You crawl forward slowly, every inch causing you pain. The last thing you remember is investigating a cabin in the woods with your friend before he stabbed you in the back and left you for dead. After falling down a ridge you crawled yourself to this cave seeking shelter. You can feel yourself bleeding out. You look forward into the darkness of the cave. It’s hopeless. Desperate, you cry out, “Help! Please, anyone.” More blood comes out of your mouth than sound. You hear silence. Then, you see two pinpricks of light in the darkness. Small points of maroon light emanate from within the darkness. You crawl towards them only to discover a small statue, featureless except for two ruby eyes. You touch it. It is then that you hear a voice.

“You…. are…. Dying…..” The voice is timeless and deep. It fills you with dread.

“Please help me.” You manage to whisper. The red eyes pulse.

“A…. trade…”, the voice says.

“What…. Do you want?”

Silence.

“I… Desire… Service….”

“Who… ugh...are you?”

“Nameless… I...can...save...you…”

You think for a moment. You remember the betrayal of your best friend. “Can… you grant ugh...me… power?”

Silence.

“What….do...you...desire….?”

“Ugh….. REVENGE!”

The red eyes pulse. “I...will...grant...you...revenge!”

You come back to yourself. It was just a memory. You face the half-elf druid you just met. She repeats her question, “What’s your story?”

You smile. “I’m just a simple man from a small town. Not much to tell.”

Welcome back to the 3rd episode of How to Be a Better DM. We’re here to help you create better stories for you and your players while you dungeon master a nice session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Today let’s talk about one of the first steps in playing DND: finding players. Here are a few tips to finding players for your group.

Start with your family

A family that plays together stays together. If you can get your significant other to play with you, it can make for some great experiences. Nowadays, spending time with family can be so hard. A nice 4 hour session is a great way to get everyone involved in each other’s lives. Just make sure you do other things as a family too.

Share your interests with other people

When people ask you what you like to do, don’t be afraid of actually sharing your interests. Own it. You’ll be surprised who will tell you, “I’ve wanted to try that for some time.”

Your local game shop

There are lots of comic book stores or game shops that have free games that you can join. That’s a great way to find people who also want to play and are even willing to go to public places to meet complete strangers to play. Win-win.

Social media

Pay attention to the things other people post about. That should clue you into some of their interests. Just reach out and see if they’d be interested. If you really want you can just post yourself and see if anyone responds.

Ask for referrals

You can ask your friends to see if they know anyone who’d want to play. If you don’t know someone, they definitely do.

Be ok with few players

Let me tell you from experience, once you start with a few people adding people gets pretty easy. People just seem to come out of the woodwork. So maybe you just start with 2 players. Eventually, more players will come around. Just find a few willing participants and get to adventuring.

Thanks for listening to today’s show. I hope you find it enjoyable and useful. Tell me about your DMing adventures as well as any ideas you have for the show. Reach out to me @geronimolevis on Instagram. Also make sure you follow the show so you never miss an episode. We’ll see you next week. Until then, let’s roll initiative.

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