If you want to become a great DM fast,

you'll always get the same advice. Just

play more. And of course, that works.

[music] But, what if there was a

quicker, slightly weirder way you could

practice by yourself in between sessions

that led to even better results? I went

looking for what people in other

creative fields actually do to get

better faster and found a method

composed of seven very easy exercises

that will turn you into a great DM while

having fun. [music] And today, I'm

teaching it to you. But first, I need to

explain why these exercises we're going

to look at in the second work at all.

There's actual research behind all of

these. And it is because of three

principles that kept showing up over and

over again. So, keep those in mind cuz

we'll need them later. The first one is

that constraints make you more creative

and not less. It is slightly

counterintuitive, but moderate

constraints actually enhance creative

outputs and too much freedom can lead to

decision paralysis. The second one is

that time pressure helps you bypass your

inner critic. When you shut down that

mean internal voice that makes you doubt

yourself, your brain goes deeper to find

inspiration. And the third principle,

and the main reason why I want to share

these to help you get better at DMing,

is that creative skills benefit from

deliberate practice the same way

athletic skills do. Structured training

with clear goals and immediate feedback

builds skill faster than just doing the

thing over and over again and hoping you

improve. So, keep those three things in

mind because you will see them show up

everywhere in the exercises we're about

to go through. And by the way, most of

these take between 5 and 15 minutes. So,

if your brain went to I don't have time

for this, well, it was probably wrong.

Spend less time scrolling Reddit looking

at D&D horror stories and you'll be

good. All right, so the first exercise

is called crazy eights and it comes from

design thinking. Many teams use it as

part of their design sprint methodology.

It is very simple. You take one problem,

fold a piece of paper into eight

sections, then set a timer for eight

minutes and write one solution to that

problem per box. So, that leaves you one

minute per box, but you don't have the

right to go back and you must fill all

eight boxes. So, how do you use it for

DMing practice? Well, for example, we

could use it to come up with better hook

ideas or to train to react to weird

player choices. Say we have this, how

could the party discover the mayor is

secretly the cult leader? Because you

don't want to railroad, so you want to

get good at offering varied paths. Well,

maybe you try this exercise and find

three classic but strong ideas. A

letter, witness and [music] a confession

under pressure. And then it gets harder

and you start feeling stuck. But that's

actually the point of this exercise

because research on creative ideation

shows that the first ideas you get tend

to simply be the most accessible ones in

your memory and not necessarily the best

ones. Ideas six, seven and eight are

often where the actual interesting stuff

lives because your brain has to reach

further to find them and start pulling

from places you don't visit that often.

So, maybe you do this and idea seven is

something like the mayor votes to find

the party's investigation, but the

budget he allocates is exactly enough to

keep them busy and not enough to

actually succeed. It might feel obvious

once you write it down, but you still

had to go through those first six

generic ideas to get to it. But what if

the problem isn't that you need more

ideas, but just keep defaulting to the

same kind of ideas? Our second exercise

comes from jazz and it might be the most

counterintuitive one on the list. It's

called the constraint [music] box. When

you first learn to improvise as a

musician, one of the first exercises

they teach you is they put you on a

backing track and tell you to improvise

a solo, but tell you to limit yourself

to just three to five notes or only play

on beats two and four or [music] you can

only play quarter notes, etc. The point

is to to introduce some kind of drastic

limitation, because when you take away

most of your option, you're forced to

explore the [music] areas where real

music lives, phrasing, dynamics, and

space. That's much harder to do when you

have unlimited options. So, how does

that work with getting better at DMing?

Well, say we want to get better at

describing things, and for this, we work

with a simple situation. The party walks

into a tavern in a port city. The task

is simple. You need to describe it, but

here is the constraint. You can only use

three sensory words. Rust, whisper, and

cold. Everything you describe has to

connect back to one of these three

words. At first, it might feel

impossible. Your brain might be tempted

to go to familiar things like the fire

crackling or the loud crowd, but if you

pushed through that initial, "Man, this

is hard" feeling, you then start

thinking about how the lanterns have

rusted hinges, how the barkeep speaks in

this low whisper because they have a

stubborn throat injury that refuses to

heal, and you just keep going. The

couple in the corner is whispering, and

there's a sailor, and he has a knife

with a rusted blade he keeps touching,

and the way the room feels when the

particular name is mentioned is cold.

You start connecting everything back to

those three words, and the descriptions

start to make sense. It ends up being

more atmospheric than what most DMs

usually come up with whenever word is

available. And that's the cool thing

about this exercise. The constraint

makes creative solutions just show up,

because your brain just has to find a

new path. And this is kind of what

happens when your players do something

you didn't expect, and you suddenly have

to improvise something you never would

have planned. This exercise allows you

to train that same creative muscle on

purpose. So, the constraint box teaches

you how to create within limits, which

is great. But the next exercise does

something a little different. It allows

you to take a single detail and just

stretch it into an entire scene. But

before I tell you about it, quick words

about today's sponsor, aka me. I make

these videos by myself, from the

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>> [music]

>> So, thanks in advance. Okay, now, this

next one is another jazz exercise, but

it's very different. It's called motivic

development. Again, the idea is simple.

You take a tiny musical phrase, maybe

three or four notes, and use only that

phrase as raw material for an entire

solo. You stretch it, flip it upside

down, compress it, etc. You never

introduce anything new and just keep

transforming the same idea. It's

different from the constraint box

exercise, because you're not picking

from a limited pool of atomic

ingredients, but you take a complete

[music] thought and try to twist it in

many new ways. So, for DMs, this becomes

what I'm deciding to call core image

threading. You pick one image you find

cool, say, a rusted key with a broken

tooth, and you just try to develop it as

much as possible by asking questions.

Where else might a rusted key appear in

this world? What's the opposite of a

broken tooth? If I focus on just the

rust, what does that connect to? What

does this key mean to these three

different characters? Etc., etc. This

exercise helps with improvisation,

because it forces you to develop

patterns you'll then be able to

recombine quickly under pressure.

Spending time practicing to transform a

single idea makes you faster when you

have to do it live. For example, when

your players come up with an unexpected

detail and you need or decide to make it

mean something. Okay, cool, but so far

we have three exercises that all train

you to describe better and generate

ideas, and that's already awesome. But,

DMing isn't just about narration.

Sometimes, you have to perform

characters, and most DMs mostly use

version of their own personality when

they do this. So, how do we fix that?

Exercise number four comes from improv

theater and is called status numbers.

You take [music] a deck of cards and

draw a random card, which becomes your

status. Two is the lowest, ace [music]

is the highest. And then you either try

to do a monologue if you're practicing

alone, or to have a conversation if

you're practicing with a fellow forever

DM. And you try to communicate that

status through behavior alone. Forget

about voices and accents and [music]

just to focus on behavior. And status

here is not about social class, but more

like how you carry yourself in the world

and expect to be treated by others. You

can have a high status innkeeper and a

low status prince, for example. And

sometimes these are even the best

combinations. High status characters

hold still while speaking. They choose

when to make or break eye contact and

use complete sentences. They also take

up more space and tend to speak a little

slower because who's going to interrupt

them anyway? On the other hand, low

status characters might fidget, [music]

avoid eye contact, stop talking in the

middle of their sentence, etc., etc.

Every real human interaction has a

status dynamic hiding underneath it.

Who's in charge? Who changes the

subject? Etc. We're all extremely used

to it and passively track this stuff all

the time. And if the status behavior is

off, conversation just feels weird. So,

how do you use this with NPCs, for

example? Say you have a quest giver NPC,

a merchant that you're prepping. And you

try to imagine them as a four or as a

king. The king status merchant would

walk into the room, look at the

character he assumes is the party leader

in the eye, and say, "I need something

found. A journal. My brother's journal,

actually. You'll be compensated." He

uses short sentences, is very direct,

and does not justify himself because he

just assumes the party will cooperate.

On the other hand, status four merchants

would be very different. Maybe he is

already in the room when the party

arrives, sitting in the corner, and when

they notice him, he kind of half stands

and goes, "Uh I'm sorry. I don't mean to

bother you, but there's this journal,

you see? My brother had it, and I've

been trying to Anyway, I can pay at the

house." And then he just trails off. The

low status NPC is basically just

apologizing for existing. It's the same

NPC and the same quest, but the

resulting interaction feels completely

different. The voice is the same, the

accent is still that weird Frenchman who

spent too many hours watching American

movies thing, but it's not the same dude

anymore. But what if midway through that

scene something happens that changes the

status? Maybe the confident king status

merchant lies and gets caught, and

suddenly he becomes a five. Or the

nervous status four merchant finds out

the party's trying to destroy the

journal, and that pisses him off, and he

becomes a queen status merchant

immediately. The more you practice this

exercise, the easier it gets to get good

at those shifts, which is what gives you

drama, and where role play becomes

interesting. I think this is the closest

thing to a cheat code to get better at

NPC role play I've ever found, because

it gives you a way to do [music]

different characters that has nothing to

do with silly voices. It's all about

behavior, which can just practice when

you feel like it. So, maybe before your

next session, try to draw a card and

assign a status to every important NPC,

and see what happens to how you play

them. [music] By the way, when making

this video, I realized that the hardest

part isn't actually knowing about these

exercises, but sitting down and doing

them with good prompts and scenarios.

So, I made a structured practice

workbook with DM-specific seed ideas,

guided sessions, and protocols for all

these exercises. It's basically the

improved version of everything I built

for myself while making this video, and

I truly believe it can help you become a

better DM. And I'm making it available

to my patrons on Patreon. So, just check

out the link in the description. Let's

keep going. Our next exercise comes from

sports science, and I really like its

origin story. Researchers took

quarterbacks and showed them game

footage that froze at moments where

players had to make critical decisions.

And each time the footage froze, the

quarterbacks had to pick [music] the

best receiver and explain their choice.

In just 6 weeks, they got a lot better

at reading plays on video, but also in

the field. And what I find very cool is

that the three skills that improved are

the same expert DMs use: pattern

recognition, reading the situation

before it fully develops, and trying to

predict what's going to happen next. So,

how do we adapt this decision point

drilling exercise for DMing? Here's what

I suggest you do. Take an actual play

episode, and instead of just listening,

try to pause when a player says

something unexpected or when they

confront an NPC, for example. You set a

30-second timer and try to come up with

three possible DM responses before it

runs out. And because we're all into

roles and playing games with way too

many of them, I'm adding another one. At

least one option has to be something you

would normally never choose because the

point isn't to practice doing what you

already do, but to give you some big,

beautiful range. And when the timer runs

off, you resume listening and see what

the DM actually said. And then you

compare. But the point isn't trying to

guess. What you're doing is you're

building a pattern library of situation

and response pairs that you'll then be

able to draw from at the table. I love

this exercise, and it helps you respond

to what just happened. But the next one

trains something that's a lot harder. It

teaches you to make everything that

happened before feel like it was all

planned. It is called connect the story.

You write down five completely unrelated

elements: a location, an object, a

character trait, a sensory detail, and a

small bit of dialogue. You have to make

sure there are no connections between

them. The more random, the better. Then,

you set a timer for 8 to 10 minutes and

try to come up with a scene that

incorporates all five while staying

coherent. The only rule is that they

need to be connected. For example, say

we have these five things: flooded

tunnels, a brass compass, someone who

can stop apologizing, smell of pine

resin, and the line "That's not what I

was promised." You can do this in

writing because I promised you could

practice by yourself. And when you try

this, maybe for the first 2 minutes, you

just try to force connections that just

aren't there, and it feels a bit

artificial. But at some point, you

unlock something. Maybe the tunnels

become flooded at high tide, and the

pine resin is sealing smuggled crates.

The sorcerer wants to retrieve those

crates and hired a guide to get them to

the cargo, but it was a setup. The guide

leads the sorcerer to a dead end and

lets the water rise. They apologize as

they turn away and seal a heavy gate,

trapping the sorcerer. Spellcaster

kneels down and finds a brass compass on

a dead body. "Someone else hired this

guide before." The sorcerer says,

"That's not what I was promised."

holding the dead man's compass, looking

at the guy who put them both there, run

away. Now, that's a scene. It has

tension, stakes, characters want

different things, and we just made it

from unrelated elements. It [music]

feels planned, like we sat down with all

those initial ideas almost preassembled.

But no, the brain just finds [music]

connections. It takes advantage of the

narrative fallacy, which tells us that

our brains construct [music] complete

stories from random data automatically.

This exercise just exploits that

tendency by giving the brain random

pieces and letting it do what it does

best. [music] And it's very helpful for

DMing because it's what you do when your

players think you're a genius who

planned everything three sessions in

advance. Even though, no, you didn't.

You just noticed a detail from session

two that connected to another one in

session five, and you just linked them.

You saw where you had been and made it

mean something after the fact. But,

because their perspective is different,

your players experience it as

intentional design. And on top of that

exercise, you can use your sessions to

go further. When you're playing, try to

track the details that you or your

players introduce that kind of went

nowhere. Like a name someone said only

once, or an object someone picked up and

then forgot about, for example. You

don't do anything with these straight

away, but you just store them, you know,

just in case. And then, two or three

sessions later, you bring one back and

connect it to whatever is happening

right now. Oh my god, you're a genius.

Right. Thanks. Okay, cool, but we're

still not done yet. And this one is

different from the others because it's

not really about improvisation, [music]

but prep. It comes from game design and

is the idea of one [music] page designs.

It all comes down to asking a single

question. What is the most important

thing I need to communicate about this

design? And if the answer doesn't fit on

one page, it means you probably don't

understand it well enough. So, I

mentioned prep. Let's try this with a

political situation, for example. Say we

have this whole thing going. A town

council with five members, a trade

dispute, two of them are actually

secretly working together, one is being

blackmailed, and there will be a murder

happening very soon. With something as

complicated as this, it's easy to end up

with two pages of scattered paragraphs

you have to reread over and over again

to make sure you remember who wants what

from whom. But, if we try to simplify

everything into one elegant diagram in

the center of a single page showing the

five council members with arrows between

them showing who's a light and who is in

conflict and add one line next to each

lane about what they want and what

they'll do to get it. And at the bottom,

the three most likely things the players

might try and a few consequence

possibilities. But then we're able to

maintain our complexity, but it becomes

a lot clearer and more useful in game

too. And one thing we can do to make

sure our prepped material works well is

to make it go through the removal test.

If you can take an element of that page

and nothing breaks, maybe it shouldn't

actually be there. This allows you to

make sure you understand your prep on a

deep level, which makes it easier to

react when the unexpected situations

show up. So, we looked at jazz, improv,

sports, game design, and none of these

are related to D&D. But all these

exercises can make you better [music] at

it. They work because they leverage

specific features of the human brain and

of our psychology. And because being a

DM is not magic, at its core it's a

creative role that combines elements you

can find in many different fields. So,

borrowing from them makes sense. I think

what surprised me most when I started

looking into this stuff is how they

function together. Because DMing looks

like this big monolithic thing, but it's

actually a bundle of many cognitive

skills all stacked on top of each other.

We have to be able to generate options

on demand, stay creative, develop

motives, recognize patterns, etc., etc.

All of these are different muscles, but

if we think about them as that, as

muscles, we can train them outside of

the table. I'm not saying that if you

only do these, you will become an

amazing DM. You still have to play. It's

impossible to become a great jazz

musician if you don't play with other

people. But I do believe that if

becoming an amazing DM is something

you're interested in, looking a bit

outside of the box and practicing like

other people do in other creative fields

can make a lot of sense. And maybe you

think the gap from practicing exercises

to playing at the table is too wide, but

I promise you [music] if jazz musicians

can improvise over core changes at 200

bpm by practicing like this, you can

probably react on the fly to Bobby the

ranger stealing a pint at the tavern or

whatever by training like them. Maybe

just try one to start and share your

results in the comments, please. I would

love to hear about it and maybe it can

help someone in their gaming journey as

well. Now, once you start training these

skills, you're going to want to put them

into practice right away. And the

seventh exercise helps with prep. But

how do you make sure you're prepping

stuff that will actually contribute to

the immersion of the table? Well, click

on this video next to learn about the

four secret levels of prep most DMs are

missing out on. To learn how to

instantly make your games a lot more

immersive.