin:

Agreed.

rob:

I feel the same way about you guys. You guys are consummate professionals. I appreciate the willingness to work with a newcomer and I'm enjoying myself. And you know, this is hard. This is hard. We're in two different time zones. Our lives are doing things in different times. So writing is hard to begin with and to collaborate across time zones. At least we have the tools now to do that. But it's been a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to polishing this thing up.

justin:

Excellent, excellent.

tanner_weyland:

Love it.

justin:

So I figure we would start at the, well, so we have kind of a page that's above like the actual one shot. Do we need to work on any of that? And that's kind of some of our thoughts or do we need to just kind of forget about that?

tanner_weyland:

Honestly, I think this is old. Go

justin:

Okay.

tanner_weyland:

ahead Rob.

rob:

So

justin:

Alright.

rob:

this page just outlined our original ideas, our locations, and a couple of reminders for ourselves to do the three pillars and things like that. But yeah, I think this stuff is all. We can next this.

justin:

Sounds good. So then

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, um...

justin:

for the listener, there's a portion that says theme, setting, three pillars, location, timeline, and then assignments and reminder. I'm going to delete everything above assignments to theme because that is no longer useful. I'll leave the assignments one there unless we feel like we do need to delete that.

tanner_weyland:

Um, I th-

rob:

We can...

tanner_weyland:

go ahead. Uh,

rob:

After you, Dad.

tanner_weyland:

yeah, I just think- I think we could leave that

Welcome back to today's RAW podcast episode.

This is a special episode where it is shorter and less edited and more real.

On today's show we talk about 8 voice acting tips from a non-voice actor.

They are:

• Tip #1: Commit
• Tip #2: Faster or Slower
• Tip #3: Eye Contact
• Tip #4: Loud or Quiet
• Tip #5: Pauses or Breaks
• Tip #6: Your Breath
• Tip #7: Inflection and Emphasis
• Tip #8: Accent

If you like today's episode reach out to us and let us know.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better DM. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy. Today will be a bit of a shorter episode, so buckle in! We will be talking about soundboards!

A couple quick announcements: First, we are doing a giveaway on our Instagram starting soon! Follow us @howtobeabetterdmpodcast on Instagram for more info. Here’s a hint: it has to do with map creation.

Also, we have a couple one-shots coming up in the final quarter of this year: Robbie, or Bone Daddy, as he is affectionately known on the podcast “This Dungeon is Occupied,” will be running a horror-themed adventure in October for some of our listeners. If you’d like to hang out with us once a month, you can. We are filling up rapidly for that one-shot, but all you gotta do is sign up. It’s first come first serve so sign up quick. I will be running the one-shot the following month. The sign up link is: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shot

Next, make sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter. You’ll get even more content, behind-the-scenes looks, homebrew creations made by us and more. It’s free and it comes out once a month so it won’t be a bother to you. Sign up at: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/subscribe

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

In honor of the release of our newest podcast, The Pact and Boon (session0studios.com/pactnboon/) we are releasing the first episode of that show on this podcast today.

Pact and Boon is an Actual Play 5e D&D podcast and we are so excited about it. Go and check out the rest of the episodes that are out right now (a total of 4 episodes right now).

If you come back tomorrow you'll get to hear episode 2 on this show of the Pact and Boon.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

This is How To Be A Better DM. Check out our website for contact info:

https://session0studios.com/better-dm-show/

Thanks for listening to today’s show! My name is Tanner Weyland, and I am excited to talk about how we can all prepare to be the best DMs we possible. We really appreciate all the support you guys give us. If you’d like to hang out with us once a month, you can. All you gotta do is sign up for our monthly one-shot D&D sessions which are DM’d by one of us. It’s first come first serve so sign up quick. In September, I am running the session, and I am very excited for it!

Mentioned in this episode:

Signup for Our Email Newsletter

Do you love the show but can't always listen to it? Do you prefer written content? Go to session0studios.com/newsletter/ and sign up to get weekly tips and tricks sent to your inbox so you can become the greatest DM the world has ever seen.

Level Up Guide

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Our topic today is something that you may not have experienced as a DM, since it is a very specific type of adventure mechanic. But, with the right party and right campaign, it could be a new, fun experience for you and your players. Namely, today we are talking about building a stronghold. Or, you might call it your base, your homestead, your castle. Heck, you could even go The Swiss Family Robinson route and make it a treehouse. Whatever it is specifically, in the end it is a place for your players’ characters to call home. Let's learn about it!

Also, if you'd like to get your own Magic Mind subscription, go to magicmind.com/dungeonmaster and use code dungeonmaster20

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

You slash down the last of orcs that had ambushed you. This group had appeared out of nowhere apparently. You look around the shadowy thicket where you’d been attacked. Suddenly, Amris, falls down, a silvery dagger embedded in her chest. You’d only just met her in the town but she’d been more than helpful to you and your companions. You all rush over to help her. Blood slowly leaks from her mouth. Already dead. You inspect the dagger. Not orcish at all. It was sleek and silvery, definitely not orcish. You get up and look around but see no other figure aside from you and your companions. 

So who killed Amris ?

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your dungeon master today and together you and I will learn how to weave better stories for you and your players as you play D&D 5e.

First thing I gotta say today is a big thank you to those who played the one-shot with me last week. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. Having your support as players and listeners of the show even makes doing this so much more worthwhile. I can’t begin to say thank you.

If you want to sign up for the next one shot, that will be happening in September. So get ready :)

Next, make sure you follow the show wherever good podcasts are heard. We’re going to come up with some goals so that if we hit a certain number of followers, we’ll do a giveaway so follow us and make that happen!

Now, everyone has been in a D&D session that seemed to just be boring. As a DM, this is heartbreaking because all you want is for your players to have fun! We’ll, here are 8 ideas to make you D&D game more fun! 

1. More Flavors

Why do we like going to ice cream parlors? It’s because we have a seemingly infinite array of flavors. It’s the same reason buffets are so popular. You get to taste a large variety of savors or sweets and even allow yourself to try something new. If your D&D game has become boring, it’s possible that you have allowed yourself to become complacent in the flavors you are presenting to your players. Now, the flavor is a metaphor for game themes, genres, and so forth. So if your game is a hack and slash adventure, then maybe look for a way to do something different. Maybe a puzzling conundrum instead. Perhaps you should add a flavor of romance? The trick won’t be with adding in the flavors. The trick is presenting tastes of the flavors, gauging your players’ interest, and then incorporating flavors that they liked.

1. More Realistic Characters

I have become severely jaded with movies these days. Movies and shows in fact. I hate the fact that movies and shows employ flashy effects and cheap nostalgia to pull in viewers without crafting interesting and realistic characters. That’s a travesty because interesting stories are moved by interesting characters, not interesting effects. Therefore, if you want to make your D&D game more fun and interesting, you should work on the characters in your story. I’ve been working on this more and more in my campaign. I have an NPC who is a halfling cleric who the group makes fun of more or less, but slowly they are starting to see that he’s not just a loveable little halfling and instead he has conflicting desires and flaws and weaknesses. If you ask my opinion, those are a few things you can do to really flesh out characters. Look at their weaknesses and strengths and investigate their inner conflicts.

1. More preparation

Dungeons and Dragons are just a game. You aren’t preparing a Master’s Level Thesis or a PHD defense. However, this is a pick-up game of basketball either. Tabletop roleplaying games might be one of the few hobbies where you actually have to do a little bit of homework for it to function. I’ve found that if I want to have more fun playing D&D then I need to prepare more as a...

You finish pouring the elf’s blood in a circle in the prescribed way. “Hey Bolgir, are you sure we’re supposed to do it this way? Doesn’t this seem uh…. Somewhat uh… hellish to you?”

Your dwarven wizard pauses and looks at you and says, “Well, honestly yes, but this is what that cooky wizard, Kamere, said when we were at that council meeting. It’s even here on his shopping list he gave us.”

You smile. That parchment did indeed look like a shopping list.

Bolgir steps to the center of the bloody circle and looks toward the arch of uncut stones. He mutters a few words and smacks his hands together. The space under the arch splits as if reality itself were torn. The rift widens and soon you see a large figure step through. They had dark blood red garb trimmed with stark white fur. You hear a tremendous laugh, deep and imposing. You feel a gravity that accompanies those of great power. It’s then that you notice the scenery through the right behind the figure. You expected to see the bright colors of the Feywilds. Instead you see the dark hues of Shadowfell. You then notice the figures eyes glowing blood read.

“Bolgir, I think we’ve made a mistak….”

Instantly you are blasted with a wave of power as the red-clad figure blasts you and your companions and then bounds off towards the village. 

You and your companions raise yourselves to your feet.

What would you like to do now?

Welcome back to the 24th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you craft better stories for yourself and your friends as you DM a session of D&D 5e. 

First of all, Merry Christmas! I sincerely hope that this holiday season sees you surrounded by loved ones and filled with joy.

Second, I’d like to invite you sign up for a monthly newsletter I am going be publishing starting in January. The newsletter will include updates from the H2BBDM team as well as bonus content, behind the scenes looks and access to Homebrew content created by me! A little teaser of what you might get this January is access to a new item I created called the Gym Bag. If you want to know what it does, sign up for the newsletter at :https://mailchi.mp/05e568274671/subscription-page

Thirdly, would you like to join a session of D&D with me? I’ll be your DM for a one-shot online. I’ll be looking for five people to sign up for a fun one-shot on a first-come-first-serve basis. How do you sign up you ask? Well sign up for the newsletter and then in January you’ll get the sign up link right to your inbox. I’ll tell you right now, I got a few interested people already so be quick or you lose your chance :)

Now, in honor of this festive season, here are 2 Christmas themed one-shot or side quest ideas for you to celebrate the season. 

1. The Search for the Prophesied Child

This one shot starts with your adventurers arriving in a foreign port after having been charged by a benevolent mage-king to find and bring special gifts to, a prophesied child of great power. The whole side-quest will take place in a kingdom that is at war with the Kingdom to which the benevolent mage-king belongs, therefore he needs adventurers to go incognito to find the child.

At the foreign port, along with any other tasks the adventurers want to handle, they must first find a guide to take them through the desert to the region that is prophesied as the site of the child’s birth. I would give them a couple options, each with consequences, for example. One group might find a desert guide name Yosran who is a large Dragonborne, but is secretly a spy for the malevolent kingdom. If the group travels with Yosran, there is...

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better D, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy. 

Today my dear friends, we are going to talk about how you can help your players advocate for themselves.

Also, this episode was sponsored by Magic Mind. Go to this website: magicmind.com/JANbetterdm and use our code, BETTERDM20 to get up to 40% off your subscription.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Welcome to How to Be a Better DM.

Today is a special episode.

In it, you'll hear the first 30 minutes of one of our professional dungeon mastering sessions.

Some of the players are new to D&D and have very little experience.

If you're interested in this episode, and want to hear the rest of the session, reach out to us on our Discord. If enough people reach out, we'll put all of the rest of the session up on the podcast.

If you're interested in having us be your professional dungeon master, go to session0studios.com/dm4hire

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better DM. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy. Today, we are going to jump right into the announcements!

If you would like to sign up for future one-shot podcasts, sign up at this link: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shot. We always love playing with you!

With July 4th just behind us, here is our super-relevant topic for the day: Political D&D Campaigns.

Have you ever thought that roleplaying with nobility or the local government in your campaign falls flat? Well, have you considered welcoming your party into the political aspect of roleplaying? This could mean that you create a political D&D campaign with all sorts of intrigue, schmoozing, and rallies, and it could be a really good time for your players if you approach it correctly!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Signup for Our Email Newsletter

Do you love the show but can't always listen to it? Do you prefer written content? Go to session0studios.com/newsletter/ and sign up to get weekly tips and tricks sent to your inbox so you can become the greatest DM the world has ever seen.

Level Up Guide

Have you ever been... frustrated with D&D? Or with your game? Or even your player interactions? Great news: you can always solve the frustrations that come as a DM--the problem is that a lot of DMs try to push down and ignore the signs of their own frustration, leaving their game and their feelings towards it to get worse and worse. Today, Tanner discusses some easy ways to resolve frustration with various aspects of the D&D experience.

Mentioned in this episode:

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Here are today's sponsors:

Worldsmith - Easy D&D Prep - Start a Free 7 Day Trial: https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Roll and Play Press - Easier D&D: https://session0studios.com/rollandplay

AI is here—and it’s not going anywhere. But what does it mean for Dungeon Masters?

In this episode, Justin and Tanner dive deep into how artificial intelligence is already impacting the tabletop RPG space—from ethical dilemmas to practical time-saving hacks. Is it a crutch or a creativity booster? Are you giving away core skills without realizing it? And how can you use it intentionally to become a better DM?

We’ll also share:

• The right way to use AI for session prep
• Why AI won’t replace storytelling, but might reshape it
• Real-world examples of how we’ve used AI in our own games
• A brand new sponsor-powered segment featuring a ridiculous, pizza-based spell 🎶🍕

If you're curious, concerned, or just cautiously optimistic about the AI takeover—this episode is for you.

Special thanks to:

Benj Weyland for Graphic Design (https://www.instagram.com/benjweydesign/)

TJ Max, Juka and TechSenpai for being amazing moderators

Foxy Beard and Kyle Wilson for being a patrons.

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Welcome back to the 5th installment of our short series on writing a Homebrew one-shot.

In this episode, we're joined by our friend Rob Van Auken and we continue work on The Chimefall Ceremony: For Whom the Bell TolIs.

This miniseries is designed to help give you an idea of how to collaborate on a project like this and how to write and publish a one-shot.

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!



Warmup:

Your D&D Group of 5 is suddenly and permanently moving to a D&D group of 4. Your players love having 5 characters. You get to now create a character that is actually your character.

Intro:

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis, here with my cohort, Tanner Weyland. Together, we’re here to help you learn how to craft better stories for your players as you play D&D. Today, we’re going to talk about a big challenge today: how to engage players in D&D who don’t seem to be engaged.

Before we get to today’s topic let’s go through some housekeeping items.

Main topic:

Justin

Reality check.

At some point (whether before or after trying any of these tips), you will have to come to grips with the fact that maybe your player doesn’t actually want to play D&D. They might be playing just to make you happy or they are giving it a try and they don’t really grasp it yet (or it isn’t their thing). So when you get to a point when you don’t know how to engage an unengaged player, ask them if they really want to play. Chances are, D&D isn’t for them.

1. Flank your players

Your unengaged player is not just an unengaged person. No matter what you think, there is something in life that does engage them. So with this step, examine your player. Think about what they like to do in their free time. Think about what you might find them doing when they don’t have any responsibility and can do whatever they want. If you can’t think of anything, then ask them. Learn about your players. Something in what they choose to spend their free time on will trigger an idea. Let’s think of a few possibilities.

T.V.: Most people, when asked what they do in their spare time, will say they watch a handful of shows. This is golden material for you. Ask them what shows they like to watch and then go research those shows. Try and dissect what those shows bring to the table. 

Video Games: A lot of people will also say video games. This is also golden material because not all games are the same. You get different things from playing Halo Infinite than you do Elden Ring. So ask them what games they play mostly. Then try and incorporate some of that game into the campaign.

Social Media: Many people might say they spend a lot of time scrolling the feeds of social media. Excellent. Ask them about that or even follow them and do some research.

You might be noticing a pattern. You see, everyone has things that they like. Your job is to figure out what your players like and then add that to the game.

Bonus: After you get good at that, you can then start to anticipate what they *probably* will like. That is when the game gets even more exciting.

1. Shorter Sessions

Tanner

1. Side Arc: If your players are having a hard time connecting, do a side arc! Kind of like a bottle episode, but longer. Using what you learned about their favorite shows/games//genres, create a side arc that puts their character into an interesting situation. Just remember that you want them to have high control of the new arc—otherwise, they will be disconnected from the experience. The real joy of a side arc is that the players can have a real effect on the world. When it is the main campaign, DMs have to be careful with how much creative control. With side arcs, you can be more free with player control. Examples:
2. Have them create a store, restaurant, or other business, and have them participate in a business rivalry.
3. Have them wake up in a Squid Game style death game run by some noble.
4. Make a boat journey where they run the boat.

Intermission:

Now that player came back. You have to get rid of your character that love. How do you do it?

Main Topic...

In this week's episode, Tanner discusses the need to focus on the positive aspects of being a DM, as the negativity can lead to burnout.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our listeners!

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Signup for Our Email Newsletter

Do you love the show but can't always listen to it? Do you prefer written content? Go to session0studios.com/newsletter/ and sign up to get weekly tips and tricks sent to your inbox so you can become the greatest DM the world has ever seen.

Level Up Guide

Want to take your campaign from good to unforgettable? In this episode, we’re diving into the art of foreshadowing! Learn how to plant subtle clues, create epic payoffs, and keep your players hooked with those jaw-dropping "aha!" moments. Whether it’s a prophecy, a recurring symbol, or a suspicious NPC, foreshadowing is your secret weapon for immersive storytelling.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• What foreshadowing is and why it’s essential for a cohesive campaign.
• The difference between direct and subtle foreshadowing (and when to use each).
• How to plan your big reveals and drop hints that feel natural.
• Practical DM tips for layering clues, using red herrings, and tracking your foreshadowing efforts.
• Real-world examples you can adapt for your table.

Quick Highlights:

• Start with the reveal: What big moment are you building toward?
• Use NPC dialogue, environmental details, and symbols to plant your hints.
• Repeat clues and let them evolve, but avoid overwhelming players with too many.
• Encourage player speculation—sometimes their theories are better than your plans!

Resources Mentioned:

• Tips for managing clues and continuity in your campaign.
• How to balance foreshadowing with the flow of gameplay.

Connect With Us:

Did you use any of these tips in your campaign? Share your story!

• https://session0studios.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/howtobeabetterdmpodcast?igsh=YmU0b3Zsbms1anUw

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

“How many of your crops are like this?” the Constable asks.

Rosdan, the local farmer who asked for this meeting, looks right into Constable Yerip’s eyes and says, “All of them sir. There’s not a single grain that isn’t tainted.”

Yerip steeples his hands and sits back in his chair. He sits for a moment thinking. “What happened to the few people who ate the grain?”

Rosdan paused and then said, “they turned into monsters. There’s something evil in that grain and I don’t know what it is. It might have something to do with that star that fell not one month ago. I tell ya sir, twas a bad omen to be sure.”

Yelp holds the tainted stalk of grain up to you and your companions. “What do you make of this adventurers?”

You hold it up to your nose. The stalk which would normally have the familiar scent of summer and the harvest bears a sickly sweet stench that seems to hide something more bitter. The stalk that was once golden is now turned a purplish color. Very faint blue lights can almost be seen within the veins of the plant. You hand it to Bophregar whose eyes glow for the briefest of seconds.

“The tainted stalk of grain leaks faint magical energies. This fact does not bode well for the people of this village. I recommend the rest of the tainted crops be burned immediately and not consumed. Other foods must be procured.”

Constable Yerip stands and says, “Well that’s the problem. We have no other food stores. We must find the source of the taint and destroy it. Actually, that is why I called you adventurers here. Can you please rid us of our taint?”

So what would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 17th episode of How to Be a Better DM.

It’s me again, your host Justin Lewis (yes I do have a name). I’m here to help you craft ever better stories for yourself and your players as you dungeon master sessions of D&D 5e.

I want to thank you all for coming back week after week. Lately, I’ve gone through some personal struggles and I’m very grateful for those who enjoy the show even when I don’t feel like myself while doing it. You guys are awesome and are the real stars of this show. 

Now let’s talk about characters, specifically Non-player characters. For those of you who are the newest of the new at this, a non-player character is simply any character in the story that will be played by you. In that, it’s kind of a misnomer because even though you are the DM, you are still playing a game with your friends, a fact that by definition makes you a player, but I digress.

These are the characters your players will interact with and will use to help immerse themselves into your world. So they gotta be good right.

But making characters that come alive can be really hard. So here are a few tips to help make better Non-Player characters.

1. Think about their purpose

All of your NPC’s need a purpose. Sometimes that purpose is just to make your players laugh and add in some comedic relief. Sometimes the NPC is just there to buy and sell items or to move the plot along. Sometimes the NPC is the plot. Most of the time, your NPC’s will have a mix of multiple purposes. Knowing the NPC’s purpose will help with everything else in the story. Just be prepared when the players decided to take the purpose you’ve designed for your NPC and twist it and generally muck things up. You might have a simple merchant that the players decide they really like so they spend way more time getting to know their back story than should’ve ever happened. Oh well.

1. Give them something memorable

With each NPC that you want your players to remember, give them something memorable. This might mean making the NPC funny, or rude so the players remember the interaction with the NPC. Or maybe you give them a defining feature that you constantly bring up in describing the interaction because the players’...

Hello, and welcome to How To Be A Better DM. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy. I hope you are all doing well this holiday season, and maybe even fitting in a couple sessions with your friends or family. Today’s topic: between session check-ups with your player.

We have a favor to ask you: we are always trying to be better DMs, but we also want to become better podcast hosts so we can create more useful and interesting content for you. As part of that, we need your feedback. We set up a super quick survey at https://betterdungeonmaster.com/feedback. If you could take a few minutes out of your day to help us, we would be so appreciative!

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Signup for Our Email Newsletter

Do you love the show but can't always listen to it? Do you prefer written content? Go to session0studios.com/newsletter/ and sign up to get weekly tips and tricks sent to your inbox so you can become the greatest DM the world has ever seen.

Level Up Guide

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better DM. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy. Today, we are going to jump right into the announcements!

First, Rob from Dungeons, Dragons and Psychology will be running a one-shot for some of our listeners this Saturday the 19th at 7 PM. We will be streaming the one-shot live to YouTube, so check us out there at the link in the show notes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDjN4ICKUuW7HSNI_Nsv6Wg 

If you would like to sign up for future one-shot podcasts, sign up at this link: https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/one-shot. We always love playing with you!

Other than that, we have a favor to ask you: We are always trying to be better dms, for sure, but we also want to become better podcast hosts so we can be more helpful and interesting to you. As part of that, we need your feedback. We set up a super quick survey at https://betterdungeonmaster.com/feedback. If you could take a few minutes out of your day to help us, we would be so appreciative!

Today’s topic is House Rules: What makes a good house rule, and what are some good and bad examples?

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Why We Create Expectations about Ourselves

This episode is about D&D and it’s about life in some small way. Playing dungeons and dragons is something we do just like everything else we do, and because of that, we can often create expectations around the way we do things. 

I think it stems from our ability to think about how we think about things. Maybe subconsciously, we need some sort of purpose or we need to feel like we are achieving something.

Either way, having certain unchecked expectations can be pretty damaging and counterproductive. For the most part, D&D is just a game. For some people it’s a game that is part of their livelihood. Hopefully, for no one is it life or death. Because of that, I think we need to all relax a little bit, breathe and readjust some of our personal expectations that might be making things less than fun.

I can’t take breaks

Believe me, I know that you have had your campaign going for years now and you don’t want to risk it’s fading away by taking a week or two off. I’m in the same boat. My group has been playing for a little over 3 years and to be honest, everytime I think about taking a week or so off, it gives me a little anxiety.

But guess what?

That anxiety is all in my head. 

If we took a week off, we would be back the next week. This expectation is false because everyone in my group is committed to the game.

I know that because we’ve been doing it for 3 years.

So if you have thought that maybe you could use a break as the DM, don’t let yourself stop you from getting a probably well-deserved break.

Either take a week off, or have one of your players DM for a session. In my campaign, I invited each of my players to take on the DMing of storiella within the campaign. Two have taken me up on my invite and we enjoyed their one-shots tremendously.

The best part for me was being able to relax for a week span here and there and let myself recharge a little bit. It also clued me into the fact that things might have gotten a bit stale. For example, I haven’t been doing as many combat encounters as I used to. I’ve also let the story sort of wander away from me, rather than directing it like a stagecoach driver.

I can’t change things up

As I mentioned before, I’ve recently noticed that I’ve been doing things the same way and things have gotten somewhat stale. I noticed this during my last session with my players in which is was pretty apparent that everyone was somewhat bored. I decided to end the session early and move onto the next story element, rather than making them slug away at the boring parts.

Too often, we slip into routine. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Routine helps us maximize effort and optimize brain power. It’s exhausting to think of everything, that’s why when you have new experiences it seems that time slows down or more fits into a period of time. When you do routine things instead, you find that time passed more quickly, and frankly, sometimes time passes without you realizing what is going on. You find yourself somewhere without knowing how you got there.

When it comes to D&D, routine can be both good and bad. The key is to key off your players. If they seem like they are enjoying every single session, then bully for you. If not, then you should change things up. As they say, “If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you always got.”

I have to do it THIS way

Youtube is an amazing invention. It has probably educated more people than the public education system ever has, simply because now if you have wifi, you have access to hundreds of millions of videos on all sorts of subjects.

In the world of Dungeons and Dragons, there are Youtube Dungeon Masters a plenty. For the...

Abridged Show Notes

Feeling overwhelmed by D&D campaign planning? Struggle to connect your grand ideas into a single, captivating story? This episode unveils the CASE Framework, a simple yet powerful system that will transform your planning sessions. Learn how to craft unforgettable campaigns, memorable story arcs, and engaging encounters that will leave your players begging for more. Listen in and unleash the true potential of your D&D world!

Planning Your D&D Campaign with the CASE Framework

This episode dives into the CASE Framework, a system for planning D&D campaigns of any size.

The CASE Framework stands for:

• Campaign: The overall plot of your entire campaign.
• Arc: Story Arcs within the campaign, like modules you might run from a book.
• Session: Individual sessions that make up your story arcs.
• Encounter: Specific challenges or interactions within a session (combat, puzzles, social encounters, etc.)

The framework helps you brainstorm and organize your ideas, ensuring everything ties together into a cohesive story.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Why is planning sometimes the hardest part of being a dungeon master? Wouldn’t it be nice to have some sort of guide to help you through your planning, no matter what you are planning for? On today’s episode, I’m going to introduce you to the CASE framework. Through it, you can take any aspect of the entire campaign and work on it without having to worry about writer’s block. This framework will help new Dungeon Masters the most, though old DMs will likely benefit from using it as well.

The CASE Framework is incredibly simple, but often, it’s the simple things in life that save us time, energy and money. 

This is How to Be a Better DM, brought to you by Session 0 Studios, and I’m your host Justin Lewis. Our show has been helping dungeon masters new and old for over 150 episodes now and today we are going to help you tell better stories for yourself and your friends as you play D&D. 

Want to start out the show today with a few words of gratitude. Over the last couple of months, the show has grown, we’ve launched our new Actual Play show, we’ve done a panel at our first live event, and we’ve just been blown away by the support you’ve given us.

Now enough sappiness. Let’s talk about the CASE Framework.

Why the CASE Framework

The CASE Framework will help you break down each individual part into smaller constituent parts. It will also help you make sense of the smaller parts by fitting them into the larger framework.

One of the most important parts of the story is the throughline. It’s not a story unless all of the events are connected. If they weren’t, they’re just random events, not necessarily one story. Having the same character throughout each event isn’t enough. They need to tie together somehow. You can have “side quests” but the campaign should feel like a campaign.

The nice thing about the CASE Framework is that you can really start your planning with any part of the framework. It helps to remember the framework as a whole so that as you do plan the S for example, you keep in mind the A and the E and to a lesser extent the C.

Let me also explain that this framework doesn’t touch improv during your game. This is all about the prep so any improv you do will have to use some of our other tips.

One last thing that is nice about this framework is that it can help you plan the timing of your game. Despite how much we may not want them to, all things come to an end....

Today we talk about inviting guests to join you in your D&D campaign.

Here are some of the topics we talked about :

Should you have guest players?

Reasons For

The guest has never played D&D. Allowing them to play with an established group would give them a better experience than just having them find a random group who may or may not have played before.

Bringing in a guest might allow you to portray an important NPC in the story without having to roleplay them yourself

Reasons Against

Adding in a guest might disrupt the flow of the game and the group. They may not mesh because they probably don’t understand the inside jokes and comradery of the group

Why should you try having a guest player?

How Should You Do It?

How Should You Not Do it?

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

You all enter the doorway at the back of the chamber. This dungeon had given you and your companions many challenges. You’d almost lost McGregor in the first room and as you descended lower, each level became harder.

In this last chamber, you’d expended all your magical energy just trying to put this pit fiend down. You look back at the demon, already its body is starting to turn to sludgy black ichor. You turn and follow your friends.

You all walk down a long stone hallway and enter a very small room. In the room there is a single stone dais on which rests a very strange object. There’s what looks like a box with a round pane of glass on one side on a stand inches above a slab of something grey with square pellets on it. As you get closer, you see the pellets all have a single character on them. They’re arranged in some sort of grid pattern. You reach out and touch one. You hear a click. Instantly, the glass pane on the box lights up and you see moving particles of black and white and you hear a faint buzzing. You reach your hands toward the glass pain and you feel energy dancing on the surface. You touch the screen and flash!

You open your eyes and find yourself surrounded by numbers and lines of light. You are in a very strange place that seems all angles and lines. There is nothing organic here. Instead of dirt, you stand on what feels like a mix between glass and metal and off in the distance you see the large gathered lights of a city at night. 

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and together you and I are going to explore how to tell better stories while you DM a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Have you ever wanted to play D&D with people but you were separated by time and space….?

Well as far as the time thing goes, can’t really help you. I’m fresh out of Tardis’ and Delorians.

But the nice thing about living in the technological age is that distance is relative. 

You can now play D&D online with your friends or family, or complete strangers.

But what do you need to play a session online? What a great question. Let’s dig in.

1. Video conferencing tool

Aside from the basic essentials of needing a story and players, you need a medium through which you can all communicate. Obviously you can use free options like Zoom, Skype, or Google Hangout. Honestly, you could play just over the phone (but your minutes will probably go way over your monthly budget). I wouldn’t recommend playing over the phone because having that visual component is so easy, affordable and just really nice! If you are looking for just a video connection tool, I would say Zoom or Google Hangout, but the drawbacks are that you can’t do them for really long sessions. So my next recommendation would be a platform.

1. Platform

After a video conferencing tool, the next thing to have would be a platform that syncs together all the players and everything that’s going on. I prefer Roll20. It allows you to use Video as you play and it also syncs the rolls of all the players and adds a lot of cool features that the DM can use. I am not affiliated with them but I really like what they do.

1. Visuals

The next thing I would say you need is visuals. When I say need here, I more mean “it’s really easy to add and it’s free so you’d be really stupid and lazy not to add it.”  The point is there are so many free options out there that taking the time to make your sessions better takes just that time. For visuals again you can literally google cool maps and stuff and then slap that into a word doc or paint and have your players tell you where to move shapes that represent them. Obviously you can always use theater of the mind, but I personally love to look for tools to help immerse my...

Welcome back to this RAW episode of How to Be a Better DM.

This is from an Instagram Live I did about how to move DnD along when it gets slow and boring.

Here are 8 tips to help you move things along in your DnD games:

1. When the party has been planning too long introduce a complication.
2. Describe something trivial in suspiciously extreme detail.
3. Make the bad guys make a move
4. Jump Cut
5. Talk honestly with your players
6. Skip the Boring Bits
7. Bring the Energy
8. End things Early

Mentioned in this episode:

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m one of your hosts, Tanner Weyland, and together you and I will learn how to tell better stories as we DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Today I share my thoughts on how to communicate with "that one player." Difficult interpersonal issues are often solved with open and constructive communication.

If you like the podcast today, or if you have suggestions for future podcasts, connect with us on our new instagram @howtobeabetterdm and let us know!

Would you like to play D&D with us? If so, then sign up for the newsletter and get access to monthly sign ups for a session with me or one of the other hosts. Sign up at https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/subscribe

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Level Up Guide

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Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

The mechanical man cries out in pain. You and your party walk in the baron’s great hall and you see the mechanical man bound by chains. He hangs from a nearby wall. A large thug stands near the automaton with a cudgel, beating him leisurely. You and your party walk forward past the courtiers, and the sycophants to address the baron. He sits on a large chair near a great hearth tearing hunks of meat of a leg of lamb and stuffing it into his fat face. You surreptitiously glance around the room. 10 guards.

You and your friends stand before the baron. He chews, swallows and then smiles.

“Ah, the adventuring party from Gildhaven. We finally meet, face to face. Please sit, eat. I’m pleased that you grace my court with your presence,” he says and he gestures to tables filled with food.

You glance at your party members and clear your throat. “I don’t think we have time for festivities.”

The baron steeples his hands. “You’re here for the reward then. Capture of this monstrosity would not have been possible without your very capable help. I believe it was 2,000 gold?” He tosses a large sack of gold onto the ground in front of him. Some of the coins spill out on the marble floor.

You eye the gold.

“Baron, my friends and I have spent a great deal of time with this ‘monstrosity’ as you call him. He saved our lives. We did not mean for him to be captured. We believe you keep him here illegally. We demand you set him free.” Your voice echoes around the great hall as every pair of eyes turns towards you. Your eyes dart towards the metal man. Though inhuman, his eyes look at you, almost as if to say, “Thank you but your efforts are in vain.”

You turn your attention to the baron.

The baron stands up. “You dare come into my domain and make demands of me? You’ve served me well in the past. For that, I give you one chance to walk away and leave.”

You stand there, gripping your sword hilt. The entire room feels the tension.

What do you do?

Welcome back to the 5th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m here to help you tell better stories for yourself and your friends as you Dungeon Master a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Before we get into it, another shoutout to the guy who makes this audio sound so cool. I’m talking about @kahootaz from Instagram. He’s done an excellent job and if you need any audio help, reach out to him and he’ll get you taken care of.

Now, let's talk about doing something every DM has to deal with: shy or reserved players. That’s right, let’s talk about getting people out of their shells. Let’s get into it.

1. Ask them questions.

During your session, if one player generally doesn’t say much as far a role-playing goes, then the simplest way to get them to say something is to ask them. Say for example the group decides to do something, but the quiet player hasn’t given their input. Simply ask, “What does Lilyleaf Twinkle Toes do?” Obviously, the name was made up, but you get the idea.

1. Ask them back story questions in between sessions

These players might just be afraid of letting loose. So just help them along by getting them to think up really cool things about their characters. I’ve found when you do this, you might only get one little tidbit back, but even that can start the process of helping the player feel more comfortable to get into the game.

1. Make a section of the game about them

You gotta be careful about this one, but if you add the tidbit your quiet player came up with into the game (either in a small or a big way) it can go a long way to help the player immerse themselves in the game. I’ve found when I do this, the player gets excited and they don’t feel so self-conscious.

1. Understand it takes little steps

Your player isn’t going to go from reserved initiate to role-playing master in one game, maybe not even one whole...

Hey There!

Welcome back to another joint episode of How to Be a Better DM.

As always you can go ahead and sign up for our newsletter :https://how-to-be-a-better-dm.captivate.fm/subscribe

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

You crawl forward slowly, every inch causing you pain. The last thing you remember is investigating a cabin in the woods with your friend before he stabbed you in the back and left you for dead. After falling down a ridge you crawled yourself to this cave seeking shelter. You can feel yourself bleeding out. You look forward into the darkness of the cave. It’s hopeless. Desperate, you cry out, “Help! Please, anyone.” More blood comes out of your mouth than sound. You hear silence. Then, you see two pinpricks of light in the darkness. Small points of maroon light emanate from within the darkness. You crawl towards them only to discover a small statue, featureless except for two ruby eyes. You touch it. It is then that you hear a voice.

“You…. are…. Dying…..” The voice is timeless and deep. It fills you with dread.

“Please help me.” You manage to whisper. The red eyes pulse.

“A…. trade…”, the voice says.

“What…. Do you want?”

Silence.

“I… Desire… Service….”

“Who… ugh...are you?”

“Nameless… I...can...save...you…”

You think for a moment. You remember the betrayal of your best friend. “Can… you grant ugh...me… power?”

Silence.

“What….do...you...desire….?”

“Ugh….. REVENGE!”

The red eyes pulse. “I...will...grant...you...revenge!”

You come back to yourself. It was just a memory. You face the half-elf druid you just met. She repeats her question, “What’s your story?”

You smile. “I’m just a simple man from a small town. Not much to tell.”

Welcome back to the 3rd episode of How to Be a Better DM. We’re here to help you create better stories for you and your players while you dungeon master a nice session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Today let’s talk about one of the first steps in playing DND: finding players. Here are a few tips to finding players for your group.

Start with your family

A family that plays together stays together. If you can get your significant other to play with you, it can make for some great experiences. Nowadays, spending time with family can be so hard. A nice 4 hour session is a great way to get everyone involved in each other’s lives. Just make sure you do other things as a family too.

Share your interests with other people

When people ask you what you like to do, don’t be afraid of actually sharing your interests. Own it. You’ll be surprised who will tell you, “I’ve wanted to try that for some time.”

Your local game shop

There are lots of comic book stores or game shops that have free games that you can join. That’s a great way to find people who also want to play and are even willing to go to public places to meet complete strangers to play. Win-win.

Social media

Pay attention to the things other people post about. That should clue you into some of their interests. Just reach out and see if they’d be interested. If you really want you can just post yourself and see if anyone responds.

Ask for referrals

You can ask your friends to see if they know anyone who’d want to play. If you don’t know someone, they definitely do.

Be ok with few players

Let me tell you from experience, once you start with a few people adding people gets pretty easy. People just seem to come out of the woodwork. So maybe you just start with 2 players. Eventually, more players will come around. Just find a few willing participants and get to adventuring.

Thanks for listening to today’s show. I hope you find it enjoyable and useful. Tell me about your DMing adventures as well as any ideas you have for the show. Reach out to me @geronimolevis on Instagram. Also make sure you follow the show so you never miss an episode. We’ll see you next week. Until then, let’s roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Welcome Back to How to Be a Better DM!

Today is a very special episode. Today is a Dungeon Master Coaching episode with our friend Aaron Singh.

Today we talk about Dungeon Mastering for kids and tying up loose ends in your campaign.

If you're interested in having your own dungeon master coaching session go to

https://session0studios.com/coaching. If you let us record the first episode, it's free.

Mentioned in this episode:

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Hello, and Welcome to How To Be A Better DM. My name is Tanner Weyland, and together we will learn about how to prepare the best adventures and environments for our players to enjoy.

This week, we were supposed to have a one-shot run by me, but my wife’s Grandma died this past week. The funeral was overlapping, so Justin offered to take over this month–stay tuned, as we are still rescheduling that.

Otherwise, if you’d like to sign up for future one-shots, we have a couple coming up in the final quarter of this year: Robbie, or Bone Daddy, as he is affectionately known on the podcast “This Dungeon is Occupied,” will be running a horror-themed adventure in October for some of our listeners. If you’d like to hang out with us once a month, you can. We are filling up rapidly for that one-shot, but all you gotta do is sign up. It’s first come first serve so sign up quick. I will be running the one-shot the following month.

With no further ado, let’s dive into today’s topic: D&D Etiquette.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM

Today we have a special episode with Jay Foster from Swole Initiative (https://swoleinitiative.com/)

Today we talk about a lot of things including:

• The importance of player check-ins
• How to push boundaries without crossing lines or veils
• Why and how to add theme to your game

And more.

If you liked today's episode and you want Jay to come back on the show, go onto Jay's social medias and tell him thanks for joining us and show him some love.

Mentioned in this episode:

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

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Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Ulv stumbled through the snow covered trees. He’d been stripped of his weapons and shirt and was given a pouch of herbs to crush and smoke when he felt the time was right. Apparently, they were supposed to give him some sort of vision about what  his test was. 

“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done,” Ulv grumbled to himself amid strides through the knee deep snow. He needed to find shelter soon. There was no way he’d survive if he didn’t get out of the blowing wind and snow. 

As if in answer to his mental request, he spotted a cave up the slope of the hill he was climbing. The cave was almost covered with snow, but had an opening large enough for Ulv to enter. 

The interior was cold, but less so than the freezing forest outside. It was dark, but some light reflected in from the outside snow. Ulv made his way as deep in as he dared without a torch. The cave was much deeper than he’d anticipated. That meant more warmth but less light. 

So what would you like to do?

Intro

One important thing you’ll want to remember is that for the most part, these questions work when asked to specific individuals. Singling them out can help to get a better response from some of the more unresponsive players. Just make sure that the question is set up the right way. In fact, before we begin with the actual questions, let’s talk about a few requirements for a good NPC roleplaying-prompt question.

1. Purposeful

You can’t just ask random questions and expect that  every question results in better or more roleplaying. For each question, you need to have a specific purpose. Maybe you ask an open ended question to allow the player more freedom and creativity. Or maybe you ask a very specific question designed to get the player to actually respond.

1. Player directed

The best questions are focused on specific players. If you ask questions directed at the party, it is very likely that the person who is most used to roleplaying will respond. Getting a player to respond who rarely roleplays requires direct questions. That’s not to say that every single question needs to be focused on stimulating roleplaying. Some questions are just for the sake of the story.

Now with those two question requirements in mind, let’s get to the actual questions of today’s show.

What do You Think?

When directed at a specific player, “What do you think?” can be a very powerful tool to help re-engage a player who may have lost focus, or just help jumpstart the party into helping everything collaborate. I’ve used this with ally NPCs or even some NPCs that are slightly adversarial, though I haven’t ever used this question from the standpoint of a complete villain. I haven’t really found a scenario where that makes sense. Simply ask this question using the character’s name and voila! They have to respond with at least something. Even if they say, I have no idea, they’ve at least said something! That is a win in my book.

What’s Your Story?

I find this question works the best when it’s an NPC that is somewhat neutral to the party, like a shopkeeper or something. Naturally, the party will look different compared to the normal customers (usually), so a shopkeeper could take interest in the party, if only to hear a new story. You can also use this question from the point of view of an NPC traveling with the party. The only drawback with that is once the question has been answered, that’s it. If it didn’t lead to more roleplaying, you can’t really ask it again from the same NPC.

That’s a nice piece of equipment, where’d you get it?

This question is very similar to the previous question. From the point of view of NPCs, most of the equipment that our adventurers have is really nice and shiny. Normal folk rarely have opportunities to encounter the types of magical items that adventurers carry. I...

When you are planning a combat encounter, do you know how to get it into the "Goldilocks" zone in terms of length? You don't want it so short that no one got anything out of it, but you also don't want it so long that all the players are secretly praying that it will be over after the next turn.

To help you plan the length of your encounter, whether beforehand or on the fly, here are 3 questions:

• Question #1: Has each player had a chance to feel either useful, powerful, or seriously threatened?
• Question #2: Has this combat encounter had at least one “story-worthy” moment?
• Question #3: Does the length of this combat match its importance?

Learn how these questions can help you execute an appropriately-lengthy combat in today's episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Play D&D with Us

Did you know that you can have one of our hosts here at How to Be a Better DM be your dungeon master? That’s right. All of our podcast hosts are professional dungeon masters that you can hire for your private or corporate dungeons and dragons game. We can do one-shots or long-term campaigns. If you want to schedule your first session with us, go to https://session0studios.com/dungeon-master-for-hire/ and get started.

Dungeon Master for Hire

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Dive deep into the captivating world of blacksmithing in Dungeons & Dragons with our special guests Matt and Stan from Wasatch Forge. In this thrilling episode, we unravel the secrets of the blacksmith's shop, from forging blades to the mystical infusion of magic into steel. Discover the craft behind the art, and uncover how you can enhance your D&D experience with authentic blacksmithing knowledge. Don't miss out on this immersive journey into the heart of craftsmanship and adventure!

Welcome back to part 2 of our interview with Wasatch Forge. This is How to Be a Better DM, the show that is designed to help new or veteran dungeon masters become masters.

Today we dive back into Wasatch Forge for the 2nd part of our interview.

Check them out at https://www.wasatchforge.com/

From today's show you will:

• Gain insights from master blacksmiths on accurately portraying a blacksmith shop in your D&D game.
• Learn about the tools and equipment essential for blacksmithing, including anvils, hammers, and forges.
• Explore the historical accuracy of blacksmithing techniques, debunking myths commonly seen in movies and games.
• Delve into the process of creating a Memorial Blade infused with the cremains of a loved one, blending artistry with emotion.
• Discover the potential for incorporating blacksmithing quests into your D&D campaigns, adding depth and authenticity to your storytelling.
• Get tips on managing player expectations regarding the availability and limitations of blacksmith services in-game.
• Gain a deeper appreciation for the dedication and craftsmanship of blacksmiths, both in fantasy worlds and real life.

Mentioned in this episode:

Add the Magic of Sound to Your Gameplay

When you set the scene you need to tap into the five senses. When it comes to sound one of the best ways to do that is with music, sound effects, and ambience. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Monument Studios. Monument Studios provides an easy-to-use Soundboard perfect for Dungeon Mastering. If you want to see this in action, go to fantasy-plus.com and get 10% off of your first month of their Fantasy+ App by using the code BETTERDM at check out. Again that is fantasy-plus.com and BETTERDM at checkout.

Monument Studios

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

You all reach the bottom of the ladder after climbing down it for an hour and a half. Halfway down, your wizard cast light to give you all the ability to see. You find yourselves in a roughcut chamber with a ladder that ascendes up towards where you came from. You also see a solitary door. After a few minutes, Herath is able to unlock the door and open it creakily. Beyond your group sees a sloping tunnel that dives deeper into the earth at a gentle decline. You group presses on and walks the path for another half hour. 

You and your group are used to the constant noises of the upper world. Down here you hear silence and the constant vibrations of the moving earth. 

Silently your group reaches the point where the tunnel branches. It diverges into 3 separate tunnels. Each tunnel looks natural. Your sight penetrates 30 feet into the darkness but you see no signs to indicate which tunnel to take. 

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 35th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis and together we will learn how to tell better stories as dungeon master a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

We’ve all been a DM, we’ve all had good sessions and bad sessions. But how do you know what makes a good D&D session? 

It’s not always easy making a good D&D session, but it is always fulfilling. 

So here are some telltale signs of a good D&D session.

1. Players have fun

The most important thing for a D&D session is that your players have fun. That includes you since you are a player as well. So do whatever you need to make the game fun. If halfway through, you aren’t having fun, then you gotta change things up. Some ways try and make it more fun: 

• Simplify: make things easier to comprehend
• Energize: just add more energy to what you are doing
• Take a break
• Do something funny
• Add in a twist
• Skip over boring stuff.

1. Players are interested

Obviously this is an aspect of the the players having fun, but the story needs to be interesting. That’s why we play D&D rather than other table top or video games. It’s the stories. So are there moments where your players are interested in what happens next. Two of the best ways to do this are first, adding a cliffhanger, but more importantly, conflict. The best part of any story is its conflicts. If a story has no conflicts, it is not a story. So add conflicts. Conflicts between the characters and NPC’s and between the characters and time and all sort of conflict. That’s how you draw in your players. 

1. Something memorable happened

A session is great when you can look back with your friends and say, “You remember when…. That was so cool or crazy or weird.” A good example is in one of my one-shots, one of my players killed an enemy that ended up blowing up cause two of the other players’ characters to die. It was funny and unexpected. It’s something we’ll all remember for a long time. Good D&D session.

1. The session fits the mood of the players

Sometimes the players don’t want a rootin tootin shootem up session. Sometimes the players just want a shopping session. So dangle different flavors in front of your players and the ones that your players interact with the most is the one you should give them more of. Be aware that what they want during the session will likely change from hour to hour and being a good DM  means that you understand what your players want. 

The perfect D&D session is an illusive thing. A ghost, a phantom, a shadow, yet made of pure crystal, platinum and gold, it’s worth more than all the loot in the universe. Creating the perfect D&D session is impossible, yet...

Justin:

Ulf woke up. He was in a cave, but he saw a face above his. It was Herlia. Ulf, we thought you were dead. Ulf sat up and saw Hepom sitting not too far off now, sporting a few more days' growth of beard. Ulf looked around. He could see the exit from the cave a few yards away. It was snowing outside. About a week. We still don't know what happened, Ulf, but we are sure glad to see you up and walking. We... we didn't know what to do." Hylia said as her voice trailed off. of breathed deeply. I'm sorry." Ulf looked into Herlia's eyes. I've failed you these past few weeks. I should have been more, but I thought just about myself. Herlia was taken aback. Ulf, we didn't blame you for what happened to Hüde and Kujari. Ulf began to stand up and walked towards the snowy cave entrance. He turned and looked back at Herlia. I was not asleep or in a coma. Instead, I was taken back to the home of my ancestors. There, I lived for weeks in a tribe, and I had to perform some sort of test. Actually, I still have to perform the test, the trial. Early, I stood up and rubbed her temples. Ulf, you're not making any sense. Ulf turned and looked at her once again. We have to go north. and conquer the tribes of the North. Silence. Then Hipon piped up and said, well, when do we leave? What would you like to do? Welcome back to today's show. I'm your host today, Justin Lewis, and in the world of being a dungeon master there are now essentially two types of dungeon masters. There are those that prefer playing in person and those that prefer playing online. And actually I guess there's probably a third group that likes either one. But today I want to give a small guide to preparing to preparing for an online session for those people who feel like the online format may be limited or they've just never done it before. Sorry about my voice cracking there. But hopefully this guide helps you feel ready and prepared for a nice game with your friends online. And this is generally what I do when I prepare for my one shots, which you can sign up for by going to betterdungeonmaster.com slash one dash shot. It is free and you can see this firsthand. So first step. find your players. As always, the first step to any session of D&D is to find players. And with an online game, your pool of players has both narrowed and expanded. Because now you can play with anyone all over the world, but you do need to find people who are willing to play online. Me, I can't even get my wife to play online, so I resort to asking people I've never met in person over my podcast. Namely, people like you. So second thing you need to do is send out a player brief. Second thing you need to do is prepare the story. You need to write a full story and the nice thing about playing D&D online is you don't necessarily need to change the story to fit the online format. For the most part, you can do everything online that you can do in person. Naturally, whispering in people's ears is a bit hard. However, it's still possible. You can, there are tools that allow you to send discrete messages, and if need be, you can just email each individual person because theoretically you will have each of their emails. So prepare the story, write it down, and we have tons of podcast episodes that should help you with that and get you where you need to be. So the second thing is you need to choose theater of the mind or virtual tabletop or a VTT. So the difference is with a theater of the mind, and this is more of a tech choice than anything, with theater of the mind, you don't need more than one software. Well, I guess, let me explain. So a virtual tabletop is essentially a platform that allows you to connect audio visual for seeing your face and hearing your voice, but it also allows you to play music over the connection. It also allows you to display a map whenever you are in combat or a similar situation. That's a VTT. A theater of the mind is where you simply use an audio visual...

Should you encourage your players to run a business in your campaign? What would that even look like? And, most importantly, can allowing players to run a business in your D&D Campaign become an additive to the overall story, or a distraction? Tanner explores these questions, their many other nuances, and the effects of a player-run, in-game business on your campaign.

Also, if you'd be interested in supporting us and this show, sign up for our new Patreon: patreon.com/Session0Studios

Mentioned in this episode:

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

Worldsmith

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

The party walks out into a clearing. Traveling through the jungle had taken longer than expected. You’d followed the young girl’s tracks but that didn’t make traveling through the brush any easier, especially for Medic. 

In the clearing you see a clean cut wood house on stilts high above the jungle floor. It was as if a home had been built on a watch tower. Smoke rises lazily from the chimney. That’s when you realize how quiet it is. As you traveled through the jungle, you’d heard every sort of creature imaginable. Now you hear nothing. 

Suddenly the door opens up and a man steps out onto the deck of the house. He has a brown vest on with a black beard, no mustache and flowing black hair. He holds his hands on his hips with a crooked smile on his face.

“I suppose you’ve come for my girl.” The man says in a rough deep voice. His tone is somewhat mocking.

Brennor steps forward and say, “There’s more of us than of you so it would be wise to hand her over lad.”

“I can count master dwarf.” The man says wryly. “I don’t think the odds stack up in your favor though.” And with that the man begins chanting something and waving his hands as his eyes light up with a strange white light.

You look to Malfius who has already begun a Counterspell. Malfius finishes but nothing happens. Malfius tries again, but nothing. 

The man on the deck smiles and says, “Oh that won’t work with me. I’m a different breed altogether.” and then thrusts his hand forward and opens it and you and your companions are assaulted with shards of thick ice.

After the barrage, you all stand up and look at each other.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host, Justin Lewis and together you and I will learn how to tell better stories as we DM sessions of Dungeons & Dragons 5e. 

As I’m been making this show and putting out this content, I’ve realized that it’s very possible that you the listener, not you, no the other one, yes you! The one who is pointing their finger at themselves and mouthing, “me?” Yes. I’m talking to you. You might not be a DM yet, but you’re interested in becoming one. You have one questions on your mind, “Am I ready to try being a DM.?’

Well Mister! I’m here to tell you yes!

Well, mostly yes.

I guess the answer is it depends. 

1. You have a desire to try.

The first and most important thing you need in order to be ready to try being a dungeon master is simply the desire, nay the interest. Everything else can be developed and acquired. If you don’t want to be a DM, then doing it for more than a one shot will be very difficult, nay impossible. If you’re listening to this episode and your friend is pressuring you to try being a DM but you have no real curiosity or interest in doing it, then don’t do it. I mean it’s alright to try it, but you don’t need to prepare to become a DM. Becoming a DM requires a lot of commitment and a shifu.

1. You can explain the basic rules to someone who’s never played.

Go find someone who’s never played D&D but is open to the idea. If they aren’t open, they’ll likely not care about you explaining the rules, therefore they won’t pay attention. So find this neophyte to the D&D ways and sit them down and explain how you play. Don’t go too in depth, but just enough to whet their whistle. If the very idea of that scares the living daylight out of you, then you gotta do some reading my friend.

1. You Have an Idea

Every great campaign needs twists and surprises. Even if you use a premade campaign, you’ll still want to add your own flavor to the game. That means you’ll want to be able to create story lines that are interesting. Now, obviously doing that well takes practice. To start off make sure you have some sort of idea. What I mean is most DM’s at...

How to Write a DND Heist One Shot

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM, I’m your mastermind for today, Justin Lewis, and you’re here with me to learn how to tell better stories for yourself and your friends as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons 5e. aHow to Be a Better DM is presented to you by Session 0 Studios, D&D podcasts and shows to sate your ever deepening hunger.

I’m excited for today’s show because it’s actually something that I’ve been working to improve personally. I’ll explain a little later in today’s show, but I’m really excited to get into today’s show. Before we do, I don’t know who needs to hear this, it’s probably you, the DM listener that I’m currently pointing at, but you need to hear this.

You’re doing wonderfully. You may think you aren’t a great DM or you may have had a session recently that was less than encouraging, but know that you are doing well. First of all, most players could never do as well as you are as a DM. Second, being a DM is hard and it is a skill that requires practice. You’re doing splendidly so don’t give up.

Now, I hope that wasn’t too sappy for you because today we are going to talk about doing a DND Heist One Shot!

Why Do One Shots at All

Before we talk about heists, I want to take a moment and talk about why you would even consider doing a one shot. Back on episode 82, https://session0studios/captivate-podcast/reserve-1/, we talked about 10 reasons why you should one shots. Let me just summarize one of the points and also explain why this particular topic appeals to me. You see, with one shots you can try new mechanics, and new scenarios that might be intimidating to pull off in your actual campaign. Doing one shots challenges you.

Why Do a Heist One Shot

Now the next question is why you should do a heist one shot?

Well the first answer is that, it’s fun. Think about all of the heist movies you’ve seen. There’s the Italian Job. Oceans 11, 12, 13 and so on, Army of Theives (which if you’ve seen, then in our upcoming live play Show, Calignos, the character played by Tanner Weyland, my cohost on this podcast, resembles the main character of Army of Thieves so much it’s delightful).

The list of fun movies is endless.

The second reason is that I think a heist, more than other types of one shots, is somewhat more technically challenging. Let me explain. In order to make any particular one shot as good as it can be, there requires a certain level of believability. You must also strike a balance of difficulty. If the crown jewel of Tethrezrembot is only moderately difficult to steal, then your party will likely think the one shot was more a joke than an actual challenge.

To that end, the thing that the party is trying to heist has a perceived value proportional to the difficulty of stealing that object. That means if the party is to believe the value of the target, then the defenses need to be difficult and believable. Also the party will want a sense of accomplishment.

Original Characters or New Characters?

So the first question you need to ask when doing any one shot is whether or not it will be canon in your campaign or not, and whether or not your players will create new characters. These are generally two separate questions.

For example, in my current campaign, I am planning an extra special one shot for my players. This is a spoiler so if any of my players are listening please stop listening. In my campaign the BBEG is named Dreamtaker, and he was a very powerful Fey Creature who was split into pieces in order to be stopped previously. The pieces of Dreamtaker are all items. 

In my current campaign the party has fought against Dreamtaker a little here and there, and one of the characters has actually been possessed by Dreamtaker...

Justin: Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I am Justin Lewis here with Tanner Wayland. Go ahead and say hello, Tanner.

Tanner Weyland:

Hey Justin, hey everybody.

Justin:

And today we are celebrating our 100th episode. It is mind-boggling to think that we've been doing this for 100 episodes and thinking you know one episode a week that's almost that's a little over no that's just under two years of doing this show and the amount of growth we've seen has been just phenomenal. First thing before we do anything else on today's show, we just wanted to give a big thank you to all of you listeners out there, you in particular, and

Tanner Weyland:

Hahaha

Justin:

make you aware of our deep gratitude for allowing us to do this. And when I say allow, I mean podcasting is somewhat lonely, right? But we've had certain experiences of... listeners reaching out and helping us remember that we're not alone and we're not just speaking into a you know a windstorm but What we're putting out is actually being received and you know you guys like it which is which is even more gratifying So a big thank you to you guys

Tanner Weyland:

Absolutely. It's been, you know, kind of shocking how much you guys care about what we have to say. And you know, we put work into this, but a lot of people put a lot of work into things, and it doesn't get reciprocated at all. And we just, we really appreciate, you know, knowing that you guys are listening, and that there's a big community out there who's trying to improve, you know, they're DMing right alongside us, you know?

Justin:

Absolutely, absolutely. So today's show, it's not going to be like normal shows to be honest. We're going to be a little bit more loose, a little bit more just random, I guess. But we wanted to talk about some of our thoughts for what we see moving forward and our goals and desires and wishes for how to be a better DM and betterdungeonmaster.com and kind of what we want to build moving forward. You know, as we get started, just wanted to ask Tanner, is there anything specific that you personally would just think would be the coolest thing to do or anything like that?

Tanner Weyland:

Um, something that I've really liked the idea of because, you know, in one of our recent podcasts, we were talking about peer reviewing and, and I think it's such a powerful tool for improving, uh, is just having that kind of critical look at specific moment to moments of DMing. Uh, something we really want to do is, uh, you know, provide some content where we're actually reviewing, uh, you know, some of our one shots and some that maybe other people send us. Uh, we, uh, I really like that idea. Cause I think seeing someone DM in action, it's a very different experience from talking about it in the theoretical, you know? Uh, so that's something that I'm really excited about. We've, uh, we've discussed, you know, uh, we're, you know, this is a little bit of a, Jump ahead, but we're doing a membership on our site and you know, we're gonna be posting some of the Recordings of our one shots, but we also thought it would be great to alongside that maybe at the same tier or a different tier of membership, do commentary on that, where we're like, hey, let's take this moment by moment, pause during the one shot and just talk about like, hey, here's what I loved about what they're doing or what we're doing if we're the ones podcasting or hey, here's maybe, they did okay here, here's how it could have been improved. And that kind of idea excites me a lot.

Justin:

I really like that too. Just the fact of, and I think we did this once before and we put it out as an episode,

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

but looking at your dungeon mastering skills, not in a you're a terrible person kind of way, but in a man this would...

Do you dream of trying out being a dungeon master, but are unsure of yourself or your abilities? Do currently DM but wish some parts of it weren’t as hard or complicated? Today’s episode is filled with 20 tips to help you skip some of the mistakes that we’ve made in our DMing journey. With these tips, you can gain the confidence to DM like you never have before. More importantly, with these tips, you’ll know that you are a good DM right now and that with some practice you can get even better.

TLDR:

The tips can be boiled down into a couple of META tips:

• Relax and Play the Game (It’s just a Game)
• Everything you Do can be improved even just 1%
• Practice is what will improve your game.

Feel free to read the tips below, or read the full episode transcript if you want to dig in deeper.

The tips:

1. Intro
2. Go Slow and Deliberate
3. Follow the Fun
4. Let your Players Do Some of the Work
5. Do Homebrew Early and Often
6. Read Everything You Can
7. Spend Some Time Everyday Writing
8. Foundation First
9. Details Make It Incredible
10. Always Be Meeting People
11. Make Your Player Characters the Stars
12. Know What You Are Good At
13. Don’t Try to Have Your Best Session Ever
14. Steal Ideas (Except When Making Money)
15. It’s Ok to Look Things Up
16. Success Is Measured by People’s Enjoyment
17. You Will Get Better
18. You Make the Rules
19. Commit
20. Listen to Podcasts and Watch Youtube Videos

Mentioned in this episode:

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

On today's episode, we have Tyler & Noah, the musical masterminds behind Monument Studios.

As some of you know, Monument Studios has been a sponsor of How To Be a Better DM, and our Live-play D&D show The Pact & Boon for the better part of the past year. Their app Fantasy + is a must have for any dungeon master! Tune in to hear about their upcoming Kickstarter launching on August 20th, and how you can get some of the most amazing rewards ever offered on the platform!

Check out Monument Studios here:

https://www.monumentstudios.net/

Check out their music app Fantasy + here:

https://www.fantasy-plus.com/

Enjoy 10% off your first month with the code BETTERDM. Support us and support these amazing artists, while also giving your players the best experience possible.

Don't forget to check out their Kickstarter as well:

Join the Campaign

Mentioned in this episode:

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. We have a great episode with Robert from Dungeons, Dragons & Psychology. Get Robert's Book Session 0!

Here are some of the questions we asked Robert:

• Is it necessary to make your NPC’s lifelike
• What makes a good NPC?
• What makes a good villain?
• What makes a good ally?
• How do you keep track of your NPC’s?

Mentioned in this episode:

Why Listen to Ads?

Ugh, another ad break. Let’s be real—ads are the worst. If you’re anything like my wife, you’d rather quit a show entirely than sit through another ad. So why suffer? Just skip them. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and enjoy ad-free episodes with exclusive patron-only content—all for just $5 a month. Look at you, all fancy with your uninterrupted listening experience. So stop wasting time on ads (like this one). Go to patreon.com/betterdungeonmaster and upgrade your listening today!

Patreon

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

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It's another duo-show with Justin and Tanner.

Listen afterward for a note from our sponsor.

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Welcome to How to Be a Better DM! Your host, Tanner Weyland, along with guest host Cayden Ottley, explore an important question: How can you make player characters experience growth in an interesting and earned way when they often enter an adventure with highly experienced backstories? Can every hero have a zero-to-hero moment if they automatically come into an adventure as ex-master thieves, army commanders, or incredibly wise wizards? Well, we help you out so you can give your players a more fulfilling growth arc.

Also, we'd like to thank our sponsors, Magic Mind. Check out this link and use code BETTERDM20 to get yours: https://www.magicmind.com/betterdm

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Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Have you ever seen amazing terrainscapes worthy of legend and have looked on with envy?

Do you want to learn how to start getting into terrainscaping so you can have amazing battlemaps like all of the famous actual play shows?

Well, this is the episode for you.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today Justin and Tanner are joined by Jay from Jay's Tabletop Terrain on Instagram. You can learn more about Jay and what he does by going to: https://www.instagram.com/jays_tabletop/

In today's episode we talk about questions like these:

• How does one start into crafting or assembling terrain for their D&D games?
• Which is cheaper in the longer run, buying/3d printing or crafting terrain?
• What handful of pieces are staples and should be first in the list to start with?
• How do you measure distance for tactics in combat if there isn't a grid?
• How do you use terrain to improve the gameplay rather than taking away from it?

And more.

Let us know how you like this episode, but thanks for giving it a try.

We'll be back next time with another great episode.

Until then, let's roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Play D&D with Us

Did you know that you can have one of our hosts here at How to Be a Better DM be your dungeon master? That’s right. All of our podcast hosts are professional dungeon masters that you can hire for your private or corporate dungeons and dragons game. We can do one-shots or long-term campaigns. If you want to schedule your first session with us, go to https://session0studios.com/dungeon-master-for-hire/ and get started.

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Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

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Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today is a special bonus episode. We were fortunate enough to have been invited onto RPG Academy. Listen to our conversation but absolutely check them out at https://therpgacademy.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Do You Want to Earn some Money?

🎲 Want to Earn Some Extra Gold? We’re offering a referral incentive for our professional Dungeon Mastering services! Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Refer someone to session0studios.com/prodm 2️⃣ They sign up for a free consultation. 3️⃣ They mention they were referred by a podcast listener. 4️⃣ We DM an unforgettable session for them. 5️⃣ They get 10% off their booking. 6️⃣ You get 10% of what they paid—straight into your coin purse. 7️⃣ We celebrate with a virtual high-five. 🙌 We run games for private groups and corporate teams—whether it’s a one-shot or a long-term campaign. 💰 Want to earn some gold and help someone level up their game night? Send them to session0studios.com/prodm and start earning today!

Try Worldsmith Today!

Give yourself access to infinite possibilities with Worldsmith! It's the ultimate tool for Dungeon Masters to spark creativity or just save your bacon when you're in a bind. You can generate infinite stories, traps or treasures. Sign up at https://session0studios.com/worldsmith-podcast

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Ever dreamt of creating the perfect D&D game room, but felt overwhelmed by budget, and space limitations, or clueless about the coolest tech hacks? This episode is your one-stop guide! We'll delve into inspiring ideas, from crafting an immersive atmosphere to incorporating unexpected gadgets to elevate your campaign. Whether you're a seasoned Dungeon Master or a newbie setting up your first session, get ready to transform your game room into a legendary space that will have your players begging for more!

Craft Your Dream D&D Game Room: From Budget Hacks to Tech Tricks

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. In this episode, we journey deep into the realm of D&D game room creation with the incredible Daniel Hanzlian, the mastermind behind the inspiring Instagram account @danzlianthedm! If you've ever fantasized about building the ultimate space for epic campaigns but felt restricted by budget, space, or a lack of tech know-how, then buckle up!

We'll cast a spell on the following:

• Budget-Friendly Fantasy: Unleash the power of creative solutions and discover how to craft an immersive atmosphere without breaking the bank.
• Optimizing Your Space: Maximize your square footage for legendary gameplay, whether you have a grand hall or a cozy corner.
• Tech Hacks for Tabletop Titans: Learn how to leverage unexpected gadgets and digital tools to elevate your campaign to new heights.
• From Inspiration to Implementation: Turn your game room dreams into reality with a step-by-step approach that's both practical and awe-inspiring.

Ready to transform your game room into a haven for unforgettable adventures? Dive into this episode and discover the secrets to crafting a legendary space that will have your players cheering for more!

For more ideas and inspiration, be sure to check out Daniel's work on Instagram: @danzlianthedm

Find out more at https://session0studios.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

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Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master...

What is a Session 0

Suddenly, you hear a muffled grunt. You risk a glance away from your dark elf opponent and see Geriman go down. Enraged you yell, “Nooooooo!” and you rush the dark elf in front of you, he feints left but you don’t fall for it, choosing to rush him and lift him up, smashing him to the ground. You take advantage of the brief moment he lies stunned on the ground by sending a quick 1-2 punch to his head with your spiked gauntlets. After a moment he lies still. You get up to run towards Geriman. You have a healing potion so you should be able to save him. As you turn to look at your fallen companion so stop in your tracks, the battle raging around you. Standing above Geriman’s unconscious form is the drow elf who downed him. He looks at you and smiles, and then rams a sword into Geriman’s chest. Geriman’s eyes open briefly and a sharp grunt escapes his lips, followed by a slow sigh that slowly fades into nothing. 

You don’t remember what happened next. Instead you come back to consciousness with a dead drow at your feet, torn into two parts. Next to the elf is the body of your slain friend, a slight trickle of blood escape his unmoving mouth and his eyes staring up into nothing.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and together you and I will learn how to tell great stories as we DM sessions of D&D 5e.

When getting a campaign started, you might have heard the benefits of starting with a session 0. 

But what is a session 0?

Well, I’ll tell what you it is not.

A session 0 is definitely not the session where you and all your friends get together to create your characters. Some people define session 0 as the character creation session, but it specifically is not because you haven’t played your characters yet. If you haven’t played your characters yet then you haven’t played D&D yet, you’ve just had fun making characters. That’s totally fine, but it’s not a session. It might be just semantics but I stand with my definition.

A Session 0 is essentially play-testing those characters that you made. You can choose to include the entire party or just a few people here and there. Generally the story isn’t heavy or at least it’s introductory to the heavy. Some people combine the session 0 with their character creation. They’ll take an hour or so getting their characters set up and then dive right into a scenario with their characters to see if they life what they chose. Often, session 0 can be playing out a part of the backstory of one or more of the characters. A session 0 is also a nice way for the DM to playtest their players. Maybe one of the players isn’t gonna mesh well with the table. Session 0 is a nice way to identify that and then nip it in the bud early on.

A session 0 can really be seen as a warm-up for the entire campaign. It’s a wonderful option for people who aren’t sure about what they want for their character. I suppose you could even play the level 15 or 20 version of your character so that each player knows what they’re getting into rather than just picking a class they think would be fun and hoping for the best. After I would then dumb each character down to the level that you’re starting the campaign at and then go from there.

A couple things you’ll want to keep in mind for you session 0:

1. You don’t want to overcomplicate things. 

Your players are just getting used to their characters and really seeing if this is the character they want to be with for the next 6 months to 22 years (overexaggeration). They don’t want to have to worry about extremely difficult plots right at first.

1. Be patient

As I already said, your players are just learning their new characters. Some players will have an easier time than others. Your job is to help all of them.

1. Help

In this special episode of How to Be a Better DM, Justin Lewis shares key takeaways from the GMing 101 panel at Dragon Steel Nexus 2024. Learn how to manage player expectations, improve group communication, and create more engaging game sessions. Whether you're a new DM or a seasoned pro, these tips will help you level up your game!

Special thanks to :

Benj Weyland for our Graphic Design

TJ Max, TechSenpai and Juka for being our Discord Moderators

Foxy Beard for being a Patron.

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

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Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

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Tanner Weyland (00:01.046)

Hello and welcome to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of, wait, I should probably not say that anymore, shouldn't I?

Justin Lewis (00:09.162)

So as of this recording, you should still say, well.

See, that's part of the logistics that I wanted to talk about tomorrow, but I'd say just say it until we decide on anything specific tomorrow with Kayden.

Tanner Weyland (00:27.446)

Okay, cool. Sorry, you'll have to cut this all out. Okay. Hello and welcome. Oh, sorry. You're good.

Justin Lewis (00:33.352)

No, it's fine.

Justin Lewis (00:37.354)

.

Tanner Weyland (00:40.534)

Hello and welcome to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters .Rent. My name is Tanner Weyland and I'm here with Justin. Say hi, Justin.

Justin Lewis (00:52.042)

Hey, how's it going?

Tanner Weyland (00:54.644)

Oh man, so good. So good. How are you?

Justin Lewis (00:58.79)

I am recovering from moving, which is the worst. So I'm actually doing pretty good, though. What about you?

Tanner Weyland (01:09.366)

Good, yeah, you know, it's, my wife and I are trying to get back to the gym, which of course is its own bag of stuff. You know, you go, you're like, oh, there's so many people. I feel so self -conscious, but it's been good. So we got back from that today, but yeah, excited for that, because we used to be really into it, and then we moved last year, and we just haven't been, you know, for a whole year.

Uh, but yeah, we're doing better now with that. So excited about that. And I'm more excited to talk about our topic today, which is conditions. Now, specifically, I'm thinking like, uh, conditions that affect the status of the player, like exhausted, petrification, prone, poisoned, things like that. Uh, Justin, tell me, uh, what has your experience been either as a DM or a player in regards to conditions? Like, have they been a positive, a negative or

or something not even worth mentioning for you.

Justin Lewis (02:12.554)

I think they've been sort of both. Naturally, when you're a player, if a condition is foisted upon you, it's generally a bad thing, right? There are few good conditions. As a DM, my experience with conditions has really mostly been in combat. So I'm really excited today to talk about possibly ways that conditions can be.

Tanner Weyland (02:31.358)

Mm -hmm.

Justin Lewis (02:42.458)

expanded upon in combat and possibly outside of combat.

Tanner Weyland (02:49.414)

Agreed because I think that's a real issue, right? Where, uh, when a condition is done for the DM, it's just another, you know, plate to spin. And for the players, it's usually like against them because frankly, I think we can agree on this. A lot of time players have seen that it's not worth specking in, in the ability to cause conditions. That's not always true, but I do find that a lot of players are like, Oh,

If it's an enemy we can kill pretty quickly, it's not worth, you know, blinding them or something. And if it's a big boss, chances are their resistances are too high or something. You know what I mean?

Justin Lewis (03:31.176)

Absolutely, you definitely, this is really going into the mechanics of gameplay and this is probably, I would say as DMs, you're probably either good with the story aspect or the mechanical aspect.

Justin Lewis (03:52.042)

Or if you're a lucky DM, sorry, I just had to yawn there for a second. Or if you're a lucky DM, you're good with both. And this is definitely more commonly used with the mechanical aspects of D &D where you have to, you know, I saw on a TikTok the other day where you look at your player character...

You look around you. You see the circle of stones surrounding you. You see Judir watching you with his arms folded surrounded by your closest friends and companions. 

You take a deep breath and walk forward.

“The winds whisper still,”

Runic symbols appear on the stones of the circle.

“The voices of the ancients.”

You stand above the bowl with it’s red liquid.

“And the mountains remember their steps.

You bend over and pick up the bowl.

“Their hearts beat still with the rhythm of our drums.”

You raise the bowl to your lips.

“And we dance to the rhythm of theirs.”

You drink the liquid.

“The storm carries the embrace of our elders as through us their memory lives on.”

You open your eyes. You don’t remember closing them. You also don’t remember being so cold. You look around you. You are on the slope of a mountain. It’s snowing. You see the mountain peak. You see the dancing lights of the northern sky surrounding the mountain. You hear a faint drum beat and distant voices singing an ancient song.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 26th episode of How to Be a Better DM. As always, I’m your host, Justin Lewis and together you and I will learn how to craft ever better stories for yourself and your friends as you DM a session of D&D 5e.

Before I get to today’s show, let me make a few announcements.

First of all, welcome to a brand spanking new year! I hope 2022 is everything you hope it will be for you and more. This year you will have amazing adventures that you can’t even fathom yet. You’ll have struggles and triumphs and I’m excited for you.

Next I’d like to invite you to join us on those adventures. The best way to do that right now is to sign up for our monthly newsletter. You can do so on this link: https://mailchi.mp/05e568274671/subscription-page

When you sign up you’ll get access to behind-the-scenes content, special event links (like the one-shot I will be hosting, more on that in a second), and even access to homebrew content I make that you can test out and give me feedback on. As more and more people join the newsletter we’ll put more and more stuff in it. So go to the link here in the show notes and subscribe. 

As I mentioned, I’m going to DM a one-shot online for a handful of people. If you’re interested make sure to sign up for the newsletter and then look for the link to sign up for the one-shot there. It’ll be a fun experience and you’ll even get to give me feedback and be my critic :)

I think that’s all the announcements … for now… so without further ado, let’s talk about barbarians.

As I said last week, any person can play any class and still have fun. Your job as a DM though is to help shepherd your players to find the class that offers the experience any given player is looking for. That means you should know what each class is good for and what each class does not offer. Last week we talked about who should not play as a barbarian.

This week, let’s look at who would have the most fun playing a barbarian.

1. Someone who wants to be strong

If someone wants to be strong, then a barbarian class is a great fit. You get a natural bonus to strength and while you are raging you get advantage on strength checks. So if your player is looking to be the beefy fella at the gym that everyone stares at, then a barbarian is the way to go.

1. Someone who wants to be up-close-and-personal

Barbarians, while being able to throw javelins and use ranged weapons, are not known for being ranges combatants. In fact their rage only gives them a bonus if they are using melee weapons. Most barbarians...

“Well what do you think?” Geva asks you. You steeple your fingers and think for a moment. 

“They’re all a very interesting lot aren’t they?” you ask.

“Yes but who would you want be stuck on a ship with for months at a time?” responds the ever wise Geva.

“Well, there is Imora. I think having a tabaxi on the ship would be useful, though we’ll have to do something about her antipathy towards tieflings if we’re going to have her work with Heresiel. I was also impressed with Rudruguk. His strength will come in handy should we come in contact with pirates. He might be a discipline problem though. I’ve asked around and that half-orc loves his strong drink. Lastly, there’s Wupreha. Having a priest on board would be very useful, even though he is a primal priest of Ossus.”

“What about System?”

“The war forged? I don’t know how well he’ll fare on a voyage in the open sea. From what I heard, he’s somewhat unstable, even though he is a genius when it comes to woodworking, metalworking and engineering.”

Geva smiles and says, “Looks like you’ve got a choice to make captain.”

So what would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 22nd episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and I am happy to be back with you guys this week. As always you and I are going on a journey to craft more engaging stories for yourself and your players while you DM a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

First thing I want to say is that there are cool things in the works! I know that’s super vague, but I don’t want to spill the beans before it’s a sure thing. Let me just say, I’m working on getting great people on my team and that’s all I’m gonna say :)

Now second thing, I’d like to invite you to sign up for a monthly newsletter I’ll send out with updates and behind the scenes content as well as free home brew content that you can try in your campaigns. If you would like to sign up for that, click this link: https://mailchi.mp/05e568274671/subscription-page

Now that I have done all my selfish self-serving announcing (wink wink) let’s talk about making NPC’s. 

Every game is filled with hundreds of NPC’s. From the poor shopkeeper to the ruthless arch villain ruining the universe, you will have to create NPC’s to move your story along and to give your players what their characters need.

So how exactly do you create a good NPC?

We’ll here are some questions to ask yourself to help you do just that?

1. What is the purpose of this NPC?

I found myself falling into the trap recently with my own campaign of thinking, “I need to put in an NPC at this castle that they’ll meet and Journey with for sometime.” I never asked myself the question of this NPC’s purpose. So after I did, I realized their purpose was threefold: 1. To give vital information about the plot and help solidify the players’ desire to defeat the bad guys 2. To be a light hearted little-brother type character and give the group some comedy relief 3. Eventually die and make the group all sad that he died (oops, spoiler alert!). Answering this question has already helped me identify a lot about how the character will act. When you answer this question you won’t have those useless NPC’s that seem random. Instead, everything will feel necessary.

1. How impactful is this NPC supposed to be on the story?

The answer to this question will help you determine how in depth the answers to the rest of the questions need to be. In the case of a small shopkeeper the party meets when they are level one, the answer will likely be that they are of little impact. That means you mostly need to just make the one encounter the party has with...