#my d&d group writing on the board we use for maps during session

[aboleth-eye]

Hello! Would you have any advice for new DMs/things you wish you had been told when you started DMing? I'd like to try it myself, but I've only ever been a player, and just figuring out where to start is a bit overwhelming! Thank you in advance!

Great Question!  Here are my Lessons Learned from when I ran a game for the first time!  

There are Four Lessons I wish I’d known when I got started:  Have Your Resources Handy, Start Small (3 Parts), Things Go Awry, and Have Fun Together!   ((This is going to be a very long post, so I’ll cap it a little less than halfway down))

1.)  Have Your Resources Handy!

If this is your first time running a Tabletop RPG system, even if you’ve been playing for years, HAVE THE BOOK(S), WEBSITE(S) AND/OR PDF(S) NEARBY!  I’m serious about this, guys!  Playing a game or watching someone else play is a totally different monster to running it!  

When you first declare to the group that you’d like to host a game, I recommend you read the rules over at least two or three times before hand–start with a deep read first to get it all in your head, and then you can choose to speed read once you’ve had some time to digest the rules.  

But even if reading ttrpgs is your thing, have the resources within easy reach.  Either have your laptop available with open tabs to any pdfs/scans of the game source material and any relevant websites (like standard reference document pages), and/or have a physical copy of the game book with you.  If you are running certain monsters or encounters, I also recommend you copy down any stats and information to a separate text document (on laptop or printed) so you won’t have to page through stuff during the game.

2A.) Start Small: The Setting

If this is your first time or fiftieth time running a tabletop roleplaying game, and you are running a new system for the first time, limit the scope of project to start.  Writing campaign and world settings can be very intense, and it is very easy to write something too specific and railroad people into your lore and world.

For instance, don’t create a massive world with a continent of named cities and landmarks!  Don’t plan out every inch of your world, or else it’ll turn into a “fill-in-the-blank exploration” story instead of an organic world you can change as your group learns and grows!

My first campaign started in a very specifically written city on the edge of a vast magical desert.  I planned out a timetable of events that would catapult the players into the “open-world”.  The players noticed this and didn’t appreciate it. 

Also, do not bog your players down with Lore!  I’ve gone into campaigns where you need to know information “for backstory”!  This is your first campaign, it’s good to know what to introduce and when!  A group of starting adventurers typically doesn’t need to know your world’s entire array of deities, pages and pages of history, and legends “that shaped the world”!  You can introduce these things at character creation IF THE PLAYERS ASK, and then slowly dish things out as the characters live in your world.

It’s also good to not ties yourself down to specific placement of towns, countries, cities, landmarks, etc.  Leave the map blank save for the starting area, and any broadly defined areas such as forests and mountains.  Once characters finish their first missions and adventures, they’ll explore!  With all the “white space” of your world, you can insert places and things as you journey with the group!  

One of my favorite encounters when I was very new to D&D was when we accidentally burned down a forest.  We were fighting a massive tiger with a pixie NPC in a forest, and the pixie just trapped everyone (tiger included) in entangling vines.  Our pyromancer in the party tried to set the beast on fire, and they rolled a critical failure.  

The beast was set on fire and died!  And so did the pixie!  And now there’s a raging forest fire we have to run from!  We get an oxcart running and we take shifts to outrun the magical fire–FOR THREE DAYS!  It was an incredibly tense situation, and it was fun to add “an entire forest” to the pyromancer player’s list of things they set on fire.

You know what would have made all that suck?  If the DM had decided: “Okay, you pass through this location which is a lich’s hideout and have to face that; then the next day you’ll have to ford a river with the tired oxes.  Finally, you’ll be passing through this county’s border…”  

We just burned down a placeholder  forest, and all the consequences that came with it came AFTER we were finally safe!  The DM didn’t bog us down with heavy lore and their maps during a tense situation; they kept the focus on the action at hand.

Prioritize the players’ story before your own!  That’s the lesson I want to make absolutely clear.  You aren’t telling your story with friends as the characters; the Dungeon Master/Game Master/Storyteller is the worldbuilder who tells the character groups’ story as they interact with the world.

2B) Start Small: The First Encounters

Another item I want to bring up is Do Not Start Your Campaign with a “Unique Encounter”!  Start your campaign setting with a simple task for the players to face.  Here are the kinds of challenges I mean: defeat a bunch of zombies in a graveyard for a reward, go into a mine full of bats to retrieve a homing beacon, follow a simple mystery to find a girl’s lost dog, etc.  The Players’ should be introduced to your world with something simple to follow–that way they can make their marks and introduce how they roleplay to the story.  

Do Not try something you’ve “never seen before”!  Don’t have the characters whisked off to another plane or world while they slept!  Don’t have the players face fifteen or so mooks at once during an ambush!  Don’t have your characters struggle to tread water or leap floating platforms while fighting a monster!  These kinds of encounters instantly put players on guard and feel railroaded!  Give them the chance to decide how they integrate themselves into the adventure.

My first campaign violated this rule.  When the players left the city to enter the desert, they were suddenly beset by 12 monstrous scorpions!  And me, in my ambitious tunnel-vision, thought it’d be interesting to have each scorpion have its own turn.  I rolled twelve Initiatives for the scorpions and it was a LONG combat when it clearly didn’t have to be.  

It all looked so good in my head, but when you get players involved you can tell how grueling and boring something like that could be.  I learned a lot that session.

That combat ended the campaign for me.  I decided to go back to the drawing board because that kind of thinking was not going to fly for me and my friends.

Instead, give your players a task that could easily be solved in one or two sessions!  Do not give your players “only one way” to solve this!  For instance, if your first challenge is to get past some guards, let the players come up with the solution themselves.  They might decide to fight the guards, use magic/science to teleport past them, go off on a side quest to become guards so they can infiltrate them, or even walk up and attempt to socialize with them.  You as the storyteller/DM merely narrate the results of whatever the characters do; just bridge the gaps and think of consequences from the players’ actions.

ALSO!  Have a time limit for your first session, or plan breaks for food/drink/stretching.  This activity of DMing can be very stressful, and you might need a break to take stock of what problems and choices occurred during play.  

2C.) Start Small: The Players

Have your players build starting or low-level characters (I typically start with 3rd level for D&D).  The low levels will mean most powergaming and gamebreaking attempts by certain types of players will be nipped in the bud right from the start.  It will also typically limit the powers and abilities of your group (so you won’t have to memorize or look up high-level stuff until much later).  

Another thing I highly recommend is that you are present during character creation!  Do not let people determine/roll character abilities and stats without you.  Either be physically present when dice get rolled and abilities get determined, or be present digitally in a chatroom, discord or roll20 when electronic character sheets get filled in!  

My first campaign I allowed one of the players to bring a character from a friend’s campaign into it.  The original DM ended the campaign; and even though I had played in that campaign alongside this character I had no clue what they could do.  This made things challenging because this character “suddenly” remembered they could fly–so I had to add aerial combat onto my plate during the first fight of the campaign.

It made the situation tense, especially with my bad early encounters (see the 12 Scorpions combat above).

3.) Things Go Awry

If you’ve come this far, there’s one last piece of advice I want to give you.  Your first campaign is gonna suck in one way or another.

I don’t mean that to be disheartening; I want you to think of it as a learning experience.  Whenever a person learns a new skill or engages in a new activity for the first time, it’s always gonna suck.  (Even if someone has a “natural talent”).  You as the DM/Storyteller are going to notice problems crop up left and right; especially if you don’t take the advice I offered above.  For instance, if you start learning to paint with a new medium or start a sport you’ve never tried; you need to practice with the tools and techniques you’ve prepared to see what works for your style of learning.  

Running a roleplaying game is a very unique mashup of activities.  There’s typically a math element you need to consider behind every action the players take.  You need to workout your improvisation skills to bridge connections and gaps your players make.  You need to get in front of a group of people (sometimes more or less experienced than you) and tell a story that keeps their attention.  It’s a stressful mix of being an improv actor, a storyteller and the physical laws of your world.

Hopefully your players will understand when things get crazy and overwhelming.  Gametime might come to a halt because you need to look up a specific rule or wording that you aren’t familiar with.  It’s okay.  Until you get to know how your game world runs with your players in it, it is totally fine to take a breath and think things through.  Oftentimes you can ask your players for help in making a determination or house-ruling.

Last note on this topic: Get Feedback!  At the end of the session, be bold and ask your players if they enjoyed the session, what they liked and what they didn’t like.  Feedback is how DMs get insight on how the game is playing out.  While you’re DMing, your mind is on a million different topics; let the players tell you how they felt during gameplay, so you know what made them feel good or bad on the other side of the curtain.

4.) Have Fun Together!

This is something that needs to be said, if I’m honest.  Running a game can be a stressful activity that “ruins” some things about it now that you are “behind the curtain”.  This is your first session, in what you hope to be a series of games where you and your friends make all sorts of memories.

However, some DMs get incredibly discouraged and no-nonsense when they run a game for their first few times.  That is understandable, especially if being the “mastermind” is a challenge you haven’t prepared for.  A few sessions in and you might find the game isn’t fun for you and/or your players.  That might be a sign that you need to take a break from hosting–use that time to think how you can make the game fun for everyone, or if this campaign just needs to be scrapped!

The priority of the DM is to bring people together.  If a game system, campaign concept or player actions aren’t making the group (you included) happy; it’s better to stop things and take stock before things go too far.  It is never fun to admit your game isn’t viable or enjoyable, but hopefully you’ll have new experience you can take with you the next time you try your game.  

And heck, if you find you prefer playing at this time, that’s fine!  Even if this attempt didn’t have the results you expected, there is nothing to stop you from trying again later if you wanted.  But now that you know how it is behind the curtain, you are naturally more observant to how your own DM/GM runs their games and you can learn from it.

Remember how good the game system/lore/etc made you feel!  It’s why you wanted to DM in the first place; you recognized you had a story you wanted to tell, and this ttrpg had the tools to bring it to life!  No matter what problems arise when you’re behind the curtain, the game should still bring you enjoyment whether you play or manage the game.  Do not give up on the game just because of one bad session or two!  

When I decided to end my campaign, it really was a painful decision.  I loved the world as it was in my mind, but I was not executing it well so that my players enjoyed it.  I got feedback after that terrible 12 Scorpions combat, and decided to take some time to think about everything.  Our group went back to our original DM, with other members trying to DM in that time; and honestly I didn’t DM until I started a small separate group months later.  

During that gap in DMing I digested what I liked and didn’t like about my campaign, and had more time to reflect on the rules.  I decided to take a few steps back and learn from my mistakes.  I still made mistakes the second and third times I DMed, I make mistakes even to this day.  

But at the heart of it all, I love games so much that I want to constantly make my stories and worlds even better, even to this day.

I take the struggles of DMing as learning experiences, rather than let them define me as a writer, storyteller and game master.  I use them as stepping stones so I don’t fall through the gaps again.  I may have started out with a bad first campaign, but I would never take those mistakes away.  

I hope these lessons were helpful!  I love D&D and tabletop roleplaying games so much, and love giving out advice on how to make the experience your own.  I hope this helps a lot of new people bring their stories to life!  Also, I hope I helped everyone’s expectations into the right state of mind.  

Good luck and happy gaming everyone!!  Much love!

– Aboleth-Eye

[khrow-shinku]

The Great War S6

D&D 5e Campaign

The Great War

Session 6

The party wakes up and heads down to eat breakfast. Ara notices a hot redhead in the tavern and walks over to flirt with her, the redhead responds saying that her name is Ursala and winks back at her. Tinkerman and JJJ are at a table discussing a diagram for a new weapon while eating. Ursala then walks over to the rest of the party and tells them that Lord Alfonse Le Darc has requested their presence at the castle and informs them that the queen is away at a summit meeting between the leaders of the different nations and empires and then takes her leave. The party just looks at each other knowing exactly what this means. Somehow he already knows that they know. They quickly shove down the last bits of their food and run to the castle.

Once at the castle they are greeted by Alfonse and his army of trolls and other nasty creatures. As some of the party begins to ready their weapons and take aim at the army of monsters, Ara is quick to rise before everyone else and asks Alfonse, “What’s the meaning of this?” Like every idiot villain who thinks they have already won he arrogantly begins giving his speech about their evil plans. “Well it’s quite simple really. We want to destroy the world. We want to destroy all existence. We want there to be nothingness.” It was at this time one of his goons walked over and smacked him and the head and told him to shut up.He then turned and killed him for smacking him. (Holy crap DM a bit cliche much? What with the whole arrogant villain just divulging his whole plan for the entire party. I mean sure the hugest set of tits he has even seen asked him to but..  Come on! Pfft, Who am I kidding I would have too for a chick that damn hot so long as she was down to cuddle afterwards.) The rest of the party starts taking shots at the army trying to whittle down their numbers then Ara asks another question, one she will later wish she hadn’t. Ara bluntly asks “Who are you working for?” He looks straight at Ara and says, “Your brother.” and one of his goons walks  up to him and smacks him in the back of the head again and says; “Seriously stop telling them everything,” only to also get killed by him. Ara in disbelief yells “Bullshit!” then racks her brain for a moment, “I was an only child… my parents… my parents would have told me if I had a brother. They wouldn’t lie to me or hide something like that from me!” Enraged by his implications that her parents had been hiding something from her, her whole life, scared that he could be telling the truth, scared the two people she had trusted the most in her whole life had been lying to her, that fear turned into even more anger, heat pours off of her entire body as she spews fire from her mouth killing the first row of enemies. Everything within five feet of her starts bending, warping, and melting. (Holy shit DM what a dick move to do to the character. The only people she thought she could count on as being pure, she now has doubts about them and now everything in her life is being brought into question. Great writing and plot twist though so I totally approve.) During this the party keeps attacking the army slowly chipping away at their numbers. Rin and Ara both keep asking Alfonse to name the person he is working for, they want a name. Sadly though he refuses and before they can convince him to give in and surrender a name, he dies from their attacks.

After the battle is over a hooded figure shows up and throws a dagger at the party, only he wasn’t aiming for them instead it hits the wall and pinned to it is a note that says “We are watching.” Before the party can ask the hooded figure any questions he is gone in a puff of smoke. After this the group begins discussing the fastest way to get to the summit meeting, Tinkerman then chimes in and says he knows of a faster way to get there but he isn’t sure if it is still working. The party agrees it's worth a shot if it can get them there in time. Tinkerman leads them to a train beneath the capital and luckily it still works and the party boards it and is on their way. After everyone is seated on the train, Tinkerman hands out maps to the town they are heading and hands Ara the music box she requested and eleven total cylinders to record music on and play the songs back. He then mentions that that flying thing she tried earlier, he noticed it didn’t go exactly as she had planned and asks her about an idea for a glider suit or cloak to assist her so that it goes a little better. He then asks her to stand up so that he can take her measurements. As Tinkerman begins to touch Ara all over and fondle her to get measurements Ara just continues on with her discussion with Rin paying no mind to Tinkerman spreading, moving, and shifting things to get measurements. Ara looks at Rin and says “I know you have questions and I wish I had answers.” Rin replied “Yeah this whole brother business, what's up with that? Have you been hiding more from me?” Ara answered, “I don’t really have any answers. As far as I know I am an only child. My parents never mentioned a brother Or any child rather it be before or after I was born. My parents were good honest people. I can’t begin to believe that they would ever actually lie about that or hide it from me. However it is true that it is always possible they did even if I don’t want to believe it.” Rin could tell that Ara was being sincere  and suggested that she look into her family records, maybe there is something there. Ara remembered looking before because she was curious about her father’s family but it's always possible she had missed something. Tinkerman then chimes in and asks, “Is it possible you maybe have a half brother that you don’t know about? Perhaps some event that one of your parents wanted to forget?” Ara agrees it is possible, then informs the two, “My mother was always very secretive of the past before my father. I know her family was very religious and evil and worshiped a demon for making them fiend touched. My mother wanting nothing to do with any of it and wanting to be a good normal person ran away and never looked back. The only way I can see my mother having a child from back then is if it is some sort of really dark event that happened and created a child.” Rin and Tinkerman both agree that more research into her past needs to be done, perhaps checking the records where she was born and then checking the records where her mother came from.

Once in town a warforged escorted them to the Inn, from there a female escorted them to the summit meeting. Once there Tinkerman informs the leaders of what the party has learned however a few members of the party notice that one of the leaders doesn’t seem at all surprised by any of the news. Rin though with her keen eyes of a half goddess, saw through the illusion spell that the leader was using and it was really an archnae. Tinkerman gets ready to mention that something seemed off about the person and Rin does everything she can to convey through body language for him to shush and not say anything. Tinkerman notices and doesn’t say anything.  Rin then stands up and takes the floor and makes an announcement, “I myself am also a Queen and would like to join this council. I am the Queen of the empire Lunaria located on the moon of Gaia by the same name. The capital city of my empire is Lunarias. My empire has been cloaked by a spell for years. I was sent down here by my goddess to find out who or what was trying to instigate this war and stop it.” Paul chimes in,”You mean her brother?” and points to Ara. Rin just shoots him a dirty look and then continues, “At first I wasn’t sure why. It seemed odd that my goddess would ask me to meddle into Gaia’s affairs when it has traditionally been our policy to keep to ourselves. However with this new knowledge that I have found out, It has become clear that this is not just a threat of war but a threat of extinction of all life on both Gaia and Lunaria. I can not stand idly by and wait for my people to get destroyed by the actions of someone on Gaia. The time for my empire to remain hidden and apart from Gaia has passed. Now is the time that Lunaria became an active participant in the things to come.” The speaker then hands Rin a list of rules to be a part of the alliance and asks if she agrees to them. Rin reads over them quickly and then responds,” As the queen of Lunaria, I , Aerin Eterna, hereby agree to these rules to become a part of this council.”  Ara’s jaw drops and she says in astonishment, “You’re a queen!? And there are people living on the moon!?” The speaker then closes Ara’s mouth and has the party escorted back to the tavern. It is there that Rin explains to them the reason she had told Tinkerman not to mention anything about the one leader seeming odd with her lack of reaction to the news. She informs the party she was using an illusion spell to disguise herself. She was really a spider demon known as an archnae. JJJ having arachnophobia runs outside real quick puking because he was sitting next to a giant spider and staring at and getting turned on by her spider boobs. After he comes back in and the party discusses their options for a few minutes, the party begins hearing noises outside. Rin and JJJ walk outside to see what the noise is when they are ambushed by a herd of archnae, it would seem as though the queen knew that they knew. They called for the others to come out and help. Battle ensued, with webbing and acid being flung everywhere. After a long battle, the party had beaten back the ambush. Tinkerman searched the bodies to find another cursed gem and then the body went back inside and went to sleep for the night.

[secondsign96-blog]

Just How To Get A Software Application Testing Task As A Fresher?

Intro To Java For Examination Automation Training Training Course.

#toc background: #f9f9f9;border: 1px solid #aaa;display: table;margin-bottom: 1em;padding: 1em;width: 350px; .toctitle font-weight: 700;text-align: center;

Content

Qualified Software Examination Automation Engineer.

Automation Testing Resources.

Test Automation With Selenium Webdriver.

Leading Tips For Knowing Java Shows.

Produce A Junit Test Class

Google's Fact assertion library is also an excellent means to write legible tests. Rest will certainly always stop briefly for a collection quantity of time before carrying out some code, while wait will only stop briefly execution up until an anticipated problem occurs or it times out, whichever comes first.

Can I learn Java online?

' deze website legt uit can be used to create complete applications that may run on a single computer or be distributed among servers and clients in a network. It can also be used to build a small application module or applet (a simply designed, small application) for use as part of a Web page.

The ExpectedConditions course has expanded over time and also currently encompasses almost every scenario conceivable. This will bullet-proof your tests versus most sluggish or cross-browser web site problems. GitHub is residence to over 50 million developers working together to host as well as review code, take care of tasks, as well as develop software together.

You should never make use of rest in a test automation framework as you desire your tests to run as quick as feasible. I 'd additionally suggest establishing a date to do this a minimum of annually, although ideally it would certainly be every 6 months. In the short article, I've included the adjustments that are being available in Selenium 4.0. Please do evaluate the alpha versions of Selenium for yourself.

The randomness described below is just at the level of independent examination methods. As a Software Tester/ Java Developer in Test you'll focus on automation testing to make sure the high quality of highly distributed systems. The system will certainly deliver real-time sporting video clip material and also analytical information by means of a multitude of layouts as well as devices to both B2B as well as B2C customers. This page informs you if Java is mounted and also made it possible for in your existing internet internet browser and what variation you are running. In object-oriented programs, inheritance is the device of basing a class upon an additional course, maintaining similar execution.

3+ years working as an automated tester as part of a software program growth group. For several years this web page had eight various other methods of identifying the mounted version of Java. Beginning with Java 7 Update 10, the use of Java online by all installed internet internet browsers can be disabled with a new checkbox in the safety and security area of the Java Control Board.

Licensed Software Test Automation Architect.

Given that a string is an immutable data framework, concatenating numerous strings can present substantial performance penalties. Every knowledgeable programmer ought to understand when to utilize StringBuilder instead of just concatenating two strings to boost performances in such situations.

Automation Testing Resources.

Reactivate your internet browser (close all web browser windows and re-open) to make it possible for the freshly installed Java variation in the internet browser if you recently finished your Java software setup.

Then, we can use this data to run our examination under various network problems.

When running a collection of tests, the code within the if statement can be consisted of in a @BeforeClass approach.

Within the test, the CommandExecutor will execute the command in the internet browser's present session.

This subsequently will trigger the needed setups in Chrome's Developer Devices capability to imitate our slow-moving network.

Market is never short of jobs in Java programs language, there are adequate of jobs in both Java development and Automation Testing making use of Java. And afterwards if required -In memory as well as procedure HTTP API testing. Dynamic shows methods for code optimization can be really useful to a designer who comprehends them. Unit testing is a kind of software application testing where specific devices or elements of a software are tested. System testing of software program applications is done during the growth of an application and also need to be well known practice to any type of programmer.

performance tester ">

Can I learn Java in 6 months?

You can learn the basic in two months if you put the time into doing so. However, learning how to design and implement a real world Java application correctly based on a detailed design doc will take more experience.

Examination Automation With Selenium Webdriver.

Every programmer needs to recognize with data-sorting approaches, as sorting is extremely typical in data-analysis procedures. A user interface is made use of to define an abstract type that specifies habits as approach trademarks. Instances of different kinds can execute the very same interface and give a way for a programmer to reuse the code.

Leading Tips For Discovering Java Shows.

Inheritance enables designers to reuse code and is a must recognize topic for every developer that works with OOP languages. Stream API is utilized to refine collections of things. It supports numerous approaches, such as mapping, filtering system, and also sorting, which can be pipelined to generate the preferred result. Given that it simplifies code and enhances efficiency, it should be popular to Java programmers.

Create A Junit Examination Class

To day, my experience has been that while this functions, web browsers incorrectly report that Java is not installed in any way. There are many examination and assertion structures that you can utilize to run your Selenium-powered automation tests. I use TestNG as it's particularly developed for Approval Tests, while structures such as JUnit are frequently utilized for device testing. Another wonderful framework that is well worth examining is Spock as it's very easy as well as highly expressive to check out.

The changes will certainly be significant and you'll need to be prepared. It's worth having a debug variation of your docker-compose if you want to see what's taking place on the internet browser so you can debug your examinations. yml documents that downloads the debug web browser nodes. These contain a VNC web server so you can enjoy the browser as the test runs. Software Application Dev in Java, relational data sources, testing (non-functional and functional automatic testing) and also front-end advancement modern technology (full-stack). This training course assumes that you have no programming history.

It's simply a benefit point if you have some experience after that. You have never code, have some experience or have a lot of experience any various other shows language, this course is one stop location for you. Within a single test approach, tests will run in the sequence you wrote them in, like any kind of Java technique.

Then, we can use this information to run our examination under different network problems. Within the test, the CommandExecutor will certainly implement the command in the browser's existing session. This in turn will certainly trigger the essential settings in Chrome's Programmer Devices performance to imitate our slow-moving network. The code within the if declaration can be included in a @BeforeClass method when running a collection of examinations. Reboot your web browser (close all browser windows and re-open) to enable the newly installed Java variation in the web browser if you just recently finished your Java software application setup.

[nerdarchy-blog]

Fantasy art influences my fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons games to an extraordinary degree. One of the themes running strongly in the great documentary Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons & Dragons is how playing D&D gives us an opportunity to discover what would our characters do in these fantastic settings. The fantasy art inspiring our D&D games also provides a tool to help us vividly describe the creatures, places and things adventurers see. For players and Dungeon Masters alike, the fantasy art that speaks to us leaves an indelible mark on our gaming. And for my money, there’s no better place for unending discovery of amazing fantasy art than Pinterest. It’ll improve your D&D games as a player and DM, I guarantee. So let’s get into it.

Tell me your D&D game wouldn’t benefit from Fuzzy Cloud Worms. [Art by AndrewMcIntoshArt on DeviantArt]

Fantasy art for worldbuilding D&D

Concept art for Knight Hood by Janice Chu, a UI/concept artist at Blizzard Entertainment. Click the image to find more amazing art — and then pin it for your D&D games! [Art by Janice Chu]

The world of D&D might use the terrestrial Earth we know as a template, but as weird as the natural world can be here at home it doesn’t hold a candle to a D&D campaign setting. If you’re starting a new campaign, or looking for creative juice to invigorate an existing one, you’re in for a treat. Create a Pinterest board and start pinning.

Here’s an example. One of the D&D settings I enjoy worldbuilding is a frozen world called Rime. I started searching for things like “fantasy art tundra” and the like. When I see an image that I imagine could exist in the setting, or simply have a strong reaction to, onto the board it goes. A picture is worth a thousand words, and very quickly you’ll find many thousands of words worth of D&D adventures waiting to happen.

You’ll want to know — how will the party react when they see the bones of a titan frozen to the mountain side? What will they do when a stag made of starlight crosses their path on the tundra? Will they be in awe when they finally reach the city built on a gargantuan spire of rock overlooking the turbulent sea?

Artists who create fantasy art include the small details that help your broad stroke ideas come alive. A cloaked and hooded figure with a small, heavily armed humanoid might sound ominous or suspicious. A humanoid wearing a cone-shaped headdress topped with a carved face, their face concealed behind a pattern of eyes on the fabric, with a round, etched brass plate on their belt and carrying a staff topped with living branches approaches. With them is a small humanoid creature with thin arms and legs and a huge round head with a single eye, armored and carrying a sword and shield. Which sounds more likely to elicit engagement from the players? Side note — that little sprout fella looks like a perfect reskin target for the alliumite out of the Creature Codex.

And your D&D magic items will for sure come across way more magical and special to the characters when you have a reference to describe their magical cloaks, staves, swords and other magical accoutrement. That goes for you too, players. If you don’t think there’s an image out there perfectly illustrating how you imagine your D&D character, you are wrong. There’s over 70 million Pinterest users, trust me. I’ve found more than one bearded female duergar. There’s art out there for you.

Maps!

Oh, I love a good fantasy art map. Give me a map with a dozen or so rooms and some notable features, and a Monster Manual, and we’re set for at least two sessions. A boundless atlas of maps awaits you on Pinterest. Maps with grids, maps with hexes, isometic maps, hand-drawn maps, hand-painted maps — you name it. Pressed for time (usually due to procrastination) I’ve found a map 15 minutes before a D&D session, came up with one or two ideas to fall back on, and improvised the rest.

When you find a map you like, and take your time to describe what you see vividly including all five senses to the players, they’ll want to know more about their surroundings. They’ll ask questions, investigate and explore. They’ll roll some dice and before you know it, the session is wrapping up and the players can’t wait to come back next week and find out more.

The real treasure map is the only you want the characters to be as excited to explore as you are to guide their way. A monster here and a trap there when it feels appropriate provides tension for the adventurers, and more than likely the players will concoct their own ideas about what’s going on in this dungeon. Listen up, because this info, along with the extra time you give yourself to think while describing things the characters explore, can go a long way toward constructing a narrative from your 15 minutes of prep time. Let those players do some of the work!

To this day one of the most memorable — and impactful to the party — adventures took place in a map I found called The Trickle. It’s a very vertical, isometic map of a cavern system built into the stone behind a massive waterfall. I imagined this cliff face was many thousands of feet above the ocean below, so the waterfall surges off the edge and cascades down. There are little balconies here and there along the outside leading into different levels within the cavern system. The party adventured in there for days! Meaning several sessions of D&D!

The Pinterest DM Experiment

I was talking with a player in my group the other night and said I wanted to try running a D&D session using nothing but Pinterest. So, the next day when we got together to continue the adventures of the Adventurers of Adventure, I did just that.

Three of the images I pulled are down below. There is a fourth, but it’s a map and the party hasn’t gotten to that part at the time of this writing. And the players read this stuff. Sorry, Adventurers of Adventure — no spoilers for you.

There’s no real powerful reason I chose these particular pieces of fantasy art other than they captured my interst (my Pinterest?) at the time. Paired with the map, I had the skeleton of a story for the party to explore. During the session, the cloaked figures became reskinned harpies. I changed their claw damage type to necrotic and otherwise they’re straight out of the Monster Manual. The players were curious, and very wary of these creatures that seemed to be billowing cloaks being blown in a strong wind.

The owl-themed figure is a reskinned siren, and the map is the siren’s lair. Along with the “harpies” there’s a strong avian theme, and a fey quality of whimsy. The siren’s lair really ties this theme together.

Lastly, there’s a weird black potion with what looks like a blue dragon eye floating inside. But the black liquid can take the form of a sword blade, with the vial as the handle! Things like this can be as simple as a +1 longsword functionally, but visually quite different. Or if could have no bonus to hit or damage but do necrotic damage instead of slashing. It could be like a Rod of Lordly Might and form sword, axes and all sorts of things.

There is a neverending trove of creatures, characters, magic items, magic spells, amazing vista and locations and anything you can dream of when you explore the fantasy art through Pinterest. Just yesterday, a player showed me the map he’d be drawing of the unexplored region they adventure in, and it looked exactly like the map from Pinterest I use as a reference. He made the comment I describe things really well, and maybe that’s true…but it helps when I’m looking at the unbelievable fantasy art and just telling them what I see.

If you’d like to check out one of the Pinterest boards I use to find inspiring fantasy art for my D&D games, check it out here.

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Are you gonna tell me you DON'T want Fuzzy Cloud Worms in your #DnD game? #Pinterest Fantasy art influences my fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons games to an extraordinary degree. One of the themes running strongly in the great documentary…

[writera]

Becoming a Dungeon Master

I feel like a fairly new DM. And most of my RPG experience is as a DM. However at this point I have years of experience, so I'm not sure how long I get to hang on to that moniker.

Getting started as a DM is pretty intimidating, foremost because there is just so much you don't know about — if your players know more about the setting or the canonical character/spell/narrative tropes than you, its easy to let them push you to make calls you wouldn't otherwise make. Trying to adjudicate for very smart, rules lawyering [fill-in-the-game] buffs sounds like an uphill battle.

Briefly, I got my start with 3.5e in college, subsequently played 40k, World of Darkness, a homebrew system, and DM'd two 5e D&D games. I've been a part of four different groups. I had some trouble running good 5e games, and this has directly resulted in a lot of research. 

In my 40k game, the primary GM was tired of GMing, but whenever his apprentice GM ran a game, he was "corrected" on a number of things that the apprentice had pretty clearly thought out in advance. Having less experience in the setting, the corrections made no sense — "wow that's a cool idea! It doesn't even matter to the campaign, why is the regular GM nixing this?".

I toyed with the idea of running a few sessions, and studied the one rulebook I was planning on drawing from. 40k has shitty encounter-balancing tools, and I never managed to put something together before that game dissolved.

In the meantime, I was playing board games with a volatile and cliqueish meetup group. After D&D 5e came out, I thought I'd see if anyone in the meetup was interested in trying out 5e. I got a game together to play Hoard of the Dragon Queen. My first time DM-ing!

I had never played with a grid, and didn't want to. I'd forgotten most everything about 3.5, so I wasn't bothered by some of the major changes between 3.5 and 5e. Anyway 5e said all the things I wanted to hear — grid? Don't trouble yourself. Rules dispute? Make a decision, figure it out later. I tried to commit as much of the mechanics and guidelines to heart as possible — even waded most of the way through the spell list, trying to figure out each one — although I seem to have failed to pay attention to class progressions beyond a cursory glance (carefully read the class progressions your players choose, after they choose them! build the game to their abilities!).

I didn't realize that half my group were hardcore min-maxers. That half was there for the full RPG experience and the other half for a glorified tactical combat game. I was so focused on trying to memorize all the narrative and mechanical details that I didn't work on tactical scenarios. Not that I knew how to make combat interesting — for all my RTS computer games, I knew how to build tactics to the terrain, not terrain to tactics. Anyway, the group itself had some interpersonal problems that ultimately was its undoing, but we played for a while before that happened.

I was enthusiastically reading advice on hooking your players and running a good game. I put together an introductory email with some setting material, key terms and character concept ideas, and a map of Faerun (with a note that it was just for context, a character wouldn't know what Faerun looks like). One thing I stressed was creating bonds and flaws that you wanted to see happening in game.

So first session, after my little speech about bonds and flaws, including a half-thought one-liner about "not picking something really far away or irrelevant", one player — hereafter known as Bob — asks me — "can my bond be the grandfather tree?" — and talks a little about the grandfather tree. I thought — great! I was worried they might not go along with this. So I make a point of praising the idea. Meanwhile the players are ignoring me and laughing at me, passing around my map of Faerun pointing at a little dot labeled "Grandfather Tree", as far away from our starting point as the map allows. So I say — That map is just for context! I can put the forest where-ever I want! It can be next door.

Half the table stares at me incredulously ... "are you sure you don't want to look at the map?"

For Bob and his friend Byron, the game was completely about optimal positioning. Eventually it became pretty clear that the power gamers were unhappy, and I agreed to use a whiteboard to draw battlemaps. This time, HotDQ prescribed an ambush. As usual, the game ground to a halt during combat while Bob ran around sniping enemies — with no idea that eight covered leveled bad guys might be above their power-level. I tried to drop helpful hints, and the rest of the party eventually got it together and regrouped, but Bob's character continued kiting to the long drawn-out end, and finally! by fair tactical combat got chased down, knocked unconscious, and dragged off "to the rape dungeon!" as Bob energetically interjected.

It wasn't all bad, but it was a constant fight. Worse, while the B-men were most excited about gaming the system, they had no interest in making believable choices. HotDQ has a lot of leading questions (it's a railroad as written) — and I was ready to try to round-about recyle the chapters under different conditions to make the game flow, and I even said so when Byron commented something along the lines of "gee, I wonder where we're supposed to go next?". I wish they had tried at least *somewhat* to assert their will in the storyline. But those two didn't really care. And the other two bought the story hooks.

Those other two players (Bianca and Eadward) probably didn't get the game they deserved, either; in part because I was focused on dealing with the first two. Bob took the floor, but also completely ignored the will of the other players. During a hostage crisis, for example, he got all the hostages killed when the rest of the party could taste victory. But I had recently moved to a small town and didn't know anyone else who might play.

Anyway, to me, that first campaign (which we didn't finish) felt flat and the combats tedious. I doubled down on my efforts to figure out why. Some time passed, my two favorite players moved away, and I found another group of players: a DM, a soon-to-be-DM, a Pathfinder guy, and a newbie nerd who wanted to play a powerful necromancer.

I hear a lot of advice repeated over and over again. The internet is kind of an echo-chamber — maybe nobody knows what they're doing. So here's my thoughts on the systems, and process of becoming a DM —

The process of becoming a DM sucks. Maybe you've got a supportive group of players, or maybe you are working with what you have, trying to accommodate them. I had ideas and creativity, but I didn't know how to efficiently turn them into encounters, social situations, and adventures. For my second campaign, I homebrewed the world, a metropolis, the society, an underlying plot, the traditional world-building minutiae, and monsters, dungeons, ... almost everything. I put in so much work — almost every day, and a lot of my weekends I went down to the coffee shop, researched, wrote backstory, adjusted power levels or made up new challenges. And I still feel like it was easier than trying to learn all the details of an established setting I've never played, like Faerun.

Because Faerun doesn't make sense to me. I make up part of it, only to find when I look for a detail somewhere else, it's tightly coupled to the part I replaced! Without a model of how Faerun works in my head, I'm not sure how to move my chess pieces. I need someone to break it down at every stage into the simplest pieces possible — treating a nation as an NPC, identifying important NPCs and their relationships, NPC roles, propensities/motives, and power. And then breaking down organizations into some kind of organization-space, treating them as NPCs, building a web, and mapping organization-space onto a geographical map. And then breaking down cities into NPCs and organizations, and then districts, and then guilds, and then society. Because, otherwise, it's too vast for me to understand out of context, and it's too easy to break immersion, to give too much political power to the PCs (so that there's no point to strive for anything anymore).

So of course, I was excited when the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide came out. I figured — this is the ticket for me to understand the broad strokes of Faerun! But it most definitely isn't. I'm not going to hate on the book, if you have time and money, and it seems interesting, by all means why not peruse it? I appreciate WotC's intent — but the book is more like an encyclopedia and less like a novel. A novel?

When I started out my second campaign, I handed out a detailed questionnaire. I listed scifi & fantasy books, and asked players to order them by favorite theme. I had questions testing interest in various settings, playstyles, character goals, greyscale morality vs black-and-white, miscellaneous ideas I had, and possible responsibilities players might want to take on (food, side-quest DMing, writing, etc). After the first campaign, I wanted to gauge player interests. I had been doodling setting ideas for a while, and wanted to know if the players would care. I decided my setting was an important demiplane or whatever man, and that there were secret portals typically accessible by ship (a plot point) which I could use to plug it into another setting whenever I wanted (I planned to plug it into Faerun). Interestingly, I had more than enough material in my own world, and my players never got to Faerun.

What did those questionnaires get me? Absolutely nothing. One player nixed "Game of Thrones style" on his questionnaire, for all the good it did him (it just made me fret about my grand plans, I should never have asked — how is he supposed to know my world-building secrets anyway? Also, what is Game of Thrones style?). The rest of it was just idiosyncratic preferences, although it was interesting to look at. So while it's good to feel your group out, I don't think you need to go overboard here. "Will you bring the drinks?" "Do you have to get up early the next morning?" and "Do you like hack and slash?" "Do you like political power?" "Do you like experience points?" "Do you like dungeons and treasure?" or something similar will suffice.

A novel? The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (SCAG) isn't a novel? When I started out my second campaign, one player asked if the Elemental Evil supplement was allowed. I ended up with an elf, a half-elf, a drow (who I guided away from "drow, moon elf drow, because the elves can be subdivided up into sun and moon elves" — too bad I didn't think of half-drow half-moon-elf at the time), and a svirfneblin. Now, I had read the SCAG and PHB treatises on Drow. I was blissfully unaware of how crazily subjugated my Drow were, and how fanatically wrathful they must be feeling. Oh well, my world. But the EE supplement requester let something slip about the Legend of Drizzt books.

Obviously, I read the first 17 books in short order.

While these books helped fill out some understanding of Faerun, I only really feel like I understand the motivations of Icewind Dale. Possibly because it's a small setting, with easily identifiable factions, and a battle or two. It's also remote, and Drizzt didn't go adventuring to far off made-up dungeons while he was there every other day. And the underdark, which I now think is amazing! I'm going to keep reading these books, I am looking forward to learning about Neverwinter (the glosses I've read are so vague).

But I'm not sure reading those books are the right way to begin to understand Faerun.

One thing I've discovered recently is 1e and 2e settings books. The right settings books. Not even necessarily the Faerun settings books. Back when I was planning my homebrew campaign, I was researching mechanics for worlds which get very cold (and also seafaring). I did some research and bought some 2e and 3e pdfs from the DMsGuild which looked relevant. They were filled with irrelevant system-specific mechanics, outdated math, and segmented, wandering descriptions. It put me off reading anything published before 5e as labor-reducing material for my 5e campaign. And the adventures — I was building my own, I had no interest in those outdated railroads (HotDQ was the only published adventure I had tried to absorb).

But after continued research, I acquired 0e, 1e, Dark Sun, Planescape, and Spelljammer. These are amazing books, and I'm currently searching out the other best early books. It doesn't help that they're not compiled into a complete, chronological, and categorized list anywhere, and that it would cost a fortune to [legally] acquire the collected works (on pdf, no less). I'm going to come back to the fact that I bought 0e and 1e, but if I have to pick one of these books to recommend, it's the Planescape boxed set.

Planescape is the kind of thing I can pick up and read, and not fall asleep. It also is far superior to all of the DMG/PHB/wikipedia descriptions of the outer planes. I just had to remember to skip sections that didn't catch my interest. Basically, it's one man's account of the planes. He has a lot of colorful advice, much more narrative, to the point, and subjective than SCAG, which half-heartedly not-really adopted a subjective narrator. It's humorous, non-definitive!, and all-inclusive. It's also the source material which created the planes — everything else written is a revision. It's like a creative writing prompt.

Continuance

One source of DMing wisdom that has had a major impact on my thought patterns is The Angry GM. He might repeat himself and slowly elaborate on the same ideas he's been stewing on for years, but I only realized this after reading the majority of everything he has on his site. I could put together specific article recommendations if anyone cared. Also, support him on Patreon!

I like articles like Angry’s because he lays out his thought patterns while constructing the models you want to use. These are self-contained predictive (crassly, "generative") modules. How do you build a chase scene?

You deconstruct the idea of chase into its components parts, examine the theory of roleplaying, identify the important parts of roleplaying for various players, apply literature theory (I read a number of books on authoring fiction, I guess you could do that too), add tension, modularize, and reconstruct.

When you're done, you have either an encounter to play out with triggers and mechanics, or an encounter and encounter-mechanics building set of meta mechanics, or perhaps even meta-meta encounter-mechanics mechanics building mechanics, if you're applying yourself.

I really appreciate being able to read and understand an adventure or optional rule. By applying structure to some pile of text you hand me, I can start to compile your input into a useful program of sorts, that I can use to reason, and generate predictions for behaviors of various chess pieces.

After I read a lot of The Angry GM’s articles, I bought all the published 5e adventures, and set to analyzing them. There's a great variety. I wouldn't advise you to do this: maybe only one at a time.

I also watched youtube playthroughs of most of them (and some extras, on top of that).

In my opinion, Princes of the Apocalypse has the most interesting story structure, followed by Storm King's Thunder. Out of the Abyss turned into an amazing playthrough. And if I understood the Ravenloft better, Curse of Strahd might be my favorite of them all. But I don't understand it hardly at all yet. So I'd be more likely to run the other ones I mentioned.

The Angry GM mentions in passing a number of divides in the RPG gamer community, none of which should come as a shock to anyone who has used the internet to read about D&D or any other RPG ... storytellers vs tacticians, "improvisers vs railroaders" (a meaningless dichotomy, he explains), the choice of maintaining thematic integrity (think Dark Sun) vs allowing players any choice or capability they can articulate with their mouth-things (think Acquisitions Incorporated). I knew all the echo-chamber soundbytes about these divides before, but now they mean a lot more to me.

Most importantly. I watched a youtube video which talked about the evolution of D&D — and I was very surprised how 0e and 1e read. I had heard about the ebb and flow of mechanics vs DM intuition. But when I actually looked at the early D&D texts, they read like creative writing prompts, not rulesets or algebras. Eg, here is a system I made up. I wanted to do a thing, and so I hope you like it. Oh, and another thing might help you mitigate some problem — to the point.

I'm a scifi buff, and I thought it might be easier to run a science fiction RPG than a fantasy game like D&D. I tried to research the best scifi RPG, and the first time I searched, the jury cried out "Traveller"! I'm currently watching Babylon 5 for the second time (and honestly, I'm getting impatient writing this, I want to watch B5, but if I stop writing I likely won't continue later).

If you like Babylon5, you probably agree that Traveller has a pretty great premise. I unfortunately made a rookie mistake and bought Traveller5, which was supposed to be the ultimate be-all-and-end-all of Traveller RPGs. It's not, because it's an algebra book.

I can't stay awake reading Traveller5, no joke. It requires intense mental exertion to see and make sense of the unexplained patterns and arcane rules. It's very complete — with systems for social interaction (which I feel divided about), crafting, and detailed world-building. It doesn't provide a setting beyond a few pages (out of 700!), but instead tools to build a cohesive setting. It really is the distilled machinations of years of game design, but it's inaccessible to the layperson. And from some of the reviews I've read, that's not an uncommon opinion.

But the thing that really is the kicker — some people like Traveller5 style rules, and some people like 5e/1e style rules. And there's nothing you can do about it to change their minds. Some people like rules lawyering — this occurred to me while listening to Happy Jacks RPG — they like to sit down for their session, use their encylopediac knowledge of the rules to optimize and evolve their character and actions, sticking to every last convention — sitting down and debating the best course of action. Not quickly resolving actions and moving on with the action or story, not the excitement of battle, nor promise of immersion. Some people like tactically planning every move before execution, and won't hesitate to spend every moment of their time evaluating, debating. Because that is the fun part for them.

I've read flamewars on forums between these two camps — and anyone with a bone to pick will claim the buzzwords for themselves. My way is "immersive"! One bozo claimed that 5e was terrible because DMs weren't required to build NPCs using the same process PCs are built, so certain pregen NPC stat block abilities weren't accessible to his PC — because this inconsistency in *rules* breaks *immersion*. To me, this sounds like a bit of stretch — I think thematic (which heavily involves adjudication) inconsistencies break immersion, not rules inconsistencies. Or maybe he is immersed in something, and it's just not the story.

Anyway, this guy liked 3.5e better than 5e — not only, but he thought 5e was trash.

Is it? My final closing remarks here are going to be on 3.5e versus 5e, which is I think the question you have been waiting for — or maybe not, I don't know.

Most recently, I have been cross-referencing 3.5 with 5e. Some of it's coming back to me now, and some of the surprised questions my second group asked about rules are making more sense to me.

3.5e is better in some respects. It has more structure. It makes more sense, in a limited capacity. The rulebooks are much more poorly written. They are extremely repetitive. I appreciate the crafting system, because it unifies spells, magic items, and provides the ability to create new spells. In 5e, there's not really a difference between rods, wands, and staffs.

In my 5e games, I've been surprised at how useless the low level wizards have been. That statement is flamebait, and I've seen it in action

In 5e, magic users, and wizards in particular, have been nerfed hard. No matter how you phrase it (and I've seen people try), wizards are much much less powerful in 5e.  Yes ... they got ritual spells, disposed of Vancian magic, and got some silly cantrip pseudo archery attacks, sure;  but they have fewer slots, less spell selection, no ability to create magical items or bank spells, all the spells have been made less powerful, and no ability to create new spells.

As a DM, you can add all that back, but it will break 5e's balance. I've heard it said that in 5e, all classes are magic users. Well, I have to say, in 5e, all classes are fighters. Chew on that?

Full disclosure. I like 3.5e wizards.  I feel that unfair level of power is appropriate  —  when you read Order of the Stick or other D&D fantasy literature, the wizards are 3.5e style powerful. It feels wrong and disappointing to me for wizards not to hold Earth-shattering power. (But, my first character was a melee tank, who once dealt ~150 damage in one turn.)   Restricting a wizard to a supporting "role" instead of encouraging a supporting role seems like a loss to me. Who would want to play a wizard then? If you don't get earth shattering powers? Non-earth-shattering powers is mundane, and I'm playing a fantasy game.

Detractors will argue for the poor oppressed mundanes. As a DM, you have the power to make everybody cool. You can keep balance in check, allow wizards to be powerful in and of themselves, and keep fighters and the like out of their shadow. If a wizard is overshadowing a fighter, talk to the wizard, tell them to get off his toes.

And/or maybe beef up the fighter. In 3.5e you could add a prestige class. I'm sure you can figure something out in 5e.

Anyway, if you love balance and hate wizards and 3.5e, you're in good company with 5e. But if you love rules to the bone, you might like 3.5e better. Or if you somehow want to be involved in what I consider the DM's work, you might like 3.5e.

Regardless, 5e has easier to remember rules, is better balanced, easier to introduce new people to, is on the other side of the scales from the abstruse algebraic systems with idiosyncratic notations, and you can always modify it to make it imba. So I approve of 5e, but I have to say —

I had to do a lot of research to understand it. I feel like a 500 page, non-wandering, topical, focused essay on the art of DMing and RPG gaming would do wonders for a D&D 5e companion book. Because those missing rules — they are missing — it is good that they are not hard and fast, but it is bad that there are few well motivated optional functionality modules which you can pop into your game to improve it.

Long story short — make it up when you feel like something is missing, and find what inspires you — really inspires, not what you think inspires you or you think will improve your knowledge. Be fair, attentive, and pro-active.

PS On the topic of good combats — Angry wrote an article titled something "Running Combats like a M#@&*^## Dolphin". Having an efficient style, having a style at all, to running a combat, as he describes, speeds combats up and makes them seem more interesting. I mean, it only speeds it up a little bit, but come on.

Just as useful — building good combats — if they're dragging on, get them over with as soon as possible. If you're employing good tactics for your baddies, and/or providing useful tactical features, you might be prolonging the battle. You don't have to stop doing that, but do be aware of it. So, you can just throw falling lava into the battle, and KAPOW, both sides take damage faster! Fight end sooner! And adding interesting features is standard advice, but *active* features — if the PCs don't use them, let the NPCs use them. That way even "passive" features are active — and I prefer to deal side-neutral damage than provide cover or healthy unrelenting reinforcements. There's some other advice out there, read Angry's long diatribes.

Also, standard DMG advice — use objectives. So what you say? How will that speed combat? Make sure to change the situation enough to cause a re-evaluation of how best to achieve the objective, and BAM, a properly applied change might reduce battle time.

And, what? You are doing nothing now but just attacking over and over again? Just call it. Unless your players rebel. "They don't stand a chance." "You guys are heading for TPK ... "

I guess I have had trouble running combats in the past.