keplercryptids:

when i was a kid i used to hate when my friends would play with my barbies. if they brought their own it was chill. but inevitably if they played with mine they would make character choices that made NO sense. they would cause fights that whitney would never cause and they would make skipper be way too nice to stacey and i don’t think i was ever a dick about any of it but like. it was annoying lmao. anyway that emotional baseline when it came to My Toys is why i am a dm.

i am a control freak to be sure and i try very hard not to be straight up controlling as a dm. i present my players with meaningful choices and i build the world up around these choices and i don’t railroad them or force their hands. i plot out the campaign as we go, i don’t pre-write anything, and nothing is canon until it plays out at the table. but! being the one who decides how the world responds to the pcs and managing every npc and faction is how my control freak side parties.

and i think this is truly at the core of why i prefer being a dm to being a player. sure, as a player you control your one little guy, but you have NO control over the outside forces working on them or what ultimately happens to them or how the world responds to them. you don’t control how the campaign progresses or even IF the campaign progresses. and i don’t know how y'all just live like that, lmaooo. Forever Players have a fortitude and baseline of Trust and Chill that even at 7 years old, i didn’t have lolol

Me: “I have planned out the BBEG of this campaign. He will strike terror into the hearts of my players!”

Cool new CR 41 Monster that I found: Can make swords magically appear out of the ground

Me, VIOLENTLY SWEEPING EVERYTHING OFF MY DESK WITH MY ARMS: “NEVERMIND”

One of My Players: “Yeah, my character’s parents are dead. Murder, the usual”

Me: Aight, can work with that

A Different Player: “Actually, my parents are both alive! And both of my siblings are alive as well”

Me:NOW THIS! THIS I CAN WORK WITH!!

Something More DMs Should Do:

If Tabaxi exist in your world, and you or your players have pet cats

Make the cats Tabaxi NPCs

Like, one of my campaigns had my cat, Ranger, as a chubby trader (that my players sadly never got to meet)

(Pictures of Ranger as cat tax)

So you like making encounter tables? But you hate rolling d8+d12 together and want to roll % instead… alright, here are your ranges.