This week we caught up with Rolldark Professional Game Master Nayomie Jade and discussed what she loves about being a professional DM.

There’s been a great resurgence with D&D over these last couple of years, though it seems more people are drawn to playing characters rather than Dungeon Masters. What happened when you first realised you wanted to be a Game Master?

It took a little while because I didn’t view myself as a writer,  but then I just kept having ideas for games and it was inevitable. Once I felt I had a good grasp of the rules, I felt way more confident diving in. I made this huge homebrew world which I loved but had to leave behind for a bit, then I discovered the joy of prewritten modules!

So when you have had the chance to play as a player character in the past, which aspect of the game did you enjoy the most?

I am a huge fan of the roleplaying aspect. I love a juicy social encounter that a party can completely mess up in a hilarious way. Even better when we actually do well! It makes for the best stories and funniest in jokes.

Every Rolldark professional Game Masters has a performance background, why do you think your own helps you when running a game?

A lot of it is not feeling self conscious about messing things up. I came up in education and devised performance and a lot of that training was about not worrying if something goes wrong or you look foolish. There’s a ‘yes and…’ attitude that all good performers have which means that you can come up with really cool ideas and concepts on the fly. It means players can have true agency in your world, because they are actually changing it.

Being a School Teacher, you've no doubt seen what joy this game can give to children and young adults, do you have any meaningful examples of this?

In the D&D club I run at the school I teach in, we are seeing a slow but sure change happen with a group of students. When a student came to join, they were not very liked by other students in their form class. Others were very worried about playing with them. However, the student in question is really benefiting from the structure of the game and those in their form class are really enjoying playing together now. They are starting to see the value in different ways of thinking and acting which is a lesson that is so hard to get through to people that young with words alone.

A lot of players are often put off by all the rules in D&D, do you have any advice for those players that are perhaps hesitant to get stuck in?

The DM’s job is to mediate with rules. I know that if you ask a Rolldark DM if you can do something, they will figure out the rules so you can. Focus on learning the rules you need for your class and spells and let your DM do the rest. You’ll pick it up eventually and don’t be afraid to ask questions. No one whose table you want to be at is going to be mad at you for asking questions. It’s a game! It’s meant to be fun!