Video version found here... <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEFWaz2RyuM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEFWaz2RyuM</a> 20 REQUIRED TRAITS TO BE A DM 1. Be patient and understanding. Acknowlege, and take the time to listen to your players, try to understand what they are trying to say, and reply in a timely manner, just don't leave them hanging). 2. Graphic Arts (token tweeking, handouts, maps, props, etc) 3. Storytelling (gift of gab) 4. Acting (being a ham) I imitate a good drunk person (without booze of course!) Have a sense of humor! 5. Organization (if you're not organized, you will be at your wits end. being a DM requires record keeping) 6. Leadership (to play, you have to have players, to have players you have to work to find them. Once you have them, you have to make it clear to them, through your own person conduct, that you've got yourself together). 7. Be fair, but firm. Understand that you're the final decider of everything, if you lack life experience, or a broad knowledge base, use google when necessary, delegate to your out-of-turn players to assist you in finding the information to speed up the process, don't bog down game play thumbing through books. 8. Preparation. Read the module or the sessions planned activites, have all your game elements identified and ready to deploy, have your encounters, traps and other things figured out. Don't wing it, you're just asking for trouble! 9. Coordination (deploying roll20 assets at the right time, tokens, sound, etc.). Like putting on a broadway production, make notes for yourself right on the GM map level as to music selection by name, SFX, etc. 10. Common sense (google it otherwise). D&D emulates real life, if a ruling makes sense to you for the time being, and your players tend to agree, use it for now, until you can clarify things during the next session. Part of the fun, is learning to properly implement the ruleset...which ties into the next point. 11. Making snap decisions to keep game flow moving, but correcting later if necessary. Its your game, if up is down and down is up, that's ok. Make it up as you go along. It's kind of like playing Magic the Gathering, through out the session or the campaign for that matter, all you're doing is systematically laying down parameters that exist, that are to be abided by, right, wrong or indifferent, and as DM you'll enforce them until you change your mind for some reason or another. This can be a difficult thing for players to comprehend. Just remind them that you know the rules say this, that, or the other thing, but in your particular setting, this is how things are to be instead. The sooner they grasp that concept, the sooner you can move things along. 12. Don't waste time. Handle things via chat in skype or, outside of game time all together, don't be unprofessional in front of your players, or your twitch followers. That's just unacceptable. 13. Don't have an axe to grind. Forgive and forget, bury the hatchet! The sooner you can leave it be, the sooner you can all get back to the game. 14. Don't try to kill your players! Live to fight another day! There is nothing dishonorable about retreating! 15. Spell out the rules of conduct before hand. (show the DM Player Notes Handout.) Basic expectations. 16. Make your handouts as you go, otherwise you will go nuts. (show our list of info). Also, DMing takes time, don't expect instant results over night, that's just not going to happen. Practice makes perfect. I've been doing this for a while, and I still don't know all there is to know. There are plenty of opportunities for a learning moment, enjoy each one. 17. Mix up your roll playing and role playing. People like a mix of both. Talk to your players in character. 18. If your playing at home with your peeps, give XP for dressing the part, or bringing props. 19. When a female character speaks, be sure they use a female character voice. Have fun! Dwarves should be rough and gruff. Elves, somewhat eloquent, thin sounding and wise. etc. 20. LASTLY. Dispute resolution This is a very very difficult subject to talk about, but it needs to be said, otherwise, bad things can and usually DO happen, especially when your players coordinate their own extra curricular activities, get into a spat, and then YOU, the DM, have to smooth things over just to get them all back to play on the day and time that YOU set up. My recommendation? Help those players understand what you did to find and vett these types of great players, which is this. 1. Go to roll20. 2. Search the players available database. 3. Contact them. 4. See if theyre interested. 5. Set up a time. And get your own thing going. Let me ask my players a quick yes or no question. Did we talk for some time in roll20 before you were invited? I could go all around the room and the answer would be the same. As DM, you WILL put in a lot of hard work to establish your group. So, you players watching on Twitch, do all you can do to protect your best and favorite group, don't fall into the pitfall of borrowing players and possibly putting your main group in jeopardy, because if your DM doesn't excel in drama control, your group could impode from the inside, and it'll all be because of nothing related to anything the DM did. Be careful! Watch out! I've seen that many many times in the past and thats sad, because the DM takes the brunt of it all, and all his hard work gets dismantled by outside influences all for mistakenly innocent reasons. Also, when the DM delegates handling the skype call to a player, at no point should that player arbitrarily get the impression that they are allowed to have unbridled free access to all those peoples personal information. Be sure they understand that unspoken rule and respect that. Otherwise helping oneself to other peoples information would be, in an creepy sort of way, similar in effect to an employee at a store writing down your credit card information. Warn them to resist the temptation. Avoid it all costs. Nothing good ever comes out of it. DMs...respect your players, and when you have this talk with them, and they completely wrap their head around the magnitude of what all is at stake, they will most certainly return that favor to you in kind and not risk it all by being selfish and acting unilaterally on their own, for their own personal benefit. You players watching the twitch stream, If you want to play on your own, do the same leg work your DM did, don't be lazy, and remember, your DMs hard work isn't some sort of free player locating service for you to take advantage of, and then as a result, quite possibly becoming the source of untold tragedy. Follow these things, and your group will stand head and shoulders above all that's out there, and they'll have a great time week after week with you as their fearless leader.
