Seconded! Really solid advice but in bite sized form is always a nice change from more in depth discussion! (Please keep those in depth discussions as well of course).
For the "What Adventure in the first session?" question I have a really nice answer: Back in 84, I bought the D&D basic set, the red box. In there is a starting solo-adventure starting on page 13. It is no campaign, it is just a ruin to "explore and plunder because it is there." no big plot. Just the ruins and one level of the dungeon. My advice for a new DM play this through to familiarize yourself with it and the feel it has. Then send your first-level party in you might want to double the number of enemies for each encounter but that is it. My final advice, sometimes low-level adventures die. Adventuring is a dangerous profession. I died in my first adventure within the first 30 minutes - I did not quit and never have.
I died in my very first adventure as well (the 3.0 boxed set scenario). Dying was a right of passage for players. It allowed you to not take the game too seriously. At the same time, the threat of death did a lot to make you think and strategize rather than rush in or try to smash a chest open.
Love the answer about using mythological settings. For the person asking for challenging, but not killing introductions for new players I would suggest enemies that focus on conditions rather than damage. Maybe it's trickster fey sabotaging an event, a race or competitive event, or noble mages wanting to humble the lower class. That way they are learning how some conditions work while learning their characters. And while they won't risk death the challenge and stakes are still present.
Alternatively It's important to keep in mind "roleplaying" means "playing a role". If you're playing D&D your character class is your role. They were literally named "Role" in 0D&D and renamed to "Class" later. So if I'm "being a Fighter" then I am by definition roleplaying well. If you want your players to play-act, you need to tell them that and set the expectation that you are only rewarding LARP style play. Be honest, don't try to enter into unspoken agreements with vague language; instead communicate clearly about the style of game you want to run and enter into a clear social contract with your group.
I agree; Role playing is describing or acting out the actions of their characters. Two characters talking is not an action. Particularly it’s not an action gamified by the system. If the DM wants the players to engage in these discussions I would suggest porting in a Ties or Bonds between characters system from another game. The reward needs to make sense and I think the only one that makes sense to me is a gamified camp fire activity or session recap activity where characters acknowledge, create or resolve ties between them in order to qualify for levelling up. It needs to be actionable, learnable, teachable and measurable. By measurable it needs to be traceable by the players as a progression
I think the best thing to give players for cool roleplay moments is inspiration. It's such an underused tool, but players will love it, when they can later turn a failure into a potential success because they roleplayed their character well. And the best thing about it is that you can up the requirements when the players improve in skill. This way it will always be challanging, but doable to get inspiration.
@@XMaster340 You missed the point. You're still not giving your players a clear method of obtaining that reward. You're just using a muddy term like "cool roleplay moments". If I'm a Fighter, choosing to go up front and fight the big bad should be a "cool roleplay moment". As a Wizard choosing which spell to cast should be a "cool roleplay moment". But whether these are true is entirely up to your poorly defined fiat.
@@pixledriven It being muddy is the entire point. There does not need to be a clearly defined method to obtain the reward. In fact there shouldn't be one or players are likely to optimize for the method and not the goal. Also, roleplaying a fighter by charging an enemy is like saying an engine with four wheels attached to it is a car. You would technically be correct, but that's more like the bare minimum and not at all what I would consider good roleplay. If your character is defined entirely by its class the that's a boring and bland character. No matter how well you play it.
One warning about rewarding roleplay (from Brennan Lee Mulligan): You want to be careful about what you might **not** be rewarding, such as when you miss a player’s attempt at a fun interaction. Rewarding one roleplay interaction but accidentally missing someone else’s can create unintended messages for your players
I love "A Most Potent Brew". I've run it a couple of times for low level players, and it's been a blast! Short, sweet, and easy to digest, both as a player and GM. 100% would recommend as a tool to keep in the GM's back pocket.
YES! Someone finally said it! I am tired of people thinking the "avarage anime medieval fantasy" is ANYTHING like medieval europe. And that things like lotr, are ANYTHING like 'generic fantasy'
Thank you so much for tackling these subjects! I've been thinking of those topics for a while now, and it's great getting this insight, both in my question and others discussed here, especially the European High Fantasy genre take.
On the topic of alternate settings, I think Paleolithic settings are hugely underrated and I think are worth a mention on the channel. They’re fun and easy to play as a player, but more importantly, they’re very easy to set up as a DM. The environment itself is already a challenge, social encounters are for both fun and strategic benefit, competing factions are easy to justify and flesh out, magic is handled by the shamans who also speak to spirit gods (justifying magic and giving religion a defined purpose and weight), it lends itself well to a hex crawl (which are rewarding and fun for DMs), you talk small word like caveman, and monkeys. I’m really surprised the setting isn’t more mainstream.
I can attest that 'A Most Potent Brew' is pretty much perfect for a first 5E scenario. It's got a neat puzzle that players will actually be able to solve without hints or tons of wasted time.
The adventure that comes in the Stranger Things box set is actually a really good adventure to run as a beginner DM. It's short and simple, you can run the whole thing in a single session to get a contained adventure experience.
In response to the question asked about not killing off a band of new adventurers, I do enjoy the approach of some form of safety net that advances the story without out right killing them. The situation of being taken aside, revived and held for ransom is really good but also consider other scenarios. I am a big fan of shows like Stargate and Star Trek so the leap to constructed environments players can explore with the only risk they have is being kicked out due to their artificial nature is a decent idea to me. A small slap on the wrist of some actual psychic damage then back into the dreamscape or fictional pocket dimension if you want to go down a route more fantastical. Another route is having an item that revives them. I would avoid it being an NPC escort unless it fits as it could feel like a babysitter but they could then be a font of information so consider wisely I suppose. I would avoid handing them a Staff of Healing or something like that as it requires a player to use the thing when they're barely grasping how to read their character sheet, in some worst cases. Possibly even disinterested or actively looking to hoard treasure for themselves by letting their allies die before getting anywhere near the wealth promised. Instead, try to make it a plot point. You died but then the magical do-dad raised you, perhaps with a mark somewhere on your body to signify this. Mark how you have less Hit Dice but now cannot die. Food is tasteless, light a little brighter and skin paler. Make it an event and something to figure out. You were saved but you are not safe.
Speaking of avoiding TPKs with 1st level characters - there is a very specific thing that really helps. Change monster damage from rolled to static, and subtract 2 from it. So, a goblin would just do 3 damage on hit. That way damage is unaffected by crits or high damage rolls. The subtraction is needed becasue average damage as-is can still pile up very fast if same party member ends up targeted by multiple foes.
Answer for maps is D100 Dungeon World Builder. Answet to xp is similar to how Dungeon World and D100 Dungeon does it. By the rolls. I Love Martin Knight's D100 DUNGEON!
For my first homebrew campaign, I’m looking to write a story in which the bad guy just barely wins, or the players just barely lose, and catastrophe strikes. My goal is that the players ultimately overcoming the villain will be all the more exciting and sweeter because of this. Do you have any tips on how to make this a satisfying experience for the players?
When it comes to combat rules of dnd 5e, I never liked that there is no restriction to fighting when creatures are heavily wounded. So I made my own rule every creature has to obey: If a creature drops to 1/4 (rounded down) of its max HP or lower, it has to make a CON safe. The DC is the creature’s own constitution. If it succeeds, attack as normal. If it fails, every (Bonus-,Re-)action, when dice decide the outcome, has to be rolled with disadvantage. So far, this rule is working great for my games and it cranks up the realism of my worlds. And yes, also an ancient dragon has to role with disadvantage when its heavily wounded if it fails the CON safe. Edit: The safe has to be repeated in every round at the start of the creature’s turn, except if it got healed exceeding 1/4 of its max HP of course.
Excellent video, as always! In a few weeks I'll be starting new group of players with little or no prior D&D experience, so I'll definitely be checking out the Most Potent Brew and Tomb of the Serpent Kings materials!
Brilliant stuff! Love your content! I always wonder though… is this just how amazing your games sound while you are brain storming and planning a campaign, and then game night comes and goes, and just like me you think, “dang it all, none of that actually made it to the table! It was just me trying to keep from drowning all night!”
we are about 6 or 7 sessions into Curse of strahd, and during a highly Role play battle with a bad guy captain, one of our players said that if her character dies she is quitting the campaign. obviously the other players changed their choices and eventually all were captured and put in jail. How as a DM, do you deal with that type of energy so it doesn't rob other players of freedoms?
"holding the game hostage" in any way, shape, or form is typically grounds for immediate eviction from the table. If she wants to take her ball and go home, the door is right there. Please don't come back.
you bring up a great point that causes me no end of consternation. I absolutely loath the idea that the players have to metagame figure out puzzles and things in the game. I think it is awesome when they can, but I am playing a 20 INT wizard, I should be able to intelligence check somethings away because my character is far, far more intellegent than I will ever be. The fact that I can't find the solution doesn't mean my character couldn't. we don't require fighters to perform actual feats of strength at the table, why do we require feats of intelligence or wisdom?
Where it facilitates fun, I totally agree. The slippery slope of the other side of this argument is "I make a campaign check" and win the game in a dice roll hahah
@@DungeonMasterpiece that is a huge issue, for certain I just get annoyed that we are playing a game to play something different than ourselves. forcing a player to come up with intelligence based things when they are not an intelligence based person is just horrible story telling, and super bad form. I brought it up in a thread on the cesspool named reddit and the overwhelming response felt like one of literally trying to make players feel stupid cause they couldn't figure out your silly puzzle. we don't require thief characters to disarm actual lethal traps, why do we require other characters to come up with intelligence based problems?
1. If GM wants to try an Old School Renascence adventure/campaign but players are more comfortable with D&D 5e, what kind of compromise would you recommend? Grim Realism rests (8h/7d) and other optional rules in GMG? Excisting OSR+5e game like Five Torches Deep? 2. If you are using 8h/7d rest, how to balance sorceress and artificer who only abilities reset at long rest? 3. What optional rules (in GMG) you think should be used more ?
1. Tell them it's gonna be souls-like, so that the sales pitch sounds better. 2. Get rid of all but one death save that they automatically fail when it's thier initiative. This way you preserve mechanics that interact with them, but eliminate almost all their impact.
What is your favorite book inspired campaign? I'm reading the Thieves' World books by Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey to prepare for a Savage Worlds game.
Dnd 5e is great for combat (except how I feel death should be handled, I use a small mix of exhaustion and the way "Monster of the week" handles death for when my players reach zero hp instead of death saves), beyond that I feel like DMs should see how other games handle shopping, social encounters and so on, but try to keep all the paperwork behind the screen.
How do you set up long term threats for campaigns? Ive struggled with this for a long time, and now that I have something of a grasp on connecting conflicts between sessions into an overarching narrative, my campaign feels much more fun to me and my players.
Question: How to get your 5e players to try another system? ( sunk cost fallacy and " I dont want to learn a new system to do the same thing " seems to be hindering factors here) whilst im looking for a gaming system thats easier to run on the DM side
How important do you think improvisation is when it comes to DMing? Should there be constraints in regards to sticking with a prescribed campaign versus hitting the main story beats while filling in the details as you go?
The burnt edges of your player-facing map are likely to smear and flake off, resulting in more mess than aesthetic. Stick to the tea bath to age the page.
What would you do if you were a DM that took lessons and learned how to write better more challenging encounters/adventures but had players who only just show up to roll dice and only look at their character sheets when they are actually playing? To shorten it I guess how would you write adventures for players who have to relearn their characters every week when you are a DM that actively thinks about and learns how to write challenging content?
Switch to a different rule set. They obviously aren't power gamers, so switch to a more simple ruleset that just lets them roll dice and crack goblin skulls. Look up cairnrpg.com/cairn-srd/. the rulebook is free to print or $5 on Amazon, and the rulebook is only 32 pages long, and deep enough for beer and pretzels games. I use it all the time.
@@DungeonMasterpiece You are correct in your assessment that they are not power gamers. I brought the solution of changing systems before to them to only be faced with pushback at the thought of learning a new system or playing in one with a possible reputation of being as deadly as old school dnd but I’ll try to give it another shot. Thank you for your quick response and advice!
What system do you recommend for a late 20th-21st century time era game? I wanna run some players through a game inspired by a story I heard set in Belfast during the troubles.
That's rare.... I've not seen anything. I think skerples on dtrpg has something that is gilded era Americana + magic and most stuff they write is great. Were you looking for strictly real world non fantasy?
@@DungeonMasterpiece yeah it has to be fairly strict to the real world. There can be some tiny magical elements but at the end of the day the players will be private eyes in a warzone
I'm actually in the process of sandboxing this right now and fleshing it out. Having run the stock module twice, I'd really seriously consider changing the intro adventure to something a little less lethal. 2 TPKs in 3 attempts and I wasn't even trying that hard to murder everyone.
For some reason I have a desire to watch one singular video on your channel where you do everything like you would normally, but you style your hair as big as you can and you wear a band t shirt. and at the very end you give an intense crazy smile directly at the camera that lingers a little longer than it should.
Thrilled that you recommended Theros! Theros campaigns have been some of my best games with friends & clients, 100% agree that the mythic aspects fit perfectly with 5e's design and player characters. Magic has Norse- and Egyptian-inspired worlds so we could get those books someday!
Please make this a series.
Dungeon Support as RUclips Shorts clearly labeled as the question would be a treasure trove fit for a greater wyrm.
Agreed. Excellent concept and video.
Absolutely agree! You are very succinct in your answers
This might be my favorite of his videos
Seconded! Really solid advice but in bite sized form is always a nice change from more in depth discussion! (Please keep those in depth discussions as well of course).
That was a fun video. I would love to see this as a series! Great bite size answers to relevant questions.
Gotta echo the sentiment that this needs to be a regular thing. Love it. 🥰🥰🥰
For the "What Adventure in the first session?" question I have a really nice answer:
Back in 84, I bought the D&D basic set, the red box. In there is a starting solo-adventure starting on page 13. It is no campaign, it is just a ruin to "explore and plunder because it is there." no big plot. Just the ruins and one level of the dungeon.
My advice for a new DM play this through to familiarize yourself with it and the feel it has. Then send your first-level party in you might want to double the number of enemies for each encounter but that is it.
My final advice, sometimes low-level adventures die. Adventuring is a dangerous profession. I died in my first adventure within the first 30 minutes - I did not quit and never have.
Well Said! Excellent points.
I died in my very first adventure as well (the 3.0 boxed set scenario). Dying was a right of passage for players. It allowed you to not take the game too seriously. At the same time, the threat of death did a lot to make you think and strategize rather than rush in or try to smash a chest open.
Love the answer about using mythological settings. For the person asking for challenging, but not killing introductions for new players I would suggest enemies that focus on conditions rather than damage. Maybe it's trickster fey sabotaging an event, a race or competitive event, or noble mages wanting to humble the lower class. That way they are learning how some conditions work while learning their characters. And while they won't risk death the challenge and stakes are still present.
The picture at "awkward attempt" is perfect.
Thank you for getting my dry humor
Alternatively It's important to keep in mind "roleplaying" means "playing a role". If you're playing D&D your character class is your role. They were literally named "Role" in 0D&D and renamed to "Class" later. So if I'm "being a Fighter" then I am by definition roleplaying well. If you want your players to play-act, you need to tell them that and set the expectation that you are only rewarding LARP style play. Be honest, don't try to enter into unspoken agreements with vague language; instead communicate clearly about the style of game you want to run and enter into a clear social contract with your group.
I agree; Role playing is describing or acting out the actions of their characters. Two characters talking is not an action. Particularly it’s not an action gamified by the system.
If the DM wants the players to engage in these discussions I would suggest porting in a Ties or Bonds between characters system from another game. The reward needs to make sense and I think the only one that makes sense to me is a gamified camp fire activity or session recap activity where characters acknowledge, create or resolve ties between them in order to qualify for levelling up.
It needs to be actionable, learnable, teachable and measurable. By measurable it needs to be traceable by the players as a progression
I think the best thing to give players for cool roleplay moments is inspiration. It's such an underused tool, but players will love it, when they can later turn a failure into a potential success because they roleplayed their character well. And the best thing about it is that you can up the requirements when the players improve in skill. This way it will always be challanging, but doable to get inspiration.
@@XMaster340 You missed the point. You're still not giving your players a clear method of obtaining that reward. You're just using a muddy term like "cool roleplay moments". If I'm a Fighter, choosing to go up front and fight the big bad should be a "cool roleplay moment". As a Wizard choosing which spell to cast should be a "cool roleplay moment". But whether these are true is entirely up to your poorly defined fiat.
@@pixledriven It being muddy is the entire point. There does not need to be a clearly defined method to obtain the reward. In fact there shouldn't be one or players are likely to optimize for the method and not the goal.
Also, roleplaying a fighter by charging an enemy is like saying an engine with four wheels attached to it is a car. You would technically be correct, but that's more like the bare minimum and not at all what I would consider good roleplay. If your character is defined entirely by its class the that's a boring and bland character. No matter how well you play it.
If you're testing this as a potential series, a roaring success imo.
One warning about rewarding roleplay (from Brennan Lee Mulligan): You want to be careful about what you might **not** be rewarding, such as when you miss a player’s attempt at a fun interaction. Rewarding one roleplay interaction but accidentally missing someone else’s can create unintended messages for your players
I love "A Most Potent Brew". I've run it a couple of times for low level players, and it's been a blast! Short, sweet, and easy to digest, both as a player and GM. 100% would recommend as a tool to keep in the GM's back pocket.
YES! Someone finally said it! I am tired of people thinking the "avarage anime medieval fantasy" is ANYTHING like medieval europe. And that things like lotr, are ANYTHING like 'generic fantasy'
Thank you so much for tackling these subjects! I've been thinking of those topics for a while now, and it's great getting this insight, both in my question and others discussed here, especially the European High Fantasy genre take.
On the topic of alternate settings, I think Paleolithic settings are hugely underrated and I think are worth a mention on the channel.
They’re fun and easy to play as a player, but more importantly, they’re very easy to set up as a DM.
The environment itself is already a challenge, social encounters are for both fun and strategic benefit, competing factions are easy to justify and flesh out, magic is handled by the shamans who also speak to spirit gods (justifying magic and giving religion a defined purpose and weight), it lends itself well to a hex crawl (which are rewarding and fun for DMs), you talk small word like caveman, and monkeys.
I’m really surprised the setting isn’t more mainstream.
Big fan of the new idea, excited to see what you do with it in the future.
Amazing video. Felt like office hours with a Dungeon Master Professor.
This would be amazing as a shorts series
I can attest that 'A Most Potent Brew' is pretty much perfect for a first 5E scenario. It's got a neat puzzle that players will actually be able to solve without hints or tons of wasted time.
The adventure that comes in the Stranger Things box set is actually a really good adventure to run as a beginner DM. It's short and simple, you can run the whole thing in a single session to get a contained adventure experience.
In response to the question asked about not killing off a band of new adventurers, I do enjoy the approach of some form of safety net that advances the story without out right killing them. The situation of being taken aside, revived and held for ransom is really good but also consider other scenarios.
I am a big fan of shows like Stargate and Star Trek so the leap to constructed environments players can explore with the only risk they have is being kicked out due to their artificial nature is a decent idea to me. A small slap on the wrist of some actual psychic damage then back into the dreamscape or fictional pocket dimension if you want to go down a route more fantastical.
Another route is having an item that revives them. I would avoid it being an NPC escort unless it fits as it could feel like a babysitter but they could then be a font of information so consider wisely I suppose. I would avoid handing them a Staff of Healing or something like that as it requires a player to use the thing when they're barely grasping how to read their character sheet, in some worst cases. Possibly even disinterested or actively looking to hoard treasure for themselves by letting their allies die before getting anywhere near the wealth promised.
Instead, try to make it a plot point. You died but then the magical do-dad raised you, perhaps with a mark somewhere on your body to signify this. Mark how you have less Hit Dice but now cannot die. Food is tasteless, light a little brighter and skin paler. Make it an event and something to figure out. You were saved but you are not safe.
Speaking of avoiding TPKs with 1st level characters - there is a very specific thing that really helps.
Change monster damage from rolled to static, and subtract 2 from it. So, a goblin would just do 3 damage on hit.
That way damage is unaffected by crits or high damage rolls. The subtraction is needed becasue average damage as-is can still pile up very fast if same party member ends up targeted by multiple foes.
Answer for maps is D100 Dungeon World Builder. Answet to xp is similar to how Dungeon World and D100 Dungeon does it. By the rolls. I Love Martin Knight's D100 DUNGEON!
Question for a future video: What are some good tips for keeping the book keeping side of the table organized?
For my first homebrew campaign, I’m looking to write a story in which the bad guy just barely wins, or the players just barely lose, and catastrophe strikes. My goal is that the players ultimately overcoming the villain will be all the more exciting and sweeter because of this. Do you have any tips on how to make this a satisfying experience for the players?
When it comes to combat rules of dnd 5e, I never liked that there is no restriction to fighting when creatures are heavily wounded. So I made my own rule every creature has to obey: If a creature drops to 1/4 (rounded down) of its max HP or lower, it has to make a CON safe. The DC is the creature’s own constitution. If it succeeds, attack as normal. If it fails, every (Bonus-,Re-)action, when dice decide the outcome, has to be rolled with disadvantage. So far, this rule is working great for my games and it cranks up the realism of my worlds. And yes, also an ancient dragon has to role with disadvantage when its heavily wounded if it fails the CON safe.
Edit: The safe has to be repeated in every round at the start of the creature’s turn, except if it got healed exceeding 1/4 of its max HP of course.
Excellent video, as always! In a few weeks I'll be starting new group of players with little or no prior D&D experience, so I'll definitely be checking out the Most Potent Brew and Tomb of the Serpent Kings materials!
great video, love the mood and style, i.e. how questions are displayed and the music fading in and out.
wow a little informal here, no tie! great vid
Great video, always look forward to your videos coming out. 👏👏
where's his tie
SOMEONE FIND IT
Skerples produces some amazing stuff!
Brilliant stuff! Love your content! I always wonder though… is this just how amazing your games sound while you are brain storming and planning a campaign, and then game night comes and goes, and just like me you think, “dang it all, none of that actually made it to the table! It was just me trying to keep from drowning all night!”
in a (relatively?) recent Knarbmakes video, you talked about using the necoromunda ruleset as a basis for an RPG. Could you elaborate on that?
we are about 6 or 7 sessions into Curse of strahd, and during a highly Role play battle with a bad guy captain, one of our players said that if her character dies she is quitting the campaign. obviously the other players changed their choices and eventually all were captured and put in jail. How as a DM, do you deal with that type of energy so it doesn't rob other players of freedoms?
"holding the game hostage" in any way, shape, or form is typically grounds for immediate eviction from the table. If she wants to take her ball and go home, the door is right there. Please don't come back.
Talk to her, work out a compromise.
This is a great idea for a series, just saying ;)))
Your dedication and thoughtfulness to the "game" is always enlightening. Was it causal Friday? 🚫👔😁
It was "I'm getting married this weekend so I need a super softball video"
you bring up a great point that causes me no end of consternation.
I absolutely loath the idea that the players have to metagame figure out puzzles and things in the game. I think it is awesome when they can, but I am playing a 20 INT wizard, I should be able to intelligence check somethings away because my character is far, far more intellegent than I will ever be. The fact that I can't find the solution doesn't mean my character couldn't.
we don't require fighters to perform actual feats of strength at the table, why do we require feats of intelligence or wisdom?
Where it facilitates fun, I totally agree. The slippery slope of the other side of this argument is "I make a campaign check" and win the game in a dice roll hahah
@@DungeonMasterpiece that is a huge issue, for certain
I just get annoyed that we are playing a game to play something different than ourselves. forcing a player to come up with intelligence based things when they are not an intelligence based person is just horrible story telling, and super bad form. I brought it up in a thread on the cesspool named reddit and the overwhelming response felt like one of literally trying to make players feel stupid cause they couldn't figure out your silly puzzle.
we don't require thief characters to disarm actual lethal traps, why do we require other characters to come up with intelligence based problems?
Awesome!
1. If GM wants to try an Old School Renascence adventure/campaign but players are more comfortable with D&D 5e, what kind of compromise would you recommend? Grim Realism rests (8h/7d) and other optional rules in GMG? Excisting OSR+5e game like Five Torches Deep?
2. If you are using 8h/7d rest, how to balance sorceress and artificer who only abilities reset at long rest?
3. What optional rules (in GMG) you think should be used more ?
No compromise. Run the games as they are intended or not at all.
1. Tell them it's gonna be souls-like, so that the sales pitch sounds better. 2. Get rid of all but one death save that they automatically fail when it's thier initiative. This way you preserve mechanics that interact with them, but eliminate almost all their impact.
What is your favorite book inspired campaign?
I'm reading the Thieves' World books by Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey to prepare for a Savage Worlds game.
Dnd 5e is great for combat (except how I feel death should be handled, I use a small mix of exhaustion and the way "Monster of the week" handles death for when my players reach zero hp instead of death saves), beyond that I feel like DMs should see how other games handle shopping, social encounters and so on, but try to keep all the paperwork behind the screen.
Why do players look for a side cave to "camp" instead of walking the 1000 or so feet to the entrance of the tomb? My players actually did that.
Cu they don't want skellies attacking them in their sleep lol
How do you set up long term threats for campaigns?
Ive struggled with this for a long time, and now that I have something of a grasp on connecting conflicts between sessions into an overarching narrative, my campaign feels much more fun to me and my players.
Question: How to get your 5e players to try another system? ( sunk cost fallacy and " I dont want to learn a new system to do the same thing " seems to be hindering factors here) whilst im looking for a gaming system thats easier to run on the DM side
How important do you think improvisation is when it comes to DMing? Should there be constraints in regards to sticking with a prescribed campaign versus hitting the main story beats while filling in the details as you go?
Nice video.
The burnt edges of your player-facing map are likely to smear and flake off, resulting in more mess than aesthetic. Stick to the tea bath to age the page.
I take a serrated knife and butter knife and flake away, rough up the edges
What would you do if you were a DM that took lessons and learned how to write better more challenging encounters/adventures but had players who only just show up to roll dice and only look at their character sheets when they are actually playing?
To shorten it I guess how would you write adventures for players who have to relearn their characters every week when you are a DM that actively thinks about and learns how to write challenging content?
Switch to a different rule set. They obviously aren't power gamers, so switch to a more simple ruleset that just lets them roll dice and crack goblin skulls. Look up cairnrpg.com/cairn-srd/. the rulebook is free to print or $5 on Amazon, and the rulebook is only 32 pages long, and deep enough for beer and pretzels games. I use it all the time.
@@DungeonMasterpiece You are correct in your assessment that they are not power gamers. I brought the solution of changing systems before to them to only be faced with pushback at the thought of learning a new system or playing in one with a possible reputation of being as deadly as old school dnd but I’ll try to give it another shot. Thank you for your quick response and advice!
Give them double HP and tell them they are switching or no game. 😂
Or if you're looking for european fantasy, without characters that are demigods, just try AD&D!
What system do you recommend for a late 20th-21st century time era game? I wanna run some players through a game inspired by a story I heard set in Belfast during the troubles.
That's rare.... I've not seen anything. I think skerples on dtrpg has something that is gilded era Americana + magic and most stuff they write is great.
Were you looking for strictly real world non fantasy?
@@DungeonMasterpiece yeah it has to be fairly strict to the real world. There can be some tiny magical elements but at the end of the day the players will be private eyes in a warzone
@@Gallalad1 hmmmmmmmmmmmm I don't know.... 🤷
@@DungeonMasterpiece no worries. Thank you regardless!
@@Gallalad1 see if Gangster! RPG on dtrpg works? My finance just said to find a peaky blinders rpg
not sure if this is the right place to ask? but do you mind doing a video on Calendars?
"A former sponsor"?
Hmm...
Federal trade commission regulations are interesting about sponsorship recognition. He sponsored a prior video but not this one
Good to know. I contributed to that kickstarter on your previous recommendation.
What is this, July? What happened to your necktie?
Your first statement is immediately contradicted by saying to reward the other people for doing other shit that is not going beyond...
Please DO NOT make this a series.
What No Tie?!?! The standards of this channel are really starting to slip :D
What changes or additions would you make to the 5e Curse of Strahd module?
I'm actually in the process of sandboxing this right now and fleshing it out. Having run the stock module twice, I'd really seriously consider changing the intro adventure to something a little less lethal. 2 TPKs in 3 attempts and I wasn't even trying that hard to murder everyone.
Like these ideas. Putting the map to be soaked for an hour is something I’ve done effectively and appreciate hearing your takes
Great video!
Thanks! :D
For some reason I have a desire to watch one singular video on your channel where you do everything like you would normally, but you style your hair as big as you can and you wear a band t shirt. and at the very end you give an intense crazy smile directly at the camera that lingers a little longer than it should.
Thrilled that you recommended Theros! Theros campaigns have been some of my best games with friends & clients, 100% agree that the mythic aspects fit perfectly with 5e's design and player characters. Magic has Norse- and Egyptian-inspired worlds so we could get those books someday!
noice