Right. We have a player in our group who always gets pissed when our DM almost kills one of us in a fight. It's like, dude, it's not HIS job to make sure we win, it's ours. If your DM isn't playing the monsters to try and kill you, he's doing it wrong. It's no fun if everything is too easy. I'd rather barely scrape through a fight with 2 HP left and no more spell slots than have the fight handed to me. Our DM always apologized when that happened and I have to keep telling him not to. 😂
@@xMRxZEROx We just had an incident in our last game session where we got hit from two directions by spell-casters. My character (a cleric) and another character (a fighter) failed all saving throws for the spells. So we were paralyzed within a Cloud Kill. One round went by and we failed our saves. Second round the fighter made his saves and dragged my character to safety. We both only had two or three hit points left. I don't think the other two characters would have survived on their own. We lived, but we failed our mission and will have to retreat and figure out another way to accomplish our goal. When we do succeed the victory will feel well deserved. I don't blame our DM, he played the villains smart (a drow of some sort and a Mind Flayer) and took advantage of our character's positioning. It almost worked and the DM knew (and even said so) by grouping the spells up on us like that would make it tough fight.
@@robertherzog9294 Bob Herzog is a character in the knights of the dinner table comic book series by kenzer and company. I thought that your name was riffing on that. apologies if that's not the case! otherwise I guess it's just a crazy coincidence.
Twentry five minutes in and I finally notice this dungeon sounds familiar. I’ve been through it as a player with a first time DM. Was a fun time. The bugbear killed my character but the party came through and rescued the girl. Thanks for helping teach my friend how to DM.
I never played D&D before and try to be the DM for a group of friends who never played D&D. Making characters took days.. and our first game was just roleplaying (in a tavern)to understand our characters and feel if its something for us or not. Without even one fight we all knew that we will make this every week. It made so much fun and kinda changed me. I had a lot of stress.. so much that i had problems to speak clear and i remembered when i roleplayed the npcs and just roleplayed me without the ticks. Its strange but D&D actually helps me to reduce the preasure. It sounds so stupid now that i read it but thats how it is for me. Thanks for all the tips.
I just started playing D&D with some guys who take the game more like a video game than storytelling, which is fine, it's what they're looking for from it, but I'm trying to find some folks to try more roleplay narrative focused sessions with. I say that because I have a stutter that's pretty related to my stress level and am interested in seeing if I have a similar experience to yours.
Role playing (technically LARP, but this is applicable too) has actually helped people with diagnosed anxiety, so it could feasibly help you too. You two too? Too many to/too/twos.
I've stopped GMing after 7 years of several campaigns and systems, I got tired of GMing. Watching this has reinstated my desire to lead the game again. Thanks man. I needed this so bad.
Stephen Sayers yeah and three years now going strong. 2a week. Found out new ways to GM as the dungeon delving became pointless. Realized the characters are defined by thoughts of people they know. Not the players. Now the stories are a lot more personal.
I feel like this tiny 3 room adventure that you basically just threw together for demonstration purposes is more well thought-out and cohesive than anything I've ever played or run. Thanks for making the videos.
I still don't like the trap. If the trap is designed to allow goblins to pass, then it was made by the goblins. I don't picture goblins making something complex like a swinging blade. More like a pit with sharpened sticks if they made it. If the Brotherhood made it, on the other side of the offering plate, then it shouldnt allow goblins to pass. Plus, how does the Bug pass? There should be a safety or bypass to allow that. I realize it was just a quick justification but one of my pet peaves are dungeons that make no sense... "so these people made a square room underground, then they tunneled for 80 more feet, and made another square room? Were they just bored? Ever dug holes in the ground with a shovel? You don't add 10 feet if you don't have to.
@@NemoOhd20I agree, in my mind there would have been no traps origionally. The temple was for worship and the secret door is enough to keep wandering peasants out. I would say more likely the goblins would place a alarm trap such as skulls on a rope that make noise when distrubed towards the entrance to warn them of unwanted visitors. Making the players lose surprise if triggered.
Counter point the trap was designed for humans the goblins just happen to be light enough. Or the trap resets itself and goblins are short enough not to get hit
@@NemoOhd20Truth is stranger than fiction. The trap can easily be somewhat deficient, or it could have deteriorated over time - maybe the triggers have rusted a bit over the years and need more push to make it activate. Regardless the reason why its still there is because goblins can't trigger it, whatever reason behind that you might have.
+Matthew Colville As a watcher, it did not feel as long as you may think. It still felt "short and punchy", you just covered a lot of ground. ;) My question is about backstory. I have played for quite a few DMs that all care about and encourage we minions to have a rich backstory with at least some hooks and basic reason traveling. I like the new systems way of addressing this, for those new to the game, but I feel like after your 1st character most people would prefer the freedom to come up with their own. However, over the years I have heard many players complain of writer's block or lack of creativity. Have you encountered this and do you have any methods you have used or seen really get players motivated? I have seen questionnaires, exp rewards used and they work most of the time. I love the way you manage to word things and as you can see, I currently lack the skill of keeping things short (sorry bout that). Just in case, TLDR: What would you say to your players to try to make them understand how much it adds to everyone's experience when character's have thought out personalities, motivations and at least a little history to explain them. Thanks for these videos. I can't wait for the next one! :D
+RaisinGirl13 It's a good question! I actually don't make a big deal about character backstory anymore. I *used* to literally *require* each player to write a 2-page backstory before we played. That was when I was in college and very much full of myself. But that's not how we played when we were kids, and we had a great time! I eventually realized "Some players like this, some don't." It's perfectly legitimate for a player to have a character that's just a collection of numbers and abilities, if that's what they like. I also let players know "Listen, you can develop your backstory as we play! You don't have to decide all this now." Players often learn something about the setting as they play, and decide *that* is part of their backstory, cool! I think in a group of 6 players you're gonna get one or two players who are into the whole backstory thing, and one or two who are basically just playing themselves, with the other players in the middle somewhere, and there's nothing wrong with that.
+Matthew Colville There's nothing wrong with longer videos, as long as it's good content (which yours are), well organized (which yours are) and not repeating themselves (which yours don't). :)
Is there a way to email you ? Moght be easier than trying to find the video I left the comment on. ? Jonfuller1004@gmail.com if you don't wanna give yours out on here
Well I have now been playing for nearly 4 months and each Tuesday cannot come quick enough There is my ranger wood elf and a figure woodelf in the party with some others. I'll be multi classing into rogue as we spent lots of game time together
In my most recent campaign, we actually all did die in the first session against goblins (and a bugbear and a couple of wolves)... as it happened, I had Prophetic Dreams in my background and just woke up in a cold sweat. Needless to say, different choices were made... :p
DrawnSteelHero I was thinking this exact same idea for if I ran this and all the players died! I was thinking after everyone died I would tell them all to make a roll. To the person with the highest roll I would say “You wake up in a cold sweat. You are still in the forest where you made camp and feel a little relief.” I would then let them make the choice of whether they told the other players of their dream or not.
These videos are incredible. You manage to talk in a way that keeps vievers interested, the production quality in on point, everything about it is perfect. Absolutely cannot wait for episode 4!
29:07 My first session for my PCs first campaign, and my first as a DM had what I think was a relatively easy riddle. They where walking through some forest that was cursed, but they didn't know it. The curse made the people who traveled through it have to walk backwards or it would be the lost woods from Zelda. I kept telling them very clearly that the marks they where making where still there repeating every 20 minutes or so, and it took them real time an hour to get it. Thats fine. But then there was this rock that I will use later, that had a symbol on it that looked like a snail shell. And for reasons that I still cannot understand, the rouge licked the rock. With his tongue. Its still an inside joke for the party 4 months later. it took them the whole session to get to the cabin they needed to get to.
"Two ships in the night" is a metaphor because those ships won't have lights on. That's how you get spotted and fired upon. Source: I spent five years in the Navy. It's dark at night.
@@RasmusNJorgensen In friendly waters maybe, places you know there will be lots of ship traffic. Out at sea, or in dangerous waters, you probably wouldn't do something that idiotic.
Also back in the day before electricity they only had lamps and stuff, so it’d be harder to see each other at a distance or if you both ran out of lamp oil.
31:34 If you want to turn the dungeon into a part of the ongoing campaign think about giving more weight to the knightly order: the magic weapon they pick up could be something like the Hammer of Thunderbolts (DMG, pg. 173). It's a +1 legendary weapon, but when you attune a Belt of Giant Strength AND Gantlets of Ogre Power you can then attune to the hammer, and it grants extra powers. So, the next time that they hear about a tomb of the knightly order the Fighter (or Paladin or Barbarian) will want to take the side quest to pick up the additional items. This could actually be important if you have only one meat-shield in the group. Alternately, if you group only has one dedicated spell caster you could change the weapon into a staff (or rod or wand) that gives a +1 bonus to Spell save DC and Spell Attack Bonus, but when paired with a Headband of Intellect and an Ioun Stone of Intellect the caster is able to attune to the staff, increasing their intelligence to 25 and giving them charges that they can use like Sorcery Points. If you haven't noticed, I like the idea of magic weapons that go on the Journey with the heroes, becoming more powerful as the heroes reach certain milestones. A +1 sword that changes to a +2 when the character increases her strength to 20, at which point she can attune the weapon and gain the Martial Adept feat? I think that's awesome, and adds another character motivation, especially if they didn't know the magic item could do that.
A trick you can do with the whole "perception check" thing, have them make a bunch of BS perception checks where there's nothing to see at all, so they don't know when it counts.
You've obviously never seen your players get paranoid when they're going through the mist filled forest and nothing is said after they "fail" their Perception checks.
I'm rewatching this series for the millionth time, but now that UA-cam shows you the watch retention and Most Replayed section I'm just having a great time seeing what people seem to latch on to the most, in this one it's the part describing how stealth checks work, this is so fascinating
Well, I've run D&D for halve a Year now and played Roleplaying Games for over 5 Years Bought the big three books and then some, read through most of it, at least once, I've consumed every single D&D content on UA-cam i could find. Including 10+ Episodes of Critical Role (Complete Episodes that is) ONLY TO FIND OUT, RIGHT NOW, WHILE BRUSHING MY TEETH IN MY UNDERWARE, AS A SIDENOTE, THAT YOU ADD YOUR DEX MOD TO INITIATIVE, WHICH I SWEAR TO GOD DID NOT KNOW!!! I feel stupid
The ships do see each other. Ships that pass in the night. Often said of people who meet for a brief but intense moment and then part, never to see each other again. These people are like two ships that greet each other with flashing lights and then sail off into the night. From a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
I'd say 'bullshit, what shuold we have done?' is when you turn the new player into the player who WILL change things. A lot of people don't quite understand that they can do ANYTHING within reason. It may not work but they can at least try it. There are consequences but they will try it. Like smoking them out? Might kill the girl from smoke inhalation, but it's a viable strategy.
@@alainsy9970 nice man, my first campaign a team member convinced a hundred kobolds to revolt against their bandit overlords. We also directly befriended one, until I accidently Thunderwaved him to oblivion
I ran this dungeon as a first time dm recently, for first time players. For all the research i’d done, and how simple the dungeon seemed, I really thought my players wouldn’t surprise me. I could really only think of 2 ways to get past the trap, disarming it or trying to jump past it (or tanking the hit, I guess). But when they came upon the trap, succeeding a perception check, they noticed it, and chose to pick up goblin corpses and throw them on the pressure plate to set it off, I never saw that coming.
I've been DMing now for ~18 years. I don't really expect to learn anything from these videos, but I have to say something about your concise presentation and voice makes them nice to watch even if it's just to be watching something. Keep it up!
Have you ever for a new group (lets say you were running this exact setup) as just a way to introduce traps, say something along the lines of, "As so-and-so strides through the passageway, they hear a clicking sound at their feet roll for acrobatics (or whatever check you want to use there, and if they dodge, they dodge, but if they don't) you hear a grating of metal on stone, and a rusted scythe comes slowly grunting towards so-and-so and barely nicks their nose before stopping, looking at the state of the blade you can obviously tell that it was installed incorrectly as it is warped and rusted beyond any repair, be careful as next time you may not be so lucky." so you can introduce your new players to traps without giving them a huge detriment, and obviously the next trap will hurt them. I see some errors in my comment above where it would be pretty easy to fix, but my browser is being weird and I would have to re-write everything to edit a few small errors.
Very cool. A lot of dangers can be hinted at this way if the players aren't doing too well. Instead of actually forcing an encounter, you can have them hear the growling of a huge monster and the sound of it approaching. That should make them get their move on and that monster can even be brought up later.
I got linked here by Liam's tweet, and I am really glad for that. I have been DM'ing for near on a decade now (well, GM'ing, technically as I only really D&D by watching Critical Role) but this both engaging, informative, and generally enjoyable, not just for first-time DMs. I eagerly look forward to the following ones :)
which RPGs do you play if not DnD? myself i also like to play the occasional game of Mutants & Masterminds and i'm currently running a Deathwatch 40k game and also a DnD game.
Gotta thank you, after 16 years I've picked up the DM mantle (and D&D in general) to run a small group, and your videos have re-kindles the creative juices I thought I lost years ago.
Funny enough, during my second session with my new group, going through a mine to clear it so the nearby town can resume mining there, our party mage happened to charm one of the goblins. She had him go back into the deep parts of the mine to have his buddies run out to a specific point, saying that some heroes had fallen and he needed help killing them, where they actually had created a huge oil trap with someone ready to fire a flaming arrow once the goblins got to the middle of it. I was pretty impressed, they took out a good 10 goblins in one fell swoop by thinking outside the box, clearing a good 3/4 of the dungeon
After being a player in 2 campaigns I wanted to DM a one shot for new players. Someone mentioned The Delian Tomb, and I found these video(s). Thanks a lot for all the info, I feel confident to prepare myself for my DM adventure!
This is a great guide but I can't help but giggle as he talks about immersing the players into the game. In the session I DM for, our strongest player, a Canadian hockey player has magical skates that can help him glide over ambiguously swampy dungeon water and only that.
Love the videos. And because you were curious, I thought I'd point out that the idiom "like two ships in the night" isn't about not seeing each other, but rather two people seeing each other briefly, taking interest, and then parting ways never to see each other again.
So I just went through all the episodes and I have to say I didn't get the feeling of meh heard this before. You kept it interesting and made me see some things I should've been doing. I'll played maybe a a handful of one-shots and DM'd just as many so I am still fresh outta the box and besides Matt Mercers DM Tips videos on Geek and Sundry I love these videos as well. You're awesome and you just got a new fan!
The length of this was fine, actually. You covered a lot of information quickly, but not too quickly. I'd be interested in hearing how you deal with a party that essentially manages to completely skip an encounter with your BBEG. Specifically, how do you make them feel rewarded for completely subverting your plot? I had a situation where they managed to subvert the summoning of my "final boss", but on the spot made up some clues/notes that they could find which hinted at this boss's existence. It felt really unsatisfying to both my players and I that the big bad never got a chance to come out and play. More specifically -- I was running a one shot where an evil wizard held a Wand of True Polymorph. PCs were 5th level. The Wizard was supposed to be able to transform a large object in his lair (bed, table, etc.) into a Wyrm that he would then ride and attack the party from. This would happen after the wizard began fighting them from a distance away, and retreats when his minions in front of him (guards polymorphed into wolves/bears) were felled. Through some critical hits and max damage rolls, the party managed to power through this wizard in one turn before he even had the time to react and enact his fail-safe. This was a transmutation wizard who only knew a few offensive spells, and didn't have access to things like the Shield spell. It felt cheap to say "oh, well he actually just so happens to have the Shield spell as well as magic initiate so he can get healing word to bring his buddy back from unconsciousness", because it seems like cheating on my part. How do I deal with players accomplishing this and make them feel REWARDED instead of confused as to why there was no big bad guy at the end of the dungeon?
+Forthy I literally just had this situation come up, where the players had a plan and, had I not deliberately subverted it, the battle with the campaign's Final Boss would have been over in one round. I'm not sure there's an easy, catch-all solution to this. But I've found the "Bad guy, upon death, transforms into something hideous" trick to be very useful. There are other ways, like...contingency for Wizards! www.dnd-spells.com/spell/contingency The players don't know what kind of stuff that Wizard had access to, or what powerful agents he was in league with. Implying that someone MORE powerful than the Wizard was looking out for him hints at a wider world and can make the entire experience feel more epic, rather than anticlimactic.
I know this was 2 years ago...but...I hope you cheated and gave the dude shield eventually...I’m pretty sure you were running the sheep one off? Where the one wizard is transformed into a sheep. Either way...i think of you, the god, could have it all come apart if you play exactly by the rules...change em...you’re facilitating a fun night. People want to feel danger and emotions...give a wizard shield...heck let him counterspell or let him use mirror image and run away for one turn. Make the bad guy seem tougher for a bit...dragon ball z it up!
From my experience the worst enemy in D&D is the "combat introduction goblin" (or its counterpart in other systems). Sometimes weird things happen, especially when players are not used to a system. This happened to our DM when we were playing our first game of Dark Heresy (Warhammer 40k RPG). He put our party of four against a single mutated rat, literally the easiest enemy in the entire game that you can still consider an enemy, with the intention to get everybody used to the combat system. All we had to do was land one or maybe two decent hits on the rat to either instantly kill it or at least make it run away. Long story short: We constantly rolled so bad on everything we did in that entire fight that our DM had to let an enforcer patrol show up to deal with the rat otherwise it would probably had wiped our entire party. He basically had to reset our health after that encounter because we were so beat up it would have taken us over a week ingame-time to recover due to the healing system in that game.
I just DMed this adventure as part of my first time playing DnD, and it worked out great. The tavern scene was much better than I anticipated, and allowed the characters to really come to life. In my tomb, there was no bugbear, but the shaman was summoning a giant toad demon. Great fun when it was about to swallow the rogue. Thanks a lot Matt!
I find the contrast so funny, “they are going to go for the wizard that has less AC because they’re smart” to “you can lay an obvious trap and they’ll fall for it because they’re dumb”. Ha love it
Goblins are gullible so they can be tricked into falling for traps but they're not blind; they can see with their own two eyes which person among their enemies has no armor and no shield.
Also, intelligence and wisdom are two different things 😂 wisdom to know armor will stop an arrow, intelligence to figure out the group they’re following might leave a trap for them. Perception vs investigation 😊
In using the old "rescue a captive from the goblin lair" example, you’ve made me consider DMimg as NOT necessarily devising a creative premise (which can be difficult at times), but as making whatever premise I DO have fun for the group to play out. Thank you.
I started playing D&D when I was 18 from absolutely nothing. Still playing with the same group. We're all beginners and the first campaign ran. I should have gone through a real learning curve. Had a whole adventure without a single dungeon. We totally had a blast though.
I just want to say thank you. I'm DMing my first game in 12 days (not that I'm nervous and counting down or anything...) and your videos (specifically this series, which I found in a reddit comment) has been so encouraging and inspiring. I don't know if you ever see comments on old videos, but know that even your old stuff is still helping D&D happen.
So I started playing D&D in 1992 in elementary school. My friends dad ran a 1st edition game for his friends and family, I got to sit in and roll dice for a fighter named "Jarhead". I was hooked. The single greatest gift I have ever been given is D&D as it has done so much to shape my life. By 1998 I was running my own games and have been ever since. Even with all of that experience I have found this series so far delightful. Much of it I knew/do/have done already but little tidbits have sparked an idea and a lot of it has made me nostalgic. Its been six years since you put this out but it is very well put together, and carefully explained. So as a 30 year veteran of the game and a 24 year veteran DM I say well done sir, well done indeed.
I’m 15 and I am going to have my first campaign after quarantine is over and then I will be doing my first job as DM during the summer with my Dad, brother, and some friends. I am so thankful for these videos and you being so helpful and straightforward. I am so excited to get started
I found D&D a little over a year ago. Last week I was the DM for the first time. I ran a one shot based on these videos for a group that has a lot more experience in roleplaying then I do. They loved it! The forever DM seemed so proud or maybe just happy for the prospect of him being a player in a campaign in the not so distant future, hehe. Anyway I just wanted to say thank you and let you know that five years later this video still turns player in to first time dungeon masters.
So my father who is in his late 50s and never played and table top games said he would join in on our group, so we all started fresh level 1 PCs and I ran this exact story for my group and they all loved it. They were on the edge of the riddle, asking me about if it’s an order of knights, a knight would take an oath and give his life to the order so they thought they may have to give their lives to the order, but couldn’t put together that it was to say the oath from the room before, so I had them roll a history check and they rolled well so they remembered that most orders had a particular oath you would swear to join the order and they got it! Maybe I gave them too much, but they really enjoyed getting inside and it was a lot of fun describing the tomb, before we pick up next week to see how they go about searching the tomb, after all Bess is still with them. Great video though, I had watched it a while back and while getting ready for tonight I thought about this video and thought why not actually run that, and it worked great as a learning experience for a new player.
Some of the guys in my regular D&D group told me that they have really enjoyed your channel. I have literally been telling our DM's for years, "Don't pull back the curtain!" Awesome and slightly hilarious to me to hear it said here. I'm really digging what you're putting down. It's a pleasure to listen to you, so thanks!
Okay, most players will go with the "hit them till they stop moving" or the "run away!" approach to a room full of undead, but, in this particular case, where the undead are presumably the preserved bodies of the Knights, there's the possibility of negotiation as well. I know that skeletons and zombies are unintelligent undead, and just perform their assigned task, but, for good guy undead like this, if the players tried to communicate, I'd be inclined to let them - earning the full experience award for resolving the encounter, and possibly getting a reward from the spirits of the faithful knights for preventing the ritual desecration of their shrine, clearing out the infestation of goblins, and saving the life of an innocent who the knights themselves were unable to protect. The portion of their treasure they use as a reward could just happen to be what the players would have found if they'd won the fight and looted the place... There's also then the possibility of the old shrine becoming a forward base for the party for operations in that area - a safe place they can rest and get limited advice - or the order can motivate future plots, or... Of course, if the players just plunge into combat, you end up with just another looted, ruined tomb.
But the bodies are already "desecrated" by being animated as non-intelligent undead killing machines. There's no dilemma involved in stripping them of their mockery of life and restoring their remains to rest. If your players are inclined to see it as a dilemma then you're way ahead of the curve already (though if anyone seriously argues that they should just let the undead kill them all, they might not be playing the right game...) - most players I've encountered default to Plan A - unless it's a clearly labelled quest-giver or merchant NPC, hit it until it stops moving. If they're engaging with the lore and coming up with creative, story-driven alternatives to combat, that's the sort of thing that I want to encourage as a DM, whatever other people might think, so, yes, I'd let the players have a clean win for finding the third option. Not every scenario needs to be the Kobayashi Maru or a Trolley Problem.
If there's nothing there to communicate with (so no option other than destroying the bodies) then why should they have qualms? If there's anything of the original knights still present (so if there's any reason to feel bad about destroying them), then negotiation should be an option. Again, my starting point here is players who see the game as a series of combat encounters and encouraging/rewarding them for trying something different. Also, this ties back to one of the principles of improvisation - the "yes, and..." - if a player comes up with the idea of trying to negotiate with these undead, then: "yes, you attempt to convey your honourable intentions, and they appear receptive. Roll Diplomacy". The story of a game shouldn't all be coming just from the GM - it's the players' story, and the best games come when players do their share of telling the story, and the GM cheerfully abandons the planned tour itinerary to let the players explore something they found along the way. That can mean existential angst over every single goblin that meets the pointy end of a PC's sword; or it can mean creating a bunch of new allies. Writing off a possibility because the story it leads to isn't the one you had planned is generally a missed opportunity - and part of the fun for the GM is discovering the story that emerges instead.
I completely agree with you, and want to add my own thoughts: Something to think about is WHY these knights are undead? There isn't a necromancer in the tomb, none of the goblins even seemed to know about the burial! So why then? I'd argue that this was done BY the knights! ( not directly, of course. They probably hired somebody ). The knights had this done so they could be the guardians of their own tomb, and keep dangerous items out of the hands of the unworthy, as they had in life! Alot of people argue that all necromancy is evil, and i think thats just a bunch of bull! I think its cool when elf warriors of old have their souls brought back to guard the places they did in life! Not because they don't want to, but because that was their purpose, and they're dedicated! Id also argue that undead like this are going to be abit more intelligent than the regular ones. Having these skeleton knights know ( in one way or another ) that they were once knights, and that they are good is fine! So what is the skeletons purpose? Well, to guard the items of the knights! They don't attack you as soon as you come through the door, but only when you try to break their rule and TAKE their items. Thats important, because, in my mind at least, the treasure in this room is a magic sword being wielded by the main skeleton knight. And if the players said that they were good guys, and SHOWED that they were GOOD GUYS ( showing that they saved a girl and killed gobbos, something probably very similar to what the knights used to do ) then the knights might GIVE them the sword! And thats not breaking the rule, since the players arent TAKING, they're getting items GIVEN to them.
Gotrek Gurnisson late to the party on this, but as a side note, I recall that in one of the splatbooks for 3.5 Edition there was such a thing as 'Deathless'. The idea being that through special holy rites performed on the body before its internment into the tomb, the soul of the deceased could temporarily reinhabit the corpse when Grave Robbers or the like come in so they can defend their worldly remains. Such Deathless are not fully undead and retain the individuals stats and spells and such they had in life. In addition to this, they are fully capable of communication so long as you speak a similar language. There's some other differences as well, such as how Curative magic works as if they were alive still because the corpse isn't being reanimated by negative energy and such.
Matthew, your Series thus far has been extremely helpful. Very informative and well made. I’m starting out as a DM and I’m not the best at it. But with the little information you’ve given in these first 3 episodes, i feel I’ve exponentially grown in my ability to run D&D. Thank you!
watching this in 2024 - started a small campaign - first time DM with friends new to the concept of DnD and this is still the best place to start learning
I am writing a campaign now, I have talked it up to my buddies who will be playing, and with these guides I think it will live up to their expectations - Thanks man!
I might tie this into a larger plot by having the Shaman be an Archfey Warlock serving a coven of Hags (probably just take the stats from Volo's), and that the girl was just bait for the PCs, who the Warlock's mistresses wanted dead due to a prophecy featuring them. What was the prophecy? Where are the hags? Where's the Warlock, for that matter, since he used his magic to escape to safety and continue to menace our heroes another day? What will they do next? Instant adventure hook!
I'm going to run a short one-off game for my siblings and father next month, to introduce them to the game. This video series has been so incredibly helpful!
Thank you for this! I am just getting into D&D and intent on DMing, so this video helped a ton on both DMing and as a player! Can't wait for more of these videos!
Providence, finding this series this morning! Been a player for decades, but always to intimidated to try to DM. Til a few friends basically said, "Your DM'ing the game". Really helpful stuff, succulent and descriptive. The fog seems lifted, with a clear path to create a fun adventure for them!! Thanks so much for taking the time to make these! Cannot wait to see next weeks!
I ran my first ever session last night and adapted this quest to our world and my players loved it! They made great choices and we ended our night right as they walked in on the goblin chieftain preparing to sacrifice the young girl. Thank you for this awesome content and guidance for new DMs.
I've been watching this series for a while without starting a game. This evening me and three friends (four thirty year olds in four separate countries, connected by video chat, bored out of our minds on covid-19 social distancing) started playing D&D for the first time using this adventure. I was the DM and after a lot of laughs we called it a night with the offering room clear and two party members unconscious-luckily the cleric is the last man standing! Looking forward to springing the bugbear on them once they've all (hopefully) got back on their feet next session, but I think after the beating they've taken I'll let them off the hook and leave the goblin shaman out of the picture. Thank you Matthew for making this game seem approachable, and for helping to bring fun into these pretty dark days.
These videos are great. Extremely good pacing and some solid advice. Video length doesn't bother me at all. My biggest hurdle/insecurity in planning campaigns is comming up with the non-combat parts of any dungeon/temple/base. also the design of set dungeons and so on. I can come up with grand ideas spanning 10 levels of play. but acutally filling out the the time between my good idea and the finish 10 levels later is extremely hard for me. I look forward for your next video.
I used this quest for the first session I ever ran a few years ago. It went well. Everyone was learning, especially me. One of my players even solved the oath riddle. I then ran The Lost Mine of Phandelver, and I'm not running my own homebrew campaign ;loosely based on Greco-Roman mythology. Most of my DM knowledge comes from the "Running the Game" series. I've also sent friends that wanted to learn to be a DM to everything Matt Colville. He is the perfect DM teacher.
My wife and me attended our first ever D&D Session last saturday at a game shop. The DM used this adventure to introduce us to the game and it was EPIC. I've been spending the last few days preparing the same adventure to introduce my friends to D&D upcoming weekend. Thanks Matthew!
Dude thank you very much. It cleared so may things to me and now I feel ready to run my first adventure. Funny to hear you started that young as I'm 22. It's never too late. I'll be checking more of your videos, you can be sure about that.
In this video you say something to the effect of you don't expect the viewer to use this particular adventure, but I in fact stole it all, whole cloth, and ran it as a first time DM. It went great! That game has been going for 2 years now and one of my players, who had never played before our first game, just ran his first game last week. So thank you. :)
This is so helpful. I actually ran this adventure as my first time DMing, and the players loved it! Thank you for posting these videos, they're such amazing resources.
Matt, Been following your videos since the beginning. Ordinarily, I enjoy writing my own stuff. But two days ago, I was asked to run D&D for a group of friends the following night, and one of those in the group had been a part of every campaign I'd ever ran. Didn't have any original material ready. So, yesterday evening, they showed up in Grayvisford and stopped the goblin attack that would've captured the Blacksmith's daughter. Next week, I hope they'll track the goblins back to the tomb of the Delian order. all that to say I appreciate the effort you put into these videos. Never thought I'd run this, but I'm thankful it is here! And mostly, thankful for you. Blessings!
Special thanks to you Matt! My wife and two boys (10, 8 respectively) just tried D&D for the first time with your wonderful little one-shot. They loved it - and although as with anything new there were some pauses while they began to show confidence in running their characters, truly made it easy for a 1st time DM (myself) as well to describe and expand the scenes for them. Will be a blast as they restore themselves after a good night sleep and head on with the cart to Phandalin ;)
I'm really enjoying this video series! I am definitely your target audience, as a person who has never played D&D at all and who puts Matt Mercer on a pedestal, but I have a lot of friends in the same boat and it would be nice to run a game with them. One comment about this video is that when you begin to cover how to calculate surprise, It sort of jumps in the assumption of previous knowledge compared to the other videos. I could follow along with everything you were doing in the other videos, but this one presumes familiarity with concepts like "DC" and how to roll a stealth check. I'm just watching the videos on their own, haven't downloaded or read any of your recommended resources-I guess I am still in the 'feeling out' stage of how much of a challenge it will be to dive in! This was the moment when it started to feel a little intimidating. But I am still definitely subscribing and I look forward to watching the rest of this series as it comes out!
+Alienne4 If you're going to put someone on a pedestal, Matt Mercer is a good choice. I know him a little IRL and he's pretty much as chill and awesome as you'd expect. :D It's funny, when I said "Each characters' stealth check is the DC for. . ." I *instantly* realized "I have just added jargon without explaining it. Alas, I sort of decided early on that I wasn't going to try and explain all the rules of D&D and that's partly because there are already lots of explanations online, but MOSTLY because I honestly don't consider "knowing all the rules" to be a virtue, or even really possible. There's a lotta rules. When I started, yeah I felt in over my head, I felt left out. I felt like the guys running the game had some knowledge of mojo I lacked, but we all feel that way when we start. People start running D&D all the time with *very* little idea what the rules are, or what the conventions are, they just wing it and have fun! Once you're doing it, it's a lot less scary than it seems just before you started.
Love the Rush shirt! I could totally see Alex, Geddy, and especially Neil appreciating some D&D. Neil would be the wizard/ranger multiclass, Ged would be the bard, and Alex...rogue?
Thanks so much for creating this simple yet very effective dungeon. I just finished running my family though it and they were all engaged from the beginning to the very end. I also used your method of starting with a bang. I loved that is had the trap and riddle. After they finished my wife said to one of my kids, ‘We need to listen closer to what Dad says. He might be giving up clues.’
Hey Matt! It's possible you wont read this, but in any chase, I actually used this adventure, you inspired me to become a DM and give my brother a fun time. D&D means a lot to me, even more so how you took your time to explain and guide a bunch of other people like me! Even so, TTRPG helped me move along a dark time in my life... Watching your videos, even to this day, fills me with peace and inspiration. I wish I had more than words to offer... But thank you, Matthew Colville. You mean the world to me.
Hey Matt. Love the videos. Liam sent me ;) For a suggestion on a future portion, I would love a guide on how to create encounters based on challenge level/exp gain or something to that degree. Keep this up. I love it
Favorite line... "The bad guys don't know that their job is to create drama for the players, they think their job is to win."
Right. We have a player in our group who always gets pissed when our DM almost kills one of us in a fight. It's like, dude, it's not HIS job to make sure we win, it's ours. If your DM isn't playing the monsters to try and kill you, he's doing it wrong. It's no fun if everything is too easy. I'd rather barely scrape through a fight with 2 HP left and no more spell slots than have the fight handed to me. Our DM always apologized when that happened and I have to keep telling him not to. 😂
@@xMRxZEROx We just had an incident in our last game session where we got hit from two directions by spell-casters. My character (a cleric) and another character (a fighter) failed all saving throws for the spells. So we were paralyzed within a Cloud Kill. One round went by and we failed our saves. Second round the fighter made his saves and dragged my character to safety. We both only had two or three hit points left. I don't think the other two characters would have survived on their own.
We lived, but we failed our mission and will have to retreat and figure out another way to accomplish our goal. When we do succeed the victory will feel well deserved.
I don't blame our DM, he played the villains smart (a drow of some sort and a Mind Flayer) and took advantage of our character's positioning. It almost worked and the DM knew (and even said so) by grouping the spells up on us like that would make it tough fight.
@@robertherzog9294 dude, I love you in KODT!
@@danacoleman4007 Might be confusing me with some one else?
@@robertherzog9294 Bob Herzog is a character in the knights of the dinner table comic book series by kenzer and company. I thought that your name was riffing on that. apologies if that's not the case! otherwise I guess it's just a crazy coincidence.
If I run this adventure, I'm going to have the blacksmith say "my kid was stolen" and when they get to rescue his kid, it's a goat.
Dan Hill 😹
great way of turning heroes into murder hobos.
"my love was kidnapped" would leave more options open heheh
@@xiconp1993 which could be great for the developement of the story. I like it^^
@@xiconp1993 KKK eae men
Twentry five minutes in and I finally notice this dungeon sounds familiar. I’ve been through it as a player with a first time DM. Was a fun time. The bugbear killed my character but the party came through and rescued the girl. Thanks for helping teach my friend how to DM.
"Let the wookiee win" got it. *writes down: have the bugbear TPK the party*
I never played D&D before and try to be the DM for a group of friends who never played D&D. Making characters took days.. and our first game was just roleplaying (in a tavern)to understand our characters and feel if its something for us or not. Without even one fight we all knew that we will make this every week. It made so much fun and kinda changed me. I had a lot of stress.. so much that i had problems to speak clear and i remembered when i roleplayed the npcs and just roleplayed me without the ticks. Its strange but D&D actually helps me to reduce the preasure. It sounds so stupid now that i read it but thats how it is for me. Thanks for all the tips.
I just started playing D&D with some guys who take the game more like a video game than storytelling, which is fine, it's what they're looking for from it, but I'm trying to find some folks to try more roleplay narrative focused sessions with. I say that because I have a stutter that's pretty related to my stress level and am interested in seeing if I have a similar experience to yours.
Role playing (technically LARP, but this is applicable too) has actually helped people with diagnosed anxiety, so it could feasibly help you too. You two too? Too many to/too/twos.
Matt mercer, the dm of critical role experienced the same effect. You're not alone in this, and here's hoping it'll help you in rl too
That's awesome!
That's wonderful! I hope you're still at it!
I dub thee Honorary Older Brother of the Community.
Nothing would make me happier!
Grant Ellis j
I've stopped GMing after 7 years of several campaigns and systems, I got tired of GMing.
Watching this has reinstated my desire to lead the game again.
Thanks man.
I needed this so bad.
i honestly enjoy playing as a PC more than being a GM. i prefer being the explorer than being the god who created the world.
I just wanted to be the 200th like
@@XpVersusVista Same
Did you start back up?
Stephen Sayers yeah and three years now going strong. 2a week. Found out new ways to GM as the dungeon delving became pointless. Realized the characters are defined by thoughts of people they know. Not the players. Now the stories are a lot more personal.
I feel like this tiny 3 room adventure that you basically just threw together for demonstration purposes is more well thought-out and cohesive than anything I've ever played or run. Thanks for making the videos.
I still don't like the trap. If the trap is designed to allow goblins to pass, then it was made by the goblins. I don't picture goblins making something complex like a swinging blade. More like a pit with sharpened sticks if they made it. If the Brotherhood made it, on the other side of the offering plate, then it shouldnt allow goblins to pass. Plus, how does the Bug pass? There should be a safety or bypass to allow that. I realize it was just a quick justification but one of my pet peaves are dungeons that make no sense... "so these people made a square room underground, then they tunneled for 80 more feet, and made another square room? Were they just bored? Ever dug holes in the ground with a shovel? You don't add 10 feet if you don't have to.
@@NemoOhd20I agree, in my mind there would have been no traps origionally. The temple was for worship and the secret door is enough to keep wandering peasants out.
I would say more likely the goblins would place a alarm trap such as skulls on a rope that make noise when distrubed towards the entrance to warn them of unwanted visitors. Making the players lose surprise if triggered.
Counter point the trap was designed for humans the goblins just happen to be light enough. Or the trap resets itself and goblins are short enough not to get hit
@@NemoOhd20Truth is stranger than fiction. The trap can easily be somewhat deficient, or it could have deteriorated over time - maybe the triggers have rusted a bit over the years and need more push to make it activate.
Regardless the reason why its still there is because goblins can't trigger it, whatever reason behind that you might have.
@@NemoOhd20 Not a fan of Colin Furze then?
This video turned out a lot longer than I thought. Future videos will be short and punchy. :D
+Matthew Colville As a watcher, it did not feel as long as you may think. It still felt "short and punchy", you just covered a lot of ground. ;) My question is about backstory. I have played for quite a few DMs that all care about and encourage we minions to have a rich backstory with at least some hooks and basic reason traveling. I like the new systems way of addressing this, for those new to the game, but I feel like after your 1st character most people would prefer the freedom to come up with their own. However, over the years I have heard many players complain of writer's block or lack of creativity. Have you encountered this and do you have any methods you have used or seen really get players motivated? I have seen questionnaires, exp rewards used and they work most of the time. I love the way you manage to word things and as you can see, I currently lack the skill of keeping things short (sorry bout that). Just in case, TLDR: What would you say to your players to try to make them understand how much it adds to everyone's experience when character's have thought out personalities, motivations and at least a little history to explain them. Thanks for these videos. I can't wait for the next one! :D
+Matthew Colville I love your content, I'd watch a 3 hour long video of you explaining the basics of DMing/GMing if that was possible.
+RaisinGirl13 It's a good question! I actually don't make a big deal about character backstory anymore. I *used* to literally *require* each player to write a 2-page backstory before we played. That was when I was in college and very much full of myself.
But that's not how we played when we were kids, and we had a great time! I eventually realized "Some players like this, some don't." It's perfectly legitimate for a player to have a character that's just a collection of numbers and abilities, if that's what they like.
I also let players know "Listen, you can develop your backstory as we play! You don't have to decide all this now." Players often learn something about the setting as they play, and decide *that* is part of their backstory, cool!
I think in a group of 6 players you're gonna get one or two players who are into the whole backstory thing, and one or two who are basically just playing themselves, with the other players in the middle somewhere, and there's nothing wrong with that.
+Matthew Colville This video is a good length. Good video, thanks putting the effort into making it for us!
+Matthew Colville There's nothing wrong with longer videos, as long as it's good content (which yours are), well organized (which yours are) and not repeating themselves (which yours don't). :)
I've found a local group and I am going for my first dnd game Tuesday !
I am so excited!!
Well me too now! Good luck! Let us know how it went!
Is there a way to email you ? Moght be easier than trying to find the video I left the comment on. ?
Jonfuller1004@gmail.com if you don't wanna give yours out on here
Well I have now been playing for nearly 4 months and each Tuesday cannot come quick enough
There is my ranger wood elf and a figure woodelf in the party with some others. I'll be multi classing into rogue as we spent lots of game time together
Jon Fuller how did the game go, bro?
Jon Fuller howre you now?
This webcam is so. fucking. high quality. It actually scared me how clear it was. I am not prepared for this new age of technology.
C920 webcam?
Danny Tallon pablo picasso was also a communist (;
Dillon Nicholas Entertainment word
lmfao
@@cutecommie it was a better time back then
In my most recent campaign, we actually all did die in the first session against goblins (and a bugbear and a couple of wolves)... as it happened, I had Prophetic Dreams in my background and just woke up in a cold sweat. Needless to say, different choices were made... :p
DrawnSteelHero I was thinking this exact same idea for if I ran this and all the players died!
I was thinking after everyone died I would tell them all to make a roll. To the person with the highest roll I would say “You wake up in a cold sweat. You are still in the forest where you made camp and feel a little relief.” I would then let them make the choice of whether they told the other players of their dream or not.
These videos are incredible. You manage to talk in a way that keeps vievers interested, the production quality in on point, everything about it is perfect.
Absolutely cannot wait for episode 4!
Yeah, im interested to learn but as much as id like to i cant read the phb for two hours. But im just digging trough these videos
"Two goblins murder your entire party!" Hahahahahaha
29:07 My first session for my PCs first campaign, and my first as a DM had what I think was a relatively easy riddle. They where walking through some forest that was cursed, but they didn't know it. The curse made the people who traveled through it have to walk backwards or it would be the lost woods from Zelda. I kept telling them very clearly that the marks they where making where still there repeating every 20 minutes or so, and it took them real time an hour to get it. Thats fine. But then there was this rock that I will use later, that had a symbol on it that looked like a snail shell. And for reasons that I still cannot understand, the rouge licked the rock. With his tongue. Its still an inside joke for the party 4 months later. it took them the whole session to get to the cabin they needed to get to.
I'm running this adventure in about an hour. I truly appreciate your guidance and wisdom in these videos. Thank you!
How did it go?
Yeah how did it go?
Yeah, how did it go?
One. Two. Threee. Crunch. The world may never know.
Grab your ketchup and crunch away my friends.
How did it go?
"Two ships in the night" is a metaphor because those ships won't have lights on. That's how you get spotted and fired upon. Source: I spent five years in the Navy. It's dark at night.
BlueCollarNerd Merchant ships must have both top light(s), aft and red and green light on port and starboard side, though.
Rasmus Nord Joergensen Not in the past. That's how you get pirates.
Hell that's how you get pirates now.
@@RasmusNJorgensen In friendly waters maybe, places you know there will be lots of ship traffic. Out at sea, or in dangerous waters, you probably wouldn't do something that idiotic.
Look at me.
LOOK at me
...
I am the Captain now.
Also back in the day before electricity they only had lamps and stuff, so it’d be harder to see each other at a distance or if you both ran out of lamp oil.
31:34 If you want to turn the dungeon into a part of the ongoing campaign think about giving more weight to the knightly order: the magic weapon they pick up could be something like the Hammer of Thunderbolts (DMG, pg. 173).
It's a +1 legendary weapon, but when you attune a Belt of Giant Strength AND Gantlets of Ogre Power you can then attune to the hammer, and it grants extra powers. So, the next time that they hear about a tomb of the knightly order the Fighter (or Paladin or Barbarian) will want to take the side quest to pick up the additional items. This could actually be important if you have only one meat-shield in the group.
Alternately, if you group only has one dedicated spell caster you could change the weapon into a staff (or rod or wand) that gives a +1 bonus to Spell save DC and Spell Attack Bonus, but when paired with a Headband of Intellect and an Ioun Stone of Intellect the caster is able to attune to the staff, increasing their intelligence to 25 and giving them charges that they can use like Sorcery Points.
If you haven't noticed, I like the idea of magic weapons that go on the Journey with the heroes, becoming more powerful as the heroes reach certain milestones. A +1 sword that changes to a +2 when the character increases her strength to 20, at which point she can attune the weapon and gain the Martial Adept feat? I think that's awesome, and adds another character motivation, especially if they didn't know the magic item could do that.
Good points!
you started with they but ended up with her
A trick you can do with the whole "perception check" thing, have them make a bunch of BS perception checks where there's nothing to see at all, so they don't know when it counts.
I wouldn't do totally pointless perception checks but maybe little things like finding a gold piece on the ground.
I roll secretly behind the screen for perception, stealth, or other checks where the players shouldn't immediately know if they succeeded or failed.
I thought this was 5E. Passive perception is a thing.
Joseph Mort that slows down the game greatly. Make every roll mean something.
You've obviously never seen your players get paranoid when they're going through the mist filled forest and nothing is said after they "fail" their Perception checks.
I'm rewatching this series for the millionth time, but now that UA-cam shows you the watch retention and Most Replayed section I'm just having a great time seeing what people seem to latch on to the most, in this one it's the part describing how stealth checks work, this is so fascinating
Well, I've run D&D for halve a Year now and played Roleplaying Games for over 5 Years
Bought the big three books and then some,
read through most of it, at least once,
I've consumed every single D&D content on UA-cam i could find. Including 10+ Episodes of Critical Role (Complete Episodes that is)
ONLY TO FIND OUT,
RIGHT NOW,
WHILE BRUSHING MY TEETH IN MY UNDERWARE,
AS A SIDENOTE,
THAT YOU ADD YOUR DEX MOD TO INITIATIVE, WHICH I SWEAR TO GOD DID NOT KNOW!!!
I feel stupid
Sowiesó Syphilaids Valuable side note.
The ships do see each other. Ships that pass in the night. Often said of people who meet for a brief but intense moment and then part, never to see each other again. These people are like two ships that greet each other with flashing lights and then sail off into the night. From a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
I'd say 'bullshit, what shuold we have done?' is when you turn the new player into the player who WILL change things. A lot of people don't quite understand that they can do ANYTHING within reason. It may not work but they can at least try it. There are consequences but they will try it. Like smoking them out? Might kill the girl from smoke inhalation, but it's a viable strategy.
I'm hooked. I'm binge-watching this. Keep up the great work!
Same
Goblins: easy training
Orcs: Medium difficulty
Humans: Be wary, Strategic movement.
Beasts/Deamons/CounterParty: Challange
Kobolds: Run
kobolds are the best haha
I converted 50 kobolds to my religion on my cleric's first quest.
@@alainsy9970 are they now embarking on some kind of kobold krusade and dying with your character's name on their lips and his faith in their hearts?
@@alainsy9970 You mean 9d10 kobolds, right?
@@alainsy9970 nice man, my first campaign a team member convinced a hundred kobolds to revolt against their bandit overlords. We also directly befriended one, until I accidently Thunderwaved him to oblivion
I ran this dungeon as a first time dm recently, for first time players. For all the research i’d done, and how simple the dungeon seemed, I really thought my players wouldn’t surprise me. I could really only think of 2 ways to get past the trap, disarming it or trying to jump past it (or tanking the hit, I guess). But when they came upon the trap, succeeding a perception check, they noticed it, and chose to pick up goblin corpses and throw them on the pressure plate to set it off, I never saw that coming.
I've been DMing now for ~18 years. I don't really expect to learn anything from these videos, but I have to say something about your concise presentation and voice makes them nice to watch even if it's just to be watching something. Keep it up!
+Ad0ntis Having DMd for years, I still find myself learning something new everyday!
Same. It's great for day-before-game-night inspiration to just get in the D&D mood.
Congrats on 20 years man!
I have been DMing for 15 years, but this videos always make me re-think and improve.
Have you ever for a new group (lets say you were running this exact setup) as just a way to introduce traps, say something along the lines of, "As so-and-so strides through the passageway, they hear a clicking sound at their feet roll for acrobatics (or whatever check you want to use there, and if they dodge, they dodge, but if they don't) you hear a grating of metal on stone, and a rusted scythe comes slowly grunting towards so-and-so and barely nicks their nose before stopping, looking at the state of the blade you can obviously tell that it was installed incorrectly as it is warped and rusted beyond any repair, be careful as next time you may not be so lucky." so you can introduce your new players to traps without giving them a huge detriment, and obviously the next trap will hurt them. I see some errors in my comment above where it would be pretty easy to fix, but my browser is being weird and I would have to re-write everything to edit a few small errors.
Very cool. A lot of dangers can be hinted at this way if the players aren't doing too well. Instead of actually forcing an encounter, you can have them hear the growling of a huge monster and the sound of it approaching. That should make them get their move on and that monster can even be brought up later.
The first time my friends & I played D&D our team was literally wiped out by two or three goblins in the first room of a dungeon. It was great!
I got linked here by Liam's tweet, and I am really glad for that. I have been DM'ing for near on a decade now (well, GM'ing, technically as I only really D&D by watching Critical Role) but this both engaging, informative, and generally enjoyable, not just for first-time DMs. I eagerly look forward to the following ones :)
which RPGs do you play if not DnD?
myself i also like to play the occasional game of Mutants & Masterminds and i'm currently running a Deathwatch 40k game and also a DnD game.
Gotta thank you, after 16 years I've picked up the DM mantle (and D&D in general) to run a small group, and your videos have re-kindles the creative juices I thought I lost years ago.
i go back and watch this video every now and again, i have been running games for nearly 10 years, but its good to go back to basics
Funny enough, during my second session with my new group, going through a mine to clear it so the nearby town can resume mining there, our party mage happened to charm one of the goblins. She had him go back into the deep parts of the mine to have his buddies run out to a specific point, saying that some heroes had fallen and he needed help killing them, where they actually had created a huge oil trap with someone ready to fire a flaming arrow once the goblins got to the middle of it. I was pretty impressed, they took out a good 10 goblins in one fell swoop by thinking outside the box, clearing a good 3/4 of the dungeon
After being a player in 2 campaigns I wanted to DM a one shot for new players. Someone mentioned The Delian Tomb, and I found these video(s).
Thanks a lot for all the info, I feel confident to prepare myself for my DM adventure!
Dude, this was literally the PERFECT "tutorial" as far as running an adventure. Keep these videos coming BIG BROTHER!
This is a great guide but I can't help but giggle as he talks about immersing the players into the game. In the session I DM for, our strongest player, a Canadian hockey player has magical skates that can help him glide over ambiguously swampy dungeon water and only that.
I know this is 3 years old, but in light of Letterkenny being a thing, I just see Jonesy being that guy hahaha
Love the videos. And because you were curious, I thought I'd point out that the idiom "like two ships in the night" isn't about not seeing each other, but rather two people seeing each other briefly, taking interest, and then parting ways never to see each other again.
So I just went through all the episodes and I have to say I didn't get the feeling of meh heard this before. You kept it interesting and made me see some things I should've been doing. I'll played maybe a a handful of one-shots and DM'd just as many so I am still fresh outta the box and besides Matt Mercers DM Tips videos on Geek and Sundry I love these videos as well. You're awesome and you just got a new fan!
+TheWondergnome YOU are awesome! Thanks for watching! Glad it wasn't all stuff you'd heard before. Go forth and run more D&D!
+Matthew Colville Aye aye Cap'n!
The length of this was fine, actually. You covered a lot of information quickly, but not too quickly. I'd be interested in hearing how you deal with a party that essentially manages to completely skip an encounter with your BBEG. Specifically, how do you make them feel rewarded for completely subverting your plot? I had a situation where they managed to subvert the summoning of my "final boss", but on the spot made up some clues/notes that they could find which hinted at this boss's existence. It felt really unsatisfying to both my players and I that the big bad never got a chance to come out and play.
More specifically -- I was running a one shot where an evil wizard held a Wand of True Polymorph. PCs were 5th level. The Wizard was supposed to be able to transform a large object in his lair (bed, table, etc.) into a Wyrm that he would then ride and attack the party from. This would happen after the wizard began fighting them from a distance away, and retreats when his minions in front of him (guards polymorphed into wolves/bears) were felled. Through some critical hits and max damage rolls, the party managed to power through this wizard in one turn before he even had the time to react and enact his fail-safe. This was a transmutation wizard who only knew a few offensive spells, and didn't have access to things like the Shield spell. It felt cheap to say "oh, well he actually just so happens to have the Shield spell as well as magic initiate so he can get healing word to bring his buddy back from unconsciousness", because it seems like cheating on my part. How do I deal with players accomplishing this and make them feel REWARDED instead of confused as to why there was no big bad guy at the end of the dungeon?
+Forthy I literally just had this situation come up, where the players had a plan and, had I not deliberately subverted it, the battle with the campaign's Final Boss would have been over in one round.
I'm not sure there's an easy, catch-all solution to this. But I've found the "Bad guy, upon death, transforms into something hideous" trick to be very useful. There are other ways, like...contingency for Wizards!
www.dnd-spells.com/spell/contingency
The players don't know what kind of stuff that Wizard had access to, or what powerful agents he was in league with. Implying that someone MORE powerful than the Wizard was looking out for him hints at a wider world and can make the entire experience feel more epic, rather than anticlimactic.
BBEG?
+NobleKorhedron BBEG= Big Bad Evil Guy
FrothyOmen jjjjjj
I know this was 2 years ago...but...I hope you cheated and gave the dude shield eventually...I’m pretty sure you were running the sheep one off? Where the one wizard is transformed into a sheep. Either way...i think of you, the god, could have it all come apart if you play exactly by the rules...change em...you’re facilitating a fun night. People want to feel danger and emotions...give a wizard shield...heck let him counterspell or let him use mirror image and run away for one turn. Make the bad guy seem tougher for a bit...dragon ball z it up!
From my experience the worst enemy in D&D is the "combat introduction goblin" (or its counterpart
in other systems). Sometimes weird things happen, especially when players are not used to a
system.
This happened to our DM when we were playing our first game of Dark Heresy (Warhammer 40k RPG).
He put our party of four against a single mutated rat, literally the easiest enemy in the entire game
that you can still consider an enemy, with the intention to get everybody used to the combat system.
All we had to do was land one or maybe two decent hits on the rat to either instantly kill it or at least
make it run away.
Long story short: We constantly rolled so bad on everything we did in that entire fight that our DM
had to let an enforcer patrol show up to deal with the rat otherwise it would probably had wiped our
entire party.
He basically had to reset our health after that encounter because we were so beat up it would have taken
us over a week ingame-time to recover due to the healing system in that game.
The ten-foot pole is, by far, the greatest and most precious invention in all of the realms and planes in the universe.
I just DMed this adventure as part of my first time playing DnD, and it worked out great. The tavern scene was much better than I anticipated, and allowed the characters to really come to life. In my tomb, there was no bugbear, but the shaman was summoning a giant toad demon. Great fun when it was about to swallow the rogue. Thanks a lot Matt!
I find the contrast so funny, “they are going to go for the wizard that has less AC because they’re smart” to “you can lay an obvious trap and they’ll fall for it because they’re dumb”. Ha love it
Goblins are gullible so they can be tricked into falling for traps but they're not blind; they can see with their own two eyes which person among their enemies has no armor and no shield.
Also, intelligence and wisdom are two different things 😂 wisdom to know armor will stop an arrow, intelligence to figure out the group they’re following might leave a trap for them. Perception vs investigation 😊
In using the old "rescue a captive from the goblin lair" example, you’ve made me consider DMimg as NOT necessarily devising a creative premise (which can be difficult at times), but as making whatever premise I DO have fun for the group to play out. Thank you.
I started playing D&D when I was 18 from absolutely nothing. Still playing with the same group. We're all beginners and the first campaign ran. I should have gone through a real learning curve. Had a whole adventure without a single dungeon.
We totally had a blast though.
I just started this playlist. This is so great thanks!
I just want to say thank you. I'm DMing my first game in 12 days (not that I'm nervous and counting down or anything...) and your videos (specifically this series, which I found in a reddit comment) has been so encouraging and inspiring. I don't know if you ever see comments on old videos, but know that even your old stuff is still helping D&D happen.
This video series does a great job of demystifying a lot of how the process of DnD works, excellent job!
You did a really nice job with this. I am encouraging my sons' friends to watch your videos as well.
So I started playing D&D in 1992 in elementary school. My friends dad ran a 1st edition game for his friends and family, I got to sit in and roll dice for a fighter named "Jarhead". I was hooked. The single greatest gift I have ever been given is D&D as it has done so much to shape my life. By 1998 I was running my own games and have been ever since. Even with all of that experience I have found this series so far delightful. Much of it I knew/do/have done already but little tidbits have sparked an idea and a lot of it has made me nostalgic. Its been six years since you put this out but it is very well put together, and carefully explained. So as a 30 year veteran of the game and a 24 year veteran DM I say well done sir, well done indeed.
I’m 15 and I am going to have my first campaign after quarantine is over and then I will be doing my first job as DM during the summer with my Dad, brother, and some friends. I am so thankful for these videos and you being so helpful and straightforward. I am so excited to get started
I found D&D a little over a year ago. Last week I was the DM for the first time. I ran a one shot based on these videos for a group that has a lot more experience in roleplaying then I do. They loved it! The forever DM seemed so proud or maybe just happy for the prospect of him being a player in a campaign in the not so distant future, hehe. Anyway I just wanted to say thank you and let you know that five years later this video still turns player in to first time dungeon masters.
So my father who is in his late 50s and never played and table top games said he would join in on our group, so we all started fresh level 1 PCs and I ran this exact story for my group and they all loved it. They were on the edge of the riddle, asking me about if it’s an order of knights, a knight would take an oath and give his life to the order so they thought they may have to give their lives to the order, but couldn’t put together that it was to say the oath from the room before, so I had them roll a history check and they rolled well so they remembered that most orders had a particular oath you would swear to join the order and they got it! Maybe I gave them too much, but they really enjoyed getting inside and it was a lot of fun describing the tomb, before we pick up next week to see how they go about searching the tomb, after all Bess is still with them.
Great video though, I had watched it a while back and while getting ready for tonight I thought about this video and thought why not actually run that, and it worked great as a learning experience for a new player.
Some of the guys in my regular D&D group told me that they have really enjoyed your channel. I have literally been telling our DM's for years, "Don't pull back the curtain!" Awesome and slightly hilarious to me to hear it said here. I'm really digging what you're putting down. It's a pleasure to listen to you, so thanks!
Okay, most players will go with the "hit them till they stop moving" or the "run away!" approach to a room full of undead, but, in this particular case, where the undead are presumably the preserved bodies of the Knights, there's the possibility of negotiation as well. I know that skeletons and zombies are unintelligent undead, and just perform their assigned task, but, for good guy undead like this, if the players tried to communicate, I'd be inclined to let them - earning the full experience award for resolving the encounter, and possibly getting a reward from the spirits of the faithful knights for preventing the ritual desecration of their shrine, clearing out the infestation of goblins, and saving the life of an innocent who the knights themselves were unable to protect. The portion of their treasure they use as a reward could just happen to be what the players would have found if they'd won the fight and looted the place...
There's also then the possibility of the old shrine becoming a forward base for the party for operations in that area - a safe place they can rest and get limited advice - or the order can motivate future plots, or...
Of course, if the players just plunge into combat, you end up with just another looted, ruined tomb.
But the bodies are already "desecrated" by being animated as non-intelligent undead killing machines. There's no dilemma involved in stripping them of their mockery of life and restoring their remains to rest.
If your players are inclined to see it as a dilemma then you're way ahead of the curve already (though if anyone seriously argues that they should just let the undead kill them all, they might not be playing the right game...) - most players I've encountered default to Plan A - unless it's a clearly labelled quest-giver or merchant NPC, hit it until it stops moving. If they're engaging with the lore and coming up with creative, story-driven alternatives to combat, that's the sort of thing that I want to encourage as a DM, whatever other people might think, so, yes, I'd let the players have a clean win for finding the third option.
Not every scenario needs to be the Kobayashi Maru or a Trolley Problem.
If there's nothing there to communicate with (so no option other than destroying the bodies) then why should they have qualms?
If there's anything of the original knights still present (so if there's any reason to feel bad about destroying them), then negotiation should be an option.
Again, my starting point here is players who see the game as a series of combat encounters and encouraging/rewarding them for trying something different.
Also, this ties back to one of the principles of improvisation - the "yes, and..." - if a player comes up with the idea of trying to negotiate with these undead, then: "yes, you attempt to convey your honourable intentions, and they appear receptive. Roll Diplomacy". The story of a game shouldn't all be coming just from the GM - it's the players' story, and the best games come when players do their share of telling the story, and the GM cheerfully abandons the planned tour itinerary to let the players explore something they found along the way.
That can mean existential angst over every single goblin that meets the pointy end of a PC's sword; or it can mean creating a bunch of new allies.
Writing off a possibility because the story it leads to isn't the one you had planned is generally a missed opportunity - and part of the fun for the GM is discovering the story that emerges instead.
I completely agree with you, and want to add my own thoughts:
Something to think about is WHY these knights are undead? There isn't a necromancer in the tomb, none of the goblins even seemed to know about the burial! So why then? I'd argue that this was done BY the knights! ( not directly, of course. They probably hired somebody ). The knights had this done so they could be the guardians of their own tomb, and keep dangerous items out of the hands of the unworthy, as they had in life! Alot of people argue that all necromancy is evil, and i think thats just a bunch of bull! I think its cool when elf warriors of old have their souls brought back to guard the places they did in life! Not because they don't want to, but because that was their purpose, and they're dedicated!
Id also argue that undead like this are going to be abit more intelligent than the regular ones. Having these skeleton knights know ( in one way or another ) that they were once knights, and that they are good is fine!
So what is the skeletons purpose? Well, to guard the items of the knights! They don't attack you as soon as you come through the door, but only when you try to break their rule and TAKE their items. Thats important, because, in my mind at least, the treasure in this room is a magic sword being wielded by the main skeleton knight. And if the players said that they were good guys, and SHOWED that they were GOOD GUYS ( showing that they saved a girl and killed gobbos, something probably very similar to what the knights used to do ) then the knights might GIVE them the sword! And thats not breaking the rule, since the players arent TAKING, they're getting items GIVEN to them.
Gotrek Gurnisson late to the party on this, but as a side note, I recall that in one of the splatbooks for 3.5 Edition there was such a thing as 'Deathless'. The idea being that through special holy rites performed on the body before its internment into the tomb, the soul of the deceased could temporarily reinhabit the corpse when Grave Robbers or the like come in so they can defend their worldly remains. Such Deathless are not fully undead and retain the individuals stats and spells and such they had in life.
In addition to this, they are fully capable of communication so long as you speak a similar language. There's some other differences as well, such as how Curative magic works as if they were alive still because the corpse isn't being reanimated by negative energy and such.
This is my third or fourth trip through the playlist and I can happily say I'm running my first arena this weekend!
Matthew, your Series thus far has been extremely helpful. Very informative and well made. I’m starting out as a DM and I’m not the best at it. But with the little information you’ve given in these first 3 episodes, i feel I’ve exponentially grown in my ability to run D&D. Thank you!
watching this in 2024 - started a small campaign - first time DM with friends new to the concept of DnD and this is still the best place to start learning
I am writing a campaign now, I have talked it up to my buddies who will be playing, and with these guides I think it will live up to their expectations - Thanks man!
Well, 3 years late, but here I am, completely awed by my metaphorical big brother to D&D. This series is perfect.
I might tie this into a larger plot by having the Shaman be an Archfey Warlock serving a coven of Hags (probably just take the stats from Volo's), and that the girl was just bait for the PCs, who the Warlock's mistresses wanted dead due to a prophecy featuring them. What was the prophecy? Where are the hags? Where's the Warlock, for that matter, since he used his magic to escape to safety and continue to menace our heroes another day? What will they do next? Instant adventure hook!
James Holmes...you gave me a life-long hobby. Thank you for that, and your welcome for Final Fantasy.
These videos are like an exciting race to the finish line and oh so much awesome stuff in between. Glad I found it.
I'm going to run a short one-off game for my siblings and father next month, to introduce them to the game. This video series has been so incredibly helpful!
Thank you for this! I am just getting into D&D and intent on DMing, so this video helped a ton on both DMing and as a player! Can't wait for more of these videos!
Providence, finding this series this morning! Been a player for decades, but always to intimidated to try to DM. Til a few friends basically said, "Your DM'ing the game". Really helpful stuff, succulent and descriptive. The fog seems lifted, with a clear path to create a fun adventure for them!! Thanks so much for taking the time to make these! Cannot wait to see next weeks!
+Alpha Lupine Images Happy to help! All I want is more DMs. :D
I ran my first ever session last night and adapted this quest to our world and my players loved it! They made great choices and we ended our night right as they walked in on the goblin chieftain preparing to sacrifice the young girl. Thank you for this awesome content and guidance for new DMs.
The Delian Tomb, the greatest tomb in this, or any, age!
I've been watching this series for a while without starting a game. This evening me and three friends (four thirty year olds in four separate countries, connected by video chat, bored out of our minds on covid-19 social distancing) started playing D&D for the first time using this adventure. I was the DM and after a lot of laughs we called it a night with the offering room clear and two party members unconscious-luckily the cleric is the last man standing! Looking forward to springing the bugbear on them once they've all (hopefully) got back on their feet next session, but I think after the beating they've taken I'll let them off the hook and leave the goblin shaman out of the picture. Thank you Matthew for making this game seem approachable, and for helping to bring fun into these pretty dark days.
So great! Thanks for sharing - can't wait for my D&D session today.
I appreciate how fast you talk. I want to learn how to do this and quick. These videos help me with that perfectly
These videos are great. Extremely good pacing and some solid advice. Video length doesn't bother me at all. My biggest hurdle/insecurity in planning campaigns is comming up with the non-combat parts of any dungeon/temple/base. also the design of set dungeons and so on. I can come up with grand ideas spanning 10 levels of play. but acutally filling out the the time between my good idea and the finish 10 levels later is extremely hard for me. I look forward for your next video.
I used this quest for the first session I ever ran a few years ago. It went well. Everyone was learning, especially me. One of my players even solved the oath riddle. I then ran The Lost Mine of Phandelver, and I'm not running my own homebrew campaign ;loosely based on Greco-Roman mythology. Most of my DM knowledge comes from the "Running the Game" series. I've also sent friends that wanted to learn to be a DM to everything Matt Colville. He is the perfect DM teacher.
Thanks for the videos - you have really helped me on my journey to becoming a DM.
I've been dm/gm'ing for like 25 years and I still love watching these videos! You're the best Matt!
This is already a great resource for a new DM, and I cant wait for more info!
My wife and me attended our first ever D&D Session last saturday at a game shop. The DM used this adventure to introduce us to the game and it was EPIC.
I've been spending the last few days preparing the same adventure to introduce my friends to D&D upcoming weekend. Thanks Matthew!
Dude thank you very much. It cleared so may things to me and now I feel ready to run my first adventure. Funny to hear you started that young as I'm 22. It's never too late. I'll be checking more of your videos, you can be sure about that.
My friends thought it was weird I was 15 and had never played. They thought I was starting late!
In this video you say something to the effect of you don't expect the viewer to use this particular adventure, but I in fact stole it all, whole cloth, and ran it as a first time DM. It went great! That game has been going for 2 years now and one of my players, who had never played before our first game, just ran his first game last week. So thank you. :)
This is so helpful. I actually ran this adventure as my first time DMing, and the players loved it! Thank you for posting these videos, they're such amazing resources.
Matt,
Been following your videos since the beginning. Ordinarily, I enjoy writing my own stuff. But two days ago, I was asked to run D&D for a group of friends the following night, and one of those in the group had been a part of every campaign I'd ever ran. Didn't have any original material ready. So, yesterday evening, they showed up in Grayvisford and stopped the goblin attack that would've captured the Blacksmith's daughter. Next week, I hope they'll track the goblins back to the tomb of the Delian order.
all that to say I appreciate the effort you put into these videos. Never thought I'd run this, but I'm thankful it is here! And mostly, thankful for you. Blessings!
I'm really enjoying your videos. I'm really wanting to get into D&D and this has been pretty helpful.
Special thanks to you Matt! My wife and two boys (10, 8 respectively) just tried D&D for the first time with your wonderful little one-shot. They loved it - and although as with anything new there were some pauses while they began to show confidence in running their characters, truly made it easy for a 1st time DM (myself) as well to describe and expand the scenes for them. Will be a blast as they restore themselves after a good night sleep and head on with the cart to Phandalin ;)
I'm really enjoying this video series! I am definitely your target audience, as a person who has never played D&D at all and who puts Matt Mercer on a pedestal, but I have a lot of friends in the same boat and it would be nice to run a game with them. One comment about this video is that when you begin to cover how to calculate surprise, It sort of jumps in the assumption of previous knowledge compared to the other videos. I could follow along with everything you were doing in the other videos, but this one presumes familiarity with concepts like "DC" and how to roll a stealth check. I'm just watching the videos on their own, haven't downloaded or read any of your recommended resources-I guess I am still in the 'feeling out' stage of how much of a challenge it will be to dive in! This was the moment when it started to feel a little intimidating. But I am still definitely subscribing and I look forward to watching the rest of this series as it comes out!
+Alienne4 If you're going to put someone on a pedestal, Matt Mercer is a good choice. I know him a little IRL and he's pretty much as chill and awesome as you'd expect. :D
It's funny, when I said "Each characters' stealth check is the DC for. . ." I *instantly* realized "I have just added jargon without explaining it.
Alas, I sort of decided early on that I wasn't going to try and explain all the rules of D&D and that's partly because there are already lots of explanations online, but MOSTLY because I honestly don't consider "knowing all the rules" to be a virtue, or even really possible. There's a lotta rules.
When I started, yeah I felt in over my head, I felt left out. I felt like the guys running the game had some knowledge of mojo I lacked, but we all feel that way when we start. People start running D&D all the time with *very* little idea what the rules are, or what the conventions are, they just wing it and have fun!
Once you're doing it, it's a lot less scary than it seems just before you started.
Love the Rush shirt! I could totally see Alex, Geddy, and especially Neil appreciating some D&D. Neil would be the wizard/ranger multiclass, Ged would be the bard, and Alex...rogue?
Alex Lifeson: Arcane Trickster
Geddy Lee: Bardbarian!
Neal Peart: lvl 20 Warlock + lvl 20 Wizard!
Great series . Binge watching and subscribed:)
Thanks so much for creating this simple yet very effective dungeon. I just finished running my family though it and they were all engaged from the beginning to the very end. I also used your method of starting with a bang. I loved that is had the trap and riddle. After they finished my wife said to one of my kids, ‘We need to listen closer to what Dad says. He might be giving up clues.’
Love the series - wanna play the first time soon - just thanks
Can't believe I'm only discovering this channel today. I'm a big fan!
These are incredibly helpful, thank you!
Hey Matt! It's possible you wont read this, but in any chase, I actually used this adventure, you inspired me to become a DM and give my brother a fun time.
D&D means a lot to me, even more so how you took your time to explain and guide a bunch of other people like me! Even so, TTRPG helped me move along a dark time in my life... Watching your videos, even to this day, fills me with peace and inspiration.
I wish I had more than words to offer... But thank you, Matthew Colville. You mean the world to me.
Hey Matt. Love the videos. Liam sent me ;) For a suggestion on a future portion, I would love a guide on how to create encounters based on challenge level/exp gain or something to that degree. Keep this up. I love it
+Michael Swanson That is a great idea! It'll happen!
I'm prepping for my first time as DM running a one-shot (after picking up playing after 40+ years) and this advice is invaluable. Thanks so much!
One sarcophagus, two sarcophagi. :p
Running my first game of d&d tonight for 2 new players. 2 friends of mine. Excited and I've been watching this video repeatedly
"Goblin's wouldn't care if a human is provocatively posed" Enter Goblin slayer.....
I'm a seasoned player and DM, 30ish years. I like listening to other people's approaches to stuff makes me better. I have to say This is gold.
he says "doodle-li-doo below",
I sub
This is beautiful, I already feel like I'm sneaking around and further taking arrows as you describe the encounter
Today, I looked directly at my cat and said very quickly, randomly, and loudly, "I'll put a link down in the DubiliDoo." He meowed.