"When in doubt, add an explosion." *Michael Bay liked this video*

“You can’t fight in here, this is the war room!”

one of my favourite things about d&d players is how nonchalantly they’ll say something like: “I think you were bleeding out.” “Yeah, that was great.”

I tend to use a modified system for Initiative. When one player announces that they're attacking in the middle of a non-combat situation, I announce roll Initiative and give the one who made the announcement a +5 to their normal Initiative for that first round only. This gives the players a brief but substantial bonus for acting first but if the enemy is REALLY fast they might still go first.

As a brand-spanking-new DM about to start her first campaign in less than a day, I appreciate this video! Those tips are great, and I'll definitely be trying some soon!

Well, I run mostly online, but pretty much I use what I got from Mercer's DM tips is to keep tables for improvising off damage, like falling rubble or stepping into acid. Also, using those plastic rings from soda bottles to mark conditions, concentration and conditions, and it also reminds you to make concentration saves. Another thing I do to keep combat interesting is to stop saying "Player X, that's your turn now." or "Player Y you're next" and actually describing the transition from one to another, telling what he's seeing from his point of view. It helps give the feeling that everything's happening at once and inspires against metagaming in favor of roleplay inspired actions, more descriptions from the players, etc.

Make it clear to your players that they are responsible for their own special rules and if they don't use it, you won't prompt them. This ups player engagement, minimises player laziness and takes a responsibility off your plate.

“I can do that, I’m the DM”. FACTS

As a new and overwhelmed DM with a team of total newbies, your whole videos really saved our play. We are currently playing a pre-written campaign, but thanks to your videos my DM Actions really have improved a lot. Keep up that amazing work!

Villains are usually mortal, too. So they will want to, you know, *NOT* die. Self interest is actually kind of logical. Especially when the party are slaying their minions in their throne room, and setting fire to anything in the room, and shit's going down.

Ah, I hear Monty embraces the Mythbuster school of thinking. "When in doubt.. C4."

ADDing damage... holy crap this is perfect for me! Thank you

We were all hiding, listening to goblins' conversation.. and our bard decided to move closer, failed at stealth check...planted his face on the ground dramatically. We all rolled initiatives .. at least one goblin was surprised..

I use roll20 like a scum bag so the turn order is automatically filled when they roll for initiative and all rolls and math are done for us. I do like the idea of adding damage up rather than subtracting it a lot!

Great tips! One that i have is: Never roll initiative for minions, I always put they after one player turn, this make combat much dynamic and the players (almost) never go and faceroll one enemy at time. But I like to make the big boss last in turn. Is funny to see players trying to make a alot of things before the boss come haha. Btw thanks for the tips, your guys are the best

Dice Tip: For my new players I've put together a custom set of dice. each size is a separate color, and two colors of d20's. Then instead of, "Roll 2d4," I say, "Roll 2d4, that's the orange ones." Especially helpful with the d12/d20 confusion that tends to happen with new folks and the d100/d10 (even though it shouldn't matter).

Hey guys, Thanks for the tips. I ran my first combat Saturday and found out how difficult and unprepared I was. The next day I took your advice about spacing out and writing in. Way better system. I combined it with premade player and enemy cards to track hp. The flow was so much better. Keep up the awesome work and keep the videos coming.

I'm about to run a fairly heavy combat oriented session. The dudes tend to read my mind for what content I want from them 😜🤘🏻

I don't limit initiative to just combat, my rule of thumb is whenever the party engage in a time-sensitive situation where the actions of each party member/NPC/enemy is critical the the resolution of that situation, a room filling with water and the party needs to figure out how to either escape or stop the trap, doing this also helps with keeping a pace with how quickly the room is filling (i.e. room water fills 1ft per turn and has the first turn in imitative order).

The DM tip I find most helpful, especially if you can't get your players to look at the map during other peoples turns, is to tell the next player in line that they are "on deck" when telling the current player it is their turn. Gives them a chance to get their brain into turn mode

I really like your guys channel and your way of explaining, it's so casual and easily approached. No complicated graphs or graphics and no flamboyant costumes and props. D&D is complicated enough as it eh! Great work guys, keep it up!

One of my favorite techniques is to start a timer when combat starts. I typically do this for big combats encounters; small one off encounters like bar fights or ambushes i usually skip this. Once the combats start approaching 20+ minutes, I start speeding things up depending on how the battle is going. If my players are doing well, enemies start falling faster. If after 20 minutes they have only killed 2 creatures in a 10 creature mob, the the remaining creatures start hitting alot harder. This helps me keep up the pace of the game and get past the inevitable battle of attrition. Its not for everyone but it helps avoid those hour + combats.

I’m a new DM, and playing with five other people who are also new to D&D, and this is so helpful... thank you!!! 💞

Great video. My favorite part: "I think you were bleeding out after that." "I was."

Hi there, I am very new to being a DM and LOVE It. I am currently in my first month of running an evil campaign. I just wanted to thank you for your tips and help in this video. I immediately became a subscriber. Please keep up the great work.

I am making my first adventure and try DMing for a first time. I haven't realized how much things I must have in mind until I saw this video. Thank you guys you are awesome.

I love your videos guys, super helpful for an aspiring DM. You do a great job of making it seem like I'm at the table chatting with you about these topics and it's fun and engaging to watch. Keep it up!

Loved this. My first proper go at being a DM is this week and there was so much good stuff here

You guys are great. New to 5e, DMing in a few weeks. I have subscribed.

Enemies trying to run away is a HUGE tip. I designed my first encounters kind of like mmorpg dungeons, with packs you had to pull and such. That gets old pretty fast. Having an encounter with 3 chumps is suddenly so much more exciting when they book it to the heavily armed guards as soon as you eviscerate one of them. Or that epic chase scene as the bandit big bad is that close to getting away before getting that javeline through the chest

Kelly ‘s face with that “ oh” at the starts is just great lol

Can I just say that it's very comforting to hear you guys talk about little handy-dandy tips for running combat that I, a DM that literally started DM'ing this week, have already been using.

Glad I found this channel, there are a lot of elements to being a DM that seem so daunting to learn. This is helping tremendously.

Your videos are the best on the web! I have need playing long and am also learning to DM and its a bit daunting... Your passion and concise explanations have really helped. 🤩 Thanks again!

This is REALLY useful. Helps ALOT with so much. Few problems I ran into recently and this has helped immensely, especially the reference in the DM guide book

New(ish) DM here and i just wanna let y'all's know that your are alwaus so thought-provoking and helpful. Like, I always walk away with something when I put them on, even the videos I'm just watching for fun. Thank you so much.

This is seriously the most useful DM tutorial I have seen so far. I'm relatively new to D&D, but I'm wanting to DM at some point soon. Thanks for this!!

These videos are so awesome, I just started DMing my first campaign (and also my first time ever playing any tabletop role playing game... I know) and I've been getting such great feedback from the players thanks to all these guides!

Thank you for making these guides, Dudes, they are fun, informative and well made :D

The damage and initiative tips will really help. Thank you guys!

Huge help, I love these DM improvement tips.

I use those same stones to mark status ailments too :) On that note, I like to consider "concentrating" as a status effect with representation on the board, so players don't forget to drop one spell in order to take on another.

Best part...."yes I remember"

The toughest thing for me to keep track of is when effects are expiring, especially when you have a lot of them going on across the spectrum of combatants. Remember, there are effects that arent even conditions, such as "you get disadvantage on your next attack action" ...

About to get back into dming after about a 10 year hiatus. Just getting my feet wet with 5ed as well. I'll be head first into your videos for the next bit! Great combat tips!

I really like the early concepts for when to actually start combat. Things I'll have to remember later when I'm running a game again.

Going from dming simple systems to this, it's all perfect thangs for the help!

I was justing thinking during my last session that I need to start pre-rolling the initiative for the enemies, and here I'm watching a video one week later that recommends doing this! I'm glad I wasn't alone in this thinking.

Just started a campaign with my family. First time DM so using the essentials kit. Love these videos.

I completely missed the improv guide box in the back of the manual so thankyou for bringing that up Love the idea of rolling how many rounds until you change something to keep combat interesting Great tips, really appreciate them dudes! Thankyou!

Great content as always guys

Thank you! Doing my first DM combat tomorrow. This was helpful. :)

Thanks, the HP and Init Tracking tips helped a lot for a beginner!

Good video guys, I've been watching a couple of your videos to help me with some small details since I'll be a DM for the first time a week from now and I was preparing to finalize everything I need to know and keep in mind. You always get right to the point and explain in a way that anyone can understand, so thank you for that!

Taking 20 described a useful way to track initiative. Draw the table and mark down initiative results for each player where they sit at the table. You don't have to make a vertical list and try to squeeze numbers in between.

I really like the idea of pre-rolling initiative for monsters. Thanks for the tip!

You guys have shown up a few times in my searches but this was the video that got my sub. Gonna go watch some more stuff of yours

Hi Dungeon Dudes! Thank so much for your videos! I was new to the game a month ago. And wanted to be a DM since the beginning, so I've being studing since then to be a DM. Had my first session this week as a DM and ended up with a lot of questions. But your videos gave me a cristal clear guidance to solve all the flaws I had during the game. Happy New Year! a 2d20 Year! :D

gotta revisit this energy and closeness you guys had.

Getting ready to run my first campaign. Thanks for all the tips!

Fan bloody fantastic video! So many ideas and helpful tips! Thanks guys!!

thanks for all the great content, really appreciate it!

Thank you so much, I am Dm'ing for the first time soon and this was really helpful

Doing my first campaign on Sunday, so excited to try the tips!

I use cards over my DM screen. I add character art and their name in a handwriting or fancy font that fits the character. It's mostly flare and let's my players know who is up as ya stated. On the flap that faces me, I put their AC, PP, and class/race. It lets me more effectively run the enemy/monster since I don't have to keep asking for AC and such. It is slower, but it works for me.

Bless up! A ton of actually helpful tips!

Another great video, thanks guys.

I am going to run my first session coming week. This is invaluable resource. Thank you

I'm dming my first session tomorrow with some friends, that addition tip really is gonna help, thanks!

For tracking *any* hit points, the system I use is write their home total at the top and subtract the damage and write it directly below that, and then repeat. If there are multiple, label the hp columns

Great video, I wanted to point out some of the tips that I found easy to use during my games as a DM * Starting Combat : Get Transparent Card Sleeves from your online or your local game shop (guaranteed they have them if they host card game tourneys like mtg), at most they cost 2$. - Paper : I Recommend a strong plain white paper, can be bought from any hobby store for cheap. - Markers: Wet or Dry Erase do well. put a paper you have cut in the dimensions that the sleeve fits and voila, If you trust the players enough (I use a big dice tray to oversee the results) have them write their PCs Name and initiative result in their card, now you only have to bother with monsters. * Tracking Monster Hitpoints : It's much easier to add the damage received towards the monster's or PCs hit points than subtracting from the hit points, this way you have to put less focus on HP tracking and continue the battle. (Example, The monster receives 10 damage and has 30 hitpoints, write the 10, and know that when 30 damage has been accumulated, it's dead).

I do like the "tip over mini" for prone. The way I differentiate dead and prone. prone=knocked over, dead="X" written on the board and mini removed. Also dead bodies=difficult terrain

When it comes to status effects - use the ring that comes off of the bottle from below the cap. That little ring can be removed and can almost always be put around on hang on the minis. Its my favorite so far and you can get a ton of different colors and it costs nothing. Plus when you get multiple hanging on a larger creature it becomes really cool because you see more viscerally what effects you are using.

For initiative- I use the back of a small clipboard where I list down all the players on the top left. I write down their initiative rolls, and then I write down in bigger letters their Initiative order and then clip it in front of my DM screen. That way, everyone can see the initiative order and they can also plan ahead their turn. For markers- I use small multicolored rubber bands to designate various status effects. I also tend to use a lot of Lego minifigs and I raise their arms up when they're stunned. For combat in general- I try to gauge if I should continue or end combat depending on how the party is doing. For example, during an AL game they killed the boss right away in the first turn during the final encounter, so I thought I'd let his minions continue fighting. (with no one controlling them they'd just attack mindlessly) Two banshees and two wails later everyone except the wizard and fighter were on the floor with 0 hp. I was panicking because of the almost unintended TPK, but thankfully they revived the cleric and he successfully cast turn undead. (I was prepared to fudge their roll in case he failed) I could still remember the sudden silence and blank stares when I looked up from my screen after that 2nd banshee wail.

Great video! You have a new subscriber. I came back to D&D / tabletop RPG's after a 20 year hiatus. I recently started DM'ing 5e content because my kids (7, 10, 12) were interested in playing after they got to watch a few sessions with my friends (where I was a player). One thing I found that really helps organize combat on my end is creating spreadsheets ahead of time for each scripted encounter; one tab = one encounter. Each row is a different enemy and each column is an attribute (AC, hit points, saves, melee attacks, ranged attacks, special abilities, notes, etc). It's great during combat because I just have my laptop open and record damage taken for each monster as players attack; I have a column for Damage Taken and also one for Status effects (if the monster is affected by a spell or ability). Where I'm struggling now is making sure I attribute the correct damage to the correct mini on the map.

Very good points on the suprise. Just roll for initiative.

Great video guys, really informative!

This was great guys. Thank you

We started using small colored clothes pins to mark effects (Hunter's Mark, etc.) on figurines. Similar to the colored beads (tried that and still use it for effects that are cumulative for players).

Surprise can sometimes be resolved with Insight checks to determine the intent of another to suckerpunch.

I just ran my first DM and and D&D game yesterday and it went very well. After weeks of research this is one video i wished i saw prior to. Thank you i hope your tips help my next session.

For initiative I use a magnetic dry erase board. I have magnetic strips with players names and a couple labeled for the dm. I then rearrange the strips on the board and have it displayed for all to see.

Thanks guys. You guys are very helpful!

Absolutely fantastic video Dudes. I never heard of the damage diversity table before.

This is really helpful! As a young newbie (to dnd as a whole not just dming) who got dumped into dming a large party with barely any help this has really helped! :)

Thank you! I really needed this.

An actual tips video that was really informative

I love the 1d6 to determine when things will change, as well 2d6x10 to determine starting distance between opponents.

Hey, love the videos! You make it really easy to follow. Keep up the great work dudes :)

I've been using a spreadsheet with tabs for each possible encounter pre-populated with monster initiative, AC, & HP as well as the names of the characters. Then when the players get to an encounter, I have them roll initiative and then sort by the initiative column. This has been working pretty well.

Another truly amazing video! I can't stop watching these! Lol

Super helpful! Thanks guys.

Great vid, keep it up!

Can't wait to apply these tips

Awesome vid - thanks guys!

When I expect to have a mass combat during a session, I make a tracking/score sheet with each creature's hit points and modifiers arranged in columns. I also use small sticky notes to keep track of creatures when I have many similar creatures on the battlefield.

Combat is the only thing I don’t really just don’t understand and I’m starting my first real campaign as a dm in with 2 weeks and I really needed this!

This video is so well explained, and I'm a beginner dm/gm so doing a lot of combat.

Great logistics video!

. My group recently tried a way to track initiative that we loved. We would roll initiative but the players and DM had to remember who was coming up before them and who went after once we established it. So to end their turn rather than all the are you done. Or the DM saying “ok next person”. The players would be able to say “it’s so and so’s turn now” worked amazing and we also cut down on the moments of “wait who did he just attack” moments too