🔥 LAIRS & LEGENDS | Over 700 pages of D&D 5e GM resources: adventures spanning levels 1 to 15, 100+ new monsters, encounters, puzzles, traps, villains, NPCs, maps, and more! - thedmlair.com/collections/lairs-legends 🔥 INTO THE FEY | A level 1 to 5 fifth-edition adventure full of fey creatures and their tricksy plots! thedmlair.com/collections/into-the-fey
Something I heard from Aabria Iyengar that I've put into my prep is "attack flow charts". Giving myself 2 or 3 possible scenarios and making real quick flow charts on how the monster will react, what action it will take, and if its a fight to the death or if it will flee at a certain point. Really helped with larger encounters and made combats go pretty quick
You're a lifesaver, Luke. I usually prep for 4 hours and it's become a sort of source of anxiety for me. This video really helps. I'll come back to this again and again.
Now I want to see a skit where Prof. DM's Deathbringer meets Luke's Barbarian. I feel like they'd be drinking buddies. :D The point about "Nothing in the pre-written adventure is sacred" is really important! I've run adventures where I followed the text very closely, and others where I've thrown out everything but the maps and stat blocks. Another thing that's fun to do is to smash different adventures together. "Well, I really like the plotline from Adventure A, but Adventure B has a way more interesting setting, and Adventure C's Big Bad is a monster I've always wanted to use, so..."
Thanks! Thoroughly enjoyed this video. A big fan of Prof Dungeonmaster, Sly Flourish, Dungeon Dudes, and....uh....oh yeah, the DM Lair.... this was exactly what I've been needing to hear.
I would add. At least wizards products have a synopsis before every chapter. Also read those before starting the game. It does not increase the reading of the book that much, but it will tell you things that were left out of the overview and background at the start.
Prepping pre-written adventures takes me 3-4 days. Sometimes longer depending on how much reworking I have to do. Typically I try to prep enough for at least 1 or 2 game sessions to start out with. I’d like to be able to reduce my prep time to 1-2 hours instead of 3-4 days, so these tips will be very helpful for me. Thanks, Luke!
I would do all my prep about an hour before game time, including getting ready for the next encounter, so that, even if my game doesn't get that far, I'm prepared for the next session too. I would spend my spare time between games to research things uninvolved so that I might build more for future games
I just recently started a Patreon for my pre-written adventures for a non-D&D system, and this video is super-helpful for helping me make sure that my own adventures are as GM-friendly as I can make them! Thanks a bunch! :D
As a fresh DM, the plain adventure is a PAIN to run as written. We're about Session 4 of LmoP and oh my, I didn't know it would be... That hard to follow the book through. The different locations and quests are mixed into eachother. Between that, SURPRISE STATBLOCK. But not always - good chunk is hidden in the appendix. I tried to wrap it up as written but couldn't get my head into that, so I just use the book as reference and write my own notes and just use those. And, no ad intended, but OneNote is SO cool for this. I have a whole OneNote Notebook for my Campaign and I can pack in everything nicely ordered - Maps, Enemies, NPCs, Notes, Plot, Sidequests, Loot... Even with Pictures. Awesome. It's still much work to rewrite everything so its organized the way I need that. But as I homebrewed LmoP anyway very heavily - because vanilla its kinda boring - its better that way anyway.
PDFs of everything are great. I print them out, organize them as I think works best for me, place them into sheet protectors in binders, and add notes inside the protectors for different areas.
Thank you so much for this video! Honestly, I needed to hear this, I started DM'ing six months ago and I have always wondered if other Game Masters took apart the modules and made it into their own. Thanks for the tips once again!
I mainly homebrew adventures but still found this video useful. Probably going to have to watch it again when I am wrapping up my game prep to make sure I didn't miss anything!
Best helpfull information to date. Naturally i did some of these, but could never word it this good! Thx. I'll start doing this tomorrow this weekend and lots days after.!
Hey! I have that shirt! Long time watcher. I appreciate your vids. Very useful. Just started a new homebrew campaign after a decade of not DMing. Thanks again for your hard work!
My games tend to have randomized elements. It is a very different feeling running a creature on the fly, compared to running prepared creatures. If you do run random elements, be clear and upfront about it. The other players tend to be far more willing to work with the inevitable moments of thought.
Do be careful with magic or otherwise "special" items when pulling a standalone module into your campaign. Some adventures provide for specific items to be found in order to complete goals/levels and those items might be overly useful if the characters have access to them long-term. This is especially true if you're adapting a 1e, 2e, or 3e adventure when magic items were more necessary to power-up characters. They can be over the top for a 5e campaign.
Thank you for this video Luke! Would love to hear your angle on how to read an adventure when you’re still picking if it’s right for your group (campaigns vs compendiums official vs third party) I always struggle to quickly skim an adventure to tell if it’s right for my group. Especially 3rd party from Drive thru or DMs Guild. I wind up reading the whole thing to understand it, only THEN to figure out it’s not for us.
I totally agree with this! I beleive that a well-written overview should be aimed at that though. For Pathfinder, for example, each published Adventure Path comes with a Players Guide detailing everything they should know about the adventure, WITHOUT giving them spoilers. So it was easy for our group to go through a couple Player Guides together in order to decide which was best for the group. It shouldn’t all be on the GM,s shoulder to determine this.
I'm just curious when the term module went from meaning one adventure, like the original D&D modules, to a whole series of them in a book. I've heard it a lot recently. The whole point of the original meaning is that they're small components that can be inserted into a larger one basically interchangeably (i.e, they're modular). DM, I want to find a linguist. Is that a search or investigation? Great video, btw, excellent advice. Do I get advantage because I speak 6 languages? Looking forward to reading Lairs & what is it? Legends, yeah. Can I use inspiration? That's a cool shirt.
@pimc172 actually, I've been GMing for over 40 years. after a certain point, you realize, aside from a basic understanding of the games mechanics, the adventuring itself comes from the games participants. pre-written source material can assist, but the story itself is entirely by the players.
Players to GM, "We really want to play Curse of Strahd!" GM "Yes we can! Just wait a year until I finish reading the entire 244 pages of the adventure module then we can play!" Players "..." Completely agree that it is not necessary to read the entire adventure module first.
I'm assumming I missed something because, even though it's good advice, I defnitely can't see how you can speedrun reading through the book and still prep under 1 hour. Even if it's just for a session, WotC have the bad habit of putting info you should know earlier in certain parts of the adventure, to set the stage with clues, foreshadowing, etc, far ahead in the story. Descent into Avernus is such a good example of a bad written module, with tons of info scattered through the book.
I've discovered that I have to be careful when I read too much because I happen to experience short-term memory and forget particular details and feel foolish during the session.
I have to disagree with the tip of NOT reading the whole book first. Sadly, latest WotC relases have "surprises" at the end that are not presented to the DM on time. for example, the whole plot regarding the League of Malevolence which is pretty important to the plot, is barely mentioned until they appear.
When purchasing this, if we get the physical copy, will we have access to a digital version for plug and play on online versions of dnd? Or should we just purchase the digital version when that releases?
Isn't this just read the book, take lots of notes, change to suit PCs, look into tactics of the monsters. Not really a shortcut, or under one hour? It's do your homework and prep in a sensible way - for however long it takes. Which is good advice.
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🔥 LAIRS & LEGENDS | Over 700 pages of D&D 5e GM resources: adventures spanning levels 1 to 15, 100+ new monsters, encounters, puzzles, traps, villains, NPCs, maps, and more! - thedmlair.com/collections/lairs-legends
🔥 INTO THE FEY | A level 1 to 5 fifth-edition adventure full of fey creatures and their tricksy plots! thedmlair.com/collections/into-the-fey
Something I heard from Aabria Iyengar that I've put into my prep is "attack flow charts". Giving myself 2 or 3 possible scenarios and making real quick flow charts on how the monster will react, what action it will take, and if its a fight to the death or if it will flee at a certain point. Really helped with larger encounters and made combats go pretty quick
You're a lifesaver, Luke. I usually prep for 4 hours and it's become a sort of source of anxiety for me. This video really helps. I'll come back to this again and again.
Now I want to see a skit where Prof. DM's Deathbringer meets Luke's Barbarian. I feel like they'd be drinking buddies. :D
The point about "Nothing in the pre-written adventure is sacred" is really important! I've run adventures where I followed the text very closely, and others where I've thrown out everything but the maps and stat blocks. Another thing that's fun to do is to smash different adventures together. "Well, I really like the plotline from Adventure A, but Adventure B has a way more interesting setting, and Adventure C's Big Bad is a monster I've always wanted to use, so..."
Thank you for this! I feel not enough advice out there is for running the official books
Post it notes or sticky notes are great for physical modules. Saves the cost of printing huge numbers of pages and pulls the eye to the notes.
Thanks! Thoroughly enjoyed this video. A big fan of Prof Dungeonmaster, Sly Flourish, Dungeon Dudes, and....uh....oh yeah, the DM Lair.... this was exactly what I've been needing to hear.
I would add. At least wizards products have a synopsis before every chapter. Also read those before starting the game. It does not increase the reading of the book that much, but it will tell you things that were left out of the overview and background at the start.
Guess I’m better at this than I believed I was. Thanks
This is some great advice, sounds like how I prep even though i do always seem to prep enough to run 3 sessions at a time 😂.
Prepping pre-written adventures takes me 3-4 days. Sometimes longer depending on how much reworking I have to do. Typically I try to prep enough for at least 1 or 2 game sessions to start out with. I’d like to be able to reduce my prep time to 1-2 hours instead of 3-4 days, so these tips will be very helpful for me. Thanks, Luke!
I would do all my prep about an hour before game time, including getting ready for the next encounter, so that, even if my game doesn't get that far, I'm prepared for the next session too.
I would spend my spare time between games to research things uninvolved so that I might build more for future games
I just recently started a Patreon for my pre-written adventures for a non-D&D system, and this video is super-helpful for helping me make sure that my own adventures are as GM-friendly as I can make them! Thanks a bunch! :D
As a fresh DM, the plain adventure is a PAIN to run as written.
We're about Session 4 of LmoP and oh my, I didn't know it would be... That hard to follow the book through.
The different locations and quests are mixed into eachother. Between that, SURPRISE STATBLOCK. But not always - good chunk is hidden in the appendix.
I tried to wrap it up as written but couldn't get my head into that, so I just use the book as reference and write my own notes and just use those.
And, no ad intended, but OneNote is SO cool for this. I have a whole OneNote Notebook for my Campaign and I can pack in everything nicely ordered - Maps, Enemies, NPCs, Notes, Plot, Sidequests, Loot... Even with Pictures.
Awesome.
It's still much work to rewrite everything so its organized the way I need that.
But as I homebrewed LmoP anyway very heavily - because vanilla its kinda boring - its better that way anyway.
PDFs of everything are great. I print them out, organize them as I think works best for me, place them into sheet protectors in binders, and add notes inside the protectors for different areas.
Thank you so much for this video! Honestly, I needed to hear this, I started DM'ing six months ago and I have always wondered if other Game Masters took apart the modules and made it into their own. Thanks for the tips once again!
Just swinging by today and enjoyed your poke at PDM. Always appreciate your guidance.
May I suggest Deficient Master's video on prep? Most pragmatic and actionable advice ever.
Sending this to every DM I know
I mainly homebrew adventures but still found this video useful. Probably going to have to watch it again when I am wrapping up my game prep to make sure I didn't miss anything!
This is probably my favorite of your videos yet. Really good and helpful information and very natural presentation. I like it!
Best helpfull information to date. Naturally i did some of these, but could never word it this good! Thx. I'll start doing this tomorrow this weekend and lots days after.!
Oh wow, I guess I'm doing some things right already! I think a lot of this just takes me longer because I'm new.
Hey! I have that shirt! Long time watcher. I appreciate your vids. Very useful. Just started a new homebrew campaign after a decade of not DMing. Thanks again for your hard work!
Thanks! This was a really informative video. 5e/PF heavy, but great tips to take to other systems too.
Love your advice and presentation style!
This video turned out to be more of a testimonial on how terribly laid out organization wise and poorly written WOTC adventures are.
You should try an Adventure Path for pathfinder 2e. Its a dream, 10/10 usablility.
@@primedko9999 definitely better than wotc but not every one of them is 10/10 in fact every ap i ran wasnt a 10/10 more like 7-8
The dark eye ones are even better
My games tend to have randomized elements. It is a very different feeling running a creature on the fly, compared to running prepared creatures. If you do run random elements, be clear and upfront about it. The other players tend to be far more willing to work with the inevitable moments of thought.
Good thing about E books and pdfd, cut and paste into a document. Add notes and changes. Put in a header and pages numbers.
Do be careful with magic or otherwise "special" items when pulling a standalone module into your campaign. Some adventures provide for specific items to be found in order to complete goals/levels and those items might be overly useful if the characters have access to them long-term. This is especially true if you're adapting a 1e, 2e, or 3e adventure when magic items were more necessary to power-up characters. They can be over the top for a 5e campaign.
Thank you!
I was JUST thinki ng to myself "Maaan.... WotC should sell their books as PDFs...." And within 15 seconds, you mentioned it. lol
Thank you for this video Luke! Would love to hear your angle on how to read an adventure when you’re still picking if it’s right for your group (campaigns vs compendiums official vs third party)
I always struggle to quickly skim an adventure to tell if it’s right for my group. Especially 3rd party from Drive thru or DMs Guild. I wind up reading the whole thing to understand it, only THEN to figure out it’s not for us.
I totally agree with this!
I beleive that a well-written overview should be aimed at that though.
For Pathfinder, for example, each published Adventure Path comes with a Players Guide detailing everything they should know about the adventure, WITHOUT giving them spoilers. So it was easy for our group to go through a couple Player Guides together in order to decide which was best for the group.
It shouldn’t all be on the GM,s shoulder to determine this.
You rock, dude
I'm just curious when the term module went from meaning one adventure, like the original D&D modules, to a whole series of them in a book. I've heard it a lot recently. The whole point of the original meaning is that they're small components that can be inserted into a larger one basically interchangeably (i.e, they're modular). DM, I want to find a linguist. Is that a search or investigation? Great video, btw, excellent advice. Do I get advantage because I speak 6 languages? Looking forward to reading Lairs & what is it? Legends, yeah. Can I use inspiration? That's a cool shirt.
1 blank sheet of paper, 1 pencil
1 set of dice
this is all that is needed for a year long campaign or more!
Let me guess... you're not dm?
@pimc172 actually, I've been GMing for over 40 years. after a certain point, you realize, aside from a basic understanding of the games mechanics, the adventuring itself comes from the games participants. pre-written source material can assist, but the story itself is entirely by the players.
Players to GM, "We really want to play Curse of Strahd!"
GM "Yes we can! Just wait a year until I finish reading the entire 244 pages of the adventure module then we can play!"
Players "..."
Completely agree that it is not necessary to read the entire adventure module first.
Thx!🎉
Good tips even if you don’t run modules
I'm assumming I missed something because, even though it's good advice, I defnitely can't see how you can speedrun reading through the book and still prep under 1 hour. Even if it's just for a session, WotC have the bad habit of putting info you should know earlier in certain parts of the adventure, to set the stage with clues, foreshadowing, etc, far ahead in the story. Descent into Avernus is such a good example of a bad written module, with tons of info scattered through the book.
Note to all producers of TTRPG material: always make a printer friendly version of the PDF too! XD
I always print out the monsters and NPCs the players are going to fight before I run a module.
Hi Luke, any idea when the lairs and legends ultimate hardcopy and pdf bundle will be available again in your store?
It seems so dumb to make a note about “key items” or needed plot elements but take it from me….don’t forgot these!!
Have you thought in publishing Lairs & Legends in Spanish? If you don't want to do it physically at least do it in PDF, pleaaaaaaase!
I've discovered that I have to be careful when I read too much because I happen to experience short-term memory and forget particular details and feel foolish during the session.
I have to disagree with the tip of NOT reading the whole book first. Sadly, latest WotC relases have "surprises" at the end that are not presented to the DM on time. for example, the whole plot regarding the League of Malevolence which is pretty important to the plot, is barely mentioned until they appear.
Also, it's important to know what's coming so that you can drop in any foreshadowing that you want.
When purchasing this, if we get the physical copy, will we have access to a digital version for plug and play on online versions of dnd? Or should we just purchase the digital version when that releases?
Where do I get your T-shirts???
Where are your rules for social combat that you promised?
Isn't this just read the book, take lots of notes, change to suit PCs, look into tactics of the monsters. Not really a shortcut, or under one hour? It's do your homework and prep in a sensible way - for however long it takes. Which is good advice.
lol, one hour? I havent even finished listening to step two and I am already at 3+ hours IF I have a focused day
Sadly, I spend longer than an hour just picking out the monster miniatures and 3D terrain, then packing it all.
I unsubbed from the fake Professor (everyone knows the real Professor is at Tolarian Community College) and subbed to you. Get back, fake Prof!