The beauty of running tabletop role-playing games as a Dungeon Master is that you're practically guaranteed to run your games differently from everyone else. Professional DMs — like Matthew Mercer, Aabria Iyengar, and Brennan Lee Mulligan — are no exception to this, which is why their styles and narrative approach can be so interesting to watch for aspiring DMs.

Mercer’s style of DMing has inspired other players for years, so much so that the Mercer Effect — where new players expect their TTRPG games to run exactly like Critical Role's setup — remains a hot topic in RPG communities. That said, I’m certainly not immune to picking up tips and tricks from Mercer, and there is one vital rule in particular that, regardless of your style, all DMs should add to their arsenal.

The latest episode of Critical Role's current miniseries, Age of Umbra: Sallowlands, has Mercer leading his cast of Elden Ring-esque vagabonds across a blistering desert region, where they're quickly caught up in a dust storm. As the players ruminate on what to do next, Sister........

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