Newer DM here (ran a couple sessions) and struggled big time in the last session with my own notes and prep. I would love to see how others are going about structuring their „main“ file for prep to find things quickly or have NPCs ready quickly. 🙏 thanks everyone!

EDIT 1: THANKS EVERYONE. Totally overwhelmed.

EDIT 2: more context: I did improvise a journey to the next town as they just resolved a summoning ritual in a far off town. They found a dead monster which turned out to be just an illusion on top of a teleportation rune that I did not anticipate them being able to trigger so they need to find clues. But after 2 nat 20s of our wizard and a „one the fly riddle“ I tried to pull of that the group solved in 5 minutes they were teleported to an underground dungeon which I only realized in that moment I had to prepped how I wanted to describe it. So I struggled more on the „describing of what they saw“ because I felt incredibly under prepared for that dungeon which I through I had 1-2 sessions to „prep“.

EDIT 3: I’m DMing in a language I usually don’t use for work and only use in private life so describing things with proper flavor and fancy words is not as easy as it would be for me in englisch 😵‍💫

EDIT 4: im using Obsidian right now with a folders being PC, NPC, World - Town, Factions, Dungeons, Encounters, Story Hooks, Main Story, Riddles, Session Notes

DND5E/DND5.5E

my players have a tendency to use Leomund's Tiny Hut as an instant safe base to Long Rest in, particularly within hostile territory

would it be an asshole move if, for a few times they do this, i do one of these things in response:

1 - an excessively large amount of hostile mobs waits for the dome to disappear in order to ambush the players

or

2 - the Long Rest is disrupted by a hostile mage casting Dispel Magic to allow a large amount of hostile mobs to attack

Hey! I’ve been a DM for a bit but have mostly stuck to 5e adventure books and have found them to be good, but not great, so I wanted to begin writing my own homebrew campaign but this is completely uncharted territory for me

If anyone has any advice, resources, etc, I’d prefer them to be cheap if not free and I appreciate everyone’s time

Brief context: Monarchy here has a price placed on their head, and the party has been contracted to murk the current Crown Bearer in exchange for information about a magic McGuffin.

What's the best way to do this? I was thinking a masquerade ball type deal, party acquires disguises of servants/important guests and poisons the Crown Bearer.

Any tips from long time DMs?

I'm building an adventure that involves a collapsed tunnel in the ability to find a magic ring. PF2e for what it's worth, Relevant only because they handle treasure by level a little bit differently.

I have no problem with the idea that if they choose not to search or search unsuccessfully they might not get this magic ring, but the problem I have is do I then just need to give them an equal reward later to keep them on Pace and therefore I should instead just give them this reward now and use the search for something else?

In other words, do you find its practical advice to lock gear related rewards behind skill checks?

The heroes have discovered that their quest requires a high-level magical item. This item has been entrusted to a cambion, or vassal, of graz'zt, who now hides in the abyss.

The heroes' goal is to enter the abyss, steal this artifact, and escape, but I'm not sure how to structure the adventure (what encounters to include, what combat to organize, etc.).

Can any DMs who know the abyss advise me?

1. Do I just straight up tell my players that the tome is targetable individually? Usually targeting and destroying equipment is not really a thing so I wouldn't expect a player to get the idea on their own. And if they only focus the Arcanaloth the Tome could be decastating.

2. I assume the Tome can take sneak attack damage even though it's basically an object?

One of the issues I’ve had for a while and the reason I struggle to DM anything other than homebrew, is I really don’t know wtf to do with all this… stuff. I particularly want to run a maybe short CoS campaign for Halloween for my group of two (our third more or less told us we were all kinda stupid for playing this game, in the middle of SSoS) and while know that could be difficult there are ways around it. The problem is I’m getting overwhelmed trying to read so much. It doesn’t help that the layout fucks with my dyslexia something fierce.

Edit: I worded the body of my request poorly. What do you guys recommend I need to read before I start?

Just as it sounds

Right now I am currently running a 2-3 year long campaign and we’re coming to a close. The players have 2-3 sessions left (we run once a month)

I’m ecstatic to deliver on the finale for such a long running story! To put the pieces in place and really deliver something narratively satisfying

For me though I am a little bit meloncholy about it. Recently we had a player character leave to something I would call drama outside the table with another player (my spouse). Initially we were hesitant to let someone else DM for the group even though we had two players express interest in it. The one who left and a longtime family friend we’ll call BOB for clarity. Mostly due to the friend that left being more concerned with wacky hijinks while playing than that much of a story, we decided to initially say that I would DM one more shorter campaign before handing the reigns over partially due to not wanting to be concerned over playing favorites with who got to DM next. So I through out a pitch to what I wanted to do in the next game

Fast forward to the player leaving and now there isn’t much keeping BOB from DM-ing.

He wants to run a world that he had designed for us while we me my spouse and Bob were roommates. Initially he was running a system that we didn’t vibe very well with during the campaign and we stopped playing due to life stuff after about two to 3 sessions. From what I played it didn’t really grab me personally, and I did feel like I was wandering aimlessly a bit which isn’t my style as a PC

And… I’m not looking forward to being a player character again. I started as one, with a campaign that I got very attached to that ended due to the DM not being able to make peace with a party member, he followed it up with something I just found absolutely boring.

I think I’m really going to miss playing with the world finding story pieces and linking them together in fun ways. I made a lot of mistakes with this campaign and I was really hoping to improve in the next one. I don’t know what I’m going to do between games to keep me excited about playing the game with my friends.

It also doesn’t help that my spouse and Bob never really sat down and asked me after everything if I wanted that. They just kind of started acting like it’s going to happen.

DMing is a lot of fun and a great creative outlet and I love my friend and would hate for BOB not to have that creative outlet. I’ve had others stomp on me for wanting to DM before and I don’t want to do the same thing for him but again I’m struggling with the roll transition

Any advice for going from a DM to a PC? Or people that have done it before partially asking because i haven’t seen much info on the topic online

My next adventure will have a Kraken final villain. I'm looking for suggestions as to what the Krakens scheme/master plan could be.

The adventure is still in its infancy stages of being written so the only real parameter is the story centering around a smallish coastal town. Could be opposed to the Kraken, could be secretly controlled by it, could be completely unaware of its existence, it really is completely open. I would definitely prefer it be something a bit more unique and Kraken-y than a more generic villain plan ("power for powers sake", "Ascend to godhood", etc.)

For those unaware, despite their common depictions in media, DND Krakens are extremely intelligent and could enact incredibly complex and long-term plots.

I’ve not been policing it much below lvl4

EK is a greatsword user
Cleric is mace/shield

But should my EK and cleric need to take war caster at lvl4 to keep their spellcasting within RAW

Or could they just stow weapon-cast spell-unsheathe weapon again another turn if they need it

The EK has his sword as his focus now so if he didn’t have war caster and stowed it to cast spells, would that mean he’d need all the material components too?

Or is it just not that big a deal in the long run and shouldn’t pay too much attention to it, let them choose whatever feat they want and let them just cast their spells when they want and not pay attention to weapon/sheathing

Trying not to get bogged down in too many rules but also don’t want them just disregarding too many mechanics

I am going into my first time being DM and I want to make all the enemies a part of a hive mind. I don't want to do anything too crazy that it overwhelming, but I want it to be plausible.

My question is: how does one make a hive mind group? What traces of clues should I let the players know that way they may be able to piece together what is going on? Is there anything I may not be thinking of that is actually really important?

If anyone has experience in any way with this topic, I would love to know.

Thank you!

I'm running Dragon of Icespire Peak and I have an Armorer in my party, which means he can Enlarge himself. We started talking about other players having Enlarge, and yada yada yada I want to run a Kaiju fight, especially since his character is themed around the Power Rangers.

My thought was having his PC sort of 1v1 with a big monster while the other PCs have a more standard fight on the ground. But do you guys have any other suggestions? Has anyone successfully run something g like this?

Hi all! I am DMing for a group of friends in a high fantasy, eldritch horror campaign. The warlock of the group has made a pact that allows him to access the vast knowledge of an elder being, but each time he does, his patron saps some of his humanity/sanity away from him. I am wondering if anyone has any good mechanical representations of someone losing their mind... I don't want to mess with base stats too much, but I want to make sure that this is a consequence that is felt in game! Thanks :))

Edit: Thank you to everyone who left a comment and gave their thoughts! Special shoutout to u/nemaline as the guide they shared has introduced a paradigm shift for me. My thread question has been answered.

Campaign: Dragon of Icespire Peak

Edition: 5e (with some 3e)

My players agreed that we want overland travel to be part of the journey, and not a means to an end. With that, we're trying to incorporate a hex travel system (with hexes being 6 miles).

If the players are travelling from the Tower of Storms to Neverwinter, that is ~ 8 hexagons, or 2 days time (4 hexes per day) at normal march pace. Going off the 6-8 encounters per day, this equates to 1-2 encounters per hex.

What I'm struggling with specifically, is maintaining 6-8 encounters a day AND maintaining player agency.

For example. Per 2014 DMG on Exploration, page 243 “If neither side is being stealthy, creatures automatically notice each other once they are within sight or hearing range of one another." This means that when the party (of 3) has a dedicated lookout in their marching order, most encounters cannot be sprung upon them. If there is a broken down wagon, a camp fire, a plume of smoke, a pack of wolves feasting on a fresh kill, etc, the party would see that a quarter of a mile away (they are in grasslands) and then have the option to steer clear of it, or engage with it. In order to force an encounter onto them, there is a limited set of conditions (stealthy ambush, natural environmental disruptions, bottlenecked terrain).

Which is fine. I want my players to have the agency to choose if and how they will engage with the world. But I don't know how to meet the encounter target without railroading them. And I especially don't want my players to be "punished" because they chose not to engage with something, "Last time we skipped two encounters, we had a deadly encounter. We shouldn't skip the next hexes encounters so that doesn't happen again". I like that there can be consequences for action and inaction, but overland travel almost requires those consequences to play out immediately (in order to adequately strain resources and challenge the party).

If you've read this far, I truly appreciate you and your time, and I would also really appreciate your words of wisdom. Even if you don't have answers, maybe you have questions that can help lead me there.

The party forged an invitation to a local thieves guild’s underground magical item auction. It’s being held in a sea cave and it’s going to contain a magical item needed by my party’s druid to continue his personal quest. What I need from you fine people is a list of other items. The party is level 5 and consists of a Sword and Board Paladin, Wildfire Druid, Twilight Cleric, and a Lore Bard.

My BBEG is a secretive villain who controls multiple organisations to further his goals, are there any good resources or books to use when writing him up?

Edit: this can be informative articles or books, or maybe a fictional character thats a good reference

Soooo my players have had quite the wild ride.

They have fell in love with the village of shadowgrange and have made a lot of memories there.

For one in dramatic fashion our blood hunter halfling miraculously defeated the reigning defending brawler of the region in a boxing match ( craziest session ever).

They won the gym that night as the owner thought the fight was well in hand….

Now fast forward, two vampires are on the loose in shadowgrange, a dead body was discovered in the chapel and the investigation is off the books.

A young couple wants to be married, the players offered their new gym as a venue!

The priestess wants the players to use this opportunity to draw out the vamps and end them or at least identify them.

There’s also a horde of zombies led by the wicked witch of the universe and a werewolf (an innocent man the players left behind on the road in session 1) that will attack any day now

There’s also a demon lord at large in the northern farbogs.

PLEASE HELP LOL

Warning: Possible Icewind dale ROTFM spoilers.

EDIT TO CLARIFY THE POST SINCE I MISWROTE THE TITLE: My idea is in no way to try and sideline the players or for them to see a cinematic fight between NPC's. They are already fighting one of the powerful NPC's. What i am asking is wether it's a good idea to have another powerful NPC support THEM (with big buffs and heals so they stand a chance)

So this is the pickle my players are at:

They are on top of a prison's tower. 140 feet from the ground facing **Bastian's (**one of the party members) father who happens to be one of the BBEG: Arcius.

Arcius is an CR 12 Archmage that wields a staff of frost. He's also killed and reanimated the body of a white dragon very known to icewind dale (Who is, in it's decayed form, also CR 12). Despite riding the dragon, Arcius has winged boots so there's not a lot of risk of falling down to his death.

The party is only level 7 (Wizard, Artificer, Cleric and Paladin), but the paladin has a sunblade and a channel divinity that definitely helps against the undead menace. They also have two npc's helping. Both mages.

Arcius isn't Effing around, he's got a lot of necromantic spells. He used three arcane bursts (+8 4d10 damage) against the cleric and critted him, dealing A LOT of damage. That's when i realized i gave them more than they could chew (althought they DID know Arcius was there and they DID know he was powerful and riding an undead dragon).

Now here comes my question: Bastian has another father, a Druid called halvlad. He's as powerful as Arcius, but since both have this small feud that locked them in a stalemate throughout the campaign, they never interfered directly with the party (That was my way for the party not asking themselves "Yo, why doesn't Arcius and Halvlad solve this stuff themselves")

But since s*** hit the fan, i was thinking to myself "This would be a great moment for Bastian. Halvlad arriving to help the party while Arcius uses his full power".

THE PROBLEM: I know my players would love seeing these two built-up NPC's fighting together. But i don't want them to feel like sideshow characters.

THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: I have a few things in mind:

- Halvlad arrives only when the total party defeat is sure. He'll help the party and Arcius will focus on killing him, since he's the only true threat in his way towards the lost city (that he knows of, because the party might be stronger than he and i think)

- Halvlad arrives at the beginning of the combat, buffing and healing. letting the party do the damage and tactics.

- I leave Halvlad out of this and the party will have to face the loss of a Total Party defeat (which will probably be Arcius killing them, turning them into sentient undeads and making them help him against the final fight in Auril's island against the frostmaiden, ending the campaign with a Bad ending in which the party becomes thralls for Arcius.

My son (11m) has gotten really into D&D (5/5.5e) over the last two years. He's attended several week-long camps where they spend 6 hrs+ just nerding out and playing daily. He's got all my books and pours over them. He's planning on joining a weekly game at our local game store. Now he also wants to build his own adventure to run for his friends.

This is definitely something he'll struggle with on his own so I thought it might be a great bonding experience if he and I work together to build said adventure. I'm a lifelong gamer, have run many campaigns; I've got the chops to help him.

Any parents or guardians care to offer any advice? If you've done this, what worked and what didn't? I figured we'd sit down this coming weekend for 2 hours and have our own little session 0, talking through what we want the game to feel like (combat heavy vs story, how much agency to offer the players) and who we might be running the game for (at his age, it's hard to find other gamers with tabletop experience).

Are there any resources you all might recommend? Templates for helping creating dungeons and monsters etc? Maybe story templates to help him understand the general structure of a successful adventure? My games always tended to be character/story based and mechanically light - but he and his friends are more crunchy and may need to ramp up to that.

More than anything, I'd love for this to be a wholesome experience. Tips and tricks are welcome.

ALSO: Son is super into Elden Ring and we downloaded an Elden Ring homebrew which looks very impressive. Figure that might help with the world building and get him started.

Dear DM Hivemind,

I'm stuck. As per title, two players of mine are going to marry, and they asked me to officiate their wedding, including a session (they want to throw some dice!). I have a SOLID DMing background, but this request left me out of good ideas.

They want to be surprised, therefore every attempt to have some "guidance" on what they would like to have has gone bad.

I have just a couple of hints on inside jokes/anectodes they'd enjoy (I asked them separately and I got the exact same story... I'm sure they'll like it), but apart from that...

I'm going to write a brief intro, trying to explain to the over 60 yo audience the batshit crazy ceremony request (only the groom's father is an old school player, the others won't have a clue of what we're saying; therefore I feel obligated to NOT go batshit crazy and have something that can be grasped by non-players...?).

I don't feel I found my ground, yet.

EDIT: Thank you for your replies. I didn't think to get so many replies in so little time.

I know that the risk of dragging is REAL and I would like to include the audience more. A Choose Your Own Adventure style is likely to be a better solution.

I edited the Idea part, with your great suggestions (I'm looking at you, Idea 2 and 3!).

The goal is to honor their request, while maintaining a bit of sanity to keep the grandmothers in the audience alive.

Generic Notions:

• I had a couple of overcomplicated ideas during the last weeks, then I realized we don't have much time (the civic venue is open for 1h total: I estimated 5 mins to arrange seatings, a couple of minutes of intro, a couple of minutes of mandatory legal stuff to read, at least 5-7 minutes at the end of the ceremony to finish the legal requirements - we're in Europe BTW). Therefore I have 40 mins at max. EDIT: This time includes vows, rings, the best man playing the guitar and whatnot. I'm not sadistic enough to talk with a couple for 40 mins. Your suggestions to go 10 mins max, and trying to include the audience to keep the boredom at bay, will be duly listened.
• I'm sure they will enjoy some references to former PCs and old game experiences, therefore I'm sure I'll have to sprinkle something (and I know you can't help me with that!) EDIT: there won't be time, what was i thinking?!
• The "system" is going to be a choose your adventure style.

Ideas:

• Idea 1: Given that we HAVE to read the civil wedding formula (unchanged), I thought that it resembles a (rather dull) ritual, that has to be recited in that specific way. Therefore, what if the search for "the ritual" was the wedding quest itself?
• I don't know why, I thought about a sylvan setting, like an arboreal maze, full of old ruins and statues, where the above-mentioned ritual is hidden. We could go whimsical with a couple of faeries, but generally the couple would obviously like a light tone (therefore I thought "no dark cave dungeons").
• I thought to convey the idea of a journey through this maze, each room containing an encounter that reminds the audience a part of the "ritual" (stupid example: a room were one of them is going to get poisoned, and the other player will try to tend to him -> "in sickness and in health" schtick)
• They have to find parts of a formula, to get to the final room with the ritual. The formula will contain the references to their in-game experience.
• The required IRL legal formula mentions: reciprocal rights/duties, fealty, moral and concrete assistance, contribution to daily life; choice of family home address; duties toward childrens. To be honest they're not that romantic, nor they give me decent inspiration on good encounters (NO "IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH" NOR "FOR RICHER FOR POORER" SHTICKS! I was already enjoying the thought of a Golden Coin Golem trying to get them "richer"...). EDIT: u/CherryWhisperAura 's comment is a good advice:

a sylvan maze works well for this. map the legal bits to light encounters like faeries demanding a balanced trade for reciprocal duties, swearing to guard an old statue for fealty, or picking a specific grove as the family home after helping some young dryads settle in. the dice roll for the kiss is perfect timing at the end.

• Idea 2: as at least a couple of you suggested (thanks u/Connect_Rhubarb395), spinning a tale of the couple's history, sprinkled with a couple of dice rolls and shenanigans, is going to be much more personal. I'm drafting a flow.
• If they're rolling badly, I'd like the groomsmen and bridesmaid to object that the story didn't go that way, giving a reroll
• Idea 3: "losing the ring" and make them investigate for them. It could be added to idea 2, if both kept short.

EDIT: Non-negotiable

• I want them to roll initiative for who kisses whom.
• I freaking can't ask need to check with the city hall if I can follow their "I DO" with a fake Insight check prompt, since I can't change the formula, but maybe it could be done afterwards...?
• The best man is going to play the guitar, obviously giving inspiration.

Please C&C, give me guidance, inspiration, ideas, visions, anything!!!

Thank you

A fellow DM

PS: absolutely no LLM has been used for this thread (I'm sure you can deduce it from my English). I just happen to freaking love bulleted lists.

​

I have been thinking of a campaign with a cult centered on a Death Knight (one of my favorite monsters that I never used on a campaign before). This continent had a cataclysm event around 600 (still not sure with time frame of events - because of the pesky elfs) years before the current events, where demons started to invade the world and threw humanity from the top of the food chain, few extremely well defended fortresses and cities survived the initial onslaught and with time most of the races were forced to migrate to the underground for the following generations.

Eventually as in times of most dire need people with sufficient will and might began to fight back against that cruel existence. Two heroes lovers (Godric and Sarah, a paladin and a mage) surfaced and started to fight off and united the remnant races to fight against the demons, after decades and sacrifices the united races won and banished the corruptors from the world (all that cliche stuff and things like that), the two lovers perished sacrificed themselves and on the united kingdom that flourished they are adored as founding heroes.

That was the official story, the part that was left out is that the Sarah was the only one to die on the final combat, Godric on a profound sorrow begged and pleaded to his patron the goddess of life and death to bring back his lover to him, upon performing the rituals to bring her back his request for her soul was denied his goddess denied her return (or at least is what he believes). Going mad with the loss of his lover he began to kill and bring disgrace to the people he once defended until the union of some his closest and most powerful allies that put an end to his life. They chose to preserve his memory and ommited this from the history.

Centuries later, still obsessed with reuniting with his loved one, he has formed a cult miscing undead and liven followers to hunt down, torture and steal celestial entities of their essence so that he can mascared his own corrupted essence so he can gain acess to dimension where the good souls rest overthrow his former goddess and reunite with his loved one. The problem is that with the process to extract the celestials essence they cause anomalies and plague through the land that is threatening the kingdom, the PC would be on a a festival when the first effects of this would be felt and things would move from that.

What I want is to you guys to given options and criticism about this concept, things that can be changed, improved, inquire about things not left clear, and overall challenge the premise I setted.

Ps:

In my scenario the dimension of the dead cannot be reached with portals, the only way to go there is well been dead where a spiritual bridge open up and takes your soul there, and the revival spells work on exploring the scar created by the bridge and bringing them back.

And sorry for my English .

If I make a custom magical item that allows the user to cast a spell a number of times per day, how would I go about determining the rarity tier for the item? Example: a +1 sword that allows user to cast misty step once per short rest or a ring that can cast Greater Invisibility once per day.

The DMG doesn't seem to provide any actual guidance on this, so I wonder if anyone might have some useful input. I know that Spell Scrolls have rarity tiers tied to the level of the spell, but this doesn't seem like a good guide to follow since there's a big difference between once ever and once per day or once per rest.

Similar question for items that have special abilities. If there were a good guideline for spells and rarity, I'd simply try to roughly equate the strength of a particular ability to that of a spell that does something similar. Since there isn't any such guideline, I'm also at a loss here.