David's backstory goes from 0 to 100 real quick

"You can defiantly be comfortable pulling things out of your ass." Matthew Mercer 2016

Matt's way of dealing with unexpected events "Well I mean...you can try..."

"Can I help you? I'm David." I have no idea why I found this in particular so hilarious.

The wizard of oz was really just a failed gm that broke the immersion when they looked behind the curtain xD

C A N I H E L P Y O U M Y N A M E I S D A V I D oh god why is that so hilarious?

In our latest session- Party: we want to go to Neverwinter DM: No Party: why not DM: I haven't created it yet Party: but it's on the map Followed by a 10 minute discussion on whether or not there is winter in Neverwinter.

"I get most of my fun when I'm thrown off" The cows.

I was so inspired by critical role, myself and a buddy went out and bought the D&D 5e books, and I asked around to see if anyone in my area wanted to play a campaign. To my surprise, six people jumped aboard the role-playing train, with another two to come. We've been at it for four weeks or so, and to my delight everyone has been fairly comfortable actually role-playing their characters, voices, and (most of) their choices. I have run in to several unexpected party choices thus far, and have had to come up with loot, NPCs, and places on the fly due to lack of preparation. This gaming experience has been exhausting, sometimes overwhelming, and one of THE BEST things I have ever been involved with. Thanks to Matt Mercer and Critical Role, I find myself always looking forward to Monday nights and our next gaming sesh. I think 'fun' has been a key element this past month. Good times, with more to come! :)

We've gotta find Dave's arm! Who's with me?

I love these tips, but I think they would be even more effective for Matt to talk about specific examples from the show too, of moments where the players completely caught him off guard and had to work around something unexpected, or going over how he modified the beholder for the boss fight with it. It would be pretty awesome.

dave the nurse who had his arm stolen by a demon yes

An ability to instantly create a completely new story based on something your players did that you hadn't planned for (improv) is probably the most useful skill, in my opinion. My wife knows me so well, after one game in which she threw a curveball at me, she told me "I know when you're making up stuff on the fly!" I asked how, and she responded "you blink twice really quick and say 'here's what happens'!" I realized that the double blink was me taking the player input and refocusing it into a cohesive plot point, and figuring out how that affects the story. Was kind of a cool realization. Nobody else caught it, she just knows me that well!

I am a GM and I never prepare anything except for some baddys, general ideas, NPC's and settings. So, it turns out that even I, as the GM, never know what is going to happen. The game is all about the players. If the players aren't having fun then you are failing as a GM/DM. Freedom to do what you want as a player is the best thing for a game I have found. Your experiences may differ.

I make a "newspaper" with local to World wide stories in it to help bait the players and give them some "off" quest options.

"tips and trips", Matt?

My first time being a DM I had a great experience when it derailed into a small side-quest in town, the party had just gotten to the town I decided there were going to be three things of interest, so I decided on a general store and a tavern but I couldn't think of a third building so I said that they also noticed a shady looking guy go into an alley, one of them followed which I wasn't fully prepared for that to happen so I made it a drug deal. He decided to sneak and follow the guy and when he was standing in front of a building he knocked him out and took the drugs off of them, he tied him up in front of the police office he looked around for the guy who sold the drugs and saw him go into the tavern he got one of the other party members to go in with him(note: this other party member is guard in another town) so the party member he brought in went over and told the man he was under arrest and grabbed him to start dragging him. The man tried to hit his hand away but failed and accidentally hit him in the face, the party member took the man by the jaw and slammed his face against the bar and dragged him out by the hair and threw him through the window of police office. Then the party member that had the drugs went to another alley and sold them for 110 gold(note the man who they arrested bought them for 100 gold).It was the most fun thing and the funniest thing that happened that session.

I love this lesson! Really good sir.

Yeah :D My party is so gonna have a quest to find Dave's arm.

I want David the nurse with the missing arm taken by demons to be a thing now xD

Demons steal a nurse's arm, and now he needs someone recover it. At least it's more original than "you're at a bar and someone approaches you for help"

>Unless they are completely insane... Oh, so you know my players!

I spent a week making a whole town with a unique backstory and the first thing the players do when they get in is murder people rob them and then burn it to the ground.

I LOVE the absolute panic improvising mode where he didn't even change his tone or voice with "Can I help you? I'm David" LMAO

lmao, fumbling with characters and backstories as a DM sounds pretty fun. Reminds me a lot of the process of creating fleshed out characters in more regular scenarios that I'm familiar with (writing stories, short comics, etc), but with the added bonus of having to create on the fly as well. Pretty neat.

Poor David. (Could he potentially turn up in crit role some day please)

Ah, DMing. You'll prepare Options A, B, and C and your players will choose option D and you will be like, where did option D even come from? I've had times where I called a session short because what they wanted to do was not possible for me to do on the fly (at least and not have it be interesting). Need some prep time.

The tip about having a list of NPC names handy is really good. I have a list of 10 male and 10 female names for all common races. i can just grab a name, race, and gender of the list whenever I need. Something else that I've found useful - and this has two functions - is to drop a lot of clues about things-to-come. A big frustration I used to have was that if I overprepared: I tried to flesh out the world in so much detail, and have story plans for any possible action the players might take . . . well, the players *will* still surprise you . . . then all that planning goes to waste because now the story has gone on this tangent that I somehow didn't plan for. So now, I don't plan in so much detail, but I do try to consider lots of different possibilities and what-if scenarios. To compensate, I now do a lot of "dungeon dressing" or seemingly insignificant details that turn out later to mean something - as well as seemingly significant details that don't mean anything. The players will go for a while - in whatever direction, then one will remember: Hey what was with that one thing? That seemed important, maybe we should go check that out. - then they steer themselves back onto the paths that I have the most planning and best stories for by themselves out of curiosity. It feels less forced, and the players feel very rewarded for discovering what the clue meant - even if it isn't a big deal. One example: While searching a dungeon room, a skeletal arm of a small humanoid was found near some treasure. The presence of the arm made them suspicious of the treasure, and they ended up not taking it, thinking that it was evidence of someone getting hurt trying to take it. But, no, it was just some arm bones that happened to be there, dropped by some scavenger. Later on they have a combat encounter with two undead dwarf skeleton warriors wielding bastard swords. One is having a hard time - because it only has one arm. Players who make the connection love the flavor, and until they have that encounter, they wonder, 'what was with that skeletal arm we found back there?'

party: -makes questionable move- dm: -rolls dice- party: "what was that" dm: "dexterity saving throw... for my brain"

I cannot put into words how helpful these videos are. As an aspiring DM, I wonder a lot about how I'm ever going to make a good story and actually get my friends motivated to play considering my lack of experience both in improv and DMing, and these really help me get a handle on how it's done. Thanks Matthew; you're stupid good at your job, I really hope I can do what you do some day.

I remember studying these videos years ago and since then I've been running one main campaign and many one shots for over 4 years now. I love these vids and always recommend them when a friend wants to get behind the screen!

I had a friend direct me to your channel just recently when I wanted to learn more about the table top scene and being a gm. Me and my friends have our own table top that revolves all around on the spot makings and what not, just a fun thing and I'm glad it's a thing that happens in table tops, as you are explaining here. Thank you.

I'm addicted to this vídeos! They're fantastic and a great help for DMs!

One of the groups I'm GMing for killed a goblinoid horde of about 200 low levels that were there to try and scare them with numbers but managed to befriend and hug a lingering bugbear who was afraid of the chief killing him if he didn't kill the party. They convinced him that they were going to kill the chief anyway and that he should go before he ends up like the rest of the horde. He fumbled his perception and ended up walking into a snare trap (that he set) and it snapped his neck. My group spent an entire session trying to find a necromancer to resurrect Kyle the Bugbear, and when that failed, they played Weekend at Bernie's with it before burying the corpse. Also, love these videos, they help me to refocus when I'm storyboarding a session.

David is a great guy and a great nurse. He got really depressed last year after his mother died, but I think that Clarissa helped him a lot. I can't wait for him to propose.

For my SciFi game I had scripts for the "Galactic News Network" (GNN). One time a player was across the country for work training so I included a story about his character training with another worlds soldiers and saving his unit from an ambush. The group loved it.

In our group's first session (my first ever D&D game) just last month, we awoke in a massive necropolis. My character (Gror the Bear, king of all that he sees) immediately leapt across the room towards what he perceived to be a villain draining his life force away. Landed an immediate critical strike and turned the creature into jelly with a single punch. My first action in my first game with my first character was to murder our guide on accident. Luckily, since our guide was made of enchanted paper, she was able to pull herself together. But the table was shocked to say the least.

Matt, your advice here is infinitely helpful! Thanks so much for doing this series, its improving my game immensely :)

Master of all, Matt Mercer.

High levels of Inductive reasoning + Visual Spacial processing + Semantic knowledge = Matt Mercer. The perfect DM Genius.

Thanks for these videos, I just started DMing and they really helped me so far! :)

I loved the railroad part, like "you can usually keep them sort of on track unless they're completely insane". This simply proves how amazing you are trying to keep track of Vox Machina. Because they really are crazy.

Cannot actually put into words how helpful these tips have been for me. I've recently started playing RPGs with a group of friends and as the one to always organise them I'm always the GM. As a learner, this is an excellent resource.

This kind of thing is helping me flesh out a world for a fiction book as well. I’m the world builder of the two of us. I add events, hooks, and npcs. But this and a bunch of other resources has made that so much easier. Thank you to Matt Mercer, critical role, and all of the other d&d resources out there. ❤️

Wonderful tips Matt, thanks for this series, I have RPG gamed since I was nine, now that I am 38 that's a bit of experience. There is something to be said for retouching basics and reviving the flame from the old embers. Also what a fantastic position to be in, voice actors gaming!!! So awesome, like a dream for many I have no doubt. See you on Twitch or here. Game ON!

I do hope that David got his arm back.

Great ideas Matt, keep them coming!

This is really helping me prepare to DM for the first time, even though im doing a Module, getting ideas for other stuff is gonna help

I love these GM tips. I wanna get back into playing, mainly back into GM'ing, after about 20 years of not playing at all.. I remember having kind of built up a bunch of rules similar to the tips you give but I forget most of them. It all came through playing and stumbling as a GM and realizing "ok, next time I better have this ready or roll a dice for no reason sometimes to make them wonder and not know when it actually means something".

'Fluid' is a mantra word for you, Matt...and that is cool

I like using the concept of the "chaos character", which is very similar to this. Along with all of the side characters that you make, just in case, have a character that links to the story that the players randomly run in to if everything goes so incredibly batshit insane that you can't possibly think of anything to do with it. Maybe they mention the consequences of the players not doing anything, maybe they mention how the chaos is causing greater powers to rise elsewhere and no one is willing to fight this second threat, or maybe they're just straight up a god in disguise that refuses to be ignored as they tell the party that they are powerless and weaklings and that he will crush them with his hoard of powerful magic item equipped army and destroy everything, leaving nothing left for the players to interact with - pillage or otherwise.

Love these videos, I running a campaign with my friends the other day and they went into a tap house in the city they were at. I offhandedly mentioned there were two guys sitting at a table playing a game of cards together but I didn't anticipate them going over and trying to play as well. Having watched all of the first campaign I knew the basics of creating game they could gamble at with the dice. They were in a small kingdom on a pretty secluded island so I named it after one of the great generals of the first king who was known to be very clever. I called it Minaltra's Take, an ante was placed and 3d4 were rolled, the players could then place a bet and reroll 1-3 of the dice. The objective was to meet 7 but not go over. I honestly couldn't believe I did it on the spot and couldn't help but tell one of them I did after the game. I owe it all to the hours and hours of knowledge, entertainment, and fun you provide. Thanks Matt!

thank you for these tips. they really help my sessions

did I ever say that this is a really helpful series? IT IS! Thank you SOOOO much. Keep it up. We are watching... ( Oh and dave's arm waves hello!)

The one thing I learned to anticipate with my most recent group, was that I couldn't prepare ANYTHING. As a player I don't like "rails" so I give players a lot of freedom. I had a few large-scale events/characters that were in the world and having an effect on the world whether the players got involved or not, and _after_ every improv encounter or location, I would just keep it and try and weave it back into parts of the narrative they hadn't gotten to yet (that, and I would listen to everything the players said about what they thought was going on, and use it). I guess it was... POSTparation? Especially since it was usually done during the hour after the session was over and everybody went home, or the hour before the next session. I somehow kept such an air of authority as GM, the "I know what I'm doing, and this is totally according to plan", that when the campaign was over they thought it was the most well-constructed, intricately woven tapestry of foreshadowing and payoff, mysteries, narrow escapes, and nail-biting challenges they had ever played. They applauded at the end. It was awesome. Inside, I was like "You guys have no idea how far we have just cruised by the seat of my pants." Full disclosure: the stars aligned that ONE time, but I've run plenty of campaigns that took a while to find their stride, with a lot of sessions where players weren't sure what to do, or we all lost track of any clear "goals" for that point in the game, and so on. I wouldn't be watching these videos if I thought I had it all figured out!

I'm not really the right kind of person for being a dm but I love watching these because I think it gives players perspective on what the dm goes through to prep but also how to get into/help make the experience better for the party

I find that the “unexpected” events are what often make the game so very interesting and exciting. As a GM, don’t worry if your players suddenly go off in a direction that is not what you intended, and is not really part of the scenario that you had in mind. Just remember that EVERYTHING can be solved with “story,” and every action your players make has consequences. If they’ve fallen off the beaten path, simply change the storyline to help guide your players back to where you want them to be. You must do this in a very subtle way. As Matt says, you don’t want to railroad your players, or at least, you don’t want them knowing that you’re putting them back on your intended path. For example, if you have an over zealous thief in your party, and is always trying come up with new ways of stealing something, and it’s leading your game into areas that have nothing to do with your adventure, just remember that there are always consequences to your players actions. Say your adventure is set around a group of werewolves that are terrorizing a city, and while speaking to the mayor about the problem all your thief can think about is stealing the mayors prized ruby ring. Simply make that “ring” part of your central story, and say that the Mayor is actually the werewolves leader, and that the ring is the only thing that keeps the mayor from transforming into a werewolf during a full moon. As I said, EVERYTHING can be fixed through the subtle manipulation of the story. By changing the story a little, you’ve allowed your player to play their character as they think they should, while at the same time bringing the party back on track with your planned adventure. I’m addition, you’ve added an element of intrigue to the story that really wasn’t there before.

Honestly, this is one of those things where I think dropping the curtain really is the best move. So many times I’ve told my players verbatim “Alright guys, we can do this if you really want to, but I’m gonna be honest: I have absolutely no plans for this. So either I improvise this by the seat of my pants or we break for a few weeks so I can prepare something substantial for you guys.” And it’s honestly a total toss up what option they go for at any given example, but at least it’s _their_ choice. Honestly, I’ve had them go right back to the rails just as often as they don’t, but they always appreciate me giving them the option. You don’t always have to keep that divide up between DM knowledge and Player knowledge. Sometimes, it’s better when they’re on the same page as you so that you can _all_ come up with the best idea on how to move the game forward.

Thanks Matt

Amazing series, pls dont stop :)

I used in my campaign the story of the nurse David with the left harm stolen by demons...that was so much fun.

I'm not sure if I could handle being a DM but I know these video are very helpful! Thanks for making these!!

This reminded me of a scenario where our GM had set up a big dungeon with a key somewhere in it, and showed us the locked steel door at the beginning. It was an insane lock, so lock-picking was out of the question. However, in the session before I had bought a chain sword (the description was that it was made to cut through tanks and concrete), and so cut the door off the lock. He was very gracious and went with it, just saying: "Okay, well I had planned a long dungeon, but you're through."

SPOILERS (apparently): How long do we have to wait until the tip video on how to "DROP 4 ANCIENT DRAGONS ON A GROUP OF LvL 12s AND MAKE THEM AND THE WHOLE TWITCH CHAT SH*T THEIR PANTS AND GO OMG! SH*T! HOLY F*CK! SH*TF*CKIN' SH*T!" etc? :P

Thank you Geek and Sundry and Matt for giving us these tips! I greatly appreciate them and am currently putting them to good use. Your show inspired me to start a DnD campaign with my friends after years of us talking about it but not actually doing it. The main problem was that we didn't have a DM. So I ended up saying, "Y'know what? Imma just do it." Already a few weeks in and everyone seems to be enjoying it :D

You're the best Matt!

I normally just go "uhhhh, sounds good." i normally do keep some side encounters ready but hadnt thought of some of those other things. compiling a list of npc names, spells and items now! (that wont break the balance of course). You are an inspiration to all GMs thank you for your hard work, you make me a better GM.

Love these videos! It's like creativity is being injected straight into my veins

Very insightful!

My first DnD campaign had an NPC that my players loved. He became the NPC that ended up giving hints to the next main plot point. Even I, as a DM loved him, and he literally started as a random NPC I never inetneded to become as loved as he did. Now he is a staple of my campaigns with knowledge of past ones. I love Daelin the Jamaican sounding tribal from a land of cannibals!

this applies perfectly to what i had to deal today, thank god I'm seeing now this and the fun part it was the most hilarious way on getting to the boss of the dungeon, it was like how to skip 1/2 of the dungeon in a ridiculous way

Last session one of the NPC's that was travelling with my players had been injured and, inside an inn controlled by the resistance, a random cleric came and saved him. The thing is that I hadn't thought much of it, but one of my players later decided to go out on a solo adventure while the others talked with the innkeeper and went to the cementery and entered the church, of course I quickly remembered this old cleric NPC and pulled him out of my ass and created a whole mythos of the fucking underground city where the story takes to explain some things I had pulled out of my ass previously. This random NPC helped me create a consistent story and they loved it, I freaking loved their reactions to this story I pulled out of nowhere.

Oh this is a perfect playlist ..I have just started. Wrote a small one shot for my husband for our anniversary. Friends helped and now they want to play. And I have...no idea what I am doing 😂

this comment probably won't get noticed, but a suggestion for GM's tips is maybe at the end of (or mid-way through).... Matt can answer some questions by fans through twitter that were asked of him for DM's in mind. example: "Hey Matt, how do you handle integrating player's backstory into the campaign, without trivializing others, but also making it a smooth transition and one that fits in the overall campaign arc?" "As a DM, have you ever felt underappreciated with all the massive work you put in, (speaking from personal experience) there are times where i feel really out of the zone/ not up to it, and sometimes wish i was a player...... do you have any advice for DM's to perhaps counter this, etc?" " How do you handle world-building, and the creation of locations from the smallest hamlet, to the largest kingdom? what's the proccess?"

I agree. I like letting my players kinda build the world with me as we go. I'll have a start and a end, and some loose plot beats i want to hit at a certain time but everything in between is my players oyster. I really like making things up on the spot, since for me it's more fun when i'm not sure whats going to happen either.

How I like to set up my games is that i like to build the world giving many possible destinations, and then figure out a story as it goes along. Makes the story more centered around the players actions so they feel as though their actions have a lot more impact instead of being pre-ordained by the GM

Improv class. A very practical tip. Thank you.

Hey great videos! Have you thought of referencing scenes from Critical Role to show examples of when you do these things that you're talking about? Like show clips of when you had to do deal with something un-expected from the players!

1:24 amen brother!

This video series is great!

I had chaotic good mage send all the character in a death camp to my version of hell , that caught me off guard really fun and really worked out.

Ayy, Matt rocking that "How do you wanna do this?" shirt :)

Matt should come back and watch this again after recent events in campaign 2. This whole video is basically about the campaign

Im trying to learn how to play Titans grave, the GM/DM is Wil Weaton and I've listened to his GM/DM tip videos but I find that these help quite a bit too.

"David" and the proceeding line caught me greatly off guard. Nicely done.

make this a weekly thing please! XD

Just discovered Matt last night when my wife and I watched D&Diesel, and both of us were like ...wow that guy looks exactly like me... and DMs exactly like me. Really excellent advice here.

Had something very unexpected where I had planed for my party to go north to a desert. They agreed about going north but they used a portal to go way north like snow and northern limits of the map.

www.dampes8n.com/rpg

In an example of doing something crazy. In a campaign, a half-elf rogue found a hidden room. Instead of looking for an entrance, my human wizard cast firebolt 5 times to break town the wall. The DM said "on, and you see the secret entrance right around the corner.

I love using naming conventions. I almost always have them in my worlds. Like the Kingdom of Galaea and its king, Kassere con Dara and his children, Prince Dara con Kassere, Prince Viserys con Kassere, Prince Uther con Kassere, Princess Mia ca Kassere, and his bastard firstborn, Prince Durgo von Kassere. NAMING CONVENTIONS!

Anytime I try to set up a plot in my campaigns, I always have to recall the time I forced everyone into prison at the very beginning and expected them to give in to the NPC's easy way out of jail. Big mistake. They killed what was supposed to be a recurring villain, proceeded to break out and killed all of the town guards which lead the entire capital city to a lawless distopia. You need only make the mistake of expectancy once to learn from it.

there is a set of books i have gotten that could help with campain creation. works with any 5 editon game syste (the game master book of, none-player characters, random encounters and traps puzzles and dungeons by jeff ashworth)

30secs into the game, "oh you forgot to buy a passport to enter this spacestation". *quick think fast*. I'm not a 100% certain what sort of class it was, but we among a long list of things we told make up stories to each other on the spot - the one thing I can remember is "Always always say Yes".

I'm having a lot of fun watching your videos, Matt, it really helps me out with my party since we're all beginners. Now, I know I have to be flexible as GM, but at some point really weird and absurd questions come up, questions to which I have no answer: the arcanist wants to create a machine gun that shoots infinite magic arrows... How am I supposed to handle something like that?

Best tips and trips I've ever gotten tbh.

I still haven't found my arm :'(

THANK YOU! THANK YOU for making these videos! Hoping to help my son become a better DM. Listening to his "father" is sometimes not received as well as a stranger or expert. ;-)

" We've got to find Dave's arm! " yes

For some weird reason, my players are now interns in an adventurers guild. That actually helps a lot, tbf. Time to find that Winters Mirror!