1. Name five skills you wish you possessed that would make you a better DM.2. Name five sacrifices you'd be willing to make to gain any of those skills.
Few have accepted the challenge it seems: I myself have waited a week since the original post (yay work). Now that I have some free time, I thought it would be a good exercise.
Skill 1:
Provide better exposition & storytelling to my players. I struggle to be clear and concise with my players and make firm choices as to how the story shall progress. When describing a scene, I am erratic: sometimes I remember to add details, other times I lose focus trying to remember what details there should be. When I'm stressed, I tend to miss adding details altogether. Ideally, I'd give the players an appropriate amount of exposition and colour whenever necessary (something I'd need to determine). I would avoid cluttering my exposition with trivialities or giving them information that could distract or confuse them.
Sacrifice 1:
Practice storytelling. I am a terrible storyteller and I often forget details and tell stories non-chronologically. I need to practice for maybe an hour a week, or try the technique Alexis suggests in his comments to Connor Mckay's five points. I also need to commit to my choices. I've done several years of improvisational theatre, and under those circumstances I am very comfortable inventing and creating imaginative stories. As a DM, I tend to clamp up. I want to work on telling stories alone and remind myself to simply be firm on my decisions, even if they play tropes straight or sound unoriginal.
Skill 2:
Keep players more engaged during play. In particular, I'd like to hold my players' attention even when it's not their turn in combat or I'm talking to another player (often, my players tend to splinter off into individual goals and then reconvene session-by-session). I'd like to be able to keep my head above the action and let players know when I will be talking to them and who should prepare their actions.
Sacrifice 2:
I am willing to sacrifice some more time trying an activity which will require me to pay attention to multiple things at once: be it a sport or a job or something else. By spending more time practicing multitasking, I think I can get a better handle on doing so and develop this skill.
Skill 3:
Declutter my organization for the game. Right now I've been moving things over to my computer, and it is very messy. I have PDF copies of books open, browser pages to the Tao of D&D Wikispaces, all my Excel files to run the session, plus OneNote notebooks for recording session details and the campaign journal. Whenever I need to refer to something a little more substantial, like a spell description, the whole game slows right down. I've been trying to push some of the weight of doing so onto the players, but that ends up making me need to ask the players what their spells do which doesn't speed things up nor get me all the correct information.
Sacrifice 3:
Spend some time memorizing and learning more of the rules so I need to keep less open. That would mean giving up time I could spend reading more interesting books to push this stuff into my brain. It might even take some time for me to fix rules that bother me so that I can remember them more clearly (I would remember dedicating the time to change them). I already know that I remember my house rules reasonably well: this would simply be an exercise in learning the rest.
Skill 4:
Be less intense about D&D. My players tend to be new to the game and have school and work to worry about between sessions: they can't commit to strict schedules and D&D just frankly isn't their focus in life. It's a healthy choice that they've made, although one I'm less inclined to make as D&D is my biggest creative outlet when I'm not struggling to practice writing. If the group is less intense, I should cater to their needs and desires as players, so as to avoid pressuring them or intimidating them.
Sacrifice 4:
Let D&D be less important to myself, and give up some of the excitement I get to play. It could make the game feel less special and less meaningful if I let myself be less attached to it, and it would also leave me with time I may struggle at first to fill. But that would give me some time to commit to my other sacrifices.
Skill 5:
Get a chance to be a player and learn from that perspective. Honestly, I've never been a player in an actual game of D&D: I've been a player in a few games of Fate, but that's the extent of it. While I know what I enjoy in other media, I'm not sure what I would enjoy as a D&D player, and that restricts my ability to empathize with my campaign's players. I need to find an opportunity to be a player.
Sacrifice 5:
Quit being a control freak and let someone else take charge. Teach a friend how to DM or go to an event in my area. Accept the possibility of being DMed by someone who may frustrate or bother me, just as much as I may be DMed by someone who inspires me or helps me develop my thinking. Even a bad experience can still teach me about what I want as a player and what to avoid as a DM.
So there are my five. Now to see whether I will actually commit to them.
