Yesterday I ran a one-shot for a group of new players. It was tremendous fun, and I did get a few chuckles out of them by playing the quest giver as this obnoxious and pathetic noble. The players did a great job throughout, and walked all over the final encounter. Everyone leaves, kindly thanking me for DM-ing, I’m pleased, and then the critical thinking starts. Why didn’t I design this encounter to be harder, I’ve wasted the players time, how should I have encouraged the players to talk more to each other, did I railroad everyone? To be fair to myself, I’ve just finished a tour with my band and came back pretty socially spent. All in all, I was pleased with the game, but came back home feeling overwhelmed.
The question I found myself asking is “when will I be ready?”, meaning when will I feel like an accomplished DM, able to deal with any situation that arises at the table? I’ve been a Dungeon Master since 2023. In three years I have played in probably over a 100 sessions, both as a DM and players. I have a world, a campaign going, interesting factions and NPCs, vile villains awaiting my players, plots and situations, rituals and combat ideas. I read adventures in my spare time, Sly Flourish’s excellent advice, I’ve watched and rewatched Matt Colville’s “Running The Game” series, arming myself with as much of a philosophy and system towards this game as I can. My players seem happy and seem to be having fun.
And yet. I often get this feeling that I am out of my depth. An imposter. My friends will talk about a new feat, an intricate bit of worldbuilding, a character idea, and I realise how vast the ocean of this hobby is. I still struggle to balance an encounter, I still find I’m having to work on story and session pacing, villain motivations. Sometimes it’s an exciting challenge, and sometimes it feels like this impossible task. I think if I talk about this to other DMs, I often find they will say “everyone feels this way.” Which is helpful but gosh darn do I wish I could sort this out.
The truth I suppose is that everyone arrives at the table as prepared as they can be. It is just a game. We are all collaborating. The stakes are low. With a busy, busy life full of loved ones, music, books and movies, there will never be the time to do everything. hell, I think even if you dedicated your life to only one campaign that you run once a month and did nothing else, you would still find yourself an hour before the game tweaking HP or reworking an idea. It’s the nature of the beast. The joy, I suppose is to make meaning, fun and a game out of this unfinished canvas, to leave some lines unfinished for a player to jump in. To view mistakes critically sure, but also extend yourself some grace for the fact you stepped up to the DM’s screen and ran for people. Someone’s gotta do it, it might as well be you.
Next time I feel this way, here’s what I’ll try:
- Look at previous session notes. I have a wiki containing my campaign’s notes, which players sometimes contribute to. I’m so proud of how the campaign has gone in the past year. And, in many ways, I was a worse DM a year ago than I am this year. If you have previous session notes, maybe give them a read again, to remind yourself what can happen when you ignore that nagging voice and just run.
- Identify the useful critiques. If I come out of a session with a sense that I could have done better, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Spending some time writing down what went well and what didn’t go so well, and identifying which aspects of my game I want to run better helps dispel the idea that it was all bad, or that I am completely incompetent. I’ll just have to adjust my combat next time, no big deal!
- Sit down, you’re tired. Mystic Art’s video on DM burnout gives this excellent piece of advice. And truthfully, I ran yesterday when I maybe could have used a break. But instead I went out, did my best and met some awesome players. Just having this temperature check of where you’re at right now and saying “ok, this is where I’m at, this is what I can give right now” can help relieve some of this impostor syndrome pressure.
I’m Joe, a DM from Manchester UK sharing my thoughts on the hobby, I’m planning to do lots in the future, including book and adventure reviews. I’m already working on a free PDF of rituals to drop in your games, as well as a system for coming up with Humanoid stat blocks at every CR. Make sure to subscribe to felltower.com for updates
