Following Matt Mercer: How to be a better Dungeon Master

My favourite trick in the Dungeon Master toolbox is using a PC’s background in my campaign plot. It’s not a particularly uncommon move; Matt Mercer does it all the time, and he’s definitely not the first. It’s a nice way to develop detail in your world and further invest your players at the same time. Effective, simple, and not exactly rocket science, right?

But I’ve been thinking about that trick, lately, and I think maybe I’ve been missing what else is great about it. What if when you use a PC’s background, you’re actually changing the dynamics of the game altogether?

Let me state my case, here. Normally, Dungeons and Dragons has a hierarchy. At the top is the Dungeon Master. They control the world and everything in it bar the PCs, and even then, they usually have a lot of influence. Then there are the players. They create the PCs, they control the PCs, and that’s about it. But when the Dungeon Master takes elements of the PC’s backstory and brings it into play, that changes things. Suddenly, the Dungeon Master is running the players; world. It’s not the DM dictating to players, anymore. It’s the DM helping players to tell the story they want.

That’s a philosophy of Dungeons and Dragons, right there. But wait! I hear the traditionalists cry. That relies on my players always bringing me their character’s backstory! What if they don’t? What if they just show up with a character sheet, a funny name, and a set of dice?

And yeah, that happens. Some players aren’t into writing up their backgrounds. But you can still give them that sense of ownership. One of the great things about Dungeons and Dragons is how much character is built into the classes and races. To use the typical examples, look at a Half-Orc Barbarian with the Outlander background. As of yet, no subclass, but you don’t need one; this guy is clearly big and angry, he solves problems with violence and intimidation, and he’s a stranger in these parts. So use that. Maybe NPCs are afraid of him, just a little bit. Maybe the town guard follows him around in case he starts trouble. When he gets a critical hit, describe the brutality of what he’s doing, the sheer gory fury of it. It’s real simple stuff, but it plays into what the player gave you, and it makes his character creation matter to the story as well as the mechanics.

It’s important to remember your players are as much your collaborators as they are your audience. What does it hurt to delegate?

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