The DM's Guide to DMing

MikeSands wrote:

I'm also a fan of how it goes straight to the action. When planning a score, they just pick the score type and one critical detail, make an "engagement" roll and that tells you how well the plan goes. You then begin play in the middle of the score, with things currently going badly or well depending on the engagement roll result. A few other rules support this too: you're allowed to do stuff in flashback, and for gear you just pick how loaded up you are at the start, selecting specific items as you need them (up to that load you picked).

That sounds a lot like the +gear and +intel bonuses in The Sprawl. It has a similar idea of doing some pre-mission work to rack up bonuses, and then you head into the actual mission. Once you're in the mission you can spend some of your pre-mission gains to say "Oh yeah, I planned for this occurrence and have something ready for it." Rather than having players bog down for hours trying to plan for every eventuality. I haven't played it personally, but it sounds pretty fun.

All this talk makes me want to run a Blades in the Dark game. All I have to do is sell my "battle chess" loving D&D 3.5 players on this "new age" system.

Mixolyde wrote:

That sounds a lot like the +gear and +intel bonuses in The Sprawl. It has a similar idea of doing some pre-mission work to rack up bonuses, and then you head into the actual mission. Once you're in the mission you can spend some of your pre-mission gains to say "Oh yeah, I planned for this occurrence and have something ready for it." Rather than having players bog down for hours trying to plan for every eventuality. I haven't played it personally, but it sounds pretty fun.

Pretty much... it works a bit differently, but similarly prevents over-planning.

There's not really an equivalent of the Sprawl's legwork phase, you just say (eg) "We're infiltrating [the score type] via their escape route to the canal [the detail]."

In my Princes of the Apocalypse game, the players finally made it down to one of the elemental nodes this week.

Spoiler:

It's the water node, and they already killed the water cult prophet, so in his place they'll be facing off against a friggin' Aboleth! In the middle of its watery lair, with a couple Chuuls as backup.

I usually try not to be too cruel to my players, but I'm gonna have to go full-on Evil DM on this one, especially since the aboleth is much more inclined to capture or enthrall the players rather than just go for the TPK. The best part? The aboleth really wants the water prophet's magic trident so it can declare itself the new prophet and seize control of the cult, and the character who's currently carrying said trident has a Wisdom score of 8. Dude's almost definitely getting mind-controlled straight out the gate. Looks like the water cult might be getting some new recruits!

Also, it's written into the campaign that while they're in the water node the aboleth will occasionally psychically broadcast horrible visions of death and destruction, which can potentially cause short-term madness effects. This fairly straightforward dungeon crawl just took a sharp left turn into Eldritch Horror Town. It's gonna be great.

My print copy of The Sprawl arrived today! So excited.

muttonchop wrote:

In my Princes of the Apocalypse game, the players finally made it down to one of the elemental nodes this week.

How are you finding Princes of the Apocalypse overall?

I don't have a tabletop gaming group at the moment, but I happened to get reminded of Temple of Elemental Evil lately. That leads pretty naturally to curiosity about Wizards' reimagining of it.

Looking back over the original module, it's no surprise that my attempt to run it devolved into "kick in the door, fight, repeat, retreat to Hommlet when hit points are too low". But there's also the seeds there of a much more intricate campaign in which PC's take advantage of the rivalries and divisions between the various evil factions... I just don't know how I'd set up or run that campaign.

A few friends and I started playing Numenera using slack. Slack works surprisingly well with a dicebot and more importantly allows us all to get our turns in at any time on our phones. For people that can't always set a specific time every week for gaming sessions this is pretty ideal.

misplacedbravado wrote:
muttonchop wrote:

In my Princes of the Apocalypse game, the players finally made it down to one of the elemental nodes this week.

How are you finding Princes of the Apocalypse overall?

I don't have a tabletop gaming group at the moment, but I happened to get reminded of Temple of Elemental Evil lately. That leads pretty naturally to curiosity about Wizards' reimagining of it.

Looking back over the original module, it's no surprise that my attempt to run it devolved into "kick in the door, fight, repeat, retreat to Hommlet when hit points are too low". But there's also the seeds there of a much more intricate campaign in which PC's take advantage of the rivalries and divisions between the various evil factions... I just don't know how I'd set up or run that campaign. :)

Princes of the Apocalypse has a lot of neat ideas and a bunch of great new NPCs and monsters. Unfortunately, I think the overall execution has some major flaws.

Spoiler:

The first quarter of the book is great, it's very open-world with lots of investigation and exploration. Unfortunately, the other 3/4 of the book is just dungeons connected to other dungeons on top of more dungeons on top of -- you guessed it-- yet more dungeons. There are a few fun puzzles and RP moments sprinkled here and there, but mostly it's just a straightforward slog through tunnels and abandoned dwarven ruins fighting cultists and monsters and more cultists.

There are a few events meant to draw the party back up to the surface every now and then, but for the most part they'll just be bouncing from one dungeon to the next, occasionally retreating to rest up or resupply before the next dungeon crawl.

I've been thinking about what I'd do differently if I were ever to run this module again, and I think I'd probably rip out at least half the dungeons and move everything back up to the surface. Keep all the fun cultist NPCs but make them have a much more active role in the region, raiding towns and setting up temporary bases and such. Save a few of the better-designed dungeons for the last third of the adventure when the players finally descend to assault the temples and shut the cults down for good.

muttonchop wrote:

Princes of the Apocalypse has a lot of neat ideas and a bunch of great new NPCs and monsters. Unfortunately, I think the overall execution has some major flaws.

It sounds like they brought in some of the classic adventure's faults as well as its strengths, then!

Would you say that the good parts are worth buying the book for?

misplacedbravado wrote:
muttonchop wrote:

Princes of the Apocalypse has a lot of neat ideas and a bunch of great new NPCs and monsters. Unfortunately, I think the overall execution has some major flaws.

It sounds like they brought in some of the classic adventure's faults as well as its strengths, then!

Would you say that the good parts are worth buying the book for?

Yeah, there's still a lot of good stuff in there. There's stat blocks for a ton of really neat new monsters and NPCs, and a bunch of fun elemental-themed magic items. There's a chapter with a bunch of side adventures that could be easily re-used in any setting, and the main campaign definitely has some good bits. All the above-ground stuff is really great, the book does a great job of fleshing out the Dessarin Valley as a setting with lots of info on the different towns, landmarks, etc.

And honestly the main adventure isn't BAD, it just gets kinda repetitive after a while. For a group that really likes clearing dungeons it's great, for a group that likes a bit more variety it probably needs some tweaking.

Here's a question I need help with - I'm running the D&D 5e Storm King's Thunder adventure for my kids, who are 15, 11, and 7. So far they're having a pretty good time with it, but the thing I keep noticing is that they have no real experience playing something as wide-open as D&D. This means they approach nearly every situation with brute force. Need to rescue someone? Guess we'll kill all the captors. Need information from someone? Guess we'll attack him until he surrenders. Encounter any monster whatsoever? Kill it.

Right now they're in a city and are trying to recover a stolen greatsword from a corrupt City Watch captain. They've already tried confronting him peacefully and were naturally rebuffed and threatened with arrest. Plan B appears to be the default "guess we kill him and take it" option, even though he's a fairly significant opponent with lots of support. The situation really points toward a more creative approach, such as a) numerous magical avenues, b) asking allies in the city for help, c) paying for assistance, d) good old fashioned thievery, and probably a few others I'm not thinking of. The problem is they don't think of ANY of this.

I'm finding it difficult to steer them away from rushing in guns blazing every single time, even though that's often the WORST thing they could do. Any ideas for how to more organically get them to start exploring their options and abilities more? One of them is a druid, but so far has ignored any spell that isn't direct damage or "turn me into an animal so I can do direct damage." This part of the adventure is fairly open and non-combat-oriented and they're kind of struggling. I think it's mostly just a lack of awareness of their own agency, but I'd like to find a way to have that demonstrated in the game rather than just tell them or even hint what to do.

Start showing consequences to their actions. Have the families of the dead guards post notices looking for the killers, etc?

Maybe they get less loot as well or fail to get the big ticket item when they use violence.

Is there a way to model through an NPC or other happenings in the world what creative uses of their skills might be? If someone used Grasping Vine to restrain their main fighter or Charmed one of them, for instance, maybe the druid would think more about their non-combat spells.

Perhaps stepping outside of the game a moment and watching/listening to a D&D show or podcast together could exemplify some moments of creative skill usage. So far I've only personally done Critical Role and The Adventure Zone, which are good but might be a lot to get into. There could be something in the One Shot podcast that would be a little more bite-sized?

That's a great idea. Listening to some D&D podcasts together could give them some ideas.

ActualDragon wrote:

Is there a way to model through an NPC or other happenings in the world what creative uses of their skills might be? If someone used Grasping Vine to restrain their main fighter or Charmed one of them, for instance, maybe the druid would think more about their non-combat spells.

This is more along the lines of what I'm looking for. I really don't want to use negative reinforcement to punish their bad decisions, because I feel like that will make the game less fun. It doesn't do anything to promote or positively reinforce more creative approaches, it just makes the game harder.

I'll give another example - in a previous encounter they were hired by a local crime lord to complete a few quests, all of which involved discovering secrets about local residents. One was to find out what an old crazy lady who ran an inn was hiding. They investigated her inn and quickly discovered a locked door, then waited for nightfall to sneak up. The crazy lady was known for spying on her guests so I had her keeping an eye on the party, and their best solution was just "wait until she goes to sleep". I thought maybe they'd come up with a diversion or figure out a way to restrain her then go up, but no. A second quest was to discover the secret of a local harness maker. The secret had to do with his family, and there was really no way to discover this except to get him to admit it. They talked to him and tried to get him to open up, but he clearly didn't want to. I even subtly pointed them to the "charm person" spell, which they did not pick up on. Eventually they just tried to beat it out of him, which did not end up working.

It feels like they're looking at role-playing through the lens of video games, which is 99% of their experience so far, and assuming the same level of constraint and limitation you find in video games. I'll look at ways to try to model more creative options. Maybe have an NPC tag along on a quest or two, or something like that. It's tough because I can roleplay the NPCs but I don't want them to just step in and solve problems for them.

Since they're your kids, you're probably right that it's just lack of experience. Plus D&D has some long-standing combat expectations (there's all those combat rules!) that pushes people that way by default.

If they were adults with prior experience off I'd say to first check in with them to see if they prefer a game that is guns-blazing combat: some people prefer the tactical combat game, and that's okay as long as everyone is on the same page. I'm also a big proponent of discussing the game out of the game, again to facilitate being on the same page.

Assuming that they're just not thinking of other options:

- ActualDragon's suggestion to have the NPCs use abilities creatively is a great one. Showing NPCs using social pressure or subterfuge is another way. What about having a short scene where someone attempts to pickpocket them? Or uses magic to track them?*

(*I'm envisioning a scene where a spindly wizard appears at the head of a gang of thugs; he's useless in combat but he's maintaining a burning fetch that points the way to the party, so they can't hide...just to make the magic obvious.)

- So are interesting tactical situations: a battle on a rooftop where they have to figure out how to position themselves so they don't fall off, or in a narrow alleyway that restricts their movement options, or in a tunnel can help explore using lesser-used abilities in combat. (Drawback: still in combat. And they'll still need to be open to thinking off-the-wall. But opens some doors.)

- Maps aren't just for physical space. Draw social maps, relationship diagrams, or other visualizations to help them maintain awareness of other options for influencing people.

- How are you awarding XP? Or distributing loot? Consider ways to reward stuff other than combat. One way the super-old-school D&D was interesting: it awarded XP for treasure, the idea being if you got the loot without fighting that was just as good. Players do stuff that they get rewarded for.

- Note that while the reward could be super-obvious XP, it can also be things like spotlight time for their character: they're doing a thing the player is interested in, so we spend more time exploring that.

- On that note, what are the players interested in exploring? What part of the game makes them excited? Do they have stories they like?

- And, combined with that, what are their characters interested in?

ActualDragon wrote:

Perhaps stepping outside of the game a moment and watching/listening to a D&D show or podcast together could exemplify some moments of creative skill usage. So far I've only personally done Critical Role and The Adventure Zone, which are good but might be a lot to get into. There could be something in the One Shot podcast that would be a little more bite-sized?

That's a great idea! Though, since we're talking about kids, The Adventure Zone does have a fair amount of swearing and...immature...joking, just to warn you. (Listen through the second or third episode and you'll get the idea.) They do come up with off-the-wall solutions though. Friends at the Table is a little less...adolescent in their humor, though still labeled explicit.

The Fellowship of the Bling isn't a podcast, it's an ongoing thread recording a by-the-rules B/X-version original-flavor-D&D campaign. I mostly mention it because it's a good record of how some of the old-school D&D rules encouraged avoiding combat. Though it also has a heck of a lot of combat. The reaction rolls are particularly interesting.

Awesome, great ideas. We've talked about what they want out of the game, because a couple of sessions really did not go well. I was getting irritated at their silliness, they seemed bored and not very interested, and that prompted a friendly chat about what they like and don't like. So far they like the combat and loot, but also the problem-solving, puzzles, and trying to figure things out. All combat really drags things out, and I'm also finding that bigger battles are hard for them.

I'm not awarding XP, based on advice from the adventure book itself. It suggests leveling the characters up at certain points in the adventure, which has some clear chapters and phases. So when they eventually hit main plot point B, they go to level 3, when they complete point C they become level 4, etc. It's working really well. I don't have to track XP and they aren't getting bogged down in the XP/loot chase. Most of the loot is pre-determined by the adventure, although I am tweaking a bit to make it more class-appropriate. They have a very lopsided mix of fighter, ranger, and druid.

As far as their character motivations, they really have not done much yet to invest themselves in their characters. We talked about alignment, role-playing a character that was different from them and would make different choices, and they didn't seem to caught up in all of that. They mostly just do what they think is cool and/or fun.

I did have one really awesome moment during the last session - they were trying to get info on this City Watch captain and I fed them the info that the local thieves' guild might be able to help. They spent time looking for thieves, and I've really been trying to take a cue from Rob Daviau's GMing in The Unmarked and let them describe certain things for me. They found a thief and I asked what they looked like, if anyone knew the thief, etc. Suddenly my 7-year-old chimes in to say yes, he knows the thief. Not only that but he used to be in this thieves' band, but he betrayed them years ago and has been a ranger ever since. Out of nowhere comes this awesome story opportunity, so I'm weaving this into their encounters in this city. Totally unexpected, and delightful.

Having the opposition use the abilities is probably a stronger route than having an NPC tag along, for exactly the reason you said.

On a similar note, when they do try something original, I'd advise you to say yes and let them, no matter how crazy it is. Yes, they can get really silly, but it sounds like they settled down now and need a nudge to push the boundaries a bit again.

Boudreaux wrote:

It feels like they're looking at role-playing through the lens of video games, which is 99% of their experience so far, and assuming the same level of constraint and limitation you find in video games. I'll look at ways to try to model more creative options. Maybe have an NPC tag along on a quest or two, or something like that. It's tough because I can roleplay the NPCs but I don't want them to just step in and solve problems for them.

Speaking of examples of off-the-wall playing, when Darths & Droids got to episode 4, they introduced a new player who was more used to video games.

Don't forget about the 5E inspiration mechanic - that can be an even better way than XP to immediately reward creative play, especially when a player does something like give you an NPC that has a reason to hate them!

And yeah, I meant to say that I would screen TAZ or Critical Role before showing to younger kids. CR is a little more restrained with language and focuses more on grand stories, but there is still cursing and descriptions of gore and violence. They get into some very creative problem-solving though. If I think of something, I will try to point you to a specific episode or moment that you could watch together.

Gremlin wrote:

On a similar note, when they do try something original, I'd advise you to say yes and let them, no matter how crazy it is. Yes, they can get really silly, but it sounds like they settled down now and need a nudge to push the boundaries a bit again.

"Yes, and" is a tenant of good DMing!

Boudreaux wrote:

I'm not awarding XP, based on advice from the adventure book itself. It suggests leveling the characters up at certain points in the adventure, which has some clear chapters and phases. So when they eventually hit main plot point B, they go to level 3, when they complete point C they become level 4, etc. It's working really well. I don't have to track XP and they aren't getting bogged down in the XP/loot chase.

In my opinion, milestone levelling is definitely the way to go. I started out tracking XP in my current campaign, but it's just a massive chore and it encourages too much metagaming ("let's go fight that thing so we level up!"). Plus, if a player misses a session you get into dumb situations where Character A has 300 more XP than Character B so A levels up but B still needs one more encounter. I switched over to milestones and it's way better.

In "The Lost Mines Of Phandelver" (the adventure in the 5e starter set, and some of my only experience with D&D in the past couple of decades) they have you give out experience based on certain encounters, but it's "award 200 XP for defeating the monster, or for agreeing to a truce" or occasionally "award 50 XP if they bypass the trap." I don't know if it's better or worse, but seems to split the difference between XP for monster whomping and XP at milestones.

Discussing the game outside the game, fortunately with intelligent-if-newbie players, was helpful. Like, I thought they were disliking the roleplaying, but it turns out they really enjoyed it... in small doses. They didn't like it when they spent the entire session doing it. What players like might vary, but I'm glad we talked about it.

Also, after they almost had a total party wipe during an encounter (which they approached without finesse, walking right into a cave that they knew had monsters in it) I sent them all a message saying "you know, here are a few things you could have done instead..." In hindsight it might not have been the best approach, but next session they got way more clever... although perhaps too much so, as they spent well over an hour deciding which route to take to enter Cragmaw Castle. Hopefully the pendulum swings back to the middle next session.

I need to generate a bunch of tomb/crypt/mausoleum room descriptions for a dungeon i'm designing anyone got any ideas?

You need to generate a lot of descriptions dynamically, or you just need descriptions to go through for ideas?

Abulafia has a dungeon room generator and a dungeon dressing description generator, among other things.

Here's a list of 105 empty room types and descriptions (via this blogpost).

Here's a house room generator.

Here's an En World thread with about a hundred empty room descriptions

Here's 100 room descriptions from Return to Undermountain, served up one at a time.

Here's a dungeon room generator, from a place called The Thieves Guild.

Here's a long RNGnet thread of dungeon puzzle ideas.

Here's a couple of 1d100 random tables for dressing out rooms in a dungeon.

DungeonWords is a useful set of tables of words that might describe the rooms in a dungeon. (More screen-readable version, Wilderness version, a D30 version with more words)

Here's a poem generator.

Alternately, we can come up with some ideas here:

1. Oddly narrow pillars, too slender to hold much weight, are lined along the outside edges of the room, separating an outer corridor from the inner space. In the center, three stone coffins are arranged in a triangle, with a wide, shallow basin of water in the center.

2. The detailed carvings on the walls suggest that whoever commissioned it was someone with luxurious tastes and the wealth to match, but the floor is badly mortared and uneven. There is a short dias in the center of the room where it appears a tomb should be, but it is empty. Whoever it was meant for was never laid to rest here.

Impressions:
A skull leering at the room from its niche in the wall
A sudden draft sets the torch flames guttering briefly
The skeleton of a long-dead rodent, curled up in a corner
A shallow bas-relief of figures that are missing their heads, defaced long ago.

I know I'm late to the teaching children party, but I've run multiple summer camps for younger players, so I though I'd share what I've learned. Much of it has already been covered.

- Make sure they realize that there are other options. Your group may not even be aware of their non-combat capabilities and options.

- Always say "yes, but how" (within reason) to their non-violent plans. The key here is to also help them talk through their plan and what they'll need to accomplish it.

- Have NPCs do things in non-violent ways. RPGs are about exploring and playing a role that you're not used to. For all-child parties, this can be daunting. Showing them other options organically in the context of the game helps set the stage for creativity.

- Reward creative solutions and teamwork. Any time they're working well together, even in combat, reward this. The more you foster good teamwork and communication, the more they'll think outside the box.

- Keep sessions short. We never played for longer than an hour and a half without a 10 minute break for snacks, bio, just goofing around for a minute, etc.

If you're really stuck, a setting change might help shake them out of the combat rut. It doesn't even have to be new characters, it could just be a new situation. Maybe they step into a magical painting and their weapons no longer work in this new dimension. Or maybe they end up in a haunted building facing an enemy who can't be harmed by normal weapons but needs the party's help.

Hopefully some of this helps. Good luck

Regarding teaching creative skill/item moments in Critical Role, what jumps out at me is Scanlan's single-handed assault on an enemy manor during the liberation of Whitestone from the vampires. Scanlan's a pretty childish character (as a gnome bard probably should be), but the player is damned funny and smart. The bard has a deep toolkit and he takes full advantage during this fight. Technically it's still a pretty violent encounter overall but he uses spells and items so creatively in it, starting with turning into a Triceratops to open things up.

There's a text description of the encounter in Part 1 here: http://criticalrole.wikia.com/wiki/G... (I had no idea fans had fully summarized all the episodes, wow) and there's a link to the video there. It's a fun watch.

Boudreaux wrote:

Here's a question I need help with - I'm running the D&D 5e Storm King's Thunder adventure for my kids, who are 15, 11, and 7. So far they're having a pretty good time with it, but the thing I keep noticing is that they have no real experience playing something as wide-open as D&D. This means they approach nearly every situation with brute force.

Tell them you want to try an experiment. Stick with the current campaign, but switch to the Dungeon World ruleset and play a few times that way. The game is very story-focused, but constructed in such a way that you can use D&D stuff pretty much as-is.

The story focus is most obvious in combat. In D&D, on a player's turn, typically what happens is they look at their character sheet and pick a thing to do. You don't have to do it this way, but with so many stats and rules staring you in the face, that approach feels expected and so it's what basically everyone does.

In Dungeon World, die rolls (called "moves") are effectively events that trigger organically in response to what's going on. So people just describe what they're doing and if a character has to jump out of the way of falling rocks, for example, then you roll Defy Danger based on DEX to see if they dodge successfully. The rules are simple enough that you never end up having to pause and figure out how to resolve something, but solid enough that it never feels like DM fiat either.

Switching to a ruleset that's inherently more story-focused definitely isn't necessary since you can totally play D&D this way too, but I think it could help.

The broader question I think though is how do you get people who don't understand that you can do literally anything you can think of in a tabletop game to realize that's the case. Some games have plot points as a reward system for ingenuity (5e uses inspiration), and you can always just pay compliments, but it's good to just be proactive in involving the players in storytelling. If they walk into an inn, maybe go around the table and have everyone describe one thing about it. You can also use leading questions. Like say "the innkeeper spies you from across the room and stomps up to you, yelling... why is the innkeeper mad at you?" They get into this a lot in the Panda episode on encouraging improv. It's good stuff. Give it a listen.

Gremlin wrote:

Wall o awesome!.

Thanks Gremlin! These are great starting points. My players are playing in fantasy Europe (i.e. D&D 5e races present) And their next mission is taking them to a hidden temple of Anubis where the greatest figures of the ancient era's are buried, for example:

Gilgamesh, Imhotep, Hammurabi, Sarah, Tut, Achilles, Moses, Solomon, Xerxes, Socrates, Hippocrates, Ramses III, Plato, Alexander, Lao Tzu, Hannibal Barca, Cleopatra, Marc Antony, Spartacus, Julius Caesar, Attila of the Huns, Arthur of the Bretonians, Wu Chao (empress of China), Charlemagne, Richard (Lionheart), Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc.

So i want suitable descriptions of their various tombs.

The reason they are going to the temple. Well after they freed the high priest who was kidnapped and geased by a efreet and missing for 500 years (he's an undead) He has gone back to his temple to find it
A) Barren and and the surface town destroyed thanks to Orc invasions
B) The temple itself which is only accessible via teleportation circle has been over run by 6 different planar gates caused by the plane of Mechanus as the Modrons attempt to gather more material for their great cog (the extra portals are by accident and are simply being taken advantage of by their denizens for their own goals)

complexmath wrote:
Boudreaux wrote:

Here's a question I need help with - I'm running the D&D 5e Storm King's Thunder adventure for my kids, who are 15, 11, and 7. So far they're having a pretty good time with it, but the thing I keep noticing is that they have no real experience playing something as wide-open as D&D. This means they approach nearly every situation with brute force.

Tell them you want to try an experiment. Stick with the current campaign, but switch to the Dungeon World ruleset and play a few times that way. The game is very story-focused, but constructed in such a way that you can use D&D stuff pretty much as-is.

I mean, I'd totally suggest running Dungeon World too, especially after reading Dungeon Elementary and Dungeon Girls. (Though that doesn't necessarily fix the attack-on-sight problem.) But I'd hesitate to switch the whole campaign, since you'd need to get everyone on board with that. It's a lot of juggle, especially if the GM isn't familiar with it.

Alternative might be to run a one-shot with a super-improv ruleset (Dungeon World, Monster of the Week, Night Witches, Lady Blackbird, Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, etc.) and then subtly encourage that thinking in the main game.

Gilgamesh, Imhotep, Hammurabi, Sarah, Tut, Achilles, Moses, Solomon, Xerxes, Socrates, Hippocrates, Ramses III, Plato, Alexander, Lao Tzu, Hannibal Barca, Cleopatra, Marc Antony, Spartacus, Julius Caesar, Attila of the Huns, Arthur of the Bretonians, Wu Chao (empress of China), Charlemagne, Richard (Lionheart), Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc.

Sounds like a great creative writing exercise (and reminds me of the medieval lists of the nine worthies). The way I'd start would be to check up on how they were actually buried or pick elements from their lives and jot down a quick one-liner for each of them so you have a starting list. This list of tombs on wikipedia may help.

Just a quick note on the teaching kids another way to solve a problem other than hitting it. I think there is absolutely no problem with breaking the wall here and saying "you won't survive a direct assault, I'm just going to keep throwing guards at you. You will have to come up with a cleverer way to do it". I hate the fiction that we're dealing with an immutable truth. It's fine in my opinion to let the players remember they're playing a game and, more importantly, collaborating in telling a story. They should be reminded there are no 'sploits in storytelling.

That out of the way: We wrapped up the first story arc for the Edge of the Empire game I was running. It was my first time GMing anything more than a one-shot and I really enjoyed it and learnt a lot. I'm taking a break from it now due to lack of available time/headspace but we've agreed to keep the story going, just rotating GMs around the table. I think that's going to be loads of fun. We're following a continuity bible approach where anything that's happened in play is set in stone and immune to retcon, but anything else is free game. That means that all the backstories of NPCs that the players have come across but not deeply interacted with are all moot. I'm updating Obsidian Portal with simply "what is known" and future GMs can run with it. I think it's all going to be great.

The other nice thing is that my players said they were intimidated to take over from me because I was such a great GM. They may have been blowing smoke up my arse but I'm taking the compliment.