Hey folks! We often praise our DMing heroes for their many skills like improv, enhancing immersion, compelling roleplay of believable NPCs, and the like. There are resources aplenty for how to speak in accents, how to not use accents but still have distinct voices, how to plan campaigns, or speed up combat encounters. But are these skills really what make our favorite DMs great? I argue no. I believe great DMs begin with a foundation of values that guide how they use their skills, and I discuss my version of those values here.
Let the players as a group have agency in your narrative. It sounds like a stupid joke about the pet goblin but it isn’t. Our favorite campaign ever was a mage campaign where the players spent the whole campaign focus on one guy (Sir ben kingsley in Lucky number slevin) and they went after him with all they had. But on the side they made friends with some of the factions. Especially this one Sons of Ether, Lucy Monk. They confided in her and had her help them with plans. it was great.
Then the twist came.
Yeah, you figured it out.
But the look on their faces when they had to travel back in time to get the guy they thought was the BBEG and he turned around and showed them who it really was still makes the DM giggle to himself.
Any game you play matters if the players feel they are moving things along and making a difference, even a small one.
If you are the DM, be the rest of the world but let them move you.