As a beginning DM it seems like a steep learning curve. Unlike players you have two guides to read, plus a monster manual to study.

Plus there is a wealth of great advice both as blog posts, podcasts and YouTube videos aimed at beginners like ourselves and more experienced DM’s. I’ve mentioned some of those sources in previous posts.

I think the best skill a DM needs is to be like a sponge, being able to absorb all that information.

It’s early days for me. I’m still finding myself as a DM. As I come along interesting articles or videos, or I research a particular subject like travel (I did a post summarising some of the alternative ways to handle travel between two locations) I like to sometimes share them here, but more importantly clip them to Scribe in the research folder.

A lot of the time the authors like to present their way as the correct way, it “fixes” what they perceive as being broken.

I don’t like to think as stuff being broken, but something that doesn’t work for me. Sometimes it may not even be that. I may just think “oh that sounds cool”.

For example I think having a variety of ways to handle travel is cool. But apart from that I think it helps to keep things interesting for the players. Plus one way of travel does not fit all situations, and being able to choose the most appropriate is a handy thing to have in your toolbox.

But I like that we can take some-one else’s ideas, try them out, and if we don’t like them either go back to what we were doing or try something else. “No harm, no foul” as Jack Reacher says in the books.

This experimentation as far as I see it is all part of the DM’s journey. We are almost like magpies picking up shiny nuggets of information as we go along.

I hope that as I find new and interesting stuff on my journey others are finding what I share interesting and useful.

For those curious the title of the blog is a line from the Alice Cooper song Stolen Prayer from the “concept” album The Last Temptation. Which by the way has a pretty cool comic book/graphic novel by the living legend Neil Gaiman.