mydmadventures

[mydmadventures]

D10 list: on road non combat encounters

The herd of deer blocks the road, their felted antlers stark against the clear sky. They're massive, nearly the size of an elephant each. They pull up great strips of grass as they graze, surveying you with a lazy gaze.

You hear them before you see them: a troupe of travelling singers. Their four part harmony echoes sweetly through the hills. When you finally see them, they're still singing. Four dwarves with beards braided thick with all manner of items - flowers, feathers, sea glass beads, coins, more you can't determine - raise their hands in greeting to you.

It's dusk. You've just started watching for a place to camp when the lights catch your eye. At first, you think they're merely fireflies, but it quickly becomes apparent they are something out of the ordinary. The pattern they make, in a wide array of colors, is beautiful to behold.

The lone traveler is dressed in tattered robes of deep blue. They are older than you expected for someone alone on the road, so far from any town. They carry a heavy pack. 'It is an offering,' they tell you, 'to a goddess almost forgotten'. You notice they carry nothing else.

The man is bandaged and sports a fresh black eye, but he waves off your attempts at help. 'I've had enough of adventurers for a lifetime, in my line of work. I'm retiring. You work for enough wannabe despots, you end up like this. Time to go home.'

The parade of people stretches out for at least a mile. Children walk with livestock, those in finery with those in rags, grandmothers and young bucks, a varied group. One woman explains they had to evacuate their village. 'Not a one lost or left behind, and us fifty miles out already,' she boasts. You wonder how far they intend to travel.

The band of adventurers is travel-worn. Their armor is well-used, their packs expertly packed. They'll gladly share a campfire with you, telling tales of their adventures.

The ghostly figure appears in broad daylight, wavering like a mirage in the desert. It is a young man in harlequin clothes. He sits, writing a letter in a language unknown to you. In minutes, he fades away.

The merchant's cart is laden with cookware, mostly. There are a few odds and ends tucked between metal cauldrons and wooden spoons. Perhaps you'll find a hidden treasure.

The ostrich-drawn chariot speeds by you with barely a shout to warn you. It is followed closely by two riders on horseback, then a pair of massive dogs pulling a cart. Straggling behind, a palanquin carried by two men tries to keep up.

all d10 lists

[mydmadventures]

DM Tip: Getting Organized

Hey you, yes YOU, the person who has a sideblog where they reblog all their d&d content to use as a later reference. 

Why the HELL aren’t you tagging your shit? Why are you just tossing my stuff (and I presume other people’s) into a great big pile and expecting you’re going to be able to so find it weeks or months or gods help you, years later? I go hunting in the tags of my own work for validation all the time, so don’t pretend I can’t see you reblogging 3-10 of my posts in a row without a way of sorting them. 

Take it from someone who’s had to hack their way through innumerable backlogs of their own making looking for one particular image/idea: you need a system, something that will let you access the content you want with the smallest amount of brain/time investment possible. This advice doesn’t only apply to tumblr, It applies to being a dungeonmaster as well, as any good idea you don’t write down is as good as lost. 

So, as a public service I’m going to go through a few different methods I’ve found helpful in keeping my ideas organized, and how you can use them to improve as a storyteller.

First step Journals

See all these? These represent the last 10 or so years of bad ideas, stray thoughts, and anxious scribblings I’ve had while trying to be a better dungeonmaster. The seeds of my best campaigns and my very worst mistakes are in there, as are the fundamentals of my current novel and a hundred other projects ranging somewhere between pre-production and the cutting room floor.  If I didn’t have these notebooks on hand, all those ideas would have just slipped into the aether, rather than having a way for me to reference them later. Every time I’m 50-100% through a journal, I go through it and type everything into a google doc, sorting it into dnd/non-dnd related stuff, and then further subdividing it into plot ideas, random concepts, future projects, or mechanical improvements.  Every journal gets its own google doc, and from there I suddenly have a decade of ideas at my fingertips, ready to recall. 

Next up, DM Binder: 

This right here? This is your tome of wonders, your tome of wily wizard tricks, that ubiquitous book that DMs are always pictured with whenever they get fantasy fanart of themselves. Every beginner dungeonmater knows how handy it is to have the DMG or other rulebook on hand so you can quickly page through and address a specific ruling or look something up, but eventually you get enough of a sense of how things should work that you don’t necessarily need to do that all the time. 

The instinct to have a book close at hand is a good one, you just need to upgrade the book in line with your skills. That’s where the DM binder comes in, a collection of everything you think you’d need to look up without being weighed down by all the stuff you already have on lock. Fill it with all the cool 3rd party systems you stumble across online, printouts of your own homebrew rules, and resources that help you cover for weaknesses in your natural talents. 

For instance, here’s what’s in my DM binder right now: 

Bulk grid paper if I need to draw something to explain it to the players

Writeups on the 3rd party XP and Talent point systems I use for levelup

Simplified encounter building rules if I need to create an encounter on the fly. Stand in monster stats. 

A one page d1000 list of character traits if I need to create an NPC on the fly. along with nearly 10,000 names. 

My simplified loot generation rules, along with a printout of various items that I can use to fill out a horde/magic item shop without having to go into my treasury docs (which is where I keep the good shit) 

A writer’s reference guide to different terrain types and the terminology used to refer to different parts of them. 

Random town/location/dungeon/quest/villain motivation lists. 

Collection of homebrew/3rd systems, separated by combat/downtime/etc

Generic dungeon layouts for different terrain types in case my party stumbles into something I didn’t plan, or if I get very, very lazy. 

Under the cut I’m going to go into a few more means to get organized, including a tried and true method of organizing your d&d sideblog that’ll turn your cluttered pile of notes into a solid archive. 

Keep reading

[mydmadventures]

This popped up in one of my FB groups and I thought it was rad!

[mydmadventures]

The Valar: sooo how’s defeating Sauron going

Saruman: everything is going according to plan, don’t worry about my giant fortress and the army I’ve amassed, they’re for an unrelated project

Radagast: I named this hedgehog Sylvester :)

Gandalf: I’ve started a side business making and selling fireworks

The Blue Wizards: 

[mydmadventures]

Faramir said fuck your storyline

[mydmadventures]

Haven is a small village in the Frostback Mountains. It is not marked on most maps and is widely unheard of. Privacy is very important to the villagers of Haven and they do not welcome strangers kindly.

[mydmadventures]

If anyone is interested in what type of DM I am

Three months ago: these oneshots are soooo good, I want to DM them, I'm in love with this setting

During character creation: you don't need very deep backstory, some is nice, but having the character's personality interact with the setting is the goal here (also, pre-written stuff)

Now: fully invested in every character, giving them connections, planning out possible story paths they can take, OH MY GODDD I CAN'T WAIT HOW (X) CHARACTER WILL REACT TO (Y) EVENT

Came for the setting, stayed for the PCs I guess?

[mydmadventures]

[mydmadventures]

A Dragon’s Breath recap/review

A Dragon’s Breath is a convention created oneshot with the code CCC-GSP01-01. I DMd it today, and (since I’m still in the winding down phase after the DM-adrenaline) decided to review it.

In short? This oneshot is INCREDIBLE. It’s fun, it’s epic, play it. 

This was maybe my best DM experience to date (roll20 is nice and all, but playing in person is leagues better), one of those times when everything works out in your favor. I had a fantastic party of four (barbarian, bard, ranger, warlock), great friends and players, I only made a few small mistakes (and only in combat), finally had the good sense to really prepare the music, the module was awesome, and the players interacted with the world in great ways.

Length: officially 4 hours, with a few small breaks we played for about 6 hours. Sacrificing some elements it definitely could be played under 4 hours, at the cost of some of the fun though.

The introduction worked as intended, it was a nice change to start in medias res and still have the necessary information communicated. I think it saved the beginning from the “ok, let’s just get over with it and go to do the real fun stuff” feeling.

The flight part ended up working very well, after a bit of prodding one of the characters tamed the griffon, and it was just as epic as it seemed written down. The pixies couldn’t make them fall so that encounter was cut short, but that wasn’t a problem.

They had a ranger with forest as his favored terrain, so they didn’t need to make survival checks, it made the navigation a lot easier, and I don’t think it took away anything important from the experience. 

They triggered the traps then fought the redcaps (which are very dangerous for 2nd level characters, their damage output is insane), and they found the map there. 

They visited the rainbow leaves, the bard played for them and they found the paths. They met Temman then scared him away (if not entirely intentionally), and took a short rest there. After that they visited the golden elk’s pond and the animal crossroads, had some nice atmospheric rp (the bard found a pearl necklace in the pond). The warlock was an eladrin with an archfey pact and detect magic invocation, so we played around with the fey presence in the forest, the seelie-unseelie aspects, I gave her some lore (mentioned Jeny Greenteeth, for example). 

They visited the Xvart camp, but the ranger spotted the traps, so they left without a fight, and proceeded to Victor’s area. 

Bard bonding through music ensued, he told them the story of Ragvala and Rokstasha as he knew it, mentioned his scheduled performance in Madame Freona’s Tea Kettle (three out of four players are from the same group I’m currently DMing for the AL oneshot series, so it was a nice shoutout), then they took a long rest before going to retrieve Dragon’s Sorrow.

The Oni fight was insane, they all rolled really high, it was over after maybe three or four rounds. They pulled out the lute at first try, and went to give it to Ragvala. (They didn’t look at the text, though.)

There was some mid-air bonding, then the roc fight, which was EPIC. The ranger rode the griffon, and the barbarian got the killing blow. I’ve got Witcher music for it, and it worked so well, I don’t think I’ve ever played a fight like this, as DM or player.

In the end the original ending didn’t feel appropriate, so I had Ragvala retire with his friend. The bard and the ranger accepted the Five-Leaf Clover initiate offering, and the bard got the magic cittern.

General:

We were lucky with the characters, they meshed well with the setting. The party had great rp the whole time, I loved to listen to it, the characters were all memorable. The bard had a whole mini-arc through the game, but the others had their moments to shine, too.

Maybe one of the greatest aspects is how epic is this oneshot, considering the characters are 2nd level. It really gives a unique feel to it.

This is my DM point of view... I’d love to hear how my players experienced it, though, it was late when we finished, so all I know is they liked it. Which is the point, so I’m happy, but if someone would like to add to this post...

[mydmadventures]

SO MUCH STUFF happened yesterday! I was a player, and I missed it so much. I could play my first ever character again and she's so fun!

I forgot to ask a few things though, but I think it was in character. I'm super hyped for this campaign! It was so long ago I played in it, I almost forgot how awesome the setting is.

[mydmadventures]

Player-specific stuff is by far my favourite thing about DMing

I like to joke around about most of my players all having their own "special stuff", but I'm LIVING for it. Yes! Interact! Make me work to find the connections to your backstory! Come up with that crazy useless thing!

THIS IS OUR STORY, MEET ME IN THE MIDDLE

[mydmadventures]

Ooooookay, so I did some proofreading, formatted the thing, and made it a bit nicer to look at. This took me faaaar longer than I wanted it too, and I’m not even done. Since this is a playtest I only included the single fortification type (walls), and have kept the maneuver system simple to avoid any complications since there are so many systems working in unison here. I know this is definitely going to need tweaks, but for now it’s at least usable. I need to find some time to do some dry runs with it to work out the kinks but things are for too hectic right now to be able to set aside time for mechanical testing. If anyone gets a chance to go over this please let me know how it goes!

As always, questions and comments are welcome. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

(Content PDF) (Patreon) 

[mydmadventures]

The second edition - Order of the Gauntlet interview

The interview parts are from the “Conversations With... Faction Contacts in the Moonsea” AL document, published by WotC in 2016.

[mydmadventures]

According to Adventurer’s League, the Prodal Prophet is a broadsheet in Phlan, and I decided to make my players a few editions. This is the first of them. I used some creative freedom, mainly with the dates, since I couldn’t find any in the official stuff.

First edition - Harpers interview

The interview parts are from the “Conversations With... Faction Contacts in the Moonsea” AL document, published by WotC in 2016.

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New Project

Well not THAT new, but I’ll be DMing an oneshot series from the first season of the Adventurer’s League, and the preparations are really in full swing now

I think about half of my players follow this blog, so no spoilers, but I’ll probably post a few things I make for them

This will be the first longer game I’ll DM for not-family (and 4 out of 6 players are DMs themselves), so the pressure is on but I’m HYPED

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Oneshot reflection

I DMed an oneshot set in Neverwinter’s past (coincidentally, the past of my main campaign), during the eruption of Mount Hotenov. It was combat-focused, and after listening to it I’ve found a few lessons…

DMing legendary monsters is a challenge on its own (I may have forgotten about legendary resistances…)

The pacing wasn’t horrible, but definitely could have been better

Make the connections between events a bit more obvious (e.g. a PC looked down to see portals - I had a shadow dragon planned to come out of one of them, I could have shown that to them, not just the portals and the dragon separately)

The “warm up” combat was fine, but making the eruption and the combat happen at the same time would have been much better

Learning how to DM on roll20 is a… process

Lvl 11 PCs can take a lot, there was no need to hold back on the volcanic damages

Oneshotting the cleric is… a thing that can happen

All in all, it was a fun experience, 10/10 would recommend natural disasters as background events

[mydmadventures]

some expanded oceanic races! featuring: mermaids, shark mermaids, octopus mermaids, and selkies. Playtesting and feedback is welcome.