| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
|---|---|
| #1Edit132Jul 05, 2015 12:03:39 | Hello, I'm still a bit of a Novice DM and I was hoping for some help from other DM's so I can improve myself and my game.
Firstly, I am abosultely terrible at map/dungeon building. What I normally try to do is find a map and lightly modify it to suit my needs, though I don't always find a map to suit my wants/needs. Random map generators seem lacking as well, as I have no idea what needs to be in them, nor how to arrange them. As a simular problem, I can't really design my own for simular reasons of not knowing enough to make one, even while using other maps as examples.
Secondly, Encounters seem to be -really- tricky, atleast in 5e, as I've had easy encounters nearly wipe a party and hard encounters get steam rolled. Partially due to good/bad rolls or smart/stupid players, not sure how to handle that.
Note 1:I'd also like tips for more..interesting? encounters, rather than players just going from room to room killing a set amount of enemies.
Note 2: Also, how do I handle the party "tank"? The tank in my group focused on AC and Health, while taking the "Adjacent allies have "Enemies have disadvantage to hit"" ability. I hate having to focus her, as she gets frustrated with that but there doesn't seem to be a better option. Players also seem to love bottle necking enemies a lot.
Lastly, World building. My biggest strength is coming up with lore/story and making characters feel like real people, rather than just NPC's. However, one of the things my friend suggested is world building, making the town feel as real as the people. Such as planned and limited inventory, making sure the surrounding area has enough farms or trade to sustain it, etc. Which I have little idea how to do. Many players don't really care or ask but I feel it would add a bit more immersion to the game.
That should be all for now, though I may have follow-up questions to anyone nice enough to answer. Any advice would be greatly appreciated and thanks in advanced. |
| #2OGRE1984Jul 05, 2015 12:40:06 |
random generator tables are fairly common, they are a useful tool. they are all lacking and require a level of personalization from you. pick a theme, give it a history, make it live! i am fond of adding collapsed/blocked areas to give the illusion of a greater structure.
a good book i have is central casting; dungeons. a bunch of ideas to use, never once used a dungeon i roilled up using the tables though. answer some questions about your dungeon. who built it? why did they build it? why did they leave? use common sense.
encounters are very tricky. i have given up on doing it. i give unlimited, sharable inspiration and hero points, with the warning that i run a lethal game and encounters are not balanced. dice can be fickle and unbalanced. roll them in a box lid and bounce them off a 'wall' [ i have 2 dice trays]. this also seems to help with biased dice. that covers the dice, however stupid players are handled best through lethal games. it sucks, but they start to think more as death is 'real' and decisions have consequences.
interesting encounters have enemies speak and react to player actions. i favor using accents from movie characters. gnome with a southern accent? why not. terrain and tactics. random event that affects everyone. bee swarm, etc.
group just arrived so i gotta cut it short.
|
| #3RazintarrJul 05, 2015 14:14:16 |
|
| #4BarkyJul 05, 2015 14:45:47 | Nothing wrong with borrowing maps and repopulating them. Read the descriptions before you repopulate, so you can get a feel for the thought process the developer used to make the thing. Eventually you'll get inspired to make your own. It's like being a good writer: you can't be a good writer until you're a good reader.
Good encounters include variety & balance. The party has spell casters, fighters, utility classes, rogues. Give the same to the monsters, mix them up as well. Even if you have dumb monsters, remember a hole in the ground is an ecosystem, there'll be a variet of monsters there.
I also advise you to list tactics for each monster. Think about how they'll act when they see the party, if they're surprised, if they outnumber them, if they see a caster, etc. This is to get your creative juices flowing, give you a menu of options when the real fight begins.
instead of "monsters in rooms", populate the whole dungeon with a society. Who is in command? Who is pulling the strings? Who are the soldiers, the workers, the families? Who are their "secret weapons"? How do they guard the place? Are they aware of all secret doors? Maybe the monsters are the ones who've figure out how to bottleneck the PCs, or have laid the ambushes. Smart monsters will use their home turf to their advantage. Build in places where they can flank the party, and always give the enemy an escape route.
Give the monsters a way to spy on the party. Let them figure out who's the tank, the caster, the healer. Don't metagame the party, but the monsters are going to try to learn about the party if they can. Even after a round or two, the monsters can figure out who the threats are. Give the monsters a commander who will bark orders to the others.
Don't let all this freak you out. There are a ton of DM blogs & vids on the intertubes. Run the games the best you can, & read and watch others to improve your skills, and before to long you'll be awesome! |
| #5Danny_MontannyJul 05, 2015 17:20:13 | The key to encounter building is asking a dramatic question. Once you know what the dramatic question is, you know what the encounter is and how it will end. Be careful of the obvious questions though. "Can the PCs survive?" is a given question and not very dramatic in and of itself. "Can the PCs stop the cultist before they finish sacrificing their victims and opening a gate to the Nine Hells?" Now that's a question that smacks of drama! Plus it distinctly tells you what the encounter is, how it works, and when it ends.
Next, think about your NPCs motives and tactics. What's their goal? How will they go about achieving that goal? Is there a chance, and at what point, that they'll give up on that goal? Let's use the above example. The cultists want to open a gate by killing a number of sacrifices. They're willing to give up their lives to see the goal achieved. They'll want to kill their victims first at all costs, while possibly stalling the PCs as much as possible.
The rest of the build now is determined by what creatures you use, how many, and if there are terrain elements that will give either side an advantage. Use the XP budget of your party to fiddle around with the numbers until you get an appropriate encounter should it end up in combat. |
| #6Varden_KholJul 05, 2015 17:22:08 | If you want a really quick way to find a bunch of fully-designed and populated dungeons/locations grab one of the published adventures. |
| (Reply to #6)BadMeeple | You might want to take a look at this series of three articles by the Angry GM about designing combat encounters. In particular, if you find that the PCs are falling back on the same tactics each time, you might want to shake things up a bit to make the combat more tricksy. Your PCs are always controlling the bottleknecks? That's great! They've found something that works, but try and throw in an encounter with some enemies with ranged attacks who can pick them off if they turtle in the doorway. How about a caster with an AOE spell that's going to cripple the party if they bunch together? Multiple entrance and exit routes that allow flankers to get behind the group?
http://theangrygm.com/the-angry-guide-to-akicking-combats-part-1-picking-your-enemies/
|
| #8ImaculataJul 07, 2015 1:39:27 | Dungeon building is a craft of itself. I can however give you a few pointers on how to create a good dungeon:
Dungeon don't s: +Don't have too many pointless dead ends +Dont make it too big +Don't have dozens of empty corridors
Dungeon do's: +Have multiple roads towards the final room +Include secret tunnels that are optional routes +Include height differences, such as stairs, balconies, different floors +Include hazards, such as water, lava, pits, acid, spikes, crumbling floors, collapsing ceilings, and traps +Make every room have a purpose
Getting started, the lore: First, think of what the purpose of the dungeon's purpose is. Who built it? Was it once a great city, or an ancient tomb? How old is the dungeon, and are its corridors still safe to traverse? Secondly, why are the monsters there? Are they the guardians of the dungeon, or do they live there? Are they just vermin that happen to live in the dungeon perhaps?
Pick a theme: What is your dungeon about? Does it revolve around water perhaps? Will it have lots of swimming sections, underwater action, waterfalls to climb and shallow water that slows players down? Or is it all about heat? Is it full of fire hazards, and hot boiling lava? Or does it perhaps revolve around stealth? Is there plenty of opportunity for the players to spot monsters from afar, and take them out silently? Are there gongs that guards can sound to call reinforcements if they spot the players? Or is it all about puzzles? Do the players have to find various key objects to pass an obstacle? Or does the dungeon revolve around reverse gravity, wild magic, or magnetism? A strong theme can provide a solid foundation for more ideas, and you'll have less trouble filling up the rest of your dungeon.
The lay out: For the lay out you'll need at least one starting room and one ending room. Usually dungeons have at least one ending goal, often in the form of a boss room or treasure room, and one room in which the players enter. These rooms can be of any size, and of any shape. Not all rooms have to be perfectly square. And think of the details of the rooms. What is the temperature? What does it smell like? Is is quiet, or are there ambient sounds? Is it a moist place, with lots of water dripping from the ceiling? Are there any decorations in the rooms? Engraved pillars, stone carvings, wall paintings, statues?
Key locations: Next, you'll want to think of a few additional rooms that stand out. For example, a tomb could have a room where the bodies were cleaned before being buried. Or perhaps a prayer room? An ancient city may have an old prison, a temple, and any number of important buildings. Try to think of landmarks within the dungeon, and then scatter them about. How many entrance are there into this room, and how many exits?
Creating interesting rooms A boring room is a room that has empty walls, no furniture, and is completely flat. Spice up your rooms. Add height differences. Maybe you have a monster encounter planned in a particular room. But why not put some of them up on a balcony, and hand them ranged weapons? Why not fill part of the room with murky water, and have a monster hidden beneath the surface? And add furniture. Maybe a statue can be pushed over by the players to make a bridge over a hazard. Maybe tables can be overturned to create a floating platform in the water? Or maybe a bookcase can be used by the players to block a door. Maybe there's a cauldron with hot boiling soup in the middle of the room, that can be kicked over to burn monsters/players.
Obstacles Not all danger comes in the form of monsters. Dungeons can have many hazards that the players must overcome. And perhaps a dangerous hazard can be a reason for the players to choose a different path. Try to visualize what the location of the hazard looks like. Perhaps you want a river of lava in one of your rooms. But why it is there? Is the room perhaps a forge, and is the river just a canal of hot molten steel, which was used to forge tools and weapons? Once you start thinking about these things, the next logical question is, can it be shut off? Perhaps there is a mechanism that empties the canal? But what if the mechanism is broken, or requires a key? And of course the key is in another area of the dungeon. Not all obstacles are clearly visible. A floor might be weak, and could collapse if more than 2 players step onto it. A ceiling might collapse if the players make too much noise. Obstacles can be hidden.
Connecting the dots Once you've got a start, exit, landmarks and obstacles, all you need to do is connect the dots. Draw tunnels that connect all of the rooms together. Make sure that the lay out isn't too linear. Add alternate paths that also lead towards the final room. But also ask yourself if the obstacles can be avoided, or if they are chokepoints that the players must pass to reach the final room. Too many dead ends are never a good thing, unless there is something of interest at the end. It is better to have very few meaningful rooms, than to have a ton of useless rooms. Try to imagine that each room should have some flavor to it. You'll want to be able to tell the players more about the room than "it's square, with 4 empty walls and 2 doors".
Not every tunnel has to be a tunnel As you are connecting the rooms, remember that they don't need to be connected by just tunnels. The connecting paths between rooms can also be bridges, sometimes even across other rooms. Or they can be staircases, crevices in a broken wall, underwater canals, sewage pipes, balconies, parapets, etc.
Adding monsters Some DM's write down the locations of monsters, and some improvize where the monsters are on the spot. There are even those that keep track of the patrol routes of monsters, so pick what you feel most comfortable with. Not every corridor or room needs to have monsters in them. As a general rule, space out your combat encounters, so you have a good balance of exploring, dealing with traps and other obstacles, and fighting. In fact, a dungeon doesn't even need to have monsters at all, as long as there are other things to do. You'll also want to adapt the lay out of the room to accomodate the monsters. Height differences give your monsters or your players a strategic advantage. Furniture and pillars can provide cover. Flammable objects provide alternative strategic options. There may even be heavy siege weapons in place, that the players must take out first.
Last but not least, the devil is in the details The players can only care about the dungeon, if you care about it. Try to visualize the place, and put it to words, so the place comes alive for the players. Fill your description with rich details. If the players spot a tomb, what does it look like? Is there a name on the tomb? If they ask for it, then it may be a good idea to have a list of random names before you start the session. You could say the name on the tomb has faded with time, and that the statue in the corner is just a random statue. But what if they have a tale to tell of their own? Maybe the statue is of a local saint, and maybe she has a little altar with some gifts on it? Maybe the tomb is of a rich noble, and it includes a false warning of a terrible curse that is inflicted on anyone that dares to disturb it. Maybe the walls are decorated with paintings of religious practices, that give the players a clue regarding the purpose of the rooms. This is what turns a boring room, into a room with a story. |
| #9iserithJul 06, 2015 6:13:09 |
|
| #10DMOnyJul 06, 2015 7:19:59 |
|
| #11bawylieJul 06, 2015 10:28:50 | Lots of people and lots of perspectives here. All good. It comes down to finding what works best for you and figuring out how to leverage your advantages while glossing over your weaknesses.
You're also going to have to stop wanting things. This means you must divest yourself from wanting a hard encounter to be hard or an easy encounter to be easy. These difficulties aren't absolute: they describe only the generally expected outcomes.
As I can't tell you what you ought to do, I'll tell you what I do.
My approach to adventures, dungeon sites, physical locations, and narrative is similar to Imaculata's, if less systematic. First, I think about the theme and write it down (pirates, crypt, mercantile, whatever). Next I think of "playable spaces." A playable space is some location that your players might have some interaction with. I like to arrange these in a kind of flow chart. Say my location is a church, my playable spaces would be the main hall, sacristy, choir stalls, roof, steeple/bell tower, basement, churchyard, cemetery & catacombs. Maybe also a nunnery or housing for clergy.
these are circles on paper with connection lines. I fill the circles in with 3-5 adjectives on theme. I focus on sight, sound, smells, & physical features, and I do NOT list physical dimensions. (You never hear me say "this is a 20 x 30 ft room" for example, unless specifically asked).
so that gives me playable spaces and some idea how they relate to one another, along with some meaty descriptions I can use when I describe the scene. (I tend toward alliteration and rhyme when I describe things because they stick in people's minds better. The horrible hobgoblin, the hairy hobgoblin, and the hurt hobgoblin - now my players remember which is which - a lesson I took from Snow White & 7 Dwarves).
Next I come up with a roster of likely and unlikely denizens. The DMG helpfully categorizes them for you by ecology or something, but you can customize a roster easily. Anyway, the roster is essentially the bag from which I'll pull elements for my encounters.
encounters. I will run the math on deadly and hard encounters and specifically design these types only. I am more free form with moderate and easy encounters. But what I do is figure out the dramatic question (or really, the source of conflict), determine what team bad guy wants, and think about my players' likely course of action. What I think they'll do. Then I come up with some thing to stop that likely course and add that. In essence I want them pushed off their plan A and onto their plan B. So I'll end up writing 2-4 hard to deadly encounters and ad-hocing the rest. (Note: I play to "win." This means even my so-called 'dumb' monsters act using my intelligence. Their statistics do not prescribe their behavior; I do. Their statistics only come into play when I need a check. Some people play differently and they are wrong and bad for doing so :P ).
Regarding towns, and whatever else, I do the same. Theme, playable spaces, aspects, roster, encounters. You can do this for plot and event based adventures as well, but the playable spaces are events instead of locations. Or they're both. What, really is the difference, structurally, organizationally, between a mystery and a dungeon?
I also come up with an exploration table for each area. I'll do a post on that later.
So my design is fairly loose, kind of a skeleton, and I add the "meat" in play. Nothing formally exists until it comes "on screen." I rely on my improvisational skills (along with my rosters and lists of adjectives) to create pithy descriptions that make the world feel real. I eschew lengthy crap like this post here, because I am trying to create impressions on my players, rather than convey perfect detail.
I strive for a prep to play ratio of 5 minutes to 20 minutes. Meaning every 5 minutes of prep I do should yield 20 minutes of play. Otherwise I'm working too hard. I'm also heavily, heavily leaning on what I know about story structure and pacing to keep my prep time down. I employ it during play because I know how to do it. It's a strength I am leveraging. It keeps my games fast and tight.
Anyway. See my blog for other approaches to stuff I do. But basically I stick to my DM Credo, I design obstacles (not solutions), I Create experiences (not plots or outcomes), I focus on the players (not the characters), and I strive for complete honesty and openness.
|
| #12ImaculataJul 07, 2015 2:15:11 |
|