What comes easy in D&D?
From time to time, it’s worth asking what our DM comfort zone is in Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games. What part of the game do we feel most comfortable running or preparing for? Which type of play gives us the most joy? What is least stressful? What part of play and prep comes easy to us? When we’re pressed for time, have a creative block, or are stressed, we can come back to our comfort zone to ensure that running D&D remains a game and not a chore.
The comfort pillar of play
When we’re asking ourselves what our D&D comfort zone as DMs is, we can take the three pillars of play as a starting point. What part(s) of exploration, social interaction, and combat come easiest to us? Which part gives us the most joy in prep and while running the game? Here’s some examples of aspects of play for each pillar which could be a DM comfort zone:
| Exploration | designing/running traps, creating a point crawl map, coming up with fantastic location descriptions, thinking about complications for travel, creating random encounter tables, coming up with treasure |
| Social Interaction | designing/portraying interesting/funny NPCs, coming up with memorable voices/mannerisms, designing motivations for villains, creating villainous schemes, designing factions |
| Combat | running monsters, picking/designing a map, modifying monsters, combining two monster stat blocks, adding environmental effects, creating random encounters, creating lair/villain/legendary actions |
Fall back onto the DM comfort zone
Sometimes, we feel like we don’t have enough time to prepare for our game. Maybe we’re stressed out because of work, and only have 15 minutes during our lunch break to prepare for a game tonight. Or, maybe we do have time but we’re not in a particularly creative mood. In these cases, we can use our DM comfort zone to get us started and hopefully relieve some of the stress.
For example, one of my DM comfort zones is combat. Particularly, I enjoy throwing big bad monsters at the party. So when I’m pressed for time or I am feeling uncreative, I like to pull out a monster book and leaf through the pages looking for the meanest creature I can drop on the party. Looking at the artwork, as well as the amounts of damage and devious features of a nasty monsters puts me at ease regarding an upcoming game. Now that I have this monster, I know what will happen for 45 to 90 minutes of the game. And I know that I’ll have fun running the monster, and that the players will enjoy the challenge.
When I’m stressed during game prep, knowing my DM comfort zone is helpful both creatively, and psychologically.
Into the comfort zone to get rolling
Often, starting my game preparation with my DM comfort zone, helps me get the rest of the game prep rolling. Especially, if I’m having trouble motivating myself for my preparation. I grab a monster, and out of that choice flow many other preparations. The monster might have a lair and treasure. Answering the question how it came to this location, and what it wants from the party lets me create secrets and clues which the party can discover.
Starting with our DM comfort zone is a great way to jump-start our creative process for game preparation.
Also useful during a session
Knowing our DM comfort zones is also helpful while we’re running a game. The party might take a path we hadn’t expected. Or some part of our preparation is not working out as we expected. Or we might generally feel stressed while we’re running a session. In these cases, we can take a 10-minute break, breath, and focus on our DM comfort zone. I would come up with an encounter with some interesting monsters to lighten my own mood at the table. You might want to drop an intriguing NPC in front of the party to get some fun social interaction going. Or you grab a book of traps, and throw an environmental challenge in front of the party.
Knowing our DM comfort zone, or more generally our comfort pillar of play, can help us get through a creative rut in game preparation. And also while running a game, knowing what comes easy to us when we’re getting stressed during a session is a great support system for DMs.
