Ahead of the game, if you haven’t done so already, discuss with your players the experience you’re all hoping for, as well as topics, themes, and behavior that might spoil someone’s enjoyment of the game.
Whether you’re playing with long-time friends or strangers, it’s important to create a foundation of mutual trust. The best games happen when everyone at the table feels safe enough to be themselves, speak up, and get into character.
It’s up to everyone to uphold the principles of respect. Difficult conversations often fall on the DM to lead, but they don’t have to. If one player’s behavior is interfering with everyone else’s enjoyment, everyone has a stake in helping to resolve the issue.
Before you assemble a group around a game table, pitch the adventures you’re thinking about running to your prospective players. Note the in-world conflicts that might arise, the setting’s overall tone, and the themes you’d like to explore. (The “Every DM Is Unique” section earlier in this chapter can help you describe your game to others.)
Telling players what to expect prepares them as they imagine what sorts of characters they could create and launches conversations about content to be embraced and avoided. You don’t need to reveal the major plot points or twists in your story, but share the themes you’re interested in exploring, the kinds of stories you’re inspired by, and which flavors of fantasy (outlined in chapter 5) interest you. Being transparent with your players allows them to decide if this is a game they want to play, which is best to know before play begins.
Being clear about your expectations and making sure you understand your players’ expectations in return can help ensure a smooth game. Take your players’ opinions and desires seriously, and make sure they take yours just as seriously. Ideally, you’ll find a style of play that suits everyone.
Beyond the general themes and flavors of fantasy you’re interested in exploring in your campaign, it’s important to have a conversation with your players about topics that can be sensitive or uncomfortable. It can be helpful to discuss these topics in terms of soft and hard limits:
DMs and players can have phobias or triggers that others might not be aware of. Any in-game topic or theme that makes a member of the gaming group feel unsafe (a hard limit) must be avoided. If a topic or theme makes one or more players nervous but they consent to include it in-game (a soft limit), incorporate it with care, if at all, and be ready to quickly veer away from it if needed.
Common in-game limits apply to topics such as intraparty romance, sex, exploitation, racism, enslavement, and violence toward children and animals. Limits can also apply to certain creatures, such as spiders, snakes, rats, and demons. It’s also important to discuss limits around what harm might befall characters, including mind-control magic, helplessness, and death.
That said, D&D is a game that has in-world conflicts and mayhem. Certain core elements of the game are difficult to ignore. For example, taking damage isn’t a limit you can work around easily. Similarly, character death is something that happens from time to time, though the game has ways to counteract or avoid it (see “Death” in chapter 3 for suggestions).
Using the Game Expectations Sheet
The Game Expectations tracking sheet is a tool you can use to set expectations at the start of a game and ensure the game is fun for everyone.
Before distributing the sheet to players, fill in the two topmost boxes:
Game Theme and Flavor. In this box, broadly describe the direction you envision for your game. See the “Setting Expectations” section for the kinds of information to include here.
Potentially Sensitive Elements. If you know that some elements of the game might run up against some players’ limits, list those elements in this box. See the “Hard and Soft Limits” section for examples.
Once the above information is added, give a copy of the sheet to each player. Players can fill out their sheets anonymously, but ask each of them to add the following information:
Limits. Using an X for a hard limit or a question mark for a soft limit, indicate any potentially sensitive elements that are problematic. Add any other elements to avoid.
Hopes, Expectations, and Concerns. In the last two boxes, share any hopes and expectations for the game, and list any concerns about behavior at the table.
Collect all the sheets, and gather your players’ limits into a separate, anonymous document the whole group can access.
Conflicts between characters aren’t always bad, but they can get in the way of the game.
Communicating Limits. Make sure everyone is comfortable with how the discussion of limits takes place. Players might not want to discuss limits aloud, especially if they’re new to roleplaying games or haven’t spent a lot of time with other members of the group. One way to alleviate such discomfort is to provide a way for players to share limits anonymously. Everyone can jot down their limits on an anonymous survey, such as the Game Expectations tracking sheet in this chapter.
Compile limits into a list that can be shared with the group. Limits aren’t negotiable, and everyone in the group needs to respect them.
The start of a campaign is a great time to have this discussion, but further discussion is warranted each time a new player joins the group or when the campaign has a shift in story or tone. Someone might cross a line and need to be reminded of a limit, or someone might not think to include some of their limits in the initial discussion. Players can also discover new limits as the campaign unfolds. Check in with the group every few sessions to make sure everyone’s comfortable with how the game is developing, updating the group’s limits as needed.
Shifting Limits. Encourage players to bring any additional limits to you, privately or in the moment, so you can add them to the list. Trust that players know their needs best, and update the game accordingly.
Limits in Play. Since D&D is improvisational, the game can go in unexpected directions. It’s helpful to have an agreed-on signal that players can use to communicate that a limit has been violated, allowing you to adjust quickly. That signal might be a gesture (such as crossing the arms in an X or raising a palm in a “stop” gesture), a code word or phrase, touching or lifting a designated object, or anything else your group agrees on. Players should also feel safe to say “stop” and pause the game until the issue is resolved. The person who invokes the signals can comment on what they want adjusted but doesn’t have to explain why the content is objectionable. The signal shouldn’t trigger a debate or discussion: thank the player for being honest about their needs, set the scene right, and move on.
Make it clear to players that if a person isn’t comfortable using the signal, they can step away from the game or call for a break to talk to you privately. Players may also give a friend permission to use the signal on their behalf. As the DM, lead by example. Take your players’ needs seriously, and use every tool at your disposal to adjust how your shared story plays out.
When there’s conflict between characters in an adventuring party, it’s usually a sign that one of three things is going on:
Disruptive Player. A player is exhibiting antisocial behavior in the game. How to deal with it is covered in the “Antisocial Behavior” section.
Player Conflict. Conflicts between characters sometimes surface conflicts between players. These conflicts are best handled away from the gaming table. Encourage the players to resolve their conflict outside the game. If that conflict keeps arising at the game table, you might need to ask them to step away from the campaign for a while or leave the game entirely.
Roleplaying. Conflicts between characters aren’t always bad. It’s OK for characters (and players) to disagree about how to deal with a captured enemy or which side to back in a brewing war. If the disagreement gets too heated, take a break and perhaps discuss, out of character, how the players would like to proceed.
If you can’t tell which of these dynamics is in play, have a conversation with the players about it.
Your players need to know from the start that you’ll run a game that is fun, fair, and tailored for them; that you’ll allow each of them to contribute to the story; and that you’ll pay attention to them when they take their turns. Your players also count on you to make sure an adventure’s threats don’t target them personally. Never make players feel uncomfortable or threatened.
As the DM, don’t play favorites. Don’t let one player do all the talking, and make sure you check in about what every character is doing, especially during periods of exploration and social interaction, rather than focusing just on one player’s character.
Sometimes you’ll encounter players who tell other players what their characters should do, claim the best magic items for themselves, bully the other players, and refuse to share the spotlight. Away from the game, point out that the player’s behavior is spoiling the fun for others, and ask the player to tone it down. If the player refuses to change this behavior, ask the player to leave the group.
Some problems arise when a player assumes that their particular style of play is superior to others, and they lose patience with encounters tailored to other players’ preferences. Remind the impatient player (perhaps away from the table) that you have a group to please, not just one player.
Do You Really Do That?
Can players retract what they just said their characters did? Some DMs take a hard-line position: “If you said it, your character did it.” Such a strict position tends to make players much more careful about what they say, which can dampen the atmosphere and discourage humor.
Other DMs let players change their minds freely. This creates a more relaxed mood at the table, which might slow the pace of the game.
A common compromise is to rule that players can retract or change anything their characters did up until the point they learn the consequences of their actions. Once you describe what happens as a result, it’s too late for the players to change their minds.
Some players resist getting invested in the world of the game because they don’t want to endure the pain of seeing the people and places they care about threatened or destroyed. Other players gleefully detail a backstory full of beloved NPCs, fully expecting the DM to use those people as bait, tragic victims, and unexpected villains. It’s important to understand your players’ preferences so you neither alienate the players by callously destroying what they love nor bore them by leaving their backstory out of the campaign story.
When you have antagonists threaten the people and places the characters love, be sure the characters have a chance to stave off the worst outcome. During the game, characters should have the opportunity to avoid or mitigate losses in heroic ways, with tragedy being a consequence of the characters’ actions and decisions, not a foregone conclusion. Moments of helplessness in the face of devastating tragedy are better suited for character backstories.
Should you hide your die rolls behind a DM screen, or should you roll your dice in the open for all the players to see? Choose either approach, and be consistent. Each approach has benefits:
Hidden Die Rolls. Hiding your die rolls keeps them mysterious and allows you to alter results if you want to. For example, you could ignore a Critical Hit to save a character’s life. Don’t alter die rolls too often, though, and never let the players know when you fudge a die roll.
Visible Die Rolls. Rolling dice in the open demonstrates impartiality—you’re not fudging rolls to the characters’ benefit or detriment.
Even if you usually roll behind a screen, it can be fun to make an especially dramatic roll where everyone can see it.
Overly cautious players can slow down the game by checking every flagstone, door, and wall in a dungeon for traps and hidden dangers. Sometimes this behavior is a learned response to too many unpleasant surprises in past adventures, and sometimes it’s just a manifestation of players’ personalities.
Here are some in-game techniques you can use to encourage your players to act boldly:
Avoid Random Perils. Avoid traps and ambushes that feel random and have little importance to the rest of the adventure.
Create Time Pressure. Set up a situation where the characters are racing toward a goal or destination. (Use this technique with caution, as time pressure can increase players’ anxiety.)
Telegraph Encounters. Give players advance warning that an encounter is imminent. Maybe they hear the heavy footfalls of a giant or see a dragon flying overhead before they have to confront it. This can encourage your players to move toward or away from the encounters rather than anxiously anticipating an ambush.
If these in-game techniques don’t have the desired effect, have a conversation outside the game with your players about which game elements are causing them to play in an overly cautious way. Come to an agreement that those elements won’t appear in your game, as keeping the game moving will result in a better experience.
As the DM, you have the right to expect your players to respect you and the effort you put into making a fun game for everyone. The players need to let you direct the campaign (with their input), arbitrate the rules, and settle arguments. And when you’re narrating the action of the game, the players should be paying attention.
Players should roll their dice in full view of everyone. If a player scoops up their dice before anyone else can see what they rolled, encourage that player to be less secretive.
When a die falls on the floor, do you count it or reroll it? When it lands cocked against a book, do you pull the book away and see where it lands or reroll the die? Work with your players to answer these questions, and record the answers as house rules.
You must provide reasonably appealing reasons for characters to undertake the adventures you prepare. (See “Draw In the Players” in chapter 4 for advice on this topic.) In exchange, the players should go along with those hooks. It’s OK for your players to give you some pushback on why their characters should want to do what you’re asking them to do, but it’s not OK for them to invalidate the hard work you’ve done preparing the adventure by willfully going in a different direction.
If you feel like you’re keeping up your end of the bargain but your players aren’t, have a conversation with them away from the gaming table. Try to understand what hooks would motivate their characters, and make sure the players understand the work you put into preparing adventures for them.
Work out a policy about rules discussions at the table. Some groups don’t mind putting the game on hold while they discuss different interpretations of a rule. Others prefer to let the DM make a call and continue playing. If you gloss over a rules issue in play, make a note of it and return to the issue later.
Some players like to use the rules to argue against your decisions. While such players can be helpful when you’re stuck or make a rules mistake that’s easily corrected, players who argue the rules too often can disrupt the flow of the game.
If a player wants to pause play to find a specific rule or reference, you can invite the player to search for it while you and the rest of the players continue the game. That player’s character essentially steps out of the game for as long as it takes. Monsters don’t attack the character, and the character takes the Dodge action in combat until the player rejoins the group. This solution allows the other players to keep playing instead of letting one player stop the game.
Encourage players to play their characters within the limits of what the characters know and understand. It can be helpful to maintain the distinction between player and character knowledge by simply asking players, “What do your characters think?”
Anachronistic thinking is another potential pitfall. You might need to remind players that their characters don’t know how to make things that don’t exist in the game world, such as modern firearms or antibiotics, and they don’t have the players’ understanding of modern science (which might not apply in the game universe anyway).
Similarly, sometimes a player is familiar with the published adventure you’re running or knows the Monster Manual backward and forward. Encourage the player to keep that knowledge separate from their character’s knowledge and allow the other players to discover it through play.
People often play D&D because it lets them, through their characters, do things they can’t do in real life—fight monsters, cast spells, and so on. However, for some players, this means wreaking havoc in towns or betraying their allies. What they want in the game has nothing to do with heroic adventure, but with using the game rules to act out antisocial fantasies.
If this behavior comes up in your game, it might be time to reopen the conversation about the kind of game you want to play. If it’s just one player causing the trouble, it’s perfectly appropriate to issue an ultimatum: an out-of-control player who wants to continue playing with the group must stop being disruptive and play as part of a team. Don’t let players get away with being jerks to the other players using the excuse, “that’s what my character would do.”
Evil Characters. Players who want to play evil characters might be looking to carry out antisocial behavior in the game. If a player asks for permission to play an evil character or comes to the table with one already made, talk to that player about what they have in mind and make sure their plans square with the group’s expectations for your game. Sometimes a player wants to explore playing an evil character for perfectly good (and nondisruptive) reasons, and sometimes a whole group decides it might be fun to play evil characters together. These are valid options, as long as everyone’s on the same page about how the campaign will go.
Some players enjoy poring over the D&D rules and looking for optimal combinations. This kind of optimizing is part of the game (see “Know Your Players” in chapter 2), but it can cross a line into being exploitative, interfering with everyone else’s fun.
Setting clear expectations is essential when dealing with this kind of rules exploitation. Bear these principles in mind:
Rules Aren’t Physics. The rules of the game are meant to provide a fun game experience, not to describe the laws of physics in the worlds of D&D, let alone the real world. Don’t let players argue that a bucket brigade of ordinary people can accelerate a spear to light speed by all using the Ready action to pass the spear to the next person in line. The Ready action facilitates heroic action; it doesn’t define the physical limitations of what can happen in a 6-second combat round.
The Game Is Not an Economy. The rules of the game aren’t intended to model a realistic economy, and players who look for loopholes that let them generate infinite wealth using combinations of spells are exploiting the rules.
Combat Is for Enemies. Some rules apply only during combat or while a character is acting in Initiative order. Don’t let players attack each other or helpless creatures to activate those rules.
Rules Rely on Good-Faith Interpretation. The rules assume that everyone reading and interpreting the rules has the interests of the group’s fun at heart and is reading the rules in that light.
Outlining these principles can help hold players’ exploits at bay. If a player persistently tries to twist the rules of the game, have a conversation with that player outside the game and ask them to stop.
Knowing the Rules
You don’t have to be an expert on the rules to be a good DM. Of course it’s helpful to be familiar with the rules, especially the ones in the Player’s Handbook, but facilitating fun is more important than implementing the rules perfectly. If you’re not sure how to apply the rules in a situation, you can always ask the opinion of the players as a group. It might take a few minutes, but it’s usually possible to reach an answer that feels fair to everyone, and that’s more important than a “correct” answer.
You don’t need to know every spell in the Player’s Handbook or the features of every class. Set the expectation that players are responsible for telling you what their abilities and spells do.
Setting expectations is just as important in a digital environment as in person.
Some groups confine out-of-character jokes, comments, and memes to a text channel, keeping the voice channel focused on the game. But some groups find it distracting to have a separate conversation unfolding in text while the game is going on. Choose an option that works best for your group.
Who moves tokens on a virtual tabletop? Are players expected to use the built-in dice roller, or is it OK to roll physical dice and report the result? The particular technology you’re using might dictate answers to these questions or raise other questions you’ll need to sort out as you play.
