Want To Practice Your Management Skills? Try Being a Dungeon Master
<p>Earlier this winter, a group of friends and I were chatting about Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition). A few had played previously, and some were brand new, but all were interested in getting a campaign together.</p>
<p>We started with a one-shot, a self-contained adventure that takes 3–4 hours, to test the waters. I played the role of the Dungeon Master and was tasked with putting the adventure together (I’m now likely the Forever DM).</p>
<p>We’re now four sessions in (two one-shots, and two sessions into a full campaign), and I began noticing similarities between DM’ing and being a manager. That’s when it hit me that this game was a strange bridge between my day job and my high-fantasy RPG brain.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, I was <em>managing </em>a whole game world, and the NPCs within, while letting three unpredictable adventurers run wild, keeping them within the guardrails of the rules, and moving some semblance of a story forward. These were all ways to practice my role as a manager and director, something that is tough to come by in the business world.</p>
<p>Forever DMs might roll their eyes at this article saying, “you’re four sessions in, you don’t know enough of the pain or suffering to write this.” Totally possible, but I imagine there will be many parts to this post in the future, so here are a few high-level learnings.</p>
<p><a href="https://betterprogramming.pub/want-to-practice-your-management-skills-try-being-a-dungeon-master-3f2fb2202c08"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>