Tabletop Roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, are an essential part of my life. They help me get in touch with the part of my mind that many people me seem to have given up on -- Imagination.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Tabletop roleplaying games, the concept is simple: Everyone sits around a table. They take on the persona of a character that (in most games) they created, those characters exist in a world called a campaign setting, then they use dice a tool for creating the randomness of the world.

I found my first D&D adventure in a used book store. It was a purple box with the word, Menzoberranzan on it, and it smelled like cigarettes. I loved the art and was blown away by all the monsters and maps inside the box. Of course, I had no idea how the rules worked, but that doesn’t matter when you’re twelve. I spent most of my youth playing as a character, but eventually took on the challenge of Dungeon Mastering.

What is a Dungeon Master?

The Dungeon Master (or Game Master) is the person who runs the storyline for the adventures. As the DM (or GM) you create an interactive experience for everyone playing, developing problems to solve, giving the group monsters to fight, providing all of the other personalities in the game, from the shopkeep to the evil overlord, but most importantly — the Dungeon Master is the storyteller.

That said, I want to share with you a few tips on Dungeon Mastering that can help you make the most of your games. I have plans to keep this going as a series, maybe even produce some steemit only video content on the subject. So, let me know what you think — I’d love feedback.

Give every episode a Character focus.

All your players want to feel like they have a special purpose in the game. So, try to focus each session on one particular player. Try to do something special for them, reveal a piece of their story, give them an item unique to them, or a moment where they can save or ruin the day.

Then when the finale happens, give each character a special role they need to fill to defeat the big-bad.

I suggest implementing a hero point system. Essentially, when heroes do something extra heroic, they’re rewarded with a point that lets them auto-succeed at an action in the future. Many games have a system like this built into them — if the game you’re playing doesn’t — try implementing one. Pathfinder has a standard hero point system that can be attached to most tabletop games.

For something extra special, check out Star Wars: Edge of Empire’s force point system. the It’s exceptionally fun and can be incorporated into other game systems with a bit of tinkering.

The basic concept is simple: At the beginning of each session, each character rolls a die that has black dots and white dots it. All the white dots are a hero point pool for the players, black are villian points for the DM. Using one gives you free successes, opportunities to act out of turn, or pretty much any other rule-breaking storytelling moment. Once a point is used, it gets transferred to the other side. In other words, if a player uses a hero point, then that hero point becomes a villain point. If a DM uses a villain point, it becomes a hero point.

Make the heroes suffer.

When I was in school for screenwriting, one of my teachers said a major problem she sees with student’s screenplays is that they protect their protagonists. If you want the story to be interesting, “make your heroes suffer.”

Your players will act like they can’t die if they don’t believe it’s possible, you need to make them feel like they can and will die, if they are foolhardy and don’t work as a team.

Raise the stakes, by having death hot on their heels. To make this happen, I implement a variety of “pain and suffering” rules. You don’t have to use them all, but pick at least one to play around with — here are a few:

• Magical healing seals wounds, but leaves scars.
• After bloody wars, deaths in the party, and horrific scenes. Players roll for (Willpower saves or equivalent) for trauma. The Dungeon Master decides how failure affects the character.
• Characters who take over 50% damage in one hit roll for severe damage. Severed limbs, missing eyes, massive scars, etc. Pathfinder has pretty fantastic massive damage rules.
• Cure potions/healing spells are 50% less effective each time their used during a 24 hour period.
• When you get chances to ruin character’s nice things, do it. There are always more nice things.

End before the group is ready.

Most Tabletop games last between four and six hours. They generally end with a bunch of fairly tired players. Believe it or not, your imagination uses up a ton of your metal juice.

Challenge yourself to end the game on a high point and end it early. If you, normally, play in four hour sessions. Try to end the game at three hours. Leave your players with energy left for discussion afterwards, and pumped for the next game.

As an added bonus, shorter games keep the players paying attention, and in character. Anyone who’s been through an eight-hour dungeon crawl has experienced quality of game play slipping and their characters are acting radically different than during that first hour.

If you keep the games short, you’ll keep the players sharp.

Sources: Menzoberranzan, Time

More on Game Mastering and Storytelling: Secrets and Motivations

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I’m Decimus.

I write, I teach, I tell stories. Read my intro post.