I've been a DM for 42 years through all the editions with small groups, large groups, veterans and those fresh to the table. I've DMed on Twitch Streams, online and face to face, I still have nights where I feel I shouldn't be behind the screen, that I'm just dumping garbage out onto the table. nights where I don't want to DM at all, etc... Through all of it the 'rule' I cling to in those moments, 'Everybody is here to have fun, so have fun'

Last session we had a break and I went to make myself a cup of tea and when I came back three of my players were roleplaying with eachother and it made me so happy and helped me so much.

My therapist puts it this way: “Just because it FEELS true doesn’t mean it IS true.”

"The players are there to play, not to judge you" is such a freeing statement, thank you!

The only advice I'll give is this: don't aim for perfect (be it the perfect game, running the rules perfectly, ect), just aim to run a fun game; as long as everyone has fun no one will complain.

I've learned never to plan for PC actions. My life has been made so much easier by just writing down what the world is doing in reaction to what they did last and what the villains are doing as a result. So long as I know what's going on in the world I can make it react to the player actions, rather than hoping the players react to the world in the way I want.

Something that helped me a lot was doing a quick, casual debrief at the end of each session, where we talked about what worked and what didn't. It helped me realize that I was being too harsh on myself -- Most of the time, the players had had a much better time than I had realized (being too involved with everything going on in my DM brain), and whenever I mentioned the parts that had gone poorly from my perspective, my players usually hadn't even noticed.

This speaks to me. The two things that have helped me recently are taking more 5min breaks during a session like to breathe, work out where things are going, fix what isn't working and read the room. It fills me with way more confidence if I have little breaks to ask myself "whats working? what isn't?" rather than that end of session dread of "I wish I hadn't done ___, because that sucked and I have to live with being a rubbish DM until NEXT WEEK!!". The other thing that's really helped with the start of sessions to get out the jitters out is to do a 5minute world-building sesh with the players where I ask them questions about the world we're in and we mark things on a map together. It makes me feel way more comfortable when the group starts on an equal creative level because it takes to pressure off.

Dael went Eeeee and my 4 yearold went Eeeeee.

I’ve been DMing for 18 years now and I really enjoyed this video. Every group and DM is different, it’s important to find ‘your’ style and not copy what you see other DMs do. You won’t DM like them and they won’t DM like you. Find your strength and lean in hard. You can work on your weaknesses as you go. It’s a marathon, not a sprint!

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DM me then: "Oh, no! My players killed the NPC. I'm screwed!"

An old boss of mine always talked about being "Unconsciously incompetent and transferring to "Consciously incompetent." I think that's what holds a lot of DMs back. It is a learning process. But transitioning from not knowing what you can improve, to knowing what you can improve is a huge step. The next step up is becoming "Unconsciously competent, when you do not realize that you are actually doing so well!

As one of the"old guard" who's been running games for thirty years, I still have DM anxiety. Due to the pandemic my group migrated to a Virtual Tabletop. In my last session the VTT experienced tremendous lag on my end due to problems with my computer. In this session one of the players was relatively new to our group, and I was picking up the campaign after months of not playing it. Due to those three reasons, I felt a great deal of anxiety during and after the session. This video went a long way to making me feel much better. So thank you for making it!

For the "answering questions on the fly" part, this is actually a big part of being comfortable learning a new language. You can't plan for every question, but you CAN plan natural ways to stall. As a DM, you can try to think of ways to kill time without resorting to silence. For example if they are searching a body, describe the body itself or the clothes or whatever detail you can throw out there without actually thinking much to buy yourself some time.

I am DMing since forever and I can relate too. There is one thing, I would offer two very similar experiments of mine.

Here's one advice that I think can be useful and haven't seen in the comments yet: TRY DIFFERENT SYSTEMS! Specially ones that differ substantially from D&D!

Hey! I recognize that comment! This video was so great to see. Your comment response helped me out so much. I’m glad that now other people can get some comfort from this video! I know that I’m going to reference this again. Keep up the great work!

Pro tip, seating plans. My players have social problems sitting next to certain other players. So I tend to put quiet bastards up front close to me and put the loud bastards out back, far from me. I also look at character dynamics and try to put them close to other characters they can bounce off. Bonus round, if you have a role play heavy session, sit the role-players close together, if its a combat heavy session, sit the combat players closer together. It helps everyone have a voice and promote maximum playing. :)

"You gotta find what works for you, rather than just doing what you think you should be doing." That's honestly good advice for just life in general really