🔥 LAIRS & LEGENDS | Over 700 pages of D&D 5e GM resources: adventures spanning levels 1 to 15, 100+ new monsters, encounters, puzzles, traps, villains, NPCs, maps, and more! - thedmlair.com/collections/lairs-legends 👉👉👉 Dungeon Drifters | The competitive dungeon exploration game where opportunistic "heroes" race to defeat enemies, pocket the most loot, and escape the dungeon first! presale.dungeondrifters.com/
It isn't the special voices specifically that make it better. When you're comfortable and confident you're more willing to lose yourself int he moment. Character voices come when you're able to at least act like you're comfortable and confident which lets other people do the same. It's not the voice specifically that makes the game better but the attitude it conveys. You need to animate your voice. Push the feeling you're trying to convey to your players. Even the attempt is better than the monotone.
Definitely agree with #3 - it's a mistake I made...gotta give them enough info so they can actually make decisions and plan. I like when players plan, but I found that my players weren't really, and then I realized it was because I had given them only the scantest of info. So I've made this little axiom: "Don't make it hard for the PCs/players to know WHAT to do. Make it hard for them to actually do it."
And it's different for each group. My current team knows that they need to go to the pirate cove, several folks have told them that's where the kidnapped people are. They have explored the rest of the small island. But they still want to do something else, just to be sure they can handle the cove.
9:35 As a player, I agree that barely winning is very satisfying, but feeling useless and not being able to do anything pretty much ruins the experience for me, especially if my character dies. As a DM, I usually tweak this by making relatively difficult combat but adding mechanics that can be abused, like lets say a +2 to hit if two players flank an enemy or having points of cover on the map that can make you skip a saving throw. Generally, what I'm trying to focus is to reward strategy and positioning and that the players will fill that no matter how difficult the encounter, they can win if they play correctly, but likewise they can die to a few elven soldiers if they make the wrong decisions and go in recklessly.
My advice: Don't be afraid of the 'meta,' accept that you are a group of people sitting around a table having fun. Tell the players things their characters might not know, if it helps them progress the story! Example: Alerting them to the layout of the next fight before they trigger it, and reminding them consumables exist to be used!
I’ve been a long-time fan of your content and appreciate the value you bring to the D&D and roleplaying game community. Recently, I’ve noticed many of my favorite creators, including you, discussing the challenges posed by reduced ad revenue on UA-cam. This got me thinking about a potential solution that could benefit the community and its creators alike. What if the top 10-15 D&D and RPG content creators joined forces to create a shared UA-cam channel? This channel could feature exclusive content behind a paywall or membership program, where fans like me could access a variety of content from all of you in one place. Here’s how it might work: • Each creator contributes videos to the shared channel. • Revenue is shared based on either negotiated rates or metrics like view counts. • Membership perks (e.g., exclusive videos, Q&A sessions, or livestreams) could encourage fans to join. • Think of this a channel or station, just like the Discovery or History channel, each of you contributing a different show. By collaborating, you could pool your audiences, reduce competition between creators, and create a sustainable revenue model. Fans would likely welcome the chance to support multiple creators through one channel instead of having to choose. As a collective, you could also bring more influence on where this hobby goes. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this idea, and I hope it’s something you and others in the community might explore. Thank you for all you do, and I look forward to seeing where your content goes next! BTW, I am a supporter of numerous Patreons and Content Creators, but I’ve been tapped out. These individual $2 and $5 per month subscriptions add up. I'm also sending this message or similar one to some of my favorite D&D/RPG UA-camrs.
I feel that not tying every encounter to the main story adds in a feeling of "realism" and life to the game's story. Not every bandit encounter needs to be the main story. And, they can be threads I can weave into another story later.
I definitely try to do voices. I’m not the best and I do worry about the voices I do compared to my husband and one of my players (who’s also my DM in another campaign). They do wonderful voices and accents. I do get a little nervous around them. They both have been very supportive which I’m grateful for them.
I do think a DM should set players up for a relatively easy combat encounter once in a while, maybe after a level up, for example. It's certainly not something you'd want to do a lot, but as a player, having a fight like that once in a while, something that we just plow right through, serves to make me feel like my character's powerful.
My party loves #1. I gave my Radiant Citadel a series of sadistic choices when their BBEG, General Ardeat, finally stepped in to kickstart his endgame, because Ardeat was established as a brilliant military general who WOULD utilize 'heads I win, tails you lose' situations. First, his infilitrators had planted bombs throughout the entire Citadel, targetting evacuation routes, civilian homes, communications, and weapons emplacements. They only had enough time to defuse half of them. They COULD defuse three of them...but they wouldn't have time to evacuate the civilians from what was coming. They chose to evacuate the civilians and defuse the bombs threatening civilian evacuation routes and homes. This meant when Ardeat launches his true attack, Operation Burning Dawn, an all out assault of the Citadel with an army of militarized Red Dragons, as soon as the bombs go off, they'd gotten the civilians to safety, but they no longer had communications or defensive weapons to fend them off, which means the villains had free reign to pursue their goals with only the party's Adventuring Guild and Sholeh, the Ancient Brass Dragon ruler of the Citadel, standing in their way. Said plan involved targetting the concord jewels used to travel to the Citadel kingdoms, trying to kill Sholeh, and the field leader of the invasion, an immensely dangerous, civilization killing Ancient Red Dragon named King Vesuvius going after the Speakers of the Citadel, the secondary leaders of the Citadel beneath Sholeh. They only had the manpower to truly devote to two of the three, and had to pick what order to do them in. They chose Sholeh first, as she was their most powerful ally, and freeing her up meant she could go after another objective while they pursued the third one. That was the optimal call, meaning they got the best outcome, but it still means that there will be a consequence. The players loved it.
Not just moral choices, but I've been running a lot of sandbox style games recently and have been overwhelming the players with plot hooks of things they want to explore but there's a time limit. "Player X's brother who's been missing might have been seen in this area, but we just heard about this treasure over here in a crowded adventurer's bar and if we don't move now someone else will get it first, but we really need to sit and rest because of our exhaustion levels and the wizard really needs to research some new spells." I tend to throw 6 or so loose ends at them at a time and they have enough time to get to 3 before the world updates around them as a consequence of what they did and didn't do (I don't make this dead end any long plot arcs, but it might take a while to come up again).
Totally agree on the challenging combat. Especially for 'boss' fights. Had the party fight a young deep dragon. Boosted it a bit by giving it a legendary action and resistence. It was up on the roof fo the cave, out of reach of most fo the party, it would swwop, breath attack go back up. The party felt like they were screwed. But this forced them to come up with creative ideas. Such as smasching the wall of the cave to try and dislodge the stalegtites on the roof of the ceiling, forcing the dragon to come down towards them. One character was down aking death saves, the others all maybe 1 hit from going down each (there was 6 characters) but they managed to just win (thanks to sentinel stopping the dragon retreating down a hole) and they cheered so loud when they won. Epic moment.
Stop the Dragon, or Stop the Giants; The team stops the dragon, and the giants destroy the village. And you've got yourself an origin story for a hero and party antagonist; The Survivor. The Survivor wants to protect his village from evil! So they become local protector or adventurers. But what happens when he finds out the Party could have saved Village? Instant antagonist with a legitimate beef with the players!
Great Video as always! I do agree with #1 mostly. However I do think DMs can go overboard. I’ve played in games where every single choice was a false one. The village was going to get burned down. By Giants or by Dragons. And our choice was which. We never got to win anything. It sucked.
The trick here is to use different Villages, with different Rewards and Long Term effects. If you can get it so the choice is between player A's home town, and player B's...! To bring it back to DMLairs example: The party discussed how the army would move slower, that is one example of Long Term Effects.
I don't remember much about a campaign I was part of with my brother and his friends, but I remember the DM had unique voices for everyone. The potions vendor was very stereotypically Asian where players had to be very specific with what they wanted lest the NPC not understood your request.
On voices: It is not so much the voices themselves, it is distinguishing between 'Storyteller' and 'NPC.' Example: I overheard my room-mates roleplaying some star-wars thing last night and was confused. There was no divide between the characters talking, the characters interacting, and the lore being discussed. Part of me wanted to join in but I had no clue what was going on, so I avoided the whole thing entirely. Voices eliminate this confusion in your fellow players, and they will come naturally when you get used to using ''tone" to distinguish the differences.
#3 - Agreed! I always remind players of the information the character would know. We only play once a week, and that's hard to remember everything, even taking notes. I am against testing my player's memories. Characters would remember more since they lived it. It really helps the game flow. Great video.
My players do seem to like when I use voices or accents. I'm not great at them, but I can pull off a generic-foreign pidgin and a pretty good generic Eastern European (It helps that Polish was my first language). Usually, though, I just describe the NPC as speaking a certain way. My players recently found (as part of the loot in a wizard's tower) a library automaton that talks like Short Round from Temple of Doom.
One time in a playtest i was told to stop using my character voice by the GM because it was annoying i wasnt being disruptive or sidetracky. i made optimal choices and was supportive of teammates. I stopped but was so upset i never playtested with him again nor did i want to play in another playtest. 😢
On Travel: Get rid of the Random Tables entirely, know what is going to happen on the trail..! So often I have seen other Storyteller's trying to micro-manage every aspect of Travel using just these tables. This will start with the long discussion of preparations, and your group might be pedantic about whom is doing what at what time during said travel. After which the Storyteller rolls a few dice behind the screen... for every watch/action... all to be told: "Nothing happened Tonight, now lets do all this again every few hours... for every day of travel."
For years played in a Monday night group from 5pm until a hard stop at midnight. Typically it settled between 10p adn midnight. The start time was fixed. You arrived at 5p-ish got settled, ate something, chatted, and hard start at 6p with a player (usually the Rogue) during short "so here's where we were," and go.
Note on 7: Just because a combat is challenging doesn't mean it'll be fun. Do not make the mistake of thinking "Oh, this will be super challenging, so they'll have a blast with it." Challenging combats can be fun, but being challenging doesn't make it fun. A challenging miserable grind that takes 5 hours, or a combat that shuts down a PC's turn for 6 rounds isn't fun. It's just a boring grind. Make em challenging, sure, but make them challenging against the party's strengths, not their weaknesses.
Yeah for sure. I think the biggest problem is that a lot of DMs mistakenly choose to make things difficult via overly tactical strategies that specifically take away the party's strength. If you have a bunch of melee heavy groups, like barbarians, using flying enemies that the fighters can't actively participate against. So while the wizard is tossing spells at the flying dragon, the barbarian is just sitting there shaking his fist being basically useless. Like yeah, I get that doing this is the best move strategically for the dragon, but it's just not fun to be one of those melee warriors and not be able to do anything. This also lumps in encounters like the "you can't see it in murky water but it can see you clearly somehow" type battles as well (typically with the DM also granting the monster special liberties to gain the effects of hiding without using an action to hide, so the PCs essentially have no idea where it is after it moves and attacks.), because they'll rule the PCs can't adequately track it through the murky water, thick fog or whatever. These end up being a hard fight because half the group is standing there doing nothing and not having fun. I get that a lot of DMs want to make the creatures utilize the terrain, but if you're doing it in a way that's oppressive, it doesn't improve the experience.
Also be aware when a simple fight has turned into a slog: One of my attempted games died the first session, for no-one could seem to roll above a 6. Players... low level bad-guys they where meant to wipe the floor with... no one landed a blow. Kept trying to push through it, instead of having some town guards or the likes show up to force the odds.
I was trying not to directly mention the swastika on the coin in the upper left. I recognize it has a lot more history than just what everyone thinks of, but it is unfortunately what everyone thinks of.
On the topic of #2, I'd add LET YOU PLAYERS NARRATE THEIR OWN STUFF TOO. I get it, some DMs are just trying to speed combat along. Others are used to picking up the slack so they'll try to make a player's turn sound cool for them. But when I'm trying to be a good player who comes up with ways to narrate their stuff so that their character stands out among the crowd the last thing I want to do is get interrupted 3+ times, wait to get to say my peace, then get interrupted again because it's someone else's turn now since the DM passed the baton to them. 😅 As for #4, the best advice I ever got on this topic went something like this. You don't need to go crazy with the impressions. Pick 1-2 basic things and work your way out from there. Like do they talk fast or slow? Do they sound excited and loud or deadpan and quiet? From there, I learned to always have a gimmick. Just SOMETHING my character always does to put a spin on the conversation format. That could be advice, directions, questions, metaphors, sayings, superstitions, feelings, comments from the peanut gallery, jokes, pick-up lines, speaking in code. Maybe your character is always trying to steer the conversation towards or away from a topic. Maybe your character tries to set the mood and tone of the conversation. Whatever it is, just lay it on thick as long as it isn't to the point of being disruptive.
Thanks for your videos, I just started a new campaign after 6 year. Last campaign didn't work for me because I was focused on wrong things. So quality of the game and prep time mismatched. Now I'm really enjoying the game ( my players to). I experienced in real time how some little tricks make game so much better ( as speak before battle or give to png little quirk)
The best moral dilemma I saw was a Paladin in Ravenloft. Strahd would inform said Paladin where evil lurked and then watch.... Does said Paladin obey an obvious Evil Master of this Universe, or let a village suffer?
I exceeded your advice and ran a one shot after three people out of six canceled last minute. The boss fight was on a razor's edge for a while, but indeed in a glorious tpk. I was worried but, but looking around, The players were all grinning and had a blast. Definitely more fun than canceling. Could I have adjusted the encounters? Maybe. But the previous time I ran that adventure a group of five smoked it easily, so I kind of wanted to see how it would fare against an understaffed party
A mix of combat is essential to a great game without a doubt. I do think though that different voices isn’t necessary for a great game. It can be fun for sure but not everyone wants to do a different voice for various reasons and that’s fine.
I've been in great games without voices, but the truly spectacular games have always featured GM and players doing voices and really getting into character.
@@theDMLair I'm not disputing that character voices doesn't lend to great games but sometimes depending on the group, folks can have an amazing and fun time without it. It just depends on the the group.
Hey Luke, Where do you get all your cool gaming shirts from. Let me know. Thanks for another great video. I have been DM'ing even longer than you have been at 38 years, but I still really enjoy your content and appreciate the work you and your team puts forth. I have even learned a few new tricks from you so thank you for that.
From a 44 year DM to you...your recommendations do not suck! Voices, they love voices! Orc merchant speaking like the Scarlet Pimpernel, can't be beat...
Good advice, but the title is misleading. I was expecting anecdotes about mistakes you've made yourself as a DM and explanations of why they were mistakes and what you could/should have done differently.
For #1, be careful to know your players take on grim outcomes. I've seen my 7 years dnd group disband just after the end of campaign dilema the DM put for us. It was a great dilema, with few hints before hands, some discussions with npcs about choices and fate, and it rooted deeply in the lore of the whole campaign. But some players really disliked having to choose between two bad things and were disagreing in the group about the action to do. They expressed their discontent by mail to the DM after and we lost half the group before launching the next campaign😢
We had a villain, that had an entire town time-locked and the players had to decide, wheater they remove the access of the villain to the world, dooming the town in the process or rescueing the town by opening another portal for the villain, increasing his reach across the realms, potentially endangering thousands of people... The players chose the latter, having multiple large cities besiged and a few villages razed to the ground.
A Large usually Floral style 'dress' type garment but it has no definition or curves just a big block of fabric. Usually known for old women wearing them .
If I see players taking notes and they don't know a key piece of information, I make it easy. If they are hafl-assing it then it gets complicated. New side quest to find out that one thing.
I quit running for a group once. A couple of players insisted on doing most annoying, chalkboard screeching sounds, or were just incomprehensible and slowed the game down. Good group in every other respect, but the problems ones just didn't care that their voices were annoying others, and when I realized I was dreading games instead of looking forward to them, I quit. I avoid doing special voices to this day because of that.
The ogre grabs its club and charges at you. Rage in his eyes, he screams "EVERYONE CALL OGRE STUPID AND IT TRUE!" A small pile of books topples over as its girth lurches toward you.
Most people in education have an experience of starting a new year or school and having a laid back teacher you like and a strict teacher they didn't like. However come the end of the year it changes, the laid back teacher is annoying as the class is a mess and you don't learn much, where as the strict teacher who set boundaries, gets results. I was a laid back DM once and tried to be too nice, your players wont appreciate it, but they will appreciate you setting those boundaries and having a good game.
I am addicted to moral dilemmas. I love it when i make my players choose between two options... and EVERYTIME they choose the Third option. But i am very liberal with infomation. I have refeeshed my players on basic laws of physics because their players would know how an Electron acts. The PCs have degrees and yeara of experience with this stuff. We are just a bunch of nerds sitting around the table.
Yeah, sooo... While I'm personally fond, as DM, of seeing how my players react to moral dilemmas, in my 30-some odd years of gaming I've seen VERY few players who enjoy them.
#7: A wise man once told me "if you don't try to kill the party in combat, you're DMing wrong" (disclaimer: this does not mean make it impossible, but rather play the enemies properly)
There's a limit to that. Trying to be overly tactical can often be very unfun. Like yeah, it's totally logical and strategic for a dragon to just stay in the air the entire time against a party of grounded melee fighters, but those fighter players are just going to be bored if they can't participate in the fight.
I swore off using special voices after one of my players in my former campaign laughed at one of my rehearsed bits for an NPC. It wasn't a chuckle, it was a full on laugh.
I hate moral dilemas because if you overdo it or dont "appeal" to their morals, they aint going to bite or simply wouldnt do it. "You need to help us or be docked 500000000 points" not much of a choice is it? 😂 Especially when it "Tales of the Walking Dead" special level of "you literally were asked to do a task but now everyone hates you for picking the most logical one" 😂
I will personally strongly disagree on #4. I have been in games where the DM trying to use a voice has taken all the tension out of what was supposed to be a serous point in the game because they were just so bad at voices it became comical. If your bad at voices sometimes it is better to avoid using them all together instead of risking making a scene become the total opposite vibe it is supposed to have.
If you dont practice, you dont become better. I am native danish and I do voices. Received pronunciation, American, texan, scottish, lancashire accent, Russian, french. My players love it. It brings personality and makes npcs more memorable.
All British players I've met laugh at the US concept that Third Rate acting is 'roleplaying'. Roleplaying is your character acting as he should act. On play videos you see so many US players putting on cod medieval voices for paladins etc, and it comes across as utterly ludicrous - not 'Amazing' -to them. Sometimes a player or GM will mimic some actor/ movie character for a laugh at an appropriate moment, but otherwise it just doesn't happen here in my experience.
Is it because most Americans without training do terrible UK accents to a UK ear? I'm sure if most medieval fantasy tropes centered around American accents the Brits would be just as cringey to Americans. But a different voice does not mean a different accent necessarily, just something in your timbre or way of phrasing things that is different from your normal voice.
@@KinJoy-m2o It's not that, it's just that its very corny and cliched generally. I think we see rp as 'acting as your character would', rather than 'imitating the speech of your character'.
Make an npc that has the worst accent you have tried to imitate and lean into it, most groups will have fun with it even it's just because they get to laugh at you (or the NPC) and then they will likely start goofing off more with their voices in a way that makes the experience better because they are more comfortable role playing knowing at least they don't sound as bad as that. It depends on the group of course but I've seen it work before.
@@KinJoy-m2o I was informed that they would find a new group if I didn’t stop, so I don’t think I will. They do accents, I’m just not allowed to do so.
A voice does not have to be a different sound. It can be a different Pattern. Maybe your goblins do not know how to use pronouns, so they never say I or you. It's a little thing that makes them distinct.
You are wrong on the special voices. They are not needed. It is only in resent years that the videogamers that play dnd want this. They have no imagination. Also you are roleplaying because you are playing a wizard, bard fighter etc.... not becayse you give it a funny voice or weird personality. Yes you can do it but that is not the RPG.
The best games I've ever been in have always featured GM and usually other players doing special voices. Pejoratively dismissing it as unimaginative video gamers who play dnd is not a strong argument. There are many aspects to roleplaying; donning the character's voice is certainly one of them.
As an actor and a GM a voice helps distinguish NPCs and it's really the only reason I play. I get extremely bored if Dungeons and dragons becomes taxes and tactics.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
🔥 LAIRS & LEGENDS | Over 700 pages of D&D 5e GM resources: adventures spanning levels 1 to 15, 100+ new monsters, encounters, puzzles, traps, villains, NPCs, maps, and more! - thedmlair.com/collections/lairs-legends
👉👉👉 Dungeon Drifters | The competitive dungeon exploration game where opportunistic "heroes" race to defeat enemies, pocket the most loot, and escape the dungeon first! presale.dungeondrifters.com/
It isn't the special voices specifically that make it better. When you're comfortable and confident you're more willing to lose yourself int he moment. Character voices come when you're able to at least act like you're comfortable and confident which lets other people do the same. It's not the voice specifically that makes the game better but the attitude it conveys. You need to animate your voice. Push the feeling you're trying to convey to your players. Even the attempt is better than the monotone.
I think both elements convey their own benefits. Can one contribute to the other? Sure.
Definitely agree with #3 - it's a mistake I made...gotta give them enough info so they can actually make decisions and plan. I like when players plan, but I found that my players weren't really, and then I realized it was because I had given them only the scantest of info. So I've made this little axiom:
"Don't make it hard for the PCs/players to know WHAT to do. Make it hard for them to actually do it."
And it's different for each group. My current team knows that they need to go to the pirate cove, several folks have told them that's where the kidnapped people are. They have explored the rest of the small island. But they still want to do something else, just to be sure they can handle the cove.
9:35 As a player, I agree that barely winning is very satisfying, but feeling useless and not being able to do anything pretty much ruins the experience for me, especially if my character dies.
As a DM, I usually tweak this by making relatively difficult combat but adding mechanics that can be abused, like lets say a +2 to hit if two players flank an enemy or having points of cover on the map that can make you skip a saving throw. Generally, what I'm trying to focus is to reward strategy and positioning and that the players will fill that no matter how difficult the encounter, they can win if they play correctly, but likewise they can die to a few elven soldiers if they make the wrong decisions and go in recklessly.
My advice:
Don't be afraid of the 'meta,' accept that you are a group of people sitting around a table having fun.
Tell the players things their characters might not know, if it helps them progress the story!
Example:
Alerting them to the layout of the next fight before they trigger it, and reminding them consumables exist to be used!
I’ve been a long-time fan of your content and appreciate the value you bring to the D&D and roleplaying game community. Recently, I’ve noticed many of my favorite creators, including you, discussing the challenges posed by reduced ad revenue on UA-cam. This got me thinking about a potential solution that could benefit the community and its creators alike.
What if the top 10-15 D&D and RPG content creators joined forces to create a shared UA-cam channel? This channel could feature exclusive content behind a paywall or membership program, where fans like me could access a variety of content from all of you in one place.
Here’s how it might work:
• Each creator contributes videos to the shared channel.
• Revenue is shared based on either negotiated rates or metrics like view counts.
• Membership perks (e.g., exclusive videos, Q&A sessions, or livestreams) could encourage fans to join.
• Think of this a channel or station, just like the Discovery or History channel, each of you contributing a different show.
By collaborating, you could pool your audiences, reduce competition between creators, and create a sustainable revenue model. Fans would likely welcome the chance to support multiple creators through one channel instead of having to choose. As a collective, you could also bring more influence on where this hobby goes.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this idea, and I hope it’s something you and others in the community might explore.
Thank you for all you do, and I look forward to seeing where your content goes next!
BTW, I am a supporter of numerous Patreons and Content Creators, but I’ve been tapped out. These individual $2 and $5 per month subscriptions add up.
I'm also sending this message or similar one to some of my favorite D&D/RPG UA-camrs.
I feel that not tying every encounter to the main story adds in a feeling of "realism" and life to the game's story. Not every bandit encounter needs to be the main story. And, they can be threads I can weave into another story later.
I definitely try to do voices. I’m not the best and I do worry about the voices I do compared to my husband and one of my players (who’s also my DM in another campaign). They do wonderful voices and accents. I do get a little nervous around them. They both have been very supportive which I’m grateful for them.
I'm almost into DMing because I LOVE doing voices, especially silly ones.
But I mut admit the innkeeper picking their nose is a great suggestion !
#3 is important, i played with a dm that getting any info was worse than pulling teeth with a screwdriver
I do think a DM should set players up for a relatively easy combat encounter once in a while, maybe after a level up, for example. It's certainly not something you'd want to do a lot, but as a player, having a fight like that once in a while, something that we just plow right through, serves to make me feel like my character's powerful.
My party loves #1.
I gave my Radiant Citadel a series of sadistic choices when their BBEG, General Ardeat, finally stepped in to kickstart his endgame, because Ardeat was established as a brilliant military general who WOULD utilize 'heads I win, tails you lose' situations. First, his infilitrators had planted bombs throughout the entire Citadel, targetting evacuation routes, civilian homes, communications, and weapons emplacements. They only had enough time to defuse half of them. They COULD defuse three of them...but they wouldn't have time to evacuate the civilians from what was coming. They chose to evacuate the civilians and defuse the bombs threatening civilian evacuation routes and homes.
This meant when Ardeat launches his true attack, Operation Burning Dawn, an all out assault of the Citadel with an army of militarized Red Dragons, as soon as the bombs go off, they'd gotten the civilians to safety, but they no longer had communications or defensive weapons to fend them off, which means the villains had free reign to pursue their goals with only the party's Adventuring Guild and Sholeh, the Ancient Brass Dragon ruler of the Citadel, standing in their way.
Said plan involved targetting the concord jewels used to travel to the Citadel kingdoms, trying to kill Sholeh, and the field leader of the invasion, an immensely dangerous, civilization killing Ancient Red Dragon named King Vesuvius going after the Speakers of the Citadel, the secondary leaders of the Citadel beneath Sholeh. They only had the manpower to truly devote to two of the three, and had to pick what order to do them in. They chose Sholeh first, as she was their most powerful ally, and freeing her up meant she could go after another objective while they pursued the third one. That was the optimal call, meaning they got the best outcome, but it still means that there will be a consequence.
The players loved it.
Not just moral choices, but I've been running a lot of sandbox style games recently and have been overwhelming the players with plot hooks of things they want to explore but there's a time limit. "Player X's brother who's been missing might have been seen in this area, but we just heard about this treasure over here in a crowded adventurer's bar and if we don't move now someone else will get it first, but we really need to sit and rest because of our exhaustion levels and the wizard really needs to research some new spells." I tend to throw 6 or so loose ends at them at a time and they have enough time to get to 3 before the world updates around them as a consequence of what they did and didn't do (I don't make this dead end any long plot arcs, but it might take a while to come up again).
Totally agree on the challenging combat. Especially for 'boss' fights.
Had the party fight a young deep dragon. Boosted it a bit by giving it a legendary action and resistence.
It was up on the roof fo the cave, out of reach of most fo the party, it would swwop, breath attack go back up. The party felt like they were screwed. But this forced them to come up with creative ideas. Such as smasching the wall of the cave to try and dislodge the stalegtites on the roof of the ceiling, forcing the dragon to come down towards them.
One character was down aking death saves, the others all maybe 1 hit from going down each (there was 6 characters) but they managed to just win (thanks to sentinel stopping the dragon retreating down a hole) and they cheered so loud when they won. Epic moment.
Stop the Dragon, or Stop the Giants; The team stops the dragon, and the giants destroy the village.
And you've got yourself an origin story for a hero and party antagonist; The Survivor. The Survivor wants to protect his village from evil! So they become local protector or adventurers. But what happens when he finds out the Party could have saved Village? Instant antagonist with a legitimate beef with the players!
Great Video as always!
I do agree with #1 mostly. However I do think DMs can go overboard. I’ve played in games where every single choice was a false one. The village was going to get burned down. By Giants or by Dragons. And our choice was which. We never got to win anything. It sucked.
sure, you can't overdo it. I think that's a rule of thumb for most things.
The trick here is to use different Villages, with different Rewards and Long Term effects.
If you can get it so the choice is between player A's home town, and player B's...!
To bring it back to DMLairs example:
The party discussed how the army would move slower, that is one example of Long Term Effects.
Your rants are hilarious! 🤣 One of the main reasons I watch your videos. The other reason is that I appreciate your advice.
Thank you! I can't even remember what I ranted about in this video... lol
I'm glad to hear someone else is right 100% of the time. My wife will be glad to know she's not alone in that regard.
Yep, my wife is always 100% right, too.
Somewhere...in every game...I have an inn keeper that spit shines his one crystal chalice, which goes on a special shelf with a mirror behind it.
I don't remember much about a campaign I was part of with my brother and his friends, but I remember the DM had unique voices for everyone. The potions vendor was very stereotypically Asian where players had to be very specific with what they wanted lest the NPC not understood your request.
On voices:
It is not so much the voices themselves, it is distinguishing between 'Storyteller' and 'NPC.'
Example:
I overheard my room-mates roleplaying some star-wars thing last night and was confused. There was no divide between the characters talking, the characters interacting, and the lore being discussed. Part of me wanted to join in but I had no clue what was going on, so I avoided the whole thing entirely. Voices eliminate this confusion in your fellow players, and they will come naturally when you get used to using ''tone" to distinguish the differences.
The editor popping up with a thumbs up was the highlight of my morning. Great video as always, and top notch editing.
Yes, my editor is awesome. And he usually agrees with me (especially when I tell him to in the video notes). :D
#3 - Agreed! I always remind players of the information the character would know. We only play once a week, and that's hard to remember everything, even taking notes. I am against testing my player's memories. Characters would remember more since they lived it. It really helps the game flow.
Great video.
My players do seem to like when I use voices or accents. I'm not great at them, but I can pull off a generic-foreign pidgin and a pretty good generic Eastern European (It helps that Polish was my first language). Usually, though, I just describe the NPC as speaking a certain way. My players recently found (as part of the loot in a wizard's tower) a library automaton that talks like Short Round from Temple of Doom.
One time in a playtest i was told to stop using my character voice by the GM because it was annoying i wasnt being disruptive or sidetracky. i made optimal choices and was supportive of teammates. I stopped but was so upset i never playtested with him again nor did i want to play in another playtest. 😢
On Travel:
Get rid of the Random Tables entirely, know what is going to happen on the trail..!
So often I have seen other Storyteller's trying to micro-manage every aspect of Travel using just these tables. This will start with the long discussion of preparations, and your group might be pedantic about whom is doing what at what time during said travel. After which the Storyteller rolls a few dice behind the screen... for every watch/action... all to be told:
"Nothing happened Tonight, now lets do all this again every few hours... for every day of travel."
Agreed. It's ok to use the tables, just don't use them in the middle of the session.
Every time I want to motivate myself to prep DnD, I binge watch your videos. It always works.
For years played in a Monday night group from 5pm until a hard stop at midnight. Typically it settled between 10p adn midnight. The start time was fixed. You arrived at 5p-ish got settled, ate something, chatted, and hard start at 6p with a player (usually the Rogue) during short "so here's where we were," and go.
Note on 7: Just because a combat is challenging doesn't mean it'll be fun. Do not make the mistake of thinking "Oh, this will be super challenging, so they'll have a blast with it."
Challenging combats can be fun, but being challenging doesn't make it fun. A challenging miserable grind that takes 5 hours, or a combat that shuts down a PC's turn for 6 rounds isn't fun. It's just a boring grind. Make em challenging, sure, but make them challenging against the party's strengths, not their weaknesses.
that's a great point
Yeah for sure. I think the biggest problem is that a lot of DMs mistakenly choose to make things difficult via overly tactical strategies that specifically take away the party's strength. If you have a bunch of melee heavy groups, like barbarians, using flying enemies that the fighters can't actively participate against. So while the wizard is tossing spells at the flying dragon, the barbarian is just sitting there shaking his fist being basically useless. Like yeah, I get that doing this is the best move strategically for the dragon, but it's just not fun to be one of those melee warriors and not be able to do anything.
This also lumps in encounters like the "you can't see it in murky water but it can see you clearly somehow" type battles as well (typically with the DM also granting the monster special liberties to gain the effects of hiding without using an action to hide, so the PCs essentially have no idea where it is after it moves and attacks.), because they'll rule the PCs can't adequately track it through the murky water, thick fog or whatever.
These end up being a hard fight because half the group is standing there doing nothing and not having fun. I get that a lot of DMs want to make the creatures utilize the terrain, but if you're doing it in a way that's oppressive, it doesn't improve the experience.
Also be aware when a simple fight has turned into a slog:
One of my attempted games died the first session, for no-one could seem to roll above a 6.
Players... low level bad-guys they where meant to wipe the floor with... no one landed a blow.
Kept trying to push through it, instead of having some town guards or the likes show up to force the odds.
@theDMLair Might be a good idea to look for another image for "loot" at 0:37, seen YT videos demonetized for that...
for showing coins and money?
I was trying not to directly mention the swastika on the coin in the upper left. I recognize it has a lot more history than just what everyone thinks of, but it is unfortunately what everyone thinks of.
On the topic of #2, I'd add LET YOU PLAYERS NARRATE THEIR OWN STUFF TOO. I get it, some DMs are just trying to speed combat along. Others are used to picking up the slack so they'll try to make a player's turn sound cool for them. But when I'm trying to be a good player who comes up with ways to narrate their stuff so that their character stands out among the crowd the last thing I want to do is get interrupted 3+ times, wait to get to say my peace, then get interrupted again because it's someone else's turn now since the DM passed the baton to them. 😅
As for #4, the best advice I ever got on this topic went something like this. You don't need to go crazy with the impressions. Pick 1-2 basic things and work your way out from there. Like do they talk fast or slow? Do they sound excited and loud or deadpan and quiet?
From there, I learned to always have a gimmick. Just SOMETHING my character always does to put a spin on the conversation format. That could be advice, directions, questions, metaphors, sayings, superstitions, feelings, comments from the peanut gallery, jokes, pick-up lines, speaking in code. Maybe your character is always trying to steer the conversation towards or away from a topic. Maybe your character tries to set the mood and tone of the conversation. Whatever it is, just lay it on thick as long as it isn't to the point of being disruptive.
Thanks for your videos, I just started a new campaign after 6 year.
Last campaign didn't work for me because I was focused on wrong things. So quality of the game and prep time mismatched.
Now I'm really enjoying the game ( my players to). I experienced in real time how some little tricks make game so much better ( as speak before battle or give to png little quirk)
The best moral dilemma I saw was a Paladin in Ravenloft.
Strahd would inform said Paladin where evil lurked and then watch....
Does said Paladin obey an obvious Evil Master of this Universe, or let a village suffer?
I do love ALL the DM Lair videos!!!! ❤
I exceeded your advice and ran a one shot after three people out of six canceled last minute. The boss fight was on a razor's edge for a while, but indeed in a glorious tpk. I was worried but, but looking around, The players were all grinning and had a blast. Definitely more fun than canceling.
Could I have adjusted the encounters? Maybe. But the previous time I ran that adventure a group of five smoked it easily, so I kind of wanted to see how it would fare against an understaffed party
Always love your stuff Like, thanks!
Great video!
Thx for the advices!
A mix of combat is essential to a great game without a doubt. I do think though that different voices isn’t necessary for a great game. It can be fun for sure but not everyone wants to do a different voice for various reasons and that’s fine.
I've been in great games without voices, but the truly spectacular games have always featured GM and players doing voices and really getting into character.
@@theDMLair I'm not disputing that character voices doesn't lend to great games but sometimes depending on the group, folks can have an amazing and fun time without it. It just depends on the the group.
You’re great, Luke. You, in fact, do not suck.
Hey Luke, Where do you get all your cool gaming shirts from. Let me know. Thanks for another great video. I have been DM'ing even longer than you have been at 38 years, but I still really enjoy your content and appreciate the work you and your team puts forth. I have even learned a few new tricks from you so thank you for that.
From a 44 year DM to you...your recommendations do not suck! Voices, they love voices! Orc merchant speaking like the Scarlet Pimpernel, can't be beat...
You do NOT suck! Thanks for another video of useful tips.
Good advice, but the title is misleading. I was expecting anecdotes about mistakes you've made yourself as a DM and explanations of why they were mistakes and what you could/should have done differently.
Same
For #1, be careful to know your players take on grim outcomes. I've seen my 7 years dnd group disband just after the end of campaign dilema the DM put for us. It was a great dilema, with few hints before hands, some discussions with npcs about choices and fate, and it rooted deeply in the lore of the whole campaign. But some players really disliked having to choose between two bad things and were disagreing in the group about the action to do. They expressed their discontent by mail to the DM after and we lost half the group before launching the next campaign😢
Here's how much I enjoy your content: 🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓 BACON!
That's like an entire pack! :D :D :D
@@theDMLair Cause that is how much I enjoy your videos!
We had a villain, that had an entire town time-locked and the players had to decide, wheater they remove the access of the villain to the world, dooming the town in the process or rescueing the town by opening another portal for the villain, increasing his reach across the realms, potentially endangering thousands of people...
The players chose the latter, having multiple large cities besiged and a few villages razed to the ground.
What’s a moo moo?
A Large usually Floral style 'dress' type garment but it has no definition or curves just a big block of fabric. Usually known for old women wearing them .
*sounds of validation* ♥
If I see players taking notes and they don't know a key piece of information, I make it easy. If they are hafl-assing it then it gets complicated. New side quest to find out that one thing.
Tavernkeeper on the pier, spits into mugs before wiping them "clean", rather than using some other liquid.
That's how I do it, too.
Very good video, I love Bacon!!
I quit running for a group once. A couple of players insisted on doing most annoying, chalkboard screeching sounds, or were just incomprehensible and slowed the game down. Good group in every other respect, but the problems ones just didn't care that their voices were annoying others, and when I realized I was dreading games instead of looking forward to them, I quit. I avoid doing special voices to this day because of that.
The ogre grabs its club and charges at you. Rage in his eyes, he screams "EVERYONE CALL OGRE STUPID AND IT TRUE!" A small pile of books topples over as its girth lurches toward you.
Most people in education have an experience of starting a new year or school and having a laid back teacher you like and a strict teacher they didn't like. However come the end of the year it changes, the laid back teacher is annoying as the class is a mess and you don't learn much, where as the strict teacher who set boundaries, gets results. I was a laid back DM once and tried to be too nice, your players wont appreciate it, but they will appreciate you setting those boundaries and having a good game.
"Because I'm the DM, that's why" is the cry of the bad DM
I'd rather make them choose between 2 different things, like loot & village or princess & village, not 2 random villages.
That's just devious! :D
@@theDMLair Thank you, Mein Herr.
Fun advice!!
Tower that moves around, stolen from Krull, I like it!
I don't know that I've seen Krull.
@@theDMLair Go and see it at once. Good clean fun and you can see lots of famous people early in their careers.
I am addicted to moral dilemmas. I love it when i make my players choose between two options... and EVERYTIME they choose the Third option.
But i am very liberal with infomation. I have refeeshed my players on basic laws of physics because their players would know how an Electron acts. The PCs have degrees and yeara of experience with this stuff. We are just a bunch of nerds sitting around the table.
I use to have a player that would constantly pick their nose. I might base an NPC on that mannerism based in Luke's comment.
is there a bacon deity my cleric can worship?
You're doing good and you don't completely suck.
I like challenging my parties
I need to do more moral quandaries
Don't lose it, you'll be fine ;-)
Yeah, sooo...
While I'm personally fond, as DM, of seeing how my players react to moral dilemmas, in my 30-some odd years of gaming I've seen VERY few players who enjoy them.
#7: A wise man once told me "if you don't try to kill the party in combat, you're DMing wrong"
(disclaimer: this does not mean make it impossible, but rather play the enemies properly)
There's a limit to that. Trying to be overly tactical can often be very unfun. Like yeah, it's totally logical and strategic for a dragon to just stay in the air the entire time against a party of grounded melee fighters, but those fighter players are just going to be bored if they can't participate in the fight.
I swore off using special voices after one of my players in my former campaign laughed at one of my rehearsed bits for an NPC. It wasn't a chuckle, it was a full on laugh.
I suspect that the problem wasn't you but the player.
Hey Luke, you don’t completely suck.
"Click" 😁😜🤣
Puzzles have no place in a dnd game!
My character should never struggle in combat and has proficiency in curb stomping - its in my backstory
I mean, if it's in the character's backstory, who is the DM or the game mechanics to argue?
I hate moral dilemas because if you overdo it or dont "appeal" to their morals, they aint going to bite or simply wouldnt do it.
"You need to help us or be docked 500000000 points" not much of a choice is it? 😂
Especially when it "Tales of the Walking Dead" special level of "you literally were asked to do a task but now everyone hates you for picking the most logical one" 😂
I will personally strongly disagree on #4. I have been in games where the DM trying to use a voice has taken all the tension out of what was supposed to be a serous point in the game because they were just so bad at voices it became comical. If your bad at voices sometimes it is better to avoid using them all together instead of risking making a scene become the total opposite vibe it is supposed to have.
If you dont practice, you dont become better. I am native danish and I do voices. Received pronunciation, American, texan, scottish, lancashire accent, Russian, french. My players love it. It brings personality and makes npcs more memorable.
Don't want you to lose it...and will you be fine? You bet!
I have actually had a player tell me that my character voices are really annoying and to stop doing them.
@@ajdynon When I make "annoying" voices, I have to dial it down: soften the extreme qualities of the voice and make it slightly quieter. 😅
All British players I've met laugh at the US concept that Third Rate acting is 'roleplaying'. Roleplaying is your character acting as he should act. On play videos you see so many US players putting on cod medieval voices for paladins etc, and it comes across as utterly ludicrous - not 'Amazing' -to them. Sometimes a player or GM will mimic some actor/ movie character for a laugh at an appropriate moment, but otherwise it just doesn't happen here in my experience.
Is it because most Americans without training do terrible UK accents to a UK ear? I'm sure if most medieval fantasy tropes centered around American accents the Brits would be just as cringey to Americans. But a different voice does not mean a different accent necessarily, just something in your timbre or way of phrasing things that is different from your normal voice.
@@KinJoy-m2o It's not that, it's just that its very corny and cliched generally. I think we see rp as 'acting as your character would', rather than 'imitating the speech of your character'.
Alright, you don't completely suck. There. Happy now?
Yes, indeed! Thank you! :D
Moomoos for life
you don't completely suck 😛
1:40 AoT reference? 🤣
Just leaving a comment to validate Luke's fragile ego. 😜
Thank you! I was crumbling, but now I feel better. :D
You don't completely suck.
I used to do accents, until my players asked me to stop. 😎
😂
@@alexj1989 I'll never stop
Make an npc that has the worst accent you have tried to imitate and lean into it, most groups will have fun with it even it's just because they get to laugh at you (or the NPC) and then they will likely start goofing off more with their voices in a way that makes the experience better because they are more comfortable role playing knowing at least they don't sound as bad as that. It depends on the group of course but I've seen it work before.
@@krisdavis3888and the more they complain the more you lean into it lol
@@KinJoy-m2o I was informed that they would find a new group if I didn’t stop, so I don’t think I will. They do accents, I’m just not allowed to do so.
I guess me and my muumuu will take our unfashionable business elsewhere.
You don't completely suck
In today's political climate, it was brave of you to take the anti-mumu stance. Yay bacon!
I hate moral dilemma's. There's enough no-win situations in real-life.
So you want a Disney tale then?
@@jessicaalvis7063 No necessarily. But I prefer the more straightforward dungeon crawls, etc.
A voice does not have to be a different sound. It can be a different Pattern. Maybe your goblins do not know how to use pronouns, so they never say I or you. It's a little thing that makes them distinct.
42nd 👍
You are wrong on the special voices. They are not needed. It is only in resent years that the videogamers that play dnd want this. They have no imagination. Also you are roleplaying because you are playing a wizard, bard fighter etc.... not becayse you give it a funny voice or weird personality. Yes you can do it but that is not the RPG.
The best games I've ever been in have always featured GM and usually other players doing special voices.
Pejoratively dismissing it as unimaginative video gamers who play dnd is not a strong argument. There are many aspects to roleplaying; donning the character's voice is certainly one of them.
As an actor and a GM a voice helps distinguish NPCs and it's really the only reason I play. I get extremely bored if Dungeons and dragons becomes taxes and tactics.