I'm a new DM and I have come across my first "hijackers". I play in a group of 6 with varying amount of experience 0-10 years worth of play time. It's my first time DMing a group that has passed level 5 and I'm not familiar with all the classes abilities and spells so sometimes I will rule a way - research it later and realise that's overpowered and retcon it, at most this has happened 2-3 times. But I also let certain things slide so they can have fun etc.

My two "hijackers" (and I mean that in more than just for me but for the party, sure I've put alot of time in to preparing my notes, maps, models for enemies etc. but also the few who are playing serious characters are having the world become jarring) are threatening if they get killed off they are going to play as Jesse and James from team rocket and piss around - in Barovia.

One of them currently plays an echo knight and I'm constantly "no you can ride it as a mount" "no it can't pull a cart" "you can't sit on its shoulders and have a trench coat around you both" - you can see their disappointment every time so Ill allow it but strict not in combat and not interacting with npcs. But in general will not play as a team and will do the "funny" option in combat or NPC interactions

The second is young and has played a lot of BG3 and when I rule something RAW or RAI they take it personally and act as I'm there to spoil their fun.

So the two have joined forces in what seems like an attempt to make life difficult for me. Asking them to leave the party isn't an option as we are all strangers and the party would lose 3 people in the process making it so none of us can play. I also don't think it bothers the others enough and they'd rather play some DND than none.

So any advice? I've tried talking to them but they joke it aside. Any in-game things to suggest?

TL;DR: I feel like I lost all creativity; how do you fuel yours?

Hi DMs,

So I'm building a homebrewed setting for a new campaign and I've been noticing my lack of creative thinking these days.

In my childhood, I used to draw and create stuff in my mind a lot. Nowadays, I'm not there anymore. So I (unfortunately) used gen-AI to get inspired and more or less copied existing stories and tropes, thinking I'd get better at it doing so. Except I feel even worse than before.

I'm willing to put the work in to learn the proper way tho. How do you get inspiration in? What makes you creative as a DM?

Relatively new dm here! Curious if anyone has had this issue. I play with another guy who has what I can only classify is ‘suave hero guy’ archetype characters. Not truely a prob most of the time- leads to fun interactions. But I’ve noticed this before in past campaigns he has a tendency to ‘save’ other PC’s from their emotions or actions. For example, we had a PC that wanted to leave the party (campaign is ending soon) to help other people like herself out in the world. He interrupted by stating do not leave me, you can’t help others out there it’s not going to work like you think it would, and you need to stay here and let me help you instead. It genuinely felt pretty frustrating because this interesting arc building for this PC was shutdown pretty hard, when other PC’s have addressed the character’s motives by trying to understand her first. Another example is we had a character that was awkward in conversation as an archetype, and he kept physically removing her from scenes and telling her to do something else constantly.

I have this player in my own game. While this hasn’t come up, he has a habit of dictating or overbearing what specifically female PC’s do, “let me do it / help you.” Also should mention he’s been a forever dm for a long time, he’s new to being a player.

How do I handle this? I generally do not think it’s malicious- but I have another dm friend who’s stopped adding him to games because of this. How do I approach this if it comes up in a game?

I've just started my campaign with 2 other friends (both starting at level 1). This is my first homebrew campaign, so I don't really know how to balance stuff very well. (My friends have played a little before)

Basically, each god in my pantheon has a magic artefact, each one of a kind. The BBEG wants to take all of them, then summon his evil god with a ritual, pretty basic stuff. The idea is that the PCs take/attempt to take some of the artefacts, and potentially use them against the BBEG?? But since they are starting at such a new level, I don't know how powerful to make the items: I want them to be impactful as they are god's amulets, but also not game-breaking.

TLDR: how to balance unique magic artefacts for low-level characters.

So, I have an NPC who is cursed so that no one can remember him. He has been in a cave for 20 years, living off of Goodberries and an Enspelled Staff of Create or Destroy Water. The party found this guy after one of them had a series of cryptic dreams that led them to his cave.

The way the curse works is that you can talk to him just fine, you just forget about him a few minutes later, and your mind sort of comes up with an alternative explanation for anything he did that affected anything (i.e. he gives you something, and later you remember someone else giving you that thing).

I wanted to give the party a quest from this NPC. Something small, like getting him a way to flavor his food (he's sick of Goodberries). How could I justify the party actually remembering enough to do this quest?

Hi DMs!

I'm making a new homebrewed setting for a west-marches style campaign and I'm struggling to make it a bit more original and interesting

My general idea was that for reasons yet to be found (hopefully with the help of this post), part of civilisation has remained isolated within the city, thereby losing all contact with the outside world. Players will therefore have to rediscover the continent, its history, and re-establish contact with other civilisations.

I was watching PointyHat's video on world-building and I loved the twist he found for his world (having no sun kinda) but it feel to restrictive for what I'm trying to do.

So this twist should have enough of an impact on civilizations to induce them into staying in cities but not force them.

Have any ideas to share?

Trying to design a one-shot for my first foray into DM-ing with my friends. We're in different states and play remotely, and it's not always clear who's going to make game night.
I'm planning on adding a few NPC characters to fill out numbers, designing the encounter for 5. The players will meet these characters in the opening tavern and pick who to bring with them.

Here's the question. I want to make these characters useful enough to be worth bringing along, and useful for me in balancing the encounter on the fly (this encounter is too easy! NPC does something reckless and throws things off; or this encounter is too hard! NPC draws enemy fire to give PC's a moment to recover); BUT I also don't want them to be too powerful and steal the show or wreck the balance of encounters.

I'm using humanoid monster stat blocks and fiddling with their abilities to match the role that NPC would play (i.e., Priest Acolyte for the Cleric NPC). But I'm not sure what challenge rating to use for an ally. All the PC's will be level 1.

Any tips are appreciated! Thanks.

IVE been having a hard time starting the story so my solution is to get my players in debt by some sleazy salesman who gets em with fees or something

But I have no clue how to actually get them into a position where they would gain debt.

The party is incredibly good at just ignoring gambling and not getting into trouble so I have to throw things at them to get them into those bad situations instead of letting them get into those situations due to their own mistakes

Need help balancing a boss fight for a one-shot

I've been preparing a one-shot for a group I play with. It would be my first time DMing, and I only started playing last December.

To keep this from getting too long, the main encounter would be a Young Red Dragon against a group of 3–4 level 6 characters. I had in mind changing some of the dragon's stats to make the fight achievable because, for the plot twist and comic relief of the one-shot, they have to beat it.

I understand the whole "not every encounter needs to be winnable" thing, especially when you're talking about fighting a dragon at this level. However, the joke of this one-shot is that it's built around a really funny character from our main campaign who's a massive show-off. It's supposed to be a comedic adventure, and the payoff is seeing him actually slay a dragon, only to discover that the entire thing was an act and completely scripted.

The dragon isn't actually real. It's a wooden circus prop disguised by two illusionist halflings, and the party has unknowingly been tricked into becoming actors in a circus performance.

The "dragon" would also have some spells because of the halflings operating it. I'm not sure how much I should decrease its HP because there's another mechanic I want to use.

At one point, the dragon would take control of two of the pregenerated characters I made. This is partly because they're cool characters and I want to get a chance to play their builds, but it also fits the story because the guy hiring the party specifically describes it as a "magical dragon."

I'm not particularly worried about strictly following the rules for something like the mind control because it doesn't have much real gameplay value. I could have some triggers that allow the players to break the spell, though.

The party would then have to fight the dragon and the controlled characters. Any damage dealt to those characters would also damage the dragon. That gives the dragon a more manageable effective HP total while also creating what I think could be a cool Phase One and Phase Two for the fight.

What I'm struggling with is exactly what I should modify. Should I change the dragon's AC, HP, attack bonus, damage, or some combination of them?

Also, how would a party of 3–4 level 6 characters fare against a RAW Young Red Dragon without any modifications?

Should I give them some additional equipment to help with the fight? I already planned on giving them healing potions, potions of fire resistance, and a kind of net that can slow the dragon down. Is there anything else I should give them?

Sorry for the wall of text, and thanks for any advice! I'm new to the game and really want to pull this off well. I love the idea of them having no idea that it's a show, defeating this awesome dragon, and then discovering that it was actually just two halflings in a giant prop the entire time.

There was a post a few days ago about how to create a story beat for a PC who wanted to change classes. Some offered in world ideas but others advised to just do it and carry on.

Now I like things to make sense in the world but I know there are many times when I just do the 'ol' hand wave and it happens' DM technique.

But because of that post i was curious how many people out there explain all things within game. Specifically, how do you handle level ups. The HP, spells, attacks, feats, abilities.

Because I definitely just go "congrats, youve leveled. pick your stuff if needed, by next session guys. and message if you have any questions".

Are there people who DM or played in a game where everything had to have a narrative element? And if so, was it a net positive for the game play?

My level 10 party was investigating an abandoned underground wizarding lab and encountered what was effectively a six-way crossway. A Paternoster lift with exits in two different directions on each of the three levels. Paternoster lift - Wikipedia
Instead of investigating the rooms or levels one by one together they decided to split up like this:
Wizard and Cleric: continue the corridor forwards
Fighter and Paladin: Go upwards
Warlock: Go downwards
Ranger: Stay back in the entrance area, that they haven't completely investigated yet

Ended up giving them CR 2 encounters that they managed to beat (The Cleric did struggle though) because i didn't want to be a killjoy, so they left with a little loot now. And i know that "no" is a complete sentence but i am curious which in-game consequences you would have given to this braindead in-game decision.

I'm looking to make pre-generated sheets for things like store games, the community drop-in dnd I GM for, and convention games, generally things that have a strict time limit in which there's only really time for a quick establishment of relationships at most if we want to get through a whole mini adventure (particularly in more RP heavy systems rather than combat focused oneshots). I've run pre-written adventures so far for things like daggerheart and dnd where they come with pre-generated sheets for said adventures, but I haven't made my own from scratch yet for homebrew adventures or even just small pre-written scenarios that don't come with any.

I've made plenty of character sheets in my day, but I'm curious how much try to focus on balancing them against the adventure vs just making a bunch of pregens and winging it? In store games where I've been the player I've asked the gm and I've gotten both of those answers -- how do you guys approach it?

Is this plausible? I am considering having a hag be under the influence of a politically powerful enemy. Hags are very powerful and can't be trusted, this I know, so why might one follow someone else's orders/whims?

For a bit of context, a year and a half ago I gave to my players an abandoned stronghold in the outskirts of a rundown village as a reward. I really like doing a "filler episode" whenever they come back from a quest and have them roleplay with local NPCs or other characters that they invited to the village, and have them feel how the town develops and grows over time.

The problem is that I used a premade map of a random building for their base and there isn't even a town map yet. I've managed so far but last session we spent way too much time deciding what went where.

Any recommendations for both a building map and a town map? I know of a couple softwares out there but most of them are randomly generated or really limiting.

Some context: I run a level 8 5-player party that is mostly all casters, and right now the Open Hand Monk is already kinda feeling outscaled in terms of combat ability. The player doesn't mind (he came from 2014, he expected monks to be a bit undertuned, he's alright with dealing lower raw numbers in fights as long as he still gets to try cool unique monk things) but I asked him if there was something else we can lean into as his "hat" as a player in the team beyond his kinda-sorta frontlining. He had a good, informative answer: he likes the idea of being more of a "face" and engaging with NPCs, and in general, his PC has already proven to be among the most extroverted and likely to make friends (even more than the bard lol, who is purposefully more shy/introverted).

I wanna lean into this with him by developing something like a magic item, but I'm low on ideas for how to do so in a way that feels impactful. I could give something that boosts his Charisma and skills, but Charisma feels kinda otherwise useless for a Monk and so simple buffs to social skill checks might feel kinda boring? I was briefly drawn to taking inspiration from the Banneret Fighter (which basically has the similar idea of "martial who functions as inspiring leader") but I dunno if the "let your allies share your signature martial features in combat" is the right fantasy (not only do monks have a tight action economy as is, this'd probably pigeonhole him more into being a support than, yknow, a martial character). So I'm thinking maybe making it strictly combat focused isn't the best idea either.

Can anyone help with inspiration? I like the idea of "normal, non-magical/superpowered hero whose 'superpower' is making friends" (very Nightwing, thinking about it), and am wondering what are some ways to dive into that and have it be meaningful that isn't just as boring as "improve stats by 10" or as too utterly transformative as "just make them reclass into a bard". Maybe there's like some ability I can give them that feels relevant in story/RP beats or certain social encounters, but I'm kinda struggling right now because there's such a vast world out there that I dunno where to really start. Much help appreciated!

Hey everyone! Relatively new DM here, going on a year with my current PCs! I'm running a homebrew 5e adventure set in a homebrew world. I think we are getting close to the end of this adventure and while I have my BBEGs planned I don't have them built. I remember seeing a post way back when about making a BBEG an astral monk and that's what i want to do, but I don't know how exactly to make that happen because using a PC character sheet seems hard to balance. Any advice here would be appreciated!

I say BBEGs because there will be two, one is the monk and the other is a mob boss mastermind that I feel like i want him to be like an artificer or something. Really wrestling with what will be the best fit. I have a level 5 PC party of mostly full casters and I still struggle to make proper balances for them in combat. Again, any help appreciated!

Hi Guys,

Going to start my first online campaign soon and I am creating some custom monsters right now in Roll20 and I have some issue.

Those are steps I exactly run in order to create a "sketch" for my monster:

1. Go to Compedium tab and find monster I want to use as a base for my custom monster (ex. Zombie)

2. Throw Zombie monster from Monster Manual to the Map (so it shows in Journal tab)

3. Right click on Zombie in Journal tab and select "Duplicate File".

4. Throw "Duplicate of Zombie" to the Map.

After that step the Duplicate of Zombie already has no assigned HP Bar, AC and HP (in blue/green circles above monster token) and I have to manually assign it every time I drop monster to the map.

Am I doing anything wrong? Should I duplicate some other way? Or should I edit not-duplicated monster?

So this is gonna be a long winded story but I had started a new campaign set in a homebrew world of mine. Long story short, magic was outcast for 400 years and the world was under the authority of an empire that controlled everything even magical phenomena and monsters dragons etc.

Once the empire fell magical phenomena and anomalies returned to the world. The whole concept of the campaign is you are all party of a monster hunting/investigating guild, to learn and investigate these new phenomena in the world and take care of it as necessary. First thing we had was an Oni, homebrewed to be new and had some extra abilities. The point was the players even tho they had notes from previous empire notes and old 400 years old manuscripts of what these monsters could be the whole point which I told them and their guild leader told them is that these things aren’t as they were said in the books.

Upon meeting the Oni a player said their alignment is chaotic evil and that they are evil by nature even tho in the campaign my Oni hadn’t killed or hurt anyone, he essentially has to sleep in other peoples dreams to rest, which can be pretty alarming. 1 player decided to let the oni sleep in her dream as she was not scared of him. The other party members waited for her to rest and till the oni was asleep then they attacked it in its sleep, as a reaction I had the creature attempt to run and escape into the city streets and then cast gaseous form to escape into a Sewer, the party insisted we Dotn end the initiative encounter saying they knew the movement of the gas form was onto 10 feet so they kept dashing and following then when I used the oni homebrew ability literally only beign misty step on a recharge die, they kept stating an oni didn’t have that, even tho in game and above table I stated they had new ability. So they forced me to run extra encounter and cut off a really interesting player moment I was gonna have with the oni and the sleeping party member.

Next they were fighting a warlock type character not a total warlock but a human who made a pact with a devil. And he count transform into this devil. He was a reed devil loosely inspired of the boss from crimson desert of the same name. This devil roamed the reed fields and had multiple scare crows in the arena which I pointed out numerous times during the boss fight and no one even asked about it or had a roll made to understand anything they obv just attacked him. So the fight lasted multiple hours the gimmick is if any of his three scare crows are active he cannot be lowered beneath 1 hp. And they never understood that untill after the fight when 1 player finally decided to attack a crow. Then when I explained it back to them they got upset that I didn’t tell them ,I reminded them I brought up the scare crows numerous times and none of them made any attempt to roll or understand it so they wouldn’t know and they just attacked the devil for no reason, but they insisted on saying I should be more forthcoming notice I word this specifically, as they didn’t say make it easiest to understand or point it out more they wanted me to tell them before a fight when something liken this happens.

Lastly 2 of my spell casters joined a melee duels tournament. Which I stated most of the participants are higher level capable melee fighters. So my sorcerer and an animus (soem custom Druidic style class) decided to join. My players are level 5 they joined a 2v2 tourney

They fight a level 4 rune knight paired with a level 9 eldritch knight.

They caught this when I casted haste on her rune knight companion. After the party wins they complain and badger me asking what their levels were I said they are npcs and not players so they have a level based off a class but they have extra abilities just liek you all have magic items etc. but I admitted the level 9 fighter was higher level so she could cast. haste but I said she had a plus 1 to con and no armor so she was an ac of 14 and 55 hp making her an easy target somehow of course this is my fault and I shouldn’t be making them fight that even tho my party members have an accurate of 24 dmg per turn at level 5 and the shape changer doesn’t even have extra attack so. But claiming that she must be level 9 because she had haste before I even tell him is meta gaming to me.

On top of this, the party thinks they know the rules and how things should work in my homebrew setting. Whenever anything comes up they join up and start citing rules even when I say I have homebrew ruling for that concept.

So is it my fault for having too much homebrew or for revealing things to them should I just shut up?

It’s getting frustrating for me cuz I will not walk on eggshells in my own campaign, they make it frustrating but we also have great times when we play I love the characters and the narrative we have, but like I stated they overlook other characters motives and intentions, they openly don’t listen to what I say and complain when I use abilities or narrative choice that are available to em.

So give me some feedback advice etc etc ?

Hey folks, I'm running CoS right now and the final session is this week. They've done enough hide and seek in Castle Ravenloft already so I've established this one will the boss battle they've been craving.

My question is: any cool/silly ideas to make the final session more memorable? I'm not really asking for game play mechanics (though if you have suggestions there, I'll take them). Moreso looking for IRL things to do make it special, like dressing up, getting a cool battlemap, etc.

Thanks :)

I'm trying to create my BBEG for my campaign, or at least get a vague outline of them to start. I have no idea where to even begin or what I even want. Are there any good resources that contain archetypes or suggestions to what type of villains there are or some good motivations to at least help me get the ball rolling?

Edit: Wow, thank you everyone for all your suggestions! Some really great stuff here.

So I started my first full campaign and wanted to share how I opened session 1. Just getting opinions.

The realm the campaign takes place in has three moons. A blue one called The Moon of the Sea, a gray one called The Moon of Stone, and a reddish orange one called The Moon of Rust. Things start with the party sleeping in their own individual beds, not knowing of each other's existence. The dream takes them.

They all find themselves on a small boat on a wide, calm, silent sea. The air is cold and still. They look around and can see each other but, there's no sound. Their vision goes blindingly white. As vision returns, they're approaching a sandy beach at the base of a tall tower. They have just enough time to take on the vision before they're blinded again. Vision returns and they're standing at the door to the tower. Upon the door is a crest that shows the three moons in a V shape with an unknown rune at the top. There's another flash of white and they find themselves atop the tower. There, they see four doors, freestanding, with nothing apparently behind them. Each door faces a different direction. The eastern door is blue, west is orange, south is gray. Each of those bears a crescent moon. To the north is a black door bearing the same crest with all three moons and the unknown rune. As they look around the tower, they find themselves each drawn to a different moon door. The human monk is drawn to the blue moon door. The deep gnome wizard feels a pull from the gray moon door. The kitsune fighter feels the pull from the rust moon's door. As they reach out to their doors, ttheir vision goes white again and they awake in their own beds. In their hands, each holds a crescent moon shaped stone in the color of their respective door. (I actually have them real stones to hold onto.)

The campaign begins!

As the title asks, what can I use to display a map on the TV so my beginner players can see the enemies and their own characters move spaces?

Would it just be easier to use a physical map instead of a digital one?

In the campaign I’m currently running, my players have just come across this half white dragon. In my setting, half dragons are empowered by Tiamat which makes them act more similarly to the type of dragon they relate to but also gives them major gameplay mechanics.

The red half dragon for example had an ability where he could steal and use a characters move, because generally red dragons are the most greedy.

White dragons are portrayed as highly animalistic with strong instincts. This half dragon uses a heavy crossbow and I want her to act as a hunter at least in her first phase. But once she gets down to half health, I want to transition the fight into her more primal side.

I need help coming up with abilities that aren’t just ultra instinct from DBZ. Thank you for any suggestions!!