"Of course I want to murder them! What do you think I pulled that dragon out for?!?" There really needs to be an Omaze or Extra Life charity campaign to play at Joe's table.
@@theDontiilev I find, in the battles I enjoy playing, that challenge is fine, but the goal is that the party completes their objective. For example, the previous campaign we were in was great, until we found a dragon a couple levels early. Most of the party did survive, but it was about survival instead of enjoyment. A pause in fun to despretly attempt to survive until we can get into fun combats again. (Except for my little sister learning NOT to heal the dragon and to NOT shoot the rogue. That was worth it.) I say the best thing is for their to be an actual threat, but a high chance for player survival if they play their cards right. So there's only real danger of they screw up, like the tabaxi paladin jumping down the ladder most of the party was climbing down! (Still my sister, current campaign. We almost got tpked by a ladder, that was fun. I also forgot I had featherfall, so...)
@@theDontiilev Try their best? As a DM, I have a whole monster manual at my disposal which I can modify as a I please. If I want to kill my players, I don't even really have to try. If my tarrasque can't kill your level 1 aarakocra I'll add in another with wings. Killing players is easy even without modifying creatures. _Challenging_ players is the difficult but fun part. Spice up combat with new situations that must be overcome. It can be fairly simple stuff. You don't have certain resources at your disposal. The enemy is much more mobile on this battlefield than you are. You're surrounded and you backline exposed. The barbarian is turned turned against you. You're fighting on the roof of a subterranean lightning rail train and on initiative 20, a stalagmite effectively sweeps over an area of the map requiring saving throws. You absolutely cannot survive a combat encounter run by a DM trying to kill you so the the thing you claim to enjoy, you 've likely never really experienced.
@@oOPPHOo That tarrasque example is just deciding a player will die. Very different from what I enjoy. The latter examples sound like fun, IF they're considerably deadly. IMO a good DM will kill you when you're downed, but will make sure that it is your fault(or dice) if you're downed in the first place. It will never be because he decided your character will die and abused rules or changed the statblocks on the spot just to fuck you over. Summarizing, the tools must be fair an balanced, but the tactics must be relentless (dunno if that's apropriate word, sorry :P). That kinda encorporates roleplaying the NPC's/Monsters Intelligence. That's why I said: "If it's not abusive and rule-bendy PK, it's good PK.". And yes, I have experienced it, and it's nothing quite rare... It's just not the DM that refuses to kill your character because X or Y reason when it clearly should've been killed. But hey, that's just how I like my games. I'm not trying to prove it to be the superior DnD experience. I agree with a lot of @rmt3589 's comment. Especially that "Forgot Feather Fall" scenario. If a player screws up, there oughta be consequences.
"What to do when your players are ignoring the plot" [thumbnail is angel who goes on to seek eternal vengeance upon the descendents of her friends who abandoned her] Makes sense!
Making things modular is the best way to get out of these situations I think. If you're too tied to an event happening in a specific place or at a specific time then all you can do is cross your fingers, whereas if you can move stuff around you can always fudge it to make it fit the beliggerent party's whims. Even if there's a bit of important lore that has to happen at a time & place, & the party is elsewhere, you can also have it happen without them & create ripples through gossip or other events to make them aware of it. Big events going on elsewhere helps to make the world feel bigger, more alive, & can help with those ego players who keep wanting to domineer things if it's clear that their decision to do something else led to the party missing out on said event.
Exactly. Any encounter can be the right encounter; so always keep a spare generic dungeon map, puzzle, trap, and mini-boss up your sleeve. If all else fails, give your players a Mimic.
As an old man who has played since the White Box in the 70s I can agree with most (although wanting to kill the players was never one of my goals as a DM). of the advice. Be agile. Build dungeons that are general so it doesn't matter which way the players go they will always end up where you want them in the end. Have random scenarios that cover taverns, markets, dockyards etc just in case the characters decide to completely ignore your plot on the day. Never take it personally. If they want to spend the day playing the equivalent of gwent be prepared for it. Take the approach like playing Witcher for example. There is always this side path that will suddenly take your attention away from the main quest. Plan for that to happen in your games with generic stories which are designed to lead the characters back to the main quest subtly. And have fun!
Some advice from my group: work with your players. Sometimes, you can resolve an issue just by talking, and that issue doesnt have to be a bad thing. My group ended up uncovering something the DM wasn't fully ready for because we did something unexpected, and we were really interested in going to check it out, but he had several other things prepared that we had discovered earlier. He didn't want to give a poor experience by just re skinning things, especially since this was supposed to be an important place, so he let us as players know that (without giving details) and asked us to go elsewhere for now. We complied and came up with good in character reasons. We didn't learn anything about the place we didn't already know, and we gave the DM time to get it completed to his satisfaction. D&D is a social game, and theres no need to be mysterious if it'll ruin the game. The game is not players vs dm, the team is everyone at the table.
Either the EG/DB channel colab we've all been waiting for is finally upon us or this is an elaborate ruse to get Johnny back. Either way, I can't wait for the result!
If the terrible bad thing that happens is "just" them wanting to do another day of shopping or convercing with NPCs in the tavern just roll with it. Let the players have fun with the cool characters you've created, maybe add something extra like a new magical item they can purchase or a game of cards they play with tht character in the tavern or maybe a random bard shows up and pulls off a great show for the evening. This kind of stuff can be improvised or be prepared in advance and just kept as sidenotes in your papers in case a fitting situation comes up. And you'll get to show them your awesome dungeaon at a later session.
I know this totally isn't happening ever and especially not sometime this year but i'm now really curious as to how Ian would play dungeons and dragons, to which group of gods do I pray to try and make such an event happen.
A few times when my player group was doinking around rather than getting after my planned plot, I just switched to Metagaming. Said hey folks, my basic plan was along the line X. Do you want to pursue that or stick what's going on? (One time I sabotaged myself with an offhand mention of a underground fight club and suddenly the whole group wanted to find that and interact with it rather than look into the crazy new law pronouncements from the criers). If they are more interested in the rando thing I take a 10 minute break to brainstorm a few ideas and then that's the new plot for the session. If not, we hop back on track.
Just finished a session were the players used a talisman to bypass all my traps and monsters. They had unknowingly used it to summon the recurring big bad into the dungeon and on the way out he tripped all the traps and cleared it for them. All they saw was me rolling dice and working the reactions to their presence.
I got the notification for this video as i was DMing my party today. We agreed that it was a bad omen for what was to come. Sure enough the half orc bard/druid decided to blow up a room with another party member and 8 Lizardfolk with a fireball. We all failed our saving throws.
More of a GURPS guy, myself... Started with D&D back in the mid 80's... so there's that... (lolz) "All roads lead to Rome" is a good idiosophy to follow. Basically, just reskinning stat-blocks to fit whatever situation you (as GM) have embraced as it comes works well... Never let the Players see behind the screen, so they won't know where you've "fudged" things to make the game work... It's exactly that "magic" that separates RP from Video Games and "Platformers" that let you go so far... but still bend around code, so have to be relatively linear. I was once asked "How do you plot a D&D Campaign?" ... As it happened, I was cooking pasta at the time, so while the spaghetti drained in a colander, I gobbed out a handful of the noodles, and hurled them at the wall... splat... "Like that"... I pointed at the new "art piece" I'd just created. "There's your plotline... so go for it." The truth is, I don't. I create problems, enemies, nemeses, and traps... I get as creative as I can about how everything works, and then let the PC's stumble through the best they can manage... When it goes "off book" so be it, and since I didn't really plot anything to begin with, I can embrace it. I learned a LONG time ago, that as soon as you start plotting, you've already f'ed up... No plan survives (unscathed) first contact with Players... ever. Never EVER let the rules get in the way of the Game. That's right. You SHOULD refer to "RAW" as much as possible, so the game has some structure to it. It should be relatively predictable and reasonable... BUT when stuff needs to happen, even when the rules restrict it... LET STUFF HAPPEN... and understand that sometimes, that's okay, too. Never panic. Okay, so you've practiced and read up, and worked hard to have a better than average mind, AND you've educated yourself to have a greater than average repertoire for the Players to pick at... Now, what's the point of ALL that, when you reach a moment that you NEED it most, and by panic, you haven't got access to any of it. You're trapped (in panic mode) by fight/flight/freeze up... SO Why then did you bother with any (let alone ALL) the prep? Embrace it. It's GOING off the rails. That's a fact of life... so improvise, adapt, and you shall overcome... The story? That's going to happen anyways... We're all just as invested, and none of us Players are going to tell anyone any different. I didn't complain when I dove down the throat of a Terrasque, and broke my ring of fireballs to unleash it's power in its rawest form (a homebrew ideal)... I'd have been happy enough dying on the spot... The fact that I blew myself out the Terrasque's backside "literally" and left a burnt-out husk behind was so supremely bonus, it was the kind of thing our table called "Legend"... It's probably silly to most of the audience who ever reads this... BUT to us, at the time, it was EPIC... AND that PC was one of our most beloved... The Players who were involved didn't complain when I determined that the secret to becoming a Lich was to MURDER the one most important person to that Character... AND the lich was a needed thing in the story... Our Necromancer took up the responsibility, murdered his wife... a "Heaven's Gate" stabbing... and there wasn't a dry eye in the hotel lobby, even among people who didn't Play... We had to call a break, and take time "to compose ourselves" because I didn't like the terms "cry like a bunch of little girls"... Stories get shared. They're not always the stories we expect to share... BUT we work together, and it IS paramount that we work within our Players' reasonable sensitivities. Had there been a problem with "murder" or any of the other darker subjects, OF COURSE I'd have backed off... There's more ways to kill a cat than choke it to death on strawberries, you know. ;o)
@@jorvach9874 Yes... in point of fact, it's become one of my favorite analogies whenever there's spaghetti nearby an "RPG" conversation. AND you do know that you can copy-paste it to a text document to peruse at your leisure... Right? ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 Yep, I know. Although I didn't think of it at the time, haha! :) Thanks for your reply! May the Flying Spaghetti Monster touch you with his noodly appendage!
Sometimes it is as simple as listening to your players it is totally ok to hand your players early on a simple questionnaire with like a triangle social combat and exploration in each corner and ask them to place a dot in it representing where there focus is in the gime ie does 4/5 of your players not have much interest in combat maybe put more focus on making negotiations with the foes
I have only DMed one campaign, it was a short tutorial module on a virtual tabletop system that I later homebrewed a continuation. Two of my three players made it to the first session, and wiped on the tutorial fight. Since it took place in the home of their teacher, she ran into the room and got them out. One of my players convinced me to let him play a second (simultaneous) character. Near the end of the "book' part, his second character became a little paranoid against the rest of the party. And me wanting to see where this was going but also not wanting to see the party wipe from infighting and then a boss battle afterward, I secretly set a timer and let the scene play out. Our dragonborn ranger not taking too kindly to our paranoid drow (can't remember class) threatening to kill the rest of the party blasted her with his ice breath, and then shortly before battle could begin, I interrupted with the boss showing up into the room (the players were opening a locked vault the boss couldn't open), and the plotted battle started proper. Later on in the part I needed to homebrew, the players had the McGuffin, and were in a Dwarven city built in, on, and around a volcano where they were planning to toss said McGuffin into. Since the city government was centered around the opening, they met up with some of the city leaders and discovered the importance of the item. They also met up with one leader that was secretly part of the cult looking for the item. Gave it to him to look at. *I* never said he gave it back after looking at it. I also made the sin of having a DM NPC travel with the party. Before parting ways with the cult leader, I had the companion remind the party said leader never gave them back the item. Haven't played that campaign in months, but on the bright side, that storyline was completed, so, there's that.
I remember during the first session I DM'd, one of my players wanted to follow a guy that had nothing to do with the plot of the story I was telling, so I set a high Dex Stealth check...they rolled a natural 20. So, I ended up making this guy part of the narrative & shifted an encounter they were supposed to have elsewhere towards the end of the session to this area & then, after some combat that I placed to give me time to rejig a few things, I gave them the info they needed to get back to where I wanted them.
The first time I played DnD we were doing a One Shot as Demon Hunters who were sent though a portal to find what was causing said portals and cause them to stop. The room had a 3 Minotaur chained up and a large bonfire. We spent an entire hour talking to Minotaur trying to feed them and get them to help us. They couldn't fit though the door ways to get into the next room.
Lovely video you guys. It appears you are going to start some type of D&D campaign, judging from the hints given. Aoife, I hope you can convince your lovely partner and his sidekick Cam to join, even if only as a short term guest appearance. It would be fantastic to see Cam, Seb, and Johnny together in an adventure, kind of an old Gamespot reunion on camera. Just a thought.
I came here thinking this video would make me more confident and prepared to run a game... but now I'm truly terrified to run them. I don't know why that happened.
I’ve always wanted to play D&D but none of my friends are into it so I’ve never had the chance :( . I even bought it and said I’d DM (even though I’ve never played) but I just could not get anyone else interested. I really hope you guys are going to play on the channel so I can live vicariously through you :)
I'm interested in playing but there are no games near me that I know of. I have heard some people say that there are ways to play online, not the same as the real thing but I guess that could work, no idea where to start though!
Banquet42 I’ve heard of playing online too but that’s quite intimidating being a new player and then also trying to learn the rules and meeting all these new people. Hopefully one day we can both find groups of people who will wanna play.
When you craft this gorgeous adventure that requires them to go up and they find a way down....bust out Temple of Elemental Evil or Tomb of Horrors!! That will fix everything really fast. (Mostly by having a lot of dead PC's). And yes I've had to do this a couple times and it works like a charm!!
I'm naming my next goblin Ian because of this intro. Among other reasons lol Edit: I love joe manganiello. My players know I'm trying to kill them as much as possible. We're playing Tomb of Annihilation. It's in the damn name!
of course i am trying to kill my players.... tbh thats the worst kind of dm in my opinion,... yeah challenge them and if they fuck up let them die,. but deliberately trying to kill them? i know many players and even some that enjoy being killed in a hard fight that they lost.. becuase it meant something,.. but dying because the dm decided he wanted to kill them? thats a really bad way of running a campaign. no one besides the dm will have fun with that playstyle, because a dm even without needing divine intervention can just have a dragon or tarasque stomp on them with level 1 and new character.... rinse repeat,...
I would have loved to see Johnny here if only to see him go -"oh now you guys do d&d videos" or something like that
Always remember no one can resist the urge to talk to boblin the goblin.
"Of course I want to murder them! What do you think I pulled that dragon out for?!?"
There really needs to be an Omaze or Extra Life charity campaign to play at Joe's table.
I personally don't like this approach as a player or a GM. It shouldn't be GM vs players, it should be GM and players writing a story together.
@@rmt3589 I'd find a game where the DM is not trying his best to kill me in combat very boring.
If it's not abusive and rule-bendy PK, it's good PK.
@@theDontiilev I find, in the battles I enjoy playing, that challenge is fine, but the goal is that the party completes their objective. For example, the previous campaign we were in was great, until we found a dragon a couple levels early. Most of the party did survive, but it was about survival instead of enjoyment. A pause in fun to despretly attempt to survive until we can get into fun combats again. (Except for my little sister learning NOT to heal the dragon and to NOT shoot the rogue. That was worth it.)
I say the best thing is for their to be an actual threat, but a high chance for player survival if they play their cards right. So there's only real danger of they screw up, like the tabaxi paladin jumping down the ladder most of the party was climbing down! (Still my sister, current campaign. We almost got tpked by a ladder, that was fun. I also forgot I had featherfall, so...)
@@theDontiilev Try their best? As a DM, I have a whole monster manual at my disposal which I can modify as a I please. If I want to kill my players, I don't even really have to try. If my tarrasque can't kill your level 1 aarakocra I'll add in another with wings. Killing players is easy even without modifying creatures. _Challenging_ players is the difficult but fun part. Spice up combat with new situations that must be overcome. It can be fairly simple stuff. You don't have certain resources at your disposal. The enemy is much more mobile on this battlefield than you are. You're surrounded and you backline exposed. The barbarian is turned turned against you. You're fighting on the roof of a subterranean lightning rail train and on initiative 20, a stalagmite effectively sweeps over an area of the map requiring saving throws.
You absolutely cannot survive a combat encounter run by a DM trying to kill you so the the thing you claim to enjoy, you 've likely never really experienced.
@@oOPPHOo That tarrasque example is just deciding a player will die. Very different from what I enjoy. The latter examples sound like fun, IF they're considerably deadly.
IMO a good DM will kill you when you're downed, but will make sure that it is your fault(or dice) if you're downed in the first place. It will never be because he decided your character will die and abused rules or changed the statblocks on the spot just to fuck you over.
Summarizing, the tools must be fair an balanced, but the tactics must be relentless (dunno if that's apropriate word, sorry :P). That kinda encorporates roleplaying the NPC's/Monsters Intelligence. That's why I said: "If it's not abusive and rule-bendy PK, it's good PK.". And yes, I have experienced it, and it's nothing quite rare... It's just not the DM that refuses to kill your character because X or Y reason when it clearly should've been killed.
But hey, that's just how I like my games. I'm not trying to prove it to be the superior DnD experience. I agree with a lot of @rmt3589 's comment. Especially that "Forgot Feather Fall" scenario. If a player screws up, there oughta be consequences.
"What to do when your players are ignoring the plot"
[thumbnail is angel who goes on to seek eternal vengeance upon the descendents of her friends who abandoned her]
Makes sense!
Making things modular is the best way to get out of these situations I think. If you're too tied to an event happening in a specific place or at a specific time then all you can do is cross your fingers, whereas if you can move stuff around you can always fudge it to make it fit the beliggerent party's whims. Even if there's a bit of important lore that has to happen at a time & place, & the party is elsewhere, you can also have it happen without them & create ripples through gossip or other events to make them aware of it. Big events going on elsewhere helps to make the world feel bigger, more alive, & can help with those ego players who keep wanting to domineer things if it's clear that their decision to do something else led to the party missing out on said event.
Exactly. Any encounter can be the right encounter; so always keep a spare generic dungeon map, puzzle, trap, and mini-boss up your sleeve.
If all else fails, give your players a Mimic.
As an old man who has played since the White Box in the 70s I can agree with most (although wanting to kill the players was never one of my goals as a DM). of the advice. Be agile. Build dungeons that are general so it doesn't matter which way the players go they will always end up where you want them in the end. Have random scenarios that cover taverns, markets, dockyards etc just in case the characters decide to completely ignore your plot on the day. Never take it personally. If they want to spend the day playing the equivalent of gwent be prepared for it. Take the approach like playing Witcher for example. There is always this side path that will suddenly take your attention away from the main quest. Plan for that to happen in your games with generic stories which are designed to lead the characters back to the main quest subtly. And have fun!
The music is surprisingly christmassy for some reason.
Really, It's more Halloween-esque to me
long story short: improvise, adapt, overcome
Some advice from my group: work with your players. Sometimes, you can resolve an issue just by talking, and that issue doesnt have to be a bad thing. My group ended up uncovering something the DM wasn't fully ready for because we did something unexpected, and we were really interested in going to check it out, but he had several other things prepared that we had discovered earlier. He didn't want to give a poor experience by just re skinning things, especially since this was supposed to be an important place, so he let us as players know that (without giving details) and asked us to go elsewhere for now. We complied and came up with good in character reasons. We didn't learn anything about the place we didn't already know, and we gave the DM time to get it completed to his satisfaction. D&D is a social game, and theres no need to be mysterious if it'll ruin the game. The game is not players vs dm, the team is everyone at the table.
I’ve only DM’d three times and 6 out the 8 things happened. Happy to have handled the situations as they advised here.
Either the EG/DB channel colab we've all been waiting for is finally upon us or this is an elaborate ruse to get Johnny back. Either way, I can't wait for the result!
If the terrible bad thing that happens is "just" them wanting to do another day of shopping or convercing with NPCs in the tavern just roll with it. Let the players have fun with the cool characters you've created, maybe add something extra like a new magical item they can purchase or a game of cards they play with tht character in the tavern or maybe a random bard shows up and pulls off a great show for the evening. This kind of stuff can be improvised or be prepared in advance and just kept as sidenotes in your papers in case a fitting situation comes up.
And you'll get to show them your awesome dungeaon at a later session.
I know this totally isn't happening ever and especially not sometime this year but i'm now really curious as to how Ian would play dungeons and dragons, to which group of gods do I pray to try and make such an event happen.
Brock Sisson well... seems like your prayers were heard or something ;)
A few times when my player group was doinking around rather than getting after my planned plot, I just switched to Metagaming. Said hey folks, my basic plan was along the line X. Do you want to pursue that or stick what's going on? (One time I sabotaged myself with an offhand mention of a underground fight club and suddenly the whole group wanted to find that and interact with it rather than look into the crazy new law pronouncements from the criers). If they are more interested in the rando thing I take a 10 minute break to brainstorm a few ideas and then that's the new plot for the session. If not, we hop back on track.
Just finished a session were the players used a talisman to bypass all my traps and monsters. They had unknowingly used it to summon the recurring big bad into the dungeon and on the way out he tripped all the traps and cleared it for them. All they saw was me rolling dice and working the reactions to their presence.
okay.. okay! Don't Panic! Eurogamers get into D&D.. Don't panic.. don't panic... OMG thats ossum!!
Thank you for publishing this video these tips have been very helpful for my unruly group of beginning players.
I got the notification for this video as i was DMing my party today. We agreed that it was a bad omen for what was to come. Sure enough the half orc bard/druid decided to blow up a room with another party member and 8 Lizardfolk with a fireball. We all failed our saving throws.
More of a GURPS guy, myself... Started with D&D back in the mid 80's... so there's that... (lolz)
"All roads lead to Rome" is a good idiosophy to follow. Basically, just reskinning stat-blocks to fit whatever situation you (as GM) have embraced as it comes works well... Never let the Players see behind the screen, so they won't know where you've "fudged" things to make the game work... It's exactly that "magic" that separates RP from Video Games and "Platformers" that let you go so far... but still bend around code, so have to be relatively linear.
I was once asked "How do you plot a D&D Campaign?" ... As it happened, I was cooking pasta at the time, so while the spaghetti drained in a colander, I gobbed out a handful of the noodles, and hurled them at the wall... splat... "Like that"... I pointed at the new "art piece" I'd just created. "There's your plotline... so go for it."
The truth is, I don't. I create problems, enemies, nemeses, and traps... I get as creative as I can about how everything works, and then let the PC's stumble through the best they can manage... When it goes "off book" so be it, and since I didn't really plot anything to begin with, I can embrace it. I learned a LONG time ago, that as soon as you start plotting, you've already f'ed up...
No plan survives (unscathed) first contact with Players... ever.
Never EVER let the rules get in the way of the Game.
That's right. You SHOULD refer to "RAW" as much as possible, so the game has some structure to it. It should be relatively predictable and reasonable... BUT when stuff needs to happen, even when the rules restrict it... LET STUFF HAPPEN... and understand that sometimes, that's okay, too.
Never panic.
Okay, so you've practiced and read up, and worked hard to have a better than average mind, AND you've educated yourself to have a greater than average repertoire for the Players to pick at... Now, what's the point of ALL that, when you reach a moment that you NEED it most, and by panic, you haven't got access to any of it. You're trapped (in panic mode) by fight/flight/freeze up... SO Why then did you bother with any (let alone ALL) the prep?
Embrace it. It's GOING off the rails. That's a fact of life... so improvise, adapt, and you shall overcome... The story? That's going to happen anyways... We're all just as invested, and none of us Players are going to tell anyone any different.
I didn't complain when I dove down the throat of a Terrasque, and broke my ring of fireballs to unleash it's power in its rawest form (a homebrew ideal)... I'd have been happy enough dying on the spot... The fact that I blew myself out the Terrasque's backside "literally" and left a burnt-out husk behind was so supremely bonus, it was the kind of thing our table called "Legend"... It's probably silly to most of the audience who ever reads this... BUT to us, at the time, it was EPIC... AND that PC was one of our most beloved...
The Players who were involved didn't complain when I determined that the secret to becoming a Lich was to MURDER the one most important person to that Character... AND the lich was a needed thing in the story... Our Necromancer took up the responsibility, murdered his wife... a "Heaven's Gate" stabbing... and there wasn't a dry eye in the hotel lobby, even among people who didn't Play... We had to call a break, and take time "to compose ourselves" because I didn't like the terms "cry like a bunch of little girls"...
Stories get shared. They're not always the stories we expect to share... BUT we work together, and it IS paramount that we work within our Players' reasonable sensitivities. Had there been a problem with "murder" or any of the other darker subjects, OF COURSE I'd have backed off... There's more ways to kill a cat than choke it to death on strawberries, you know. ;o)
TL:DR, but...
Did the pasta thing really happen?
@@jorvach9874 Yes... in point of fact, it's become one of my favorite analogies whenever there's spaghetti nearby an "RPG" conversation.
AND you do know that you can copy-paste it to a text document to peruse at your leisure... Right? ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 Yep, I know. Although I didn't think of it at the time, haha! :)
Thanks for your reply!
May the Flying Spaghetti Monster touch you with his noodly appendage!
Sometimes it is as simple as listening to your players it is totally ok to hand your players early on a simple questionnaire with like a triangle social combat and exploration in each corner and ask them to place a dot in it representing where there focus is in the gime ie does 4/5 of your players not have much interest in combat maybe put more focus on making negotiations with the foes
I have only DMed one campaign, it was a short tutorial module on a virtual tabletop system that I later homebrewed a continuation. Two of my three players made it to the first session, and wiped on the tutorial fight. Since it took place in the home of their teacher, she ran into the room and got them out. One of my players convinced me to let him play a second (simultaneous) character. Near the end of the "book' part, his second character became a little paranoid against the rest of the party. And me wanting to see where this was going but also not wanting to see the party wipe from infighting and then a boss battle afterward, I secretly set a timer and let the scene play out. Our dragonborn ranger not taking too kindly to our paranoid drow (can't remember class) threatening to kill the rest of the party blasted her with his ice breath, and then shortly before battle could begin, I interrupted with the boss showing up into the room (the players were opening a locked vault the boss couldn't open), and the plotted battle started proper.
Later on in the part I needed to homebrew, the players had the McGuffin, and were in a Dwarven city built in, on, and around a volcano where they were planning to toss said McGuffin into. Since the city government was centered around the opening, they met up with some of the city leaders and discovered the importance of the item. They also met up with one leader that was secretly part of the cult looking for the item. Gave it to him to look at. *I* never said he gave it back after looking at it. I also made the sin of having a DM NPC travel with the party. Before parting ways with the cult leader, I had the companion remind the party said leader never gave them back the item.
Haven't played that campaign in months, but on the bright side, that storyline was completed, so, there's that.
I remember during the first session I DM'd, one of my players wanted to follow a guy that had nothing to do with the plot of the story I was telling, so I set a high Dex Stealth check...they rolled a natural 20. So, I ended up making this guy part of the narrative & shifted an encounter they were supposed to have elsewhere towards the end of the session to this area & then, after some combat that I placed to give me time to rejig a few things, I gave them the info they needed to get back to where I wanted them.
Great video full of great advice.
Awesome job, EG.
The first time I played DnD we were doing a One Shot as Demon Hunters who were sent though a portal to find what was causing said portals and cause them to stop. The room had a 3 Minotaur chained up and a large bonfire. We spent an entire hour talking to Minotaur trying to feed them and get them to help us. They couldn't fit though the door ways to get into the next room.
They're not as minor as they sound..
Improvise, Adapte, Overcome.
Lovely video you guys. It appears you are going to start some type of D&D campaign, judging from the hints given. Aoife, I hope you can convince your lovely partner and his sidekick Cam to join, even if only as a short term guest appearance. It would be fantastic to see Cam, Seb, and Johnny together in an adventure, kind of an old Gamespot reunion on camera. Just a thought.
I came here thinking this video would make me more confident and prepared to run a game... but now I'm truly terrified to run them. I don't know why that happened.
I'm a DMIT(Dungeon Master in Training)
I love how Joe handles mastering lol that is the spirit!
I just had to completely scrap the game plan for the session because the PCs said the wrong thing to a NPC.
I’ve always wanted to play D&D but none of my friends are into it so I’ve never had the chance :( . I even bought it and said I’d DM (even though I’ve never played) but I just could not get anyone else interested. I really hope you guys are going to play on the channel so I can live vicariously through you :)
I'm interested in playing but there are no games near me that I know of. I have heard some people say that there are ways to play online, not the same as the real thing but I guess that could work, no idea where to start though!
Banquet42 I’ve heard of playing online too but that’s quite intimidating being a new player and then also trying to learn the rules and meeting all these new people. Hopefully one day we can both find groups of people who will wanna play.
@@stace218 hope so, good luck! :)
@Colin Deal Thank you!
Colin Deal that sounds good I might check those out. Thank you so much!
Why do Eurogamer videos never get the views they deserve? Crying shame
Don't forget, even nowadays DnD (or Pen and Paper RPGs in general) are still relatively niche tpics.
@Ariel Shapiro True, i guess ... i mean, i'm here as well, and i've never played D&D either (and sadly, most likely never will).
I thought this was about direct messaging till I saw the thumbnail-
When you craft this gorgeous adventure that requires them to go up and they find a way down....bust out Temple of Elemental Evil or Tomb of Horrors!! That will fix everything really fast. (Mostly by having a lot of dead PC's). And yes I've had to do this a couple times and it works like a charm!!
Nobody ever turns around & goes back the way they came.
I'm naming my next goblin Ian because of this intro. Among other reasons lol Edit: I love joe manganiello. My players know I'm trying to kill them as much as possible. We're playing Tomb of Annihilation. It's in the damn name!
I especially like that #8 was to TPK! Haha
I love it when player's go off script. It give me a chance to find a creative way to get them back on track.
And it will...go Horribly wrong.
Now if i could just find a dm and group lol
Discord! Or come to my tabletop cafe I want to open when it does open, but it’s gonna be awhile so maybe discord is a better bet 😂
of course i am trying to kill my players....
tbh thats the worst kind of dm in my opinion,... yeah challenge them and if they fuck up let them die,. but deliberately trying to kill them? i know many players and even some that enjoy being killed in a hard fight that they lost.. becuase it meant something,.. but dying because the dm decided he wanted to kill them? thats a really bad way of running a campaign.
no one besides the dm will have fun with that playstyle, because a dm even without needing divine intervention can just have a dragon or tarasque stomp on them with level 1 and new character.... rinse repeat,...