How to Dungeon Master When You’re Super Busy

Tanner Weyland:

Hello, my name is Tanner Wayland and I, along with my co-host Justin Lewis, are here on How to be a Better DM. How you doing, Justin?

Justin:

I am good. I’m good. How are you, Tenor?

Tanner Weyland:

Oh, doing well, doing well. It’s a lovely day outside, you

Justin:

It

Tanner Weyland:

know?

Justin:

is.

Tanner Weyland:

It’s great. Here in Utah, it’s been winter for 20 years, it feels like. And

Justin:

It really does.

Tanner Weyland:

it’s finally clearing up, and we’re just gonna get so much flooding, but everyone’s happy it’s sunny. Ha ha.

Justin:

That’s the truth.

Tanner Weyland:

Well, anyway, to get going with this, uh, with this topic today, we’ll just hop right in. Um, the topic is how to be a DM when you’re just busy, busy as all get out. Like how do you make time for it? Um, first off, Justin, has this ever happened to you where you just feel too busy to even meet or prepare or anything like that?

Justin:

Yeah, yes. I would say most recently it’s been that I felt too busy that I wanted a break and I didn’t want to actually have my players come over and have the game. I just kind of wanted a break. But I like what you said there, having to make time for it. Because I feel like DMing when busy, the art to DMing when you’re busy, that you can do it and one of those is just making more time for it. You know, simple enough, you make it a bigger priority in your life, you get rid of other things. The unfortunate aspect with that is that it’s a game. Like it’s a hobby,

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

you know. So if you are attempting to push out family matters or work or you know, religious obligations or social obligations, I don’t know, I would maybe reconsider and try some of our other methods we’ll talk about rather than stop working.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah. No. Yeah. I totally hear you because if there was something on the chopping block, I think for a lot of people, it would be, you know, running dungeons and dragons, frankly. And, and,

Justin:

Yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

you know, I think just as an initial disclaimer on this episode, if you feel overburdened by your DMing, like you are absolutely entitled to stop, you know, to take a break, a longer term break. the kind of person who’s like, Hey, I think I can if I could keep it going. And I really like it. If I change some things, that’s kind of what this is for. Um, now like, I’ll be honest, like there have been times like, uh, in the same campaign, I had to both, uh, at one point stop it, but then before then, uh, when I was in school, I had to learn how to deal with it during the school year versus summer, right? this was when I was in college and And you know, I think that it was actually an enlightening experience And I think this is what you’ll learn too Is that you know, we all wish we had plenty of time to prepare for our sessions We all wish we could do like three four-hour sessions every week, you know but the fact is you know, sometimes you don’t and it makes you actually kind of fall back on what’s the core of Right? Like for me, and this was kind of my first tip, I guess, we were doing pretty long sessions. We were doing like three, sometimes four hour sessions. And my wife was just like, hey, Dan, you got a lot of other stuff you’re trying to do. And then you always, she pointed out that I often complained about being short on time. And

Justin:

Hehe.

Tanner Weyland:

she’s like, maybe don’t do it as long. And initially I was like, oh, but what will they think? these stupid reasonings in my mind. But then I just did it. I was like, you know what, fine. We’ll just plan for like an hour and a half. And then, you know, it usually ended up being like two hours sessions. But even that little change meant that I didn’t have to prepare as much. It meant that I had more time. It also meant that the sessions felt punchier. And I really appreciated that change.

Justin:

Yeah, I would say with doing something like that, it definitely is like a good challenge for yourself because everyone wants to make every session impactful and fun and memorable.

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

And when you only have an hour and a half, you start to think of, okay, well, what is like most important? You know, like we can’t

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

deal with the fluff, you know, and you probably could, So I really like that And you know what like Tanner said if you ever have problems with being super busy Talk to your players see if they can help out or give advice or just make changes like they did in Tanner’s case You know communicate communication is very important right Tanner

Tanner Weyland:

Oh, you know what? I couldn’t have said it better myself, Justin. Um, yeah, honestly, communication is huge because if you’re feeling overwhelmed, then the worst thing you can do is keep that bottled up. Uh, so talk to, you know, in the case you will do have a significant other, like I can say that probably one of the reasons you feel so busy is because you have obligations there and that’s not bad, you know, that’s part of being in a relationship. Uh, but if you just hold it in, then there’s going to be that tension. So talk about it, be like, hey, Deming’s really important to me, but you’re even more important to me. How can we make this both work? You know, and then once you discuss that, then talk with your players and be like, hey, here’s some thoughts I had. Uh, have you guys had any thoughts? You know, maybe they’ll be down to be like, Hey, yeah, we can, we can do once a month or,

Justin:

Mm-hmm.

Tanner Weyland:

you know, every two weeks instead of every week or something. Right. Um, I think people are

Justin:

I feel

Tanner Weyland:

more understanding.

Justin:

like, yeah, I

Tanner Weyland:

Go

Justin:

was just

Tanner Weyland:

ahead.

Justin:

gonna add, I feel like that is just good life advice in general. Over the last few weeks, I myself have been incredibly busy with Monsters.Rent, which if you guys haven’t heard, that’s our new company and Tanner’s actually a part of it now.

Tanner Weyland:

I’m going to go ahead and turn it off.

Justin:

But I’ve been super busy with that myself. So my wife has had conversations with me of like, well, something’s gotta give and doing exactly what Tanner said saying here are some of my priorities, what are your priorities, and then how can we make both of these work together and you have to have an open mind. You know, like Tanner said, your DMing might have to go from once a week to once a month. And again, it’s a simple fact of the matter that most of us, it’s not our money making stream. Like, it doesn’t make us money. So we can’t always justify sacrificing other things for it. should but

Tanner Weyland:

Mm.

Justin:

I think you do definitely need to keep an open mind with what you might need to give up.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, absolutely. And so I think with communication, with the willingness to be flexible, uh, there’s also, uh, this is maybe a simple tip. Some of you are very creative and you write all of your campaigns and all of your sessions and that’s wonderful. Uh, I would argue that, that you could benefit though, during a very busy part of your life, um, you could benefit to switch to a pre-written material. that the others have done, whether that’s free or you purchase it or whatever else. Um, that can help save you a lot of time in prep work because I mean, I think you’d agree, Justin, like the actual session, like the time you spend in the session, that’s not all the time you’re spending. You’re spending like you’re spending hours beforehand, like preparing for every little possibility, right? Uh, it’s like, oh, if they’re in a town, suddenly you have to do a bunch of prep they could have. And if you have to come up with all of that, that’s all time you’re spending. Unless you’re getting a pre-written adventure. It doesn’t save as much time as you’d like, because the fact is I’ve done a lot of pre-written adventures where you just you’re very interested in the world and you’re like oh I got to remember what happens here. But it does streamline the process and it takes a couple steps out. So I would suggest that honestly.

Justin:

Yeah. And to that point, there’s nothing wrong with inserting this or that encounter from your favorite, uh, D and D DM, YouTuber or podcaster or whatever. Um, I know that, you know, I’m, I’m a fan of the high rollers in the UK with their Eros campaign. I really liked that campaign. And, you know, I used to watch that while working because my job, it just me to basically listen to podcasts or watch YouTube videos basically all day while working. So I’d watch that. And thinking back, if I really needed to, I could insert a few of the minor story arcs into my campaign. You know, adding in twists and flavors here and there. And that might save some time in the prep. And this one might be a little bit controversial, but pull back on the stats and the rolling. You know

Tanner Weyland:

Mm.

Justin:

D&D, I’ve said before at its core, it is just a story with agreed rules and a system for how you interact, right?

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

And if you need to, without your player’s permission even, you can kind of dial back how many times you use the dice to interactions. You know, I’m not saying get rid of it all the way unless you want to, but really, you know, if you’re having trouble coming up with this next session, don’t prepare any combat encounters and make it a much quicker roll of the dice, you know, when it does happen. Obviously, if it’s a big bad, you have to play it out, but if it’s like, you know, a street urchin comes and fights you or something, I don’t know, just one or two rolls and that should be fine. That way, fudge those numbers on the spot. And this method I think really works well, like Tanner said, in city environments where if they don’t spend a ton of time in this one encounter with these street thugs, it’s fine because there’s thousands of other things to do in the city. And they probably have other things that they want to do as well. Uh, the only thing I’d, the only cautionary thing I’d add is make sure that you focus on the story when you do this. very plain and very boring like if you’re not giving everything you can to the to the segments of role-playing and Actually kind of getting into character your players will start to realize like hey, we didn’t really do much this session, you know

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, and I think that that idea has at the core of its flexibility, right? It’s, uh, it’s being flexible with like, Hey, what, what is core to the thing? And having big old battles with a bunch of stat blocks. Uh, that’s, I mean, sometimes that’s fun, but like other times it’s like the players just want to feel, you know, the concept of their players moving around the map, hitting, they don’t, they don’t need anything too complicated, right? And I was thinking about being flexible with your DMing style. I think that roles and map prep, all of that can be not fudged, but kind of loosened up a little, you know? Like with your roles, maybe you aren’t being so harsh on like, oh, let me look up online. What’s the challenge level to cross a wall in the winter? know, you don’t have to be as like strict on that. Um, you can be like, Oh, it’s a, it’s a 15, you know, roll that and, and just be more flexible that way. Uh, further, I was thinking about it a lot of times in my DM prep and this, this took time, especially if you’re using like an online, like a roll 20 and you have to find maps, you have to have, find a character’s tokens. Uh, sometimes that takes time because you’re like, Oh man, this idea for this enemy but I can’t find the exact token and then you spend an hour you know stressing over this one thing because you want it to feel realistic you don’t have to do that like if you’re stressing about it guess what you could find a little token of Barney or the Teletubbies

Justin:

Hehehehehehehehe

Tanner Weyland:

and plop that in and your players would get a kick out of it and

Justin:

Yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

it would save you an hour of stress obviously spend the time because I’m sure enemies, you’re going to be able to find an easy token, you know, without too much effort. But if it’s taking you too much time, just find the parts, the sticking areas in your prep and just be like, Hey, do I need to go as hard as I am here? Or can I, can I loosen up, you know?

Justin:

Yeah, and actually to that point I’d like to cite two examples of guests we’ve had on our show who have hosted one shots for us and they did it completely theater of the mind because that’s what they do. That’s what they love

Tanner Weyland:

Yep.

Justin:

and gauging the players experiences they enjoyed it, you know, if you remember Bone Daddy Rob and Thorn from This Dungeon is Occupied of the mind. And

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

that’s a quick way if you’re stressed out and busy as a DM. That’s a quick way to shave off a bunch of prep time because you don’t have to worry about getting minis, you don’t have to worry about getting maps. I mean you can for reference but it might even be

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah.

Justin:

easier to just kind of create it as you go along. And I think that naturally lends and things like that just because it has to fit what everyone can imagine.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, and that’s honestly a theater of the mind. That’s a great way to, I think your players, it might take a little bit of getting used to, but if you just still provide some key descriptions, then people can get into that, right? And you’re still gonna have roles, you’re still gonna have a lot going on, and your players are still spending time together. That’s key, right? Otherwise, I mean, so I was thinking about, one more tip. I was just… oh go ahead please.

Justin:

Well, I was gonna say, while you’re thinking about that, there’s a couple things I’d like to share. A couple tools that I would recommend. So I know you mentioned dungeon map preparation. As

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

always, we’d recommend Dungeon Alchemist. They’re a great, great company. I love using them. But

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

also, you know, most of the time when I need a map and I’m in a hurry, I just type in, on Google, I say city sewer dungeon map, right? that comes up and there’s tons of results on Pinterest and then I pick the one I want, copy and paste it into the doc I’m using and I’m good to go. And then usually from there I’ll take it to Canva and label each room and then write a description for each room but that might be overkill. If you’re in a bind, even in the moment, someone goes somewhere you could just type in on Google you know, Windmill Map D&D and something will pop up just as long as it’s not a commercial you’re okay to use it and you know that’s that’s a nice and easy dungeon or map that you can use usually when I when I do that I populate the rooms based on what the image the map looks like so if if it looks like there’s a fire in there that’ll usually spark in my mind oh for some reason there’s a goblin camp down in the sewers for I don’t know I don’t know why it doesn’t matter but they’re there um that’s one tool there’s also a couple tools that you can get on your phone for one uh toolkit it’s on iPhone and it allows

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

you to randomly generate all sorts of things including NPCs, cities, even quests so like you know stuff you find on a quest board, traps, dungeons, monsters, enemies, magic items, treasure. The one thing I don’t like about this app is that it does not tell you how much the magic items are worth because I’ll often use that when my players go into a store And that gets me in trouble because I don’t know the street value of, I don’t know, wand of spell storing. I, you

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

know, and my players have gotten wealthy because of it. But

Tanner Weyland:

Hahaha

Justin:

this tool is very useful because even in prep, I can quickly create names and not have to spend the time thinking about it and just move on.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, I love that. Honestly, if you find labor saving tools and prep, like you’re gonna be happy. It’s gonna make, and here’s the thing. You should honestly, even if you don’t feel busy, you should take some of these tips because it’ll save you time and that’ll help you make a better campaign period, right? Did

Justin:

So

Tanner Weyland:

you have something else,

Justin:

this might,

Tanner Weyland:

Justin?

Justin:

yes,

Tanner Weyland:

Oh, go

Justin:

this

Tanner Weyland:

ahead.

Justin:

might be a topic for a future one, a future episode, but I think we should breach the idea of chat GPT for dungeon prep.

Tanner Weyland:

Yes.

Justin:

I think you might be able to create some pretty awesome things with chat GPT, and a lot of people might be thinking, oh, that’s not the spirit of the thing, but let’s talk about that another day.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, yeah, it’s worth talking about because if one of your issues is coming up with general story arcs or a description of an area and you’re just stressed out of your gourd, why not get some help? It’s not always perfect and we’ll talk about that later, but yeah, I’m interested in that topic.

Justin:

for sure.

Tanner Weyland:

Last thing for me before we end here, how do you keep up the excitement when you’re I was thinking about it and I was like, you know what, even though all of these things Are like, oh, let’s save time and everything You know, sometimes if you’re spending a long time like a long period of time multiple months like a year In this kind of like oh i’m really busy. I gotta make time for dm for dm-ing It’s very easy to let the excitement uh, just kind of Peter out I guess is a good word for it like how do you keep that up? You know How do you make it so that there’s still that excitement? constantly pressured.

Justin:

Yeah, well one thing I’ll say is, that’s how everything in life is. You’re gonna have ups and downs, and for me, I constantly remind myself that what I feel has no impact on what I actually choose to do. So if I feel lazy, I can still choose to prepare for my Dungeon Master, for my D&D session. To that effect, I’ve also routinized certain parts of my D&D prep, So that way it’s not so much I think about it or even feel excited or not excited. I just do it, right? And

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

one of those is writing every single day. And I’ve chosen to do this for a number of reasons. Just to make sure that I’m good at writing because I do think that writing is one of the hardest skills, maybe not one of the hardest, but it is a very difficult skill to master and it takes a long time. So I use a tool called write track dot cloud. track.cloud and in that you can essentially set goals, either like a daily goal for how many words you write or a monthly goal. I prefer the monthly goal because it motivates me to know that I could finish early, essentially, even though when I finish early, I just start the next month’s goal early.

Tanner Weyland:

Hehehe

Justin:

But, and I use this and I just write a little bit every day. So right now I just write 250 words every day current session and then I also write 250 words in the homebrew world I’m working on or anything else professionally so like newsletters or things like that and I like this because you think 250 words is a lot except when you get to your session prep doc and you see hey like I already have this written so I just need to continue this idea and then you stop before you fully continue the idea so you have somewhere to start tomorrow I think keeping excitement is a when you realize you only have to do so much every day. You don’t have to do it all today, you know.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s great because like I was thinking about it and you put it in a better way than I could have that. I think that the key of excitement in anything, whether it’s, you know, DMing Dungeons and Dragons or just your life, it’s goals, right? It’s having something to reach for. Uh, and if you have the regular small goals, like daily goals or weekly goals for your DMing, and then you occasionally, the thing I would add, I think to keep excitement up, you occasionally need to work towards bigger goals. Like that could be like, hey, once a year, me and my, uh, and my players, we go to an Airbnb and we have like, uh, maybe a full day session, you know, broken up by going out to eat or something, right? Kind of like a Dungeons and Dragons trip. That could be a bigger goal. It’s almost like a relationship, right? Uh, you

Justin:

Yeah.

Tanner Weyland:

have these small things that you do every day for your partner, but then you also plan bigger things and both of those together lead to a feeling of excitement. Right. Uh, and even if you aren’t excited, like you said, it keeps the thing going.

Justin:

Yeah. One thing that I just came to mind, and this is zero censoring or filtering Tanner, that idea was genius. So Airbnb, you know,

Tanner Weyland:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

the question I have for the listener is, would you actually be interested in something like that? Like if we had, you know, a few players sign up or something like that, like once a year, you could sign up and come to an Airbnb with us and we’ll DM a long session or something like that. Obviously you’d pay for it, or at least yourself. Like would that be something you’d be interested in? I guess, if it is, send us a message on Instagram at howtobetabetterdm, cause that sounds quite interesting. But I mean, only if you guys would actually like it, so.

Tanner Weyland:

Yeah, exactly. And, and even if you’re like, Oh, I don’t know if I want to get together with these weirdies, I’m just kidding. We’re not weird,

Justin:

Hehehe

Tanner Weyland:

but, uh, these people on how to be a better DM, you know, I would consider, I would think about, Hey, what would be fun, like capital F fun, uh, for our sessions and that’s a big goal. You know, you don’t have to do that every week, but you know, make a plan to do that in the next number of months or next half a year and that mixed with your daily things like writing or prep or daily prep, that’s going to help you feel excited. It’s going to help you feel like you’re like DMing is a fun thing because it should be at its heart and it should also be a relationship because that’s that’s why anyone plays. I mean there are games you play solo but the majority of games that people play whether it’s sports or you know board games or card games or anything it’s with people and you like

Justin:

Mm-hmm.

Tanner Weyland:

hanging out with people and you need to make goals to build a relationship. I think that’s the key of being excited

Justin:

I

Tanner Weyland:

when

Justin:

love

Tanner Weyland:

you’re

Justin:

it.

Tanner Weyland:

busy. Okay, great.

Justin:

I love it.

Tanner Weyland:

Well, we’re gonna end this. Justin, thank you for talking. I feel like I’ve learned a lot from you. Thank you.

Justin:

Likewise. Thanks, Tanner.

Tanner Weyland:

Perfect. Okay. Well until next time, get out there, have some fun and let’s roll initiative.