Get my RPG Adventure Template thedmlair.com/collections/rpg-resources/products/rpg-adventure-template Support the channel and get truckloads of AWESOME D&D DM RESOURCES you can use in your games right here! www.patreon.com/thedmlair Join our awesome, welcoming community of game masters who encourage and help each other out: discord.gg/thedmlair Get 100% FREE D&D 5e adventures and DM resources right here: www.thedmlair.com/
@@theDMLair well I'm the new one in that case and when I started...it was just hell (crazy joke there cause it was descent into avernus) but now it's ok
Characterising the advice in the DMG as "very high level" is an extraordinarily generous gesture on your part, Luke. A lesser man might have used the phrase, "Vague to the point of being almost useless."
Barbarian is clearly running The Sword. It’s a really good starter scenario for Burning Wheel. You start out with four adventurers standing over the final treasure, the sword, and it all escalates from there.
When I hit the creativity wall, I read a fiction book, or watch a movie/show or play an old video game. The genre does not even have to match what I'm running, as it is inspiration that matters more than actual scenes for me. - I also break a blank page by just writing/typing something. Usually, I start with, "Oh, the tyranny of the empty page, which confounds me and stands astride my path to creativity" or a journal entry from a character nobody has every played. It give me words to convince me that I have already started, so continuing is not such a huge step. Then later I can go and erase the page-breaking stuff above.
Forever DM gets a turn to play. Which class are you dressed as? RUclipsr Class with high Charisma and Wisdom? Game Master Class with game breaking stats? Nevermind... back to being a Forever DM. Maybe next video...
Yeah. I played in a campaign where the DM didn't give us very good story hooks and we had no idea what to do. It was SO boring. And I litterally went up to the DM and asked him to just tell us the main plot, or give us means to find it out. And then it was a great game.
As much as I enjoy watching your show and eventually agreeing with many to most things you tell your audience, it is the very first time that I would like to embrace each and every single bit of your video. Certainly one of your best vids so far - if not the best at all. The advice provided informs "new" DMs as much as seasoned veterans of DMing/GMing very, very, VERRRRRY well ... Thank you.
Fun fact: in RUclips, “Keep the lights on around here,” actually translates as, “Help me buy more of x thing.” In this case, x = face paint and overpriced books
Me watching this when I have totally improved 99% of every game I have ever run (fairly new DM). I have VERY chaotic players so my plans always go out the window anyway, yet everyone still manages to have fun.
That intro actually reminds me of our group. We take turns Dm'ing once that person's campaign is done. Each of us do different games: Star Wars, warhammer, Alien, and of course DnD (me). Each one of us has a different style and it helps not get burnt out. Overall, great video man and Merry Christmas!
Something to remember is that the adventure outline is recipe for a dish, not directions for building machine. As you go along, feel free to edit things as you deem fit. If the players take a particular interest in an unaccepted NPC, let them paly a bigger role in the story. If the players make short work of what was supposed to be the boss, you can introduce a larger threat. You have to e flexible to player actions. As I am fond of saying "The story your players give you will be better than the one you predicted".
Funny story related to #8 and party wandering. My party had just completed an adventure and they were sort of heading back to town to claim their prize, when they started wandering. The adventure they had finished was supposed to be a self-contained starting adventure (I hadn't DMed in quite some time so I used an online module as the level 1 adventure). But my players got it in their heads that this was the start of "something bigger" and began looking for clues to that effect. Point is that sometimes a wandering party is not necessarily a bad thing; it can lead to hooks and adventures that you the DM would not have thought of...at first.
I’ve taken over from one of my groups’ forever DM for a while to give them a break. I like to think I’ve done a good job of setting up the adventure for them, but these pointers will always be helpful.
I made a particular dungeon with 125 rooms. It was a maze and most rooms had some kind of encounter in them. It would take a little while to get through, but not so long as to bore the players (it was also done electronically, through the Neverwinter Nights game, but that's beside the point). Every level and room was deliberately designed to look identical so it took a little searching to find your way through. I almost forgot to add... it was a 3D maze, 5 rooms x 5 rooms x 5 levels.
Oh my goodness, the Barbarian!! I love your skits. I would like for you to try imposing a time limit on your players at one of your games such as "Defeat the BBEG by midnight or else!" and then make a video about it when you decide you like it or not and why. Time limits make using a rest feels like a resource management decision that can be done strategically and it may stop players from abusing rests.
Yes but I will say this sometimes forever DM's don't enjoy being players. Sometimes not always. I for instance have a very hard time enjoying myself as a player. It has to be a very good game for me to have fun as a player. Otherwise much of the time I sit there doing nothing and waiting for other people to take their turns and in my head I'm thinking why am I not just running a game instead of playing in one? I think I would be having more fun. LOL
@@theDMLair Eh I guess it's up to preference. I am currently playing more than DMing but before that I had long period where I was DMing a lot and playing very little DMing is pretty fun and all but I enjoy playing more than DMing.
I am actually really lucky, because all the players in my group have DMed at some point or another and we currently have 3 games running at the same time. It's amazing to be able to DM and play at the same time. 😄
Technically, GMs are still playing, they just have a considerably greater workload involved in entertaining the rest of the group, as opposed to players basically entertaining themselves
It actually helps a lot! I always wanted to do my own campains but always fell short on where to begin. Most games we play do not have great campaign examples that are A: doable in short amount of time or B: actually any good. Example: Chicago by night for v5 is great but it mapped a lot of the city and made over 90 npcs with a good 25 pages of side quests. Like, thats way to much to dip my toe in the seat of storyteller. I'm also one of those people that need to write stuff physically on paper to organise my though, so seeing how you make your docs helps me to put it digitally too. Curse you perfectionism! (No really, if it has any capabilities of beeing neat my mind just goes to: GRAPHICALLY PLEASING in way too many instances for it to be of any use quickly) So once again, thanks!
Awesome video! I don't think any player can appreciate the amount of effort DMs put into creating an adventure or even preparing a premade one until they've done it.... 😉 What a great video for anyone who wants to take on the task of creating their own adventure. Great stuff! Cool channel!
Hehehe that intro was kinda similar to my entry into DMing...the sudden panic as it dawns on me that everyone is reliant on me to provide the "starting stuff" qnd the tired forever DM there to be like, "Shugo Shu- SHUGO... deep breath I'm here if you need me but you got this"
I'm in he middle of picking up a campaign that we left off for about two months. Things are going to be very interesting as they were last in a Grung camp attempting to escape after starting a fire.
I once played in a game where the first time DM planned the first 6+ sessions to be a railroad prologue. He cursed one player to near death for not following the story as written, where the player was to deeply apologize for wrong songs his character did as a child to a town guard. Didn't come from any background and this is the prologue to the adventure. To add to the craziness, we weren't informed it was a prologue until the entire table was on the verge of open revolt. One of his NPCs was also one of his favorite PCs from a past game.
Funny thing, I unintentonally followed a few of the steps you metioned, I had a homebrew campain that was centered on mind flayers, elder brains, and intelect devourers in a massive multi district capital city with guilds(not ravinca), the only thing I didn't do was write it all down, I'm more of freestyle dm, once i have the goal, enemy, setting, and so on I don't need much else too improvise the rest in reaction to my players actions. great content keep it up, I feel sorry for the barbarion, I had a PC bardbarion that started with 6 intelegence, that went to 8 and ended up at 5 due to a deck of many things.
i use a very similar process, but i add in a final layer of prep. between sessions i always go through my notes and edit the current state of the dungeon, including any improv i came up with on the fly. this way any cool inspiration i came up with in play gets folded into the game going forward. sometimes you get asked a question and the players rolled well enough to make me make up an answer to a question i hadnt considered, and the whole quest needs to take that information into account for both consistency and to really ad depth to the story. so just half an hour between games to go over notes from the game and incorporate this new info goes a long way and makes me look just amazingly well prepared. after all, if i hadnt planned that the place was secretly in league with the thieves guild why did they find a similar sign to the one the party found in that warehouse they found 4 levels ago? so my players get to feel like geniuses for spotting that the thieves guild will definitely have at least one agent in this dungeon, and i look great for the call back to when the party was first starting out.
I hope this doesn't sound nitpicky, because I love this channel and this video, but you don't always need a villain in an adventure. Examples that come to mind: 1) diplomatic misunderstanding leading to conflict of 2 sides, neither of which is truly evil/villainous 2) A non-living entity or event takes the place of the "villain" (rift between planes, cursed item, magical anomaly, natural catastrophe...) 3) Temple of trials that is built to test adventurers to their limits, but there is no villain or malicious intent. While most adventures will, and should, have a villain, it is certainly not necessary.
Let's see. What do I enjoy about the adventure creation process? Personally answering the same 6 questions I do in anything I write. Who, what, where, when, why and how. And once I get rolling my imagination gets kicked in to overdrive and runs for weeks on end even after I've started. I have a beginning and an end. What my players do inbetween there is 100% up to them.
I think they were kinda harsh in the beginning, I mean, I think "you have wandered in the bottom of the dungeon and finished off the bad guy, what do you do now?" could really work as a one-off or a setup. One of the best sessions I've ever played (and it was in the middle of it's campaign) started with "it has been a few years since you defeated the big bad, figured out the prophechy, and saved the world from his schemes" It was a christmas special and a flashforward/dream sequence but still.
Hey, so I'm giving our groups DM a break in his long campaign to play in a one shot in making. We're going to play a very long season on new years and I would like done advice on it. They will start at lv 15, and there are three of them. They will save the main npc who will take them into town and to a bar/tavern for a drink. While there the floor explodes and pretty much everyone dies except for the PC's and the npc. They jump down the hole as they see him fall. They then fight (enhanced) bandits who are holding him unconscious. The bandits will disappear near the end, and with a successful wis check they can tell they simply turned invisible and ran away. The PC's will then go through the dungeon finding NPC's who are prisoners, or escaped prisoners, of the beholder who will explain the big bad of the two warring beholders and the Alhoon that has recently appeared and made a shaky alliance with one beholder. They will also stress how much time PC's must kill all the, and if they don't, they will destroy the whole country this campaign resides in. Many will go insane whilst talking because of their time down here with an Alhoon, two beholders, and other things such as a death Slaad roaming the dungeon. I am using surprise encounters and home made traps (many inspired by your old vids) with more fun rules to make the dungeon more fun, yet deadly. Do you have any advice on what I should do with the monsters or the dungeon to make it more fun for them? The map I'm making is inspired by dungeon of the mad mage
PS: part of their motivation comes from constantly saving their favorite npc who is always trying to repay them, and free reign over what they get out of the beholders collections
I like this video! It validates me a little as a new DM. I was not sure if i was doing it "right" but after seeing this i'm more relaxed as it is quite similar. My party is currently 6 lvl3 players. Loot is my biggest issue, what is appropriate to give them? Etc. Encounters seem fine, usually no more than 2 encounters per adventure, though seems ok for lvl3. Any advice?
Tomb--as in, place where dead people are--rhymes with room. Tome--as in, book of arcane information frequently associated with evil spell casters--rhymes with home. 😊
Dan that's a very good point. I'm going to have to take this video down and just redo it all. Thank you sir for once again showing me the error of my ways. LOL
The group I ran for years was the random wander group. They rarely accepted the adventure hooks I presented, instead insisting to strike out. I'm pretty sure they were trolling me. I tell you, I learned a LOT about improvising from that experience. In the end, it all worked out. However, I do NOT recommend it. I put up with it so long, because I had no other group options.
@@theDMLair I have 2 tables that have things you could find in the wild near that location , and then I have them roll a survival check. If they get a high roll, they get to roll on the table that has cooler things like a shrine, a creature that can be a potential familiar, or a beast that can potentially be made a mount or ally, on a low roll( 12 or lower) they’ll come across something a bit less exciting, maybe a wolf stuck in a bear trap or a giant elk,and then I run it as a regular encounter that could potentially turn into a combat encounter. Usually something short though, shouldn’t take more then 15 minutes to run. A expedition takes 3 days.
My group has been noticing the same thing. A lot of our days are 1 or 2 much more deadly encounters because we don’t like spending a ton of time in combat. We are thinking of using 8-hour short rests and 1-day long rests in the next campaigns we do to see if that helps
@tasker wanlin We are trying that and it works wonders. You take care of resources as they are scarce, you get creative and result to fighting as a last resource. By the third encounter on the day, running becomes a really good option.
@@Anxuta Well then, that's not such a bad number. Rather like a day in a US city, trying to get work done during protests. - Social encounters - talking to bosses, co-workers, and customers. Traps - that gossiper in accounting, the pretty young woman with the petition outside the grocery store. Environmental hazards - road construction, traffic, finding a way around the "outdoor" dining enclosures. Combat - working through an angry "defund" crowd on the way back from lunch, trying to avoid an elevator meeting with Dave from HR... Okay, those might not be combats, but the threat of harm is there.
All good points. You gave me some food for thought. Curious, maybe you’ve already covered this, but how do you keep players on track with the mission and prevent them from just wandering the world without making them feel like I’m just pushing them to the next encounter?
NGL that intro to the campaign the barbarian accidentally made would be kind of creative to making a higher level game. It would take some work but it could play out well, between finding a cursed item in the dungeon's loot hoard that is the center of the campaign or finding out another secret of the dungeon while trying to escape it.
1) I like carrion crawlers, were-rats, rival rogues, and crooked watchmen. 2) I'm not the biggest fan of using CR, because the ingenuity of my players (and sometimes my generosity) usually has them punching above their weight class. I use CR as a guideline, not a hard rule. Also, I prefer to foreshadow my monsters, if it is early in the session/adventure. "...As you turn the corner in the sewers to investigate the 'squelchy' noises, you notice an oversized grub creature with 4 nasty, mucus-tipped tentacles munching away at the 3/4 eaten and quivering but otherwise unmoving body of a petty thief from a rival guild. You're pretty sure the sewers are infested with this kind of monster. It doesn't seem to acknowledge your existence. What do you do?" Not the biggest fan of randomly rolling for treasure, either. 3) Same. This is probably one of the most fun parts of crafting an adventure. 4) Same, and do flesh out the locations in a way your brain's going to stick with it. You're playing the buildings and trees along with the monsters. Somewhat like the gods in the old movie Jason and the Argonauts. 5) Same, and don't be afraid to put neutral NPC's as optional encounters in your location's collection of encounters. 6) Better to pre-roll your random encounters so your players don't have to wait as long for you to play 3D chess. 7) Same, but I alternatively prefer to make the loot matter in interesting ways. "Upon extended, but distant further observation, you notice the thief drops an odd jeweled bauble after having his leg eaten by the carrion crawler still looming over him. What do you do?" 8) Same. Also, help the players to realize their characters have at least some knowing sense of and some knowledge which supports their goals and ambitions in the world, within reason, if their characters know the area well enough. 9) Same, and sometimes it is fun to improvise rooms on the fly, as long as you have the skeletal framework and narrative for your location. 10) Same, and not all resolutions end with clearing the dungeon. Sometimes you need to check back for treasure possibly missed.
@@theDMLair Now my brain, regardless of my efforts to stop it, is trying to design an adventure arc about a quest giving wizard named Levar, who's age fluctuates every time the party sees him, sending the party into books to recover seven color coded artifacts. Damn you, brain
What's wrong with starting the adventure at the end? The aftermath could be it's own adventure with, escaping the aledgedly save dungeon, encountering a variety of people with diferent targets on your whay back to actual savety and dealing with the consequences of the BBEG's downfall.
@@sakulhd8189 agreed, but a campaign where the players start as part of the heroes guild that overthrew a demonic overlord sounds fun too. But the new kings get corrupted in a few years and do everything the overlord did plus killing dissenters and pushing for mass worship of old overlord. Saying he did the hard choices that needed to be done and crap like that. Players have to navigate court politics and intrigue to either clean the court or take the crown for themselves. Best played with a morally ambiguous party....
dude my pleyers 5(lv 4) are about to fight a frost giant ( nerfed the damage to 3d8 insted of 3d12 ) and i know there gna kill the giant no problem . they have a few magic items and fire ball necklace and robe of serpants just summon 3 snakes and distrack the giant and yeet ranged attacks . i know my pleyers and know there going to beat it .
@@theDMLair yah if he gets a crit...... Unles it's the warcleric or barbarian.... Insta death no death saves.... ( im doing inproved crit....so add max damage dice +mod insted of dubble dice)
I'm trying to give my players a challenge but anytime I throw a creature at them they beat it easily. I've tried puzzles but they get it half the time. Their characters are designed to work well as a team I don't know if I should break the party and have a fight and video challenges or no any advice would be helpful thank you.
"Gary the Intern": HOOOOLY CRAP WHAT AN IDIOT! I mean, it has become abundantly clear that corporate affairs hasn't approved this adventure. Me and The Fighter: WAIT A SECOND.
I am convinced that dagger is a cursed dagger of murder hoboing or something and has possessed gary. It wasn't the rogues fault, he was possessed abd everyone else failed the insight roll.
Sadly, over 4 decades of gaming, I have ran across way to many GM's who claim to be game master geniuses who don't need to plan the adventure. When game time comes, you guessed it - wandering randomly hoping something fun would happen (spoiler...it didn't).
They weren't in previous editions, but there are no rules in 5e specifically making them illiterate. Personally, I prefer to tie it to intelligence rather than class anyway.
Makes whole campaign, players walk randomly in other direction....find changes where plot hooks located. Haha players of randomness take that.....rents boats goes towards other side of map cause undead hordes sounds like a bad area....well damn
Get my RPG Adventure Template thedmlair.com/collections/rpg-resources/products/rpg-adventure-template
Support the channel and get truckloads of AWESOME D&D DM RESOURCES you can use in your games right here! www.patreon.com/thedmlair
Join our awesome, welcoming community of game masters who encourage and help each other out: discord.gg/thedmlair
Get 100% FREE D&D 5e adventures and DM resources right here: www.thedmlair.com/
Surprisingly the intro really shows what it's like for a forever DM to be a player once
dono ... never have been a pleyer ... only forever dm for my almost 6 yeas of DMing
Yep tell me about it. LOL
@@theDMLair well I'm the new one in that case and when I started...it was just hell (crazy joke there cause it was descent into avernus) but now it's ok
Yep, pretty much every time I get to be a player I get this...
Yeah that happened to me as well.
Characterising the advice in the DMG as "very high level" is an extraordinarily generous gesture on your part, Luke. A lesser man might have used the phrase, "Vague to the point of being almost useless."
Unironically, I love adventures where I just wonder around the world and see what happens.
The beauty that is that pile of dice in front of GM Luke is only out done by the beauty that is his cat collection.
Barbarian is clearly running The Sword. It’s a really good starter scenario for Burning Wheel. You start out with four adventurers standing over the final treasure, the sword, and it all escalates from there.
This is exactly what I needed, my players just recently beat my campaign and I hit writers block trying to decide where to start with my new campaign
Happy to help dude. Writer's block or lack of inspiration is not fun. I got some of that right now that's something I'm working on. LOL
When I hit the creativity wall, I read a fiction book, or watch a movie/show or play an old video game. The genre does not even have to match what I'm running, as it is inspiration that matters more than actual scenes for me.
-
I also break a blank page by just writing/typing something. Usually, I start with, "Oh, the tyranny of the empty page, which confounds me and stands astride my path to creativity" or a journal entry from a character nobody has every played.
It give me words to convince me that I have already started, so continuing is not such a huge step. Then later I can go and erase the page-breaking stuff above.
I just love the Skits at the beginning!
Thanks! :-)
Literally why I watch the videos :) they make my day
Forever DM gets a turn to play. Which class are you dressed as?
RUclipsr Class with high Charisma and Wisdom?
Game Master Class with game breaking stats?
Nevermind... back to being a Forever DM.
Maybe next video...
Luke, I just want to thank you for always including really good subtitles.
You are very welcome. I in fact pay my assistant to create the subtitles. That way the folks get good titles and not what Google gives you. :-)
Yeah. I played in a campaign where the DM didn't give us very good story hooks and we had no idea what to do. It was SO boring. And I litterally went up to the DM and asked him to just tell us the main plot, or give us means to find it out. And then it was a great game.
As much as I enjoy watching your show and eventually agreeing with many to most things you tell your audience, it is the very first time that I would like to embrace each and every single bit of your video. Certainly one of your best vids so far - if not the best at all.
The advice provided informs "new" DMs as much as seasoned veterans of DMing/GMing very, very, VERRRRRY well ...
Thank you.
Awesome thank you so much!
Fun fact: in RUclips, “Keep the lights on around here,” actually translates as, “Help me buy more of x thing.” In this case, x = face paint and overpriced books
And face paint is very expensive. LOL
Druid: "Just because we want to do something doesn't mean you should let us do it!"
Toss a coin to your DM 🎶🎼
OH PARTY OF PLAYERS, OH PARTY OF PLAYERS OHOHOHOH!!!!!!!!
When a humble bard
🎶🎼
Graced a _view_ along
🎶🎼
With _Luke of the DM lair_ 🎶🎼
Along came this song 🎶🎼
Me watching this when I have totally improved 99% of every game I have ever run (fairly new DM). I have VERY chaotic players so my plans always go out the window anyway, yet everyone still manages to have fun.
[Comment for the algorithm] If you see this then hi Luke!
Hi! :D
Quick comment for the algorithm, but loving the recent videos! Thanks for helping a budding DM
No problem happy to help! :-)
That intro actually reminds me of our group. We take turns Dm'ing once that person's campaign is done. Each of us do different games: Star Wars, warhammer, Alien, and of course DnD (me). Each one of us has a different style and it helps not get burnt out. Overall, great video man and Merry Christmas!
Me trying to train my brother to be the DM so that I can be a player for once... 🙄
Good luck dude. How old is your brother?
@@theDMLair middle school. We start em young
I'm a new DM starting a homebrew campaign this weekend; thank you for the advice and resources!
Something to remember is that the adventure outline is recipe for a dish, not directions for building machine. As you go along, feel free to edit things as you deem fit. If the players take a particular interest in an unaccepted NPC, let them paly a bigger role in the story. If the players make short work of what was supposed to be the boss, you can introduce a larger threat. You have to e flexible to player actions. As I am fond of saying "The story your players give you will be better than the one you predicted".
Love the tips! Looking forward the Event Based video!!
Thanks for the checklist! I am building my first epic Homebrew, and these reminders are helpful.
Awesome happy to help! :-)
Please do the event-based adventure!
Yep it will be coming out in February. :-)
Love your videos Luke!
I'd love a video on "the adventuring day"
Funny story related to #8 and party wandering. My party had just completed an adventure and they were sort of heading back to town to claim their prize, when they started wandering. The adventure they had finished was supposed to be a self-contained starting adventure (I hadn't DMed in quite some time so I used an online module as the level 1 adventure). But my players got it in their heads that this was the start of "something bigger" and began looking for clues to that effect. Point is that sometimes a wandering party is not necessarily a bad thing; it can lead to hooks and adventures that you the DM would not have thought of...at first.
I’ve taken over from one of my groups’ forever DM for a while to give them a break. I like to think I’ve done a good job of setting up the adventure for them, but these pointers will always be helpful.
The adventuring day mechanic is definitely underused. It also helps with not designing dungeons with 342 rooms. Not that I've ever done that....
That's a very specific number that you mention there. I totally believe you that you've never done that before. LOL
The highest I've gone is 56, but the rooms were randomly assigned so the players wouldn't go through all of them
I made a particular dungeon with 125 rooms. It was a maze and most rooms had some kind of encounter in them. It would take a little while to get through, but not so long as to bore the players (it was also done electronically, through the Neverwinter Nights game, but that's beside the point). Every level and room was deliberately designed to look identical so it took a little searching to find your way through. I almost forgot to add... it was a 3D maze, 5 rooms x 5 rooms x 5 levels.
Thank you! Im making a homebrew campaign for deployment and you addressed a few things i struggle w
Yes, please, make a video about the adventuring day mechanic :). Thanks for the video!!
Yeah I have it on the backlog. Hasn't quite made the in progress slate but eventually it will.
@@theDMLair No hurry!!
The best part of the video was the forever DM actually getting to play the game.
Thank you, this actually helped a lot with the campaign I'm trying to write.
"without stabby, stabby action" XD, I love that!
Oh thank you, DM Lair! I'm in the middle of making my first adventure right now and was in desperate need of this!
Oh my goodness, the Barbarian!! I love your skits. I would like for you to try imposing a time limit on your players at one of your games such as "Defeat the BBEG by midnight or else!" and then make a video about it when you decide you like it or not and why. Time limits make using a rest feels like a resource management decision that can be done strategically and it may stop players from abusing rests.
I feel sad for DM Luke. Forever DMs should get to play too!
Yes but I will say this sometimes forever DM's don't enjoy being players. Sometimes not always. I for instance have a very hard time enjoying myself as a player. It has to be a very good game for me to have fun as a player. Otherwise much of the time I sit there doing nothing and waiting for other people to take their turns and in my head I'm thinking why am I not just running a game instead of playing in one? I think I would be having more fun. LOL
@@theDMLair Eh I guess it's up to preference. I am currently playing more than DMing but before that I had long period where I was DMing a lot and playing very little DMing is pretty fun and all but I enjoy playing more than DMing.
I am actually really lucky, because all the players in my group have DMed at some point or another and we currently have 3 games running at the same time. It's amazing to be able to DM and play at the same time. 😄
Technically, GMs are still playing, they just have a considerably greater workload involved in entertaining the rest of the group, as opposed to players basically entertaining themselves
I feel like the position of DM is cursed or something, like a curse of stupidity or something.
I didn't expect to watch the entire intro... Good stuff.
I would love a video on an adventuring day.
It actually helps a lot! I always wanted to do my own campains but always fell short on where to begin. Most games we play do not have great campaign examples that are A: doable in short amount of time or B: actually any good. Example: Chicago by night for v5 is great but it mapped a lot of the city and made over 90 npcs with a good 25 pages of side quests. Like, thats way to much to dip my toe in the seat of storyteller.
I'm also one of those people that need to write stuff physically on paper to organise my though, so seeing how you make your docs helps me to put it digitally too. Curse you perfectionism! (No really, if it has any capabilities of beeing neat my mind just goes to: GRAPHICALLY PLEASING in way too many instances for it to be of any use quickly)
So once again, thanks!
I feel attacked, I'm the barbarian that took up the DM role, lol.
I multiclassed into barbarian in my last game and am DMing the current one. Am I allowed to feel attacked?
Awesome video! I don't think any player can appreciate the amount of effort DMs put into creating an adventure or even preparing a premade one until they've done it.... 😉 What a great video for anyone who wants to take on the task of creating their own adventure. Great stuff! Cool channel!
You really put in good effort here to create the possibility of a great world experience here.
Hi Luke! Your awesome!
Thank you! You're pretty cool too. Thanks for the comment. :-)
2:09 ohhhh I see what you did there. Well done my good sir.
This is what I really wanted for Christmas.
Hehehe that intro was kinda similar to my entry into DMing...the sudden panic as it dawns on me that everyone is reliant on me to provide the "starting stuff" qnd the tired forever DM there to be like, "Shugo Shu- SHUGO... deep breath I'm here if you need me but you got this"
I'm in he middle of picking up a campaign that we left off for about two months. Things are going to be very interesting as they were last in a Grung camp attempting to escape after starting a fire.
Great video today my friend, hope you had a good Christmas this year and hope for 2021 to be better
I once played in a game where the first time DM planned the first 6+ sessions to be a railroad prologue. He cursed one player to near death for not following the story as written, where the player was to deeply apologize for wrong songs his character did as a child to a town guard. Didn't come from any background and this is the prologue to the adventure. To add to the craziness, we weren't informed it was a prologue until the entire table was on the verge of open revolt. One of his NPCs was also one of his favorite PCs from a past game.
Funny thing, I unintentonally followed a few of the steps you metioned, I had a homebrew campain that was centered on mind flayers, elder brains, and intelect devourers in a massive multi district capital city with guilds(not ravinca), the only thing I didn't do was write it all down, I'm more of freestyle dm, once i have the goal, enemy, setting, and so on I don't need much else too improvise the rest in reaction to my players actions. great content keep it up, I feel sorry for the barbarion, I had a PC bardbarion that started with 6 intelegence, that went to 8 and ended up at 5 due to a deck of many things.
Yes please for the Adventuring Day video.
I was searching for a video just like this!
Happy to help! :-)
GM luke is roleplaying as Powergamer in intro skit. Best character.
I love making the maps!
i use a very similar process, but i add in a final layer of prep.
between sessions i always go through my notes and edit the current state of the dungeon, including any improv i came up with on the fly. this way any cool inspiration i came up with in play gets folded into the game going forward. sometimes you get asked a question and the players rolled well enough to make me make up an answer to a question i hadnt considered, and the whole quest needs to take that information into account for both consistency and to really ad depth to the story. so just half an hour between games to go over notes from the game and incorporate this new info goes a long way and makes me look just amazingly well prepared. after all, if i hadnt planned that the place was secretly in league with the thieves guild why did they find a similar sign to the one the party found in that warehouse they found 4 levels ago? so my players get to feel like geniuses for spotting that the thieves guild will definitely have at least one agent in this dungeon, and i look great for the call back to when the party was first starting out.
I Don't need advice like this anymore, but I'm watching it all anyway!
Algorithm or something.
Thanks! LOL
I hope this doesn't sound nitpicky, because I love this channel and this video, but you don't always need a villain in an adventure. Examples that come to mind: 1) diplomatic misunderstanding leading to conflict of 2 sides, neither of which is truly evil/villainous 2) A non-living entity or event takes the place of the "villain" (rift between planes, cursed item, magical anomaly, natural catastrophe...) 3) Temple of trials that is built to test adventurers to their limits, but there is no villain or malicious intent. While most adventures will, and should, have a villain, it is certainly not necessary.
Yeah that's a fair point.
Let's see. What do I enjoy about the adventure creation process? Personally answering the same 6 questions I do in anything I write. Who, what, where, when, why and how. And once I get rolling my imagination gets kicked in to overdrive and runs for weeks on end even after I've started. I have a beginning and an end. What my players do inbetween there is 100% up to them.
I think they were kinda harsh in the beginning, I mean, I think "you have wandered in the bottom of the dungeon and finished off the bad guy, what do you do now?" could really work as a one-off or a setup. One of the best sessions I've ever played (and it was in the middle of it's campaign) started with "it has been a few years since you defeated the big bad, figured out the prophechy, and saved the world from his schemes" It was a christmas special and a flashforward/dream sequence but still.
The DM lair: Alright...
Random Ad: Now we can finally customise and save with liberty mutual
Hey, so I'm giving our groups DM a break in his long campaign to play in a one shot in making. We're going to play a very long season on new years and I would like done advice on it. They will start at lv 15, and there are three of them. They will save the main npc who will take them into town and to a bar/tavern for a drink. While there the floor explodes and pretty much everyone dies except for the PC's and the npc. They jump down the hole as they see him fall. They then fight (enhanced) bandits who are holding him unconscious. The bandits will disappear near the end, and with a successful wis check they can tell they simply turned invisible and ran away. The PC's will then go through the dungeon finding NPC's who are prisoners, or escaped prisoners, of the beholder who will explain the big bad of the two warring beholders and the Alhoon that has recently appeared and made a shaky alliance with one beholder. They will also stress how much time PC's must kill all the, and if they don't, they will destroy the whole country this campaign resides in. Many will go insane whilst talking because of their time down here with an Alhoon, two beholders, and other things such as a death Slaad roaming the dungeon. I am using surprise encounters and home made traps (many inspired by your old vids) with more fun rules to make the dungeon more fun, yet deadly. Do you have any advice on what I should do with the monsters or the dungeon to make it more fun for them?
The map I'm making is inspired by dungeon of the mad mage
PS: part of their motivation comes from constantly saving their favorite npc who is always trying to repay them, and free reign over what they get out of the beholders collections
TY. - Brian.
I like this video! It validates me a little as a new DM. I was not sure if i was doing it "right" but after seeing this i'm more relaxed as it is quite similar. My party is currently 6 lvl3 players. Loot is my biggest issue, what is appropriate to give them? Etc. Encounters seem fine, usually no more than 2 encounters per adventure, though seems ok for lvl3. Any advice?
Tomb--as in, place where dead people are--rhymes with room. Tome--as in, book of arcane information frequently associated with evil spell casters--rhymes with home. 😊
Pls do an event-based template and video too!
Luke, you forgot the most important part of adventure creation. Name something Dan.
Dan that's a very good point. I'm going to have to take this video down and just redo it all. Thank you sir for once again showing me the error of my ways. LOL
@@theDMLair Well thank you for appreciating me. ❤ It is all I ask.
The group I ran for years was the random wander group. They rarely accepted the adventure hooks I presented, instead insisting to strike out. I'm pretty sure they were trolling me. I tell you, I learned a LOT about improvising from that experience. In the end, it all worked out. However, I do NOT recommend it. I put up with it so long, because I had no other group options.
I leave wandering around the game world looking for something interesting as a way of downtime activities for exploration. My players like it
And how do you run that as part of down time? Just a declaration and then some die rolls that resolves it?
@@theDMLair I have 2 tables that have things you could find in the wild near that location , and then I have them roll a survival check. If they get a high roll, they get to roll on the table that has cooler things like a shrine, a creature that can be a potential familiar, or a beast that can potentially be made a mount or ally, on a low roll( 12 or lower) they’ll come across something a bit less exciting, maybe a wolf stuck in a bear trap or a giant elk,and then I run it as a regular encounter that could potentially turn into a combat encounter. Usually something short though, shouldn’t take more then 15 minutes to run. A expedition takes 3 days.
A comment for the algorithm. Also thanks for giving good advice for noob dms like me.
You are very welcome. And thank you for the comment for the algorithm! :-)
The only major doubt I have is that it says the adventurers have 8 encounters a day and I am like... Wtf. My encounters last like, 1 hour at least
My group has been noticing the same thing. A lot of our days are 1 or 2 much more deadly encounters because we don’t like spending a ton of time in combat. We are thinking of using 8-hour short rests and 1-day long rests in the next campaigns we do to see if that helps
@tasker wanlin We are trying that and it works wonders. You take care of resources as they are scarce, you get creative and result to fighting as a last resource.
By the third encounter on the day, running becomes a really good option.
Is that "8 encounters" 8 combat encounters? Or are they including things like physical challenges, traps, puzzles and environmental hazards?
@@MonkeyJedi99 It includes social encounters, traps, combat and enviromental hazards
@@Anxuta Well then, that's not such a bad number. Rather like a day in a US city, trying to get work done during protests.
-
Social encounters - talking to bosses, co-workers, and customers.
Traps - that gossiper in accounting, the pretty young woman with the petition outside the grocery store.
Environmental hazards - road construction, traffic, finding a way around the "outdoor" dining enclosures.
Combat - working through an angry "defund" crowd on the way back from lunch, trying to avoid an elevator meeting with Dave from HR... Okay, those might not be combats, but the threat of harm is there.
I feel the Barbarian on a spiritual level
All good points. You gave me some food for thought. Curious, maybe you’ve already covered this, but how do you keep players on track with the mission and prevent them from just wandering the world without making them feel like I’m just pushing them to the next encounter?
Team Barberian here! 🥳
Heck yeah. Team Barbarian for the win! :-)
NGL that intro to the campaign the barbarian accidentally made would be kind of creative to making a higher level game. It would take some work but it could play out well, between finding a cursed item in the dungeon's loot hoard that is the center of the campaign or finding out another secret of the dungeon while trying to escape it.
I'm curious as to what class you were going the play in Barbarian's adventure?
I like playing PCs. But I’m serving as a dm for my friend group and I intend to ride this train to the haunted station at the end of its wherever.
1) I like carrion crawlers, were-rats, rival rogues, and crooked watchmen.
2) I'm not the biggest fan of using CR, because the ingenuity of my players (and sometimes my generosity) usually has them punching above their weight class. I use CR as a guideline, not a hard rule.
Also, I prefer to foreshadow my monsters, if it is early in the session/adventure. "...As you turn the corner in the sewers to investigate the 'squelchy' noises, you notice an oversized grub creature with 4 nasty, mucus-tipped tentacles munching away at the 3/4 eaten and quivering but otherwise unmoving body of a petty thief from a rival guild. You're pretty sure the sewers are infested with this kind of monster. It doesn't seem to acknowledge your existence. What do you do?"
Not the biggest fan of randomly rolling for treasure, either.
3) Same. This is probably one of the most fun parts of crafting an adventure.
4) Same, and do flesh out the locations in a way your brain's going to stick with it. You're playing the buildings and trees along with the monsters. Somewhat like the gods in the old movie Jason and the Argonauts.
5) Same, and don't be afraid to put neutral NPC's as optional encounters in your location's collection of encounters.
6) Better to pre-roll your random encounters so your players don't have to wait as long for you to play 3D chess.
7) Same, but I alternatively prefer to make the loot matter in interesting ways. "Upon extended, but distant further observation, you notice the thief drops an odd jeweled bauble after having his leg eaten by the carrion crawler still looming over him. What do you do?"
8) Same. Also, help the players to realize their characters have at least some knowing sense of and some knowledge which supports their goals and ambitions in the world, within reason, if their characters know the area well enough.
9) Same, and sometimes it is fun to improvise rooms on the fly, as long as you have the skeletal framework and narrative for your location.
10) Same, and not all resolutions end with clearing the dungeon. Sometimes you need to check back for treasure possibly missed.
These skits really are getting longer and longer and longer... One day they will only be the Skits haha
10:26 Is that meant to be a tomb, or is there a book with a pocket dimension in it that needs exploring? Joy of DnD, either would work.
Yeah I feel you could just pick one and it work either way. Lol
@@theDMLair Now my brain, regardless of my efforts to stop it, is trying to design an adventure arc about a quest giving wizard named Levar, who's age fluctuates every time the party sees him, sending the party into books to recover seven color coded artifacts. Damn you, brain
@@1217BC I really like that idea.
What's wrong with starting the adventure at the end? The aftermath could be it's own adventure with, escaping the aledgedly save dungeon, encountering a variety of people with diferent targets on your whay back to actual savety and dealing with the consequences of the BBEG's downfall.
I think the point was that he told the story instead of the player letting them deceid whats happening :p
@@sakulhd8189 agreed, but a campaign where the players start as part of the heroes guild that overthrew a demonic overlord sounds fun too. But the new kings get corrupted in a few years and do everything the overlord did plus killing dissenters and pushing for mass worship of old overlord. Saying he did the hard choices that needed to be done and crap like that. Players have to navigate court politics and intrigue to either clean the court or take the crown for themselves. Best played with a morally ambiguous party....
For the algorithm!
I'm trying to design an adventure for level 0 characters. Any advice on how to how much XP to account for?
dude my pleyers 5(lv 4) are about to fight a frost giant ( nerfed the damage to 3d8 insted of 3d12 ) and i know there gna kill the giant no problem . they have a few magic items and fire ball necklace and robe of serpants just summon 3 snakes and distrack the giant and yeet ranged attacks . i know my pleyers and know there going to beat it .
Yeah they probably will. A single giant by himself against a group of players is just going to get annihilated
@@theDMLair yah if he gets a crit...... Unles it's the warcleric or barbarian.... Insta death no death saves.... ( im doing inproved crit....so add max damage dice +mod insted of dubble dice)
10:24 did he just call a tomb a "tome" xDDDD
I'm trying to give my players a challenge but anytime I throw a creature at them they beat it easily. I've tried puzzles but they get it half the time. Their characters are designed to work well as a team I don't know if I should break the party and have a fight and video challenges or no any advice would be helpful thank you.
The Frozen Thorne so the Lich King is behind it.
Why not use the Xanathars encounter rules instead.of the DMG?
How to do a boss monster for a challenging gritty campaign?
lol I just make the CR of the boss 3-5 higher than the party.
"Gary the Intern": HOOOOLY CRAP WHAT AN IDIOT! I mean, it has become abundantly clear that corporate affairs hasn't approved this adventure.
Me and The Fighter: WAIT A SECOND.
I am convinced that dagger is a cursed dagger of murder hoboing or something and has possessed gary. It wasn't the rogues fault, he was possessed abd everyone else failed the insight roll.
What's it like if the players are wondering around the world waiting for something to happen though
Sadly, over 4 decades of gaming, I have ran across way to many GM's who claim to be game master geniuses who don't need to plan the adventure. When game time comes, you guessed it - wandering randomly hoping something fun would happen (spoiler...it didn't).
Hey! Don’t call the barb a baby! >:( he’s trying his best.
I dont know why I should listen to you. I mean, how long have you even *been* a DM, 2 weeks?
@@Allegedlies-YTP I doubt it. Feels like that's something one would mention every video if they DMed for that long.
@@Boss-_ Agreed, I'd definitely feel better following the advice of someone who had DM'd for that long! Sadly doesn't seem to be the case here.
You guys realize he's been posting videos about DMing for 3 years, right? He's been DMing for at least that long, probably longer.
You guys are right. Ill state how long ive been a Dm TWICE in every video now. 😂
Oh and first haha
Start with monsters? Hack and slash ahead, time to bail out.
2:14 skit skip button
Are barbarians even literate? I know and 3rd addition and Pryor they weren't
They weren't in previous editions, but there are no rules in 5e specifically making them illiterate. Personally, I prefer to tie it to intelligence rather than class anyway.
Yeah it's in previous editions of that barbarians could not read a right. 5th edition there is no such specification.
Fighter starting to realize...
Makes whole campaign, players walk randomly in other direction....find changes where plot hooks located. Haha players of randomness take that.....rents boats goes towards other side of map cause undead hordes sounds like a bad area....well damn