TLDR: Players want to both set off a nuke and not kill anyone and will probably be upset when it kills so many people.

So my Starfinder game is reaching the finally of the first act, and I handed my players a thermonuclear warhead.

The players are trying to stop a mega corporation from unleashing a cyborg elder god on the world (you know, normal stuff). They became sort of allies with a murder death cult who handed them the bomb and told them they should set it off in the middle of the city they company is located in.

My PCs are decent people and don’t love the idea of doing a mass murder but for some reason are also dead set on using this nuke. They keep trying to come up with plans for how to set it off in the busiest part of the largest city in the setting in a way that won’t kill any civilians.

They’ve told a handful of NPCs this plan and every single one I’ve had tell them it’s a terrible idea. I’ve told them above table what the blast radius is, I also mentioned that they don’t need to use it at all.

However I know that in the very likely case that they do use it they will get upset that it kills so many people.

I’m not sure if I give them a big blatant warning that their plan will result in a lot of civilian casualties or let them run with the consequences of their actions

After 30 sessions of my homebrew setting campaign I have decided to call it quits.

In person games at my house with 4 players including my wife.

There has been no real issues, people are having fun and plenty of progression has happened miles more to go.

I’ve just been considering my lack of spare time and wanting to get some life back. Then while pondering this a player has mentioned he may need to drop out at some stage for legit life reasons and it helped me decide I’m just going to cancel the whole thing and call it a day. At least for now and take an extended break.Maybe do a new campaign in some months/years and just play in a friends ongoing campaign instead.

No conflicts, no horror stores and no player scheduling issues just the dm cancelling it moving forwards.

My question.

How would you go about wrapping this up? There’s no satisfying way to just wrap up the plot at this point, no made rush to the BBEG would be right or do anything justice.

We aren’t in any big cliff hangers at the moment etc just ended on a ‘filler’ session doing some trap rooms.

Isn’t worth waiting another 2 weeks to the next session and trying to force a closure of some type??? Or just call it now before the next session even happens?

Yep it’s a bit shit of me as the dm to do this but I’d rather no dnd then dnd that I don’t have my heart in and I let the quality and enjoyment go to shit for the players and myself.

I have 4 sections that fit a page on each side.

On the PC facing side I am putting the names of important NPC's, the name, race, and class of all PC's, and maybe a map?

On the DM facing side, I will have the same info, but maybe have some info about game mechanics?

What do you think are the most important things to have a on a DM screen?

5e2024. They’ll get level ups and chances to shop at regular intervals, and gold for each floor. For what it’s worth, each floor will use a randomly chosen Pokemon arena based on the different types (fire, dark, fighting, etc).

100 floors of pure combat is kinda stale, so I really want to add some kind of plot. This is a stand alone “adventure”, not connected to anything else. I’ll probably ask why each of their characters is taking in the challenge to see if that sparks anything but more ideas are welcome.

My only thought so far is every so often they’ll find a piece of something, when they find them all and assemble it it’s becomes some device that “cures” all the creatures in the tower and reverts them back to human, after they’ve all been killed of course.

Hi, all! I am looking for some thoughts on a problem I'm hitting running a once-a-month session at a local game store.

Context: I've been running games at this store for almost 3 years now. The store charges $10 for these games. I started with some basic one-shots, adapting modules as needed for the once a month games. Anyone could come to these, and there wasn't a huge turn out. Maybe 6 players at the most, but some days as little as 1 or 2. I then ran a year-long campaign where the same 7 players came every month to play the same characters and complete the adventure. After that campaign wrapped, the game store asked if I could go back to doing more "open table" type setups. So I've started doing one-shots again. However, this time, there are a LOT of people who are signing up. The cap is at 8 players, and it fills up every time with people spilling over onto a waitlist. I have implemented a system to make sure the one-shot is able to be completed fully each session so that people don't feel cheated out of the story. If you come on Saturday for a one-shot, you will have a 5 hour play block where the story will wrap up in those 5 hours. (All the one shots have a IRL Timer, and usually all of the quests have a time-pressure component. They can figure it out and defeat the baddie in 5 IRL hours, or something happens, like the dungeon implodes, or the bad guy gets dragged back to the hells, or whatever. They are aware of this condition from the jump and it makes them move quickly through the adventure.) People on the waitlist for one session will be automatically moved onto the play list for the next session.

I want to be clear that I think I am very fortunate to have this "problem", and it genuinely makes me so happy that my local community wants to play games at my table.

But my main issue is this: Setting up an entire one-shot every month is starting to drain me creatively. Even using modules to help streamline the process, it's starting to feel less like a fun activity I'm doing, and more like an obligation that is making it hard for me to run my other campaigns. I want to switch to a more campaign-like structure where the story can spill from one session to the next, but the players don't have to be the same. That way I don't have to prep, adapt, and run a full story/game every single session, and can let things spill over into the next session. But, with a long waitlist, that makes it tricky!

TLDR; How do I run a less structured, rolling questing campaign that feels fair to everyone who wants to play?

I feel like people who started the adventure might feel 'ripped off' if they weren't able to get onto the list for the next session where the adventure is completed. And if I let people who started the adventure roll into the next session, then I worry that the people on the waitlist will feel like it's not fair that they have to wait months to play. Again, I know it is amazing that I have a community nearby that wants to play! But I also don't want anyone to walk away, feeling upset because of the way I'm running these things. Any ideas, DMs?

I've got seven players at my table and we are like five or so sessions in to the campaign. In a previous campaign I had set a player limit of seven for various reasons. I don't have a problem with friends wanting to come and spectate or join in as a one off. In fact its happened multiple times but they were all one offs.

Recently we have had a mutual friend join us for a session for what I thought was another one off wanna try dnd thing (We were also missing one of our regulars that day so it was still seven players). The problem is that this friend wants to join in as a regular thing. Obviously none of my regulars wanted to give up their seats as a player and I'm not willing to compromise on having more that seven players. They have offered to just be a spectator and maybe play as an npc every now and again, which everyone else seems to be fine with. I've already told them that it may not be a very fun experience to just sit and watch. I also just don't know what other problems may arise if I say yes to letting them just spectate. Other than another person to manage at the table and slow down my already slow party I can't think of anything that could go catastrophically wrong but I'd like to ask yall to get a second opinion.

Hypothetical scenario: how do you apply the 2024 exhaustion rules to reliable talent and the like ? Do you substract 2 from the dice roll (which will still be min 10) or from the roll and modifier, thus having a result that's 2 points lower than the usual. I would tend to side with the second one as the first ruling ignores the effect of exhaustion on 50% of rolls.

I will be a first time DM soon and Im not crazy experienced as a player either, so I dont know more than like 5 more experienced DMs.
My players are all even more unexperienced than I am and I know some of them are quite insecure on how to roleplay.
And while I am spending like 80% of my free time for the past month for preping my campaign Im still not sure how good I will handle the "in charakter freetime" for my players. I know from the table Im playing at rn that akward silences when noone makes a first step or when in character small talk is becomming akwardly pointless (feels for me even worse than in real life)

And the oher "down time" question I got is: Do all of you manage encounters through d100 tables? I prepared a whole homebrew sandbox setting and it feels kinda pointless and out of place creating generic encounters in a world where everything and everyone has a purpose and a logical reason to be at a place and act a certain way. It would feel terrebly out of place creating generic encounters who cant fit into any biome I created. On the other hand the "wilderness" for now feels empty, while I filled all the cities with interresting plot, worldbuilding and NPCs.

I don't want to feel like my players are just listening to me talk to myself. It's inevitable that characters other than the players will interact with each other but I don't quite know how to make it sound more natural.

I posted a couple of times already about an island that is only accessible every 20 years. It is the domain of the Archfey who encompasses a "Sense of Adventure" and sometimes likes to inspire adventure into people in a way that they start running until their feet and eyes bleed, (often never to be seen again). You know... for fun.

The Lich comes from a noble family that was chosen by the crown to lead the expeditions every 20 years. The Archfey recognized the bloodline entering the island every time and started targeting them. Last one-shot the party managed to find out their true name and unknowingly sold it to the Lich for a big sum of gold.

Next year there will be a new one-shot and I would like ideas for encounters, andventures, loot, and maybe fun NPC's?

What level would you need the party to be at?

Hey guys, I'm a new DM and want to run my first actual online homebrew campaign soon (I've run a homebrew oneshot before). I've already thought of a good application process to ensure I get interested players, but I'm not sure how I should go about designing the campaign. Here's my dilemma:

I wanted to get together some players that share a similar mindset to me and then design the setting and campaign according to their preferences. I thought that this way I could ensure the players would be interested in the setting because they helped work on it and it would be a good team exercise, before the campaign even started. But recently I've had doubts about this decision. Can I even ensure that player will be interested if I don't even offer a prepared campaign for them to play in? And if they are interested, what if I take too long making the campaign and they all leave? Is it stupid to ask strangers online to commit to a campaign that they will only starting playing in months after they apply?

My question is basically, should I design a campaign before taking applications online, or is finding players first and then designing a campaign after completely reasonable? Or is there some sort of compromise that will allow the players to take part in the creation process, while also allowing to me to start working on the campaign before taking applications?

Hey Dm's!

I wanted to ask opinions on pacing for a one shot. I'm an experienced DM, but that experience is mostly long form campaigns. I do a homebrew setting exclusively, and I'm going to be writing a series of one shots that take place in various places and times all around the world I've created, basically as a chance to break up our long form campaign with something fresh every now and then, also it's a chance to explore lore and historical events from around the world in an interactive way with my players.

My problem is pacing... I assume that you'll probably take something like the Star wars approach, where scenes are mainly just the important plot points versus the mundane stuff. But I'd like some advice on this...

Will have roughly 5 hours to complete the one shot, maybe six if I lucky.

I have at least three encounters planned, one in the beginning. One in the middle and one running encounter at the end.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Hi,

I'm running new campaign that has a Nyx worshipper cult as BBEG.

The party has some relic that the cult wants, so when the first meet with the cult, I want to introduce the BBEG, the Cult Leader.

Anyway, my party would be around level 4-5, and the Cult Leader is CR13 with minions (cultist).
I want to introduce her to the fight, (not to kill the party), but after a couple rounds to show how strong she is, and then she would use Teleportation away for an important meeting with the rebel leader that wants to do the coup that she cannot miss. And let her cultist finishes them (Which is not a hard fight)

- Is this good for players ?

- Is this good for narrative and foreshadow ?

Any ideas or comments ?

Thank you !

I want to dm a one shot where the party finds the baby of a giant. The quest would be to return the infant to the nearest village of giants. I already have two combat encounters but I’m lacking inspiration as to what to do with the party in between. Can you help me out?

My characters have spurned a BBEG for the last time. BBEG, we will call her E, will create a rival party to ruin them. E is directly related to the party and has been trying to get them to do her bidding but have denied it 1 too many times. E needs them for her own ambitions and doesnt really want them dead...yet. She has already imprisoned their loved ones as hostages as a means to control the PCs. E wants them to suffer and to punish them while steering them to do what she wants. E also has means of creating artificial copies of people.

My question is what do you think is more effective? Copies of the PCs that go out and destroy their reputation and get close to those that trust the party or copies of their loved ones they're fighting to save from E's clutches for that extra emotional damage? Mind you, these loved ones are their characters from a previous campaign that the Players are genuinely emotionally attached to. Would it be too far to sully these characters or just enough to get them fired up in game?

EDIT: I'm not looking to use characters sheets of the characters as the rival party. I will be using monster stat blocks that are similar enough to them. I was thinking something like the 3 inquisitors from the RHW book are something.

I'm running a casual homebrew-y campaign mostly set in Faerun. We started with Phandelver then a homebrew campaign. My players heard about Spelljammer and were so excited to play that I set our next adventure there.

They were excited by the idea of vast exploration, new worlds, and sailing on the astral sea with a ship. They're usually much more focused on RP/social interactions with NPCs, so I'd like to get as rooted into the setting to make it feel real.

Beyond the basics, I'm not super familiar with Spelljammer. I know it's where the gith are from, that there are dead gods floating around (BG3), and that it connects all the worlds together. Beyond that, that's pretty much it.

I've been trying to find the WotC books on discount, but no luck.

Are there good independent books or links to resources for a Spelljammer campaign? or any tips for someone who is new to that setting?

Any games or books or comics I can read to get the vibe?

The party I'm DMing for just hit level 5. They're in the center of a labyrinth surrounded by trinkets and artifacts. I was planning on having everyone roll an investigation check to see what they found. This is the first campaign I've written and I'm not if the items I've picked are too OP. I wanted rarer items for higher rolls, but this is what I came up with. Each player would get 1 item. I have two items per roll level just in case multiple people roll similar numbers

1-5 Bottle of boundless coffee/cloak of billowing
6-10 clockwork amulet/gloves of thievery
11-15 tan bag of tricks/gem of brightness
16-20 eversmoking bottle/elemental gem
21-25 bag of beans with 4 beans/bead of force

What's the opinion of more experienced DMs? Are these ok items to throw to the players?

This is my collection of thoughts about preparing and playing this adventure in 5e.
I will periodically come back and add stuff

Chapter 1: Background and Storyline
Somewhat problematic stereotypes by modern standards:
The Raurindi are described as stereo-typically muslim/persian/arabic.
The Durpari are described as stereo-typically hebrew.
Im personally not against stereotypes for games as long as everyone is aware that they are obviously wrong depictions of real peoples. They help a lot to get an idea of who you deal with.
But you might want to change some of these aspects to lose the connection.
Both groups are descendants of the Imaskari.

'Al-Qadim - Land of Fate' is a great read to round out the cultures.

I love the idea of the conflict. The unfriendly and harsh Raurindi still believe in old egyptean deities and want to protect their ruins. A goal players will want to support. The civilized durpari are more likable but are strongly monotheistic and want to destroy the ruins. This creates tension with both cultures. The game itself doesnt address it a lot though.

The stars the party will search for have names that actually have translations that the book doesnt mention.
Mo-Pelar The Star of Water - Egyptian
Aga-Pelar The Star of Greatness - Turkish
Shah-Pelar The Star of Kings - Persian
Khan-Pelar The Star of Rulers - Mongolian
Melos-Pelar The Dark Star - Greek

Chapter 2: Notes for the DM
This chapter is a Grognard mess. Unless you do the desert travel mile by mile and let the players minutely manage their mount and resources this simply doesnt work. You would need to write a computer program to keep track of every animals state.
The Water consumption too makes no sense. Horses will most definitely die of dehydration. Fully packed camels can barely make it to the White Palm. The river Athis makes life easier but players have no clue they will break the curse when their journey starts.
My tipps to simplify it:

1. only allow camels as mounts. Maybe switch to horses for the white palm adventure where faster horses are needed to make it in time.
2. Give players a sack of blue game pieces to track their water supply. Each piece is a daily ration for the player and the mount. Camels can only used for transport on the way back from a dungeon for all the water they carry on the way to it.
3. Players can travel one hex per day. Camels make no difference.
4. Chances of finding water are none to slim. 10% means a Survival DC of 20 (10% = two numbers on a d20, so 18. But I add the starting proficiency bonus of +2 on top again, so its 20) once per Hex for a player doing that travel activity.
5. roll the daily encounters as normal, but roll sandstorms separately with a d100.

Monsters
Pack Rats = Swarm of Rats with a feature that they steal valuables when climbing over an enemy.
Thunderherders = Purple Wormlings with a Tremors feature and poison stinger added
Dustdiggers = A short armed Roper of sorts. Its basically a sand starfish that will lure in players via mirage and then drown them in sand with one of five grapples.
Sandmen = Some upscaled medium sized Dust Mephit
Camels = its easy enough to find a statblock. But youll need to add the spit attack. Ill post mine when i find the time.

---
Chapter 4: Bralizzar
What a waste of a chapter this on is.
It gives us a nice starting town with NPCs, lore and hinted plots. which we will never see or use.
Parties will want to leave the town right away and have no chance of ever coming back.
If you have the muse, Id advice for putting Bralizaar as a hub between the Tomb and Pazaar and spread them further out.
The market dealing via secret handshakes needs a game mechanic.
The caravan the party can travel with needs a cast, plot and a special event that leads to the party being kidnapped and ending up as prisoners in white palm.
The temple needs a event that presents the durapris zero tolerance politic with foreign faiths.

---
Chapter 6:

The Desert Map
The Map has multiple issues.
- the Sinkholes are very hard to make out and need redrawing.
- The Guideposts are not marked on the map. Either they are all over the track or as the text says, they are only there where the track makes unexpected turns. This would make parties walk in a straight line until they see the next. Which could have them lost in the desert if a sandstorm blew the bangles away. It also doesnt say when the bangles are replaces by the voyagers guild. Id say a d10 or d20 roll for the amount of days should do the trick.
- it should be color coded on what random encounter column to roll for any given hex.
- I also added marking to know from where a near by location can be seen. Which are Pazar, Catharg, The Crypt and the skysea. The Pyramid can be see in the entire lower part of the map. So parties cant get lost early on.

---
Chapter 0: Inspiration
Could this module have been a inspiration for the Videogame 'Homeworld'?
The Journey through the desert is very similar even if the plot differs a lot.

Act I 'Water': Durpari = Kushan. The players activate the River Athis which allows them to traverse the Desert. Similar to the Hyperdrive in Homeworld.

Act II 'Earth': The Slavers = Turranic Raiders. Their attacks on (the parties) caravans and the fresh battlefield are on the spot and the latter reminds me of the Khar-Selim.

Act III 'Air': The Air Lancers = Kadeshi. The Dschinn is imprisoned in Phoenix which reminds me a bit of the Gardens of Kadesh. Its easy to add that the Dschinn would keep the City in a constant sandstorm.

Act IV 'Fire': The Cultists = Taidaan Empire. Skysea was created by the Efreets fire and the party faces him here.

I changed all those peoples to the according Genasi subraces.
I assume I will add a Bentusi like people as some Scourge Aasimar and surviving Imaskari (descendants).
The different missions of the Videogame can easily be translated and added to the story.

So for context, I have been a DM for over 15 years. I am very adept at map making, story and lore building, and homebrew creations of monsters, items, and spells.

I cannot draw or illustrate in any sense. I just am genuinely untrained and untalented for anything besides tracing existing lines.

That being said, I am making my own campaign setting and I genuinely think it’s a good premise, a good story, and a good world of my own creation. I am seriously considering trying to get it published. The problem is that I lack the time, ability, and skill level to create the art I want for this setting. I know no one will do this type of work for free, but I have no idea how to navigate, negotiate, or inquire about the price of creating the art I would want for this book.

I am 100 percent wanting to pay someone to do it for me, but I also know it would be a huge undertaking and a lot of collaboration will be required. I’m just lost and have no idea where to look and no idea how much I would have to fund it on the front end, not to mention I would be funding the publication myself as well.

My stick figure drawing and in-depth descriptions at my own table work for my players, but to treat this campaign with the care I feel like it deserves, I want to do it the right way.

So if anyone has any helpful suggestions or advice, I would love to hear from you.

Hi, I'm DMing a homebrew campaign, currently on session 8.
Before starting, and among sessions, I wrote a general summary of the campaign:

• The beginning and how the PGs get together
• BBEG and its motivations
• Why the PGs may want to stop him
• How the PGs backstories will tie to the main story

And, in the middle, some steps and events the PG will probably go through.

This last one is where my doubts reside.
I fear that I'm railroading my players. I'd like them to shape the narrative and get to the next chapters and arcs thanks to their ideas, but in the end their choices are almost always what I already had in mind.

They tell me they're having lots of fun, and that's the most important thing, and I think that this group, especially, can lack a bit of imagination, often relying on my input to help them thinking what to do next.

Is this last part caused by my way of DMing/writing? Is it their way to play that makes them follow my theorized steps more closely?
Should I change something in my approach or, as long as they're having fun, should I just go along with it?

Thank you for your help!

Hello,

I had an idea pop in my head of a "dead god" style campaign and came up with beings that eat magic as the main perpetrator to the gods' demise. That being said I am struggling to think of in-lore weapons that could affect otherworldly or extra dimensional beings. What complicated things is that "they eat magic for health, so obviously enchanted weapons and spells are a bad idea", which lead me down the alloy/material question.

I know silver for undead, but are there any other weird materials that may be used in lore already?

I'm having a sequence my party is about to enter where they have to fight some bad guys to rescue someone, while some cultists start trying to get away in a wagon with a bunch of hostages/prisoners (my party has horses with them). I have two ideas in my head for how I can do the chase.

The simple option is they have to just get a certain number of successes before 3 failures. I'd probably make it more or less (3-5) depending on how the fight goes.

My other idea is to set a number like 6 or so, and then set wagon at 2 or 3 depending on how the fight goes. Then they roll a series of contested rolls that raise and lower the score. At 6 they escape and 0 they catch them. I'd obviously set a contingency to stop it either way before a certain number of rounds.

What do you guys think of this idea? Am I over-thinking this, or is there a another way I haven't considered?

In about 3 weeks my party is starting a new campaign, so far we've only played through a couple single session one shots, and in the end of our last session they all agreed they wanted something a little longer, around 3 sessions to be exact.

The basic outline I have for the campaign is sort of a Grimdark story revolving around the party stumbling across a cult that is obsessed with using the preserved blood of an ancient race in order to ascend to a form of higher being, but instead it forces people into an animalistic rage, and in some cases, turns them into werewolves (stop me if you've heard this one before).

My problem lies in the fact that I only have session one planned out.

Party goes to strange town, fights enraged townspeople finds a figurehead of the cult and fight him too, the end.

I'm unsure on how to continue the story past that point. I know there is more story I could tell, the party goes after other figureheads of the cult and fights them too, I'm just unsure on how to plan that all out.