This past weekend, I finished up the first campaign that I was ever a DM for, and I’m not going to lie, it’s a little bittersweet. One of my players is moving out of state and won’t play in the next campaign, but all of my players got a sense of what kind of “life goes on” ending each of their characters will have. I have left things open enough that when they start the next campaign, the heroes of the first can make little cameos at various points. As a former Forever Player who now DMs, I learned a lot, and I’m very grateful to J, owner of our FLGS for giving me a chance to run a group for elementary school-aged kiddos. His store is the only one in our state that has dedicated groups for middle and elementary school-aged kids, and it’s kind of cool knowing I was the one to get the elementary group rolling. While the kids learned the game from me, I also learned a lot from them.
- Sometimes you just have to be willing to take that leap knowing you won’t be perfect. For years I think I had been too intimidated to be a DM, but it was being able to run Animal Adventures for my kids that made me take the leap. Those first sessions were rough (reminds me a lot of my first year of teaching), but I was willing to learn and you can’t do that without taking your first awkward steps. I quickly caught on to what kids needed to make the game easier for them, and I made adaptions like spell and ability cards. My game got a lot smoother, and I got more comfortable with the mechanics. I don’t feel bad when I don’t know something and need to look it up, and every so often I call out “I need a higher level DM!” when I want someone with more experience to clarify something for me. I also don’t worry as much about planning something not out of the box as I once did, and the mechanics I need to make up on the fly don’t make me freeze so much. For anyone on the fence about trying to DM, just get in there and get started already.
- People underestimate how creative kids can be. Two months into that campaign, it was Christmas time, and my kid players started a new tradition amongst my players which I am now calling McAllister December. The kids all seem to end up watching Home Alone over Thanksgiving break and suddenly realize that there are ways in D&D to set up all kinds of traps for things you are fighting. I sell more bags of ball bearings, rope, and caltrops to my players that month than any other month out of the year. I also find myself making mechanics for elaborate traps a lot more. Oh, and on the spell end? Mage Hand and Grease suddenly get a lot more use as these kids get inspired. It’s really so much fun to DM for.
- I brought skills I didn’t realize would help to the table. When I planned to start DMing, I knew one of my skills was being a former theater kid not afraid to be goofy and do voices, but I really underestimated what other skills I had. As a former classroom teacher, I had a certain amount of organization and crowd-control skills that really helped me out as a DM. As a DM, I also play with a more storyteller/coach style. I’m okay with giving my often newer players hints on things that they can do when they’re less familiar with the options. It’s a style that’s a lot more teaching through play, and I just don’t think of myself as me versus the players so much as their guide in having fun.
- Homebrew may be a little inevitable. I don’t mind running things out of a box with some tweaks here and there. Doing so really helped me build up my skills, like having training wheels. Training wheels don’t last forever, though, and as I looked at what I think is the best for my players next, I realized I’m going to homebrew a certain amount of things, more than I did before. It’s sort of exciting and nerve-wracking all at once, but just like as a teacher who grew in her skills, I started seeing things I could do as a DM that made sense for making the game fit my players and their needs better. They’re leveling in their player experience, but I’m also leveling as a DM and I’m feeling pretty good about where this journey is taking me.
- Being a DM has made me a better player. First off, as a DM, I got a lot better at understanding how all of the character classes work in a way I never really did before. I favor rogues and I thought of other characters as “spell casting” or “hits things hard” or “bit of both.” I now understand the nuances better. In coaching the kids on how to be good players with what I call good table manners, I find myself taking little steps of my own to make sure I am doing the same things. It’s not like I was a horrible player, but seeing things from the DM side gives you an extra perspective. As a DM I really caught how my extroverts can steamroll a shy kid, so I tried to encourage them to use their extroverted nature as a superpower and check in with those kids. I’m more extroverted than a lot of our current group, so I now find when I’m the “voice” that a group often needs to get moving, that I also check in more with the quieter players.
Running for these kids has been a super fun experience and I’m very excited to see where our adventures take us next, as well as what I’ll learn next.
