The DM's Guide to DMing

beeporama wrote:
muttonchop wrote:

Anyone got any fun ideas for vaguely Egyptian pyramid-themed traps or encounters? I may have just convinced my party to go explore a Mummy Lord's tomb.
It's a big pyramid so there's plenty of room for all sorts of evil nonsense.

Here's a 2nd-level module: https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/prod...

I was getting a serious case of deja vu with the theme question and scrolled up this page to see bepnewt asked the same question back in May! Kobold Press has some good options. Their Book of Lairs has an 8th level option, Tomb of the Scorpion Prince. More tomb than pyramid, but theme is spot on. Checking my PM, that is the same one I shared with newt.

There may be one in their Prepared! or Prepared 2! books, which are excellent resources to fill in for a session as a side deal for an existing campaign. I have pulled from those books a few times over the past year +.

Not familiar with any myself, but I would recommend going to adventure lookup and typing in your key phrase and see what comes up. This is a website that is trying to compile a list and brief description of a lot of published adventures. If you find something you like, you will need to go and purchase or download it separately, but is a handy resource.

Was going to mention it yesterday, but it was down at the time I checked it. It looks to be working today.

Cool resource, Malkroth. Thanks for sharing it.

I'm jumping in on this just now, so forgive me if this is advice that's been offered before.

Early on in the current campaign I'm running, I created a document called "dangling plot threads" in the google drive folder I keep my GM notes in and I periodically look back at it ("periodically" being "basically every week" at this point, but it was less frequent earlier on) and include something that connects to something in there. It's got everything from the hooks my players gave me during character creation to various things they've interacted with in the world that will continue on in some way after the PCs leave.

I'm so glad I decided to do this. Nothing makes a world feel like a real place nor a GM like a master planner like callbacks!

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My son has managed to wrangle a few of his friends into trying out D&D 5th edition, and wants to have me DM for them. Teenager/peers/parent awkwardness aside, I'm game for it but there are going to be challenges. I know some of them will have never played any kind of RPG before. I also know some of them are going to struggle with attention spans and not looking at their phone every 45 seconds.

I want to start with a pretty simple 1-shot adventure that they could complete in a single session. I would run Mines of Phandelver from the 5th edition Starter Kit, but my son has already played it. Plus, I think even that is more involved that I want to go with. Any suggestions for a good 1st level adventure that is just a basic dungeon crawl or simple adventure? I've spent some time using the Adventure Lookup resource that Malkroth posted, which is awesome. It's so awesome that it's almost too much. I'd happily take a suggestion for anything from DMsGuild or DriveThruRPG that I could use. Otherwise I'll resort to the blindfolded dart throw method.

Check out Uncaged : Volume 1. I'll never not recommend this series

Uncaged is a collection of myth- and folklore-themed adventures written for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Each original adventure subverts tropes around a female mythological creature or monster including hags, harpies, medusas, and much, much more.

The first adventure is a short riff of the Little Mermaid, helping a mermaid rogue (turned into a full human) rescue her bard lover who was taken captive by a necromancer. I've used it a couple of times as an "intro" adventure. it's got a bit of roleplay, the opportunity for a chase and some light exploration / combat.

pretty much all the adventures are short enough to run in a single session. Some of them are maybe less suited for younger players than most (but each usually highlights the content right up front).

Boudreaux wrote:

My son has managed to wrangle a few of his friends into trying out D&D 5th edition, and wants to have me DM for them. Teenager/peers/parent awkwardness aside, I'm game for it but there are going to be challenges. I know some of them will have never played any kind of RPG before. I also know some of them are going to struggle with attention spans and not looking at their phone every 45 seconds.

I want to start with a pretty simple 1-shot adventure that they could complete in a single session. I would run Mines of Phandelver from the 5th edition Starter Kit, but my son has already played it. Plus, I think even that is more involved that I want to go with. Any suggestions for a good 1st level adventure that is just a basic dungeon crawl or simple adventure? I've spent some time using the Adventure Lookup resource that Malkroth posted, which is awesome. It's so awesome that it's almost too much. I'd happily take a suggestion for anything from DMsGuild or DriveThruRPG that I could use. Otherwise I'll resort to the blindfolded dart throw method.

I am doing a similar thing for my son. We started with the Sunless Citadel, and are now moving into the Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

Boudreaux wrote:

Any suggestions for a good 1st level adventure that is just a basic dungeon crawl or simple adventure? I've spent some time using the Adventure Lookup resource that Malkroth posted, which is awesome. It's so awesome that it's almost too much. I'd happily take a suggestion for anything from DMsGuild or DriveThruRPG that I could use. Otherwise I'll resort to the blindfolded dart throw method.

I don't think you can ever go wrong with Matt Colville's Delian Tomb:
https://youtu.be/zTD2RZz6mlo

Here Matt walks you through creating an intro adventure. It's a simple adventure for 4-6 1st level characters, it's great. Note that Matt corrects a mistake on his map at the end of the video (he moves the trap, as it doesn't make much sense to have it before the offering room).

Incidentally, Matt's channel is my #1 favorite source for DM advice as well.

Wayfarer wrote:
Boudreaux wrote:

My son has managed to wrangle a few of his friends into trying out D&D 5th edition, and wants to have me DM for them. Teenager/peers/parent awkwardness aside, I'm game for it but there are going to be challenges. I know some of them will have never played any kind of RPG before. I also know some of them are going to struggle with attention spans and not looking at their phone every 45 seconds.

I want to start with a pretty simple 1-shot adventure that they could complete in a single session. I would run Mines of Phandelver from the 5th edition Starter Kit, but my son has already played it. Plus, I think even that is more involved that I want to go with. Any suggestions for a good 1st level adventure that is just a basic dungeon crawl or simple adventure? I've spent some time using the Adventure Lookup resource that Malkroth posted, which is awesome. It's so awesome that it's almost too much. I'd happily take a suggestion for anything from DMsGuild or DriveThruRPG that I could use. Otherwise I'll resort to the blindfolded dart throw method.

I am doing a similar thing for my son. We started with the Sunless Citadel, and are now moving into the Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

Sunless Citadel is great; while I'm not a fan of a bunch of the adventures in Tales from the Yawning Portal, that and Forge of Fury are classics. Both those are very solid.

In the first instance I would recommend the collection of adventures from Tales from Yawning Portal, which is an excellent set on introductory adventures that are based on original adventures that have been updated to modern design standards, making them even more entertaining.

Now I feel I must apologise for diverting away from the current topic of introductory adventures, it certainly is a worthwhile one, but I thought I would share with you a resource that would come in handy for those seeking to make their games as as inclusive as possible. With the enlightened membership that makes up Gamers With Jobs, I would assume that all of you would regard this as a good thing.

So the resource is actually an organisation known as 'No More Damsels'. It is group of dedicated RPG players who are based in London who have decided to raise awareness of inclusive behaviour when playing and running tabletop RPGs. The website they have made includes tools to ensure anyone who is deemed to be a minority to feel welcome and know they are in a safe place. Here's a link to the the No More Damsels website:

https://www.nomoredamselsrpg.org/

Be sure to click on the resources link on the top right hand corner to gain access to free tools such as the 'X' card and a full code of conduct.

oh, excellent - i've been trying to get a "women and NB D&D group" organised for a while now up locally, so i'll take a look. thanks for the link!

We were down a host tonight for my podcast's recording session, so the two of us who were able to record kicked around some ideas for the campaign I'm running and it's hitting me yet again how valuable it is to occasionally swap notes with another GM who has a different style than you.

This episode is not up to our usual audio standards, but we also turned it around in 24 hours. My co-hosts and I say down and did our best to brain dump as much as we could about gaming online (two of us have been doing it for the better part of a decade or longer). Hopefully this helps with folks stuck at home:

http://stgcast.org/bonus-episode-20-...

Nerdarchy is offering 3 of their PDFs for free until April 30th with the coupon STAYNERDY.

Nerdarchy wrote:

Above all else, we here at Nerdarchy are wishing you and those close to you wellness, health and safety in the wake of the pandemic. In an effort to do what we can, we are offering coupon codes for our existing PDFs.
 
We created a special coupon you can use here in Nerdarchy the Store. We wanted to offer some of our digital Adventures & Supplements for free, but we wanted to let you choose the ones that look the most fun to you.
 
So here’s the deal. Load up your cart with any three items from Adventures & Supplements. Enter the coupon code STAYNERDY when you’re ready to check out and three of those items will receive a 100% discount.
 
The coupon applies to the three highest priced items automatically. The coupon can’t be used with any others, and is limited to one time use per person, good through April 30. Explore our Adventures & Supplements and pick any three you want right here.
 
Apologies to anyone who may already have these PDFs – this is an effort to spread good will and help some folks stay occupied and creative as they work through illness and quarantine
 
Stay nerdy!
 
– Nerdarchy Team

I'm hoping to run Trip to the Panar Zoo with my group through Skype in the coming week. Hopefully each of you find something fun to take to your players during these unusual times from this promotion too.

oooo - thanks for the heads up. free content is always welcome!

Eldon_of_Azure wrote:

Nerdarchy is offering 3 of their PDFs for free until April 30th with the coupon STAYNERDY.

Nerdarchy wrote:

Above all else, we here at Nerdarchy are wishing you and those close to you wellness, health and safety in the wake of the pandemic. In an effort to do what we can, we are offering coupon codes for our existing PDFs.
 
We created a special coupon you can use here in Nerdarchy the Store. We wanted to offer some of our digital Adventures & Supplements for free, but we wanted to let you choose the ones that look the most fun to you.
 
So here’s the deal. Load up your cart with any three items from Adventures & Supplements. Enter the coupon code STAYNERDY when you’re ready to check out and three of those items will receive a 100% discount.
 
The coupon applies to the three highest priced items automatically. The coupon can’t be used with any others, and is limited to one time use per person, good through April 30. Explore our Adventures & Supplements and pick any three you want right here.
 
Apologies to anyone who may already have these PDFs – this is an effort to spread good will and help some folks stay occupied and creative as they work through illness and quarantine
 
Stay nerdy!
 
– Nerdarchy Team

I'm hoping to run Trip to the Panar Zoo with my group through Skype in the coming week. Hopefully each of you find something fun to take to your players during these unusual times from this promotion too.

Thanks! That's extraordinarily generous.

I've had a big face-to-face West Marches campaign for the last 2.5 years or so; for those who don't understand the concept, it's a big group with rotating DMs who run one-shots in a common world, so you don't have to worry about scheduling issues. DM announces a game at a place for a certain number of characters, first in are playing that night. Has worked phenomenally well. Obviously, the face-to-face aspect isn't happening these days, so we got a test runthrough of Roll20 the other night and ran a little adventure; I'd used that site years ago, but, wow, they've added to it, and it was pretty damn amazing. Wasn't as great as face-to-face, but we had voice communication, webcams, and the Roll20 board worked perfectly for us. I've started messing around with dragging in maps, making tokens, playing with the Fog of War, and other things, and it's really, really usable and much simpler than I anticipated.

So . . . if your group is on hiatus, take it off hiatus, and try out Roll20. Plenty of good YouTube instructional videos on how to use it.

Roll20 is ma jam.

We just started using roll20 (since we normally meet in person). This week it’s my turn to run. I’m running a sandbox hexcrawl, and my PCs were investigating something that (they don’t know yet but) will lead to a dungeon. I’m still working on it, but the dungeon will be nicely Jaquayed, and I’m excited about the dynamic lighting stuff roll20 can do. Even if it’s a bit slow, they should have rolled out the new version by my next session after this one.

I'm going to be running my semi-weekly (bi-weekly? i always get those confused) pathfinder game by roll20 this sunday. We typically meet in person in my basement game room so this will be an interesting experience. I've never used roll20 as a gm before, are there any pitfalls i need to be aware of? any good tips or tricks from the experienced users here?

thrawn82 wrote:

I'm going to be running my semi-weekly (bi-weekly? i always get those confused) pathfinder game by roll20 this sunday. We typically meet in person in my basement game room so this will be an interesting experience. I've never used roll20 as a gm before, are there any pitfalls i need to be aware of? any good tips or tricks from the experienced users here?

Bi-weekly has two meanings: twice a week, or once every other week. English!

Roll20's not too bad to get used to for basic play. The things I'd play around with first are the layers - there's a base (map) layer to keep you from moving the background whenever you try to grab a mini, the main layer that the players can see and move tokens around on, and the DM layer. Players can't see what's on the DM layer, so you can stash monsters and notes and such there, and later move them to the main layer to reveal them. But you want to be sure things are on the right layer!

On player tokens, you have to give control to the right players. There's also a toggle to either show or hide token info from other players. My group uses the green bar for health and has it set so everybody can view it and keep tabs on each other.

Lastly, if you want to use whispers to send info to just one player, the command is "/w [player name]" or they can whisper to you with "/w gm."

There's lots more options if you want to get fancy - built in character sheets and monster stat blocks, macros for rolling, etc., but for just straight playing it's not too hard to pick up on.

Well i typically run with a laptop open running the Herolab tactical console out of the players view. That's got most of the monster stats and such and the players are used to not seeing that and monitoring their own health and such. so i'm going to try to maintain that rather than type all the monsters into roll20, and just use statless pictures on the board. Also lets me fudge monster health up and down to suit the story without it being obvious to the players since i also prefer not to give out numerical health info about the things they are fighting.

Thank you for the tips, I especially didn't know the GM layer was invisible to the players that will be really helpful for letting me set up stuff ahead of time.

Yeah, the GM layer stuff is neat but it's easy to forget which layer you've got selected.

Just to clarify - we don't see monster health, and each player updates their health on our tokens. It's just that the DM sets visibility of those things on tokens. We just leave all player health visible to everybody so we're not constantly asking who needs heals. The nice thing is that it does the math for you - so you can highlight the corresponding circle and type "-13" or "+8" and it does the math. But go with what your group likes and is used to!

That's how I ran roll20 for most of my run with it. One of the first things I added in was the health bar for creatures visible to all, though that's a DMing choice. (It does open things way up for metagaming, because if they see the health bar drop by half when they've just hit for 10 damage, quick math lets them figure out original hp.) A lot of other DMs I know have used the health bar but kept it hidden from the players.

The other thing that sped up my dice rolling in particular was to write the most common attack macro and attach it to the token - this lets you select the token, and click an on-screen button., and then all the dice rolling happens. As the DM in particular, when there are a number of tokens you're controlling, it made things go much faster than having to type out the dice roll for every attack and damage.

I'm new to Roll20, but my group is all-in on D&D Beyond as a service, and, I have to say, the Beyond20 extension for Chrome is great. If you have a character sheet open in another tab, you can click the "Roll in VTT" it puts on your character sheet, and it'll automatically do the roll in the window on Roll20. Really handy.

Roll20 is actually really easy to use, I've ran games on there for years. The best advice I can give it you is to setup your game and go in as a user to get a feel for what they see compared to what you do as a GM. I also like to make my active pages ahead of time and black out space to the side so I can have all my tokens, monsters, adversaries, etc. Preloaded and ready to go outside of their view.

As previously stated there are rollers and such you can get to make that easier, however it's as simple as /roll 1d20 or insert number and die type to roll. Which is what we usually do in my groups.

Good luck and have fun. It's great that we can keep a game like this going in this day and age. My in person group had just started Starfinder right before all this and we're trying to convince the GM to run on roll20 so we can get back to playing but he's never done anything like that.

Best advice for Roll20 is to enable the advance keyboard shortcuts and print out the guide to them for yourself.

Especially for things like moving things quickly from one layer to another (GM layer to Token layer), especially for revealing hidden monsters, or working with the dynamic lighting layer is key. Also, before your first session I would setup a practice map with a player so you can get comfortable with things up front and not have as much to worry about in the actual session.

Love Roll20.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I'm new to Roll20, but my group is all-in on D&D Beyond as a service, and, I have to say, the Beyond20 extension for Chrome is great. If you have a character sheet open in another tab, you can click the "Roll in VTT" it puts on your character sheet, and it'll automatically do the roll in the window on Roll20. Really handy.

I only just learned of Beyond20 yesterday and it has blown my mind.

So yeah i ended up with three games in a row today, tomorrow and monday that i have to prep for (and another in which i'm a player on tuesday).

I knew that monkeys paw wasn't on the up and up! *shakes fist*