I’m going to be honest when I say I was terrified when the Druid said “I have an announcement to make” as I thought this was about to be a raid shadow legends add
@@theDMLair depends on the popularity of your channel, as to how much they pay. You won't be offered much with your 56k subs (criminally low) sadly. Also, their demands are outrageous. Essentially they demand you take up about 1/5 of the video length on their shitty game and you HAVE to pretend to like the game and give out your details of your raid account. Don't do it like they ask, they won't pay.
Me and my friends have this running gag, to where if we don't have a name of an NPC prepared, we name them Dave. The Players want to know the name of the owner of the general store, "Oh yes, My name is Dave. Nice to meet you." The players meet the King of a foreign kingdom they went off track with, "Yes, I am King Dave. Pleased to meet you adventurers." The Bard is flirting with a woman and asks her name. "My name is Dave. Nice to meet you hotstuff."
Yeah, I've taken to collecting names in a notebook because I SUCK at naming NPC's... and PC's for the matter... SO whenever "the inspiration hits" I better have a place to write it down or it's forgotten forever... BUT my Table's had similar "running gags" too... AND I've run PC's named things like Robin (Robby) Banks and Jubel Lee Danzer... and his cousin, Jubel Lance Danzer... SO... keeping a running tablet of names was probably for the best. ;o)
I look at my prep as filling in the "Who, What, Where, When, Why" and letting the players do the "How" during the session. As an example, in my latest session (and my first tele-game ever) I had set up maps for the building where the villains were holding a hostage, the guards, the council of three evil (and one clueless) people in charge, and the two combat bosses who were the secret power behind the council, and who were hold three OTHER hostages in the hidden cells. I had planned out what would raise the alarm, how many guards would be nearby, and what their reinforcement schedule was, how the two combat bosses would act, gave everyone (except the guards) names and backstories with motivaitons… And my players did their usual and upended the whole plan with unexpected use of charm magic and a parallel stealthy rescue mission. Evil council neutralized, guards in custody, two combat bosses defeated separately (which made them both much weaker, as they were designed to fill each others' weaknesses, and power restored to the rightful hands... My players are great. (/grumble, grumble)
Yeah totally I've never checked out the random dungeon generator there but I used that site for lots of other things. It's particularly useful for looking up monsters and finding which sourcebooks their reference then and their challenge rating number
The best advice I can give for preparing content is to learn to salvage content you've prepared in the past. If you're DMing multiple campaigns, that might mean lifting a dungeon wholesale from one campaign, then re-flavoring it to make sense for the adventure the current party is doing. (as long as none of the players have seen the content before, there is *literally no difference* between recycled content and brand new stuff.) I've got whole folders of battlemaps for road ambushes, tavern brawls, campsites and more that I can slot appropriate monsters in and count on the terrain providing some strategic interest, more than it would if I had just sharpied a road onto a blank battlemat and threw down some circles for trees.
Well the Barbarian is definitely going to make his Constitution saving throw. The Druid is immune to disease at some point. The fighter he'll make his saving throw. But the wizard and Rogue yeah they're screwed. LOL
Something I find very important to prepare before a session is maps (etc. Map of Sewers, which I'm doing right now). Another is the homebrew creatures, also a good idea is to have prepared some random names to use during encounters, that helps a lot. Also bosses, personally, I make bosses unique by homebrewing them.
0:00 For a second there, I thoguht you were making a joke about microphone troubble, because the barbarian looked like he was talking, but we couldn't hear him.
I can see him being a druid of spores. I love how he Is a druid now, but still has the evil voice. Personally I like to write modules for myself, with bullet points. I like to run sand box worlds, every country and kingdom has its bullet points and side quests to advance the plot, while giving freedom... But it's open world...tough things lurk in advanced areas.
One thing I learned from that campaign where I gave my players access to a skyship early on and they decided to explore the entire world in random order was to NOT plan out every single city, dungeon, NPC etc, but to plan them out to a point where they could be adjusted to fit the area they were travelling. Like that shop where they buy potions could be in narrow sidestreet of a big city or being the one shop that exists in a village or being just the cart of a travelling merchant on a crossing or a stand on a busy marketplace - but the item they sell there would still be the same and the character could also mostly be the same (maybe adjust the name and appearance, though) Or that temple ruin could be covered in snow, being overgrown by jungle, orpartially being buried by a landslide depending on where they find it, but the dungeon itself could still mostly be the same. So I keep a stack of prerolled NPCs, premade citymaps and at least one dungeon map at hand all the time just in case they are trying (again) to throw curve balls at me.
My top 5 thing i know i need to prep 1.encounters (so i dont tpk them every session) 2.maps (so my dungeons can exist in euclidean geometry) 3.quests (so they feel have options cuz if no one's interested in a escort mission that night i can save it for when they want it more) 4.placing more flags in the world (so i can track who like them who hates them which shops have been upgraded etc.) 5.Tests (so the puzzle, riddle, or trap doesn't break due to a gentle nudge)
Great video (as always)! That's a very interesting take on it. It seems like most other people either brag about improvising everything, or else they go the completely opposite way and say to prep most things that aren't dialogue. As a chronic over-prepper myself, I really appreciate it! Keep up the great work!
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To make small temporary handouts on the fly for my players I use a Paperang Thermal Paper Bluetooth printer which is basically just a small handheld printer you can feed receipt paper. You can screenshot or manually imput basically anything in the phone app and just print straight away in a very convenient and inexpensive manner!
I usually prepare descriptions of main places ahead of time, like the town hall interior, the feeling that certain streets give, or how the dungeon smells and looks, because I feel it adds a lot to the game and I'm really bad at coming up with these on the fly. Some key sentences of important conversations as well, so that it reminds me the tone of it. But only key sentences, I'm not bad at improvising the conversation as it flows, just want to know if the npc was friendly, suspicious, not willing to give much info, etc.
Yes key sentences or at least Key thoughts or ideas that an NPC is going to express in a conversation are important I feel. I have seen some dungeon Master's that write out the entire conversation or monologue and that's a bit too much in my opinion. Especially if they plan to read it word for word.
I can tell you an essay about the way the morning mist touches the rock in the warm dawn rays, but I cannot improvise characters to save my life. I found it easier to not only create named npcs beforehand, but a bag of "Misc npc" usually inspired by the people I see during the day that I can pull from, it also makes me less stressed not having to think of characters
I think you can forgo maps and encounters. You should plan ahead what kind of creatures there are, so that your players are able to face them of. I mostly do a calculations of how many creatures in a fight would be enough or too much. Then I come up with the exact number on the fly. Same with dungeons. Solid maps can get stale. I have the rooms in my mind and written out and I kind of decide which room comes after which, based on the sessions pacing. A map would maybe say room for fighting after room for fighting. In the case that my players are sick of fighting some more, I change the dungeons layout and set the room with a riddle where the room for fighting was before. For me, the most important thing is making NPCs and their motivations. Because those mostly drive the story. These NPCs are the villains, the helpers and the quest givers. After that comes basic layout and appearance of a local, followed by some lore tid-bits that are crucial to the NPCs and their quests. As of late, I also began making random encounter tables. They are a great way to keep tension up when the PCs travel around in the same kind of locals.
On the encounters part: I like to have a few encounters ready to throw in at a given time. If I see that one fits, pop! It goes in. If a few players stray from the group, they might encounter a few goblins. (This is how two of my players nearly DIED in Session Zero, which we joke about to this day.)
No player ever has suddenly found a magic item on their sheet that they had forgotten about you say? *Has vivid flashbacks to dozens of situations in our homebrew game where some whacky item in our bags saved our asses* Well I guess that happens when every player has whats basically a bag of holding and just stuffs it with things theiy find
I need to prep location, towns, stores, taverns, magical forest, you name it I am sooo bad at improvising that. I don't prep NPCs so much and I'm actually pretty good at random battlefields and monsters
I remember that one time my players asked the locals about the nearby statue of a hero (which I improvised) and so I made up a story about a legendary hero, and then they asked for his name. And I said John. My players are still laughing about that to this day.
One good place to steal parts for a campaign are published modules. While I find 'em ponderous and restrictive to run from end to end, they often have well-designed encounters, properly-statted NPCs, etc, which can all be reskinned. That minor crime boss in a cantina with a couple of bouncers can easily become some small-time pirates attempting to hijack the players' cargo, etc. The cantina itself can then become the guard's mess room in a prison belonging to the corrupt dictator who's holding the mission objective hostage, etc.
Mostly correct in this video... Names are rough, so definitely names... A reasonably sized list to work with for those NPC's that incidentally catch the Players' attentions. Obviously "Main" NPC's need fleshed out more than the "window dressing NPC's"... SO a half-decent Character Sheet is worth the investment... Stat-blocks for the creatures, regardless of importance... These should be scratched together prior to the game... Random encounters are a bit of fun peppered into the game along the way, too... BUT primarily the engagement of encounters for Plot should be crafted to be worthy of the Party. It's no good awarding a bunch of loot and XP for something the Party just steamrolled... as nice as it might be to win a battle once in a while. Maps... DEFINITELY... Now, while I can (technically) make a pretty sophisticated labyrinthian dungeon "off the top of my head", it's important to be able to do so fluidly enough that you're NOT interfering with the fluidity of the game. Some things simply shouldn't be done, even if you have that kind of skill... AND it's easy to end up with an impossible dungeon when you're just tossing random encounters and snarly directions around. Puzzles... riddles... and gag's... Okay, so sometimes I can get inspired mid-game, and create some of these pretty quickly and even have fun doing it... That doesn't mean I won't piss my Players off to no end with the already jerky spits and spurts of motion as we RP our way along. No good comes from holding up the game for the sake of a "better gag" than you already had planned... For "parchments" (for those of us who can't afford/won't justify specialty paper)... You can take just about any grade of paper and stick it in the oven at 400F (paper will burn above 450F) and keep an eye on it as it darkens to your preference. It's easy... and reasonably cheap when you do "bulk batches" of the stuff for later use. There's no need to get specialty paper just so you can show off an "aged handout"... unless you simply ARE that avid about it... I've discovered index cards work remarkably well for a cheap magic-item or specialty item handout. I prefer the ones with lines on one side... This allows me to draw the item on the unlined side of the card, and a reasonable write-up should fit on the side with lines. This write-up functions well enough with the basics of mechanical values and "proper usage" notes. It doesn't require my Players to copy anything, unless they wish to... AND anything I've "created from nothing" I can simply duplicate to keep my own copy for "future records" or uses. Mostly, I balance what's improvised versus what's planned to make the game BETTER. There's no reason to do poorly what could be done well... just for being too lazy to put actual work into a Game you supposedly Love... for Players you probably care for. I mean... if you don't care about your Players, you probably shouldn't be playing with them... let alone going the extra miles of building the game/world/settings/story... ;o)
Man, I just posed the video to do somethong and sudenly thought about your book and games collection visible in the background and oh my god xD it freaking awesome
I've waited weeks for a video like this! Thank you! After multiple rescheduling my first game is this weekend. This list helps me immensely since its structured.
Just starting up playing DnD. Watched hundreds of hours of Vox Machina and did a bit of research. I absolutely love these videos. Trying to DM a game with only one other person cuz thats all we have. Its going fine and we both love this learning experience.
I don't "prepare" for my games, exactly. I usually spend a lot of time imagining encounters, locations, plot hooks, et cetera and writing these ideas down, especially when I don't have a group . Then during games, I pull ideas from my list that have a reasonable narrative flow together, or can be justifiably chained together, and improvise off of these ideas. I have a jumbled list of maps, and npcs that I can pull from at any time for a given genre, if they make sense. Not actually "preparing for the game", but preparing for any possible game I may think would work for my group... I guess I would call this a sandbox, but I still choose the narrative structure of adventures.
"No player ever has suddenly found a magic item on their sheet that they had forgotten about"... well... next level is... I had a ranger player once, who had to write on the top of the character sheet, in big letters: "I HAVE SPELLS!" :D
One thing I learned the hard way in my first session: when you plan an encounter, make sure you copy (or at least bookmark) the stat blocks. "Hang on a sec... *furiously searches for "giant rat" in the MM*"
I really need help. I have one player and literally every one of my other friends won’t play but I still love the game and want to play more. What I currently do is run dmpcs but they’re really difficult to run without being even slightly biased. Edit: I run 2 dmpcs
I use index cards for loot, magic items, notes and journals. They are like 1cent each. And if your not writing much on it you can cut them down and get 2-4 pieces out of each card
Our Pathfinder DM gave us a puzzle once, it was a series of words written in a way he came up with, we spent about a month trying to figure out what it said, it was a fun puzzle
My preparation style is very hands off Basically I just prep a few npc's,some locations(which I stole the descriptions of),and then gather resources like adventure ideas
I had an idea, and the Warlock stole it: What about a situation where a player, who is always stuck with a certain role (such as a Warlock) but they wish to switch classes (as in to a Druid)? Also related - what if a player who always picked a certain race (like a Mountain Dwarf) decided to change to another (such as a Tiefling)? Do you have any tricks to help them get up to speed with their new class/race/both? I know that our group actually had a one-shot combat scenario where our party (as our DM had gotten out of a Creativity Block funk, and we'd finished up Lost Mines of Phandelver), which included some new players and a guy that had rolled up a new character, did battle with a group of harpies led by a sea hag - it was fun, refreshed the rules of combat, and helped out with the bloodlust some of us had, without affecting the story.
i hate puzzles so i make the bosses puzzles instead. one situation had a mad scientist grell who was creating a frankenstein monster army and had one giant one he was creating in his lab. his lab had a catwalk around his lab. when you enter the door, he pulled a switch that dropped the players into the bottom floor if they failed a save. he then started to flood his lab and forced electricity into the water where the players had to jump around the room and get to higher ground to avoid the electricity all awhile getting attack by a giant frankenstein that was immune to electricity and having spells flung at them by the grell.
1. Prepping Maps Agreed. I try to have a map ready to go as well. Not just for a dungeon, but also a valley and nearby environments. Allows me to know probable travel time in case my players want to get aid, merchants etc from elsewhere to their location. Also aids in improvising probable adventures. Hey bullywugs started to occupy a nearby waterfall lair. Why? well apparently they came from the north where they used to live together with Lizardmen. Why were they chased away/decide to migrate south? Presto...let's improvise the rest :P 2. Situations I prefer to create situations and dramatic moments that I can drop in whenever needed. I never care about preparing a possible solution either. Let the players figure out how to deal with a situation and improvise the solution depending on what they do. And how plausible it is. 3. Puzzles and Riddles my players hate them. I hate running them. So often I keep those to a minimum. And always have an NPC somewhere the group can keep around to solve just such things. However this doesn't apply to solving secret messages and correspondence between army generals. Those are fun and they enjoy it as well. Know the group and adjust basically. 4. NPC's and Cities I prefer to work with themes. A dwarf mining settlement that is similar to an old western gold rush village. With people and dwarves dressed in long coats while wearing hand crossbows at their side etc. That is often enough for me to improvise how the buildings look. Followed by a short list of key locations that can be visited each with 1 or 2 npc's. And then. Usually I prep these in between sessions when the group declared to visit it. At start of the campaign I only know the name of the city and 1 or 2 key NPC's max.
And when it comes to custom monsters, go the easy way if it is possible. Just look through the monster manual to find a stat block you like and just describe the monster differently.
My players wanted to duel the King's champion for the throne... I didn't have a champion for the fight so I reskinned the boss and named him Steve the Strong.
Don’t reinvent the wheel... STEAL other people’s wheels... lol... that’s BRILLIANT!! Great video and I couldn’t agree more with the “only prep what you suck at” I used to prep for a 4 hour session for like 12 hours... nuts
Hell... I’ll steal the rims, spoiler, sheering WHEEL... the whole dang car... then reorganize the parts, throw some away... steal more cars part to add in... and give it a paint job!!
I once made a puzzle for any dungeon just for fun. Then I proceeded to forget about it to find it only a month later. I then took a solid 30 minutes to resolve the puzzle. I then stopped putting in puzzels.
Hmm, I disagree that you should "not prepare a story". The games that I like the most have a fleshed out story. Of course with different ways to solve the puzzles and different ways to get to the end of the adventure, but still, it's planned out. Here in germany one of the most famous D&D games is led by a game master that ALWAYS prepares stories. It's also actually not D&D, but another system, but that's besides the point. He often prepares stories where he easily writes 40-60 pages per adventure. And it can DEFINITELY be a lot of fun. It's one of the most successful pen and paper games here in germany for a reason. Even cinemas here showed the sessions! A well-prepared story is not a bad thing in my opinion.
Names. Oh my god do i have an issue coming up with names on the fly. I usually have a little note card or something with a whole bunch of random names for my player that goes "Oh what is your name random npc?" Usually have it organized by race to so that I have some theme to it. granted last couple of sessions I haven't been prepared so yeah I stalled like crazy saying I had to find him through my notes.
I literally spent like 2 months making my character and everything for this like little D&D Club thing and then they say I'm too young once I get there and Now I'm pissed
Well if the druid doesn't work out the warlock may be willing to come back on. But we may need to reveiew his contact, and he may demand a raise. And the budget is tight around here, so we'll see.
when you don't prep the only option you can give the players is whatever you randomly pull out than. better to have 10 choices instead of 1 undetermined only... (worst case the pre-written 10 can't apply , seat of your pants improv option is now #11 )
Trust me my friend you do not want to hear any of my characters singing. LOL that would I would lose Subs like mad like people would run away it would be a complete debacle. LOL
Well that was an unexpected twist. Know we know what the Warlock looks like.
I know the suspense was probably killing everyone. And I didn't want to hold you all in torture for any longer. So I had to do a face reveal. LOL
And here I was convinced he was just 6 cats in a trench coat.
@@cthulhufhtagn2483 Best hint was their deep voice and evil atmosphere
Never woulda guessed.
"Steal other people's wheels" this quote was sponsored by the Rogue Association
Indeed. 😂
A trick I used right off the bat!
The warlock spoke before his last moments a way to see a hero go
Yes quite sad. Now you have an evil druid. That should be fun LOL
Wait this wording confused me a bit
I’m going to be honest when I say I was terrified when the Druid said “I have an announcement to make” as I thought this was about to be a raid shadow legends add
Oh no that would be fun wouldn't it? LOL
THIS VIDEO WAS SPONSORED BY RAID SHADOW LEGENDS!!!!!!
I hear they pay super well too. I probably got an email from them and just deleted it. Lol
@@theDMLair depends on the popularity of your channel, as to how much they pay. You won't be offered much with your 56k subs (criminally low) sadly. Also, their demands are outrageous. Essentially they demand you take up about 1/5 of the video length on their shitty game and you HAVE to pretend to like the game and give out your details of your raid account. Don't do it like they ask, they won't pay.
Me and my friends have this running gag, to where if we don't have a name of an NPC prepared, we name them Dave. The Players want to know the name of the owner of the general store, "Oh yes, My name is Dave. Nice to meet you." The players meet the King of a foreign kingdom they went off track with, "Yes, I am King Dave. Pleased to meet you adventurers." The Bard is flirting with a woman and asks her name. "My name is Dave. Nice to meet you hotstuff."
Yeah, I've taken to collecting names in a notebook because I SUCK at naming NPC's... and PC's for the matter... SO whenever "the inspiration hits" I better have a place to write it down or it's forgotten forever...
BUT my Table's had similar "running gags" too...
AND I've run PC's named things like Robin (Robby) Banks and Jubel Lee Danzer... and his cousin, Jubel Lance Danzer... SO... keeping a running tablet of names was probably for the best. ;o)
Robin Banks is amazing ROFL. Does he run the thieves guild?
That's brilliant 🤣
I wake up the morning after my first time DMing to find this. Now where's a time machine?
Don't worry! I bet you'll be running loads of sessions in the future! The advice in this vid will come in handy for sure!
Well I could give you a time machine but that'll have to wait for a future video. In the meantime just use this information for your future games. :-)
@@theDMLair Yeah, the Sphinx Lair is should do. ;)
*Make an Investigation check*
"squeeze fluffy animals... " ok, I didn't realize until now that Druids were scarier than Warlocks.
Indeed they are. Lol
I look at my prep as filling in the "Who, What, Where, When, Why" and letting the players do the "How" during the session.
As an example, in my latest session (and my first tele-game ever) I had set up maps for the building where the villains were holding a hostage, the guards, the council of three evil (and one clueless) people in charge, and the two combat bosses who were the secret power behind the council, and who were hold three OTHER hostages in the hidden cells. I had planned out what would raise the alarm, how many guards would be nearby, and what their reinforcement schedule was, how the two combat bosses would act, gave everyone (except the guards) names and backstories with motivaitons… And my players did their usual and upended the whole plan with unexpected use of charm magic and a parallel stealthy rescue mission.
Evil council neutralized, guards in custody, two combat bosses defeated separately (which made them both much weaker, as they were designed to fill each others' weaknesses, and power restored to the rightful hands... My players are great. (/grumble, grumble)
Nice, I tend to have the same principles. Just preparing what the NPC's have planned and let the players mess things however they think.
4:21 Maps
5:34 The adventures situation
6:28 The main NPCs
7:01 Plot hooks
7:53 Loot
8:48 Traps
9:19 Puzzles
9:44 Custom Creatures
10:00 Handouts
ur doing god's work thank you!
I really need this because I'm preparing for my first one-shot
Awesome perfect timing. Best of luck dude. :-)
@@theDMLair it's gonna be a week or two until it actually happens, but it's better to start preparing sooner rather than later
Player: I will use Ruthless Mockery
DM: Ruthless Mockery?
Player: *points at DM - Tim? Ahahahahahahahahahaha
Classic humour. When I say ready we all throw back our heads and laugh. Ready?
But but but...
As for maps, the Random Dungeon Generator found on donjon is quite useful for coming up with stuff on the fly.
Yeah totally I've never checked out the random dungeon generator there but I used that site for lots of other things. It's particularly useful for looking up monsters and finding which sourcebooks their reference then and their challenge rating number
The best advice I can give for preparing content is to learn to salvage content you've prepared in the past. If you're DMing multiple campaigns, that might mean lifting a dungeon wholesale from one campaign, then re-flavoring it to make sense for the adventure the current party is doing. (as long as none of the players have seen the content before, there is *literally no difference* between recycled content and brand new stuff.)
I've got whole folders of battlemaps for road ambushes, tavern brawls, campsites and more that I can slot appropriate monsters in and count on the terrain providing some strategic interest, more than it would if I had just sharpied a road onto a blank battlemat and threw down some circles for trees.
ah, changing patrons to a warlock of the archfey i see
Shhhh, don't tell anyone.
@@theDMLair I hope your former patron dosn't mind.
You guys need to have a bit more distance between each other, Covid is no joke lol
Well the Barbarian is definitely going to make his Constitution saving throw. The Druid is immune to disease at some point. The fighter he'll make his saving throw. But the wizard and Rogue yeah they're screwed. LOL
@@theDMLair I'm sure they can find someone to cast cure disease
@@theDMLair Too bad you don't have a paladin. Lay on Hands in a pandemic. Delicious.
@@theDMLair At least the wizard is keeping a distance.
Something I find very important to prepare before a session is maps (etc. Map of Sewers, which I'm doing right now). Another is the homebrew creatures, also a good idea is to have prepared some random names to use during encounters, that helps a lot. Also bosses, personally, I make bosses unique by homebrewing them.
0:00 For a second there, I thoguht you were making a joke about microphone troubble, because the barbarian looked like he was talking, but we couldn't hear him.
Yeah he was just acting like a complete moron because that's basically what he is. LOL
I can see him being a druid of spores. I love how he Is a druid now, but still has the evil voice.
Personally I like to write modules for myself, with bullet points. I like to run sand box worlds, every country and kingdom has its bullet points and side quests to advance the plot, while giving freedom...
But it's open world...tough things lurk in advanced areas.
One thing I learned from that campaign where I gave my players access to a skyship early on and they decided to explore the entire world in random order was to NOT plan out every single city, dungeon, NPC etc, but to plan them out to a point where they could be adjusted to fit the area they were travelling. Like that shop where they buy potions could be in narrow sidestreet of a big city or being the one shop that exists in a village or being just the cart of a travelling merchant on a crossing or a stand on a busy marketplace - but the item they sell there would still be the same and the character could also mostly be the same (maybe adjust the name and appearance, though) Or that temple ruin could be covered in snow, being overgrown by jungle, orpartially being buried by a landslide depending on where they find it, but the dungeon itself could still mostly be the same.
So I keep a stack of prerolled NPCs, premade citymaps and at least one dungeon map at hand all the time just in case they are trying (again) to throw curve balls at me.
My top 5 thing i know i need to prep 1.encounters (so i dont tpk them every session) 2.maps (so my dungeons can exist in euclidean geometry) 3.quests (so they feel have options cuz if no one's interested in a escort mission that night i can save it for when they want it more) 4.placing more flags in the world (so i can track who like them who hates them which shops have been upgraded etc.) 5.Tests (so the puzzle, riddle, or trap doesn't break due to a gentle nudge)
I love the short sketch clips spread throughout the video.
Thanks Eric! 😁
The best inspiration for puzzles: Undertale, Papyrus. His traps are hilarious.
Cool thanks for sharing!
@@theDMLair Perfect for the idiotic lich! (Drew the Idiot card from the deck of many, or something similar)
Great video (as always)! That's a very interesting take on it. It seems like most other people either brag about improvising everything, or else they go the completely opposite way and say to prep most things that aren't dialogue. As a chronic over-prepper myself, I really appreciate it! Keep up the great work!
I liked how you actually used your skits inside the video and not just the beggening of it. You should do it more often I think. It was really funny.
Thanks! I'm planning on it. Glad you enjoyed it! 😁
Location descriptions are number one for me. Places feel more alive by far when I have a 2 or 3 line description of what my party is seeing.
Wasn't expecting a druid but I love it nonetheless!
Yeah we'll see where I take it. I'm not too terribly inspired by it at the moment but we'll see where it goes.
How do you prepare a D&D game?
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the DM Lair so what is your favorite class anyways?
When I ran the rize of Tiamat module, I had forgotten that Tiamat could fly 🤦🏼♀️
Face palm
To make small temporary handouts on the fly for my players I use a Paperang Thermal Paper Bluetooth printer which is basically just a small handheld printer you can feed receipt paper.
You can screenshot or manually imput basically anything in the phone app and just print straight away in a very convenient and inexpensive manner!
I usually prepare descriptions of main places ahead of time, like the town hall interior, the feeling that certain streets give, or how the dungeon smells and looks, because I feel it adds a lot to the game and I'm really bad at coming up with these on the fly. Some key sentences of important conversations as well, so that it reminds me the tone of it. But only key sentences, I'm not bad at improvising the conversation as it flows, just want to know if the npc was friendly, suspicious, not willing to give much info, etc.
Yes key sentences or at least Key thoughts or ideas that an NPC is going to express in a conversation are important I feel. I have seen some dungeon Master's that write out the entire conversation or monologue and that's a bit too much in my opinion. Especially if they plan to read it word for word.
Aw, I liked the warlock. The Wile E Coyote signs were amusing. Oh well, at least he's got a fluffy animal to squeeze
the warlock spoke praise the sun, thanks for another awsome video luke you have really inspired me to play dnd more thank you so much.
No problem dude happy to help. But you know you can't call him the Warlock anymore. He is now the Druid. :-)
@@theDMLair got it
I can tell you an essay about the way the morning mist touches the rock in the warm dawn rays, but I cannot improvise characters to save my life. I found it easier to not only create named npcs beforehand, but a bag of "Misc npc" usually inspired by the people I see during the day that I can pull from, it also makes me less stressed not having to think of characters
That guy that didn't talk was a warlock?!
He sure was.:-)
I think you can forgo maps and encounters. You should plan ahead what kind of creatures there are, so that your players are able to face them of. I mostly do a calculations of how many creatures in a fight would be enough or too much. Then I come up with the exact number on the fly. Same with dungeons. Solid maps can get stale. I have the rooms in my mind and written out and I kind of decide which room comes after which, based on the sessions pacing. A map would maybe say room for fighting after room for fighting. In the case that my players are sick of fighting some more, I change the dungeons layout and set the room with a riddle where the room for fighting was before.
For me, the most important thing is making NPCs and their motivations. Because those mostly drive the story. These NPCs are the villains, the helpers and the quest givers. After that comes basic layout and appearance of a local, followed by some lore tid-bits that are crucial to the NPCs and their quests.
As of late, I also began making random encounter tables. They are a great way to keep tension up when the PCs travel around in the same kind of locals.
On the encounters part: I like to have a few encounters ready to throw in at a given time. If I see that one fits, pop! It goes in. If a few players stray from the group, they might encounter a few goblins. (This is how two of my players nearly DIED in Session Zero, which we joke about to this day.)
No player ever has suddenly found a magic item on their sheet that they had forgotten about you say?
*Has vivid flashbacks to dozens of situations in our homebrew game where some whacky item in our bags saved our asses*
Well I guess that happens when every player has whats basically a bag of holding and just stuffs it with things theiy find
Yep. Happens all the time. Lol
I need to prep location, towns, stores, taverns, magical forest, you name it I am sooo bad at improvising that. I don't prep NPCs so much and I'm actually pretty good at random battlefields and monsters
Definitely just had a session where all of the NPC at a military camp were named Johnny, Tommy, Sammy, Johnnie, and Ronnie
I remember that one time my players asked the locals about the nearby statue of a hero (which I improvised) and so I made up a story about a legendary hero, and then they asked for his name. And I said John. My players are still laughing about that to this day.
One good place to steal parts for a campaign are published modules. While I find 'em ponderous and restrictive to run from end to end, they often have well-designed encounters, properly-statted NPCs, etc, which can all be reskinned. That minor crime boss in a cantina with a couple of bouncers can easily become some small-time pirates attempting to hijack the players' cargo, etc. The cantina itself can then become the guard's mess room in a prison belonging to the corrupt dictator who's holding the mission objective hostage, etc.
Mostly correct in this video... Names are rough, so definitely names... A reasonably sized list to work with for those NPC's that incidentally catch the Players' attentions.
Obviously "Main" NPC's need fleshed out more than the "window dressing NPC's"... SO a half-decent Character Sheet is worth the investment...
Stat-blocks for the creatures, regardless of importance... These should be scratched together prior to the game... Random encounters are a bit of fun peppered into the game along the way, too... BUT primarily the engagement of encounters for Plot should be crafted to be worthy of the Party. It's no good awarding a bunch of loot and XP for something the Party just steamrolled... as nice as it might be to win a battle once in a while.
Maps... DEFINITELY... Now, while I can (technically) make a pretty sophisticated labyrinthian dungeon "off the top of my head", it's important to be able to do so fluidly enough that you're NOT interfering with the fluidity of the game. Some things simply shouldn't be done, even if you have that kind of skill... AND it's easy to end up with an impossible dungeon when you're just tossing random encounters and snarly directions around.
Puzzles... riddles... and gag's... Okay, so sometimes I can get inspired mid-game, and create some of these pretty quickly and even have fun doing it... That doesn't mean I won't piss my Players off to no end with the already jerky spits and spurts of motion as we RP our way along. No good comes from holding up the game for the sake of a "better gag" than you already had planned...
For "parchments" (for those of us who can't afford/won't justify specialty paper)... You can take just about any grade of paper and stick it in the oven at 400F (paper will burn above 450F) and keep an eye on it as it darkens to your preference. It's easy... and reasonably cheap when you do "bulk batches" of the stuff for later use. There's no need to get specialty paper just so you can show off an "aged handout"... unless you simply ARE that avid about it...
I've discovered index cards work remarkably well for a cheap magic-item or specialty item handout. I prefer the ones with lines on one side... This allows me to draw the item on the unlined side of the card, and a reasonable write-up should fit on the side with lines. This write-up functions well enough with the basics of mechanical values and "proper usage" notes. It doesn't require my Players to copy anything, unless they wish to... AND anything I've "created from nothing" I can simply duplicate to keep my own copy for "future records" or uses.
Mostly, I balance what's improvised versus what's planned to make the game BETTER. There's no reason to do poorly what could be done well... just for being too lazy to put actual work into a Game you supposedly Love... for Players you probably care for. I mean... if you don't care about your Players, you probably shouldn't be playing with them... let alone going the extra miles of building the game/world/settings/story... ;o)
Man, I just posed the video to do somethong and sudenly thought about your book and games collection visible in the background and oh my god xD it freaking awesome
I've waited weeks for a video like this! Thank you! After multiple rescheduling my first game is this weekend. This list helps me immensely since its structured.
Just starting up playing DnD. Watched hundreds of hours of Vox Machina and did a bit of research. I absolutely love these videos. Trying to DM a game with only one other person cuz thats all we have. Its going fine and we both love this learning experience.
I have a player who still forgets what his legendary maul does even with his handout lol.
I don't "prepare" for my games, exactly. I usually spend a lot of time imagining encounters, locations, plot hooks, et cetera and writing these ideas down, especially when I don't have a group . Then during games, I pull ideas from my list that have a reasonable narrative flow together, or can be justifiably chained together, and improvise off of these ideas. I have a jumbled list of maps, and npcs that I can pull from at any time for a given genre, if they make sense. Not actually "preparing for the game", but preparing for any possible game I may think would work for my group... I guess I would call this a sandbox, but I still choose the narrative structure of adventures.
"No player ever has suddenly found a magic item on their sheet that they had forgotten about"... well...
next level is...
I had a ranger player once, who had to write on the top of the character sheet, in big letters: "I HAVE SPELLS!" :D
One thing I learned the hard way in my first session: when you plan an encounter, make sure you copy (or at least bookmark) the stat blocks. "Hang on a sec... *furiously searches for "giant rat" in the MM*"
I really need help.
I have one player and literally every one of my other friends won’t play but I still love the game and want to play more.
What I currently do is run dmpcs but they’re really difficult to run without being even slightly biased.
Edit: I run 2 dmpcs
There is an UA that has classes for sidekicks. It could be helpfull to you.
I use index cards for loot, magic items, notes and journals. They are like 1cent each. And if your not writing much on it you can cut them down and get 2-4 pieces out of each card
Our Pathfinder DM gave us a puzzle once, it was a series of words written in a way he came up with, we spent about a month trying to figure out what it said, it was a fun puzzle
My preparation style is very hands off
Basically I just prep a few npc's,some locations(which I stole the descriptions of),and then gather resources like adventure ideas
I had an idea, and the Warlock stole it:
What about a situation where a player, who is always stuck with a certain role (such as a Warlock) but they wish to switch classes (as in to a Druid)? Also related - what if a player who always picked a certain race (like a Mountain Dwarf) decided to change to another (such as a Tiefling)? Do you have any tricks to help them get up to speed with their new class/race/both?
I know that our group actually had a one-shot combat scenario where our party (as our DM had gotten out of a Creativity Block funk, and we'd finished up Lost Mines of Phandelver), which included some new players and a guy that had rolled up a new character, did battle with a group of harpies led by a sea hag - it was fun, refreshed the rules of combat, and helped out with the bloodlust some of us had, without affecting the story.
i hate puzzles so i make the bosses puzzles instead. one situation had a mad scientist grell who was creating a frankenstein monster army and had one giant one he was creating in his lab. his lab had a catwalk around his lab. when you enter the door, he pulled a switch that dropped the players into the bottom floor if they failed a save. he then started to flood his lab and forced electricity into the water where the players had to jump around the room and get to higher ground to avoid the electricity all awhile getting attack by a giant frankenstein that was immune to electricity and having spells flung at them by the grell.
1. Prepping Maps
Agreed. I try to have a map ready to go as well. Not just for a dungeon, but also a valley and nearby environments. Allows me to know probable travel time in case my players want to get aid, merchants etc from elsewhere to their location. Also aids in improvising probable adventures. Hey bullywugs started to occupy a nearby waterfall lair. Why? well apparently they came from the north where they used to live together with Lizardmen. Why were they chased away/decide to migrate south? Presto...let's improvise the rest :P
2. Situations
I prefer to create situations and dramatic moments that I can drop in whenever needed. I never care about preparing a possible solution either. Let the players figure out how to deal with a situation and improvise the solution depending on what they do. And how plausible it is.
3. Puzzles and Riddles
my players hate them. I hate running them. So often I keep those to a minimum. And always have an NPC somewhere the group can keep around to solve just such things. However this doesn't apply to solving secret messages and correspondence between army generals. Those are fun and they enjoy it as well. Know the group and adjust basically.
4. NPC's and Cities
I prefer to work with themes. A dwarf mining settlement that is similar to an old western gold rush village. With people and dwarves dressed in long coats while wearing hand crossbows at their side etc. That is often enough for me to improvise how the buildings look. Followed by a short list of key locations that can be visited each with 1 or 2 npc's. And then. Usually I prep these in between sessions when the group declared to visit it. At start of the campaign I only know the name of the city and 1 or 2 key NPC's max.
Thank you for making a straightforward list haha. I work best with lists, and so many of these prep videos are amorphous 😂
I love noticing the different Elder Futhark rune in every video.
Make handouts as you read the campaign or buy premade ones (if you aren’t playing a homebrew campaign)
And when it comes to custom monsters, go the easy way if it is possible. Just look through the monster manual to find a stat block you like and just describe the monster differently.
Thanks luke been struggling with my dm prep this has really help me think what i really need to prep.
Awesome, happy to help!
I lost my shit at "vorpal clubs". Thanks for that 🤣🤣
Most important thing to plan: the campaign
What I'm good at improvising: an entire campaign
😮Character development from the Warlock! I can't believe it! And now we know what his face looks like!!!
My players wanted to duel the King's champion for the throne... I didn't have a champion for the fight so I reskinned the boss and named him Steve the Strong.
Nice Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail reference
Don’t reinvent the wheel... STEAL other people’s wheels... lol... that’s BRILLIANT!! Great video and I couldn’t agree more with the “only prep what you suck at”
I used to prep for a 4 hour session for like 12 hours... nuts
Yeah I steal lots of Wheels. Lol
Hell... I’ll steal the rims, spoiler, sheering WHEEL... the whole dang car... then reorganize the parts, throw some away... steal more cars part to add in... and give it a paint job!!
I once made a puzzle for any dungeon just for fun. Then I proceeded to forget about it to find it only a month later. I then took a solid 30 minutes to resolve the puzzle. I then stopped putting in puzzels.
Cool the Warlock speaks and now he is a Druid. Nice
Hmm, I disagree that you should "not prepare a story".
The games that I like the most have a fleshed out story. Of course with different ways to solve the puzzles and different ways to get to the end of the adventure, but still, it's planned out.
Here in germany one of the most famous D&D games is led by a game master that ALWAYS prepares stories. It's also actually not D&D, but another system, but that's besides the point.
He often prepares stories where he easily writes 40-60 pages per adventure.
And it can DEFINITELY be a lot of fun. It's one of the most successful pen and paper games here in germany for a reason. Even cinemas here showed the sessions!
A well-prepared story is not a bad thing in my opinion.
Names. Oh my god do i have an issue coming up with names on the fly. I usually have a little note card or something with a whole bunch of random names for my player that goes "Oh what is your name random npc?" Usually have it organized by race to so that I have some theme to it. granted last couple of sessions I haven't been prepared so yeah I stalled like crazy saying I had to find him through my notes.
So becoming a herald of death too a herald of life...sure
Use sticky notes for the magic/special items. Players will more often than not put them ON their sheet and not forget it.
I'm about to start an Avatar themed campaign, my first ever attempt at DMing at all. Luckily, Google has lots of maps on the world of Avatar.
6:10 I died laughing!
- Innkeeper Vase Odin
I thoroughly enjoy your skits before the videos begin the actual topic. Love the creativity and effort that goes into them. Thank you!
Thanks a lot, Mike! You are very welcome.
Yes I need the NPCs names so I don’t forget them
Good stuff
Stay safe
Yeah no kidding. If I make up a name on the Fly and then don't write it down I'm toast. I will never remember that name. LOL
Okay, after Davvy Chappy i thought it would be a bard.
But why would you scrap the Warlock? He is one of the best characters!
i really love the barbarian : 3 what a sweetheart
Thank you. You're pretty cool, too. 😀 - The Barbarian
Ha i didn't say my big bad's name was Tim, I said Billy. I must be a great dungeon master when it comes to names :)
That was soo helpful thank u soo much!!
Maps and encounters are the most important.
I create handouts on the fly during a game session by having my printer right next to me.
Do you call like a quick 5-minute break for everyone to get drinks and stuff while you do that?
A signet ring is great for wax sealing too. :-)
Never replace Druid
He stays now
Forever gone are the days of Warlock
You like the druid?
Well what do you expect
A holy cleric
Great video! Very helpful!
I need a map of everything or else I don’t feel like I’m doing it right
I thank u for i am a new dm, i also thank a friend of mine who showed me your channel
"Steal other people's wheels" huh... *looks at neighbors car*
Vorpal clubs? How in the H.E. double hockey sticks do you have a sharp blunt weapon?
I literally spent like 2 months making my character and everything for this like little D&D Club thing and then they say I'm too young once I get there and Now I'm pissed
or you could do what I do and have only one compact every few sessions, but make it SUPER deadly, like at least doubble their CR
I think I'm a mean dm
I miss the warlock, I liked how he didn’t talk and used the eraser board, but the Druid is funny.
Well if the druid doesn't work out the warlock may be willing to come back on. But we may need to reveiew his contact, and he may demand a raise. And the budget is tight around here, so we'll see.
@@theDMLair He could always change his employer. I've heard celestials are paying well this time of year..
when you don't prep the only option you can give the players is whatever you randomly pull out than. better to have 10 choices instead of 1 undetermined only... (worst case the pre-written 10 can't apply , seat of your pants improv option is now #11 )
video starts at 4:20
The barbarian is the real star of this channel.
He can talk...
But can he sing?
Trust me my friend you do not want to hear any of my characters singing. LOL that would I would lose Subs like mad like people would run away it would be a complete debacle. LOL
ok but his goblin sounded like Elmo.
I have to take time for npcs myself and monsters
Hey, you should be practicing social distancing! You shouldn't be having these players over just to make a very informative video. Smh
I mean they all signed the waiver...