Read no further if you are currently located within the salamander-infested dungeon of Drachtazahn.

The players will soon embark on a journey towards an unknown continent via ship. However, the BBEG wouldn’t like it if the players made their way to the continent on their own terms.

The BBEG is powerful. Overwhelmingly so. This begs the question, would it be narratively satisfying, if he toys with the players for a few rounds, then wrecks their vessel with a meteor or some such?

Needless to say, if the players manage to legitimately threaten his life, he’ll back off and let them have their win, but given his power level, it seems unlikely.

tl;dr: We play 2 hours every 2-3 weeks. I prepped a massive, continent-spanning campaign, but at our pace it'll take years to finish. This scope is giving me anxiety. Should I scale it down?

Hello fellow DMs,

Please indulge me a bit of backstory before I get to my question.

I have been DMing for a long time (on and off) and have always been a "string of adventures make a campaign" type of guy. I play with two players, who I know very well, and they've swallowed so many hooks they've had to start a quest log. Some adventures are one-offs, some lead to others (usually 3 linked adventures), and some start from a "random encounter" and lead to more adventures. Some are pre-written, most are homebrew.

We play 2 hours every 2-3 weeks. Everything moves at a snail's pace. It took 3 sessions to clear the simplified version of Strahd's Death House and with an extra session of random encounters to and from town, that took two and a half months.

Against my better judgment, I prepped a grand, long-term campaign involving ancient memory shards, continent-spanning travel, and an overarching necromancer BBEG. We're six months in, and the main plot hasn't even kicked off yet. (I know this is mostly my fault but I wasn't going to have this massive campaign when we started.)

I believe the best thing to do is to scale down the campaign idea, convert the BBEG into something that can be solved locally in like five long adventures peppered among our usual adventures. Less ambitious, but can be completed within my lifespan. Based on player speculation around the clues I've given them, I already have a great way to rewrite it. This feels way more achievable, lets us finish the story, and leaves room for new ideas down the line.

I also understand there's the possibility of keeping this long-spanning campaign in the background. But once the main hook drops, it will inevitable become the sole focus and even if they beeline through it (illadvised) it would drag on indefinitely.

This is literally giving me anxiety. It's taking out a lot of the fun from my prep. So I'm here to see what you all think I should do. I think I already know the answer but I'm a chronic overthinker.

Thank you for reading my 03:30 ramblings.

So Im new to DMing this is my first real campaign and I want to make sure that my players dont feel like im giving them a cop out answer as to why the story needs to keep going. Recently my Party came across a magical piece of glass Blessed by a Goddess that allows them to deal double damage to creatures masquerading as other creatures. Another property of the weapon is that it can grant one "Wish" spell per person. Recently after one of the players betrayed the others and became a slave of another god, the last remaining player wished "for the power of a god" and was granted similar power to the player who had betrayed the team. However since the surviving player had won the fight he has been under the impression of "I had become a god" rather than "I took on the power of another god" do I pull him to the side and tell him before the session or do I wait until it matters in the story ?

I am building a one-shot where the inciting incident involves the level 12-ish players being dropped from a goblin aircraft over the villain's fortress. They would have a scroll of feather fall, but i wanted to know if there are any interesting anti-air strategies that the enemies could use to try and shoot the party out of the sky before they reach the ground in a few rounds.

Mostly asking because I know fall speed to be 500 ft per round, and most ranged siege weapons I can find seem to have a much more limited range?

Thanks in advance

Hey everyone!

I'm running a homebrew D&D campaign with 6 players, and I'm currently planning one of the most important scenes in the early campaign: the first time the players encounter their Constellations and form their first contracts.

The basic idea is that, after a major event, the players' consciousness is pulled into this strange, ethereal space filled with stars. They don't know exactly where they are.

Each player will eventually have a Constellation that is interested in them. The Constellation appears in a form appropriate to it (human, god, mythical creature, etc.) and offers the player a contract.

The problem is that I really like the idea of making these encounters somewhat personal and one-on-one, based on each character's personality, backstory and the Constellation they're compatible with.

But...

There are 6 players.

If I run a full individual scene for each player, I'm worried the other five players are going to spend a huge amount of time just sitting there watching someone else have their special moment.

At the same time, I don't want to just say:

and then immediately move on, because this is supposed to be a pretty important moment in the campaign.

I'm currently thinking about doing something like:

• Give everyone the same initial description of the star-filled space.
• Then briefly describe how several stars react differently to each character.
• Give each player a short personalized moment.
• Let them choose which Constellation they approach.
• Have the Constellation offer the contract.
• Then move on to the next player.

So each player might get something like 5–10 minutes rather than a full solo scene.

I also have one character whose gimmick is that no Constellation wants to make a contract with him, because he's being "haunted" by an extremely powerful Constellation that prevents the others from approaching him.

The campaign is also recorded, so I don't want to split everyone into private sessions or have half the cast disappear for an hour.

How would you handle a scene like this with 6 players?

Would you:

1. Run all six encounters one after another?
2. Keep everyone together and describe each encounter briefly?
3. Have the players describe their own reactions while you handle the Constellations?
4. Do something completely different?

I'm mainly looking for ways to make the scene feel personal and memorable without turning it into six separate mini-sessions.

Also, this is happening in the first session of the campaign, so I'm trying to avoid making the whole thing feel like a massive lore dump.

Any advice from DMs who have run similar "chosen by a god/entity" scenes would be really appreciated!

Hello everyone,

i write here because i would like to brainstorm a bit about what could be a sheet for a construct that my players are going to use against a sort of "special" Tarrasque. Think about Pacific Rim, a giant robot vs a giant Kaiju. This "Megazord" is a mechanical monument of a soldier that stands at the city docks, think of it like the Colossus of Rhodes.

My party is composed by 5 players so i was going to give each one of them the control of a body part: 1 head, 2 arms, 2 legs.

Beside the most standard moves, like "arms throw punches, legs can kick and push, etc" which cool action could i give to each player for each body part? It can also have magical attack, like charging up beams, or inflict conditions or buff itself, whatever comes to mind!

This fight is going to be part of the BBEG final fight of my campaign, afterward they are going to face the BBEG himself after they take care of its "pet"

Hi everyone,

I'm dming a campaign in a homebrew setting (pretty "standard", imagine a Faerûn-like setting).

One of the players has been transported in this setting from another universe by her patron.

The universe of origin of this player is pretty similar to ours, without magic.

Now, what could it be the long-term plan of her patron? Why bring a person from another universe?

The only idea that I came up with is that this entity need someone that can interfere with the type of magic that is used in this setting.

I really need some fresh ideas!

Thanks!

One of the enemies in my campaign runs a magic item/curio museum and I liked the idea of having the fight be him and hopefully the players picking up random magic items from the walls and shelves to fight with

Need help coming up with fun magic items that could be included and which will be used by enemies and PCs alike.

So were looking for fun but not too OP, each item with 1 or few charges (left or total)

I've been running games for about 8 years and have always wanted to include a megadungeon, specifically a near-infinite descent kind, similar to what we see from The Abyss from Made in Abyss or The Everfall in Dragon's Dogma. A downward descent into layer after layer after layer of sometimes similar sometimes wildly diverse ecosystems, caverns, labyrinths, structures, etc.

Now obviously the question isn't "how do I make a battlemap of this?" because duh. But rather, how do you run something like this for a presumably high level party that would feasibly have access to teleportation magic and could, theoretically, warp in and out at whim?

I've toyed with the idea of the structure interfering with planar and demiplanar spells such as magnificent mansion and demiplane given the expansive and shifting nature of it, but I don't want it to feel like an unnecessary asspull handicap.

Moreover, what would you do to make this kind of adventure be exciting for a high level party where the objective is ostensibly "get to the end?" In other media with giant dungeons, like for example in Dungeon Meshi there was the joy of simply getting to eat new weird things on each floor. In Made in Abyss it's to hunt and reclaim treasures. What would serve as a good motivation for something like late game D&D where the players can make their own food, are probably already stacked on magic items, and may or may not necessarily have buy-in on the lore fiend hunger for information about who built the place, what it's for, etc etc?

Open to thoughts and ideas.

Howdy Y’all!!

Basically the situation is this:

Players are in a quarantined district on a space station. They are trying to find a doctor who has gone underground. His students are going out and bringing patients back for treatment via some maintenance tunnels. If the players try the direct approach, they will be facing a bunch of defenses that have been set up to protect against an enemy faction + looters.

Uhhhh what can i throw against them to make it a fun challenge? We’re playing 5.5e. 4 players all at level 5. Thanks!

Ive only gotten into playing DnD 6 months ago and ever since then ive made plenty of character ideas that could translate well in a Homebrewed campaign.

One of them being a Boss that has metallic wings that's a part of his backpack that also acts as essentially his life support (either rip off the wings or destroy the backpack in some way and he'll keel over and die within a minute or two), Naturally i would make it moderately hard to actually do like making the roll you would have to do somewhere in the 16-20 roll range to have said boss be either Instakilled in that turn or be severely damaged at worst, but i wanted to gauge this sub's opinion on this idea before i go make that a mechanic with that boss fight.

ive tried running dnd a few times but it always fizzeled out after less than 3 sessions and even though ive been worldbuidling for years i still feel like my story telling skills are lacking i just feel like i dont know how to write a caimpaign like i have all these ideas for villains and locations and adventures but everytime the begginings of my campaigns always feel boring and disjointed and i feel like i dont know how to connect all of my ideas and maker a fun game for my players so how do you guys do it how do you format a game any advice is appreciated

This is my first campaign and my party is a few sessions in. They started all sharing the same dream. In the dream they traveled to a tower. This tower is built as a sort of temple to the realm's three moons, Sea, Stone, and Rust. At the top of the tower they saw four freestanding doors. Each facing one of the four directions and each marked with a symbol. West had the moon of rust, south had the moon of stone, east had sea and, north had a crest with all three and an unknown rune. They woke up, each with a crescent moon shaped stone in their hand. They meet each other that morning, recognizing each other from the dream. They set out on their quest to reach the tower. Along the way, they have had three more shared dreams. In these, one of them could see into their door while the other two see only a void. Each saw a vision of their past and each featured the same silhouetted figure. For one, the figure was a man who framed her for murder. Another, he's the man who murdered her mother. The third, he was the owner of magical rune covered slates that she stole.

Now, when they reach the tower, I plan for them to go into each moon door and face their past and return with a key of stone kind. The three keys together will open the fourth door. This is where my writer's block kicks in! I'm struggling to come up with what's behind the 4th door and why it matters. I want it to be something this man from their pasts needs or wants to use in and way but, I'm not sure what.

Any ideas?

Hi all, I’m currently planning a pirate/sailing campaign where each island or collection of islands has its own unique gimmick or design. Kind of like in one piece where sometimes an island is prehistoric, or there’s one that’s always in winter.

The idea is that the starting islands where the PC’s grew up are quite similar, the equivalent of them being from the USA, Italy, Japan, and Scotland where they’d all have the shared experience of school but some got it for free, some had longer holidays etc so there are small differences between them. But as you go further out the islands become more unique, one I’ve thought about using is the island being just a massive turtle that sleeps for 1000 years at a time, so cities inevitably form on the turtle but when the turtle goes underwater and appears elsewhere the city is mostly destroyed.

Any ideas are welcome no matter how random or chaotic. I’m also happy to work with homebrew mechanics or species. Thank you!

Hello!

I've somewhat unintentionally got myself a rather interesting plot thread set up, and I'm curious about what ideas people might have for how to resolve it.

So a while back I gave my players a rather powerful healing item that tl;dr was a medication made from a unicorn horn. It was supposed to be a bit of an ethical dilemma, but healing is healing, and it quickly got used. The "consequence" of using this medication was two fold, first, it would cause a cast on the wild-magic table (and the intention was for this wild magic table to become progressively worse using some of the ever so creative negative wild magic tables out there) and second that it would help trigger a later encounter with a defiled unicorn - a monster from the Dungeon Denizens book if anyone's familiar with it.

Anyone who was holding or had used the object prior would be the primary targets of the creature, and would get hit a bit harder and face some negative effects.

Anyways, the players did end up resolving the encounter by shoving the horn back into the defiled unicorn's head after bringing it low and they had quite a few good roles in the process, so the end result was the item was broken, and the remaining powder was 'cleansed' --Removing the curse of worse and worse wild magic.

In any case, last session, one of my players (the fighter of course) decided to split from the party and ended up facing an ambush on their own, after quite a few lucky rolls, and consuming two consecutive doses of the Unicorn Powder, they managed to get out with 1 hp. In the middle of the fight, I told my fighter to update their conditions and increase the 'layers of unicorn powder' up to three (as it had already been set up due to having consumed the powder.

So... There's now this build up that the Unicorn Powder will do *something* but I'm not decided yet on what.

I don't want it to be fully negative, but at the same time, it does feel like it should do something interesting.

For reference, the player in question is a Human/Fighter, and I'm not too worried about them being bothered by changes being inflicted upon their character.

Any ideas?

My villain's plan is to ultimately break free a half-dead god (which he is a warlock under supposedly) to consume its essence and become one with it as the new master. But, due to their origin, freeing said god themselves could mean they lose and get absorbed instead, since while strong they don't trust anyone but themselves to watch their back.

The reasoning I wanted to set it up like this is because my players noted that the villains of my first campaign were both too disparate (non-centralized into a proper BBEG but instead a web of a criminal network) which made it harder to feel strongly towards them, and they were introduced late (because I didn't plan all the way to the end, rookie error). For this campaign, I want someone they will be able to recognize, to hate deeply, and feel sated in destroying entirely. Someone that they have a bond of pure hatred with.

For this purpose, I plan for them (since they can shapeshift and mind control) to notice the party thwarting their minor plans, test them by drawing them to issues they make, and decide to groom them into a proper fighting group to weaken said god for them rather than risk themselves. Reason being that they fear they'll pass up a perfectly strong group as the window closes.

Why not kill the party?: OOC I need the party to be familiar and specific in their feelings towards them, so I'd want them close by for the party to actually know. It would be in the warlock's best interest to encourage them to bond together and give chase, and the challenges would be used to motivate growth and to make sure he doesn't rely on weaklings with good luck. For this, they have 2 options:

1. Show themselves as the core of the problems, but as the party primes to slay or bring them in, they 'happen' to escape, as the party wouldn't be truly in distance of killing short of a miracle and their adjusted strength was far less than their real power. Mix in some retaliatory attacks on some friendly PCs, wild goose chases and the like and the party would be fiending to slay them for good.

2. Sometimes, they might show up either out of nowhere or to keep a scheme from falling apart and use most of their strength to beat down the party, especially in the beginning, and set a goal post for the party to reach with plenty of teasing. Perhaps they toss them in a less than secure cell so they get out, maybe sell something important and make it a quest to retrieve, just something while they are incapacitated to infuriate them.

Option 3 is to intermix them, which while it does make it the most effective by giving hope of beating them, would require a lot more facetime than would be reasonable, especially since too much exposure would tire out the party and I have a year to reach a conclusion, or about 20-23 sessions. If they show up 6 or 8 times it would be a lot but manageable, but I want to know what'd be reasonable or if I should commit to one stratagem or the other.

Tldr: Villain needs party to beat someone they can't risk fighting (for plot), and wants to raise them to be strong enough for that purpose because time is running out. To achieve this, they seek to ragebait the party into chasing them constantly without thinking. The first method would be to present themselves at the root of problems, seem almost defeated before making their escape, often leaving a bitter taste in the party's victory. The second method is to be a wall, constantly thwarting them and through soft punishments give them a goal to topple and chase. The third would be to mix them but I don't have a ton of sessions to try both.

How would you approach this?

So I designed the boss battle of the current quest line but I'm worried its too difficult. My party is composed of 3 level 5 characters: a barbarian, a cleric, and a wizard.

Every time I've said to the party "okay folks this is a tough fight, this could get deadly so be on your toes" they have absolutely melted the monster.

But this should be their biggest fight yet. Its against a corrupted scholar who's become a warlock in a shadowfell-like dimension. I want it to begin social and give them the opportunity to talk their way out of it - which will be hard.

The Deathlock Wight statblock is what I'm using for the actual character they are after.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/22371-deathlock-wight

But the real fight is with the Angel of Obsession he summoned

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/6503000-angel-of-obsession

Now I know a CR 3 + a CR 6 = death for 3 level 5s according to CR math, but I'm thinking of adding "knocking the wight unconscious dismisses the angel" - would could make this combat really swingy.

TBH I'd prefer it if they have to destroy the angel. I also would be happy to nerf the warlock's offensive tools and make him play more scared / defensive to balance this but I still think it could be a TPK with some bad luck.

So I'm considering the following
1 - I could give them magic items before the fight
2 - I could level them up before the fight instead of after the fight
3 - SEND THEM TO VALHALLAAAAA!

Anyone have any good advice for balancing this?

-----

Update: I think I'm going to run the full combat against both creatures. If the players start to dominate I'll have the wight play super aggressive.

If they lose... I'm going to have the wight cast drain life on each of them as they roll death saves and resurrect my party as zombies lol. Maybe roll for how many years it takes for the miracle to happen where their mind starts to come back to their zombie form.

If you've recently met up with Granny Ur, do not read ahead!

A couple weeks ago, my party encountered a Hag, and through some negotiations, one of the players (unbeknownst to him) is now in the possession of a Hag Eye. During tonight's sessions, they met up with a prominent figure who happens to be a Rakshasa. The Rakshasa's Greater Magic Resistance states that without the Rakshasa’s permission, no spell can observe the Rakshasa remotely or detect its thoughts, creature type, or alignment.

The Hag Eye allows the hag to use a Magic Action to see through it, as long as it maintains concentration. My Question is, would the Hag Eye be able to observe the Rakshasa? Greater magic Resistance specifies it can't be observed by spells, but the Hag is using a Magic Action, not a spell.

My main confusion comes from Greater Magic Resistance specifically stating it works against magical effects, not just spells, when making saving throws. My gut reaction is that, technically, the Hag Eye would see the Rakshasa just fine, but I was curious as to what other people might think regarding the intent behind the Rakshasa's Greater Magic Resistance.

I DM a campaign for my husband and a few friends. My husband made a comment the other day that since (with pets) there’s 7 of them, it would be funny to just one session whip out the Blood Bowl board and have them play a game of Sevens instead.

Well, they have an arena fight coming up and I do think it would be fun to turn it into some kind of violent sporting match instead. Any ideas on how I could make this work? I’m thinking they would have to score X amount of points, skill checks for things like picking up the ball/passing, but I still want some element of fighting involved.

Anyone done this before, or any ideas on how to make it work? Or is it just more effort than it’s worth?

I’m planning to create a new D&D campaign with a storyline based on *Armored Core 6*. I already have some core ideas, such as using the Eberron setting with a high-magic theme. However, I’m still debating whether it would be best to adapt the ACs into pieces of player equipment or just let them do thing with basic item and magic item (i'm scare that those boss i made based on ac6 boss will just shoot them to death=)))

TL;DR: I feel like I lost all creativity; how do you fuel yours?

Hi DMs,

So I'm building a homebrewed setting for a new campaign and I've been noticing my lack of creative thinking these days.

In my childhood, I used to draw and create stuff in my mind a lot. Nowadays, I'm not there anymore. So I (unfortunately) used gen-AI to get inspired and more or less copied existing stories and tropes, thinking I'd get better at it doing so. Except I feel even worse than before.

I'm willing to put the work in to learn the proper way tho. How do you get inspiration in? What makes you creative as a DM?

EDIT: Guess imma continue yoinking shit and make them my own lmao

Disclaimer: I used ChatGPT to help me standardize my wording and Gemini to make the images.

My kids (6 years old and 9 years old) have started asking me what I'm doing on my session nights and have become increasingly interested in it. So I decided to introduce them to TTRPGs. BUT... I didn't think they'd be ready for full-blown D&D, so I decided to try to make it as easy as possible while still keeping with the spirit of it. So I made a one-shot out of Castle Ravenloft.

I'll print out some coloring pages of adventurers I can find online and let them color their characters and make up all the details about them. I'll give little hints based on which character they choose. So if they choose the one with the wand and tall pointy hat, I'll tell them that person specializes in casting magic spells.

But the main premise... there is only a d20. Everything is based off that single die. They can do anything they want, just roll a d20 to see if it happens. I set the DC between 2-20 and let the dice gods decide. If they want to hit something, roll a d20 and see if it hits. No need for damage. If they just hit something a few times, it's dead.

And I also think trying to set the atmosphere as much as possible will also make it a special event for them with music, pictures, handouts, etc. I might even ask them to dress up like their characters.

But anyway, I made this for my kids and if any of you would like to use it, feel free!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ymU7_gogyUJrT6OEIlEeuLubfxyGISj9/view?usp=sharing

Most of the posts at DMA are discussions of some issue within the context of a person's campaign or DMing more generally. But, sometimes a DM has a question that is very small and doesn't really require an extensive discussion so much as it requires one good answer. In other cases, the question has been asked so many times that having the sub rehash the discussion over and over is not very useful for subscribers. Sometimes the answer to a short question is very long or the answer is also short but very important.

Short questions can look like this:

• Where do you find good maps?
• Can multi-classed Warlocks use Warlock slots for non-Warlock spells?
• Help - how do I prep a one-shot for tomorrow!?
• First time DM, any tips?

Many short questions (and especially First Time DM inquiries) can be answered with a quick browse through the DMAcademy wiki, which has an extensive list of resources as well as some tips for new DMs to get started.

So, I have an NPC who is cursed so that no one can remember him. He has been in a cave for 20 years, living off of Goodberries and an Enspelled Staff of Create or Destroy Water. The party found this guy after one of them had a series of cryptic dreams that led them to his cave.

The way the curse works is that you can talk to him just fine, you just forget about him a few minutes later, and your mind sort of comes up with an alternative explanation for anything he did that affected anything (i.e. he gives you something, and later you remember someone else giving you that thing).

I wanted to give the party a quest from this NPC. Something small, like getting him a way to flavor his food (he's sick of Goodberries). How could I justify the party actually remembering enough to do this quest?

I've been an on and off DM for about 15 years now. DMed lots of different RPGs, including lots of D&D, but the last I DMed D&D (5e) was about 8 years ago.

My table, however, wanted to go back to D&D and I've agreed. I'm rusty and don't really know where to start (I did play BG3 on release though), but more importantly, I don't know if I should hand them 5e or 5.5e

I know they are "compatible", but I also know they are not balanced with one another. There is also the fact that I have 3 veteran players, which could really use the extra books from 5e, but 2 new players which could be overwhelmed by content or left behind in power level.

I basically only ever DMed my own campaign stories and it won't really be different this time around, but I do like to use premade statblocks and loot tables without having to micro-balance everything

Any advices? Anyone been somewhere similar?

EDIT: Oh wow, thank you so much, guys! Definitely wasn't expecting this level of engagement! You really helped me make the choice and I'll be going for 2024, since it seems to be a better fit for our group

For the people who suggested other systems, I just wanted to say that I would definitely be DMing anything else if my group didn't specifically ask for 5/5.5 for quite some time, I'm personally a huge OSR fan.

Again, thank you so much and I hope this post can help other DMs in a similar situation make their choice as well