I feel like new players, such as myself, who got into DnD in 5e are very fortunate to have TH-cam channels like you guys give us advice on how to play DnD as effectively while at the same time having fun. I talked to my uncle about it, who has been playing since 2e and said that he would’ve loved to have this kind of thing when he first played as he had no idea on what to do
For sure. Im DMing without ever having played cause we are all new. And i think i watched like 80hrs of youtube content the week before we started. And so far ive been able to avoid a lot of the mistakes they talked about. But its 100% cause of the info available.
Hahah yes please. I started with 3E in high school in the 2000s. The closest i had to these videos was the CD -Rom character builder that came with the 3E players handbook lol
My first problem was back tracking it was bad because I had several pages of lore however it contradicted each other my mad however the campaign is now running smoothly
I still have all of my 1st and 2nd edition material and still DM a 1st-2nd-homebrew weekly game. In the early nineties when I started we had only one set of dice that the entire table shared. So if 10d6 needed to be rolled, that one d6 got rolled 10 times. The one d20 got passed around the table for everyone's turn in initiative. There was no internet. I kept up with the latest by reading Dragon Magazine. We had no idea what other groups were doing or if we were even playing the game right. But everyone at the table loved it and when we played during lunch hour in the high school library, there was a crowd of people around the table three deep watching and listening. Now with the popularity of D&D on TH-cam and such, it is very easy to research and to learn. I feel like before the internet we had to be individually more creative and some of that has been lost. But I also like the modern ease of access to lore and information and help with new ideas. I'm an old DM, and I still learn new tricks from different content creators like the Dungeon Dudes. Now everyone at the table has multiple sets of dice and any information you want is as close as your computer.
‘The best campaigns are always in the future.’ Me: Got it. At the table: Okay, players, this session begins with a time portal sucking you into the year 3000.
My son recommended your channel. I can see that he has watched this video because he is deliberately doing the things that you suggest in this game. He has already got one successful campaign under his belt and he is really learning. Thank you for these videos, this is really good advice.
That is so cool that you play D&D with your son. My dad was the one who introduced me to the game and I am going to be DMing for the first time for some of my friends in a few months.
Little known fact, that DnD player was Justin Roiland and the 21 page backstory original title was: Alien Invasion Tomato-Monster Mexican Armada, Brothers, Who Are Just Regular Brothers, Running In A Van, From An Asteroid And All Sorts Of Things: The Movie - The Backstory
I mean, that happened to me too, I ran a one shot to try out DMing with a group full of DMs and they had to instruct me how to railroad them when they saw me panicking over my notes thinking "i didn't know that would happen!"
My players want me to actively drive them to plot. I just want them to sorta explore the town I made and uncover tidbits and breadcrumbs I’ve left that lead to plot. But I mean as long as they have fun.
Thats really cute~ 😂 I wish my players (sisters), would care more about where I’m taking them. Edit: they’re my sisters they aren’t just a group of sisters.
About 5 years ago, my group of friends really wants to play but at the last moment our DM bailed out....so....instead of NOT playing at all, i studied the DM Manual of Pathfinder and prepared all the things needed for the campaign....a lot of mistakes were made by both me and my players...but one thing i stll clearly remeber... the Sorcerer in Path is similar (Not the same) as a Warlock of 5e...so by bloodline he gets perks and spells....so....at some point in the Bloodline description says something like 'The Sorcerer can choose the following Feats as Bonus Feats'....i gave ALL those Feats to a Level 1 Sorcerer....he basically was a killing machine (cringing and facepalming until now)
I ran a Pathfinder campaign years ago as my first game. Didn't fully understand spells known/spells prepared/spell slots and all that, so I gave our Druid free reign to cast any spell, with the only limitation being the slots themselves. Had the capability of being broken but she didn't really know what to do either :P
One of my biggest mistakes when starting DMing was that I misunderstood massive damage and it resulted in a PC's death. Our bard took a critical hit, so much that it put him below zero with half his total hp in the negative. The player was certain that his character had died, I wasn't sure since I thought you had to go your full HP below 0 to die from massive damage. I tried to look it up, but I was stressed and almost panicked so I couldn't find it. Plus the player seemed so sure of the rules, and one of the DM tips I had heard was "if you don't know a particular rule, make a ruling and look it up afterwards". So I ruled that, yeah, the bard died on the spot due to massive damage. I felt like a total idiot when looking it up afterwards and realizing my hunch had been right... the PC hadn't taken massive damage so he would at least get to roll death saves. My lesson from that was: when you're stressed and it is important you get a rule right or your players do something unexpected and you don't know how to react, ask for a break. Tell your players "let's take 5 minutes, I need to think about this/look this up." Sometime's it's easier to make the right decision when you're not put on the spot. A new DM who's on the verge of panicking and feel like they have to make a decision right away in front of a group of 5 players don't always make the right call, weirdly enough.
I've been the only character to die in two campaigns that my friends that are new DMs are running. I think that overestimating damage or certain abilities that monsters have is very common. In one, the monsters were simply two powerful/too many. DM had the leader tell all of them to rush into the area I was in at the same time, and they basically run me over. In the other, there were three ghosts type monsters with the ability to possess us. We each had to make a charisma roll and roll a certain number to succeed. No problem, right? Wrong. Everyones charisma was absolutely terrible, and we we rolling 10s and under the whole day. Long story short: I got possessed and the ghost attacked the party members with my spells that could do 40-50 damage each, so they had to kill me. Ugh and double ugh.
@@MysticalApple The first one, yes. I was a Ranger that fought with a two handed bow and a quarterstaff. The second, no. I took the character because noone else wanted to heal. Lol.
Something I do is make a ruling on the fly and have the players look it up while I move forward with the game. If it's not too disruptive, I retcon what happened. Otherwise, I let the ruling stand and we play by the RAW going forward. In your situation, whether the character is dead or unconscious, he's little more than a fleshy paperweight for a while. Ruling initially that he's probably dead, but then having one of the players look it up and realize he's actually just unconscious isn't going to change the overall narrative all that dramatically. The only thing that might happen is that the cleric might not heal him this round, but rather next round.
"No, but" is just as important, if not moreso, than "Yes, and." - I've had a hard time saying no to my players, but sometimes you just gotta, especially if you got a munchkin.
yeah and in kinda the same vein is not just saying yes to predictions your players make just because they are exited about them. I got into a lot of trouble with plot holes because I was laying out hints and clues already for a reveal, and a player made a guess that they were really exited about, so I just went with it, but then I realized that their idea really didn't make sense with what they knew, so I was stuck filling things in to try and make it work.
@@oofguild7788 munchkins are like a slightly less frustrating version of power gamers or min-maxxers :P People who optimize the crap out of their characters and action economy.
The biggest mistake I made when running my first campaign was painstakingly detailing EVERY. SINGLE. THING. about every city and every area in the world. While worldbuilding on such a precise scale can be fun on your own time, it will absolutely kill your motivation if you're doing it with 4 or 5 players waiting for you to finally be done with the world to start session 1. You don't need to have every settlement and shop inventories of every city planned out. Just have a very broad idea of the world, and its points of interest (capitals, regions, areas where you KNOW you want a certain enemy type to be, etc), and spend your time detailing what your party is facing right now. As for everything else, just wait until your players get near it, and if the party is getting dangerously close to a key area you haven't planned out yet, nothing is stopping you from just pulling a time killer out of your ass and having your players spend the rest of the session there to give you time to plan the next location in between sessions.
"My campaign was a disaster. My players had a wonderful time." That seems like a contradiction. Yes, you made mistakes that meant it wasn't a sustainable campaign, but if the players were having fun, it wasn't a "disaster."
I'd take it as a "my" versus "our". "The campaign I made was broken, but the campaign they played was enjoyable." That's part of the lesson I think, not trying to be the sole author of what's supposed to be a group story.
Things can also go bad, but everyone still have tons of fun. I have been in a game where the DM was completely caught off guard and it was probably a nightmare for him personally, but he handled it well enough and people had fun. That is one of the reasons my group switches up DM duties, sometimes the DM is carrying the world on his shoulders literally and needs a break.
Arguably you could say the PLAYERS had a wonderful time but in a way, the GM is still a player themselves. If THEY aren't also having fun then I could see why you would still consider the campaign a disaster.
Like it, to up! Have a nice day~ Timecodes: 1. 1:53 Planning epic campaings right away 2. 7:48 Large party 3. 12:26 No zero session 4. 15:39 Ignoring Players backstory & goal 5. 21:25 Expecting Perfection
I ran phandelver as my first adventure as a DM after years of not being able to run my own campaign. This module as well as your videos and others have given me a decade of dungeon mastering experience in two short years.
I'm running it right now. We've got a sympathetic bugbear named Klarg (an NPC) who's realized there's more to himself than outwardly boorish behavior. He "arrived" while the adventurers were exploring the Cragmaw Hideout and has become an important element to the campaign. This module has a terrific frame to bounce ideas off of, with room for sandboxing there in Phandalin.
My two lessons I learned from making mistakes as a DM are: 1. Don't mess with your player character stats. They made the character and unless they specifically come to you for help tweaking their PC, never mess with their character, even if you think they aren't optimal. 2. Plot-wise, avoid making the player characters "chosen ones" or "destined" to do such and such. It's far better to let their characters be heroes in their own rights and evolve into the story instead of be some kind of plot-selected special beings that happen to exist. They are special because of their choices and abilities, not because of forces far beyond their control.
Give examples, you can't mention points but then not tell us a reason. And I thought that expecting your characters to follow a set path not being a good idea was a no brainer tbh.
Thank you for 4. I have never got to play in a campaign where my character's backstory ever got to matter. I might as well have played a talking table lamp. Basically, I've had two types of DM; the type who ignore backstories altogether and the type who use them for the sole purpose of screwing players over. Now, I'm a forever DM, so...
Did this! My first campaign was a jumbled wandering murder hobo katamari. It was broken, glorious, nonsensical, but a lot of fun. I was just lucky my first mistake was enjoyable =]
I actually have the opposite experience. I think when you create a world you know it well so it's easier to manage. However, the pre-made modules are sometimes overly complicated with random NPCs and faction conflict, thus making the DM memorize all this content that they might not find exciting. This makes DMing a chore. It really comes down to: try things out and see what you do best. You won't know till you try it.
It depends how you look at it. I've always cherry picked what i like out of modules. I view it as someone else has done all the background work for me but I pick and adapt what actually makes it to the table out of the options/information supplied.
@@1caoboi1 I agree, I think selecting parts you like from a module is a great way to run a game of D&D. People can also have a homebrewed framework and just fill it with pre-made stuff.
“2 Brothers!....taking in the boss’s world....with....friends they meet along the way....then...having a hard time...and getting one over on all the goblin ferrymen...it’s just...Two Brothers!!”
I finally got into D&D in my mid-twenties and absolutely fell in love. A few months into my first long-term campaign (DM’ed by my brother), I had this crazy idea to DM a campaign set in the world of a story I had been writing since middle school. Though I’ve never gotten close to publishing it, the story is so dear to me and holds a special place in my heart; if I was going to run a campaign in this world, I wanted to do it right. I picked up Tales from the Yawning Portal and just started reading through the modules, and then ran them with different groups. I subscribed to almost every TTRPG TH-cam channel for advice (admittedly, you guys were the first 😊). I perused through every source book I had. I didn’t know when I’d be able to actually DM a campaign in my homebrew world, but I wanted it to go perfectly... This comment is already longer than I meant it to be, it’s just basically a response to the first point lol I’m glad I ran pre-written modules before diving into my homebrew world. I’m now happily running the first campaign in my homebrew world ☺️ also happy to report that my bro, my first DM, is playing in it and said it’s his favorite campaign ever 😭
It’s a little late for me, but this is informative. Admittedly, I started with a homebrew, but I did limit it to a single continent, and myself and all 5 of my players in their mid-late 20s, so we didn’t have quite the same issue with dynamics/respect.
In my experience, it's crazy how different it feels to DM for four players versus five players. With four players you feel like a god in control over the entire universe but with five players it feels like everything is chaos and the entire campaign could break down at any moment (which can be fun in its own right). I cant even imagine DMing for 8 or more people.
It can be lots of fun, and also a chore. I'm a high school teacher, and before COVID I ran my school's D&D club for all new players. The goal was to DM for a bit, then have them break up into smaller groups on their own with their own DMs. But to start, I had to divide the club into 2 groups of 8, me DMing both on different days, for teens aged 15-18. One group is 7 girls, 1 guy and is very creative, follows the story, and are team players with great attitude. The other group is 5 girls, 3 guys, and are shoot first, ask questions never, chaotic and funny.
Why? How is 4 worse than 5? It's clearly the people you had and not the amount that is the issue, if not, explain how 5 is worse than four considerably?
In a 4 hour session, with 9 people, assuming everyone plays for the same amount of time, each player is speaking for a total of only 25.6 minutes. Yikes.
My first DM session was a DnD club in middle school where only 3-4 people actually were Dming and since it was extracurricular it would be only 1 hour so I had 8 players running Mine of Phandelver for 1 hour every friday. We managed to complete the module by the end of the year but herding 8 player is something I will absolutely not do again.
@@thezerowulf507 I chose speaking time because, in an ideal scenario, two people will never be speaking over one another. My point is to illustrate that, as a group gets larger, the time each player spends as an active participant in the game- as opposed to a passive observer- gets longer. It's easier for someone to lose focus as an observer as a participant, so with a large group, the large amounts of time spent listening rather than speaking can make it very difficult for a person to stay tuned-in.
Yea, I was thinking the DM will get 1/3 to 1/2 the face time, so the other eight players would get between 15 - 20 minutes in a 4 hour session. And when you delete the combat time, it goes down from there.
When I first started playing, it was me and two friends, playing 4th Edition with nothing but a PHB and a pirated copy of the character builder. I ended up being the DM and we had sessions that were DAYS long. I played my own character to balance out the party, and had to make up content on the fly. It was a campaign held together with duct tape and dreams. It was very fun but ultimately I was running the game wrong. BUT, ever since those primeval months of 4E, I've DM'd for over 9 years now, and the best advice I can say for new DMs is just... do it. Is your first session or three going to have awkward moments? Yes. Will you forget the rules or make mistakes? Yes. But if your players are having fun, THAT is the most important thing. A level 1 DM isn't going to be Matt Mercer immediately.
I just want to say I really appreciate this video. I'm getting ready to try DMing for the first time and it's a bit nerve-wracking. So many videos out there are "It's so easy to homebrew games... just do XYZ" I love that you are saying its ok to just learn and practice with the Essentials or Starter Kits. Its what I planned on doing, but a lot of those well meaning videos kinda made me feel a bit "less than" because I didn't want to create my own world. So thank you for reinforcing my feeling that it was ok to use the Essentials as training wheels! Maybe someday I'll DM enough that I can take them off 😁😁😁
Rule 4 was something I learnt the hard way: I almost worked myself to a brun-out in my first campaign because I wanted it to be perfect. I was constantly feeling like I wasn't good enough. But then... after the campaign I asked my players how it was. And they said "we had a great time". I opened up to them about how I felt and they told me "yeah, but mistakes are okay". So in my next campaign I went in with the expectation "yeah, I will make mistakes but as long as me and my friends enjoy the game, it's okay".
I have yet to touch a game of dnd (work schedule pretty much prevents any attempts), but thanks to channels like this and watching so many rpg horror story videos, I feel like I could step into a game as a brand new player and have a much easier time getting into the rules than someone with didn't consume all these videos. Thanks, you guys! Also helps that I'm a sucker for character races and subclasses, and therefore have collected all of the physical source/rule books.
This does work. I've gone from the videos to my first game right into dming for my son's and friends. Still learning and very not comfortable but the boys are loving it and it's literally thanks to @dungeon dudes and others. Thank you guys.
My friends and I wrapped up our "Two Brothers" adventure last year. The new campaign I'm now running for the group has some great moments...but the show stealer is really "Pool of Acid."
Over giving is one of my biggest issues. I really just like rewarding players with loot whenever a situation calls for it, but I usually give magic items as that's what they want. Players should definitely not have as many magic items at level 4 as my parties usually end up with. I basically create more work for myself by having to make more challenging situations to account for all the niceties I give them.
I have made that mistake too and then realized I can create game situations where the players might lose items too- maybe throw a creature at them they couldn’t beat and have it negotiate a trade of an item or two in exchange for sparing their lives. It teaches them a few good lessons
@@keithfricke6096 I have tried creating situations like that (taking the toys away or so to speak), but it almost always just makes people upset with the exception of my wife and like 1 long time player. I play with a typical group of 6 people...or used to prior to Covid. I will prolly break them into 2 groups (i have a few others that occasionally play) so I should be able to do 2 groups of 4 or so players. That will at least help with the time each player gets in the spotlight.
As a player and, hopefully, an aspiring DM, I think one of the biggest mistakes that a DM makes is not being as invested and interested in your PC's as you want them to be in your Campaign. The easiest way to get a player to be emotionally invested in your campaign is to let them know what you, as the DM, are excited to see shape out in their characters. That doesn't mean railroading their character development by imposing your own vision of their future. What that means is pointing out that a character has an interesting personality or character flaw that you look forward to seeing playout in the later levels and adventures. That's something that takes comparably less effort than even the easiest facet of developing a campaign... or even using a pre-existing one. That's just my two copper on it, at least. :P
3-5 players is the ideal number of D&D players. I have run and been a part of several 6-player groups, and that seems to be the tipping point where things can get out of hand in terms of giving enough attention to each player and keeping everyone focused on the game.
Eberron is my favourite setting. I wanted to introduce my players to the entire world, so instead of having a focused game, I tried to make it a globe-hopping thing where they were in a different country every other session. Instead of showcasing a rich world, it was basically "check out this quirky place, now check out this quirky place". I tried to show them everything and never really showed them anything.
Age 14. I wanted to write stories. The npc's were the main characters. The PC's watched my heroes hog the story. They were still happy to have a DM, but god it was rough. Nearly 30 years later I am joyous of both the memories and the adventure.
In the name of the Emperor the Inquisition has issued an Exterminatus order for your campaign Just joking, glad you stuck with the hobby and learned as you went!
I played my first game in 1979 and DMed my first game last week for my kids and their spouses (4 total). They had a great time. I do a lot of 3d printing and made/painted items for 7 months getting ready for this... I only used about a 10th of what I made. The session 0 was Godly. I was able to incorporate their characters back stories into the game and that was the hook. Thank you for your channel that helped me greatly!
Largest group I ever played with had 27 members. Within a month, the GM divided us into 2 groups of 13 and 14 players, playing alternate weekends. It was a ton of fun, as everyone took their turns and eagerly planned their next move between turns. The GM handled it well, keeping each player to no more than 5 minutes per turn... And we all quietly waited for our next move.
@@PedroKing19 Entire clans of orcs, private armies of lesser nobles, that sort of thing. This was during 3rd edition. At least once we fought a minor demon horde.
My mistake was trying to dm the game without any idea how dnd was played. I had a Player's Handbook and that was it. If only TH-cam was around back then, so I could see a game being played.
I really like your videos like this. I was wondering if you guys have opinions on or like a top X list of d&d supplements out there that aren't from WotC. I've seen a bunch on kickstarter popping up and even backed a few myself (like Nightfell, Svilland, and your own Grim Hollow). Even Amazon is now selling some like Tome of Beasts 1 & 2, etc. Just wondering your thoughts on these.
There is one book on the shelf to the right of Kelly's head that is upside down... Now that I've spotted it I'm having a really hard time listening to what they're saying...
The bit about backstories me and my friends learned: We first give a GM a very brief summary of our backstory idea, like, class, race and a bullet list of general tropes/traits you hit, then GM responds with some input, and we get some hooks, details etc. set with the info GM trickles down at that point. Then we send a more complete and elaborate version, with the GM's feedback included. Last step is a back and forth, that is setting all the details to fit everything nicely. It is a fair bit more involved from the GM side for sure, but with internet, whole character creation can be done over a discord/skype, without the need to be on at the same time. You can get a rich backstory, while still fitting in to GM's idea for the campaign, you do not have to try to schedule a session zero, and GM can devote more attention to less experienced players needing more attention. Works pretty well for busy schedules :P
Great advice dudes, I started in the early 90s and yes we made all these mistakes. I did find a neat way to get 8 players with no backstory started. “You wake up sore, dreary. The sound of dripping water and breathing nearby.” You are currently chained to a wall in a room with 7 other strangers also chained, oh and naked. Begin!
I think this is great advice for new DMs, especially when they also don't have that much experience as a player. I do have a few caveats, though. I'd take new RPG players' desires lightly and view them as flexible. A lot of players' perceptions of RPGs have been sculpted by WoW and Skyrim. My whole party told me in session 0 that they wanted to 'kill shit and get cool loot.' They proceeded to spend the next 4 or 5 sessions socialing their way out of almost every encounter, RPing amongst themselves, and interacting with every NPC as quickly as I could create them. I had a very direct chat with them at the beginning of the next session and said. 'Hey, you all told me you wanted ____, but have been engaging with the world very differently. I've adjusted on the fly, but I'd like to know where to spend my prep time. What do you all think about how things have been going?' Everyone was on board and I was THRILLED! I'd been designing everything they were asking for and they'd been dodging it, but now I knew what they actually wanted and could make a world they'd really enjoy. Just getting buy-in on session zero is not enough. I typically DM for 6-7, and it's hard for me to DM for less than 5 unless it's a solo or duo side excursion. My players play so much off each other that it puts a lot of pressure on each individual in the smaller group to find things for their character to interact with. With a larger group, some players are spectators while others are engaging, but even the spectators are having fun. They get ideas and then build off each other. No one feels pressured to interact if it's not really what their character would do. With a smaller group, it feels like my players all force themselves to interact even if it's not in their character because someone HAS to. It feels less genuine and they go through content almost exponentially faster. It's like a speedrun. Trying to hit the triggers as quick as possible to keep things moving. What might be 3 sessions of content for 7, a group of 4 might go through in one evening. If that's what you're looking for it might be great... but not great for my game. I jumped right into homebrew. I had, however, been through horde of the dragon queen as a player, and then hopped into a homebrew campaign with very experienced players for a year or two before deciding to DM. Homebrew felt right and much more what I was looking for. I actually did not and do not have ideas for the ultimate BBEG or how I want things to end. The world I want to create is one where it truly forms around the players. What they imagine really becomes reality, within reason, but everything is formed around their characters and what they engage with and seek out. I started this second campaign at level 5 and I see it as sections from 5-10, 11-15, and 16-20. We're rounding out the first chapter and it's them gaining notoriety in the world. 11-15 they will be playing as a known force. 16+ they will renowned heroes interacting with the world at the highest levels. What will they choose to do with their fame and fortune? I look forward to seeing it. I'm showing them the powerful players and they can choose who is a friend and who is a foe.
This is the only actual play my kids can listen to, thank you for keeping it clean guys! (EDIT: Some context to my statement) My girls are both under 14 but I like to use D&D as a catalyst for their imagination. So many factors out there especially for girls are harmful for kids. I truly believe that imagination is the most important part of our being as humans. Without imagination we are not sentient but animals following basic programming and pre-programmed animalistic behavior. When imagination is squelched humanity dies bot figuratively and literally. If you question this simple truth, I pose one question to you: Use your imagination.
On the topic of mistakes DMs make and Expecting Perfection, DMs should NEVER expect their players to play the game perfectly the way they want them to. I don't know how many times a DM has made up an encounter, nearly kill the entire party with monsters he thought would be easy simply because the players didn't do everything perfectly, only to accuse the players of 'not playing good enough' and that the DM shouldn't 'skew the difficulty to make it easy for them'.
I'm going to DM next week, which means this week I'm binge watching dungeon dudes at 5 am thank you guys so much for your knowledge and sense of humor!
TLDR; (basically a list without timestamps that should've been in the description) 1. Start with small adventures 2. Start with small groups of players 3. Have a "Session Zero" where you set up expectations etc 4. Don't ignore what palyers put in their characters backstories and what they want to achieve. 5. You will mess up rules and you will have to adapt things on the fly. Learn to live with it.
Great advice guys! I’m on the cusp of running my own campaign, and I think I’m going to start small with a pre written campaign now having watched this video. Keep up the great work!
I would just like to say thank you for having this kind of channel. Sadly as of right now I think I'm going through the trial run of mistakes. I made my own homebrew campaign. I have 7 people in my group. Including me it would be 8. I do have a great story but I think what saved me is that I did look at something on how to start a campaign without going to far off the rails. I looked up stuff and done alot of research. I just want to thank you again for having answers and maybe pointing out some of the mistakes I have already made and fixing them as I go. Also having friends that have DMed before you doesn't hurt. They have helped with alot of my questions and have given me advice.
I highly recommend that any GM trying out their first non-module adventure do something similar to my first real campaign: The PCs are shipwrecked on a cursed island and when they get off, they win. Easy premise to understand, functions well at low levels, almost any PC premise works with no hassle, room for multiple encounter types, fairly simple worldbuilding without 500 NPCs, a clear, obtainable end point and an inherently finite limit on how much the party can take things off the rails, since they are physically stuck in one place. (For the record, I had the ship be sunk by a sea monster to discourage any "Let's just build a raft and sail away" schemes - only by exploring the island and finding the ruined magic lab on the other side could they find a way to incapacitate the serpent.) A rookie GM is not going to be able to effectively run a massive 1-20 sandbox. Setting simple geographic limits on what the PCs can do is not railroading - it is focusing their attention on what is important.
When I first became a dungeon master, I had one notable strength. I could spin a story on the fly and improvise nearly any response to a character choice. I dove in head first, learning the rules as written as we played. When we came to a situation we hadn’t encountered, we’d check the books. I personally believe that trial by fire is an amazing way to start DMing.
Getting a bit worried because I'm writing my first campaign in my own world etc. I've got a good grasp on the worldbuilding, characters, general plot, and have confined it to one continent so I'm very confident in my world. However, hearing you speak about your experiences, I'm going to be going back over and rebuffing everything that I possibly can to make sure that I have that middle part figured out :)
I made the mistake of inviting someone I did not get along with to my game because I thought it would be rude to invite our mutual friends but not him. When we had a big falling out I just had to end the whole game because at that point I was newer to the friend group and I didn't want to force them to publicly take sides since no one spoke against him in front of other people, they just talked to me privately and apologized on his behalf. I loved that campaign and I had people from the group asking if I could do another one, but it just never worked out. I haven't gotten to DM again since this happened almost a year ago, and I just would recommend not like excluding people in a big way, but don't invite people who you know will not get along with someone else, even if the person whey wouldn't get along with is you. this person also had some other issues with some other people that developed later but thats not important. I didn't invite the entire friend group and we had never even had a one on one conversation before, so it was just be trying to avoid conflict, and ending up causing a whole lot more conflict and a ruined game.
Oh man I was railroader. I had an idea of how things wanted to go to form the story in my mind. Terrible games I shudder thinking back at them. Thanks for the video
Currently running my first campaign (homebrew world with 7 players) and, even though it's going surprisingly well so far, your discussion of the first and second mistakes hit me so hard personally. Oh god.. I'm not stressing, but I am! lol Thank you so much for the advice, your videos have been massively helpful!
One of the biggest traps I fell into as a beginning GM was wanting to make up my own magical items..... I currently have a monk player whose can punch with the range of a long bow.
Your enthusiasm and love for all things D&D is infectious!!! Currently running Dragon of Icespire Peak as my first DM attempt. Your videos are my go to source! Thanks for being awesome.
I highly recommend the Duets (one-on-one) First Blush, Second Glance, and Third Time's the Charm. Currently running my fiancé through them and we're having a blast. They get progressively more complex, with each one adding more mechanics and roleplay and decision-making. Just finished Second Glance with her driving three characters (her Cleric, plus the Rogue and Paladin which can be DMPCs), and she was asking if she could drive a fourth! I've had to coach her that "Hey, these guys are PEOPLE, not a wrench and a hammer, so you need to give them personalities separate from your PC," but she's doing great. In addition to gradually introducing the Player to the game, they're good learning experience for the DM. First Blush has EVERYTHING you need in it, while Second Glance has most of it, but also sends you to the Monster Manual and Player's Handbook for things.
I'm number 1, 2, 3, and 5. - I'm not throwing away the epic campaign because I've learned how to run it, but I'm definitely always having a session 0, I'm never playing with more than 8 players again, and I'm always gonna be humble from now on with mistakes. xD
ok, so the first mistake is totally me right now. thank you! I'm going to work on simplifying my game. my players are very understanding, fortunately, so I'm sure they'll understand. I think I might speed up levelling up for some of the larger quests to be better balanced. Wish me luck!
Eeee that's a lot, I have about 20 for a campaign that's gone from 3-5 so far, and I only wrote 1 paragraph about the setting as a whole so maybe I'm going too far the other way
Hey dungeon dudes, watching your videos lately, and i have to say thank you so much for all the amazing tips you guys give. It is amazing how much i am learning as a DM and as a player Wish you both the best of the best on all of your days
You know how I succeeded at my first attempt? We ran gamma world instead. It's simpler and you can take the story a lot less seriously and make up "because science" or "magic quantum physics" to repair anything.
I have DM’d, exclusively DM’d, for over twelve years now. I feel like I have learned more in the last two years than I had in the previous ten, due to channels such as this one. Thanks. Happy New Years Dudes.
My mistake as a first time DM was letting a friend be a vampire. I loved the idea of a vampire as a playable character but suddenly found myself overwhelmed when the vampire took control of an entire town.
I like to plug in published modules in between campaign "chapters" it gives me time to prep the next stage and allowing the game to roll on with much less effort, the only thing I have to do is just them to fit the world in some cases they don't realize its a module "perfect"
Having a campaign begin in an overly ambitious manner, only to quickly fall apart under its own weight; this is definitely, and by far, the biggest and most common mistake I ever incurred into, when starting as a DM. For over twenty years I've been Forever-DMing. Ever since I started back in high school with my friends. I find that this is still such a relevant piece of advice, I felt compelled to comment. In fact, it has been only in recent years (as far back as about five years, now) that I really noticed how I was constantly making things so hard on myself. Although I did manage quite a few successful campaigns throughout my first decade and a half of playing, the truth is, many games I felt true investment and passion in crashed and burned, without me understanding why at the time. Only learning through years and years, and a lot of trial and error, that the mistake was scope and scale. Right now, I am running a D&D campaign which started out as just a bunch of misfits getting hired by a Vampire Countess for some odd jobs with a very real, yet not at all apparent common theme and reason. For the party, this was just about going to "this" dungeon, and getting "that" item from inside of it, then get paid, before heading into the next. The plot always seeming very simple, innocent, and contained, as the party progressed. The larger-than-life and epic saga that runs through the game, is this time placed as backdrop. As something to add flavor, and tie in the sessions, giving the players something to uncover if they so chose, without it running the plot, driving the story, and forcing them to go at a pace that the game itself is just not meant to. Right now, even, the party's main objective (after parting ways with the Vampire Countess, since she has already gotten what she needed from them) is -literally- driving a cart full of honey, all the way from some backwater town that history forgot. Getting that honey to market in the capital. Thus, sparking a bit of life into the economy of this old, run down and mostly forgotten town. The simplest, most non-epic and mundane plot possible... And the game has been going on for over half a dozen adventures; over a dozen sessions; with the party having ventured all sorts of dungeons and tombs of eldritch abominations, and having unknowingly awoken ancient beings that had been resting beneath the material mantle of the plane for eons. All the while, not even directly aware of it. In fact, only LAST SESSION a single player in the party suddenly commented in character, and after the party failed to rescue a kidnapped NPC from the caravan they are currently traveling with: "Hey, has anyone noticed that things have gone really, really dark lately? As in, fey demons, abominable monsters, and deadly beings of great power, have seem to start appearing more often all around us? Has anyone else picked up on the fact that this is going on?" I've kept the epic-ness as a backdrop element this time, and I have kept the plots and the adventures simple, and small, and I have to say, this has been one of my longest running campaigns in a while. One of the most fun and satisfying to run, as well. The advice given in this video is just amazing, and I'd encourage every DM out there, new or seasoned, to listen carefully. Much is there to be learned here, no matter how long you have been playing.
@@WinningSidekick Really? Wow, ok. It's been a while. Well, the campaign consisted of a first adventure into an island that was not on any map or chart. To find the remains of a lost ship, that was carrying a wizard who had been imprisoned from a previous adventure with other characters in the same setting. The party found the wizard but he had been transformed into a monster. Their vampyric patron just wanted the head, so they took that back. Second adventure was taking a trip to a small dwarven hamlet in the mountains, to find a ruin that housed an old cookbook from the old king's personal chef. The party solved the dungeon and, in doing so, unlocked a series of mysteries that brought the town back from being a forgotten footnote in history into the makings of a new dwarven town. The vampyric patron took one recipe and left them the book, which was quite useful for the party's bard. Third adventure was going into a temple of the dwarves to find a new magic weapon for the party's barbarian, since he lost his in the previous adventure. They stumbled upon the laboratory of a mad wizard working on portals. Which was a lot of fun. Fourth adventure was leaving the town with honey from the dwarves (their main produce) in order to get it back to the capital market, and revive the towns economy. And then them meeting a new potential patron who tested them. They went through a dungeon and survived, but then kept on their own trail. Fifth adventure was them stumbling on an orc village which had been formed by settlers that moved into some elven ruins. The orcs were under a spell from a nearby elven burial temple and graveyard, which they sorted out. Freeing the orcs, but unlocking a succubus in the process who then proceeded to do all manner of mischief for many more sessions. Sixth adventure was evading goblins who followed them from the previous one, because the mistakenly took a magic item from the goblins. Seventh adventure was reaching a new hub town, and saving an old watch tower keeper outside the town from a fae attack brought on by the succubus. He then served as their lore-heavy exposition dump NPC into the new region they were in. Eight adventure was the party running into a caravan of merchants that made rounds across the region, and meeting a whole cast of NPCs. Then finding a plot hook that led them into following a Paladin and his squire who had gone missing in a cave, to rescue a cleric their recruited, all at the behest of the cleric's grandmother who wanted her back safe and not adventuring. Which became a long, very long adventure into a dungeon of many sections, that ended with them finding the Paladin, learning the cleric and squire were dead, then witnessing the Paladin sacrifice himself to fight a monster, only for all of it to be revealed to be the work of the Succubus playing the paladin to feed him to a mosnter for a ritual of awakening of more monsters. Ninth adventure was the party bringing the bodies back and attending the funeral of the cleric, only to then have the grandmother run away after an attempt on the life of the main cleric that offered the girl to the paladin as support. Which then led into a hunt through a bog, which ended up in a fight with a Hag. Tenth adventure was a quest to help a new PC find an old man in a mannor in the forest past the bog. A PC who was sent by the same Vampyric patron, who wanted a magic tapestry from the man's house. The party run a huge horror-house themed adventure, as they leared that the woods were home to a whole pack of werewolves, and the man in the mannor was an elder skinchanger that had once been a mentor of the vampiress the party served. They managed to get the tapestry, but in the process the party bard and his dog companion were cursed with lycantrophy and were left at the mannor. Then the party collapsed due to infighting, and split up. All but one of them remained int he region; an orc cryptozoologist and ranger and best friend of the bard, who vowed to hunt down the monster he had become, and slay him. The party got the wizard's brain, the cook's recipe, and the skinchanger's tapestry, to the vampiress, who used them all in a season-finale adventure for ANOTHER set of characters, to stage an infiltration and attack on the castle of her sire. So that the party could slay the elder vampire on her behalf, thus using them to remove the elder vampire and ascend to his throne as ruler of his armies. Which, she managed, through the use of magical artifacts crafted from these materials the other characters collected, and some very nice manipulation of the players and their circumstances. And that was the end of the story. At least, to this day.
wait this just came out? Awesome! I THOUGHT I was going to homebrew a game as a first time DM, but am pivoting to a module after doing my first one shot. Great timing for this video for me. Thanks!
I had the fortune of having the backstory of my character come back to haunt me for multiple sessions. Who knew orcs could not be talked out of a vendetta?! And now I'm at a loss, I'm about to move states and losing my dwarven drinking buddies.
In 2019, before I actually played dnd, I made a campaign based on how I thought Dnd worked. It was abysmal, but now I remade it as a, you know, *actual campaign* and it’s the first time I’m DMing. Today was sessions 0 and 1(each person already had a character, so the first 15 minutes was just character introductions. This was our equivalent of a session 0) and it went very well. I wasn’t sure the players would take very well to it, because the main premise was that nearly all of humanity had died, so there was next to no social interaction. There’s just combat and adventuring. I was genuinely surprised by how quickly they adapted and really got into the post-apocalyptic theme. There is also A. Crap. Ton. Of magic items Also *my GOD* did I have to make a lot of stat blocks. Virtually none of the monsters were from DND and were more so just various cool creatures from various mythologies, such as Bennu, the Egyptian Phoenix, or a mimic that is in the form of a barrel of ale and is drunk. P.S. the mimic isn’t from mythology
My first campaign that I ran was The Sunless Citadel in 5e. That was a great way to learn how to DM. Very simple to run, and a lot of fun as well. Then since it was part of Tales From the Yawning Portal, it was great going further and further into higher level campaigns at a good pace. To this day that, and Tomb of Horrors, are my favorite dungeons.
The sad trombone effect in my brain when you stated number 1… Seriously, though, thanks for reaffirming the importance of doing at least a little practice DMing based on a published campaign. I keep getting a little too excited, and I think I need to take baby steps so I can actually enjoy it!
I've been DMing for just a couple months (we're currently headed for session #5). Most of what I know about DnD I learned by watching Critical Role and other streamed games. I never bought a single piece of official material, when I was learning rules, I only relied on the internet, most of all D&D Beyond and The Alpine DM. I gathered 5 of my pals and basically begged them to try building this amazing adventure with me. None of _them_ ever played the game, and I feel like I really solidified my knowledge of the rules by explaining them to my players. I constructed my own world from scratch, with its own lore and everything. But the key thing, and a valuable tip I also learned from other DMs on the internet, is that I only constructed a very rough frame of the world, and I didn't immediately plan out everything. The way I lead our campaign, I try to make it really open world, which means everything's fairly flexible and I don't want to come up with great epic plots when I don't even know what's going to happen next time. We're all still learning how to play the game, and I don't want to end up overwhelming my players neither myself. The starting plot of our story is basically: heroes trapped in a village surrounded by flood, a bunch of bullywugs kidnap some local kids, heroes go to track them down, turns out a bunch of lycanthropes with whom our paladin already has a beef charge the bullywugs to bring them human children so that they can turn them into werewolves and further expand their numbers. Other than a few player-specific subplots, that's pretty much everything I've planned so far. I think of it as a turorial plot before we can move on to something bigger.
I feel like new players, such as myself, who got into DnD in 5e are very fortunate to have TH-cam channels like you guys give us advice on how to play DnD as effectively while at the same time having fun. I talked to my uncle about it, who has been playing since 2e and said that he would’ve loved to have this kind of thing when he first played as he had no idea on what to do
For sure. Im DMing without ever having played cause we are all new. And i think i watched like 80hrs of youtube content the week before we started. And so far ive been able to avoid a lot of the mistakes they talked about. But its 100% cause of the info available.
You have NO IDEA how much I would've like that when I started
Hahah yes please. I started with 3E in high school in the 2000s. The closest i had to these videos was the CD -Rom character builder that came with the 3E players handbook lol
My first problem was back tracking it was bad because I had several pages of lore however it contradicted each other my mad however the campaign is now running smoothly
I still have all of my 1st and 2nd edition material and still DM a 1st-2nd-homebrew weekly game. In the early nineties when I started we had only one set of dice that the entire table shared. So if 10d6 needed to be rolled, that one d6 got rolled 10 times. The one d20 got passed around the table for everyone's turn in initiative. There was no internet. I kept up with the latest by reading Dragon Magazine. We had no idea what other groups were doing or if we were even playing the game right. But everyone at the table loved it and when we played during lunch hour in the high school library, there was a crowd of people around the table three deep watching and listening. Now with the popularity of D&D on TH-cam and such, it is very easy to research and to learn. I feel like before the internet we had to be individually more creative and some of that has been lost. But I also like the modern ease of access to lore and information and help with new ideas. I'm an old DM, and I still learn new tricks from different content creators like the Dungeon Dudes. Now everyone at the table has multiple sets of dice and any information you want is as close as your computer.
‘The best campaigns are always in the future.’
Me: Got it.
At the table: Okay, players, this session begins with a time portal sucking you into the year 3000.
He’s a bit confused but he’s got the spirit
Sign me up
Nothings changed, but you do all live underwater
So, Chrono Trigger? I'd play it.
A FOOLISH SAMURAI WARRIOR WIELDING A MAGIC SWORD
My son recommended your channel. I can see that he has watched this video because he is deliberately doing the things that you suggest in this game. He has already got one successful campaign under his belt and he is really learning. Thank you for these videos, this is really good advice.
That is so cool that you play D&D with your son. My dad was the one who introduced me to the game and I am going to be DMing for the first time for some of my friends in a few months.
@@theunknownanomaly1950 how is that DMing going?
"It's just called 'Two Brothers'".
This was worth going through 2020.
I had to pause the video so I could stop laughing
You could see it occur to Kelly a few moments before that, and that look of realization was fantastic
Little known fact, that DnD player was Justin Roiland and the 21 page backstory original title was:
Alien Invasion Tomato-Monster Mexican Armada, Brothers, Who Are Just Regular Brothers, Running In A Van, From An Asteroid And All Sorts Of Things: The Movie - The Backstory
I felt like Kelly was fighting to not say it but couldnt wait to just say it. I had a feeling that it was coming hahahaha
You can see a cut in the video after because we were both laughing for 3 mins straight after.
My players during my first campaign: “you’re not railroading us hard enough, Erica!”
I mean, that happened to me too, I ran a one shot to try out DMing with a group full of DMs and they had to instruct me how to railroad them when they saw me panicking over my notes thinking "i didn't know that would happen!"
My players want me to actively drive them to plot. I just want them to sorta explore the town I made and uncover tidbits and breadcrumbs I’ve left that lead to plot. But I mean as long as they have fun.
Thats really cute~ 😂 I wish my players (sisters), would care more about where I’m taking them.
Edit: they’re my sisters they aren’t just a group of sisters.
Yeah my players main issue with curse of strahd was that it was too open and free for them to do anything so they felt like they got nowhere.
That's interesting because I currently DM for a group of beginner and fear I railroad them too much.
I haven't even started and I already feel offended for being personally called out
I mean, to be fair the whole video is us calling ourselves out lol.
please continue. This seems like a useful topic to discuss :D
LMFAO 😂
About 5 years ago, my group of friends really wants to play but at the last moment our DM bailed out....so....instead of NOT playing at all, i studied the DM Manual of Pathfinder and prepared all the things needed for the campaign....a lot of mistakes were made by both me and my players...but one thing i stll clearly remeber... the Sorcerer in Path is similar (Not the same) as a Warlock of 5e...so by bloodline he gets perks and spells....so....at some point in the Bloodline description says something like 'The Sorcerer can choose the following Feats as Bonus Feats'....i gave ALL those Feats to a Level 1 Sorcerer....he basically was a killing machine (cringing and facepalming until now)
I ran a Pathfinder campaign years ago as my first game. Didn't fully understand spells known/spells prepared/spell slots and all that, so I gave our Druid free reign to cast any spell, with the only limitation being the slots themselves. Had the capability of being broken but she didn't really know what to do either :P
@@maj.peppers3332 I can totally relate to that ahaha
I would have loved to watch that monster sorcerer go around wrecking everything lol
One of my biggest mistakes when starting DMing was that I misunderstood massive damage and it resulted in a PC's death. Our bard took a critical hit, so much that it put him below zero with half his total hp in the negative. The player was certain that his character had died, I wasn't sure since I thought you had to go your full HP below 0 to die from massive damage.
I tried to look it up, but I was stressed and almost panicked so I couldn't find it. Plus the player seemed so sure of the rules, and one of the DM tips I had heard was "if you don't know a particular rule, make a ruling and look it up afterwards". So I ruled that, yeah, the bard died on the spot due to massive damage.
I felt like a total idiot when looking it up afterwards and realizing my hunch had been right... the PC hadn't taken massive damage so he would at least get to roll death saves.
My lesson from that was: when you're stressed and it is important you get a rule right or your players do something unexpected and you don't know how to react, ask for a break. Tell your players "let's take 5 minutes, I need to think about this/look this up." Sometime's it's easier to make the right decision when you're not put on the spot. A new DM who's on the verge of panicking and feel like they have to make a decision right away in front of a group of 5 players don't always make the right call, weirdly enough.
I've been the only character to die in two campaigns that my friends that are new DMs are running. I think that overestimating damage or certain abilities that monsters have is very common. In one, the monsters were simply two powerful/too many. DM had the leader tell all of them to rush into the area I was in at the same time, and they basically run me over. In the other, there were three ghosts type monsters with the ability to possess us. We each had to make a charisma roll and roll a certain number to succeed. No problem, right? Wrong. Everyones charisma was absolutely terrible, and we we rolling 10s and under the whole day. Long story short: I got possessed and the ghost attacked the party members with my spells that could do 40-50 damage each, so they had to kill me. Ugh and double ugh.
Sounds like your player had a new character they were excited to play
@@MysticalApple The first one, yes. I was a Ranger that fought with a two handed bow and a quarterstaff. The second, no. I took the character because noone else wanted to heal. Lol.
Something I do is make a ruling on the fly and have the players look it up while I move forward with the game. If it's not too disruptive, I retcon what happened. Otherwise, I let the ruling stand and we play by the RAW going forward.
In your situation, whether the character is dead or unconscious, he's little more than a fleshy paperweight for a while. Ruling initially that he's probably dead, but then having one of the players look it up and realize he's actually just unconscious isn't going to change the overall narrative all that dramatically. The only thing that might happen is that the cleric might not heal him this round, but rather next round.
When I get lost like that, I say:
"Please wait, your DM is loading..."
"....and other substances." That's hilarious
Yes Other Substances ........
Bags of sulfur and guano.
Fusaka? You spice?
I've seen the 'water pipes'...
Skooma
"No, but" is just as important, if not moreso, than "Yes, and." - I've had a hard time saying no to my players, but sometimes you just gotta, especially if you got a munchkin.
yeah and in kinda the same vein is not just saying yes to predictions your players make just because they are exited about them. I got into a lot of trouble with plot holes because I was laying out hints and clues already for a reveal, and a player made a guess that they were really exited about, so I just went with it, but then I realized that their idea really didn't make sense with what they knew, so I was stuck filling things in to try and make it work.
And sometimes it needs to be just a straight, simple, "no".
What does “if you got a munchkin” mean?
@@oofguild7788 munchkins are like a slightly less frustrating version of power gamers or min-maxxers :P People who optimize the crap out of their characters and action economy.
The biggest mistake I made when running my first campaign was painstakingly detailing EVERY. SINGLE. THING. about every city and every area in the world. While worldbuilding on such a precise scale can be fun on your own time, it will absolutely kill your motivation if you're doing it with 4 or 5 players waiting for you to finally be done with the world to start session 1.
You don't need to have every settlement and shop inventories of every city planned out. Just have a very broad idea of the world, and its points of interest (capitals, regions, areas where you KNOW you want a certain enemy type to be, etc), and spend your time detailing what your party is facing right now. As for everything else, just wait until your players get near it, and if the party is getting dangerously close to a key area you haven't planned out yet, nothing is stopping you from just pulling a time killer out of your ass and having your players spend the rest of the session there to give you time to plan the next location in between sessions.
"My campaign was a disaster. My players had a wonderful time." That seems like a contradiction. Yes, you made mistakes that meant it wasn't a sustainable campaign, but if the players were having fun, it wasn't a "disaster."
Depends on your player group. The group I played with loved it when things went to hell. The crazier things get, the more we loved it.
I'd take it as a "my" versus "our". "The campaign I made was broken, but the campaign they played was enjoyable."
That's part of the lesson I think, not trying to be the sole author of what's supposed to be a group story.
Things can also go bad, but everyone still have tons of fun. I have been in a game where the DM was completely caught off guard and it was probably a nightmare for him personally, but he handled it well enough and people had fun. That is one of the reasons my group switches up DM duties, sometimes the DM is carrying the world on his shoulders literally and needs a break.
Arguably you could say the PLAYERS had a wonderful time but in a way, the GM is still a player themselves. If THEY aren't also having fun then I could see why you would still consider the campaign a disaster.
eh I decided screw it dived in head first and everyone is having fun so I count it as a win
Like it, to up! Have a nice day~
Timecodes:
1. 1:53 Planning epic campaings right away
2. 7:48 Large party
3. 12:26 No zero session
4. 15:39 Ignoring Players backstory & goal
5. 21:25 Expecting Perfection
You spelt campaign wrong?
@@dreamleaf6784 or did they??? Dun dun duuuun
I ran phandelver as my first adventure as a DM after years of not being able to run my own campaign. This module as well as your videos and others have given me a decade of dungeon mastering experience in two short years.
Same boat! So glad I didn't skip a pre-written adventure to make my own as a first time DM and SO glad I watched these videos.
Lost Mine of Phandelver has great DM tips for new DMs! They are in each section too - very useful.
I'm running it right now. We've got a sympathetic bugbear named Klarg (an NPC) who's realized there's more to himself than outwardly boorish behavior. He "arrived" while the adventurers were exploring the Cragmaw Hideout and has become an important element to the campaign. This module has a terrific frame to bounce ideas off of, with room for sandboxing there in Phandalin.
My two lessons I learned from making mistakes as a DM are: 1. Don't mess with your player character stats. They made the character and unless they specifically come to you for help tweaking their PC, never mess with their character, even if you think they aren't optimal. 2. Plot-wise, avoid making the player characters "chosen ones" or "destined" to do such and such. It's far better to let their characters be heroes in their own rights and evolve into the story instead of be some kind of plot-selected special beings that happen to exist. They are special because of their choices and abilities, not because of forces far beyond their control.
My group had great fun hearing that they are chosen ones and after that absolutely not living up to expectations. It kinda created the whole setting.
Give examples, you can't mention points but then not tell us a reason.
And I thought that expecting your characters to follow a set path not being a good idea was a no brainer tbh.
All of this advise is obvious... to anyone who has made these mistakes :) important content here gentlemen. Have the best day.
I like how they think I'll have too many friends and the group will be too big. That's nice.
I laughed out loud. Lmao
i am literally so starved for friends my last friend and only person that i know that ever played dnd just fucking died
fun times
@@lukelblitz3627 That's awful man. I'm sorry.
Thank you for 4. I have never got to play in a campaign where my character's backstory ever got to matter. I might as well have played a talking table lamp. Basically, I've had two types of DM; the type who ignore backstories altogether and the type who use them for the sole purpose of screwing players over. Now, I'm a forever DM, so...
Did this! My first campaign was a jumbled wandering murder hobo katamari. It was broken, glorious, nonsensical, but a lot of fun. I was just lucky my first mistake was enjoyable =]
Since I didn't know about "katamari," I mentally translated that as "calamari" ... fun images lol
I actually have the opposite experience. I think when you create a world you know it well so it's easier to manage. However, the pre-made modules are sometimes overly complicated with random NPCs and faction conflict, thus making the DM memorize all this content that they might not find exciting. This makes DMing a chore. It really comes down to: try things out and see what you do best. You won't know till you try it.
It depends how you look at it. I've always cherry picked what i like out of modules. I view it as someone else has done all the background work for me but I pick and adapt what actually makes it to the table out of the options/information supplied.
@@1caoboi1 I agree, I think selecting parts you like from a module is a great way to run a game of D&D. People can also have a homebrewed framework and just fill it with pre-made stuff.
@@br41nc3ll I agree. Different methods, similar end result.
“2 Brothers!....taking in the boss’s world....with....friends they meet along the way....then...having a hard time...and getting one over on all the goblin ferrymen...it’s just...Two Brothers!!”
I feel like I'm missing something :)
@@hawkthetraveler6344
Interdimensional Cable.
It’s what’s up
@@jriggan thanks, that was a much more google-able reference :)
@@jriggan and here I thought it was a loose reference to Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
I finally got into D&D in my mid-twenties and absolutely fell in love. A few months into my first long-term campaign (DM’ed by my brother), I had this crazy idea to DM a campaign set in the world of a story I had been writing since middle school. Though I’ve never gotten close to publishing it, the story is so dear to me and holds a special place in my heart; if I was going to run a campaign in this world, I wanted to do it right.
I picked up Tales from the Yawning Portal and just started reading through the modules, and then ran them with different groups. I subscribed to almost every TTRPG TH-cam channel for advice (admittedly, you guys were the first 😊). I perused through every source book I had. I didn’t know when I’d be able to actually DM a campaign in my homebrew world, but I wanted it to go perfectly...
This comment is already longer than I meant it to be, it’s just basically a response to the first point lol I’m glad I ran pre-written modules before diving into my homebrew world. I’m now happily running the first campaign in my homebrew world ☺️ also happy to report that my bro, my first DM, is playing in it and said it’s his favorite campaign ever 😭
I know exactly how you feel! Using sentimental old story ideas as world building for D&D just felt like a natural evolution of my creativity.
@@rwbyab7423 Same here, and it's inspired me to write little stories in my world.
@@glassberg5018 the gift that keeps on giving!
¹1
It’s a little late for me, but this is informative. Admittedly, I started with a homebrew, but I did limit it to a single continent, and myself and all 5 of my players in their mid-late 20s, so we didn’t have quite the same issue with dynamics/respect.
In my experience, it's crazy how different it feels to DM for four players versus five players. With four players you feel like a god in control over the entire universe but with five players it feels like everything is chaos and the entire campaign could break down at any moment (which can be fun in its own right). I cant even imagine DMing for 8 or more people.
It can be lots of fun, and also a chore. I'm a high school teacher, and before COVID I ran my school's D&D club for all new players. The goal was to DM for a bit, then have them break up into smaller groups on their own with their own DMs.
But to start, I had to divide the club into 2 groups of 8, me DMing both on different days, for teens aged 15-18. One group is 7 girls, 1 guy and is very creative, follows the story, and are team players with great attitude. The other group is 5 girls, 3 guys, and are shoot first, ask questions never, chaotic and funny.
Why? How is 4 worse than 5? It's clearly the people you had and not the amount that is the issue, if not, explain how 5 is worse than four considerably?
In a 4 hour session, with 9 people, assuming everyone plays for the same amount of time, each player is speaking for a total of only 25.6 minutes. Yikes.
And that's not even accounting for the DM, or did you lude the DM as a player?
I understand your point. But much of the time people aren't playing alone.
My first DM session was a DnD club in middle school where only 3-4 people actually were Dming and since it was extracurricular it would be only 1 hour so I had 8 players running Mine of Phandelver for 1 hour every friday. We managed to complete the module by the end of the year but herding 8 player is something I will absolutely not do again.
@@thezerowulf507 I chose speaking time because, in an ideal scenario, two people will never be speaking over one another. My point is to illustrate that, as a group gets larger, the time each player spends as an active participant in the game- as opposed to a passive observer- gets longer. It's easier for someone to lose focus as an observer as a participant, so with a large group, the large amounts of time spent listening rather than speaking can make it very difficult for a person to stay tuned-in.
Yea, I was thinking the DM will get 1/3 to 1/2 the face time, so the other eight players would get between 15 - 20 minutes in a 4 hour session. And when you delete the combat time, it goes down from there.
When I first started playing, it was me and two friends, playing 4th Edition with nothing but a PHB and a pirated copy of the character builder. I ended up being the DM and we had sessions that were DAYS long. I played my own character to balance out the party, and had to make up content on the fly. It was a campaign held together with duct tape and dreams. It was very fun but ultimately I was running the game wrong. BUT, ever since those primeval months of 4E, I've DM'd for over 9 years now, and the best advice I can say for new DMs is just... do it. Is your first session or three going to have awkward moments? Yes. Will you forget the rules or make mistakes? Yes. But if your players are having fun, THAT is the most important thing. A level 1 DM isn't going to be Matt Mercer immediately.
I just want to say I really appreciate this video. I'm getting ready to try DMing for the first time and it's a bit nerve-wracking. So many videos out there are "It's so easy to homebrew games... just do XYZ" I love that you are saying its ok to just learn and practice with the Essentials or Starter Kits. Its what I planned on doing, but a lot of those well meaning videos kinda made me feel a bit "less than" because I didn't want to create my own world. So thank you for reinforcing my feeling that it was ok to use the Essentials as training wheels! Maybe someday I'll DM enough that I can take them off 😁😁😁
Good luck! Never be deterred by training wheels, they are there for a reason. Happy rolling!
"Someone's gonna come from Wizards of the Coast and take my books away and beat me up." this line aged poorly
Monty: I made a lot of mistakes!
Kelly: Yeah.
Rule 4 was something I learnt the hard way: I almost worked myself to a brun-out in my first campaign because I wanted it to be perfect. I was constantly feeling like I wasn't good enough. But then... after the campaign I asked my players how it was. And they said "we had a great time". I opened up to them about how I felt and they told me "yeah, but mistakes are okay". So in my next campaign I went in with the expectation "yeah, I will make mistakes but as long as me and my friends enjoy the game, it's okay".
I have yet to touch a game of dnd (work schedule pretty much prevents any attempts), but thanks to channels like this and watching so many rpg horror story videos, I feel like I could step into a game as a brand new player and have a much easier time getting into the rules than someone with didn't consume all these videos. Thanks, you guys!
Also helps that I'm a sucker for character races and subclasses, and therefore have collected all of the physical source/rule books.
This does work. I've gone from the videos to my first game right into dming for my son's and friends. Still learning and very not comfortable but the boys are loving it and it's literally thanks to @dungeon dudes and others. Thank you guys.
My friends and I wrapped up our "Two Brothers" adventure last year. The new campaign I'm now running for the group has some great moments...but the show stealer is really "Pool of Acid."
Over giving is one of my biggest issues. I really just like rewarding players with loot whenever a situation calls for it, but I usually give magic items as that's what they want. Players should definitely not have as many magic items at level 4 as my parties usually end up with. I basically create more work for myself by having to make more challenging situations to account for all the niceties I give them.
I have made that mistake too and then realized I can create game situations where the players might lose items too- maybe throw a creature at them they couldn’t beat and have it negotiate a trade of an item or two in exchange for sparing their lives. It teaches them a few good lessons
@@keithfricke6096 I have tried creating situations like that (taking the toys away or so to speak), but it almost always just makes people upset with the exception of my wife and like 1 long time player. I play with a typical group of 6 people...or used to prior to Covid. I will prolly break them into 2 groups (i have a few others that occasionally play) so I should be able to do 2 groups of 4 or so players. That will at least help with the time each player gets in the spotlight.
I am a Dm again for the first time since college so I feel like a newbie lol 15 years later, 35 and married now.
Wondering how many of these I'll have already done.
As a player and, hopefully, an aspiring DM, I think one of the biggest mistakes that a DM makes is not being as invested and interested in your PC's as you want them to be in your Campaign. The easiest way to get a player to be emotionally invested in your campaign is to let them know what you, as the DM, are excited to see shape out in their characters. That doesn't mean railroading their character development by imposing your own vision of their future. What that means is pointing out that a character has an interesting personality or character flaw that you look forward to seeing playout in the later levels and adventures. That's something that takes comparably less effort than even the easiest facet of developing a campaign... or even using a pre-existing one. That's just my two copper on it, at least. :P
3-5 players is the ideal number of D&D players. I have run and been a part of several 6-player groups, and that seems to be the tipping point where things can get out of hand in terms of giving enough attention to each player and keeping everyone focused on the game.
Eberron is my favourite setting. I wanted to introduce my players to the entire world, so instead of having a focused game, I tried to make it a globe-hopping thing where they were in a different country every other session. Instead of showcasing a rich world, it was basically "check out this quirky place, now check out this quirky place". I tried to show them everything and never really showed them anything.
I hand out lots of magic ítems (that is a no no). I allow the use of a homebrew class (that is a no no). Balance is important now i know better...
Thank you Dungeon Dudes, Love all your content and always looking forward to more! Stay safe and have a happy New Year!
Time to play a another fun game of "how much of this am I guilty of."
Age 14. I wanted to write stories. The npc's were the main characters. The PC's watched my heroes hog the story. They were still happy to have a DM, but god it was rough. Nearly 30 years later I am joyous of both the memories and the adventure.
In the name of the Emperor the Inquisition has issued an Exterminatus order for your campaign
Just joking, glad you stuck with the hobby and learned as you went!
Perfect timing! I'm going to start dming pretty soon, so this video is very helpful.
"No one from WotC is going to come to your house and beat you up.". Oh my, this made me laugh too much.
I played my first game in 1979 and DMed my first game last week for my kids and their spouses (4 total). They had a great time. I do a lot of 3d printing and made/painted items for 7 months getting ready for this... I only used about a 10th of what I made. The session 0 was Godly. I was able to incorporate their characters back stories into the game and that was the hook. Thank you for your channel that helped me greatly!
Everyday i am further wowed by the power of Kelly's mustache
I wanted to know about the great mistake regarding the Froghemoth. I am sad and happy because the Froghemoth is never a mistake.
First? Love you guys
Largest group I ever played with had 27 members. Within a month, the GM divided us into 2 groups of 13 and 14 players, playing alternate weekends. It was a ton of fun, as everyone took their turns and eagerly planned their next move between turns. The GM handled it well, keeping each player to no more than 5 minutes per turn... And we all quietly waited for our next move.
How tf did combat go? I mean if all 13/14 players were in the same combat encounter, how many enemies did your GM have to throw at you?
@@PedroKing19 Entire clans of orcs, private armies of lesser nobles, that sort of thing. This was during 3rd edition. At least once we fought a minor demon horde.
Keep it up guys! A new dm myself and this is great. Shout out to my lizard friend Odrasa :)
My mistake was trying to dm the game without any idea how dnd was played. I had a Player's Handbook and that was it. If only TH-cam was around back then, so I could see a game being played.
I really like your videos like this. I was wondering if you guys have opinions on or like a top X list of d&d supplements out there that aren't from WotC. I've seen a bunch on kickstarter popping up and even backed a few myself (like Nightfell, Svilland, and your own Grim Hollow). Even Amazon is now selling some like Tome of Beasts 1 & 2, etc.
Just wondering your thoughts on these.
There is one book on the shelf to the right of Kelly's head that is upside down... Now that I've spotted it I'm having a really hard time listening to what they're saying...
The bit about backstories me and my friends learned: We first give a GM a very brief summary of our backstory idea, like, class, race and a bullet list of general tropes/traits you hit, then GM responds with some input, and we get some hooks, details etc. set with the info GM trickles down at that point. Then we send a more complete and elaborate version, with the GM's feedback included. Last step is a back and forth, that is setting all the details to fit everything nicely.
It is a fair bit more involved from the GM side for sure, but with internet, whole character creation can be done over a discord/skype, without the need to be on at the same time.
You can get a rich backstory, while still fitting in to GM's idea for the campaign, you do not have to try to schedule a session zero, and GM can devote more attention to less experienced players needing more attention. Works pretty well for busy schedules :P
Great advice dudes, I started in the early 90s and yes we made all these mistakes.
I did find a neat way to get 8 players with no backstory started.
“You wake up sore, dreary. The sound of dripping water and breathing nearby.” You are currently chained to a wall in a room with 7 other strangers also chained, oh and naked.
Begin!
I think this is great advice for new DMs, especially when they also don't have that much experience as a player.
I do have a few caveats, though.
I'd take new RPG players' desires lightly and view them as flexible. A lot of players' perceptions of RPGs have been sculpted by WoW and Skyrim. My whole party told me in session 0 that they wanted to 'kill shit and get cool loot.' They proceeded to spend the next 4 or 5 sessions socialing their way out of almost every encounter, RPing amongst themselves, and interacting with every NPC as quickly as I could create them. I had a very direct chat with them at the beginning of the next session and said. 'Hey, you all told me you wanted ____, but have been engaging with the world very differently. I've adjusted on the fly, but I'd like to know where to spend my prep time. What do you all think about how things have been going?' Everyone was on board and I was THRILLED! I'd been designing everything they were asking for and they'd been dodging it, but now I knew what they actually wanted and could make a world they'd really enjoy. Just getting buy-in on session zero is not enough.
I typically DM for 6-7, and it's hard for me to DM for less than 5 unless it's a solo or duo side excursion. My players play so much off each other that it puts a lot of pressure on each individual in the smaller group to find things for their character to interact with. With a larger group, some players are spectators while others are engaging, but even the spectators are having fun. They get ideas and then build off each other. No one feels pressured to interact if it's not really what their character would do. With a smaller group, it feels like my players all force themselves to interact even if it's not in their character because someone HAS to. It feels less genuine and they go through content almost exponentially faster. It's like a speedrun. Trying to hit the triggers as quick as possible to keep things moving. What might be 3 sessions of content for 7, a group of 4 might go through in one evening. If that's what you're looking for it might be great... but not great for my game.
I jumped right into homebrew. I had, however, been through horde of the dragon queen as a player, and then hopped into a homebrew campaign with very experienced players for a year or two before deciding to DM. Homebrew felt right and much more what I was looking for. I actually did not and do not have ideas for the ultimate BBEG or how I want things to end. The world I want to create is one where it truly forms around the players. What they imagine really becomes reality, within reason, but everything is formed around their characters and what they engage with and seek out. I started this second campaign at level 5 and I see it as sections from 5-10, 11-15, and 16-20. We're rounding out the first chapter and it's them gaining notoriety in the world. 11-15 they will be playing as a known force. 16+ they will renowned heroes interacting with the world at the highest levels. What will they choose to do with their fame and fortune? I look forward to seeing it. I'm showing them the powerful players and they can choose who is a friend and who is a foe.
This is the only actual play my kids can listen to, thank you for keeping it clean guys! (EDIT: Some context to my statement) My girls are both under 14 but I like to use D&D as a catalyst for their imagination. So many factors out there especially for girls are harmful for kids. I truly believe that imagination is the most important part of our being as humans. Without imagination we are not sentient but animals following basic programming and pre-programmed animalistic behavior. When imagination is squelched humanity dies bot figuratively and literally. If you question this simple truth, I pose one question to you:
Use your imagination.
Absolutely the truth
I don't have any.
On the topic of mistakes DMs make and Expecting Perfection, DMs should NEVER expect their players to play the game perfectly the way they want them to. I don't know how many times a DM has made up an encounter, nearly kill the entire party with monsters he thought would be easy simply because the players didn't do everything perfectly, only to accuse the players of 'not playing good enough' and that the DM shouldn't 'skew the difficulty to make it easy for them'.
I’ve made the first mistake. When I got into a different table top rpg I set aside my ego and picked up a module
I'm going to DM next week, which means this week I'm binge watching dungeon dudes at 5 am
thank you guys so much for your knowledge and sense of humor!
It feels almost taboo to hear this
TLDR; (basically a list without timestamps that should've been in the description)
1. Start with small adventures
2. Start with small groups of players
3. Have a "Session Zero" where you set up expectations etc
4. Don't ignore what palyers put in their characters backstories and what they want to achieve.
5. You will mess up rules and you will have to adapt things on the fly. Learn to live with it.
Great advice guys! I’m on the cusp of running my own campaign, and I think I’m going to start small with a pre written campaign now having watched this video. Keep up the great work!
I would just like to say thank you for having this kind of channel. Sadly as of right now I think I'm going through the trial run of mistakes. I made my own homebrew campaign. I have 7 people in my group. Including me it would be 8. I do have a great story but I think what saved me is that I did look at something on how to start a campaign without going to far off the rails. I looked up stuff and done alot of research. I just want to thank you again for having answers and maybe pointing out some of the mistakes I have already made and fixing them as I go. Also having friends that have DMed before you doesn't hurt. They have helped with alot of my questions and have given me advice.
Happy New Year) Thanks for all your work!!!
I highly recommend that any GM trying out their first non-module adventure do something similar to my first real campaign: The PCs are shipwrecked on a cursed island and when they get off, they win. Easy premise to understand, functions well at low levels, almost any PC premise works with no hassle, room for multiple encounter types, fairly simple worldbuilding without 500 NPCs, a clear, obtainable end point and an inherently finite limit on how much the party can take things off the rails, since they are physically stuck in one place. (For the record, I had the ship be sunk by a sea monster to discourage any "Let's just build a raft and sail away" schemes - only by exploring the island and finding the ruined magic lab on the other side could they find a way to incapacitate the serpent.)
A rookie GM is not going to be able to effectively run a massive 1-20 sandbox. Setting simple geographic limits on what the PCs can do is not railroading - it is focusing their attention on what is important.
Love the video, are you guys planning on doing a sorcerer subclass tier ranking video?
Yes we are!
When I first became a dungeon master, I had one notable strength. I could spin a story on the fly and improvise nearly any response to a character choice. I dove in head first, learning the rules as written as we played. When we came to a situation we hadn’t encountered, we’d check the books. I personally believe that trial by fire is an amazing way to start DMing.
Happy New Year dungeneers!!!
Getting a bit worried because I'm writing my first campaign in my own world etc. I've got a good grasp on the worldbuilding, characters, general plot, and have confined it to one continent so I'm very confident in my world. However, hearing you speak about your experiences, I'm going to be going back over and rebuffing everything that I possibly can to make sure that I have that middle part figured out :)
Oh I don't think I've ever been so early that there's only 1 comment! Crazy, Keep up the cool content though!
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is just a candy themed version of "Tomb of Horrors"
The stash is back baby ! The one shots are coming soon ! Happy New years everyone !
I made the mistake of inviting someone I did not get along with to my game because I thought it would be rude to invite our mutual friends but not him. When we had a big falling out I just had to end the whole game because at that point I was newer to the friend group and I didn't want to force them to publicly take sides since no one spoke against him in front of other people, they just talked to me privately and apologized on his behalf. I loved that campaign and I had people from the group asking if I could do another one, but it just never worked out. I haven't gotten to DM again since this happened almost a year ago, and I just would recommend not like excluding people in a big way, but don't invite people who you know will not get along with someone else, even if the person whey wouldn't get along with is you. this person also had some other issues with some other people that developed later but thats not important. I didn't invite the entire friend group and we had never even had a one on one conversation before, so it was just be trying to avoid conflict, and ending up causing a whole lot more conflict and a ruined game.
Oh man I was railroader. I had an idea of how things wanted to go to form the story in my mind. Terrible games I shudder thinking back at them.
Thanks for the video
Currently running my first campaign (homebrew world with 7 players) and, even though it's going surprisingly well so far, your discussion of the first and second mistakes hit me so hard personally. Oh god.. I'm not stressing, but I am! lol
Thank you so much for the advice, your videos have been massively helpful!
One of the biggest traps I fell into as a beginning GM was wanting to make up my own magical items..... I currently have a monk player whose can punch with the range of a long bow.
As a DM with years of experience, I hate premade campaigns.
I will never use one, sorry
Your enthusiasm and love for all things D&D is infectious!!! Currently running Dragon of Icespire Peak as my first DM attempt. Your videos are my go to source!
Thanks for being awesome.
I highly recommend the Duets (one-on-one) First Blush, Second Glance, and Third Time's the Charm. Currently running my fiancé through them and we're having a blast. They get progressively more complex, with each one adding more mechanics and roleplay and decision-making. Just finished Second Glance with her driving three characters (her Cleric, plus the Rogue and Paladin which can be DMPCs), and she was asking if she could drive a fourth! I've had to coach her that "Hey, these guys are PEOPLE, not a wrench and a hammer, so you need to give them personalities separate from your PC," but she's doing great.
In addition to gradually introducing the Player to the game, they're good learning experience for the DM. First Blush has EVERYTHING you need in it, while Second Glance has most of it, but also sends you to the Monster Manual and Player's Handbook for things.
www.dmsguild.com/product/264021/First-Blush
www.dmsguild.com/product/269135/Second-Glance
www.dmsguild.com/product/274183/Third-Times-the-Charm
I'm number 1, 2, 3, and 5. - I'm not throwing away the epic campaign because I've learned how to run it, but I'm definitely always having a session 0, I'm never playing with more than 8 players again, and I'm always gonna be humble from now on with mistakes. xD
ok, so the first mistake is totally me right now. thank you! I'm going to work on simplifying my game. my players are very understanding, fortunately, so I'm sure they'll understand. I think I might speed up levelling up for some of the larger quests to be better balanced. Wish me luck!
@3:50 Looking at my 157 page document containing all the notes for my adventure that's only reached 5th level.
*breathing intensifies*
Eeee that's a lot, I have about 20 for a campaign that's gone from 3-5 so far, and I only wrote 1 paragraph about the setting as a whole so maybe I'm going too far the other way
Hey dungeon dudes, watching your videos lately, and i have to say thank you so much for all the amazing tips you guys give. It is amazing how much i am learning as a DM and as a player
Wish you both the best of the best on all of your days
Thank you so much!
You know how I succeeded at my first attempt? We ran gamma world instead. It's simpler and you can take the story a lot less seriously and make up "because science" or "magic quantum physics" to repair anything.
I have DM’d, exclusively DM’d, for over twelve years now. I feel like I have learned more in the last two years than I had in the previous ten, due to channels such as this one. Thanks. Happy New Years Dudes.
My mistake as a first time DM was letting a friend be a vampire. I loved the idea of a vampire as a playable character but suddenly found myself overwhelmed when the vampire took control of an entire town.
Vampire PCs in D&D are best left for villainous one-shots. Heck, 5e doesn't even want Necromancers to control entire armies of the undead.
I like to plug in published modules in between campaign "chapters" it gives me time to prep the next stage and allowing the game to roll on with much less effort, the only thing I have to do is just them to fit the world in some cases they don't realize its a module "perfect"
My best campaign featured 8 Jan Michael Vincents and various sectors.
Having a campaign begin in an overly ambitious manner, only to quickly fall apart under its own weight; this is definitely, and by far, the biggest and most common mistake I ever incurred into, when starting as a DM. For over twenty years I've been Forever-DMing. Ever since I started back in high school with my friends. I find that this is still such a relevant piece of advice, I felt compelled to comment.
In fact, it has been only in recent years (as far back as about five years, now) that I really noticed how I was constantly making things so hard on myself. Although I did manage quite a few successful campaigns throughout my first decade and a half of playing, the truth is, many games I felt true investment and passion in crashed and burned, without me understanding why at the time. Only learning through years and years, and a lot of trial and error, that the mistake was scope and scale.
Right now, I am running a D&D campaign which started out as just a bunch of misfits getting hired by a Vampire Countess for some odd jobs with a very real, yet not at all apparent common theme and reason. For the party, this was just about going to "this" dungeon, and getting "that" item from inside of it, then get paid, before heading into the next. The plot always seeming very simple, innocent, and contained, as the party progressed. The larger-than-life and epic saga that runs through the game, is this time placed as backdrop. As something to add flavor, and tie in the sessions, giving the players something to uncover if they so chose, without it running the plot, driving the story, and forcing them to go at a pace that the game itself is just not meant to.
Right now, even, the party's main objective (after parting ways with the Vampire Countess, since she has already gotten what she needed from them) is -literally- driving a cart full of honey, all the way from some backwater town that history forgot. Getting that honey to market in the capital. Thus, sparking a bit of life into the economy of this old, run down and mostly forgotten town.
The simplest, most non-epic and mundane plot possible... And the game has been going on for over half a dozen adventures; over a dozen sessions; with the party having ventured all sorts of dungeons and tombs of eldritch abominations, and having unknowingly awoken ancient beings that had been resting beneath the material mantle of the plane for eons. All the while, not even directly aware of it.
In fact, only LAST SESSION a single player in the party suddenly commented in character, and after the party failed to rescue a kidnapped NPC from the caravan they are currently traveling with: "Hey, has anyone noticed that things have gone really, really dark lately? As in, fey demons, abominable monsters, and deadly beings of great power, have seem to start appearing more often all around us? Has anyone else picked up on the fact that this is going on?"
I've kept the epic-ness as a backdrop element this time, and I have kept the plots and the adventures simple, and small, and I have to say, this has been one of my longest running campaigns in a while. One of the most fun and satisfying to run, as well.
The advice given in this video is just amazing, and I'd encourage every DM out there, new or seasoned, to listen carefully. Much is there to be learned here, no matter how long you have been playing.
This sounds like a really cool campaign! I'd love to hear more about it!
@@WinningSidekick Really? Wow, ok. It's been a while.
Well, the campaign consisted of a first adventure into an island that was not on any map or chart. To find the remains of a lost ship, that was carrying a wizard who had been imprisoned from a previous adventure with other characters in the same setting. The party found the wizard but he had been transformed into a monster. Their vampyric patron just wanted the head, so they took that back.
Second adventure was taking a trip to a small dwarven hamlet in the mountains, to find a ruin that housed an old cookbook from the old king's personal chef. The party solved the dungeon and, in doing so, unlocked a series of mysteries that brought the town back from being a forgotten footnote in history into the makings of a new dwarven town. The vampyric patron took one recipe and left them the book, which was quite useful for the party's bard.
Third adventure was going into a temple of the dwarves to find a new magic weapon for the party's barbarian, since he lost his in the previous adventure. They stumbled upon the laboratory of a mad wizard working on portals. Which was a lot of fun.
Fourth adventure was leaving the town with honey from the dwarves (their main produce) in order to get it back to the capital market, and revive the towns economy. And then them meeting a new potential patron who tested them. They went through a dungeon and survived, but then kept on their own trail.
Fifth adventure was them stumbling on an orc village which had been formed by settlers that moved into some elven ruins. The orcs were under a spell from a nearby elven burial temple and graveyard, which they sorted out. Freeing the orcs, but unlocking a succubus in the process who then proceeded to do all manner of mischief for many more sessions.
Sixth adventure was evading goblins who followed them from the previous one, because the mistakenly took a magic item from the goblins.
Seventh adventure was reaching a new hub town, and saving an old watch tower keeper outside the town from a fae attack brought on by the succubus. He then served as their lore-heavy exposition dump NPC into the new region they were in.
Eight adventure was the party running into a caravan of merchants that made rounds across the region, and meeting a whole cast of NPCs. Then finding a plot hook that led them into following a Paladin and his squire who had gone missing in a cave, to rescue a cleric their recruited, all at the behest of the cleric's grandmother who wanted her back safe and not adventuring. Which became a long, very long adventure into a dungeon of many sections, that ended with them finding the Paladin, learning the cleric and squire were dead, then witnessing the Paladin sacrifice himself to fight a monster, only for all of it to be revealed to be the work of the Succubus playing the paladin to feed him to a mosnter for a ritual of awakening of more monsters.
Ninth adventure was the party bringing the bodies back and attending the funeral of the cleric, only to then have the grandmother run away after an attempt on the life of the main cleric that offered the girl to the paladin as support. Which then led into a hunt through a bog, which ended up in a fight with a Hag.
Tenth adventure was a quest to help a new PC find an old man in a mannor in the forest past the bog. A PC who was sent by the same Vampyric patron, who wanted a magic tapestry from the man's house. The party run a huge horror-house themed adventure, as they leared that the woods were home to a whole pack of werewolves, and the man in the mannor was an elder skinchanger that had once been a mentor of the vampiress the party served. They managed to get the tapestry, but in the process the party bard and his dog companion were cursed with lycantrophy and were left at the mannor. Then the party collapsed due to infighting, and split up. All but one of them remained int he region; an orc cryptozoologist and ranger and best friend of the bard, who vowed to hunt down the monster he had become, and slay him.
The party got the wizard's brain, the cook's recipe, and the skinchanger's tapestry, to the vampiress, who used them all in a season-finale adventure for ANOTHER set of characters, to stage an infiltration and attack on the castle of her sire. So that the party could slay the elder vampire on her behalf, thus using them to remove the elder vampire and ascend to his throne as ruler of his armies. Which, she managed, through the use of magical artifacts crafted from these materials the other characters collected, and some very nice manipulation of the players and their circumstances.
And that was the end of the story. At least, to this day.
Great video! Greetings from Argentina!
wait this just came out? Awesome! I THOUGHT I was going to homebrew a game as a first time DM, but am pivoting to a module after doing my first one shot. Great timing for this video for me. Thanks!
I had the fortune of having the backstory of my character come back to haunt me for multiple sessions. Who knew orcs could not be talked out of a vendetta?!
And now I'm at a loss, I'm about to move states and losing my dwarven drinking buddies.
In 2019, before I actually played dnd, I made a campaign based on how I thought Dnd worked. It was abysmal, but now I remade it as a, you know, *actual campaign* and it’s the first time I’m DMing. Today was sessions 0 and 1(each person already had a character, so the first 15 minutes was just character introductions. This was our equivalent of a session 0) and it went very well. I wasn’t sure the players would take very well to it, because the main premise was that nearly all of humanity had died, so there was next to no social interaction. There’s just combat and adventuring. I was genuinely surprised by how quickly they adapted and really got into the post-apocalyptic theme. There is also A. Crap. Ton. Of magic items
Also *my GOD* did I have to make a lot of stat blocks. Virtually none of the monsters were from DND and were more so just various cool creatures from various mythologies, such as Bennu, the Egyptian Phoenix, or a mimic that is in the form of a barrel of ale and is drunk.
P.S. the mimic isn’t from mythology
My first campaign that I ran was The Sunless Citadel in 5e. That was a great way to learn how to DM. Very simple to run, and a lot of fun as well. Then since it was part of Tales From the Yawning Portal, it was great going further and further into higher level campaigns at a good pace. To this day that, and Tomb of Horrors, are my favorite dungeons.
LOL Rick and Morty reference at 18:30
You guys are awesome. Love yalls content. Could you help me out and make video of different ways to start a campaign. Thanks
Every one imagines their character as the main character, definitely not playing a druid obsessed with pottery
The sad trombone effect in my brain when you stated number 1…
Seriously, though, thanks for reaffirming the importance of doing at least a little practice DMing based on a published campaign. I keep getting a little too excited, and I think I need to take baby steps so I can actually enjoy it!
I've been DMing for just a couple months (we're currently headed for session #5). Most of what I know about DnD I learned by watching Critical Role and other streamed games. I never bought a single piece of official material, when I was learning rules, I only relied on the internet, most of all D&D Beyond and The Alpine DM. I gathered 5 of my pals and basically begged them to try building this amazing adventure with me. None of _them_ ever played the game, and I feel like I really solidified my knowledge of the rules by explaining them to my players.
I constructed my own world from scratch, with its own lore and everything. But the key thing, and a valuable tip I also learned from other DMs on the internet, is that I only constructed a very rough frame of the world, and I didn't immediately plan out everything. The way I lead our campaign, I try to make it really open world, which means everything's fairly flexible and I don't want to come up with great epic plots when I don't even know what's going to happen next time. We're all still learning how to play the game, and I don't want to end up overwhelming my players neither myself.
The starting plot of our story is basically: heroes trapped in a village surrounded by flood, a bunch of bullywugs kidnap some local kids, heroes go to track them down, turns out a bunch of lycanthropes with whom our paladin already has a beef charge the bullywugs to bring them human children so that they can turn them into werewolves and further expand their numbers. Other than a few player-specific subplots, that's pretty much everything I've planned so far. I think of it as a turorial plot before we can move on to something bigger.