Game Masters Don’t Have To Do Everything

From: Dennis (OkayestDM)

For the longest time, the only thing my players were responsible for was showing up with their character sheet, and expecting to have a good time. Everything else was on me. Providing dice, pencils, music, a story, encounters, rulebooks, snacks, a location, the list goes on. Needless to say, that was exhausting. I’ll admit I was upset when I realized how unbalanced the amount of effort was between me and my players. I felt like the one person in a group project who did all the work while others tagged along for the ride. 

I started thinking about which of my tasks a player could do in theory, and I came up with this list:

• Track initiative
• Tally damage the monsters have taken
• Changing the music and ambience
• Bring snacks and/or drinks
• Schedule the next session
• Bring their own dice and/or dice for others
• Bring pencils
• Host the game at their place

After sending the players this list, I was only taking care of 2 of the things on it: Scheduling and Hosting. 

Having a player track initiative is probably the best thing I’ve delegated. Not needing to keep track of turn order frees up my mind to focus on roleplay and combat tactics. It also keeps that player focused because they are in charge of announcing who’s turn is next.

Having a player track the damage the monsters have taken has provided a unique and new twist to our table. The players seem to love hearing how much damage they’ve dealt, but still not knowing how much health the enemies have left keeps the tension high.

Delegating the task of managing music and ambience turned out to be a bust. None of the players were interested enough to stay on top of it. Instead, it was several moments of “hey, where’s the battle music?” or “Isn’t this music a bit too intense?” I ended up taking back this one, so I could use music cues to prelude mood changes. Since I can change the players’ demeanor by switching from a peaceful playlist to a creepy one, I’ll hold on to that task.

As for players bringing their own equipment and not just their character sheet, I fear I may have unleashed more dice goblins onto the world. They brought some very cool and shiny math rocks to the next session. Even I was jealous!

The task that ALL players returned on was bringing snacks. Now we have more food than we can eat, and I’ll need to watch my weight if I’m not careful! Maybe I should bring a veggie tray next time…

The two tasks that remain mine are scheduling the next session and hosting the game. I’m alright with this. After 10 years of running games, I think my scheduling abilities are some of the best in the group, and I can figure out the next date quickly and without too much effort. I also realize that I prefer hosting because it gives me more time to set up a map and move furniture. 

All in all, I feel that delegating tasks has had two main impacts. First, I don’t have as much to do, so I have more energy to spend on making sure the game is awesome! Second, now that the players are putting in more energy, they seem to be more invested. When someone puts their time, money, and energy into something, they typically want that thing to continue. I hope this list can do the same for your table!