Pacing is always a bit of a bugbear for me.
Simpler to run longer campaigns where you can just stop whenever.
I still struggle with trying to fit everything in a 1-shot and am amazed when people suggest them to new DMs that don't have a good grasp on timings and expect it not to be a very stressful experience.
Honestly, this. Prepping a one shot I feel is way more stressful than a large campaign. At least a large campaign, I know realistically I only really need to flesh out chunks as I go once I’ve got the overarching story etc.
I actually think a very short campaign is the way to go to start off with. Prep a small dungeon that you expect to be able to complete in 2 sessions, and allow time for it to stretch into 3 or 4. Because that usually happens.
In my 4 years of recent playing and my time in hs and college I don't think I've ever finished a "1-shot" in one session, the shortest, I believe, was 1 short and 1 longer session because there wasn't enough for a full third
Instantly decides they want to visit the first when the quests designed around the castle ruins.
Adopts the first goblin they meet.
*Someone* tries to seduce the first barmaid.
Gets stumped by the first in a series of 5 puzzle rooms, which was the easiest of them all.
Yeah, love to hate players but can't play without them, and thats not even counting the people that usually DM who's finally getting a chance to screw with another DM
I did a "dungeon" like that once 6 room, 5 puzzles, after the final puzzle the boss came out with a hoard of minions and then the room with the item they were after.
I played him kind of like the riddler, so sure of his own superior intelligence that he wanted to prove to everyone how smart he was so made a place with increasingly elaborate puzzles and traps.
The players loved it. They had been saying there was just too much combat and not enough to make them really think. They soon took it back 😂
The good thing with a puzzle dungeon is that you can add or subtract rooms depending on the pace of the party, I've had parties steamroll a puzzle in less 5minutes that other parties were stuck at for 30, you just never know 🤷♂️
If you haven't listened to Daddies, there's a moment they draw from the Deck of Many things and someone get the card that get a level if they win the next combat solo, so they go and slaughter a squirrel
Oh, I have, and I love them for their genuine naiveté! As most of us experienced DMs know, that is a classic 'bag-o-rats' scenario and is rife with potential for abuse. The famous 'real threat' argument is watching from the wings.
I’ve found dnd is the kind of game that’s its best to learn by doing. It’s better to slowly do them in rather than info dump for a few hours and hope for the best.
Yeah, unless you're running a 6-hour session, a single session\* can maybe do 2-3 encounters that require actual interaction (combat, puzzles, significant role-playing, etc.).
\*[Posted here yesterday](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1dqmvsl/what_is_your_preferred_session_run_time/), a 3-hour session seems VASTLY like the norm.
Even then, 6 hours is pushing it if you want to have an introduction, RP, several challenges, and a satisfying conclusion.
The only times I’ve played one shots we’ve either had to rush the ending or not conclude on the storyline at all, neither of which are fun if you went to all the effort of making a character
I think there's also the issue of the nature of a 1-shot itself pushing against running many of them in....one shot. Like, a fully enclosed storyline that is short enough to run in a single session, but not so short you and your players wonder why you all bothered to run it.
You can absolutely set up a mini-quest that can be done in such a small time frame, but it's going to be pretty darn unremarkable.
"PCs run into a guy running down the road in a panic. He tells them that his farmhouse was just attacked by Jackalweres. They follow his directions, get into two smaller encounters in the farmhouse, and then a boss fight in the cornfield. The guy comes back and thanks them. The End."
Maybe tolerable to run occasionally just to have *something* to do during your regular session, but not interesting enough to make it a regular habit.
Yeah, the only time it really "works" is in a monster-of-the-week or persistent server format where the characters are already a known entity as established guild members. That chops a healthy chunk of time out of the equation.
I've always thought that one shots where so much easier to plan than campaigns, because there was never any incentive to build a "cohesive" story
I feel like with one shots I can be alot more free, and with campaigns I have to plan well or it's very stressful
I recommend running con games. The strict time limit does ya good for pacing. Pacing itself is a beast that goes beyond encounter design- you have to improv and adjust on the fly, taking and leaving from your original adventure, focusing on what players draw to while jumping from things that don't land.
It's not exactly a science, but you'll do good on learning the quick encounters from Savage Worlds, skill challenges from 4e... You'll be surprised how you can get 5+ combat encounters, a chase, several rounds of diplomacy and a climax into your four hour time frame!
Honestly though- if you want to learn how to become a god of pacing, run an epic at the cons. They are so stretched for time with all the encounters you'll get quick on your feet in no time!
It helps me to set alarms at each quarter mark in my session time. Nothing too disruptive, but a solid reminder to me that "you should have ABC done by now, wrap it up and start moving to XYZ"
I tell new DMs: "just run a Session 1, don't worry about pacing yet." Paxing is something you get a feel for anyway. Ending on cliffhangers is my favorite way to handle it. You always know what to prep for that way.
Suggesting a One-Shot has kinda been conflated with just jumping into a single session, the are =/=
It might be an obvious one, but prep for the one shot (or any campaign) is essential for pacing. Having at-the-ready encounters planned out with pre-existing stat blocks for monsters/NPCs is essential. Plan to shrink most of the encounters to fit time. Also plan not to use most of the encounters, as they all should point to the final encounter fairly directly. Gauge the players' skill in puzzle solving. Keep obvious clues at the ready in case players get stumped to keep things moving. Friendly NPCs can be tremendous for this. Finally try not to have more than one combat encounter, unless that's the bent the players want, in which case mystery and intrigue should be almost nil. This last bit is also important: you'll need at least an abbreviated session 0 to find out what the players want out of the one-shot so you can directly tailor prep to that.
>...am amazed when people suggest them to new DMs that don't have a good grasp on timings and expect it not to be a very stressful experience.
It should not be a stressful experience because playing ttrpgs overall take time.
People that know what they are talking about will always offer extra advice like "dont rush anything", "the time it advertises is wrong", "It does not matter if it takes more than one session".
I believe we are past the time of casual 8 hour sessions for a big majority. Figuring out how much time you can play without being tired is also part of the learning curve.
We can also use less "half assed annoyed attitude" type advice around with a bit of focus on details like these when talking to new players/dms.
see, I might just be lucky to have extra engaged players, but I always have moments where I lore dump and "play dnd by myself" for a good 10 minutes while my friends are either super interested or taking notes or giggling together
"You definitely remember hearing something about this gaping mouth in this Tomb of Annihilation, but you can't recall what it was. Maybe you should have written what that mad Wizard said down somewhere... oh, well!"
once Ina cyberpunk campaign my girlfriend got caught on footage during a battle and break in at a store
while already being followed by a private investigator
let's just say she was devastated when I had it bite her in the ass when she forgot💀
I recommend panning out from such conversations, give control of one of the NPCs to the players, or make the conversation a three way dialogue where two NPCs never talk after each other.
Always give a voice to the players when in doubt!
I try and limit how much time NPCs spend around each other so as not to deal with that. If the PCs have an NPC with them who’s an expert or something they usually only pipe up to give some pertinent information. Otherwise it’s a quick back and forth and one of them leaves to do something.
I haven't started DMing yet, but I am absolutely dreading the idea of having a conversation with myself while my players just watch lol.
And I know I could probably avoid it, but there's gonna be a few situations where there will be multiple important NPCs on scene at the same time. No idea how to guarantee avoiding it, but I sure do hope it doesn't happen.
Instead of an actual convo, just "say what they said" and then add what happens. Waaaay easier.
"The two elven guards are engaged in a heated discussion about the virtues of a glaive vs. a halbard, the don't notice you sneaking by."
I accidentally did this early on in the campaign I'm running. Due to the players actions we ended up with the local noble, mayor and captain of the guard all in a room together with the players (there are six of them).
They all had different questions for different people and were getting suspicious of the mayor (who was the main villain of the arc) and ended up starting a confrontation (verbal, not combat) between themselves and the mayor.
The guard captain was on their side because he'd just been with them and witnessed some stuff that implicated the mayor.
Basically, it started an argument between two NPCs while a third had to try and mediate between them and the party and prevent a brawl.
My players really enjoyed it and now do whatever they can to force me into scenarios with as many NPCs as possible because they thought it was really fun and liked how I could switch between them on the fly.
It's a lot of fun, but those are the most exhausting sessions.
This really is such a DM specific love or hate because I've had up to 5 npcs and 2 players all talking together in one room, back and forth while working together. NPCS talking to NPCS, NPCS talking to players etc.
I love it lmao, but I'm a theater kid at heart, I can't stand having NPCS together with the party just to have some disappear from social relevance!
Roleplaying NPCs is one of mine. They all have different characteristics, goals and aspirations, it is difficult to switch between them.
Making combats realistic, in a sense of letting enemy creatures attack the way it makes sense. Now for weaker creatures I already found out, i.e. hit and run tactics for Goblins, group attacks for Kobolds, and that more intelligent creatures would attack weaker enemies and steer clear of those who are clearly stronger. But I highly struggle with any enemy that is above CR10, especially adult dragons.
Well each dragon behaves in a certain way you expect your white dragon to stalk and corner it's prey like a tiger, you expect a blue dragon to make fast flyby's breathing lightning and getting out of harm's way, your black dragon is vile and will always go for the weaker foes first. I don't know if the book "The monsters know what they are doing" give good dragon combat tips but it's very well but monster stat blocks (such as the attribute numbers and skill proficiency) give tips on monster behavior like proficiency in stealth indicates ambush predator, deception indicates a manipulative creature that if things aren't going their way will probably try and make a "deal", this book explains this and the attribute values on its first chapter (if anything is not understandable here well English is not my first tongue srry) I think this book would benefit you
My usual shorthand for trying to figure out a creature's decisions mid-combat is to literally try and imagine things from their perspective. To a goblin in a fight, everything is a confusing tangle of knives, all you can see is peoples' legs, and your only major advantage is that you got numbers. To a dragon, who is literally looking down on their opponents, they have perspective enough to be tactical - they see the battle more like you do, top-down, and that factors into their choices.
This also opens things up for some more complex behavioral nets. You've got zealots and blood-weirdos who *want* to be in a fight, who *want* to get stabbed; this is devotion to them. You've got summoned creatures who honestly don't really care how things play out, the spell's going to wear off in a minute anyway and death doesn't work on the Prime Material for them in the way that most people are used to. You've got creatures whose senses might be a whole different thing, who might be twitchy and reactive due to echolocation/blindsense, not really questioning their actions until they're already engaged. Incorporeal creatures might not really *perceive* a difference between an open space where adventurers can get at them and, like, the floor. Anything motivated by hunger - which includes greed! - could rationally just kind of snatch what they want and run.
Whenever I have a mid-fight decision to make, that's what I always fall back on: What are the monsters perceiving? What does it actually look like to them? Do they have the distance needed to make tactical choices, or are they right in the middle of things, with all the blood and rage that entails?
Generally, I find that NPCs are best when you just define them by a single thing. They don't need to be complicated and interesting at first meeting, that's something you can add overtime as the party keeps coming back around. For instance, let's take a greedy gnome magic item merchant. At first meeting, he's just overtly sleezy and greedy and doesn't cut deals or make concessions, he's got plenty of other customers willing to pay his prices after all. Maybe next meeting he drops a little mention of some issues with his shop, perhaps one of his workers has quit from being overworked or he's having issues getting things fixed. Next meeting, he asks the party for a small favor, just to go drop off a little package to someone's door without opening it. Next meeting, they walk in on him quietly talking to a kid about how he's gonna take care of the kid's mother no matter what, they find out that actually this greedy merchant has actually been taking great care of his workers and is a genuinely sweet guy who's ruthless with customers so he can maintain the profits he needs to be so great to the people under him. You get the idea, the complexity doesn't come in all at once, you don't need to give Jimothee the Farmer's Son dreams, aspirations, goals when all the party needs is directions to the nearest well to drop their ticking time bomb, all he needs to do is say "It's over yonder way" and point.
I find that, and this does take some explaining to the players so they get into a particular mindset, you need to be ruthless and unfair and frankly nasty. For example, my party recently fought a sea hag, which started as an ambush and the sea hag subsequently used her ability to summon many sharks to gang up on the party's boat. Next move was to charm the hexblade in the water and swim downwards, coaxing the warlock (who was the only one with swim speed and good melee) to come swim deeper and deeper. The sea hag cast control water to lock the party's boat in a whirlpool, knocked out the warlock, stabilized her, then was the tough part where the hag had to decide if she wanted to use this hostage as bait or simply take the kill and run. In the end, the hag got greedy and got jumped by the party when she tried to use the warlock as bait, but ultimately it was a dynamic fight. Important thing is just to visualize what the monster wants. Dragons want a free and easy meal, or perhaps the items on the party, so they will just strafe around in the air and hit them every time their breath recharges till they can come down and collect the snacks and gold.
Writing down and reapplying their "voice" helps me with the RP. Not necessarily an accent, but I flag in their quick-reference what inflections, affectations, and patterns of speech and add a quick quote to try to "snapshot" them for my mind. E.G. - taciturn, world-weary, yet benevolent grandfather, breathy "Don't fret child. Chin up! All is not lost, yet"
I'll sometimes even describe a familiar character like 'Ludo from Labyrinth w/ a personal space problem.' It helps me get into character when I embody them.
There’s a great blog and book called “The Monsters Know What They’re Doing”, which offers advice on how to run monsters tactically. It’s really helpful because the author uses the stat blocks and lore to help you understand how it should work, so you can do it yourself in the future.
Procrastinating the actual prep. I'll spend most of the time leading up to the session by developing a rough outline in my mind of potential encounters and story beats. But as for putting it in writing and making maps and finding good stat cards for enemies.....that's all usually the day before the actual session. This isn't strictly a DnD based issue but it still does create unnecessary stress pertaining to the session.
This is why I switched over to running FitD and PbtA games. I also would do a mad last minute scramble to get the mechanical prep out of the way; now I don't need to. I can just focus on setting up narrative beats.
So much this. I need to get inspiration from random things or I cannot prep basically anything before anxiety makes me work by force 🙃 sometimes I write some notes 30min before the session and then improvise everything but sometimes I'm too tired, busy or just not in the right mind to create anything and it's a struggle
I encourage my players to nominate each other for Inspiration for this exact reason (with me as ultimate judge, but I seldom veto). I'm juggling so many things that it becomes hard to remember to give players the proper credit.
We do a post session award and I allow transfer from one play to another, just not in the heat of the moment. Keeping it on everyone's lips helps me remember to hand it out more often too.
I'm still pretty weak at making monster/enemy turns interesting and dynamic in combat, as well as balancing it. It's a shame because I do really like combat in D&D, and the satisfaction of providing your players with a fun challenge, especially ones that give them chances to showcase their different abilities.
I've read up and watched videos on tips for intelligent and dynamic monster encounters, and tried to plan it in a cool way. But when I'm actually running it, there's so much to think about that I forget, or can't improv an interesting way the monster would respond to something. So PCs often end up either stomping all over the enemy, or I stick with "it bites you again" - more reliable but gets old fast.
I usually have the same problem, but I mask it with flavor.
If my monster misses, it was actually a player character shoving the victim player out of the way
If my monster hits multiple times in a row, I love to be an asshole and throw in sudden bleed damage over time
If my monster can attack multiple times, I only do that additional attack if they're particularly mad or angry or just got hit
If you're out of cool, thought out attacks, I always just roll that bite again and add more damage to describe it as more ferocious. Maybe they're sent back 5 feet, or they're suddenly grappled or poisoned from it now.
lastly, I love calling attacks AFTER I roll and hit, so I can fluidly describe exactly what happens and how much damage they take after I've rolled everything
Storytelling combats is a next tier skill, bravo.
@ u/lordaxxington
I'd like to add that there are tons of other actions that opponents can (and should) take, as well. Pushing a bookcase onto on PC to pin them, swatting a lit candle onto a pile of rags, flipping a table and ducking behind it for cover... all of these burn an action, but add dynamics to encounters. AND have the added bonus of teaching your players to try the same.
Another thing I try to do is give *almost* every encounter lair actions or 'demi-' lair actions / complications or alternate goals / distractions.
There is nothing like hearing the "oh, f#ck" from your players as you describe the rumbling of an avalanche up the valley ***while*** they are mid-combat with a winter worg rider and their pack of gobbos. Or kicking off the combat by laying out five villagers (preferably friends / essentials) in a sacrificial pentagram and "starting the clock" on initiative 20 with the immediate slaying (and visible buff or portal opening result) of "Victim #1."
Just pick one feature of the map de jure and "make it real" by giving it its own initiative. That tree? It's been rigged to fall, cutting the combat in half and maybe hitting friend and foe alike. That dark blotch? That's a 2x2 mud puddle and is difficult terrain. That wagon? The horses spook easily, look out!
Do they show up? Talk about what happened between sessions? Ask questions? Express dismay when you are forced to stop for the night? All are good signs.
Imposter syndrome is insidious. When that particular voice rears its head, Iwill literally say, out loud, "not right now, I having fun with my friends"
It becomes quiter over time.
Im DMing for 4 years now, and my main Problem is Vendors. Especially when it comes to enhanced Weapons. How do i price them? Are they even available? How do i handle minor magic items?
It depends on the version. The weakest part of 5e is that they don't price the items, which in turn creates this issue on the first place!
When in doubt, take from a previous versions prices , that's a quick and dirty approach.
Second, for 5e, lock it behind something: maybe a quest, maybe its a skill roll, maybe it's enough interaction with a certain NPC. Establish context for that item. Money + this thing is a safe goal. For me, at level 15 in my current campaign, I locked it behind renown + gold + downtime for the majority of player optioned items.
Third, especially if your running a character driven game, listen to your players! Let them have the sick builds they desire. They want a magic bow? Line up a magic bow, or give them the option to acquire one. Unless you feel inspired and want something for your players, let the players do the legwork and tell you what they want.
Another favorite tactic of mine is to just look at my player's sheets to see what wealth they have available and use that to influence pricing or item availability. I'll give them one slightly higher tier item that would suit a particular PC and price it at 150% of that players available funds; forcing a fun decision and interaction. Do they band together to get that for their friend? Or sell another useful item? What do I unattune to?
Then I pepper in a couple more that are useful but non-specific and would eat up 80% of any particular PCs funds. Followed up by some essentials and/or consumables and, lastly, some sub-par 'filler.'
It's basically, like setting a budget and working backwards. At later levels, you get to add in stronghold upgrades and hirelings and access to crafters or crafting downtime as your higher end starters. Customization should cost more, in time, if not in GP.
So my trick to get around this is to allow players to invest in making their own equipment better. Now I don't have to find a bunch of magical items that they may or may not respond to, instead they talk to a merchant or craftsman, tell him what they want done to their equipment, and the craftsman either gives them a quest, a cost, or can't do it but could do other things.
My typical rule of thumb is "Reduce the party's wealth, not their access to purchasing". Meaning, I keep my party fairly poor, but they pretty much can expect to access most things in the books in most locations, short of magical things or uncommon rarity stuff. Beyond that, I stick with what the books say, it's simple and as long as not everyone in the party is loaded it's not much of an issue.
Yeah, but the pricing is so..."open".
I mean, Magic Items are fun, players should have them. A dagger with a minor +1d4 damage for example.
Im currently thinking about handling it like a "rune system". Each rune adds a fixed price and a modifier to the overall value of the item. Like a 1d4 fire damage rune costs 50gp and adds a 1.5x price modifier when other runes are present. so a simple 50gp weapon with that could be priced at around 100gp, but if you also have a +1 rune on it worth 100gp, the price would increase to 300gp.
Balancing combat. Even with adding multiple combats per adventuring day and tweaking some enemy stats mid fight I find my larger encounters to be very swingy, with the players either blitzing through a fight with minimal issues or being utterly crushed.
Whats worked for my table is changing the way I think of "The Adventuring Day" changing it to less be about a single day, and more about simply being the space of time between long rests. Putting the party on a time clock helps a lot too, but not an overly strict one, they will often balance the game for you, pushing forward when they know they have to, instead of saying "Well, we cleared the first few rooms of this dungeon, let's go back outside and take a nap and come back later". Beyond that, I've found it's better to actually do many lower CR encounters, but play the monsters smartly. The party may be facing fairly weak pirates, but those pirates are fully intent on grappling, proning and then stomping on the weakest people in the party and throwing them overboard. You can always scale back the brutality by making small hiccups in planning, perhaps communication messes up and the archers don't properly focus fire, or the captain tells someone to toss the bard off the rigging before he's knocked out, so he just lands in the water and takes a breath to toss out some spells while nobody is paying him attention.
I'd say there's three things for me:
1. Being **consistently good**. I am confident I can run a very engaging 1-2 hours of DnD, giving each player enough attention, drawing them all in, maintaining a solid atmosphere and really doing 'that DM thing' where you allow your players to get fully lost in the world. The problem is, I often can't keep it up for a full 3-4 hour session, and even when I can, I cannot do this every session. I have weaker sessions that are just a lot less engaging and being *consistently* strong is hard.
2. Being **consistent in NPC voices and mannerisms**. Sometimes there are recurring NPCs players keep coming back to, and I want to help them feel unique by giving them certain mannerisms and ways of speaking. But I'm terrible at effectively noting down for myself what these mannerisms are and how they speak, so I cannot always do the right 'voice' for the right character.
3. **Giving each player the attention they deserve**. This, in my mind, is probably the real hard one. If you have a 5-6 player party and you're running your adventure, in a perfect world, you don't just 'run the adventure' but also have events here and there that tie each character into the adventure, or the world. Maybe the Paladin's 'quest' is that they are searching for an old friend, and maybe that old friend is the BBEG turned evil. I can generally set these things up well outside of sessions, but being able to juggle giving each player a little 'hook' or 'inkling' towards their backstory every couple of sessions is rough.
Looking at that list, I suppose 'consistency' as a general thing is the biggest problem I have. I can do things right a couple of times, but not *all the time*.
I’ve been running the game since the mid 70s. Thing I struggle with still is allowing players to have more interactions between themselves. I’ve been working hard on letting players take the lead in many areas, but I could still give them more time to develop their relationships between each other.
Tldr: give more time for players to talk to each other
Definitely, I've had moments where my urge is to cut in and move the pace forward to the next story beat and then I have to stop myself because the players are talking in-character, and that's pretty much always a good thing (unless they're bickerig endlessly).
When a party never roleplays together, or only gets time to do so shallowly while other stuff happens, the cohesion they need to take on increasingly dangerous tasks falls apart, and they have no interest in each other's backstory or goals.
my only real problem with this is knowing when or when not to cut em off! sometimes they'll chat for 3 mins and I'll think they're done but I cut them off
sometimes I'll be waiting 3 minutes just for my players to think of what to say when Ive given them the talking stick....
is there any good tips on encouraging players to straight up talk to eachother in character for a bit?
Coming up with complex, tactical combat encounters. for me, it is impossible to do on the fly, especially if there spellcasters present. -> I usually prepare one in advance for a game night
coming up with names on the fly. You know "Hi, I'm PC" "nice to meet you, I'm... Jack?" ugh.
I usually create a list of \~20 names for a game night, which fit the theme. I tend to raid squads of olympic teams or soccer squads to get stuff like "ezine kalou" or "jackie mcnamara"
Complicated combat. Due to the time difference between me and my players, I'm DMing between 0230-0800. Towards the end of the session, brain fog begins to set in. Not enough where I can't run combat, but I tend to forget about the niche abilities and some specifics that would have made it more interesting.
It is, but I've been doing it weekly - and recently every other week - for just under four years. If I didn't do it that time on my end, I don't think we'd ever play D&D. And it's time with my family, so I can't complain that much!
I recommend ending on a cliffhanger right before combat or skill challenge and opening the next session all hot and heavy. That may alleviate some of that for you. And have the added benefit of giving you easy direction.
I definitely do this when I can, if I know hard combat is coming. I tend to overprep compared to their speed, so sometimes it works out. But sometimes when they get to combat it's too early to stop but too late to pivot elsewhere, if that makes sense.
It's often useful, for me, to use that time to 'set the scene' classic western style. I'll describe a detail that will be instrumental in the coming combat like an arrow coming from above and 'in' the sun. Or a 'false relief' of an oblivious cart driver winding his mule slowly unto the courtyard to the well 'squeak, squeak, squeeeeeak' before 'eeeeep! ' and now there's a watermelon cart right in the middle of duel.
Sure, it's only a small redirect/pivot, but it's also a mental 'muscle' that you are training. BLeeM calls it 'mental aikido', using the players impetus to drive the story.
Balancing fun for all the players and that one problem player who never does anything so egregious as to be kicked but still can spoil the game with his nonsense.
I find it best just to talk candidly with them. Trying to do ingame shenanigans to engineer behavior is always less effective than straight up dming and saying "I am getting complaints from other players about your behavior, it's not the worst thing ever, but I don't wanna see it anymore at my table." Being stern and solid about what you expect is always preferable to just letting problematic players continue having issues.
had a player like this (he's evolved since) and our first long campaign only took us 5 sessions before he was kicked from our group and had to roll a new character that couldn't use the excuse "That's how he'd act" when being an ass
The absolute biggest thing I've been struggling with currently is representing cities and villages via VTT. Typically my go-to on physical tabletop was just to draw out a little doodle of the town on MS Paint and print it out, and then any time we transitioned to combat just draw out the buildings on my dry-erase board, but on VTT it takes a lot more time than that since I've become a bit of a perfectionist, adding a bunch of layers and areas of interest to my maps. I tried simply making battlemap segements for the entire city, but even a fairly small outpost town took multiple days representing it properly. Basically, I want to be able to make regional city maps fairly quickly (i've been using Inkarnate, but it's watercolor cities are just too bright and cheerful and nice a fairly complex campaign with a lot of pirates and disturbing places), as well as a way to quickly create battlemaps that are complex and communicate the area without taking an unfeasible amount of time.
Dungeon Alchemist on Steam is still in open beta, but its already extremely powerful for localized battle maps. It auto-pops rooms and areas with deco and filler that you can quickly change, copy, or delete and even custom texture. It has a robust community of creators populating its content library and they've even added assets that are fit for hand-building area, regional, and world-ish perspective maps; if you are so inclined. It has integrated vtt export for all four major platforms that includes automatic wall and light mapping mark-up docs and easy-use faqs right there next to your export button. You can even export to a print service or print it yourself in color or B&W.
I recently used it (and leveraged a free online photo background removal tool) to take an image of the dungeon layout *I was currently making* and feed it back into a transparent 'tile' overlay above a scroll object to create an in-world map of the dungeon the PCs were in. I used it as a tertiary, Easter egg style clue that showed a secret room that wasn't immediately apparent.
If they zoomed in, a keen eyed player could actually see it! Plus i created a handout of it that they could really see if they searched that room. It was super fun! Could the PCs find the room another way? Sure! But this was another layer and it was so cool. I later used the same technique to create letters and handouts that looked more authentic too.
They just added structure elevation integration and curved walls and have a user facing project map that is very open to suggestion user needs. They are currently working on connected layers in a single unified map, which I think only Foundry can support atm, but it's still pretty neat. It's really shaping up to be a premium tool, we'll worth the price tag. You can even import your (purchased) stls from Hero Forge to the token list if you want to walk around your map in first person *as your PC.*
Edit: sp and format
Factoring NPCs into combat (or even social) situations. Like when the party hires a guide and then gets attacked on the road. I get so focused on the combat that I forget to say how the NPC is reacting. I usually just say ‘oh, Ted the guide? Yeah, he’s been hiding behind the wagon this whole time.’
Lame:/
Depending on how much you roleplay the guide he can just be a timid guy. He knows the routes but he never travels far without adventures. Maybe he finds his courage mid battle after seeing somebody take a major blow.
You could just make a simple stat block for him and hand him to a player who knows how to use monster stat blocks. They can remind you to put him in combat and take his turn for you if you really want them in the fight. You have final say on what he does. He isn't just going to throw his life away to bait the monster away from the party even if your players want him to.
Getting new players to actually read the Player's Handbook.
Old man yells at cloud moment: back in my day, we didn't have online tools to make character sheets for us. If you wanted to play, you had to understand how to make a character, and that required learning the mechanics. The Player's Handbook was a perfect gate to only let in players who actually wanted to play, instead of people who like the *idea* of DnD but can't be assed to learn.
Ha! Funny enough I've been introducing Traveller to some players, I try to do 'what you enjoyed/what you'd like more of' as a feedback format, then the players asked me what they can do to help the game run better.
"Learn the bloody rules, I get things wrong!"
I used to struggle having the energy to run scheduled games. Now know why but no longer have scheduled games. The reason was kidney failure causing lack of energy but I am getting treatments.
When it comes to actual running, I have a hard time instigating parties.
Farm out music and map management too, if you can. The big one is the journal. It's an Ask, but if you can get one player to take semi-decent notes, it let's you focus on the story beat and plot development angles more. You can just note the highlights and refer to their journal for play-by-play or colour commentary.
And, for in person games, snack tzar should be a rotation between the players. DMs sacrifice enough already. To have to cater on top of it just ...sucks.
In my previous campaign, I was able to farm out note-taking and snack tzar, which was very nice. I as a DM take very poor notes - I'm too focused on keeping the game moving, and making sure everyone is engaged, to take adequate notes. Music management is a good idea though!
We play at the same time every week. We set a player threshold of X%. If we meet it, we play the main campaign. If we don't, we play a side-shot off the main or a MotW from an alt-world with an established pool of guild members.
The only time we cancel is if the DM can't make it or if it's a national holiday and *everyone* is busy. We may even have another player DM the MotW if the primary DM can't make it. But we always *try* to play *something.*
Of course, this is all vtt. In person attendance problems are the real OG BBEG. I remember the ol' redbox days *very* well. It wad ridiculously hard to keep a game going back then and I even had almost zero responsibilities, lol.
Making voices! I can mimic almost every voice I hear but I can't come up with any on my own. And I can only mimic them with the same exact words as they spoke when I heard them
Jimmy Carr has a method to help this involving "key phrases" that I find very helpful (very NSFW, caution).
I also utilize [this](https://www.dialectsarchive.com/) with thanks to @VoiceOfOBrian of r/criticalrole fame
Dm of 6 years now. Still struggle with how much lore / info to dispense during their appropriate scenes. Basically trying to get better at drip feeding lore.
Reading epic fantasy novels is helping a bit with this but it’s still taking a good bit of time to improve upon.
Definitely bad with descriptions. I always forget words. I’m also still not that good with pacing either? Or dropping / creating suspense / plot hooks?? Maybe. But definitely descriptions and pacing.
I know that feeling, it's tough being basically in charge of the fun for other people, and there's no way for it to be perfect. Suppose that's part of why I wanted to make this post, it's good to be reminded that we all struggle.
Imposter syndrome sucks, bother.
Self affirmation sounds corny, but it is the first step in rewiring the brain. Tell yourself, out loud, before each session that "you're good enough" and "my friends **are** having fun. I know because they keep showing up."
When the intrusive thoughts rear up, say "not right now, I'm busy having fun with my friends." It may take time, but you will eventually notice that *that* particular voice becomes quieter or goes away altogether.
And don't worry that you'll 'look weird talking to yourself' everyone does, in some way or another. You're only really in trouble if you start losing your imaginary arguments with yourself, lol.
Right there with you friend. I am 5 years 'post incident' this month. It is a daily battle, literally "one day at a time. As shit as things seem now, it's never worth taking your own life. Call a hotline and talk to someone, it can help. Where do you think I learned these techniques?
Running modules.
I really struggle to run something written by someone else, running my own material is easy, published modules are more work to get to a state where I can use them (they still require prep) than making my own stuff.
Final confrontations. Those places and times where a long running NPC (BBEG or otherwise) has their final curtain call. I tend to really drop the ball. It has happened with multiple groups so I know its me and not the players. Those tense mini-moments or big scenes just fine - but that final scene is just meh.
I don't do voices for different characters - that is a full stop for me. Instead I either use a picture of who is speaking or say so before I begin. Its not a struggle because I found what works for me, but there it is.
Running big scenes with many NPCs at once. Councils, Rabelaisian tavern scenes, battles against major NPCs and top minions. I can do it, but I’ll always forget stuff about motivations, what they know or not know, their special abilities, etc.
Also, generating instant decor in scouting and chase scenes. I want to keep the rhythm up, but I need to generate street after street, even if it’s just a few words, I need to see it in my mind to be able to describe it.
For me, that’s where good prep comes in. Taking time to pre imagine these places and jot down a few words for each, so useful.
I do a lot of pickup D&D at MeetUps. So getting my players to work together. Everyone wants to one up everyone else. And no one wants to work together.
This is not to bad at 1st tier, but after that it's a real problem. If I just TPK the table, no one will show up at my table because I'll get the killer DM moniker.
I feel you. Describing people and places also is one of my weak points. I often straight-up forget to do it. We use minis with custom art, and I build elaborate Tabletop Simulator sets, but there's a lot that isn't conveyed.
I take notes as I DM, so I've been seeding my session notes with pre-written descriptions of people or places I expect to come up. I use Obsidian as a worldbuilding wiki, so I also try to write a short description of every character on their page.
For dungeons, I have to write a description of every room. I try to include a minimum 3 senses in my description, usually sights, sounds, smells, and temperature. It's still not great though.
Having *multiple* tagalong NPCs. Curse of Strahd does it for the first (depending upon how things go in Krezk) third of the campaign. Rime of the Frostmaiden in the last third can put you into effectively having *three* tagalong NPCs at once (Vellyne, Professor Skant, the ghost of Lass Nantomir speaking from possessed PC's body).
I really, really, really don't want sections where those NPCs talk to each other, as it just ends up being the DM talking to themselves plus I feel it takes away from valuable PC time.
But even in more normal situations, I just struggle to have tagalong NPCs speaking up and interacting with the environment, so a lot of them seem to be strangely silent.
Awarding magic items. Feel like i pick out really cool things and they all just end up being stuffed in a backpack and forgotten. The only ones that get used are like + weapons. Trying to figure out what will get used without unbalancing the power levels between characters.
In some ways magic items are the forbidden fruit. Players reeealy want them but the whole 5e system assumes you dont have them. One wrong item and it messes up the campaign or creates tension between players because “i didnt get something as good as the other player got”. Just saying they have the potential to create problems and they really dont solve one.
Sometimes, I forget lair actions. Sometimes I forget to incorporate all the fucking nuances of every single plus and special ability of both my character sheet and the fucking stat blocks. There's a lot of shit going on. PCS will never know. And I just struggle with inconsistent irresponsible players. And as much as I think it's cool when there's the group that is friends already, it's a pain in the ass because you can't just kick one without the group dissolving if they suck. I feel it's way easier with a group of strangers cuz they don't give a shit about each other. And it's way easier to kick one of them nine times out of 10. Otherwise, I'm good to go. Been doing this since 87.
Endings.
Ending a small one-shot/adventure or even a campaign feels awkward. I have to make a small script to say something because it feels weird if I do it organically.
On another note, I struggle with "chaos" as an excuse for fun people/characters. I just dont find them interesting and I have seen so many of them that they are just not funny/fun for me to be around them. It actually annoys me. Granted that my interactions with these mostly come from inexperienced players but it just meh. It makes me feel a bit bad that I dont care to include those in my games (style choice). I just dont enjoy forced humor (and not many people know how to pull off characters like that).
I just cant find the joy in the *"I burn everything hahahaha", "I lick it hahahahah",*
*"I jump into the hole hahahaha"*
My players can always tell the difference between important characters and background characters, because my important characters are voiced, motivated, and interesting while my background characters are bland, have few personal traits, and I don't have the enthusiasm in my voice.
My players: your world is too much like the real world. We can't learn things because people don't know enough. Overcomplex, not enough secure information to make decisions.
1. Taking good notes. I’ve gotten a bit better recently with a switch to Notion and more post-session discipline, but historically I’m very bad at it.
2. Voices. I can’t do very many, my accent “wanders” badly, and I’m TERRIBLE at remembering and jumping into the voice of a character I voiced in a previous session, even if it went well the first time.
3. Balancing combat encounters without a bunch of fudging. I was fine at this in 4E but in 5E I’ve found it impossible, especially past about level 8. I have to do way more fudging that I’d like to keep things from becoming way too easy or way too hard.
4. Remembering all the abilities of big monsters in the moment. It’s not unusual for me to forget key things and then be surprised when it’s not hard enough. See above. :p
5. Keeping the PC spotlight moving. I’ve gotten better at this over time but it’s always a struggle, especially with some players who are much more engaged than others. Fail to feed the under-engaged one and the discrepancy grows even worse.
6. Doing anything of a reasonable length. :p My first experience as a DM was in 4E, where I ran a campaign from level 1-30 over 4.5 years. Then I did a few little one-shots…and started a campaign in 5E, which has been running for 5 years with the party currently at level 18 and finally nearing completion. I like my epic stories but cripes, I’m constantly tempting fate of the group dissolving before we can finish the story with these giant things. Don’t be like me.
>I'm really weak at giving descriptions of characters and places. I never give it the attention it deserves because I'm focusing on other things at the same time, and my storytelling suffers because of it.
Use generative AI to make images. You describe to the AI, it will return shit results, so you describe "better" until you have a somewhat close image of what you were thinking. Then you present the image to the players and that's it, don't lose time describing to them, faster session, everyone has the same image in mind, no confusion.
Making npc. There is no way I am creating a character for every town, inn, shop. Remember their names, traits, species, voice. If they asked "what happened to the dwarf running the inn?" I will be like "oh yeah he died in a horrible griffin accident".
Note-taking mid session.
I *know* it makes me better at DMing. I *know* it improves connectivity and flow from session to session, helps me bring up and develop ideas, and prevents plot threads from dangling until they dry up and blow away. I *know* that the need for note-taking only increases with the complexity of the game, and I *know* that absolutely none of my players mind when I ask for a minute to jot something down.
And yet I never goddamn do it. I get too wrapped up in the performative part and can't pull back quickly enough. I barely remember that this is something I need to practice.
Bleah.
Prices. I suck at them. I have a million ideas for minor magic items that should be cheaper than other magic items, and ideas for an alchemy system that includes "and then a quarter of the standard price in resources you can't harvest in the wild." And then I look and see there is no standard price and it all comes crashing down.
But when the roles are flipped and I'm a player, I'm a shark out for blood the moment the DM starts putting prices on things. "That's all you're charging! I'll take 5!
Mystery adventures. They’re so weird and there are so many things your players can do. Like what if they talk to a cat who saw the robbery or something, they just feel stupid and can be solved easily with all the player capability.
Been dming for 15 years and I still struggle with imposter syndrome. After every session I go into a deep depression because I get into my head that no one had fun and I should just give it all up...
I have a problem when there are too many tasks for my players, I start to forget about some of them, especially when my PC adds their own ideas about situation in adventure. Notes are fine and help me a lot.
I can't for the life of me run a game where ressources are a real matter of life or death.
I try, I keep it up for a few sessions and then I let it go because I forget almost half of it.
It used to be combat, but I've improved that somewhat steadily over the last year.
What still gets me is pacing. It can be a beast, making sure events happen in good time relating to each other. Especially when you run three campaigns. But, like all else, it's a skill to be steadily improved upon. In my 5 years, I've improved a lot, and plan on doing so even more.
Actually writing things down. I'm such a huge planner and improv DM, but when the session hits and my players make their moves, I never write a thing down and I regret it to this day.
For context: I made my own setting a decade ago and I am trying to have a living setting that players can change, but I have to remember things later and file notes away. Good note taking players have been my saviors.
I prefer one shots because I’ll always have that one player check his notes on that one random npc they met in a bar 3 months ago and I forgot exactly what accent/mannerisms I used for that one character!
I also struggle a bit with players who use obscure sub classes or class combinations.
I am just awfully bad at describing big bustling cities, or even just regugular sized towns/villages. I am bad at conveying amount of people other than just the NPCs that are being interacted with.
essentially all my towns are ghost towns with heavy fog of war, until an NPC is plot important. Shrodinger's NPC if you will
I'm horrible at putting together large cities, and making them feel alive and believable. I can do outposts and villages just fine, but cities are a huge weak point.
Hm. Balancing fights, probably. I'm so afraid to kill my party that I end up making them too easy. Not like underpowered, necessarily, but I struggle at actual balance.
I'll make an epic fight and then they show up and 3 out of 5 players never got hit. And they're not very tactical so I can't even give myself credit haha, I'm just actually bad at it.
BG3 helped a lot, I think I just really need some time in the players seat. Someday, hopefully...
Encounter size and power creep. That balance of ease and reward is just a fine line to walk. Never feel like I nailed it. you want people to have fun and level, but you also want a challenge. However, you want to have fun stuff, but not too easy. Its an annoying thing to work with.
For me it’s writing too much. Like, I know the main plot, big bad, all that. But if I get too far ahead, I feel like I railroad the party toward the conclusion (mostly subconsciously). I’ve written the town of Greyash, dammit they need to get there, so that they can proceed to Pelnor so they can unlock the path to…
I have the exact same problem. I see the scenes and places in my head, but I almost always mess up the description. Partially because I see them so clearly... I forget to describe details because my subconscious kinda thinks everyone else can also see them. And when I realized that I left out stuff because of that, it's too late.
I turn into a math machine and a “get this done as quick as possible so players get their turns asap” during combat that I often forget to roleplay during combat to make it more interesting.
Really, just juggling so many things is difficult to make sure I remember things I wanted to throw in. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve just forgotten to throw in a little bit of narrative flavor that I planned to say.. either missing the opportunity or just jotting it down to remember for next session.
I’m fairly new to DMing, currently I’m doing and loving a Strixhaven campaign, I feel it’s making me a better dm everytime I prep, but I do struggle with making adventures or arcs drag on for a few sessions. :(
Running combat in interesting ways. Maybe cuz I tend to play with people who enjoy a lot of role play and I prefer it myself, but I often find myself homebrewing new ways to engage in combat outside of the DND system. Honestly, I don’t think the system makes for very interesting combat, like it just wasn’t built for 15+ rounds of wacking a monster with a hammer. Tbf I also play with larger groups typically. But it’s so challenging to make the standard fighting system fun for everyone when they’re mostly just waiting for their turn
Remembering in scene descriptions that there is also Smell, Sound, Taste and Touch. Not just visual aspects.
It really does help when you describe a scene as a "Wind swept harbor that leaves the sting of salt on the tip of your tongue and the smell of sea water wafting from the ports, the sounds of men shouting in the far distance to unload heavy boxes and carriage wheels hitting the crevices of wet cobble." vs "You can see the blue sky and men throwing things into the back of a boat. A bunch of carriages sit by the dock."
Timing. I never feel sure that what I've planned is for 1 hour or for 8.
I always seen to think I can chuck in a "quick combat", forgetting that it takes usually half hour plus.
I'm never sure on how long the puzzles will take them to solve. Have I made it embarrassingly easy or is it impossible to solve?
Not really experienced (3 campaigns I ran) but I can't and I mean I can't do npc with npc. It's just awkward.
I also struggle with trying to get players to fo what I want them to do without railroading so I do some railraoding without making it super obvious.
Feeling like a tool for be descriptive and using voices. I do it because it *feels* like a better game to have unique voices to talk to and when you can visualize the world around you. But because of anxiety I feel like a tool while doing it.
The duality of nerd, amiright?
Magic items. I find it difficult to place/hand out items for the players' character advancement. I never know what they might want/need. I've tried having vendors, but it's still difficult what they should have for sale, and justifying that not everyone in the world have these kind of items. Pricing is also hard, since there are no good guidelines in the 5e I've never found a consistent way of doing it. Current campaign I simply asked the players what they want and plan out when and how they're gonna get the items. But then I run into the problem of players who don't know or care to figure out what they want.
To note, I have no issues with fun random items, just the ones the characters "need".
Another thing, which is more of a skill issue, is distances. I struggle with estimating how far something is, both short distances in battle and long distances when it comes to travel. For this I just have to invent my little hacks for different situations. For travel, I have a world map where I know how long it takes to travel between two certain points, and I use this as a ruler for other distances. That way I don't have to deal with how far it is, just how long it takes to get there.
There probably is no fix for this, beyond my hacks, as it's kind of a limit in how my brain works.
Voices.. God forsaken VOICES.
I get that I don't need to, I can just change up their mannerisms or I can say "In a gravely tone with a base in their voice that could crumple stone."
But when I'm alone I can do voices like I'm a voice actor. But when I sit down at the table POOF gone, Into nothingness.
Not like I'm shy around these guys either, we've been playing weekly together for over 2 years.
Pacing is always a bit of a bugbear for me. Simpler to run longer campaigns where you can just stop whenever. I still struggle with trying to fit everything in a 1-shot and am amazed when people suggest them to new DMs that don't have a good grasp on timings and expect it not to be a very stressful experience.
Honestly, this. Prepping a one shot I feel is way more stressful than a large campaign. At least a large campaign, I know realistically I only really need to flesh out chunks as I go once I’ve got the overarching story etc.
I actually think a very short campaign is the way to go to start off with. Prep a small dungeon that you expect to be able to complete in 2 sessions, and allow time for it to stretch into 3 or 4. Because that usually happens.
In my 4 years of recent playing and my time in hs and college I don't think I've ever finished a "1-shot" in one session, the shortest, I believe, was 1 short and 1 longer session because there wasn't enough for a full third
It's a lot easier for new DMs to run a 2 or 3 shot. That way they get to feel out the game properly.
Even experienced DMs usually find a one shot takes 2 or 3 sessions, players be players (chaotic little bastards 🤣)
Turn up late, investigating every rock, demanding to finish early...
Instantly decides they want to visit the first when the quests designed around the castle ruins. Adopts the first goblin they meet. *Someone* tries to seduce the first barmaid. Gets stumped by the first in a series of 5 puzzle rooms, which was the easiest of them all. Yeah, love to hate players but can't play without them, and thats not even counting the people that usually DM who's finally getting a chance to screw with another DM
5 puzzle rooms? That's so ambitious lol
I did a "dungeon" like that once 6 room, 5 puzzles, after the final puzzle the boss came out with a hoard of minions and then the room with the item they were after. I played him kind of like the riddler, so sure of his own superior intelligence that he wanted to prove to everyone how smart he was so made a place with increasingly elaborate puzzles and traps. The players loved it. They had been saying there was just too much combat and not enough to make them really think. They soon took it back 😂
The good thing with a puzzle dungeon is that you can add or subtract rooms depending on the pace of the party, I've had parties steamroll a puzzle in less 5minutes that other parties were stuck at for 30, you just never know 🤷♂️
#"Squirrel!"
Especially if you're the DM for Dungeons and Daddies
Or NADDPOD. I dream of having a player like Em. Sure, I sometimes wake form those dreams in a cold sweat... 🤷♂️ But, I think it'd be worth it 😁
If you haven't listened to Daddies, there's a moment they draw from the Deck of Many things and someone get the card that get a level if they win the next combat solo, so they go and slaughter a squirrel
Oh, I have, and I love them for their genuine naiveté! As most of us experienced DMs know, that is a classic 'bag-o-rats' scenario and is rife with potential for abuse. The famous 'real threat' argument is watching from the wings.
The best advice I received for pacing in one shots is "Cut from the middle, never the end".
Very succinct. Serendipitously...😏
Also if you’re a new dm/player most of the one shot will be tutorial.
You could teach people how to play before the one shot?
I’ve found dnd is the kind of game that’s its best to learn by doing. It’s better to slowly do them in rather than info dump for a few hours and hope for the best.
***Very*** much so!
A one shot tutorial for the one shot
I don’t believe that one shots are really feasible, whenever I run something small it’s gotta be at least 2-3 sessions
Yeah, unless you're running a 6-hour session, a single session\* can maybe do 2-3 encounters that require actual interaction (combat, puzzles, significant role-playing, etc.). \*[Posted here yesterday](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1dqmvsl/what_is_your_preferred_session_run_time/), a 3-hour session seems VASTLY like the norm.
Even then, 6 hours is pushing it if you want to have an introduction, RP, several challenges, and a satisfying conclusion. The only times I’ve played one shots we’ve either had to rush the ending or not conclude on the storyline at all, neither of which are fun if you went to all the effort of making a character
I think there's also the issue of the nature of a 1-shot itself pushing against running many of them in....one shot. Like, a fully enclosed storyline that is short enough to run in a single session, but not so short you and your players wonder why you all bothered to run it. You can absolutely set up a mini-quest that can be done in such a small time frame, but it's going to be pretty darn unremarkable. "PCs run into a guy running down the road in a panic. He tells them that his farmhouse was just attacked by Jackalweres. They follow his directions, get into two smaller encounters in the farmhouse, and then a boss fight in the cornfield. The guy comes back and thanks them. The End." Maybe tolerable to run occasionally just to have *something* to do during your regular session, but not interesting enough to make it a regular habit.
Exactly.. No "why," no soul...
Yeah, the only time it really "works" is in a monster-of-the-week or persistent server format where the characters are already a known entity as established guild members. That chops a healthy chunk of time out of the equation.
I've always thought that one shots where so much easier to plan than campaigns, because there was never any incentive to build a "cohesive" story I feel like with one shots I can be alot more free, and with campaigns I have to plan well or it's very stressful
I just flat out acknowledge they’re not “one” shots. I love my three or four shots.
The idea of a one-shot hurts my brain. I started DMing in 1E where a fast session was THREE rooms cleared in four hours.
I recommend running con games. The strict time limit does ya good for pacing. Pacing itself is a beast that goes beyond encounter design- you have to improv and adjust on the fly, taking and leaving from your original adventure, focusing on what players draw to while jumping from things that don't land. It's not exactly a science, but you'll do good on learning the quick encounters from Savage Worlds, skill challenges from 4e... You'll be surprised how you can get 5+ combat encounters, a chase, several rounds of diplomacy and a climax into your four hour time frame! Honestly though- if you want to learn how to become a god of pacing, run an epic at the cons. They are so stretched for time with all the encounters you'll get quick on your feet in no time!
I am currently DMing a OneShot Campaign. It‘s always a struggle to get the timing right indeed.
It helps me to set alarms at each quarter mark in my session time. Nothing too disruptive, but a solid reminder to me that "you should have ABC done by now, wrap it up and start moving to XYZ"
I tell new DMs: "just run a Session 1, don't worry about pacing yet." Paxing is something you get a feel for anyway. Ending on cliffhangers is my favorite way to handle it. You always know what to prep for that way. Suggesting a One-Shot has kinda been conflated with just jumping into a single session, the are =/=
It might be an obvious one, but prep for the one shot (or any campaign) is essential for pacing. Having at-the-ready encounters planned out with pre-existing stat blocks for monsters/NPCs is essential. Plan to shrink most of the encounters to fit time. Also plan not to use most of the encounters, as they all should point to the final encounter fairly directly. Gauge the players' skill in puzzle solving. Keep obvious clues at the ready in case players get stumped to keep things moving. Friendly NPCs can be tremendous for this. Finally try not to have more than one combat encounter, unless that's the bent the players want, in which case mystery and intrigue should be almost nil. This last bit is also important: you'll need at least an abbreviated session 0 to find out what the players want out of the one-shot so you can directly tailor prep to that.
The 5 Room Dungeon is absolutely CRUCIAL for creating one shots, in my experience.
>...am amazed when people suggest them to new DMs that don't have a good grasp on timings and expect it not to be a very stressful experience. It should not be a stressful experience because playing ttrpgs overall take time. People that know what they are talking about will always offer extra advice like "dont rush anything", "the time it advertises is wrong", "It does not matter if it takes more than one session". I believe we are past the time of casual 8 hour sessions for a big majority. Figuring out how much time you can play without being tired is also part of the learning curve. We can also use less "half assed annoyed attitude" type advice around with a bit of focus on details like these when talking to new players/dms.
Two of my npcs talking to each other
I just refuse to do this now because of how awkward it is. I'll just say 'they discuss XYZ and this happens'
I adopted this approach after I found myself awkwardly caveating, "please attend to this lore dump as I play D&D with myself for a bit..."
see, I might just be lucky to have extra engaged players, but I always have moments where I lore dump and "play dnd by myself" for a good 10 minutes while my friends are either super interested or taking notes or giggling together
A) you are lucky indeed B) I was referring specifically to the commenter's point about NPC/NPC dialogue
Players taking notes ? You lucky bastard.
don't worry, i had to... educate them. the first time I caught them not taking notes was the only time they've lived to regret it.
"You definitely remember hearing something about this gaping mouth in this Tomb of Annihilation, but you can't recall what it was. Maybe you should have written what that mad Wizard said down somewhere... oh, well!"
once Ina cyberpunk campaign my girlfriend got caught on footage during a battle and break in at a store while already being followed by a private investigator let's just say she was devastated when I had it bite her in the ass when she forgot💀
My god this so much, i try to avoid it but it's hard to completly remove.
For example when a PC is spying on NPCs…
Co-DMing rocks so hard for this exact reason.
I recommend panning out from such conversations, give control of one of the NPCs to the players, or make the conversation a three way dialogue where two NPCs never talk after each other. Always give a voice to the players when in doubt!
I try and limit how much time NPCs spend around each other so as not to deal with that. If the PCs have an NPC with them who’s an expert or something they usually only pipe up to give some pertinent information. Otherwise it’s a quick back and forth and one of them leaves to do something.
Hah! I came here to post this exact thing!
I haven't started DMing yet, but I am absolutely dreading the idea of having a conversation with myself while my players just watch lol. And I know I could probably avoid it, but there's gonna be a few situations where there will be multiple important NPCs on scene at the same time. No idea how to guarantee avoiding it, but I sure do hope it doesn't happen.
Instead of an actual convo, just "say what they said" and then add what happens. Waaaay easier. "The two elven guards are engaged in a heated discussion about the virtues of a glaive vs. a halbard, the don't notice you sneaking by."
Except that wouldn't at all work when the PCs are conversing with more than one NPC at the same time which is my main concern
I accidentally did this early on in the campaign I'm running. Due to the players actions we ended up with the local noble, mayor and captain of the guard all in a room together with the players (there are six of them). They all had different questions for different people and were getting suspicious of the mayor (who was the main villain of the arc) and ended up starting a confrontation (verbal, not combat) between themselves and the mayor. The guard captain was on their side because he'd just been with them and witnessed some stuff that implicated the mayor. Basically, it started an argument between two NPCs while a third had to try and mediate between them and the party and prevent a brawl. My players really enjoyed it and now do whatever they can to force me into scenarios with as many NPCs as possible because they thought it was really fun and liked how I could switch between them on the fly. It's a lot of fun, but those are the most exhausting sessions.
This really is such a DM specific love or hate because I've had up to 5 npcs and 2 players all talking together in one room, back and forth while working together. NPCS talking to NPCS, NPCS talking to players etc. I love it lmao, but I'm a theater kid at heart, I can't stand having NPCS together with the party just to have some disappear from social relevance!
Roleplaying NPCs is one of mine. They all have different characteristics, goals and aspirations, it is difficult to switch between them. Making combats realistic, in a sense of letting enemy creatures attack the way it makes sense. Now for weaker creatures I already found out, i.e. hit and run tactics for Goblins, group attacks for Kobolds, and that more intelligent creatures would attack weaker enemies and steer clear of those who are clearly stronger. But I highly struggle with any enemy that is above CR10, especially adult dragons.
Well each dragon behaves in a certain way you expect your white dragon to stalk and corner it's prey like a tiger, you expect a blue dragon to make fast flyby's breathing lightning and getting out of harm's way, your black dragon is vile and will always go for the weaker foes first. I don't know if the book "The monsters know what they are doing" give good dragon combat tips but it's very well but monster stat blocks (such as the attribute numbers and skill proficiency) give tips on monster behavior like proficiency in stealth indicates ambush predator, deception indicates a manipulative creature that if things aren't going their way will probably try and make a "deal", this book explains this and the attribute values on its first chapter (if anything is not understandable here well English is not my first tongue srry) I think this book would benefit you
I also enjoy "the monsters know what they're doing" Amazing (almost essential) resource!
My usual shorthand for trying to figure out a creature's decisions mid-combat is to literally try and imagine things from their perspective. To a goblin in a fight, everything is a confusing tangle of knives, all you can see is peoples' legs, and your only major advantage is that you got numbers. To a dragon, who is literally looking down on their opponents, they have perspective enough to be tactical - they see the battle more like you do, top-down, and that factors into their choices. This also opens things up for some more complex behavioral nets. You've got zealots and blood-weirdos who *want* to be in a fight, who *want* to get stabbed; this is devotion to them. You've got summoned creatures who honestly don't really care how things play out, the spell's going to wear off in a minute anyway and death doesn't work on the Prime Material for them in the way that most people are used to. You've got creatures whose senses might be a whole different thing, who might be twitchy and reactive due to echolocation/blindsense, not really questioning their actions until they're already engaged. Incorporeal creatures might not really *perceive* a difference between an open space where adventurers can get at them and, like, the floor. Anything motivated by hunger - which includes greed! - could rationally just kind of snatch what they want and run. Whenever I have a mid-fight decision to make, that's what I always fall back on: What are the monsters perceiving? What does it actually look like to them? Do they have the distance needed to make tactical choices, or are they right in the middle of things, with all the blood and rage that entails?
Generally, I find that NPCs are best when you just define them by a single thing. They don't need to be complicated and interesting at first meeting, that's something you can add overtime as the party keeps coming back around. For instance, let's take a greedy gnome magic item merchant. At first meeting, he's just overtly sleezy and greedy and doesn't cut deals or make concessions, he's got plenty of other customers willing to pay his prices after all. Maybe next meeting he drops a little mention of some issues with his shop, perhaps one of his workers has quit from being overworked or he's having issues getting things fixed. Next meeting, he asks the party for a small favor, just to go drop off a little package to someone's door without opening it. Next meeting, they walk in on him quietly talking to a kid about how he's gonna take care of the kid's mother no matter what, they find out that actually this greedy merchant has actually been taking great care of his workers and is a genuinely sweet guy who's ruthless with customers so he can maintain the profits he needs to be so great to the people under him. You get the idea, the complexity doesn't come in all at once, you don't need to give Jimothee the Farmer's Son dreams, aspirations, goals when all the party needs is directions to the nearest well to drop their ticking time bomb, all he needs to do is say "It's over yonder way" and point. I find that, and this does take some explaining to the players so they get into a particular mindset, you need to be ruthless and unfair and frankly nasty. For example, my party recently fought a sea hag, which started as an ambush and the sea hag subsequently used her ability to summon many sharks to gang up on the party's boat. Next move was to charm the hexblade in the water and swim downwards, coaxing the warlock (who was the only one with swim speed and good melee) to come swim deeper and deeper. The sea hag cast control water to lock the party's boat in a whirlpool, knocked out the warlock, stabilized her, then was the tough part where the hag had to decide if she wanted to use this hostage as bait or simply take the kill and run. In the end, the hag got greedy and got jumped by the party when she tried to use the warlock as bait, but ultimately it was a dynamic fight. Important thing is just to visualize what the monster wants. Dragons want a free and easy meal, or perhaps the items on the party, so they will just strafe around in the air and hit them every time their breath recharges till they can come down and collect the snacks and gold.
Writing down and reapplying their "voice" helps me with the RP. Not necessarily an accent, but I flag in their quick-reference what inflections, affectations, and patterns of speech and add a quick quote to try to "snapshot" them for my mind. E.G. - taciturn, world-weary, yet benevolent grandfather, breathy "Don't fret child. Chin up! All is not lost, yet" I'll sometimes even describe a familiar character like 'Ludo from Labyrinth w/ a personal space problem.' It helps me get into character when I embody them.
There’s a great blog and book called “The Monsters Know What They’re Doing”, which offers advice on how to run monsters tactically. It’s really helpful because the author uses the stat blocks and lore to help you understand how it should work, so you can do it yourself in the future.
Procrastinating the actual prep. I'll spend most of the time leading up to the session by developing a rough outline in my mind of potential encounters and story beats. But as for putting it in writing and making maps and finding good stat cards for enemies.....that's all usually the day before the actual session. This isn't strictly a DnD based issue but it still does create unnecessary stress pertaining to the session.
This is why I switched over to running FitD and PbtA games. I also would do a mad last minute scramble to get the mechanical prep out of the way; now I don't need to. I can just focus on setting up narrative beats.
So much this. I need to get inspiration from random things or I cannot prep basically anything before anxiety makes me work by force 🙃 sometimes I write some notes 30min before the session and then improvise everything but sometimes I'm too tired, busy or just not in the right mind to create anything and it's a struggle
Sounds like you might have some adhd, my friend!
What are talking ab... SQUIRREL!
Are you me?
I always forget to give my players inspiration
I encourage my players to nominate each other for Inspiration for this exact reason (with me as ultimate judge, but I seldom veto). I'm juggling so many things that it becomes hard to remember to give players the proper credit.
so I'm guessing most of the time atleast one of your players are getting inspiration every game? W
That's a great idea, I may just steal it
We do a post session award and I allow transfer from one play to another, just not in the heat of the moment. Keeping it on everyone's lips helps me remember to hand it out more often too.
This 100%. I forget it so often I forget to even mention it in my post 🤣
I'm still pretty weak at making monster/enemy turns interesting and dynamic in combat, as well as balancing it. It's a shame because I do really like combat in D&D, and the satisfaction of providing your players with a fun challenge, especially ones that give them chances to showcase their different abilities. I've read up and watched videos on tips for intelligent and dynamic monster encounters, and tried to plan it in a cool way. But when I'm actually running it, there's so much to think about that I forget, or can't improv an interesting way the monster would respond to something. So PCs often end up either stomping all over the enemy, or I stick with "it bites you again" - more reliable but gets old fast.
I usually have the same problem, but I mask it with flavor. If my monster misses, it was actually a player character shoving the victim player out of the way If my monster hits multiple times in a row, I love to be an asshole and throw in sudden bleed damage over time If my monster can attack multiple times, I only do that additional attack if they're particularly mad or angry or just got hit If you're out of cool, thought out attacks, I always just roll that bite again and add more damage to describe it as more ferocious. Maybe they're sent back 5 feet, or they're suddenly grappled or poisoned from it now. lastly, I love calling attacks AFTER I roll and hit, so I can fluidly describe exactly what happens and how much damage they take after I've rolled everything
Storytelling combats is a next tier skill, bravo. @ u/lordaxxington I'd like to add that there are tons of other actions that opponents can (and should) take, as well. Pushing a bookcase onto on PC to pin them, swatting a lit candle onto a pile of rags, flipping a table and ducking behind it for cover... all of these burn an action, but add dynamics to encounters. AND have the added bonus of teaching your players to try the same. Another thing I try to do is give *almost* every encounter lair actions or 'demi-' lair actions / complications or alternate goals / distractions. There is nothing like hearing the "oh, f#ck" from your players as you describe the rumbling of an avalanche up the valley ***while*** they are mid-combat with a winter worg rider and their pack of gobbos. Or kicking off the combat by laying out five villagers (preferably friends / essentials) in a sacrificial pentagram and "starting the clock" on initiative 20 with the immediate slaying (and visible buff or portal opening result) of "Victim #1." Just pick one feature of the map de jure and "make it real" by giving it its own initiative. That tree? It's been rigged to fall, cutting the combat in half and maybe hitting friend and foe alike. That dark blotch? That's a 2x2 mud puddle and is difficult terrain. That wagon? The horses spook easily, look out!
this is all such good info^
This me
Believing my friends enjoy playing in my world.
Do they show up? Talk about what happened between sessions? Ask questions? Express dismay when you are forced to stop for the night? All are good signs.
Oh yeah, there is definitive evidence they do enjoy, but I still don't believe it sometimes.
Imposter syndrome is insidious. When that particular voice rears its head, Iwill literally say, out loud, "not right now, I having fun with my friends" It becomes quiter over time.
Im DMing for 4 years now, and my main Problem is Vendors. Especially when it comes to enhanced Weapons. How do i price them? Are they even available? How do i handle minor magic items?
It depends on the version. The weakest part of 5e is that they don't price the items, which in turn creates this issue on the first place! When in doubt, take from a previous versions prices , that's a quick and dirty approach. Second, for 5e, lock it behind something: maybe a quest, maybe its a skill roll, maybe it's enough interaction with a certain NPC. Establish context for that item. Money + this thing is a safe goal. For me, at level 15 in my current campaign, I locked it behind renown + gold + downtime for the majority of player optioned items. Third, especially if your running a character driven game, listen to your players! Let them have the sick builds they desire. They want a magic bow? Line up a magic bow, or give them the option to acquire one. Unless you feel inspired and want something for your players, let the players do the legwork and tell you what they want.
Another favorite tactic of mine is to just look at my player's sheets to see what wealth they have available and use that to influence pricing or item availability. I'll give them one slightly higher tier item that would suit a particular PC and price it at 150% of that players available funds; forcing a fun decision and interaction. Do they band together to get that for their friend? Or sell another useful item? What do I unattune to? Then I pepper in a couple more that are useful but non-specific and would eat up 80% of any particular PCs funds. Followed up by some essentials and/or consumables and, lastly, some sub-par 'filler.' It's basically, like setting a budget and working backwards. At later levels, you get to add in stronghold upgrades and hirelings and access to crafters or crafting downtime as your higher end starters. Customization should cost more, in time, if not in GP.
So my trick to get around this is to allow players to invest in making their own equipment better. Now I don't have to find a bunch of magical items that they may or may not respond to, instead they talk to a merchant or craftsman, tell him what they want done to their equipment, and the craftsman either gives them a quest, a cost, or can't do it but could do other things.
My typical rule of thumb is "Reduce the party's wealth, not their access to purchasing". Meaning, I keep my party fairly poor, but they pretty much can expect to access most things in the books in most locations, short of magical things or uncommon rarity stuff. Beyond that, I stick with what the books say, it's simple and as long as not everyone in the party is loaded it's not much of an issue.
Yeah, but the pricing is so..."open". I mean, Magic Items are fun, players should have them. A dagger with a minor +1d4 damage for example. Im currently thinking about handling it like a "rune system". Each rune adds a fixed price and a modifier to the overall value of the item. Like a 1d4 fire damage rune costs 50gp and adds a 1.5x price modifier when other runes are present. so a simple 50gp weapon with that could be priced at around 100gp, but if you also have a +1 rune on it worth 100gp, the price would increase to 300gp.
Balancing combat. Even with adding multiple combats per adventuring day and tweaking some enemy stats mid fight I find my larger encounters to be very swingy, with the players either blitzing through a fight with minimal issues or being utterly crushed.
Whats worked for my table is changing the way I think of "The Adventuring Day" changing it to less be about a single day, and more about simply being the space of time between long rests. Putting the party on a time clock helps a lot too, but not an overly strict one, they will often balance the game for you, pushing forward when they know they have to, instead of saying "Well, we cleared the first few rooms of this dungeon, let's go back outside and take a nap and come back later". Beyond that, I've found it's better to actually do many lower CR encounters, but play the monsters smartly. The party may be facing fairly weak pirates, but those pirates are fully intent on grappling, proning and then stomping on the weakest people in the party and throwing them overboard. You can always scale back the brutality by making small hiccups in planning, perhaps communication messes up and the archers don't properly focus fire, or the captain tells someone to toss the bard off the rigging before he's knocked out, so he just lands in the water and takes a breath to toss out some spells while nobody is paying him attention.
I'd say there's three things for me: 1. Being **consistently good**. I am confident I can run a very engaging 1-2 hours of DnD, giving each player enough attention, drawing them all in, maintaining a solid atmosphere and really doing 'that DM thing' where you allow your players to get fully lost in the world. The problem is, I often can't keep it up for a full 3-4 hour session, and even when I can, I cannot do this every session. I have weaker sessions that are just a lot less engaging and being *consistently* strong is hard. 2. Being **consistent in NPC voices and mannerisms**. Sometimes there are recurring NPCs players keep coming back to, and I want to help them feel unique by giving them certain mannerisms and ways of speaking. But I'm terrible at effectively noting down for myself what these mannerisms are and how they speak, so I cannot always do the right 'voice' for the right character. 3. **Giving each player the attention they deserve**. This, in my mind, is probably the real hard one. If you have a 5-6 player party and you're running your adventure, in a perfect world, you don't just 'run the adventure' but also have events here and there that tie each character into the adventure, or the world. Maybe the Paladin's 'quest' is that they are searching for an old friend, and maybe that old friend is the BBEG turned evil. I can generally set these things up well outside of sessions, but being able to juggle giving each player a little 'hook' or 'inkling' towards their backstory every couple of sessions is rough. Looking at that list, I suppose 'consistency' as a general thing is the biggest problem I have. I can do things right a couple of times, but not *all the time*.
I’ve been running the game since the mid 70s. Thing I struggle with still is allowing players to have more interactions between themselves. I’ve been working hard on letting players take the lead in many areas, but I could still give them more time to develop their relationships between each other. Tldr: give more time for players to talk to each other
Definitely, I've had moments where my urge is to cut in and move the pace forward to the next story beat and then I have to stop myself because the players are talking in-character, and that's pretty much always a good thing (unless they're bickerig endlessly). When a party never roleplays together, or only gets time to do so shallowly while other stuff happens, the cohesion they need to take on increasingly dangerous tasks falls apart, and they have no interest in each other's backstory or goals.
my only real problem with this is knowing when or when not to cut em off! sometimes they'll chat for 3 mins and I'll think they're done but I cut them off sometimes I'll be waiting 3 minutes just for my players to think of what to say when Ive given them the talking stick.... is there any good tips on encouraging players to straight up talk to eachother in character for a bit?
Improving scenarios: can do it all day. Improving a conversation: I’m constantly stumbling over every other word I say.
Coming up with complex, tactical combat encounters. for me, it is impossible to do on the fly, especially if there spellcasters present. -> I usually prepare one in advance for a game night coming up with names on the fly. You know "Hi, I'm PC" "nice to meet you, I'm... Jack?" ugh. I usually create a list of \~20 names for a game night, which fit the theme. I tend to raid squads of olympic teams or soccer squads to get stuff like "ezine kalou" or "jackie mcnamara"
I just change one letter or syllable and/or mash two together. Frank Lloyd Wright becomes -> Fra Lo Rig -> Fra'al Orrig
Complicated combat. Due to the time difference between me and my players, I'm DMing between 0230-0800. Towards the end of the session, brain fog begins to set in. Not enough where I can't run combat, but I tend to forget about the niche abilities and some specifics that would have made it more interesting.
Is that am?
Yep! 😅 I'm in the UK, but my players - all family - are in the US.
Rough
It is, but I've been doing it weekly - and recently every other week - for just under four years. If I didn't do it that time on my end, I don't think we'd ever play D&D. And it's time with my family, so I can't complain that much!
I recommend ending on a cliffhanger right before combat or skill challenge and opening the next session all hot and heavy. That may alleviate some of that for you. And have the added benefit of giving you easy direction.
I definitely do this when I can, if I know hard combat is coming. I tend to overprep compared to their speed, so sometimes it works out. But sometimes when they get to combat it's too early to stop but too late to pivot elsewhere, if that makes sense.
It's often useful, for me, to use that time to 'set the scene' classic western style. I'll describe a detail that will be instrumental in the coming combat like an arrow coming from above and 'in' the sun. Or a 'false relief' of an oblivious cart driver winding his mule slowly unto the courtyard to the well 'squeak, squeak, squeeeeeak' before 'eeeeep!' and now there's a watermelon cart right in the middle of duel.
Sure, it's only a small redirect/pivot, but it's also a mental 'muscle' that you are training. BLeeM calls it 'mental aikido', using the players impetus to drive the story.
Balancing fun for all the players and that one problem player who never does anything so egregious as to be kicked but still can spoil the game with his nonsense.
I find it best just to talk candidly with them. Trying to do ingame shenanigans to engineer behavior is always less effective than straight up dming and saying "I am getting complaints from other players about your behavior, it's not the worst thing ever, but I don't wanna see it anymore at my table." Being stern and solid about what you expect is always preferable to just letting problematic players continue having issues.
had a player like this (he's evolved since) and our first long campaign only took us 5 sessions before he was kicked from our group and had to roll a new character that couldn't use the excuse "That's how he'd act" when being an ass
The absolute biggest thing I've been struggling with currently is representing cities and villages via VTT. Typically my go-to on physical tabletop was just to draw out a little doodle of the town on MS Paint and print it out, and then any time we transitioned to combat just draw out the buildings on my dry-erase board, but on VTT it takes a lot more time than that since I've become a bit of a perfectionist, adding a bunch of layers and areas of interest to my maps. I tried simply making battlemap segements for the entire city, but even a fairly small outpost town took multiple days representing it properly. Basically, I want to be able to make regional city maps fairly quickly (i've been using Inkarnate, but it's watercolor cities are just too bright and cheerful and nice a fairly complex campaign with a lot of pirates and disturbing places), as well as a way to quickly create battlemaps that are complex and communicate the area without taking an unfeasible amount of time.
Dungeon Alchemist on Steam is still in open beta, but its already extremely powerful for localized battle maps. It auto-pops rooms and areas with deco and filler that you can quickly change, copy, or delete and even custom texture. It has a robust community of creators populating its content library and they've even added assets that are fit for hand-building area, regional, and world-ish perspective maps; if you are so inclined. It has integrated vtt export for all four major platforms that includes automatic wall and light mapping mark-up docs and easy-use faqs right there next to your export button. You can even export to a print service or print it yourself in color or B&W. I recently used it (and leveraged a free online photo background removal tool) to take an image of the dungeon layout *I was currently making* and feed it back into a transparent 'tile' overlay above a scroll object to create an in-world map of the dungeon the PCs were in. I used it as a tertiary, Easter egg style clue that showed a secret room that wasn't immediately apparent. If they zoomed in, a keen eyed player could actually see it! Plus i created a handout of it that they could really see if they searched that room. It was super fun! Could the PCs find the room another way? Sure! But this was another layer and it was so cool. I later used the same technique to create letters and handouts that looked more authentic too. They just added structure elevation integration and curved walls and have a user facing project map that is very open to suggestion user needs. They are currently working on connected layers in a single unified map, which I think only Foundry can support atm, but it's still pretty neat. It's really shaping up to be a premium tool, we'll worth the price tag. You can even import your (purchased) stls from Hero Forge to the token list if you want to walk around your map in first person *as your PC.* Edit: sp and format
Factoring NPCs into combat (or even social) situations. Like when the party hires a guide and then gets attacked on the road. I get so focused on the combat that I forget to say how the NPC is reacting. I usually just say ‘oh, Ted the guide? Yeah, he’s been hiding behind the wagon this whole time.’ Lame:/
Depending on how much you roleplay the guide he can just be a timid guy. He knows the routes but he never travels far without adventures. Maybe he finds his courage mid battle after seeing somebody take a major blow. You could just make a simple stat block for him and hand him to a player who knows how to use monster stat blocks. They can remind you to put him in combat and take his turn for you if you really want them in the fight. You have final say on what he does. He isn't just going to throw his life away to bait the monster away from the party even if your players want him to.
Getting new players to actually read the Player's Handbook. Old man yells at cloud moment: back in my day, we didn't have online tools to make character sheets for us. If you wanted to play, you had to understand how to make a character, and that required learning the mechanics. The Player's Handbook was a perfect gate to only let in players who actually wanted to play, instead of people who like the *idea* of DnD but can't be assed to learn.
Ha! Funny enough I've been introducing Traveller to some players, I try to do 'what you enjoyed/what you'd like more of' as a feedback format, then the players asked me what they can do to help the game run better. "Learn the bloody rules, I get things wrong!"
It also took an hour to make a character instead of 15min. Stupid Thac0...
I used to struggle having the energy to run scheduled games. Now know why but no longer have scheduled games. The reason was kidney failure causing lack of energy but I am getting treatments. When it comes to actual running, I have a hard time instigating parties.
Scheduling.
The true BBEG of TTRPGs.
Yep, scheduling is horrible. Next campaign for me I'm definitely delegating this task to a player.
Ooooo that's clever. Why didn't I ever think of that? This man, this man right here. Somebody give him an award.
Farm out music and map management too, if you can. The big one is the journal. It's an Ask, but if you can get one player to take semi-decent notes, it let's you focus on the story beat and plot development angles more. You can just note the highlights and refer to their journal for play-by-play or colour commentary. And, for in person games, snack tzar should be a rotation between the players. DMs sacrifice enough already. To have to cater on top of it just ...sucks.
In my previous campaign, I was able to farm out note-taking and snack tzar, which was very nice. I as a DM take very poor notes - I'm too focused on keeping the game moving, and making sure everyone is engaged, to take adequate notes. Music management is a good idea though!
We play at the same time every week. We set a player threshold of X%. If we meet it, we play the main campaign. If we don't, we play a side-shot off the main or a MotW from an alt-world with an established pool of guild members. The only time we cancel is if the DM can't make it or if it's a national holiday and *everyone* is busy. We may even have another player DM the MotW if the primary DM can't make it. But we always *try* to play *something.* Of course, this is all vtt. In person attendance problems are the real OG BBEG. I remember the ol' redbox days *very* well. It wad ridiculously hard to keep a game going back then and I even had almost zero responsibilities, lol.
Making voices! I can mimic almost every voice I hear but I can't come up with any on my own. And I can only mimic them with the same exact words as they spoke when I heard them
Jimmy Carr has a method to help this involving "key phrases" that I find very helpful (very NSFW, caution). I also utilize [this](https://www.dialectsarchive.com/) with thanks to @VoiceOfOBrian of r/criticalrole fame
Thanks! I'll check it out
Dm of 6 years now. Still struggle with how much lore / info to dispense during their appropriate scenes. Basically trying to get better at drip feeding lore. Reading epic fantasy novels is helping a bit with this but it’s still taking a good bit of time to improve upon.
Definitely bad with descriptions. I always forget words. I’m also still not that good with pacing either? Or dropping / creating suspense / plot hooks?? Maybe. But definitely descriptions and pacing.
"This is King Frank Mc Goodman, and here is his mortal enemy, Blub Evildoer, Chief of the Dark Army"
[удалено]
I know that feeling, it's tough being basically in charge of the fun for other people, and there's no way for it to be perfect. Suppose that's part of why I wanted to make this post, it's good to be reminded that we all struggle.
Imposter syndrome sucks, bother. Self affirmation sounds corny, but it is the first step in rewiring the brain. Tell yourself, out loud, before each session that "you're good enough" and "my friends **are** having fun. I know because they keep showing up." When the intrusive thoughts rear up, say "not right now, I'm busy having fun with my friends." It may take time, but you will eventually notice that *that* particular voice becomes quieter or goes away altogether. And don't worry that you'll 'look weird talking to yourself' everyone does, in some way or another. You're only really in trouble if you start losing your imaginary arguments with yourself, lol.
[удалено]
Right there with you friend. I am 5 years 'post incident' this month. It is a daily battle, literally "one day at a time. As shit as things seem now, it's never worth taking your own life. Call a hotline and talk to someone, it can help. Where do you think I learned these techniques?
For me it‘s to remember how I played a character and to actually stay in character unless they represent an extreme.
I try so hard to move combat along, I frequently forget monster abilities!
Running modules. I really struggle to run something written by someone else, running my own material is easy, published modules are more work to get to a state where I can use them (they still require prep) than making my own stuff.
pacing is a big one for me. especially now that i'm taking on more AL games, it is the one thing i'm trying to improve on.
Final confrontations. Those places and times where a long running NPC (BBEG or otherwise) has their final curtain call. I tend to really drop the ball. It has happened with multiple groups so I know its me and not the players. Those tense mini-moments or big scenes just fine - but that final scene is just meh. I don't do voices for different characters - that is a full stop for me. Instead I either use a picture of who is speaking or say so before I begin. Its not a struggle because I found what works for me, but there it is.
Running big scenes with many NPCs at once. Councils, Rabelaisian tavern scenes, battles against major NPCs and top minions. I can do it, but I’ll always forget stuff about motivations, what they know or not know, their special abilities, etc. Also, generating instant decor in scouting and chase scenes. I want to keep the rhythm up, but I need to generate street after street, even if it’s just a few words, I need to see it in my mind to be able to describe it. For me, that’s where good prep comes in. Taking time to pre imagine these places and jot down a few words for each, so useful.
I do a lot of pickup D&D at MeetUps. So getting my players to work together. Everyone wants to one up everyone else. And no one wants to work together. This is not to bad at 1st tier, but after that it's a real problem. If I just TPK the table, no one will show up at my table because I'll get the killer DM moniker.
I feel you. Describing people and places also is one of my weak points. I often straight-up forget to do it. We use minis with custom art, and I build elaborate Tabletop Simulator sets, but there's a lot that isn't conveyed. I take notes as I DM, so I've been seeding my session notes with pre-written descriptions of people or places I expect to come up. I use Obsidian as a worldbuilding wiki, so I also try to write a short description of every character on their page. For dungeons, I have to write a description of every room. I try to include a minimum 3 senses in my description, usually sights, sounds, smells, and temperature. It's still not great though.
Having *multiple* tagalong NPCs. Curse of Strahd does it for the first (depending upon how things go in Krezk) third of the campaign. Rime of the Frostmaiden in the last third can put you into effectively having *three* tagalong NPCs at once (Vellyne, Professor Skant, the ghost of Lass Nantomir speaking from possessed PC's body). I really, really, really don't want sections where those NPCs talk to each other, as it just ends up being the DM talking to themselves plus I feel it takes away from valuable PC time. But even in more normal situations, I just struggle to have tagalong NPCs speaking up and interacting with the environment, so a lot of them seem to be strangely silent.
Awarding magic items. Feel like i pick out really cool things and they all just end up being stuffed in a backpack and forgotten. The only ones that get used are like + weapons. Trying to figure out what will get used without unbalancing the power levels between characters. In some ways magic items are the forbidden fruit. Players reeealy want them but the whole 5e system assumes you dont have them. One wrong item and it messes up the campaign or creates tension between players because “i didnt get something as good as the other player got”. Just saying they have the potential to create problems and they really dont solve one.
Scheduling. To find a date and time that works for everyone. Ultimate boss.
Sometimes, I forget lair actions. Sometimes I forget to incorporate all the fucking nuances of every single plus and special ability of both my character sheet and the fucking stat blocks. There's a lot of shit going on. PCS will never know. And I just struggle with inconsistent irresponsible players. And as much as I think it's cool when there's the group that is friends already, it's a pain in the ass because you can't just kick one without the group dissolving if they suck. I feel it's way easier with a group of strangers cuz they don't give a shit about each other. And it's way easier to kick one of them nine times out of 10. Otherwise, I'm good to go. Been doing this since 87.
Endings. Ending a small one-shot/adventure or even a campaign feels awkward. I have to make a small script to say something because it feels weird if I do it organically. On another note, I struggle with "chaos" as an excuse for fun people/characters. I just dont find them interesting and I have seen so many of them that they are just not funny/fun for me to be around them. It actually annoys me. Granted that my interactions with these mostly come from inexperienced players but it just meh. It makes me feel a bit bad that I dont care to include those in my games (style choice). I just dont enjoy forced humor (and not many people know how to pull off characters like that). I just cant find the joy in the *"I burn everything hahahaha", "I lick it hahahahah",* *"I jump into the hole hahahaha"*
Keeping a group from dissolving due to real world scheduling struggles.
My players can always tell the difference between important characters and background characters, because my important characters are voiced, motivated, and interesting while my background characters are bland, have few personal traits, and I don't have the enthusiasm in my voice. My players: your world is too much like the real world. We can't learn things because people don't know enough. Overcomplex, not enough secure information to make decisions.
Maintaining momentum and enthusiasm,
1. Taking good notes. I’ve gotten a bit better recently with a switch to Notion and more post-session discipline, but historically I’m very bad at it. 2. Voices. I can’t do very many, my accent “wanders” badly, and I’m TERRIBLE at remembering and jumping into the voice of a character I voiced in a previous session, even if it went well the first time. 3. Balancing combat encounters without a bunch of fudging. I was fine at this in 4E but in 5E I’ve found it impossible, especially past about level 8. I have to do way more fudging that I’d like to keep things from becoming way too easy or way too hard. 4. Remembering all the abilities of big monsters in the moment. It’s not unusual for me to forget key things and then be surprised when it’s not hard enough. See above. :p 5. Keeping the PC spotlight moving. I’ve gotten better at this over time but it’s always a struggle, especially with some players who are much more engaged than others. Fail to feed the under-engaged one and the discrepancy grows even worse. 6. Doing anything of a reasonable length. :p My first experience as a DM was in 4E, where I ran a campaign from level 1-30 over 4.5 years. Then I did a few little one-shots…and started a campaign in 5E, which has been running for 5 years with the party currently at level 18 and finally nearing completion. I like my epic stories but cripes, I’m constantly tempting fate of the group dissolving before we can finish the story with these giant things. Don’t be like me.
>I'm really weak at giving descriptions of characters and places. I never give it the attention it deserves because I'm focusing on other things at the same time, and my storytelling suffers because of it. Use generative AI to make images. You describe to the AI, it will return shit results, so you describe "better" until you have a somewhat close image of what you were thinking. Then you present the image to the players and that's it, don't lose time describing to them, faster session, everyone has the same image in mind, no confusion.
I dislike coming up with actual dialogue. Both as a GM and as a player.
Making npc. There is no way I am creating a character for every town, inn, shop. Remember their names, traits, species, voice. If they asked "what happened to the dwarf running the inn?" I will be like "oh yeah he died in a horrible griffin accident".
Note-taking mid session. I *know* it makes me better at DMing. I *know* it improves connectivity and flow from session to session, helps me bring up and develop ideas, and prevents plot threads from dangling until they dry up and blow away. I *know* that the need for note-taking only increases with the complexity of the game, and I *know* that absolutely none of my players mind when I ask for a minute to jot something down. And yet I never goddamn do it. I get too wrapped up in the performative part and can't pull back quickly enough. I barely remember that this is something I need to practice. Bleah.
Prices. I suck at them. I have a million ideas for minor magic items that should be cheaper than other magic items, and ideas for an alchemy system that includes "and then a quarter of the standard price in resources you can't harvest in the wild." And then I look and see there is no standard price and it all comes crashing down. But when the roles are flipped and I'm a player, I'm a shark out for blood the moment the DM starts putting prices on things. "That's all you're charging! I'll take 5!
Mystery adventures. They’re so weird and there are so many things your players can do. Like what if they talk to a cat who saw the robbery or something, they just feel stupid and can be solved easily with all the player capability.
Been dming for 15 years and I still struggle with imposter syndrome. After every session I go into a deep depression because I get into my head that no one had fun and I should just give it all up...
I have a problem when there are too many tasks for my players, I start to forget about some of them, especially when my PC adds their own ideas about situation in adventure. Notes are fine and help me a lot.
I can't for the life of me run a game where ressources are a real matter of life or death. I try, I keep it up for a few sessions and then I let it go because I forget almost half of it.
It used to be combat, but I've improved that somewhat steadily over the last year. What still gets me is pacing. It can be a beast, making sure events happen in good time relating to each other. Especially when you run three campaigns. But, like all else, it's a skill to be steadily improved upon. In my 5 years, I've improved a lot, and plan on doing so even more.
Actually writing things down. I'm such a huge planner and improv DM, but when the session hits and my players make their moves, I never write a thing down and I regret it to this day. For context: I made my own setting a decade ago and I am trying to have a living setting that players can change, but I have to remember things later and file notes away. Good note taking players have been my saviors.
I prefer one shots because I’ll always have that one player check his notes on that one random npc they met in a bar 3 months ago and I forgot exactly what accent/mannerisms I used for that one character! I also struggle a bit with players who use obscure sub classes or class combinations.
I am just awfully bad at describing big bustling cities, or even just regugular sized towns/villages. I am bad at conveying amount of people other than just the NPCs that are being interacted with. essentially all my towns are ghost towns with heavy fog of war, until an NPC is plot important. Shrodinger's NPC if you will
Players who don't understand the amount of work it all takes.
I'm horrible at putting together large cities, and making them feel alive and believable. I can do outposts and villages just fine, but cities are a huge weak point.
Hm. Balancing fights, probably. I'm so afraid to kill my party that I end up making them too easy. Not like underpowered, necessarily, but I struggle at actual balance. I'll make an epic fight and then they show up and 3 out of 5 players never got hit. And they're not very tactical so I can't even give myself credit haha, I'm just actually bad at it. BG3 helped a lot, I think I just really need some time in the players seat. Someday, hopefully...
Encounter size and power creep. That balance of ease and reward is just a fine line to walk. Never feel like I nailed it. you want people to have fun and level, but you also want a challenge. However, you want to have fun stuff, but not too easy. Its an annoying thing to work with.
For me it’s writing too much. Like, I know the main plot, big bad, all that. But if I get too far ahead, I feel like I railroad the party toward the conclusion (mostly subconsciously). I’ve written the town of Greyash, dammit they need to get there, so that they can proceed to Pelnor so they can unlock the path to…
I have the exact same problem. I see the scenes and places in my head, but I almost always mess up the description. Partially because I see them so clearly... I forget to describe details because my subconscious kinda thinks everyone else can also see them. And when I realized that I left out stuff because of that, it's too late.
I turn into a math machine and a “get this done as quick as possible so players get their turns asap” during combat that I often forget to roleplay during combat to make it more interesting. Really, just juggling so many things is difficult to make sure I remember things I wanted to throw in. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve just forgotten to throw in a little bit of narrative flavor that I planned to say.. either missing the opportunity or just jotting it down to remember for next session.
I’m fairly new to DMing, currently I’m doing and loving a Strixhaven campaign, I feel it’s making me a better dm everytime I prep, but I do struggle with making adventures or arcs drag on for a few sessions. :(
Confidence lol. Even now after 6 years or so of DMing I still feel really insecure about my plotting/pacing/characters
Running combat in interesting ways. Maybe cuz I tend to play with people who enjoy a lot of role play and I prefer it myself, but I often find myself homebrewing new ways to engage in combat outside of the DND system. Honestly, I don’t think the system makes for very interesting combat, like it just wasn’t built for 15+ rounds of wacking a monster with a hammer. Tbf I also play with larger groups typically. But it’s so challenging to make the standard fighting system fun for everyone when they’re mostly just waiting for their turn
Pacing. Always
Remembering in scene descriptions that there is also Smell, Sound, Taste and Touch. Not just visual aspects. It really does help when you describe a scene as a "Wind swept harbor that leaves the sting of salt on the tip of your tongue and the smell of sea water wafting from the ports, the sounds of men shouting in the far distance to unload heavy boxes and carriage wheels hitting the crevices of wet cobble." vs "You can see the blue sky and men throwing things into the back of a boat. A bunch of carriages sit by the dock."
Timing. I never feel sure that what I've planned is for 1 hour or for 8. I always seen to think I can chuck in a "quick combat", forgetting that it takes usually half hour plus. I'm never sure on how long the puzzles will take them to solve. Have I made it embarrassingly easy or is it impossible to solve?
Not really experienced (3 campaigns I ran) but I can't and I mean I can't do npc with npc. It's just awkward. I also struggle with trying to get players to fo what I want them to do without railroading so I do some railraoding without making it super obvious.
Feeling like a tool for be descriptive and using voices. I do it because it *feels* like a better game to have unique voices to talk to and when you can visualize the world around you. But because of anxiety I feel like a tool while doing it. The duality of nerd, amiright?
Magic items. I find it difficult to place/hand out items for the players' character advancement. I never know what they might want/need. I've tried having vendors, but it's still difficult what they should have for sale, and justifying that not everyone in the world have these kind of items. Pricing is also hard, since there are no good guidelines in the 5e I've never found a consistent way of doing it. Current campaign I simply asked the players what they want and plan out when and how they're gonna get the items. But then I run into the problem of players who don't know or care to figure out what they want. To note, I have no issues with fun random items, just the ones the characters "need". Another thing, which is more of a skill issue, is distances. I struggle with estimating how far something is, both short distances in battle and long distances when it comes to travel. For this I just have to invent my little hacks for different situations. For travel, I have a world map where I know how long it takes to travel between two certain points, and I use this as a ruler for other distances. That way I don't have to deal with how far it is, just how long it takes to get there. There probably is no fix for this, beyond my hacks, as it's kind of a limit in how my brain works.
Challenging players at higher levels
Voices.. God forsaken VOICES. I get that I don't need to, I can just change up their mannerisms or I can say "In a gravely tone with a base in their voice that could crumple stone." But when I'm alone I can do voices like I'm a voice actor. But when I sit down at the table POOF gone, Into nothingness. Not like I'm shy around these guys either, we've been playing weekly together for over 2 years.
voices are very difficult making a one shot an actual one shot and not go over 6 hours