Dungeon masters should always be working to improve, but if you’re new to the task, it can be very daunting. The best ways to take your skills from good to great are to stay organized and set goals. In this post, we discuss how to be a better dungeon master with small steps you can take today. And don’t worry, none of them involve improving your voice acting.
Get an undated day planner
This is the ultimate way to stay organized as a dungeon master. Use the time stamps to prepare a journey for your players, highlighting areas to rest, loot to find and puzzles or encounters to get through.
If you’re playing an unstructured sandbox campaign, you can fill in your planner in real time. Document what your players and their characters get up to during each in-game day.. Look back whenever you need to find out who gained and lost which items, how much rest everyone got, and how often your party was stopping off at local taverns.
Set up randomizers before your games
Just because RPGs involve a lot of randomization doesn’t mean you should go unprepared. If you want every roll of that D20 (we love these chonk D20s) to be purposeful, build a selection of random tables. You could have tables for locations, NPCs, encounters, puzzles, loot, names, anything your game needs.
Draw from a variety of RPG books and online sources and mix-and-match to put together random tables that will delight your players specifically. You can either have the tabs open and ready to go on your laptop, or print them out. When the time comes, quickly pull up the table you need, roll your D20 and keep the story moving at a more organic pace.
Curate a selection of playlists
You can get as hands-on with this as you’d like! You can either build your own playlists, or use those already created by other game masters. There are a few ways to go about it. Some DMs prefer to use music that evokes the overall genre of the RPG they’re running. Think dark fantasy, science fiction, horror, light-hearted adventure. Others like to use their music as a more active story-telling device. For example, you could have different playlists for journeying, fighting, solving riddles, drinking in taverns and spell-casting.
Have a session zero
The most important reason for having a session zero before you start your next RPG is that it’s fun! Set up stations with printed tables for name generation, physical characteristics, skills and back stories. Allow your players to roll for themselves and mingle together as they build their characters.
Once everyone has their character, spend some time setting the scene. What world is your party adventuring in? What is the political climate? Where will your characters be at the start of their adventure, and what are they doing? Take as much time as your players need to build this world, especially for longer campaigns.
Create a comfortable set-up
Don’t feel constrained by the need to work with a traditional DM setup. There are so many different luxury tabletop gaming accessories available these days, and it’s so easy to create a space that works for you.
The only things that you absolutely need are some quality dice and a DM screen. You don’t need to use a specific RPG’s screen either. You can buy or build your own modular screen or DM station, using magnets and print-outs to keep it dynamic and relevant to your session.
Use quality dice
You should also be using sharp-edge dice. DMs use them for the same reasons casinos do. They spin more and have sharper stops for the highest-precision randomness possible. They also last longer and are far more aesthetically pleasing.
You can start collecting multiple sets, and excite your players with different dice for different RPG genres, seasons and holidays! They also make great thank you gifts for players at the end of particularly long-running adventures.
Work through one goal at a time
Fortunately, or unfortunately, the key step to becoming a better dungeon master is good organization. Our list includes tips that you can implement right now, and improve your DMing skills instantly.
Take a look at your goals and work through them one at a time. You can’t do solid world-building without resources that are organized well. You can’t be a better storyteller without a foundation of world-building, and you can’t add effective twists and turns to your adventure without being a good storyteller.
To become a better dungeon master, start with the basics: get organized, focus on one goal at a time, and use player input to shape future objectives.
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