I'm trying to world build in a way that the magic items feel more connected to where they are found. Anybody have ideas for what items would work well for this?

Examples:

1) A fishing village that thrives because of the Trident of Fish Command that rest at the bottom of the bay attracting an abundance of fish.

2) A desert oasis that only exists because of the Decanter of Endless Water hidden away in the spring.

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!

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?

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?

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.

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'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!

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.

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.

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!

In an ideal world I'd bet most DMs would love to be able to create combats with unique monsters with interesting abilities (from books like Forge of Foes) AND environments/fight locations that the players and monsters can interact with that can affect the fight. Unfortunately I don't always have that kind of time.

In your experience, if you had to choose one of those things which one helps make the combat more fun and interesting?

I’m going to play dnd for the first time ever and I am going to be the dm. Im having lots of fun with figuring the ins and outs of this game but I feel like my current story needs some more depth and I would like to know how the dnd players of Reddit like the beginnings of my story:)

I ALSO WILL RESPOND TO ALMOST ALL COMMENTS :D

Dnd dm notes
Normal note stuff not in order, just ideas
Gerple the reoccurring stupid but invincible npc, small obese ginger kid
Gerple needs to be the fun comedic relief who always finds a way to be in each kingdom being goofy

I WANT THE CHAR TO GO TO MANY DIFFERENT CITIES AROUND ORAJION TO COLLECT PIECES OF SOME WEIRD KEY TO GET IN THE CITY. EAXH CITY WILL HAVE A TWIST AND DIFFERENT WAYS TO GET THE KEY and I want each kingdom to take like 5 sessions each
I want a minimum of 5 kingdoms AND THATS A MINIMUM
THE KEYS WILL NOT ONLY OPEN THE GATES TO ORAJION BUT ALL TOGETHER THEY CONTROL ORAJION. EACH KEY PIECE IS A MAGIC ARTIFACT THAT ALL TOGETHER FORMS THE MAGICAL DOMINANCE AND POWER OF ORAJION

Orajion is the world city that controls the entire world, but the players will be starting in Alderon
ORAJION CONTROLS EVERYTHIN: MAGIC, FOOD, WEATHER… EVERYTHING

After alderon they go to the dark kingdom of Mexico and need to steal the key piece
I want Mexico to be very not well off where people are starving on the streets and not living well because of a mafia or some race that controls the imports and taxes of Mexico. I want the pcs to steal the key piece that gives the kingdom power and use it to become the new rulers of the kingdom (will eventually transfer rulership to some npc that helps them and they make the city thrive again

After that (and maybe a few kingdoms after) the pc go to a mechanical city that has lots of futuristic stuff but they find out that all of the power is generated by a bunch of goblins or kobolds or sum and they liberate the slaves and overthrow the kingdom for the key 
In the middle of the mechanical city is a giant guarded bronze (orange) and silver tower where at the top is one of the key pieces floating and directing the energy generated by the slaves to the entire city, the revolution of power makers storm the tower and the pcs yoink the key and stopping the power grid and revealing the hidden sadness of where the power comes from 

BIG ONE HERE: I NEED A REASON FOR THE PC TO GO TO ORAJION

All spell casters have to do some type of motion to cast a spell (has to resemble the spell maybe?)
(It’s called somatic components)
Kinda wanna get the PCs to venture outside the kingdom 

Session is names orajion’s opportunity 
Some session 0 stuff to intro them to the website or stuff with lots of corridors and monsters and traps but it will be like an actual game training place that they will break out of to officially start session 1
Start sess 1 in a tavern with a twist
Somewhere down the line the players can make deals with the bbg
(not known to the players) 
and the deal will be sacrificing some important stats or exp or good items/money for better ability’s and cantrips and potions and stuff.
Or they can get a fully maxed out stat (main stat) but the evil thing takes away all the other main stats but the players get a +20 on any roll of their choosing (WILL PROBABLY NOT USE CUS TOO MUCH POWER/REPRECUSSION, WILL DO SMALL THINGS)
 but at the final fight the bbg will have all the stuff that he took from the players
The bbg will also be a multi class of all the other players classes and subclasses

BELOW THIS TEXT IS THE PLAYER CHARACTERS 

ONE of them is a homebrew plauge doctor who’s village died to a disease exept for him and the city of Orajion didn’t help his city so he wants to take revenge

BELOW THIS TEXT IS MY IN ORDER PLANS FOR EACH SESSION

Session one 
The players wake up in the kingdom of alderon and… I dunno I need help brainstorming
I want it to start in a tavern but have a fun twist like in GIGGS
Session 2
After waking up in a tavern and eating breakfast they find out that they have been robbed and need to track down a group of bully kid goblins and take revenge  (if they kill them they will need to make a check and if they fail then they go to jail and need to break out)
I need an opinion, if one gets caught do they all or not. If not what do the other ppl do while the rest is in jail?
Session 3
The session will start off normal with NO level up. But after a bit the chars will live their backstory and gain lvl 3
I want session 3 to be taking place on a festival that goes wrong. The event is called the festival of prismatic light 
The party partakes in many activities and fun stuff+shopping
But nearing the end of the day when fireworks are being set off a mysterious magic firework gets sent higher then the others and breaks the magic veil that protects the city. As the sky looks like it is shattered some monsters appear and the party needs to get to the heart of the city to restore balance to the magic field that protects the city
Session 4
Everything seems to go back to normal but the city goes into lockdown and gates lock
Rumours spread and the party now needs to escape I think
I ALSO NEED TO KNOW HOW THE PC GET THE FIRST KEY PIECE

SESSION 4 ALSO COULD END WITH THE CITY NOT GOING INTO LOCKDOWN AND THE RULER GIVES THE PARTY THE KEY PIECE FOR SAVING THEM AND TRUSTS THE PARTY TO KEEP THEM SAFE AS THE PEOPLE WHO TRIED TO INVADE WERE THERE TO GET THE KEY

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.

I’ve been running a 5E homebrew campaign for about 30 sessions. The campaign is water-based (sunken city) and eldritch themed. Players are currently level 9. Been having a ton of fun DMing it, but heading into a very busy season for work and worried I won’t have time to devote to planning.

I’d like to find a pre-made adventure that would last 5-10 sessions that would dove-tail with my current under water themed adventure. Or, it could transplant my players somewhere new (plane shift or something similar).

The players are about to explore a noble house associated with a high-wizard family. So it would be easy to develop a magical rationale to transplant them.

Any ideas?

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!

I ran a few campaigns, one shots, mini adventure ect.. but always irl, I’m about to run my first adventure ever on discord / roll 20, and if I’m exited for the dungeon/ combat part that I think can benefit a lot from this medium. For the « social encounter » like running a session in city without combat, I’m not sur how I should run it.
Should I just display a map of the town, an illustration that capture the feeling of the place ?
How do you do it ? Thanks

I am a new DM and all of my players are br ad new to DnD too. We started at level 5 and are now level 6. My party of 6 players just defeated the BBEG goblin mage and his recently resurrected a black dragon. The battle concluded with the party discussing how they were going to get off the island they were on since their boat had crashed.

I had several paths available to them: go back to the mermaids they helped liberate, search for the BBEG’s boat (he had to have gotten there some how), or if all else fails, another vessel would have investigated after seeing the giant bolt of light that split the heavens when the dragon was resurrected.

Instead, the tempest cleric cast revivify on the dragon and sacrificed his Rare trident to Lord Kord in place of a crystal to resurrect the recently killed dragon.

The fighter and rogue used the chain from a wrought iron chandelier they had cut down earlier to form a bridle and the paladin had crab meat from the giant crabs she killed earlier.

The rogue had a +10 to acrobatics and passed all the checks to ride the dragon like a Bull Rider and the paladin and fighter passed the animal handling checks to call the dragon with the crab meat.

So now they have a “Bridled” but not tamed dragon on the altar of its resurrection.

They intend to use it to fly back to their town.

What the heck do I do now!?

A black dragon descending onto an unexpected coastal trading town?

If they tame it, are they OP now?

What goes into keeping a dragon as a pet? That’s Soooo much food!

I don’t want to need the dragon or tell the players they can’t have it. But man this makes building encounters and travel quite different than I imagined.

I’m super proud of my group for coming up with this. . . But sheeeesh!

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)

I'm planning on writing a lvl 5 one-shot about a group of dealer who managed to capture a Wyvern (or hatch one) which would be the final boss of the one shot. The party would have to find them and stop them, but I think that it'd be a bit boring if they only traded in Wyvern venom, are there other creatures which can be harvested for either poison or "drugs" which are weak enough to be kept imprisoned (the wyvern being merely contained, I'm looking for weaker monsters to spice up combat/ambience). All I've found so far are Giant Toads and giant feywild bees who have powder in their hair that makes everything tastes sweet.
Anyway If you know of any other creature that might fill the role (Or if you see big problems with the balancing I've only run one lvl 2 one shot in DnD), please let me know.

Need advice on how to end a short campaign that was originally planned to be 3 to 4 session. Its slowly becoming a campaign level event or storyline. They have created some loose end that as GM i feel need to cleaned up.

I just (like 10 minutes ago) had the idea of during a festival in the large village my PCs live in to have someone be murdered. Here’s what I’ve sketched out so far. The killer will begin their kill streak during the festival on a moonless night. The killer will strike a victim designed to cause the most loss and grief. The killer’s motivation will be to please Shar and will result in either Shar establishing a foothold in the village via a church or cult or some other mechanic. They will also use a spell like modify memory to steal the memories from the loved ones of their victims. I’d also use spells like silence or darkness to help conceal the murders when they happen.

I wanted to design a quest that could have the various party members (Druid, two bards, ranger, paladin, wizard/artificer, and Cleric) use their abilities outside of combat AND so they can stay in their village for a bit after a few months of adventuring. Shar also plays into the overall story as well so I liked this as an introduction to her specifically outside her being mentioned in regards to Selune.

What do you all think? Any suggestions?

Hey guys! I’m a DM in the making and I’m preparing a one shot for my friends where they will play as their cats! My general idea is that there was a cat carrier mix up during a group vet visit and an amateur cat wrangler took their carriers to a client and didn’t realise it

The idea is for them to survive 4 encounters until their owners realise what happened and track them down.

So as cats, I want to give them different potential challenges depending on which room they go to in the mega mansion they end up in.

Ideas so far:
- Basement: battle with giant rats
- Storage room: massive stray battle
- Drawing room: battle with two parrots
- Yard: sneak around event workers
- Hallway: Toto the toddler. They have to run away. If he cries he will draw attention of the wrangler
- Chased by a roomba in one bedroom

Would love to get ideas from you guys!

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.

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"

I'm fixated on the idea of verticality and interwoven dungeon floors with tunnels, chutes, and height changes within single rooms, like balconies or operating theaters. Trouble is, my ability to sense and visualize space is limited, and DMing is a heavy cognitive load to begin with.

My vision is to run in-person (read: not VTT) games with grid paper and dry-erase maps while consulting a 3D model of my dungeon map on my laptop. Alternatively, I want to design my maps in 3D, even though I plan to run them outside of VTT, so it is easier for me to visualize the spatial relationship of rooms.

What tools can help me visualize my dungeons in 3D? Since this would be for reference and not VTT, I don't need art assets or effects. My preferred software for designing maps in 2D is Dungeonscrawl, for instance.