Mistakes DMs Make

Being a Dungeon Master can be great, rewarding fun. If it were not so then I doubt I would still be DMing 30 years into the hobby of RPGs. But that 30 years does not make me immune from making mistakes or from handling situations in a suboptimal way.

Take for example session 2 of the current campaign. While there are many things about that session I am proud of, there is one thing that sticks out to me after rereading the blog post, that could have and should have been handled better.

The mistake was in handling the introduction of the three new players and their characters into the game. These players are tacticians by nature and not as fond of exploring the social side of adventuring. Give them an enemy to pound into the dirt over talking to towns people any day.

Where I could have made their introduction and the session much more entertaining for them is at the very beginning. What would have been a lot more fun would have been to have everyone roll for initiative and then explain that running toward the main group were the three new PCs and close on their heels was a ravening horde of goblins numbering almost twice the total party in number. That would have thrown everyone into a uniting situation and gotten things going with excitement.

With the blog posts of the game it provides a valuable source of hind-sight and a way to continue improving technique. I hope to keep learning and improving for many years to come and perhaps someone else will get some value out of the posts as well.