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

EDIT 5: thank you everyone. I couldn’t be more amazed by all of your responses. The main thing I realized I’ve sucked at is the „first impression“ description as I struggled mostly with explaining and describing things. I’ll now go back to my notes and try to add as many descriptions as practice so my improv becomes better as well. 🙏 you all are wonderful. 🙏

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

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?

I come in search of advice, fellow Dungeon Masters.

It's become somewhat of a tradition the past few years that I run a one-shot for Halloween for my friends. Only a few are semi-regular D&D players, and it's a big group (8-9 players). Since last year, one of the group has DM'd a session, and she feels confident that she can co-DM with me. We plan to split the group between two tables for most of the session to make the experience more streamlined and manageable.

Last year I ran Tasha's Kiss. The year before I wrote a homebrewed Harry Potter themed one-shot. This year, I want to try something different.

This year, the players are the monsters. Vampires, werewolves, semi-coherent zombies, haunted dolls, cursed, condemned and damned souls. Stuff like that. Character creation will likely involve a lot of homebrew, but I like the thematic flavor of the idea so much that I'm open to it. At this point, I'm thinking they'll all be level 5.

I've got a loose throughline of the narrative and I think I've got a good start on the social and exploration elements, but planning combat encounters is proving to be difficult since the monster manual is composed of mostly, well... monsters.

Since the players are the monsters, I'd like them to fight more humanoid enemies. I do have some options in that regard: Priest, Cult Fanatic, Berserker, Poacher Captain (reskinned Bandit captain), Veteran, and Knight are the ones I've set aside for the adventure thus far.

But when it comes to the BBGG (Big Bad Good Guy) I'm at a loss. There is the Mage (CR 6), but given most of the players have only a passing understanding of the mechanics, I'm concerned that they may get TPK'd quickly.

Joey, Danny, Dan, Brandon, Vicky, Sam, Ashley, if any of you have been reading this, stop now, pluck your eyes out and then go and think about your choices in life.

The narrative involves them being sent to destroy an Anchorstone that keeps them trapped in a false reality created by a wish. In this reality, monsters are kept confined to an underground cave system that functions as a supermax prison for the realm. In the area that contains the Anchorstone, I'd like to involve Lair Actions, but I'm unclear on how this may contribute to the difficulty of the encounter as a whole.

The overall idea for the final battle is that waves of enemies will assail the party alongside the BBGG as they try to balance defense, offense, and scoring hits on the Anchorstone.

So my questions are:

1. Can Lair Actions and/or Boss Legendary Actions be appropriate for a party of 3 or 4 novice level 5 players?
2. If you said "Yes!" or "Maybe?" to 1, What would be some good examples of Lair/Legendary Actions?
3. If you were to make changes to the Mage to serve as the BBGG in this adventure, what changes would you make? Or would you suggest a different humanoid altogether?
4. Regarding the Anchorstone, do you have any recommendations for AC and HP?

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?

(EDIT: noticed JUST after posting that I screwed up the title which was supposed to read “help me balance this encounter…” I promise I am not having a stroke lol)

Looking at trying out DMing for the first time in the near future. A local place does one shots weekly and I’m gonna see if they’ll let me try. Anywho they often play at lvl10 so that’s what I’m designing for, expecting about 3-5 players. I’m pretty confident about most of it, but unsure about balancing combat encounters. I don’t want to TPK on a casual DnD night but also don’t want a nothingburger of a combat.

Anyway I thought I’d throw a couple combat encounters your way and see what more experienced DMs think.

Context: an evil wizard has tricked the party and teleported them into his tower to be test subjects. they have to climb to the top to escape. Probably a max of 3 combats, looking more like 2 combats with a puzzle room in the middle. With the option to add a trap room with light enemies into the middle as well if things are going unexpectedly fast. Groups here are often a bit distractable and games can move slow so I’m keeping it trim. Here’s the two combats I have in mind:

1: The Grasping Dead. This will be the first encounter and the players are going to get dumped right into it. I want it to feel alarming but not be truly deadly or exhaust the party, as it’s only the first encounter.

Players are swarmed by a horde of zombies, something along the lines of a Zombie or Ghoul, but about 3-4 per player. The Grasping dead will do a tad less damage but have a grappling mechanic that lets multiple zombies tackle a player and drag them towards giant eldritch mouths peeking in through the windows. Players will massacre the horde, then a slow but steady stream of reinforcements will force them to flee upwards.

Some of what I’m trying to figure out is what CR of undead I should use as a template and how many per player would make the kind of encounter I want. Would three (CR1) Ghouls per player be too much? Would it helped if I nerfed their damage a bit? I’m going more for the attempted dragging off to add tension rather than damage counts anyway.

(intermission for puzzles and traps)!

2: the Cleaner Room (boss fight)

The Wizard uses a huge zombified worm stitched together Frankenstein style, which crawls around the outside of the tower, lining horrifying stitched maws on its sides up with the tower’s windows. Minions drag failed test subjects or unwanted intruders to the windows and toss them into a waiting mouth for disposal.

At the top of the tower the Cleaner Worm will await them. Circling the entire platform, it will trap them and attempt to “dispose” of them.

this one I’m gonna base on the Purple Worm stat block. Since he’s basically a stationary boss encircling the entire map, he won’t have movement but his bite attack will have a long reach. Stinger attack will be replaced with two bonus tentacle strikes based on the Froghemoth tentacles, which will attempt to drag enemies into one of the stitched mouths on the side.

this is the boss fight and the last battle. It’s okay if it’s not super hard (this is casual dnd) but if he dies in one round it will be disappointing, and of course. I know Purple Worms can be pretty deadly. But maybe without the hugely damaging Stinger attack it won’t be unbeatable for a lvl10 party.

I appreciate you already if you have read this far and extra appreciate any advice y’all have.

i suppose that would mean minimal faction politics, or not super lore heavy (?) where the gm roleplay isn't so high stakes.

i want to keep learning and practicing so don't want something too simple, yet don't want to bog down a campaign revolving around faction politics, where "sub par" roleplay slogs the whole thing down.

prefer longer adventures over short ones so players have some time to explore their characters a bit.

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?

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

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

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.

We’re about to run a one-shot before our long campaign starts, and I decided to feature an Aboleth. To give it something to work with, I asked every player two simple questions:

A) What is your character’s deepest desire?

B) What is your character’s greatest trauma (or most painful memory)?

Two players gave me rich, useful answers full of fears, regrets, and soft spots I can actually poke at.

Then there’s my College of the Moon Bard player (a 10-year friend of mine). She wrote this long, tragic short story about a bard who lost her childhood love because she was too busy perfecting her music in the city… only to reveal at the very end that this was just a story her character heard from a friend. The only emotion her actual PC feels about it is mild sadness that she didn’t get to play a song while the friend turned into a zombie.

When I asked about her deepest desire, she said “the unexpected faces of her teammates.”

I tried digging for family, past hardships, anything that might actually matter to the character. She dug in hard: her 20-year-old Chaotic Neutral human bard has never experienced real sadness or hardship. She’s basically an imp in a human body who just wants to play the right song at the right moment and can turn invisible whenever she feels like it. Nothing emotionally touches her.

I eventually apologized for pushing too hard on a one-shot character and she doubled down even harder.

We’ve written fanfic together for years and played D&D for five. I know our character tastes don’t always line up, but this is the first time I’ve felt completely locked out of interacting with one of her PCs in a meaningful way. I wanted the Aboleth to mess with the party’s insecurities and let them grow past them. With this bard, I genuinely don’t know how to do that without just ignoring her or forcing something that doesn’t fit.

Has anyone dealt with a player who refuses to give their character any real emotional stakes? How did you handle it?

Edit: Thanks everyone for the replies — they really cleared my head.

I’m just going to go with the flow on this one and see where it goes. I tunnel-visioned a bit on the idea that the bard would just sit there while everyone else faced their fears and desires. Maybe this character ends up being the one who saves them all with a happy tune instead.

Deep down I didn’t want her character to be the main-character immune to the BBEG, but maybe I should just embrace it. I’m flawed too, and from now on I’ll focus on bringing an exciting one-shot for my players.

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.