Do I help this DM, or just enjoy the ride?

[Drache64]

Playing with a new DM. I notice one thing that new DMs tend to do is get too excited in their own head lore and give waay too much exposition to the point it's actually giving knowledge that perhaps the players shouldn't know.

I also notice that he breaks the immersion of the game constantly to talk about past campaigns or cool things he's planned for us in the future.

I know it's a verbal game, but there's an art to "show don't tell".

On another side of things I'm all in to support new DMs, so I play very immersed into his world. I am good at picking up what the DM is putting down (because I'm usually a forever DM and I have trained a lot of DMs) so I've noticed the DM feels more rewarded dealing with my character/me as I cheer, applause, gasp and for all intents and purposes come to life in his world. The down side of this is that I notice he gives me waaaay too much time compared to other players. They'll get a few sentences about their actions. I ask where a certain librarian is because I want to check out a book and it becomes a 10-30 minute side story. The more bored the rest of the table gets, the more they disconnect, the more they disconnect the more attention the DM gives me.

This is a new group at a public shop and I'm new in town so I'm not giving any advice or tips because he doesn't know me and my advice might seem unqualified.

1) what mistakes do you see new DMs make?

2) what would you do in my shoes? Splash in little comments like "what about these other guys?" Or "I don't want to take up too much time from the table, I just wanted to check out a quick library book".

[Faily]

An enthusiastic GM is great.

I wouldn't put a damper on things, but I'd find ways to redirect his focus. Like instead of you mentioning wanting to find a librarian, you ask (IC) one of the other party members "hey didn't you want to speak with a smith regarding that weapon you found?" or something along those lines, thus pushing them forward to the spotlight.

Players who know how to spread around the love and attention are great to have.

[Easy e]

I would enjoy the ride BUT also focus on shifting the spotlight to other players as best as I could to avoid disconnect.


As far as new DM mistakes, I seem them try to do all the heavy lifting themselves, instead of outsourcing more of it to the PCs.

They also plan too much.

[Xervous]

Being on stage you’ve got an opportunity to direct the attention where the other players can get involved. Try to look for overlaps, and failing that pay attention to your fellow players to know when to gracefully exit a scene.

If the GM likes in character stuff as it seems, why not veil your invitations and queries to the other players as IC chatter? Ask them what they want to do and if necessary prompt them for reasons to justify that course of action, supplying some of your own reasons to support them in agreement. I think it may be a good litmus test to see how the GM reacts to discussions about the world that aren’t going directly through NPCs. I expect he may pop in here and there to clarify details about the world that someone misremembered. If it seems he dislikes when the party converses without involving the GM it may be as you observed, he just likes to gush over the setting and his NPCs.

Wrapping up, I’d try to guide the spotlight to shine on the group as they’re doing things everyone wants to be doing. If you can find something that the other players are genuinely interested in, your involvement and nudges in the scene may be enough to get them more spotlight time.

[KorvinStarmast]

1. Always help your DM. :smallsmile:
2. You already are able to sense spot light dwelling on you too long so bridge to another PC as soon as you see it happening. Pull at least one of them into the scene/spotlight.