If you’ve played Dungeons & Dragons for more than a few months, chances are you’ve met someone who’s gone through DM burnout. DMing can be one of the most rewarding experiences on the planet, but it can also be trying at times. Most DMs get to the place where they feel like they need to take a break from D&D, or at least come out from behind the screen and just play for a while.

Unfortunately, playing isn’t always an option. While there are those that prefer to DM, the fact is that most of us have the role thrust upon us by the D&D group. If we don’t DM, chances are pretty good no one is going to be playing Dungeons & Dragons.

So, what do you do? Well, you can take some time of altogether. That’s one option. Sometimes, though, you simply need to look at your game from some different angles. Decide that you’re going to freshen up your game, and then do it.

Here are some techniques I’ve used that work wonders for keeping my D&D game fresh:

1. Ditch your tried and true story ideas. One of the first things DMs tend to do when their inspiration wanes is to fall back on things that have worked before. Whether it’s betrayal by the party’s benefactor or whether it’s that same old evil wizard with a different name, avoid the temptation to raise the dead. Let ‘em stay right where they are, as good memories.
2. Get inspired. There are tons of sources of inspiration for D&D. Read a good novel, or watch a movie. It doesn’t even have to be fantasy. In fact, a good Western can give give you great ideas for your D&D game. A fantasy novel or movie can actually serve to make things worse, as you find yourself simply identifying familiar tropes.
3. Play a different game. There are tons of games you can play that aren’t D&D, but that can help your D&D game stay fresh. Try a session or two of Vampire, run a supers game, or play a little Call of Cthulu. If you have a hard time convincing your regular group to do so, try something new at a convention.
4. Figure out what excites your players. Excitement at the D&D table is contagious. Figure out what would really get your players involved in the game. This isn’t as hard as it sounds. In most cases, it simply comes down to asking for their help.
5. Dig into a published campaign setting for ideas. Even if you’re not running a Shadowfell-based game, there’s plenty you can draw from the campaign setting. Same holds true for Dark Sun or Neverwinter. One of my best campaigns was based entirely around a mid-level necromancer in the Cult of the Dragon who had about a 200-word writeup in the 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

So, what about you? What do you all do to keep your campaigns fresh?

photo credit: danoxster

One of the most important skills you can have as a DM is building anticipation in your players. When your players are excited about the game, they’re going to be more likely to really get into their roles. Not only will the “in character” aspect of your game improve, combat and technical sequences will go quicker, as well, because players will know their stats and abilities inside and out.

How do you do it, though? How do you keep them coming back for more?

The ability to build anticipation in your roleplaying game is what separates a good DM from a great DM. Here are some simple tactics you can use to help build anticipation for your games:

• Be excited. Look, if you’re not excited about playing, your players won’t be either. Chances are pretty good there wouldn’t be a regular game if you weren’t DMing (unless you’re fortunate enough to have a larger pool of players who are also willing to DM).
• Be consistent. One of the best ways to screw a campaign is to interrupt the schedule. No, you probably aren’t going to play on Christmas eve. But if at all possible, you need to have a regular day you can always come back to. On those occasions when the regular gaming day doesn’t work out, have an alternate date already planned.
• Use cliffhangers. End each session at the peak of action. Your players will want to get back to the table as quickly as they can in order to find out what happens next. The same principle applies for “gotcha” session endings, where you end the session by turning the entire plot on its head.
• Use downtime. Some games are more conducive to so-called “downtime” activities in between game sessions than others. Still, downtime can be an excellent way to keep players brimming with anticipation. Even if the party is in the middle of a dungeon, there’s no reason you can’t run a one-on-one session with a player to work out the details of an earlier life experience. At the very least, you can garner a handful of future plot hooks by getting the player to invest some deeper thought into their background.
• Keep communication going. Whether you use Obsidian Portal, set up your own forums, or just have an email thread, make sure you are keeping in touch with players, and that they have a way to interact with you and with one another, as well.

Sometimes, you find roleplaying game plot ideas in the most unlikely of places.

Over the past few months, Angie and I have been watching the Stargate: Atlantis series. It started on a whim; the first season was on the shelf in my local library, and I checked it out just to see what it was all about. I’d enjoyed the movie and watched SG-1 on and off, so it seemed natural that I’d check this out.

Strangely enough, Angie and I were both hooked.

Something struck me about this particular series, however. The main cast – or at least the “SG Team” – had all of the elements of a good D&D party, and many of the stories were perfect for roleplaying game plot ideas. Here’s the lineup, in my view:

• Colonel John Sheppard: Fighter
• Ronon Dex: Barbarian
• Dr. Beckett or Dr. Keller (depending on the season): Cleric
• Dr. Rodney McKay: Wizard
• Teyla Emmagan: Rogue

And, of course, you have Ford (the fallen party member who becomes an antagonist), Zelenka and Major Lorne (the occasional players), Todd the Wraith (NPC who alternates between benefactor and antagonist), Michael (arch-nemesis), and Weir/Carter/Woolsey (benefactors/mentors).

Needless to say, there are so many different ways this series can play out in terms of roleplaying game plot ideas. Some random ones come to mind:

• The Season 5 episode where Rodney acquires a degenerative brain disease,  ala Flowers for Algernon. The roleplaying opportunities for your know-it-all wizard to suddenly act like a moron are endless, especially if the player is into it.
• The Season 1 episode where John Sheppard is infected by the Iratis bug and the party can’t get it unattached. Great opportunities for a puzzle/quest. This plot idea keeps playing itself out, with Sheppard turning into the bug creature later on. This can be a recurring problem for the character, and recurring plot idea for you.
• The overall discovery of Atlantis – an ancient city in ruins, with all sorts of new and magical things to explore, which becomes a base of operations.

I could go on and on, of course. But you get the idea.

Feel free to add your own roleplaying game plot ideas in the comments section, or tell me about some of the sources you use to find those ideas.

And, for those of you who haven’t seen the Stargate Atlantis series, I highly recommend it. You can buy it from Amazon, or even watch individual episodes with Amazon Video on Demand:

I’ve got some amazing links for you this week, so let’s get right to them!

Sandie Law had a great post a while ago called Geeks are Everywhere. This made me think of the Assets or liabilities? question we’ve been bantering around here for a while.

This is your last chance to get in on the Name This Blog, Win A Prize contest. I’ll be closing the comments at midnight EST on Wednesday. Help me out, and get a free D&D book in the process!

Martin over at Gnome Stew wrote an excellent article on 17 Steps to GMing a New RPG for the First Time. This is especially useful right now, as many of us are about to run a new RPG (D&D 4E) for the first time. Give Martin’s article a lookie.

Speaking of 4E (and who isn’t right now, really?) if you haven’t read Chatty’s and Critical Hits reviews of Keep on the Shadowfell, you ought to. We played our first session last night, and I’m hoping to have a review for you by the end of the week.

If you’re a player creating a new character, or planning on creating one any time soon, make sure you give Yax’s Pimp my character – a community project a look. Let his community do the work for you.

That’s all for now, folks. Tomorrow, I’ve got an interview with Harrison McLeod of Capturing Fantasy and Men with Pens, so be sure to come back!

I know where I’ll be getting mine for the foreseeable future: right here.  Oh, and maybe I’ll win my first ever box of D&D Minis in the process.

Seriously, go check it out.  You’ve only got until the 6th of May.  I’ll wait for you.

———-

At any rate, Chatty’s little contest got me to thinking about something.

I find that, the older I get, the less I need other people to write my adventure material.  Modules are nice, but I’m a writer by trade.  No, I’m not a game designer, so I often use published Dungeons and Dragons adventures for stat blocks, but I don’t need them for story as much as I used to.

Heck, even Demonweb Pits was, for me, not nearly as interesting to run as something I’d have written myself.  I find I’m more into the old Net Book of Plots (I know, I’m dating myself there) or even something like what Chatty is doing.

So, what about you all?  Where do you come up with adventure ideas these days?

photo credit: Perfecto Insecto

I’ve written a lot about what it takes to be a successful DM.  I’ve identified 7 Habits of Highly Effective DMs, and I’ve told you what to avoid.  I’ve even built a new campaign from scratch, so you can observe the process.

I don’t pretend to know it all when it comes to DMing. Yeah, I’ve done it for the better part of two decades.  Yeah, I’ve been able to keep the same group of folks at my table since moving here, with rare exception.  In fact, I’ve got the opposite problem of many DMs: I’ve got more players than slots at the table.  Having Randy along for the ride helps in that regard, as we tend to make sure everyone has a spot, and I give him the lion’s share of the credit for our group’s cohesion. 

Still, while I’m not the best, I do kick ass as a Dungeon Master.  Why?

I give a damn about my players.

The folks I play with are friends, and have been nearly since the day I met them.  Some of them go way back, while some I’ve known just a little while.  But each and every one of them is a friend.  We stand in each others’ weddings.  We babysit each others’ kids.  We eat together, spend holidays together, camp together and will go to see Iron Man together.

It’s more than that, though. See, I want my players to have a good time. When I’m designing an adventure, I do it not only with their character in mind, but with them in mind. I put something in for each person. My hack-and-slasher gets to kill stuff.  My role-player gets to parlay.  My note-taking paladin… gets to take notes.  I customize the experience for my players, and it adds exponentially to the game.

I’m passionate about the story.

I’m a writer.  I write for a living.  I write things about the difference between “HD ready” and “HD compatible.”  I write about premature birth.  I write about whatever my conscience will allow and whatever someone will pay me for.  I even write solely for the purpose of helping other writers.

But when it comes to writing fiction, D&D is my outlet.  It lets me tell a story, one that’s deep down inside of me just bursting to get out.  It’s the story I’ll base a novel on, someday. It’s the story I’m thinking about when my wife says, “Whatcha thinking about” and I say, “How much I love you, of course.”

See, I need to tell this story.  The fact that my friends are willing to sit at the table and help me tell it, and indulge me as I tell my part of it, is in many ways their gift to me rather than the other way around.

I know when to quit.

Sometimes, you have to take a break. You have to step away from the table, let someone else DM for a while. You might even need to stop playing altogether for six or eight months waiting for a new edition.  Sometimes, you just need to quit.

It doesn’t end there, of course.  You’ve got to know when to restart.  I’m less than 30 days away from getting behind the screen for the first time in a good while, and I’m damned excited. I’m going to start with H1 and just sort of ride the wave from there with some one-shots until Gen Con.  it’s going to be a wild ride, because the wait has made me hungry for it again.

I can paint a picture like nobody’s business.

Like I said, I write for a living.  Hyperbole, onomatopoeia are my tools, and the thesaurus is my best friend.  Can you be a kick-ass DM without a great vocabulary?  Sure.  But why would you want to be?  Watch movies, read books and study the flipping thesaurus if you need to, but work on your flavor text.

Oh, and make no mistake, folks: it’s all flavor text.

I’m open to change.

I don’t DM the same way today that I did in 1996, because my players don’t play the same way they did in 1996.  Likewise, when one of my players says, “Dude, that session sucked!” I make a note of it. If the player was full of crap, I forget about it. If the complaint was legit, I figure out what not to do next time.

I try new things. In my time, I’ve played just about every type of RPG you can imagine, from Live Action Vampire to Toon.  Hell, I even enjoyed Everway.  I watch other DMs, locally and at conventions.  I read DM blogs and message boards and articles in Dragon and Dungeon, all so I can add something, anything, to make my game that much better.

I’ll very likey go 4th Edition for the same reason.

———-

I didn’t write this post to toot my own horn.  Like I said, I’m far from the best DM.  I wrote it to help motivate you guys and gals out there.  Get passionate.  Take a break if you need to.  Change things up.  Take your players out for dinner just to hang.  Whatever you’ve got to do, take action now.  You can be a kick-ass DM, you’ve just got to decide you’re going to do it and work toward that goal.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I’ve ended some campaigns in the past.  My good friend Greg reminded me, right here in the blog, about the now-infamous Winter Court fiasco, for example.  It occurred to me that maybe there is a lesson or two I could share with you all.  Maybe if you could avoid the mistakes I made in that campaign, you can be spared the frustration and anxiety I experienced.

To give you some background, I decided in the fall of 2003 that I was going to start an Oriental Adventures campaign.  Specifically, I decided I was going to start a Rokugan campaign.  See, I’d been exposed to the Legend of the Five Rings settings via the collectible card game at Gen Con, and was truly enamored with the Clan system.  I even bought the Clan Wars miniatures set and painted 40 some-odd samurai figs.  Here was the first problem, though.  Did you see it up there?  *I* decided.

Step #1:  Choose a campaign setting your players aren’t into.

Now, let’s not jump to any conclusions.  I didn’t force-feed them Rokugan.  In fact, I took a good three weeks to poll my players, dig into their collective brains, and try to decide on what campaign setting they wanted.  There wasn’t a true consensus;  there was a slight preference for Colona, my self-designed campaign world, with the Realms coming in a close second.  Rokugan was in the bottom half, although no one outrightly opposed it.  And, they preferred it to Ravenloft.

But they weren’t into it.  See, Rokugan is a tough setting to play if you’re not really into it.  The core classes are different, magic works differently, and you’ve got things like clans, honor and taint to deal with.  And my players are loyal to a fault and willing to try anything, but they didn’t want to spend hours learning all of the intricacies of the world.  So, I wound up with Shugenja casting standard-world spells like flaming sphere, and Samurai with a level of core Ranger so as to get  the two-weapon bonus (this was 3.0, pre-nerfed Ranger).  Mechanically those things work, but they killed the flavor. 

But, that wasn’t the only thing that killed that particular campaign.  See, I really have to give some credit to the only two words my players use today to describe the campaign:  Winter Court.

Step #2:  Force-feed good role-playing

photo credit: saintovbastards

Sometimes, you just can’t move your players.

 Winter Court was a single gaming session that lasted about 5 hours.  During that time, the idea was that the characters had to do just a shit-load of role-playing.  They had a variety of objectives, including solving a murder, courtship, diplomacy and others.  It was, in many ways, the opposite of the Warcraft Miracle Night (I’ll explain that one another time.)

At any rate, there were so many role-playing hooks that I couldn’t seem to present any of them in a way that engaged my players.  Add to that the fact that, at the time, I had a couple of hack-and-slashers as players (No, Greg.  Not you.  I’m talking about Swamp Beast and the Big Red Dog).  That certainly didn’t help things.

The result of that session?  Everyone.  Was.  Bored.  Out.  Of.  Their.  Minds.

Had I stopped right there, we probably could have ended the game and moved on.  But, I was determined.  You see, there were good reasons, both before and after Winter Court, for me to move on.  I completely missed them.

Step #3:  Ignore the warning signs

I remember having to explain honor and taint at least once a session, sometimes twice.  No one was listening.  Not because they were rude (they weren’t, necessarily) but because they weren’t interested.  Explain something once and they get it, that’s great.  Explain it twice, that’s fine too.  Probably a learning curve.  Explain it six times and it must, by definition, be uninteresting and forgettable.

Now, I get that players sometimes have to miss a game.  But with Rokugan, it seemed like we had at least one player gone each session, sometimes two.  Sometimes, that happens.  But not for six sessions in a row.  The fact that people were skipping out on D&D night to go out to dinner with an uncle should have been a sign.  In fact, it was a sign.  I just missed it. 

My players kept trying to back out (individually) due to scheduling reasons.  I kept trying to accommodate them.  That caused yet another problem.

Step #4:  Get off schedule

Randy and I are opposites, in many ways, when it comes to DMing.  Randy is a schedule Nazi.  He plays, every two weeks on Friday, come hell or high water.  And, if you can’t commit to that schedule, don’t even think about joining his campaign.  I, on the other hand, tend to take the “we’ll play whenever” approach.

I really don’t advocate either approach.  I think you have to have a routine, but I also think you need to have some flexibility built into that routine.  How you do that is the topic of another blog post, someday.

Anyways, the result of “we’ll play whenever” became “we’ll play in 4 weeks,” and then “we’ll play in a couple of months,” and then, “Hey.  Anyone want to start a new D&D campaign?  I’m thinking Realms.”

Step #5:  Fizzle out

photo credit: I, Timmy

D&D campaigns rarely die quickly.  I told you before about the big blow-up we had during my wife’s campaign.  That blow-up didn’t end things.  It was a blowout that we patched.  D&D campaigns end more like a slow leak.  To mix metaphors, D&D campaigns don’t get the luxury of decapitation.  They bleed out.  Or better yet, they get a festering sore that starts on the ankle and winds up in a leprous coating over the entire body.

Ew.

Maybe we’ll just say they sort of fizzle out.

And it did.  That’s what happened to my Rokugan game.  What did I learn from the experience?  Like the headline says:  I learned how to kill a D&D game without trying.

—–

I also learned some important lessons about my group, my own personality, life, and even some lessons about running a small business from this experience, by the way.  See, in any endeavor, especially a business, you can’t ignore your customers’ input.  You can’t force your customers to want your product.  You have to watch for warning signs that something is wrong, because some customers just won’t come out and say it.  And you’ve got to be diligent about deadlines and follow-up, or you’ll never have them as a customer again.

What if it sucks?

Worse…

What if I don’t think it sucks, but the rest of my group does?

I’ve been asking myself this lately, as I think my good friend Phil has convinced Randy and the rest of our local group that 4E is going to be bad.  REALLY bad. 

Aw, hell.  It’s not fair to blame it on Phil.  There are things that look like they might be bad.

At any rate, what happens if I like it and they don’t?

Way I see it, I’ve got 3 options:

1. Keep playing whatever everyone else wants to play.  This means I’m stuck with Spell Compendium (etc), and I get no rules reset.
2. Play something different altogether, like Vampire or Savage Worlds.
3. Find another group with which to play 4E.  (Note:  I’m not talking about dumping the guys;  they’re my friends, and nothing will change that.  D&D or no, we’re compatriots.)

So, is there something I’m missing?  A fourth, better option?  If not, which of these three is best?  Your thoughts are appreciated!

I can’t believe it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve worked on the new setting.  BAD DM.  Bad.

I think we’re to the point now where we can actually start putting together an outline for our first adventure.  I’m somewhat limited here because, well, I’m going to be running Lenryn as a 4E game (most likely.  Did you hear the trepidation there?  I’m slipping in my conviction that 4E will be good enough to switch.  But, we’ll save that for another time.)

If writing everything you have so far hasn’t inspired you to write an adventure yet, go back and re-read it all.  I’m certain that you will find something that jumps out at you.

For me, it is this figure of the Monty Fingers, the tiefling who is organizing a resistance against the eladrin elites.  I like this guy, and I think I can develop him into a thoroughly interesting recurring character.  So, let’s see if I can, today, put together some background for the first adventure using Monty Fingers:

Monty Fingers has, recently, begun recruiting members of his resistance organization in Halvinguard.  His most influential recruit is, to date, Arsaen, the captain of the town guard.  Arsaen has become disillusioned of late, realizing that it is unlikely that he will ever advance his station, regardless of how much he sucks up to the Eladrin in control of Halvinguard.  In fact, Arsaen actually sought out Monty Fingers, and has been performing covert operations for some time.

On the advice of Monty Fingers, Arsaen has recently stolen the RING OF DESTINY from the Quessa T’alel.  This ring is thought to hold extreme magical powers, and maintains some form of connection with other Eladrin bigwigs througout Lenryn.  Not suspecting Arsaen , Quessa T’alel has assigned him to find the ring and bring in the perpetrators, dead or alive. 

Unfortunately for the party, Arsaen intends to frame them for the theft.  To do so, he will have to accomplish three tasks:

1)  Plant the ring on one of the party members;
2)  Get one of the party members to demonstrate sympathy for Monty Fingers and his motives;
3)  Through the use of a memory-altering potion, transfer his memory of the theft to one of the party members.

To complicate matters, the party has previously come to the aid of Arsaen.  Arsaenhas a trusted reputation in Halvinguard, and it is not likely that he will soon be suspect. 

Arsaen calls the party in on the premise that they are to clear out a farm outside of town that has been overrun by goblins.  The farm is half a day’s ride away.  It is while the party is gone from town that he will commit his crimes. 

Upon arriving at the Farmhouse, the party will realized that it is empty and abandoned, and probably has been for years.  There is some sort of pestilence here such that nothing will grow within a square mile.  In fact, this pestilence is such that, should the party spend more than 2 hours here, they will have some sort of negative effect (to be determined once 4E core rules are released!)

Investigating the farmhouse thoroughly provides access to several location encounters:

The attic – old diseased woman, speaks only in rhyme, smells of decay

The cellar – slaughtered animals (1 week fresh) perhaps people?  Evidence of cultic activity of some sort.

The barn – Rats or some other appropriate feral creature.  This creature will have a natural immunity to the pestilence, and will be the party’s only hope of a cure – consuming the animal raw.

Field – formerly growing, now dead.  Closer inspection shows that the ground is not covered in dirt at all, but some sort of living material.  The dirt itself seems to be moving.

Upon returning to Halvinguard, there will be several event-based encounters.  I’ll be leaving these for another day, but it is worth thinking about something here:

On purpose, I’m combining some of the big adventure models.  I have a linear beginning (PCs have to get out of town for it to work at all).  I have location-based encounters at the farmhouse;  and I’m using event-based encounters on return.  See how I did that?

Truth is that my group and I really enjoy all three models.  I like the control that comes with linear and the momentum that comes with event-based.  Location-based encounters probably make the least sense to me as a DM, but they do have their uses.  The above use is a great example.

What about all of you?  What model or models to you prefer and use?

A while back, I wrote about how, as a DM, I tend to make one of the worst players.  I think this is pretty common among DMs.  It is a different feeling, being on the other side of the screen.

So, let me tell you about my character.  If you’re not interested, skip to the list down there at the end of the post.

A few years back, my wife ran a D&D campaign set in the Forgotten Realms, which we affectionately referred to as the “Flowers and Unicorns Campaign.”  Now, I’ve only ever played in a handful of campaigns in my life, but this one was by far my favorite.  Yep, I’m partial, but I think that most of the folks who played in that game had a good time.

That campaign was also the scene of the second scariest night I’ve ever had in D&D.

You see, I was playing an elven sorcerer.  His name was Boskan, and he was something of a wunderkind.  In fact, he and his sister, Yimsha, were thought to be the subjects of a prophecy spelling either the doom or the salvation of Faerun, depending on who you asked.  Boskan wasn’t especially powerful, but he had attitude.  See, Boskan had been raised by monks specifically to fulfill this prophecy.  He knew his destiny (or thought he did) and he was driven to fulfill it, regardless of the cost to anyone around him.

The difficulty for Boskan came in that he had never met Yimsha; the pair had been separated at birth (think Luke and Leia stuff here).  Yimsha was much more skeptical about the prophecy, as was the rest of the party.

Long story short (too late, I know) Boskan tended to rub everyone the wrong way.  He wouldn’t entertain any efforts to question his destiny, not even from Yimsha, and he was determined that they would fulfill their roles in history.

Now, here is where the metagame comes in.  I like to play ideologues when I do play.  My characters, more often than not, tend to be driven, and often arrogant.  Let’s just say that my characters tend to express the lesser angels of my nature.  Deep down inside, there’s a part of me that’s just an asshole.  My characters tend to take on that part of my personality perhaps more than any other part. 

Anyways, in the process of playing this role, I crossed lines.  I became heated, animated, and downright rude in character.  This probably would have been fine, except that the person playing Yimsha and I had, in the past, had some personality tussles in real life, and this aggravated those sensitive areas for both of us.

Before the night was over, Yimsha’s player’s husband nearly handed me my teeth, and my wife kicked the two of them out of our house.  It was the only time Angie has ever done that, and it was especially unfortunate given that Yimsha’s player and Angie were best friends.  In the long run, it was OK;  we had the two over the following day, and talked through the situation, and made nice.  But it’s still something of a sore spot, all these years later.

So, what’s the point?  Well, I think there are reasons that DMs often make the worst players.  (These don’t all apply to every DM, I realize, but I can only speak from personal experience):

• First, as DMs, we are used to creating conflict.  We run the bad guys, who argue with PCs, fight them, and are all-around pains in the ass to characters.  It’s our job to be challenging.
• Second, we are all too often inexperienced as players.  Mechanically, Boskan was weak, not for flavor’s sake, but because I didn’t build him right.  I built him the way I would have built a single encounter creature, and that didn’t play right.
• Because of this inexperience as players, we often display our lesser angels.  Most players figure out, in their first few characters, which of their own personality traits to project, and which ones to not project.  We’ve never had to go through this process of trial and error.  (My next character, by the way, was much less of an ass.)
• We also tend, as I talked about before, to mimic what we perceive to be player actions.  In other words, on some level, I am disruptive as a player because I’ve had disruptive players as a DM.  This isn’t a conscious decision, but I think it does happen from time to time.
• When we are playing, we can relax.  DMing can be hard work;  we feel like playing is something of a day off from the rigors of running the game.

So… how does your experience as a DM translate when you are on the other side of the screen?