Basically every campaign I've played has started like that. Getting sick of DnD because I feel my character never fits in when campaigns start like that...
Yeah, I try my best to get an idea of who my players are gonna be before I run my first session. If possible, I stay involved in the character creation process. Knowing everyone's prologue before the story starts makes tying them in and keeping things interesting that much easier.
You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that imperial ambush, and that thief over there. Lokir: Damn you Stormcloaks... Skyrim was fine until you came along! Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn’t been looking for you I’d have stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell. You there, you and me, we shouldn’t be here. It’s these Stormcloaks the Empire wants. Ralof: We’re all brothers and sisters in binds now. Driver: Shut up back there. Lokir: looks at Ulfric What’s wrong with him, huh? Ralof: Watch your tongue! You’re speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King. Lokir: Ulfric? The Jarl of Windhelm? You’re the leader of the rebellion... if they’ve captured you... oh gods, where are they taking us? Ralof: I don’t know where we’re going, but Sovngarde awaits. Lokir: No, This can’t be happening! This isn’t happening! Ralof: Hey, what village are you from horse-thief? Lokir: Why do you care? Ralof: A Nord’s last thoughts should be of home. Lokir: Rorikstead. I’m from Rorikstead. Hadvar: General Tullius sir! The headsman is waiting. Tullius: Good, let's get this over with. Lokir: Shor, Mara, Dibella, Kynareth, Akatosh! Divines, please help me! Ralof: Look at him! General Tullius, the Military. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves, I bet they had something to do with this. This is Helgen... I used to be sweet on a girl from here. I wonder if Velod is still making that mead with juniper berries mixed in... Funny, when I was a boy Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe. Child: Who are they, daddy? Where are they going? Father: You need to go inside, little cub. Child: Why? I want to watch the soldiers! Father: Inside the house, now. Child: Yes papa... heads inside Driver: Woah... Female Captain: Get these prisoners out of the cart! Lokir: Why are we stopping? Ralof: Why do you think? End of the line...
@@MrIzzy5466 this CAN be a problem, but your character should come with a built-in reason to start adventuring, and your DM should have talked to you about roughly HOW the game is going to start. For example, during my Session 0s where we make characters, I usually tell the players the intro story BEFORE we start making anything. "You're all part of a grand caravan of knights, footmen, and camp followers, returning from a vicious crusade against the Orcs and savage human tribes who live in the mountain ranges along Avalon's northern coast. Tell me, who are you? What was your role in the crusade?" If you come back at me saying that your character is a Half-Drow, Half-Tiefling loner who hates everyone, named Enoby Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way - I'm gonna shut you down right there. That doesn't fit with the campaign, that's not the story we all came together and agreed to tell. Come at me with a new character idea. You can still be a powergaming Chaotic Evil Rogue, but you'd better have a good reason to be working with this party.
The first time I GM'ed I was probably around 10-12. We didn't have dice so we randomly started and stopped a stop watch and used the milliseconds as our role. I don't remember much of the first campaign, but I remember they had to gather 3 artifacts in order to create a legendary weapon to defeat someone.
The whole confidence thing is super true! One time i accidentally said 40 instead of 4 for the amount of orcs in a patrol and it turned into a great stroy line about a wandering orc tribe.
I mean his family has had sad stuff happen and he originally lives alone in a hole by himself:( plus he takes in frodo so clearly not everything is good in his life.
@@robertprouse6814 no ones life is totally perfect. Bilbos life wasnt ideal but it wasnt tragic. Living alone only counts as sad if he was lonely, which he didnt seem to be imo
@@dylanevartt3219 I think it just depends on everyone's perspective of it, I'd certainly say it ends up a bit tragic though due to loads of his dwarf friends dying and him becoming addicted to the ring.
@@dylanevartt3219 He was conflicted about being desperate enough for change to actually go on a quest or staying home bored. Tragic, no, but conflict is at the heart of any choice, and then something about how a 1000 mile journey starts...
He has the tragedy of satisfaction. Where his life is perfect, his town is normal and his needs are met. He has everything a person would need for life. A perfect life, but no reason to live it. It's stagnate, unchanging and entirely expected. A single taste of adventure, of something outside the norm shows up with a story that would tug the heart strings of any hobbit, and he was hooked. His tragedy was not of loss or suffering, but of banality.
I actually DON’T think you need tragedy to make a hero. Bilbo Baggins in the hobbit leaves the shire because he realizes he has nothing better to to. He never suffered in his life and was perfectly content before Gandalf visited him. Granted he was uncomfortable at first, but the adventuring lifestyle grew on him. Boredom with regular life is just one way of becoming an adventurer without tragedy. You could be trained from a young age to be an adventurer such as a fighter, monk, or wizard and have always had a dream of exploring the world. Maybe you look to adventuring as a way of leaving a legacy. Tragedy is definitely a strong way of spurring and adventurer into the world, but I feel like that only really works for races that are often described as homebodies that would rather remain where they are (like halflings and firbolgs).
also not the greatest example EVER but if you watched pokemon back in the day, ash didn't have a tragic back story. granted pokemon wasn't _that_ kind of show, but the call to adventure doesn't always have to be a doomed hometown or sick fiance. after all, there's plenty of time for tragedy at the table itself, no?
Another great example of being roped into adventure without a tragic backstory is Johnny Schnarr, a rumrunner from the early 20th century. He was living a fairly satisfying life as a lumberjack, and was roped into a smuggling scheme for essentially being "The guy who was good with boats". After a (semi) successful run, he realized "hey, I could make a lot of money doing this" and went on to become one of the most famous rumrunners of the Pacific, delivering over 60,000 cases of rum without ever being caught.
I agree. You character could just have a wonderlust, or maybe they are trying to find somthing or somone. Perhaps to protect, destroy, rescue or claim posession of it for themselves or the quest-giver.
Fucking true. First time DMing, plotted out the gist of the adventure to avoid flying into a random direction. Story starts with party on a train and I have train attendant come by and ask for tickets to give the players a chance to intro their characters looks, voices, and maybe a splash of personality. Then have a train robbery go off with the Attendant getting held hostage. This would be a way of having them bond over a common goal. I hadn't even finished do the dialog for Robber #1(who has the train attendant hostage) when one player whips out a throwing javelin and hucks at the robber. It misses of course, but it kicked off the battle...while the lady was still being held a gun point. Oh, did I mention the robbers had GUNS! 'Cause I did then! BEFORE he HUCKED A FACKING SPEAR! ...Long story short, they murdered all the robbers(all 6 of them) but one, horribly disfigured the train attendant due to a botched Med. check to CAUTERIZE her chest wound...with a burning sword, and brutalized the robber gangs leader's face so bad that they couldn't claim the reward that I had planned for them. From there they proceeded to kill the sister to a reoccurring character in the campaign, turning what was suppose to be a terse-relationship-into-a-friendship to a cold relationship with her trying to murder them. Her sister was a bar maid, by the by. I got back at them, but hot damn.
@@lovebirddraws8475 Nope, I adapted a quote from general Moltke of Prussia I'd seen a while before, but I believe many people had the same idea as I've seen the phrase elsewhere afterwards
As a DM i really made that true when I gave my players a giant rat that "had all the stats of an elephant and a rat that can burrow combined". That was hard to plan around but really fun
Use social media and say you want to run a game. Put up fliers in places people your age go or comic/game shops. On line the options are unlimited. If you want to DM players will come to you. (More so if you are willing to do it on an website)
Yo I'm currently using the grandma's locket in a campaign, players haven't used it too much but they enjoyed the first interaction with a loving elderly woman
That's totally a "hags" brooch, better mention some subtle hints about it needing to be uncursed or something and slowly make your player's character holding it slowly go insane or perceive horrible goings on around them if they forget, tie it in storywise if you're good Maybe they begin to think like a Granny 😂 and go about trying to bake pies at inopportune times or enter dungeons thinking they're bingo halls
Or for a comedic campaign, have the party have pretty much no connection to the plot and be incredibly powerful compared to the monsters. Then the fun of the game comes from them trying to force their help on people who didn’t ask :D
I created a theme. I really wanted a 1930s archeology style rush for artifacts and treasures in an arid landscape but set in an Eberron style technology world. From there I asked for backstory bulletpoints and a reason they'd want to go to this land of artifacts and treasures. Things they wanted and I'd craft them into the world and build it around them. Example: New player just sent me a dwarf character today to join in on the next session. He wanted: to be the son of a renowned blacksmith, mother died in attack, joined an order of paladins out of grief, decided he could best serve his revenge on evil in this new land, and he wanted a thunder theme (tried to convince him on Tempest Cleric, lol). Now the players are all aware I'll work with it the best I can but changes will happen if things get really shoehorned. So I came up with: His mother and father were in an order that defended a secret smithing technique that used lightning instead of standard forges. The females of the order are the smiths and the males are guardians of the techniques. The mother is tasked to create something (he doesn't know what) using an object found from this new land. An attack is made attempting to steal it and she dies trying to defend it. In his grief he joins the order with his father and ends up having a vision of his mother beckoning him to travel to the new land. Eventually the idea is that he'll learn during adventures in this land that during the attack his mother's soul was drawn into the object that she was creating and the attackers fled to the new lands thus cueing his path onto Oath of Vengeance and I'll describe all of his spells and actions with thunder/lightning themes. :D
The first game I made, I accidentally forgot to add a plot. The party just went around the world, doing small quests. I mean, one character had an capsule where he had to take blood of different boss monsters and bathe the capsule in it to open it, each time a gem on the side would change color, but the item inside just transformed his mount into something different because he kept complaining about his mount
@@Adam-cq2yo I mean, kinda. At the beginning I introduced a life mechanic where their character would respawn, but once they ran out of "ankhs" they would die and have to make a new character. I forgot what level they ended up at, but the campaign went on for a couple months, with a session every week. Only one character actually survived beginning to end though (the one with the capsule blood thing)
Panda fact #5: The giant panda's scientific name in english is 'Ailuropoda melanoleuca' which means 'black and white cat-foot'. In Chinese, the literal translation (dà xióng māo) is 'large bear cat'. The word 'panda' however, is said to come from the Nepalese word 'ponya' which comes from the phrase 'nigalya ponya', meaning 'eater of bamboo'
Fake panda facts #1 Pandas are actually not bears, but rather raccoons which have undergone megafaunic gigantism due to lengthy genetic isolation. The nickname "trash panda" commonly used for raccoons is a reference to this.
A way to pull off being unsure is to tell it from a first person perspective, "you enter the room and see what you estimate to be twenty orcs." Is better than "you enter the room and there are about twenty orcs" Gives you more time to think and do all that good stuff. Remember a pretty good answer right now tends to be better than a perfect answer in five minutes. Edit have been corrected in my replies that this is second person not first
I don't remember who said this (might have been Spoony) but he said don't say "there's nothing there" instead say "you don't see anything" which can freak players out if they rolled high but not ridiculously high.
@@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527 Thanks for correcting me, looked it up you got it right. and so I'm currently debating myself on whether I should edit my comment or leave it be.
"No heroes come from a happy family." I'll have you know that my character only just found out that her parents are evil. They were actually really nice to her, she ran away because a mad god talks to her through telepathy and told her to. Rather than being a hero through misfortune, she's a hero through pure happenstance. The fact that she once dated a succubus and left the relationship heartbroken doesn't drive her at all.
Hot damn, that 10-minute rule is an important one. I’ve seen it happen time and time again, particularly these days when virtual campaigns have become the norm over in-person games. It can be easy to get wrapped up in one person finding that clue you needed them to find, and forget that the rest of the party was investigating other things in the room.
Loved this video. When I run a campaign, I choose a vague general direction for it to go into and then prepare a detailed first session. I let the players write the story for me and see what they like and what parts interest them the most so I know what they want. I then prepare session to session depending on what they do. I never write full campaigns because I don't want to railroad or get derailed. Some of my best and longest running campaigns ended drastically different then how I thought they would. I always make sure that the players choices effect the outcomes in the campaign and influence the direction it gets taken in
”Help them make their character.” First member doesn’t even show up for two days, second member doesn’t write anything, third isn’t even online half the time
Sky Rim so it’s been 5 months and there isn’t one word on the session one paper. I haven’t even thought of D&D in a long time. Our squad went from 4 to just 2.
@@i_dontexist4951 One on one dnd is pretty amazing. Was kinda uncomfortable with it for about 15 minutes but then my player and I never looked back. Already played about a third of Tomb of Annihilation as a duet. Give it a try, it's a lot less hassle to schedule and allows for plenty of attention and development for the one PC
This is something I know I've had issues with when trying to make a campaign work. It actually made me feel really bad because one player gave me so much to work with it was really easy to incorporate elements into the game but no one else did so it felt like favoritism especially since the player was my girlfriend at the time.
Nothing has clarified exactly what I need to do with my story than the Iceberg analogy. Literally 30 seconds and you made me want to put everything down and write everything out. Thank you so much for the advice!
Runesmith: All heroes are born from tragedy Me: or a psychological problem or a love of adventure or boredom or embarassment or a million other non-tragic reasons my characters became heroes (though, to be fair, a lot of them are actually evil)
My character I am playing currently is an adventurer because she doesn't like confrontation and doesn't want to deal with the aftermath of her divorce, and needed and excuse to track down an item that was stolen from her over a decade ago
When he said tragedy I think he meant generally any bad thing happening; like having psychological problems. This may not be a bad that happening in your opinion but boredom of life would be a pretty bad tragedy in my opinion, and major embarrassment/shame could also be considered a tragedy. And if someone love adventure then you have to answer why or what made it start. Someone doesn’t just wake up one day and decide to kill a dragon. Maybe that were bored with their life so a “tragedy” was still there. Now se backstories may not have a tragedy but almost all will.
The last sentence of my first reply was meant to say this.” Not all backstories will have tragedy but almost all off them will, and every character I have ever enjoyed playin had some sort of tragedy.
"No heroes come from happy family" *nervously looks at my druid who comes from a loving family who are all still alive and whose adventuring career fueled by the virtues they taught her and her own desire to make them proud*
I tried out something different for my current campaign. I gave my players a choice of six origin story scenarios, all of which connect to the main story in different ways. Within those starting scenarios, they could craft their character and backstory as they wanted. Before the party got together, I played solo origin story sessions with each one individually to really help them get to know their characters. When the party did meet up at last, everyone knew their character really well and had a personal goal to fulfil in the grand scheme of things.
This is the best video on how to write a session I’ve come across I love how concise and easily digestible all the information is. No extra content no bloat that might make someone focus on the wrong thing.
Hi! This is an old video so you might not even read this, but this video was extremely helpful. I’m writing my first ever homebrew campaign, and changing it to be much more open ended instead of one set story for them to follow not only helped me flesh out the world a little more, but made the hook more intriguing and the overall ideas flow much easier. Very simple advice, but very effective
Great advice. You mentioned to leave the campaign with most or all questions answered though I've found its also good to drip feed info in different ways over multiple sessions. That way, at the end of a story arc you get all the pieces tie up and the reveal of a plot twist... every step towards this result is always open and effected by player actions. I run an open, consistent world rather than modules etc. Just a tip to those watching that its absolutely fine to have an end goal of a story arc that you desire as a DM, but its better to let that happen organically rather than forced. I've stunned players with a scene put before them they never expected but in hindsight their actions with other NPCs clearly pointed to this event and a massacre around them, that spared them as players for helping the antagonist unknowingly before.
The advice of always giving definite numbers is probably the most impactful part of this video to me. Since I started doing it, my narration has felt so much stronger and thought out
I JUST started writing my own campaign and this was EXACTLY the advice I needed! Now I have an idea how to structure the game and where to start. I knew that characters need motivation/a cause/trauma and I sort of already worked that in, but now I just realized, that these knives, as we call them, are what create the games' conflict. Thank you so much I took like two pages of notes and will now work through them with my own story 💖
I'm starting a new campaign in two weeks, and I just found your channel. I can't stop watching these. It's inspiring, to say the least. :) So thanks for making them.
I really enjoyed this video. The information was clear and concise with narration that felt welcoming, as if speaking to an equal. Excellent job! Cheers.
Back for the dozenth time, I realized I should probably just take notes on these. Your content has been invaluable to me, and I take this advice when writing practically everything.
When I make a campaign (thanks to this vid) I try to get info on their characters and try to make the campaign around their interests. It gives my players interest and helps me out with writing block. I can be really creative but often idk where to start so I use backstories.
I’m in the process of writing my second ever campaign, and all I’ve got is my PCs backgrounds and goals and the villains motivation and means- what a relief this video was when I see that’s pretty much the beginning and ending chain links lol
A guide I actually understand! I know this is fairly old content, but I’m really glad I came across this, I’ve been trying to figure out how to plan out dnd arcs for a while now and this makes so much sense!!
Thank you for the bit about writing the story after you know the players. This is something I decided to do in my current game that will be having it's first session soon. I gave my players the setting and let them all know what quest they were given, then let them make characters. I soon realised that my original story was not focused enough on the first quest and now my players had made their characters like the first quest was the main thing. So, I had to throw my story out and start over. I've been told a couple times this was the right thing to do, but never from someone talking about it as actual DnD advice like here. So thank you, I feel more confident about that choice. This is honestly the best advice there is for both keeping player attention, and for avoiding railroading too, I'd say. Nothing worse then having a game about taking out a necromancer, only to find out 3/6 players are necromancers themselves. No matter how well written it is, that sounds like a doomed game. A GM's greatest skill really is being able to adapt.
The best campaigns are the ones that leave the players feeling like the DM needs their help to build the world they’re describing, without feeling like the DM was unprepared. So you really just need to prepare the major mystery, end goal, and where it all begins (with a map, usually, or maybe just a tavern, and the rest of the players guide the story out the door). If you’re the dm, I recommend recording your D&D sessions, even if it’s on a crappy voice recorder, because you can do more intricate plots and arcs as the campaign progresses if you have a record of everything.
I have been building my own campaign settings for a couple-a-three decades, and while my first attempt was just patching published material together in a level-based way, I then moved to the blank world with only the first town or two on it and blank squares in all directions. Now, I use software (Fractal Terrains?) to make a world, than put in in Profantasy to put locations all over the map, create towns, kingdoms, and notable people and about five sessions in, when I got an idea of how the players responded to my game's cosmology, I picked the over-arching baddies, and the players have accidentally created a side villain out of a disagreeable local noble. - - - I am very improv now. I use OneNote to jot down a journal of each session, and the last session was created when I wrote the title for it. "Sir Iverson and the Gibbering Dwarf." It turned into a ritual being done while the rest of the party was fighting demons, an extra-planar dragon, and a poisoner assassin all around and in the town. - - - About 1/3 of my sessions are improv from whatever title I come up with for the session, 1/3 as a direct result of PC action and choices, and 1/3 well-planned (with flex included). Some sessions have no fighting, and some are almost all fighting. I try to keep it fresh, and watch the involvement and post-session chat to see where to steer to.
Great Video! One more thing to add, although backstories can really help at the beginning. I've noticed brand new players might not have an idea of what a good back story is. So sometimes creating it with them as the first few sessions launch is the best tactic. This goes for tragedy as well. Their tragedy can occur within the first couple sessions as a PC dies. *Not for all groups. Speak with your friends about player death beforehand*
I actually seem to have learned how to do ALL of these things, it’s just like kinda hard because I have preconceived notions on what creature *I* wanna bring. I think it’s rather exciting to get confirmation I’ve been doing a good job while still seeing I have room for improvement after watching a video I already entirely knew about. That’s so cool.
This is actually a very good way to get the video to the 10 minute mark. I like that you openly acknowledge that the video is over but that you need to fill in time. That kinda honesty is great, funny, and most importantly prevents you from having to dilute the quality of your video. other youtubers should learn from this I think.
Sometimes subverting the tragedy trope is worth considering. It’s particularly played out in the age of memes. My character is regarded as the more traditional “heroic” character of my party, but is also the lone character without a tragic backstory. Both his parents are still alive and well, his love of exploration is in fact a transmitted value from his parents. Don’t be afraid to subvert a trope in a surface mundane way.
Totally right on that first part. Been doing a game with friends for a while now and in one session we went up against a tank. My character (a completely jacked monk) spent most of the fight holding onto the tank barrel so it couldn’t aim at us, and then dealt the killing blow by stealing one of the shells and firing on the tank with nothing but his bare hands and a hammer. I got an inspiration point for that and it’s one of those moments I’ll never forget.
D&D has two parts that weave together nicely, conversation and confrontation. So from that players develope a love for conversation in stories, worlds, characters, and/or confrontation in creative solutions, big numbers and bigger monsters! Your players can have as many as none to all of these interests, but as the DM it's (basically) your job to use those interests to write the story
I have definitely done a railroad story for my current party. However they lay the tracks however they want as fast as they want. All I do is provide a hook and end game in mind, the dice and the players are the masters of what happen in between the needed encounters. And thankfully I have a respectful party that has actually murdered murderhobos (oh thank the lord)
@@VoidplayLP dunno, could argue that any story reservation is bad. (context: an ancient rivalry between gods has reignited and the continent the party is on will erupt into death and madness whenever the fighting gets started proper. the moon goddess plays off of mortal sentiniments of freedom and hope, while the sun god only asks that the order is maintained... and that this rivalry be ceased permanently. so far the sun is winning in this feud)
Also something to keep in mind and what actually caused a bit of drama in the last group I was in, because the DM didn't pay any attention to it: Make sure ALL your players are involved. Your players will have different levels in confidence when it comes to rping. Make sure those who are a bit more shy then others don't constantly get overshadowed or simply dragged along by the more vocal players. A very easy way to actually fix this is to adress the player directly. If you notice one player getting pushed to the side by the others, have your characters directly seek out a dialouge with that player. Just make sure you don't push them too far and force them into a situation they are uncomfortable with, but if you pay at least a modicum of attention to your players, you should quickly notice if that's the case or not. Trust me, the game is much more fun if everyone gets to participate and the game doesn't end up as a one on one between the DM and one player outside of fights.
This!! So Much!! So far in our campaign (We're at about our 5th 6hr session now) the focus has felt very heavy on one PC, and even though I am interested in the unfolding story, this PC is pretty much the Only one who ever talks or does anything. Last session she ended up talking to an npc for At Least 15-20+ minutes TWICE, all heavily related to her backstory which we had nothing to do with And She Was Alone So Our PCs Could Do NOTHING. Needless to say.. we weren't listening. Shit really kicks you out of your character's headspace, ESPECIALLY when you're challenging yourself with an archetype out of your comfort zone. The saddest part about all this for me is that one PC is a reckless, playful, annoying but friendly kinda guy but his player is CONSTANTLY talked over and ignored when he tries to butt in (A VERY characteristic thing to do), and I can see the player feeling more disheartened every time. He's not new to rping either - Hell, I'd even say this type of character is his goddamn forte! - and yet he no longer has the energy, or even gets the chance to play his own character to his full potential!! I hate seeing him feel so gloomy about future sessions when we were so excited to play our PCs together, but when we're just treated like side-characters it really is hard to stay invested, even if you really do love the characters. :/
about 2 years late to the party, but this advice helps. New DM here, made a world and a story. Still don't feel prepared until I know what my players are going to be, and I'm feeling anxious just waiting for our session zero.
I ended up making my own three main antagonists that no one currently knows about. OOOOOOOOH BOY They are going to be so confused and so freaked. Ya got a demon king Cannibalistic monsters And a damn witchcraft cult
Step one, play. They say it takes 10,000 hours of doing something to master it. Take notes, GM. Never mind. Step Zero, watch AJ's gaming session. Thank me later.
@@elgatochurro AJ Prickett, he's an awfully good DM. Very expressive and interesting to watch. He has really good tips videos and a painfully underrated campaign he's running.
This is perfect advice. I havent played a dnd campaign no been a dm but i am currently working on my character (named Uúduk) and i cant wait to play my first campaign. THANK YOU for the advice
I can’t really argue with the happy backstory part. My character’s town was destroyed when I was three, my dad died to a psychic thingy, my friend lost his family to the undead, i joined a gang, and then I was kicked out which left my character all alone. So I’m pretty sure that that’s not considered happy
Interesting way to spark back some talking on the table: character conflict Cause conflict between the characters by putting some bait here and there that may stray one character from the group, in enough a way so they can have a direct conversation in character or that may put you on a side event if there's troublemaking potential.
Fun GM idea for something like this: As a little side event while traveling in a market, have an unique encounter where one of the heroes meets a character from their past backstory in a market or tavern. The character could be a childhood bully or a crippled teacher who tried their best to make that character succeed. I'm not a GM, so that idea might suck, but I just wanted to throw that out there. It'll be very fun for the specific person, and probably won't be too long of a distraction that the other characters can either roleplay along with it, or completely ignore it and be fine.
I was pleasantly surprised when you said the biggest issue was players losing interest. I'm a new DM and I just finished a campaign of about 10 sessions and the only times it felt slow was when everyone was exhausted because it was 1:30 AM. I must admit I made the mistake of determining the outcome of some of the events, but it happened in such a way that the players were definitely not sure if they were being railroad'd or not. So it was pretty fun! And I sure did not make the mistake of not making the PC important in the story! The most fun part for me are what you call the "token", the bits of revealing information at the end of a "chapter", that end up bringin more questions.
I’ve watched a lot of D&D story guides and most say you should fall somewhere between a railroad style or a sandbox style of story progression. I feel that you have given me the analogy that this style was missing. Chaining the style of story telling that has the best of both worlds.
Thank you for the great content! I am a new player and my entire party is basically a bunch of newbs as well with a GM who has never been a GM before. Im putting together a playlist for him to help him improve!
>Starts up DnD campaign.
>Wonder how its gonna start
>"So you're finally awake huh"
Godd Howard, you've done it again.
Basically every campaign I've played has started like that. Getting sick of DnD because I feel my character never fits in when campaigns start like that...
Yeah, I try my best to get an idea of who my players are gonna be before I run my first session. If possible, I stay involved in the character creation process. Knowing everyone's prologue before the story starts makes tying them in and keeping things interesting that much easier.
You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that imperial ambush, and that thief over there.
Lokir: Damn you Stormcloaks... Skyrim was fine until you came along! Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn’t been looking for you I’d have stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell. You there, you and me, we shouldn’t be here. It’s these Stormcloaks the Empire wants.
Ralof: We’re all brothers and sisters in binds now.
Driver: Shut up back there. Lokir: looks at Ulfric What’s wrong with him, huh? Ralof: Watch your tongue! You’re speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King.
Lokir: Ulfric? The Jarl of Windhelm? You’re the leader of the rebellion... if they’ve captured you... oh gods, where are they taking us?
Ralof: I don’t know where we’re going, but Sovngarde awaits.
Lokir: No, This can’t be happening! This isn’t happening!
Ralof: Hey, what village are you from horse-thief?
Lokir: Why do you care?
Ralof: A Nord’s last thoughts should be of home.
Lokir: Rorikstead. I’m from Rorikstead.
Hadvar: General Tullius sir! The headsman is waiting.
Tullius: Good, let's get this over with.
Lokir: Shor, Mara, Dibella, Kynareth, Akatosh! Divines, please help me!
Ralof: Look at him! General Tullius, the Military. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves, I bet they had something to do with this. This is Helgen... I used to be sweet on a girl from here. I wonder if Velod is still making that mead with juniper berries mixed in... Funny, when I was a boy Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe.
Child: Who are they, daddy? Where are they going?
Father: You need to go inside, little cub.
Child: Why? I want to watch the soldiers! Father: Inside the house, now.
Child: Yes papa... heads inside
Driver: Woah...
Female Captain: Get these prisoners out of the cart!
Lokir: Why are we stopping?
Ralof: Why do you think? End of the line...
@@MrIzzy5466 this CAN be a problem, but your character should come with a built-in reason to start adventuring, and your DM should have talked to you about roughly HOW the game is going to start.
For example, during my Session 0s where we make characters, I usually tell the players the intro story BEFORE we start making anything.
"You're all part of a grand caravan of knights, footmen, and camp followers, returning from a vicious crusade against the Orcs and savage human tribes who live in the mountain ranges along Avalon's northern coast. Tell me, who are you? What was your role in the crusade?" If you come back at me saying that your character is a Half-Drow, Half-Tiefling loner who hates everyone, named Enoby Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way - I'm gonna shut you down right there. That doesn't fit with the campaign, that's not the story we all came together and agreed to tell. Come at me with a new character idea. You can still be a powergaming Chaotic Evil Rogue, but you'd better have a good reason to be working with this party.
Runesmith: Avoid railroading
Me planning my first campaign that revolves around a ancient magic train: Shit
The only acceptable railroading
The G fell off the Graveyard sign in that Druid's jungle.
This deserves way more "likes".
Mint
Haha, took me awhile :)
Then the g fell off the grapeyard sign
@@MrDots-rg7bf no
This is super good advice, good job Logan.
Do I detect a hint of genuine love for your friend’s hard work and effort?
Logan used charm and Jacob failed his save
@@IbraheemM98 is- is this the fabled opposite of youtube drama?
(Insert Mystic joke)
'Thank you Kanye very cool'
Me watching this at 11 furiously trying to rewrite my campaign
*ME RN*
The first time I GM'ed I was probably around 10-12. We didn't have dice so we randomly started and stopped a stop watch and used the milliseconds as our role. I don't remember much of the first campaign, but I remember they had to gather 3 artifacts in order to create a legendary weapon to defeat someone.
Oh my goodness literally me at this second. It's my first time dming and I want to make a splash...
Yeah I've got my encounter chain links now I just need some players to weld them with.
@@urahara64360 I am the DM in my group and want to play as a player so badly I cannot even put it in words
Not gonna lie, I don’t think I could bring myself to kill any undead that has moves like those!
Bahamuts Laws: Thou shalt not bear thy fangs towards the Undead who grooves.
They be vibin
Imagine adopt one of those skeleton and give him trumpet
Oh no, we're up against a far more dangerous foe than a random necromancer... the dread Necrodancer!
The whole confidence thing is super true! One time i accidentally said 40 instead of 4 for the amount of orcs in a patrol and it turned into a great stroy line about a wandering orc tribe.
No hero comes from a happy family with no tradgedy?
Bilbo Baggins: "Allow me to introduce myself!"
I mean his family has had sad stuff happen and he originally lives alone in a hole by himself:( plus he takes in frodo so clearly not everything is good in his life.
@@robertprouse6814 no ones life is totally perfect. Bilbos life wasnt ideal but it wasnt tragic. Living alone only counts as sad if he was lonely, which he didnt seem to be imo
@@dylanevartt3219 I think it just depends on everyone's perspective of it, I'd certainly say it ends up a bit tragic though due to loads of his dwarf friends dying and him becoming addicted to the ring.
@@dylanevartt3219 He was conflicted about being desperate enough for change to actually go on a quest or staying home bored. Tragic, no, but conflict is at the heart of any choice, and then something about how a 1000 mile journey starts...
He has the tragedy of satisfaction. Where his life is perfect, his town is normal and his needs are met. He has everything a person would need for life. A perfect life, but no reason to live it. It's stagnate, unchanging and entirely expected. A single taste of adventure, of something outside the norm shows up with a story that would tug the heart strings of any hobbit, and he was hooked.
His tragedy was not of loss or suffering, but of banality.
I actually DON’T think you need tragedy to make a hero. Bilbo Baggins in the hobbit leaves the shire because he realizes he has nothing better to to. He never suffered in his life and was perfectly content before Gandalf visited him. Granted he was uncomfortable at first, but the adventuring lifestyle grew on him.
Boredom with regular life is just one way of becoming an adventurer without tragedy. You could be trained from a young age to be an adventurer such as a fighter, monk, or wizard and have always had a dream of exploring the world. Maybe you look to adventuring as a way of leaving a legacy. Tragedy is definitely a strong way of spurring and adventurer into the world, but I feel like that only really works for races that are often described as homebodies that would rather remain where they are (like halflings and firbolgs).
Take it from me, boredom with regular life is the biggest tragedy there is.
also not the greatest example EVER but if you watched pokemon back in the day, ash didn't have a tragic back story. granted pokemon wasn't _that_ kind of show, but the call to adventure doesn't always have to be a doomed hometown or sick fiance. after all, there's plenty of time for tragedy at the table itself, no?
Another great example of being roped into adventure without a tragic backstory is Johnny Schnarr, a rumrunner from the early 20th century. He was living a fairly satisfying life as a lumberjack, and was roped into a smuggling scheme for essentially being "The guy who was good with boats". After a (semi) successful run, he realized "hey, I could make a lot of money doing this" and went on to become one of the most famous rumrunners of the Pacific, delivering over 60,000 cases of rum without ever being caught.
I agree. You character could just have a wonderlust, or maybe they are trying to find somthing or somone. Perhaps to protect, destroy, rescue or claim posession of it for themselves or the quest-giver.
@@Runesmith coming of age is also a good reason.
"Hey im.just 18 now. Time to be a man and prove I can run the viking tribe"
"Plans never survive contact with the players"
Fucking true. First time DMing, plotted out the gist of the adventure to avoid flying into a random direction. Story starts with party on a train and I have train attendant come by and ask for tickets to give the players a chance to intro their characters looks, voices, and maybe a splash of personality. Then have a train robbery go off with the Attendant getting held hostage. This would be a way of having them bond over a common goal.
I hadn't even finished do the dialog for Robber #1(who has the train attendant hostage) when one player whips out a throwing javelin and hucks at the robber. It misses of course, but it kicked off the battle...while the lady was still being held a gun point. Oh, did I mention the robbers had GUNS! 'Cause I did then! BEFORE he HUCKED A FACKING SPEAR!
...Long story short, they murdered all the robbers(all 6 of them) but one, horribly disfigured the train attendant due to a botched Med. check to CAUTERIZE her chest wound...with a burning sword, and brutalized the robber gangs leader's face so bad that they couldn't claim the reward that I had planned for them.
From there they proceeded to kill the sister to a reoccurring character in the campaign, turning what was suppose to be a terse-relationship-into-a-friendship to a cold relationship with her trying to murder them. Her sister was a bar maid, by the by.
I got back at them, but hot damn.
Idk if that quote is just a common phrase, but they say something very similar in the series Travelers. Out of curiosity, have you seen it?
@@lovebirddraws8475 Nope, I adapted a quote from general Moltke of Prussia I'd seen a while before, but I believe many people had the same idea as I've seen the phrase elsewhere afterwards
João Pedro ah, okay! Thanks for the explication :D
As a DM i really made that true when I gave my players a giant rat that "had all the stats of an elephant and a rat that can burrow combined".
That was hard to plan around but really fun
That army of undead looks D O P E
I don't know about that. They look pretty S P O O K Y to me.
They send shivers down your spine
@@toprak3479 Spoopy
Anyone know the source?
DOOT DOOT DOOT
Man your videos would be super useful if I actually had people to play dnd with
Relatable
What's wrong?
Demi same
Demi Try out roll20, tons of people DMing and players looking for DMs
Use social media and say you want to run a game. Put up fliers in places people your age go or comic/game shops. On line the options are unlimited. If you want to DM players will come to you. (More so if you are willing to do it on an website)
Yo I'm currently using the grandma's locket in a campaign, players haven't used it too much but they enjoyed the first interaction with a loving elderly woman
imagine old russian grandma gandma's locket
That's totally a "hags" brooch, better mention some subtle hints about it needing to be uncursed or something and slowly make your player's character holding it slowly go insane or perceive horrible goings on around them if they forget, tie it in storywise if you're good
Maybe they begin to think like a Granny 😂 and go about trying to bake pies at inopportune times or enter dungeons thinking they're bingo halls
Me, as a DM, first session: You open your eyes, hands tied, you're all surrounded by guards. Bethesda Software presents...
Party: QUIT SKYRIM ALREADY
"Here's a guide". Yes Logan, thank you.
8:17 when you're just shy of the 10 minute mark to get that sweet sweet add revenue
Aidan Stine Haha, just my thought
WHAAAAAT?! I SHOULDN'T START MY PARTY'S GAME BY MAKING MY OWN CAMPAIGN, BUT MAKING A CAMPAIGN BASED ON THEM?!
...makes sense actually.
Om Lo blasphemy
But that will ruin my perfectly-crafted campaign that I created without any input from the players! /s
Or for a comedic campaign, have the party have pretty much no connection to the plot and be incredibly powerful compared to the monsters. Then the fun of the game comes from them trying to force their help on people who didn’t ask :D
I have done this and its a bad idea
I created a theme. I really wanted a 1930s archeology style rush for artifacts and treasures in an arid landscape but set in an Eberron style technology world.
From there I asked for backstory bulletpoints and a reason they'd want to go to this land of artifacts and treasures. Things they wanted and I'd craft them into the world and build it around them.
Example: New player just sent me a dwarf character today to join in on the next session.
He wanted: to be the son of a renowned blacksmith, mother died in attack, joined an order of paladins out of grief, decided he could best serve his revenge on evil in this new land, and he wanted a thunder theme (tried to convince him on Tempest Cleric, lol).
Now the players are all aware I'll work with it the best I can but changes will happen if things get really shoehorned.
So I came up with:
His mother and father were in an order that defended a secret smithing technique that used lightning instead of standard forges.
The females of the order are the smiths and the males are guardians of the techniques. The mother is tasked to create something (he doesn't know what) using an object found from this new land. An attack is made attempting to steal it and she dies trying to defend it. In his grief he joins the order with his father and ends up having a vision of his mother beckoning him to travel to the new land.
Eventually the idea is that he'll learn during adventures in this land that during the attack his mother's soul was drawn into the object that she was creating and the attackers fled to the new lands thus cueing his path onto Oath of Vengeance and I'll describe all of his spells and actions with thunder/lightning themes.
:D
The first game I made, I accidentally forgot to add a plot. The party just went around the world, doing small quests. I mean, one character had an capsule where he had to take blood of different boss monsters and bathe the capsule in it to open it, each time a gem on the side would change color, but the item inside just transformed his mount into something different because he kept complaining about his mount
Basically doing only the side-quests in OWRPG and ignoring the plot. (I'm looking at you WOW)
Lol. Sounds sandboxish to me. Did they enjoy it?
@@Adam-cq2yo I mean, kinda. At the beginning I introduced a life mechanic where their character would respawn, but once they ran out of "ankhs" they would die and have to make a new character. I forgot what level they ended up at, but the campaign went on for a couple months, with a session every week. Only one character actually survived beginning to end though (the one with the capsule blood thing)
Panda fact #5: The giant panda's scientific name in english is 'Ailuropoda melanoleuca' which means 'black and white cat-foot'. In Chinese, the literal translation (dà xióng māo) is 'large bear cat'. The word 'panda' however, is said to come from the Nepalese word 'ponya' which comes from the phrase 'nigalya ponya', meaning 'eater of bamboo'
thank you isaac very cool
Fake panda facts #1
Pandas are actually not bears, but rather raccoons which have undergone megafaunic gigantism due to lengthy genetic isolation.
The nickname "trash panda" commonly used for raccoons is a reference to this.
lol
@@deplorablemecoptera3024
Exactly what I was trying to get out of this video.
I can see now "Melano (Black);
Leuca (White);
Ailura (?);
Poda (Feet/Foot).
A way to pull off being unsure is to tell it from a first person perspective, "you enter the room and see what you estimate to be twenty orcs." Is better than "you enter the room and there are about twenty orcs"
Gives you more time to think and do all that good stuff.
Remember a pretty good answer right now tends to be better than a perfect answer in five minutes.
Edit have been corrected in my replies that this is second person not first
I don't remember who said this (might have been Spoony) but he said don't say "there's nothing there" instead say "you don't see anything" which can freak players out if they rolled high but not ridiculously high.
Lije Sewell Technically that’s second person but still good advice
@@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527 Thanks for correcting me, looked it up you got it right. and so I'm currently debating myself on whether I should edit my comment or leave it be.
As someone who trips over their words often and has about half a scrap of confidence, THANK YOU.
Technically that is called second person perspective.
"No heroes come from a happy family."
I'll have you know that my character only just found out that her parents are evil. They were actually really nice to her, she ran away because a mad god talks to her through telepathy and told her to. Rather than being a hero through misfortune, she's a hero through pure happenstance. The fact that she once dated a succubus and left the relationship heartbroken doesn't drive her at all.
Hot damn, that 10-minute rule is an important one. I’ve seen it happen time and time again, particularly these days when virtual campaigns have become the norm over in-person games. It can be easy to get wrapped up in one person finding that clue you needed them to find, and forget that the rest of the party was investigating other things in the room.
"Lengthy game ... 4 session..." i've been dming the same campaign for a year... with a game every week was is this
Right?
Game = quest. Every campaign is filled with mini games or "quests" that the players do
As someone who dm a campaign for more than a year now, i would love to be able to have a game every week
Pro tip: *Suddenly bears*
Loved this video. When I run a campaign, I choose a vague general direction for it to go into and then prepare a detailed first session. I let the players write the story for me and see what they like and what parts interest them the most so I know what they want. I then prepare session to session depending on what they do. I never write full campaigns because I don't want to railroad or get derailed. Some of my best and longest running campaigns ended drastically different then how I thought they would. I always make sure that the players choices effect the outcomes in the campaign and influence the direction it gets taken in
”Help them make their character.”
First member doesn’t even show up for two days, second member doesn’t write anything, third isn’t even online half the time
This hurts my soul
Sky Rim so it’s been 5 months and there isn’t one word on the session one paper. I haven’t even thought of D&D in a long time. Our squad went from 4 to just 2.
I_dont Exist dude, if you play online r/lfg is a lifesaver
@@i_dontexist4951 One on one dnd is pretty amazing. Was kinda uncomfortable with it for about 15 minutes but then my player and I never looked back. Already played about a third of Tomb of Annihilation as a duet. Give it a try, it's a lot less hassle to schedule and allows for plenty of attention and development for the one PC
This is something I know I've had issues with when trying to make a campaign work. It actually made me feel really bad because one player gave me so much to work with it was really easy to incorporate elements into the game but no one else did so it felt like favoritism especially since the player was my girlfriend at the time.
Nothing has clarified exactly what I need to do with my story than the Iceberg analogy. Literally 30 seconds and you made me want to put everything down and write everything out. Thank you so much for the advice!
Not a lot of DM advice touches on actually building the individual sessions, so this was really helpful
Runesmith: All heroes are born from tragedy
Me: or a psychological problem or a love of adventure or boredom or embarassment or a million other non-tragic reasons my characters became heroes (though, to be fair, a lot of them are actually evil)
My character I am playing currently is an adventurer because she doesn't like confrontation and doesn't want to deal with the aftermath of her divorce, and needed and excuse to track down an item that was stolen from her over a decade ago
When he said tragedy I think he meant generally any bad thing happening; like having psychological problems. This may not be a bad that happening in your opinion but boredom of life would be a pretty bad tragedy in my opinion, and major embarrassment/shame could also be considered a tragedy. And if someone love adventure then you have to answer why or what made it start. Someone doesn’t just wake up one day and decide to kill a dragon. Maybe that were bored with their life so a “tragedy” was still there. Now se backstories may not have a tragedy but almost all will.
The last sentence of my first reply was meant to say this.” Not all backstories will have tragedy but almost all off them will, and every character I have ever enjoyed playin had some sort of tragedy.
"No heroes come from happy family" *nervously looks at my druid who comes from a loving family who are all still alive and whose adventuring career fueled by the virtues they taught her and her own desire to make them proud*
"We have a lengthy game..."
*screen reads 4 sessions
I don't think I've ever played a campaign that short.
“That’s called confidence and contrary to what you may have heard you can never have too much of it”
-Sterling Archer
I tried out something different for my current campaign. I gave my players a choice of six origin story scenarios, all of which connect to the main story in different ways. Within those starting scenarios, they could craft their character and backstory as they wanted. Before the party got together, I played solo origin story sessions with each one individually to really help them get to know their characters. When the party did meet up at last, everyone knew their character really well and had a personal goal to fulfil in the grand scheme of things.
This is the best video on how to write a session I’ve come across I love how concise and easily digestible all the information is. No extra content no bloat that might make someone focus on the wrong thing.
I love that you immediatly got to the point, no boring intro or any bs
Amazing chain analogy. And yeah, imbedding your PC's backstories into the setting really raises interest.
This is one of the most informative and concise D&D guides I've seen on UA-cam.
Hi! This is an old video so you might not even read this, but this video was extremely helpful. I’m writing my first ever homebrew campaign, and changing it to be much more open ended instead of one set story for them to follow not only helped me flesh out the world a little more, but made the hook more intriguing and the overall ideas flow much easier. Very simple advice, but very effective
This is actually very useful, since I am planning my first campaign in my own setting. Thanks, Logan, I wish you keep making them good videos.
Great advice. You mentioned to leave the campaign with most or all questions answered though I've found its also good to drip feed info in different ways over multiple sessions. That way, at the end of a story arc you get all the pieces tie up and the reveal of a plot twist... every step towards this result is always open and effected by player actions. I run an open, consistent world rather than modules etc. Just a tip to those watching that its absolutely fine to have an end goal of a story arc that you desire as a DM, but its better to let that happen organically rather than forced. I've stunned players with a scene put before them they never expected but in hindsight their actions with other NPCs clearly pointed to this event and a massacre around them, that spared them as players for helping the antagonist unknowingly before.
The advice of always giving definite numbers is probably the most impactful part of this video to me. Since I started doing it, my narration has felt so much stronger and thought out
I JUST started writing my own campaign and this was EXACTLY the advice I needed! Now I have an idea how to structure the game and where to start. I knew that characters need motivation/a cause/trauma and I sort of already worked that in, but now I just realized, that these knives, as we call them, are what create the games' conflict. Thank you so much I took like two pages of notes and will now work through them with my own story 💖
I'm starting a new campaign in two weeks, and I just found your channel. I can't stop watching these. It's inspiring, to say the least. :) So thanks for making them.
"no hero comes from a happy family where nothing bad happen to them"
every single one of my daughters characters beg to differ...
I really enjoyed this video. The information was clear and concise with narration that felt welcoming, as if speaking to an equal. Excellent job! Cheers.
I needed this so badly I was wondering why my players sometimes seemed bored, this completely fixed that so thank you.
UA-cam please just let me get back to work
Thank you dude! Helps a lot!!!
Back for the dozenth time, I realized I should probably just take notes on these. Your content has been invaluable to me, and I take this advice when writing practically everything.
Honestly my own dm can learn so much from you, I just love your sense and talent! Plus, I always love watching you videos 👍
Wow, I wasn't expecting a reference to City Of Mist. I think it's a great RPG and really widens your horizon about a role-playing game.
I'm 4 years into gming now and also running a campaign at it's 40th session and I still keep going back to this video.
Thanks Logan, you're a f***ing great info boi
Also, a lot of chain imagery...have you been watching Colville's Stream?
Ah, another man of culture I see.
Thanks dude. I've been having a hard time overcoming some anxiety with my first time DM'ing and i think this will really help.
When I make a campaign (thanks to this vid) I try to get info on their characters and try to make the campaign around their interests. It gives my players interest and helps me out with writing block. I can be really creative but often idk where to start so I use backstories.
I’m in the process of writing my second ever campaign, and all I’ve got is my PCs backgrounds and goals and the villains motivation and means- what a relief this video was when I see that’s pretty much the beginning and ending chain links lol
Never plan to split the party - they'll do it enough on their own.
A guide I actually understand! I know this is fairly old content, but I’m really glad I came across this, I’ve been trying to figure out how to plan out dnd arcs for a while now and this makes so much sense!!
Thank you for the bit about writing the story after you know the players. This is something I decided to do in my current game that will be having it's first session soon. I gave my players the setting and let them all know what quest they were given, then let them make characters. I soon realised that my original story was not focused enough on the first quest and now my players had made their characters like the first quest was the main thing. So, I had to throw my story out and start over. I've been told a couple times this was the right thing to do, but never from someone talking about it as actual DnD advice like here. So thank you, I feel more confident about that choice. This is honestly the best advice there is for both keeping player attention, and for avoiding railroading too, I'd say. Nothing worse then having a game about taking out a necromancer, only to find out 3/6 players are necromancers themselves. No matter how well written it is, that sounds like a doomed game.
A GM's greatest skill really is being able to adapt.
The best campaigns are the ones that leave the players feeling like the DM needs their help to build the world they’re describing, without feeling like the DM was unprepared. So you really just need to prepare the major mystery, end goal, and where it all begins (with a map, usually, or maybe just a tavern, and the rest of the players guide the story out the door).
If you’re the dm, I recommend recording your D&D sessions, even if it’s on a crappy voice recorder, because you can do more intricate plots and arcs as the campaign progresses if you have a record of everything.
Yeah, as a DM I can say that you had some great hidden advice in this video, good job. Thank you helping us learn
Thank you this helped a lot
I’m a new dm and I’ve noticed my players getting really board and annoyed
I’ll be sure to follow this guide
Thanks dude ! I'm gonna dm for the first time soon and I'm kinda struggling with the storyline and shit, but your video really helped me !
I have been building my own campaign settings for a couple-a-three decades, and while my first attempt was just patching published material together in a level-based way, I then moved to the blank world with only the first town or two on it and blank squares in all directions. Now, I use software (Fractal Terrains?) to make a world, than put in in Profantasy to put locations all over the map, create towns, kingdoms, and notable people and about five sessions in, when I got an idea of how the players responded to my game's cosmology, I picked the over-arching baddies, and the players have accidentally created a side villain out of a disagreeable local noble. - - - I am very improv now. I use OneNote to jot down a journal of each session, and the last session was created when I wrote the title for it. "Sir Iverson and the Gibbering Dwarf." It turned into a ritual being done while the rest of the party was fighting demons, an extra-planar dragon, and a poisoner assassin all around and in the town. - - - About 1/3 of my sessions are improv from whatever title I come up with for the session, 1/3 as a direct result of PC action and choices, and 1/3 well-planned (with flex included). Some sessions have no fighting, and some are almost all fighting. I try to keep it fresh, and watch the involvement and post-session chat to see where to steer to.
This video helped me save my campaign. Thank you, Logan!
Great Video! One more thing to add, although backstories can really help at the beginning. I've noticed brand new players might not have an idea of what a good back story is. So sometimes creating it with them as the first few sessions launch is the best tactic. This goes for tragedy as well. Their tragedy can occur within the first couple sessions as a PC dies. *Not for all groups. Speak with your friends about player death beforehand*
Thanks for the tips, I am a new Dungeon Master and I hope that my friends do hook up, I will use all your tips, Thank you!
I actually seem to have learned how to do ALL of these things, it’s just like kinda hard because I have preconceived notions on what creature *I* wanna bring. I think it’s rather exciting to get confirmation I’ve been doing a good job while still seeing I have room for improvement after watching a video I already entirely knew about. That’s so cool.
1:17 I'm not an expert but I guess that admiration for heroes is a tragedy-free backstory
Literally the best campaign tips video I've ever seen
thank you. I watched this and I have written half a page of the story I plan to have on google docs :DD I cannot thank you enough!!!
Appreciate the amount of MTG artwork in your videos!
This is actually a very good way to get the video to the 10 minute mark. I like that you openly acknowledge that the video is over but that you need to fill in time. That kinda honesty is great, funny, and most importantly prevents you from having to dilute the quality of your video. other youtubers should learn from this I think.
This actually just made my new dm life so much easier for my giant and dragons campaign. Thank you!
Sometimes subverting the tragedy trope is worth considering. It’s particularly played out in the age of memes. My character is regarded as the more traditional “heroic” character of my party, but is also the lone character without a tragic backstory. Both his parents are still alive and well, his love of exploration is in fact a transmitted value from his parents. Don’t be afraid to subvert a trope in a surface mundane way.
This is gold. It's a great way to elaborate the "Secrets and Clues" method suggested by Sly Flourish's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master.
Totally right on that first part. Been doing a game with friends for a while now and in one session we went up against a tank. My character (a completely jacked monk) spent most of the fight holding onto the tank barrel so it couldn’t aim at us, and then dealt the killing blow by stealing one of the shells and firing on the tank with nothing but his bare hands and a hammer. I got an inspiration point for that and it’s one of those moments I’ll never forget.
D&D has two parts that weave together nicely, conversation and confrontation. So from that players develope a love for conversation in stories, worlds, characters, and/or confrontation in creative solutions, big numbers and bigger monsters!
Your players can have as many as none to all of these interests, but as the DM it's (basically) your job to use those interests to write the story
Leave one question unanswered at the last session. Really do it just to say something like, “But who killed Captain Alex?”
I'll do you one better.
But was that really Captain Alex?
I’ll do you one better - why was it Captain Alex?
@@D.Dragon oooh good one. how about how did they kill him?
@@germ-x6855 Even better: "What killed Captain Alex".
I was about to plan a game for a new group 2 days from now. The timing couldn't have been better.
One of the best, simplest videos on DM'ing I have seen. When the one about railroading?
I have definitely done a railroad story for my current party. However they lay the tracks however they want as fast as they want. All I do is provide a hook and end game in mind, the dice and the players are the masters of what happen in between the needed encounters. And thankfully I have a respectful party that has actually murdered murderhobos (oh thank the lord)
How is that a railroad tho?
Thats how it should be done
@@VoidplayLP dunno, could argue that any story reservation is bad. (context: an ancient rivalry between gods has reignited and the continent the party is on will erupt into death and madness whenever the fighting gets started proper. the moon goddess plays off of mortal sentiniments of freedom and hope, while the sun god only asks that the order is maintained... and that this rivalry be ceased permanently. so far the sun is winning in this feud)
Also something to keep in mind and what actually caused a bit of drama in the last group I was in, because the DM didn't pay any attention to it:
Make sure ALL your players are involved. Your players will have different levels in confidence when it comes to rping. Make sure those who are a bit more shy then others don't constantly get overshadowed or simply dragged along by the more vocal players.
A very easy way to actually fix this is to adress the player directly. If you notice one player getting pushed to the side by the others, have your characters directly seek out a dialouge with that player.
Just make sure you don't push them too far and force them into a situation they are uncomfortable with, but if you pay at least a modicum of attention to your players, you should quickly notice if that's the case or not.
Trust me, the game is much more fun if everyone gets to participate and the game doesn't end up as a one on one between the DM and one player outside of fights.
This!! So Much!!
So far in our campaign (We're at about our 5th 6hr session now) the focus has felt very heavy on one PC, and even though I am interested in the unfolding story, this PC is pretty much the Only one who ever talks or does anything. Last session she ended up talking to an npc for At Least 15-20+ minutes TWICE, all heavily related to her backstory which we had nothing to do with And She Was Alone So Our PCs Could Do NOTHING.
Needless to say.. we weren't listening. Shit really kicks you out of your character's headspace, ESPECIALLY when you're challenging yourself with an archetype out of your comfort zone.
The saddest part about all this for me is that one PC is a reckless, playful, annoying but friendly kinda guy but his player is CONSTANTLY talked over and ignored when he tries to butt in (A VERY characteristic thing to do), and I can see the player feeling more disheartened every time. He's not new to rping either - Hell, I'd even say this type of character is his goddamn forte! - and yet he no longer has the energy, or even gets the chance to play his own character to his full potential!!
I hate seeing him feel so gloomy about future sessions when we were so excited to play our PCs together, but when we're just treated like side-characters it really is hard to stay invested, even if you really do love the characters. :/
about 2 years late to the party, but this advice helps. New DM here, made a world and a story. Still don't feel prepared until I know what my players are going to be, and I'm feeling anxious just waiting for our session zero.
I LOVE your goody video’s, but this is ABSOLUTELY AWESOM!
I ended up making my own three main antagonists that no one currently knows about.
OOOOOOOOH BOY
They are going to be so confused and so freaked.
Ya got a demon king
Cannibalistic monsters
And a damn witchcraft cult
Step one, play.
They say it takes 10,000 hours of doing something to master it.
Take notes, GM.
Never mind. Step Zero, watch AJ's gaming session. Thank me later.
Link? Who's aj?
@@elgatochurro AJ Prickett, he's an awfully good DM. Very expressive and interesting to watch. He has really good tips videos and a painfully underrated campaign he's running.
@@luluehayes ah I watch his lore videos. What campaign of his should I start watching? Its in yt right?
@@elgatochurro yeah, it's here on YT. Tell em large Marg sent ya!
This actually helps a lot, thanks
This is perfect advice. I havent played a dnd campaign no been a dm but i am currently working on my character (named Uúduk) and i cant wait to play my first campaign.
THANK YOU for the advice
Awesome advice! Love the MTG art by the way.
I can’t really argue with the happy backstory part. My character’s town was destroyed when I was three, my dad died to a psychic thingy, my friend lost his family to the undead, i joined a gang, and then I was kicked out which left my character all alone. So I’m pretty sure that that’s not considered happy
Interesting way to spark back some talking on the table: character conflict
Cause conflict between the characters by putting some bait here and there that may stray one character from the group, in enough a way so they can have a direct conversation in character or that may put you on a side event if there's troublemaking potential.
Fun GM idea for something like this: As a little side event while traveling in a market, have an unique encounter where one of the heroes meets a character from their past backstory in a market or tavern. The character could be a childhood bully or a crippled teacher who tried their best to make that character succeed.
I'm not a GM, so that idea might suck, but I just wanted to throw that out there. It'll be very fun for the specific person, and probably won't be too long of a distraction that the other characters can either roleplay along with it, or completely ignore it and be fine.
I am truly amazed that your group works through encounters so fast.
Omg I cant thank you enough this saved me! Also please make a video on tips for improvising
This is such an amazing video. Thanks
I was pleasantly surprised when you said the biggest issue was players losing interest.
I'm a new DM and I just finished a campaign of about 10 sessions and the only times it felt slow was when everyone was exhausted because it was 1:30 AM.
I must admit I made the mistake of determining the outcome of some of the events, but it happened in such a way that the players were definitely not sure if they were being railroad'd or not. So it was pretty fun!
And I sure did not make the mistake of not making the PC important in the story!
The most fun part for me are what you call the "token", the bits of revealing information at the end of a "chapter", that end up bringin more questions.
I’ve watched a lot of D&D story guides and most say you should fall somewhere between a railroad style or a sandbox style of story progression. I feel that you have given me the analogy that this style was missing. Chaining the style of story telling that has the best of both worlds.
Thank you for the great content!
I am a new player and my entire party is basically a bunch of newbs as well with a GM who has never been a GM before. Im putting together a playlist for him to help him improve!