D&D and Self-Improvement: How to Improve Your DMing Skills

Tanner Weyland:

Hello and welcome to How to be a Better DM. My name is Tanner Wayland and together we’re all gonna learn how to make wonderful adventures for our players. I’m here with Justin Lewis. Justin, how you doing?

Justin:

A little sick, but I’m alive and well, so that’s good.

Tanner Weyland:

I know, I know. Justin and I were gonna have a barbecue with some friends and that’s right around the time that my wife started feeling sick. Justin was like, hey, I’m sick. And then the weather got bad. So, you know, the gods above were like, no, you’re not having that barbecue. But we’re just happy that you’re feeling better.

Justin:

Thank you.

Tanner Weyland:

Um, so today we’re going to actually talk about kind of a general topic and it’s something that you could honestly apply elsewhere, but, uh, we’re talking about improving as a DM and how you can plan for that. Uh, what do I mean? So if any of you have heard the, uh, the, of the book, seven habits of highly effective people, uh, on the seventh habit, so to speak is, uh, sharpening the saw. At least I believe that’s how they phrase it, right?

Justin:

Mm-hmm.

Tanner Weyland:

And with that habit, it’s all about like, hey, you’re not going to improve bit by bit if you’re not planning for it and setting plans that will make you successful in the end, right? And now we put out a lot of episodes about like, hey, you can get better in this way or this way or how you speak with your players or communicate or plan. All of that is good and it’s fine and dandy, but You know, I think some people and I’m included with this sometimes when I’m trying to get better. I I kind of take the marination approach where I’m like, oh i’ll just listen i’ll read a bunch of books I’ll listen to some podcasts things like that and then I don’t actually end up I don’t know justin if this happens with you, but like I just kind of hope that i’ll through Photosynthesis

Justin:

Osmosis. Yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

osmosis. Yeah, then i’ll just get better instead of actually planning. Does that happen with you?

Justin:

Yeah, 100%. Especially, and it’s kind of hard with this type of thing because it’s a hobby for most people. And that’s where things, especially for hobbies for me, where I tend to be more reactive with my growth and less decisive and intentional. And for more clarification, I believe the term sharpen your saw for this habit. in the book comes from a famous saying, I don’t want to misattribute it, but I think it comes from Abraham Lincoln who said something like, if you give me four hours to chop a tree down, I’ll spend the first three sharpening my saw. And it’s really that idea that by spending dedicated time improving, it should simplify and streamline the actual activity and task itself. So I think this is a great topic to do today.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, I absolutely agree. And so we’re going to jump right in about how you can kind of set yourself up for success, uh, so that you aren’t stagnating as a DM, but every time your players are like, wow, they’ve improved, you know, which, and once again, improvement isn’t a negative thing. All of us could improve, uh, in different ways. And in the end, it’s going to mean that you have a more fun time and you’re going to be less stressed as a DM just straight up. So, Justin, how about you? How would you recommend people improve?

Justin:

So the very first thing I would say to do, and I would probably recommend this to people even outside of Dungeons and Dragons, just as a life skill, practice writing daily. And the reason why I say that is because successful people produce and everyone else consumes. You can spend lots of time reading, but if you spend even a quarter of that writing, you’ve created something new theoretically that the world didn’t have before and maybe this is just top of mind for me because I’ve been trying to get my dad to adopt like a daily writing goal but ever since I adopted one and I use a tool called Write Track I believe it’s called it’s not sophisticated or anything but I love it you can set monthly goals or you can set daily goals and I’ve talked about this before but I set a monthly goal right which breaks down into a daily goal, but if I get ahead today, it affects how much I actually have to write tomorrow because I’m much more motivated to get done early. I don’t know why, that’s just how I work. And even when I do get done early, I just start the next month. But daily writing for me has really pushed me because there are those days where you have writer’s block, which is just a fancy way of saying you don’t know what to write. because you want to write everything well and you feel like what you write will not be good. But having a daily limit, or not limit, but goal. So right now my goal is essentially 500 words per day. And I split that up between a couple different projects, but doing that pushes me out of my comfort zone. It’s comfortable to write when you have a great idea. It’s uncomfortable to write when you have nothing. right? But it’s also helped me start to learn some tricks so that way I don’t have moments when I don’t have ideas, right? And I’m talking about note taking during your sessions. And I think that might also be a whole other topic but I can’t hammer down enough writing every day.

Tanner Weyland:

Okay, yeah, I agree with that because you know, DMs, we as DMs are inherently creative, right? We’re always trying to come up with new ideas and everything. And, and if you’re making that practice of writing, it could be writing about your next session. It could be writing about the story. It could be writing even about like how you felt you did, right? Like that kind of journaling, self-reflection, all of that can really help. Um,

Justin:

And one thing

Tanner Weyland:

yeah.

Justin:

I’d like to add is by writing every day, it splits the session prep and makes it a lot more manageable, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

Because really, writing 500 words, it takes me, and again, I’m not saying these words are perfect, but it takes me 10 to 15 minutes, okay? Now, obviously, session prep deals with some reading and stuff, so that’s not accounted for, but. Words on paper, that’s still something, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, absolutely. And on top of that, you know, if you’re doing that kind of personal work, then I also think that’s a great time to introduce some. some skill learning, some external work, so to speak. That could be, you know, if you’re worried about your improv, which is a lot of DMing, right, it’s kind of just being on the fly, it’s worrying about, you know, how to react to what your players are doing in a way that isn’t always defensive, but even just, you know, it’s playful with what they’re doing. You can train that, right? There are improv classes. Beyond that, there are also great books, like when we were talking with Victor last week, Victor Bevin, He recommended this book, Improvisation for the Theatre by Viola Spolin. And that’s something you can read, but he was like, yeah, it was really helpful for me. And so honestly, it’s worth looking up opportunities to kind of get yourself even out of your DM comfort zone so that you can, like once you’re in the DM seat, you have a little bit more flexibility.

Justin:

100% agree to that. My brother-in-law, last time, so he’s in my D&D campaign, he’s one of the players, last week, he wasn’t actually able to attend because he was attending a voice acting class that was offered as a continuing education class at our local university, UVU, Utah Valley University. I don’t think it cost him more than 50 to 100 bucks for the class. And classes like that are very valuable because they’re not tied to a grade or some arbitrary degree. I don’t really like degrees, but that’s my opinion. And you’re paying for it. The level of involvement is a little bit higher. It’s a little bit more worth it to you because you’re taking time out of your day, you’re taking money out of your pocket for something that is not going to bring you some sort of tangential, no not tangential, but tangible, excuse me, result. So I think experimenting with those types of classes would be a really good idea.

Tanner Weyland:

Yep, totally agree. Otherwise, I would say, aside from finding out those kinds of classes, doing improv, also, just a little plug here, if you ever wanted to kind of create your own like D&D maps or draw or anything like that, if there’s any area that you’re just kind of self-conscious about, work on it. That’s one of the biggest things about improvement personally. But as a DM, there’s so many different talents that like you deal with often, right? If you’re constantly like, man, I wish this map just existed, but it’s so hard to find the specific map I want, then take a drawing class, you know? I know as the person in my family that is literally the worst at art personally. I’m it’s something I’ve always been self conscious about and like there are times and honestly with justin saying this i’m like You know, I should take an art class or you know something right? Um, just to get over that self-consciousness But this is kind of the end point None of this is going to happen if you don’t plan for it that means that uh honestly during that time when you’re when you’re writing or right after, when you’re doing your daily or weekly planning, put into that your goals and be like, okay, for this next session, I’m going to focus on, Tanner and Justin were talking about the, about improv, I’m going to really focus on. yes anding people. You know, if they have an idea, I’m going to try and roll with it instead of trying to show them how it’s nonsensical, right? And then you like, while you’re writing daily, leading up to it, you’re having ideas about that goal. And also if you need a class, then you actually like daily You know, you plan that goal for like, hey, in two weeks I’m gonna go to class. And you spend that time researching the class, signing up. And then once you’re signed up, you go to the class and you’re great. You know, you just have to be cognizant of these goals and put them into your schedule, you know?

Justin:

100%. And I would… Excuse me. I would even say don’t forget about the soft skills that are a little bit harder to identify and quantify. One such example, as Tanner said, when you go into a session, you can say, I’m going to work on this. There’s been numerous times when I’ve realized during sessions I’ve been a little bit tense. I could feel the tenseness in my back. And I… was rushing things in the campaign and, you know, it was just not as relaxed and fluid. So in certain sessions, I’ve literally told myself, today I’m gonna practice taking a breath, like literally breathing, relaxing, and pausing even. And those types of things are important because your players, they take their cues off of you, right? But that just goes to show you that these skills that we’re building, aren’t just writing fantasy or painting minis, right? They’re applicable all across lots of areas of life and vice versa, you know? So maybe you want to work on cooking, right? Find some Dungeons and Dragons recipes that you can actually incorporate into your game. Bring your players to… bring your characters to a tavern and tell them, hey, this is what you can order. And then when they order it, bring it out on a platter, that builds the immersion and it builds your cooking skills and vice versa. So definitely look for skills that you wouldn’t normally think of and find some way to integrate them and build goals around them as well.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, and that’s one of the things I love about DMing. A lot of people think, you know, you see the Matt Mercer’s of the world and you think, oh, that’s what being a great DM is. But here’s what actually being a great DM is. It’s being the kind of DM that creates a very fun and interesting environment for your players, right? And yes, that is storytelling. Yes, that’s, you know, how creative you are, you know, the minis and stuff you use, sure. But beyond that, like when you’re having a game Or with some people that you know, you would like to be closer with the soft skills like cooking or you know having fun time That’s gonna do nearly as much or even more good than just planning an epic campaign and stuff like that, right? And so I guess that’s just kind of where we want to end off We know that you can get better as a DM. That’s what we’re trying to do And it’s little by little so long as we’re planning for it And, um, yeah, just any final thoughts.

Justin:

I think probably the biggest thing that will help you improve, that we didn’t mention here, is to get feedback. This could be from people one time, or you could set up some sort of accountability partner or battle buddy. I don’t know, you can call it whatever you want, but get someone who’s willing to tell you things as they really are and accept that. feedback and grow from it. Honestly thinking, you know what, this feedback is a gift because now I have an idea of what I can do to move forward.

Tanner Weyland:

Great, I love that. Ending on peer review. Peer review works.

Justin:

I love it.

Tanner Weyland:

Okay, everybody, get out there. Go make a wonderful next session by planning for it and planning how you wanna improve. Go have some fun, learn some new skills. Sharpen your other ones. And until next time, let’s roll initiative.