DMs, Is there something you can't resist putting into your campaigns?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- DMs, is there something you can't resist putting into your campaigns?
/ discord
www.brianvaugh...
Editor: @mc_cheshire
/ do_you_as_a_dm_have_a_...
Song: Main Title - Stories: Path of Destinies
Stay tuned for more awesome DnD content!
*Please ignore YT God's feeding zone down below!
#mrripper #dungeons and dragons #dnd stories #reddit stories #please sub for nat 20s #how to play dnd #one dnd #one d&d #how to play dungeons and dragons #dnd character creation #dnd 5e #asmr #reddit stories compilation #reddit stories funny #dnd story #ask reddit videos #family friendly gaming #dungeons and dragons how to play #dungeon master screen #tabletop simulator d&d #player character #dnd encounters #dnd campaigns
DND players, what was your funniest “nat 20” moment? (r/askreddit)
What stunt did your D&D players pull that completely derailed the campaign?
DND players, what was your funniest “rolled a 1” moment? (r/askreddit)
DnD players: What is the most creative character you've seen someone play as?
DND players, what was your funniest “nat 20” moment? Part 2 (r/askreddit)
What’s the DUMBEST thing a player rolled for and Succeeded?
D&D players, what was the NAT20 that made your DM facepalm?
What's the funniest thing PC's latched onto? #1 (r/dndstories)
![NOSFERATU - Official Trailer [HD] - Only In Theaters December 25](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nulvWqYUM8k/mqdefault.jpg)
The mendatory "find my lost cat" quest in the first town that will drag them across the whole town,helping them to discover the shops and important NPC
I genuinely never thought of that for exploring a town
I had that happen.
We go into the house where the cat is and the party separates to explore.
My character hears a loud “meow” behind a closed door, opens it and in the middle of the room, floating, is a gauth (think Beholder’s younger, weaker cousin), but still quite the challenge.
Well, my character is standing in the doorway utterly shocked when the Gauth opens its mouth and does an exact “meow” sound.
Most fun I had at the table in a long time.
Bravo.
Provisimo.
Creative and engaging.
Cheers.
Ah, the "Korean or Russian MMO" strategy
"Oh no! They killed Meppo!"
"Those bastards!"
"Oh, hi Meppo."
I make a habit of taking a memorable NPC enemy and having them become a recurring enemy who gets progressively stronger every time they appears.
The first of these was Chunky, the Earth Elemental in my Radiant Citadel Campaign, who one of the players joked had a personal history with his character Theo. So I rolled with it and he's now his archenemy.
In my Dragon of Icespire/Storm Lord's Wrath campaign, the party ran into an orc who got some of the most fortunate series of rolls I have ever seen an NPC get. He is now known as Clark the Fortunate, and keeps getting resurrected by his fellows more powerful than before no matter how badly he's killed.
There's also Galgin, a Red Abishai who repeatedly shows up in high level one shots as the same character. The party somehow always end up ruining her life, making her progressively more ticked off each time, even if it's a different party. First time she was a contestant on, I kid you not, Nine Hells' Kitchen (hosted by a Red Greatwyrm literally named Dragon Ramsay) and the party, who were her ingrediants, ruining the entire show and forcing her to later get a job at an evil carnival another party had to escape. I plan for her jobs to get progressively more humiliating as time goes on until she snaps and becomes a BBEG.
...My one shots are weird.
Nine Hells Kitchen sounds like a great 1 shot idea. Where the players are all trying to win the game while hunting beasts to be their ingredients and all the while getting yelled at by a red dragon that sounds like Gordon Ramsay. Sounds like fun
@@shebibscreations8544 It is, though in this case they weren't the contestants...they were the ingredients.
@@Godzillawolf1 ik, just sounds awesome
I remember the Chunky story, that's one of my favorites
Mimics. Just: Mimics. Versatile, somehow STILL not expected, even if they're in every of my campaigns and fun to use.
I tend to add random references to see if anyone gets them, like the partners of a business being named, "Burke, Shire, and Hathaway". Or the town of "Glenngary Leeds". Stuff like that.
I have the god of the knowledge domain (it includes forges and stuff too) in my campaign named after Mark Rober and they haven’t noticed yet.
One or more Good-aligned NPCs of ridiculous power, acting as either leaders, quest givers, or targets for the DM to kill.
A few examples are: King Inferneos the Warm-Hearted, Ancient Red Dragon that drew balance, Gronko Kel Donko, Kuo-Toa Oath of Glory Paladin that ascended to minor godhood after believing in himself enough, Bri’ente, Archfey owner of the Feywild Experience restaurant, Drizzt Blun’dyth, Drow Monk bartender who goes by D.B. to not get confused with the Ranger… I have a lot.
I always add the (homebrew) God of Judgement into my campaigns. He is a very weird and lazy skeleton who would rather sell hotdogs at his illegal hotdog stand then do any actual godly duties.
I also sometimes add his brother, the God of Mercy, to campaigns as well, and he is the exact opposite of his brother. He is hardworking, sweet, and has a large following of loyal priests, bishops, and clerics.
Oh, did I forget to mention their names? They are called Serif and Roman.
. . .
Yes I added Sans and Papyrus to my DnD-iverce, fight me.
My favorite thing to put in a game i haven't been able to do yet but I'm going to add a FLAIL SNAIL 🐌 see what my players do with it! Its such a unique and bizarre monster 💀 i cant wait to unleash my spell resistant bashy boy! 😂🎉
The Good Baron Mudbrain Vonn Krappenschitz, Goblin Vendor of Magical Goods and Lemonade!
He's just your average goblin, but he found a broken Alchemy Jug that only produces lemonade, so he opened a stand selling it. He got enough money this way to start buying magical doodads and trinkets, and now he travels the worlds, buying and selling magical goods. He sells Wands and Scrolls of Empower Fire (firewood and paper that have instructions in goblin: throw into fire to make it stronger), and a lot of questionably magical goods, some cursed.
He appears in any campaign I'm running, and can sell you things other players have sold him in other games. If you don't buy something from him when you see him, he might not have it next time because a player in a different game bought it.
Have your players ever coordinated in order to get an item one group may need that another group has?
@@GamingRabbit17 No, but the two groups don't really know one another (my spouse is in both groups but that's the only crossover). Both groups are also relatively low level (one party is level 3, the other is level 5), so they haven't found anything that would be game breaking for the other group yet. Krappenschitz also sells to NPCs (much like Marcus, the guns and ammo vendor from the Borderlands series), so there's always the tiny chance that an enemy might buy something that's in his inventory, so they probably wouldn't want to risk it.
I really hope when I get to DMa game for once (annoyingly it’s hard to do D&D when every possible chance to do such a thing requires stuff I don’t have that I end up with something like this
I know enough I could dm a world (with a D&D monster book and enough of these videos )
But I’m not here for advice I’m here for funny D&D moments
I've recently started including a series of very poorly written, schlocky, romance novels in my games. 'Vampire Boyfriend' being the most common one, but stuff like 'Werewolf Husband', 'Shirtless Pirate Lover', and 'Barbarians in Love' coming up frequently. The idea is that they're all very stupid books written to appeal to horny teenage/young adult women with little thought and substance put into them. The interesting thing is that they frequently end up actually becoming plot points. For example, one game had my mage talking to another girl about them when the GM said it wasn't possible because both of our characters were illiterate (which was extremely dumb). Another time three of the girls in the party decided they'd try to find out who the author actually was and it became a legit side-quest of its own (albet not a major one). A third time the party healer ended up reading the books and ended up wavering in her holy vows as a result... Which I wasn't even THERE for that session (city hall meetings tend to run long) so I only found out that she had read my mages books AFTER I got back in the next session and there was a full-on quest to get her god to take her back as a cleric despite her 'wavering in her vows' by dreaming of a vampire boyfriend.
I can never resist implementing reoccurring villains that aren't the final boss and have a lore reason/motivation for escaping. Nothing beats a villain showing up again later in the story.
I always use my characters from failed campaigns as npcs
Steven He's Dad as a Warlock Patron
Is the Eldritch blast he provides emotional damage?
A magical headless motorcycle rider. One of my players lives next to a busy road and we can sometimes hear cars and motorcycles outside his window pass by. In our games we canonize this as random vehicle related events thus leading to one of our favorite recurring characters. During my earlier vehicle centric winter wasteland Sci Fi campaign my party got attacked by a group of scavengers on motorcycles that swarmed their convoy as they were en route to deliver supplies to their base. During the battle the last Raider rider tried to joust our cyborg samurai and promptly lost his head and drove off into the sunset to end the encounter.
Multiple campaigns sees this frozen body on a running motorcycle just zip past them no matter the setting whenever a particularly loud motor vehicle is heard on my player’s microphone. Sometimes it’s just a passing event and other times he crashes into either the party or the enemies they’re fighting.
that is so funny😭😭😭
Every adventure I've run since the early nineties has included a book (found on a table, shelf or in a library). It's a guide book entitled "Care and feeding of your Australopithecus". Also, every tavern has on the menu "Roast Beast".
For some odd reason, my DM decides in every single campaign to put a random bottle of goblin piss.
I always find some way to slip an MtG parody called "Sorcery: the Harvest" into every campaign.
I’ve joked about people complaining in-universe, “When I was younger we used to play Mine Craft, but nowadays all the kids play is Fort Knight”. Gets a giggle usually.
I always insert the merchant from Resident Evil 4.
A book, which could be found in every single library searched in any edition or any system:
‘Naked Elf Women
And Where to Find Them.”
I think I got the idea from an issue of Dragon Magazine.
Cheers.
Funny enough I have an elf equivalent of the kama sutra as an in universe book. Everyone loves elves it would seem.
When i DM all my campaigns take place in the same universe so appearances of old characters as a level 20 "anti murderhobo" technique
An elf meets up with a human bard. The elf says hello and runs over to talk more. The human hugs her and they exchange pleasantries. After a bit, the conversation turns to relationships. The elf says she's met a nice young elf man, only about 150. The human says she's met this really nice, helpful necromancer about 3 months ago. He uses his powers to help his community and is quite beloved. The elf is surprised, but wishes her the best. Then the human says, "Yeah, he says he wants to raise a family with me!" The elf blinks. "That's....kinda fast, isn't it?" The bard laughs and says, "Yeah, should be, they're all buried next to each other!"
Not very fun, but Kuo-Toa. I just love them and how goofy they are, but also how crazy they are. They can create tulpas, thought form beings. I just love that they can believe and worship something enough, that thing becomes real. Lots of fun
Meet Jacque, a Cadaver Collector Dungeon Janitor.
He's mainly for when the party decides to long rest in the final room of a dungeon. He's equipped with a Decanter of Endless Water with an attachment that allows him to use the Geyser function and turns it into a power washer to clean off blood and other messes on the battlefield. He also wears noise cancelling headphones to not hear the party's pleas for him to stop nor can he talk. The only way to communicate with him is through telepathy, which he'll explain his disdain towards the party for killing his employer and not leaving him pay.
This has caused some parties to leave any gold they find for him and is also a path to Jacque partnering with a Denizen of Shadows Real Estate Agent that specializes in selling used dungeons to creatures and having the party raid it to resell it all over again.
I've only just started DMing a couple years ago, so I haven't done it much yet, but my main thing is to include characters and references to previous campaigns in a new campaign since I'm running all of my 5e DnD games in the same homebrewed version of Faerun. The first of two aspects so far are recurring incursions of Kuo-toa attacking the Sword Coast every so often (started in Waterdeep, but has since spread as far as both Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter. The second is the lore behind the Druid Circles, and the leader of the Circle of the Stars being heavily involved behind the scenes. Both of these came from backstory development from the players of my test game when I first started DMing before I started my first actual campaign. The previous players are now NPC adventurers in the story that pick-up quests the Players ignore. I've done tons of world building, so I take any chance I can get to bring it into the plot hooks that I can, and if it's irrelevant, then I save it for a time when it does become relevant. For instance, my current players have no reason to travel to Mulhorand at the moment, but I'll be running a mini-campaign with the same players through the Desert of Desolation module (most likely if enough people also vote for the Desert Ruins theme), which is set near Mulhorand. I built out the lore because my sister's character was from Mulhorand in my test game, and I finally have a chance to use some of the work I've already done.
In my RPG group there are a lot of vastly different campaings, but in almost all of them one character appears, demon of name Rei. She was actually an old character of one of the players, but became so unbearable, she was killed off. And then killed off in different campaign. In my own she actually appears as patron to one of warlocks, somewhat still having her overly chaotic personality
Only once or twice per party, but the "Friendly but in some cases is strangely sexual but otherwise your usual happy-go-lucky cute companion character" kobold
Yip Yip!
The world's luckiest goblin.. he has existed since 2e.
super heroism + invulnerability potions permanently in effect... bright blue skin.
he's learned a bit about being both immortal, and a hero, but is still a cowardly goblin at heart.
Player here, but for our Starfinder games we like to say they all take place in the same setting. This has led to a running gag that our original party’s rock band became a top of the charts seller and no matter what happens, our other characters in some way shape or form will know the band Solar Wind.
One group has this PIRATE KOBALD that always shows up out of no where, refuses to elaborate, and leaves.
In all of my campaigns, there are orcs working as nurses. Orcs are a species stereotypically known for fighting all the time, so they should be excellent at fixing up wounded people!
For me its the TOLLROLLbridge a bridge guarded by 2 trolls who want rolls as tolls or they eat the ones trying to cross the bridge, kind of the Robin hood men in tights bridge crossing but with trolls and a confused way of saying it since trolls are dumb.
hints that go nowhere until they're noticed
A party loving, pink skeleton with heart eye sockets in a random top and booty shorts. I’ve mentioned her before, but Calibri has appeared in every single one of my campaigns and one shots because she is just so much fun. She’s basically like an immortal being who takes over a random person’s body when they die, turning their skeleton pink and shaping their eye sockets into hearts
My tables campaigns have one recurring npc he's a monk at a monsestary called Old Man COrnholio who repetadly shouts friar firar friar friar rofl
Lame puns of every sort.
Rug of Smothering.
In my very first game, I put a Rug of Smothering as an encounter in the first dungeon due to someone getting sacrificed in an unholy ritual to desecrate the place, taking it over and turning it hostile. That included the decorative armors and swords lying around.
And a big, beatiful decorative rug. This rug scarred them for life. Since then, I always put a Rug of Smothering somewhere in my campaigns. Always.
Genius
Well. I usually put players into my campaigns.
The Bag of Goblins! The Bag of Goblins is a mutliversal artifact which cannot be destroyed by any know force(many gods have tried) that when opened will spit out a random number of goblins usually 1D10. Any kind of goblins from any world, timeline, or IP can be summoned from the bag and whatever place they are summoned is there home plane so no banishing. All the goblins have 5hp are jacked, armed to the teeth & capable of throwing a 1D4 fireball(effectively it's just a rock but can light things on fire very easily). They only wear loin cloths and take the owner of the bag's orders without question & follow them as close to the letter as they possibly can. Because most of them aren't very smart this often leads to hilarious misunderstandings. For instance a barbarian once ordered his goblin legion to capture a group a thieves hiding in the sewers of a very large city three days journey to the west. When the party finally got to the city(they had more important things to do) the goblins had burned down half the city and enslaved survivors to help hunt the thieves. The Bag is basically a very powerful lesson to be careful of what you wish for and how you use your incredible power. A psychotic God of mischief created the bag to piss off his older brother a God of Order.
Storytelling hooks arriving in dreams. Usually of the nightmare variety. Its just cool to explore the surrealism and imagery that dreams naturally conjure, and a reliable way to get players who might not be noticing story elements needed info or hints to it
Whether it's fantasy or science fiction, there's gonna be a ship called "The Scavenger Bride" in my campaign. (If you know, you know.)
According to an old friend of mine, Metroids, since I've apparently included them so often in my fantasy games that he threatened to kick my ass if I put them in a legitimate sci-fi game. Also anime girls, apparently. Don't know where that came from.
Whew boy i've been waiting for a video like this. So my first game I ever DMed was Lost mines. And the party (naturally) found the goblin cave and also (naturally) wanted to adopt a goblin. Go figure. Well not only did they adopt this goblin...they taught it to speak common fluently, taught it to play cards, to drink, to make wine, hell they paid to SEND IT TO WIZARD SCHOOL. And the goblins name you may ask? "Nug nug". Now nug nug is a recurring force of nature that is considered one of the strongest magical forces in the material plane in every one of my campaigns, and his only point of existance is to help guide the party in the most aggravating little ways possible (and give them his wine for tasting)
PANR has tuned in.
A sprawling archipelago, the campaigns span across all the islands while one-shots just take place around an island in it.
Also a bag of devouring, either being left behind at an empty campsite or being sold by a shifty trader or stashed in a treasure hoard, you'd be surprised how often players like to collect bags of holding even when they start out with a few.
2:19 So reverse Fartbuckle?
Friends hurt Meppo!
Meppo… is… sad…
🎶NOBODY GIVE A F-🎶
🎶I FEEL LIBERATED🎶
🎶OVER MEDICATED🎶
I've just started DMing for a 5e group. I've added an NPC Goblin called Grubby. He does a lottery where the players reach into an iron cauldron and pick out a card, rolling a 1d# with the # being the growing number I have in a google drive document (currently at 200). Basically getting the right number will give the player a magic item. Now not all of these items are useful in any way, some of them are just dumb stuff with fancy names. However some items can be really useful in the right situation. I really enjoyed putting this character to the players the first time they met him, and I'm looking forwards to them meeting him again. I plan to put him into every future game I run now. :D
An Omnipresent Bag of Holding merchant that only sells to adventurers. His shop can only be conceived by those with an adventuring spirit, and it is the same guy in every campaign. These bags of holding are similiar to the bags found in the Adventurers Wanted series by M. L. Forman. They can even be upgraded with any room the players can imagine.
He doesn't take gold, and what he needs to make the room could very well end up being a side quest.
Mim-Z, a fire loving mimic that just wants to cause chaos wherever they go. Somehow ended up king of the Fire Plane in one of my campaigns.
Old characters of mine, or previous campaign PCs as NPCs they can find along the way. Mim-Z is actually one of them.
A Deck of Many Things, heavily modified, always themed around some sort of animal. Who knows why the Goblin had it in the first place
Past PC's or their grave.
As a player all my characters are from or married into 1 family. It finally paid off when a newer player mentioned that my character description was similar to my previous character another player heard and said "most of her characters are similar in description... Wait are they all related?". I proceeded to pull out a large rolled up paper which was big enough to cover the entire table and then some. It was the family tree with the start and end dates of the campaign they were in along with a page number for a binder with the character sheets/notes. I was glorious, but unfortunately it was lost in a house fire not long after. I'm just happy that I got to the reveal. Since then I remade what I remembered and started a new family tree.
Magical item bargain bin. Magical items for a discounted price, but have a drawback. Sticky boots. Allows you to walk on any solid surface for 1 minute. But for 6 seconds (at DM's discretion during the minute), your speed becomes 0. Shield of anti-projectile. +2 shield that doesn't require a hand, but if protecting against a projectile, it hides from it.
Xenomorphs, I have several different variants, including a Xeno-Dragon Queen. My reasoning is they are natives of the Dread Realm of Conquest and people (mostly Drow) summon and breed them as pets and attack beasts
Shoes. A npc got kidnapped or missing? My players will find a shoe. Investigating a battlefield? You'll find loose shoes. Visiting a noble person in their domain? They'll present their shoes openly.
A edgy guy in the tavern, looking a little out of place? Remember these shoes.... they will be around again!
I have a specific town that I always include in my homebrew campaigns. Its called Crossroads, and it's at, you guessed it, a crossroad. It varies in size from town to town, but it always has the same shops: The Proud Knight, a combination inn and tavern run by an entirely hairless dwarf named Mykell Anvilbane (so bad at smithing thay he broke anvils), and his blood-brother Morag, a half-orc who loves cooking; General Goode's General Goods, a general goods store run by a human woman named Anastasia Goode, the granddaughter of General Dorian Goode, who is a famed war hero turned crotchety half-deaf old man who sits in the corner of the store and insults anyone who approaches him, except for his lovely granddaughter; and The Blend, a coffee shop run by an extremely odd individual named Alistair Darkspring, a homebrew raced individual that has four arms, crimson skin with burgundy hair, and black eyes (no visible sclera or iris, only pupils), who wears what appears to be a modern day suit. Alistair has a portal in his basement that leads to a room full of portals, which all lead to another version of his shop in another world.
If the campaign takes place near the coast, I always include an inn that is a ship, called The Broken Mast Inn. It's a gigantic boat, five floors, and whenever the party visits for the first time, it gets "commandeered" by bandits (or rogue soldiers/knights, depending on what level the party visits at). If the party helps a bounty hunter named Xan Flamewhip (a mid-level female human fighter who uses a homebrew weapon that is a combination of a whip and the flametongue), she reveals that she is a partial owner of the ship, and gifts the party either a free stay or a 5% stake in the business. If they don't help, Xan dies brutally and the party is forced to defend themselves.
that first one reminds me of a silly book, "the right to arm bears", involving aliens that resemble bears, and how humans have to FIGHT them to get their respect...
"Rudolph Ironhat" reminds me of a character called "The Chronomantic" in an old webcomic called "Starslip". (formerly starslip crisis)
he travels through time seducing famous women...
I've got something similar. Every game I run goes like this:
The GM gathers a few people to run a game for.
They all meet up a few times but something's off.
Everyone is acting weird around the GM. Walking on eggshells as if they don't like or trust her. Like they're afraid or suspicious of her.
The GM gets the message that if the players don't want her in their lives, she should respect that, and cuts herself off from them.
Spends a month poring over every interaction trying to find out what she did wrong. Finds nothing. Maybe it's just because she's trans?
Eventually she gets too lonely and tries again.
Same game every time. I've got the best running jokes!
My go to for a lot of my characters (especially if they have a bit of magic like a warlock, sorcerer, or most recently a Mesmer), is to give them a backstory where they were the illigitimate child of a fey prince as the explanation for his magic, with it being implied its the same fey for all of them. So when I DM'd a game, one of my friends made HIS character the child of said prince, and another took him as his bladelock patron.
Lesbians.
Jokes aside (I really love Yuri Manga and I accidentally overdo the lesbians) Mecha. I can, will, and will justify Mecha in any and all ways I possibly can. I love Mecha and if I can have a giant robot fight a Kaiju in the middle of the Ride of the Rohrrim.
My first item describes my chaotic side, the "Bag of Beans." Fucking love this item and love the randomness of dice rolls. Second is a set I found in a third party book (Xanathar's Lost Notes to Everything Else), a chaos weapon and chaos armor, because again, love the idea of getting a boon for a price. Another isn't one specific item but I love the idea of "vestiges of divergence." Items that evolve and grow in power as YOU evolve and grow in power.
Mrs Newman. A HOA mom ("Karen" as social media so wrongly calls them) and lich...First time she showed up she was supposed to be a throw away side quest because most of my players couldn't make a critical session. Now she always serves the bbeg. She gives out creepy stranger danger hugs that leave the character cursed with a evil ugly sweater. Though about 33% of my players like her and her ugly sweaters.
All my gnomes are Mexican. My first homebrew game, I used a couple random generators to make NPCs when I needed one for an unexpected interaction. One for race/gender/ect. And one for their name (the one i used at the time didn't give a name for some reason) and whenever I got a gnome, it also would give me something along the lines of Miguel. Rosa. And the like, after the third gnome in a row, my players were laughing and just like "so are all gnomes just Spanish in your world?" And laughing back I just said "eff it, yeah sure" lol
In every game I Dm, there is a resturaunt called Finger foods which is owned by one of my previous characters I made named Othi, a huge lizardman barbarian druid who speaks in the third person. Its pretty much evolved into an interplanar resturaunt chain that is alot like mcdonalds, featuring the old party and himself as the mascots while the BBEG of the game he was in plays a hamburgler role. The resturaunt is run by kobold mostly as they usually don't live long enough to get a paycheck with the infighting over promotions, yet are so numerous that they can be hired immediately and trained with minimal effort when an employee needs replaced. Othis is also there usually helping set up the new resturaunt and giving the party quests that involve helping entertaining customers or fighting one of his multiple rival fast food chains.
Ghouls that have a tongue attack. If it makes the attack they have to make a con save. If they fail (dc 10) a 3in worm burrows into their skin. If they fail the 2nd save (10) the next round they are paralyzed and the worm starts to turn them into one of those ghouls.
While not tied to DND, there is a reoccuring DMPC I've started to use a lot as a cameo source, and that's Theris. Theris was spawned due to shenanigans involving an RP partner and two deities in a storystring a bit long and graphic to post on the RUclipss, but the general ghist is Theris is a faun (the deer-centaur kind) born from a goddess of the hunt, and an exiled goddess of knowledge. While having been minor in most of her appearances, Theris has fashioned herself as a cataloguer of realities, slipping through the voidweb that spans between the many dimensions of her setting. Usually if there's a faun with a big brace of books or scrolls, and a greenish hooded garment (anywhere from a cloak to a hoodie) it's a sure sign she's present. The few times where she's actually had to fight, she's found proficiency with being a sniper, finding a place where she can hunker down with a crapload of traps and using a high-caliber rifle from there, with it morphing to try and match the tech level of the reality she's in.
Romance. I never try to force people to love people but I do include couples, romanceable options, and relationships.
I think the craziest addition in a DND campaign I ran was a druidic circle that revered nature to the point of having "super orgies" every couple of days. Everyone was invited, young and old, weak and strong, evil or good, and the druids were on standby to keep things safe and heal the wounded. This particular setting had an issue with childbirth that only 1 in every 100 children survived. This was the druid's illogical solution that was not approved of by general society. It got so out of control that the druids were not allowed inside towns or cities, having to form their own safe havens in nature.
I love putting references to Dantes Inferno in my home game. Currently, my Western desert themed campaign has a bard called Viril (Virgil without the g ) and acting as a guide and hometown healing service.
I always add my old player characters is my sessions, almost to show a "what-if" version of them. I typically remove whatever trama or sad backstory I gave them. I love having one of my characters work at a bar with his wife and two daughters (one's adopted).
'Merhal's Magical Menagerie of Mythical Mysteries'
a magic shop ran by an old gnome woman named 'Merkhal' the shop has shelves full of jars with paper notes inside them and contain a variety of magic items/potions etc, there are 2 large sized siege engines as guards, a grid on the floor with inch deep grooves between the tiles, the room smells of sage and lavender to hide the sulphur
it is the main magic shop anywhere the players need to do some shopping, it appears wherever it it needed, Merkhal remembers the characters, when asked about it 'magic shop' is the answer but dont go beyond the back curtain as that leads to death (and i have killed characters too stupid to attempt it)
every campaign, my players are both paranoid about her but she offers deals and will send them on fetch quests, but as they dont know her deal they are too afraid to find out. just how i like it
The Masquerade, an organization of traveling shady magical merchants who all wear masks, or some other wearable obfuscation to protect their identities.
They are surprisingly honest and only sell magic items that work as intended as long as they are treated well. Their shadiness comes from their other dealings.
Like one of them made a sentient book that can absorb written information it comes within 50ft of and left it in a small town Library to watch how it developes on it's own. It almost took over that town by replacing the towns folk with magical duplicates made of paper and ink before the players arrived.
Also, there always seems to be some sort of trail in almost every long running camapign I run. And it is almost always thanks to the players either becoming key witnesses, or ending up the defendant.
Surprisingly the Masquerade has avoided being in one so far. XD
A mission that is actually easier than expected and the entire thing is built around making the party jump at shadows. This is usually done as a follow up to a mission that on paper should have been easy but due to the NPCs employing actual strategy and the fact that the dice love me it turns into a bloody massacre.
Also a decent chunk of enemies who are more than willing to talk things out first. After all why risk your life if you can just talk the other guy down?
And of course, absolute disregard for canon of the setting beyond the broad strokes, because I’m not going to bother with the minutiae of intricate lore. I just say “you’re in the backwater part of the country/planet/galaxy that people generally don’t go to and things get *weird* “
I think Sara and Micheal would be fun to run.
Jarom Bingle and Bingle’s Barrels & Horseshoes wpuld be fun too.
Vincent Tigersbane from Dragon Heist has made his way into everyone of my campaigns, and I still wait for the moment my players catch on to the fact he is a Rakshasa.
I hope when they finally realize or learn it they say "Since when was Vincent a Fiend?" So I can say "Since day one. Did no one think about how he was able to steal that goldfish in the first place?"
The crow woman, an elven woman with the lightest hints of aging on her face, she hides herself within a black cloak and only speaks via crow calls. However only to the players, to any NPCs she seems to be a normal older woman and is understandable in any language. She is only unintelligible to the players and their characters. They haven't figured out why and she's been in 3 or 4 campaigns I've done. She had a silent part to play in the multiverse isekai I just ran but the players didn't know that lol
Overall they have yet to uncover her secrets and I don't know if they ever will
I'm 100% stealing the werewolf couple and the return NPC that lvls up if treated badly.
Weird things. I love the idea that in a magical world, sometimes things just happen. That shopkeeper and their store is actually a giant mimic that gained sentience and uses gold to buy as much food as it wants. That bright yellow rabbit is a carnivor that hunts by shooting lighting of its ears at bugs. Sometimes the rain is the wrong color, and drinking it makes you roll on a table for the effects. It just be like that sometimes.
Good to evil twist characters. It's gotten so bad my players tend to kill NPC's before I can introduce them properly
Scales the blessed/cursed mail kobold. He's a kobold who has been blessed by ALL the gods because he managed to figure out a way to worm his way to nearly all of them and initially it was just to deliver messages to them in some strange events in a previous campaign where the clergies were cut off from hearing their gods. He was blessed by them with a form of immortality and charges as being their official messenger but not exclusively theirs. So Scales spends his years wandering the world with a divine blessed bag of holding with infinite capacity and extraplanar properties. He's typically a non combatant but he has been known to use the bag to literally stuff threats into the bag to die a lonely death in the bag for trying to kill him. He can always find what he's looking for in the bag, but often times he has no idea what all is actually in the bag. So every so often I've used him as a random quest giver to get him something he's been looking for or help him find someone to deliver their mail to regardless of how dangerous it is. Usually as a reward he'll start trying to dump some of the random stuff in the bag off on them.
Mine is glowy mushrooms at lighting for foresty, magical towns
I blame Ballonlea and Glimwood Tangle from Sword and Shield
my dm cant stop adding gambling, we gamble to get random items, it can be a used red bull can, a pill that makes your neck permanently longer, mary poppins umbrella, or even the staff of sunlight.
But it's such a good or bad thing he allows you to sacrifice stats to gain more rolls for this stuff.
In every campaign he eithers gives us a random wanderer that gives us some rolls, or in the latest one, devil fruits, as we are searching for the one piece in a one piece campaign.
We never stop gambling
I like adding "sit down" moments. No plot, no forced rp, no checks, but just sitting and chilling in the moment. For instance, we left off on a huge cliffhanger where I made an explosion sound at the conclusion of a concert where the party was in attendance. I was even singing a song as the central npc, whom the plot is centered around.
I'm still on my first campaign that started less than a year ago but I like to drop in a Mimic Encounter every few sessions.
Except it's never the same encounter twice.
The first time was the chest in the corner. Next was the book on the table _and_ the chest. Then it was the ceiling of the room with the chest. Then it was one of three chests but it was frozen solid in the ice dungeon (got a good laugh).
Other ideas that have been suggested are a sign with tiny writing so that someone has to get close to read it, an object inside a chest, the door to the room with the chest, and I just had the idea to put a mimic pretending to be a petrified person in a Medusa or Spectator lair or something
As a player whos only played a couple times, I usually play a magic based elf who eventually ends up becoming so powerful (due to my ungodly rolls on stats) that I basically become god with my imagination being my only limitation
Honestly a Nilbog. I like the concept of a mischievous spirit that can’t really be beaten at least not in the traditional sense. I treat it kinda like Q from Star Trek generally causing some absurd reality altering scenario usually imparting some important lesson or consideration for the players.
Sandra was the bard in a different campaign that I was a player in well my character couldn't fit in a hole so I played an enemy kobold that magic missile Sandra dealing max damage and killing Sandra
Now Sandra is reincarnated into a younger form 10 years in the future and part of her soul split to other realms so now she's in every campaign just different race and class but still named Sandra
So far with my first campaign, the one thing I HAD tom include has been steam mechs and Teresa Alyssa Neppa the ____ as she and her ancestors and dependents have been a main character in my own story series that I am writing.
"Gorobash".... thats... eerily similar to the name i always for orc characters i play... "Grogabosh"..
I tend to put a blue seal like creature based of one of my favourite plushies as an easter egg in my campaigns. He's usually a little helpful guy if a bit naive that does jobs like being a shopkeep or driving a gondola in a venice like city... there also was that one time he turned out to be the manifestation of an eldritch horror but that was an exception
I may not be a dm but I am currently in 3 discord DnD campaigns so far and I just have a need to incorporate or shoehorn in aspects from games and shows I enjoy watching(or have played before). A few examples being: A Blacksmith named Iwai based on Iwai from Persona 5/5 Royal, one of my three Pcs is a Human named Lavitz Feld he is the Dragoon of the White-Silver Spirit and holds the Divine Dragoon Spirit and his parents are Dart and Shana Feld and he is named after one of Dart'a closest friends who died all of this is based on the Ps1 game Legend of Dragoon, I even have the other Dragoon Spirits in the two campaigns he is in. My two Pcs in the most recent Campaign I'm on are Pokemon Siblings a Male Lucario Paladin named Rio and A Female Shiny Gardevoir named Frost and they are blood related, anyways they come from a merged pokemon world where not only humans live (and essentially all the gyms and regions in the mainline games) but also all manner of pokemon from normal pokemon that are similar to how they are in the mainline games but also pokemon that have societies of their own like in the spinoffs such as the Mystery Dungeon Games (Rescue Team and Explorers) the two are from the latter range of pokemon as they are affiliated with Wigglytuff and his guild with another pokemon a Sylveon named Sylvie and the three have their own Explorer Team...Team RFS (standing for Rio, Frost and Sylvie which in itself an unintended reference to a team in Explorers with a similar naming scheme) the campaign has recently started to I'm planning to discuss with the dm since the campaign is mostly focused on backstory and stuff along with what it is to incorporate more stuff from Explorers of Sky with added stuff and more. If this comment gets onto a future "What Ideas you couldn't help but incorporate into your campaign" video and my ideas are touched upon then I'll give an update in the comments of that video. Other things are two teashop Fire Ginsai named Iroh and Zuko based on the characters from Avatar the Last Airbender even had Zuko be with Mai xD be a thing. Also another player that is in the campaign brought in the Chaos Emeralds into one of the campaigns. And these are just some of the things I remember that we all had brought to the campaigns xD
Immovable rods. I always make sure my players get one. Somehow players keep finding cool ways to use em
The annoying magic shop keeper that you could theoretically by anything from. However over half the time if someone says anything relating to an item he sells he will immediately teleport himself and the person (that said the item) to an isle with that item. Trying to sell it to them
A monkeys paw item that the players know full well will be need legally perfect in wording. (My rule is when they find it I have them role a percentage dice to give the odds they can get it to work as intended, and then have that be the dc for the role I have them do when they use the item) yes they have learned about the item but still love seeing how I twist their words when it fails
A portrait of dogs playing poker. Whenever the characters acquire art and they ask what it is, it's always that or some other random art piece
some sort of society, area or religion related to the cosmos, stars, universe and the planes
ever since i played my first real dnd character, a star druid, i can't help but have that slight nod to cosmic magic
i have a funny story where my character a dragonborn warlock is investigating a manor and i see 4 sharpshooters on the roof i have message i cast message on one and say the other 3 are going to betray you you need to act fast to live as he turns around walks up to 1 of them and shoots him point blank with his pistol
I have a franchise of taverns called "The Strangled Rooster."
Every so often one or two of my NPC's will have power to rival a level 20 player character.
The last story , if you know a black smith a horse shoe can be made in to a dagger, not sure it’s the right kind of steel though
The magic shop owners are always the same person. Like, literally exactly the same. The door to the shop takes the players to a magical demiplane somewhere in the multiverse, so this figure is omnipresent in all my campaigns and is aware of each of the parties, if not vaguely aware of the goings-on.
...If I ever include a genie he's gonna have a (bad) Jamaican accent...
If i were to even dnd, id probably have a uniqua in every universe
Body horror. Just can’t live without it.