2023 in Retrospect and the Prospects of 2024

How to Be a Better DM: Dungeon Master Tips for the DM Newbie, the Hobbyist and the Forever DM

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM.

Today, Tanner and Justin talk about the joys of 2023 and what to look forward to in 2024. The transcript is below.

We also mention today's sponsor, Magic Mind.

Get 1 month free off of a 3 month subscription by going to https://www.magicmind.com/JANbetterdm and using the code BETTERDM20 at checkout!

Justin (00:03.449)

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM, the official podcast of Monsters.Rent. I'm your host today, Justin Lewis, here with Tanner Wayland, my brother in arms, my compadre, my colega. How's it going?

Tanner Weyland (00:18.222)

Such a good man. I'm so many things. I'm excited.

Justin (00:22.386)

Well, you are everything, but you're also Tanner. And that's exactly what we need. I'm being a little nostalgic today because today is the last podcast episode of 2023. Now I never thought we would get to 2023, right? Because you never see yourself moving forward in time. But I think today it would be ad propo, whatever that means, to take a look back.

Tanner Weyland (00:28.891)

Hahaha

Justin (00:50.253)

at 2023 and also take a look forward into 2024, maybe do some divination magic and see what the future holds for us. What do you think, Tanner?

Tanner Weyland (01:00.042)

I'm down for that. Yeah, let's, oh, go ahead, sorry.

Justin (01:01.773)

Excellent. Well, I was gonna say, let's start with 2023. And Tanner, if you want to kick us off.

Tanner Weyland (01:07.463)

Ciao.

Tanner Weyland (01:10.826)

I mean, yeah, just to on a personal note, it's been, it's been a busy year. One things have gotten busier with the podcast as we'll talk about, but also, uh, I mean, just personally got a dog. We got a house, uh, a house at the start of the year, dog halfway through the year, good old banjo. He's a, he's a cutie. He probably just heard me bless his heart. Um, but yeah, it's been a great Christmas season. Uh, Kirstie and I are doing well. Uh, otherwise, you know, just.

Things are busy, but we're keeping up over here. How about you, Justin?

Justin (01:42.841)

Yes, things are also busy for us. We had a baby. That's probably the biggest thing that happened to us personally this year, back in August, my wife and I had a baby. Funny story, for nine months, we thought the baby was gonna be a girl. The ultrasounds told us it was gonna be a girl. And then the baby came out as a boy. So check your ultrasounds, people. You don't wanna surprise like that. But having a baby has been very rewarding, very tiring.

both those things.

Tanner Weyland (02:13.962)

Yeah. And I mean, I believe that that's, that's the thing about kids. You get a lot from them, but, uh, they request everything from you.

Justin (02:22.277)

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, specifically talking about the podcast, we've had actually a really good year. It's been fun seeing the podcast grow. And one of my favorite things this year has been just in November, we had our highest download month. We had 5,000 downloads in the month, over 5,000 downloads, which is not a small thing, right? I think...

Most podcasts never get past 10 episodes, right? Just that's how it is statistically. And you're in the top 50% of podcasts if you get more than 100 listens on any episode within the first seven days, and we get around 200. So we're probably in the top 70% of podcasts maybe. Obviously it is kind of an exponential curve, but it's really cool to see the growth we're having. And more than that, I think is

you know, having people reach out and being like, yeah, you guys are helping us, you know, DM better or helping me. I just like listening to you guys. And it's just, it's fun to think, you know, we did something that people like, which in this day and age is pretty, pretty rare.

Tanner Weyland (03:40.914)

Yeah, you know, I think that it's a great thing just seeing that, you know, I don't think of us as any kind of exceptional people. Like, obviously, we have a lot of advice on being DMs, but it's nice to know that it's like, hey, if we and, you know, the guests we bring on, just share some of our thoughts, you know, think a little deeper about the individual parts of being a DM, then you can do really good work. It's kind of like a journaling in your personal life where it's like, yeah.

If you just spend a little bit more thought deconstruct things a little bit, uh, regurgitate it in a good way, then essentially you, you learn, there's a lot to learn from just a simple review of things. Right. And so that's, that's been kind of an interesting thing. And I've loved knowing that we're, we're helping people that way.

Justin (04:30.853)

Absolutely. I mean, even though we talk a lot about DMing, I would in no way, shape or form claim us to be the world's best DMs. Well, I can't speak for Tanner, but myself, I DMed just last night, and afterwards I was like, man, I need to get way better. But I'm sure that that's how a lot of people feel. And honestly, that's why how to be a better DM exists, because we want you to not feel that way instead. Finish the session being like, wow, that was so great. I'm just so happy.

Tanner Weyland (05:01.65)

Yeah, exactly. And you know, we try and change it up with the with the topics if you know, in the future, if you guys ever are like, hey, we want specific topics or types of content, like, we've considered, you know, reviewing

other people's games, you know, as they DM we considered a lot of different types of things. We always try and get on guests who we think would be valuable. But if any of you have any ideas, we of course welcome that.

Justin (05:32.785)

Yeah, actually, you can go on Instagram, look up at howtobetterdm or at monsters.rent, send us a message, suggestions, or even content that we missed in an episode. You know, if you think that a particular episode needs to be fleshed out a little bit more, definitely let us know. Or if, like Tanner said, you want us to basically, you know, commentate on your session, you just have to record your session and send it to us. But...

Really over this last year, like Tanner mentioned, we had some pretty great guests. I think one of my favorites was Victor Bovine. And that's mostly just because, you know, I kind of cut my teeth on the Forgotten Realms by listening to the Drizzt o'Urden series by R.A. Salvatore. And Victor Bovine was the voice actor, right? And so, you know, his voice for me is Drizzt o'Urden. And it was really cool to, you know, to listen to him. It was also fun, you know, hanging out with Andy from WeGeek together. And,

having like that live podcast feel, which is kind of rare for us just because our guests are mostly not in the same locale. Though I do think, you know, moving into the next year, I think it would be cool to have more and more in-person guests if we can get them.

Tanner Weyland (06:47.254)

Yeah, agreed. Like Andrew, he was great. Cause I mean, you should have seen all the technical issues we had going into that. Cause we, we weren't onsite, you know, we, we didn't do it at either of our places or at a studio, we went to we geek together, you know, his store set up there, just so many technical issues getting it set up. And then once it was finally done, it was just cool to actually have a chill conversation and we even thought that we had lost like the, the recording and we found it. And so like that one.

I think I'm nostalgic for it from like a trauma standpoint because it was like both you had the bitter and the sweet you know but that one was memorable for me

Justin (07:26.663)

Yeah.

Justin (07:29.817)

Agreed, agreed. Also, we want to say thank you to everyone who participated with us in the one-shots of last year. We know that they weren't as periodic. They didn't happen every month. But we were grateful to you for joining us and having fun with us, even amidst the technical difficulties of the one-shots. I know the last one that I did, very technically difficult.

And hopefully in the next year we can have more one-shots and more people join. Even if there are opportunities for live one-shots in person, if there's a group of listeners here in the Utah region, we can get together and do a one-shot that way. That would be fun, I think. But again, just wanted to say thank you for everyone who participated and also for all the guest DMs we've had over the last couple of years.

Tanner Weyland (08:24.298)

Yeah, absolutely. It's always fun seeing you guys, meeting you guys, and also just playing. We learn a lot every time that we do, because it's one thing playing with a party that you've played with consistently. Playing with a new one always is such a learning experience. So thank you for being, I mean, our friends and our guinea pigs to some extent. So thank you.

Justin (08:48.895)

Yeah

Absolutely. Another great thing that we did this year was the guild. And the guild is sort of a kind of collaboration between the podcast and Monsters.Rent. And really it's all the same thing, but just for your information, the guild is basically a free community that the goal is to connect people.

who are like-minded in the same space, but also give them resources and things like that, right? We have the beginning of a Dungeon Mastering course, and we have some downloadable resources available online through the guild, again, all free. And for me, the coolest thing of the guild has been, one, seeing people slowly kind of come in, right? And every new person that enters the guild adds so much to everyone who's already there, and...

hopefully to themselves, but also seeing the collaboration between the people within the guild, seeing people talk about homebrew monsters that they're working on or puzzles that they found. It's just really cool to sort of sit back and see you guys, because if we could bottle up all of your knowledge and experience, I think that would be way more informational and helpful than what we can say.

And it's frankly just kind of a treat just to be kind of on the receiving end of that.

Tanner Weyland (10:18.93)

Yeah, absolutely. That one's been just fun seeing like it's growing slowly because we haven't been doing it that long. But but every time it does then you feel you know, like, like you each new person is like a measurable help to everyone else. And I love that.

Justin (10:35.013)

Yeah, yeah. It's also growing slowly, I'd say, because I don't know about you, Tanner, but I have no idea how to do Discord, right? Like, I don't know technically very well. But also, I'm not like a people person, per se, so it's kind of a stretch for me being like, yeah, welcome, let's talk about these things. So it's definitely a new experience.

Tanner Weyland (10:58.962)

Yeah, absolutely. So thank you for your patience with us, if you are a part of that. And if you're not, come join, you know? Add to the milieu, as the French say, of the voices and everything. For us, I mean, probably the thing that's made me busiest this year is, I mean, aside from the podcast in general, it's Monsters.Rent. You guys have heard us talk about that, you know, for a hot second now. But...

Yeah, it's just been kind of an eye opening experience where it's like, yeah, there's a lot more to a, uh, miniature rental business than you'd think. Uh, but it's, it's had a lot of, uh, a lot of ups, some downs, but, um, you know, I think for me, like, uh, a big up was just, you know, at the start, there's always a question when you're starting kind of like a side venture, a side project.

of like, okay, how much do we throw ourselves into it at the start? And do we do it slowly? Do we just jump in and, you know, see if we can swim? And I think we got a good experience with that with the dead wars that we geeked together through, through back in, was it May?

Justin (12:14.773)

I think it was May, April, around there.

Tanner Weyland (12:17.25)

May, April. Yeah. Because you know, we, we made and painted like, what it was like 200 minis for that. And then beyond that, we, like we went to the show, we had a booth, you know, we got a sign printed, you know, we kind of put our best foot forward. And that was kind of a an interesting experience. I really like that.

Justin (12:26.345)

200. Yep.

Justin (12:43.293)

Yeah, I think it was fun for us because it helps solidify kind of the real business aspect. When you start a business, it's sort of like in your head until it goes out in public, right? Once you start getting people signed up and people buying things from you, then you're like, wow, this is like a real business. And for me, that was just really fun. It was also sort of...

kind of validation, talking to a lot of people saying, yeah, this is like a really great idea. Now, obviously, people saying that and people buying whatever you have to sell, two very different things, but it was a big event for us. And I think it did move us forward, at least in maturity, business-wise, right? But another kind of highlight was when we sort of upgraded our boxes, and we're still sort of working on this process actually,

Tanner Weyland (13:33.303)

Yeah.

Justin (13:41.001)

the inside of the boxes, but we started using these wooden boxes that were kind of custom designed. They have the Monsters.Rent logo and everything on them. Actually, if you go to our website on mobile, you can see there's like a cover image of a video that actually displays the box really well on the homepage. But those boxes are pretty sweet. And honestly, just the box itself is like cool enough that...

someone should like want to buy it, but I mean, who knows?

Tanner Weyland (14:13.798)

Yeah, exactly. That was, it's kind of nice having a little bit more individuality, uh, to our products, cause that's what we hope to do. The priority obviously is just like, Hey, we want to make easily accessible and rentable minis, you know, that are affordable so that people don't have to, you know, buy a bunch that just sit around cause they don't want to reuse same minis all the time, but it's also nice to, you know, make a little bit more of an individual product that way. Uh, I've really enjoyed, uh,

beyond that, also we've just gotten some really good help, like some amazing help from a few influencers. And obviously, you know, it's more in the D&D space and the, you know, but we really like Bennett and Courtney, Bennett, you, if you don't follow him, you should, you absolutely should. He's at, he's at the Ben Chewie, C-H-E-W-Y. And Courtney, she's at the Curly.

K U R L I G I R L I cosplay. So it's the Curly Gurly Cosplay. They've both been so helpful, honestly. We really loved the videos that they put out for us and kind of having that partnership set up. And if you haven't heard of them, go check them out, because they're great.

Uh, regardless though, we're so grateful for them and everyone else who's been helpful along the way, because you know, we've, we've worked with quite a few people, some people haven't been able to keep working with us, uh, like just because of time constraints or, or other things, and we're just so grateful for anyone who's, you know, put any time into this and, and also to any of you who, you know, gave us a shot. And so we were truly appreciative for that.

Justin (16:02.737)

Absolutely. Uh, probably the biggest thank you that we can give from a monsters.rent is to the current users of it, uh, the people who are sticking with us regardless of, you know, how many technical hiccups we have or, or how, uh, non user friendly the website may or may not be at any given moment because, you know, it's always in flux, um, and actually, you know, Bennett going back to that.

Uh, the video, he made us a video and you can see that video on the homepage right now, if you, if you go there, uh, it's a pretty sweet video, uh, really well done, so definitely go to at the Ben Chewie on Instagram, tick talk and you know, give them a follow, but I think another cool thing that really for us has been just kind of a treat has been the ability to accumulate or have the ability to produce something like over a hundred

different minis, including 12 bundles of different themed minis. And seeing the different files and things has been really fun and nice. We actually signed up for the commercial license of someone on my mini factory. Right. And that's allowed us to kind of accumulate these minis and they're really well done. But I think moving forward, we have hopefully, you know, some other plans. We'll tell you that in a second.

But anything else you want to talk about in terms of 2023?

Tanner Weyland (17:30.606)

Uh, mostly I, one thing that we forgot to mention with the podcast was just sponsorships really, because we've been, you know, one nice thing is we, we like putting out the podcast, uh, up till now though, we like, with a couple exceptions, it hasn't really made us money, you know, which we're happy to still do it, but it's nice that the sponsorships allow it to be more of a long-term thing.

And like for example, Magic Mind. Honestly, we've been working with them recently and they've been so helpful and supportive and we just really appreciate that.

Justin (18:10.909)

Yeah. Uh, when they first reached out, um, and this is sort of a little bit behind the scenes, like how the sausage is made kind of deal. Obviously the podcast costs money every month for the hosting and things like that. It costs us time. And, you know, we really love it. And. We, if we do the podcast, we can't do other things that might provide for us financially, you know, for our families and things like that. Tanner has a wife and a dog. I have a wife and a dog and a baby.

So we can't do this all day every day just because we have jobs. When Magic Mind reached out and they're like, yeah, we'd like to partner with you. Honestly, it sounded a little bit too good to be true. So I was like, is this real? Just because I've had people, on Instagram you always get those people are like, yeah, you're woman of the year. And I'm like, I'm a man. So they were like, yeah, we'd like to work with you guys. And

through the whole process, they've just been so nice. And to me, it shows me really what's behind their product, which is Magic Mind, it's a productivity shot, but it shows kind of the culture of their company. With our first sort of promotion, it was kind of a little creative, I was a little nervous of how they'd receive it, and we sent it over, and our contact over there was just like, yeah, this is so great, she was just so praising of us, that to me, again, it just showed

if they are that excited and that emotional and energetic about, you know, the promotion, then that's obviously what's behind the productivity shot, Magic Mind, which is, you know, a subscription for it's supposed to replace your coffee or your...