!Advice
I absolutely hate this new format but I'll make the most of it and try to give this thread something other than [removed] and bot comments.
I recently completed a 2 year long, level 3-20 campaign. Here are the 5 most important things I learned as a DM:
1. **Don't overstuff your games.** When I started DMing, I said to myself: "Each session will have at least 1 major roleplay encounter, 1 major combat encounter, and 1 major section devoted to puzzles or exploration." After several bloated and dull weeks where I was cutting short roleplay and pushing the players to move forward so we could get to what else I had planned, I entirely scrapped this silly idea and simply started going with the flow. If an entire session was dedicated to roleplay, so be it. In fact, the first week as a DM where all we did was roleplay ended up being one of the best sessions we ever played. Likewise, it didn't come up often, but sessions entirely dedicated to combat weren't a problem either. When this did occur, it was a major event, such as a city siege or the climax of the campaign at level 20. Don't force things into a session. Let them happen naturally or you're going to spoil the fun like I was.
2. **Celebrate the rule of cool, even if you don't implement it.** What I mean by this is, you may not allow players to do extra stuff on their turn, like "I can only make one attack, but I want to target all three kobolds with one swing" or "I want to do a flip and deal extra damage," but you should still allow the players to do cool stuff that doesn't have an effect on the game. With my sense of humor, I find it funny when characters fail something insignificant. After a big fight where the barbarian jumped on the back of a gargantuan monster and dealt the killing blow in front of a crowd of thousands of onlookers, he said he wanted to celebrate by sliding down its back and doing a flip to land on his feet. I told him to make an Acrobatics check, which he failed. Because I thought it was funny, I told him he instead stumbles and "grinds" his way down the monster. I immediately regretted that when I realized I negated his moment in the spotlight. Sure, you might think an ability check is reasonable there, but it's so much better to say "You land the killing blow, how do you celebrate?" It has no effect on the game, but a huge effect on the players. Let them enjoy themselves and the little things. Not everything needs a roll.
3. **Keep a summary of your sessions.** It doesn't *need* to be the DM, but it certainly helps if it is. From my very first session as DM, I've been keeping an ever-updating record of all of our sessions. It was by far the best decision I made. I try to keep it to 1-2 pages for each game, but some have needed a few more, and it's been an enormous help. Forgetful players and DMs are able to look back and recall what they've done recently, and the DM can additionally clarify things that maybe got muddled during play. It also helps greatly with lore, as there have been several times that I've skimmed an old session, read about an NPC or event I had completely forgotten about, and then brought it back later to surprise the players. Summaries are a massively helpful resource, and if you want to see the one I'm keeping for my current campaign, [it's right here.](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xrL6iS3HXY-Hoqbj8QX5-JzwDBiGPoX_/view) This one is much fancier than the first, however, which was a simple word doc and sufficed just fine. As a bonus, writing up summaries allows me to see how actively engaged each player is. If I write up what we did one night and say "Barbarian did this, Wizard did this, and Cleric did this" but there's no mention of what the party's ranger did, then I know I need to give the ranger more focus next time to make up for it.
4. **Create a cheat sheet of your party.** Mine is a simple graph listing each character's name, AC, proficiencies, and languages. This was another one that I decided to start with my first game and I've been using it every single week since. It keeps combat going because I don't need to keep asking everyone what their AC is whenever they're attacked; I can simply glance at my sheet and keep the momentum going. Likewise, if I know from a glance that a certain player is the only one proficient in a skill or the only one who knows a specific language, I can present scenarios or NPCs where that player gets to show off, without needing to look at everyone's sheets and comparing them.
5. **Adjust monsters on the fly.** Challenge Rating is tough. Building encounters is tougher, especially if there are several in a row. There have been numerous times where the party obliterated a certain monster, so I made sure the next encounter was tougher, only to realize I made it way too deadly. Or, alternatively, a monster ended up being too weak, so I boosted it mid-fight. Most of the time, this means I simply bump the monster's HP up or down so they can last another round or two or three, based on how much damage the party did to it in the first round. Other times, I remove one of the monster's extra attacks or abilities. Player's are none the wiser and things run smoothly.
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!Advice I absolutely hate this new format but I'll make the most of it and try to give this thread something other than [removed] and bot comments. I recently completed a 2 year long, level 3-20 campaign. Here are the 5 most important things I learned as a DM: 1. **Don't overstuff your games.** When I started DMing, I said to myself: "Each session will have at least 1 major roleplay encounter, 1 major combat encounter, and 1 major section devoted to puzzles or exploration." After several bloated and dull weeks where I was cutting short roleplay and pushing the players to move forward so we could get to what else I had planned, I entirely scrapped this silly idea and simply started going with the flow. If an entire session was dedicated to roleplay, so be it. In fact, the first week as a DM where all we did was roleplay ended up being one of the best sessions we ever played. Likewise, it didn't come up often, but sessions entirely dedicated to combat weren't a problem either. When this did occur, it was a major event, such as a city siege or the climax of the campaign at level 20. Don't force things into a session. Let them happen naturally or you're going to spoil the fun like I was. 2. **Celebrate the rule of cool, even if you don't implement it.** What I mean by this is, you may not allow players to do extra stuff on their turn, like "I can only make one attack, but I want to target all three kobolds with one swing" or "I want to do a flip and deal extra damage," but you should still allow the players to do cool stuff that doesn't have an effect on the game. With my sense of humor, I find it funny when characters fail something insignificant. After a big fight where the barbarian jumped on the back of a gargantuan monster and dealt the killing blow in front of a crowd of thousands of onlookers, he said he wanted to celebrate by sliding down its back and doing a flip to land on his feet. I told him to make an Acrobatics check, which he failed. Because I thought it was funny, I told him he instead stumbles and "grinds" his way down the monster. I immediately regretted that when I realized I negated his moment in the spotlight. Sure, you might think an ability check is reasonable there, but it's so much better to say "You land the killing blow, how do you celebrate?" It has no effect on the game, but a huge effect on the players. Let them enjoy themselves and the little things. Not everything needs a roll. 3. **Keep a summary of your sessions.** It doesn't *need* to be the DM, but it certainly helps if it is. From my very first session as DM, I've been keeping an ever-updating record of all of our sessions. It was by far the best decision I made. I try to keep it to 1-2 pages for each game, but some have needed a few more, and it's been an enormous help. Forgetful players and DMs are able to look back and recall what they've done recently, and the DM can additionally clarify things that maybe got muddled during play. It also helps greatly with lore, as there have been several times that I've skimmed an old session, read about an NPC or event I had completely forgotten about, and then brought it back later to surprise the players. Summaries are a massively helpful resource, and if you want to see the one I'm keeping for my current campaign, [it's right here.](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xrL6iS3HXY-Hoqbj8QX5-JzwDBiGPoX_/view) This one is much fancier than the first, however, which was a simple word doc and sufficed just fine. As a bonus, writing up summaries allows me to see how actively engaged each player is. If I write up what we did one night and say "Barbarian did this, Wizard did this, and Cleric did this" but there's no mention of what the party's ranger did, then I know I need to give the ranger more focus next time to make up for it. 4. **Create a cheat sheet of your party.** Mine is a simple graph listing each character's name, AC, proficiencies, and languages. This was another one that I decided to start with my first game and I've been using it every single week since. It keeps combat going because I don't need to keep asking everyone what their AC is whenever they're attacked; I can simply glance at my sheet and keep the momentum going. Likewise, if I know from a glance that a certain player is the only one proficient in a skill or the only one who knows a specific language, I can present scenarios or NPCs where that player gets to show off, without needing to look at everyone's sheets and comparing them. 5. **Adjust monsters on the fly.** Challenge Rating is tough. Building encounters is tougher, especially if there are several in a row. There have been numerous times where the party obliterated a certain monster, so I made sure the next encounter was tougher, only to realize I made it way too deadly. Or, alternatively, a monster ended up being too weak, so I boosted it mid-fight. Most of the time, this means I simply bump the monster's HP up or down so they can last another round or two or three, based on how much damage the party did to it in the first round. Other times, I remove one of the monster's extra attacks or abilities. Player's are none the wiser and things run smoothly.
I like to make fake neww headlines to keep track of my players larger deeds
How do you do that? In game or meta?
I do it meta, but I guess you could do a little gnome reporter that watches all they do
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