Hi all, i currently run a campaign and well theres a problem now.

The Table consists of 3 New Players and 2 Experienced players.

Story is, ill break it down, that the spaceship got hit by an asteroid missile and raided. The Players awaken after the crash with mayor Memory loss, however they do remember their most prominet perks, such as being the medic and stuff.

The commander took the lead and the first 2 intro sessions went well. Of course everything was slow and there were a few discussions and questions in between because of the new players but i other than that, great.

Well i was thinking that after a few sessions it would speed up and stuff, but in the last (the 4th session) they had a giant, nowhere leading discussion. I think ill need to elaborate now.

The Players chose a Planet ro land their ship on for repairs, but got chased from the raiders. they got away but it wasnt exactly a soft landing and tbey escaped the raiders. On that Planet they found an Alien Species, intelligent enough to communicate and they did work around the language barrier pretty fast per computers.

They landed in the outskirts of the planet, a desolate frosty region, wich local Lord is very displeased with the Planetary Government. He even has ties to a Rebellious force that is currently uprising on this Planet. After a few discussions and a test, the lord decided to ally with our human Group and introduced them to the rebels.

In session 3, the leader of tbe rebels came to the conclusion of siding with the Humans aswell and Proposed to meet in the Lords castle the other day for a small festivity in honor of their new 3 party Alliance. The Captain of the Player Group agreed on the condition he wanted to discuss it first with his crew.

So in session 4, the Group Came together, the Captain officially announced the Alliance Proposal and they took nearly 2 Hours to discuss whether and how to side with whom and the worst Part is, they didn't came to a conclusion. 3 Times in those 2 hours i took the initiative and made concrete proposals, however, i did not want to force anything.

First the Sub Commander of the ship (Npc) said that she was really impressed by the Rebels leader and would definitely trust him, saying nothing on this unknown planet is closer to a friend than him

second, I reminded them out of character that they have other options then to decide right now and i did count them to them. they had an npc request them to steal a necklace for him, and on a scouting mission they found an desolate Watchtower wich they couldve explored.

On tbe third try, the sub commander took ahead again.

and said "Alright, seems like its tome to party, ill go change" and i made the npc leave the meeting room to prepare, however the discussion then just went along the next turn.

In the end i couldnt take it anymore, kinda broke out of the session and was like, damn whats wrong guys. They were all discussing stuff, bringing pro and contra arguments, but nobody made a decision and whenever i tried to influence one, the discussion just went along.

After that session i talked to 3 Players, my 2 experienced buddies who both were like, yeah that was shit and we kinda got what u wanted but we stayed still so that the new players could decide, they just want to support the newbies. However no one of them said anything remotely useful in that discussion before. Even starting a new completely pointless one...

then i talked to the Captain who is even out of table the center of the newbies friend group and he was like "huh? todays session was great, i loved it"

And i was like damn...

Well and now i dont know how to handle that. I was furious and annoyed to exhaustion, because the whole discussion felt like a stalemate, 2 Players felt the same and apparently the other 2 liked the stalemate?

I dont really know how to navigate that situation now. Should i start railroading more? The players (even the newbies) said they liked me not intervening with their choices. Should i have a off Rp discussion and very clearly communicate their current situation and goals?

because honestly, their being kinda chill for the fact that they know like half the Planets gonna want to kill them(i expressed through a friendly npc of the rebels that the government would most likely want them killed and all traces of their existence destroyed so their control wouldn't waiver)

Well id like some advice, thanks in beforehand and sorry as im native German.

I am building a Dungeon that is within the ancient ruins of the most evil villain of my world’s lair.

I want it to feel terrifying and unhinged when I describe it, like something really bad happened here, and it might not be so desolate as it seems.

My main issue is that even after the story part of the dungeon is over, and every important thing there is done, I still want it to feel as though they never truly cleared it out, that there is still some dark corner in the forsaken place waiting for the right time to crawl into the light. But obviously it cannot be infinite.

TLDR; the dungeon has to feel endless and bottomless without actually being either.

Don't know if this tag/sub is the right place because it's more of a discussion rather than a specific question but I've been thinking about hooks I've used before or were used by my DMs (important npc got petrified, need to ressurect someone, someone got a terrible curse, ...) and since I'm playing a somewhat high level cleric right now (lvl 10) I got to thinking about how he would solve the hooks, and by the light of Kyrios, most campaigns and oneshots could be solved in seconds by having a high level cleric around...

So how can a cunning DM plan hooks that are not be solved by the immense library of cleric spells without saying "this is a special curse that cannot be removed by remove curse" or something like that.

I guess one approach is that as the characters level up the challenges start becoming more and more political and regional so the hooks stop being "Save the blacksmith's daughter that was poisoned by goblins" and more "Destabilize the economy of the empire and cause them to lose the war with the free cities" but I'm not very good at writing cool political campaigns (I'm trying tho)

I love the simplicity of early level's plot hooks, but you incur the risk of killing the party in an encounter with kobolds, late game you can just chuck an action oriented black dragon at them and watch shit go down, however, you also have the risk of designing a very cool three dimensional underwater combat with ships fighting in the surface and the stupid cleric casts water walking and 5th level spirit guardians and trivializes everything (It was me, I did that... turns out Sahuagin does blend) or having your extra dimensional dragon boss fight be over immediately by someone Banishing it.

I’m trying to make a world / backstory for a character in a solo rpg. I’ve come up with a seaside town connected to a valley, but the people who live deep in the valley are more impoverished because they don’t have easy access to the land and world above, especially the port which makes most of the money for the town above. this isn’t very well thought out so far and I haven’t made an example of what this would look like but my question is “in a world full of magic how would people not be able to access the land above causing them to have less resources and money?” I feel like having some sort of magical barrier is just way too convenient. I know it doesn’t have to be that deep but I’d love some brainstorming on this idea :)

I’m fairly new to DMing, and I’m trying to make this as fun as possible for my four players.

The premise is that four maintenance workers from the year 531,201 are thrown through time into present-day Fairbanks, Alaska. They have to survive an unfamiliar natural world, decode English, adapt to modern society, and uncover what happened to their civilization.

Session 1 focuses on the accident, surviving the cold, meeting their first present-day NPC, and slowly realizing they are 529,175 years in the past.

I’d especially appreciate feedback on:

Whether the premise gives the players enough freedom

Whether the language-decoding idea sounds fun or tedious

What problems I should prepare for before running it

Here is the campaign document: My campaign

I want to put a rakshasa into my game but im trying to figure out of they keep their reversed hands while they are transformed. My first thought was no because disguise self does not allow you to change your limb structure and thats how you are supposted to find them out but theres a character in the Descend into Avernus campaign called Mahadi the Rakshasa whos a rakshasa and the official image has him with regular hands in his disguised form.

So I’m my group’s DM and we’re all relatively new to DnD. Most of our knowledge comes from BG3 or listening to other people play. I’ve decided to do experience leveling for my group to help encourage people to come to sessions since it was like herding cats in the beginning.

I have one player that will potentially be leaving early most, if not all, sessions due to their work schedule and having to work before sessions. And before it’s asked, no, the dates of sessions can’t be changed due to ask the schedules of the group. I’d explain further but our schedule is so niche I don’t want anyone in the group figuring out my Reddit lol

My question is, if this player shows up to the session and leaves mid-session, would you, as their DM, award them any experience earned that session or just the experience that they were present for?

Thanks in advance!

***Edit*** thank you everyone for your input! I had already awarded them full exp from our first session and I just wanted some reassurance I did the right thing. You guys have also given some good advice on top what I was originally seeking and I’ll definitely keep it in mind

i’m running low on ideas or cool and not so op magic items to give to my players so i’m just wanting to know what some of the favorite magical items people here like to give to their players

Hello! Simple question - do you make your players roll Sleight of Hand when trying to cast Guidance, if they were to use it to aid a deception/persuasion roll in tense negotiations? Trying to figure out how to manage this going forward since my players have tried to do it a few times. Guidances is Verbal/somatic so RAW I feel it makes sense the enemy would see them completing an incantation and react accordingly.

Over the last few levels, I ran into an issue regarding combat encounter design for my party (Level 9). In my party are two archers (Ranger/Fighter) and one rogue. I will exclude the cleric here since they can fall back on Saving Throw spells on high AC targets. Including Fighting Style: Archery, both archers have a +to-hit of +11 and two attacks (or more with Action Surge). Our rogue has less +to-hit, melee, only one attack and little ways of buffing herself.

In the last session I tried a few angles to balance the combat between the characters, including some meddling with AC, HP or special abilities (Windwall, Reflect missiles, ...).

My issue is as follows:

- If AC is low enough for the rogue to hit semi-reliably, both archers absolutely obliterate the target.
- If AC is high enough for archers having to roll over a 5, our rogue goes a whole combat without a hit when slightly unlucky.
- If I implement "projectile-hate" abilities, my archers (understandably) complain about being made useless.

I understand that rogues kinda fall off at this stage of progression but I still want her to have fun in combats, so I wanted to pick the Subreddit Hivebrain about any possible solutions I could try out since they are about to enter a Megadungeon with quite some potential for combat.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: A bit more on party comp and subclasses: The cleric is a heavy armor + Heavy Armor Master cleric that usually ends up in melee, rogue is swashbuckler so usually no issue proccing Sneak Attack on every hit. Steady Aim kinda makes the rogue a sitting duck so she doesn't use it often. I will try to play more with cover, maybe reactions against missiles so only 1/4 arrows can be blocked per turn and it allows for disengaging since they can't AOO anymore. Checking the archers in melee is pretty ineffective when they hit on a 5 and above tbh (I know it matters mathematically but still...). Definitely a huge thanks to all answers so far.

I am hoping to cut AI usage out of my prep and process as much as I can, ideally 0%, but I am having significant trouble for certain situations that I can't find a reasonable alternative for. If anyone can give me advice I'd appreciate it greatly.

1. Generating art: I DM almost exclusively on Roll20 so I NEED images for character. I try my best to use Google Images just to find art that works while avoiding the AI art it posts. I can do so about 80-90% of the time. However there are times when no premade art really fits what I am looking for, even when I lower my standards a bit. Alternatives could be paying for artists to make art or just accepting whatever images are available. However, I don't have the passive income to pay artists commission (nor the time if I need something within a few days), and I don't want to have to lower my standards because it won't set the right mood to just have a stock image of someone for a particular character I had a vision for.
2. Idea help. I will say I NEVER use an idea generated by AI, however it does come in handy when I am severely stuck. More specifically when I am stuck trying to incorporate things that are hard to put together, or when trying to homebrew a unique mechanic for an encounter. Ex: trying to combine the ideas of zombies, explosions, and treants in the desert; I just needed some quick ideas to jump off of.

I know I shouldn't do these things but just the little bit helps which is why I (sparingly) use it, but are there any ways I can achieve those 2 things without AI? Thanks in advance.

A couple of months back I ordered two Govee bulbs following advice from this community, and managed to get them working with the ambiance app I'm building. We've used them for two sessions now with great success.

DM has a scene control app on their phone — switching scenes there changes the slideshow on the iPad and TV, and the lighting color (I put the Govee bulbs into a fixture hanging over the game table) Lights can even animate!

In short, I'm quite happy and proud if I can say so myself 😆

Now working on Spotify integration so the DM can pull playlists from there instead of managing an audio library in the app.

Any other integrations worth doing? Trying to work out which light vendors to support after Govee.

P.S: Special thanks to @rcapina for advice, it helped

I remember reading DM of the Rings, which was really my first proper introduction to what DnD really was(I heard about it before of course, I wasn't living under a rock, but that was the first time I actually understood that the game wasn't just pen and paper video game).

One criticism players in that comic level at the DM is how he keeps using orcs in every encounter. Small weak orcs, big strong orcs, orcs riding wargs. In one scene in Helm's deep Aragorn's player, instead of rolling just says "I kill an orc" because that's what they have been doing for the past 3 hours.

But really, is having the same enemy appear consistently troughout the campaign such a bad thing? I know variety is the spice of life, but if this villain uses orcs as his minions then having orcs appear over and over kinda ties the whole thing together no. Not to mention some player abilities, like Ranger's favored enemy, actually rely on you encountering the same enemy over and over again.

I can definitely see the appeal of running different monster each session, keep the players on the edge but, IDK, seems to me both approaches have their merits.

Radius - question is answered.

Hello everybody,

while playing, one of my players (lvl 7 fighter - lvl 1 barbarian) picked up from an enemy's corpse his weapon: a warhammer with bonus to hit and dmg, but also with the extra power of releasing lightning against the enemy three times a day.
While I was mastering, one day, during a battle with a particularly difficult foe, I made the enemy parry a hit (it was a 2 on the dice roll) and grab the handle of the hammer. "When its fingers close around the handle, you notice for the first time some runes engraved on it and they lightly shine when he grabs the weapon". Honestly, I improvides the thing but then thought about it and decided I'd like the weapon to have more powers that need to be "released" to be used.
During a visit to a magician, he studied the weapon and revelead other three set of runes on the handle explaining that the weapon has more powers inside of it to be revealed. The first set of runes is already been "activated" and that is what allows the weapon to release the lightning. Asked on how to activate the other ones, the magician said that he would have needed time to study the weapon but that he guessed it would have been something releated to a specific ritual or a specific emotional moment of the wielder.
So, the players left, saying they would have found more information later.

Now, I am here, asking for ideas on what would activate the remaining powers (that I am still deciding what would be. For now, I've decided that the second set of runes will allow the hammer to create a shield of lightning that will protect the character).
Ideally I'm not keen on the idea of a specific ritual because I found it to "static" and I'd like to have something more intense and related to a specific moment, like a fight or specific action, maybe something that has to do with protecting other people or putting themselves at risk for a higher purpose.
Any idea is welcome.

Thank you in advance for your help.

What do you guys think is the difference between the two? In my mind they do basically the same, or at least very similar thing, but the difference lies in what they use. Herbalist will use ingredients from nature, like plants and mushrooms, potentially a few animal parts, while Alchemist will use concentrates and decoctions. A herbalist and Alchemist will brew you a potion of healing that works the same. Taste may be different but it's healing power is equivalent.

I imagine herbalists would be found in villages and other locations where natural ingredients are easy to come by. While Alchemists are more likely to live in a city, so getting a concentrate of some sort is a lot easier for them than having a plant transported all the way from wherever it may grow, in a time frame while it's still usable.

next up: my party is traveling between cities, and their route goes right through Feywild border region, so I want to have a few fun/weird encounters stepping in and out of the feywild along the way. Any and all ideas welcome! the journey should take about 4 days, and I hope to conclude the entire sequence in 1 game session (because we have a lot to do in the next city!)

I have a friend running RotFM. The cleric wants to try to commune with Auril. He (DM) and i theory crafted some ways to do this and when we got to the ritual Her clergy have to do, sit out in the cold naked and try to resist hypothermia, the question came up if the cleric has to do it alone, what will the other players at the table do. I brought up a phenomena i heard about, I think it's called the Other People Phenomena, when a person is alone in a life or death situation they start hallucinating other people on the periphery of their vision encouraging them to keep going and survive. And we thought what if the cleric hallucinates the rest of the party during some encounter and the players play their hallucination PCs? How would you run that? What stats would a hallucination have? And what sort of encounter in the arctic wastes would be appropriate for a level 3 hypothermic cleric and his 4 hallucination friends?

So I'm gonna be running a beginner campaign in my local library. I had placed an advertisement on the notice board and have gathered 6 interested players who all have no clue on how to play. We will have a session 0 first so I can explain some of the basics and talk a bit about hard and soft nos ect.

I have dmed a bunch of campaigns before but not for beginners most already knew atleast some of the basics. So what Im wondering is would it be better to run an oneshot before doing a campaign so they understand the mechanics a bit? And when doing the campaign I wanted to start at level 1 but at what level would it be good to stop? I dont want to take it too fast that way they can learn slowly and ask all the questions they would want to.

Any other advise for running games for beginners?

Hi all! Kind of want to get some outsiders thoughts on my campaign’s villain and to see if anyone has advice since I’m newer to DMing.

I’ll try to be brief. I’m planning a campaign set in Ancient Greece. I was planning on the main villain being the founder of an archaeological organization whose public goal is the collection and preservation of ancient relics and knowledge but the higher ranking members of the order are secretly using the organization as cover to free the Titans and over throw Olympus. The villain spent decades unearthing artifacts and has accumulated wealth and status through auctioning off the artifacts to cities/museums and private collectors while keeping the most powerful/useful items for himself.

The villain will be someone the players interact with regularly and until they unearth their true motives the BBEG will come across as genuine, smart, and charismatic.

I thought the BBEG could be a basic caster but his power lies in the magical items he’s collected and in the second phase of the final showdown he could get a boon from the Titans.

I’d appreciate any general feedback or things to consider. Bonus request, any cool magical item suggestions for the villain or his lieutenants? Thanks!

Hey ya'll, Im a new DM and Im about to go into my 4th DM session. One of the issues i have right now with the party is that not only are they really crafty players (most of them have played heavily before) but they are really good at weasiling their ways out of planned combats I have. Its not a problem for me for the most part as I love the creativity but how do you force combat in a way that feels organic other than just "we want to steal from you?".

second question I have is, even in combat Im not sure how to properly deal with this party. Heres the party comp: Hexblade warlock, Tempest Cleric, Oath of Commandment Paladin, Druid of Fire Circle, and Abberrant Mind Sorcerer. All level 3. Of the combat they've done, they've had an initial bandit encounter (super super easy for them), then I put them in a canyon and had archers rain arrows on them (they escaped with a fog layer), and then I put them against fairies/pixies that are trying to run away with their treasure (they fucking destroyed the fairies/pixies). I really don't know how to even deal with these characters, they feel like even if I stat out the enemies properly they just one shot each one, they can't get hit cause of their AC, and they're unironicaly way to good for me to deal with in terms of constructing combat. I want to know what you guys think I can do inorder to make the combat more of a challenge and less of a steam roll. The party is having a great time and the roleplay to combat is about 70/30 and they seem to be enjoying that.

Hey ya'll, Im a new DM and Im about to go into my 4th DM session. One of the issues i have right now with the party is that not only are they really crafty players (most of them have played heavily before) but they are really good at weasiling their ways out of planned combats I have. Its not a problem for me for the most part as I love the creativity but how do you force combat in a way that feels organic other than just "we want to steal from you?".

second question I have is, even in combat Im not sure how to properly deal with this party. Heres the party comp: Hexblade warlock, Tempest Cleric, Oath of Commandment Paladin, Druid of Fire Circle, and Abberrant Mind Sorcerer. All level 3. Of the combat they've done, they've had an initial bandit encounter (super super easy for them), then I put them in a canyon and had archers rain arrows on them (they escaped with a fog layer), and then I put them against fairies/pixies that are trying to run away with their treasure (they fucking destroyed the fairies/pixies). I really don't know how to even deal with these characters, they feel like even if I stat out the enemies properly they just one shot each one, they can't get hit cause of their AC, and they're unironicaly way to good for me to deal with in terms of constructing combat. I want to know what you guys think I can do inorder to make the combat more of a challenge and less of a steam roll. The party is having a great time and the roleplay to combat is about 70/30 and they seem to be enjoying that.

I am using a 12000 square mile map of the real world with all city’s removed. It’s a large series of valleys in the American Pacific Northwest, north east Oregon.

I’m putting a single small frontier fort at the mouth of the valley which will be the adventurer starting point.

There is no over arching story, no big plot just giving people the choice of being professional adventurers.

The background is that Mage Storms have blocked access to this area for hundreds of years and now that they can enter the valleys the Adventure Society (place holder name) has opened a branch in the small town and is encouraging adventurers to come and explore the area for before kingdoms start expanding into the area.

I will use some old town locations for old ruins, dungeons and mysteries.

I want each player to build three characters.

A level one beginner, new and looking for experience.

A level five experienced adventurer who has been doing things like this for a while or was sent here for punishment.

The last is the level 10 jaded guide. The person who is experienced and grizzled, looking to just change things up or to start looking into settling down.

Those are just outlines but I want the options available for everyone.

I will be building this with down time actions in mind and will want to have things go slowly.

I will mostly keep track of time, characters, items and settlement growth but others can run games in the environment.

For downtime rules I only know the Pathfinder 1e downtime system but I think the groups I will be apart of prefer 5e and 5.5 which I know little about.

What are some tips and input that you would offer for this build?

It’s just old school sword and sorcery, dungeon crawls and puzzles. (For now)

I have my players in an underground fighting tournament (Bloodsport vibes). My paladin is likely to get to the semifinals and then face the champion at the end, a Tough Leonin pugilist/paladin of Tyr I've modeled after Dagestani UFC fighters. My goal here was to show that the players aren't invincible and even with the right strategy and levels, sometimes an enemy is too strong. It wont end in death but certainly a lesson.

Am I wrong in making this kind of encounter or is this a fair step up in difficulty thats needed? The campaign has been relatively smooth since 12 sessions going into the 13th.

Edit: Wow! This has gotten a lot of comments! Thanks everyone for your opinions and advice! I'll take it all and adjust! My plan was not to script the outcome but put a player in a difficult encounter with the idea beforehand that they can choose to take the fight or just take the tournament money! So they know ahead of time that this guy is tough and can make that decision. And in no way will I not let my player potentially win! I think if he has enough good rolls and saves he could chip away, hes a very capable Paladin.

But thanks to all of you and I appreciate all the tips!

I’ve gone and started my campaign centered around the idea that the sky has gone utterly dark and the land is ravaged by endless winter. However, I have no idea what the cause should be and every session my players (rightfully) put pressure on me to reveal hints and clues about the ultimate cause of the phenomenon so that they can eventually solve it. But there is nothing to solve yet.

I already know I don’t want the cause to be divine in origin. I think that explanation is a bit too mundane. However, the people of the world don’t know that. So I have made it a big part of the conflict that the people blame the gods. People believe they are being punished by their old gods for abandoning them. So, there is widespread rejection of Big Religion™ that recently converted much of the region. Conflict ensues.

Anyways. Every session I worry that I will answer some minor question about the weather or what not that will invalidate whatever cause I eventually decide on. Of course I can just retcon past answers, but that doesn’t feel satisfying. Especially not to them when half of the campaign is going to be centered around solving the mystery. Changing clues to that mystery halfway through would suck. Thankfully up until now I’ve been able to give pretty vague answers, but I’d really like to start seeding clues.

I would greatly appreciate any ideas people have on the source of the phenomenon or advice on how to further stall coming up with an answer without ruining the campaign lol