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I typically homebrew everything: monsters, magic items, etc. Modules are used strictly for maps and inspiration. That said, as you brought up Curse of Strahd...what about a desert adventure instead, inspired by the 1999 "Mummy" movie, but using the Tomb as his pyramid and inserting a Mummy Lord as the ruler. Change the mystic fog for shifting sands/sandstorms, and the "Romani" flavoured nomads become desert nomads. The "prophet" they see becomes Sphinx. No one has to know what you're using as the theme changes so drastically.
Slightly more elaborate than the "basic" reskinning... AND I'd suggest you get a couple references into "Dark Sun" to help with the whole desert-scape themed ideals. It's not to run amok for everything, but for the odd reference here and there or to give some inspiration and artistically themed bits here and there or whenever you seem a bit short on ideas of your own. ;o)
In the 80s we have a campaign homebrewed w the desert of desolation series, master of the desert nomads and temple of death Almost unrecognizable but satisfying
I changed a lot about Curse of Strahd, Using an old map of the village I live as the entire play map. Which means that everything outside of Barovia got cut And replaced by homebrew content.
@@euansmith3699 That was "The Monstrous Compendium"... There were individually released small packets of monsters (roughly the size of a magazine) that could be sought after or subscribed for, and collected... thus the need for the three-ring binder... which any self respecting GM decorated personally. ;o)
In my main campaign, the party is hunting down relics known as the Planar Gems. They are pretty much the Infinity Stones, but each one is associated with a different plane. The first leg of the campaign was a rendition of Lost Mines of Phandelver. That culminated in them fighting the Black Spider for access to the Planar Forge, in side which they found the Earth Gem. The party wanted to learn where the other gems were, so some of them went to the Vault of Memory from the Mind Blast module. They are currently on the Plane of Thanatos, and that has been heavily inspired by Curse of Strahd. Being able to take what I want from modules has been a big help for this campaign.
The 2nd method is what I did when I ran Out of the Abyss for my group and we had a great time. We went off book a lot, I made adventures to fill in the time skip about half-way thru the adventure to get the character some extra levels and gear and I designed adventures that tied character story arcs to various locations in the module but the extra effort was well worth it.
I’ve done ‘hey, that’s something that Oxala would do! ‘ Then subbed out the main villain for my world specific villain, some locations and creatures for world specific creatures. Then connect the main goals of the baddie of the module to the main goals of mine and, viola. And if the players notice, I say ‘so what?” Why reinvent the wheel? To which they say “oh.. yeah.”
One of the first campaigns I ran was for a bunch of new players who were drawn from my LGS's Magic: the Gathering community just after the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica came out. I wanted to have a good introduction for them into D&D, but keep some things familiar. I ended up re-skinning Lost Mines of Phandelver for the Ravnica setting (which was also the setting for the most recent set of Magic cards). It worked pretty well, actually. I replaced a lot of the monsters with other monsters of the same CR that would be more appropriate to the setting, and reskinned the wilderness into a large tract of rubblebelt. Phandelver itself became a reconstruction zone where most of the guilds (the FR factions) were trying to rebuild that area of the rubblebelt, and Wave Echo Cave became a long-lost Izzet research laboratory.
I like to mix and match. I usually gut a dungeon and make the lore fit into whatever my lore is. My players want to see my version of the Shadowfell, Fey Wild, ect so I might use some of the elements of what's in the various books but add my own spin to it. It helps to bridge the gap many times since I have players that have played some of these modules and want to see a new take on it, kind of like an alternate universe thing. My focus is what connects to the characters and what the players would feel makes sense on their characters' journey. I remix and change whatever needs to so it fits and that helps my players be able to experience a module while also having the game tailored to them.
this approach was alot of fun and easy to do with the starter set/essentials kit adventures since theyre both in/around the same area of the sword coast. you can kinda pepper in extra adventures or stops along the way from one or the other pretty organically...
When I ran Tomb of Annihilation, I ran it in Eberron. It is amazing what you can do via the Veil of Dreams. Right from the get go, Session 0, I rebuilt the module around the Dragpnmarked House, especially House Cannith. I have run a homebrewed multiverse since 1981. I ruthlessly steal from all D&D versions, and several other rpg's. I steal from books and movies. This is part of being a DM. I tried running Dungeon of the Mad Mage as is. Buy that was bad. I am currently using the different levels as individual adventures as needed. I have also been using Halaster as a hero/villan depending on his current state of mind/madness . . . When I do use pre-made material, I always change it due to the fact my players can watch RUclips videos on modules, and some buy all the books (and read the things). They never know what I have changed, and can't complain about my changes without revealing they have watched/read the module. :)
A year ago I wrote a campaign for levels 1-7. I'm running to the end of my content now, and yesterday I had a talk with the players at my table about this exact topic. Glad to see we had some similar ideas about how to make it easy and fun to continue to playing together. Thanks for the suggestions!
These are some of my favorite ways to use modules. The faction quests from Waterdeep: Dragon Heist I reference often for mini quests and might reskin them. Or I’ll mix in Adventurers League one-shots from the related season.
I’m looking forward to doing this with stuff from “into the fey”! I gave up trying to accommodate schedules, so I just run games about once a month and whoever can show up plays. It means I try to run mostly unrelated one-shot adventures. It’s fun to be able to jump between themes whenever I want.
Minor Spoilers for Lost Mine of Phandelver ahead. So I'm currently running my group through a heavily modified version of Lost Mine of Phandelver, and I just had the coolest experience in my time as a DM the other night. I've either modified or outright homebrewed most if not all the major setpieces so far. Notable examples would be the raid on the Redbrand hideout going sideways in a big way leading to a desperate chase scene, the party getting stalked by goblins riding worgs for 3 days on the road before being ambushed and chased into Conyberry where they then had 1 minute to dig in and set traps and prepare for a fight where the odds were stacked heavily against them (like 3 worgs with goblin riders and 4 wolves against a lvl 3 party), but the one I'm most proud of is Wyvern Tor. You see, we had half orc cleric of Torm in the party, who never knew his parents. I decided to run the encounter largely as suggested, but without the named orc in the cave. Afterwards, the party was pretty beat up, so they decided to pile the bodies up in the entrance tunnel, and rest. During their rest, the rest of the orc warband came back and, seeing the bodies in the cave, decided to set up camp outside to wait them out. The party, through spells and creative use of a mirror, were able to scout the outside of the cave. 20 orcs waited for them outside, with more at an encampment just over the ridge. They frantically searched for another way out of the cave, but found none. It seemed hopeless, until the rogue came up with a plan. "You're an orc," he says to the cleric, " maybe you can parley with them. Depending on what clan they hail from, they may have a custom of single combat. If you challenge their chief and win, they may just let us go." The cleric set out from the cave and was nearly set upon when the warchief stepped forward and shouted for them to hold. A challenge was made, and accepted. The cleric asked for 10 minutes "to prepare," to which the warchief agreed, telling him to "pray to your gods and get your affairs in order for soon, your head will roll in the name of Gruumsh." The cleric returned to the cave, and spent the next 10 minutes praying and drinking potions (a potion of hill giant's strength and a potion of invulnerability they had found earlier in the adventure). It was time. The cleric, clad in full +1 plate with a shield to match, emerged from the cave ready to fight, and the orcs formed a giant circle around him and the Warchief. I gave the warchief a gleaming golden enchanted axe and some enchanted armor, a bunch of resistances, and a health pool worthy of a boss monster. In addition, he had a second phase where he would go berserk and gain multiple attacks, and a legendary action that would allow him to roll a con save vs the attack's raw damage (before resistances) when an attack would bring him to 0 hit points to instead reduce his HP to 1 and keep fighting. As the battle started, I put on an extended version of "Steel For Humans" from the Witcher 3 soundtrack to set the mood. The Warchief's face looked familiar to the cleric, as if seen in a dream, or perhaps... The Warchief launched his attack. The cleric and the Warchief traded blows, which I described in full. Every swing, miss, dodge, shove, riposte, every bit of blood and rage on the battlefield was on full display. The clashing of steel and of wills, the hate in the Warchief's eyes as he gave into his bloodlust and went berserk, the shining fist of Torm summoned to the battlefield by the cleric, all of it. They circled round and round, neither giving an inch, their resolve unbreakable. This was a clash of titans. The orcs started chanting "BRUGHOR! BRUGHOR! BRUGHOR!" The fight was getting desperate. The Warchief was injured, bloody, his breathing ragged, yet he did not relent. The cleric was running low on resources, and his potions were about to wear off. He struck with his axe, and Brughor nearly buckled under the force of the blow, but he steeled himself and came back with a fury (he made the con save). Then he was struck by the divine fist of Torm. The rage and hatred faded from his eyes. He stumbled forward, falling into the cleric, grasping tightly to his armor. He looked into the cleric's eyes, and with his last breath, in orcish, he said "it has been...an honor..." and pressed his axe to the cleric's chest, falling lifeless to the ground. The cleric cut off his head and held it up with a mighty roar. One orc shouted in orcish "BRUGHOR AXE BITER, THE DESTROYER, THE BANE OF KINGS AND BREAKER OF ARMIES, HAS FALLEN! LONG LIVE BRUGHOR!" to which the orcs began chanting "LONG LIVE BRUGHOR! LONG LIVE BRUGHOR!" Two orcs stepped forward and collected his headless body. The cleric told them to "give him an honorable burial," to which they nodded, gathered up their company, and left. The cleric now has a unique legendary axe and the respect of an entire clan of grey orcs who had traveled far from home seeking new lands to settle, new towns to pillage, and new kingdoms to conquer. We'll see how this plays out in the future.
I often google search my maps, either stuff people have made for RPGs, or sometimes I'll steal maps from my favorite video games. However, I find it most helpful to copy these maps by hand, either with pen and paper or digitally by mouse and cursor. The effect of directly copying by hanf is that it forces me to go over every detail of the map I intend to use and it helps me preview aspects of the map I might have overlooked if I just posted a screenshot of the image. Stealing a map takes the burden off of homebrew from scratch, but taking time to copy by hand helps me have close to the same level of intimate familiarity with the map as if I had crafted it from scratch.
As a Pathfinder guy, the system's large library of cheap adventure path books is one of its great strengths. Of the three major campaigns I've run, two of them were heavily based upon APs (but also heavily, HEAVILY modified). My planned fourth campaign is even more so, intended to be "by the book" mechanically while also completely replacing the story. The first of these started because I really liked the premise of Book 5 of a 6-book AP (a city ruled by the unstable alliance of a barbarian warlord and a powerful scientific organization, then the PCs come in and rip it all up), but I wasn't going to be able to recruit anyone to start a campaign at 13th level AND deal with tons of extra rules regarding the setting's ancient alien technology. So I took the concept, leveled everything way down, removed the alien technology (replaced with more limited "ancient magic dwarven nanites" and those newfangled firearms things), restructured the factions (made the barbarian warlord a more brutal dictator than a legitimate ruler, while the science faction went from an unstable set of CE backstabbers to a well-organized LN "ends justify the means" group), added two major new factions (devil-worshipping merchants who hate the current rulers, and Lovecraftian cultists preparing to burn it all down) and put in a lot more filler to spread the pacing out (including copying much of the plot and several encounters from a cult-fighting one-shot module). Other than recognizing some character names, there'd basically be no way to tell it is based on the existing property unless you were looking for it. The second one happened because I wanted to actually use the ancient aliens stuff from that campaign but wanted to make it a bit more interesting than the AP's effective "wander over into this area and find a new place to check out" plot structure (which includes a main villain who literally can't do anything outside of the final dungeon). So I took another AP about the drow trying to summon meteors as weapons and basically fused the two APs together - the plot and villains of the drow AP mixed with the backstory, special technology rules and dungeons of the ancient aliens AP. They actually complimented each other surprisingly well - the drow AP's stuff about uncovering ancient historical events and an elven group dedicated to keeping secrets from the public fit extremely well with the idea that aliens crashed into this planet centuries ago but no one's heard of them and their technology has not spread. The last of these is sort of the simplest, but also the weirdest. My group wants to try high-level adventure stuff for the first time (none of us have ever witnessed anything higher than Level 10), and I'm not experienced enough in that area to balance that well, so I'm running some high-level AP books I have, including one with a reputation for being extremely good. But I don't have all the right books for it, so what ended up happening is that I have combined three different AP books whose levels line up from three DIFFERENT APs with different themes into one Level 10 - 18 adventure. Obviously the story has been MAJORLY overhauled, a bunch of stuff combined to make one villain be behind it all (and show up fairly frequently) and the setting built for this to all make sense. But, as a part of the challenge, everything is mechanically pretty much by the book - the encounters haven't changed, the loot's the same, etc. I, of course, have no idea how this is going to go, but right now I'm actually feeling really good about it - somehow I made "fight the alien monsters in the secluded valley, then seize the compound in 1918 Russia guarded by mystical beasts, then go down to Hell and blow up a fortress there" make sense. Or, at least, enough sense. Beyond all of that, I also freely steal character art and names from APs and similar sources, because it's just so much easier for the players if I can show them an NPC's picture. (This leads to interesting scenarios, like the mother and three daughters who were all drawn for completely sources but still look related.)
6:47 BRUH literally tomorrow I'm running session 1 of ToA with added homebrew character arcs based on the pcs' backstories, what kind of coincidence is this
The first campaign I ran was a mash up of three AD&D adventures transposed to steampunk. It was great! And I'm currently running a heavily modd d Curse of Strahd.
Heck, I totally ganked the map of Lankhmar from the old ad&d sourcebook for the same as my home brew main capital and renamed locations and even stole and rescinded a few. I mean, a large, detailed map of a city? Perfect.
I am currently doing a mix of homebrew and the Tyranny of Dragons campaign. Most of the main story is there, but I added/expanded characters, locations, and even added encounters from other sources such as D&D: Beyond. One encounter from D&D:B is about a little flesh golem girl in a toy store that I modified so that the little girl's "mother" was captured by the Cult of Dragons and is being forced to create an army of Clockwork Dragons (from Acquisitions Incorporated) within the flying castle they will go to later. Also, because my players loved keeping their villains alive for the sake of information, they ended up creating their own rouge's gallery of reoccurring baddies. Now, unless the villain is a big threat, they kinda want to keep my bad guys alive because they love their little gimmicks.
I am also running Tomb of Annihilation. One of the bosses within the tomb will be replaced with a fallen aasimar from one of the player's backstories. Also, after looking at the logistics of the party traveling from Port Nyanzaru all the way to Omu, I provided flying transportation where they had to land every night and handle random encounters instead of spending 40+ in-game days trekking through a rainforest. This worked out expecially well for the player character that had died and was resurrected in the previous module, otherwise the Death Curse would have killed him before they got to the Tomb. Things are working out alright now.
Steal from everything, I mean get inspiration... Using an encounter, adventure, quest or npc from published material is a great tip. You know your group best, or at least what you like so of course homebrew and tailoring it would make it the best. I'd like to add the level of the adventure doesn't matter, change the monsters, or tweek them alter AC, HP abilities spells ect. Keep up the great advice Luke
Yeah I'm running a module I'm running curse of strahd right now for a group and there's one part that they're about to run into that I am home brewing the crap out of. :-)
I homebrewed the crap out of Curse of Strahd, using MandyMod's changes, adding extra adventures I found on Dmsguild (we were having so much fun we wanted the campaign to last as long as possible) and creating character adventures. One even ended up with our greatest moment in the campaign when a group of cultist kidnapped half the party. When they strapped the cleric to a device, his sorcerer girlfriend (who recently found she was pregnant) fought her way to his side, placed the soulstone they got when they were in Grenseskov in his hand, whispered she was sorry and squeezed his hand to break the stone. The cleric was whisked away to Grenseskov, in his night clothes in the middle of a blizzard, while the sorcerer and rogue barely escaped from the cultists to join back up with the main party who was hurrying to rescue them.
I am an Adventure League dm but as long as the group does not get too off the path, I homebrew where I can. Examples During Tomb Of A one of pcs killed off a random npc. The next undead encounter was random npc. Currently I running Icewind Dale, which the module does hint that actions have reactions. One town has been eaten by a former zoo monster, and icewind dale kobolds have taken over and help run the gem mine. But a bunch of nice ideas.
I started to do the same thing with my Adventures I'm currently running T.O.A and had some of the P.C tying their back stories with individuals from the book, I feel this is a much more engaging way to have the story play out. One player a oath of vengeance Paladin was tormented as a child by the night Hags in the book his sister was captured and never found. She is one of the stuff dolls at the end of the book. Another PC is a blacksmith warforged created by one of the albino dwarves seeking to reclaim their Homeland. At the start the adventure I told him there was a break-in and he was captured by Pirates later he will find out he was sold the fire newts for slavery in his ancestral home. I see the characters in the book as chess pieces don't be afraid to move them your characters are going to interact with your world and move the pieces in different directions in the book States. Side note a good DM can always improvise. Thanks Luke! Yet it looks like I already do this sort of thing.
You want to talk about module inspired campaign? I came up with the over arching theme for my current game with Zass Tam and the Red Wizards of Thay as the bad guys trying to take over the Sword Coast only to realize that there's a series of adventures that is shockingly similar to my ideas even down to some little details. I must've read these modules somehow when they came out at the start of 5e but I don't remember it.
I don’t have a lot of premade modules, but I mostly just steal the factions. Putting in an NPC or two that is, secretly or openly, a member of a faction helps in creating a living world. The players get the sense that not everybody is currently focussed on the main plot line of their own adventure. Sometimes the party might decide to dig a bit further into one of the factions and might help or eliminate a local base of operations of that faction in a separate adventure creating fun, new stories, which might end with new allies or enemies. Which can then later on in the main story line show up and help or hinder the party.
Yeah, I myself am using Rise of Tiamat as inspiration, but I love Arkhan and the Dark Order so much that I am integrating them into my Homebrew. I’m also using a completely different Dragon goddess to be brought back
I'm actually working on merging Horde of the Dragon Queen and Lost Mines of Phandelver. I really want to run the Tyranny of Dragons story, but at the same time replace the parts I know my players will hate A few of them even suggested that I put this hybrid story into my own Homebrew world
I am toying with an idea to try to mix some more modular adventures like Storm King's Thunder, 2e's a Hero's Tale and 1e's Slave Lords series and tie them all to homebrew villains running these events behind the scenes
The DM defending himself for using parts from modules was so funny :D Thats what I do all the time. Plus, I love the barberian. Very god topic fpr newish DM's. It took me 20 yaers to understand that I am allowed to fix modules if the are brocken or they dont fit the groupe.
Yeah I mean at the end of the day the dungeon master is running a game for everybody else. And since many players are unwilling to run the game themselves they should just be grateful right? :-)
As a forever dungeon master that opening skit spoke to me at my soul. And I told our current group that I'm getting burned out and that I need someone to do something in January almost no one grows up to the plate which made me go and rethink literally just how scaredy-cats they are. We're not perfect we run out of ideas sometimes we have a dry spell it just happens give your DM a chance to take a break.
I'm currently running a "Heart of Darkness" arc with my group going after Colonel Steiner of the 7th Uzkulwyr Rifles and his personal crusade against Orcs in the Royan Mountains. I stole the forge from "Lost Mines of Phandelver" that's pretty much it. Though I hope this video encourages more people to cannibalize from published material it makes your job as a DM so much easier.
Same. My first attempt I tried to home-brew the entire world and was overwhelmed. Setting it in an established world gave me access to way more ideas as well as maps, people and places. I also found good inspiration in some modules. I think this is the best way. Of course since I made my dungeon myself in said world I still need to create tons of people and maps but at least all the background stuff is covered.
I have a whole shelf of modules that I've had for 25+ years and honestly never even really looked at. I now run a weekly 2E game that has been going strong for 14 months, I decided that it was time to actually use some of the modules. So I broke out the Dragon Mountain box set. I placed an item that the PCs need in the campaign in the main dragon treasure hoard. I am running Dragon Mountain mostly as is, with a few changes to fit the campaign and players. They have made it through book I and are now inside the mountain itself in book II. Dragon Mountain can hop through space, time, worlds, and planes of existence. I am mostly running a Forgotten Realms campaign, but they've seen Ravenloft and Spelljammer during the campaign, and many aspects of Dark Sun in the Anauroch Desert. IF the PCs survive Dragon Mountain, they will exit the mountain only to find themselves under the unfamiliar blood red night sky of the moon Lunitari on the world of Krynn. It will be fun seeing them try to get back to Toril. Dragon Mountain is actually the first published adventure I have ever ran and this is how I worked it into my homebrew campaign. So far I am enjoying it and the players seem to love it as well.
Homebrew is great and all, if you have the time. All my campaigns are pretty much 90% module based.. and not the 5e modules. I own probably 95% of all 1st and 2nd ed modules, so I've just updated them to 5e rules, modify them based on the setting and player choices to date, and string them together with an overarching plot line to take players from 1 to 20+, and throw in some homebrew quests here and there. As I use an established game world, it's much easier, faster, and offers way more creativity than I could come up with (I'm not artistic at all). Not to mention, it's the way I grew up playing D&D, so I know how to do it (old school).
As a long time player and new GM. I love the idea of stealing from a module. My first go around was all home brew. Our biggest issue is that it seems like we have all gone through or another of the modules. We should probably be looking at the non wizards stuff out there to broaden our horizons. Be well
I have never had a player complain about me stealing ideas for my games. Then again, pretty much every character I've seen at the table has at least some aspect stolen from elsewhere. Some of my favorites have been a female tabaxi Indiana Jones who was going through Tomb of Annihilation grabbing any cool looking/old item because "it belongs in a museum", a warforged wizard Commander Data who's goal was to learn the wish spell so he could become a real boy, and a mustachioed couatl aasimar bard named Friedrick Cinnabar who dyed his leather armor bright yellow and had a silvered rapier that could project his voice when he sang into the pommel. For those who aren't geology geeks, cinnabar is an ore of mercury
I am currently running a Dragon of Icespire Peak/Lost Mines of Phandalin with heavy homebrew. A lot of my own npcs. Change to the lore and story. Example, one of the missions is dealing with a group of wererats called the whisker gang. Thats a na from me. Changed them to The Eyes of Savras, a fate cult since the book mention they lived in a temple to that god and that fate plays part in my story.
This kinda convinced me to stop being stubborn and buy a modules/campaign and ease into home brewing w that(since tbh I've never built a campaign nor DMd b4)
I run Curse of Strahd as a mixed campaign, In an attempt to tie my players into the plot more, As I set up a scenario where Strahd is both their ally and enemy. They've agreed to work with him. One of my players is even trying to play both sides, By becoming a bride of Strahd. All things considered you can't really call it Curse of Strahd anymore, But you can tell it is clearly Curse of Strahd. The fact that there's a Living Library, an Awakened Gulthias Tree and the Mystic Mine of Crystal Beasts Doesn't change any of that.
The fire giant lair in Storm King's Thunder is both way better than the fire giant lair in Against the Giants, AND the best thing about Storm King's Thunder. If you're going to yoink a premade, it's an excellent choice.
In my day modules contained single adventures and were made to be dropped whole-cloth into homebrew campaigns (or as we called them, campaigns). But then, we didn't have elaborate backstories either.
I was trying to look through comments to see if the “Didn’t you graduate from Dungeon Master School?” dialogue had anything to do with that funny mix up in a previous video where he said “I’ve been high since Dungeon Master School” lol. Maybe not.
I've got a crap ton of old school AD&D modules I'm planning on working into my homebrew campaign world. They're so old that odd are nobody playing in my world will have ever HEARD of them, much less played them!
Great video. I just assumed all GMs did this. I know I do.... all the time. I suppose I have heard that some GMs attempt to homebrew EVERYTHING, but that sounds like too much work to me. Lol.
That's how I learned, homebrewing everything. All we had was the 3 core book and pen and paper. I learned to throw things together quickly instead of having to study encounter
Number 2 it's the best. But in some level, it's impossible to run a module as writen (some modules more than others), so soon or later evebody need to adapt.
Well... here we simply do not use anything but homebrew stories. I cant say were the other GM take their inspiration. But in Exalted, there is no "premade" campaing except one. Return of the Scarlet Empress. And it is mostly a guidline for extra buff antagonist. I have my inspiration mostly by other stories. Novels, series, movies... Pick and choose the plot cores that I like and mold them into my stories.
I use them as reference to try to work out the pacing of higher level adventures in my homebrew. There's so much more to gameplay than "There's a Dragon" Every time Steven, every time (FYI - Steven is the worst DM I know)
I like to think of Clerical religion as very organized, and Druidic religion as not so. The origin of clerics has very Christian tones, and druids very celtic obviously, and I think it's an interesting tension for the clerical religions to be trying to convert people and it's somewhat overtaking Druidic religions that used to be more widespread.
I tried the "character arc" approach when I ran Descent into Avernus... Until one of the players derailed the whole thing because he felt the ending oneshot for two players deserved to be a quest they had to MAKE into an adventure
Oh my God holy s*** I have a story to tell you! Gather around as you're about to hear one of the greatest stories ever told in DND. Spoilers / sort of. My Adventures gathered Dream Pastries encountered a blue dragon guarding a tower decided to reason with it because it was trapped against its will it was hungry so they fed it some Dream Pastries. Being a dragon and ferocious and hungry gobbled all dozen pastries instantly falling asleep. Later after exploring the tower they noticed a wagon they realized the owner had not returned so they decided upon themselves to investigate set wagon while the dragon be sleeping close by. The Bard decided to pull out a set of Thieves tools and attempted to pick the lock. He was successful in his attempt to pick the lock however in doing so set off a chain reaction of explosions. Damaging and even killing one of the party members after which the dragon woke ferociously angry from being ripped from his most Pleasant dream as well as seen a few individual stand for for him clearly responsible for the damaged. Funny enough everyone survived that encounter thought I'd share with the rest of the class hope you enjoyed.
This is why copyright is a two-edged sword. The bad goes along with the good. While there is some good, since the creator gets to use their work and profit from it without people being allowed to steal the work and the profits, it also has the effect that it stifles creativity. Creativity feeds on creativity. Disney wouldn't be the huge, valuable company which it now is if it hadn't been able to take, alter and use well-known fairy tales such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan. Copyright needs to be restricted far more than it currently is in order to stimulate creativity, because art feeds on art and copyright stifles that process. The original copyright period was only 15 years. That, in my opinion, was a good compromise between allowing the creator to profit from their work and allowing creativity to flow. /rant :p
The barbarian is the real MVP. If the DM is trying their best, don't immediately crush them. Give them a chance or look for another table. I've built one campaign world from a scratch and believe me, it took me around 1 and a half year to make it at least "playable" and it's still not finished. My players are thinking about going in a dungeon, (which I should map out perhaps..) so I've decided to "steal" a map from the internet and make some changes. No need to reinvent a wheel, right?
The opening skit, I'm like, 'isn't this the dream pie set piece from Curse of Strahd?' Originality is a fallacy, there are no new ideas, before the invention of the printing press plagiarism was considered a good thing because reproducing something required the same knowledge and resources as designing it in the first place.
Objection your honor, Gary the Interns protest against adapting modules for homebrew campaigns are invalid and baseless "Published adventures and the internet are terrific sources for maps" -DMG p 310 (appendix c) Which ironically would be chapter 12 of the DMG if you counted the appendices as chapters Doesn't say anything about taking a whole adventure, but it also doesn't say you can't! And I'd say permission to use a map is precedent for using other parts of an adventure
Yeah it's a good thing to have players who give dungeon Master's the benefit of the doubt and appreciate what they do even when they can't do everything perfectly. Because being a dungeon master is not an easy job and a dungeon Master's almost a sure they going to make mistakes from time to time and they just can't be perfect. They should be giving a wide berth of forgiveness is what they do is challenging.
I can't use modules at all, they all have the concept that pcs will do certain things and that is a daft expectation. I also won't use published worlds. My adventures, my world. Ditch the published stuff and have more fun.
I mean that is part of running a module. When you're running a module for the group they're part of the social contract is the players of the group agree to run that module. So there should be expectations that they will do certain things such as run the module. Otherwise you shouldn't be running a module for them. So they don't want to agree to running the module then yeah you should ditch the module.
@@theDMLair Just my players are about to head to the windmill lol. It'll be fine, I'm just being paranoid. Btw I love your videos and looking forward to the next one on how to make homebrew adventures
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I typically homebrew everything: monsters, magic items, etc. Modules are used strictly for maps and inspiration.
That said, as you brought up Curse of Strahd...what about a desert adventure instead, inspired by the 1999 "Mummy" movie, but using the Tomb as his pyramid and inserting a Mummy Lord as the ruler. Change the mystic fog for shifting sands/sandstorms, and the "Romani" flavoured nomads become desert nomads. The "prophet" they see becomes Sphinx. No one has to know what you're using as the theme changes so drastically.
Slightly more elaborate than the "basic" reskinning... AND I'd suggest you get a couple references into "Dark Sun" to help with the whole desert-scape themed ideals. It's not to run amok for everything, but for the odd reference here and there or to give some inspiration and artistically themed bits here and there or whenever you seem a bit short on ideas of your own. ;o)
In the 80s we have a campaign homebrewed w the desert of desolation series, master of the desert nomads and temple of death
Almost unrecognizable but satisfying
That sounds awesome!
@@theDMLair well those old modules.were pure gold imho
I changed a lot about Curse of Strahd,
Using an old map of the village I live as the entire play map.
Which means that everything outside of Barovia got cut
And replaced by homebrew content.
Of course Gary has all the corporate handbooks. The best way to rise in company hierarchy.
Gary writes the corporate handbooks. :-)
I was disappointed that he didn't have a three-ring binder; but I guess that was the 2nd Edition Monster Manual.
@@euansmith3699 That was "The Monstrous Compendium"... There were individually released small packets of monsters (roughly the size of a magazine) that could be sought after or subscribed for, and collected... thus the need for the three-ring binder... which any self respecting GM decorated personally. ;o)
Gary the Metagamer
In my main campaign, the party is hunting down relics known as the Planar Gems. They are pretty much the Infinity Stones, but each one is associated with a different plane. The first leg of the campaign was a rendition of Lost Mines of Phandelver. That culminated in them fighting the Black Spider for access to the Planar Forge, in side which they found the Earth Gem. The party wanted to learn where the other gems were, so some of them went to the Vault of Memory from the Mind Blast module. They are currently on the Plane of Thanatos, and that has been heavily inspired by Curse of Strahd. Being able to take what I want from modules has been a big help for this campaign.
“Good artists borrow, better artists steal” -Stravinsky
Honestly though,
No masterpiece stands on its own.
The 2nd method is what I did when I ran Out of the Abyss for my group and we had a great time. We went off book a lot, I made adventures to fill in the time skip about half-way thru the adventure to get the character some extra levels and gear and I designed adventures that tied character story arcs to various locations in the module but the extra effort was well worth it.
The barbarian rooks! The opening was the best yet
Thanks for all your great videos
Cheers
Thanks. You are very welcome!😀
I’ve done ‘hey, that’s something that Oxala would do! ‘ Then subbed out the main villain for my world specific villain, some locations and creatures for world specific creatures. Then connect the main goals of the baddie of the module to the main goals of mine and, viola. And if the players notice, I say ‘so what?” Why reinvent the wheel? To which they say “oh.. yeah.”
One of the first campaigns I ran was for a bunch of new players who were drawn from my LGS's Magic: the Gathering community just after the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica came out. I wanted to have a good introduction for them into D&D, but keep some things familiar. I ended up re-skinning Lost Mines of Phandelver for the Ravnica setting (which was also the setting for the most recent set of Magic cards). It worked pretty well, actually. I replaced a lot of the monsters with other monsters of the same CR that would be more appropriate to the setting, and reskinned the wilderness into a large tract of rubblebelt. Phandelver itself became a reconstruction zone where most of the guilds (the FR factions) were trying to rebuild that area of the rubblebelt, and Wave Echo Cave became a long-lost Izzet research laboratory.
I like to mix and match. I usually gut a dungeon and make the lore fit into whatever my lore is. My players want to see my version of the Shadowfell, Fey Wild, ect so I might use some of the elements of what's in the various books but add my own spin to it. It helps to bridge the gap many times since I have players that have played some of these modules and want to see a new take on it, kind of like an alternate universe thing. My focus is what connects to the characters and what the players would feel makes sense on their characters' journey. I remix and change whatever needs to so it fits and that helps my players be able to experience a module while also having the game tailored to them.
this approach was alot of fun and easy to do with the starter set/essentials kit adventures since theyre both in/around the same area of the sword coast. you can kinda pepper in extra adventures or stops along the way from one or the other pretty organically...
When I ran Tomb of Annihilation, I ran it in Eberron. It is amazing what you can do via the Veil of Dreams. Right from the get go, Session 0, I rebuilt the module around the Dragpnmarked House, especially House Cannith.
I have run a homebrewed multiverse since 1981. I ruthlessly steal from all D&D versions, and several other rpg's. I steal from books and movies. This is part of being a DM.
I tried running Dungeon of the Mad Mage as is. Buy that was bad. I am currently using the different levels as individual adventures as needed. I have also been using Halaster as a hero/villan depending on his current state of mind/madness . . .
When I do use pre-made material, I always change it due to the fact my players can watch RUclips videos on modules, and some buy all the books (and read the things). They never know what I have changed, and can't complain about my changes without revealing they have watched/read the module. :)
Love the throwback to the dungeon master school comment
A year ago I wrote a campaign for levels 1-7. I'm running to the end of my content now, and yesterday I had a talk with the players at my table about this exact topic. Glad to see we had some similar ideas about how to make it easy and fun to continue to playing together. Thanks for the suggestions!
Happy to help!😀
These are some of my favorite ways to use modules. The faction quests from Waterdeep: Dragon Heist I reference often for mini quests and might reskin them. Or I’ll mix in Adventurers League one-shots from the related season.
I’m looking forward to doing this with stuff from “into the fey”! I gave up trying to accommodate schedules, so I just run games about once a month and whoever can show up plays. It means I try to run mostly unrelated one-shot adventures. It’s fun to be able to jump between themes whenever I want.
Minor Spoilers for Lost Mine of Phandelver ahead. So I'm currently running my group through a heavily modified version of Lost Mine of Phandelver, and I just had the coolest experience in my time as a DM the other night. I've either modified or outright homebrewed most if not all the major setpieces so far. Notable examples would be the raid on the Redbrand hideout going sideways in a big way leading to a desperate chase scene, the party getting stalked by goblins riding worgs for 3 days on the road before being ambushed and chased into Conyberry where they then had 1 minute to dig in and set traps and prepare for a fight where the odds were stacked heavily against them (like 3 worgs with goblin riders and 4 wolves against a lvl 3 party), but the one I'm most proud of is Wyvern Tor.
You see, we had half orc cleric of Torm in the party, who never knew his parents. I decided to run the encounter largely as suggested, but without the named orc in the cave. Afterwards, the party was pretty beat up, so they decided to pile the bodies up in the entrance tunnel, and rest. During their rest, the rest of the orc warband came back and, seeing the bodies in the cave, decided to set up camp outside to wait them out. The party, through spells and creative use of a mirror, were able to scout the outside of the cave. 20 orcs waited for them outside, with more at an encampment just over the ridge. They frantically searched for another way out of the cave, but found none. It seemed hopeless, until the rogue came up with a plan. "You're an orc," he says to the cleric, " maybe you can parley with them. Depending on what clan they hail from, they may have a custom of single combat. If you challenge their chief and win, they may just let us go."
The cleric set out from the cave and was nearly set upon when the warchief stepped forward and shouted for them to hold. A challenge was made, and accepted. The cleric asked for 10 minutes "to prepare," to which the warchief agreed, telling him to "pray to your gods and get your affairs in order for soon, your head will roll in the name of Gruumsh." The cleric returned to the cave, and spent the next 10 minutes praying and drinking potions (a potion of hill giant's strength and a potion of invulnerability they had found earlier in the adventure). It was time.
The cleric, clad in full +1 plate with a shield to match, emerged from the cave ready to fight, and the orcs formed a giant circle around him and the Warchief. I gave the warchief a gleaming golden enchanted axe and some enchanted armor, a bunch of resistances, and a health pool worthy of a boss monster. In addition, he had a second phase where he would go berserk and gain multiple attacks, and a legendary action that would allow him to roll a con save vs the attack's raw damage (before resistances) when an attack would bring him to 0 hit points to instead reduce his HP to 1 and keep fighting. As the battle started, I put on an extended version of "Steel For Humans" from the Witcher 3 soundtrack to set the mood.
The Warchief's face looked familiar to the cleric, as if seen in a dream, or perhaps... The Warchief launched his attack. The cleric and the Warchief traded blows, which I described in full. Every swing, miss, dodge, shove, riposte, every bit of blood and rage on the battlefield was on full display. The clashing of steel and of wills, the hate in the Warchief's eyes as he gave into his bloodlust and went berserk, the shining fist of Torm summoned to the battlefield by the cleric, all of it. They circled round and round, neither giving an inch, their resolve unbreakable. This was a clash of titans. The orcs started chanting "BRUGHOR! BRUGHOR! BRUGHOR!"
The fight was getting desperate. The Warchief was injured, bloody, his breathing ragged, yet he did not relent. The cleric was running low on resources, and his potions were about to wear off. He struck with his axe, and Brughor nearly buckled under the force of the blow, but he steeled himself and came back with a fury (he made the con save). Then he was struck by the divine fist of Torm. The rage and hatred faded from his eyes. He stumbled forward, falling into the cleric, grasping tightly to his armor. He looked into the cleric's eyes, and with his last breath, in orcish, he said "it has been...an honor..." and pressed his axe to the cleric's chest, falling lifeless to the ground. The cleric cut off his head and held it up with a mighty roar. One orc shouted in orcish "BRUGHOR AXE BITER, THE DESTROYER, THE BANE OF KINGS AND BREAKER OF ARMIES, HAS FALLEN! LONG LIVE BRUGHOR!" to which the orcs began chanting "LONG LIVE BRUGHOR! LONG LIVE BRUGHOR!" Two orcs stepped forward and collected his headless body. The cleric told them to "give him an honorable burial," to which they nodded, gathered up their company, and left.
The cleric now has a unique legendary axe and the respect of an entire clan of grey orcs who had traveled far from home seeking new lands to settle, new towns to pillage, and new kingdoms to conquer. We'll see how this plays out in the future.
I often google search my maps, either stuff people have made for RPGs, or sometimes I'll steal maps from my favorite video games.
However, I find it most helpful to copy these maps by hand, either with pen and paper or digitally by mouse and cursor.
The effect of directly copying by hanf is that it forces me to go over every detail of the map I intend to use and it helps me preview aspects of the map I might have overlooked if I just posted a screenshot of the image.
Stealing a map takes the burden off of homebrew from scratch, but taking time to copy by hand helps me have close to the same level of intimate familiarity with the map as if I had crafted it from scratch.
I love this, currently running an adventure that's an expanded version of one of the Ghosts of Saltmarsh modules.
As a Pathfinder guy, the system's large library of cheap adventure path books is one of its great strengths. Of the three major campaigns I've run, two of them were heavily based upon APs (but also heavily, HEAVILY modified). My planned fourth campaign is even more so, intended to be "by the book" mechanically while also completely replacing the story.
The first of these started because I really liked the premise of Book 5 of a 6-book AP (a city ruled by the unstable alliance of a barbarian warlord and a powerful scientific organization, then the PCs come in and rip it all up), but I wasn't going to be able to recruit anyone to start a campaign at 13th level AND deal with tons of extra rules regarding the setting's ancient alien technology. So I took the concept, leveled everything way down, removed the alien technology (replaced with more limited "ancient magic dwarven nanites" and those newfangled firearms things), restructured the factions (made the barbarian warlord a more brutal dictator than a legitimate ruler, while the science faction went from an unstable set of CE backstabbers to a well-organized LN "ends justify the means" group), added two major new factions (devil-worshipping merchants who hate the current rulers, and Lovecraftian cultists preparing to burn it all down) and put in a lot more filler to spread the pacing out (including copying much of the plot and several encounters from a cult-fighting one-shot module). Other than recognizing some character names, there'd basically be no way to tell it is based on the existing property unless you were looking for it.
The second one happened because I wanted to actually use the ancient aliens stuff from that campaign but wanted to make it a bit more interesting than the AP's effective "wander over into this area and find a new place to check out" plot structure (which includes a main villain who literally can't do anything outside of the final dungeon). So I took another AP about the drow trying to summon meteors as weapons and basically fused the two APs together - the plot and villains of the drow AP mixed with the backstory, special technology rules and dungeons of the ancient aliens AP. They actually complimented each other surprisingly well - the drow AP's stuff about uncovering ancient historical events and an elven group dedicated to keeping secrets from the public fit extremely well with the idea that aliens crashed into this planet centuries ago but no one's heard of them and their technology has not spread.
The last of these is sort of the simplest, but also the weirdest. My group wants to try high-level adventure stuff for the first time (none of us have ever witnessed anything higher than Level 10), and I'm not experienced enough in that area to balance that well, so I'm running some high-level AP books I have, including one with a reputation for being extremely good. But I don't have all the right books for it, so what ended up happening is that I have combined three different AP books whose levels line up from three DIFFERENT APs with different themes into one Level 10 - 18 adventure. Obviously the story has been MAJORLY overhauled, a bunch of stuff combined to make one villain be behind it all (and show up fairly frequently) and the setting built for this to all make sense. But, as a part of the challenge, everything is mechanically pretty much by the book - the encounters haven't changed, the loot's the same, etc. I, of course, have no idea how this is going to go, but right now I'm actually feeling really good about it - somehow I made "fight the alien monsters in the secluded valley, then seize the compound in 1918 Russia guarded by mystical beasts, then go down to Hell and blow up a fortress there" make sense. Or, at least, enough sense.
Beyond all of that, I also freely steal character art and names from APs and similar sources, because it's just so much easier for the players if I can show them an NPC's picture. (This leads to interesting scenarios, like the mother and three daughters who were all drawn for completely sources but still look related.)
Great video today and man this topic was so good. Great skit in the beginning
Thanks! 😀
6:47 BRUH literally tomorrow I'm running session 1 of ToA with added homebrew character arcs based on the pcs' backstories, what kind of coincidence is this
Sweet.
Thanks again for another great suggestion and guidance on blending ideas.
The first campaign I ran was a mash up of three AD&D adventures transposed to steampunk. It was great!
And I'm currently running a heavily modd d Curse of Strahd.
Heck, I totally ganked the map of Lankhmar from the old ad&d sourcebook for the same as my home brew main capital and renamed locations and even stole and rescinded a few. I mean, a large, detailed map of a city? Perfect.
I am currently doing a mix of homebrew and the Tyranny of Dragons campaign. Most of the main story is there, but I added/expanded characters, locations, and even added encounters from other sources such as D&D: Beyond. One encounter from D&D:B is about a little flesh golem girl in a toy store that I modified so that the little girl's "mother" was captured by the Cult of Dragons and is being forced to create an army of Clockwork Dragons (from Acquisitions Incorporated) within the flying castle they will go to later. Also, because my players loved keeping their villains alive for the sake of information, they ended up creating their own rouge's gallery of reoccurring baddies. Now, unless the villain is a big threat, they kinda want to keep my bad guys alive because they love their little gimmicks.
I am also running Tomb of Annihilation. One of the bosses within the tomb will be replaced with a fallen aasimar from one of the player's backstories. Also, after looking at the logistics of the party traveling from Port Nyanzaru all the way to Omu, I provided flying transportation where they had to land every night and handle random encounters instead of spending 40+ in-game days trekking through a rainforest. This worked out expecially well for the player character that had died and was resurrected in the previous module, otherwise the Death Curse would have killed him before they got to the Tomb. Things are working out alright now.
Steal from everything, I mean get inspiration...
Using an encounter, adventure, quest or npc from published material is a great tip.
You know your group best, or at least what you like so of course homebrew and tailoring it would make it the best.
I'd like to add the level of the adventure doesn't matter, change the monsters, or tweek them alter AC, HP abilities spells ect.
Keep up the great advice Luke
Yeah I'm running a module I'm running curse of strahd right now for a group and there's one part that they're about to run into that I am home brewing the crap out of. :-)
I homebrewed the crap out of Curse of Strahd, using MandyMod's changes, adding extra adventures I found on Dmsguild (we were having so much fun we wanted the campaign to last as long as possible) and creating character adventures. One even ended up with our greatest moment in the campaign when a group of cultist kidnapped half the party. When they strapped the cleric to a device, his sorcerer girlfriend (who recently found she was pregnant) fought her way to his side, placed the soulstone they got when they were in Grenseskov in his hand, whispered she was sorry and squeezed his hand to break the stone. The cleric was whisked away to Grenseskov, in his night clothes in the middle of a blizzard, while the sorcerer and rogue barely escaped from the cultists to join back up with the main party who was hurrying to rescue them.
I am an Adventure League dm but as long as the group does not get too off the path, I homebrew where I can. Examples During Tomb Of A one of pcs killed off a random npc. The next undead encounter was random npc. Currently I running Icewind Dale, which the module does hint that actions have reactions. One town has been eaten by a former zoo monster, and icewind dale kobolds have taken over and help run the gem mine. But a bunch of nice ideas.
I started to do the same thing with my Adventures I'm currently running T.O.A and had some of the P.C tying their back stories with individuals from the book, I feel this is a much more engaging way to have the story play out. One player a oath of vengeance Paladin was tormented as a child by the night Hags in the book his sister was captured and never found. She is one of the stuff dolls at the end of the book. Another PC is a blacksmith warforged created by one of the albino dwarves seeking to reclaim their Homeland. At the start the adventure I told him there was a break-in and he was captured by Pirates later he will find out he was sold the fire newts for slavery in his ancestral home. I see the characters in the book as chess pieces don't be afraid to move them your characters are going to interact with your world and move the pieces in different directions in the book States. Side note a good DM can always improvise. Thanks Luke! Yet it looks like I already do this sort of thing.
You want to talk about module inspired campaign? I came up with the over arching theme for my current game with Zass Tam and the Red Wizards of Thay as the bad guys trying to take over the Sword Coast only to realize that there's a series of adventures that is shockingly similar to my ideas even down to some little details. I must've read these modules somehow when they came out at the start of 5e but I don't remember it.
I can probably make a stop like that for the holidays, thanks.
A stop like what?
@@theDMLair Like a brake for a while
Homebrewing Dragon Heist converted to Tyr in Athas (Dark Sun); it truly showcase to factions conflicts in city post Kalak fall.
I don’t have a lot of premade modules, but I mostly just steal the factions. Putting in an NPC or two that is, secretly or openly, a member of a faction helps in creating a living world. The players get the sense that not everybody is currently focussed on the main plot line of their own adventure. Sometimes the party might decide to dig a bit further into one of the factions and might help or eliminate a local base of operations of that faction in a separate adventure creating fun, new stories, which might end with new allies or enemies. Which can then later on in the main story line show up and help or hinder the party.
Yeah, I myself am using Rise of Tiamat as inspiration, but I love Arkhan and the Dark Order so much that I am integrating them into my Homebrew. I’m also using a completely different Dragon goddess to be brought back
Yan from what I've heard it's better off using rise of Tiamat as inspiration because that module my understanding is is not very well put together.
I'm actually working on merging Horde of the Dragon Queen and Lost Mines of Phandelver. I really want to run the Tyranny of Dragons story, but at the same time replace the parts I know my players will hate
A few of them even suggested that I put this hybrid story into my own Homebrew world
A player who complains about me using something from a module is about to be playing by themself.
Yepp many ideas get stolen from somewhere. Might as well be from module.
I am toying with an idea to try to mix some more modular adventures like Storm King's Thunder, 2e's a Hero's Tale and 1e's Slave Lords series and tie them all to homebrew villains running these events behind the scenes
The DM defending himself for using parts from modules was so funny :D
Thats what I do all the time. Plus, I love the barberian.
Very god topic fpr newish DM's. It took me 20 yaers to understand that I am allowed to fix modules if the are brocken or they dont fit the groupe.
Yeah I mean at the end of the day the dungeon master is running a game for everybody else. And since many players are unwilling to run the game themselves they should just be grateful right? :-)
@@theDMLair thankfuly my players are very forgiving and grateful :-)
As a forever dungeon master that opening skit spoke to me at my soul. And I told our current group that I'm getting burned out and that I need someone to do something in January almost no one grows up to the plate which made me go and rethink literally just how scaredy-cats they are. We're not perfect we run out of ideas sometimes we have a dry spell it just happens give your DM a chance to take a break.
Yes exactly!
Can you do an episode on building a dragon hoard and how a dragon would acquire that hoard?
acquired by force sounds reasonable... ;)
I'm currently running a "Heart of Darkness" arc with my group going after Colonel Steiner of the 7th Uzkulwyr Rifles and his personal crusade against Orcs in the Royan Mountains. I stole the forge from "Lost Mines of Phandelver" that's pretty much it. Though I hope this video encourages more people to cannibalize from published material it makes your job as a DM so much easier.
In my current campaign I’m DMing I’ve home brewed the whole campaign and adventure but it’s set in water deep
That's what I tend to do. I use existing campaign worlds and then Homebrew the actual Adventures.
Same. My first attempt I tried to home-brew the entire world and was overwhelmed. Setting it in an established world gave me access to way more ideas as well as maps, people and places. I also found good inspiration in some modules. I think this is the best way. Of course since I made my dungeon myself in said world I still need to create tons of people and maps but at least all the background stuff is covered.
Solid advice, much needed
Good video. Could you make one about what the D20 dice represent in D&D? A bit more in detail, of course! :D
I have a whole shelf of modules that I've had for 25+ years and honestly never even really looked at. I now run a weekly 2E game that has been going strong for 14 months, I decided that it was time to actually use some of the modules. So I broke out the Dragon Mountain box set. I placed an item that the PCs need in the campaign in the main dragon treasure hoard. I am running Dragon Mountain mostly as is, with a few changes to fit the campaign and players. They have made it through book I and are now inside the mountain itself in book II. Dragon Mountain can hop through space, time, worlds, and planes of existence. I am mostly running a Forgotten Realms campaign, but they've seen Ravenloft and Spelljammer during the campaign, and many aspects of Dark Sun in the Anauroch Desert. IF the PCs survive Dragon Mountain, they will exit the mountain only to find themselves under the unfamiliar blood red night sky of the moon Lunitari on the world of Krynn. It will be fun seeing them try to get back to Toril. Dragon Mountain is actually the first published adventure I have ever ran and this is how I worked it into my homebrew campaign. So far I am enjoying it and the players seem to love it as well.
It's late. Go to sleep, Luke.
I would go to sleep, too, but I'm watching your video.
Oh I was sleeping. This video was scheduled quite some time in advance. :-)
As always, words of wisdom from the Man who was high since dungeon master school :)
Well...um...okay thanks!
Homebrew is great and all, if you have the time. All my campaigns are pretty much 90% module based.. and not the 5e modules. I own probably 95% of all 1st and 2nd ed modules, so I've just updated them to 5e rules, modify them based on the setting and player choices to date, and string them together with an overarching plot line to take players from 1 to 20+, and throw in some homebrew quests here and there. As I use an established game world, it's much easier, faster, and offers way more creativity than I could come up with (I'm not artistic at all). Not to mention, it's the way I grew up playing D&D, so I know how to do it (old school).
As a long time player and new GM. I love the idea of stealing from a module. My first go around was all home brew. Our biggest issue is that it seems like we have all gone through or another of the modules. We should probably be looking at the non wizards stuff out there to broaden our horizons. Be well
I have never had a player complain about me stealing ideas for my games. Then again, pretty much every character I've seen at the table has at least some aspect stolen from elsewhere. Some of my favorites have been a female tabaxi Indiana Jones who was going through Tomb of Annihilation grabbing any cool looking/old item because "it belongs in a museum", a warforged wizard Commander Data who's goal was to learn the wish spell so he could become a real boy, and a mustachioed couatl aasimar bard named Friedrick Cinnabar who dyed his leather armor bright yellow and had a silvered rapier that could project his voice when he sang into the pommel. For those who aren't geology geeks, cinnabar is an ore of mercury
I am currently running a Dragon of Icespire Peak/Lost Mines of Phandalin with heavy homebrew.
A lot of my own npcs. Change to the lore and story. Example, one of the missions is dealing with a group of wererats called the whisker gang. Thats a na from me. Changed them to The Eyes of Savras, a fate cult since the book mention they lived in a temple to that god and that fate plays part in my story.
This kinda convinced me to stop being stubborn and buy a modules/campaign and ease into home brewing w that(since tbh I've never built a campaign nor DMd b4)
I run Curse of Strahd as a mixed campaign,
In an attempt to tie my players into the plot more,
As I set up a scenario where Strahd is both their ally and enemy.
They've agreed to work with him.
One of my players is even trying to play both sides,
By becoming a bride of Strahd.
All things considered you can't really call it Curse of Strahd anymore,
But you can tell it is clearly Curse of Strahd.
The fact that there's a
Living Library, an Awakened Gulthias Tree and the Mystic Mine of Crystal Beasts
Doesn't change any of that.
The fire giant lair in Storm King's Thunder is both way better than the fire giant lair in Against the Giants, AND the best thing about Storm King's Thunder. If you're going to yoink a premade, it's an excellent choice.
In my day modules contained single adventures and were made to be dropped whole-cloth into homebrew campaigns (or as we called them, campaigns). But then, we didn't have elaborate backstories either.
I was trying to look through comments to see if the “Didn’t you graduate from Dungeon Master School?” dialogue had anything to do with that funny mix up in a previous video where he said “I’ve been high since Dungeon Master School” lol. Maybe not.
I've got a crap ton of old school AD&D modules I'm planning on working into my homebrew campaign world. They're so old that odd are nobody playing in my world will have ever HEARD of them, much less played them!
Great video. I just assumed all GMs did this. I know I do.... all the time. I suppose I have heard that some GMs attempt to homebrew EVERYTHING, but that sounds like too much work to me. Lol.
That's how I learned, homebrewing everything. All we had was the 3 core book and pen and paper. I learned to throw things together quickly instead of having to study encounter
Number 2 it's the best. But in some level, it's impossible to run a module as writen (some modules more than others), so soon or later evebody need to adapt.
Well... here we simply do not use anything but homebrew stories. I cant say were the other GM take their inspiration. But in Exalted, there is no "premade" campaing except one. Return of the Scarlet Empress. And it is mostly a guidline for extra buff antagonist.
I have my inspiration mostly by other stories. Novels, series, movies... Pick and choose the plot cores that I like and mold them into my stories.
I feel the opening skit on a primal level. =_=
I use them as reference to try to work out the pacing of higher level adventures in my homebrew. There's so much more to gameplay than "There's a Dragon"
Every time Steven, every time (FYI - Steven is the worst DM I know)
Open question:
How "organised" are religions in D&D?
Are clerics "ordained"?
I like to think of Clerical religion as very organized, and Druidic religion as not so. The origin of clerics has very Christian tones, and druids very celtic obviously, and I think it's an interesting tension for the clerical religions to be trying to convert people and it's somewhat overtaking Druidic religions that used to be more widespread.
I tried the "character arc" approach when I ran Descent into Avernus... Until one of the players derailed the whole thing because he felt the ending oneshot for two players deserved to be a quest they had to MAKE into an adventure
Bi-Weekly, I run weekly yet only because I have pre-made parts of the campaign
Don't tell anyone that in Barovia there wasn't actually a Tiefling genocide along with the dusk elves'
Want the Rogue back. We definitely need Stabby Stabby.
The rogue was banned...
I often get adventure inspiration from lore videos.
I love books with lore such as Volos.
Oh my God holy s*** I have a story to tell you! Gather around as you're about to hear one of the greatest stories ever told in DND. Spoilers / sort of. My Adventures gathered Dream Pastries encountered a blue dragon guarding a tower decided to reason with it because it was trapped against its will it was hungry so they fed it some Dream Pastries. Being a dragon and ferocious and hungry gobbled all dozen pastries instantly falling asleep. Later after exploring the tower they noticed a wagon they realized the owner had not returned so they decided upon themselves to investigate set wagon while the dragon be sleeping close by. The Bard decided to pull out a set of Thieves tools and attempted to pick the lock. He was successful in his attempt to pick the lock however in doing so set off a chain reaction of explosions. Damaging and even killing one of the party members after which the dragon woke ferociously angry from being ripped from his most Pleasant dream as well as seen a few individual stand for for him clearly responsible for the damaged. Funny enough everyone survived that encounter thought I'd share with the rest of the class hope you enjoyed.
This is why copyright is a two-edged sword. The bad goes along with the good. While there is some good, since the creator gets to use their work and profit from it without people being allowed to steal the work and the profits, it also has the effect that it stifles creativity.
Creativity feeds on creativity. Disney wouldn't be the huge, valuable company which it now is if it hadn't been able to take, alter and use well-known fairy tales such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan. Copyright needs to be restricted far more than it currently is in order to stimulate creativity, because art feeds on art and copyright stifles that process.
The original copyright period was only 15 years. That, in my opinion, was a good compromise between allowing the creator to profit from their work and allowing creativity to flow.
/rant :p
Whoever that one person who disliked this should be banned
Done!
The barbarian is the real MVP.
If the DM is trying their best, don't immediately crush them. Give them a chance or look for another table.
I've built one campaign world from a scratch and believe me, it took me around 1 and a half year to make it at least "playable" and it's still not finished. My players are thinking about going in a dungeon, (which I should map out perhaps..) so I've decided to "steal" a map from the internet and make some changes. No need to reinvent a wheel, right?
Yeah making entire campaign world has a lot of work.
Good to see fat cat has the cat racial based power of disarm floor food trap. Saved that whole party from that pastry.
Fat cats save the party from all the pastries. LOL
Don't eat the pastries (or drink the tea)
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the tea.
The opening skit, I'm like, 'isn't this the dream pie set piece from Curse of Strahd?'
Originality is a fallacy, there are no new ideas, before the invention of the printing press plagiarism was considered a good thing because reproducing something required the same knowledge and resources as designing it in the first place.
Unless the party is close to it as well, making the barbarian lvl 20 is going to be a decision you regret lmao
Objection your honor, Gary the Interns protest against adapting modules for homebrew campaigns are invalid and baseless
"Published adventures and the internet are terrific sources for maps"
-DMG p 310 (appendix c)
Which ironically would be chapter 12 of the DMG if you counted the appendices as chapters
Doesn't say anything about taking a whole adventure, but it also doesn't say you can't! And I'd say permission to use a map is precedent for using other parts of an adventure
Rocks fall, everybody but the barbarian dies
A shame thath I don't have a barbarian in my party
Yeah it's a good thing to have players who give dungeon Master's the benefit of the doubt and appreciate what they do even when they can't do everything perfectly. Because being a dungeon master is not an easy job and a dungeon Master's almost a sure they going to make mistakes from time to time and they just can't be perfect. They should be giving a wide berth of forgiveness is what they do is challenging.
Bacon is delicious.
I can't use modules at all, they all have the concept that pcs will do certain things and that is a daft expectation. I also won't use published worlds.
My adventures, my world. Ditch the published stuff and have more fun.
I mean that is part of running a module. When you're running a module for the group they're part of the social contract is the players of the group agree to run that module. So there should be expectations that they will do certain things such as run the module. Otherwise you shouldn't be running a module for them. So they don't want to agree to running the module then yeah you should ditch the module.
The two people who disliked are dead now. :)
If they didn't steal from modules, they would probably steal from other books or movies...
Quite possibly. There are no new ideas under the sun.
Oh no, I need my players not to see this intro lol
Why is that?
@@theDMLair Just my players are about to head to the windmill lol. It'll be fine, I'm just being paranoid. Btw I love your videos and looking forward to the next one on how to make homebrew adventures
*Gary the intern is Meta Gaming & jerk rules lawyering to a annoying level .*
I could give a like to this video.... But its in 666 likes so.... That is a no
Are you spoiling a certain module for your players 😂😂😂
No never... 😀