How to Create a D&D Adventure - My Step-by-Step Process
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ส.ค. 2024
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Do you want to learn how to create your own Dungeons & Dragons adventures? In this video, I discuss how I make adventures for my D&D games. We'll be using a template that I developed so that we don't forget any important parts as we create our adventure!
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Don’t know how this guy isn’t more popular on TH-cam his videos are top notch quality content that are incredibly helpful and get me pumped to play the game
Thanks a lot! 😁 Feel free to share on social media, reddit, and places like that to spread the word. 😁
Same!!
BECAUSE HE MISTREATS SOME OF HIS FOLLOWERS
@@kjmeep3460 Genuinely confused by this?
@@Katiekooleyes Because they timed me out for saying my idea of a forest name. (Which had no bad words)
this is already many times more organized detailed and planned out than I usually make mine
I also enjoy reading monster manuals and monster lore, a great source of inspiration and for one shot adventure ideas
I think if you plan on being beholden to your numbers, then it's like a video game so uts awesome that you think of the players. Cuz that's where table top shines over video games. It's all unique.
As a life-long DM this is solid advice and really cuts through the clutter of making dungeons. I carry a DMs Journal everywhere I go. I write ideas, draw maps, plots, monsters, etc in it. When I go to planning an adventure I can refer back to what I put down in a moment of inspiration and flesh it out much in the same way you do 4 - 6 pages of key notes.
Thanks, man! Just bear in mind that this is my "quick and dirty" method. Some of my other adventures approach 20 pages of notes because I really build them out. (Of course, that's done with the intention of publishing them in the future, but still...) 😂
That's a good idea about the DM journal. I use the Trello app on my phone in much the same way.
Oh that much was clear in the video. I think as a DM it is easy to go and on but it is good for people to know you can get by with a few pages.
@@theDMLair love this
@@theDMLair love this
Factions= Yes!
My most memorable games were those that had a faction system and perk system. I plan to add those features to all of my campaigns.
I'm currently working on a board game version of my favorite space game.
This is so helpful! Reading can only get me so far in understanding. I actually don't have any books yet... But I have a group of friends that want to play - but no one to DM. So I'm attempting to step up to the challenge.
Your channel has a LOT of videos that have great info. I will be spending a lot of time using you for reference! Thank you for taking the time and effort to help everyone out!
You're very welcome, Morgan! I'm glad I can help. You should totally try your hand at DMing. It's tons of fun. 😁
Feel free to join my Discord server, too: discord.gg/Msat4NB I'm on there daily. It's a great place to ask questions.
Hey Morgan, how's it going? I was just curious if you ended up getting that D&D group going with your friends and how it was going.
Hope it's going great!
I've seen the pdfs online for free and Target has the books for well below msrp.
I'm in a similar situation, though I have a bunch of books and supplements for playing. I'd come up with a general idea for part of an adventure, thanks to a lore video by AJ Pickett. However, I also need to expand upon it, too, because just having a copper dragon hire the party for a heist as part of a prank on the party isn't going to give them a whole lot to do.
I know I'm a late comment on this video, but I found your blank template to be pretty useful/helpful trimming all the fat off the adventure and fill in all the essential stuff
Awesome! Glad you found it helpful! 😁 (Late comments are always welcome! 👊)
Totally agree about digging through a paragraph in a module, absolutely hate it. I’m always having to stop and search which slows the game down. So imo I really like this idea of each to find information. 👍🏻
I like the low prep approach. I am attempting to adjust to Mike Shea's Sly Flourish Return of the Lazy DM. My old approach would see as much as 100 pages. Doh! So I am cutting down to just ONE PAGE for campaign and ONE PAGE per session + not preparing for more then just the NEXT session only. This is a harder approach for me. However, my goal is to let the story evolve more naturally from what player's do during the game session. It means my DM efforts will be more improvisation based and NOT pre-planned.
Plot and encounters you should know first.
Great video! I've been playing for less than a year and thinking about trying to DM. These videos help a lot!
Joshua Solt Awesome! Glad you find them helpful. You should definitely give DMing a try. I personally find it to be more fun and fulfulling than being a player. And DMs are usually in short supply, so you'd probably have no trouble finding players.
@@theDMLair SAME!
I ran my first game Saturday morning with my family. One had played before and the 4 others had never played before. I used Truffle Kerfuffle as the basis and followed loads of advice from watching you @thedmlair and some others too including wasd20, xp to level 3 and Ginny di.
It went really well. It could definitely have been better but everyone enjoyed it and they picked up what to do really quick with very little help.
Thanks Luke.
I love the evergreen nature of your videos, I just got into D&D over the past year and I tried to run Curse of Strahd and I HATED how the books are laid out, as a new DM it was very defeating having to dig for information before I could get to the information the players needed. It led to me trying my own campaign instead and this video is so helpful for me. Thank you!
You are very welcome! I dislike how they lay out the books and adventures, too. For the publications my team and I create, such as Lair Magazine, we do our best to make stuff organized, easy to find, and easy to REFERENCE at the game table while you're running a game.
This was fantastic! I have a template document for planning my adventures and it got several updates while watching this!
Awesome! I'm glad this was helpful for you! 😀
Oh my gosh I love this! I started DMing a while back, but haven’t been able to game consistently in a long time. I’m still learning a lot of the ins and outs, and I didn’t want to run premade modules, so I started making my own. This is a great guide to formatting adventure notes into something that’s succinct and good for reference.
I salute you sir!
You're very welcome. Glad you're finding it helpful! 😁
As a dm who has only ran one campaign and is now running the bare bone spell jammer campaign this is awesome. Thank you for all of your hard work!
THANK YOU! I’m a new DM running the LMoP and looking to design a couple short side quest for my housemates (we can’t all get together due to bloody COVID and the others don’t want to miss the story) and this is exactly what I’ve been looking for to help structure some of my ideas! You’ve got a new subscriber 👌🏻
Awesome, welcome aboard! :D
I see this video is 2 years old but I watched a week ago following along with your template. Thanks for making this video and template! I'm a beginner DM and I used your resource to ad-hoc a small adventure for my fiancee and two friends. All of whom enjoyed it, but I have to hand you the credit for providing the format!
Hey Luke. I've watched alot of your videos and they all have value but this one is loaded with great practical info. I totally agree with you about modules being good reads but not so good for reference when it is time to play. Hopefully the wizards get wind of this and incorporate your Adventure Template. Thanks for helping us novice DMs.
If you could do a video about how you make those 4x6 cards with the D and D font it would be much appreciated.
Just writing my first home grown adventure though i have used prewritten modules years ago with the old merp series i find this video very helpful,if there was one tip i would give is when you are reading the descriptive part is to go through the 5 senses,first is obvious what do they see is there vision obscured by fog or smoke,Hear do they hear animal noises,dripping,etc,is there a smell the pine smell of a forest,the smell of the foods cooking in the tavern mixed with pipe smoke,touch are the walls dry and dusty are they damp and slimey,taste if they taste anything is the potion sweet or bitter,and maybe the 6th sense when the hairs on your neck tingle that something aint right,anyway love how you have set up how you organize an adventure this will be of use maybe i will do it old school with fluro highlighter pens.
I have only run a couple of adventures and I am relatively new to DMing. I found this video very helpful. I have a lot of the same complaints that you have about published adventures, and I think the template you laid out makes a lot of sense. I look forward to incorporating it into my adventures. Thank you for this video.
No problem, Scott. Glad you found it helpful! That's awesome you've begun DMing recently. DMs are the lifeblood of our hobby, so much respect. Feel free to hit me up with questions and stuff; always happy to help.
I've found that published modules/adventures are hit and miss. Some are great; some are horrendous. I'm a technical writer in my 9-5, so maybe I'm more critical than I have a right to be, but man I would love it if adventure writers would make them easier to reference while running the game!
I ran some of Princes of the Apocalypse a couple summers ago, and I kid you not, I was literally copy-pasting the text into Word and then rewriting/reformatting to make them easier for me to run. LOL
There is a special place for you. Teaching people who want to learn.... for free. Ill remember that.
Thank you so much for the video, first time DM and I’m going through your tips and the great GM’s tips to make the best adventure campaign I can
Dang, this video is for years old. Thats crazy.
i downloaded tons of randomization tables and combined with the ones in the DM's guide and Xanathar's Guide I feel like I could run a game with very little preparation if I have a party that just wants to....adventure...I have tables to create dungeons as the players are going through them, towns, guilds, all kinds of stuff...huge list, i would share the link but its not on this PC! doh! i think it was on reddit, a massive compilation of tables, many of which had "PDF cheat sheets" that compressed it a lot...i got a binder with clear plastic sleeves, made a table of contents and now i have what i call my book of creation
I love your chair, its well used.
beginner DM here, thanks a ton dude! this helped me be a bit more organized, and not just looking through large amounts of paper for five minutes to find a single thing that i lost track of
I know this is an older video but your version for setting up a campaign is so excellent I'm new to dm'ing and this video is exactly what I needed thanks for your videos
So helpful as a new DM, thank you so much!
lol about turning something benign into something it's not is what one of the groups I was in was good at. like a door that is just a door, looking for traps and other things when it's just a door! not locked, no traps magical or otherwise, no hidden text or language that needs to be deciphered. just a simple door, took us like 45 minutes to simply try the handle. It was great.
This is the best video on creating adventures on TH-cam. You deserve so many more views. Most of the other videos are abstract and open-ended.
This is great for new and veteran DMs in learning to create a process.
Really helpful, you just gained a new subscriber!
Thanks so much! Really appreciate it! 😁
I truly thank you. Your channel has been such a fantastic help to me when it comes to getting back into dungeon mastering and upping my game for my players. I continue to watch your videos and repeatedly watch some of them (like this one) multiple times while using the resources you have provided or given. I will definitely be subscribing to the Patreon and buying copies of your resources later!
I'm new to DMing. So all of your videos are really helping! Thank you. We are getting ready for our first game
Hey, Luke. I actually used Darkness Upon the Forest as my first adventure as a DM a couple weeks back. Great stuff. And I've used its structure as a template to create my own adventures since. So, thanks a lot man. These videos help a ton as well. So far I've avoided a lot of pit falls DMs often fall into (I have no doubt I'll fall into a great many in the years to come), and my players have enjoyed it very much.
From a DM that has only used pre-made campaigns 6 pages would be extreme low prep. This video definitely helps me to realize that a custom game is still doable even with minimal notes. Thank you for this.
Thanks for these tips. It is really helpful. When I was running a game, I wrote it out like the module adventures and I hated it because I had tons of stuff written down and took too long to find it in game. I will definitely be using these methods from now on.
I do not envy the job of DM. I am flexible with my adventures, because i know how hard it is to create an adventure that everyone will love (I do not DM myself, but i spend tons of time talking/helping out the primary DM, with ideas and feedback). I love all types of adventures. From combat heavy, mysteries, survival etc. My brother and some other members of our group, are all about wading through rivers of blood. So every so often, the DM has to throw a larger battle against some low level monster against us, to sate the more blood hungry of us. I never complain about this, cause balancing all these stories has to be rough on him.
This was incredibly helpful as a brand new DM planning my first campaign! Thank you so much!
I am just starting out as a DM, and have three groups running the same adventure. One group is with friends, and the adventure only takes them to level 13, so I was looking for a way to shape another adventure that would take place afterwards. This template is going to be key for me to take my group of friends from 13 on to 20. While that's a large gap, I feel that with all the content you put out, I'll have a fun and enjoyable time making it as much as running it. Thanks for all your work.
Hi, I'm preparing to DM for the first time and I've found your videos to be very informative. I like the points you made about having notes that make information easy to find. Thanks for taking the time to make these videos!
Excellent “how to” vid! Thank you for making this content. I’m going to link this on the D&D Discord servers I’m on!
A great template. I try to be organized, but this will help a lot
As for maps, Pintrest is a goldmine. Yes, sometimes it’s fool’s gold; but there are many inspired and inspiring lairs to choose from.
cheers for all the content mate!
Very cool. Love the template idea.
This is so Informative- thanks! Yo've put together some really good info and tips- I like how you break it all down. Great job! 👏👏👏
I watch Jordphan, Mr. Rhex and AJ Picket. And this channel For inspiration this guy is a wealth of knowledge I also watch Matt Collville that channel got me started with d&d
Around 17:40 when you said modules are great to read in bed. Me : Oh you do that too? xD
I often take a module for late night reading. 😂
Lmao. I thought every DM did that. My kids, basically my d&d party, do it as well at times. Drives me nuts when I have sift through character vs player knowledge so much.
"today we are reading a horror story"
*Brings up hoard of the dragon queen*
i have 40 pages and i havent even started dm'ing yet, god 6 pages sound like heaven
I'm guessing no one is gonna read this but it's useful tip: even though you plan your adventure to have a fair share of combat, social situations and puzzles, it IS useful to have your sessions focused in on of these. If you are doing a single session with a lot of Social interaction, huge complex battles and intricate puzzles, you basically have a lot of everything, which is too much for a single session.
It is possible for a DM to have an idea of what the session will be about and have them focused in it.
The ending of a session should also foreshadow what is to come next session.
I read it. 😀
@@theDMLair I'm really glad. I made my own system and I'd love your opinion on it. It's true! I actually did it and it's pretty awesome, according to my players. It's true!
I do create that sheet in my mind, as if it was a movie. But it is a movie where characters can go their way. I just see what they can control and I step away from there. I write about what they cannot control. If I need to lean towards something, NPCs will serve as advisors.
Man, I love these videos, just I wish there were time stamps. They help when I need to go back and check certain parts after watching the video and just don't know what part of the video that was in. Also if I'm low on time and just need help with one part and don't have the time to watch through the entire video yet.
Thanks this actually really helped
I’m writing a module that started out as a sequel to The Lost Mines of Phandelvir and ended up becoming a story about a villain creating a mafia in order to become a god (long explanation)
Ok this is spooky, I was literally thinking about making my own module for others to use and this showed up in my suggested. I'll take it though!
ok, so I'm a 1st time DM and that time i offered my also 1st time players to write a story of my own instead of sticking to already scripted games, i ended up creating a whole new universe with tons and tons of story xD
Only 6 pages ... amazing. My first handwritten Adventure took about 25 pages. Maybe little more.
Thanks, this was really helpful and interesting.
Thankyou for your incite.
The is the lesson im trying to learn. To be creative in a void. Man you are a cool dood. I woulda totally played dnd with you. But alas, Im starting as a noob DM 5e I neer played the others, unless it was being calculated by game such as neverwinter or something like that.
As a relatively new DM, this is so helpful.
You’re awesome man. So informative.
Thanks, Ryan. 😀
I like your format style for adventures. Nice and concise. Very helpful
While the general concept is the same as when I prepare adventures and one-shots, I gotta be honest that most of the time I don't bother writing that much down... I do prepare "cheat sheets" for all the monsters in the adventure (just so that I don't need to get through Monster Manual for each or remember what "adjustments" I made for them... for example the leader of a gang of ogres is gonna be stronger than his lackeys), some narrative descriptions as "breathers" and general info about NPCs.
Handouts for puzzles and encounter maps are a given ;)
If I'll have the time, I think I'll try to be more thorough.
Thanks for these. I'm new to the game and now taking on the DM roll too and your videos are super helpful!
It's nice to see I have the same starting process with the MM. I might stole some of the tools you use there, it's really smart.
I'm running a homebrew of D&D 5e in the Legend of Zelda universe, they just finished their first adventure but I'm not really sure where to take them next...
These are my steps for generating an idea for an adventure:
1) Browse MM, Volo's, or Mordenkainin's looking for cool monsters/enemies I want to use. Once I find some...
2) Think about what bad thing those enemies are doing in the world and why the PCs should oppose them. Ideally this fits into your overall campaign planning.
3) Start fleshing the adventure out, paying particular attention to the inciting incident or hook. This is what introduces the mission to the players and entices them to do it.
Since you're not sure where to take them next, it sounds like you may not have much campaign planning done. You may want to start there. I suggest taking a look at my two campaign planning videos:
th-cam.com/video/NeqyCf7CHHU/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/pO_VAN8Ieo0/w-d-xo.html
Finally, I'll be doing a live stream this Saturday at 8 pm Eastern time. Part of the live stream is answering questions. No guarantees I'll be able to answer yours as there are generally lots of folks with questions, but I always do my best. I'd definitely start with the videos though. Oh, and feel free to join my Discord, too. Lots of other DMs there who can help, too: discord.gg/Msat4NB
Hope this helps, Juan!
I know this reply is uber late and probably won't be of any help, but just in case...for future reference, scout out pre-established locations across all the Zelda games. In addition to a ton of lore, the Zelda franchise has multiple points of interests, including alternate realms and timelines. If you could somehow connect those elements to your campaign, then you have a wealth of ideas to choose from.
Thank you so much for this I want to do a adventure for my family and it is my first time DMing so 🙏🏻
Can you hit us with the place to get that template again. Unfortunately I didn't have my hearing devices in ( recharging) and it's been a really long day so not reading as quick as normally do so I didn't see the whole addy. Thank God for close captioning makes it still fun to watch your videos they're helpful and fun to watch.
This is one of the most helpful videos on the subject ive seen lately. Thanks
Happy to help. 😀
@@theDMLair Thanks! I'm an overprep guy myself so it's nice to see how you can supress that a little
Nice. The picture on the NPC cards you show it the same image I chose for my PC in my last campaign :P
Separate from my previous post, connected to my general creation of stuff: I plan to put kalarel the vile "with a similar in theme but not necessarily location" fro Matt Coleville and with your new map I'll put in in a side adventure with something resembling the start of it from your terrain miniatures vid with someone stuck in a tree.
Take it, smash it, bash it, make player roll (as stated in the other comment) and they'll think wow I have these crazy shit prepared this DMs awesome. Nu-huh baby I just steal everything from everywhere, change it up with other stuff and I have 10 adventures with different mixing and matching in like 2-3 hrs a week.
You should sell those npc cards, at least those for monsters and such.
MattyThing Yeah, they are awesome. I saw a company or kickdtarter offering them for sale a few months ago. Was a tad pricey, but would probably be worth it. Unless you create your own like I do. 😀
This rocks!
Thanks! Glad you liked it.
Thank you for an awesome video on it cool dude too!
Not what I was looking for at first but I’m just going to use both
New dm here trying to connect lmop to saltmarsh and this is perfect, thank you
This is actually helpful
Make a part 2, I like this very much haha 🤣
I ran Sunless Citadel for my players and well it says the tree is evil grown from the corpse of a vampire ectara, now if I remember correctly the Players and chip away at the trees hit points or burn it in the module but one of my characters tried to Sacred Flame the tree, so I was like wait this is an evil unholy tree so I had it work but not only that in that instance I gave the tree weakness to radiant damage which lead to a cool scene as the tree was purified by holy white flames.
Just starting to flesh out a world to use in a home brew world I hope to run many campaigns in
Very helpful. Thank you.
Windows one note. I have pages for world building, npcs, charcter backstories, I love it. Everything is templated with no scrolling. Give it a shot
lol - 6 pages - my notes for the campaign I'm currently running is at 90+ pages so far, and I have 4 major locations and set scenes still to add.
Great video. I'm looking for something simple for my 10yo and his pals, so I like this straight forward approach. Very helpful, thanks. Now subscribed!
Awesome glad to help. I started DMing 5e for my daughter years ago. Very cool that you're running the game for your son and his friends! 😁
Read books
Steal ideas
Twist the ideas
Read more books
Fake it at the table.
Just found this guy. Seems pretty good content. I do have a question about this video. What is AXP? At first I thought it was a typo, but it's on each encounter.
I assume Adjusted XP, since the difficulty of the encounter affects XP
Great video dude!
Love these videos dude!
Awesome! Thanks so much! 😁
Do you currently DM for a group?
the DM Lair yes i have a game on friday
Awesome! Oh, btw, I recently set up a discord server if you're interested. It's pretty small right now. We talk about DnD stuff, ask DMing advice, that sort of thing. discord.gg/Msat4NB
the DM Lair awesome thanks!
thanks
You are right there really isn't a right way to build a Adventure what i Basically do is SDM that Story Dungeon Monster based on what level or levels i want i am starting a open world Adventure based on Pet Sematary a little hint of monsters i am looking at
I just love Zakeet
Wait... 1 hour? Geez. My group plays 6 hours every sunday from 10 to 4. We would never get anywhere if we only played an hour. We spend that long planning to do things.
Yeah 1 hour is super short. My players rarely spend more than 15 minutes planning anything though. If they did I'd probably roll some random encounters because at rhat point they are just talking in circles anyway amd being indecisive.
@@theDMLair well esch session we choose a different person to lead the party. The reason for that is because I tend to derail the plot. Anything the DM throws at us tends to be stopped by me. He sent an army of fish people at us and I drove into the water without even considering if they were hostile or not and thunderwaved. Water amplifies sound so everyone unanimously agreed that it would increase the area of the concussion damage as well as the effect. I killed the whole group in a single hit before combat even began.
In the next session I stopped combat from even happening by betting the Djinn he sent at us that he could not fit into an ale jug.
hey man, your videos are great
Thank you! 😀
Great video!
I normally have different storylines so players can decide what they want to fight, while I let a group of NPC heroes handle the things that would get out of control without the players and build that into the campaign.
The things that get "scrapped" by NPC Heroes get new life in another campaign under different flag.
Players like to avoid mind flayers though, so it is nearly a staple now that the npc heroes go slay some mindflayers x.x
No one want to do that module of my story awwww
You can make a video or a live building a whole adventure?
What is the difference between an Encounter and an Adventure??
Like the music.
Thank you!!!!!!!!!
Love these videos......I am not fan of Milestone advancement at all. I prefer to have the players find ways to be more creative to make it fun and to also encourage them to get awarded additional XP for thinking out of the box. Do you like to use the standard factions, Harpers, etc., or have you created some of your own design?
Yo, great vid!
i as new dm have a hard time trying to balance the combat for my PC's and what could i do to try to improve on it because it's either to easy and boring for my pc's or to hard.
Players: wow that's a lot of work... *Cracks whip*