What I've Learned From Being a Dungeon Master

Some of the topics you bring up are good life lessons in general, I think. Helping others be the best they can be, knowing the rules but be willing to break them, and, probably above all, have fun and don't take yourself too serious :). Thank you for reminding us of this, Ben!

Richard Goetz

Great article Ben, I have learned so much from you as a DM and shamelessly stolen your plots several times for my own roleplay group. Keep up the good work!

Simon Wallace

Great articule, Ben! I've been really enjoying this new run. I'm so hype to see the story you have prepared through the eyes of the unique and crazy party you have assambled. That combination have a potencial bigger than us, Ben!

I really liked this post, it’s always interesting to read about something that someone is passionate about. So I know pretty much know nothing about D&D or DM’ing outside from what I’ve learned watching TTA/TTE. To be honest D&D was never much of a thing where I grew up, as in there were no places that sold D&D handbooks or anything like that and none of my friends were ever into that stuff, I was always kinda the lone nerd of our group. Watching TTA/TTE made me wish a couple of things 1: I wish I had not ignored the game growing up and 2: I wish I had better friends (joke) or a local group to play with. My point here is you guys managed to take something I had zero interest in and make me not only interested in it but also wanting to play it. I think a big part of that was not only that fact the group was also new, but also the way you DM’ed. Because you understood that everyone was new to D&D, you were perhaps more flexible with the rules and more leinient in some cases, like those times where Hogger probably should of died ( I tease), and this made for a much more fun show imo, than if we had someone who was obsessed with keeping things “by the book”, so to speak. Even like you mentioned a part of good DM’ing is knowing that you can make all the cool plans in the world but sometimes someone is going to chop off their hand, or do something else nuts. I used to feel bad for you sometimes, when we (the audience) would know you had something planned out but it all went “wrong”, but when those things happened, you always just smiled and laughed and you never tried to force the players down a path, instead you imbraced it and TTA was all the better for it. I saw you make a tweet about being frustrated about back seat DM’ing and I can’t help but think that this post is related to that. People will always be critical no matter what you do, even I have had critism’s in the past or even just this week I thought maybe you were a little too harsh in not letting Ian speak into the mind of the assassin while doing his action, but I only even mention this, to use as an example to say, it’s nothing, just a hiccup that will probably get balanced out by a decision going in Ian’s favour another time etc. I think it’s also important to remember that most criticism’s are probably coming from a good place (it can be hard to judge tone from a comment sometimes as well), people just want the show to be the most enjoyable that it can be for them, but the thing is, everyone’s idea of what makes it better/worse are all different and subjective and the reality is the show will probably never be “perfect” to everyone. It’s like Huber says, just play how you wanna play, as long as you guys are having fun, then that will transfer through to those watching hopefully. So I know this post might not have been super realted to what the piece was about but I just wanted to put it out there an this seemed like a good place, basically what I’m getting at is, while I think you should certainly listen to feedback, I don’t want to see you get to hung up on some of it, or worry about trying to please everyone because that’s just never going to happen my friend, but I think I can speak for most fans in saying so far this season you have out done yourself with the world you have created, and we are looking forward to seeing where this adventure leads. :) P.S. This is for everyone reading, when it comes to being a nerd, yes, embrace it, whatever that thing is you are nerdy about, be proud of it. sounds like an old trope but life is too short to worry about what other people think about you, If someone calls you a nerd for liking games or D&D or whatever, you can bet your ass that person is just as nerdy about football or cars or whatever. Whenever a person would say something I liked was “stupid” I would ask them, “well, what are you nerdy about?” and when they answered, I’d say “oh well I think that’s stupid, see how that works?” which would usually be met with “fair point” etc.. My point here is, don’t worry about trying to be “cool” just be yourself and try to find those people that share your passion and surround yourself with them because I bet you are pretty damm cool to them. :)

BeatenDownBrian

I really liked the article, Ben. I haven't really been reading the Lore Corner updates since I kind of want to just experience the world alongside the players, but seeing your thoughts and philosophy on DMing was a great read. I'd definitely be interested in more updates like this in the future (not that the Lore Corner updates aren't rad!) I find that I agreed with you on pretty much all the points that you made. I used to argue with people about Vampire: the Masquerade and Vampire: the Requiem, where tons of people would argue that Reqiuem made more sense mechanically and rules-wise, but I just thought the overall world, story and atmosphere of Masquerade was a lot more interesting. I think any tabletop roleplaying chronicle that's played strictly "by-the-books" can get incredibly dry, and stuff that's really cool shouldn't be deemed impossible just because of some footnote in a dusty old manual.

You just keep doing you, Ben. We wouldn't keep watching and asking for more if we weren't generally satisfied with how you do things.

Minamik

Ben, don't feel discouraged. It is thanks to you and the group at Adventures/Escapades that I decided to rekindle this love of mine. And, honestly, when I saw the way you DMed, I could see many problems in the way I was DMing up to that point. So not only you helped me get back to something wonderful, but you also provided a frame of reference from which to be better at the table. And I agree with everything you're saying. DMing is a hard job. We love the things we create and want to expose the players to, but at the same time we must learn to be able to let go, because often times it simply doesn't resonate with the group. Most of what I plan ends up in the trash. In the end, don't worry. Know that I am one of the many that admire your work and effort. Rock on!

Nicely written.

Ben, Thank you for showing me how fun DnD can be. I had an opportunity to play like 8-10 years ago with a coworker and his group of friends, but turned down the invitation because I figured it wasn't for me. Man, was I wrong. I'm currently in a DnD group with a few of my buddies. We're running through a custom D20 Fallout campaign that a few of them designed based on some older edition of DnD. It's pretty sweet. Keep up the good work, brother.

Loved it! I i'm currently running a game myself and the problem that I have is that my players don't really improvise. They basicly only want xp and new items... I'd love them to take advantage of the terrain during combat or just wreaking havok for fun but they prefer to always follow the path I gently push them towards. Keep up the good work ben! May the grains heal all wounds.

Love this! Always great to hear from where you are coming from and how your thoughts turn into actions for your shows and streams. Of course the entertaining characters in both Adventures and Escapades keep me coming back, but it truly comes down to your storytelling and DMing as a whole. I tend to stop watching or don't even bother watching other people play D&D because the DM bothers me... Keep up the great work Ben! (Nioh stream was a blast!)

Ben. Thank you for all you do. Seriously, you're probably the smartest reviewer I've seen, and the table top show is top notch. You guys are on the forefront of ala carte media. I honestly think what you're doing will be trend setting. Thanks!!

Colin Cooper