okay at 1:39 I meant to have all the timestamps on screen and just... forgot. They're in the description! I hope ya'll can forgive me because it's 4am and I don't want to stay up for 2 more hours rendering the video... THANKS GUYS APPRECIATE YA
This is my go-to. "We Be Goblins" is simple enough that I have it memorized and can run it with no prep. Players inevitably spend most of the session causing chaos in their own village.
I just look for any monster i haven't used a lot, do a quick readup on the lore or smth and think up a setting. Neon cultists in a nuclear wasteland is pretty fun
If I remember, I want to try this out in my campaign. I got one noob player who chose moon circle druid as their class, and routinely looks through the entire list of beasts trying to figure out what to turn into...maybe something this small could help shorten his turn time. Thanks for sharing!
@@themetalone7739 nothing wrong with asking him to make a list with 5 or 6 creatures to chose from. Allowing him to alter the list between game sessions.
@@dgargoyle I've thought about doing that, but I really don't like imposing extra limits on what PCs can do...the game has enough rules as it is; I really (try to) only use homebrew rules that make more things possible for the players, rather than less.
You look like you'd read other people's experiences for a living. Also, when will you play with CR? Just show a screen with a crab on it and your voice. Guarantee that episode will be one of the most popular they've done in a while.
Breaking away from combat that was just "hit, do damage, kill enemy" was the best decision I made. The most fun combat encounters I've made for my players have had multiple ways of winning or losing, making it more than just "kill to win". This last fight they just had, a sorcerer was planning to call upon a moon goddess to create an entire new moon in the sky, bringing out the werewolves from hiding, as the light from two moons would be as strong as a full moon (a lot more to the logic behind it and the motivations for stopping it, but that's it simplified). The players were swarmed by various hunters paid to stop them, while the one calling upon the goddess had 5 turns to complete a prayer that would summon her. Every hit the players made extended the prayer by a turn, but it came down to my tankiest player being the last one left to stop the prayer. With three attacks, he missed every single one, allowing the prayer to finish. This summoned the moon goddess and after presenting his case, the villain won. The session ended with a second moon appearing in the sky and our lycan player transforming into a werewolf, which forces him to attack his party. No one important died, no one fled, but the fight stayed interesting and intense because there were so many ways it could've ended.
so about the giving an unthought out item... my DM gave our party some wine when we asked for some in the feywild. naturally, it was mushroom crazy wine, which made us float into the air like balloons. (we christened it floaty wine). we then had to go find some satyrs, and they said they would give us some more floaty wine if we investigated a growing swamp. we did so, and we got 3 barrels of floaty wine, plus the recipe for it. cut to the next session... we went back to the material plane, and had to help a town get rid of a fire giant. we evacuated the town, and lay in wait with our wine. when the giant came along, our barbarian challenged him to a drinking contest, calling him a coward. the giant drank a huge tankard, and shot into orbit. he never came back down. (the barbarian survived by tying his feet to the table.) it was supposed to be a boss battle, but we beat it in 2 rounds.
I'd only enforce the 6 seconds _once they've had a little time to think and they're indecisive._ Like, you've been uming and ahring for 2 minutes, I need a decision. 6 seconds, go.
Honestly, for combat, look for Matt Colville's action oriented monsters. Not every monster needs that applied, but I feel for bosses, even those that aren't legendary in nature, giving them villain actions really showcases their personality in combat and helps them be more memorable and interesting. Also, it helps to have an extra win condition for your boss other than just killing the players. Tomorrow, I myself am going to have the boss generating a portal for a Neogi invasion fleet bent on world domination. The party has to simultaneously beat the bad guy AND keep the portal destabilized so that the fleet can't come through.
This is so true Matt's action oriented monster design is amazing, and also Matt's comments on how villains can act smart, i.e. if they can see they are going to lose they may take a player hostage or do something crazy, made combat much more interesting for my players when the BBEG threatened to execute an unconscious player in order to save herself. Just adds more to combat to keep stuff interesting.
I think an important part of the action-oriented design (maybe even more important than villain actions) is just designing your bad guys with a consistent theme to their abilities. For example, a boss I’m planning to throw at my players in their next session has abilities themed entirely around mobility; Basically every action he has either lets him move without provoking opportunity attacks, or launches himself in a straight line. He’s going to be absolutely infuriating and I can’t wait to let him loose.
I mean. It’s still just functionally legendary actions and I give that to ALL my bosses. I want my players to feel powerful. But I also want the “arc finale” villains to be big threats as well. They have guardians, or puzzle mechanics that prevent them from taking damage until the party figure it out and counter it. They act more erratic as they lose more and more health. They target spell casters if that villain is knowledgeable about arcane spells and concentration spells (mechanically speaking). Take hostages, ect. Colville inspired those types of acts but I think in 5E specifically it’s a necessity because of just how fast PC’s get strong. And it prevents the tank and the bad guy just smacking each other as HP sacks while the ranged and spell casters just attack and whittle them down. Also different cover/elevation for more dynamic battlefields
One of my favorite things to do as a DM is give my players magic items that seem to be completely useless as it tends to bring out creative ideas from them
More of a minor "decision", but once I created 2 different available boats and captains that the party could potentially use to sail the ocean into the upcoming arc. These 2 boats had strengths and weaknesses: The goliath woman running one would charge less, but the players would be constantly working, at the risk of exhaustion as they travel. The tiefling running the other didn't have them work, but charged way more. As they were deciding which boat to go on, I made sure to explicitly tell them the stakes. Still glad I did that, they made an informed decision off of it.
@@maffiatmarcatto367 lazy. They paid extra. To be fair, Exhaustion is brutal in 5e, so going into a combat scenario with it would have been a REALLY bad idea too.
I let my players pick their boss fight once. They were playing in Theros, and I pulled heavily on MTG lore, including planes walkers. They were traveling with Garruk Wildspeak, and the villain was Xenagos resurrected by Oko (if you don’t know them, look them up). Basically I had Garruk tell them he would fight one of them and the players were able to choose between a slugfest against a god’s avatar or a super illusive planes walker. They chose the god’s avatar, and it was a lot of fun. Pretty cool if possible to give the players a sense of choosing their boss.
1:53 The BBEG doesn't have to personally connected to every character. The BBEG could have underlings that work for them, and its these various underlings (Or the underlings' underlings) who messed with the PCs for whatever reason. While not personally attached to each PC, this connects the PCs to the villain and after they deal with the underlings and discover the BBEG's identity, they might feel more motivated to deal with them because the BBEG is the root of the problems.
Alternatively, you could completely forgo a BBEG altogether and simply have multiple arcs that each have a different villain, with each villain connecting to a different player's backstory.
@@PlayerZeroStart exactly. Tbh some of my arcs don't even have villains per say. There can be conflict without someone being a villain. One of my player's arc includes a rival party of adventurers, but they're no villains. Just rivals who have similar goals and happen to not like the party for backstory reasons (just enough to cause problems)
My players recently fought a Nuckelevee, one was an undine. He jumped into the water to try and save a drowning person. He rolled perception and I gave the description something like, "you feel danger. The last time you felt this was when you were in murky water alone with a shark."
Is turnabout fair play? If the DM gets up to use the necessary, do the players hold him/her down until garments are soiled. WTAH? Free advice on the internet is often worth less than the time to regret getting it. :)
Veteran Player/DM here, playing in a campaign with new players and DM. I find biting my tongue instead of hitting them with ACCCTTTUUUAAALLLLYYYY.... is way more fun and it's refreshing to see the wonder they have for the game. There's my two cents, If you don't need it, pass it on to someone who does.
Re: Making fun Combat. Matt Colville has a really good vid on this. In that, he recommends looking at the 4e Monster Manual for inspiration. 4e added a ton of weird thematic monster abilities.
Also, look into "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" for tactics that doesn't add new abilities yet still makes the combat more intriguing. I tried this with a group of goblins and my players could barely beat them.
When you said "15 goblins", I thought "Do not play 15 individual goblins". Play 5 groups of 3 goblins or any other combination. Maybe two frontline groups of 5 each and a caster/cleric duo, a ranged duo and a (hidden) sneaky solo guy. Adjust stats accordingly. Goblins are small critters, they should know they only have a chance against humans or larger when they do formation fighting. And yes, that frontline group gets 5 attacks (just deduct attacks as HP get lower, ie individual goblins would be dead), don't try to solo it. They should be able (and do at the GM's disgression) to split up their attacks to multiple targets in range. Still, you don't need 15 minis, 15 initiatives and think about 15 different actions.
Pair this with the use of Minion monsters (the same monster but with 1 HP, no resistances only immunities, and a shaved down stat block with only one or two of their most mechanically simple abilities) and you have easy encounter design principles for horde battles. Every group has an amount of HP equal to the number of enemies in the group and a bonus to damage also equal to that number. You don't wanna grant that bonus to attack rolls though because after about 3-4 monsters you're effectively guaranteeing a group is gonna hit your players when it attacks, and if you're only using 2 monsters in a group you should just run them individually as regular minions and not put extra work into compressing stuff that doesn't need compressing
For PC backstories, I add in the loose threads into my list of loose threads, which also gets added to by anything that happens in game. When writing their next adventure, I'll generally grab two or three threads from my list of loose threads and use them as the core inspiration for it, tying those threads together in the process. I also don't use prewritten modules though, so I can have the next adventure be whatever.
One of my big thing I always get frustrated by is the fact that most creatures should be trying to use stealth. A dragon might not be all that tanky against 4 pc's, but if they stealth up on the party grab the wizard and take them off to be brutalized suddenly it is way scarier.
So, do that. But talk to the Wizard player first. Make that something that happens at the end of the session - the dragon appears, skulking from the shadows and captures the wizard, before they both vanish (teleporting away). Give a couple of chances for perception checks, and have the Wizard roll an Int check (no proficiency), versus the dragon's save dc. If he succeeds, he feels the magic preparing to be cast, and has an opportunity to Counterspell. Give the party chances to see what's coming, in foreshadow bits. If the party succeeds, they have a big combat with someone in biting distance of the most frail party member. If the party fails? The dragon has captured the wizard and taken him deep in the lair. Remember that dragons are smart, and vain. They didnt capture the wizard to eat them - the dragon kidnapped the wizard to prove how superior he is. Play chess. Play riddles. Give the wizard some rp potential in a one-on-one, and have him wait while the party fights their way down to the drsgon's lair - to find the dragon and wizard in perilous combat already, or getting along actually fairly well.
I feel like that can go downhill SO fast. Allow the players a chance to do something about it first, and even if they fail, don't just insta-kill the wizard like that.
@@PlayerZeroStart Literally everything can go downhill. Of course the party should have the ability to detect the dragon. But this would take (assuming the dragon gets within 120 feet without being detected) 1 movement and 2 legendary action points to get to the wizard, 1 action to grapple. This is turn 1. Next turn 1 movement action to move 80 feet up. Dash to move 80 feet laterally away from the party. Note at this point the wizard has likely only taken 1 tail attack (1 legendary action point) and either a bite+claw or a double claw taking 44-48 damage assuming all attacks hit and using the flat damage of the Adult Bronze Dragon. The wizard is also grappled, likely limiting their somatic and or material components but leaving verbal untouched. Legendary action points used to make another tail attack (16 damage, bringing the total to 60-64 damage) and move another 40 feet away from the party. This puts the dragon 140 feet from the party, just barely within standard longbow range. This has been turn 2. Turn 3 has the dragon repeat turn 2 becoming 280 feet away from the party (plus 200 feet in the air) and causing another 16 damage to the wizard. Assuming the party is dashing to get to the dragon they are moving at about 60 feet per turn meaning the dragon is only 80 feet ahead of them and 200 feet vertical. At this point the wizard has taken 76-80 damage, meaning they are likely dead or severely injured. The dragon would drop them for 20d6 falling damage (average of 70) meaning the wizard (with no featherfall) has now taken 146 to 150 damage, likely killing them. This is three turns of combat, where the wizard (who against an Adult Dragon, should be about level 14 or so) should have teleport and be an experienced player. There is no real reason to not do this, unless it does not fit at your table. Of course talk about it first, but if you are trying to run combat with tactical enemies- this is how you run a dragon.
The main thing that I've found, as a player, makes me enjoy combat the most is when the goal is not just to kill the enemy. Recently, my party was trying to steal an automaton, and the combat ended up being not about killing the enemy; if we could get it out of the gate and cover our tracks, we won. Plus, if we tried to kill them all, reinforcements would come. It became about concealing our cover when we could, finding how to open the gate and keep it open, defend the automaton and the cart it was pulling, and not using up every resource so we could get away cleanly. It was probably the most fun combat I've ever had, and the stakes felt real because the threat was never death; we could get away if we needed. But we needed the payment from this heist to get information, so it became a battle that wasn't about killing the enemy on either side
I think the only case when "skipping" a player's turn is ok is if they're temporarily absent (ex: bathroom, taking a call, etc). In my table, we usually delay it until they come back, if a full round passes by and they're STILL not coming back, then the DM acts for them. Pretty chill and dosen't force everyone to wait
I found that in combat, having all players share a turn helps them get involved and communicate so that they move in cohesion. It spiced up some encounters and made it feel new and fresh.
I have just started DMing but I have played a lot, and I have a hard time both keeping each player feeling important. On top of that, I don't know if it's right, but I ask and talk with the players to make sure events happen to fit how they see their character. Like... There aren't any surprises in the game, I come up with something, get approval from my players, and then run it in the game. Idk, if this is right or not.
There's no "right" way to DM, so if you asking them if they enjoyed it helps you make the game enjoyable for everyone, than you are doing it all well. It's understandable not being good at an aspect of DMing, but the fact that you are open to feedback is great.
Setting expectations is important. I check in with my players periodically on what their character's goals are and whether they have changed or not based on how the sessions play out. I think it is more important to have a strong set up communicated between the DM and the player characters and see how things play out and form the pay off naturally.
I would definitely ask players things they would like to happen, take that idea and run with it. It's good to get players input but put your own stamp on it so that they don't know exactly what is about to happen.
I've found have your players write a journal as if its their character you get a tonne of insight into what's gonna make them become interested then use a mix of these things in your session recap its easier for you to plan things as well
Don't forget "make terrain dynamic". Vines blowing in the wind. Stone obelisk teleports every few seconds randomly, sometimes forcing friend or foe out of position. Pendulum blade trap traces random path every other creature turn affecting strategy/tactics. Oh the pandemonium on the board...
The 'level up' items that improve I've just given the first of which basically a standard club that counts as magical. Called them exalted weapons, feels cool, thankyou
A huge thank you for answering my question! It's a huge relief to hear about your experience starting out and all the great resources you've referred to! I adore this community and the kindness and overall willingness to show now people the way (And you didnt sound dismissive at all to me!)
15:50 that actually reminds me of an optional rule for counterspell I thought up. Basically when a creature casts counterspell they make opposed checks with their spell casting mod. Honestly spices up the feel and makes the spell a risk reward scenario.
"There are people limiting their players going to the bathroom!" At that point I'd bring a bottle and a bag, then piss in the bottle while holding it underneath the table/shit in the bag instead of using the coins while looking the DM dead in the eye.
As for a starter DM the Series by Matt Colville would be my go to if I could only Pick one. They are short, interesting and relatable enough to get into DMing and when you get specific problems or questions at that point go search TH-cam.
This was helpful. I am a new DM, been at it less than a year, and breaking up combat is something I am most worried about. I have 2 veteran players playing martial classes who assure me that everything is going fine, but I can't help but be concerned about challenging them. I have had a few combats recently that I felt better about, but it's a WIP so I try to take in as much advice about combat as possible.
To your point about managing 15 goblins: Swarm HP? And mainly denote archers or a shaman or something and then you could have 3-5 goblins in a group with 1 Health pool. I know that kinda sounds warhammer 40k but its worked for me before
Any backstory should have one of these three: rival/enemy, friend/family, or a mystery. A rival/enemy can easily be either affiliated with the BBEG or has been manipulated by them to do what they did to the character. Either way, they should act as a stepping stone to hating the BBEG. A friend/family should offer a character that either needs to be rescued, is trying to do what you're trying to do(but is failing because they have a flaw that the player doesn't) or likewise has been corrupted/manipulated by the BBEG. Whatever happens to them, by the time the player has resolved their backstory with that character, it should make them want to take out the BBEG for what they did to them. A mystery should simply tie into either the BBEG or their plot, such that the answer to the mystery connects to why that character is where they are when the final confrontation begins. Chosen by a god or born with a mysterious power? A being guided them in hopes they could defeat this evil. Tainted by a dark power/curse/evil? The BBEG hoped that leaving a fraction of their power in that character would make them a powerful ally when the time came. Did a mysterious plague/murder/event cause the character to be an adventurer that doesn't seem to connect to the main plot at all? The gods/planar beings/BBEG did it to either create heroes out of strife or to test their powers in an early stage.
I agree with the premice (having rivals/friends/mysteries) but not with the following part... at least not necessarily. That implies you have a BBEG and really, really want to tie the characters' backstories into the main plot. Well... first off, not every campaign's scenario has a BBEG (granted, it can be replaced by a group of people and still act in a similar way, I'm not talking about that). I personally like to have several different (and sometimes completely unrelated) plot threads going on at the same time. This helps me integrate player's backstories into the world in what (to me) feels like a more natural way. They got together as a party for reasons, obviously, but their motivations and goals are not necessarily related to the same plot point. Each backstory will come up as a relevant plot point eventually, but in different contexts. Adds complexity and variety in how the characters in the party will interact with each other as they discover things, and could even generate some tension between them (Which makes it something that needs to be carefully explore, you generally don't want your party to explode unless it's specifically been agreed to that it can happen)
@@nessa-parmentier Sure, but at that point you're not the kind of person who's asking for beginner advice on incorporating player backstories. Intro advice is not the same as what experienced DMs do, but it gives them a taste of the feeling, pacing and back and forth they want for future campaigns.
I painted some old Checker pieces into about 4 different colours, and put dots on the side (e.g green with 1 dot, green with 2 dots, etc). We use those for generic mobs.
My characters were fighting a giant alagator-esque monstrocity, and one of them tied a rope around its neck and rolled a nat 20 for strength. No attacking for you!
The comment about dogging on the dms bosses hits real close to home, my group has been absolutely destroying everything he's thrown at us, each time being "harder than the last" and "a fight to take seriously" (which has become a running joke at this point). Last boss lasted 3 rounds and did under 20 damage total to a lvl4 party of 7. I tried explaining action economy to help the dm out with this and he just keeps telling me not to worry because the next one will be a real threat. He's gonna tpk us, I can feel it.
Our DM had the same problem, kept throwing single enemies at a party of six. It got to the point that the enemy could literally one shot characters, but that still means that there are 5 more characters right behind to keep hitting the boss. He recently gave up on that and is starting to throw more groups of 3-4 against us and the fights have been much more exciting lol.
Here’s my advice for emotional descriptions. You can tell players what they feel, but what they do with and about that should always be up to them. Ex: “You are stricken with an overwhelming grief.” Good “You start to cry” Not good, now I’m not in control.
Man, look at how Jacob has evolved. Jacob when doing his first video : Wisdom Score of 8 Jacob now : Wisdom Score 9 You can really see how far he's come... (jk in case anyone takes this literally, I love Jacob, his friends, and his videos)
To the last question adding something exciting like Jacob said is amazing you can have a whole session of players lazing around town and shopping and still throw something mind blowing at the very end to keep them thinking "what happens next?"
One sense that I feel gets left out of descriptions too often: thermoception (i.e., our ability to sense temperature/heat). It can go a long way to setting a mood to describe not only how elements of it might feel, but the overall climate of the area. Plus, thermoception is a really fun word 'cause it sounds kind of like a super power.
I want to add something to the description part. Don't tell characters how they feel, tell them how the room feels. This dark, blood stained altar, might not scare them. That doesn't mean there isn't a prevailing sense of dread hanging around it, like stuff went down. A tavern can feel warm and homely or worn down and sketchy. That gives people a jumping off point. The rogue might prefer the sketchy tavern because he visits places like it all the time and the high end hoity toity noble tavern makes him uncomfortable because he can't stop looking at the people's coin pouches. While the paladin might hate it because it's a hive of scum and villainy, how is he supposed to get some rest? I'm using stereotypes here for the sake of easy descriptions, but this can go all sorts of ways. A weird quirk I have found, if you describe a place as too nice, most players will instantly think something is up. So keep that in mind.
I mean if you tell them there is a sense of dread around it... You've told them how they feel. Feelings are reactionary and I don't mind telling people how they feel if there is something legendary or magical going on. Character may not run, but as a DM it does make sense to say "you're afraid. Even if you thought of yourself as fearless, you aren't. That's human, friend. You're mortal. And you're afraid." They can react to that however they want since they weren't given "frightened" but I don't think it's wrong to decide certain feelings. Even you couldn't avoid it in your description since really describing the "feeling of the room" is just describing things that people are likely to feel when encountering the room.
@@calebbridges4748 I disagree. You are giving them a hint as to how they might want to act, you are not explicitely telling them: "this is how you should act." There is, in my opinion, a rather big difference between telling people the gruesome scene and describing it as scary. As opposed to describing this same scene and telling the players their characters are scared now.
Nobody is talking about how to ACT. Both of us were talking about feelings. And I agree. I don't wanna take away their actions unless there's some action affecting magic. "Feelings" are the hints that tell people how to act. And telling them a room feels a way is essentially the same as saying how they feel. But either way, I'm not controlling their actions. Just because I say "everyone's heart pounds with the dread that permeates the room," doesn't mean I've taken their agency. The courageous paladin can still stand forthright and show she has no fear. The cowardly monk can hide behind the barbarian who chooses to boast about how unafraid he is. I think perhaps we are saying very similar things in different words? Like we both don't wanna force players actions or reactions, but setting a mood is good and often involves narrating some feelings? Lemme know whatcha think!
For the first time dm with no experience, I too dm’d after playing one session. My advice is to just invite everyone over for a one shot, express that it’s a trial for everyone, and then try out some of the stuff you’re not sure about. It’ll help you feel more confident, and it is real experience
ANYONE WHO HAS NEVER DM'D BEFORE In my first game of DnD, I was DM to a group of 5 others. If you have a Players Handbook/internet connection you have everything you need. If you have watched anyone on YT or Twitch play the game for a few sessions you already know how to DM. It's much easier than it looks, don't get caught up in the rules just use your best judgement and look up the actual rule post-session . You will get used to it all before long. It's a game, treat it like one.
Also something to keep in mind, only you know what you've missed/forgotten/ messed up. Your players won't know that you didn't use that fancy spell or used the wrong stats for a monster.
My best advice for combat: 1. Play monsters as thinking creatures, not stat blocks with teeth. They often can talk to the pcs, They might flee, they might plead for mercy, they might offer mercy, they might go after specific people regardless of strategic advantage. 2. Never let the combat go more than 3 or 4 rounds without something changing. This could be new enemies arriving, a continually evolving environmental threat, a really big spell being cast, etc. 3. Interesting terrain. Turn that big square room into an L shape w/ pillars, a staircase to a balcony, and more than 2 exits. Better yet, add an acid pit/pool, or a chasm, or ye olde dangly rope bridge. Basically, every map should have some kind of unique bit, even if it’s just a mud pit or a big rock. A general principle is to never give pcs a terrain advantage at the start of the combat. 4. Secondary objectives/ ways for the players to interact w/ the combat. If they destroy the crystal in the back of the room, it does nothing to the boss, but all the skeleton warriors drop. If they pull the lever, a drawbridge comes down and makes the map easier to move around. Put loot in the actual boss chamber, so that pcs can find and use it in the combat. 5. If you want the pcs to feel badass, give them one really big monster to Stunlock and dunk on. If you want to make them almost die, throw a whole bunch of weaker stuff at them. 6. Don’t have more than like 5 distinct non pc things in initiative. I’m not saying I actually follow this piece of advice, but it’s still good. I know Jacob said a lot of this, but I felt like going into detail about what has worked for me.
1. Even if they cant speak the same Language as the Pc´s, they still can communicate with each other. A certain Grunt leading to the repositining of the Archers every time? 2. Doesnt need to be an actual change. "The hair one the arms rising as the arcane Machine the "Evil guys" are protecting begins to hum, the Air becomes static and you can taste metal on your tongue with every breath you take." Doesnt change anything at that moment, but the Players understand there will be something happening soon. 3. Even a Square Room is good. Make it 2 Floors with an open layout. The Second Floor having a Hallway around 3 of the 4 sides. Stairs leading up there. Banners/Chains/Chandelier (there has to be one to swing on) hanging from the ceiling. And ofc if a Player succeds the Athletics to swing from an Banner onto the Chandelier to swing with it across to room to jump on an Guard with a Crossbow, that Guard is done. No matter the HP. Just squash him. 4,5 and 6 nothing to add there. And just for clarification, English isnt my First Language (GDR Born, no English in School). So ... be kind if i was confusing.
My friends and I are starting a 12 person campain where our stats are based of of us as normal people (we can still choose any race we want). My 2 best friends are being the Bard-Baric Trio. The Trio goes like this: 2 Twin Tefling Bards (COLore & COSwords) that were saved by a Goliath Barbarian(Totem :: Bear). We should be starting our campain next week so I'll keep yall posted.
Love watching your content - great stuff. Minor Criticism: I miss Jacob videos where he did them while laying on the floor. I'd like to see more of that content. :) Keep up the great work!
A question I have is how to do the “next step”? What I mean is when you’ve gotten through the certain moments or plot threads what’s a good way to tie the things planned with what isn’t.
Do they need a tie-in? Life happens. Dropping the kids off at the bus and taking out the trash might have traversing the driveway in common, but who thinks about it? I'm wondering if you are really asking how to motivate the party to get to the next Big Thing? Feel free to offer more information.
Idea for helping new players remember things: even if you're using D&D Beyond, have the players keep a printed version of their character sheets handy. Find yourself an array of highlighters, and highlight the various sections in distinct and consistent colors. "Where is my Initiative bonus?" "It's the bit outlined in green." "Where are my combat actions?" "The section bordered in red." A while back I saw someone had made character sheets in a similar style for people with certain disabilities and my thought at the time was, "that just looks like a damn handy character sheet there." Should be findable with Google if you're interested.
I want to second Jacob on the Easy Description part. A lot of English teachers I had in high school and college gave us assignments to write a descriptive essay with at least three senses. When you start thinking about adding the senses in writing, you naturally start expanding on the descriptions and fleshing out even the simplistic actions. Instead of “The peasants push a broken cart out of the way so the party can get by” you can go about it like “The group of three peasants who look worn from a long day of work, sweat rolling off their brow from the heat of the mid day sun rolling off their faces, stand up and move to the cart. The biggest of the three squats down to put a shoulder near the axle of the broken wheel, while the other two take positions to his sides. You hear them begin to count, and upon three, they flex and push against the cart. The wood scrapes across the ground and emits a screech as it slowly moves out of the way. The pained look on the peasant’s face show strain as if they are giving everything they have left. It takes all their effort, but the cart moves out of the way enough that the party can pass.” Yes, that was long. I do this so that at ANY TIME during that, the players could interject and ask to help them out. Being extra descriptive can awaken emotions in the party and possibly change how they would react to a situation. It can be satisfying to know that, just by the way you describe something, can influence change in any given situations. I got off on a tangent at the end. I wanted to try to emphasize that it’s easy to describe even the most mundane task by adding senses.
I can't really explain how much i love this channel and Jacob's work and enthusiasm that puts on every single video he makes. I've lost count of how many times I had a bad experience, or a difficulty running a session in DnD, but each time, there's always a video that cheers me up or helps me to improve. For the first time, me and my party reached a year from playing the same campaign, and we are still so excited as the first day. And it's all thanks to you all guys 💕 Don't stop, and keep going! A humble message from a fellow DM~
Whenever my players start trouncing the enemies, I just double the enemies damage. Every goblin is a hit and run nightmare. I figure if 5e has so many death-saves and options for bringing back characters, I might as well use them.
@@SeanLaMontagne Sometimes-but I prefer the sneak attacks for that feeling. I let my players set up ambushes by describing enemies on guard routes, standing under a conspicuous ledge, with their backs turned for some unknown reason. Giving the group a chance to just trounce the enemies is best, especially when they do it silent and sneakily. In comparison, when the characters have big heads and say “nah, I don’t want to move, I’ll stay in melee,” I start upping damage. I want the players to sweat. I especially want the barbarians to sweat, because so often they’re resistant to damage and never bite into those low hit points. Doing 50 points of damage to a wizard is terrifying, but to a barbarian is almost boring. He paid for all those hit points, I want him to use them.
@@TheLyricalCleric Have you ever asked your players if they would enjoy an encounter where they just flat out dominate, or if they exclusively want encounters to be challenging and only dominate an encounter if it's an ambush?
@@SeanLaMontagne I generally read the room-I did one encounter where there was a single foe that was dead before the end of the first round and people felt unsatisfied, even saying “I didn’t get to use my ability” or “he really should have been tougher.” I rarely have players wish enemies were easier; even in super hard fights where I have a ton of backup smashing in the locked doors behind the group, I rarely get anybody wanting to retreat or feeling overwhelmed. Usually when a combat is overwhelming I’ll hear “damn, I think we gotta get out of here!” or “well, I’m gonna be dead soon.” Yet I’ve never TPK’ed my players and they usually come out of most fights with most of their hit points. I find that there’s a high upper limit where you hear “that encounter was awful” before you hear “that encounter was unfair and shouldn’t have happened.”
As a DM for DND and Star Finder I only have 3 main rules 1. I you can come up with crazy and creative solutions like taking a door and using it as a shield I’ll probably let you do it 2. No cheating it’s not fun it’s obnoxious 3. If the players want to break the game to have fun that’s fine remember it’s about the players having fun not just creating a cool story.
Hot take, I use my monsters a complete immune little dudes that chip damage until one of my players attacks in a cool way for good dmg. I found eyeballing when they die much more satisfactory for players.
when you mentioned the goblin encounter i remembered when i too felt the slog of combat and decided to do something similar. i had group of goblins dug in with 3/4s cover and dire wolves that ran out and slowed the party down while the hunkered goblin archers and mages peppered them.
I'm pretty new so I also struggle with getting my players invested so I kinda did something that some might see as dickish. After my players were coming back from saving a random npc, I had there be an assassination attempt on him. One of the PCs obvi jumped in the way of the arrow but it was poisoned with a poison that was entirely home brewed (it was fun, when the poison is made, it at the same time also synthesizes the cure that's in the exact proportions needed to cure the poison. Kinda BS, I admit but it made them invested). They were given 40 hours to solve a mystery and if they weren't able to, I had the big bad give them a choice where he would heal the PC who got shot but for a price. Then bam, they are invested in solving the mystery of who shot their friend, they have consequences, if they can't solve it, but they also have a way out if they want to take it. I felt like it worked and my players seemed to have a good time with it
Your advice and experience on learning D&D mimics my own learning AD&D back in the before times. Learning to play "wrong" is a great way to learn because it teaches the deepest secret of RPG Game Design. Many know it, but few truly understand.
If you're worried about telling your players how their characters feel, you can use rephrase it to be non-personal. Personal "The gnolls eating the still-living pig fill YOU with fear and nausea. The animal's squeals bring tears of sadness to YOUR eyes." Non-Personal "The gnolls eating the still-living pig is a frightful and nauseating tableau. The animal's squeals are piecing and sadly close to a human's."
My tip as a DM is to play to your strengths. I'm a DM who 99% of the time is improvising and flying by the seat of their pants, and building encounters has always been a daunting task for me. My solution was to spend a solid three days creating and testing a series of tables that generate random, improvised encounters based on the type of terrain the party is in. How they work is I roll a certain amount of dice, and each roll tells me what creatures are in the encounter, their size, the number of creatures, the difficulty of the terrain they're on, and if any of them have any spells or legendary actions. I'm still fine-tuning the tables, but they do work quite well, and when I first used them in the campaign, I ended up tossing a Venom Troll at my low-level party, and the innocent bystanders they were traveling with. It ended up being one of the most intense and fun encounters I've ever run. The troll was tough enough to force the party to get creative with their actions, and they used the terrain to transform the encounter into a combination of Three-Card Monty and Whack-A-Mole, with the Tabaxi Rogue giving everyone a crash course in Stealth. The party ended up killing the Venom Troll and came dangerously close to a TPK, but they pulled through, and their characters ended up growing closer over it, which delighted me to no end. To summarize, by playing to my strengths as a DM, I ended up giving an intense and fun encounter, made my party think beyond just dice rolls, and created some amazing character RP.
Jacob: "Ask your players what they want to do." Me: "Alright..." I ask them, of course. Players: "I don't know..." "Uhhhhhh..." What do I do now, Jacob? COMMUNICATION ISN'T WORKING JACOB- HELP-
Ask more specific questions. When creating my campaign, I asked my players What kind of universe do you want to play ? I know how to DM DnD but also other systems which would imply different settings. Would you rather have a high, med or low fantasy setting ? Would you prefer a simple campaign with an easy to identify villain or something more complex ? I already have an idea in mind for the latter. Etc. Same with their characters, I presented them the universe, asked them what playstyle they wanted and then showed them classes, races, to see what they would prefer, before discussing the backstories with them (rather than asking them to write it on their own and hand it to me) If you have, from the beginning, cleared all of that out with them, they will know what they want to do, at the very least because you helped them have a basic understanding of the world they're in and a (basic or not) character motivation from the start, that can be or not be related to your main plot (that is, if you have one)
Ok the backstory question what I did is I helped make the characters with my players and Im doing more of a broad villain so the way I bring in there backstorys into the main story was I from the very beginning would ask hey you mentioned this random character in your backstory he doesn't seem to have a name can I name him? And stuff like that or during session 0.5 I would incorporate the villain in either a blatantly obvious ways like him straight up murdering one of them or more subtle one of my characters ate his lunch in the communal fridge and later died of poison. (The players dying is a long story it's apart of my campaign they all needed to die to get where they needed to be for the story.) You do you most of the time players are fine if you don't incorporate there backstorys sometimes they really want to just vibe check with everyone on it and imagination is key
My list of tips for DMs just starting out. 1. Start with pre-made campaigns just so you can get understanding of the rules and the feel of the game. Once you start feeling comfortable you can change elements of it or just drop it for something else. Soon The Lost Mine of Phandalin will be free on DnD beyond and it's a good starting point. 2. Don't be afraid to tell your players that you don't know or need a moment to figure things out. At my table I have a appointed Rules Lawyer I personally ask questions. 3. Keep learning. There are so much free resources out there.
I recently started Dming and had the luck of playing with 3 DM's and it helped me so much. They were all super chill and a great source when I needed to figure out a ruling for out of the box situations. The nice thing is they gave advice and were fine with me making my own decisions.
When it comes to description, be it in combat or not, there are a few things that inform a dungeon master’s ability. I say it in a lot of my comments on these dnd channels, dming is an art and like any art it is something that you can be good at in many different ways and that you can be bad at in many different ways, and you can be both simultaneously or neither. When it comes to description, here’s the advice which is the equivalent of telling an aspiring archer to get more accurate: 1. Seek mastery of the language you run your game with. Dnd is a game and dungeon mastering is a role which is played by talking. If you can, play with the language with which you are most proficient. Why this helps comes up in the following points: 2. Imagine vividly. Some people imagine in plain words or concepts instead of images. If you can, try to visualize these fantastic things very clearly and vividly in ways which take from all of your senses. Imagine what you see from a bird’s eye view, the shape of a city, it’s layout, the shape of the houses within, the sound of the cart being dragged through the crowded gravel road, imagine the people, the density of crowds, the average height, species, or complexion throughout. If you get to a place where the first thing that comes to your mind is detailed and cinematic then, with mastery of your language, you can try to describe what you see to your players in a way which delivers on the richness and detail and which they can understand and compartmentalize. Describing what you see of your settings in this way can serve to immerse a player in their living environment, and describing what you see of your combats in this way is a school of magic, I swear. It gives you some command of tension, engagement, and investment in the creatures involved. 3. Practice the related arts. Film is an intersection of many arts, the composition of music, sound engineering and design, cinematography, acting, editing, and much more. Something which elaborates on film is video games, video games sometimes include everything which film includes and then on top of it add the interaction of a player or players and their exploration of a digital world. Much like these, D&D lays at the intersection of worldbuilding, writing, acting, storytelling, game design, and the improvised iteration of them all. If you want to improve as a Dungeon Master seek to improve as a writer, a world builder, a storyteller, an actor, a game designer, and familiarize yourself with the living improvisation. These tips regard D&D as the art that it is, a beautifully accessible albeit complicated art, but one which appeals to many people, both artists and not. If you decide to become a Dungeon Master, you are trying to become an artist. I think it’s important to remember at this time that many artists are great in very different ways, because for every Leonardo De Vinci painting in glorious realism there is a Picasso aspiring to paint like a child, but both are remembered for what they created.
I feel even more intimidated. I was a kid who hated cinemas and tv shows because all of them were scary as hell. Even the beginning of Spy Kids 3D gave me trauma. I hate conflict by nature. Yet I still choose to play and DM D&D.
For player agency, it gets easier the more you play with a group. Overtime, you will start to know your players and their characters, and can more or less guess whats going to happen. I had my current events planned WAAAY up in advance. Because I knew my players, and they themselves told me their plans. So I knew what would be impactful, alongside what they were going to do. Asking your players "hey, what do you want to do" is a really good advice. It gives you all the prep benefits of railroading without the un-guidedness of sandbox.
To be honest, I skip my player’s turn if they try to have a 5+ minute powwow strategy session in the middle of an active battle. It’s fine if a player asks what spells somebody else has prepped, asks what effects are in play, if they can do something but not commit to doing it, or quick suggestions. Though, when somebody stops to huddle everybody up and run down the strategy for the next three turns of combat, I warn them with something like “the enemy is encroaching on your position”, and if they continue to deliberate, then they’re forced to take the dodge action. It has made my players plan things out beforehand and embrace the spontaneity of combat a little bit more. Edit: I’m also not a fan of the character monologue during battle, especially when another player tries to engage in long conversation during somebody else’s turn. I will sometimes tell players to keep it short or wait their turn if I sense that they’re spilling a bit too many words.
Funnily enough, I actually have some experience with that situation at 13:05. The Curse of Strahd game I'm running currently was originally conceived by another DM, but after running a session 0, he got sick for a while and agreed to let me run the first session. My initial approach, since I didn't know I'd be taking over the game at that point, was to run as close to the module as written as possible since I figured that was the approach that DM would have taken. After ending this first session with the players' first introduction to Strahd on the Svalich Road, the DM would come to drop out and give me the reins, giving me more freedom to run the module as I wished while also leaving me with some minor constraints (namely, sticking with the whole Ireena/Tatyana backstory: if I'd run it from the start, I would've scrapped all that and made Strahd's lost love Patrina to make Strahd more of an evil widow instead of an evil incel, lol). Ultimately, I think something that helped me solidify a few things about taking over was talking with the previous DM, so definitely do that if you're caught in a similar situation, since it might help to know where they were planning on taking things before you had to step in.
Thanks a lot for this video, it has helped me A LOT for running my wild beyond the witchilght module and since it was my first time dming it probably wouldnt go so well without you!
"Describes op creatures that would be not fun for the players most of the time" whos gonna question that? Everyone. Everyone who's played the game before and will call the bs.
6 seconds? That's insane! I've heard of the 1 : 10 rule. Which give them a SOFT 60 seconds on their turn. Which can work well when done right. But 6 seconds, that just... dumb.
I like your voice man you just sound like an amazing DM. Working on a script for my friends game and you in the background is just perfect and I also get to learning how to be a proper DM! Thanks
Im literally watching this video while balancing my combat encounters for a bunch of new players (by taking some premades and experimenting, running the combat over and over). I have one in a cafeteria where there are tables everywhere which are difficult terrain and they that they can flip to get cover and multiple types of enemy’s (dagger welding guys, club welding guys, a captain and a berserker)I have another in a kobold den with a pit of centipedes and a net trap. But its funny that he uploads a vid, mostly about balancing combat while im balancing combat. Haha just watched the part where he said to run a mock combat. Makes me feel like know what im doing. Thanks jacob.
One of the best ways to speed up combat is to ask players to be thinking about what they want to do on their next turn while everyone else and the monsters are taking theirs. In my experience, what slows combat down the most is that a lot of people wait until it's their turn to even start looking at/analyzing what is going on to decide what they want to do which can take a while in more complicated combats. If you can get your players to pay attention and be thinking about it before hand you can cut the time of people's turn in half. It is still a little bit of a pet peeve of mine when I can either finish my characters turn in like less than 30 seconds, or run through like 20 monsters' turns in less time than it takes some people to even think about what is going on in the combat.
When Jacob take about telling players “how they feel” I think he’s more talking about “sensing”. Like what kind of stuff do they sense in the place. You’re not telling them how they personally feel, but what feelings they sense around them. What do they sense about the bustling town, or the dank cave?
My favourite way of tracking monster tactics is to have a little mood notification next to their HP. "cautious" or "angry" or "frightened" or "sneaky" or "clever" etc etc as a reminder to myself that this enemy would prefer to hide and attack if they're sneaky. Or if they're clever they'll try to use their environment more. If they're angry they'll just attack the nearest person.
As for the Reminding Rules chapter, DNDBeyond is a great resource to help solve this problem because it does all the work for you. I can tell my players "Yeah, your Acrobatics skill bonus is listed under 'Skills.' Roll the d20 and then add that number to the roll." This makes it super simple and seems to help them *learn* what their bonus is or at least where to look so they can figure it out for themselves.
Random treasure generation. Allow players to assess their loot, sell what they don’t want, and then go buy what they actually want. It’s good when they want something obscure and they have to interact with your world’s NPCs to have it commissioned. If it’s *really* obscure, it could be a quest. Random treasure generation has the added bonus of stimulating creativity by giving them items you never heard of and they’ve never heard of.
One way I've spiced up combat is by having a pitfall trap that armored chad kobolds would pick up and throw party members into, in order to pick people off one at a time. Then they kicked the stick holding the boulder at the top of the hill, making turns in combat turn into "How do we get out of here and save the caravan we're guarding before we're crushed to death?". They ended up sacrificing their Immovable Rod and, while it was sad, got them all through the combat encounter.
Jacob, I greatly appreciate that most of your ads are community projects, especially Kickstarters. As someone who has run a kickstarter, putting the word out there is really the most crucial aspect of a successful project, and successful projects means more fun stuff in the hobby, which means more inspiration for individuals to make their own content, have fun in their own games, and create their own community projects. Your ads (or ads like them) are the only kinds of ads I actually take the time to watch or listen to anymore, even when they're kind of long, because they're actually relevant to my interests. I'm not saying there's anything shameful about advertising underwear or compressed beds or mail-in food kits, but it says a lot that you often choose to promote D&D related things.
Telling people how you think they would feel is one of the best ways to get them tell you how they feel. people are always more inclned to offer up corrections over straight answers
I don’t have too much experience, almost a year’s worth, of DMing, but I learned that as long as your player’s are having fun (unless they ask to do something different), you don’t have to do get into backstories or millions of other small things, if you and the player’s are having fun playing d&d together
love the leveling magic items, I stole them and gave my players their own versions and I loved comming up with their last goals: the paladin has to make a coven of vampires to make his smites necrotic damage the rogue has to steal 3 legendary magic items to auto-succeed any roll and the barb, who was previously enslaved, has to kill his slaver to heal while raging
Something I notice with character creation is that characters can either be really complex in their backstory and have so much stuff going on that it can get complicated, or the backstory feels very disconnected from the story. I recommend asking the DM about the world and thinking where your character can fit into it before fully developing a backstory. For example, I was starting a game of Rime of the Frostmaiden and wanted to play a wizard, so I asked the DM about the world and he mentioned the Arcane Brotherhood, so we had my character be an agent in the town we started in. It also made the game very fun as it gave the party somewhere to go for information or magic stuff. This doesn’t only have to apply to organizations and such, but you can also use events. Like if there’s an ongoing war, your character could be a displaced refugee. And don’t be afraid to develop your own spin on it, make your character feel a part of the world, but don’t be too afraid to make them stand out, they are going on an epic adventure to save the world
25:35 timestamp question, so the number one answer I feel is most accurate as a forever dm is that you never truly stop learning. Players will always introduce new things to you and I really enjoyed how you answered this to them yourself
okay at 1:39 I meant to have all the timestamps on screen and just... forgot. They're in the description!
I hope ya'll can forgive me because it's 4am and I don't want to stay up for 2 more hours rendering the video... THANKS GUYS APPRECIATE YA
It's not 4am silly
@Don't Read My Profile Photo shit
XD TAKE YUH TIME AND F#CKING SLEEP MATE!
Where's the video you made about leveling magic items? I'm struggling to find it
It's fine, no need to be exorberant like that. *cough* 11:30 *cough*
My top tip: if you need an emergency one-shot, make it goblin related. It’ll write itself.
This is my go-to. "We Be Goblins" is simple enough that I have it memorized and can run it with no prep. Players inevitably spend most of the session causing chaos in their own village.
Yep. Goblin chaos is just enjoyable
fax
Kobolds are similarly chaotic and fun, with the added bonus of Home Alone trap shenanigans
I just look for any monster i haven't used a lot, do a quick readup on the lore or smth and think up a setting. Neon cultists in a nuclear wasteland is pretty fun
For speeding up combat: *X, it's your turn, Y, you're up next, get ready*. It really helps, even if a bit
If I remember, I want to try this out in my campaign. I got one noob player who chose moon circle druid as their class, and routinely looks through the entire list of beasts trying to figure out what to turn into...maybe something this small could help shorten his turn time.
Thanks for sharing!
@@themetalone7739 Can confirm, using this helps a lot
@@themetalone7739 nothing wrong with asking him to make a list with 5 or 6 creatures to chose from. Allowing him to alter the list between game sessions.
Gosh this is such good advice and seems so obvious I'm surprised I haven't heard it before. Thanks for the tip!
@@dgargoyle I've thought about doing that, but I really don't like imposing extra limits on what PCs can do...the game has enough rules as it is; I really (try to) only use homebrew rules that make more things possible for the players, rather than less.
In my home games I like to buff enemy damage and decrease their HP. Makes combat more fast paced and high stakes. 🦀
I just give every enemy 8 legs and 2 claws. Makes everything way better and fights much more intense when facing the ultimate lifeform.
You look like you'd read other people's experiences for a living.
Also, when will you play with CR? Just show a screen with a crab on it and your voice. Guarantee that episode will be one of the most popular they've done in a while.
I love your vids Crit Crab!
Our DM does the same
This makes think about Shadow of the demon lord, do you know this RPG ?
Breaking away from combat that was just "hit, do damage, kill enemy" was the best decision I made. The most fun combat encounters I've made for my players have had multiple ways of winning or losing, making it more than just "kill to win".
This last fight they just had, a sorcerer was planning to call upon a moon goddess to create an entire new moon in the sky, bringing out the werewolves from hiding, as the light from two moons would be as strong as a full moon (a lot more to the logic behind it and the motivations for stopping it, but that's it simplified). The players were swarmed by various hunters paid to stop them, while the one calling upon the goddess had 5 turns to complete a prayer that would summon her. Every hit the players made extended the prayer by a turn, but it came down to my tankiest player being the last one left to stop the prayer. With three attacks, he missed every single one, allowing the prayer to finish. This summoned the moon goddess and after presenting his case, the villain won. The session ended with a second moon appearing in the sky and our lycan player transforming into a werewolf, which forces him to attack his party.
No one important died, no one fled, but the fight stayed interesting and intense because there were so many ways it could've ended.
And! They lost! The party lost without the party outright dying. The stakes are Real
That sounds really fun! Yeah, I've been trying to break away from hit-and-kill stuff too!
@Felix Rivera Indeed, there’s more to adventuring than the PCs’ lives, but that means getting players to care about the world.
Lycanthropy didn't make you evil
@@cheesusgaming1769 werewolves are chaotic evil?
so about the giving an unthought out item...
my DM gave our party some wine when we asked for some in the feywild. naturally, it was mushroom crazy wine, which made us float into the air like balloons. (we christened it floaty wine). we then had to go find some satyrs, and they said they would give us some more floaty wine if we investigated a growing swamp. we did so, and we got 3 barrels of floaty wine, plus the recipe for it. cut to the next session... we went back to the material plane, and had to help a town get rid of a fire giant. we evacuated the town, and lay in wait with our wine. when the giant came along, our barbarian challenged him to a drinking contest, calling him a coward. the giant drank a huge tankard, and shot into orbit. he never came back down. (the barbarian survived by tying his feet to the table.) it was supposed to be a boss battle, but we beat it in 2 rounds.
That sounds really fun and really satisfying
That sounds more fun than actual combat, tbh
That reads like a mythological folk tale and I fucking love it
Bro is your barbarian thor? That sounds like some shit from norse mythology
Look, maybe the town didn't have any, but couldn't the barbarian drank normal wine lol, although I guess it'd look weird coming out of a different keg
Making someone do their actual turn in 6 seconds is insane. A minute tho imo is actually plenty of time and really helps with keeping things going.
In D&D, yes, but for Paranoia that is absolutely the intention, and indeed, the whole point
@Shinigami Jack Also helps with Toon. Basically any comedy RPG.
I'd only enforce the 6 seconds _once they've had a little time to think and they're indecisive._ Like, you've been uming and ahring for 2 minutes, I need a decision. 6 seconds, go.
I think 15 seconds is plenty
6 seconds to decide on an action as a rule for a slow player could be fine, actual dice rolling and maths will take longer than that.
Honestly, for combat, look for Matt Colville's action oriented monsters. Not every monster needs that applied, but I feel for bosses, even those that aren't legendary in nature, giving them villain actions really showcases their personality in combat and helps them be more memorable and interesting. Also, it helps to have an extra win condition for your boss other than just killing the players. Tomorrow, I myself am going to have the boss generating a portal for a Neogi invasion fleet bent on world domination. The party has to simultaneously beat the bad guy AND keep the portal destabilized so that the fleet can't come through.
This is so true Matt's action oriented monster design is amazing, and also Matt's comments on how villains can act smart, i.e. if they can see they are going to lose they may take a player hostage or do something crazy, made combat much more interesting for my players when the BBEG threatened to execute an unconscious player in order to save herself. Just adds more to combat to keep stuff interesting.
I think an important part of the action-oriented design (maybe even more important than villain actions) is just designing your bad guys with a consistent theme to their abilities. For example, a boss I’m planning to throw at my players in their next session has abilities themed entirely around mobility; Basically every action he has either lets him move without provoking opportunity attacks, or launches himself in a straight line. He’s going to be absolutely infuriating and I can’t wait to let him loose.
I mean. It’s still just functionally legendary actions and I give that to ALL my bosses.
I want my players to feel powerful. But I also want the “arc finale” villains to be big threats as well.
They have guardians, or puzzle mechanics that prevent them from taking damage until the party figure it out and counter it.
They act more erratic as they lose more and more health. They target spell casters if that villain is knowledgeable about arcane spells and concentration spells (mechanically speaking). Take hostages, ect.
Colville inspired those types of acts but I think in 5E specifically it’s a necessity because of just how fast PC’s get strong. And it prevents the tank and the bad guy just smacking each other as HP sacks while the ranged and spell casters just attack and whittle them down.
Also different cover/elevation for more dynamic battlefields
Yeah colville has some great ideas, that’s one of my faves
I second this. Action-oriented monsters saved combat for me as a dm
One of my favorite things to do as a DM is give my players magic items that seem to be completely useless as it tends to bring out creative ideas from them
More of a minor "decision", but once I created 2 different available boats and captains that the party could potentially use to sail the ocean into the upcoming arc. These 2 boats had strengths and weaknesses: The goliath woman running one would charge less, but the players would be constantly working, at the risk of exhaustion as they travel. The tiefling running the other didn't have them work, but charged way more.
As they were deciding which boat to go on, I made sure to explicitly tell them the stakes. Still glad I did that, they made an informed decision off of it.
Which one did they picK?
@@maffiatmarcatto367 lazy. They paid extra.
To be fair, Exhaustion is brutal in 5e, so going into a combat scenario with it would have been a REALLY bad idea too.
Well, if you are working on a ship, you are the one who has to be paid or it's mutiny time!
@@helgenlane they did pay you kinda with the cheap ticket
I let my players pick their boss fight once. They were playing in Theros, and I pulled heavily on MTG lore, including planes walkers. They were traveling with Garruk Wildspeak, and the villain was Xenagos resurrected by Oko (if you don’t know them, look them up). Basically I had Garruk tell them he would fight one of them and the players were able to choose between a slugfest against a god’s avatar or a super illusive planes walker. They chose the god’s avatar, and it was a lot of fun. Pretty cool if possible to give the players a sense of choosing their boss.
1:53 The BBEG doesn't have to personally connected to every character. The BBEG could have underlings that work for them, and its these various underlings (Or the underlings' underlings) who messed with the PCs for whatever reason. While not personally attached to each PC, this connects the PCs to the villain and after they deal with the underlings and discover the BBEG's identity, they might feel more motivated to deal with them because the BBEG is the root of the problems.
Alternatively, you could completely forgo a BBEG altogether and simply have multiple arcs that each have a different villain, with each villain connecting to a different player's backstory.
@@PlayerZeroStart exactly.
Tbh some of my arcs don't even have villains per say. There can be conflict without someone being a villain. One of my player's arc includes a rival party of adventurers, but they're no villains. Just rivals who have similar goals and happen to not like the party for backstory reasons (just enough to cause problems)
@@nessa-parmentier Yeah, generally a conflict of ideas/opinions seems better than having a BBEG. Though sometimes having a BBEG can be pretty fun
My players recently fought a Nuckelevee, one was an undine. He jumped into the water to try and save a drowning person. He rolled perception and I gave the description something like, "you feel danger. The last time you felt this was when you were in murky water alone with a shark."
But wait aren't knuklavee meant to never actually go into running water?
@@AliceIsSleepy it had manipulated someone to flood a granite quarry using create water.
@@jamessolano7881 oh I see
@Alice is sleepy it's worth noting that nuckleavees are ocean spirits, so an aquatic encounter is totally reasonable!
A DM limiting someone to how many times can go to the bathroom and just the equivalent of having to ask for a hall pass
Is turnabout fair play? If the DM gets up to use the necessary, do the players hold him/her down until garments are soiled. WTAH? Free advice on the internet is often worth less than the time to regret getting it. :)
I will literally piss on your floor if.you try that
Veteran Player/DM here, playing in a campaign with new players and DM. I find biting my tongue instead of hitting them with ACCCTTTUUUAAALLLLYYYY.... is way more fun and it's refreshing to see the wonder they have for the game. There's my two cents, If you don't need it, pass it on to someone who does.
I wish I could've done that. All I do is slow down the game.
Re: Making fun Combat. Matt Colville has a really good vid on this. In that, he recommends looking at the 4e Monster Manual for inspiration. 4e added a ton of weird thematic monster abilities.
He has a lot of good videos on this! Also, a monster book coming out, which has a sample pamphlet of goblins available for free!
Also, look into "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" for tactics that doesn't add new abilities yet still makes the combat more intriguing. I tried this with a group of goblins and my players could barely beat them.
When you said "15 goblins", I thought "Do not play 15 individual goblins". Play 5 groups of 3 goblins or any other combination. Maybe two frontline groups of 5 each and a caster/cleric duo, a ranged duo and a (hidden) sneaky solo guy. Adjust stats accordingly. Goblins are small critters, they should know they only have a chance against humans or larger when they do formation fighting. And yes, that frontline group gets 5 attacks (just deduct attacks as HP get lower, ie individual goblins would be dead), don't try to solo it. They should be able (and do at the GM's disgression) to split up their attacks to multiple targets in range. Still, you don't need 15 minis, 15 initiatives and think about 15 different actions.
Pair this with the use of Minion monsters (the same monster but with 1 HP, no resistances only immunities, and a shaved down stat block with only one or two of their most mechanically simple abilities) and you have easy encounter design principles for horde battles. Every group has an amount of HP equal to the number of enemies in the group and a bonus to damage also equal to that number. You don't wanna grant that bonus to attack rolls though because after about 3-4 monsters you're effectively guaranteeing a group is gonna hit your players when it attacks, and if you're only using 2 monsters in a group you should just run them individually as regular minions and not put extra work into compressing stuff that doesn't need compressing
For PC backstories, I add in the loose threads into my list of loose threads, which also gets added to by anything that happens in game. When writing their next adventure, I'll generally grab two or three threads from my list of loose threads and use them as the core inspiration for it, tying those threads together in the process.
I also don't use prewritten modules though, so I can have the next adventure be whatever.
One of my big thing I always get frustrated by is the fact that most creatures should be trying to use stealth. A dragon might not be all that tanky against 4 pc's, but if they stealth up on the party grab the wizard and take them off to be brutalized suddenly it is way scarier.
So, do that. But talk to the Wizard player first. Make that something that happens at the end of the session - the dragon appears, skulking from the shadows and captures the wizard, before they both vanish (teleporting away). Give a couple of chances for perception checks, and have the Wizard roll an Int check (no proficiency), versus the dragon's save dc. If he succeeds, he feels the magic preparing to be cast, and has an opportunity to Counterspell. Give the party chances to see what's coming, in foreshadow bits. If the party succeeds, they have a big combat with someone in biting distance of the most frail party member.
If the party fails? The dragon has captured the wizard and taken him deep in the lair. Remember that dragons are smart, and vain. They didnt capture the wizard to eat them - the dragon kidnapped the wizard to prove how superior he is. Play chess. Play riddles. Give the wizard some rp potential in a one-on-one, and have him wait while the party fights their way down to the drsgon's lair - to find the dragon and wizard in perilous combat already, or getting along actually fairly well.
I feel like that can go downhill SO fast. Allow the players a chance to do something about it first, and even if they fail, don't just insta-kill the wizard like that.
@@PlayerZeroStart Literally everything can go downhill. Of course the party should have the ability to detect the dragon. But this would take (assuming the dragon gets within 120 feet without being detected) 1 movement and 2 legendary action points to get to the wizard, 1 action to grapple. This is turn 1. Next turn 1 movement action to move 80 feet up. Dash to move 80 feet laterally away from the party. Note at this point the wizard has likely only taken 1 tail attack (1 legendary action point) and either a bite+claw or a double claw taking 44-48 damage assuming all attacks hit and using the flat damage of the Adult Bronze Dragon. The wizard is also grappled, likely limiting their somatic and or material components but leaving verbal untouched. Legendary action points used to make another tail attack (16 damage, bringing the total to 60-64 damage) and move another 40 feet away from the party. This puts the dragon 140 feet from the party, just barely within standard longbow range. This has been turn 2. Turn 3 has the dragon repeat turn 2 becoming 280 feet away from the party (plus 200 feet in the air) and causing another 16 damage to the wizard. Assuming the party is dashing to get to the dragon they are moving at about 60 feet per turn meaning the dragon is only 80 feet ahead of them and 200 feet vertical. At this point the wizard has taken 76-80 damage, meaning they are likely dead or severely injured. The dragon would drop them for 20d6 falling damage (average of 70) meaning the wizard (with no featherfall) has now taken 146 to 150 damage, likely killing them.
This is three turns of combat, where the wizard (who against an Adult Dragon, should be about level 14 or so) should have teleport and be an experienced player. There is no real reason to not do this, unless it does not fit at your table. Of course talk about it first, but if you are trying to run combat with tactical enemies- this is how you run a dragon.
The main thing that I've found, as a player, makes me enjoy combat the most is when the goal is not just to kill the enemy. Recently, my party was trying to steal an automaton, and the combat ended up being not about killing the enemy; if we could get it out of the gate and cover our tracks, we won. Plus, if we tried to kill them all, reinforcements would come. It became about concealing our cover when we could, finding how to open the gate and keep it open, defend the automaton and the cart it was pulling, and not using up every resource so we could get away cleanly. It was probably the most fun combat I've ever had, and the stakes felt real because the threat was never death; we could get away if we needed. But we needed the payment from this heist to get information, so it became a battle that wasn't about killing the enemy on either side
I think the only case when "skipping" a player's turn is ok is if they're temporarily absent (ex: bathroom, taking a call, etc). In my table, we usually delay it until they come back, if a full round passes by and they're STILL not coming back, then the DM acts for them. Pretty chill and dosen't force everyone to wait
I found that in combat, having all players share a turn helps them get involved and communicate so that they move in cohesion. It spiced up some encounters and made it feel new and fresh.
It seems really fun! and different, can you talk a little more about it?
That's pretty cool, actually. I could see using this for certain combat or challenge scenarios.
How do you handle Initiative?
@@milesmatheson1142 i guess the easiest way is all players "next to eachother" in initiative act at once
I have just started DMing but I have played a lot, and I have a hard time both keeping each player feeling important. On top of that, I don't know if it's right, but I ask and talk with the players to make sure events happen to fit how they see their character. Like... There aren't any surprises in the game, I come up with something, get approval from my players, and then run it in the game. Idk, if this is right or not.
There's no "right" way to DM, so if you asking them if they enjoyed it helps you make the game enjoyable for everyone, than you are doing it all well. It's understandable not being good at an aspect of DMing, but the fact that you are open to feedback is great.
Setting expectations is important. I check in with my players periodically on what their character's goals are and whether they have changed or not based on how the sessions play out. I think it is more important to have a strong set up communicated between the DM and the player characters and see how things play out and form the pay off naturally.
I would definitely ask players things they would like to happen, take that idea and run with it. It's good to get players input but put your own stamp on it so that they don't know exactly what is about to happen.
I've found have your players write a journal as if its their character you get a tonne of insight into what's gonna make them become interested then use a mix of these things in your session recap its easier for you to plan things as well
@@cydude5856 this
My favorite way to make combat more engaging is to manipulate terrain. Destroy it, restrict it, Abuse it
Don't forget "make terrain dynamic". Vines blowing in the wind. Stone obelisk teleports every few seconds randomly, sometimes forcing friend or foe out of position. Pendulum blade trap traces random path every other creature turn affecting strategy/tactics. Oh the pandemonium on the board...
The 'level up' items that improve I've just given the first of which basically a standard club that counts as magical.
Called them exalted weapons, feels cool, thankyou
A huge thank you for answering my question! It's a huge relief to hear about your experience starting out and all the great resources you've referred to! I adore this community and the kindness and overall willingness to show now people the way
(And you didnt sound dismissive at all to me!)
The anti-reflective glasses and the screen glow make it look like you're wearing purple eye shadow.
Honestly looks good
15:50 that actually reminds me of an optional rule for counterspell I thought up. Basically when a creature casts counterspell they make opposed checks with their spell casting mod. Honestly spices up the feel and makes the spell a risk reward scenario.
Loving the new colorgrade! It's nice to see someone pay attention to that in this website, makes me enjoy watching this channel even more
"There are people limiting their players going to the bathroom!"
At that point I'd bring a bottle and a bag, then piss in the bottle while holding it underneath the table/shit in the bag instead of using the coins while looking the DM dead in the eye.
*assert your dominance; urinate while making eye contact, unphazed*
That whole thing about the goblins might be the best advice I've ever gotten for making encounters!
As for a starter DM the Series by Matt Colville would be my go to if I could only Pick one. They are short, interesting and relatable enough to get into DMing and when you get specific problems or questions at that point go search TH-cam.
This was helpful. I am a new DM, been at it less than a year, and breaking up combat is something I am most worried about. I have 2 veteran players playing martial classes who assure me that everything is going fine, but I can't help but be concerned about challenging them. I have had a few combats recently that I felt better about, but it's a WIP so I try to take in as much advice about combat as possible.
To your point about managing 15 goblins:
Swarm HP? And mainly denote archers or a shaman or something and then you could have 3-5 goblins in a group with 1 Health pool.
I know that kinda sounds warhammer 40k but its worked for me before
Any backstory should have one of these three: rival/enemy, friend/family, or a mystery. A rival/enemy can easily be either affiliated with the BBEG or has been manipulated by them to do what they did to the character. Either way, they should act as a stepping stone to hating the BBEG. A friend/family should offer a character that either needs to be rescued, is trying to do what you're trying to do(but is failing because they have a flaw that the player doesn't) or likewise has been corrupted/manipulated by the BBEG. Whatever happens to them, by the time the player has resolved their backstory with that character, it should make them want to take out the BBEG for what they did to them. A mystery should simply tie into either the BBEG or their plot, such that the answer to the mystery connects to why that character is where they are when the final confrontation begins. Chosen by a god or born with a mysterious power? A being guided them in hopes they could defeat this evil. Tainted by a dark power/curse/evil? The BBEG hoped that leaving a fraction of their power in that character would make them a powerful ally when the time came. Did a mysterious plague/murder/event cause the character to be an adventurer that doesn't seem to connect to the main plot at all? The gods/planar beings/BBEG did it to either create heroes out of strife or to test their powers in an early stage.
I agree with the premice (having rivals/friends/mysteries) but not with the following part... at least not necessarily.
That implies you have a BBEG and really, really want to tie the characters' backstories into the main plot. Well... first off, not every campaign's scenario has a BBEG (granted, it can be replaced by a group of people and still act in a similar way, I'm not talking about that). I personally like to have several different (and sometimes completely unrelated) plot threads going on at the same time. This helps me integrate player's backstories into the world in what (to me) feels like a more natural way. They got together as a party for reasons, obviously, but their motivations and goals are not necessarily related to the same plot point. Each backstory will come up as a relevant plot point eventually, but in different contexts. Adds complexity and variety in how the characters in the party will interact with each other as they discover things, and could even generate some tension between them (Which makes it something that needs to be carefully explore, you generally don't want your party to explode unless it's specifically been agreed to that it can happen)
@@nessa-parmentier Sure, but at that point you're not the kind of person who's asking for beginner advice on incorporating player backstories. Intro advice is not the same as what experienced DMs do, but it gives them a taste of the feeling, pacing and back and forth they want for future campaigns.
I painted some old Checker pieces into about 4 different colours, and put dots on the side (e.g green with 1 dot, green with 2 dots, etc). We use those for generic mobs.
My characters were fighting a giant alagator-esque monstrocity, and one of them tied a rope around its neck and rolled a nat 20 for strength. No attacking for you!
The comment about dogging on the dms bosses hits real close to home, my group has been absolutely destroying everything he's thrown at us, each time being "harder than the last" and "a fight to take seriously" (which has become a running joke at this point). Last boss lasted 3 rounds and did under 20 damage total to a lvl4 party of 7. I tried explaining action economy to help the dm out with this and he just keeps telling me not to worry because the next one will be a real threat. He's gonna tpk us, I can feel it.
Our DM had the same problem, kept throwing single enemies at a party of six. It got to the point that the enemy could literally one shot characters, but that still means that there are 5 more characters right behind to keep hitting the boss. He recently gave up on that and is starting to throw more groups of 3-4 against us and the fights have been much more exciting lol.
Here’s my advice for emotional descriptions. You can tell players what they feel, but what they do with and about that should always be up to them.
Ex: “You are stricken with an overwhelming grief.” Good
“You start to cry” Not good, now I’m not in control.
Man, look at how Jacob has evolved.
Jacob when doing his first video : Wisdom Score of 8
Jacob now : Wisdom Score 9
You can really see how far he's come...
(jk in case anyone takes this literally, I love Jacob, his friends, and his videos)
To the last question adding something exciting like Jacob said is amazing you can have a whole session of players lazing around town and shopping and still throw something mind blowing at the very end to keep them thinking "what happens next?"
One sense that I feel gets left out of descriptions too often: thermoception (i.e., our ability to sense temperature/heat). It can go a long way to setting a mood to describe not only how elements of it might feel, but the overall climate of the area. Plus, thermoception is a really fun word 'cause it sounds kind of like a super power.
Thermoception, sounds like inception's sequel. What a cool word.
items: if they seem to not be using something they could, make the item do that. Druid not using their bonus action? bonus action item. you get it
I want to add something to the description part. Don't tell characters how they feel, tell them how the room feels. This dark, blood stained altar, might not scare them. That doesn't mean there isn't a prevailing sense of dread hanging around it, like stuff went down. A tavern can feel warm and homely or worn down and sketchy. That gives people a jumping off point. The rogue might prefer the sketchy tavern because he visits places like it all the time and the high end hoity toity noble tavern makes him uncomfortable because he can't stop looking at the people's coin pouches. While the paladin might hate it because it's a hive of scum and villainy, how is he supposed to get some rest?
I'm using stereotypes here for the sake of easy descriptions, but this can go all sorts of ways. A weird quirk I have found, if you describe a place as too nice, most players will instantly think something is up. So keep that in mind.
I mean if you tell them there is a sense of dread around it... You've told them how they feel. Feelings are reactionary and I don't mind telling people how they feel if there is something legendary or magical going on. Character may not run, but as a DM it does make sense to say "you're afraid. Even if you thought of yourself as fearless, you aren't. That's human, friend. You're mortal. And you're afraid."
They can react to that however they want since they weren't given "frightened" but I don't think it's wrong to decide certain feelings. Even you couldn't avoid it in your description since really describing the "feeling of the room" is just describing things that people are likely to feel when encountering the room.
@@calebbridges4748 I disagree. You are giving them a hint as to how they might want to act, you are not explicitely telling them: "this is how you should act." There is, in my opinion, a rather big difference between telling people the gruesome scene and describing it as scary. As opposed to describing this same scene and telling the players their characters are scared now.
Nobody is talking about how to ACT. Both of us were talking about feelings. And I agree. I don't wanna take away their actions unless there's some action affecting magic.
"Feelings" are the hints that tell people how to act. And telling them a room feels a way is essentially the same as saying how they feel. But either way, I'm not controlling their actions.
Just because I say "everyone's heart pounds with the dread that permeates the room," doesn't mean I've taken their agency. The courageous paladin can still stand forthright and show she has no fear. The cowardly monk can hide behind the barbarian who chooses to boast about how unafraid he is.
I think perhaps we are saying very similar things in different words? Like we both don't wanna force players actions or reactions, but setting a mood is good and often involves narrating some feelings? Lemme know whatcha think!
Thank you so much Jacob!
Love your content
I wanna thank you for basically answering all my questions in the ways I wanted them answered... gonna save my game, lol
For the first time dm with no experience, I too dm’d after playing one session. My advice is to just invite everyone over for a one shot, express that it’s a trial for everyone, and then try out some of the stuff you’re not sure about. It’ll help you feel more confident, and it is real experience
ANYONE WHO HAS NEVER DM'D BEFORE
In my first game of DnD, I was DM to a group of 5 others.
If you have a Players Handbook/internet connection you have everything you need.
If you have watched anyone on YT or Twitch play the game for a few sessions you already know how to DM.
It's much easier than it looks, don't get caught up in the rules just use your best judgement and look up the actual rule post-session .
You will get used to it all before long.
It's a game, treat it like one.
Also something to keep in mind, only you know what you've missed/forgotten/ messed up.
Your players won't know that you didn't use that fancy spell or used the wrong stats for a monster.
more of these kind of videos please. maybe it's the stress of being a new DM, i love this. so many helpful tips! thank yoU!
My best advice for combat:
1. Play monsters as thinking creatures, not stat blocks with teeth. They often can talk to the pcs, They might flee, they might plead for mercy, they might offer mercy, they might go after specific people regardless of strategic advantage.
2. Never let the combat go more than 3 or 4 rounds without something changing. This could be new enemies arriving, a continually evolving environmental threat, a really big spell being cast, etc.
3. Interesting terrain. Turn that big square room into an L shape w/ pillars, a staircase to a balcony, and more than 2 exits. Better yet, add an acid pit/pool, or a chasm, or ye olde dangly rope bridge. Basically, every map should have some kind of unique bit, even if it’s just a mud pit or a big rock. A general principle is to never give pcs a terrain advantage at the start of the combat.
4. Secondary objectives/ ways for the players to interact w/ the combat. If they destroy the crystal in the back of the room, it does nothing to the boss, but all the skeleton warriors drop. If they pull the lever, a drawbridge comes down and makes the map easier to move around. Put loot in the actual boss chamber, so that pcs can find and use it in the combat.
5. If you want the pcs to feel badass, give them one really big monster to Stunlock and dunk on. If you want to make them almost die, throw a whole bunch of weaker stuff at them.
6. Don’t have more than like 5 distinct non pc things in initiative. I’m not saying I actually follow this piece of advice, but it’s still good.
I know Jacob said a lot of this, but I felt like going into detail about what has worked for me.
1. Even if they cant speak the same Language as the Pc´s, they still can communicate with each other. A certain Grunt leading to the repositining of the Archers every time?
2. Doesnt need to be an actual change.
"The hair one the arms rising as the arcane Machine the "Evil guys" are protecting begins to hum, the Air becomes static and you can taste metal on your tongue with every breath you take."
Doesnt change anything at that moment, but the Players understand there will be something happening soon.
3. Even a Square Room is good. Make it 2 Floors with an open layout. The Second Floor having a Hallway around 3 of the 4 sides. Stairs leading up there. Banners/Chains/Chandelier (there has to be one to swing on) hanging from the ceiling. And ofc if a Player succeds the Athletics to swing from an Banner onto the Chandelier to swing with it across to room to jump on an Guard with a Crossbow, that Guard is done. No matter the HP. Just squash him.
4,5 and 6 nothing to add there.
And just for clarification, English isnt my First Language (GDR Born, no English in School). So ... be kind if i was confusing.
@@kaitan4160 Nah man your English was great here. Good advice.
I just want to say thank you. I love Grim Hollow, and some of the options you wrote are some of my favorite, like the Bulwark Fighter
My friends and I are starting a 12 person campain where our stats are based of of us as normal people (we can still choose any race we want). My 2 best friends are being the Bard-Baric Trio. The Trio goes like this: 2 Twin Tefling Bards (COLore & COSwords) that were saved by a Goliath Barbarian(Totem :: Bear). We should be starting our campain next week so I'll keep yall posted.
This might be some of my favorite content you make. It is so helpful and funny.
Love watching your content - great stuff. Minor Criticism: I miss Jacob videos where he did them while laying on the floor. I'd like to see more of that content. :) Keep up the great work!
We want more floor Jacob!
Best spell combo:
Flesh to stone, rock to mud. Then you can wait for however long you want and do them in the reverse order! Oh such fun :D
A question I have is how to do the “next step”? What I mean is when you’ve gotten through the certain moments or plot threads what’s a good way to tie the things planned with what isn’t.
Do they need a tie-in? Life happens. Dropping the kids off at the bus and taking out the trash might have traversing the driveway in common, but who thinks about it? I'm wondering if you are really asking how to motivate the party to get to the next Big Thing? Feel free to offer more information.
A guild that doles out the contracts or adventures the party goes on, make one random event occur in the contract that could lead to the next step.
Idea for helping new players remember things: even if you're using D&D Beyond, have the players keep a printed version of their character sheets handy. Find yourself an array of highlighters, and highlight the various sections in distinct and consistent colors. "Where is my Initiative bonus?" "It's the bit outlined in green." "Where are my combat actions?" "The section bordered in red." A while back I saw someone had made character sheets in a similar style for people with certain disabilities and my thought at the time was, "that just looks like a damn handy character sheet there." Should be findable with Google if you're interested.
I want to second Jacob on the Easy Description part. A lot of English teachers I had in high school and college gave us assignments to write a descriptive essay with at least three senses. When you start thinking about adding the senses in writing, you naturally start expanding on the descriptions and fleshing out even the simplistic actions. Instead of “The peasants push a broken cart out of the way so the party can get by” you can go about it like “The group of three peasants who look worn from a long day of work, sweat rolling off their brow from the heat of the mid day sun rolling off their faces, stand up and move to the cart. The biggest of the three squats down to put a shoulder near the axle of the broken wheel, while the other two take positions to his sides. You hear them begin to count, and upon three, they flex and push against the cart. The wood scrapes across the ground and emits a screech as it slowly moves out of the way. The pained look on the peasant’s face show strain as if they are giving everything they have left. It takes all their effort, but the cart moves out of the way enough that the party can pass.”
Yes, that was long. I do this so that at ANY TIME during that, the players could interject and ask to help them out. Being extra descriptive can awaken emotions in the party and possibly change how they would react to a situation. It can be satisfying to know that, just by the way you describe something, can influence change in any given situations.
I got off on a tangent at the end. I wanted to try to emphasize that it’s easy to describe even the most mundane task by adding senses.
I can't really explain how much i love this channel and Jacob's work and enthusiasm that puts on every single video he makes.
I've lost count of how many times I had a bad experience, or a difficulty running a session in DnD, but each time, there's always a video that cheers me up or helps me to improve.
For the first time, me and my party reached a year from playing the same campaign, and we are still so excited as the first day. And it's all thanks to you all guys 💕
Don't stop, and keep going!
A humble message from a fellow DM~
Whenever my players start trouncing the enemies, I just double the enemies damage. Every goblin is a hit and run nightmare. I figure if 5e has so many death-saves and options for bringing back characters, I might as well use them.
I bet that is a lot of fun sometimes, but occasionally demolishing an encounter feels really good and satisfying
@@SeanLaMontagne Sometimes-but I prefer the sneak attacks for that feeling. I let my players set up ambushes by describing enemies on guard routes, standing under a conspicuous ledge, with their backs turned for some unknown reason. Giving the group a chance to just trounce the enemies is best, especially when they do it silent and sneakily.
In comparison, when the characters have big heads and say “nah, I don’t want to move, I’ll stay in melee,” I start upping damage. I want the players to sweat. I especially want the barbarians to sweat, because so often they’re resistant to damage and never bite into those low hit points. Doing 50 points of damage to a wizard is terrifying, but to a barbarian is almost boring. He paid for all those hit points, I want him to use them.
@@TheLyricalCleric
Have you ever asked your players if they would enjoy an encounter where they just flat out dominate, or if they exclusively want encounters to be challenging and only dominate an encounter if it's an ambush?
@@SeanLaMontagne I generally read the room-I did one encounter where there was a single foe that was dead before the end of the first round and people felt unsatisfied, even saying “I didn’t get to use my ability” or “he really should have been tougher.” I rarely have players wish enemies were easier; even in super hard fights where I have a ton of backup smashing in the locked doors behind the group, I rarely get anybody wanting to retreat or feeling overwhelmed. Usually when a combat is overwhelming I’ll hear “damn, I think we gotta get out of here!” or “well, I’m gonna be dead soon.” Yet I’ve never TPK’ed my players and they usually come out of most fights with most of their hit points. I find that there’s a high upper limit where you hear “that encounter was awful” before you hear “that encounter was unfair and shouldn’t have happened.”
As a DM for DND and Star Finder I only have 3 main rules
1. I you can come up with crazy and creative solutions like taking a door and using it as a shield I’ll probably let you do it
2. No cheating it’s not fun it’s obnoxious
3. If the players want to break the game to have fun that’s fine remember it’s about the players having fun not just creating a cool story.
Hot take, I use my monsters a complete immune little dudes that chip damage until one of my players attacks in a cool way for good dmg. I found eyeballing when they die much more satisfactory for players.
Can you rephrase this with propper grammar please? There seems to be a good thought hidden in an unreadable text.
I think he means that he doesn't track hp just thinks when something is cool enough to kill something it dies
@@leichtmeister monsters are invincible until a satisfying ‘kill’ happens
when you mentioned the goblin encounter i remembered when i too felt the slog of combat and decided to do something similar. i had group of goblins dug in with 3/4s cover and dire wolves that ran out and slowed the party down while the hunkered goblin archers and mages peppered them.
I'm pretty new so I also struggle with getting my players invested so I kinda did something that some might see as dickish. After my players were coming back from saving a random npc, I had there be an assassination attempt on him. One of the PCs obvi jumped in the way of the arrow but it was poisoned with a poison that was entirely home brewed (it was fun, when the poison is made, it at the same time also synthesizes the cure that's in the exact proportions needed to cure the poison. Kinda BS, I admit but it made them invested). They were given 40 hours to solve a mystery and if they weren't able to, I had the big bad give them a choice where he would heal the PC who got shot but for a price. Then bam, they are invested in solving the mystery of who shot their friend, they have consequences, if they can't solve it, but they also have a way out if they want to take it. I felt like it worked and my players seemed to have a good time with it
Your advice and experience on learning D&D mimics my own learning AD&D back in the before times. Learning to play "wrong" is a great way to learn because it teaches the deepest secret of RPG Game Design. Many know it, but few truly understand.
If you're worried about telling your players how their characters feel, you can use rephrase it to be non-personal.
Personal "The gnolls eating the still-living pig fill YOU with fear and nausea. The animal's squeals bring tears of sadness to YOUR eyes."
Non-Personal "The gnolls eating the still-living pig is a frightful and nauseating tableau. The animal's squeals are piecing and sadly close to a human's."
My tip as a DM is to play to your strengths. I'm a DM who 99% of the time is improvising and flying by the seat of their pants, and building encounters has always been a daunting task for me. My solution was to spend a solid three days creating and testing a series of tables that generate random, improvised encounters based on the type of terrain the party is in. How they work is I roll a certain amount of dice, and each roll tells me what creatures are in the encounter, their size, the number of creatures, the difficulty of the terrain they're on, and if any of them have any spells or legendary actions.
I'm still fine-tuning the tables, but they do work quite well, and when I first used them in the campaign, I ended up tossing a Venom Troll at my low-level party, and the innocent bystanders they were traveling with. It ended up being one of the most intense and fun encounters I've ever run. The troll was tough enough to force the party to get creative with their actions, and they used the terrain to transform the encounter into a combination of Three-Card Monty and Whack-A-Mole, with the Tabaxi Rogue giving everyone a crash course in Stealth.
The party ended up killing the Venom Troll and came dangerously close to a TPK, but they pulled through, and their characters ended up growing closer over it, which delighted me to no end. To summarize, by playing to my strengths as a DM, I ended up giving an intense and fun encounter, made my party think beyond just dice rolls, and created some amazing character RP.
That sounds incredibly fun
Jacob: "Ask your players what they want to do."
Me: "Alright..." I ask them, of course.
Players: "I don't know..." "Uhhhhhh..."
What do I do now, Jacob? COMMUNICATION ISN'T WORKING JACOB- HELP-
Using the Phrase of an German TV add for the Suprise Egg.
"I want game, fun and chocolate!"
Ask more specific questions. When creating my campaign, I asked my players
What kind of universe do you want to play ? I know how to DM DnD but also other systems which would imply different settings.
Would you rather have a high, med or low fantasy setting ?
Would you prefer a simple campaign with an easy to identify villain or something more complex ? I already have an idea in mind for the latter.
Etc.
Same with their characters, I presented them the universe, asked them what playstyle they wanted and then showed them classes, races, to see what they would prefer, before discussing the backstories with them (rather than asking them to write it on their own and hand it to me)
If you have, from the beginning, cleared all of that out with them, they will know what they want to do, at the very least because you helped them have a basic understanding of the world they're in and a (basic or not) character motivation from the start, that can be or not be related to your main plot (that is, if you have one)
Once my players used a survival blanket and arrows to pin down my boss.
Ok the backstory question what I did is I helped make the characters with my players and Im doing more of a broad villain so the way I bring in there backstorys into the main story was I from the very beginning would ask hey you mentioned this random character in your backstory he doesn't seem to have a name can I name him? And stuff like that or during session 0.5 I would incorporate the villain in either a blatantly obvious ways like him straight up murdering one of them or more subtle one of my characters ate his lunch in the communal fridge and later died of poison. (The players dying is a long story it's apart of my campaign they all needed to die to get where they needed to be for the story.) You do you most of the time players are fine if you don't incorporate there backstorys sometimes they really want to just vibe check with everyone on it and imagination is key
My list of tips for DMs just starting out.
1. Start with pre-made campaigns just so you can get understanding of the rules and the feel of the game. Once you start feeling comfortable you can change elements of it or just drop it for something else. Soon The Lost Mine of Phandalin will be free on DnD beyond and it's a good starting point.
2. Don't be afraid to tell your players that you don't know or need a moment to figure things out. At my table I have a appointed Rules Lawyer I personally ask questions.
3. Keep learning. There are so much free resources out there.
Jacob was feeling spicy when recording this lol
I recently started Dming and had the luck of playing with 3 DM's and it helped me so much. They were all super chill and a great source when I needed to figure out a ruling for out of the box situations.
The nice thing is they gave advice and were fine with me making my own decisions.
When it comes to description, be it in combat or not, there are a few things that inform a dungeon master’s ability. I say it in a lot of my comments on these dnd channels, dming is an art and like any art it is something that you can be good at in many different ways and that you can be bad at in many different ways, and you can be both simultaneously or neither.
When it comes to description, here’s the advice which is the equivalent of telling an aspiring archer to get more accurate:
1. Seek mastery of the language you run your game with. Dnd is a game and dungeon mastering is a role which is played by talking. If you can, play with the language with which you are most proficient. Why this helps comes up in the following points:
2. Imagine vividly. Some people imagine in plain words or concepts instead of images. If you can, try to visualize these fantastic things very clearly and vividly in ways which take from all of your senses. Imagine what you see from a bird’s eye view, the shape of a city, it’s layout, the shape of the houses within, the sound of the cart being dragged through the crowded gravel road, imagine the people, the density of crowds, the average height, species, or complexion throughout. If you get to a place where the first thing that comes to your mind is detailed and cinematic then, with mastery of your language, you can try to describe what you see to your players in a way which delivers on the richness and detail and which they can understand and compartmentalize. Describing what you see of your settings in this way can serve to immerse a player in their living environment, and describing what you see of your combats in this way is a school of magic, I swear. It gives you some command of tension, engagement, and investment in the creatures involved.
3. Practice the related arts. Film is an intersection of many arts, the composition of music, sound engineering and design, cinematography, acting, editing, and much more. Something which elaborates on film is video games, video games sometimes include everything which film includes and then on top of it add the interaction of a player or players and their exploration of a digital world. Much like these, D&D lays at the intersection of worldbuilding, writing, acting, storytelling, game design, and the improvised iteration of them all. If you want to improve as a Dungeon Master seek to improve as a writer, a world builder, a storyteller, an actor, a game designer, and familiarize yourself with the living improvisation.
These tips regard D&D as the art that it is, a beautifully accessible albeit complicated art, but one which appeals to many people, both artists and not.
If you decide to become a Dungeon Master, you are trying to become an artist. I think it’s important to remember at this time that many artists are great in very different ways, because for every Leonardo De Vinci painting in glorious realism there is a Picasso aspiring to paint like a child, but both are remembered for what they created.
I feel even more intimidated. I was a kid who hated cinemas and tv shows because all of them were scary as hell. Even the beginning of Spy Kids 3D gave me trauma. I hate conflict by nature. Yet I still choose to play and DM D&D.
For player agency, it gets easier the more you play with a group.
Overtime, you will start to know your players and their characters, and can more or less guess whats going to happen. I had my current events planned WAAAY up in advance. Because I knew my players, and they themselves told me their plans. So I knew what would be impactful, alongside what they were going to do.
Asking your players "hey, what do you want to do" is a really good advice. It gives you all the prep benefits of railroading without the un-guidedness of sandbox.
To be honest, I skip my player’s turn if they try to have a 5+ minute powwow strategy session in the middle of an active battle. It’s fine if a player asks what spells somebody else has prepped, asks what effects are in play, if they can do something but not commit to doing it, or quick suggestions. Though, when somebody stops to huddle everybody up and run down the strategy for the next three turns of combat, I warn them with something like “the enemy is encroaching on your position”, and if they continue to deliberate, then they’re forced to take the dodge action. It has made my players plan things out beforehand and embrace the spontaneity of combat a little bit more.
Edit: I’m also not a fan of the character monologue during battle, especially when another player tries to engage in long conversation during somebody else’s turn. I will sometimes tell players to keep it short or wait their turn if I sense that they’re spilling a bit too many words.
Funnily enough, I actually have some experience with that situation at 13:05. The Curse of Strahd game I'm running currently was originally conceived by another DM, but after running a session 0, he got sick for a while and agreed to let me run the first session. My initial approach, since I didn't know I'd be taking over the game at that point, was to run as close to the module as written as possible since I figured that was the approach that DM would have taken. After ending this first session with the players' first introduction to Strahd on the Svalich Road, the DM would come to drop out and give me the reins, giving me more freedom to run the module as I wished while also leaving me with some minor constraints (namely, sticking with the whole Ireena/Tatyana backstory: if I'd run it from the start, I would've scrapped all that and made Strahd's lost love Patrina to make Strahd more of an evil widow instead of an evil incel, lol). Ultimately, I think something that helped me solidify a few things about taking over was talking with the previous DM, so definitely do that if you're caught in a similar situation, since it might help to know where they were planning on taking things before you had to step in.
For some reason I’m watching this and thinking, “Wow, Jacob’s going to be a great dad.”
:)
Thanks a lot for this video, it has helped me A LOT for running my wild beyond the witchilght module and since it was my first time dming it probably wouldnt go so well without you!
"Describes op creatures that would be not fun for the players most of the time" whos gonna question that?
Everyone. Everyone who's played the game before and will call the bs.
I am excited to use these inspirational creation ideas for my Solo 5e Death Knight’s Squire run. It’s been great to get back into D&D after 6 years 😍
6 seconds? That's insane! I've heard of the 1 : 10 rule. Which give them a SOFT 60 seconds on their turn. Which can work well when done right. But 6 seconds, that just... dumb.
It's hardly ever a player's fault that the game runs slowly, to be honest.
@@rodrigoa.m3566 That's... just wrong. I've been in many games that run slow because players are being slow during their turn.
@@RainMakeR_Workshop Well, shit. Not my experience, mostly.
I like your voice man you just sound like an amazing DM. Working on a script for my friends game and you in the background is just perfect and I also get to learning how to be a proper DM! Thanks
Omg I'm first 🥇🥇🥇
Or are you [surprise hamster]
Im literally watching this video while balancing my combat encounters for a bunch of new players (by taking some premades and experimenting, running the combat over and over). I have one in a cafeteria where there are tables everywhere which are difficult terrain and they that they can flip to get cover and multiple types of enemy’s (dagger welding guys, club welding guys, a captain and a berserker)I have another in a kobold den with a pit of centipedes and a net trap. But its funny that he uploads a vid, mostly about balancing combat while im balancing combat.
Haha just watched the part where he said to run a mock combat. Makes me feel like know what im doing. Thanks jacob.
You crack me up. I feel like I'm watching you grow up, getting more sophisticated and empathetic all the time. Go you.
Seriously, I like you and your work more all the time.
One of the best ways to speed up combat is to ask players to be thinking about what they want to do on their next turn while everyone else and the monsters are taking theirs. In my experience, what slows combat down the most is that a lot of people wait until it's their turn to even start looking at/analyzing what is going on to decide what they want to do which can take a while in more complicated combats. If you can get your players to pay attention and be thinking about it before hand you can cut the time of people's turn in half. It is still a little bit of a pet peeve of mine when I can either finish my characters turn in like less than 30 seconds, or run through like 20 monsters' turns in less time than it takes some people to even think about what is going on in the combat.
When Jacob take about telling players “how they feel” I think he’s more talking about “sensing”. Like what kind of stuff do they sense in the place. You’re not telling them how they personally feel, but what feelings they sense around them. What do they sense about the bustling town, or the dank cave?
My favourite way of tracking monster tactics is to have a little mood notification next to their HP.
"cautious" or "angry" or "frightened" or "sneaky" or "clever" etc etc as a reminder to myself that this enemy would prefer to hide and attack if they're sneaky. Or if they're clever they'll try to use their environment more. If they're angry they'll just attack the nearest person.
As for the Reminding Rules chapter, DNDBeyond is a great resource to help solve this problem because it does all the work for you. I can tell my players "Yeah, your Acrobatics skill bonus is listed under 'Skills.' Roll the d20 and then add that number to the roll." This makes it super simple and seems to help them *learn* what their bonus is or at least where to look so they can figure it out for themselves.
Random treasure generation. Allow players to assess their loot, sell what they don’t want, and then go buy what they actually want. It’s good when they want something obscure and they have to interact with your world’s NPCs to have it commissioned. If it’s *really* obscure, it could be a quest. Random treasure generation has the added bonus of stimulating creativity by giving them items you never heard of and they’ve never heard of.
Holy crap, thank you for so many great ideas. I appreciate you so much.
One way I've spiced up combat is by having a pitfall trap that armored chad kobolds would pick up and throw party members into, in order to pick people off one at a time. Then they kicked the stick holding the boulder at the top of the hill, making turns in combat turn into "How do we get out of here and save the caravan we're guarding before we're crushed to death?". They ended up sacrificing their Immovable Rod and, while it was sad, got them all through the combat encounter.
Jacob, I greatly appreciate that most of your ads are community projects, especially Kickstarters. As someone who has run a kickstarter, putting the word out there is really the most crucial aspect of a successful project, and successful projects means more fun stuff in the hobby, which means more inspiration for individuals to make their own content, have fun in their own games, and create their own community projects. Your ads (or ads like them) are the only kinds of ads I actually take the time to watch or listen to anymore, even when they're kind of long, because they're actually relevant to my interests. I'm not saying there's anything shameful about advertising underwear or compressed beds or mail-in food kits, but it says a lot that you often choose to promote D&D related things.
Telling people how you think they would feel is one of the best ways to get them tell you how they feel. people are always more inclned to offer up corrections over straight answers
I don’t have too much experience, almost a year’s worth, of DMing, but I learned that as long as your player’s are having fun (unless they ask to do something different), you don’t have to do get into backstories or millions of other small things, if you and the player’s are having fun playing d&d together
love the leveling magic items, I stole them and gave my players their own versions and I loved comming up with their last goals:
the paladin has to make a coven of vampires to make his smites necrotic damage
the rogue has to steal 3 legendary magic items to auto-succeed any roll
and the barb, who was previously enslaved, has to kill his slaver to heal while raging
Something I notice with character creation is that characters can either be really complex in their backstory and have so much stuff going on that it can get complicated, or the backstory feels very disconnected from the story. I recommend asking the DM about the world and thinking where your character can fit into it before fully developing a backstory. For example, I was starting a game of Rime of the Frostmaiden and wanted to play a wizard, so I asked the DM about the world and he mentioned the Arcane Brotherhood, so we had my character be an agent in the town we started in. It also made the game very fun as it gave the party somewhere to go for information or magic stuff. This doesn’t only have to apply to organizations and such, but you can also use events. Like if there’s an ongoing war, your character could be a displaced refugee. And don’t be afraid to develop your own spin on it, make your character feel a part of the world, but don’t be too afraid to make them stand out, they are going on an epic adventure to save the world
This was genuinely such an sightful video, I've loved watching it (and the rest of your stuff)
25:35 timestamp question, so the number one answer I feel is most accurate as a forever dm is that you never truly stop learning. Players will always introduce new things to you and I really enjoyed how you answered this to them yourself
Thanks mate, I picked up a couple of tips that will definitely help make the campaign I'm running play smoother!