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It's also on my list. I'm going to have to make a video on how I manage to easily plan this out.

Thank you!

I'm using inkarnate, it's really nice. I use it a lot.

NPCs lying are just part of the game, seeing as zone of truth is a thing. It's simply about how it's done. My npcs lie often enough, and my players never have had an issue with it.

@@FamiliarEvils jep

Comment: nice glasses 😎

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Reply: Gengar is top-tier aesthetic

As long as it's the NPC talking or DM talking for the NPC and not the DM out of character it's definitely a high tier practice. I think we're all used to some lying as DMs through a few specific baddies, but to lie or be unreliable for neutral or even friendly NPCs is something I don't really see or have done. I've been learning just as much as everyone here making this series. 😁

Inkarnate.com

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It is definitely strange to do. I had to get a player in towards the later quarter of a campaign, but I'd had him in as a guest star playing an angel (I actually ripped off the DM Experience episode "Special Guest Star" and used Kharandar and Mercion. He played Kharandar.) He reasoned that we could get this character in by having the god "punish" him for technically betraying his charge by making him a mortal. He became a dwarf aasimar bound to helping the party save the world and became an arch angel by the end.

I definitely agree the principle works across the rp spectrum. I do need to get better about villains with faults myself though.

I think this is a valid approach for those who can maintain it and enjoy that. I myself have been running a game for three years that just ended, the previous was 2 years. For me personally what I have found is that I'm constantly trying to hold up and hold together parts of an overarching plot that ultimately feels like a foregone conclusion I have to land like an airplane. Keeping all the connective parts in landing a story like that together ends up feeling like a chore to me in many ways that gives me a bit too much anxiety and leads me away from the kind of game I'm looking to run which is a player-character centric game. This is what I am doing now with my next game. I have several over arching problems that can either be independent or tied to each other, essentially factions and villains are going through their process of achieving their goals or maintaining their status quo. These elements show up on their own and either coincide with my players desires, or clashes against them. These situations build conflict, and produce allies as well as villains. The big problems are the kind that can and WILL interfere with the players desires in some way shape or form no matter what direction they go, and far from being a rail road it works more as an unavoidable problem, like a cancer that needs treatment before it subsumes and kills you, It's just an unfortunate reality. What I believe this will do, and I will certainly make a video on it if it fails spectacularly or is just plain bad, is that it frees me to run a game with little to no "wrong answers" short of being murder hobo's. I can craft a series of stories and conflicts based on my players decisions, and those in turn influence how they will be able to contend with more sinister plots going on around them. This excites me because I don't have to have a master plan I have to stick to, it could turn into anything. What I have found basically every time a player connects and remembers a moment it's one in which they ultimately had a strong hand in creating. When a player dueled Strahd in a 1v1 in my first campaign (Curse of Strahd) and he won by the skin of his teeth everyone remembered it, it's still one of the greatest moments in these last 5-6 years (which by the way cut off an entire several months long plot I'd crafted). In another campaign I had to improv a goblin my players left alive from the very first encounter in Lost Mines of Phandelver, I gave him a Boston accent and made him a young fast talking wise guy who just wanted out of an undesirable arrangement. The players agreed not only to help kill Klarg but then made this goblin the head of their underground business which he then took big time. Those players loved that because though I breathed some fun life into the character, they ultimately created him through their decisions, and made him a big part of the game. I do think an aimless campaign played by the seat of your pants is likely to fizzle out and die, but that's a lot to do with a lack of effort and ultimately you're supposed to craft some kind of story at the same time for your players. However, I also think prep is something best done when crafting it on the micro level rather than mapping it directly to the macro plot. You inevitably end up focusing on those parts your players are actually going to interact with by choice, making your job not only easier due to less contingency planning, but more thorough in its preparation (since you know precisely where to put your efforts), and more easily invested in because they actually wanted to do it. Lastly this I feel facilitates roll play because when done right it forces players to take personal action to achieve their own goals and be proactive rather than reactive. In the preset model I feel like they're always in the expectation that I'm there to lead them along and show them the way, I find it incredibly boring and stale. In the end I'm about to see how it turns out starting in about 2-3 months when I'm ready to run the next campaign.

@zacharysawyer5252 it's definitely how I've felt. It especially gets difficult to wrangle in long running campaigns. I just finished a 3 year long game this evening and it was an unwieldy mass due to how I'd structured it. Starting a new one now let's me be a bit more free and allows me to set it up to be improv focused rather than plot focused.

You can import custom stamps. I use it to import outlines to build over since I feel that some programs are better for outlining, or I am translating another map from elsewhere, like in this case.

@@FamiliarEvils Importing another map as a custom stamp to trace is such a good idea, cant believe I never thought of that

It was truly an amazingly important discovery when I realized I could do that. I'm definitely going to have to do some mapping tutorials on this channel.

@Shepsus lol, I'm glad that helped. I should probably do a tutorial on map making in inkarnate and on setting up maps in roll20.

Inkarnate. I also forgot to drop the map in the description, but I'm out of state and can't right now.

@Immortalaquarius It's all Chris Perkins words, but very few know of the article series and even less read it. I'm glad it's useful though because that's the hope is to get it out there for people to easily listen to.

That's definitely a great alternative because it is difficult to find a dm who runs a game based on character goals. This is the quintessential change I'm trying to make with my own games though where the characters goals are the primary driving force of the campaign direction.

@gergosoos4652 Learning to role play in a deeper manner is definitely difficult, especially if their personality doesn't fly off at you. Start with why your character is powerful. Perhaps this individual is compensating for previous powerlessness for better or worse, or they're simply talented. People have reasons for the way they are, whether it be talent or need. I go to the gym, not because I just feel like it, but because I want to be healthy, there's a motivation, and motivation is the point. If you iron down why they are the way they are, then you think of what they currently want. Goals are big and should be worked through with your dm so they can be reflected in the game. So the reason they are who they are and what they want define a lot of what they will do, but then think of how they get it. I have a power gamer, his character lost his whole nation and most of his family, he's powerful because he wants to control his world in a way he couldn't when he was a kid and thus did everything to be strong. Your character may be more interested in a level of subterfuge by the sounds of it with his magic, so he may be more inclined in personality to not be an open book, choosing to use euphemism and obscurity when talking. I hope this helps a little.

@@gergosoos4652 mind if I use your comment/question for a video? I think this would be a good subject for me to go over.

Here's an improv tip I've given to every player who has ever approached me in 20 years of running D&D with a secret in his background. "All secrets in a narrative are eventually revealed, or they may as well not exist. So at what point do you want the secret to get revealed?"

Good advice

@@FamiliarEvils note me pls because I am interested in your solution.

I'm glad it helped! It's my joy to help bring more forms of story telling into the world. TTRPGs are amazing.

@@TheMightyBattleSquid no, but saying eating babies may be 😂.

@@imspmn2 lol thanks boss man

That's awesome! Thanks for telling me. It makes my day when I know my efforts have helped others.

I have some players who are definitely role play fans. Occasionally these non combat sessions occur and it always feels awkward as the dm but I like it.

Thank you! I'm stoked that my advice helped ❤️. Good luck with your new campaign!

Also, love your pfp, Wind Waker is my favorite Legend of Zelda.

@@FamiliarEvils Thank you! Wind Waker is my all time favorite.

Thank you! <3

Yeah. Fortunately my quality has been improving slowly over the last year, and I've been catching more mistakes like this earlier.

@@FamiliarEvils well, I finished the campaign. Ran with the ritual already in progress and my players came up with a few creative solutions. Took out sparkrender more quickly than I would have thought. Worked together to heal each other. They were pretty excited and now on to the next adventure. They don’t seem super keen on CoS. Possibly abyss since it’s in the under dark ad that’s kind of a cool setting to run a campaign. Or maybe run Pandavler since it has another dragon (they liked that part)

This is an entire article series, so there's a lot here, but it's absolutely worth getting into. The Dungeon Master Experience PDF: vk.com/wall-174681246_3129

@@FamiliarEvils Thank you very much for sharing

I may start this back up soon. I didn't stop because of disinterest, but because I'd heard from some reliable sources that it could be a problem with me reading these articles verbatim. Because of this, I attempted to get permission from Chris Perkins, but that's easier said than done. I'm going to try again, but I may go through with it if he still doesn't answer.

Hey it's been a while! Check my channel for a new Dungeon Master Experience. This one is for you! :D

That sucks that you didn't get to play longer. The angry DM bit is more of a joke, but really it's just that sometimes pets can get in the way, and if a bunch of people have them then combat takes twice as long especially if you're balancing out action economy. It's really just implementation and how you want to play things out while having a pet in the party. Like Trinket in Critical Role campaign 1 did get in the way a lot with travel, and that was a good deal of the reason why Sam/Scanlan had beef with Trinket as far as I understand. And then there is a lot of emotional stakes with keeping them alive, and they're often the weakest link if they aren't otherwise on the opposite end of the spectrum and OP.

Absolutely. That's something I do when it comes to the last point made about making 1hp minions. It really is a great tactic, and a lot of fun.

It's a matter of perspective really. Combat, tactics, danger, narrative are all heavily influenced by a DMs and a players ability to improvise. A player doesn't always know what a DM is going to pull out in combat, and tactics have to change. A DM doesn't ever have a perfect road map of where the narrative will go since a group can always make a vastly different decision than what you were expecting, taking a completely new direction. Now the comment may be slightly hyperbolic, but the point still remains that at least for me, the more I've learned about being a dungeon master the more it has been me learning to plan less or differently, and improv more. Even things that are planned have an element of improvisation to them, you certainly can't plan out every conversation like a BG3 dialog menu, and many core elements of your game are improvised both in and out of the game dependent on what ideas you have and when. This is why I say D&D or TTRPGs in a general sense are first and foremost an act of improvisation, because it's probably the one element you can't avoid if you actually want to role play.

@@FamiliarEvils I think I got it, I understood you wrong. It's not about putting improvising above the game but using it to stitch together what happens on is many spheres, not exactly a focus on purely improvisation in narrative but everything?

@@leonelegender Yes, basically improv influences the whole game because ultimately it is a role playing game, and even if you're playing it like a war game your greatest tool is going to be improvisation. Role play by definition implies improv.

Thank you 💖

Was a great moment!

I think you could, but I know health gets in the way these days 😔. But you're a great player and friend.

Thank you! I'm glad my tips have been helpful. To answer some of your questions, and those you didn't ask. 1. Don't worry about having one player play 2 characters. You have two simple options. You either create a sidekick (video displaying those in the description) which you have any and all of your players control in combat and you roll play as the npc. Or you just reduce some of the numbers of enemies by like maybe 1/4 the total. Also during combat as the DM hit points are fungible, if you have them fighting a big boss and they're losing, just reduce the HP of the enemy. Remember that you're first and foremost there to have fun, not simply follow a list of rules to the tee. 2. I've been through PoA as a player, and am technically running it now with my regular group (in the middle of prepping for that session). It's a good campaign, but I'd think of a way to disconnect the temples. They're designed to connect to each other which means you could spend the whole damn game in there and that's it. As a player who played through that I didn't enjoy that aspect. I would also say let them fight more of the final elemental boss'. The way it's set up is that only like one of them actually gets out before you kill the leader of each temple. PoA definitely takes work. I think finding a way to get them into Curse of Strahd would be great, and still run the Death House. CoS is probably the best adventure for 5e, I ran it myself as a first full campaign and I absolutely agree with the hype. A lot of it depends as well on who your players are. If they're big on the adventurers for higher / gold hound mercantile types then running some of the short adventures in succession with a story you all craft together would work if you get something like Tales from the Yawning Portal, Keys From The Golden Vault, or Ghosts of Saltmarsh. As far as I know with Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat it's a difficult game to run because it takes a ton of work for the DM to patch together. Lastly you could also try to string together the other two starter sets "Lost Mines of Phandelver" and "Dragon of Icespire Peak." I hope this is helpful and good luck!

@@FamiliarEvils yes the extra characters will be run as side kicks. I’ll take a look at Curse of Strahd. I have heard good things about it.

@@FamiliarEvils just completed the Compass Rose portion of the adventure and my players loved the additions and intrigue added with your suggestions.

All the rest of the maps are available already on my reddit. You can find them in the description of this video here ruclips.net/video/yS29c2ln8uE/видео.html. This is my full review and guide for the adventure.

There is a really cool 3rd party set of pdf's for Monster Hunter that would go well with all of this.

@@FamiliarEvils Is it the Battlezoo stuff by any chance?

Thank you! I'm glad I could help.