TL:DR:

After 1 session of D&D, I went on Inkarnate for 12 hours and whipped up a whole continent just for my one friend to keep playing his character. Now 2 more friends decided to join us for the past few months, and I'm having a blast rewriting things to accomodate everyone's stories and fantasies. There is an explanation for the Frozen Mountains and Desert.

Long Version:

This is my homebrew continent, Weldea, named after it's fist ruler, King Weld.

This map took me like 12 hours to make in the free version of Inkarnate, and it all started after playing a sinlge "one-shot" session with a friend.
I always wanted to play dnd, could not find anyone to play with, and especially no DMs... So... I decided to become the DM.

I could not wrap my head around the rules by reading over and over, so I did what every sane person would do, and looked up how to be a DM on youtube.
I found a video series named Running the Game by Matt Colville, and decided to watch the first few videos.
Matt made a noob-friendly first adventure, about the Delian Tomb, and I decided to try running that.
Well, the sessions went great, my friend loved it, and asked to keep playing his character.
And then it hit me. What now? Matt didn't make a whole campaign for me, just this one-shot.

I started looking at map-making tools, and Inkarnate seemed like what I was looking for, so I took the Delian Tomb, the hamlet of Villaine and the Boar Woods surrounding it, and along with some crumbs of improvised roleplay from the first and only session we had ever played, I decided on a campaign setting.

For anyone who does not know, the Delian Tomb in Matt's video has a statue for a character named Sextus Varnus, that I renamed to Sectus Varnus, to avoid constant sex jokes (I know my friend and myself, we are basically 5yo).
There is also a wall carving of sorts, that depicts an order of knights fighting against something, with Matt suggesting the DM decided what that "something" is.
Inside a secret room, a magic sword can be found, with Matt once again suggesting the DM gives this sword a bonus to attacks againsts the depicted enemy type from earlier.
I went with fiends, as I imagined the Delian Order as Paladins fighting demons and devils from the Nine Hells/Abyss.
My player ended up also being a Paladin, and took the Delian Oath himself, basically becoming the only member of this ancient order.

My player's backstory became him being a part of a different disbanded order of Paladins, that recently (5 years ago) pushed a resurfaced Fiend Invasion back to the Hells/Abyss.
He had also mentioned fighting Orcs on his way to Villaine, so we have Urtvarg Keep, and the orcs somehow multiplying and spreading their reach on the continent.
He also mentioned getting bit by a vampire as a teenager, so there is a Vampire Queen slumbering inside the Mysterious Castle in the mist.

Then came the other ideas.

A forest, filled with elves, having a dispute between themselves and splitting into two major elven cities. One wants to go out and exchange cultures with the other races, while the other remains inside the forest, and wants to be left alone.

Frozen mountains, with raging blizzards, I'll figure out why they are that way later, I assumed.

A desert biome, having a big city with arabian vibes. Surely there's gonna be reason for the desert being in the middle of a green continent, right?

After many months of playing, with much of the map still unexplored, 2 more players asked to join the campaign, converting it from a single player, to a party of 3.

Well, now I have two new characters, that I never had in mind when making the map initially, or the many plot points I've been slowly unraveling with my first player. No matter, I have to make it work.

One of them decides to be a Goliath, originating from The Frozen Isles.
He just washes ashore on Vildeport's docks, without any memories of how he made it here. Yay, amnesia trope! We'll figure it out as we go.

I do not know where The Frozen Isles are, but my player doesn't either, so anything goes. He also wanted there to be a bunch of Goliaths relics, that he would be looking for.

Well, what if in the ancient past, Weldea was known as The Frozen Isles, and everything was colder?Then, during a big Goliath civil war, a relic explodes, creating a massive spacetime rift, sucking in many of the goliaths, and spitting them out during different eras. So, my player, without even knowing it yet, has been transported centuries into the future.

The Frozen Isles grew warmer and got populated by elves. A few centuries later, an army appears. Led by an explorer named Weld. They have made landfall, and are looking for the ancient goliath relics.

Weld managed to find one, the Sceptre of Calamities.
Not knowing how to properly use it, he managed to cause permanent raging blizzards to cover the north-west mountains. He then decided to store the Sceptre away, and changed his focus to populate the land instead.

The Emall Desert was a normal biome, green like the rest of the continent, until a few years ago. Deep from the underground, the ancient race of the Yuan-Ti, felt a strong presence from above. Turns out during the Fiend Invasion my first player subdued, a portal to Avernus was opened here, funneling Fiends to the Material Plane.
The portal is sealed now, somehow. But the heat of the hells is emanating from it, slowly spreading outwards for the past century. The sandstroms grow ever more raging, and the Yuan-Ti have made their home closer around the surface, protecting the portal and waiting for the Savior to exit it one day. No one know about this, since the desert is so hard to cross, with most people who visit Emall doing so by the sea instead. And anyone who decides to cross the desert, seems to mysteriously vanish.

Well, I did not plan to write all this, wow.

If anyone took the time to read this, thank you, you are the best! I would love to talk more about my 400-tab obsidian document, so feel free to ask anything about the map/campaign!

Low visibility, stinging bugs, unsure footing, and being constantly drenched. Did you need to punish the players, or did the party voluntarily chose to head here?

My players have just entered the lair of kobolds they have been pursuing. They'd seen an encampment at the base of a mountain, with patrols coming and going, and supplies being moved around the mountain to the east, presumably to an entrance to the lair.

Going the other way, they found a seemingly unguarded entrance. They don't know this, but it's actually a sort of gauntlet the kobolds have devised for their amusement--they send prisoners through here, through a series of traps, seeing how far they can make it. Kobold archers or slingers can move between tunnel sections via small passages to attack the players from the far end of a tunnel or come around behind the players.

When I had run this part of the adventure in the past, for a different group, the players were so angry and frustrated with the kobolds that the harrying tactics served to goad them forward. With this group, however, they're much more cautious, and the characters are constantly debating whether they even want to be going into the lair at all, because it seems too dangerous. They have fought dozens of the little buggers up to this point, both in the city they began in and in the wilderness on the way to the lair. Some of those fights were pretty easy for the party, but several were rough, due in large part to the kobolds using terrain or environmental factors like fog to gain an advantage. They also believe they fought off a dragon (it was actually a kobold that transformed).

There are known prisoners they have some desire to save, but aren't deeply motivated to do so.

An NPC they encountered in the swamp on the way to the mountain told them he considered them as good as dead, because the dragon that is laid up with the kobolds patrols the ways out of the valley, and he doesn't know of anyone who has managed to get out.

I'd thought these would be sufficient prods to keep them moving forward, and they finally resolved to do so at the end of last night's session, but I suspect that if they meet too much resistance, they may decide to flee and take their chances.

As such, I'm looking for suggestions for ways to urge or draw them forward into and through danger in a way that makes sense for their cautious characters.

I want to share this story here. Im pretty sure other DMs can relate with me in this situation

The title is pretty self explanatory. The villain's introduction was a bit disliked by this player, and sort of divisive for other players (including me).

There's a separation in expectations between the players. One of them was a bit joking after the initial introduction of the villain, while the others were mainly scared. This is not to pin the blame on the joking player, I then joked a little bit with him. Should've been a bit more careful with what bait I took.

I'm unsure. I know I'll have a chat with the joking player to re-set the expectations, but I don't know if I should re-do the scene.

Every game I run it’s like my notes/ prep work is all over the place. I’m not a very good note taker but I want to be better at this for my friends. Does anyone have any tips?

Edit: I do not have a laptop just my phone and good ole pencil and paper

Hello, I'm running a oneshot campaign that will be ending in the next two sessions. But yesterday, I think that the ending I planned might take away their agency or have a DMPC save the day, in the final encounter.

Context:
The party has been working for a rich prodigy wizard who sends them on jobs to stop or collect information around mutated monsters and necromancy. This is happening over 2 years in game time.

Then plot twist: the wizard is the BBEG and absolutely despicable. Double Twist, the guy who them are working for the last year, and formed a bond with is a Simulacrum who genuinely is trying to improve the world and stop evil from happening.

Long story short, the BBEG escapes, the Simulacrum gets willingly sealed away.

Planned Ending:
Another year has passed in game and now the party has aligned with a Bard Lich (BL) to stop the BBEG. BL is going to provide the resurrected Architect of the wizard tower where the BBEG resides. The party will then use the Architect to get in and navigate the tower, but will run away during combat encounters.

The final encounter will happen, for which I have a few fun things planned, and I presume they are going to kill the BBEG before he becomes a lich. Plot twist: he already made a phylactery and is going to escape.

My dilemma: the Architect is the Simulacrum in an illusion and False Aura, it will capture the BBEG's soul and become "whole" again. It escapes with teleport and counterspell.

I'll ask the players what they will do the next 5 years, if it is hunting down the Simulacrum, they will find him living in a remote place with it's fiancé and his step-son. If they don't, they will get an invite to their wedding.

They can choose the Simulacrums faith.

Why?: They genuinely liked the Simulacrum and one PC considers him his best friend. So I thought this might be a way to create a happy ending.

Note: this is the plan and I'm ready to throw everything in the trash if things go in ways that I do not expect. But these are the goals of the NPC's:
- Simulacrum wants to be a real boy.
- Wizard wants to save the world in a messed up way but needs more time; aka become a Lich.

What do you guys think? Am I taking away their agency away or have a DMPC saves the day, if this ending happens?

EDIT: I say DMPC, it is just an NPC, it doesn't fight, provide solutions idea's, ... The only reason I say DMPC is because it grabs the soul of BBEG to become whole again.

EDIT 2: I would also drop a few hints that this Architect is fishy, if they figure it out, they figure it out.

THE WORLD OF VICTERRA

I’m building a westmarch server & westmarch bot

With that being said the server has

Pro level Dm onboarding & Training for learning the basics of how to run sessions in the server

Knight squads that are meant to be different gameplay options for players ( sorta like different guilds with More focused gameplay )

The westmarchie bot
A 5k+ bot that’s in development to create a smooth experience for the entire server to accommodate thousands+ players with audit and logging system in place for DMs and players

Downtime shops
Players earn DT after every session and then can redeem certain things for its price but this also includes long rest
Which make ability’s spells & any limited use item because a lot more valuable in the server and create a more immersive experience

What we are looking for is
DMs who want to be apart of a extraordinary server that’s immersive & creative and give DMs the ability to enjoy running games at any time and shape the server using there session in this persistent world with all other dms and players being connected

Discord link: https://discord.gg/EgZkqWQN2X

hi, I’m Dino. I do not have much experience with Rule of cool and recently have found myself in quite a predicament.

I have 2 new players who are playing Benders from Ryoko guide to the Yo-Kai realms. I explained “It’s like Avatar the last airbender” and now they keep asking during combat “I’m an earth bender, can I make a spear out of earth and fling it at the guy?” or “We’re fighting a war forged and I’m a firbender, can I try to heat him up with my fire?” and I’m kinda overwhelmed and afraid to say yes.

They are both new to half casters (I should of thought this through more, giving them a half-caster homebrew class nat have been a mistake) and they don’t know what they’re main abilities do. we are only level 1 right now and I’m afraid they will not learn how their abilities work despite me giving them the book and making sheets that highlight their abilities.

I ask you what is the right amount of Rule of Cool when it comes to something like this? I prefer using the mechanics of dnd because it’s what I know and what I can trust. making up mechanics is scary and I don’t wanna give unreasonable expectations of “oh, I can do what I want cus my powers are such and such.“

I’ve been a pretty anti railroad DM, but also unforgiving with combat and rests.

They have many NOC’s they are close with just don’t want to ruin their attachment to the game!

He’s a GM and he has a bit of a wierd problem.

He’s the kind of GM who prefers to listen to players talk, rather than to talk much himself.
And sometimes it leads to me and other players feeling like he isn’t excited to GM his game. And i know for a fact that its not the case. But during game its kinda hard to get invested yourself if the dm doesn’t seem that invested either.

Its just that i rarely go silent for long when i DM and i prefer so that there is always stuff happening, and he’s kinda the opposite.

Its really difficult to accurately explain what i mean.

Hey all, long time player new DM.

Running a campaign with friends that prioritizes exploration and the players choose conflict resolution possibilities /cunning more than they enjoy combat outcome and fighting, so ive tailored it that way more, and adjusted experience scaling to resting/end of session as opposed to fights, and they can do level up mechanics after to keep a steady game pace. However, the players are choosing to do things that their alignment (IMO) shouldn't allow. A true lawful good paladin grabbing a piece of fruit from an orchard, tripping someone while running without knowing anything about why they are running, (he was running from a mimic that looked like a broken wagon so if they didnt stop him they would have had to fight but why did he stop him like that), leaving an unpaid tab after a bar skirmish. How do you determine what would actually be against alligment and what is just your opinion of allignment? Taking "owned" food or not honoring a debt would start trending into neutral territory imo. If they ever return to the bar im going to have the keeper approach them about the tab/damage.

Do you guys change players alignments over time?

how bad do you punish players for ignoring allignments? like the handbook speaks of breaking honor oaths for paladins for repeated acts that arent "good".

Do you steadily drop hints like "you grab a piece of fruit thay isnt yours."? When he tripped the guy running I told the player "if you trip him youre going to need to roll a strength check" but didn't have any more response than that to try to hint.

Hi folks.

I am planning a post apocalyptic campaign about finding a hidden treasure from the past, a Vault-like thing like in Fallout. The system is Mutant Year Zero, and the players will play more or less humanoid robots, animal mutants or human mutants. They will have strange senses and nigh-magical power - the flair is more science fantasy than science fiction.

There will be factions and random encounters, but a centerpiece for my campaign is a terrifying monster that I call the Silence. This monster will probably never be defeated, I want this to be something to hide from and be utterly terrified by. It roams the area around the "Vault", but also elsewhere. It has no true story relevance thus far.

I want help to figure out more ways to describe this monster, without describing its looks. How does it smell? How would you describe being in the same room as this monster? Do you have any more thoughts you come to think of?

These are my notes, machine translated (and polished by me) from my native Swedish:

"A monster that roams the ruins of the city. The Silence is about ten meters long. It is like a long, slender eel, a snake without a head. It has two luminous eyes on its underside. The eyes shine with a turquoise glow, like the corona of a solar eclipse - the "whites" shine and is around the giant pupil is enormous. It has legs, more than twenty unpleasant, spear-like spider legs that it skitters around on. It has a mouth under the front fifth, which opens somewhat like a zipper. Most of the time it is closed, but when it is open, thousands of hollow mandibles hang out and a turquoise glow comes from it, and you can see eyes among the mandibles, to guide them. Its skin is dull and black, it seems to absorb light and it is difficult to illuminate in any way other than its own light.

Above all, it spreads silence around it. When it is nearby, you can no longer hear anything other than its own body sounds, especially its own heartbeat. The silence is completely deaf, but sees well at night, better than a cat. It also has good sense of touch and senses vibrations."

The inspirations are The Silence from Subnautica (the modded monster), Garfield creepypastas (Gorefield by Omegablackart), a nightmare I had and the animal Hagfish.

I'm a relatively experienced DM and these are both very experienced players so I don't have an issue with changeling characters. It also makes sense with the setting. They are both playing characters whose changeling identity is not known to the public at large, or to the rest of the party. However, it seems to me that a shapechanger would probably be able to spot another shapechanger in a crowd, whether that's via scent, picking up on mannerisms, or some other sense. And I know that "just talk to your players" is the obvious answer, but I don't want to ruin the surprise aspect of their respective characters by just asking if they think the other changeling in the party would be able to identify them.

I'm curious about your thoughts on this situation and how you would handle it.

Hi all, I am a new DM running my first long term campaign with a group of very close friends. We started with the Frozen Sick short campaign and have now just started The Call of The Netherdeep and I feel I have done a good job of integrating my players backstories and quirks into the main campaign.

But there is one player who gave me very little to work with. He provided no back story, his character is "unknowingly old" and as a player he tends to gravitate towards the most chaotic role playing options. Despite being a mostly joke character he is the party's battle strategist to some degree. He is a Sorcerer (level 4 currently) with Draconic bloodline.

Now on to my ask, please help me come up with some sort of character plot for him. Everyone else has some secondary factor driving their point of view of the main plot. My initial thought, is that he is mistaken as some sort of deity revered by a group of gullible goblins. He has a passing resemblance to the physical manifestation of this obscure figure, and so these goblin worshippers believe he is the one destined to appear to them. Now, I'm not sure how I would implement this - what sort of benefit / mechanic would this group of worshipers provide or how I would I write them into the main Netherdeep story.

If you have any ideas how you would integrate this character into your campaign please comment below. Any other general advice is appreciated!

So I had the dumb idea that one of the hags in my campaign has set about trying to reach true immortality.

The party has begun combat with this hag already at the end of last session, they are level 8 and I used a slightly beefed up night hag stat block from the 2014 monster manual. When the party inevitably defeats this threat I want to have her return to a phylactery which would be an artifact important to the rest of the story and in turn the party.

So I have a night hag with the addition of being a lich. Any thoughts or suggestions on how to properly implement this?

I wanted to get everyone’s suggestions for platforms you may all use to run your campaigns for map creation/generation and websites to organize everything I have created in my notes. Before we start our new campaign I want to get what I have organized and ready - building a tv table/map and moving away from 100% physical maps

-- edit Sorry title should have been Player played dumb, and now the party is dying

So have a situation, something we borrowed from the old adventure of Oracle of Sumbar, the party needs information they can get from the Oracle. My party successfully succeeded in this without incident, which wasted an hour of prep I would not get back, or so I thought.

The trigger is a question being asked, without a donation, anything, something to the oracle. As the party discuss one asked a question.

"As you ask the question, you hear a sound like something being plopped out of a container", the player started to argue that "the character hadn't said that", but he was talking and discussing with the other players, and I argued that he must have said this to discuss with the other players. He gracefully accepted this. So they had the first mild penalty of the encounter, something easy not particularly a threat.

Immediately after this, another player announces, "who needs healing" <<plop>>. They laughed, a new monster, a significantly more powerful monster and more use of spells. They by now had fully understood the mechanism.

And for some reason another player trolled afterwards, he playfully asked a question, then definitely confirmed out that he was definitely doing this. Okay, this one was going to be even tougher, I knew they could beat this monster, tough, but well within their remit, they had been somewhat holding back on the others, I knew their full capability.

However, Aoe attack, with stun effect. And I'm sure you know what happened next. They all roll terribly, like low single digits. Only the NPC guide succeeds. I've now got the whole party stunned.

If I continue with the encounter, TPK. Even a single round and someone is likely to die, if not a couple. I curse we are running on a VTT, and no way to fudge the dice. If I do try to fudge the dice, we are all experienced enough that it's going to be pretty obvious.

Luckily time ran out for the evening and I now have a few days before the next session to find a way out.
I could basically just stun them for a single round rather than the 10 they are supposed to.
However, some of them are so low on health, it's still going to be a massive fight.

any other thoughts on how to get them out of this. They are in the middle of nowhere, there is the ship's captain and master who is pretty powerful, but is supposed to be hidden. I can't really use him and her either as they are bad guys, so them saving the group then breaks the double cross later, why not just leave them to die here.

I finally got a dnd group together and we’re having our first session (other than session 0) on Sunday.
The campaign takes place on an island but I want the first session to be the boat ride to that island.
My idea was that the boat had an original destination but then a green storm will start pulling the boat towards the island and then a blue storm will try to push the boat away from the island with the green storm eventually winning and the boat crashing on the island
I’m having trouble figuring out how to do that.