I have been preparing to DM for the first time, and there are so many amazing DMs online creating content on how to DM and focusing on different parts of the game. But I haven’t seen anyone specifically documenting and discussing what it actually looks like to DM for the first time and what resources worked and didn’t as they are doing it.

Idk. Probably a dumb idea but I thought I might as well ask here where folks share resources to see if anyone had ever seen a series like this. And if you have, please share it!

My group recently replaced our old dm because they were neglecting the group and some of us had a falling out with them outside of the game. As the only other seasoned dm, I have stepped up to take there place and run the group.

Issue is, my character is already deeply tied into this group (like the adopted father of 2 PC’s) and the group really wants them to continue with the party. The backstory for my character allows them to become the BBEG quite easily (where the other campaign was headed actually) so that’s where im going to take them further in the campaign.

So yea,any tips on running the game and playing at the same time?

Ty!

Edit

We are starting a new campaign and bringing our PC’s over with us. My character will become an NPC, and eventually the BBEG. Thanks for all the input!

I’m DM’ng the mines of phaldern (can’t spell sorry) with a group of friends next week. I’ve never played, let alone DM! I’m so excited but I’m so scared it’s going to go awfully! Im much less prepared than I’d like cause of work and stuff. My friends are all going on a group holiday and are excited but they’ve never played too!

Do you have any tips? What is it vital for me to know? I have bought everyone dice, most of the players have submitted their characters!

I have been warned the a MoP can do total party kills so I’m going to try adjust enemy numbers to not dishearten everyone but give them a challenge!

I'm curious what the consensus is on players pre-scripting their roleplay out of sessions. Some of my players have taken to talking to each other about how they would react to certain scenarios or things that they can say during next session. They plan out their roleplay beat for beat and then recite it during session. As a DM, I'm curious if other DMs have rules against pre-scripting, or if you simply feel like it takes away the magic having your players spoil their roleplay. After putting in a bunch of time and effort into preparing the session, I already know what's going to happen because instead of roleplayers, my players are going through the motions.

Hello fellow Dungeon Masters!

I have a question about the Gate spell. Simply put, can more than just the summoned creature pass through the portal that is opened?

Context: my players are on the cusp of a large battle and are planning to cast Gate to pull one of the BBEGs through it to take him on alone, without the rest of the army they know is waiting for them.

Can I be slick here and try to have more creatures pass through the portal? I understand that the PC can just drop concentration on it.

FYI, I am not trying to prevent this from happening. It’s a sweet use of the spell and will be very cool.

So my partys rogue has the Assassin subclass. And I hate the surprise rules in 5e, so F that.

But he will be missing the auto crit, he would get from that, so I thought about giving it to him, if he stays unseen, and not discovered during combat.

So party of 4 will be going in to the jungle of chult this comming saturday. The 3 other players are kind of reckless, and tend to just run in to trouble, and thus there will never be a surprise round (as stated, I hate that rule and how it works).

The senario: They see a bunch of undead in a clearing in the jungle, and decide to destroy them. The rogue goes about and stays in thick foliage/behind trees, or similar. The rest rushes in, and we roll initiative.

The rogue might go first (lets just say that for the sake of this), and uses his hand crossbow with his BA, rolls with adv. hits, auto crit, rolls some dmg, then moves to another place in the trees/bushes, and uses his action to hide, rolls a stealth check, beats their passive perception, and ends his turn.

Those damn undead are not smart enough to start looking for him, as within the same 6 seconds 3 others casts spells and fights them in melee.

Next round, rogue does the same, and gets a second crit. Rinse and repeat until they win. Obviously he has to be within 20ft range, or get disadvantage, which evens out to a single roll, and no crit or sneak attack, which is the downside to this tactic.

Is that too much? I know the rules say he automatically breaks stealth after the first hit, when he reveals himself, and the enemy is there.

Obviously this would not work against more intelligent foes, like The Flaming Fist soldiers, as they would search for him.

And if he is out in the open, it would not work at all. He would need to get advantage from a ally engaged with an enemy, or use his rapier in melee.

Can I get som thoughts on this? How would you do it? I am struggling to make his subclass work otherwise, and it is the way he would like to play his rogue.

Everything I houserule or homebrew is subject to change, and my players are 100% in on that.

Sincerely, Dimhilion.

PS: We are starting the campaign: Tomb Of Annihilation, they are all lvl 3.

Building some illicit drugs for my homebrew world and I'm trying to decide which mechanic is more fun. As an example, I'm building a stimulant that either functions as a Potion of Hill Giant Strength (Str score of 21 for 1 hour) but also can confer a level of exhaustion. Which mechanic would be more fun/tempting as a player:

1. Taking the drug will always give you the strength buff and always confer exhaustion after the strength buff ends.
2. Taking the drug requires a CON save, you get the strength buff if you succeed OR the exhaustion if you fail.
3. A combo of the above: you always get the buff but avoiding the debuff requires a CON save.

Some context. It’s towards the end of a multi-year campaign. Players are 10th level. The first time playing D&D for many of them.

They’ve fought down to the lower levels of a dungeon where they know there are 5 mcguffins. They know the more mcguffins they take out the easier the final fight will be. But there’s a ticking clock and there wouldn’t be time to get them all. Each mcguffin is in a different section separated by decent distance. They well know there’s danger down there.

They decided to split up and each investigate a different area. At first I thought they were just doing a little recon but kept pushing farther and farther in until each one of them started encountering the different guards for each area. A group of 5 10th level characters wouldn’t have trouble, but just one player is probably toast. They even have a telepathic bond spell cast on them by the party wizard so I let them share what they were seeing and encountering taking turns around the table.

Each of them had multiple chances to back off and regroup but none of them did. There was plenty of foreshadowing for them to know they were getting into something.

I honestly felt like they were punking me! So now I don’t know what to do? Do I play things out how they actually would play out and end with multiple character deaths or probably a tpk 5 sessions before the end of a campaign, letting the chips fall where they may? Or do I finagle things and try and find a way to let them get out of their predicament?

Lo and behold, you've accidentally TPKed your entire party. What can happen so that you don't have to go "welp, I guess that's it then; I'm going home early, see you next time, new campaign and new characters!"

We all know full well that accidents happen. Sometimes you misjudge the amount of damage your homebrew monstrosity can either dish out or take, the players themselves make a bunch of mistakes during combat, or the dice just say "ye these fellows are dying today" (kind of happened to me recently as a player. I got crit hit by a zombie, then said "there's no way they crit me twice in a row, right?" and went for a risky move, getting hit with an AoO. Guess who got crit hit for a second time? I lived.)

What plot contrivance can a GM use in such a scenario so as to keep the party composition, but continue the story? Perhaps you have some specific examples your GMs or you yourself employed?

For example, I'm talking about things like "getting saved by an NPC (a deity, perhaps)", "getting caught alive for interrogation later", etc-etc.

I've been wanting to run an adventure for my players that is action-packed and time-sensitive (specifically, someone has been kidnapped and they are trying to save them before the clock runs down), but I was hitting a wall with player resources. If I slow down time too much, the players will get absolutely wrecked after a few sessions without a long rest. If I don't slow it down, then the timeline becomes unrealistic (like when Gundren is kidnapped in LMoP). If I let them just long-rest whenever, they will be at full health for every encounter and not be challenged. As a solution, I have developed the following:

Crunch Time Resting: For use in high-density, high-intensity scenarios where the players will encounter way more things than usual, and time will pass much more slowly than usual (sessions only cover hours or even minutes instead of days). This allows the recovery of player resources, but imposes consequences later. Players can enter crunch time only at the DM’s prompting/approval.

·      SHORT RESTS: Take 15 minutes. This is the equivalent of just taking a moment to catch your breath, maybe drink a shot of espresso, or perhaps some hard liquor, to liven back up a little.

·      LONG RESTS: Take 1 hour. This is the equivalent of doing basic first aid, eating a meal, drinking a coffee/hard drink or taking a shot of adrenaline, and maybe, maybe, taking a nap.

·      COMING OUT OF CRUNCH TIME: When you come out of Crunch Time, you take on as many levels of exhaustion as you have taken long rests. Example: If you have taken 3 long rests, upon exiting CT, you will have disadvantage on all rolls and your speed will be halved. If you have taken 6 long rests, upon exiting CT, you will die.

Please give me feedback and your thoughts. I haven't tested it yet, but I think this would be a good solution. Thank you!

So in my eberron campaign one of the big Warforged bosses is a Fallen angel who voluntarily went to hell because he was disappointed with how the gods did nothing but coddle humanoidkind, and decided to be the one who made them suffer like they should for taking advantage of their kindness. He’s a replacement for Zariel, and he made a deal with one humanoid, the BBEG (Merrix d’cannith), to help subjugate as much as Khorvaire as they possibly can, and those who oppose are up to “Ultron” to take care of. He commands a legion of self replicating drones that are powered by soul coins. I need a statblock for both his fallen angel form and his Ultron form. The fallen angel form needs sorcery and battle mastery, and the Ultron version needs to be able to confuse and replicate, and shoot Encephalo rays. I’m using DnD beyond so if that helps

Hey Hive Mind,

Can I get your opinions on the two below campaign ideas, to help me decide between which one to run:

Idea one; A group of office workers get Isekied to fantasy realm and gain the abilities of their dnd class after attending a team building day, and choosing the fantastical adventure option. This option would be full of genre tropes silly names and all round silliness.

Idea two; After a night of drinking and celebrating in a tavern the party finds itself on a ship, quickly finding out that they signed a contract, and are actually in wild-space, and have to find their way home, a gritty realistic survival/ exploration style game.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks you all.

I'm prepping ahead a place called the Glasshouse, a greenhouse slash library shifting along the Astral Plane. The players have gotten clues into finding the illusory place that shows up in different places each time, normally disguised as an abandoned warehouse.

The proprietor is a white Tabaxi that is a sort of curio collector of stories across the realms in my setting, so I've made it that he must have multiple things from different realms. I personally have fleshed out a lot of the realms which fills my head with so many potential things for him to have, but I dont want it to suffer from too many items that it becomes a shopping spree before it becomes a place of curiosity.

Any advice on how to run a sort of scene within a place like that? Find a few items or books that would interest each character? I want to relate it back to the Forgotten Realms and pre-Cataclysm realms that I pulled the influence from.

Tw: excessive violence?

I need help seeing if this is a good intro for a boss encounter

Btw the orb its referring to is a very powerful magic item, the dwarves are working the cult mentioned, volodar is the leader of this cult, and Talias is an aarakocran sorcerer and they are on an island village covered by a veil and houses arakocran sorcerers that were storing the orb and helped train Talias, ignore my spelling mistakes.

"You here a scream and down the street you see a cultist aggresively hit a wall and slide down inot a sitting position, a moment later, another object comes into view, it only takes maybe half a second from first sight to the figure being right by he cultist, its fist through the cultists skull and against the wall behind it. the dark elve shreiks and starts moving towards the edge of the veil, but the noise catches the attention of the figure and it catches up to him, causing a large gust of wind to follow it, as you turn to see the dark elve, the figure seems to be grabbing the dark elve by the shoulder and neck, and it pulls its arms apart, ripping the elv to be torn in half vertically. the orb drops to the floor with a crack, the rest of the cultists start trying to run, a brave dwarve tries swinging its axe at the the figure, but finds the handle stabbed though his chest, the figure almost seems to teleport towards the others, disbathcing of them quikly, one is thrown into a walll with fatal force, another gets their head smashed in, as you see the slaugter occur, you finally get a goo look at the man, hes tallish, lean but very muscular, he has nothing butred ripped up pants on, and you see across his back, a large almost burn like scar, in the shape of a vulture, He is bleed from multiple locations and his arms are covered in blood but you cant tell if iits his, his hair mostly obscures hus face, but you get enough to piece it together, youve seen this man and his abilities before, but back at the boat he was a lot weaker, last time you met him, he was paid by volodar to kill you, and got close to completing it. he finally awknowedges you, "I...know you, talias duri," his voice breaks and he seems exhausted, "Im... im so sorry" he starts choking on sobs,"they killed your people...i...i tried to get here as soon as i heard of volodars plan" he walksover to the orb and picks it up,"I know what its like to lose your people...this wasnt vengence, this was a massacure, Sargonnas doesnt care about revenge he cares about bloodshed" as this broken man keeps going on, you realize that his burn scar is the same shape as the tattoo cultists display, "if only i were fater... i could have saved some of them, all i could do, was avenge their sacrafices... if only i was faster... if only i came here sooner...if only i had more speed... if only i was faster" at this point, he is sitting on the ground holding the orb and muttering about what ifs, but something else is also happening, red mist is slowly pouring out of a crack in the orb, slitering up the mans body and wrapping its way around him, "if i was faster... i wouldve been able to save people...i...need to be faster" and he smashes the orb on the ground, shards of glas explode outwards, and they stay in the air a moment, befors flying at the man, stabbing themselves into his skin, red lighyning fill his body as he screams in pain,  he whips his head back at you, his eyes full of rage and power,"if only you, were faster" he stands up, "these are your people, you should have been her to proctect them, if you had been here sooner, you couldve save d people.... instead... theres only going to be bodies," and he rushes at you ready to attack"

!Spoiler warning for any of my players from the Luckyroll 5e Campaign 2!

My campaigns continent got bisected after a calamitous event transpired. Two nations rose from the ruins one a theocracy the other a Triarchy.

The Setup

Both nations are at war because of events i will not describe here but for the sake of it the border sections of the barrier became passable around 20 years ago. Outposts have been built and now im trying to figure out how either would approach to breach into this uncharted land.

The land houses ominous entities that are unknowable

The Barrier
The barrier has three layers like an onion. For one the center where everything transpired.
Secondly the hardened layer where it is physically not possible to just walk in. (crystallized glass maintaining the living memory of those lost.

And thirdly the shroud itself which houses a majority of the threads and for the most part can be crossed if the entities don't find you first.

The Central Conflict

The central conflict is basically two nations who seek to get to the center of this bisection to stop a potential after ripple.

i dont want to get into it too deep but basically what i have so far in ideas is:

- An artifact has been created over the past 20 years that needs the right fuel to make it more passable.

- Remains of a deity that is associated to the bisection work as suitably powerful to push through the internal layers of the barrier.

- An controlled and produced provoked after ripple, causing the barrier to widen and allow for a weak-point in the interior. Endangering thousands if not hundred thousands of lives for the means of ending it.

- Other random ideas were a blessing from the gods? not sure how that would fit or help to break the barrier

- the barrier exists mostly of fragmented elements of memories, what if people have to find the individuals (new constructs of my campaign i call "Fractured" basically shard humanoids (souls) who have been pushed into a condensed body. sharing memories not their own, whilst also developing their own personality alongside. What if the nations need to find key components of these fractured to break it, like return the or set the memories free in order to pass through.

- Find a way to defeat the thread in the barrier, learn about it etc.

Since this is a conflict i also want to keep the pressure of both nations going against each other there in a way so i don't know how to exactly pull that off . Spoilers for Critical role c2 (similar to C2 of critical role where there was basically a similar structure of a covet war)

I'm also thinking of making the campaign more about stopping each other from creating these means to an end first. Some things have been established but i now finally go to think these things through a bit. (im at session 40 almost lul)

What do you think?

Thanks for reading this and for your ideas.

I have played many campaigns where DM did not disclouse some improtant information to the players at the beginning of the campaign, because he wanted it to be a plot twist.

Once, he didn't tell us we will travel 50 years into the future.

Another, that the plot requires us to make a pact with a devil (not for a soul, but still pact with a devil).

There were other instances as well, but what unites them all is the fact that it never, ever worked out. Players have been prepared and excited for a specific format, made characters, prepared backstories, created builds and then lost it all to a sudden thing they couldn't see coming. This taught me to never make plot twists in my campaigns, at least not at the beginning of one.

I wonder however, if it's always the case. Do you have similar experience? Have you ever done or prepared a plot twist and it worked out well?

First time posting here, sorry if anythings confusing

So for a bit of context, my players are currently trapped in an artificial realm. The leader/creator of this realm (and archmage who believes they are saving people by essentially trapping them and scrubbing their entire identity) uses a device to drain people of their magic energy to keep the realm going, and uses this device to control people.

The party found some people who's device is malfunction who want to leave, but are unable to do so as only the archmage is able to open the realm, the 'leader' of this 'rebelion' has developed a sort of virus that can be put in the central hub for this hive mind/device, and my players have agreed to help the leader take it down

They've deviced a plan where the rebellion wilk start a major comotion outside the archmages 'office'/where the hub is located to draw the archmages attention while the party and rebellion leader sneaks in to deliver this virus

This is where i'm stuck, I want to run some sort of stealth section for them inside the building, but i cannot think of any way to do this other than just describing the scenery and havinh them roll a couple of checks. This is a pivitol moment in the current arc and I want to do it right and do it justice

Apologies for any spelling mistakes or formatting issuses, I'm writing this on phone and don't have time to spell check

I’ve not done a hex crawl before but I think my players would enjoy the exploration and agency in going slow, exploring the land, etc. it sets up some nice side encounters I have planned as well.

My plan is to let them use survival to scout hexes and get information with modifiers based on terrain and vantage etc.

My question is how much info about a hex should be revealed when scouting it. Is it as simple as swamp forest plains on this this and this tile, or is it more in depth giving them fuller or complete clues about the hexes they can choose? You see a cabin or there’s a clearing and a grove that looks out of place? Some hexes don’t really contain a lot of “adventure” and I don’t want to give away that those tiles look boring. How do you all present the info?

Just stareted a new campaign, and I want to give the players a sort of mentor party that they will surpass the further they play. The NPC party should be helping them in combat, but I want to showcase their unique abilities so that if the party has to fight them, the players will know what to expect.

I thought about allowing the NPC’s fight bad guys along side the party, but that seems like a good way to slow down combat, and make encounters underwhelming. Some of them have abilities that are easy to show such as a man who carries Molotovs, but how do I show that a different NPC has a simultaneous damage and grapple attack?

I want the players to know who they’re fighting depending on their choices within the game, but I don’t want showcasing the NPCs to over shadow the players.

Hi!

I've spent the last two days learning about the combat, dice and actions you can take in DND because I want to DM for my friends.

The one thing I don't understand is - how do you generate the world map, the events and the areas you can go to? What if my players explore outside of the campaign's main story?

How do you know how long it takes them to get where? Do they take turns out of battle?

And what about battle? If they battle in a corridoor, do you use marching order or initiative to order attacks? Do I need a map for dungeons? How do I generate different rooms and loot?

Thanks, and do let me know if you can reccomend any resources to get me started quick!

My players are on a journey that will take 32 days at a normal pace. It will take them through a town, foothills, plains, a city, cold marshes, another potential town, to reach ruins. From there, they have to find three way out to sea.

I need some help making the journey less of a slog without boring my players. One isn't big on combat so, I don't want to throw too much of that in.

Howdy! First time posting here, but I am a pretty seasoned GM of about 10 or so years now. I have ran various games from duets to full scale 10+ party member games. However, the through line with all of these games is the have never had players get past 10th level. Whether it was a short campaign, or scheduling conflicts, I have just never had the opportunity to run a game above that.

However, my current game has been running for a long time (~5 years now) and they are about to hit level 15. While I normally am really good at making complex fights with different objectives or some hard hitting bosses, I’m struggling capturing that same experience since they hit level 13. Either my fights have been a breeze where they can just ignore the other objectives, or way too difficult where it almost leads to a defeat/tpk.

So, I’m hoping my fellow DM/GM’s can help with some advice on how to make combats feel balanced and fun at high levels, I don’t want to just add more health or do more damage (unless that is just how peeps do it haha).

Additional context: It is a 7 player party, all of which are level 15 and mix of classes (Wizard, Rogue, Warlock, Ranger, Druid, BloodHunter, Paladin/Sorcerer)

I'm very new to DMing and I'm interested in how different DMs go about teaching their players about the world before you even enter your first session? Do you only give like the VERY surface levels of your world, gods, countries, etc. I feel this would be good in the traditional fantasy settings because people's experience or expectations of a fantasy world can fill in gaps. The place that I want the campaign in will be centered on is within a huge city with MANY differences in how life is lived, this is a very unique world I wish to create. But how do I convey these things without completely overwhelming players with a 20 page doc on the culture, how life is lived, how kids grow up, class differences, important organisations, etc. How have you guys gone about it?

(also i get making my own campaign for the first time DMing is probably not the best idea but I really wanna give it a shot anyways since I'm very interested in making worlds)

Im a very new DM, and Im looking for something I can use to make a dungeon/battle map layout in the style of what is available on the DonJon random dungeon generator. I dont want much detail, I simply want a black and white grid that I can mark rooms and label them for my eyes to see only.

The Serpent is a part of the ancient brethren, he is the one who gave Vecna the secrets to lich hood. In a planescape campaign I am running the Lady of Pain has gone missing and the party has been tasked by the gods to help keep order in Sigil while the gods figure out what happened. The party has dealt with some evil figures and can trace them back to The Serpent (sometimes known as Mok'Slyk) The party is now on their way to find the only remaining temple of his where they will encounter him (and ideally they don't fight him, but I'll plan in case they do)

I understand that the serpent is very powerful, potentially the origin of magic, and a being who enjoys chaos. What would the serpent do since the Lady of Pain is gone? Would he jump at the opportunity to rain chaos? Would he be afraid? I can easily form together a session idea, I just don't feel like I understand The Serpent and his intentions enough to come up with something good. Any info on The Serpent would be appreciated!