Sometimes the best situations in Dungeons & Dragons arise spontaneously and completely out of nowhere. A Game Master with little experience discovered exactly that and provided his table with an unforgettable, thrilling experience.
What is actually the role of a “DM”?
- A DM, short for “Dungeon Master”, is the Game Master of a D&D group. He is basically the god of the world, narrates the story, plays the NPCs, and decides what happens and what does not.
- The DM significantly influences how deeply the players can immerse themselves in a session and how challenging their experiences may be. For instance, he might present them with tricky puzzles that require clever solutions or allow them to take the “brute force” approach through a problem.
- With a good DM, sessions can easily be played for years, even up to 40 years, if the group can manage it. However, an important skill for DMs is often overlooked: improvisation.
This arose from improvisation: Typically, DMs prepare their sessions, take notes, and create characters that the group may encounter. Essentially, they start building the world into which the players will dive and plan some situations or battles.
However, it often happens that the players do not do what the DM plans – or go in the completely opposite direction. Or that the DM forgets to prepare something. This happened to a user on Reddit.
confused_gooze writes that after his first session as a “Noob DM,” he completely flubbed the second one, but ended up achieving an even better result than originally planned:
- From his fictional notes, which he never made, he introduces a wanted rogue to his group.
- While exploring, one of the players fails a perception roll and gets robbed. The group chases the thief believing they are hunting the wanted criminal.
- In the end, the party reaches a hideout of an entire halfling thieves’ guild that the DM spontaneously came up with. A fight breaks out, during which one of the players goes down and the rest barely manages to claim victory. Close, but exciting for everyone.
- When asked if the treasure room is filled with traps, the DM responds with “yes” – even though that was not planned at all. The question itself led to that.
The entire situation was derived by the DM from the backstory of one of the players and then simply improvised with prompts that the group itself provided – like the failed perception roll. The community agrees: that is how the best stories are created.
“The BS plotlines are the best”
In the comments, some users express envy for the skill and the story that has arisen. After all, the entire group thanked confused_gooze at the end for the great session. Others continue the story and somehow even connect it to the plot of The Lord of the Rings.
However, many agree that the best stories are those that are not thought out beforehand, even sharing their own stories:
Oh yes. Players wanted a party > bullshitted a crazy alchemist barkeep > I make up experimental booze that causes players to see other planes > accidentally created a plotline about saving a god. The BS plotlines are the best.
Faeruy on Reddit
One should never underestimate the power of “blind panic”, says another comment with helpful tips. Simply letting go and allowing the players to lead the story can result in truly learning how good D&D can be.
How important a good DM can be is perhaps best illustrated by the legendary storyteller Matthew Mercer. Mercer has led most campaigns of the well-known D&D group Critical Role, with his career being more of a coincidence: An anime nerd just wanted to become a voice actor – today he fills whole arenas with his friends and plays Dungeons & Dragons
