I've DM'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'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'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're friends of mine and I know they enjoy playing D&D with me. But I know that I haven't been enjoying DMing for them. I've learned a lot over those two years, but I haven'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's happening throughout the round, not just on their turn. They'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're done with this intro arc.

And I'm having fun. DMing for them is easy and frustration free and relaxing. It feels like we'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'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".