I’ve been DMing a campaign that plays 4-5 times a year, just because life gets in the way. We usually do longer sessions, 8-10hrs (I do not mind at all), so have to plan a decent amount in advance, just to allow for the players to have the freedom of whatever choices they want to make and not feel like I’m ab libbing it all (spoiler - I still ad lib).

The issue with the last few sessions has been that they don’t seem to want to push the story forward themselves, and aren’t overly concerned if the story is centred on them. I try to make it about them as much as possible, but a lot of the time they are pretty passive and will push for NPCs to take the foreground.

I’ve spoken to them as a group and individuals, they say they’re really enjoying the campaign, thoroughly look forward to every session (they do majority of the scheduling to take that pressure off me), and when I ask them about the story they often say they want to see how “my” story plays out. I’ve tried to reassure them it’s not my story but theirs, regardless they are seemingly happy to continue without being the protagonists.

I think a part of it is probably the long gap between sessions, it takes some time to remind everyone on where we were and what the next goal is (no one’s fault, just the way it is!) so I’ve had to let go of the usual subtle hints or hooks I’d usually use, instead being more upfront about it.

How would you proceed? What’s the best next step? If they’re happy, do I continue with the status quo, or should I rethink the sessions and campaign in a different way?

As a side note - I have a tendency to write ramble-y posts and miss out information that is obvious to me and not to others, if anything needs clarification please let me know!

Hi,
My daughter is 10 and desperate to play D&D but there’s no groups for her age in my area, so despite knowing next to nothing about D&D I want to learn enough to run a short campaign for her and her friends.
I’ve bought the rule book but it’s really heavy going coming to it cold. We’ve also used the website to create some characters and dragged her dad into agreeing to play with us.
Are there any pre-made short campaigns that I could download and run so that we could learn together by playing?

Hello everyone!

I am not sure if this is the right place or if r/dndhomebrew is more suitable, but I will post this there too.

I have run two homebrew campaigns so far and am coming up with the plans for a third one. I have this very stupid funny idea where my plan is to have the players figure out a mass murder mystery of what happened to the droids in Portal II "Pit Song".

How I am thinking it would go, is the players begin as part of a military unit that has been tasked to find out what happened to another military unit as they disappeared after taking part in a massive military operation. This would entail investigation work and searching over a vast area of the world map in a detective/crime scene investigator style. The numbers that are gone through in the song would be the soldiers dogtags essentially and I will fit how each has been described to die in the song into what happened to the individual soldiers.

Now what I am thinking, is that the term 'droid' and robot would be based on some form of mind control where the soldiers are tasked with a mission and they are following said mission until completion. The twist for the players being that they don't know this is the case and that they don't know they have been tasked with finding out with what happened to the unit in a similar fashion.

My question is: how/what mechanics would you use to build this?

I have some ideas but I am really keen to hear what you would come up with as I am still in very early planning stages and am very open to anything. Edit: Link to song lyrics: https://genius.com/Harry-callaghan-the-pit-song-annotated

New DM here! Almost through my first short campaign.

I want one of my players to receive a staff of healing in their dreams from someone they’re close to. When the player wakes up, they’ll be holding the staff of healing. Is it possible to do this? Maybe with like dream travel or something?

Hey there!

I'll be DMing for the first time, and I chose Wild Sheep Chase for me and my friends. We're all relatively new to the D&D scene.

Any tips on how to make the campaign more fun, dynamic and enjoyable? I've read several guides and forums, but would love to hear from more experienced players.

For DnD combat I have made a few modifications

• Initiative: The initiative DC equals the enemies’ average DEX. Players who beat it act first, then all enemies, then all players, alternating sides for the rest of combat. Players can act in any order during their side’s turn. This has made combat significantly faster.
• 0 HP: At 0 HP, you remain conscious and can move and act normally. After the enemies finish their turn, but before the players act, anyone at 0 HP makes a death save. This prevents the usual snowballing from going down and keeps players involved.
• Death saves persist: Failed death saves don’t reset when healed. They reset after a short rest. So if you go down twice and fail once each time, you have two failures.
• Death: When you would die, you can either die heroically and take one final action with guaranteed crits, or survive with a permanent minor injury, fear, scar, etc. You can survive this way twice; the third death is permanent. This lets me run very deadly encounters without a single bad sequence instantly ending a character.
• Medicine: A DC 15 Medicine check restores 1 HP, giving everyone a way to stop someone from bleeding out.

This has worked very well for my groups so far. I've used this in two prior campaigns with no complications. I'm another game and I just came across Spare the Dying in these combats. And it is VERY powerful in this system. For reference, Spare the Dying stabilizes a player, which would usually leave them unconscious, but in my system it ends up being a guaranteed heal at cantrip cost.

With all this, what would you all recommend I do so that this spell doesn't break the system?

IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE DEADBEAT SOCIETY DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!

Having a little trouble organizing the chain of adventures for my campaign. While typically my methodology is to lay out multiple hooks at once that are all interconnected, since our next session will only be the third, I am uniquely positioned to give them a little nudge towards whichever one would help them understand the story the clearest. That said, I don't want to railroad them, so I'd like the ability to let them face any of these hooks in any order, backtracking to see all the content as desired.

Last session the party (rightfully) became suspicious of their navigator, a young and intentionally nameless courier with an enchanted necklace. While the boy is typically cowardly, self-conscious, and weak, recently his necklace has begun glowing, causing a gradual shift in demeanor. The boy grew bold, and supernaturally athletic, seemingly scaling based on how intense the situation or stressors became. The party has entirely dropped their original plans and want to figure out what the hell is up with this kid and his weird ass pendant.

As the players guessed, this necklace is pretty mildly cursed. Using a classic fey trick, a devil gave the boy the pendant in exchange for his name. The pendant feeds on his fear, setting his strength score to 17 and placing him under the effects of the Heroism spell whenever he feels extreme stress or fear. This leads us to three potential hooks.

1. There is the village of Loaniron, where the crystal and metal was sourced from. While here, there is a quest the players can participate in that will teach them about the purveyor of such minerals by mingling in a grand festival the village throws every year. Finishing this quest will give them a few supernatural charms, as well as some valuable contacts.
2. There is the forge, a dungeon haunted by a powerful and spiteful blacksmith, too angry and dedicated to his work to even realize he died, who forged the necklace on commission, as well as several other magic items capable of storing a creature's soul in a jar (a callback to a previous campaign and a hint to another thread), and several more magic items the party can take as rewards (likely equally cursed).
3. There is the devil, a succubus who preys on the fear people have of not being able to live up to expectations. She has four lieutenants, whose hearts she has literally stolen and sealed away in these jars, making them brave undead, free of their previous fears, and loyal to her will. The party can either liberate these spirits and collect a few magic items with limited charges, or consume the hearts, returning their souls to despair in the devil's grasp, but granting them permanent upgrades.
   

No matter which order they take these in, they will need at least 2/3rds of the information to break the curse on the courier. I feel our forge cleric will of course be most interested in the forge, the barbarian anthropologist and noble rogue will likely want to attend the festival, and the monk will want to bring the devil to justice, so I don't want to be especially biased in how they take these, but I do think they flow best in the order above. Any thoughts?

Running a campaign, and still trying to finalize all the pieces.

TLDR:

Seven "sin" relics - each will provide a buff and debuff to a specific player in the party (based on their characters backstory/personality established in session 0) - These are found in the infinite dungeon (prison)

Seven "virtue" relics - each will "counteract" the opposing sin, removing the debuff from the player, and leaving an improved buff. - These are mainly found in the city above ground.

The Dungeon (delicious in dungeon inspired) - The "infinite" ever-shifting dungeon is a prison for an ancient evil. The combined relics form a powerful artifact that can siphon the ancient evil's power, and power the dungeon/prison.

(undecided final use of relics - IDEAS PLZ?) - The relics will either combine into 1 large item to facilitate their end-game needs, or each relic combo (sin/virtue) will slot into an item/weapon for each player to grant them power to defeat the ancient evil.

The consistent theme of the campaign is light vs dark, sin vs virtue, but beneath that there is an intersection of the opposing concepts. I middle ground where a balance between these opposing concepts can create something good/useful.

Setting the scene: There is a large prosperous city, Sol Verida (City of Sun). After a recent earthquake, an entrance opened to a dungeon beneath the city. Monsters are in the dungeon, and the city guard was handling it, but as they explored deeper the monsters became unmanageable. They outsourced the dungeon containment and exploration duties to a guild. The guild is tasked with exploring the dungeon to discover its true nature. So far, they haven't been able to find an end to the dungeon. It seems bottomless, and on top of that, some floors seem to occasionally shift their layouts.

Players join: The PCs are new recruits to the guild. Session 0 they are all asked to ensure their characters have a unique reason for wanting to join the guild. It can be to find riches in the dungeon, it can be in pursuit of knowledge, it can be they were "chosen by a god", or that they just love a good fight. All of these reasons are important for the main story.

The party has an "initiation" into the guild (basically baby's first dungeon), where they do a mini dungeon simulated by senior guild members. After completing this they can explore the dungeon proper (levels 2+).

Story Hook (seven sins): The players will come across a relic/item/object. It will seem innate to everyone in the party except for one person. It will call to that person. As a DM, set them up to want to get grab that relic. Once they touch it, they will experience an sensation "An intense yearning. You feel a hollowness deep inside of you. You need... more. Magic, gold, power... it feels insatiable. Uncontrollable." This player is the one who entered the dungeon for riches, and they've just been "cursed" by the Greed Relic. The relic will "pull" (encourage) the player deeper into the dungeon. The relic, can be inspected with Detect Magic to get a sense of the aura that is affecting the PC. And an arcana check will reveal some things (like it is one of several pieces). The PC will get a buff from the curse, and a drawback.

Greed Relic:

Buff: 1/long rest - Detect magic items within 100ft for 10min. (useful for dungeon exploring)

Drawback: (WIP) - Disadvantage on charisma checks when haggling. Disadvantage on perception checks when near a (unowned) magic item. (may not see that trap on the chest they are trying to open)

Major Plot points

Seven Virtues: The party will continue to explore, finding more (sin) relics that call to different players, being attracted to a trait that player posses. Eventually, one relic will have a tie back to the city. A story, a rumor, etc. The players will go to the surface to investigate rumors of a person driven mad in the dungeon, who killed his own party in a blind rage (wrath relic). Their investigation leads them to a temple, there they will find this man, cured by the priests of this temple. They will explain that they've long housed a relic, its purpose lost to time, but this man was brought in by the city guard as they thought he may be possessed. This relic reacted to him when he entered. It lit up, it seemed to be pulling towards the man. Bringing the man in contact with the relic relieved him of his ailment. The priests are unsure of how it worked, but know it did. The man, living in the temple now, explains to the party that he touched a "relic" in the dungeon, which caused him to fill with rage. After the story and explanation, the temple may agree to let the party borrow the relic. But insist they report to the dungeon guild leader so that it can be properly documented.

This is how the party learns that the curses (drawbacks) from the sin relics can be negated. If they find the opposing virtue relic, they can keep a buff with no downside.

The Guild & Dungeon

Going back to the guild leader, and presenting information of the sin/virtue relics will trigger an info dump. The guild leader will explain there is an ulterior motive for their exploration. Most of the guild are just meant to help explore. To clear monsters and draw maps. However, there is a small group of senior leaders in the guild that are privy to their the true nature of the dungeon. It isn't just a "dungeon", it is a prison. It's why it is changing and shifting. It's why there are monsters everywhere. It was not meant to be explored, it was meant to keep everything else out.

The earthquake was the first sign of the dungeon (prison) failing. The knowledge is several millennia old and most is lost to time. What they do know is that there are powerful relics that were used to power the prison and seal away an ancient evil. The party sharing information about these relics confirms it.

The guild leader will officially induct them into "The Penumbra Society", a secret division of the guild tasked with recovering the relics and sealing the prison once again.

The seven sin relics are supposed to be scattered within the dungeon itself. Sealed in there as they are dangerous on their own.

And the seven virtues are held by various organizations throughout the city (temples, government, wealth individuals).

The party will need to recover all of them.

This is where I'm stuck:

I want to give the party some choices at the end. Repower the prison/dungeon and seal the ancient evil (boss) for another several millennia. OR use the combined relics to help destroy the ancient evil (boss) OR keep the relics for themselves, becoming their own form of ultimate power.

I think the choices are fine, but how do I facilitate them?

My thought was that the 14 relics combine to create the frame of an item "Mirror of Perdition". It's was created to absorb the sins that gave the ancient evil power, neutralize it with the virtues, and convert that power into something that can power this massive prison/dungeon. So the party could use that again to repower the dungeon, or fight the boss with it (basically debuffing it to not be a "god").

OR

The each person that reached into the mirror could withdraw a legendary item, unique to their sin/virtue combination that would help them defeat the boss.

OR

Ignore the mirror all together. Instead, each player will find a unique magic item (weapon, armor, amulet, etc.) that the relics will slot into. Slotting both will create a powerful item that can later be used in the final battle.

Final Thoughts:

I think I have good bones for a campaign. I can fill in the gaps with encounters, quests, adventures, NPCs. But I think the core of it will be engaging with enough twists to keep it interesting without being convoluted.

I do wonder if the sins/virtues is cliche. But in some searching I don't think I've seen it done like this before.

It is my first time DMing (long time player), and its going well so far. I just need to lock in on some of the main details around these relics as my players are finding them.

hi reddit

my players are on a quest to protect a town crier from assassination. they sorta infiltrated a evil faction (A) on a city, and there is a less evil faction (B) that sees A as a problem, so B is taking out A, But A figured it out, and is using a major image of a town crier to lure the assassin, and the players will need to deal with chaos

anyway, this is not the important part. The Important part is that i stumble upon this cool song that pretty much resumes the entire speech i wrote to a very impactful song, down to the name of faction A

now im a bit conflicted...this song is so cool that will surpass anything i wrote to the point where i want to replace the town crier with a bard band that sings the song

But on another note, i feel like it could be seen as cringe? its a heavy metal song, so i know this aint everyones cup of tea, but then again, i planned to "trim" out the song, and only play a bit of it (makes sense as the lead singer would get a arrow in the head shortly after)

still, i feel like if i had to pause the session to play a song would be real cringe and awkward, and not the powerful delivery i was hoping for

what would be your reaction?

I would like to know what the RAW ruling, or general consensus, for the Undead Thralls ability of the Arcana Unleashed Necromancer subclass is, specifically the part concerning Animate Dead:

You always have Animate Dead prepared and can cast it without expending a spell slot, but you must finish a Long Rest before you can cast it in this way again. Whenever you start casting the spell, you can increase the spell's effective level by 1.

My question is: does this say “when you cast it without expending a spell slot, it goes from base level (3rd) to one effective level higher (4th)”; or “whenever you cast Animate Dead, regardless of its origin, whatever level it would be (X) becomes that level plus 1 (X+1)”?

Hi all!

I've recently come across three boss stat blocks (CRs 15-19) that are thematically aligned and thought of an idea for a mini campaign based on them. It would have a rather serious tone and require some initial exploration.

My problem is: I'm struggling with how to anticipate pacing. Players will, of course, be largely responsible for progressing the adventure, deviating from expected courses of actions or delaying progression. But I have two main questions:

1. How many 4-5h sessions would be typical for this kind of campaign to last for?

2. With what frequency would it be advisable to expose the characters to the bosses? Brief, recurring encounters? Just when it is time to defeat them?

I've never run a mini campaign so any other advice would be welcome! Thank you so much in advance :)

I just started running a new homebrew D&D 5.5 campaign and the druid just got Wild Companion. They're a new player and are very excited about having their familiar scout out any dungeons, which I don't want to stifle. I play in another group, and there's a pact of the chain warlock with an imp familiar that is the bane of my fun. Every new dungeon means half an hour or more of that player and the DM going through every room of the dungeon exploring, while the rest of us just sit back and observe. I don't want that kind of pace-killer in the game I'm running. The first dungeon the new group faced there was a slime hazard that took out the familiar early in its exploration, but it felt a little cheap so I don't want to lean to heavily on that tactic.

What are some ways of letting the player have their fun with their cool power while making sure the other players (and myself) are also having fun?

My players are about to arrive at a large floating city, and I’m looking for adventures to use or adapt once they get there. I need a few side quests. I wrote the main quest (should last 2-4 levels) involving the city itself, but inspiration is never bad.

I’m looking for developed one-shots or adventures, rather than lists of one-sentence adventure hooks. Something with locations, NPCs, encounters, and enough substance to run or adapt.

Ideally, I’d love something like Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel or CandleKeep, but set in a floating city or an archipelago of sky islands. Does a collection like that exist?

Individual adventures or full campaigns are also be welcome. We’re playing D&D, but I’m happy to adapt material from other systems.

What would you recommend?

Basically the title. I may or may not be running a campaign for beginning young teens/preteens. I wonder what the most classic/easy to understand modules that younger people might expect. Like, what’s a module that really encapsulates what an outsider would think a D&D adventure would be?

I'm running a game that's been going on for several years at this point (not as impressive as it sounds, because we only get to play once every couple of months), and thought it would be fun to end our previous session by having my players reach a new village only to be hit with a strange spell and turned into animals. Not cool animals, either, just ordinary woodland creatures like a goat, a fox, a lizard, a rat, etc. Because they're just ordinary animals, their stats are terrible. One hit, and they're dead, and they do almost no damage when they attack. As such, combat needs to be avoided.

My initial idea was for them to work together to unravel a mystery in the village in order to get their bodies back, at which point they'd face a boss fight to rescue the villagers (who've also been turned into animals).

The trouble I'm running into is that I'm not very good at puzzles. I struggle with how much information to dole out at any given time, and how much to withhold, or how to craft puzzles so they can't just brute force their way through with, like, a high investigation roll. One advantage to this animal setup is that they can't use magic or raw strength to smash through their problems. But there are also new challenges because of their new bodies and what they're capable of/not capable of.

I'm looking for any advice on running this kind of combat-free mystery/treasure hunt in a short, one-to-two session adventure. Tips on puzzles or how to offer cryptic clues, or sources for one-shots or adventures you recommend I look at for inspiration or guidance, anything would be appreciated.

I'm an experienced player (started on 3e back in 03 or 04 i can't remember) and DM/GM (became the mostly forever DM in 2013) but I rarely run premade adventures as is I mostly use them for idea mines but I want to run the super dungeon for pathfinder 1e called The Emerald Spire, it just looks awesome. Any advice/help would be appreciated.

As the title says, one of the rising religions in my world is the Church of Corridors. I’m not all that religious myself and would like some ideas about the practices and maybe ideals? The Church of Corridors will be a faction in my players’ world, with this idea coming about from having people take pilgrimages into the world MegaDungeon.

But I’m not all that creative on the practices and beliefs to want to go into an endless monster infested maze.

I’m looking for spaghetti against the wall if you’re offering

Hi all,

I just got my hands on the German edition of the 2000 D&D 3.0 Adventure Game box (orange box, "The Adventure Begins Here!", published by Wizards of the Coast, in Germany by Amigo). It comes with Tordek, Jozan, Naull and the other pregens, plus the counters and a fold-out map.

The adventure book doesn't seem to have a title of its own, so I can't find much online. Has anyone here run or played it?

I'm looking for:

- actual play videos, blog posts or session reports

- opinions on how good the adventure is

- tips for running it (pacing, tough encounters, anything you'd change)

Any links or memories are welcome. Thanks!

Players of VITRIOL, if you are reading this please get out. I am DM'ing Chains of Asmodeus game and my party got out of Bronze Citadel last session. They've got quests in 2-9th Layers of Hell except Avernus so I put some ties to a player and they agreed on going this layers adventure spot, War-Slough. They are travelling with a ship, normally the game expects you to travel along river styx and walk to other places but I find weird and too dangerous to travel the hell by foot. So their ship can fly but with a limit, I'm still thinking about the exact rules but the general idea is to spend fuel and have a reason to land when fuel runs out. But I cant think how can I make an encounter about harsh travels and dangerous passages when they are flying? For example they are passing by a volcano that is home to an adult red dragon and I want to make an encounter for this but if they fight in the ship, either their ship would burn down or I would need to put some weird plot armor to it. To sum it up, how can I make a balanced travel sessions in hell?

Okay so, to be more specific one of my players is trying to flirt every female npc he meets. Like there's no other thing. He's not trying to know them better or anything just casually abusing "flirting". I am a newbie on DMing and trying to create world of unsafe geography, it has some taste of grimdarkness in it. Anyways so, what do you guys suggest me to do? I want him to be more in my universe. Ofc he can flirt but he needs to concern about his life cuz death could be around any corner maybe from the one he's trying to sleep with

Hey there,

I'm experimenting with creature statblocks and trying to play up a monster's strengths to make a fight harder instead of inflating stat or fight numbers. I'm seeking advice from you all to see if I'm using this monster both effectively and in a believable way.

I came across the Shadow Demon statblock from the new 5.5e monster manual. I found it interesting and I thought about putting it up against my player party (four level 4's) inside of an enclosed space (15x15 battlemap). It'd just be this creature alone facing off against the party, and it'd be spurned into fighting because of a (potentially) activated a trapped part of a dungeon puzzle.

But I digress, what I really want to know is would the monster behave in the following ways and is this an effective use of their statblock?

It has the following Monster Trait:

Incorporeal Movement. The demon can move through other creatures and objects as if they were Difficult Terrain. It takes 5 (1d10) Force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.

It has the following statblock characteristics:

Intelligence of 14, Wisdom of 13, Telepathy, a CR of 4, and lore flavortext that claims the demon to be a wicked and malicious creature.

1. Would the Shadow Demon be wise and cunning enough to end it's turn occupying the same space as a player character who just took their turn? (PCs don't count as objects, but creatures instead)
2. Would the Shadow Demon be bold and predatory enough to end its turn in a wall, only springing out to deal damage and retreat into a nearby wall? (It'll take damage but, unlike most other statblocks, doesn't get shunted to the nearest available space)
3. I'm not sure if Demons behave like Devils (I'm using the original Toril Forgotten Realms setting), but if the Demon drops low in hit points would it get more aggressive (maybe mythic action a multi-attack action in)? Try to bargain its survival in the material plane (telepathy)? Try to escape (are they vindictive?)?

I acknowledge that this will result in a bunch of Held Actions but I'd like to work in increased depth and show more notable strengths to my stronger enemies.

Hey DMs, my party of 6 lvl 2 noobie players is going to be fighting a monster that should be fire flavored/have fire based attacks.

So far I've thought about pitting them against a fire emental in a map with water-dumping traps they can activate, or a flameskull that will waste its fireball spell by blocking their exit before combat begins.

Are either of these a good idea? I know the CR math adds up, but I've got a feeling that both of these could easily become two round massacres where the monster is defeated quickly but not without a couple player deaths.

Am I just overprotective? If not, any better ideas? 5e btw.

I've been DMing a campaign for the past 3 months that features a fair amount of wilderness exploration. A big part of the setting is that the settlements are pretty isolated and the PCs are trying to establish ties between them. Here is where my question lies:

One of my players is playing a charming blowhard who sells "remedies" from a wagon (think Professor Marvel's wagon from Wizard of Oz). The wagon tends to slow things down as there's not a lot of established roads to take it on in the deep woods.

I don't want to make my player give up the wagon, but i also don't know how to integrate it I to the more exploratory parts of the campaign. I've considered giving them an enchantment to shrink it down to figurine size, but am worried that cheapens the setting. Would love to hear folks' thoughts on the issue!

I'm a fairly amateur DM, though I have been playing the game for ~10 years. I haven't quite figured out how to make an evil organization last for more than a couple sessions. I've found that my players will quickly dismantle the opposing group by taking down the leader. This has lead to my campaigns feeling disjointed and more like a series of one-shots rather than a cohesive whole.

I was wondering if there are any common pitfalls or advice regarding this issue

for context, my current players are level 5 and I'm trying to build a cult-like organization that is run by a noble in town

Hey everyone!

I'm planning on DMing a campaign, and I'm working on giving several classes some homebrew buffs.

One of my players wants to play a Sorcerer, and he suggested a simple change: What if Sorcerers automatically knew every Metamagic option instead of having to choose a limited number?

They'd still have the exact same number of Sorcery Points and follow all the normal rules for using Metamagic. The only difference is that they'd have access to every option.

Personally, I don't think it would not be particularly overpowered, since they're still limited by their Sorcery Points, but I'd love to hear what more experienced DMs and players think.

Would this cause any major balance issues I'm overlooking?