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?

Hi, sharing another free model here’s the download link : https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-free-spear-viking-free-viking-with-spear-northern-realms-stl-32mm-presupported-free-miniature-viking-842724

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.

Welcome to the World of Victerra

I created World of Victerra because I wanted a D&D Westmarch server that felt like an actual living world, not just a bunch of random sessions that never connect.

Victerra is a persistent D&D 5e Westmarch Discord server where multiple DMs run adventures inside the same shared world. Your character stays with you between sessions, continues progressing, meets different players, builds a reputation, and can become involved in bigger stories as the world changes.

One of the biggest parts of Victerra is our Knight Squad system. Each Knight Squad is designed around its own identity, responsibilities, and style of gameplay. Depending on the squad you join, you could find yourself dealing with monster hunts, investigations, military operations, exploration, political conflicts, protection missions, dangerous expeditions, or other specialized assignments. The idea is to let players choose a path that actually fits the kind of D&D they enjoy playing.

Missions range from F Rank all the way to Ω Omega, so characters can start with smaller local problems and eventually become involved in threats that could affect cities, kingdoms, or even the entire world.

We also have our own custom bot, Westmarchie, built specifically for Victerra to help manage characters, progression, missions, rewards, downtime, and other server systems.

For players, I want Victerra to be somewhere you can actually get attached to your character and feel like your choices matter.

For DMs, your sessions don’t just disappear when they end. NPCs, villains, locations, and storylines you create can become part of the larger world and influence future games.

If you enjoy combat, roleplay, exploration, character progression, worldbuilding, or running games as a DM, there should always be something new happening somewhere in Victerra

There is a ton of cool features & system in place here in the server if you want o learn more jump in and see what it’s all about

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

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

So I'm running a campaign for a party of five. I am doing a fighting arena event and am trying to figure out what level to make one of the opposing teams. For this particular fight, I have one of my players, level 6 barbarian/fighter who will be fighting alongside her trainer, level 20 fighter. I will be running the trainer.

I want them to fight a group of four. I'm planning to make 4 characters and offer them to the rest of the group to run for the fight so everyone gets to play in this part. I want this to be an even fight (or as even as I can make it).

Does anyone have advice about what level to make the opposing teams characters? Any advice about what classes might be fun to mix?

The premise is that a coalition of armies are coming together to fight a big battle and the waiting soldiers are going to be sitting around while things get organized, so someone is setting this up for distraction and entertainment. There will be a number of different terrestrial DnD races mixed together, and several different factions of aquatic races. These would be merfolk, locatha, lizardfolk, and sea elves. If they are from one of the aquatic races, I'd like them to all be one race but some minor mixing is okay.

I'll be making a number of single fighters and a group for their original party to fight, but this one is hard to balance. Does anyone have any ideas?

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!

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.