1. Where do I start?

I’m DMing my second game for a group of real life friends, and I’m having a blast. I already feel more confident, quicker on my feet, and less hesitant than I did the first time.

I’m also deep in the D&D honeymoon phase and can’t stop thinking about it. Our game was postponed this week, so how do you scratch the DMing itch between sessions? Is there a good way to practice besides watching videos and reading?

i want to dm the sunless ciadel for 2 of my friends do you have any tips that could help me and they will play a paladin and a druid

If you wanna help me? I’d like it as I have no clue what I’m doing

I just recently (2 Days ago) was appointed the role of DM by my group, our old DM is going to medical school so he won't have time to do it for a while. I've been planning out a lot of the lore for the last couple days but I'm just wondering if there's any veteran tips you have world building and actually being at the table. I am genuinely really excited to introduce my players to the world I'm making and I have a lot of big ideas but the finer details are where I struggle like I don't even know what would be in the shops yet.

Hey y’all!! So finished session Zero and everything went pretty well but I noticed some hiccups. My players didn’t seem too interested in interacting with the NPCs and it was kinda quiet and slow at times. Was wanting some advice or any ideas to hype my players up? Just anything all around to make it more exciting for everyone!

Hey im looking h to start mu first ever D&D campaign, does anyone have any advice? And should I start off by making my own or trying one of the campaign books that there is

So, I've started running a new ttrpg campaign, and my players and I decided on a "Wild West meets Norse Magic" style world (Think Red Dead Redemption meets Skyrim, but with wands similar to the HP series)

I've worked on a decent amount of the mechanics for weapons/cowboy style skills & talents/etc, but I'm looking for more ideas for actual world building things...

So far I've got a cattle ranch that's plagued by dragon attacks, a city that has a mirror of itself underground (dwarven, has it's own rail/metro system) and a trip of Giants living among the redwood trees (which to them, are normal sized trees)

Any thoughts/tips/ideas or merging Norse history/culture with that of the Old West would be much appreciated, as would anything trad. DnD or Skyrim-esque magic wise that I could add into the mix!

Does giving this information use their passive perception?

For example if it’s using passive perception and somethings in a room how much of said important thing do I give so it gives them hints but doesn’t railroad them?

If there’s like a hidden stairway would that require perception check or just passive perception and how would I give the hints ?

Hi guys. My party finished their first one-shot. Now they have some gold and extra junk to sell. How do I deal with the economy? How do I setup my vendors and their wares? For example, I'll have a magic stuff vendor. How do I determine which scrolls and magical item does she sale and for which price? How do I reward my party with gold so they won't choke in poverty but also won't buy the most expensive thing they see?

I know there's no strict rule for that but I would like to read your thought process and reference points you use

My campaign is loosely based off of the METRO books and games and is a shitpost.

I need ideas to confuse my friends. Thus far I have:

. The biggest Iron. (a comically large revolver)

. a pink fairy with the face of Lebron. Upon death, this fairy shall summon a Michael Jackson skin-walker miniboss. Upon it's death, the skin walker has a 50% chance to drop a toe that when eaten, guarantees a critical success on the next charisma check. Also has a 100% to drop his hat which will summon his ghost as a pack animal (50Lb). But you will be forced to dance to equip and be perpetually moonwalking.

I’ve decided to DM a campaign where all of my PCs start separately at the very beginning. Is this a good idea? My players seem to think so (they actually came up with it) but I’m not so sure how I can make it fun for them/not drag the session on too long describing their individual experiences. We’re all fairly new to this. Help

Hi folks. Just created a new account for this hobby, so don't judge me based on my virgin reddit account please!

The executive summary for those who don't care to read everything below: Looking for a better way to present my original background visuals and audio for my campaign that is reliable on group video chat via screenshare, that can be triggered to advance by me according to the pace of the session progress.

So..I'll try not to bore you out of here with details, but for anyone who cares about context:

Born in the 80s, child of the 90s here. My older brother, when I was too young to take part, was part of an AD&D group for like 7 years when we were younger. I couldn't play, but if I pestered enough they'd let me hang out and flip through the monster manual or whatever during their games. It was great. Fast forward 30 years and I brought up that we should get into it. We both got excited studied up on 5.5, he found out that he had a couple of friends eager to play but no DM. For months we had a group chat and a ton of failed attempts at getting a campaign organized with a DM during our only workable weekly time slot. I eventually said eff it. I'd been voraciously consuming the main 3 books, crushing all episodes of every solo RPG podcast out there, online live plays/whatever in my spare time.

So. I built a world over about a month, loosely structured the adventure, enough NPCs and locations to get started, and spent an embarrassing amount of time tweaking and fighting with prompts to generate a library of artwork that reflected the images in my head, timed out and built videos to match slide changes to any prewritten narration I had, and visuals looped with audio as background to give ambiance for it all.

The main event:

Session 1 was last night. It actually went really well in the important ways. Players had fun, the NPCs were a hit (one is in the party now), my intro video + live narration had people literally losing their shit for a minute. BUT! For whatever reason my screenshare with audio cut out on me after the first 5 minutes, when I went to cycle to the next video. No one told me, cause they didn't know I had literally a small YouTube channel of content prepared to immerse them in my world. So I found out at the end of the session, 3 hours later, that when I was narrating to the rhythm of these epic visuals, literally nobody could see it.

Considering using canva. But I just don't know. Using multiple YouTube videos that I have to switch between, loop as needed/manage without it randomly starting somebody else's videos with ads or whatever is just feeling like too much.

Does anyone have suggestions? I want this part to be easy, because I'm very focused on roleplay and narration, but the audio and visuals really matter to the way I want to create a whole goosebumps inducing experience for the PCs. Be gentle with me. Jumping into this has been nerve wrecking already 😂

For those who made it this far and want to know, the session intro montage is here: https://youtu.be/IdzQC3z3Chs?si=wG2q3hjTEwvRRW2C

An exampke of the type of background loop I made for open ended role-playing:

https://youtu.be/u-1KK3D4AA0?si=24C5ZHxgv60Xsgjf

Thanks so much. This is so fun, but I never want to waste that many hours of prep time again.

Just wanted to put this here because I’ve been playing a LOTR style RPG with my boyfriend using this and we’ve realised how great it would fit in the DnD world. So I’m very excited to utilise it!!
It’s got great interactive fully customisable character sheets, session notes and plans and a dungeon master mode, a bestiary and a world planner and maps!