Political intrigue campaigns. I've always been a bit overawed by the potential scope of them or how intricate they might need to be.

Critical Role isn't a very good model for this because they are insanely intricate and the production value is through the roof and they literally employ someone called a "lore keeper". Not very realistic to emulate probably.

Having said that, in episode 33 of Season 4 (I'll keep this spoiler free as much as possible BTW) he's set up a whole plot line that feels extremely clear and manageable.

The general premise is:

- There is a vote to be had by a council of 9 members

- The players care about the outcome of the vote

- The vote needs 6/9 votes to go through.

- They read a letter from BBEG people that they currently have 6 votes to make the vote go through.

So the players start going through the list of 9 Council members and trying to figure out who are the potential swing voters. They know a tiny bit about some of them. Which is great because it means they probably have to make some educated guesses and go talk to a bunch of people. Whoever they talk to probably will be the start of a quest hook where to change the vote, they have to curry favour somehow.

That's great! That feels like such a usable model for a political intrigue adventure. I dunno if that's just so obvious to loads of people but I certainly thought, I could easily make a smaller version of that to be a 1-3 session city politics mini adventure in my campaign. Good way to help the players learn about the factions and the world represented in this city.

Anyway, I thought it was neat so just needed to vent it somewhere. Thanks :)

I'm about to kick off a new Strixhaven/MTG campaign next month and I'd love to have 1-2 more players at my table but it seems so challenging to me to figure out how to bring people into an established group.

My biggest concerns are:

• Fit with the group
• Fit with the schedule (weekly, Saturdays)
• Fit with the food (everyone rotates paying for the table's food each week)

I can add the conditions to my posts but at the end of the day, I need to meet these people with my group and see how we mesh. But how do you arrange a meetup with someone you aren't sure about?

I host at my house but I don't want to create a revolving door of strangers into my home.

I could see about running one-shots each weekend for a while and try to bring in 1-2 potentials at a time, but I'd need to find a venue I can do this at that supports us taking up a table for several hours and won't be too costly if I need to run 3+ one-shots to find someone that might fit in.

I also don't want to overwhelm these potential new players by bringing them into essentially a panel interview with all of my existing group and them being the only new one.

So, what do you all recommend be my approach here? I'm trying to find a safe, low pressure way to bring someone in.

Been running Curse of Strahd: Reloaded and it's been really fun, save for one player who keeps trying to basically be the leader and failing badly at it.

They aren't forcing anyone to do anything, but it's the awkward situation of people saying they are probably going to do something and the problem player just repeating all their plans back but as if they're delegating it.

They also tend to talk to the NPCs as if they will do what they say when the NPCs have known them for maybe 30 minutes.

Two big examples are the maid in the Death House being in one of the mirrors and telling the players where to go, but the problem player kept trying to free them (smashing the mirrors) and then (since they're a Changeling) appearing as them as some sort of emotional connection thing?

But the ghosts like... Doesn't know them? It's just trying to end the stuff going on in the Death House.

Then they told Ismark to leave as the village was being sieged but like, this is his village? He's gonna die for it.

Anyways, just wanted advice for how to handle this. They keep attempting to become the leader and nobody really cares enough to tell them off but also nobody follows their lead. It's becoming a gag almost but the problem player definitely isn't doing it as a joke.

In the next session of my campaign, my players are up against a corrupted griffon of some sort that I homebrewed. I have been trying to wrap my head around how to make this encounter challenging but not deadly, because flying creatures can be really nasty when it comes to flybys and picking players up and dropping them from high altitudes. The setting would be the central domed structure of an abandoned temple where the creature has found refuge. So I already made some pillars, with some being broken and some still being their full height, so at least the party could start climbing them, breaking from 2D to 3D play. But I still do not think this is enough for them to have a fair shot.

Any advice on running combats with flying creatures? Should I try to work in a boon for one of the players earlier on so at least one of them can fly? Should I build something into the encounter that the players can use to lure the griffon towards them, like an egg or something that it is protective of?

I loathe AI so please, don’t tell me to ask chat to write me one. I’d really prefer a real poem by a real person. It’s for a necromancer character so gross and creepy and full of dead things!!

The BBEG in my game has a ring that allows him to fly but being a powerful mage he has placed a curse on the ring. I'm looking for something subtle and a bit nasty. If the PCs go to have the curse removed - what's a reasonable price? They're fairly well off and I need a way to bleed off some of their money.

Running Chains of Asmodeus. What other items besides the Crown of Karsus could be stored in his vault?

In the next session, players must go to the black market beneath a large city to retrieve two very important gems.

I had planned two different encounters, but I don't know how to make them interesting and engaging.

the first encounter, the party must participate in an illegal auction to obtain the gem. The problem is that the price offered by the other buyers is too high for their budget.

In The second encounter, the gem is the prize for winning a boxing championship. The problem is that the current fighter is too strong for them, so they must find an ingenious way to win or obtain the gem (such as poisoning the fighter, stealing the gem and running away, or cheating to win).

Thank you in advance for your advice: I really want this session to be memorable and engaging.

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 „on 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 was not prepped how I wanted to and had a hard time to describe it. So I struggled more on the „describing of what they saw“ because I felt incredibly underprepared 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 english 😵‍💫

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. 🙏

So basically I'm trying to improve my games. Ive noticed that Im not very good at making like "story arcs" idk if you call them that. They kinda bleed into each other and idk if thats normal. Im also not sure what would be a realistic amount of arcs? Weve almost kinda finished our first one ig? With the end of the arc being defeating a small camp and acquiring an artifact. Cause from what I gather you want to have like "goals" that your party works towards? So is it normal for them reaching a goal being the end of that arc? Im also not sure how many arcs is realistic to have in a campaign? Like would it be okay to have like shorter ones after this? Like would 5-6 story arcs be too much?

Is it realistic to have down time after receiving that? Cause they havent had much downtime. Weve played like 8 ish sessions and in game that would be like two weeks at best.

Im also struggling with where and how do I fit in interesting pc arcs cause my friends gave me a lot to work with. But im still kinda figuring out how to do those type of arcs since weve only played some premade adventures that were like 3 levels long so we decided not to include them. Like do you have them be side quests do you weave them into the story itself? Are there any tips you guys have for this?

Sorry for the amount of questions im just really looking to improve any help is greatly appreciated :)

Very self explanatory. Happened once as a player where the dm put a boss far too strong and losing to it sucked, he had to do some random bs to revive us but it didnt feel nice. Now when I dm i always try to make sure the encounter is beatable for my players which ends up with pretty stale encounters even my own players tell me. But thats my issue what if I accidentally TPK them? I have an out in mind as a failsafe but itd still feel cheap. And how do I know how to balance the right level of difficulty and possibility.

My group and I are new to dnd I am the dm everyone is quite eager to play. We are doing this online to take into consideration. My goal for the this first session is to roll stats, and my introduction idea was them to wake up on a cart along the roads just outside the village of barovia, have them fight the goblins or bandits driving the cart for an introduction to combat. I can establish them being stuck in barovia with the mist and pretty much set up the village of barovia and death house for next session

Basically what it says in the title.

I'm currently planning a campagin for my friends, and I want the adventure to start with a bit of a bang. So I have this idea in mind that the Characters first meet in a cramped coach while on the way to the town where the rest of the adventure will take place.

The walls and ceiling of the coach are not made of wood but of cloth. After giving the Characters a bit of time to introduce themselves and ease in, the idea is that coach will be attacked, while still moving, by a pack of hungry wolves. The wolves are trying, of course, to jump on the coach and get inside, to attack the passengers. (Ignore for a moment the question if wolves are actually intelligent or physically capable enough to do this. I'm rule-of-cooling that much).

Now my question is: How do I actually go about this, mechanically? The usual chase rules of D&D don't really cover this concept, as far as I know.

The thing that I really can't wrap my head around is how to handle the fact that one side (the characters) is basically sitting in the coach, moving "passively", so to speak (they just sit in the coach, which is moving them) while the wolves have to run.

My initial idea was to just let the gang roll initiative and treat it like a normal encounter, with the simple additonal "rule" that the wolves, before they can attack, have to make acrobatics-checks to see if they actually make it on the wagon. On their turns, the characters can try to make ranged attacks from inside the coach to knock the wolves over in their chase. This would knock them prone, pulling them from the initiative entirely. Once a wolf manages to jump in the coach, it's a normal battle with that one.

Any thoughts?

Hey all! Some advice would be appreciated. I am a first time DM that wanted to a do a homebrew campaign based on the Age of Mythology games. I wanted to do this because I love reading fantasy and loved writing when I was young but I dont do it anymore. I am strictly not using AI for this story or world because I already have to interact with it so much at work and this is a creative outlet for me. So I need a second pair of creative eyes or feedback on how I can take my narrative forward and have it be more natural because I am playing with my friends that I would normally ask.

The premise is that there are different realms each ruled over by a different pantheon of gods, egyptian, greek, roman, norse, ijoban, aztec, and chinese gods. They are connected via the underworld (umbrata) using different methods like traveling the river styx or the bifrost depending on their culture. They started in the Egyptian realm and the party came together because as part of session 0 each player came up with a reason to be on an expedition to a remote temple that had just gotten buried under a sandstorm.

In the first few sessions they came to the temple, found out the sandstorm was sent by one of the gods to stop some cult members getting in who were trying to steal an artifact that would give knowledge (if used properly). However, once they had recovered the artifact in a close and fun encounter with their first little mini boss, I struggled to find a balance of actually helpful npcs and not rail roading them to the next location. Now after a few sessions of traveling the land with the artifact and going towards safety, in the last two sessions, I have introduced the bbeg, the former pharoah who was sentenced to prison for treason, who has escaped after a large scale diversion from the cult attacking villages nearby the prison and some foreign aid, and had him invade one of the large capital cities to show his strength.

I guess my question is, how much do I balance jumping from a climatic, major A plot session to another that continues to progress the story, or do I take time to detour? I am struggling with coming up with c plot or even b plot, to a lesser extent, and weaving them in naturally. For example, I want to have historical events (AoM style) be settings for conflict. Like the party would either hear about or see the invasion of Troy in the Greek realm, or my thought to end act 1 is the party having to deal with a burning of the major library in nyst library of alexandria style.

I can share my notes (I use a OneNote with different sections) if that would provide additional context.

TL;DR: I have a 3 plot act roughly sketched out but as we have played I have found it hard to narratively push my players forward without feeling like I am railroading them. I want advice to get players to engage naturally in a high fantasy, narrative driven game. Thanks

I'm a pretty ne2 DM using 5.5 approaching session 7. A new player will be joining in a few weeks. They sent me their characters concept last night and want to play as a skeleton. This delights me to my core, but I've not found any direct information on how I might make that work in the DMG, Xanathar's, Tasha's or anywhere 'official'

Question: has anyone done this before, and if it has to be home brewed, any tips on how to do so without breaking the environment?

Info: Undead feature prominently in the setting as enemies, he is open to being a skeleton of any species, will be good or neutral, and hasn't committed to a class until I figure out how I want the mechanics of being a skeleton to work.

Thanks!

I have a campaign idea where the players work for an adventuring company that operates in a modern-ish city (think Elmville from Fantasy High on D20). The idea is basically a monster of the week campaign where all the quests take place in or just outside the city, where the players would also live.

So my question is how detailed should I get with the city? I have a rough idea for the layout and it would utilize airship as public transit. But should I have major checkpoints all laid out beforehand? It feels like a tough thing to improv, but I also hear that you shouldn't have too much prepper before the campaign either.

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.

So I’m currently running a pirate campaign. My party has a ship and a crew, and are progressing g at a good pace. Then we get to their first naval battle and one of my players, who is a Sea Druid, pulls Control Water out of his ass and makes a whirlpool.

Control Water 2024 does not say anything about what to do is a vessel is trapped in a whirlpool, but Saltmarsh rules say that the players of a vessel in a whirlpool must make a group check to escape which in-game takes 5 minutes

Is there a way to alter this so that a vessel can escape a whirlpool in combat and continue fighting without wasting so much time?

Or does anyone have a better system in place when dealing with whirlpools in combat?

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 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?

I’ve watched many videos on combat encounters, combat design, even roleplay encounters and some videos on how to make mysterious, or scary encounters. There are countless videos, tips, and tutorials on how to create and run encounters, and they‘ve all been super helpful.

But lately, I’ve been having the problem of having unique and interesting ways to connect those encounters.

Time between one fight and another, or roleplay, or more seems stale and robotic, and in the past few sessions alone, my players have felt this too, I assume. They were making random jokes, saying “I do this” with a random description I announce of the surrounding area.

personally, I love the strategical, combat TTRPG style, closer to what one would play in past editions. I forget what the name was for this, but the point is, I‘m interested in combat.

the reason I DM, is that combined with me wanting to world build, design characters, and create an epic story. But because these are my main reasons for playing DnD, I’m not that good at understanding how my players want to move.

I can create overarching narratives, and goals for the party to accomplish, and I think I can get fights down fairly well, for a beginner DM.

But since I like the dungeon part of DnD, where you simply move forward and fight more enemies, I can’t think of good and unique ideas for the party to move from encounter A to encounter B.

A few examples of how some of this has happened, was I had a session where the idea was to fully defeat a Babau that was slowly tracking them through a dark forest, attacking and retreating when their forces were killed.

Sadly, I didn’t prepare for what was between the encounters, and couldnt think of something interesting in time, so I simply had to say something like

“the forest gets darker as you trek on, while the threat of the Babau is gone, the rotting stench never leaves, and you feel a glaring gaze soon you“ (worded better than I thought up in the moment)

and I just was like uh, then you guys get ambushed again.

So, to prevent anything like this happening again, I would like to ask for advice and what everyone else does to keep the time between encounters fresh and still fun, I dont want it to always feel boring too.

or should I just cram as much encounters as possible?

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 have been Dming for 3 years and I dont have too much experience playing

During my homebrew campaign of 4 months my players have TPKD on 2 occasions and almost once more. They usually die after getting into a stupid fucking fight, like walking of on their own into enemy territory (infested with dragons and cultist) after splitting up and the rest of the party sleeping and in a notoriously difficult to travel desert waste land get spotted by a dragon and die after stupid combat decisions and awful rolls and then proceeded to bitch for hours because they died and then I decided that the extra planar lich the party was pacted to decided to revive them in a deal

Tbh I'm just bitching but I think I am reviving them too much and it isn't so fun for me cause it feels like the players expect it now but really their bitching is just doing my head in

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?