I talk a lot on this blog about constructing better stories, but I frequently forget to talk about what I call “Tableskills”, those parts of the DM’s craft that are less about formulating plots and laying out narratives than they are relating those narratives to the people around the table. The thing is, teaching tableskills is a lot harder than just suggesting ideas about stories that could be told, as every DM or prospective DM has their own particular type of storytelling that they’ll grow into as they master the art. As such, there’s no hard and fast rubric I can pass down, only the things that have improved my own performances over time.
The basics: The DM Narrator Loop
I’ve been playing d&d for well over two decades now, and I’ve never heard the DM’s art summed up any better than this video by VOX: Describe, Decide, Roll.
You as the DM Describe what situation the party is in and ask them what do they do next ( in a very leading tone, pulling them forward or offering them direct choices)
The players Decide among themselves what they’re going to do, with clarifying input as needed.
If anything needs to be decided by dice, youRolland figure out the outcome, then you snap right back to the descritption phase.
Keep doing this and your party will be guided along your storiy at a steady clip while having a lot of fun. Keep rolling to when it’s really important, and you’ll be doing just fine.
All Killer No Filler
The most basic trick I’ve learned for tabletop storytelling is asking yourself “ what’s the most interesting thing that could happen this session “ and then telling a story abouthow the party gets from where they are to where that interesting thing happens. Sometimes that interesting thing kicks down their door and forces them to react, other times it doesn’t quite happen on time, and you need to elude to the fact that it’s about to happen next time they play. Sometimes your players will take the initiative upon themselves to make interesting things happen, ranging from deep roleplay moments to taking an unexpected narrative turn and throwing all your plotting out the window. Learn to love when this happens, but don’t rely on it. Players should be given the spotlight when they stand up and take it, but that doesn’t mean you should shove them on stage before they’re ready.
Because you’re running a live session and thus have limited “screen time” in which your interesting thing might happen, you should focus on scenes that push the party forward, building narrative momentum while offering the party a chance to break off and do their own thing. “Does anyone want to do anything before we X” and variations of it is your best ally here, as including a pending time limit spurs the party to act before circumstances change while also giving them a direction to fall back on when they don’t want to make a decision. This is where radically open world/hands off DMs fail, because the players showed up expecting to be part if a story rather than entirety making their own fun while a friend if theirs silently chides them for not pretending to be an elf good enough. TLDR:Always be moving towards something interesting happening inside the session, but never be afraid to detour when it looks like your party is going to do your job for you.
Economy of Information
I often have a problem with expressing my ideas to other people because I either trip over myself trying to get out all the data required at once, or I leave people hanging because I presume they can infer what comes next. Naturally this is a trait I’ve had to train out of myself when I’m being a dungeonmaster and I did that by studying a bit of cinematography. Movies are not subtle about how they want you to feel at any given moment: If the audience is supposed to be on edge, the surroundings are eerie and the music is discordant, if you’re supposed to like a character they’ll either be reminiscent of a wholesome archetype or the camera will deliberately show them doing something nice. Don’t sweat the details when you’re describing a scene or doing background world building, paint in wide strokes and then fill in the details as necessary. Likewise, don’t let your scenes dawdle, bake in a reason why the scene is going to end before too long and use that as a ticking clock to spur your party into action.
When in doubt, be a Cartoon
As gritty as some people like their tabletop roleplaying, at the end of the day it’s just a big game of pretend, and in my experience the best way to tap into my player’s emotional base is to engage the sense of play they’ve been fostering since they were kids. Unsure how to describe something? Picture how it’d look in a disney movie and your word-picture will come across clearer in your player’s minds. Not yet confident enough to RP a nuanced NPC? Overact like a caricature of who you’re pretending to be, and you’ll suddenly have a lot more wiggle room to play with. However gritty some people profess to like their tabletop gaming it’s all a big game of pretend in the end, and the way you engage your party’s emotional core is by appealing to that sense of play they’ve been holding on to since they were a kid.
Follow the Fun
It took me a while to realize that “fun” was like oil in the engine of any d&d game, and that the primary job of the storyteller was ensuring that it was properly circulating throughout the session. Not enough fun? whole thing grinds to a halt and playing feels like pulling teeth. Too many sessions like that and a campaign falls apart. It takes a bit of practice as a DM, but try to be attentive for when fun “bleeds out” of your campaign. Players beating their head against a puzzle? Skip it, try a different sort of puzzle next time. Someone doesn't’ enjoy shopping trips? give em something to do while the rest of the party is perusing. Combat bogging everyone down? Experiment with techniques to make it snappier. Keep up this mindset and your games will be pumping along like a precision engineered machine.
Fail Faster
I’ve listened to this video so many times I could probably repeat it as liturgy. Just like any performance art, the main metric for advancement is realizing where you’re doing poorly and then figuring out ways to improve upon them. Sooner you figure out what you’re doing on and why, the sooner you can try out ways to fix them, and the sooner you can find things that works. Take on an experimental attitude towards your own works, if something is hard: find a way around it that works for you.
Hey everyone! I was working on this little side project during Mobtober and it’s finally done!
My City Generator is 15 pages of tables, outlines, and word banks you can use to create an entire city! I originally made this for my own use but figured it would be the perfect thing to make it usable for everyone else, too!
It also comes with a two-page worksheet at the end of the guide to help you keep tabs on your decisions and results.
As an experiment, I’ve put on the DMs Guild, the first thing I’ve put up there. It’s pay-what-you-want, so have at it!
I’ve been creating content for Tabletop RPGs for quite some time now and ever since I’ve started I always wanted to launch a platform that made customization of said content a possibility. Not just customizing it but also producing physical copies of this content.
About a year and a half ago, I started talking about the basic concept of building a platform like this with people that I had met in the RPG community online. Finding web engineers was key, obviously, who helped me figure out what the possibilities were of actually bringing to life some of these concepts and where it was best to start. Building maps had always been high on my list, as it was my main focus for quite some time, but as it seemed rather complex to build as a launching platform, after quite some time of research and trials & error, building a playing card builder was the next thing I looked into. The idea seemed much more viable as a starting point and thus began the quest to build our first proof of concept.
Now second on the list was getting this stuff produced. It’s fun to be able to create your own stuff online and have a digital version of your creation, but getting to have them at hand while you’re at the table is just so much better. I had been talking to several local printing companies, and some big-name card companies as well, who all required a minimum bulk of a rather large amount. Selling content on some of the popular print-on-demand websites, however, I realized they were able to produce single versions of a product for a reasonable rate, which made the idea much more viable. So I started looking for companies who specialized in this and found a couple in the US, and after some digging, in EU as well.
Now that I had finished the groundwork for the project, after months and months of research and prep work, I got to the third step of building my project and that knocking on doors of some of my fellow fantasy artists in an effort to see if they’d be interested in offering up their creations on this platform as well. As a creator myself I was focused on making sure that we’d have a fair deal to offer them, as part of building this system isn’t just about building a cool tool but also a place where creators can sell their work for honest pay. Looking to team up with a selection of my favorite artists that I’d met in the DnD community specifically in an effort to create some premade decks to showcase what the system is all about. Having their content to fuel the system would mean that it wasn’t just hundreds of drawing people would be able to use, but thousands instead. This as just a starting point of our planned launch, in the hopes of getting to collaborate with many more in the future.
I was very fortunate to get an overwhelmingly positive response from my colleagues. Joined by creators like PrintableHeroes,Paper Forge,James Perrett,ItsaDnDMonsterNowandJulio BencidI had a perfect mix of premade cards to start off with: Combining both popular 5E creatures, NPCs, beasts from the SRD and custom made magic Items + creatures.
Now the next step in this journey is to get the word out for the upcoming Kickstarter that will help launch this platform. Get to talking about it with people interested in what we’re trying to build. Both fantasy artists & stat wizards who’d might want to get their work featured on our site and the DM’s & GM’s who want to use it to create content for their favorite RPG system.
If you’re interested, be sure to check out our prelaunch website:
A deity has a certain realm that it lords over called a divine portfolio. A portfolio contains one or more species, places, things, or ideas that explain what the deity is all about. For instance, the Greek god Poseidon’s divine portfolio would include the seas, storms, waterborne travel, and horses.
Minor deities will only have one item in their portfolio, but major ones could have many. Further, a major deity that wished to delegate its power, perhaps to one of its children, could bestow one of the items in its portfolio onto another deity. Perhaps one deity goes to war with another in an attempt to seize an aspect of another deity’s portfolio for themselves.
New deities could even be created by filling a new role if a divine idea is not currently in any other deity’s portfolio.
Generally, the more power a deity has, the more broad the aspects in their portfolio will be. Likewise, lesser deities will have more specific aspects in their portfolio. For instance, a god of nature will be more powerful than a god of trees.
When creating your own pantheon of gods, try to divide up aspects into deities’ divine portfolios bearing all of this in mind.
Holy Symbol
A deity should have some sort of holy symbol that clerics can use for a spellcasting focus, but a symbol is more than that. A symbol lets mortals rally beneath it and recognize the deity’s followers. It a deity’s free advertisement to their people.
The symbol of a deity should reflect their portfolio in some way, as well as their alignment. It should be something unique that is easy to recognize, but also easy to replicate.
Favored Weapon
Many deities have some sort of weapon that they use and favor more than others. The deity will almost always use this weapon when manifested as an avatar. Wielding the same weapon as one’s deity shows an extra step of devotion to them, even if you aren’t a cleric to that god.
Random Portfolios
When creating your own deities, roll on the Random Portfolio Aspects table multiple times to find a random divine aspect to populate their portfolio. Some aspects defer you to another table to find a more specific aspect.
You can also use these tables as a jumping-off point to create your own portfolios and aspects, as there is no way to have a complete and exhaustive list.
Pantheons
Pantheons are groups of deities. Your setting could have one or several pantheons. Perhaps you include pantheons from a variety of settings and incorporate them all in one place. Maybe different kingdoms or countries worship different pantheons, or just group the same deities in different ways. Our own world has many religions, each with their own god or sets of gods, so why can’t your setting?
While it is possible to have a monotheistic setting where only one deity exists, polytheism tends to be more interesting and supportive. Multiple deities allow for players to choose who their character believes in. If they are a divine caster, they can choose where their powers come from. This choice affects a player’s character and creates additional roleplaying opportunities as they confer with folks of the same or different religion.
Types of Pantheons
Some settings may have multiple pantheons. Here are some pantheons that can easily exist in the same setting.
Racial Pantheon. A race or species could have a whole group of gods to worship that are unique to them. For instance, the elves of your setting may worship their own set of deities. People might commonly refer to the “elf gods” or “dwarf gods” in such a circumstance.
Aspect Pantheon. A broad aspect or domain normally placed in divine portfolios may have its own pantheon. For instance, your setting may have a pantheon of death gods who take on aspects like death, undeath, afterlife, martyrdom, murder, plague, famine, and drought. All the minor aspects should be related to one greater aspect.
Regional Pantheon. In your setting, a certain region like a kingdom, country, or continent may worship different deities and have an entirely different pantheon that hold sway in their lands. Each region could have a pantheon all their own.
Religious Pantheon. Many religions exist in our own world, some of which have their own pantheons of deities. Different pantheons could have arisen in your setting from religions that developed separately. This works especially well if your deities are created through mortal belief.
Creating Pantheons
Myths.Deities in a pantheon often take on different responsibilities in running the universe, or at least take part in its history or its creation. Try to come up with myth surrounding each deity that explain why that deity exists. A deity should have some significance or importance within any pantheon you create, and your pantheon should cover a broad spectrum of created things.
Deific Relations. Deities should have complex relationships with one another to create a robust pantheon. Pick one or more from the Divine Relationships table when deciding how two deities relate, or roll randomly. Trying to justify how conflicting or unusual relationships occurred can create unique and interesting ideas. Is one deity’s son also their lover? Don’t be afraid to tread in the realm of mythological fantasy or dream-logic here.
Remember, existing myths are likely far stranger than anything you can come up with. A Norse cow licked a god out of primordial ice. In Greece, Athena was born of Zeus’s cracked skull after he tried to eat her. The Egyptian ferry to the afterlife has a mast that is the phallus of a fertility baboon-god. So you can get pretty unusual with your myths.
Pantheon Metagame.When designing a pantheon, you should also consider satisfying different elements that exist in the game. Each player could very well worship a different deity that supports their worldview in some way.
A good start is creating gods with various alignments, not just good and evil. With nine possible alignments, you can create some interesting deities. If you are making an entirely random deity, you can roll from the Deity Alignment table to determine the deity’s alignment.
Another game-related thing to consider is creating deities that will cater to existing character archetypes, such as mages, naturalists, outcasts, spiritualists, and warriors. Many pantheons have deities that would be worshiped by different classes. Try to provide deities that are tempting for each archetype to believe in, or ensure that some of your deities are more universal so many different classes would be interested in them. If you are creating a random deity, you can roll from the Archetype Patron table.
As the old rune-covered door creeks open by your hand, the corridor ahead is as quiet as death.
The end of the corridor is nowhere to be seen, but you see each individual brick, even those on the ceiling and floor, are either etched with a colourful rune written in dead languages, forgotten characters and sigils, or contains a carefully placed colourful mechanical button, that could do anything is pressed even slightly.
DM Note: If a button is pressed, a random magical effect may occur (consult the Wild Magic Surge Table if needed). If a character makes physical with one of those colourful runes, the brick fires out with great force from the wall, threatening to injure the person directly in front of it, and if enough bricks are “accidentally” triggered, the whole corridor may collapse in on itself!
You open the door and a gout of flame rushes at your face. A wave of heat strikes you at the same time and light fills the hall. The room beyond the door is ablaze!
An inferno engulfs the place, clinging to bare rock and burning without fuel. You see dozens of tiny burning towers of un-melting metal, stone huts made of obsidian black, and even smaller, hushed voices, coming from inside the room, speaking a language like crackling and hissing fires.
DM Note: If a Character knows Primordial or Ignan, they may hear the tiny peoples in this room speak of how “The Giants have returned!”
You gaze into the room as hundreds of blackened and charred skulls gaze coldly back at you.
They’re set in niches in the walls in a checkerboard pattern, each skull bearing a half-melted candle on its head and wax dripping from the eyes and nose.
The grinning bones stare vacantly into the room, the skulls of human beings and demons alike, all of them waiting for company.
