Very insightful. When I wrote for Dungeon Magazine back in the 90s, I tried to use "timeline" formats, but the editors wanted keyed encounters. One scenario was set it in a mansion. I didn't feel it was necessary to describe everything, just list the name of the room. They insisted I describe every location, including linen closets and the magical toilet! Since I was being paid by the word, I did as I was told. But there has always been a sense that newer DMs need everything written out for them.
That reminds me of my local university's bookstore. The books they had within, used for teaching classes, were literally loaded with entire paragraphs that weren't necessary to what they were teaching. I got the distinct impression that the publishers were getting paid for how large their books were, rather than how intelligent the content was... 🤔
It’s so wild to see how TSR changed from the 70s to 80s and then how WotC continued to trend of explaining every little thing. Early editions of the DMG and even Players Handbook assumed people were playing with the intention of making things up and creating their own worlds.
I would definitely prefer bullet-points and evocative area names... prepping a published adventure for me partly involves reducing all these descriptions down to a condensed format I can actually refer to during play! It doesn't help that I'm not running the games in English so if I want to use the boxed text I need to either translate it on the fly or prepare a translated version beforehand :/ And they sound unnatural when read. It's extremely obvious when you're reading aloud and when you're describing with your own words.
I think the biggest problem I have with WotC modules is that they attempt to plan around what the PLAYERS will do, without any real possibility of success, rather than planning around what the antagonists want to do and letting the players find their path through all of that.
I completely agree. If you know antagonists' motivations and what they are doing, and then only reveal PART of that to the players... boom! You have a dramatic scenario. I love listening to my players try to piece things together.
I've tried running some modules for Starfinder and for quite a few NPCs there's a huge amount of Q & A offered that the writers believe the players should ask... but they almost never ask any of those questions. Maybe I'm not focusing on the right details, but I usually have to get creative to give the players the info they need which kind of sucks since I'm basically just telling them stuff instead of them learning on their own.
The flash of "Curse of Strahd" on the screen sits weirdly with me... I've always seen this module resurrected (like Strahd, it won't stay gone) and almost always it seems to forget to deliver one particular thing to the DM: Strahd has a very clear goal (often different if I recall this correctly), and is both frighteningly intelligent and insufferably arrogant. There's absolutely no reason not to just... put a book out which details Barovia and what the players can do in it to try to foil Strahd's goal. And yet the two more recent treatments I've checked out have seemed to revel in getting more complex and more lost in the weeds. "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft" seemed to want to show off a lot of cool things in 3.5, and "Curse of Strahd" seemed to suffer from wanting to structure a campaign in some flowchart of "if-then" things going on. And yet... for being a mostly-linear path, "Strahd's Possession" on the PC felt a lot more like it captured the essence of this whole thing. It's probably a rather good treatment of the idea, even if it has many issues with being a CRPG. I dunno. I like to think we should maybe get away from this idea of "published adventures" being necessary and instead publish books about *regions* with interesting hooks the DM can pull on. But you probably wouldn't be able to convince the suits in charge of the IP of this.
@@LoLCalmSnow ah the classic Paizo module issue. A fantastic book to read, but an awful module to run lol, they fall into the common trap of trying to “prep” for all the player options without realizing that the players will 100% find a way to sidestep all of it.
This is SOOO true. I've been complaining about how much time you have to spend to read through published adventures and still you don't get the feeling that you know enough to be "in control".
@atombrain111 you missed my point....I don't want more text, I want less text and more focused. Like bullet points in a presentation or a flow chart to follow the plot in just one page.
@atombrain111 as Sly Flourish put it, those aren't flow charts; they're just a list of contents. The issue is WotC has to put out a book size adventure to sell it. Stop and think how insane it is that the book expects to know exactly where the PCs will be after 40+ sessions.
“That is how you dm.” Who are you to say what dming is and isn’t? As someone who is not foreign to note-taking in the slightest (I end up as something of a chronicler for my table) I won’t dictate a minimum threshold of effort for every dm to play real dnd. Having distilled information would by definition be value added to MANY dms. Wizards can provide it or leave a hurdle in place for “real dms” to cross.
This is where older editions of D&D reign supreme! Looking at the brief descriptions given in some of the earliest modules promotes and encourages new DMs to make their own notes and tables so that they develop the skills to become better at improvisation and thinking on our feet.
Actualy the DM notes and block texts from Lost Mines of Phandelver taught me how to set the scene and I appreciated the explanations and all the text given to me as a brand new DM. Dragon of Icespire Peak (Essentials kit) reduced these descriptions to a few lines but left a lot of freedom for a DM and a lot of gaps where the DM has to improvise. Theyre actualy quite good both for a new party and for a new DM
This is where I have found it useful to run modules from Tales from the Yawning Portal. I've been running through them with my group of 3 new players and 2 Pathfinder players. I've been learning to DM while they learn the 5e system. I think the important thing is to use the modules to learn what NOT to do as well as what TO do. I can learn how to describe the surroundings, but recognize that the descriptions may need to be tweaked or augmented. Also, this is proof that it's okay to make mistakes. Professionals made these modules and sometimes they have glaring errors or omissions. My homebrew campaign can have flaws, too. I just need to be ready to observe and learn from my mistakes.
Yeah, LMoP is great for new DMs because of this. This video is set up looking at things from an experts position and not from the view of a novice or intermediate DM. You can’t give 3 bullet points to a novice DM and expect them to have the confidence to run that encounter
What would you think of someone combining those two kits? I have both and will be DM first with my friends soon (we have never played before) and I wasnt sure which they would like best
@@codyvandal2860 I am 6 months late hope it went great, I did that in an adventure with my table and it worked great made the whole swordcoast seem like an open space to move around, tales of the yawning portal can also help with in between adventures
Love this. A good example of this habit *screwing* a new GM would be me attempting to run HotDQ, and realizing that after such extremely detailed notes for a few chapters, the book says "the party goes to the Harpers' office in [insert city here] and signs up", more or less. I'd been so used to explicitly following the book that I had no idea what to do beyond telling my players what they did over the next few days with no input from them. A whole city breezed through as framing. It left me pretty sour. And then there's Curse of Strahd which at least details *every* location, but that led to feeling like if I didn't read through the *entire book* and have it down pat, something would go very wrong. Next time I'm a game master I'm just making up a one-shot and going from there. Easier to remember things I've come up with than it is to memorize someone else's ideas. Let me know if you'd rather people not do this, but the channel How to be a Great GM is starting a new weekly series based off of a book he's writing, focused on the idea that being a GM shouldn't be hard and it shouldn't be stressful. GMs are playing the game too, it should be fun.
@@DungeonMasterpiece I considered linking it, but UA-cam has been very weary of links lately. Seems like whenever I put one in a comment it gets deleted by the automod.
A problem with how WotC structures their work flow is that multiple different parts of the module are being written independently and simultaneously, and you get these weird raw spots where Millie wrote what happened on Tuesday, and Bert wrote what happened on Friday, but how we get from A to B is just a post it note.
Something I've been working on to wean myself from module writing is to prep "inspirational quotes" for the NPCs that the party might encounter. Stuff like "Enum: [disdainfully] Mercenaries! Has the holy order fallen so far they refuse to send more of their own?" or "Heather: [strangely chipper deadpan] Good morrow, associates. Have you tried these root pies?" that gets me into their current mindset and what they'd want to say to the party if they decide to interact. I've gotten far enough that some characters don't even need them, I'm familiar with their mood and goals so I don't need a jump-start. The side stories can absolutely pay off more than the main story. One of the three times I've played Phandelver, our group was able to capture the goblin guards outside of the cave entrance. Party bullied one of them into becoming basically a second Yeemik, and used her help to navigate the cave and defeat both Yeemik and Klarg. A bit of dragging her along for story questing later, teaching her how to be a good person with monetary rewards, and asking for her help to find Cragmaw Castle and depose King Grol, she decided that she'd be the new king and try to teach the local goblins to be nicer. Not fully LG starting a new country, but nice enough that Phandalin would effectively have a thieves' guild defending their caravans through the woods. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask also has this in the famous Kafei sidequest, where you learn piece by piece from taking on a missing persons report, to asking the innkeeper and getting a midnight rendezvous for more information, to stalking the mailman so you can sneak into an otherwise locked door, you get invested with unraveling this side-story that's almost fully removed from the main game's plot.
Watching this, I'm glad I'm DMing my first campaign as a homebrew. I'm almost never caught off-guard, and I'm always in a position to react perfectly to whatever the players want to do. When I am caught off-guard...I can make up pretty much anything as long as it is fun, and I can remember it, without having to worry about stepping on a future plot or something.
Same. My whole universe started as a list of names for gods, a basic creation story, and a list of seven people who lived in a city. Five years, two campaigns, and a dozen dozen of one shots later it's almost 100 towns in 15 nations on three continents, two planets, and a moon with 200 million years of history and a rather impressive list of historical figures and holidays. I was blessed with players who love to ask questions and push limits.
Getting in the way has been one of my biggest gripes in every DnD 5e adventure. I think you pretty much hit every one of my pain points I’ve had running them. Great video :)
Baron I absolutely love your channel! Your insight is so great. The points of interest you choose to extrapolate on are always perfect. Like the topics you pick are not topics other channels cover but wow once you lay it out it leaves me scratching my head realizing how did I not think of that! Please keep up the great work I promise I’ll keep watching and sharing
I've been running an adlib adventure for the past few sessions. Next to no prep, and the world building has been mostly in response to the jokes and personal story building the players have been doing. It's been the most fun campaign I've run or played in years.
I remember as a young adult my friends and I were just hanging out--no plans--when someone (might have been me) suggested we should play D&D. I elected to be DM, and I had to put together an idea while characters were being made. (This would have been slightly before 3E came out, so not a whole lot of prep work.) So I basically just ran with it. Basic 'found a burned caravan' hook, and then I just listened as the players interacted with the environment. And then I reacted. I didn't go along with everything they said in terms of ideas, but I found some threads and started weaving together a plot. By the end of the session, everyone agreed that it was the best D&D they'd ever played, and my 'eternal DM' status was forever cemented. For better or for worse. So my #1 suggestion for improv is: listen. Listen and react.
Never run a pre made adventure from wotc, always made my own or stole one shots I could pull into my overarching story to help me prep faster. I always say prep smarter, not harder
@@almisami I suppose it depends on the group, most things have rails and it can help groups that are reactionary and not assertive. I mix between; this is important and happening right now so deal with it and here are multiple options pick one
0:25 - Improv Injury 2:56 - Reinforced Railroading 5:07 - Overprepping-as-a-Service These are great tips that you present here in this video. Thank you.
What WotC fil to convey through their products is the relationship between DM and player, and how each can find their own fun. This was more apparent in older versions of D&D (and other RPGs) because the maps were laid out, the dungeons/adventures described, and the motivations unfolded...in 16 page modules. They even began with "these are guidelines". DMs are not babysitters, movie directors, authors, or monologue generation machines. To find happiness, I found that there were some very simple rules: - Get comfortable being uncomfortable. In other words, improvisation is your friend. - Know when to let go. Set the stage, describe the initial stage, then let the players take over. This creates changes the DM will not have expected, which is the fun. Why? Because discovery is part of the fun for the players too. This creates a DM creates-players react-DM reacts-player reacts (etc) dynamic that generates even more story hooks. - I use natural language at the table, and reference descriptions that invoke emotional responses from the PCs. These may even be modern descriptions. "The town smells like (insert place they know) when it's hot outside and the sewage treatment facility is close". It may not be fantasy, but I'll bet you'll get that right feeling and facial cues of disgust. - Communication is everything. HOW you communicate is essential. I tend to stand when DMing to better convey body language and any gestures that help descriptions. The clearer you communicate, the less time is spent having to explain things again. - Don't bicker when you can arbitrate. Sometimes the players have valid ideas you didn't count on, and they deserve the credit. Also, your monsters, unless stated in some text, are neither geniuses nor morons. They act according to their natures, the environment, and their experiences. - Think outside the stat block. People bitch at length about "X monster sucks. It's just a sack of hit points.". Untrue. It has a strength score. Calculate what it can plausibly lift or throw. If it has thumbs, it has tool use. If it has a language, it can communicate and establish allies and relationships. The list goes on. - Be willing to throw everything away at a moment's notice because of a change in PC plans or actions. It's not like you can't reuse that material later re-skinned as something else. - There's more behind value than just money and magic items. Friends, allies, pets, familiars, romances, lands, titles, medals, abilities granted by supernatural creatures/forces, maps to new locations, vehicles...the list goes on. Think. Beyond. The. Books. - Learn your players' triggers. (No, not the character's triggers, the players'). Example, when I first taught my youngest how to play, she had a fondness for small cute creatures. So I generated one and placed it in peril. Heroics ensued. Another example: I ran a table where two players hated all things creepy-crawly. Okay, so now there's a Hag who specializes in bugs. Horror and heroics followed. D&D, and other RPGs, are both a minefield and treasure trove of mental gymnastics. Only experience will yield more of one than the others, and it's okay to steal ideas from other DMs, books, TV shows, movies, friends and family. Heck, I steal ideas from my own players, insert those ideas into my tales, and then they get to pat themselves on the back for "being right". They walk away happy and everyone wins.
bro you really took the time to write this. Maybe you should develop it even more, I agreed on everything, and would most certainly like to learn from such an experienced DM.
This so perfectly summed up my warning against new DMs using the older, pre-published WOTC 5e modules. There is an entire “new-school” to module design that doesn’t do this too. Also, in fairness, this has been a thing going back to the “high Gygaxian” of T1
This is a very good video, especially because it emphasises preparing environments with interesting things in them rather than having a specific set of interesting events planned. I have been having trouble in my campaign recently because some of my players are treating the game like the story is pre-written even though it isn't. Sure, the bad guys have set up a situation where they need to be stopped urgently so there aren't many options, but there is still so much room for creativity that my players don't want to even try because they're afraid of choosing a 'wrong answer.' There is no wrong answer, and I tell them that, but they still feel like I'm railroading them. Like the meme "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas." I think this comes from the fact that they are viewing it as a story they are watching rather than a world they are living in. It's difficult to know if they just don't care about the world (which is a problem I've had as a player in other games), or if they genuinely think the only things that are possible are things I've already thought of. Whatever the reason is, I think I can break them out of this behaviour by running a one-shot using a more improvisational system. That will hopefully spark a more creative approach to the game. Wish me luck.
Found this channel yesterday and all I can say is I love it! This is such a great video coming from someone who has learned most of this stuff by trial and error. Being able to think on your feet and really respond to what your players are doing is a key skill
We used to get script-like examples of play in some editions to show how the DM-player group dialog works, imply combat survival expectations, and how the exploration rules fit together.
I love the use of Trilemma Adventures! Also, when you spoke about the bullet points vs paragraph texts for adventures all I could think about was Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland by Chris McDowall...both of which I adore and decided to use in my adventure writing! Love all this advice!
It would be interesting to have these books have a "summary" section that is meant to be used as an active running tool, while still having a section for a more detailed breakdown of people places and things that the DM can read just to get the setting and characters in their mind. I definitely find myself flipping around in books looking for information I know I read once but cannot find because it was in some block text in a section I wouldn't normally associate with the information I'm looking for. Having that 2 page summary spread would be a great help in just having all the core bits of info in one place while running that adventure.
I always took the 'organ transplant' approach to campaign books, hacking out the bits that I like and altering the connective tissue to graft them to my campaign. I thought that Saltmarsh was an excellent example of what you're talking about. The adventures aren't originally from a single source, so the book instead suggests multiple ways to insert the adventure into a single campaign, or as one-offs in another campaign world. It includes suggestions for how characters and organizations from its adventures might overlap. Basically it's full of prompts without establishing any hard lines, perfect for improv.
Ive dm'd through lost mines and tyranny of dragons, and i like what they do. I think if you're following it to the letter, you weren't reading it right, alot of times in chapters they cover what was the purpose of people and the areas. In lost mines my players skipped alot, in tyranny they didnt even go into greenrest, which the book explains then what to do, even after devoting a giant chapter to it. The thing most people dislike is when theres not two tonnes of info, like in tyranny theres no info on baldurs gate. I just read a little and made it what i wanted.
I'm a huge fan of the formatting of Old School Essentials adventure modules. They use bullet points with important details in bold and no blocked text. Some OSE adventure modules even have the pertinent section of the map on the facing page of the details. It makes these adventures super easy to run and allows the DM the space needed to customize it and make it their own. I think they're absolutely fantastic for new Dungeon Masters such as myself.
i have barely started running one of the Old school modules and i ended up purchasing every module they have made so far because i love the way they are laid out and the quality of product..
My fondest memories were made when the players make decisions that cause the DM to put the book back on the shelf, I spent ages fleshing out a village and planning multiple paths players could aim towards but all that was thrown out the window when the players jumped back on their horses and rode for the nearest town. The adventure that unfolded at the town was far better than anything I had planned, and they later returned to that village, so my prep had only made the lore of that village deeper as I had pages of notes of what each villager was up to 2 months before they returned. I even added some changes to the village since they last visited as the players lack of interaction with the village had knock on effects as they weren't present to help out the village during an attack that happened not long after they had left. The players suddenly thought I had planned everything out months in advance, as there were too many coincidences to be random chance, they thought I was some kind of master mind that had predicted their every move when in reality I was going by the seat of my pants the entire time. They even accidentally completed 2 quests I had planned that they hadn't been given yet, one was finding a lost item and one was finding a missing boy who they had found and rescued a month ago on their travels from the village to the town.
that fleshed out village is actually how modules are meant to be used. Once I put a module in my own world it changes based on new geography and politics/plot. It becomes so different a new player once secretly tried to look up the module but they were only confused by it.
Speaking as a long term GM, I think the best way for new GMs to get their feet wet is with 1 page one shots. They’re much less intimidating than modules and they actually demonstrate how to outline your own sessions.
Whenever I ran a “module” my group always understood that there were BIG air quotes because I more often than not did my own thing with a few key elements I liked from the module I read from.
As a newish DM and player, I think I followed a typical path to learning. I started with free 'A potent Brew" and free rules. then moved to Lost mines of Phandelver. I feel that if all I was given was a few bullets of flavor text for goblin arrows I would have been lost. As a dm gets experience I think they are more comfortable making things up on the fly. Like anything new, you need a lot more guidance before you can just make stuff up on the fly.
Interesting you say that, because I feel like I most potent brew actually is a phenomenally well written adventure for a beginner dm, and doesn't fall into these same pitfalls.
I totally agree with you. I found very easy to DM the Lost Mine of Phandelver because there are a lot of details from which I can learn for future improvisation. At the very beginning I had no idea of what to think up. It has been less than a year I'm DMing, we started Dragon of Icespire Peak. I printed the missions from dndbeyond, read all of them thoroughly and highlighted the most important detail. I also added notes for the parts of the plot I make up tailored on my players background and previous campaign (same player, same timeline, different characters). My prep is just a quick look at the mission and my - few - notes.
I'm not scanning any QR codes if I don't have to. I don't even have a QR scanner. This "get off my lawn" moment was brought to you by an old white man with 35 years DM experience
I thought that you would cover the *very* bad bits of adventure design (the bridge that takes away agency and the "scary" water hole in which your character can breath, in that adventure with the Beholder) but talking about how the presentation of published modules affect prep. is also a good subject. A module you might enjoy (and perhaps review?) is Fall of the Silverpine Watch!
Just came across this vid. Great job, I am now a subscriber. I think the size of the module from WoTC is a simple function of $ / Pages. No one is going to shell out big bucks for a hand full of pages. The damage done to new DMs who think this is the norm is frustrating. As an OG DM from the 70s I still operate in the old ways. Thanks for the reinforcement and good analysis.
I was studying the LMoP material and making my own set of notes, but I've been putting off starting the game. One of the main reasons is a sense of relucatnce and anxiety, and this video really hits on why that is. There's all this information I feel I have to keep track of, then there are interactions and decisions I haven't specifically prepared for, and worrying about making sure it's consistent and fits well with everything else. So despite being "just a starter campaign", it's left me feeling completely overwhelmed. After watching this, I feel I should strip away a lot of the non-essentials to give myself more freedom to improvise and come up with what seems appropriate in the moment. In fact, this was meant to be a practice campaign before attempting to make something myself. But I'm starting to wonder if the latter might actually be easier, despite the extra work needed to set it up. 🤔
Just read through it for entertainment once to get the idea of the story. Once you actually run it, then you adlib and don't waste time reading it at the table. You don't want to railroad your players anyway just respond to your players and you will naturally repurpose the module.
What actually helped me get past these shortcomings was running Lost Mines 4 different times for different groups - I ended up in completely different situations each time and on the 3rd time through, realized what I wanted to say was different than the text, so I started dropping it altogether. That said, having that text at first did help me to see how the writer intended to frame each scene. You're right that there's a bit too much information though.
Further to your point; when I want to prep an hour or so before the players arrive by skimming the module, the bloated content makes it hard to focus on the key points. The AD&D adventures of old used to highlight the key elements in boxed txt with expanded description below making for easy skimming. Now, boxed text usually means "read this to the players".
I love the Lost Mines of Phandelver, how it's a western in fantasy dress, the factions, and so on, but I didn't realize until this video how much work I had learned to do as an experienced DM to make these overwritten modules workable at the table. I would love to see a lean version of LMoP.
I ran LMoP also, and the only work I did session to session was making maps to put in my virtual tabletop for online play. Beyond that, I read through it once at the beginning, then scanned it a few minutes before people started logging on to play. I had the general outline and then just BSed the rest.
What you described here has been happening since printed adventures started hitting the shelves. DM's have always been picking out and expanding or shrinking what published material has to offer. The reality is simple, consumers want those big old books and the format that WOTC currently uses was developed in previous editions. The best point you make is that they are not new DM friendly adventures.
Also interesting about Lost Mines of Phandelver is that despite being the standard starting adventure for 5e, neither it nor the DMG explain how to read a dungeon map and key. So DMs without experience in editions that actually spelled it out (4e didn’t do this either) won’t know what to do with the information provided, because to the people who’ve been playing for decades and who wrote 5e skills like that seem self-evident, but they’re not.
Horror at Headstone Hill for the new edition of Deadlands is great. It's a sandbox, basically, so it gives quick descriptions of locations and inhabitants and gives multiple story hooks to throw at the players as a basic plot progresses in the background that players touch on as they go. It's a lot of info but if you just get the basics of it memorized/noted down you've got a campaign you can run for a while that the players have a lot of control over.
This advice is absolutely golden. Block text is the bane of any new DM, it massively breaks whatever tone the DM had unless they exactly match the author of the block text, and it comes with implicit assumptions about player goals and interests that almost never match the table. My life has gotten ages better in the hobby since I started constraining myself to half an hour of prep - making bullet pointed lists of prompts and doing away with wotc style event chains. Huzzah! PS: Trilemma is effin sweet, picked up one of their map packs for a couple bucks over christmas just to write my own adventures over. love them!
What's interesting is that the B series seems to imply that the block text was initially intended as a training wheel for people when dnd was still brand new, and the earliest editors may have invisioned a day where block text was completely filtered out. But before we ever got there the block text became "house style" for adventures and it was too late.
@@nicholascarter9158 that is a cool history. Block text does go back quite a way - maybe in the future we'll finally wean adventure authors off including it at all :D
Modules can also be a little railroaded (or a lot with some). Running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, and the module has a a chain of 10 mini-encounters that are expected to be done back to back immediately. After the 1st encounter, the players decided to rest before exploring the lead to the 2nd, so ended up waiting 12h rather than being hot on the antagonist's heels. During the 6th, the party killed an npc who they were supposed to chase. The module is written so specifically about what happens and when, that pretty much any unexpected action by players can cause a lull, while I try and piece the adventure back together, because up until this point, everything has been handed to me on a silver platter. It also has rules on repairing, upgrading, and running a base given to the players at the start of the game. Except the adventure is supposed to be time sensitive, so if the module is run as is, and the players do nothing unexpected, there's a few pages of content that may never see the light of day. It's a fun adventure, but you're better off taking the starting chapter that give a broad outline of the adventure and overview of the villains' motivations.
Love the idea of bullet points and QR codes with training videos. Have used the one page notes around the map as a great quick hitter that keeps me focused on the PCs antics
I'm dming my first real 5e game after years of other systems especially FATE and seeing the "read the box" for the "welcome to Phandalin" quest for the Dragon of Icespire peaks my intuition at first was like "this is boring I should just improv something better" and I'm happy to say this video has proven my intuition right. Thank you
In my opinion the "issue" lies more on how some people see the WotC books rather than the design of the book itself. Some see the information in there as a status quo that cannot be changed. Most of the books mention that the book is only a guide to what might happen and that nothing is set in stone. To me, railroading a prewritten moduel as a DM is a little like players believing that they can only solve encounters by fighting. I think what matters in the end is your creativity and what you make out of it. Of course, this becomes a problem when the DM does not allowe players to go out of what is written in the adventure. I personally run only premade adventures and never had issue but anyone is different. Anyway, great video! and greate tie! I would have loved to see some advice to how still use WotC material wthout falling into some of these traps and improv them more :)
I plan on releasing some knockoff adventures on drivethrurpg that reorganize the adventures and change the names to protect the innocent: "Missing Caves of Flapdoodle" and the "Swears of Zorowitch" 😂
I am really enjoying your videos. I have been playing 1st edition AD&D since the late 70's and still love it. I have introduced many new players to 1st edition and they are enjoying it as well. I think the boxed text is a bad habit from the early days when they would include both explanations and DM specific info in one paragraph and new DMs would accidentally read stuff that should not have been read. It just became a habit after that.
I've only DM'd for about a year now, and I've read so much advice, but this is truly the most actionable advice I've ever received from any source. My group is switching to pathfinder soon, which definitely seems to have much more organized and useful GM support, but the advice in this video will be staying in the front of my head while I read through modules. Thanks for the content!
This was quite handy for me. After a long break I am getting back as a DM and am prepping my first adventure at the moment and was (am?) on the edge of putting way too much time into it. This was a good video to focus back again.
Gonna be honest. Published module culture is complete alien to me. I've run Matt Colville's Delian Tomb like 10 times but other than that, I homebrew every game I run.
I was 100% with this right up until the very end when he said "It's your job to provide the plot." This might be a semantic issue, but I'd have said it's the DM's job to provide the *setting* and *situation* , whereas the "plot" (insofar as one exists) is generated by the PCs' actions in response to that situation within that setting.
I will say that I feel the large paragraphs of description help a Game Master to learn how to flavour a scene. Maybe one or two examples after those series of bullet points you mentioned would be beneficial. "Here's an example of how we would tell players about what they see using the bullet points:"
I'm playing in a 6 player, long running campaign. The same GM runs 2 others as well. If you put a 1pg dungeon in front of him, he'd read what's on the paper, and that's all, it would NOT work for him. He is a very popular GM, playing for 20yrs or so, but couldn't improvise if his life depended on it. I love the idea of the one page dungeon, but its a tough row to hoe, and I like improvising.
I'm blessed to have met some DM friends who have taught me this. Of all the helpful videos by all the helpful DM youtubers, this is the first video I would recommend to a fellow newbie DM.
Thanks! As a newbie DM I got really worked up over dming my first session recently, which, btw, is the one mentioned in the video, the lost mines. I kinda felt like I just wanted to to do things differently than the book says, so I kinda just rolled with what I and my players did, and everybody liked that! Since that left me questioning if it's gonna hurt the campaign, you really helped to answer the question. I think, from now on, I'm just gonna borrow characters and encounter maps from the book, as well as some general plot, and try to roll with it! We'll see how it goes.
I started my DM carrer with the old "Das schwarze Auge" book in the 90s and even today I love them for their "play while you read" approach. You could basically buy the book in the morning and run it with your friends at the afternoon (which I did a few times). - Every monster stat-block was in the book, and at the point in the book where it was needed (and also on one page, not split over two... I look at you PF AP^^). - You had "read out loud" text you can read to your players which describes key areas of the adventure (e.g. what the characters see and feel when they approach the dark tower in the swamp) - They had maps and sketches you could easily remove from the books as they were in the center and the books were only tacked. - If something was related to a previous part of the book, it was clearly stated and referenced the site number After running some PF/SF APs I really miss these features from modern adventure books, they feel more like a story book where 50% of the story is irrelevant to the adventure and which give you a bare base for an adventure.
I came into RPGs with 5E, as did my first DM. It took me a long while to unlearn some of the stuff you're saying. Luckily I came across the Sly Flourish book and climbed over the fence to greener pastures. If only I could go back in time and start out with DCC I could have saved a lot of time.
My first DM-ing experience was running Dragon Heist about 5 years ago now. I quickly learned to use the module as a 'suggestion' and ignore much of what they said was this or that. Because let me tell you, if I didn't move key items around on a whim, my players would never have found them, and nothing would've ever gotten done. At one point, two of my players tried to sneak into Jarlaxle's FOB for the adventure; no mention of that in the module! I had to take a 10-15 minute break and start frantically coming up with logical, plausible things they would encounter based on their rolls; and take into account the character races (a drow monk means no 'magic' sleep; wood elf ranger means probably some high perception checks).. I set tripwires and pressure plates in the corridor to the shop basement they accessed from a well; i set a DC of 15 for the pressure plate and neither looked for traps. Logically, I thought the first pressure plate would draw the ladder rungs into the wall where they entered from, so they can't escape. This made both PCs dash forward, still no search for traps, and failed passive perception checks for the tripwire that released toxins into the narrow space. Still dashing, they ignored possible traps, and hit the second pressure plate, which barred the door infront of them. I did ask them if they wanted to check for traps repeatedly before they stepped into the next one, and they always refused. Asked for constitution saving throws, both failed first try. Anyway, I decided that this would be Jarlaxle's warning to the party by dropping off both PCs onto the front steps of the inn the party was rewarded with. Coated in a fine dust of a canary yellow coloration to embarrass them a little. Drow player, "Was this magical in nature? As an Elf, I can't be put to sleep by magical means." Me, "It's a toxin derived from animals and plants. As a Drow, you're quite familiar with poisons and toxins from your time in the Underdark before your escape. As you're woken up by the rest of your party, you notice two Drow figures watching you from an alleyway across the thoroughfair. As you notice them, they turn and walk away. They wanted you to see them." I thought I handled it pretty well for my first time. I'm more prepared now for players doing something not even in the modules. Things have gotten better, and I actually haven't run an official module since Dragon Heist; so that says something all on it's own.
I have DM'd a fair amount. Never even played an official module. I'm now trying an official campaign for a new group. This video is incredibly helpful as it reminds me to not get so bogged down in details that I'm going need to supplement anyway.
@@DungeonMasterpiece I immediately saw a parallel here between what you were outlining as good practice, and the DM'ing style I've played for years/decades. The OSR is not some seething pit of bad actors, it's a resource-rich group who've been through all the struggles of the game before. We may be grouchy - but we also have some wisdom.
Sly Flourish's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is actually build around combating this problem. In short it is book full of techniques meant to alliviate the fact many GMs do too much prep by reducing and simplifying the steps needed to be taken in order to have good set of session notes. I highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with this issue
While I enjoyed the video and thought it was good advice, all I could think of was “those cradles are on point.” This is the first video I’ve watched of yours.
Some of the best modules I've found are more concerned with setting things up and preparing for what will happen if the players don't interfere than they are with trying to predict the actions of the players. And this I've found makes for a far better experience as a GM than most of what WotC has put out. The Bell Tolls for Kastor for Symbaroum is a good example of such an adventure. Giving the GM the setup for the scenario with location, key NPCs and motivations, and then having a ticking clock in the background with stuff that will happen and push the story along if the players are not able to act in time. While the adventure hardly had the most ground breaking of plots, I found it enjoyable to run, and my players seemed to really like it as well.
This is probably why I've actually able to work with more modules from Goodman Games because they do exactly what you're telling WotC do with the bullet points, and give the DM room to Improve. There are two exceptions so far to this, which is "the Well of Brass" and "Portal Under the stars", even then it's very short (for DCC). (It was also my first two real modules I Judged, so now I'm getting better and I'm noticing more modules do bullet points with maybe one or two quotes to get the voice of the NPC is expected to have.) The Faerie Tales from Unlit Shores series done by Daniel Bishop (also for DCC) is a really good example of the bullet point method and gives a lot of room to actually add your own stuff. It also gives room to really see what the players are into for fun and you can cater to their wants and needs as well. (Though Low-key, I already watched your OSR is like Carrot Cake video, has me curious your thoughts on some of the things that come out with Goodman Games and DCC, though Goodman Games DO have DnD 5e adventures under the "Fifth Edition Fantasy" titles due to copyright).
This makes me think of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths system. While these campaigns often have their own problems (especially if you play them as they're coming out, as is generally encouraged), I do think the fact that each book is usually self-contained by virtue of being a monthly release and by being relatively short, it makes it so that while there is block text, there is more often bullet points of speeches enemies will give rather than full descriptions. They even often say "these are the crucial points you should not miss", just in case a GM wants to hurry that bit along because they or their players find it boring, OR even in case the GM misses it entirely and has to backfill it in from another NPC.
Dude I really can’t thank your professional ass enough Excatly what you said about burning out I feel so bad right now I’m at the point preparing for dragon of icespire peak and it’s horrible becuase we still haven’t played one session and when I play one on one with my dad I feel as if I could’ve done better but this really helps a lot
@@DungeonMasterpiece truly inspiring I have one last thing so now equipped with this I’m still kinda suffering from burnout was so excited to make huge worlds my brain was on overdrive now it’s hard for me to make a simple plot hook any videos or things you got or advice
@@_TheRealGinger Look up my video on fast session prep/adventure writing in less than 15 min, and my most recent video at the time of writing this comment, about how to write campaigns in one evening. Those two should get you going!
I think the best WotC module I have flipped through for 5e is: Water Deep, Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Instead of page upon page of prose about shit you can't process or remember it gives you a quick bullet point list of what's in each room. In the intro there's a description of what "everything that's not explained looks like" The book is a 5th to 20th level mega dungeon, emphasis on mega. It doesn't have room for that silly prose, but it encourages a DM to improvise. (The dungeon also has random tunnels to nowhere, where the book mention that you can connect other dungeons you might want to run).
(several months later I comment) my favourite workaround for longer modules with more detailed descriptions (something that could certainly help new GMs learn what key points they should use in their own descriptions) to keep them from becoming a "novel" is to split the book up. This was, if not common, at least not unheard of in TSR modules to have a small booklet that could have broad information (factions, major NPCs, and new monster statblocks) to supplement the main dungeon, with the maps either printed on the inside of the removable cover or (if there were several different maps) inside another smaller booklet. Actually, I'm not sure the covers were designed to be removable, but they'd all come off by the time I read them decades later...Anyway, for anyone looking to publish longer adventures, that's how I'd recommend doing it. The same goes for splitting files in pdf/ebook copies of games, I always have multiple tabs open to important information, so splitting books really makes navigation easier. One book of narrative info/keyed locations, one of background info and statblocks, and one of maps. One-page dungeons *are* awesome though.
I only ever plan one (or at a push) two sides of A4. These mini-quest chains have hooks listed first, twists, and maybe a few names. The exact NPC stats or monsters (as well as maps) only get made when it looks like the players have taken up a line of investigation from the hooks or supprises. Furthermore, the locations are deliberately vague (on the road, in a town, at a tavern, in a city, etc.). That way, I have adventures ready and waiting that can happen wherever the players go. So I can come to the adventure with my setting notes and a sheet or two of paper.
The first chapter of the D&D 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide, entitled "running the game" actually teaches a new Dm how to well be an effective DM. it describes what a DM is and does, gives some examples of play style, and on pages 8,9 and 10 Includes an example of play. It then goes into detail about running a game session, knowing the pcs, the players and the rules, handling PC actions, changing rules, handling NPC actions even how to end a session. it's very well written and actually taught me how to DM 22 years ago. while the 5th eddtion DMG doesn't seem to do that. it's got lots of information on players types, narration styles, preparing a game session and a handful of other tidbits. but it doesn't seem to actually show you what a Dm does. yes i know there's lots of videos out there and the book explicitly calls out using phones and tables etc to help. it simply doesn't seem to offer up an example IN the book.
This reminds me of how one of the encounters in Waterdeep Dragonheist had something like "as soon as the players reach the top of the tower they'll see some drow leaping from the tower top to some roof tops until they get to the wharf and if the players to reach the drow some how just come up with a reason they don't." Like only encouraging improv to ensure railroading...
I have never run a module in the first place. I've only ever homebrewed my own shit. I discovered modules later, and then began to lift certain parts of quests that I liked into my own campaign. But there's nothing more fun than playing around in your own world, making shit up on the spot and then finding creative ways to make it make sense
My general rule of thumb is that the more narratively focused a game is (or potentially section of a campaign is); the more it will benefit from higher amounts of prep. The more sandbox a game (or section) is, the more it will benefit from concise easily accessible information. Often I will mix my approach in homebrew game prep, even in player driven narratives when they get stuck into something they appreciate I will put in more prep time and detailed efforts for important events/locations. Improv is important, but it isn't the be all end all. I personally don't find the issues you stated with most WotC adventures to be relevant to me, but I guess that is more to do with my natural tendency to break them down into 1-4 page easily referenced sheets for whatever session or set of sessions I will be running next and keep a running sheet of reminders regarding what players are interested in and what I need to foreshadow. This isn't to say that they are well balanced and don't over provide information in many cases, they absolutely do. But I don't know many GMs who have actually struggled with "read it like a book" syndrome thankfully. A great system to direct people to for looser prep structure and player driven progression imo is Forbidden Lands.
While I don't need dialogue for Campaigns, I'd REALLY love if WotC to give reccomended locations for all the NPCs, for example. I'm preparing to run Strixhaven. It's my first non-homebrew campaign. I think it's fine to expect me to make my own quests, but it'd be nice if the world itself had mechanical details for me to put story into i.e. timetables for lessons and characters. It seems like not much, but it's exactly the kind of work I'd like to have other people do.
This is one of the reason I love OSR games like Old School Essentials. Their adventure formats are so clean. I am a huge fan of one page adventures including the ones from Pinnacle Entertainment Group (PEG). They are nice and clean, too the point and give lots of room for the DM to go where the table is going rather than the book. I am excited to fined a new one page site in Trilema Adventures, thank you for the heads up! Great video as always!!!
I can't think of a better way to start then a whole scripted module like Lost Mine of Phandelver because there are a lot of details from which I can learn for future improvisation. I recently started Dragon of Icespire Peak. I printed the missions from dndbeyond, read all of them thoroughly and highlighted the most important details. I also added notes for the parts of the plot I made up tailored on my players background and previous campaign (same player, same timeline, different characters). My prep is just a quick look at the highlight and my - few - notes and took me 10-15 minutes. I think it's totally fine and easy to start in a very scholastic approach (e.g. Lost Mine of Phandelver) and then move to less-detailed-easier-to-prep material once you are experienced enough.
I love Trilemma Adventure's simple point crawl single page spreads. I've gotten more mileage out of one of these than entire chapter in WotC adventure modules or Paizo adventure paths. (as fun as the latter is, it does work best when you have a stack of bookmarks to skip around the book a lot)
I love modules like "Neverland" or "The Dark of Hot springs Island" or "Tomb of Black Sand". The layout, the concise nature... they're so good and when I go back to Curse of Strahd, it's so jarring. I'm literally re-writing Castpe Ravenloft to update the layout...
Great info! One of the things I see often on groups and boards is, "I'm going to DM my first game using x module. What do I need to know?" So cringe. I try to get across that making a homebrew based on a simple premise is TONS easier than the prep to effectively run a module.
This reminds me a lot of the way Rolemaster/MERP by ICE would do their adventure modules. They would detail the environments, show maps and creature/NPC statistics, and discuss the political and cultural situations of the modules areas. They would then outline 3 or four scenarios in said area. They rarely, if ever, used block text to read out to the players. This gave the GM great leeway in how the scenarios would run. Now, while the GM can always change any module in D&D to their groups liking, often they feel they have to "follow the instructions", as it were; particularly newer GMs. It was a much better way of writing a module and excellent value for money because you got 3 or 4 scenarios and a detailed area of the world for the same price as a single D&D adventure.
While I agree with much of what you say... part of what you mention infers that the trend of gaming should be towards tech. Not everyone uses bar codes or runs their games using portable electronics... at least not yet. Older players and very young players might not have enough access to this to be able to reliably count on it. As a DM through the years, I often found that I felt that prewritten box text gave me a good idea of where to start in learning how to describe a scene. And last, An adventure like Lost Mines IS designed for brand new DMs. You mention that the adventure only gives base information for the starter scenario.., and that is true... It's really kind of a good thing. If you throw too many options at a new group, you will very quickly be likely to have a party latch on to things that the new DM might have NO idea how to run.Your example about the possible conflict between the Druids and the dragon, or players 'joining the dragon's cult' would involve the DM having at least some idea about this in advance... One of LMoPs best design features, is that while it introduces a number of possible paths to pursue... it does so in a manner that allows the DM to run the adventure included, and then spend time later getting to run the attached 'red slipper' adventures, as they become more capable and more skilled at reading up on supplementary material and at the idea of creating their own encounters. Throwing a DM into the deep end and effectively giving them enough to 'sink or swim' is, I believe unfair, and could easily cause less confident DMs to say the heck with it and give up in favor of a less harsh learning curve.
As a DM of a few years, pretty much all I do is point form important details as discussed in this video, and write up/find stat blocks for creatures or NPCs for combat. Everything else is either improvised, or made up the night before a game lol. I've had no complaints yet!
Oh man I HARD agree with the railroad aspect of this. Like in my first D&D campaign Savage tide my group read the campaign players guide. Reading about this bustling port city I made my swashbuckler a member of one of the many partician families noted in the city quarters. I referenced NPCs that may show up, both friendly hostile and indifferent. I also made myself aware of the current issues of the city such as the scarlet brotherhood’s presence. The story engages with the recent tragedy of the Vanderborn family, but the book as written is totally tone deaf to the possible party comp. We end up working for this noble family assuming we all would be willing servants. It also doesn’t offer much time for exploring the city between tasks. Then shortly enough the sea voyage kicks off and we never see this metropolis again, putting to waste all the happenings of the city.
Yea, I ran into this issue a few weeks ago with Lost Mine. First time DM and first time players. Imagine my shock when everything the book has planned for is completely unexplored! Campaign immediately derailed by the players on the goblin encounter lol. I couldn't just tell the players not to do what they do so I had to create new scenarios on the fly to accommodate this. Luckily I have gotten them back on the track of somewhat following the story and getting them to the dungeons but its muuuuuuch muuuuuuuuuuch different than what WotC had intended. I'm using the Lost Mine campaign book as more of a reference book than anything at this point.
I definitely feel that last one. After running Lost Mines of Phandelver I did think I also needed to prep that much for my own campaigns. I have gotten my prep under control though. I think the worst prep suggestions I've ever heard was actually from someone that suggested having a list of names, npcs and backup things like that because I have almost never needed them despite spending some time on them, while occasionally handy, more often its just a bunch of dead weight in the back of my notes. The first one, I don't think is a big issue because the prewritten descriptions don't fill the same role as improv. Some DM's prewrite their area descriptions and such in the same manner and then still have to do improv on top of that for anything they did not think about in prep. I think having the prewitten material lifts some of those burdens once you're in game because you can refer to in in your improv.
Having come back to playing and dm'ing after a 23 year haitus, I admit to purchacing some WotC adventures on DDB to help me get back in to it. So far, I've found them to be reasonably enjoyable to read through. And then I edit. Unless an NPC's family relationships are absolutely critical to the plot, I ignore them and let those things develop organically. I'm glaring at you, Matt Mercer. I also don't want to be forced into XYZ world for the story arc to fit successfully. I like the atory and plot of Netherdeep, but I don't want to be railroaded into a novel, as you mentioned.. That is a story that could easily take 3 or 4 years to complete. Thankyou for your analysis and suggestions for ither resources.
i completely rewrote the town with the dragon in LMoP. I made it into a cult that was using the dragon, milking it for its poison and using that to make a magic mind control potion. I gave the town a normal in the day and creepy at night vibe.
Very insightful. When I wrote for Dungeon Magazine back in the 90s, I tried to use "timeline" formats, but the editors wanted keyed encounters. One scenario was set it in a mansion. I didn't feel it was necessary to describe everything, just list the name of the room. They insisted I describe every location, including linen closets and the magical toilet! Since I was being paid by the word, I did as I was told. But there has always been a sense that newer DMs need everything written out for them.
That reminds me of my local university's bookstore. The books they had within, used for teaching classes, were literally loaded with entire paragraphs that weren't necessary to what they were teaching. I got the distinct impression that the publishers were getting paid for how large their books were, rather than how intelligent the content was...
🤔
It’s so wild to see how TSR changed from the 70s to 80s and then how WotC continued to trend of explaining every little thing. Early editions of the DMG and even Players Handbook assumed people were playing with the intention of making things up and creating their own worlds.
I would definitely prefer bullet-points and evocative area names... prepping a published adventure for me partly involves reducing all these descriptions down to a condensed format I can actually refer to during play! It doesn't help that I'm not running the games in English so if I want to use the boxed text I need to either translate it on the fly or prepare a translated version beforehand :/
And they sound unnatural when read. It's extremely obvious when you're reading aloud and when you're describing with your own words.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
I think the biggest problem I have with WotC modules is that they attempt to plan around what the PLAYERS will do, without any real possibility of success, rather than planning around what the antagonists want to do and letting the players find their path through all of that.
Very well said!
I completely agree. If you know antagonists' motivations and what they are doing, and then only reveal PART of that to the players... boom! You have a dramatic scenario. I love listening to my players try to piece things together.
I've tried running some modules for Starfinder and for quite a few NPCs there's a huge amount of Q & A offered that the writers believe the players should ask... but they almost never ask any of those questions. Maybe I'm not focusing on the right details, but I usually have to get creative to give the players the info they need which kind of sucks since I'm basically just telling them stuff instead of them learning on their own.
The flash of "Curse of Strahd" on the screen sits weirdly with me...
I've always seen this module resurrected (like Strahd, it won't stay gone) and almost always it seems to forget to deliver one particular thing to the DM: Strahd has a very clear goal (often different if I recall this correctly), and is both frighteningly intelligent and insufferably arrogant. There's absolutely no reason not to just... put a book out which details Barovia and what the players can do in it to try to foil Strahd's goal.
And yet the two more recent treatments I've checked out have seemed to revel in getting more complex and more lost in the weeds. "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft" seemed to want to show off a lot of cool things in 3.5, and "Curse of Strahd" seemed to suffer from wanting to structure a campaign in some flowchart of "if-then" things going on.
And yet... for being a mostly-linear path, "Strahd's Possession" on the PC felt a lot more like it captured the essence of this whole thing. It's probably a rather good treatment of the idea, even if it has many issues with being a CRPG.
I dunno. I like to think we should maybe get away from this idea of "published adventures" being necessary and instead publish books about *regions* with interesting hooks the DM can pull on. But you probably wouldn't be able to convince the suits in charge of the IP of this.
@@LoLCalmSnow ah the classic Paizo module issue. A fantastic book to read, but an awful module to run lol, they fall into the common trap of trying to “prep” for all the player options without realizing that the players will 100% find a way to sidestep all of it.
This is SOOO true. I've been complaining about how much time you have to spend to read through published adventures and still you don't get the feeling that you know enough to be "in control".
@atombrain111 you missed my point....I don't want more text, I want less text and more focused. Like bullet points in a presentation or a flow chart to follow the plot in just one page.
@atombrain111 why should I spend my time doing that if I'm paying for something? Anyway... enjoy your homework
@atombrain111 as Sly Flourish put it, those aren't flow charts; they're just a list of contents.
The issue is WotC has to put out a book size adventure to sell it. Stop and think how insane it is that the book expects to know exactly where the PCs will be after 40+ sessions.
“That is how you dm.” Who are you to say what dming is and isn’t? As someone who is not foreign to note-taking in the slightest (I end up as something of a chronicler for my table) I won’t dictate a minimum threshold of effort for every dm to play real dnd. Having distilled information would by definition be value added to MANY dms. Wizards can provide it or leave a hurdle in place for “real dms” to cross.
@atombrain111 Your ability to spectacularly miss the point is uncanny
This is where older editions of D&D reign supreme! Looking at the brief descriptions given in some of the earliest modules promotes and encourages new DMs to make their own notes and tables so that they develop the skills to become better at improvisation and thinking on our feet.
One of the countless reasons I refuse to DM anything without the TSR logo.
If it's put out by Wizards, in addition to it not being D&D it's crap.
Actualy the DM notes and block texts from Lost Mines of Phandelver taught me how to set the scene and I appreciated the explanations and all the text given to me as a brand new DM.
Dragon of Icespire Peak (Essentials kit) reduced these descriptions to a few lines but left a lot of freedom for a DM and a lot of gaps where the DM has to improvise. Theyre actualy quite good both for a new party and for a new DM
This is where I have found it useful to run modules from Tales from the Yawning Portal. I've been running through them with my group of 3 new players and 2 Pathfinder players. I've been learning to DM while they learn the 5e system.
I think the important thing is to use the modules to learn what NOT to do as well as what TO do. I can learn how to describe the surroundings, but recognize that the descriptions may need to be tweaked or augmented.
Also, this is proof that it's okay to make mistakes. Professionals made these modules and sometimes they have glaring errors or omissions. My homebrew campaign can have flaws, too. I just need to be ready to observe and learn from my mistakes.
Yeah, LMoP is great for new DMs because of this. This video is set up looking at things from an experts position and not from the view of a novice or intermediate DM. You can’t give 3 bullet points to a novice DM and expect them to have the confidence to run that encounter
@@bryanprillaman1857 exactly that. Its not meant for an experienced DM, it is meant for someone DMing or even playing DnD for the first time
What would you think of someone combining those two kits? I have both and will be DM first with my friends soon (we have never played before) and I wasnt sure which they would like best
@@codyvandal2860 I am 6 months late hope it went great, I did that in an adventure with my table and it worked great made the whole swordcoast seem like an open space to move around, tales of the yawning portal can also help with in between adventures
Love this. A good example of this habit *screwing* a new GM would be me attempting to run HotDQ, and realizing that after such extremely detailed notes for a few chapters, the book says "the party goes to the Harpers' office in [insert city here] and signs up", more or less. I'd been so used to explicitly following the book that I had no idea what to do beyond telling my players what they did over the next few days with no input from them. A whole city breezed through as framing. It left me pretty sour.
And then there's Curse of Strahd which at least details *every* location, but that led to feeling like if I didn't read through the *entire book* and have it down pat, something would go very wrong.
Next time I'm a game master I'm just making up a one-shot and going from there. Easier to remember things I've come up with than it is to memorize someone else's ideas.
Let me know if you'd rather people not do this, but the channel How to be a Great GM is starting a new weekly series based off of a book he's writing, focused on the idea that being a GM shouldn't be hard and it shouldn't be stressful. GMs are playing the game too, it should be fun.
Feel free to link it in the comments! We are all in this together! Any constructive idea is always welcome!!!
@@DungeonMasterpiece I considered linking it, but UA-cam has been very weary of links lately. Seems like whenever I put one in a comment it gets deleted by the automod.
@@colbyboucher6391 oooohhhh yeah I forget about that. Yt shits on links lol
A problem with how WotC structures their work flow is that multiple different parts of the module are being written independently and simultaneously, and you get these weird raw spots where Millie wrote what happened on Tuesday, and Bert wrote what happened on Friday, but how we get from A to B is just a post it note.
Something I've been working on to wean myself from module writing is to prep "inspirational quotes" for the NPCs that the party might encounter. Stuff like "Enum: [disdainfully] Mercenaries! Has the holy order fallen so far they refuse to send more of their own?" or "Heather: [strangely chipper deadpan] Good morrow, associates. Have you tried these root pies?" that gets me into their current mindset and what they'd want to say to the party if they decide to interact. I've gotten far enough that some characters don't even need them, I'm familiar with their mood and goals so I don't need a jump-start.
The side stories can absolutely pay off more than the main story. One of the three times I've played Phandelver, our group was able to capture the goblin guards outside of the cave entrance. Party bullied one of them into becoming basically a second Yeemik, and used her help to navigate the cave and defeat both Yeemik and Klarg. A bit of dragging her along for story questing later, teaching her how to be a good person with monetary rewards, and asking for her help to find Cragmaw Castle and depose King Grol, she decided that she'd be the new king and try to teach the local goblins to be nicer. Not fully LG starting a new country, but nice enough that Phandalin would effectively have a thieves' guild defending their caravans through the woods.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask also has this in the famous Kafei sidequest, where you learn piece by piece from taking on a missing persons report, to asking the innkeeper and getting a midnight rendezvous for more information, to stalking the mailman so you can sneak into an otherwise locked door, you get invested with unraveling this side-story that's almost fully removed from the main game's plot.
Watching this, I'm glad I'm DMing my first campaign as a homebrew. I'm almost never caught off-guard, and I'm always in a position to react perfectly to whatever the players want to do.
When I am caught off-guard...I can make up pretty much anything as long as it is fun, and I can remember it, without having to worry about stepping on a future plot or something.
Same. My whole universe started as a list of names for gods, a basic creation story, and a list of seven people who lived in a city.
Five years, two campaigns, and a dozen dozen of one shots later it's almost 100 towns in 15 nations on three continents, two planets, and a moon with 200 million years of history and a rather impressive list of historical figures and holidays.
I was blessed with players who love to ask questions and push limits.
My first campaign was homebrew too. It was a dumpster fire, but it was a dumpster fire that the party and I look upon fondly.
Getting in the way has been one of my biggest gripes in every DnD 5e adventure. I think you pretty much hit every one of my pain points I’ve had running them. Great video :)
The geopolitics videos are really helpful also…if oddly topical.
5e is broken. My only gripe.
@@davidbeppler3032 every edition is broken.
@@jlaw131985 Nope. Just 5e. Every other game ever made was perfect. When compared to 5e.
@@davidbeppler3032 sure.
Baron I absolutely love your channel! Your insight is so great. The points of interest you choose to extrapolate on are always perfect. Like the topics you pick are not topics other channels cover but wow once you lay it out it leaves me scratching my head realizing how did I not think of that! Please keep up the great work I promise I’ll keep watching and sharing
I've been running an adlib adventure for the past few sessions. Next to no prep, and the world building has been mostly in response to the jokes and personal story building the players have been doing. It's been the most fun campaign I've run or played in years.
I remember as a young adult my friends and I were just hanging out--no plans--when someone (might have been me) suggested we should play D&D. I elected to be DM, and I had to put together an idea while characters were being made. (This would have been slightly before 3E came out, so not a whole lot of prep work.) So I basically just ran with it. Basic 'found a burned caravan' hook, and then I just listened as the players interacted with the environment. And then I reacted. I didn't go along with everything they said in terms of ideas, but I found some threads and started weaving together a plot. By the end of the session, everyone agreed that it was the best D&D they'd ever played, and my 'eternal DM' status was forever cemented. For better or for worse.
So my #1 suggestion for improv is: listen. Listen and react.
Never run a pre made adventure from wotc, always made my own or stole one shots I could pull into my overarching story to help me prep faster. I always say prep smarter, not harder
Amen to this
I've done both, but in general I really don't like running AL games because you have to railroad your players soooo hard.
@@almisami I suppose it depends on the group, most things have rails and it can help groups that are reactionary and not assertive. I mix between; this is important and happening right now so deal with it and here are multiple options pick one
You don't need to do prep work with modules either. I certainly don't.
0:25 - Improv Injury
2:56 - Reinforced Railroading
5:07 - Overprepping-as-a-Service
These are great tips that you present here in this video. Thank you.
What WotC fil to convey through their products is the relationship between DM and player, and how each can find their own fun. This was more apparent in older versions of D&D (and other RPGs) because the maps were laid out, the dungeons/adventures described, and the motivations unfolded...in 16 page modules. They even began with "these are guidelines".
DMs are not babysitters, movie directors, authors, or monologue generation machines. To find happiness, I found that there were some very simple rules:
- Get comfortable being uncomfortable. In other words, improvisation is your friend.
- Know when to let go. Set the stage, describe the initial stage, then let the players take over. This creates changes the DM will not have expected, which is the fun. Why? Because discovery is part of the fun for the players too. This creates a DM creates-players react-DM reacts-player reacts (etc) dynamic that generates even more story hooks.
- I use natural language at the table, and reference descriptions that invoke emotional responses from the PCs. These may even be modern descriptions. "The town smells like (insert place they know) when it's hot outside and the sewage treatment facility is close". It may not be fantasy, but I'll bet you'll get that right feeling and facial cues of disgust.
- Communication is everything. HOW you communicate is essential. I tend to stand when DMing to better convey body language and any gestures that help descriptions. The clearer you communicate, the less time is spent having to explain things again.
- Don't bicker when you can arbitrate. Sometimes the players have valid ideas you didn't count on, and they deserve the credit. Also, your monsters, unless stated in some text, are neither geniuses nor morons. They act according to their natures, the environment, and their experiences.
- Think outside the stat block. People bitch at length about "X monster sucks. It's just a sack of hit points.". Untrue. It has a strength score. Calculate what it can plausibly lift or throw. If it has thumbs, it has tool use. If it has a language, it can communicate and establish allies and relationships. The list goes on.
- Be willing to throw everything away at a moment's notice because of a change in PC plans or actions. It's not like you can't reuse that material later re-skinned as something else.
- There's more behind value than just money and magic items. Friends, allies, pets, familiars, romances, lands, titles, medals, abilities granted by supernatural creatures/forces, maps to new locations, vehicles...the list goes on. Think. Beyond. The. Books.
- Learn your players' triggers. (No, not the character's triggers, the players'). Example, when I first taught my youngest how to play, she had a fondness for small cute creatures. So I generated one and placed it in peril. Heroics ensued.
Another example: I ran a table where two players hated all things creepy-crawly. Okay, so now there's a Hag who specializes in bugs. Horror and heroics followed.
D&D, and other RPGs, are both a minefield and treasure trove of mental gymnastics. Only experience will yield more of one than the others, and it's okay to steal ideas from other DMs, books, TV shows, movies, friends and family. Heck, I steal ideas from my own players, insert those ideas into my tales, and then they get to pat themselves on the back for "being right". They walk away happy and everyone wins.
Imma screenshot your comment here real quick, it ain't getting many likes rn but i wanna save it for myself. Thx mike.
Someone put a nickel in you.
bro you really took the time to write this. Maybe you should develop it even more, I agreed on everything, and would most certainly like to learn from such an experienced DM.
This so perfectly summed up my warning against new DMs using the older, pre-published WOTC 5e modules.
There is an entire “new-school” to module design that doesn’t do this too.
Also, in fairness, this has been a thing going back to the “high Gygaxian” of T1
This is a very good video, especially because it emphasises preparing environments with interesting things in them rather than having a specific set of interesting events planned.
I have been having trouble in my campaign recently because some of my players are treating the game like the story is pre-written even though it isn't. Sure, the bad guys have set up a situation where they need to be stopped urgently so there aren't many options, but there is still so much room for creativity that my players don't want to even try because they're afraid of choosing a 'wrong answer.' There is no wrong answer, and I tell them that, but they still feel like I'm railroading them. Like the meme "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas." I think this comes from the fact that they are viewing it as a story they are watching rather than a world they are living in. It's difficult to know if they just don't care about the world (which is a problem I've had as a player in other games), or if they genuinely think the only things that are possible are things I've already thought of.
Whatever the reason is, I think I can break them out of this behaviour by running a one-shot using a more improvisational system. That will hopefully spark a more creative approach to the game. Wish me luck.
Good luck indeed!!!
Inde-f**king-ed m8, tell us how it went/goes!
This is why I create my own adventures. Much more satisfying.
Found this channel yesterday and all I can say is I love it! This is such a great video coming from someone who has learned most of this stuff by trial and error. Being able to think on your feet and really respond to what your players are doing is a key skill
We used to get script-like examples of play in some editions to show how the DM-player group dialog works, imply combat survival expectations, and how the exploration rules fit together.
I love the use of Trilemma Adventures! Also, when you spoke about the bullet points vs paragraph texts for adventures all I could think about was Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland by Chris McDowall...both of which I adore and decided to use in my adventure writing! Love all this advice!
It would be interesting to have these books have a "summary" section that is meant to be used as an active running tool, while still having a section for a more detailed breakdown of people places and things that the DM can read just to get the setting and characters in their mind. I definitely find myself flipping around in books looking for information I know I read once but cannot find because it was in some block text in a section I wouldn't normally associate with the information I'm looking for. Having that 2 page summary spread would be a great help in just having all the core bits of info in one place while running that adventure.
I always took the 'organ transplant' approach to campaign books, hacking out the bits that I like and altering the connective tissue to graft them to my campaign.
I thought that Saltmarsh was an excellent example of what you're talking about. The adventures aren't originally from a single source, so the book instead suggests multiple ways to insert the adventure into a single campaign, or as one-offs in another campaign world. It includes suggestions for how characters and organizations from its adventures might overlap. Basically it's full of prompts without establishing any hard lines, perfect for improv.
Ive dm'd through lost mines and tyranny of dragons, and i like what they do. I think if you're following it to the letter, you weren't reading it right, alot of times in chapters they cover what was the purpose of people and the areas.
In lost mines my players skipped alot, in tyranny they didnt even go into greenrest, which the book explains then what to do, even after devoting a giant chapter to it.
The thing most people dislike is when theres not two tonnes of info, like in tyranny theres no info on baldurs gate. I just read a little and made it what i wanted.
I'm a huge fan of the formatting of Old School Essentials adventure modules. They use bullet points with important details in bold and no blocked text. Some OSE adventure modules even have the pertinent section of the map on the facing page of the details. It makes these adventures super easy to run and allows the DM the space needed to customize it and make it their own. I think they're absolutely fantastic for new Dungeon Masters such as myself.
i have barely started running one of the Old school modules and i ended up purchasing every module they have made so far because i love the way they are laid out and the quality of product..
My fondest memories were made when the players make decisions that cause the DM to put the book back on the shelf, I spent ages fleshing out a village and planning multiple paths players could aim towards but all that was thrown out the window when the players jumped back on their horses and rode for the nearest town.
The adventure that unfolded at the town was far better than anything I had planned, and they later returned to that village, so my prep had only made the lore of that village deeper as I had pages of notes of what each villager was up to 2 months before they returned. I even added some changes to the village since they last visited as the players lack of interaction with the village had knock on effects as they weren't present to help out the village during an attack that happened not long after they had left.
The players suddenly thought I had planned everything out months in advance, as there were too many coincidences to be random chance, they thought I was some kind of master mind that had predicted their every move when in reality I was going by the seat of my pants the entire time. They even accidentally completed 2 quests I had planned that they hadn't been given yet, one was finding a lost item and one was finding a missing boy who they had found and rescued a month ago on their travels from the village to the town.
that fleshed out village is actually how modules are meant to be used. Once I put a module in my own world it changes based on new geography and politics/plot. It becomes so different a new player once secretly tried to look up the module but they were only confused by it.
Speaking as a long term GM, I think the best way for new GMs to get their feet wet is with 1 page one shots.
They’re much less intimidating than modules and they actually demonstrate how to outline your own sessions.
I love how you said " Whatzee" as the abbreviation of WotC. I would have spelled it W-o-t-C of course in my native tongue.
Vay, oh, Tay, say?
@@DungeonMasterpiece Whiskey, Oscar, Tango, Charlie
I've always pronounced it as "Wottuck!"
Whenever I ran a “module” my group always understood that there were BIG air quotes because I more often than not did my own thing with a few key elements I liked from the module I read from.
I think I ended up doubling the length of Torment & Legacy doing that.
As a newish DM and player, I think I followed a typical path to learning. I started with free 'A potent Brew" and free rules. then moved to Lost mines of Phandelver. I feel that if all I was given was a few bullets of flavor text for goblin arrows I would have been lost. As a dm gets experience I think they are more comfortable making things up on the fly. Like anything new, you need a lot more guidance before you can just make stuff up on the fly.
Interesting you say that, because I feel like I most potent brew actually is a phenomenally well written adventure for a beginner dm, and doesn't fall into these same pitfalls.
I totally agree with you. I found very easy to DM the Lost Mine of Phandelver because there are a lot of details from which I can learn for future improvisation. At the very beginning I had no idea of what to think up.
It has been less than a year I'm DMing, we started Dragon of Icespire Peak. I printed the missions from dndbeyond, read all of them thoroughly and highlighted the most important detail. I also added notes for the parts of the plot I make up tailored on my players background and previous campaign (same player, same timeline, different characters). My prep is just a quick look at the mission and my - few - notes.
Box text is a great tool for new dms to stand on. And experience DMs will kick the box aside.
I'm not scanning any QR codes if I don't have to. I don't even have a QR scanner. This "get off my lawn" moment was brought to you by an old white man with 35 years DM experience
This video is full of great quotes for newer DMs, I've recommended it to several fellow DMs in just a few minutes. Thanks for the concise advice!
I thought that you would cover the *very* bad bits of adventure design (the bridge that takes away agency and the "scary" water hole in which your character can breath, in that adventure with the Beholder) but talking about how the presentation of published modules affect prep. is also a good subject. A module you might enjoy (and perhaps review?) is Fall of the Silverpine Watch!
I'll look it up!!
Just came across this vid. Great job, I am now a subscriber. I think the size of the module from WoTC is a simple function of $ / Pages. No one is going to shell out big bucks for a hand full of pages. The damage done to new DMs who think this is the norm is frustrating. As an OG DM from the 70s I still operate in the old ways. Thanks for the reinforcement and good analysis.
I have listened to all your UA-cam’s and they are fantastic!!! Thank you so much!
I was studying the LMoP material and making my own set of notes, but I've been putting off starting the game. One of the main reasons is a sense of relucatnce and anxiety, and this video really hits on why that is. There's all this information I feel I have to keep track of, then there are interactions and decisions I haven't specifically prepared for, and worrying about making sure it's consistent and fits well with everything else. So despite being "just a starter campaign", it's left me feeling completely overwhelmed.
After watching this, I feel I should strip away a lot of the non-essentials to give myself more freedom to improvise and come up with what seems appropriate in the moment. In fact, this was meant to be a practice campaign before attempting to make something myself. But I'm starting to wonder if the latter might actually be easier, despite the extra work needed to set it up. 🤔
Just read through it for entertainment once to get the idea of the story. Once you actually run it, then you adlib and don't waste time reading it at the table. You don't want to railroad your players anyway just respond to your players and you will naturally repurpose the module.
What actually helped me get past these shortcomings was running Lost Mines 4 different times for different groups - I ended up in completely different situations each time and on the 3rd time through, realized what I wanted to say was different than the text, so I started dropping it altogether. That said, having that text at first did help me to see how the writer intended to frame each scene. You're right that there's a bit too much information though.
Further to your point; when I want to prep an hour or so before the players arrive by skimming the module, the bloated content makes it hard to focus on the key points. The AD&D adventures of old used to highlight the key elements in boxed txt with expanded description below making for easy skimming. Now, boxed text usually means "read this to the players".
I like the bit where you point out that a 3-hour one shot is easier to present than a year-long campaign.
Crazy.
I love the Lost Mines of Phandelver, how it's a western in fantasy dress, the factions, and so on, but I didn't realize until this video how much work I had learned to do as an experienced DM to make these overwritten modules workable at the table. I would love to see a lean version of LMoP.
I ran LMoP also, and the only work I did session to session was making maps to put in my virtual tabletop for online play. Beyond that, I read through it once at the beginning, then scanned it a few minutes before people started logging on to play. I had the general outline and then just BSed the rest.
What you described here has been happening since printed adventures started hitting the shelves. DM's have always been picking out and expanding or shrinking what published material has to offer. The reality is simple, consumers want those big old books and the format that WOTC currently uses was developed in previous editions. The best point you make is that they are not new DM friendly adventures.
Also interesting about Lost Mines of Phandelver is that despite being the standard starting adventure for 5e, neither it nor the DMG explain how to read a dungeon map and key. So DMs without experience in editions that actually spelled it out (4e didn’t do this either) won’t know what to do with the information provided, because to the people who’ve been playing for decades and who wrote 5e skills like that seem self-evident, but they’re not.
What do you mean read a dungeon map and key? Isn't it all spelled out in numerical order?
Horror at Headstone Hill for the new edition of Deadlands is great. It's a sandbox, basically, so it gives quick descriptions of locations and inhabitants and gives multiple story hooks to throw at the players as a basic plot progresses in the background that players touch on as they go. It's a lot of info but if you just get the basics of it memorized/noted down you've got a campaign you can run for a while that the players have a lot of control over.
This advice is absolutely golden. Block text is the bane of any new DM, it massively breaks whatever tone the DM had unless they exactly match the author of the block text, and it comes with implicit assumptions about player goals and interests that almost never match the table.
My life has gotten ages better in the hobby since I started constraining myself to half an hour of prep - making bullet pointed lists of prompts and doing away with wotc style event chains. Huzzah!
PS: Trilemma is effin sweet, picked up one of their map packs for a couple bucks over christmas just to write my own adventures over. love them!
What's interesting is that the B series seems to imply that the block text was initially intended as a training wheel for people when dnd was still brand new, and the earliest editors may have invisioned a day where block text was completely filtered out. But before we ever got there the block text became "house style" for adventures and it was too late.
@@nicholascarter9158 that is a cool history. Block text does go back quite a way - maybe in the future we'll finally wean adventure authors off including it at all :D
Modules can also be a little railroaded (or a lot with some). Running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, and the module has a a chain of 10 mini-encounters that are expected to be done back to back immediately. After the 1st encounter, the players decided to rest before exploring the lead to the 2nd, so ended up waiting 12h rather than being hot on the antagonist's heels. During the 6th, the party killed an npc who they were supposed to chase. The module is written so specifically about what happens and when, that pretty much any unexpected action by players can cause a lull, while I try and piece the adventure back together, because up until this point, everything has been handed to me on a silver platter.
It also has rules on repairing, upgrading, and running a base given to the players at the start of the game. Except the adventure is supposed to be time sensitive, so if the module is run as is, and the players do nothing unexpected, there's a few pages of content that may never see the light of day. It's a fun adventure, but you're better off taking the starting chapter that give a broad outline of the adventure and overview of the villains' motivations.
Love the idea of bullet points and QR codes with training videos.
Have used the one page notes around the map as a great quick hitter that keeps me focused on the PCs antics
I'm dming my first real 5e game after years of other systems especially FATE and seeing the "read the box" for the "welcome to Phandalin" quest for the Dragon of Icespire peaks my intuition at first was like "this is boring I should just improv something better" and I'm happy to say this video has proven my intuition right.
Thank you
You are quite welcome. Im glad you decided that on your own!
In my opinion the "issue" lies more on how some people see the WotC books rather than the design of the book itself. Some see the information in there as a status quo that cannot be changed. Most of the books mention that the book is only a guide to what might happen and that nothing is set in stone. To me, railroading a prewritten moduel as a DM is a little like players believing that they can only solve encounters by fighting. I think what matters in the end is your creativity and what you make out of it. Of course, this becomes a problem when the DM does not allowe players to go out of what is written in the adventure. I personally run only premade adventures and never had issue but anyone is different.
Anyway, great video! and greate tie! I would have loved to see some advice to how still use WotC material wthout falling into some of these traps and improv them more :)
I plan on releasing some knockoff adventures on drivethrurpg that reorganize the adventures and change the names to protect the innocent: "Missing Caves of Flapdoodle" and the "Swears of Zorowitch" 😂
I am really enjoying your videos. I have been playing 1st edition AD&D since the late 70's and still love it. I have introduced many new players to 1st edition and they are enjoying it as well.
I think the boxed text is a bad habit from the early days when they would include both explanations and DM specific info in one paragraph and new DMs would accidentally read stuff that should not have been read. It just became a habit after that.
I've only DM'd for about a year now, and I've read so much advice, but this is truly the most actionable advice I've ever received from any source. My group is switching to pathfinder soon, which definitely seems to have much more organized and useful GM support, but the advice in this video will be staying in the front of my head while I read through modules. Thanks for the content!
You are quite welcome! I'm glad you find this so helpful!
This was quite handy for me. After a long break I am getting back as a DM and am prepping my first adventure at the moment and was (am?) on the edge of putting way too much time into it. This was a good video to focus back again.
Gonna be honest. Published module culture is complete alien to me. I've run Matt Colville's Delian Tomb like 10 times but other than that, I homebrew every game I run.
I was 100% with this right up until the very end when he said "It's your job to provide the plot." This might be a semantic issue, but I'd have said it's the DM's job to provide the *setting* and *situation* , whereas the "plot" (insofar as one exists) is generated by the PCs' actions in response to that situation within that setting.
Really appreciate these thoughts. Great to see your channel take off.
Thank you! Glad you appreciate them!
I will say that I feel the large paragraphs of description help a Game Master to learn how to flavour a scene. Maybe one or two examples after those series of bullet points you mentioned would be beneficial.
"Here's an example of how we would tell players about what they see using the bullet points:"
I'm playing in a 6 player, long running campaign. The same GM runs 2 others as well. If you put a 1pg dungeon in front of him, he'd read what's on the paper, and that's all, it would NOT work for him. He is a very popular GM, playing for 20yrs or so, but couldn't improvise if his life depended on it. I love the idea of the one page dungeon, but its a tough row to hoe, and I like improvising.
I'm blessed to have met some DM friends who have taught me this. Of all the helpful videos by all the helpful DM youtubers, this is the first video I would recommend to a fellow newbie DM.
Wow that's a high compliment! Not even pdm's DMing secrets?
That trilemma adventures site is a handy resource, and this video is, as all your vids have been so far, very helpful.
Thanks! As a newbie DM I got really worked up over dming my first session recently, which, btw, is the one mentioned in the video, the lost mines. I kinda felt like I just wanted to to do things differently than the book says, so I kinda just rolled with what I and my players did, and everybody liked that! Since that left me questioning if it's gonna hurt the campaign, you really helped to answer the question. I think, from now on, I'm just gonna borrow characters and encounter maps from the book, as well as some general plot, and try to roll with it! We'll see how it goes.
I started my DM carrer with the old "Das schwarze Auge" book in the 90s and even today I love them for their "play while you read" approach. You could basically buy the book in the morning and run it with your friends at the afternoon (which I did a few times).
- Every monster stat-block was in the book, and at the point in the book where it was needed (and also on one page, not split over two... I look at you PF AP^^).
- You had "read out loud" text you can read to your players which describes key areas of the adventure (e.g. what the characters see and feel when they approach the dark tower in the swamp)
- They had maps and sketches you could easily remove from the books as they were in the center and the books were only tacked.
- If something was related to a previous part of the book, it was clearly stated and referenced the site number
After running some PF/SF APs I really miss these features from modern adventure books, they feel more like a story book where 50% of the story is irrelevant to the adventure and which give you a bare base for an adventure.
I came into RPGs with 5E, as did my first DM. It took me a long while to unlearn some of the stuff you're saying. Luckily I came across the Sly Flourish book and climbed over the fence to greener pastures. If only I could go back in time and start out with DCC I could have saved a lot of time.
DCC should be everyone's first RPG.
My first DM-ing experience was running Dragon Heist about 5 years ago now. I quickly learned to use the module as a 'suggestion' and ignore much of what they said was this or that. Because let me tell you, if I didn't move key items around on a whim, my players would never have found them, and nothing would've ever gotten done.
At one point, two of my players tried to sneak into Jarlaxle's FOB for the adventure; no mention of that in the module! I had to take a 10-15 minute break and start frantically coming up with logical, plausible things they would encounter based on their rolls; and take into account the character races (a drow monk means no 'magic' sleep; wood elf ranger means probably some high perception checks)..
I set tripwires and pressure plates in the corridor to the shop basement they accessed from a well; i set a DC of 15 for the pressure plate and neither looked for traps.
Logically, I thought the first pressure plate would draw the ladder rungs into the wall where they entered from, so they can't escape. This made both PCs dash forward, still no search for traps, and failed passive perception checks for the tripwire that released toxins into the narrow space.
Still dashing, they ignored possible traps, and hit the second pressure plate, which barred the door infront of them. I did ask them if they wanted to check for traps repeatedly before they stepped into the next one, and they always refused. Asked for constitution saving throws, both failed first try.
Anyway, I decided that this would be Jarlaxle's warning to the party by dropping off both PCs onto the front steps of the inn the party was rewarded with. Coated in a fine dust of a canary yellow coloration to embarrass them a little.
Drow player, "Was this magical in nature? As an Elf, I can't be put to sleep by magical means."
Me, "It's a toxin derived from animals and plants. As a Drow, you're quite familiar with poisons and toxins from your time in the Underdark before your escape. As you're woken up by the rest of your party, you notice two Drow figures watching you from an alleyway across the thoroughfair. As you notice them, they turn and walk away. They wanted you to see them."
I thought I handled it pretty well for my first time. I'm more prepared now for players doing something not even in the modules. Things have gotten better, and I actually haven't run an official module since Dragon Heist; so that says something all on it's own.
I have DM'd a fair amount. Never even played an official module. I'm now trying an official campaign for a new group. This video is incredibly helpful as it reminds me to not get so bogged down in details that I'm going need to supplement anyway.
Baron de Ropp, converting 5e players to the OSR mindset since 2021. :P
SHHH DONT TELL THEM WHAT IM DOING!!
@@DungeonMasterpiece I immediately saw a parallel here between what you were outlining as good practice, and the DM'ing style I've played for years/decades. The OSR is not some seething pit of bad actors, it's a resource-rich group who've been through all the struggles of the game before. We may be grouchy - but we also have some wisdom.
I see Dungeon Masterpiece, I like and comment to appease the Dark God of the Algorithm
Sly Flourish's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is actually build around combating this problem. In short it is book full of techniques meant to alliviate the fact many GMs do too much prep by reducing and simplifying the steps needed to be taken in order to have good set of session notes. I highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with this issue
Read as "Reasons I don't run prebuilt modules". These are literally the biggest reasons I always run homebrew settings and campaigns.
me too!
so freaking true. when prepping i always read the module then just condense it into note point. its easy for me to find info and which to improv.
While I enjoyed the video and thought it was good advice, all I could think of was “those cradles are on point.” This is the first video I’ve watched of yours.
Some of the best modules I've found are more concerned with setting things up and preparing for what will happen if the players don't interfere than they are with trying to predict the actions of the players. And this I've found makes for a far better experience as a GM than most of what WotC has put out. The Bell Tolls for Kastor for Symbaroum is a good example of such an adventure. Giving the GM the setup for the scenario with location, key NPCs and motivations, and then having a ticking clock in the background with stuff that will happen and push the story along if the players are not able to act in time. While the adventure hardly had the most ground breaking of plots, I found it enjoyable to run, and my players seemed to really like it as well.
This is probably why I've actually able to work with more modules from Goodman Games because they do exactly what you're telling WotC do with the bullet points, and give the DM room to Improve. There are two exceptions so far to this, which is "the Well of Brass" and "Portal Under the stars", even then it's very short (for DCC). (It was also my first two real modules I Judged, so now I'm getting better and I'm noticing more modules do bullet points with maybe one or two quotes to get the voice of the NPC is expected to have.) The Faerie Tales from Unlit Shores series done by Daniel Bishop (also for DCC) is a really good example of the bullet point method and gives a lot of room to actually add your own stuff. It also gives room to really see what the players are into for fun and you can cater to their wants and needs as well. (Though Low-key, I already watched your OSR is like Carrot Cake video, has me curious your thoughts on some of the things that come out with Goodman Games and DCC, though Goodman Games DO have DnD 5e adventures under the "Fifth Edition Fantasy" titles due to copyright).
This makes me think of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths system. While these campaigns often have their own problems (especially if you play them as they're coming out, as is generally encouraged), I do think the fact that each book is usually self-contained by virtue of being a monthly release and by being relatively short, it makes it so that while there is block text, there is more often bullet points of speeches enemies will give rather than full descriptions. They even often say "these are the crucial points you should not miss", just in case a GM wants to hurry that bit along because they or their players find it boring, OR even in case the GM misses it entirely and has to backfill it in from another NPC.
Dude I really can’t thank your professional ass enough Excatly what you said about burning out I feel so bad right now I’m at the point preparing for dragon of icespire peak and it’s horrible becuase we still haven’t played one session and when I play one on one with my dad I feel as if I could’ve done better but this really helps a lot
Don't burn out! Just read the module, take some bullet point notes of what you think is important, and improv the rest!!!
@@DungeonMasterpiece dude that’s even better holy crap how long have you been a dm for this is gold tier stuff
@@_TheRealGinger since 1996. Lol
@@DungeonMasterpiece truly inspiring I have one last thing so now equipped with this I’m still kinda suffering from burnout was so excited to make huge worlds my brain was on overdrive now it’s hard for me to make a simple plot hook any videos or things you got or advice
@@_TheRealGinger Look up my video on fast session prep/adventure writing in less than 15 min, and my most recent video at the time of writing this comment, about how to write campaigns in one evening. Those two should get you going!
Very cool recommendations. Running one of those one shots this week! Thanks ❤️
I think the best WotC module I have flipped through for 5e is: Water Deep, Dungeon of the Mad Mage.
Instead of page upon page of prose about shit you can't process or remember it gives you a quick bullet point list of what's in each room. In the intro there's a description of what "everything that's not explained looks like"
The book is a 5th to 20th level mega dungeon, emphasis on mega. It doesn't have room for that silly prose, but it encourages a DM to improvise. (The dungeon also has random tunnels to nowhere, where the book mention that you can connect other dungeons you might want to run).
(several months later I comment) my favourite workaround for longer modules with more detailed descriptions (something that could certainly help new GMs learn what key points they should use in their own descriptions) to keep them from becoming a "novel" is to split the book up. This was, if not common, at least not unheard of in TSR modules to have a small booklet that could have broad information (factions, major NPCs, and new monster statblocks) to supplement the main dungeon, with the maps either printed on the inside of the removable cover or (if there were several different maps) inside another smaller booklet.
Actually, I'm not sure the covers were designed to be removable, but they'd all come off by the time I read them decades later...Anyway, for anyone looking to publish longer adventures, that's how I'd recommend doing it. The same goes for splitting files in pdf/ebook copies of games, I always have multiple tabs open to important information, so splitting books really makes navigation easier. One book of narrative info/keyed locations, one of background info and statblocks, and one of maps.
One-page dungeons *are* awesome though.
I only ever plan one (or at a push) two sides of A4. These mini-quest chains have hooks listed first, twists, and maybe a few names. The exact NPC stats or monsters (as well as maps) only get made when it looks like the players have taken up a line of investigation from the hooks or supprises. Furthermore, the locations are deliberately vague (on the road, in a town, at a tavern, in a city, etc.). That way, I have adventures ready and waiting that can happen wherever the players go. So I can come to the adventure with my setting notes and a sheet or two of paper.
Just one of the most interesting subjects I´ve heard of, this will help me as a DM indeed, thank you!
So glad!
Trilema Adventures are a perfect example of how to prep adventures. Also leaves plenty of open ends to explore later
The first chapter of the D&D 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide, entitled "running the game" actually teaches a new Dm how to well be an effective DM. it describes what a DM is and does, gives some examples of play style, and on pages 8,9 and 10 Includes an example of play. It then goes into detail about running a game session, knowing the pcs, the players and the rules, handling PC actions, changing rules, handling NPC actions even how to end a session.
it's very well written and actually taught me how to DM 22 years ago.
while the 5th eddtion DMG doesn't seem to do that. it's got lots of information on players types, narration styles, preparing a game session and a handful of other tidbits. but it doesn't seem to actually show you what a Dm does.
yes i know there's lots of videos out there and the book explicitly calls out using phones and tables etc to help. it simply doesn't seem to offer up an example IN the book.
This reminds me of how one of the encounters in Waterdeep Dragonheist had something like "as soon as the players reach the top of the tower they'll see some drow leaping from the tower top to some roof tops until they get to the wharf and if the players to reach the drow some how just come up with a reason they don't." Like only encouraging improv to ensure railroading...
I have never run a module in the first place. I've only ever homebrewed my own shit. I discovered modules later, and then began to lift certain parts of quests that I liked into my own campaign.
But there's nothing more fun than playing around in your own world, making shit up on the spot and then finding creative ways to make it make sense
My general rule of thumb is that the more narratively focused a game is (or potentially section of a campaign is); the more it will benefit from higher amounts of prep.
The more sandbox a game (or section) is, the more it will benefit from concise easily accessible information.
Often I will mix my approach in homebrew game prep, even in player driven narratives when they get stuck into something they appreciate I will put in more prep time and detailed efforts for important events/locations.
Improv is important, but it isn't the be all end all.
I personally don't find the issues you stated with most WotC adventures to be relevant to me, but I guess that is more to do with my natural tendency to break them down into 1-4 page easily referenced sheets for whatever session or set of sessions I will be running next and keep a running sheet of reminders regarding what players are interested in and what I need to foreshadow.
This isn't to say that they are well balanced and don't over provide information in many cases, they absolutely do. But I don't know many GMs who have actually struggled with "read it like a book" syndrome thankfully.
A great system to direct people to for looser prep structure and player driven progression imo is Forbidden Lands.
While I don't need dialogue for Campaigns, I'd REALLY love if WotC to give reccomended locations for all the NPCs, for example.
I'm preparing to run Strixhaven. It's my first non-homebrew campaign.
I think it's fine to expect me to make my own quests, but it'd be nice if the world itself had mechanical details for me to put story into i.e. timetables for lessons and characters. It seems like not much, but it's exactly the kind of work I'd like to have other people do.
This is one of the reason I love OSR games like Old School Essentials. Their adventure formats are so clean. I am a huge fan of one page adventures including the ones from Pinnacle Entertainment Group (PEG). They are nice and clean, too the point and give lots of room for the DM to go where the table is going rather than the book. I am excited to fined a new one page site in Trilema Adventures, thank you for the heads up! Great video as always!!!
I'll have to look up peg! Thanks for sharing 😊
I use a 2 page adventure spread with map often. Excellent video Ryan.
Thanks!
Your content is super good and I hope your subscriber count will start to pick up soon!
I can't think of a better way to start then a whole scripted module like Lost Mine of Phandelver because there are a lot of details from which I can learn for future improvisation.
I recently started Dragon of Icespire Peak. I printed the missions from dndbeyond, read all of them thoroughly and highlighted the most important details. I also added notes for the parts of the plot I made up tailored on my players background and previous campaign (same player, same timeline, different characters). My prep is just a quick look at the highlight and my - few - notes and took me 10-15 minutes.
I think it's totally fine and easy to start in a very scholastic approach (e.g. Lost Mine of Phandelver) and then move to less-detailed-easier-to-prep material once you are experienced enough.
The Trilema 2 pagers look very similar to the style of adventure I've developed over the years. I use index cards for encouters.
I love Trilemma Adventure's simple point crawl single page spreads. I've gotten more mileage out of one of these than entire chapter in WotC adventure modules or Paizo adventure paths. (as fun as the latter is, it does work best when you have a stack of bookmarks to skip around the book a lot)
Keep on the Borderland was amazing for creating a seemingly disjointed adventure and setting the DM up to tie it all together.
I love modules like "Neverland" or "The Dark of Hot springs Island" or "Tomb of Black Sand". The layout, the concise nature... they're so good and when I go back to Curse of Strahd, it's so jarring. I'm literally re-writing Castpe Ravenloft to update the layout...
Great info! One of the things I see often on groups and boards is, "I'm going to DM my first game using x module. What do I need to know?" So cringe. I try to get across that making a homebrew based on a simple premise is TONS easier than the prep to effectively run a module.
This reminds me a lot of the way Rolemaster/MERP by ICE would do their adventure modules. They would detail the environments, show maps and creature/NPC statistics, and discuss the political and cultural situations of the modules areas. They would then outline 3 or four scenarios in said area. They rarely, if ever, used block text to read out to the players. This gave the GM great leeway in how the scenarios would run. Now, while the GM can always change any module in D&D to their groups liking, often they feel they have to "follow the instructions", as it were; particularly newer GMs. It was a much better way of writing a module and excellent value for money because you got 3 or 4 scenarios and a detailed area of the world for the same price as a single D&D adventure.
While I agree with much of what you say... part of what you mention infers that the trend of gaming should be towards tech. Not everyone uses bar codes or runs their games using portable electronics... at least not yet. Older players and very young players might not have enough access to this to be able to reliably count on it.
As a DM through the years, I often found that I felt that prewritten box text gave me a good idea of where to start in learning how to describe a scene.
And last, An adventure like Lost Mines IS designed for brand new DMs. You mention that the adventure only gives base information for the starter scenario.., and that is true... It's really kind of a good thing. If you throw too many options at a new group, you will very quickly be likely to have a party latch on to things that the new DM might have NO idea how to run.Your example about the possible conflict between the Druids and the dragon, or players 'joining the dragon's cult' would involve the DM having at least some idea about this in advance...
One of LMoPs best design features, is that while it introduces a number of possible paths to pursue... it does so in a manner that allows the DM to run the adventure included, and then spend time later getting to run the attached 'red slipper' adventures, as they become more capable and more skilled at reading up on supplementary material and at the idea of creating their own encounters.
Throwing a DM into the deep end and effectively giving them enough to 'sink or swim' is, I believe unfair, and could easily cause less confident DMs to say the heck with it and give up in favor of a less harsh learning curve.
Just found your channel. I like your approach and thoughts. Well produced and thought-out content. Cheers 🥂
As a DM of a few years, pretty much all I do is point form important details as discussed in this video, and write up/find stat blocks for creatures or NPCs for combat. Everything else is either improvised, or made up the night before a game lol. I've had no complaints yet!
Oh man I HARD agree with the railroad aspect of this. Like in my first D&D campaign Savage tide my group read the campaign players guide. Reading about this bustling port city I made my swashbuckler a member of one of the many partician families noted in the city quarters. I referenced NPCs that may show up, both friendly hostile and indifferent. I also made myself aware of the current issues of the city such as the scarlet brotherhood’s presence. The story engages with the recent tragedy of the Vanderborn family, but the book as written is totally tone deaf to the possible party comp. We end up working for this noble family assuming we all would be willing servants. It also doesn’t offer much time for exploring the city between tasks. Then shortly enough the sea voyage kicks off and we never see this metropolis again, putting to waste all the happenings of the city.
Yea, I ran into this issue a few weeks ago with Lost Mine. First time DM and first time players. Imagine my shock when everything the book has planned for is completely unexplored! Campaign immediately derailed by the players on the goblin encounter lol. I couldn't just tell the players not to do what they do so I had to create new scenarios on the fly to accommodate this. Luckily I have gotten them back on the track of somewhat following the story and getting them to the dungeons but its muuuuuuch muuuuuuuuuuch different than what WotC had intended. I'm using the Lost Mine campaign book as more of a reference book than anything at this point.
I definitely feel that last one. After running Lost Mines of Phandelver I did think I also needed to prep that much for my own campaigns. I have gotten my prep under control though. I think the worst prep suggestions I've ever heard was actually from someone that suggested having a list of names, npcs and backup things like that because I have almost never needed them despite spending some time on them, while occasionally handy, more often its just a bunch of dead weight in the back of my notes.
The first one, I don't think is a big issue because the prewritten descriptions don't fill the same role as improv. Some DM's prewrite their area descriptions and such in the same manner and then still have to do improv on top of that for anything they did not think about in prep. I think having the prewitten material lifts some of those burdens once you're in game because you can refer to in in your improv.
Having come back to playing and dm'ing after a 23 year haitus, I admit to purchacing some WotC adventures on DDB to help me get back in to it.
So far, I've found them to be reasonably enjoyable to read through.
And then I edit.
Unless an NPC's family relationships are absolutely critical to the plot, I ignore them and let those things develop organically.
I'm glaring at you, Matt Mercer.
I also don't want to be forced into XYZ world for the story arc to fit successfully.
I like the atory and plot of Netherdeep, but I don't want to be railroaded into a novel, as you mentioned.. That is a story that could easily take 3 or 4 years to complete.
Thankyou for your analysis and suggestions for ither resources.
i completely rewrote the town with the dragon in LMoP. I made it into a cult that was using the dragon, milking it for its poison and using that to make a magic mind control potion. I gave the town a normal in the day and creepy at night vibe.