Have you ever seen amazing terrainscapes worthy of legend and have looked on with envy?

Do you want to learn how to start getting into terrainscaping so you can have amazing battlemaps like all of the famous actual play shows?

Well, this is the episode for you.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today Justin and Tanner are joined by Jay from Jay's Tabletop Terrain on Instagram. You can learn more about Jay and what he does by going to: https://www.instagram.com/jays_tabletop/

In today's episode we talk about questions like these:

• How does one start into crafting or assembling terrain for their D&D games?
• Which is cheaper in the longer run, buying/3d printing or crafting terrain?
• What handful of pieces are staples and should be first in the list to start with?
• How do you measure distance for tactics in combat if there isn't a grid?
• How do you use terrain to improve the gameplay rather than taking away from it?

And more.

Let us know how you like this episode, but thanks for giving it a try.

We'll be back next time with another great episode.

Until then, let's roll initiative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Welcome to How To Be a Better DM. In today's episode I (Cayden) go over 3 of the biggest lessons I've learned over this past year as I've started running D&D games for my friends & family. Hopefully something in this episode inspires those of you who have yet to give DM'ing a shot, to try it out.

Mentioned in this episode:

Sign Up For Dungeon Master Coaching

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner as a DM? Maybe having someone who can help you find solutions to your DMing problems and help you improve every aspect of your game. Well, here at How to Be a Better DM we are trying an experiment. We are offering 5 free coaching sessions to listeners of the show. During these coaching sessions, we’ll work with you through your strengths and weaknesses as a DM and help you generate a game plan to make both better. You can either send in a recording of one of your games, or we’ll attend it live if able. If all else fails, we can still chat about your struggle and talk through any prep you’ve done for your upcoming games. Just go to session0studios.com/coaching and sign up.

Dungeon Master Coaching

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

Should you encourage your players to run a business in your campaign? What would that even look like? And, most importantly, can allowing players to run a business in your D&D Campaign become an additive to the overall story, or a distraction? Tanner explores these questions, their many other nuances, and the effects of a player-run, in-game business on your campaign.

Also, if you'd be interested in supporting us and this show, sign up for our new Patreon: patreon.com/Session0Studios

Mentioned in this episode:

Join Our Discord

So a little bit of a spoiler alert. We’re building an army. That’s right, we’re building an army of amazing dungeon masters who want to make the world of D&D a better place. If you want to join our army and fight by our side against the evil forces of boredom and bad dming, join our Discord and lend your voice to the cause. Go to Session0studios.com/discord and join for free today.

Discord

We Need Your Help

We are offering professional Dungeon Master Services and we have 5 slots for a free game open to any private or corporate party. If you could do this favor for us we'd be eternally grateful. Go to https://session0studios.com/dungeon-master-for-hire/ to sign up.

Dungeon Master for Hire

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today is a special bonus episode. We were fortunate enough to have been invited onto RPG Academy. Listen to our conversation but absolutely check them out at https://therpgacademy.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

We Need Your Help

We are offering professional Dungeon Master Services and we have 5 slots for a free game open to any private or corporate party. If you could do this favor for us we'd be eternally grateful. Go to https://session0studios.com/dungeon-master-for-hire/ to sign up.

Dungeon Master for Hire

“You creep slowly through the cobwebbed dark of the crypt, your breath coming out in puffs of steam that you’re trying your hardest to cover. You reach the corner and peer around down the hall. You see the source of the thumping sound. It’s a creature the size of an ogre, with the same proportions. The only difference is that where an ogre would have 1 head, this creature has 6, along with 3 extra arms and a 3rd leg that it drags behind it. Oh… and the entire body seems sewn together in the most grotesque way….

It’s some night in the future. That’s the sound of you pulling off the perfect one-shot. You’ve gathered a full party of friends and now you’re playing a once in a lifetime game.

But how do you create the once-in-a-lifetime One-Shot?

One-shots are fun, but getting them right is a skill that needs to be developed. Luckily for you, I’m going to share some tips that will help improve every single one-shot you ever play. The more often you play, the more likely it is that you create the Once-In-a-Lifetime One-shot.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. This is the show that helps you, the Dungeon Master, craft better stories in less time and with less stress. We’ve been helping dungeon masters new and old for over 150 episodes now. I’m Justin Lewis and I’ll be your guide for today.

I love one-shots!

You probably know that if you’ve listened to the show for any amount of time.

If you want to go back and listen to the other episodes I’ve done about one-shots you can listen to:

Episode 1

Episode 12

Episode 24

Episode 38

Episode 82

And Episode 101.

The Most important would be Episode 82 which is 10 Reasons to Do One-Shots as a Dungeon Master.

So I’m not going to talk about why you should do one-shots, but just know that you absolutely should.

Instead, today I want to talk about some more tips to help you push the limits of your abilities. I want you to make your next one-shot the best the world has ever seen.

Going all out for a campaign could be daunting and possibly exhausting depending on a lot of factors and circumstances.

Going all out for a one-shot is much easier in comparison. So with this next one-shot you do, give it everything you got.

It’s a simple fact of dungeon master, and most things in life actually, but what you put into something is what you’ll get out of it.

With your next one-shot, go all out!

Obviously I say that hoping you’ll exercise some degree of temperance. I don’t expect you to rent out a suit of armor and act out every single part. Use your judgment.

But if you are thinking critically, then you’ve probably thought of at least some sort of 1% type action that you could do that you don’t normally do. Maybe you don’t do music and you could add it to your game. Maybe getting some real candles could spice up the atmosphere. Try to push yourself just that little bit and go the extra mile. Your players will appreciate the...

How do you improvise things that make the game better? How do you add comedy to the game without making it corny?

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. Today I talked with TJ Salmon from Comedy Sports, located in Provo Utah. For more information check out https://www.comedysportzutah.com/

The biggest lesson of today's show is that improv, and comedy, both of them, it's not about you. The best Dungeon Masters do everything they can for their players. They build the story on what their characters add. The best way to be a DM is to DM for your players.

Thanks for listening today.

Mentioned in this episode:

We Need Your Help

We are offering professional Dungeon Master Services and we have 5 slots for a free game open to any private or corporate party. If you could do this favor for us we'd be eternally grateful. Go to https://session0studios.com/dungeon-master-for-hire/ to sign up.

Dungeon Master for Hire

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

In today's episode, we talk to Jake Packham, who is the dungeon master behind our live-play show "The Pact & Boon." Listen as we ask Jake how he goes about applying his inspiration to create compelling campaigns, and grow his home-brew world of Calignos.

Mentioned in this episode:

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Give Us a Rating and Review

You obviously have really good taste, you’re listening to How to Be a Better DM after all. We thank you for your support. If you’ve ever gotten anything useful from our show, take a minute to give us a rating and a review. It goes a very long way to making it so How to Be a Better DM can help many more dungeon masters just like you. If you love our content, help others become better dungeon masters too.

Here's a bonus episode for you about how to World Build with Your players and Characters in mind.

Here are some helpful tips:

• When you world build for players, you leave open spaces that players can help fill
• It gives your worldbuilding direction, which makes the story that much better.
• It saves time and effort because you only build about 20% more than what the players will interact with. Think about rendering in Minecraft.
• Your players get to help build the world
• You can add cool things as you progress through the story

Hope you enjoyed this Instagram Live episode.

Happy DMing

Mentioned in this episode:

Always Have Your Sessions Prepared!

You work 8 hours a day. You spend time with your family when you come home. You do work around the house and it seems you never have as much time as you would like to prepare your D&D sessions. Does this sound like you? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have endless material prepared for your D&D sessions anyways? That’s where Roll and Play Press comes in. Roll and Play Press provides D&D 5e Compatible materials for any type of session. Running a one-shot? Check out their One Shot Wonders book with over 100 one-shot ideas. Getting started with your new sci-fi campaign? Get their Game Master’s Sci-Fi Toolkit to have your games much more prepared. Why reinvent the wheel? Check out Roll and Play Press at rollandplaypress.com and get 10% off when you buy something by using the code BETTERDM10.

Roll and Play Press

Start Leveling Up As a DM

Wouldn’t it be nice to gamify your dungeon master abilities? In D&D, characters can reach level 20, so why can’t dungeon masters? We’re happy to tell you that now, you can. We created the Dungeon Master Level-Up Guide. It’s a simple tool to gamify your progression to higher and higher levels of dungeon mastering. It includes Dungeon Master Levels 1 to 20 with associated XP requirements as well as a long list of Dungeon Master activities that will give you XP. Each activity has a Challenge Rating and an XP amount. In order to level up, all you need to do is find out how much XP you have, find out how much you need and pick activities to try. You can get the Dungeon Master Level-Up guide for free by going to session0studios.com/newsletter/, sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you the Level-Up Guide. Finally, leveling up as a DM can be as fun as leveling up a character.

Level Up Guide