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So hey, let's talk about this Kotaku article https://kotaku.com/how-to-be-a-great-dungeon-master-1842914514
First point of three in the article: It's not about you, DM, it's about the players. Nope. The DM IS A PLAYER.
It IS about you, DM, because other than the role you're occupying at the table, there's not really a difference between you and your friends playing the game. You're playing the game too. If you're not having fun, you can say so!
Imagine any other game having a system where three players have a good time and the last one is told to suck it up and have a bad time. Would you go to that party if you were suck it up guy? No, you'd play goddamn ACNH and stay home. This is terrible encouragement.
Seriously, and trying to sell it on "But if you make the players happy, they might bring you snacks!" Can we drop this feed the DM trope? He's not a gnomic wizard that lives in that diagonal closet in your attic unless you're playing, he's your regular ass friend!
The next few points are pretty skippable. Steal stuff and modify it, sure. Just keep going, sure. But then we get to the real meat, the recommended reading list.
John Wick's Play Dirty is a "brutal" read for "advanced DMs" perfect for if you need to know how to "kick your players’ [feet] out from under them" and I gotta say the old definition of "Advanced DM" being "Cruel old weirdo you'd never hang out with" is in full swing here.
Here's some screenshots of text directly from that book for fun. We'll go through them one by one. In this first one Wick introduces the first principle of DMing: "Don't let the players think their characters are interesting."
It may seem weird to take pride in just saying "Oh your character has a big gun? This NPC has a BIGGER GUN" and thinking you won something or did something notable. You control the game world, Wick! You could just has easily have said "In this world guns shoot spaghetti."
Here's a simple one where Wick's DM wisdom is how to assign the qualities of womanhood or girlhood, at his discretion, to his coworkers.
I won't tweet for women here but I gotta ask how they feel in the unusual circumstance of being assigned a "cute" nickname from an SNL sketch that's older than they are by a guy who won't take off his tactical fishing hat because his ponytail is too long for office regulations.
Play Dirty is from 2006, so obviously there's a little room to try and get some cred from people who were mad about 3rd edition not still having a table to roll on for what type of slatterns/strumpets the tavern has in it. Chase that anger-clout!
The core point isn't really about Wick. It's about the advice. Not having fun? That's not your fault, and it's not your responsibility either. And the solution, for the love of god, isn't in DM'ing better or more underhandedly! You want the solution? Here ya go:
TALK TO YOUR GOT DAMN PLAYERS. There is no other hobby where the routine answer to "how to have fun as the administrator" is "Try passive aggression and cheating."
If you want actual good advice, our buddy James( @OneShotRPG ) wrote a truly useful book of tools and practice for how to be a better DM and player. I bought one unironically, which if you know what we do around here, you know that means a lot: https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-RPG-Gameplay-Guide-Role-Play-ebook/dp/B07P5J5YLL/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=ultimate+roleplaying&qid=1587430732&sr=8-2
