We tend to divvy this kind of work amongst ourselves, depending on the game. It helps that we all GM a fair bit, so we kind of know the drill and step in to at least try and make it easier.

I haven’t played D&D in something like 35 years... but this story (and, truly, several you’ve written here of late) have me longing to dabble again for the first time in ages! Well done, Gita — keep up the great work!

You have to DM. It’s great. You take a deep dive into your world (or the pre-generated ones) and you set everything up and your PCs fuck it up sooooo badly. They will get killed by a goblin they can’t seem to kill or complete miss the one house that has the item they need for the end of the quest. Do you get meta? Do…

Ever since middle school I’ve gone through periods where I’m playing a ton of D&D to years at a time when I don’t play. I’m currently in one of the highs so I’m trying to take advantage of it as much as I can.

That just sounds awful.

This article just makes my long simmering desire for an Exquisite Corpse style campaign itch the back of my soul.

I’m not a DM but I’m part of a campaign. Our DM does occasionally draw us a map but we’ve never used miniatures. I toyed with the idea of trying to find some once (just so we’d have something neat to look at/make a good present) but never did find anything. Then again our party consists of two lizard people, a…

Ugh, “Chaotic Stupid” characters are the worst. At that point, it’s just up to the DM to say, “No, I don’t care if that’s in character for your character; you are no longer playing that character because it’s making the rest of your party miserable.”

I ran a game for 8 or 9 people one time, because we were all at camp and it seemed like the thing to do.

Never. Again.

There was no focus, way too much cross talk (which made me have to be an asshole and tell people to stop talking) and we eventually gave up because we weren’t into it.

Now I regularly DM for a group of 4…

lots of people are, but you’ve gotta stay away from older D&D editions and Pathfinder in fantasy RPGs. and game stores in general because they’re built around facilitating minis because they sell them, so of course those types of tables will be encouraged, subtly and overtly

That was a lot of people problems with 4th actually. To much reinforced infrastructure based on miniatures.

Finding the right group of people to role play with is huge, and a good DM is essential. Your other group of friends would probably be good with a role playing game.

Not dead with me. Some of my favorite campaigns are basically workshopping the DM’s story with all the other PCs lending their voice to it.

Many long years ago, I was a DM for a large group of folks. We met once a week and had lots of fun. We never played with miniatures. I was able to narrate combat in a way that made it thrilling and fun for my players. It kept the flow of the game going forward and we could spend a lot more time rolling dice,…

One of my worst D&D experiences was at an AL game where our party was, at its peak, composed of 11 to 15 people. The campaign came to a grinding halt and it took months to get through a simple dungeon crawl.

This is why I DM in a manner that leans towards the dice-rolling type, but without having firm difficulty check values determined ahead of time. Instead my DCs are usually set easy enough to keep things moving, but hard enough that people mess up occasionally.

I tracked movements, kept lists of treasures, enemy stats, etc.

my dm is a mix of both. all my dice rolls are bad.

i dmed a game for him once, and i had a good time. the only problem i have is finding out a new hook to jump into for our next adventure because we’ve been all over this world and are now into another.

also that my son was born last august and it’s been difficult to get…

I have a twin brother.... I REALLY want to try this now.

When I was playing AD&D, I was a “Co-GM.” I participated as a player as well as helping the other GM. I tracked movements, helped create the adventures we ran, kept lists of treasures, enemy stats, etc. The other GM and I would switch out from time to time. But he didn’t do as much when he was a player as I did. But…