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I& #39;ve DM& #39;d for the same group for about two years and at one point I started to believe that I was not a good DM because I was never able to keep my player& #39;s attention throughout a game. I figured I was doing something wrong. (1/?)
I spent a lot of time preparing for sessions, tried different ways to keep it interesting, spoke to my players and asked them to try to keep off-topic discussions to a minimum, and nothing seemed to work. So I half-convinced myself I was just bad at this.
I started DMing for a new group about a month ago. We did a session 0 and three full sessions so far. We& #39;re playing once a week. And it has been a REVELATION!
It honestly feels like I am playing D&D for the first time. After 2+ years of struggling with it and feeling like I was not doing a good job, I am realizing that I just had a bad group.
I feel bad saying this because they& #39;re friends of mine and I know they enjoy playing D&D with me. But I know that I haven& #39;t been enjoying DMing for them. I& #39;ve learned a lot over those two years, but I haven& #39;t enjoyed it very much.
DMing for my new group is a completely different experience. They always listen when I speak. They listen to each other, too. During combat, they all pay attention to what& #39;s happening throughout the round, not just on their turn. They& #39;re engaged.
They speak in character. They interact with each other in character. They gave me just enough backstory for their characters to inspire me to build a world for them to inhabit and to plan some story hooks for after we& #39;re done with this intro arc.
And I& #39;m having fun. DMing for them is easy and frustration free and relaxing. It feels like we& #39;re all equally invested, as opposed to me trying to get the attention of a bunch of children who would rather show each other youtube videos and memes on their phones.
This has literally changed my whole outlook on the game. I will never again settle for the kind of bad D&D I& #39;ve been playing for the past two years. I finally understand what people mean when they say "no D&D is better than bad D&D".
