0:16 Too many dice checks. "Only roll skill checks if failure is interesting" (Note: replace useless checks w/ taking 10/20 minutes) 1:39 Prep small and light 2:50 Tropes are good. "Don't worry about being original" 3:39 Quest deadlines 4:26 Make problems, not solutions 5:13 Paranoia as world building. (Use player speculation)
A year late, but "taking 10" and "taking 20" didn't mean minutes, it meant assuming you roll a 10 or a 20 on the d20, and add your bonus to it. So taking 10 is something you do when your character isn't hard pressed to succeed, and they get 10+ whatever bonus to a check. Taking 20 is similar, but it assumes your character spends a lot of time doing it, failing a good number of times before finally succeeding.
"Your players are more paranoid than you - listen to them" - I have been using this advice exactly as described for over two decades! That "new GM" idea never gets old.
The "Too Many Die" checks is something that immediately resonated with me. I was so used to checks just being thrown in for every single thing from previous GM's and it drove me mad. Want to do some cool trick where you're just flicking a gold coin as you're talking to an NPC? Uh oh looks like you gotta make a Sleight of Hand check for EVERY single time you flipped the coin.
Nah dawg, they just flick it. Unless it's gonna piss off the shopkeeper. But then it's a single performance check and failure gets you a 15% markup over list price just cuz he has to deal with you 😂
This is some golden advice. Especially the part about not overplanning solutions to problems. I used to do that, and often found that the players came up with much better solutions than I ever could.
It's funny how that happens eh? Once I realized that four people using teamwork is always gonna make a better solution that I could daydream, it was liberating. Now I just sit and chuckle to myself when I design an *Impossible* encounter. "lol 5 giant spiders in a 90ft vertical lava tunnel? How will they deal with this!?" Haha
Totally. Before they could enter this dungeon, the entrance had a stone golem blocking the way in an entrance chamber that was small. Did they fight it head on? Nope. They stone shaped a small wall in front of the door, opened it up and then peppered the golem with weak shots until it crumbled to the ground. Didn’t even roll initiative. Just let it happen.
In my latest game, the players were tasked with freeing a prisoner from a cult of demonworshippers. I had laid out a monastery with quite a few cultists and well-armed guards, figuring this would be a thrilling and daring combat-oriented oneshot. It would probably be impossible to take them all in a straight-up fight but, taking the advice from this video and others, I figured "That's the players' problem, not mine! Let's see how they solve it." They ended up spending a good while observing the place from afar, discussing and laying out a plan and backup plan, infiltrating the order claiming to be prospects, giving everyone at the place food poisoning by sneaking horse manure into their food and using the ensuing chaos to sneak into the cave where the prisoners were kept without anyone knowing. If the snake demon hadn't appeared and forced a fight, they'd have completed the whole thing without rolling initiative once. Instead of running a bunch of combat against mostly generic enemies as I had expected, I had to come up with NPCs on the fly, engage in roleplaying and come up with shit like what vegetables were grown in the garden and answer questions on whether the stew brewing in the kitchen was spicy enough to hide the taste of horse dung. I don't know what dung tastes like or how much, but at that point I figured that yeah, after all the time they spent coming up with this odd plan, there'd be enough spice to cover up any trace taste of it. It was so fun hearing the players come up with their silly but creative plan and rewarding them with success for their efforts. Unfortunately, their NPC friend and one of the PCs ended up dying against the snake demon, but managed to heroically pull it down with him into the massive ravine. It was sad, I would have loved for them to manage to all make it out of there in one piece, completing a supposed combat oneshot without drawing one drop of blood. But I sure am glad I spent more time setting up challenges and less time thinking of solutions - the players will handle that and I just have to decide if their plan succeeds or not.
@@DungeonMasterpiece Not sure about the better part, my players have always been pretty good at coming up with the most convoluted and terrible solutions you could think of, but at least they come up with entertaining solutions! Present them with a locked door and they'll break down the wall to get in, but not before setting off a fire at the other side of the town, dressed as guards, in order to start a riot so that that everyone's attention is pointed somewhere else while the break down the wall. And yes, that is a solution my players did come up with. They did not try to find someone who might have the key, nor did they try to pick the lock, break the door, or climb in a window.
DUDE! Been playing since 79 and DMing since the mid ninety's. I wish I had heard this advise in the eighty's, it would have advanced my game so much. I found your channel recently and have been super impressed. Thank you for sharing! I like the suits, it took me a bit to get used to though.
I agree with everything in this video. I think DMs creating finite solutions comes from modules. Just getting into the game, it's sometimes the first and only exposure to how an adventure or campaign is created. Solutions are presented to almost every encounter, so new DMs think is the best way because professionals wrote the book.
Just a quick addition to rule 1. I recently ran a game where the party had access to two rooms connected by a small hole. Each time a party member went from room to room I had them make an acrobatics check and described how gracefully they traversed the hole... Or not. On the face of it, I was breaking this first rule however, what I knew and they didn't was that danger was coming. Once it arrived, multiple people were trying to pass through the hole in the same round. What before had been a slightly amusing delay in the story telling suddenly became dangerous. I am fairly certain that if I had let them navigate the hole freely before and then only called for checks once the encounter started, it would have felt to the players like I was trying to trip them up maliciously, however, as we had established beforehand the difficulty of the task, the players had a good feel for how tricky the situation they found themselves in was.
As an experienced DM, I can only bow to your mastery. Some of these things I've done, others are new to me. I do have to say, some of 'my' best ideas were ones m players came up with in game, causing me to toss whole sections of adventures aside so I could run with their much better idea. And they're always so thrilled when they can say "I KNEW it was (whatever they speculated earlier)..."
I like the video and this has good advice. As for brevity, ahem, having ADHD makes that excruciatingly hard. I am extremely verbose. I'm getting better. Each room has one page, but I use only half for needed info and the top half for a sketch map with enemies and goodies on it. It gives me an instant tracker sheet per room. Makes it easier for my rattle brain to keep track of items found, enemies/monsters killed or bested (add bonus for interesting or unique solutions).
Hey man. I’ve got ADHD too and love DMing. I have the same problem of too much info. The way I reign myself in is a I always ask myself “What can the players actually interact with?” That usually helps me stop getting side tracked by cool ideas when making encounters. The other thing I do is apply “the rule of 3” anywhere I can. Because it makes me ask the question, “what do the players actually need to know to interact”, then I can think of three ways they can find that info out. It really reigns in a lot of my rabbit trails when creating. Idk if anyone or yourself have any other techniques.
That last tip is some pretty good advice. You give the players some ambiguous bits of information and watch as their imaginations go wild. 1) This kind of mindset is great for creativity. 2) What they come up with is a good indication of what interests them. 3) There's the satisfaction from feeling that they solved or discovered something.
I really like the last tip. Bridlewood Bay is a PbtA mystery game with a cool mechanic where the players accumulate clues until they think they have solved the mystery. Then they give their crazy theory and roll to see if it's true. Also playing solo games over the last couple years made me realize that when your GM-ing for 4 players you have 5 times the creative power. So you should encourage your players to build out the world with you.
One of the best encounters I ran followed No. 5: I took a cavern map from Dyson's Maps, called North "up" and adjusted the scale so that the players (all third level) were facing 90' to 150' drops. That's all I did; to run it I just sat back and adjudicated the distances and revealed parts of the map. Since they didn't know how deep the caverns ran, if they would encounter another patch of brown mold, or how far some of the drops were, the group was fascinated the whole way down. Mystery and exploration, tangible and predictable risk, and a plot beat motivating them to get to the bottom combined for one of the two or three sessions I ran that call perfect. (Interestingly, when I prepped it, I was so anxious the players, a pretty seasoned group of RP-heavy character-optimizers, would find the mundane task of scaling the walls too boring!)
You forgot one very good tip, never over plan. So many Game Masters become married to a plot think they're a Writer when really they are a Weekly Soap Opera situation writers. I am always prepared to end a game with a crash and burn emergency disaster and my players are fully aware that I will allow horrible world ending events to befall the setting if they don't succeed. It's one of the very interesting parts of running a long term world, each disaster echos throughout time.
"roll if failure would be interesting" is so true! learned that running Alien. the wording in that game is "only roll if the stakes are high enough that failure adds to the conflict"
Also, the trick to a good twist is that, if the players knew what you knew, it would be obvious. For example, in a megadungeon campaign I planned for AD&D, there's the ruin of what was once a wizard's tower. The wizard was a black hearted necromancer who committed vile atrocities in his quest for lichdom, which he finally achieved. The tower was destroyed in the same battle that destroyed the lich. Close by, there's a wizard's academy which remains politically neutral; the children of nobility and wealthy merchants go there from not only the whole kingdom, but from the surrounding kingdoms too (let's say it's really close to the borders of four countries). It's a pretty good place to go for advice once the players have discovered some form of magical door that they don't know how to open. The headmaster of the academy tells them that there's the possibility that the old lich's notes are still down there, and that they need to be kept out of the hands of the unscrupulous - the path to lichdom involves many evils. What the players don't know, is that the headmaster is sick, and no clerics have been able to aid him. He believes it's a curse from an ambitious underling, who may intend to use the school as a means to gain political influence. In order to prevent this from happening, he has decided to become a lich, and as such, will do whatever he can to aid the party in bringing him those notes. Knowing the above, there are many ways that some or all of this information could eventually be revealed to the party - including, if they are incredibly incurious, the population of a nearby village going missing, and the headmaster now being a lich.
Expanding on the too many checks: when you're describing the "auto success" (when you just let them do it because failure is not interesting), use the character's stats to inform your description. If the character is dextrous or strong, describe how awesomely competent they are. If they aren't, describe the fear or how much they struggle. Maybe mention that the more competent party members give advice or provide help. It can make ability checks more impactful, either foreshadowing the expected successes or failures, or bring joy or fear at the unexpected success or failures.
These videos are awesome! Short, concise, and INCREDIBLY helpful. Your videos have really helped me get started on writing my first real developed adventure.
Regarding Paranoia as World Building... I had a group of adventures investigating a poisoned water supply in a cavern that also happened to have zombies. Before the adventures went to investigate the townsfolk went to investigate too. One of the players said, "What if the water is turning the townsfolk into zombies?"....me in my head "It does now!"
One thing to use as a DM is passive skill scores. As was mentioned unless failure would have a major impact if a passive score is equal to or above the DC of a skill check then there is no need to roll the check. This really helps with Perception and Stealth cutting down on the number of die rolls but works with any skill.
As an 80s kid I can't understand the modern resistance to planning. It's like... most of the fun for me as a referee. Coming up with things, researching to improve historical accuracy, considering geopolitics, considering people's everyday lives and economic forces, considering religion...the effects of immortality/vastly differing lifespans... designing encounters, considering ecology, considering how the world reacts to the PCs... considering how groups will act with incomplete information; stealing ideas from other people, watching D&D content, cobbling together pre-made adventures... there's just so many different ways to enrich and improve your world. I was always thinking about my worlds, jotting down ideas I thought of... and I learned so much growing up, simply by wanting to make the richest world possible for my players.
This is some premium advice especially when it comes to characters affecting the narrative and also time limits. I mostly prep npc, what they want, and preexisting problems in areas. I normally prep possibilities for the session ahead and overarching story points. Your best ideas will come to you in game though based on your players reactions. My favorite moments in dnd are when I am doing nothing and my players are so invested with the current plot the are role play with each other for 5 or 10 minutes
I would add one more thing that delves more into social contract/session 0 stuff: Remember that you're at the table with other people and you are all there to have fun. You don't need to be amazing, it's a group effort.
On the paranoia as world building point. I have a player in my games. He has been "trained" by evil DMs to be paranoid AF. He's really useful both as an idea generator and as a way to make the party move forward. Once, he decided to engage in conversation with an monk NPC that I planted there mostly as decor, so I answered everything with cryptic (read nonsensical) phrases. He believed there was a puzzle to solve there, he noted every single answers. At some point I had to sit down, read the whole thing (I had to ask him for his notes because I had no recollection of what I said), and find some meaning in my own gibberish so I could plan something that he would link to the cryptic lines and think he found out their meaning.
Another trick to GMing is to treat as many elements as modular as reasonably possible. If the player characters never swallow that plot hook that brings them into the dungeon, the dungeon always has existed for a whole different reason - it stays available for future plot hooks. I especially like to do this with NPC backgrounds. Basically, I have a few personal stories which I ripped from things like soap operas. When the player characters start to care about an NPC, this situation then is part of their life. It creates an illusion of depth when the NPC was just a blacksmith which I randomly decided to play as very melancholic.
Number 1 is so true, If there is no penalty for failing just let them do it. They want to break down a door? They have sharp weapons and its a wood door, it'll happen given enough time, so skip the roll.
My take is this. In 5E, every PC has a "Passive Skill" number, which is 10 + all modifiers. As far as I know, 5E also has both "taking 10" and "taking 20." My rule for a check is simple: If a PC wants to do something average, and there is no time constraint, or failure is not really going to be entertaining, I would encourage the PC to give me their passive score, and avoid the die roll. If the skill is something they have Proficiency in, that also is a "take 10" in. If it's a skill with Expertise attached, it's a "take 10". If there is a time constraint, but Proficiency or Expertise is part of the check, it's "take 20." Or, it's "take 20" when neither Proficiency or Expertise is attached to the check, but the skill is something any PC can do, like Investigation or Performance. Really, the dice come into play before combat encounters for me, or encounters in general. Or, if, say, the PCs are in a shop and want to haggle prices. Unlocking locked doors, disarming traps, and things requiring a focus or concentration on, I'll require a roll, or if it takes longer than 6 seconds. Intimidation or Persuasion, which can drive a story, are also rollable skill checks. I'd rather have RP than dice-rolling clog up the flow of the story.
Rolling a d20 and adding a modifier is not longer than asking for a passive skill value or looking it up. If there is no time constraint or real cost for failure then just succeed. If there is something to do with failure, then roll. Passive skills have some utility, mostly as a DC for NPCs when you don't want the PCs to know the thing you do, otherwise dice rolling is just more fun than not dice rolling.
Been playing with my friend group for nearly 2 years now with the same DM. We're testing the waters by cycling DM (for 1 shots or other campaigns) so I'm taking notes. These sound very useful! Thanks for sharing. (b^^)b
You should caveat this advice by informing the viewer you have selected Theater of the Mind's Eye as your medium. You can't, for example, quickly provision a map in a VTT, and if you do select one for your Goblin Kitchen, it'd better have kitchen art on it...
I know you geopolitics videos are your bread and butter but this video is my favorite of yours. Also very cool watching you blow up. I am certain I started subscription at 5200 and that was like last week! Well done. Great stuff.
I am soooo glad I'd been playing RPGs for a couple years before I ever played my first video game. Though I don't know if it counts, because my first video game was Donkey Kong Jr.
The PHB/DMG talks about passive ability checks, but only really uses them for perception, but it really should be used for all skills discussed in your #1. I think that is a big mistake in the book how they don't push them more as the replacement for "Taking 10/20".
Ok, leaving a comment to please the almighty algorithm, but also to give a little support. I love your content and I hope you'll continue doing it. I keep asking myself how is it that I found you but recently 😢
I've radically changed the way I make my adventures recently and most of my notes are on par with the "Goblin Kitchen Dirty Dishes" level. Thanks to you (and Professor Dungeon Master). Monster stats are greatly reduced. Do I really need to know the monster's Animal Handling or History skill? Nope. It's not relevant to the encounter, leave it out. One could even reduce that even further by just making a note of what page in the Monster Manual the monster is located and referencing that when needed. Combat encounters are somewhere around 5 rounds so do I need the enemy spellcaster's ENTIRE spell list? Nope, just list their 3 strongest combat spells and assume they can cast a low-level spell as many times as they need. I'm also writing out the adventures by hand in a 100-page composition book (from the dollar store, of course) I take with me to work. I write down things on my breaks or when the mood/inspiration hits me. By editing out everything that is irrelevant to an adventure, there are 7 (!) adventures written in my composition book. And it's only half full!
Hey there! Really nice Tips you came up with! The Tip "do no checks until a failure would matter/ is intresting" might be the most important. I preached it in my group for a long right now (we have changing DMs and I'm one of them) but as i watched your video i just thought: Wait, arent attack rolls also checks in some way? Background: I like fights in Ttrpg very much but i like them more if they are "short and hard". The consequense of this tip might lead in exactly this direction. It would nead some changes in the raising-hitpoint-system but i think it might be worth. (Note at the end: English is not my native toung and I'm living in Germany, so forgive me if there are some grammar or spelling failures ^^')
Attack rolls are checks. And some RPGs even get rid of them, and change the armor stat to a value you substract from an attack. Check out the micro RPGs Mausritter and Cairn to see what I'm talking about. Feels super bizarre and wierd at first to only roll damage on an attack, until you start doing it. Then you wonder why the hell you ever rolled to hit in the first place.
@@DungeonMasterpiece I'll definitly try it :) Your discription sounds a little like it would (also) fit in some Kind of Pokemon Tabletop ... I see my next project ;)
There is a conflict of design philosophies particularly about the first point. If you're advancing through plot, then skipping those insignificant checks is the way to go. The opposing view is to model the attrition and resource management of an expedition, simulating the experience rather than a narrative - that 1d6 fall damage from a failed check might matter, when you're barely clinging to life later on in a battle. That being said, the first is vastly more popular and the latter is... kind of frustrating.
Most of us come from a video game background? Dude, when I started playing D&D, the only videogame I'd played was Missile Command and Asteroids on the Atari 2600.
I think Interesting is the wrong word for skill checks. I feel a better phrasing would be only roll a skill check where failure has repercussions beyond time and easily replaced resources.
I'm so glad that the amount of DM advice has exploded recently. Between this channel, Matt Colville, and Seth Skorkowsky, it's made prepping to run my first Traveller game much easier. Mostly by giving me permission to not prep, make a few bullet points and a flow chart, and wing it
The part about spell planning I have seen fail. NPC's that always have the exact spell to counter or work against us. If that is fixed you get a more realistic encounter.
@@DungeonMasterpiece for instance I played GURPS and opponents always had some fire protection because I had fireball and other fire spells. When moving to another sphere they suddenly always had counters for that. Ot was because the DM picked spells at the table during play. Of that is pre set you are more inclined to make different and real people instead of reacting at the moment.
@@p-thor that seems antagonistically metagamey. I'm sorry you've had that experience. My players just always assume any spellcaster they meet have a smarter of divination spells, but that helps increase the realism. Especially when they are 19 days from civilization and I ask them all to make random wisdom saves for no reason.
@@DungeonMasterpiece yeah it was but he was a new GM so I get that he wanted to put a challenging encounter on the table. For me personally I create a set of NPCs before the campaign starts ehich i can just pick and choose from. Like a Rolodex. But I'm also a different breed all together. I like to craft a world and history and everything from politics religion to world events. Most my players will never see. But gives me an easier way to in the fly see how everything reacts or responds.
@@p-thor I think the idea is NPC wizards presumably have spells like hold portal/knock, invisibility, and detect magic, but not necessarily every hard counter to the player's strategy. That way you can keep the stat block clean, and just list spells likely to come up in a few rounds of combat. For an idea why, look at the Lich entry in the 5e MM. It details everything from cantrips on up. But should your lich really waste combat rounds casting thunderwave or ray of frost? If they won't ever do that, why include the info in the stat block? The idea is to keep things simple so you don't stress yourself out with irrelevant details.
too many dice checks don't work for every system. Palladium systems you get experience for making skill rolls 25 per so let's say they don't roll 4 times they should have that's 100 exp. One other thing is in other systems how characters differentiate themselves is by having unique skills that don't come up that often. So let them roll that becuase when else is ks:byzantine architecture going to come up. Also, as I got more experience as a gm, I realized I am bad at giving loot so if i don't write down some loot they will have almost nothing most of my prep work is that just coming up with stuff to give the players make sure the magic item isn't going to destroy my campaign. The last problem is my players don't have the enthusiasm they used to. I try to get them thinking and nothing it just bounces off nowdays Otherwise, I agree with you.
Bad guys were trying to bring back an old dead god. Good guys had a weapon of the dead god and it could only be destroyed by killing the champion of the old dead god. Bad guys included someone harassing the party. Problem was I didn’t identify who the champion was as I didn’t know if the party wanted to destroy the weapon since they were using it pretty effectively. Then, the party thought the champion was the bad guys harasser. Me? Oh, yeah, that’s totally him. *starts writing it down* The players are a gold mine of good ideas. Just pay attention.
the rule is never give the DM ideas. if players have better ideas use them. players have decided how they want to interact with the world and hell if it is better go with it.
If you game has mechanics that allow for degree of success then there's a lot of value in requesting a roll. There's a chance that players could gain information that would help them pursue the plot if they roll very well and that's a great feeling for your players. Any time your players want to spot something, like searching the crowd for anyone suspicious, is a roll where failure can be interesting. And GMs should practice with a mirror, looking thoughtful and saying "You don't... *think* anything is out of the ordinary..". Any time your players ask if they can roll something you should be thinking about what that roll could do to better your campaign because that's why your player is asking. In general you need a lot less data than you imagine you will as most of what you do should be improvised. It's more important to make notes about what you create in the game so that it can be consistent. If you know there are things you'll be creating for your players there's no point in not building it in advance. Write descriptions of shops and shop owners in the next town, have stats for NPCs the players are meant to conflict with, at least to the point of their anticipated conflict. If the players attack a con-man you only stated enough to make skill checks to lie to them, you can still scramble to give them fighting stats. Your dungeon as it were needs to be prepped to the point that you fully understand how it works. The stats of three bugbear guards matters a lot less then how the dungeon produces food and manages to keep dangerous monsters out of the hives of civilized creatures that manage the dungeon. It's gotta have rules that work if your players are going to invest in the reality of your dungeon. You can absolutely get by with a boring story. Good narration and description can make any story good, some of my best games were based on Grimm's Fairy Tales and they're some of the most played out stories ever. But be mindful of tropes. They do make your story predictable, especially if you're planning any kind of plot twist. No player likes predicting the twist in a story. A deadline in your story doesn't have to be a time or a place. It just has to be measurable. Plot beats work very well. If they players understand the necromancer needs the scepter and control of the old cemetery over the mountain to get his revenge then you know things become urgent once he accomplishes one goal and players know they can be a bit relaxed if they're confident both beats are still in play. If the players are taking too long the urgency of NPCs will drive urgency in the players. If the battle is looming and the players are wanting to have armor made, have the armorer pack up shop to go support troops on the battlefront. Every story has more than one way to skin a cat, in fact your plot really needs minimally two ways to skin every cat. But also you need to have the answer to each problem as visible as possible. One of the biggest problem GMs have is building a plot with a problem that isn't clear to their players and having to choose to feed them the answer or watch them beat their heads against the locked door. You've got to know the way players are intended to bypass an obstacle in order to ensure you've made that path as clear as possible.
To be fair, I'm pretty sure he's talking about DMs/GMs who make you roll skill checks for practically everything when taking 10/using passive skill checks would be much more logical in many situations. Trying to spot something in a crowd is not an example of this.
I haven't watched the whole video yet but the fact that the beginning of the video and the thumbnail both say 6 is so funny to me because in the actual title it says top 5🤣🤣🤣
"You don't need to stat out every NPC" LOL! You have NEVER Played with a properly devious player set then! They WILL find out you don't have stats and FORCE you to make them on the spot... ALWAYS have stats for NPCs even if they are cookie cutter standard stats that are ALL the same for said type of NPC.
@@DungeonMasterpiece Exactly... if one common villager is suppose to be extra strong, give him a few more strength points, take a few int points from the village idiot, etc...
@@rlt422 if he's a powerful spell caster, he has enough hit points to survive 7 rounds of combat and casts whatever spells you thinks he needs. Just have someone who connects a hit on round 8 of combat drop the npc. Hit points are a lie.
I loved all of this with ONE caveat. I disagree with only giving the NPC Wizard 2-3 Spells. I disagree because it doesn't make sense that when the party defeats an enemy Wizard, they would not find a spell book for that Wizard 9Either on or very close nearby) I see SO many games where the party finds a ridiculous amount of weapons and armor, plus magic items... but very few times that the party's Wizard even finds a Scroll to copy. It's one thing if the NPC is a Sorceror, Warlock or other Spontaneous caster; but for a Wizard, the DM really should have a Spellbook to find. Thanks for a terrific video!
Most of the advice is okay, but I hope new DMs don't take it as "gospel." Run your game/prep for your game as you see fit. Take what you like and ignore the rest.
"This is when you take notes." - Baron
I've been doing that one for decades!
Best advice I've heard on DMing.
0:16 Too many dice checks. "Only roll skill checks if failure is interesting"
(Note: replace useless checks w/ taking 10/20 minutes)
1:39 Prep small and light
2:50 Tropes are good. "Don't worry about being original"
3:39 Quest deadlines
4:26 Make problems, not solutions
5:13 Paranoia as world building. (Use player speculation)
"The true heroes put timestamps in the comments." Thank you.
My Flando hero lol
A year late, but "taking 10" and "taking 20" didn't mean minutes, it meant assuming you roll a 10 or a 20 on the d20, and add your bonus to it. So taking 10 is something you do when your character isn't hard pressed to succeed, and they get 10+ whatever bonus to a check. Taking 20 is similar, but it assumes your character spends a lot of time doing it, failing a good number of times before finally succeeding.
"Your players are more paranoid than you - listen to them" - I have been using this advice exactly as described for over two decades! That "new GM" idea never gets old.
The "Too Many Die" checks is something that immediately resonated with me. I was so used to checks just being thrown in for every single thing from previous GM's and it drove me mad. Want to do some cool trick where you're just flicking a gold coin as you're talking to an NPC? Uh oh looks like you gotta make a Sleight of Hand check for EVERY single time you flipped the coin.
Nah dawg, they just flick it. Unless it's gonna piss off the shopkeeper. But then it's a single performance check and failure gets you a 15% markup over list price just cuz he has to deal with you 😂
Some people live to see you fail, and they should never be DMs. And some people just need to see this video
This is some golden advice. Especially the part about not overplanning solutions to problems. I used to do that, and often found that the players came up with much better solutions than I ever could.
It's funny how that happens eh? Once I realized that four people using teamwork is always gonna make a better solution that I could daydream, it was liberating. Now I just sit and chuckle to myself when I design an *Impossible* encounter. "lol 5 giant spiders in a 90ft vertical lava tunnel? How will they deal with this!?" Haha
Totally. Before they could enter this dungeon, the entrance had a stone golem blocking the way in an entrance chamber that was small. Did they fight it head on? Nope. They stone shaped a small wall in front of the door, opened it up and then peppered the golem with weak shots until it crumbled to the ground. Didn’t even roll initiative. Just let it happen.
In my latest game, the players were tasked with freeing a prisoner from a cult of demonworshippers. I had laid out a monastery with quite a few cultists and well-armed guards, figuring this would be a thrilling and daring combat-oriented oneshot. It would probably be impossible to take them all in a straight-up fight but, taking the advice from this video and others, I figured "That's the players' problem, not mine! Let's see how they solve it."
They ended up spending a good while observing the place from afar, discussing and laying out a plan and backup plan, infiltrating the order claiming to be prospects, giving everyone at the place food poisoning by sneaking horse manure into their food and using the ensuing chaos to sneak into the cave where the prisoners were kept without anyone knowing. If the snake demon hadn't appeared and forced a fight, they'd have completed the whole thing without rolling initiative once. Instead of running a bunch of combat against mostly generic enemies as I had expected, I had to come up with NPCs on the fly, engage in roleplaying and come up with shit like what vegetables were grown in the garden and answer questions on whether the stew brewing in the kitchen was spicy enough to hide the taste of horse dung. I don't know what dung tastes like or how much, but at that point I figured that yeah, after all the time they spent coming up with this odd plan, there'd be enough spice to cover up any trace taste of it.
It was so fun hearing the players come up with their silly but creative plan and rewarding them with success for their efforts. Unfortunately, their NPC friend and one of the PCs ended up dying against the snake demon, but managed to heroically pull it down with him into the massive ravine. It was sad, I would have loved for them to manage to all make it out of there in one piece, completing a supposed combat oneshot without drawing one drop of blood. But I sure am glad I spent more time setting up challenges and less time thinking of solutions - the players will handle that and I just have to decide if their plan succeeds or not.
You plan solutions for the players???
@@DungeonMasterpiece Not sure about the better part, my players have always been pretty good at coming up with the most convoluted and terrible solutions you could think of, but at least they come up with entertaining solutions! Present them with a locked door and they'll break down the wall to get in, but not before setting off a fire at the other side of the town, dressed as guards, in order to start a riot so that that everyone's attention is pointed somewhere else while the break down the wall.
And yes, that is a solution my players did come up with. They did not try to find someone who might have the key, nor did they try to pick the lock, break the door, or climb in a window.
DUDE! Been playing since 79 and DMing since the mid ninety's. I wish I had heard this advise in the eighty's, it would have advanced my game so much. I found your channel recently and have been super impressed. Thank you for sharing! I like the suits, it took me a bit to get used to though.
Glad you found the advice helpful!
I agree with everything in this video. I think DMs creating finite solutions comes from modules. Just getting into the game, it's sometimes the first and only exposure to how an adventure or campaign is created. Solutions are presented to almost every encounter, so new DMs think is the best way because professionals wrote the book.
Just a quick addition to rule 1.
I recently ran a game where the party had access to two rooms connected by a small hole.
Each time a party member went from room to room I had them make an acrobatics check and described how gracefully they traversed the hole... Or not.
On the face of it, I was breaking this first rule however, what I knew and they didn't was that danger was coming. Once it arrived, multiple people were trying to pass through the hole in the same round. What before had been a slightly amusing delay in the story telling suddenly became dangerous.
I am fairly certain that if I had let them navigate the hole freely before and then only called for checks once the encounter started, it would have felt to the players like I was trying to trip them up maliciously, however, as we had established beforehand the difficulty of the task, the players had a good feel for how tricky the situation they found themselves in was.
Sounds like a justified exception
That last tip is basically movie writers checking out what the theory crafters are writing on Reddit.
Fantastic advice here! Really boils down the important parts of prepping for a game and makes it way less scary for new DM's
As an experienced DM, I can only bow to your mastery. Some of these things I've done, others are new to me.
I do have to say, some of 'my' best ideas were ones m players came up with in game, causing me to toss whole sections of adventures aside so I could run with their much better idea.
And they're always so thrilled when they can say "I KNEW it was (whatever they speculated earlier)..."
I like the video and this has good advice. As for brevity, ahem, having ADHD makes that excruciatingly hard. I am extremely verbose. I'm getting better. Each room has one page, but I use only half for needed info and the top half for a sketch map with enemies and goodies on it. It gives me an instant tracker sheet per room. Makes it easier for my rattle brain to keep track of items found, enemies/monsters killed or bested (add bonus for interesting or unique solutions).
Hey man. I’ve got ADHD too and love DMing. I have the same problem of too much info. The way I reign myself in is a I always ask myself “What can the players actually interact with?” That usually helps me stop getting side tracked by cool ideas when making encounters. The other thing I do is apply “the rule of 3” anywhere I can. Because it makes me ask the question, “what do the players actually need to know to interact”, then I can think of three ways they can find that info out. It really reigns in a lot of my rabbit trails when creating. Idk if anyone or yourself have any other techniques.
Great tips! I've only run a few one-shots, but this is all great advice I'll have to remember.
That last tip is some pretty good advice. You give the players some ambiguous bits of information and watch as their imaginations go wild. 1) This kind of mindset is great for creativity. 2) What they come up with is a good indication of what interests them. 3) There's the satisfaction from feeling that they solved or discovered something.
Excellent advice in a concise package. Thank you!
I really like the last tip. Bridlewood Bay is a PbtA mystery game with a cool mechanic where the players accumulate clues until they think they have solved the mystery. Then they give their crazy theory and roll to see if it's true. Also playing solo games over the last couple years made me realize that when your GM-ing for 4 players you have 5 times the creative power. So you should encourage your players to build out the world with you.
One of the best encounters I ran followed No. 5: I took a cavern map from Dyson's Maps, called North "up" and adjusted the scale so that the players (all third level) were facing 90' to 150' drops. That's all I did; to run it I just sat back and adjudicated the distances and revealed parts of the map. Since they didn't know how deep the caverns ran, if they would encounter another patch of brown mold, or how far some of the drops were, the group was fascinated the whole way down. Mystery and exploration, tangible and predictable risk, and a plot beat motivating them to get to the bottom combined for one of the two or three sessions I ran that call perfect. (Interestingly, when I prepped it, I was so anxious the players, a pretty seasoned group of RP-heavy character-optimizers, would find the mundane task of scaling the walls too boring!)
This is a great compilation of advice from videos and forum posts before. Thanks for prompting me to FINALLY write tips like these down!
All good tips that eventually I figured out about a year later into DMing. Wish I knew beforehand!
You forgot one very good tip, never over plan. So many Game Masters become married to a plot think they're a Writer when really they are a Weekly Soap Opera situation writers. I am always prepared to end a game with a crash and burn emergency disaster and my players are fully aware that I will allow horrible world ending events to befall the setting if they don't succeed.
It's one of the very interesting parts of running a long term world, each disaster echos throughout time.
This is a great idea to talk about for a follow up episode
"roll if failure would be interesting" is so true!
learned that running Alien. the wording in that game is "only roll if the stakes are high enough that failure adds to the conflict"
Also, the trick to a good twist is that, if the players knew what you knew, it would be obvious.
For example, in a megadungeon campaign I planned for AD&D, there's the ruin of what was once a wizard's tower. The wizard was a black hearted necromancer who committed vile atrocities in his quest for lichdom, which he finally achieved. The tower was destroyed in the same battle that destroyed the lich.
Close by, there's a wizard's academy which remains politically neutral; the children of nobility and wealthy merchants go there from not only the whole kingdom, but from the surrounding kingdoms too (let's say it's really close to the borders of four countries). It's a pretty good place to go for advice once the players have discovered some form of magical door that they don't know how to open. The headmaster of the academy tells them that there's the possibility that the old lich's notes are still down there, and that they need to be kept out of the hands of the unscrupulous - the path to lichdom involves many evils.
What the players don't know, is that the headmaster is sick, and no clerics have been able to aid him. He believes it's a curse from an ambitious underling, who may intend to use the school as a means to gain political influence. In order to prevent this from happening, he has decided to become a lich, and as such, will do whatever he can to aid the party in bringing him those notes.
Knowing the above, there are many ways that some or all of this information could eventually be revealed to the party - including, if they are incredibly incurious, the population of a nearby village going missing, and the headmaster now being a lich.
Me: holding my 32 pages of notes before a session "Yeah don't worry everyone just some light prep this time"
Omfg hahaha
Expanding on the too many checks: when you're describing the "auto success" (when you just let them do it because failure is not interesting), use the character's stats to inform your description. If the character is dextrous or strong, describe how awesomely competent they are. If they aren't, describe the fear or how much they struggle. Maybe mention that the more competent party members give advice or provide help.
It can make ability checks more impactful, either foreshadowing the expected successes or failures, or bring joy or fear at the unexpected success or failures.
Fantastic info, going to be super helpful coming up here when I try DMing a one shot. Also nice snake plant in the background
You had me at beer and cracking goblin skulls. Well structured and quick to the points. Excellent video.
Thanks! you skinless skeleton, you! 😂
Are you on discord?
@@DungeonMasterpiece no but I need to make an account. Im on instagram. Hit me up 😎
These videos are awesome! Short, concise, and INCREDIBLY helpful. Your videos have really helped me get started on writing my first real developed adventure.
Regarding Paranoia as World Building...
I had a group of adventures investigating a poisoned water supply in a cavern that also happened to have zombies. Before the adventures went to investigate the townsfolk went to investigate too. One of the players said, "What if the water is turning the townsfolk into zombies?"....me in my head "It does now!"
One thing to use as a DM is passive skill scores. As was mentioned unless failure would have a major impact if a passive score is equal to or above the DC of a skill check then there is no need to roll the check. This really helps with Perception and Stealth cutting down on the number of die rolls but works with any skill.
Great vid Baron! All great points.
Thanks @knarb!
ive seen a lot of dm tips for beginners this is the most succinct. thank you
As an 80s kid I can't understand the modern resistance to planning. It's like... most of the fun for me as a referee. Coming up with things, researching to improve historical accuracy, considering geopolitics, considering people's everyday lives and economic forces, considering religion...the effects of immortality/vastly differing lifespans... designing encounters, considering ecology, considering how the world reacts to the PCs... considering how groups will act with incomplete information; stealing ideas from other people, watching D&D content, cobbling together pre-made adventures... there's just so many different ways to enrich and improve your world. I was always thinking about my worlds, jotting down ideas I thought of... and I learned so much growing up, simply by wanting to make the richest world possible for my players.
This is some premium advice especially when it comes to characters affecting the narrative and also time limits.
I mostly prep npc, what they want, and preexisting problems in areas.
I normally prep possibilities for the session ahead and overarching story points.
Your best ideas will come to you in game though based on your players reactions. My favorite moments in dnd are when I am doing nothing and my players are so invested with the current plot the are role play with each other for 5 or 10 minutes
Spot on. Same to all of this, or at least it's my ideal prep routine, even if I sometimes deviate.
I would add one more thing that delves more into social contract/session 0 stuff: Remember that you're at the table with other people and you are all there to have fun. You don't need to be amazing, it's a group effort.
On the paranoia as world building point. I have a player in my games. He has been "trained" by evil DMs to be paranoid AF. He's really useful both as an idea generator and as a way to make the party move forward.
Once, he decided to engage in conversation with an monk NPC that I planted there mostly as decor, so I answered everything with cryptic (read nonsensical) phrases. He believed there was a puzzle to solve there, he noted every single answers. At some point I had to sit down, read the whole thing (I had to ask him for his notes because I had no recollection of what I said), and find some meaning in my own gibberish so I could plan something that he would link to the cryptic lines and think he found out their meaning.
Great advise, even though I’ve been DMing for a while now, little things like discussed always makes our game fun.
Another trick to GMing is to treat as many elements as modular as reasonably possible. If the player characters never swallow that plot hook that brings them into the dungeon, the dungeon always has existed for a whole different reason - it stays available for future plot hooks. I especially like to do this with NPC backgrounds. Basically, I have a few personal stories which I ripped from things like soap operas. When the player characters start to care about an NPC, this situation then is part of their life. It creates an illusion of depth when the NPC was just a blacksmith which I randomly decided to play as very melancholic.
Great video, and I really appreciated the quick summary at the end of the video.
Number 1 is so true, If there is no penalty for failing just let them do it. They want to break down a door? They have sharp weapons and its a wood door, it'll happen given enough time, so skip the roll.
Brilliant video. I hope every new dm sees this.
My take is this.
In 5E, every PC has a "Passive Skill" number, which is 10 + all modifiers. As far as I know, 5E also has both "taking 10" and "taking 20."
My rule for a check is simple: If a PC wants to do something average, and there is no time constraint, or failure is not really going to be entertaining, I would encourage the PC to give me their passive score, and avoid the die roll. If the skill is something they have Proficiency in, that also is a "take 10" in. If it's a skill with Expertise attached, it's a "take 10". If there is a time constraint, but Proficiency or Expertise is part of the check, it's "take 20." Or, it's "take 20" when neither Proficiency or Expertise is attached to the check, but the skill is something any PC can do, like Investigation or Performance.
Really, the dice come into play before combat encounters for me, or encounters in general. Or, if, say, the PCs are in a shop and want to haggle prices. Unlocking locked doors, disarming traps, and things requiring a focus or concentration on, I'll require a roll, or if it takes longer than 6 seconds. Intimidation or Persuasion, which can drive a story, are also rollable skill checks.
I'd rather have RP than dice-rolling clog up the flow of the story.
Rolling a d20 and adding a modifier is not longer than asking for a passive skill value or looking it up. If there is no time constraint or real cost for failure then just succeed. If there is something to do with failure, then roll. Passive skills have some utility, mostly as a DC for NPCs when you don't want the PCs to know the thing you do, otherwise dice rolling is just more fun than not dice rolling.
Been playing with my friend group for nearly 2 years now with the same DM. We're testing the waters by cycling DM (for 1 shots or other campaigns) so I'm taking notes. These sound very useful! Thanks for sharing. (b^^)b
Your conclusions to these videos are excellent.
You should caveat this advice by informing the viewer you have selected Theater of the Mind's Eye as your medium. You can't, for example, quickly provision a map in a VTT, and if you do select one for your Goblin Kitchen, it'd better have kitchen art on it...
I know you geopolitics videos are your bread and butter but this video is my favorite of yours. Also very cool watching you blow up. I am certain I started subscription at 5200 and that was like last week! Well done. Great stuff.
I am soooo glad I'd been playing RPGs for a couple years before I ever played my first video game.
Though I don't know if it counts, because my first video game was Donkey Kong Jr.
Great tips! You are a really experienced GM ! Thank you !
The PHB/DMG talks about passive ability checks, but only really uses them for perception, but it really should be used for all skills discussed in your #1. I think that is a big mistake in the book how they don't push them more as the replacement for "Taking 10/20".
I wish this content existed when I started playing.
This is very good advice for DMs of all levels.
I prep for improvisation. Improvising is much easier if you have a solid base of something to improvise from than improvising from nothing.
“Your players have more brains than you” should be taped to any DM screen worth having.
I am up way to late while watching this 😅 great advice
I have been thoroughly bitten by some sort of ttrpg bug !?
I shall devour your tips & tricks !
Sorry I don't have more of them for you! Stay tuned for more!
Ok, leaving a comment to please the almighty algorithm, but also to give a little support. I love your content and I hope you'll continue doing it. I keep asking myself how is it that I found you but recently 😢
I've radically changed the way I make my adventures recently and most of my notes are on par with the "Goblin Kitchen Dirty Dishes" level. Thanks to you (and Professor Dungeon Master).
Monster stats are greatly reduced. Do I really need to know the monster's Animal Handling or History skill? Nope. It's not relevant to the encounter, leave it out. One could even reduce that even further by just making a note of what page in the Monster Manual the monster is located and referencing that when needed.
Combat encounters are somewhere around 5 rounds so do I need the enemy spellcaster's ENTIRE spell list? Nope, just list their 3 strongest combat spells and assume they can cast a low-level spell as many times as they need.
I'm also writing out the adventures by hand in a 100-page composition book (from the dollar store, of course) I take with me to work. I write down things on my breaks or when the mood/inspiration hits me.
By editing out everything that is irrelevant to an adventure, there are 7 (!) adventures written in my composition book. And it's only half full!
That last one is gold!
Hey there! Really nice Tips you came up with! The Tip "do no checks until a failure would matter/ is intresting" might be the most important. I preached it in my group for a long right now (we have changing DMs and I'm one of them) but as i watched your video i just thought: Wait, arent attack rolls also checks in some way?
Background: I like fights in Ttrpg very much but i like them more if they are "short and hard". The consequense of this tip might lead in exactly this direction. It would nead some changes in the raising-hitpoint-system but i think it might be worth.
(Note at the end: English is not my native toung and I'm living in Germany, so forgive me if there are some grammar or spelling failures ^^')
Attack rolls are checks. And some RPGs even get rid of them, and change the armor stat to a value you substract from an attack.
Check out the micro RPGs Mausritter and Cairn to see what I'm talking about. Feels super bizarre and wierd at first to only roll damage on an attack, until you start doing it. Then you wonder why the hell you ever rolled to hit in the first place.
@@DungeonMasterpiece I'll definitly try it :) Your discription sounds a little like it would (also) fit in some Kind of Pokemon Tabletop ... I see my next project ;)
Great video man. Thanks!
Glad you like it!
All good advice even for experienced DMs.
Good advice all around 👍. Great vid, take care and stay safe 😎 🤘 🍻
Would one double sided A4 page be too much?
3:24 Wait, I can digivolve into Seth Skorkowsky?! I've always wanted to give my mental delusions a more concise form.
Good stuff man subscribed after watching
Over all though... this is FANTASTIC advise :)
Very useful!
Meaningless skill checks - one if the pillars of 5e
There is a conflict of design philosophies particularly about the first point. If you're advancing through plot, then skipping those insignificant checks is the way to go. The opposing view is to model the attrition and resource management of an expedition, simulating the experience rather than a narrative - that 1d6 fall damage from a failed check might matter, when you're barely clinging to life later on in a battle.
That being said, the first is vastly more popular and the latter is... kind of frustrating.
Good advice!
My god you'd be a great DM I'm jealous of your players whenever you run games
Most of us come from a video game background? Dude, when I started playing D&D, the only videogame I'd played was Missile Command and Asteroids on the Atari 2600.
Really good tips as a new dm these where gold thanks a bunch. #paladins are life😉
This is excellent sir! 🤘🏻🧐
Glad you appreciate it!
I think Interesting is the wrong word for skill checks. I feel a better phrasing would be only roll a skill check where failure has repercussions beyond time and easily replaced resources.
I'm so glad that the amount of DM advice has exploded recently. Between this channel, Matt Colville, and Seth Skorkowsky, it's made prepping to run my first Traveller game much easier. Mostly by giving me permission to not prep, make a few bullet points and a flow chart, and wing it
I’m really liking your vids,
The part about spell planning I have seen fail. NPC's that always have the exact spell to counter or work against us. If that is fixed you get a more realistic encounter.
In what way do you mean?
@@DungeonMasterpiece for instance I played GURPS and opponents always had some fire protection because I had fireball and other fire spells. When moving to another sphere they suddenly always had counters for that. Ot was because the DM picked spells at the table during play. Of that is pre set you are more inclined to make different and real people instead of reacting at the moment.
@@p-thor that seems antagonistically metagamey. I'm sorry you've had that experience. My players just always assume any spellcaster they meet have a smarter of divination spells, but that helps increase the realism. Especially when they are 19 days from civilization and I ask them all to make random wisdom saves for no reason.
@@DungeonMasterpiece yeah it was but he was a new GM so I get that he wanted to put a challenging encounter on the table. For me personally I create a set of NPCs before the campaign starts ehich i can just pick and choose from. Like a Rolodex.
But I'm also a different breed all together. I like to craft a world and history and everything from politics religion to world events.
Most my players will never see. But gives me an easier way to in the fly see how everything reacts or responds.
@@p-thor I think the idea is NPC wizards presumably have spells like hold portal/knock, invisibility, and detect magic, but not necessarily every hard counter to the player's strategy. That way you can keep the stat block clean, and just list spells likely to come up in a few rounds of combat.
For an idea why, look at the Lich entry in the 5e MM. It details everything from cantrips on up. But should your lich really waste combat rounds casting thunderwave or ray of frost? If they won't ever do that, why include the info in the stat block? The idea is to keep things simple so you don't stress yourself out with irrelevant details.
Over prepping is my doom.
Agreed! Let's eat cake
too many dice checks don't work for every system. Palladium systems you get experience for making skill rolls 25 per so let's say they don't roll 4 times they should have that's 100 exp. One other thing is in other systems how characters differentiate themselves is by having unique skills that don't come up that often. So let them roll that becuase when else is ks:byzantine architecture going to come up.
Also, as I got more experience as a gm, I realized I am bad at giving loot so if i don't write down some loot they will have almost nothing most of my prep work is that just coming up with stuff to give the players make sure the magic item isn't going to destroy my campaign.
The last problem is my players don't have the enthusiasm they used to. I try to get them thinking and nothing it just bounces off nowdays
Otherwise, I agree with you.
Bad guys were trying to bring back an old dead god. Good guys had a weapon of the dead god and it could only be destroyed by killing the champion of the old dead god. Bad guys included someone harassing the party.
Problem was I didn’t identify who the champion was as I didn’t know if the party wanted to destroy the weapon since they were using it pretty effectively.
Then, the party thought the champion was the bad guys harasser. Me? Oh, yeah, that’s totally him. *starts writing it down*
The players are a gold mine of good ideas. Just pay attention.
Dood! Stawp!
Yur givin away awl my seek rits.
If ewe dont stawp, there gonna fined out I'm naught a genie us.
the rule is never give the DM ideas. if players have better ideas use them. players have decided how they want to interact with the world and hell if it is better go with it.
If you game has mechanics that allow for degree of success then there's a lot of value in requesting a roll. There's a chance that players could gain information that would help them pursue the plot if they roll very well and that's a great feeling for your players. Any time your players want to spot something, like searching the crowd for anyone suspicious, is a roll where failure can be interesting. And GMs should practice with a mirror, looking thoughtful and saying "You don't... *think* anything is out of the ordinary..". Any time your players ask if they can roll something you should be thinking about what that roll could do to better your campaign because that's why your player is asking.
In general you need a lot less data than you imagine you will as most of what you do should be improvised. It's more important to make notes about what you create in the game so that it can be consistent. If you know there are things you'll be creating for your players there's no point in not building it in advance. Write descriptions of shops and shop owners in the next town, have stats for NPCs the players are meant to conflict with, at least to the point of their anticipated conflict. If the players attack a con-man you only stated enough to make skill checks to lie to them, you can still scramble to give them fighting stats. Your dungeon as it were needs to be prepped to the point that you fully understand how it works. The stats of three bugbear guards matters a lot less then how the dungeon produces food and manages to keep dangerous monsters out of the hives of civilized creatures that manage the dungeon. It's gotta have rules that work if your players are going to invest in the reality of your dungeon.
You can absolutely get by with a boring story. Good narration and description can make any story good, some of my best games were based on Grimm's Fairy Tales and they're some of the most played out stories ever. But be mindful of tropes. They do make your story predictable, especially if you're planning any kind of plot twist. No player likes predicting the twist in a story.
A deadline in your story doesn't have to be a time or a place. It just has to be measurable. Plot beats work very well. If they players understand the necromancer needs the scepter and control of the old cemetery over the mountain to get his revenge then you know things become urgent once he accomplishes one goal and players know they can be a bit relaxed if they're confident both beats are still in play. If the players are taking too long the urgency of NPCs will drive urgency in the players. If the battle is looming and the players are wanting to have armor made, have the armorer pack up shop to go support troops on the battlefront.
Every story has more than one way to skin a cat, in fact your plot really needs minimally two ways to skin every cat. But also you need to have the answer to each problem as visible as possible. One of the biggest problem GMs have is building a plot with a problem that isn't clear to their players and having to choose to feed them the answer or watch them beat their heads against the locked door. You've got to know the way players are intended to bypass an obstacle in order to ensure you've made that path as clear as possible.
To be fair, I'm pretty sure he's talking about DMs/GMs who make you roll skill checks for practically everything when taking 10/using passive skill checks would be much more logical in many situations. Trying to spot something in a crowd is not an example of this.
I haven't watched the whole video yet but the fact that the beginning of the video and the thumbnail both say 6 is so funny to me because in the actual title it says top 5🤣🤣🤣
I’ve been playing for five years, am I a new dm?
"You don't need to stat out every NPC" LOL! You have NEVER Played with a properly devious player set then! They WILL find out you don't have stats and FORCE you to make them on the spot... ALWAYS have stats for NPCs even if they are cookie cutter standard stats that are ALL the same for said type of NPC.
Tens across the board and 8hp!
@@DungeonMasterpiece Exactly... if one common villager is suppose to be extra strong, give him a few more strength points, take a few int points from the village idiot, etc...
@@rlt422 if he's a powerful spell caster, he has enough hit points to survive 7 rounds of combat and casts whatever spells you thinks he needs. Just have someone who connects a hit on round 8 of combat drop the npc. Hit points are a lie.
I loved all of this with ONE caveat. I disagree with only giving the NPC Wizard 2-3 Spells. I disagree because it doesn't make sense that when the party defeats an enemy Wizard, they would not find a spell book for that Wizard 9Either on or very close nearby) I see SO many games where the party finds a ridiculous amount of weapons and armor, plus magic items... but very few times that the party's Wizard even finds a Scroll to copy. It's one thing if the NPC is a Sorceror, Warlock or other Spontaneous caster; but for a Wizard, the DM really should have a Spellbook to find. Thanks for a terrific video!
Most of the advice is okay, but I hope new DMs don't take it as "gospel." Run your game/prep for your game as you see fit. Take what you like and ignore the rest.
I approve of the click bait title
Climbing never allowed take 10 or 20 your example is horrid and I also disagree
seriously WHO KEEPS GIVING ASIAN SUBTITLES TO ENGLISH VIDS?!
God not another arm chair dm telling us how to play our game. Sigh kill me.
LOLOLOL ABSOLUTELY REDONCULOUS COMMENT 🤣🤣You do realize the algorithm feeds you this kind of content because you continue watching it, right?
@@DungeonMasterpiece thats assuming i wasnt linked from outside YT. but you dont get those statistic.
@@BrighamMike actually, I do. And in what percentage from each external source. The amount of data is honestly too much.
@@DungeonMasterpiece then dig deeper before assuming. i made sure to dislike the video and everything i need to do to not see it again. thumbs up.
@@DungeonMasterpiece lol dude you got a couple hundred views and 41 comments. if thats too much data i weep for this pages growth.