DM Insights #2

In this series we endeavor to discuss the trials and tribulations behind the DM screen.

This week we forget everything we know and turn life upside down as we "Find a New Perspective"

As a Dungeon Master you will find, as time goes on, that you start to recycle your own brilliant ideas. Maybe the first campaign you ever ran started with a shackled prisoner with no records of being on the ship who escapes, befriends a dragon, and then becomes your stories antagonist sounds eerily similar to a high elf who has a mysterious past, escapes out of prison and slowly starts to torment your players and peaceful NPC’s.

IT HAPPENS!

As humans, we are prone to recycling our ideas with slightly different flavoring because we are comfortable with those ideas and honestly, it is much easier than trying to come up with something new and groundbreaking! Face it. As creative as you think you are, MOST of your ideas are from something else. You either have stolen from someone, consciously or sub consciously. There is no point in fighting it, just let it happen, put your own spin on it, and roll with it.

Rich the Bard, is there a solution?

Yes. No. Sort of.

Get a fresh perspective on things.

Step away from the DM screen for a little while and try to put yourself into a game as a player. I have found that as a player, I am not the super-serious lets-make-a-plan-guys type; I’m the laid back comic relief. I can figure out most DM’s plans by the first few sessions and that is ok, getting there is the fun, not the outcome. It honestly helps. It helps to see how other DM’s approach certain situations and learn from them.

Read some new books. 90 percent of the story hooks I steal have had some anchor in the storybook world. For example, I had a vampire-like entity who hated the NPC’s and was trying to gain immortal life. The campaign fizzled out but he was going to be similar to Lord Voldemort. In Bard Marks campaign, we designed a college of Magic similarly to the Magicians and Harry Potter, using subconscious magical testing and gargoyles of former head masters that protect the School.

Brainstorm the craziest thing you can think of, it doesn’t have to be related at all, and then work backwards to make it fit into your world. Or just cause a riff in the trans-dimensional space to open up and whisk your players somewhere new. Go through the Monster Manual, pick a random creature, and design an off-the-wall encounter based on that creature. It does not have to make sense all the time.

So if this has given you some insight or a fresh perspective or if you have any ideas to add leave a comment below.

Catch ya next song

Rich the Bard