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My players just entered a set of hills that belong to a few Hill giants. The hill giants made a deal with a lich, they protect the nearby river and the lich would grant them special magic and equipment. The lich also set up a field of glyphs of warding, upcast to all hold the earthquake spell. Only one player set off an earthquake, and since the players already destroyed the liches shadow, the Hill Giants negotiated peace with the players and a nearby town. Stay classy and don't forget to threaten your players with falling in a 100ft hole!

Or a 10,000 year old litch or a similarly old beholder

Found you

And as the goddess of prosecutor dragons, who says she’s alone?

Take a look at Notion or Obsidian for digitizing notes. They are extremely similar, but one is online and one is offline

Try 13th age. Huge recommendation! 2nd edition was funded in Kickstarter, but 1st is still good

Good luck with publishing a one-shot. This sounds like a good goal!

On digital notes, I prefer that to handwritten. It's well known that writing things out helps you remember more because you're engaging more of your brain than when just reading, but I find typing it out is enough for me. Plus I'm a software developer, so I have my own generator that turns my notes into a website I can click through on my iPad. Reading the page about the boss battle? Every name is clickable through to their statblock. That helps keep me in the moment so my combat goes more smoothly. That said… I set myself three goals for this year. First was to try running at least three one-shots straight from the book/PDF printout in person (my main group is spread across the continent, so we play online) without essentially rewriting the whole thing first. I've done one already and it went much better than I feared so I've already learned that I don't need to massively overprep! Second, to improve my descriptions of environments, NPC attitudes, combat actions and results, and so on rather than relying on the map, a bad accent, and just describing the mechanical action. I want to deliver more flavour for my players. And third, I have a year-long plan on making my own world, from geography through gods and magic to custom monsters and some campaign outlines to start in on in 2026. New TTRPGs to try that are on my list, even thgouh I've not played them yet, are Mothership and Star Trek Adventures 2e for both ends of the scifi spectrum, Righteous Blood Ruthless Blades for some sweet wuxia fighting, and (probably stupidly) I really want to try out D&D 1e. I got the BECMI set and I'm itching to give it a go.

Man I remember a homebrew I made. A setting where Tiamat had won. All other gods were sealed away and the players were starting their journey to a Monastery of the Dragon Cults

I used her sister, she has psychic spores, slashing sand, and delayed fire delayed NaK as her breath attacks. Most people don't have magic slash or psychic resistant gear or abilities and NaK is waterproof fire.

For the people watching who completely lack self awareness, please do not sick Tiamat on a low/mid level party. Nothing ruins DnD more for a group of people than being put against an insanely strong, borderline OP creature they have no chance of beating

Not to be that guy, but shouldn't the one laying down the law be her frenemy boyfriend Bahamut, the Lawbringer?

If you're at all into the movies, the Alien RPG and its stress mechanic is amazing. The intro scenario in the base book (Hope's Last Day, PCs are LV-426 colonists when it gets wrecked) is like playing a movie. It's well worth getting the base book just to run this one-shot for your group.

Trying new systems is my absolute favorite thing to do. I have some suggestions and tips! Find a system you're excited about that scratches an itch you didn't know you had. Once you find something you're aching to run, it'll be way easier to get players invested. Some players will be sold by the world or genre, while others might be interested in a specific type of mechanic. Ideally the game you're running has YOU excited for both. One shots are a great way of trying a system. But I prefer short campaigns 2-3 sessions are a great length for people to get to know the system and iron out any bumps or house rule things that aren't quite working out. I highly recommend trying a breadth of different games. It's a huge world out there and as you're exploring it, you'll uncover several "chocolate in my peanut butter" moments where "hey what if I used X mechanic in Y game" or better yet... GMing advice! So many games have great GMing tips. Mothership, ICRPG, Blades in the Dark, and Dungeon World all changed how I run all of my games regardless of system. Additionally, a large majority of non-D&D ttrpgs have free quickstarts complete with adventures and pre-gen characters available or at the very least, an extensive SRD. Here's a list and justifications. - Blades in the Dark because it's a high-velocity narrative driven game with the best dice pool system I've come across. It's got a free SRD. (for a less dark, more collaborative worldbuilding game see The Wild Sea) - Shadowdark is a perfect foray into the Old School Rennaisance sub-genre that my group's really been digging. It's super easy to pick up coming from 5e but makes for such a smooth game regardless. It's got an extremely extensive free quickstart with GM rules, character creation, and a free dungeon. - Alice is Missing is a wildcard. This is a GMless TTRPG played in 90 minutes across text. If your group loves collaborative worldbuilding and role playing, it'll be a very magical experience. - Lancer is a mech game with beautiful tactical combat (disclaimer, I haven't played it yet). You mentioned pathfinder which is great, but what you'll be getting is a pretty familiar game with more crunchy and tactical rules. Why not try a game that also shines with tactical combat, but in a very unique and different genre. This last bit is extracurricular because I know it'll sound like homework. Do your best to figure out what makes each of these games special, why their mechanics work a certain way, etc. Shadowdark will feel less-than 5e if you don't know what makes an OSR game shine. Blades in the Dark will feel like a poor man's improv theater, if you don't familiarize yourself with how other people prep for a narrative-style theater of the mind game. But regardless... these "chocolate in my peanut butter" moments DO exist and they're amazing. I'm using collaborative worldbuilding mechanics from The Wild Sea in my Shadowdark game. I may be a crazy person, but it's been magical. This went on way too long.. I apologize! Let me know if there's any questions 😅

I want to try The Crooked Moon when it comes out this summer! I already preordered my copy along with a DM screen. It has a really cool folk horror theme that I would love to run or take ideas from!

On reading a book, do you have a library card? You can get the libby app and listen to audio books. My ttrpg goals are to wrap up my urban campaign on time (i alotted 60 sessions, should finish at the end of April), and then play a total scamp of a PC in our groups next game.

Run Convention Games with D&D 5.5e with the Nimble rules overlay to speed up combat. Move notes to Obsidian (I'm already halfway there). Try to learn the MAPS system over at DNDBeyond. I was using 2024 rules and character sheets in Roll20 and there was a constant drip, drip, drip of errors and interface mess ups that one of my players rage quit and took their spouse with them. That was half the players so the game was dead. So yeah, DO NOT try to use the 2024 rules and character sheets in ROLL20 until you hear good news. I'm changing platforms. Let's hope DNDBeyond is better.

My resolutions TRPG for this year are to run my first 5e campaign as a DM and to partake in a new campaign for cyberpunk/traveller. ^^ Regarding digitalization, i think the best options you have are probably taking pictures or using a scanner (then separate the result into folders to maintain a similar structure to your books); seeing the amount of pages, typing them would take a lot of time 😂 also you would need other means to transfer drawings or maps. For games to try, an option might be cyberpunk red, as it's a fairly simple system to get into; it focuses more on roleplay compared to dnd, if that's what you're looking for, and it doesn't require many manuals.

Let us know how we can help motivate or just help with the one shot. That’s a cool goal!

🥳🫂👍🏿 Hashtag Goals! Would love to help you check out Nimble 5e

Blades in the Dark is absolutely fantastic, it would be my #1 suggestion but I see it’s already on your list. :) Depending on what you’re into, other games I recommend include Legend of the Five Rings (Fantasy Feudal Japan), Alien (Sci fi horror; Mothership is also good for this if you want less specific), City of Mist (mystery and heavy narrative), or especially Fabula Ultima (if you like JRPGs).

I think you're more likely to lose digitized notes than paper notes to be fair.

For making DM's Guild content, I like to use Homebrewery. It looks very professional and I love using it to update 4e content to 5e. Speaking of 4e, it might have some stigma to it, but it had many dynamic encounters in its various adventures. A good example is Keep on the Shadowfell, which is free on the DM's Guild. And I _may_ just happen to have made a conversion of that adventure on the DM's Guild with Homebrewery. All free (pay what you want, so free)!

hmm... This year.,.. I want to... gosh.. now you've put me on the spot! I want to... uhm... brb I gotta go find a donut.

"Do you resent your friends and prefer to ruin their game experience with a crazy strong monster they can't beat instead of talking with them about the direction of the game like an adult? Try Tiamat!"

nice list my DnD group has kind of died on the vine. being all very successful adults with families and all that, it happens I want to go find a local group at a local game shop and try out some different games. Dungeon Crawl Classics for one, or Mutant Crawl Classics.

Look forward to seeing your trials of other RPG systems, Blades in the Dark is one I have but haven't played, but the actual plays I've heard make it sound like a sweet systems. I second the Shadowdark recommendation below as a alternate to traditional/high fantasy gaming. Black Sword Hack is an evolution of older DnD meant for more dark/low fantasy (Moorcock, Howard, Vance, Leiber) and is pretty rules light. Currently I'm running a Cthulhu Hack campaign (games with 'Hack' in the title are usual spin-offs of The Black Hack, an old school DnD clone), and playing in 5E, I hope to run BSH, Shadowdark, and Electric Bastionland as my gaming resolutions this year.

You might want to check out a few of the d20 light games like Mork Borg and Pirate Borg. Never played them until PAX Unplugged and looking to play a ton in 2025. As well Monster Of The Week is amazing and worth trying.

Suggestions...SO many! Anyway, I'll suggest my favorite fantasy RPG, Mythras. It is skill rather than class based and features a combat system wholly different than 5e. I have never ran a game with combat as exciting and scary as the combat system in Mythras allows. Fights also tend to go way faster than 5e because of how lethal the system can be. It definitely promotes a Combat As War mentality rather than the Combat As Sport the 5e gravitates towards. You can also get the Classic Fantasy supplement that makes Mythras run in a much more D&D style as it has rules to emulate classes and D&D style magic. You mentioned Halloween games so definitely look into Call of Cthulu, a titular horror RPG. Just for the fun of it look into MouseGuard, Burning Wheel, and Torchbearer. If you like Star Trek, check out Far Trek, a somewhat cheesy rules light system for...well...Star Trek. It's also one of the systems where PCs don't die without explicit player consent, unless they have the Red Shirt feat. Also, Tales From The Loop, another game where the PCs don't die, cause your playing kids. So many others but maybe on future video. Good luck with your gaming goals! Cheers!

As far as new TTRPG suggestions goes... What kinds of genres or stories do you and your friends enjoy? I've got many I can recommend. 😄

My group got a taste for Mothership last year, an easy-to-learn sci-fi horror game, and we LOVED it. I recommend that heartily. Shadowdark is a rules-light and fast stripped back D&D-ism of a game. The real time torch mechanic and PCs being blind in the dark without light keeps gameplay frantic, tense and sometimes hilarious for everyone (GM included). There are quick-start rules for both systems that are free also, so trying them out is super easy.

I would be very interested to see the one shot, if you get round to publishing it of course. In terms of other systems call of cthulhu is great if you want to go down a horror mystery path or starfinder if you want to do space adventurers, I've played both and they were a lot of fun in my opinion. In terms of goals, I'd like to start a new campaign at some point this year and try to get one play of the new monty python TTRPG book I got recently haha.

Try D&D 3.5 or Aliens RPG or Beyond the Supernatural Try a volcano Cool idea I use OneNote then print them out 5.5 looks interesting

"Don't look at me like that... It'S rEaLlY tUrNiNg Me oN!!!!" -Tiamat when she sees a Horny(TM) Bard(TM)

Well I mean if you really wanted to show them a thing or two, you could have Unicron eat their planet.

I did not expect to see an advertisement for a dragon today but I’m not arguing

Smash!/Would./Hear-me-out!

Not a lawyer, but I really liked the lawfirm style pitch. Well done

Tiamat used to be ruler of Avernus so she also has lotsss of devils available.

nah, i tried using tiamath against a god lvl creature with 24 armor class, and nearly all of his attacks where missed... so he might be effective against a regular player party, but he's weak compared to some other monsters in D&D...

#5 can be mitigated by discussing expectations of combat encounters upfront, a great time to talk about it is in session zero, if you run one. I always inform players at the beginning of new campaign that combat encounters won't always be winnable, and running is an option. As for the "it's hard to run away" problem, as GM, don't make it one. I was rewatching The Last Kingdom and Outlaw King a little while ago, and because of some vids I watched where the idea of running from a fight was being dicussed, something clicked in my brain. In both the movie and the show, at some point there is a big battle. When one side realizes they are losing a commander starts yelling for the troops to retreat. You know what the winning side does? They let them retreat! They don't try to chase them so they can kill them to the last man. As a GM simply inform your players that retreat from combat is possible, and if the players decide to have their PCs flee, let them! All around good tips, I am very glad to have discovered your channel, your videos are both informative and entertaining. Looking foreward to more!

Me/Bonemancer/HomebrewArtificerNecromancerSub-class: we have no choice These monsters have ransacked our homes Burned our fields Not leaving even a particle of ash behind The poison our waters TAKE OUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN TO DO HORRID THINGS TO THEM!!! we have no options left They are too strong Theyve slain multiple dragons Killed giants the size of mountains And much much more... Its our only hope my liege... Send in... [Dramatic orchestra] The T A R R A S Q U E. [the court becomes a cacophony of gasps shouts and fearful whimpers discussions confusion and warnings of the terror we are to unleash] PaladinJudge: 🔨🔨🔨 ORDER ON THE WIZARD KINGS COURT!!! *_ORDER!!! ORDER!!!_* The king shall now say his holy verdict... *The Wizard King* [an old man so old his robes are his beard]: *((old person mumbling sounds)) PaladinJudge: [SWEATING PROFUSELY AT WHATEVER HE HEARD] m-my lord surely you j-j-jest?! *The Wizard King* : *(mumble). The LVL20 PaladinJudge: [steps back from fear!!!] I-I UNDERSTAND! AS PER VERDICT OF THE WIZARD KING YOUR PLEA HAS BEEN DECLARED AS NESSECARY ACTION FOOR THE SAFETY OF OUR REALM AND THE CALL OF ACTOONS WILL BE RAISED TO A HIGHEST DEGREE OF A CATEGORY 20 CATACLYSM WE WILL PROCEED WITH CLONING AND WEAPONIZING AN ARMY OF SUPER TARRASQUE MOUNTED WITH ENCHANTED ARMOR PLATED WITH MITHRIL CHAINMAIL! WITH COMBAT SUPPORT OF ALL MAGIC CASTERS CONJURERS EVOKERS SUMMONERS AND ALL ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE !!! ARTIFICERS ARE TO UNITE WORKSHOPS AT THIS TIME OF NEED WEAPONS TOOLS AND TRANSPORTATION ARE ON YOU WITH MONETARY SUPPORT OF THE HOLY KINGDOM'S! *The Wizard King* : *(mumbling) PaladinJudge: WITH A POST WAR PARTY WITH ALL THE SEXIEST B1T€#3$ IN THE 9 REALMS TO ALL WHO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS WAR COURTESY OF THE WIZARD KING GOD OF PARTIES!!!

Bloody great advice! Both on how to improvise when the players go in unanticipated direction and using what they are actually doing to drive the narrative foreward. Excellent video!

I like the little "pop up facts" that you have, they are quite amusing. And yes, I have so many sets of dice it's ridiculous. Then again evey new player I've ever introduced to the game not only gets a free dice set, they get to choose from a probably too high number of options.

Some good advice. I especially enjoyed the "don't start with a pre-written adventure" tip. When I started GMing in the late 80s I didn't even know pre-written adventures existed. So I had to create everything myself, and I feel it made me better GM quite quickly. As for prep, well, I see "world building" and "adventure prep" as two distinct things. I think GMs should world build to their hearts content with the caveat that they need to understand that the players will never see or interact with a lot of it. For adventure prep I say go for the opposite, do only the basics, having a set storyline with a planned ending very often leads to railroading. My original group of players (high school friends) were a chaotic lot and the few times I tried to write adventures didn't go well, they went off the rails so fast that the train derailed. I recommend working on improving one's ability to create story elements on the fly. Steal everything you can from every piece of media you have ever consumed. In addition, embrace using random roll tables to assist when you are having trouble with improving stuff. Running a player driven sandbox with emergent play being the end goal can make for truly epic games and drastically increases player agency within a campaign. Remember, the campaign shouldn't be the story the GM wants to tell, it's the story that the players create that matters. As for fudging, no, absolutely not. If you are going to play a game that has a mechanic for random chance, either embrace the ramdomness or don't use the randomizer. When I was a new GM I did fudge, until I was caught doing it, and one of my players pointed out that it is a form of cheating and disingenuous. When I explained that I only fudged to prevent PCs from getting killed he got even more upset. He wanted to play a game where "the threat of death" is a real thing, that was one of the things that made combat exciting and fun. So now I don't fudge, and explain to players during session zero that the dice decide the outcome, simple as that. If you don't want random things happening in a game, don't use a randomizer. I mean honestly, if it's okay for the GM to fudge, shouldn't the players be able to fudge? Hell I would love to be a player in a game where I was allowed to fudge, as long as the GM doesn't get mad at me when I "happen" to roll 54 nat 20s in a row. Seriously, you might be surprised by how much more fun it is to run a game where you truly relinquish ultimate narrative control. I know how much more I enjoy running games where I am as likely to be surprised by the events that take place as the players are. Try rolling in the open to ensure no fudging for at least a few sessions, you might find that it's more enjoyable to figure out how to deal with an unanticipated roll than to just handwave it away in favor of the result you want. Ultimately, if the only reason you are fudging is to prevent PC death, than just add a very very simple house rule to the game...PCs can't die without explicit player consent. Any time they should have died, they are merely rendered unconcious or something like that. I actually own a few RPGs (MouseGuard, Tales From The Loop, and Far Trek) that have this baked in to the rules from the get go. In fact Far Trek even has a feat that a PC can take called "Red Shirt" that allows them to be killed without player consent. The trick is that a new PC with exactly the same stats as the dead PC, but with a different name, must be allowed to join the party at the earliest possible convenience. Anywho, all that shit aside, you do have some good tips, I look forward to checking out some of your other videos! PS - The first one was your hire Tiamat vid and it is hilarious!

Good stuff. Whats even more "Funky" is you could totally mess with your players by not only casting Nondetection on one of your baddie agents but combine that with Invisibility and a good Stealth score (Expertise). See where this is going? Unless they've changed the text from 2014, this thing blocks all Divination magics. See Invisibility and the Spell Truesight are Divination magics. Nondetection block those spells from allowing the opposing caster to "see you" and if they try to look through their Normal vision, they will just see empty air and hear no noises or tracks if your stealth score is good enough (and have spent an action/BA hiding). You literally have a nondetectable killing machine. I wouldnt like just hit a lot level group with this, but it does make the "BBEG grand excape until next time!" easier to pull off. Players with tears in their eyes😢: But...but...how did he get away? I saw him cast Invisibility. But I had See Invisibility cast on myself 30 min before this encounter. Why couldnt I see him after? DM: You know from your arcanist training that there are certain spells or effects that may block your vision using Divination magics...you'll get him next time! 😂😂

Every DM dedicated spellcaster (like an Archmage) should know "the Basics" for survival unless they just wanted to be a court jester doing prestidigitation tricks. They are the following: Shield, Absorb Elements, Mage Armor, Counterspell and Dispel. If one is an arcanist and doesnt have these spells, I think they might be a court jester or a soon to be dead BBEG or low level adventure. It's one of those. Mages surving more rounds to spam Cone of Colds is tight. 😊

fantastic video as always! Great spells, some of which I honestly hadn't heard of.

You should link to the first video in the comments.

. . . Nat 20 in seduction. ''Are you a Lightning Rod~? Because I'd gladly pierce you with my bolt~'' Win or Loss depends on 'season'.