1. Listening
Listening means paying attention to what the players want out of the game, and making sure they know that you have heard them.
Listening means stepping back to allow players to solve problems and plan strategies. Instead of micromanaging and telling players what to do, give players the freedom to think of things you might never have thought of. Step back to allow the groups creativity to flow.
Pay attention to the characters goals. Listen to what they want and where they are headed. Listen to your NPCs as well. Great role-playing and character moments will come more naturally when you can see what characters want. Send characters in a certain direction and make the story happen by putting obstacles in the way.
If you have an idea, no matter how weird or silly it is, write it down. Listen to yourself and your ideas when planning a session. Don't dismiss your thoughts and ideas. Allow yourself to use crazy situations. The goal of the game is to be creative, allow yourself to create. Always listen to yourself and your fun ideas. You never know when they could come in handy. Stay open to new ideas. It's okay to plan something just for fun!
Pay attention to players predictions and ideas about the plot or the story. Their ideas might be better or more interesting than what you already had prepared. Use them. Change your plans if you hear a more exciting idea. Adapt your plans to make a story more exciting. This makes your story more interesting and lets the players think they are smart for predicting things.
Listen to feedback. This is the only way you will be able to grow and become a better game master. Be open to criticism and new ideas. Don't take it personally. Your ego is not your game. Your game will improve infinitely if you can listen to feedback and adapt to new ideas and techniques.
2. Adapting
Adapt to the feedback.
Allow yourself to be able to change and grow. Listening and learning mean nothing if you can't adapt to the new ideas. Take action and adapt the game to what you have learned. Learning and growing only happen when you try new things. Take action.
Change your best laid plans and adjust the pacing to let your game flow smoothly. Allow the story and plot to change when you need it to. Be adaptable as to how you get to your ultimate goal. It's okay to change paths and allow new paths to reach the same conclusion or encounter you have planned. The ideas of "how to get there" might become different every session.
The more you stick to trying to keep the players on one story path, the more rigid and boring your story becomes.
Allow you and your players to try new things and take new paths. Let those new paths lead to something you already had planned anyway. This will make the pacing and creativity flow a lot better and allows players freedom to come up with their own ideas about what to do.
Learn to change and alter course along the way. Adapt to different terrain on the path that is your story. You need to be adaptable enough to step over roots and turn corners when the path demands. The more you cling to staying on one path, the more frustrated you and your players will get when the story doesn't follow your exact plan.
Choose to be adaptable on the path that is a fun game, or stick to the and rigid path of ruin. Don't focus so much on getting to the goal that you might miss out on the fun along the way.
Let your villains and NPCs adapt and react to what is going on. The more your villains can immediately respond and adapt, the more believable and alive your story will become. Role play your NPC's and improvise their characters as you go along. Spend your attention on being a specific character instead of trying to run the whole game.
Adapt your mindset to running your characters instead of being a game master that is just talking to the players. If you are in a specific encounter with a villain or NPC, try to play the role instead of trying to run the game.
Stories and game sessions need to flow freely, improvise with creativity and fun as the ultimate goal. Allow yourself to let go of your plans to let something new develop. Every game and every session will be different. Give them room to grow.
Adapt to players styles and ideas. The nature of the game is ever changing. Work with the group and their play styles. You don't necessarily need to change your style, but you should be able to let players play how they want. Unless it gets disruptive or problematic. Everyone at the table should be allowing different play styles, not just the DM.
The game will always have numerous moving parts with many people who have different ideas and play styles. Accept that the game is ever changing and allow yourself to adapt to that. The quicker you can accept the change, the quicker your game will get better.
The ultimate goal of the game is to have fun, if a member of the group is dismissing or disrupting someones play style, then that person is taking the fun away from someone else.
Create a more believable and interactive world by constantly adjusting it. Players will want to explore and find out new things about your world all the time. Don't be afraid to improvise and make things up. Giving the players something to see and interact with right away is always more interesting than giving them nothing or denying your players a chance to explore.
How do you listen and adapt without going crazy? Balance.
3. Balancing
How can you listen and adapt without loosing total control? Try to balance the game as much as you can.
A good game master isn't the captain of the ship nor the helmsman. The Good GM is the navigator, who can see where the ship is headed and what path it needs to stay on. The good GM nudges players and story in the right direction without fighting for the wheel. A great GM can balance between what all the players want and adjust the movement of the game into something exciting for everyone.
The smart GM navigates by advising and adapting to ever changing situations without railroading.
Balance your story along with the players ideas. Balance is adding what the players want without stepping off of the path altogether.
Balance means running encounters that are focused on role-play or exploring instead of just continuous combat.
Balance means having a few easy battles among the harder ones.
Give every player a chance to role-play and a chance to use their different abilities to solve problems. Instead of letting just one player trying to control everything. Balance means giving every player an equal amount of attention and game time.
Balance means seeing problems with players and the game. Take care of those problems and get them back in harmony before they destroy the entire game.
A campaign needs balance between the high stakes-high energy sessions and the quieter character driven storytelling sessions. Use some simple plots to balance out the intensity.
Balance how much information and lore you are giving your players. Instead of pausing the game and making everyone wait for you to spout exposition to a single player, write down what is important and hand it to the player when you have time.
If you are droning on about the history of your dwarven cities, you need to pay attention to how the players are reacting to the information. Are they paying attention? Or are they bored out of their minds? Balance means being brief and giving players only the relevant information and then moving on.
Take a short rest to re-gain your GM spell slots!
Take breaks from the game every few hours. Let yourself and your players relax without feeling the need to constantly be preforming. Renew your mental batteries. Drink water.
It's okay to take breaks between sessions and campaigns. Take a break from running games if it gets to stressful or too much work. If you allow yourself to get burnt out, the game won't be enjoyable for anyone. A tired and stressed out game master means a boring game.
4. Most importantly, HAVE FUN
Having fun is being together with your friends. Having fun means playing with people you actually want to be around.
Have a safe place to be creative, without worrying about other agendas.
Having fun means experiencing good interactions and feeling connected to the group.
Having fun means the game isn't stressing you out or making you worried about it.
Having fun means you are excited to run a game and you are excited to see what your players can come up with.
Having fun means your story line is moving forward and you are confident in where you are going.
Having fun means that you enjoy the creative process, working with your players and adapting to create a story together.
Having fun means you are excited to play again.
If you aren't having fun, then you should not be doing all the work to run a game.
If you are stressed out and feeling pressure to preform, or have anxiety about the next game, then you probably aren't having fun.
Having fun means making sure your players are having fun too.
Having fun means feeling accepted and respected by your players. Your players are willing to work with you and your story. Your players are accepting your play style. Your players are not arguing or complaining about your game.
If you are not having fun, why you are doing this?
