Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 the-alchemist Aug 19, 2015 7:53:35	Hello! I am a new DM writing my very first adventure in my very first campaign. Do any more experienced DMs have any advice? I appreciate the help!
#2 iserith Aug 19, 2015 8:16:58	This is a pretty broad question. You might get more responses if your questions are a bit more specific, or if you post some of the ideas you have for the adventure you're preparing. Some general advice:   1. Plan challenges (problems), not solutions. Coming up with solutions is the players' role. You just judge how well those solutions work, rolling dice when you're not sure.   2. Work with the players to come up with reasons why their characters will engage with the events of the adventure before play.   3. Start with something "grabby." This generally means a conflict of some kind - not necessarily a combat though. Create a challenge that confers some of the exposition (background of the adventure) and gets the players engaged right away.   4. Avoid town-based adventuring for now. I suggest an adventure location (read: a dungeon!) somewhere outside of town. If you do a dungeon, make it non-linear and have several ways to enter and exit, plus more than one level. If you can start the adventure right at the dungeon location, so much the better.   5. Embrace the fantastic. This is D&D, not the mundane world. Get creative and weird.
#3 CCS Aug 19, 2015 10:23:00	Whatever challenges you come up with, you'll no doubt have a solution or two already in mind. That's fine. But take a moment & try and think of about 3 more ways your players might react to the challenge at hand. Because we players can and do do the damnedest things..... Also consider how things might go if the players DON'T interact with something at all. I've seen people miss the obvious clues. I've been the player who INTENTIONALLY avoided a bit of plot in a game because I didnt feel like spending the game time dealing with it. (If I ignore it, maybe it'll just go away.... it was something that held no entertainment value to me & would've just added more complications for no pay off. The DM knew how I felt & still introduced it. So I in turn ignored it.) - boy did that annoy the DM.
#4 DM_Craig Aug 19, 2015 10:53:36	1. Draw from your players as much as you are able. Ask your players how their characters know each other instead of telling them. Why are they a team? What purpose do they have, if any? It is never a bad idea to ask your players for adventure ideas either. It doesn't mean you have to use all of them, but it lets you know what style of encounters they are looking forward to.   2. Run the game, but don't control it. Use roleplay and storytelling over rules if it comes down to it. Try to say yes to the players if they want to try something instead of saying no. Figure out how you can make it happen. A rule-nazi DM can quickly turn a fun adventure into a boring or tedious game. Reward the players for their inventiveness.   3. When writing an adventure, avoid the following: The No-Win Scenario Don't introduce a villain that is going to escape no matter what the PCs do. If the vilain IS going to escape, make sure you have a believable reason as to why. Pointless Traps If your adventure is going to have traps, hazards, etc., think carefully about where you place them. A regularily travelled hallway in a populated dungeon is not going to have traps. If you start placing traps anywhere and everywhere, it can bog down play when your players are constantly going "I want to check for traps" in every single room they enter. Unbelievable Locations What I mean by this is simply making sure your dungeons are fleshed out and believable. If a group of bandits is holed up in the basement of an old ruined fort, they're going to need food, a place to sleep, a place to use as a bathroom, etc. Adding these types of details helps make your locations more believable. Even a cave system inhabited by goblins is going to need a fresh water supply and a source of readily available food. If these things are lacking, it makes it less believable that the occupants could actually survive for longer than a couple of days. Monotony Even if your PCs are fighting their way through a kobold-infested cave, not every battle has to be all kobolds. Perhaps the party ventures down a side tunnel and encounters a couple of drakes being kept by the kobolds, or they find a cave containing a green slime. Add variety even in the midst of your adventure to keep things interesting. Throw in some puzzles and challenges intermixed with combat as well. The Kill Everything Scenario Rarely does a combat encounter need to end with every single enemy being slain or even knocked unconscious. Completing the encounter simply means getting past it and on to the next. If the PCs kill 1/2 the goblins in the room, the other 1/2 might second guess their intentions. Goblins are brave in large numbers but generally cowardly alone or in pairs. 1 or 2 goblins are not likely to take on a band of adventurers without some back-up. A hungry cave bear might give up once it realizes that it's not going to get an easy meal.
#5 Ralif_Redhammer Aug 19, 2015 12:03:11	Absolutely this. I always try to put at least one magical thing in every adventure. Like a statue made of light, a tree that exists in all planes simultaneously, or a wall made of goblins.   iserith wrote:
#6 OoftaMeg Aug 19, 2015 12:08:16	Some good points have already been posted.  I just have a couple of additions.   Start small.  You don't need to design the whole world or name every bartender in every tavern.  If you want to sketch out a high level map, you only need to include the types of things the group would need or should know.  We take if for granted that we can go to google earth and see suburbs of Moscow, but most people in a pre-industrialized age did not know much more than their local neighborhood.   Keep high level stuff vague.  In addition to starting small, keep things you don't need vague.  You may have a general idea that there are rumors of a reptilian humanoids on the southern border threatening to invade.  Are they half dragons?  Lizardmen? Human barbarians with a dragon totem?  It doesn't matter until you actually need to use them.   Let the players decide the direction when you can.  Depending on what you have going on, I frequently let the players dictate where the campaign is going next.  I may have had a great idea about the lost orb of Tethys but if they yawn and stare off into space when I explain it while asking detailed questions about the rumors of a purple dragon that I just threw in as an afterthought, I'll start thinking about what I could do with a purple dragon.   If a plot doesn't get followed up on, take notes and use it later.  I've done this with some ideas that I've used months or even years later.   I think in terms of organizations and conflicts, not specific challenges.  Who's who and why are there situations that need to be resolved?  How can the PCs help resolve those issues, or can they?   Important NPCs should have a secret or two.  The secrets don't have to be a bad thing, just something nobody knows about.
(Reply to #2) the-alchemist	iserith wrote:
#8 Barky Aug 19, 2015 15:41:29	Here's a generic tip: don't try to write an adventure like a published adventure if you're writing for your gaming group. Write the plot as an outline. Write the rooms as a list of descriptive highlights. Write the NPCs as a list of character traits. Trying to write it all out like a published adventure will absorb all your time and you'll find yourself running out of time.   From those outlines, highlights, and lists, you can improvise the rest.   Do put details in your encounters by defining all the monsters and their abilities, including all their spells and the description of all their spells, and everything else so you can run the encounters from your adventure instead of flipping back-and-forth between rule books. Create a list of tactics the monsters might do while you're developing the encounter so you don't forget what you planned when the encounter comes up. This way all your encounters can be smooth.   Good luck! IMO the best part of DMing is creating something new.
#9 Nevvur Aug 19, 2015 16:24:13	The Dungeon Master's Block put out a new episode recently, discussing a variety of tips for new DMs. Worth your time to give it a listen, and earlier episodes are chock full of other ideas suitable for any degree of experience with DMing.
#10 Gwaithador Aug 19, 2015 19:58:05	It may be interesting if one of the trinkets of the players is the Lich's phylactery, and the Lich is trying to get it back. The dreams are really a lure to get the PCs in his clutches so he can reacquire his phylactery. Naturally, why not just teleport, slaughter them and take it?  Well, if the Lich has to act through proxies, it may be its not completely "free". Food for thought.   Another suggestion?  Make the swamp come to life. The smells, the gnats, a leech or two. the flora and fauna should stand out. A quagmire or quickmud patch would make a nice challenge. Make them remember the swamp, and if you have a druid, ranger  in the group, give them a chance to shine in the natural world.
#11 bakerjw Aug 20, 2015 5:35:47	I am also new to 5e. I've DM'd small games and also played in earlier editions. I must say that there is a lot of great advice given above.   In my current game, the last thing that I want is a TPW. Nothing can kill the enjoyment of a game like everybody dying. On the flip side, mowing through goblins without any chance at harm is not exciting either. I like to remain flexible in my encounters and always have some kind of an outlet for the group in case they suddenly get some bad rolls and things take a turn for the worse. The trick is to make it not feel like I am changing things too much. As the PCs reach higher levels, I don't expect to have to do much manipulation as they will be able to respond to hard hits better.   As an example of flexibility. In one of our last sessions, the group left an abandoned city that was being held by a local military patrol. The captain of the patrol warned them of goblins in the area and cautioned them to be wary. As they travelled down the road toward the nearest town, they , of course, encountered a roving group of goblins with a hobgoblin in charge. I built the encounter to be 2 waves of goblins and HGs. The party slaughtered the first wave in quick fashion and was going to do the same with the second wave, so I opted to replace one of the 2nd wave HGs with an HG captain. It went from another slaughter to a very tough fight for the party. The HG captain rolled a critical hit on it's first swing and took out one of the dwarven fighters. When things were at their bleakest, a corporal from the military patrol showed up and turned the tide enough, even though he hit 0 HPs, so that the party recovered. The story was that the captain sent him out after the group had left to keep an eye on them and verify their story.   Sometimes, the PCs don't do the expected and sometimes they walk right into a scenario. That's what makes it exciting.
#12 iserith Aug 20, 2015 7:11:02	the-alchemist wrote:
#13 sleypy Aug 20, 2015 9:16:41	A lot of ides already, but one important one is don't put DMPC into party, especially ones that are significantly more powerful. The PCs are the center pieces of the story, not the NPCs or their plots.   If you expect the PC to figure out something, clues should come in 3s (baker's 3s to be safe). If you get into a situation that you find yourself needing to justify it, weigh the justification against the cost to everyone's enjoyment of the game. (You can always re-evaluate it later after the session.) Common sense is thinking common to given set of people, it does not, in all/most case, mean sound logical thinking. (Example, yes it does seem unrealistic to jump 20' pit in armor, but it is also unrealistic board yourself into a 10' x 10' room with torches. So be careful and don't automatically bar actions based purely on any one individuals perception of reality.) Plan out what happens after the PCs fail or fail to act. It isn't always worthwhile to plan based on the assumption of victory. Victory isn't assured and how the party overcomes a particular challenge is mostly unpredictable.