The Most Essential DnD Leadership Skills Every DM Needs to Know

It’s no secret that being a Dungeon Master/DM in Dungeons & Dragons is a complicated and demanding role. The DM has some serious responsibilities, such as creating and narrating a fantasy world in any campaign or one-shot, and the DM also serves as the rules arbiter/judge. Aside from technical knowledge of the game’s rules and solid improv skills, the DM also needs soft skills, such as leadership. This is a major factor that sets D&D apart from other board games and tabletop RPGs.

In most games, such as Risk and The Game of Life, there is no leader, just a small squad of players competing with one another, while D&D has a distinction between players who control player characters and the Dungeon Master. The DM has a unique and important role that keeps the game together, so they assume a position of leadership not found in other games, seeing how DMs and players are not equal. To make a DM’s job easier and keep the gameplay flowing smoothly for all to enjoy, the DM must learn and embrace a variety of leadership skills, as explained by the Center for Creative Leadership.

Why Does the DM Have the Role of Leader?

The DM Controls and Creates the World in Ways Players Cannot

Newer players in D&D might wonder why the DM has the position of not just the narrator, but the leader of a typical gamer group. One reason is that the DM is expected to be the final authority on the game’s rules and decide which rules to enforce, bend, or ignore. Rules are a form of authority, so if the DM is the master of rules, then naturally, they are the leader of any group. The DM uses their responsibility of leadership to decide how the game’s rules and a variety of homebrew rules will shape the D&D experience, allowing input from the players to make sure everyone understands the rules and can have fun with them.

The DM is also the group’s leader because they are the game world, which is both the most powerful and humblest role to play in any D&D group. While each player only controls their own character, the DM is the setting, all NPCs, and all monsters, and without them, there can be no game. It’s widely accepted in the D&D community that that’s a valid reason for the DM to be the group’s leader, shaping the adventure through their usage of NPCs/monsters and their descriptions of the game world.

However, even if the DM has thorough knowledge of D&D‘s setting, lore, and characters, and even if they have memorized the guidebooks more than any other DM, it means little if the DM lacks some essential leadership traits to actually translate all this into an exciting, fair, and smooth gameplay experience for the entire group. Knowing the lore and rules is how the game is possible while embracing leadership skills is how the game becomes worth playing.

Communication is Key in Dungeons & Dragons

Clearly Conveying Ideas is Just as Important as Having Them

Dungeon Masters can refer to plenty of guides to real-life leadership skills, such as for office managers and task leaders, and that includes the universally important skill of communication. Communication in D&D goes beyond the DM describing the game world or the players using cool voices for class-based gameplay, such as bringing a paladin to life. Most of all, a DM must learn and practice more universal communication skills to make sure they can convey ideas clearly and in a compelling way. This can take many forms and is a huge topic in its own right, but suffice it to say, the DM must do more than recite what they find in the adventure module or the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Skillful communication has a variety of subtopics, with active listening being one of them. It’s a good idea for all players to use active listening, but it’s most important for the DM since they will speak to and listen to the players more than the players will with each other. Active listening is how the DM can understand what players do or don’t like about the D&D gaming experience and why, which includes analyzing how to bend gameplay to suit someone’s needs and being emotionally attuned to them. DMs must listen not just to respond, but to understand. Active listening ensures that when the DM responds, the player knows they are understood and feel validated as a player and as a person.

Learning Agility in D&D Helps DMs Think on Their Toes

DMs Must Know How to Change Plans on a Dime

One of the paradoxes of Dungeons & Dragons is the fact that even with so many rules and charts, this game allows players to easily wander into unknown territory where guesswork and improvised ideas are a must. The DM will have an easy time when the players stick to the familiar material in any D&D adventure/campaign book, but part of the game’s charm is the freedom to wander off the established path and maximize whimsical creativity.

Even the best-written source books can’t anticipate everything, so the DM must be ready to use learning agility. This is a key trait for leaders because when nothing makes sense and no one knows what to do, everyone turns to the group leader to figure out a solution. Learning agility is one way to describe the power of improvision and intuition for a leader. Put another way, this is when a leader knows what to do when they don’t know what to do, backward as that may sound.

DMs should embrace the fun, rewarding challenge of the unknown rather than avoid it, especially since trying to stick to the official adventure might lead to the temptation of railroading the team. This is another situation where active listening is important because if the DM invents something new in a strange situation, players may or may not like what they hear. It’s a judgment call on the DM’s part as they figure out the unknown, and their judgment might be off. But player feedback can help, and the DM must be sure to not feel too defensive if their improvised ideas are rejected or questioned.

Self-Awareness Helps DMs Gauge How Players Feel About the Game

The DM Must Know How the Players View Them

Of course, it’s vital for the DM to understand who their players are both at the table and away from it, all so the DM can make a fun, fair, and comfortable gaming experience for them. But it also goes in the opposite direction, since the DM must put themselves in the players’ position and know how the players see them.

Leaders must be aware of how they are perceived, and not just aware of how their actions affect the group. Self-awareness can sometimes be uncomfortable for certain people, including in Dungeons & Dragons, but even if a DM has trouble with this leadership skill, they must at least take it seriously. At a minimum, they must be ready for players to admit that their view of the DM isn’t entirely positive.

Self-awareness accomplishes a variety of things, such as making the DM more open to adjusting their gameplay style if players aren’t having a good time. The first step to solving any problem is recognizing and understanding it, so if the DM’s gameplay style or even their behavior, body language, and words are an issue, then the DM must be prepared to address those problems. They need more than rules knowledge and vivid descriptions to keep the players happy and engaged with the material — the DM must comfortably convey it all.

More intuitive DMs can read their players and figure out these problems on their own. If the players often seem distracted, bored, or unmotivated, a self-aware DM can intuitively figure out what the problem is, such as excessive setting descriptions or limiting player agency too much. If a DM isn’t so savvy with self-awareness and reading people, then they may simply ask the players about all this before or after a session. If the problem is serious enough, a DM might even pause a session halfway and start a dialogue about the problem.

A DM may bluntly ask something like “Why do you all seem bored, and how can I change that?” or “Why is there so much tension? Is it my fault?” Of course, the questions don’t have to be so direct — a DM with strong social skills may find smoother ways to investigate these things. But no matter the method, the DM must figure out how the player sees them, in both positive and negative ways.

That is when a solution may be found, and a DM might get a wake-up call in the process. It could be something technical, such as the DM being viewed as hardheaded for making the dungeon crawls too difficult and punishing. Or, it might be something more humanistic, such as the DM building a bad reputation for being insensitive, patronizing, or crude, which may turn off some players. A DM might even intimidate or annoy players without meaning to, and only self-awareness and open communication can fix that.

D&D is All About Collaborating as a Team

Being the DM Means Working Alongside the Players, Not Doing All the Work For Them

It’s true that DMs and players have different responsibilities in a game of D&D. It’s up to the players to design their own character’s sheet and voice them in gameplay, while the DM alone must study the adventure book to make the setting come to life while also being the final authority on rulings. That said, even if players and DMs have distinct roles to play, they can still help each other out and enrich each other’s side. A good DM will do this in both directions, such as aiding players when they need it or accepting feedback or suggestions on how the game world is presented. All of that calls for related leadership skills such as active listening and sometimes, learning agility.

This might be described as cross-functionality, with players and DMs working together on a single project that is normally the domain of one or the other. The DM, in particular, should be ready anytime a player needs help, especially a newer player who is still learning the ropes of D&D. A DM may help a novice player design and use their character outside of gameplay while ensuring the player has 100% control of their own character in gameplay. The DM may also listen when the players provide the backstories of their characters, leading to the DM integrating those backstories and personal lore into the game.

The Leadership Skill of Compassion

Kindness and Fairness Always Make For Stellar Gameplay

Leadership and workplace skills such as compassion, empathy, and clear communication are often called “soft skills” to contrast them with technical skills, but being “soft” doesn’t make them any less important. In fact, without effective soft skills, no leader can get any project done, because no matter anyone’s technical skills or experience, everyone is a human being, and no one wants to be mistreated or neglected.

That is where the soft skill of compassion comes into play not just in the workplace, but also in Dungeons & Dragons. All members of the group, players and DM alike, are expected to treat one another with basic respect and decency, whether they’re longtime friends or players who just met at a local game store. That’s the bare minimum to keep a group cohesive and happy while playing.

Compassionate leadership goes above and beyond that behind the DM screen. A DM must feel compassion for themselves first, being kind to themselves so they can be kind to others. Then, compassionate leadership projects itself by combining empathy with meaningful action. The DM will first actively listen to a troubled player and make them feel heard, then genuinely care about that issue and take relevant actions to solve the problem, all while protecting that player’s happiness.

Compassion is a leadership skill that overlaps with collaboration, active listening, and communication, and can make all of those other skills more effective. Even if players only recently met, the DM must do their best to understand a player’s personal concerns and take action on them. If the players are only acquaintances rather than longtime friends, the DM can use robust communication with them to learn everything they need to make compassionate leadership possible as the DM.

After all, some players may have distinct needs or vulnerabilities that aren’t easily expressed right there at the game table. So, the DM may privately communicate with that player and figure out a compassionate plan of action to ensure that player’s needs are met and their happiness is protected. That, more than any rules knowledge, may inspire a player to be a loyal and enthusiastic player in any campaign the DM launches.